Tag Archives: author_name|Cheyenne MacDonald

Intuitive Machines is taking its shot at nailing the first commercial moon landing

Posted on by

Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines is gearing up for an actual moonshot at the end of this month, when it’ll try to land a spacecraft named Odysseus on the lunar surface — ideally without it breaking in the process. The mission follows Astrobotic’s unsuccessful attempt in January; that company’s lander, Peregrine, never made it to the moon due to a propellant leak that cut its journey short. Peregrine’s failure means Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission could be the first ever commercial moon landing if it makes it there intact.

Intuitive Machines is hoping to make its landing attempt on February 22, targeting the Malapert A crater near the moon’s south pole for touchdown. This arrival date is dependent on Odysseus, one of the company’s Nova-C class landers, leaving Earth atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sometime between February 14 and February 16. The launch window opens at 12:57AM ET on Wednesday.

Odysseus is the first of three Nova-C landers Intuitive Machines plans to send to the moon this year, all of which will have commercial payloads on board and NASA instruments as contracted under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. At 14 feet tall (4.3 meters), the lander is roughly the size of a giraffe and can carry about 280 pounds (130kg) of cargo. Its mission, if it nails a soft landing, will be a short but potentially valuable one for informing future excursions to the region, including NASA’s upcoming crewed Artemis missions. Orbiting probes have found evidence of water ice at the lunar south pole, which could be used for astronaut subsistence and even fuel, making it an area of high interest for human exploration.

The lunar southpole
NASA

The solar-powered craft and any functional equipment it’s carrying are only expected to be in working condition for about a week before the onset of lunar night, a 14-day period of frigid darkness that the company says will leave the lander inoperable. But while everything’s up and running, the various instruments will gather data at the surface. NASA awarded Intuitive Machines a $77 million contract for the delivery of its payloads back in 2019, and there are six NASA instruments now hitching a ride on Odysseus.

One, the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA), will “function as a permanent location mark” from its position on the moon after landing to help incoming spacecraft determine their distance from the surface, according to NASA. The lander is also carrying the Navigation Doppler LIDAR for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing (NDL), a sensor that measures velocity and altitude to better guide the descent, and the Lunar Node 1 Navigation Demonstrator (LN-1) to support communication and autonomous navigation in future missions.

NASA is also sending instruments to study surface plumes — everything that gets kicked up when the lander touches down — along with radio waves and the effects of space weather. That includes the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS), which will capture images of these dust plumes, and the Radio wave Observation at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES) instrument.

The rest of the payloads on board Odysseus are commercial. Columbia Sportswear worked with Intuitive Machines to incorporate the brand’s Apollo-inspired Omni-Heat Infinity thermal reflective material, which is being used for this mission to help protect the cryogenic propulsion tank, according to Intuitive Machines. Students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University developed a camera system dubbed the EagleCam that will attempt to separate from the lander before it touches down and snap a picture of the moment from a third-person point of view. EagleCam is also equipped with an experimental dust-removal system.

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Nova-C lander is pictured in front of an American flag in a dimly lit warehouse room
Intuitive Machines

There are even some Jeff Koons sculptures heading to the moon, which will have physical and NFT counterparts back on Earth. In Koons’ Moon Phase piece, 125 small stainless steel sculptures of the moon at different phases are encased in a clear cube made by 4Space, with the names of important historical figures from around the world listed below each sphere. The International Lunar Observatory Association, based in Hawaii, and Canadensys Aerospace are sending a 1.3-pound dual-camera system called ILO-X, with which they’ll attempt to capture wide and narrow field images of the Milky Way from the moon.

Odysseus is also carrying small discs called “Lunagrams” from Galactic Legacy Labs that contain messages from Earth, including text, images, audio and archives from major databases such as the Arch Mission Foundation and the English-language version of Wikipedia. Similar archival materials were sent to space with Peregrine last month. The information technology company Lonestar plans to demonstrate its Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) by storing data on the lander and transmitting documents ( including the US Declaration of Independence) between Earth and the moon. It’ll follow this up with a prototype mini data center on Intuitive Machines’ next launch.

Now, the pressure is on for the Odysseus Nova-C lander to actually get to the lunar surface safely. This year started off rocky for moon missions, with the failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine and a descent hiccup that caused JAXA’s SLIM spacecraft to faceplant into the lunar surface (though the latter was miraculously able to resume functions to some degree after a few days). Intuitive Machines will have other chances to get it right if it doesn’t this time — it has multiple missions already booked up — but only one private lander can be “first.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intuitive-machines-is-taking-its-shot-at-nailing-the-first-commercial-moon-landing-170024349.html?src=rss

Court orders Elon Musk to testify in the SEC’s investigation of his Twitter takeover

Posted on by

In a followup to a tentative ruling made in December, a federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to comply with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) subpoena and testify again in its probe of his Twitter takeover, Reuters reports. Per the order, which was filed Saturday night in a California court, Musk and the SEC now have a week to work out a time and place for his appearance or it will be decided for them. The SEC has been investigating Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now X, since 2022 over concerns about his lateness in disclosing his stake in Twitter.

The order comes after Musk failed to appear for a testimony in September and later refused to attend a rescheduled interview, prompting the SEC to sue. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with the SEC after Musk tried to challenge its subpoena, which he claims is seeking irrelevant information and is harassment, as he’s already been interviewed twice. But, the SEC says it has obtained new documents in relation to the probe and has further questions for the X owner. Musk also argued that the subpoena exceeds the SEC’s authority because it was issued by a staff member appointed by the SEC’s Director of Enforcement. Beeler struck these arguments down, ruling that the subpoena is valid. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/court-orders-elon-musk-to-testify-in-the-secs-investigation-of-his-twitter-takeover-193303461.html?src=rss

Indie labels say Apple Music’s spatial audio royalties only ‘benefit the biggest player’

Posted on by

Apple’s new plan to give a higher cut of royalties to artists who offer spatial audio has pissed off some indie labels, who argue it will take potential earnings away from them in favor of companies with more resources at their disposal, according to a report from the Financial Times. Apple last month started offering 10 percent higher royalties to artists who release spatial audio tracks on Apple Music. But, this comes out of the same fixed pool of money also used to pay artists who do not offer the format.

Spatial audio is produced using Dolby Atmos technology and, according to executives who spoke with FT, costs roughly $1,000 more per song. A whole album would cost about 10 times as much — now multiply that to account for the hundreds or thousands of albums a label may have in its back catalog. The Financial Times spoke with executives from Beggars Group, Secretly and Partisan Records, which house labels representing artists including Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers and others.

One executive told FT, “If [this policy] takes between 5 and 10 percent off of your global revenues, and not even because the songs aren’t performing but because you lose that money and it goes to Universal, the biggest player in the market, we’re definitely concerned. It’s hard enough to make money off of streaming.” They plan to take it up with Apple in hopes of working out a better deal.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/indie-labels-say-apple-musics-spatial-audio-royalties-only-benefit-the-biggest-player-211730447.html?src=rss

A four-pack of Apple AirTags is back on sale for $79

Posted on by

Thanks to a sale on Amazon right now, you can pick up a few extra Apple AirTags at a discount. A four-pack of the Bluetooth trackers is $20 off the normal price of $99, dropping them down to just $79. It’s the best price for a pack of AirTags we’ve seen yet this year. For iPhone owners, there’s no better option than AirTags for keeping track of your things, as they’re able to make use of Apple’s massive Find My network to help pinpoint lost objects.

AirTags’ ability to use crowd-sourced location information from the millions of Apple devices currently in operation means you have a really good shot at tracking whatever it is that’s gone missing. But we often lose items somewhere within our own homes, too, and Find My has a Precision Finding feature on compatible iPhones for those instances where the object is somewhere close by. Using the Find My app, you can ping the tracker so it plays a sound, and the app will lead you to the lost item with directional arrows, even showing you about how many feet away it is.

The battery in the tracker lasts roughly a year, so you generally don’t need to worry about it running out. Once it is ready to be changed, it only takes one CR2032 coin battery. There is one downside to the AirTags design, though — there’s no built-in key loop or method of attaching to another item, so if you want to clip it onto something, you’ll need to buy an accessory. And there are plenty of great AirTags accessories out there.

AirTags are IP67 rated for dust and water resistance, and you can use them to track as many as 32 items in the Find My app. You just need to have an Apple device to make use of their tracking capabilities.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-four-pack-of-apple-airtags-is-back-on-sale-for-79-155353925.html?src=rss

Japan’s moon lander took this eerie photo before being enveloped by lunar night

Posted on by

Against all odds, Japan’s SLIM lander managed to turn back on more than a week after it plopped upside down onto the surface of the moon — but now, it’s gone dormant for the duration of the lunar night, and it may not be able to wake up again. The SLIM team from the Japanese space agency, JAXA, on Thursday shared the last image the lander captured at the moon’s Shioli crater before dusk, as night encroached. Lunar night lasts the equivalent of two Earth weeks and can get colder than -200 degrees Fahrenheit.

The team has confirmed that the solar powered lander is in a dormant state that will last at least the duration of the lunar night. Its chances of resuming operations afterward aren’t great, but then again, it’s already surprised us once. “Although SLIM was not designed for the harsh lunar nights, we plan to try to operate again from mid-February, when the Sun will shine again on SLIM’s solar cells,” the team wrote on X. If this truly is SLIM’s last photo, it sure is a spooky one.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/japans-moon-lander-took-this-eerie-photo-before-being-enveloped-by-lunar-night-221438290.html?src=rss

Google is reportedly rebranding Bard to Gemini and plans to launch a dedicated app

Posted on by

According to a document leaked on X, Google is planning to introduce some major changes to its Bard AI tool as soon as this coming week. The plans, which have not been publicly confirmed, reportedly include changing the Bard name to Gemini. It would make sense for Google to do so, if only for simplicity’s sake — the company introduced its new multimodal AI model, Gemini, at the end of 2023 and has begun integrating it into some of its products, including Bard.

The changelog shared by Android app developer Dylan Roussel is dated February 7, and also notes that the paid Gemini Advanced tier will become available at this time. It mentions a Gemini app for Android is “coming soon,” as well.

Per the document, Gemini Advanced will give users access to the Ultra 1.0 model of Gemini, which is “far more capable at highly complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions, and creative collaboration.” It’ll be available in over 150 countries and optimized for the English language at the start. The changelog also says Gemini will expand to Canada with this release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-reportedly-rebranding-bard-to-gemini-and-plans-to-launch-a-dedicated-app-204442265.html?src=rss

You won’t be able to use a Bluetooth mouse with Apple Vision Pro

Posted on by

Apple released a new support document for the Vision Pro on Friday night, and it clarifies which accessories will — and won’t — work with the headset. While Apple says it is compatible with “most” Bluetooth keyboards, including its own and other manufacturers’, the Vision Pro doesn’t support Bluetooth mice. Vision Pro owners will be to use Apple’s Magic Trackpad, though.

Apple Vision Pro officially hit shelves yesterday, and there are hundreds of apps for productivity and entertainment available at launch. With eye and hand tracking for precision navigation and controls, there isn’t necessarily a need for a mouse, but some people probably would have liked to use one for certain tasks. However, it is compatible with plenty of other accessories that are critical for certain experiences, like gaming controllers. According to Apple, “All controllers with MFi (Made for iPhone) designation work with Apple Vision Pro. This includes controllers by Xbox, PlayStation, and any controller that works with iPadOS.”

And, while it supports Bluetooth keyboards, you may need to upgrade if you use an older Apple keyboard. According to Apple, its older models that use removable batteries will not work with the Vision Pro.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-wont-be-able-to-use-a-bluetooth-mouse-with-apple-vision-pro-183137646.html?src=rss

The Apple Watch Series 9 is on sale for $299 today only

Posted on by

Apple’s latest smartwatch, the Series 9, is back down to its record-low price in a one-day-only sale at Best Buy. The 41mm Apple Watch Series 9, which normally goes for $399, is just $299 today for the GPS model. The larger version, 45mm, is on sale for $100 off as well, bringing it down to $329. For both sizes, the deal applies to multiple colors, so you can get the watch in Silver, Light Pink, Starlight, Midnight or (Product)Red with either the sport band or the nylon sport loop.

The Apple Watch Series 9 added some new features for more convenient interactions with your smartwatch. That includes Double Tap, a control option that doesn’t require you to touch the screen at all — you just need to squeeze your thumb and index finger together two times using the hand on the same arm as your watch, and it’ll carry out a designated action. You could use it, for example, to pause or unpause your music.

The Series 9 scored a 92 in our review, excelling as usual at health and fitness tracking, among other tasks. It also tops our list of the best smartwatches you can get this year. Apple also introduced on-device Siri for the Apple Watch with the Series 9, which means the assistant can function when you’re offline or don’t have your phone with you. Apple also said it improved the “Raise to Speak” feature with the Series 9 to wake Siri more efficiently without voice commands. All of this is made possible by its new S9 system-in-package (SiP).

You won’t get blood oxygen monitoring with the Series 9, though, despite the feature initially being among its offerings. Apple removed the feature last month following a patent dispute. But even without that, the Series 9 is a solid device that offers pretty much everything you’d need or want in a smartwatch.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-series-9-is-on-sale-for-299-today-only-155051471.html?src=rss

X plans to hire 100 content moderators to fill new Trust and Safety center in Austin

Posted on by

X’s head of business operations Joe Benarroch said the company plans to open a new office in Austin, Texas for a team that will be dedicated to content moderation, Bloomberg reports. The “Trust and Safety center of excellence,” for which the company is planning to hire 100 full-time employees, will primarily focus on stopping the spread of child sexual exploitation (CSE) materials. 

X CEO Linda Yaccarino is set to testify before Congress on Wednesday in a hearing about CSE, and the platform at the end of last week published a blog post about its efforts to curb such materials, saying it’s “determined to make X inhospitable for actors who seek to exploit minors.”

According to Bloomberg, Benarroch said, “X does not have a line of business focused on children, but it’s important that we make these investments to keep stopping offenders from using our platform for any distribution or engagement with CSE content.” The team will also address other content issues, like hate speech and “violent posts,” according to Bloomberg. Elon Musk spent much of his first year at X taking steps to turn the platform into a bastion of “free speech,” and gutted the content moderation teams that had been put in place by Twitter before his takeover.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-plans-to-hire-100-content-moderators-to-fill-new-trust-and-safety-center-in-austin-173111536.html?src=rss

X confirms it blocked Taylor Swift searches to ‘prioritize safety’

Posted on by

X has confirmed it’s preventing users from searching Taylor Swift’s name after pornographic deepfakes of the artist began circulating on the platform this week. Visitors to the site started noticing on Saturday that some searches containing Swift’s name would only return an error message. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal on Saturday night, Joe Benarroch, X’s head of business operations, said, “This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.” This step comes days after the problem first became known.

X’s handling of the issue from the start has drawn criticism that it’s been slow to curb the spread of nonconsensual, sexually explicit images. After the images went viral on Wednesday, Swift’s fans took matters into their own hands to limit their visibility and get them removed, mass-reporting the accounts that shared the images and flooding the hashtags relating to the singer with positive content, NBC News reported earlier this week. Many of the offending accounts were later suspended, but not before they’d been seen in some cases millions of times. The Verge reported on Thursday that one post was viewed more than 45 million times.

In a statement posted on its platform later that day, X said, “Posting Non-Consensual Nudity (NCN) images is strictly prohibited on X and we have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content. Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them. We're closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed. We're committed to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users.”

But it was still possible to find the images in days after. 404Media traced the likely origin of the images to a Telegram group known for creating nonconsensual AI-generated images of women using free tools including Microsoft Designer. In an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt on Friday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the issue highlights what is the company’s responsibility, and “all of the guardrails that we need to place around the technology so that there’s more safe content that’s being produced.” He continued to say that “there’s a lot to be done there, and a lot being done there,” but also noted that the company needs to “move fast.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-confirms-it-blocked-taylor-swift-searches-to-prioritize-safety-153136902.html?src=rss