Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 662
April 2, 2021
China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft captures stunning crescent Mars photos, ,
China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has captured stunning images of Mars as a bright red sunlit crescent in deep space.
The photographs were separately taken over the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars with the medium resolution camera on Tianwen-1, China’s first interplanetary mission.
The result is two glorious shots showing the illuminated eastern hemisphere of Mars, including surface features and the faint edge of the Martian atmosphere. The photographs were taken at a distance of around 6,850 miles (11,000 kilometers) away from Mars.
Related: The latest news about China’s space program
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China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft orbiting Mars captured this stunning view of a crescent Red Planet on March 18, 2021. Shown here is the planet’s northern hemisphere from a distance of 6,850 miles (11,000 kilometers). (Image credit: CNSA)The image of Mars’ southern hemisphere, in which the lower portion of the image is illuminated, was taken on March 16 while the northern hemisphere shot was taken by the same camera on March 18.
The Tianwen-1 probe is currently in a polar orbit around Mars which takes it as close as 174 miles (280 kilometers) to the surface and as far away as 36,660 miles (59,000 km), according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The orbit allows the spacecraft to pass over the primary candidate landing site for the mission’s rover.
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China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft orbiting Mars captured this stunning view of a crescent Red Planet on March 18, 2021. Shown here is the planet’s northern hemisphere from a distance of 6,850 miles (11,000 kilometers). (Image credit: CNSA)The spacecraft’s high resolution camera has been collecting detailed images of the target landing site in preparation for a rover landing attempt in May or June, according to CNSA.
Tianwen-1 arrived at Mars on Feb. 10, just a day after the United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe, and a week ahead of NASA’s Perseverance rover.
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A look at the challenges in building workable vaccine passport apps, including dealing with forged records, protecting privacy, and interoperability (David Ingram/NBC News)
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April 1, 2021
Final Fantasy creator’s latest game, Fantasian, launches on Apple Arcade,
Fantasian, a new role-playing game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, is available now for Apple Arcade. The game is playable on iOS, Mac, and Apple TV.
Fantasian is the latest from Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker, which he founded in 2004; the developer has since released games such as The Last Story and Blue Dragon. Although Fantasian uses traditional RPG elements like turn-based battles, it’s been designed with handcrafted physical models — more than 150 dioramas in all.
Fantasian features touch controls but, according to Sakaguchi, is intended to deliver a console-like experience on mobile devices. The game follows an amnesiac hero searching for a way to regain his lost memories. In a previous interview with The Verge, Sakaguchi said that replaying Final Fantasy IV made him want to return to his RPG roots.
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FANTASIAN was released in JPN. Coincidentally, it was the same birthday as FF6, which inspired me to create this. Happy Birthday!#FANTASIAN pic.twitter.com/HLtwqgdVRB
— ???? (@auuo)
The game was released yesterday in Japan. On Twitter, Sakaguchi noted Fantasian has the “same birthday” as one of his other games, Final Fantasy VI — a title that shares similar themes.
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Final Fantasy creator’s latest game, Fantasian, launches on Apple Arcade, Megan Farokhmanesh
Fantasian, a new role-playing game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, is available now for Apple Arcade. The game is playable on iOS, Mac, and Apple TV.
Fantasian is the latest from Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker, which he founded in 2004; the developer has since released games such as The Last Story and Blue Dragon. Although Fantasian uses traditional RPG elements like turn-based battles, it’s been designed with handcrafted physical models — more than 150 dioramas in all.
Fantasian features touch controls but, according to Sakaguchi, is intended to deliver a console-like experience on mobile devices. The game follows an amnesiac hero searching for a way to regain his lost memories. In a previous interview with The Verge,…
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Microsoft Teams and Xbox Live were down for over two hours but have recovered,
Many Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams and Xbox Live, were down for more than two hours Thursday evening. The company says the services have fully recovered.
“We have mitigated the issue impacting some service interruptions that customers may have experienced,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.
The company’s Microsoft 365 status page said there was a “DNS issue affecting multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services,” but it has been resolved.
“We’ve successfully resolved the issue that was causing residual impact for SharePoint Online and we’ve confirmed that all Microsoft 365 services have returned to a healthy state,” Microsoft said in a statement on the status page. “We’ll continue to monitor our services to ensure stable and reliable availability.”
The Microsoft 365 status Twitter account first acknowledged that there was an issue at 5:45PM ET.
The Xbox status page at one point said that many services had a “major outage,” accounts, multiplayer, and cloud gaming, but they have all recovered. During the outage, the @XboxSupport account also retweeted recent posts from the Outriders Twitter account about server issues.
This isn’t the only recent Microsoft services outage. Microsoft Teams, Azure, and other Microsoft 365 services went down for about four hours on March 15th.
Update April 1st, 10:57PM ET : All services have been fully restored, and we have updated this article accordingly.
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Sightline Payments, which offers cashless payment solutions for casinos and the hospitality industry, raises $100M; its Play+ system has over 1.5M users (Richard N. Velotta/Las Vegas Review …)
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Former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine joins satellite internet firm Viasat’s board,
Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is joining space-based broadband firm Viasat’s board of directors as his latest post-NASA gig, after joining a space-focused private equity firm in January. Wading into the world of satellite internet, he says he’s concerned about the digital divide and the future of humanity, and he wants to try something new.
“When I left NASA I had a lot of different phone calls and texts on what I should be doing next or what I could be doing next,” Bridenstine tells The Verge. A mentor, he said, suggested he reach out to companies he’s interested in, so he emailed Viasat’s cofounder and executive chairman Mark Dankberg and asked if they need any help.
“There’s a digital divide and we need to close that,” the former Congressman and NASA chief said, adding that he thinks Viasat’s approach of beaming internet from long-distance orbits with massive, high-throughput satellites is the right plan. He said he was also attracted by the company’s goal of cutting internet costs — almost invoking a mantra similar to the one he repeated non-stop at NASA about cutting costs of astronaut rides to space.
“I mean, ultimately, if we want more of the world to be connected, we have to drive down the costs,” he said.
Southern California-based Viasat, a longtime provider of internet from space, plans to launch its technologically complex but long-delayed trio of internet satellites, called ViaSat-3, in roughly six-month intervals beginning in the first quarter of 2022. From super high orbits, those three satellites will shower the world with broadband internet at a throughput capacity of one terabyte per second.
Smaller satellites in lower orbits, and in larger swarms, are all the rage in satellite broadband these days, where the their proximity to Earth reduces the time it takes for internet signals to beam into homes and businesses. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is growing rapidly, with over 1,300 satellites launched to space since 2019. Jeff Bezos’s Amazon is planning its own constellation called Project Kuiper. Both constellations are multi-billion-dollar undertakings, an investment that has sent other companies into bankruptcy. Viasat also has plans to send 300 internet satellites into low-Earth orbit.
For Viasat, bringing Bridenstine on board will help the company get an edge in “space systems and network technology globally,” Dankberg said in a statement, adding that “Jim is also an ardent proponent of preserving safe access to space via proactive measures to protect the space environment and contain orbital debris.”
Bridenstine wasn’t sure how demanding the new job will be, but he’ll partake in Viasat’s quarterly board of director meetings and possibly its annual shareholder meetings. “But if there are other areas where I can either fill gaps or provide support during the course of the year, I have no doubt that Viasat will probably be giving me a call,” he said.
Less than a week after leaving office on January 20th, when President Biden was sworn in, Bridenstine joined aerospace and defense private equity firm Acorn Growth Companies.
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Caterpillar is bringing its newest rugged phone to the US for $699,
The Cat S62 Pro — and that’s Cat as in Caterpillar, the construction company — is now available in the US. The rugged smartphone is the latest device to feature Cat branding (it’s technically a product of licensee Bullitt Group) and builds on its predecessors’ integrated thermal camera capabilities. It’s designed with construction and industrial workers in mind, and at $699, it’s a more attractively priced follow up to 2018’s S61, which debuted in the US at $899.
Introduced last summer for sale in the UK, the S62 Pro features solid (if not super competitive) phone specs, which isn’t guaranteed in the rugged phone class. You’ll get a 5.7-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 660 processor with 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4,000mAh battery. But unlike mainstream midrange devices launching now, you won’t get 5G connectivity or Android 11 pre-installed; it ships with Android 10 and Cat says it will provide an update to 11. While the S62 Pro is significantly less expensive than its predecessor, it no longer offers the air quality and distance measurement sensors, and uses a slightly smaller battery (compared to 4,500mAh).
Photo: Cat PhonesThat’s the boring stuff. The exciting bits that the S62 Pro has to offer include its marquee feature: a built-in Flir thermal imaging camera with four times as many thermal pixels as its predecessor. The phone offers new modes that allow users to adjust and blend overlaid information from the standard 12-megapixel camera, providing more context to the thermal image. There’s also an option to set an alarm that will notify you when a certain temperature level is detected.
As for its rugged credentials, the S62 Pro is rated at IP68 and IP69: the first indicates that it’s safe to submerge in 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes, the second that it can withstand high pressure spray. The company says it’s been tested against even harsher conditions than this, but is warrantied to the level of those official IP ratings.
The S62 is built to withstand harsh work environments.Photo: Cat PhonesIt can withstand drops of up to six feet onto a steel surface, and its Gorilla Glass 6 screen is bolstered by an additional factory-fitted screen protector. The S62 Pro also meets requirements of the MIL-STD-810 military standard, including vibration and thermal shock resistance.
The S62 Pro isn’t currently available through any of the major US carriers, but is being offered unlocked directly from Cat phones and third parties including Amazon and Home Depot.
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Apple forced to offer Russian iPhone users local apps at setup thanks to new law,
iPhones purchased in Russia now show a list of Russian-made apps at startup, thanks to a new law which comes into effect today, MacRumors reports. The prompt is part of the standard iPhone setup process, appearing after the user has selected other options like whether to allow Location Services or App Analytics.
“In compliance with Russian legal requirements, continue to view available apps to download,” the dry text reads, before showing a short list of just shy of a dozen apps. These include various Yandex apps, an email app from Mail.ru, a video live streaming service called OK Live, and popular Russian social network VK. A “Get” icon appears next to each app, giving the user a shortcut to install them.
Here is how it looks in the actual setup. pic.twitter.com/QOUwwIGSnx
— Khaos Tian (@KhaosT)
The prompt comes in response to a Russian law that originally passed back in 2019 requiring manufacturers to pre-install Russian-made software on devices sold in the country. It covers smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, laptops, and desktop computers. According to Reuters, the law is part of a broader attempt by Moscow to reduce its dependence on foreign companies as well as gain more control over the internet.
Last month, Apple agreed to comply with the law by giving users the option to install Russian-made apps at startup. It’s a notable concession from the company, which typically maintains tight control over the setup process of its devices. However, Apple has been willing to make changes in apparent attempts to comply with Russia’s local laws in the past, including changing maps to show Crimea as Russian territory and removing a gay pride watch face.
Reuters notes that the big beneficiaries of the new law look set to be Yandex and Mail.ru. But in a statement last month a Russian official said that alternative apps will be included if they prove popular with users.
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Google’s AI reservation service Duplex is now available in 49 states,
More than two years after it initially began trials, Google’s AI-powered reservation service Duplex is now available in 49 US states. This looks like it’ll be the limit of Duplex’s coverage in the US for the time being, as Google tells The Verge it has no timeline to launch the service in the last hold-out state — Louisiana — due to unspecified local laws.
Adapting to local legislation is one of the reasons Duplex has taken so long to roll out across the US. Google tells The Verge it’s had to add certain features to the service (like offering a call-back number for businesses contacted by Duplex) to make it legal in some states. In others, it’s simply waited for legislation to change.
The new milestone of 49 states was spotted by AndroidPolice, based on a Google support page that lists Duplex’s availability.
Google wowed audiences when it first unveiled Duplex at its 2018 I/O conference. As a feature of Google Assistant, Duplex uses AI to call local businesses, making reservations at restaurants and hairdressers on your behalf using a realistic-sounding artificial voice.
But as is often the case with tech demos, Google promised more than it could deliver. In 2019 it was revealed that 25 percent of Duplex calls are made by humans, and that 19 percent of calls started by the automated system have to be completed by people. In our own reporting, we found that restaurants often confused Duplex with automated spam robocalls.
It’s not clear what percentage of Duplex calls are made by AI now, but the service can’t have been taxed by too many restaurant reservations during pandemic lockdowns. As businesses begin to open up again this year, it’ll be interesting to see if Duplex can keep up.
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