David Lidsky's Blog, page 369

NASA SpaceX Crew-9 launch: How to watch the Boeing Starliner astronaut ‘rescue mission’

Boeing Starliner astronauts will finally have a ship again.

According to NASA, Crew-9 is scheduled for launch no earlier than 1:17 p.m. on Saturday, September, on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Sugar rush: Insomnia Cookies’s list of new U.S. locations could grow by 1,800 in the next decade

The late-night bakery is already on track to open 55 stores in 2024 for a record expansion year, reaching more insomniacs than ever.

Insomnia Cookies, the bakery brand best known for delivering warm cookies late into the night, is said to be on track to open a record 55 stores in 2024, with plans for another 1,800 bakeries in the U.S. alone over the next decade.

Ryan Reynolds’s ad tech firm MNTN looks to Morgan Stanley for 2025 IPO

Reynolds became CCO of the firm after the company acquired his agency, Maximum Effort, in 2021.

MNTN, a company that sells targeted TV advertising technology, may be working with Morgan Stanley on an initial public offering (IPO) as the firm considers its future.

U.S. charges Iranian hackers for attack on Trump campaign

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Iran is trying to ‘stoke discord’ ahead of the election.

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged three Iranian operatives with hacking former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in what the agency said was an attempt to interfere with the election in November.

Trump calls for criminal prosecution of Google over search results

The former president in a post on Truth Social that if the Department of Justice does not prosecute Google, he will do it himself.

Former President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of Google over what he said was the tech giant’s bias toward his presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in online search results.

Child influencers get new financial safeguards in California

The laws entitle child influencers to a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view.

Parents in California who profit from social media posts featuring their children will be required to set aside some earnings for their minor influencers under a pair of measures signed Thursday by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Cryptocurrency exchange network with ties to Russia gets sanctioned

U.S. Treasury alleges that Sergey Ivanov has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of virtual currency for cyber criminals and darknet marketplace vendors for the past 20 years.

A network of people and virtual currency exchanges associated with harboring Russian cybercrime were hit with sanctions on Thursday, in a government-wide crackdown on cybercrime that could assist Russia ahead of President Joe Biden‘s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Meta’s Orion glasses show that consumer AR wearables are almost here

Companies like Meta and Snap aren’t ready to sell their AR wearables to consumers yet—but their latest devices show significant progress.

For about a decade, Meta has been working on an audacious project: AR glasses stylish enough to pass as regular eyewear, and yet so powerful that they could one day replace the smartphone. “When we started, we actually thought that there was less than a 10 percent chance that we could make it happen,” admits Meta AR devices VP Ming Hua.

And yet, at this week’s Meta developer conference, the company showed off Orion: An AR glasses prototype that comes closer to this vision than any other device in its category, leading Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to call them “the most advanced glasses in the world.” 

First 3D-printed hotel ever is underway in Texas

ICON is also working on a 3D-printed neighborhood of homes near Austin.

It looks like any other 3D printer—except it’s the size of a crane and is, layer by layer, building a hotel in the Texan desert.

What NASA’s Orion revealed about radiation exposure for astronauts

The danger posed by radiation is a major concern that must be addressed if astronauts are to carry out long-term missions beyond Earth’s orbit.

With the help of mannequins named Helga and Zohar and sensors placed inside a spacecraft, scientists have collected valuable data about radiation exposure for astronauts outside Earth’s sheltering magnetic field and gained insights on how to better protect them in long space journeys like one to Mars.