Popular Technology News this Week

All eyes were on the International Space Station yesterday as NASA astronauts performed a spacewalk to install a new docking port that will allow commercial vehicles to latch onto the orbiting... laboratory. Meanwhile, Russia was preparing for some serious work of its own, carrying out a crucial test of its new rocket booster which is expected to replace the stalwart Soyuz-FG rocket sometime in 2020. That mission kicked off at 8:38 a.m. local time from Russia's launchpad in Kazakhstan, successfully sending an uncrewed Soyuz capsule skyward on a path toward the International Space Station. The vehicle was empty of any human travelers, but it did have one inhabitant: a humanoid robot strapped into the commander's seat. The robot is called Fedor, which is actually short for 'Final Experimental...

In a bid to make it easier for companies to adopt a hybrid approach to their workloads.

My name is Kate and I've been brutally murdered in an old west farmhouse. Moments after meeting my doom, I'm awake. Barely. I'm in a sterile room with two people lording over me. They talk to each... other while I try to understand what's happening. My...

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk took to to Twitter to announce the restart of the company's solar-panel sector.       

Encryption protects us, so maybe it's time for us to protect it. But no answer to the encryption debate is without a downside.

By using the 5-Piece Coffee Spoons Bent Hanging Scoops, you’ll help keep your tabletop clean. Use them when you’re having tea on your nightstand or coffee on your café table out back. That way,... you won’t have to wipe down your table when you’re done stirring your drink. These coffee spoons are bent in the middle so they rest perfectly on the edge of your mug. With a curved handle, these stainless steel spoons will stay securely on a jar,..

Imagine making fuel, plastics, and concrete out of "thin air.” That's the promise of direct air capture (DAC), a technology that fundamentally disrupts our contemporary oil economy. Mimicking what... already occurs in nature, DAC essentially involves industrial photosynthesis, harnessing the power of the sun to draw carbon directly out of the atmosphere. This captured carbon […]

Leaks surrounding the Nokia 7.2 smartphone are like the gift that just keeps on giving. After the handset was confirmed for a September release with an

A revised policy for approving the launch of spacecraft with nuclear power systems is the latest measure intended to support greater use of nuclear power systems in orbit and beyond. SpaceNews.com

Twitter recently suspended 200,000 accounts it linked to a Chinese government influence campaign

It's the fourth time Facebook has removed Myanmar accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

HP Inc. is losing the chief executive who has been leading the personal computer maker since it broke off as a separate company four years ago.       

If life did (or does) exist on the red planet, it could survive by travelling across planet on the wind.

3D printing has become commonplace in the hardware industry, but because few materials can be used for it easily, the process rarely results in final products. A Swiss startup called Spectroplast... hopes to change that with a technique for printing using silicone, opening up all kinds of applications in medicine, robotics, and beyond.

Blockchain, digital currencies, and DLTs have been at the forefront of conversations this past year. During 2019 we've seen consistent growth throughout the entire industry landscape driven by new... enterprise implementations & business models, increased venture funding, and decentralized application (DApps). These trends show no signs of slowing down if anything will continue to speed […] The post Bitcoin Pizza and Our Decentralized Future appeared first on ReadWrite.

Take me with you, NASA.

If you've ever had your wisdom teeth removed you know how painful the days immediately following the surgery can be. Over-the-counter painkillers are often not powerful enough to offset the intense... aching, and for decades, dentists have prescribed opioid painkillers to keep wisdom teeth patients comfortable during the brief recovery process. Now, as America's opioid crisis continues to claim lives, experts are warning that dentists who dole out the powerful drugs to their patients may be doing far more harm than good. As CBS reports, the American Dental Association is trying to reel in doctors who are too eager to trust their patients with opioid painkillers, and are urging medical professionals to explain the risks of the drugs to any patients who truly do need them. A CBS News report on...

It was only a few months ago that Intel unveiled a series of brand new 10th-gen processors that can deliver more powerful graphics performance to super slim laptops. The chipmaker isn't done updating... its product line, and we now have a few extra additions to its 10th-gen chip line. This time around, the focus isn't so much on graphics performance, but on CPU power and RAM improvements. The new Comet Lake series of chips will join Ice Lake under Intel's broad 10th-gen Core chips mantle. The Comet Lake models come in two variations: Comet Lake-U and Comet Lake-Y. The U models are the more powerful ones, shipping in configurations of up to six cores, which is a significant upgrade for processors that have to operate at 15W TDP. The Y series are also getting a bump in clock speed, with models...

Eight Mile Style is also challenging the constitutionality of a landmark music licensing law.

It's only been a few days since SpaceX boss Elon Musk fired off a tweet reminding everyone that he wants to "nuke Mars," but he's already offered a possible alternative to that wild proposal. In a... tweet on Tuesday, Musk proposed launching thousands of solar reflectors to the Red Planet in order to heat up the planet's surface, melt its reserves of ice, and release CO2 that could help form a more robust Martian atmosphere. Humans are headed to Mars sooner rather than later, but what we're going to do once we get there remains to be seen. Dreams of establishing a colony on Mars may depend on our ability to make Mars a bit more like Earth, and that would mean beefing up the atmosphere. Scientists believe there's a wealth of CO2 trapped in the ice Mars still has around its poles, but whether...

The Platonic Ideal of conspicuous consumption never looked so shiny — and Apple really wants you to keep it that way.  The much ballyhooed Apple Card had its official U.S.-wide launch yesterday,... with eager early adopters rushing to praise the card's titanium body and laser-etched logo. And, because this is an Apple product, the geniuses of Cupertino released an elaborate set of cleaning and care instructions for the newest addition to their family of products.  Yes, you read that correctly. Cleaning and care instructions for a credit card.  "Place your card in a slot in your wallet or billfold without touching another credit card," reads the card-owning guide. "If two credit cards are placed in the same slot your card could become scratched."

NASA's Mars 2020 mission is inching toward its eventual launch in July of next year, but it's not the only rover that has an upcoming date with the Red Planet. The ExoMars program, which is a joint... venture between the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos, is expected to launch a new mission at around the same time and will arrive on Mars in March of 2021, shortly after the NASA's mission lands in February. The ExoMars rover mission is similar to NASA's Mars 2020 efforts, but the ESA is emphasizing that one of the rover's primary goals will be the search for life extraterrestrial life. To that end, the ExoMars bot was just equipped with a high-tech camera that will help it hunt down locations where evidence of past (or even current) life may be hiding. Mars was once a dramatically...

Google will start charging for IPv4 addresses in use in 2020. Due to transit fees for NAT, this will cost the enterprise, but not if Google brings proper IPv6 to GCP.

It's now been about a year and a half since Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster was sent into space atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch went flawlessly and was a major milestone for... SpaceX, marking the first time the Falcon Heavy was shot skyward. Now, many months later, the Tesla sports car has completed its first lap around the Sun. Thanks to the handy website WhereIsRoadster we can see exactly where Elon Musk's car is at any given moment based on its Sun-centric orbit, as well as how many miles it is away from Earth and other important locations. As the website shows, the Roadster and its Starman "driver" are currently around 185 million miles from Earth, and around 68 million miles from Mars. Its current position is just past the spot in Earth's orbit where the Falcon Heavy...

The introduction of the new tool is Facebook's latest response to criticism over how it safeguards users' privacy