A few years ago, Apple published a series of short videos on its British YouTube channel that were very different from the company’s usual campaigns. Now, the company is at it again, with a new set of futuristic and oddly hypnotic ads.
more…
Following the failure of the 8th Starship test flight in early March that ended in another explosion, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally cleared SpaceX for a 9th test which could take place as soon as next week.
“The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight,” the FAA said in a statement released yesterday.
Similar to how SpaceX’s 7th Starship test flight played out in January, Flight 8 saw the ship successfully separate from the Super Heavy booster rocket that returned to the launch site at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas where it was caught by the launch tower. But at around nine minutes into its flight, Starship began to tumble and eventually exploded before reaching its engine cutoff stage.
Previously failed test flights resulted in Starship debris raining down over Turks and Caicos and parts of the Bahamas. Although SpaceX has said the debris has been limited to pre-planned Debris Response Areas, on multiple occasions the FAA has briefly slowed and diverted flights, and initiated full ground stops at several Florida airports.
SpaceX plans to reuse a previously launched Super Heavy booster rocket for the first time for Flight 9 – specifically the rocket from Flight 7. As a result, the FAA is expanding the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) as an added safety precaution. For Flight 8, the AHA covered approximately 885 nautical miles. For Flight 9, it’s nearly twice the size at 1,600 nautical miles and covers parts of Texas and Florida, as well as the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.
In addition to expanding the hazard area, the FAA is also requiring the Flight 9 launch window “to be scheduled during non-peak transit periods” in order to “minimize disruption to U.S. and international airspace users.”
Thursday’s update follows the FAA’s decision to issue a launch license earlier this month for SpaceX’s 9th Starship test flight and modify the license to expand the company’s annual operations. “The approval includes final action allowing SpaceX to increase Starship operations from five up to 25 per year at Boca Chica, Texas.”
The FAA is still without a leader after Michael Whitaker stepped down as its administrator on January 20th following clashes with Elon Musk.
The first thing I noticed about the Fujifilm X Half is just how small and light it is. The camera is designed to give you no excuses - you should be able to bring it with you everywhere. And after spending a few hours walking around LA with the camera, I'm starting to understand why you'd want to.
Fujifilm's latest doesn't necessarily impress on paper. The X Half is an $850 camera with a vertically oriented 1-inch sensor capable of taking 18MP photos. There's no electric or hybrid viewfinder, no stabilization, no hot shoe, and it can't even take RAW photos. It's very easy to look at that list of missing features and disregard the camera altogether.
But the X Half's simplicity is very much the point. This is a camera for taking scrappy, quick photos and capturing memories. A lot of its flaws are masked with film simulations, filters, and superimposed grain. Its limitations are a feature, not a bug.
The camera comes with a fixed 32mm equivalent f/2.8 lens. Even with all the added grain and filters turned off, I found it to perform very well. The dynamic range is acceptable with natural highlight falloff, edges are sharp, and there's even some bokeh if you plan accor …
Xiaomi has retaken the digital crown in the global wearable band market, surpassing Apple to become the top vendor in Q1 2025, according to new data from Canalys.
The research firm says Xiaomi pulled it with a more mature ecosystem strategy than the one it had back in mid-2021 (the last time it led the pack), while Apple’s wearable strategy has grown stale.
more…
Samsung’s first beta for One UI 8, based on Android 16, is right around the corner, and it really seems like it could live at any moment as the company is detailing a new sign-up process.
more…I don’t usually watch trailers, but Apple TV+ makes it nearly impossible to avoid them with how aggressively it peddles its own content.
After the umpteenth time that sharp trumpet note from The Studio’s trailer blared through my TV while I was just trying to watch something else, I gave in. My first thought? Yeah, no. Looks way too over the top. Eleven episodes later, I can confirm: it absolutely is. And it’s glorious. Give it a shot and you’ll thank Sal Saperstein later
more…
Is it weird to have nostalgia for an operating system? I don't mean missing a particular feature that's been removed from modern versions or a specific productivity setting that's no longer supported. I mean a sense of longing for the vibes of the computer interface you grew up with, an ache for the aesthetics of user interfaces past.
I would have thought I was immune to this particular brand of nostalgia. Then I happened upon Desktop Survivors 98, a new Vampire Survivors-style "bullet heaven" autoshooter that leans hard into the aesthetics of the late '90s Windows machines I grew up with. And while that low-res, 256-color presentation is what drew me in, it was the intriguing mouse-controlled gameplay underneath that has kept me coming back for more retro-styled action all week.
When it comes to capturing the feel of the '90s computer environment, Desktop Survivors 98 gets everything just right. This is in large part due to rampant theft of familiar old-school icons; items like My Computer, Calculator, Minesweeper, Search, and more look like they were taken directly from a classic Microsoft tile set. The game's low-res desktop backgrounds and Windows also look like they came out of a years-old Microsoft style book.
