Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has successfully made it to space for its maiden flight, a few days after its planned January 13 launch was scrubbed. The vehicle passed the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space, shortly after 2AM Eastern time on January 16. New Glenn's booster separated from the rest of the rocket to make its way back to Earth towards a landing platform in the ocean by 2:10 AM, while its second stage and payload went on to reach orbit. The company has just announced on its live feed, however, that it has lost the booster.
Developing...
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-launches-into-orbit-on-its-maiden-flight-073451555.html?src=rss
The billionaire space race entered a new phase today when Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launched its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket this morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
At 2:03AM ET this morning, New Glenn’s seven reusable BE-4 engines ignited to propel the NG-1 rocket into space, with the second stage and payload reaching orbit to achieve Blue Origin’s primary mission goal.
In parallel, the first stage booster — dubbed, “So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance” — autonomously descended to its landing platform located several hundred miles downrange in the Atlantic. As it approached the Jacklyn barge, the booster lost contact with control and stopped sending data. Blue Origin confirmed that the booster was lost during landing.
Second stage engine cutoff confirmed. New Glenn’s second stage and payload are now in orbit. Another burn coming up...
Nevertheless, Blue Origin’s goal for today’s uncrewed launch was for New Glenn to reach orbit. Anything beyond that would be a bonus — like activating a prototype of the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload vehicle or landing the reusable booster. “No matter what, we will learn a lot,” said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp ahead of today’s launch.
Image: Blue Origin
Today’s flight profile. Success meant launching into orbit, everything else was a “bonus.”
The launch comes after almost a decade of development and puts Elon Musk’s SpaceX on notice. New Glenn has about the same carrying capacity as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, and is meant to shuttle cargo into space on the reusable launch platform. This includes satellites for Blue Origin’s rival to Starlink’s high-speed low-latency internet service. The first of these 3,236 Project Kuiper satellites are expected to launch into low Earth orbit soon, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket before New Glenn can take over the heavy lifting.
Amazon has agreed to acquire Indian buy now pay later startup Axio, deepening its push into financial services in one of its fastest-growing markets. The US technology group, which has held an equity stake in Axio for six years, signed the acquisition agreement in December after completing due diligence, the Indian startup said in a […]
TSMC, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, produces advanced processors for clients such as Nvidia and Apple and has benefited from the megatrend in favor of AI.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube’s battle to remove pirated content to defend his own company’s use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books, reveals newly released snippets of a deposition he gave late last year. The deposition, which was part of a complaint submitted to the court by plaintiffs’ attorneys, is […]
For years, TikTok creators have been trying to migrate their audiences onto other platforms — but were relatively subtle about their efforts, both due to fears that TikTok’s algorithm suppresses attempts to move users off the app and because of TikTok users’ distaste toward manipulative content.
But now, as the U.S. forges ahead with its TikTok ban that’s approaching a Jan. 19 deadline, creators have gone mask-off, growing more proactive and more explicit with their attempts to divert fans off of TikTok as a ban or sale becomes a likely reality. Even though moving followers over onto another social network isn’t easy, it shouldn’t immediately disrupt many brand deals.
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Digiday’s events are getting a refresh under the leadership of Liz Pitonyak, who joined the company as general manager of events in December.
She joined Digiday Media with 15 years of experience in event strategy and partnership, after most recently directing event initiatives at Adweek and at Forbes. She will oversee events for Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife.
“I have dedicated my career to creating transformative experiences that resonate with target audiences, amplify brand stories and deliver measurable business outcomes,” Pitonyak said.
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This story originally published on sister site, WorkLife.
WPP’s announcement requiring employees to return to the office four days a week has sent shockwaves through the advertising industry, spotlighting a deepening divide between corporate-owned and independent agencies on workplace flexibility. While some leaders argue in-person collaboration fuels creativity, critics view the move as outdated and morale-crushing.
Employees have voiced frustration over the abrupt policy from the agency holding group, citing poor communication and personal challenges, with some questioning whether “creative collaboration” outweighs childcare needs or two-hour commutes. Meanwhile, independents see an opportunity to attract disillusioned talent championing flexible models that balance productivity with personal well-being.
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Entire direct-to-consumer empires have been built on the back of paid social and search advertising. But empires have to think about the long term to last.
With platforms such as Facebook and Instagram becoming more expensive and quite possibly less brand safe, Comcast hopes to tempt away DTC advertisers from those performance-focused channels and lead them toward TV and CTV inventory. Its execs hope a new ad sales platform, Universal Ads, could help convert performance marketers into long-term brand builders.
It’s a move many DTC and SME brands would welcome, according to eight media buyers working with DTC clients that spoke with Digiday. That said, it doesn’t mean a shift in DTC spend to TV is a fait accompli.
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This week’s Media Briefing features an interview with Dotdash Meredith’s chief innovation officer, Jon Roberts. We discuss what the company has learned nearly nine months into its deal with OpenAI and what he wants to develop with AI technology at the company this year.
Q&A with Dotdash Meredith on AI agenda in 2025
Media companies prepare for legal battles with Trump administration, Fortune retracts bogus story and more
Q&A with Dotdash Meredith on AI agenda in 2025
Dotdash Meredith has ambitious plans for the development of its AI-powered technology in 2025.
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In advertising circles, a quiet theory has been gaining traction: The Trade Desk, it’s said, isn’t exactly enamored with curation — a targeting strategy that could redirect valuable ad spend elsewhere. This week’s acquisition of Sincera added fuel to the narrative. But The Trade Desk has dismissed the rumors outright.
As vp of inventory development Will Doherty put it plainly: “We don’t think a lot about curation.”
Instead, the deal, according to Doherty, is aimed at something far more ambitious.
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LG Display didn’t have its usual exhibit of flashy, breakthrough new screens at this year’s CES. This resulted in an odd situation where it was actually Panasonic that shared the most details about LG Display’s latest and greatest OLED panel. Even before any official announcement, it was already the centerpiece of 2025 flagships like Panasonic’s Z95B and the LG G5 from LG Electronics (not to be confused with the display division).
But now the company is ready to spill the full details on its new four-layer tandem OLED design. “33 percent brighter than the previous generation and optimized for the AI TV era, it is the industry’s first-ever OLED display to achieve a maximum brightness as high as 4,000 nits,” LG Display wrote in a press release that went out tonight. The AI mention made me roll my eyes a bit, but there’s no doubting that this is a very impressive panel.
Here’s the rundown on what’s so innovative, according to LG Display:
The new panel’s innovation centers on a Primary RGB Tandem structure, which is LG Display’s proprietary technology that uses independent stacks of RGB elements to produce light. It had previously used a three-stack light source, with two layers of blue elements emitting relatively short energy wavelengths alongside red, green, and yellow elements in a single layer.
The Primary RGB Tandem structure applied to the fourth-generation OLED TV panel organizes the light source into four stacks by adding two layers of blue elements and independent layers of red and green elements. It improves maximum brightness by increasing the amount of light produced by each layer compared to the previous structure.
Graphic: LG Display
The latest-gen OLED display uses a four-layer structure to maximize brightness — this time without any micro-lens array technology.
Of course, seeing as we’re squarely in the OLED brightness wars, Samsung Display has its own brighter-than-ever QD-OLED screen that’s going into Samsung’s S95F, which was also announced in Las Vegas. But whereas Samsung is going all in on its glare-free display finish, LG is sticking with a more traditional glossy finish — though it uses “ultra-low reflective technology” to lessen any potential distractions.
Energy efficiency has improved again with the fourth-gen LG Display OLED, and the company says that color brightness can reach 2,100 nits, which is a 40 percent improvement compared to the prior version. These peak brightness numbers are what the panel is technically capable of, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that TV makers like Panasonic will necessarily push it that hard in consumer sets.
Either way, OLED keeps getting brighter and more vibrant while still retaining all of its trademark strengths like perfect blacks, fantastic viewing angles, and fast response times for gaming. The best ones don’t come cheap, but they’re worth saving up for. If you’re after more info on the new panel, I recommend these great videos from Caleb Denison at Digital Trends and Vincent Teoh at HDTVTest.
LG Display’s rival, Samsung Display, did have a CES showcase that my colleague Sean Hollister caught during the show, so be sure to give that a watch as well.
