A lander hasn’t successfully reached the surface of the Moon’s cratered Mare Crisium region since the Soviet Luna 24 probe landed there to collect samples in August 1976. But SpaceX is prepping a launch that’ll send not one, but two landers there on Wednesday January 15th, Firefly Aerospace has announced.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch at approximately 1:11 AM EST, and will not only have Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lander on board, but also the Resilience lander from the Japanese robotic spacecraft firm iSpace. It will take 45 days for the craft to journey to the Moon before it spends another 14 days carrying out surface operations. There’s no word on whether we’ll be able to watch it take off.
The Firefly lander will carry 10 NASA payloads to the surface. They’re designed to measure various particulate compositions, thermal properties, and electromagnetic activity of both the Moon and the Earth. It’ll collect data for various applications, from improving landing and takeoff procedures to learning about the Moon’s resources and its history.
The so-called LEXI payload is particularly interesting — it’s an x-ray machine that can read the Earth’s magnetic field. NASA will use the data to see how our magnetosphere interacts with solar winds, which could ultimately help accurately detect and track solar weather patterns that cause power outages on Earth and interfere with satellite and GPS systems.
This would be NASA’s second attempt to deploy such technology. It first launched the device, then known as STORM, into space in 2012. That one didn’t land on the moon, however, and wasn’t able to get the full picture that LEXI’s wide-angle sensors will be able to capture.
Announced in 2022, the MV7 is hands down one of the best podcaster mics on the market. Last April, Shure updated the line to include the MV7+, which has USB-C connect and a few new tricks designed to get a cleaner sound. At CES 2025 on Tuesday, the audio company added yet another entry to […]
Jack Bamberger, TikTok U.S.' general manager of agency business, left the company on Jan. 3, according to a person with direct knowledge. A second source from an advertising agency told ADWEEK that a TikTok rep confirmed Bamberger's departure to them. The move coincides with TikTok's intensifying challenges, including a potential U.S. ban slated for January...
Believe it or not, we’re just five months away from the announcement of iOS 19. Ahead of that launch, rumors have started to surface on things like new iOS 19 features, supported devices, and more.
Forget going to the doctor's office; these companies are putting the power of tracking every aspect of your health into our own hands. But do you really want to know?
Almost exactly a year ago, we were publicly yearning for the day when more portable gaming PC makers could ditch Windows in favor of SteamOS (without having to resort to touchy unofficial workarounds). Now, that day has finally come, with Lenovo announcing the upcoming Legion Go S as the first non-Valve handheld to come with an officially licensed copy of SteamOS preinstalled. And Valve promises that it will soon ship a beta version of SteamOS for users to "download and test themselves."
As Lenovo's slightly downsized followup to 2023's massive Legion Go, the Legion Go S won't feature the detachable controllers of its predecessor. But the new PC gaming handheld will come in two distinct versions, one with the now-standard Windows 11 installation and another edition that's the first to sport the (recently leaked) "Powered by SteamOS" branding.
The lack of a Windows license seems to contribute to a lower starting cost for the "Powered by SteamOS" edition of the Legion Go S, which will start at $500 when it's made available in May. Lenovo says the Windows edition of the device—available starting this month—will start at $730, with "additional configurations" available in May starting as low as $600.
That means it should have a data throughput of up to 80Gbps (or up to 120Gbps if it supports Intel’s Bandwidth Boost mode). It also has a “Nano IPS Black” panel that LG says “delivers exceptional color accuracy and a high contrast,” with 99.5 percent Adobe RGB and 98 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage.
Many details about the display are still missing, as there’s no word on its refresh rate or availability. The 32-inch 6K Dell UltraSharp monitor, which also uses an IPS Black display from LG, might give us an idea about price, as it costs $2,479.99. The Verge reached out to LG with a request for more information but didn’t immediately hear back.
RCA has announced a new lineup of IP55-rated outdoor TVs with bezels finished with camo patterns. | Image: RCA
RCA has announced a new line of bright QLED TVs designed to be installed and blend into outdoor settings with bezels finished in a “spirit of wilderness” and Mossy Oak camouflage design. They’re dust- and water-resistant and will work in temperatures ranging from -22 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
The company hasn’t announced when its new outdoor TV lineup will be available. When they are, the TVs will be offered in four sizes: a $3,999 43-inch model; a $4,999 55-inch model; a $5,999 65-inch model; and the largest, a 75-inch model for $7,999.
Why does RCA’s 43-inch quantum-dot TV cost almost four grand when similarly sized alternatives can be found for less than $300? The TV in your living room almost certainly doesn’t come with an IP55 rating. The RCA TVs are built with a scratch-resistant aluminum case that can withstand dust and moisture ingress. You won’t want to leave them out in a downpour, but they can survive being sprayed with a hose or pummeled with wind-blown rain.
Other features include up to 2,000 nits of brightness, which helps keep the TVs viewable in bright sunlight, Dolby Atmos support, and Google TV to provide access to various streaming apps.
In the U.S., it’s accepted that most startups fail — and when that happens, VCs (generally) accept their losses and move on. But that’s not the case in China, where VCs are trying to claw back their investments in failed startups by pursuing the personal assets of their founders in court, The Financial Times reports. […]
Instagram Threads is developing new features that would bring its user experience more in line with that of X (formerly Twitter) and the social network Bluesky. The Meta-owned company is internally prototyping the ability to set a display name and add a cover image to profiles. A spokesperson for the company confirmed to TechCrunch on […]
ADWEEK is shadowing Razorfish at CES this week. Follow along for more behind-the-scenes reporting from the event. The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a big moment for agencies looking to set the stage for the year. For Razorfish, the Publicis-owned digital agency on the cusp of its 30th anniversary, this year's CES marks...
Artist pages in YouTube Music have long included a subscriber count that’s very much carried over from the main app, and Google is now testing a new “Monthly Audience Metric.”
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the credit reporting agency alleging that if failed to investigate or correct errors in credit reports even when it had ample evidence supporting consumer disputes.
Another CES, another opportunity for the technology industry to lob a trebuchet’s worth of molten lead at the last vestiges of my dignity. This year, it’s EcoFlow that is showing off this delightful solar hat that does more for then planet, and your phone, than it does your personal brand. Admittedly, if you’re wearing a suitably outdoorsy ‘fit, it’s probably not going to look too out of place, but its aesthetics are second to its function.
As the name implies, the EcoFlow Power Hat has small solar panels embedded in the brim that, when you’re out and about, will help charge your portable devices. The brim is segmented, and each section has a little set of Monocrystalline Silicon cells with a rated efficiency of 24 percent.
Photo by Daniel Cooper
On the underside of the brim, there’s a little plastic box with an LED light showing you the hat is generating a charge. Pull back the attached rubber tabs and you’ll find a USB-A and USB-C port, letting you charge one or two devices at a time.
EcoFlow says it’ll output a maximum of 5V / 2.4A, so you can expect it to keep your phone or tablet topped up rather than producing anything too life-saving. There’s no battery on board, naturally, so you’ll need to keep a long wire handy to run from your cap down to whichever pocket you keep your devices near.
Photo by Daniel Cooper
The company says it’s sturdy enough, with each panel on a discrete segment you can fold down to near pocket size. It’s IP65-rated for water and dust ingress, but steer clear of immersing it in water or putting it in a washing machine.
The EcoFlow Power Hat is presently on sale for $129, plus or minus the cost of your dignity.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ecoflows-solar-hat-is-better-for-the-planet-than-your-style-203358237.html?src=rss
Meta’s Instagram has been blocking LGBTQ-related hashtags for months, according to reporting by User Mag. This was done under the company’s “sensitive content” policy as an attempt to restrict “sexually suggestive content.” The blocked hashtags included stuff like #lesbian, #gay, #bisexualpride, #transwomen and dozens more. Those hashtags don’t seem that sexually suggestive to me but, hey, what do I know.
The terms were hidden from both search and discovery for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenage users have that filter turned on by default. When teens attempted to search these terms, they were directed to a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the company’s “sensitive content” restrictions that hide “sexually explicit” posts.
User Mag’s reporting caused Meta to reverse course on these restrictions, after having been in place for months. The company called it a simple mistake and said that “it’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.”
The restrictions occurred after the company started hiding topics from teens as part of a larger “youth and well-being” privacy update. This was advertised as an effort to keep kids away from content that promoted self-harm. It’s worth noting that heterosexual content, even stuff that showed couples engaged in romantic activities, weren’t restricted in any way, according to User Mag.
“A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said. LGBTQ creators have long suffered under Instagram’s content policies, often experiencing shadow bans and having their content labeled as “non-recommendable.”
While Meta says it was all a big misunderstanding, promising to get to the bottom of things, this is only one example of the company throwing marginalized communities under the bus. The company just changed its “Hateful Content” policy, adding language that seemingly allows folks to brazenly attack gay and trans people. The company says that it's now fine to post “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.” It's worth noting that the word "transgenderism" has long been used by bad actors to purposely misrepresent trans identities as an ideology.
This is part of a larger effort by Meta to become more like the notoriously-thriving social media empire X. Meta just got rid of its fact checkers, in favor of community guidelines, and removed a mention in its Hateful Conduct policy that suggested online rhetoric could “promote offline violence.”
WATCH: “We’re gonna get rid of fact-checkers…”
In what looks almost like a hostage video, Zuckerberg bends the knee to Trump entirely — doing away with Facebook fact-checkers and moving the process to Texas under the guise of protecting free expression. pic.twitter.com/Ox0jeqBDBZ
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been cozying up to Donald Trump. He’s been busy pumping money into Trump’s inauguration fund, flying down to Mar-a-Lago for chats, replacing Meta’s longtime policy chief Nick Clegg with a former George W. Bush aide and appointing UFC CEO (and Trump booster) Dana White to the company’s board.
Zuckerberg went as far as to explicitly indicate that many of the above changes were made because Donald Trump won the presidential election, calling it “a cultural tipping point.” He also called third-party fact checkers “too politically biased” and suggested that many of Europe’s laws against hate speech promoted censorship and make it “difficult to build anything innovative there.” Remember when he was going to fight Elon Musk? It looks like Zuckerberg just lost via submission to our new First Buddy without ever entering the ring.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/instagram-blocked-lgbtq-hashtags-and-treated-them-as-sexually-suggestive-content-200808209.html?src=rss
When suspicion began to mount that the young prosecutor, Yujin Choi, might have faked her sexual misconduct allegations against a Denver District Attorney's Office colleague, investigators asked to examine Choi's laptop and cell phone. But just before Choi was to have turned them in, her devices suffered a series of unlikely accidents.
First, she said, she managed to drop her phone into a filled bathtub. When she pulled the phone out of the water and found it was not working, Choi went to her laptop in order to make a video call. When the call ended, Choi then knocked over a bottle of water—whoops!—directly onto the computer, which was also taken out of commission. So, when the day came to hand in her devices, neither was working.
"I’m devastated that I may have tanked the investigation on my own, but that I also lost all of my personal data that were very important to me," Choi wrote to investigators. She had even, she added, gone to the local Apple Store in an attempt to retrieve the data on the devices. No luck.
