Senior space officials met to “war game” Biden administration space policy

Enlarge / US Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a public memorial service for former astronaut and US Senator John Glenn at Ohio State University on December 17, 2016. (credit: Paul Vernon/AFP via Getty Images) On Tuesday about a dozen space officials met virtually to simulate how a National Space Council might operate during a Joe Biden administration,...

1h

New laptops announced at Acer Next 2020 feature Intel Tiger Lake

Enlarge / Ooo, snazzy. (credit: Acer) Acer announced Intel-powered refreshes of several product lines today at the Acer Next 2020 online event. Notable new or refreshed products include the Swift, Aspire, and Spin general-purpose laptop lines and the high-end ConceptD 7 and Porsche Design laptops. Aspire 5, Spin 3, Spin 5 ...

2h

Hulu brings back that irreverent magic with trailer for Animaniacs reboot

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are back in Hulu’s reboot of the classic Animaniacs cartoon. Readers of a certain age will have fond childhood memories of weekday afternoons spent in the company of the Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, the central figures of the hugely popular, Emmy-award winning animated series, Animaniacs. Now a whole new generation...

12h

New Google Nest Hub experiment nixes the “Hey Google” voice hotword

Here's an interesting experiment Google is kicking around on its smart displays: voice-command input without a hotword. A video detailing the feature is up on YouTube from Jan Boromeusz, a Nest Home hacker who has a proven track record of scoring early smart display features before they get announced. Boromeusz's Nest Hub Max is somehow in "Dogfood"...

13h

NASA reaches out and touches an asteroid 320 million kilometers away

OSIRIS-REx collects samples from asteroid Bennu. NASA scientists confirmed Wednesday that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully made contact with an asteroid a day earlier, touching the surface for six seconds and collecting dust and pebbles from its surface. The spacecraft's performance at the asteroid Bennu, which is only about as wide as the...

14h

Tesla made $331 million profit in Q3 2020

Enlarge (credit: Tesla / Aurich Lawson) On Wednesday, Tesla published its financial results for the third quarter of 2020. The company says it ended Q3 2020 with a GAAP profit of $331 million, the fifth profitable quarter in a row for the US automaker. Encouragingly, despite the pandemic it is a strong improvement on Q3 2019. Tesla ends 2020 Q3...

15h

Twitch blasts streamers with vague, unhelpful DMCA takedown emails

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) Streaming platform Twitch this week surprised many of its users when it sent out a huge batch of copyright takedown emails. These messages not only didn't tell streamers what supposedly infringing content they posted, but it also said Twitch had simply deleted content outright without giving users a...

16h

Quibi streaming service shutting down after less than 1 year

Enlarge / It's not a great tombstone, but... well, we'll just leave it at that. RIP Quibi. (credit: Getty Images / Sam Machkovech) Quibi, the video-streaming service designed to revolve around smartphone screens, is no more, according to The Wall Street Journal. After launching only in April this year, with a $1.75 billion infusion of cash and the...

16h

Trial to deliberately infect people with coronavirus draws mixed reaction

Enlarge / Woman receives an experimental COVID-19 vaccine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA, on September 04, 2020, as part of a clinical trial. (credit: Getty | Boston Globe) Researchers in the United Kingdom plan to begin intentionally infecting a small batch of healthy young people with the novel coronavirus in...

16h

FCC defends helping Trump, claims authority over social media law

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Peter Dazeley) The Federal Communications Commission's top lawyer today explained the FCC's theory of why it can grant President Donald Trump's request for a new interpretation of a law that provides legal protection to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Critics of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's plan from...

18h