Day: January 30, 2017

Boeing’s New Space Suit Is Straight Outta SciFi

After years of lumpy and Tron-esque spacesuit concepts, we’re finally getting closer to the slick beautiful designs proposed way back in the ’60s. The recently released Boeing spacesuit is designed as a model for what NASA astronauts aboard the proposed Boeing Starliner spacecraft would wear on their 2018 trip to the International Space Station.  Even fully loaded with tools and accessories this iteration would shave off more than 10 pounds compared with the current gear, and it would offer several notable improvements. Chief among them is the absolutely striking similarity to the suits worn in 2001: A Space Oddssey . SpaceX has been doing some cool stuff and all, but as far as I’m concerned, NOW we’re ready to start talking about space exploration.   Former astronaut Chris Ferguson modeling the Starliner suit (2017) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) The Boeing suit weighs in at just 20 pounds with tons of streamlined fit advances like zippered joints and lighter ergonomic materials. Thinner gloves with conductive tips would help with fine motor movement and connectivity. The helmet seems like a gentle nod to earlier Apollo days, while the lighter grippier boots were developed with Reebok for fancier (and decidedly modern) footwork.  There’s more to a successful space flight than dope gear, but the level of elegance and flexibility in this suit is thrilling. Not to put too fine a point on it, but SpaceX still has a lot to beat in the private space race. Former astronaut Chris Ferguson modeling the Starliner suit

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Boeing’s New Space Suit Is Straight Outta SciFi

Some of Earth’s oxygen escapes to the moon every month

The Earth and the moon share more than an orbit around the Sun. Turns out that bits of atmosphere manage to travel the 240, 000 miles out to our nearest celestial neighbor, and have been for more than 2 billion years, according to data gathered by Japan’s moon-orbiting Kaguya spacecraft. In a study published on Monday to the journal Nature Astronomy , planetary scientist Kentaro Terada of Osaka University observes that ionized oxygen particles escape from the upper atmosphere for five days every month to bombard the surface of the moon. Terada’s data suggests that oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere are first ionized by ultraviolet light and then accelerated into the magnetosphere , the planet’s magnetic envelope. The magnetosphere extends more than 370, 000 miles away from the Sun, fully enveloping the moon’s own orbit around the Earth. For five days every month when the moon passes through the magnetosphere, it is blasted with these ionized particles. The Osaka University team estimates that every square centimeter of the moon’s exposed surface is struck by approximately 26, 000 oxygen ions every second over the five day period. While this isn’t enough for the moon to develop a breathable atmosphere of its own, this discovery suggests that the moon’s surface could hold clues to Earth’s ancient atmosphere — much like ice cores being dug out of the Greenland and Antarctic permafrost. Source: Science News

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Some of Earth’s oxygen escapes to the moon every month

These Ultra Close-Up Images of Saturn’s Rings Are Mind-Blowing

Though NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is sadly nearing the end of its mission, the brave li’l orbiter is putting on quite the grand finale . Cassini, which is currently in its ring-grazing phase around Saturn, has just sent back some stunning images of the gas giant’s many rings. Read more…

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These Ultra Close-Up Images of Saturn’s Rings Are Mind-Blowing

Netflix project lets you mind-control its interface

Netflix’s developers are at it again , using the company’s annual Hack Day to come up with clever, if sometimes wild, ideas on how to improve the streaming service. This year’s crop of hacks mostly focus on intriguing Stranger Things integrations, but the most interesting result is one named MindFlix, that lets you navigate and control Netflix with your mind. In a video demonstrating MindFlix , the team showed how you can, with a Muse EEG-detecting headband strapped on, move your head up and down or side to side to scroll vertically and horizontally through Netflix’s interface. Then, when you’ve landed on a title you like, just think of the word or action “Play.” This worked in the clip, with the test subject happily proclaiming that he never had to move again. Of course, whether it works as well in real life can’t be determined, but if it does, it could make Netflix binging far more enjoyable. Other Hack Day Winter 2017 projects run the gamut from noble to somewhat sinister. Netflix For Good lets viewers donate to related or well-known charity organizations after watching a socially conscious video, while Picture-in-Picture lets you monitor what other profiles in your account are watching at the same time. There doesn’t appear to be plans to make these implementations widely available. In fact, Netflix states in a blog post that “they may never become part of the Netflix product, internal infrastructure, or otherwise be used beyond Hack Day.” Still, though, we can always hope that Netflix puts out the instructions on how to make these real, as it did for the sleep-detecting socks that pause your videos for you. Via: Variety Source: Netflix

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Netflix project lets you mind-control its interface

Install a Windowed GNU/Linux Environment On Any Android Device With This Guide

Android’s designed largely for mobile users, but since it has Linux at its core, it can work with a desktop environment as well. If you’ve ever wanted a Linux-style GNU workspace for Android, this guide from XDA can show you how. Read more…

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Install a Windowed GNU/Linux Environment On Any Android Device With This Guide

Interactive map of every satellite in orbit

David Yanofsky and Tim Fernholz created an interactive chart showing the weight, national origin and position of more than 1,300 active satellites orbiting the planet Earth. The data was sourced from the Union of Concerned Scientists . It goes out in bands: there’s a cloud in low-earth orbit bulked up with the International Sapce Station and surveillance satellites. Satellite phone networks such as Iridium and Globalstar form conspicuous rings about 800 and 1500 km up. 20km up are the navigation networks GPS and Glonass. 37km up is a mess, with so many geostationary satellites clustered together that they become a rainbow blur in the graphic.

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Interactive map of every satellite in orbit

The world’s biggest telescope needs half a billion dollars more

GMTO It has been a long road for planners of the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will become the world’s largest telescope—if it’s completed on schedule. Casting of the first of seven mirrors, each formed from about 20 tons of borosilicate glass made from Florida sand, began way back in 2005. The project seems to finally be closing in on first light as the team amps up fundraising and construction efforts. The organizers of the telescope are gearing up for fundraising needed to bring the project to completion and have hired a new president with significant executive experience: Robert N. Shelton, a former president of the University of Arizona and provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Anyone who has been a president and a provost understands the importance of fundraising,” Shelton told Ars in an interview. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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The world’s biggest telescope needs half a billion dollars more

Resident Evil 7’s Denuvo protections cracked in under a week

Enlarge / Imagine these in-game bars are Denuvo copy protection, and CPY is the shotgun that can bust open the lock. A cracked PC version of Denuvo-protected Resident Evil 7 appeared online over the weekend, offered up by hacking collective CPY less than a week after its January 24 release. The crack marks a new low-water mark for the effectiveness of Denuvo’s DRM protection, which just a year ago was considered so unbreakable that major cracking group 3DM took a public break from even attempting to crack Denuvo-protected games. Since then, though, over 20 Denuvo-protected games have been cracked or bypassed by 3DM, CPY, and other groups, starting with Doom and Rise of the Tomb Raider last summer . The Resident Evil 7 crack, in particular, is notable for how quickly it came after the game’s legitimate release. Denuvo copy-protection relies on specific triggers inserted into the executable game code, and those triggers are placed differently in each protected game. This makes it hard to release any sort of generalized tool that will quickly crack all Denuvo-protected games. Instead, the Denuvo cracking process can require a lot of nitty-gritty manual searching through game data for each individual title. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Resident Evil 7’s Denuvo protections cracked in under a week

Dropbox SmartSync lets you collaborate across Mac and Windows PCs

Last year, Dropbox introduced an interesting new feature called Project Infinite , which promised to let you view and access all of your files, whether they’re on your hard drive or in the cloud. The idea here is that all your files will appear right there in your desktop, and you can view and make changes to them without having to launch Dropbox’s web interface. Several months later and Project Infinite has left its beta state. Now, it’s called SmartSync, and it’ll be available to all Dropbox Business users starting today. A particularly useful highlight of SmartSync is that it’ll work on both Windows and Mac (backwards compatible with Windows 7 and up, or Mac OS X 10.9 and higher). Rob Baesman, Dropbox’s head of product, says that this cross-platform and backwards compatible system is an “industry first.” “You’re free to collaborate with whoever you want, ” he said. “You don’t have to think about space the same way you did in the past.” Another Dropbox product that’s finally making its public debut is Paper , which has been in beta for almost two years. A Google Docs replacement of sorts, Paper is touted as an online collaboration tool with several other office-centric features thrown in. You can create a to-do list and assign them to team members, set due dates, organize content by projects, and of course do all the usual writing and editing too. A few months ago, Dropbox released mobile app versions of Paper for Android and iOS , which lets you do all of this on-the-go. As part of its general launch, Dropbox is introducing a few new features to Paper too. There’s Presentation Mode, a “Smart Meeting Notes” feature that sends everyone at a meeting the same document (provided you hooked Paper up to your Google Calendar), plus general usability improvements like improved search and better accessibility for screen readers. The company is also working on mobile offline capability in the coming months. While SmartSync won’t be available to general users just yet, Paper is open to everyone with a Dropbox account starting today. It’ll be available in 21 different languages.

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Dropbox SmartSync lets you collaborate across Mac and Windows PCs

Laser cutter fumes suspected in deaths of California couple, cats

A young couple and two cats found dead in their Berkeley, Calif., apartment may have been overcome by fumes vented from a 3D printer , reports CBS News . 35-year-old Roger Morash and 32-year-old Valerie Morash were discovered in the morning by a visitor. The source said that the couple was using a laser 3-D printer that was venting into their residence. Symptoms and signs consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning were found in their bodies. Police evacuated the apartment building and called in PG&E and the fire department’s hazardous materials team to look for a gas leak or some other hazard but no contaminant was found. There’s some alarm online about the identification of a 3D printer as generating carbon monoxide (the fine particles are a known risk) . The source probably misidentified a another kind of machine such as a CNC or laser cutter. There’s a crowdfunding effort underway to support the victims’ families; SFGate reports that a memorial for the Morashes was held Saturday .

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Laser cutter fumes suspected in deaths of California couple, cats