(Photo: Lyft)If you’re planning to visit Las Vegas soon, you might be able to hitch a ride to the Strip in a fully electric autonomous vehicle. Lyft has announced that its partnership with Motional, a self-driving vehicle company, is expanding to include electric midsize crossovers. Las Vegas residents and tourists alike can now request a ride in Motional’s , a 5-seater vehicle produced by Hyundai and equipped with Motional’s own self-driving system. The Ioniq 5 has all the flashy features a wide-eyed rideshare app user could want: 18.8 cubic feet of storage space for riders’ luggage, futuristic parametric pixel lights, and the type of auto flush door handles you’d normally see on a Tesla.
(Photo: NASA)Scientists have only recently gotten an , as well as the chance to from them in a lab. Before that, all we had were the remains of asteroids that fell to Earth. But what part of the original space rocks are they? A new study from the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center used advanced computer simulations to figure that out. are seen as an important source of information about the origins of our solar system. The composition of these objects can remain unchanged for billions of years, meanwhile weathering, oxygen exposure, and biological processes have altered everything on Earth.
Microsoft has been testing the 22H2 update for over the past few months, and now multiple sources claim the release is almost upon us. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed its plans, but it sounds like Sept. 20 is the big day. This update will bring a raft of changes to the taskbar, start menu, and more. Big updates like this one often roll out in waves, so you might not be able to get it right away on release day. Once you do get it on your machine, you’ll see many of the features we’ve been salivating over for the past few months.
(Photo: AMD)It’s about that time folks. Get your Phillips head screwdriver out, make sure your thermal paste is handy, and deliver last rights to your old CPU and motherboard. It’s time to make way for AM5, as AMD will be officially announcing its Zen 4 CPUs at the end of August. The company has posted an announcement online for the event, which will be held on Aug. 29. It will feature its CEO Dr. Lisa Su, and CTO Mark Papermaster. It’s been rumored previously that whatever is announced will go on sale two weeks later, around Sept. 15. This should occur roughly two days after the press embargo in reviews is lifted.
NASA has been using the same spaceflight computers for almost 30 years, but it won’t be much longer. The agency has awarded a $50 million contract to Arizona-based Microchip Technology Inc. to “architect, design, and deliver” a next-generation space-optimized processor. NASA expects the new chip, which will be used in future lunar and planetary missions, will be 100 times faster than the chips currently in use. In , he told us the chip powering the robot was no faster than the CPU in a late 90s Mac computer — the phone in your pocket is an order of magnitude more powerful.
Before this decade is out, you might have the option to fly aboard an American Airlines supersonic jet. The airline has announced a deal with Colorado-based Boom Supersonic to purchase at least 20 of its still-in-development Overture supersonic planes. Neither company released specifics of the deal, except to say American Airlines has paid a “non-refundable deposit.” Boom Supersonic has been making waves lately with its promise to bring back supersonic passenger flights. This hasn’t been an option for almost 20 years, not since the Concorde was retired in 2003 due to high costs and the bad publicity from a fiery crash in 2000 that killed all 109 passengers and crew.
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) made history in late 2020 when it from the Hayabusa2 mission. Now, research carried out on the precious bits of rock is being published. Researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science Technology confirm that the bits of asteroid Ryugu collected by the probe represent “undoubtedly among the most uncontaminated Solar System materials available for laboratory study.” Hayabusa2 made history during its mission, and not just at the end. It arrived in orbit of Ryugu in 2018, and soon after . This returned some incredible images and preliminary data on the nature of the asteroid’s surface.
Pre-launch preparations for NASA’s Artemis 1 mission are going very well. So well, in fact, that the agency has pulled their Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s launch date up ahead of schedule. In a blog update, NASA announced that the Orion spacecraft will roll out to its launch pad two days early. Artemis 1 is NASA’s first lunar mission since LADEE in 2013 – 2014 and the agency’s first step to putting boots back on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972. It has two major goals: to build an Artemis Base Camp on the surface of the moon, and a Gateway in lunar orbit.
After making an appearance at CES in January, Samsung’s latest and greatest gaming monitor is available for pre-order today, but it’s far from an impulse purchase. The Odyssey Ark is a 55-inch gaming monitor with every feature you’d expect and several you would not, and it breaks the bank at $3,500. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a monitor that takes gaming more seriously. The Odyssey Ark sports a 1000R curved screen, which by itself is not new. However, at 55 inches, the curve does reportedly fill your peripheral vision. It supports HDR 10+ with up to 1,500 nits of brightness, which is extremely high for such a large screen.
