NASA hit a major milestone with the over the weekend. After completing hundreds of steps with painstaking precision, the telescope has been fully deployed. It’s still on the way to its final destination, but NASA has confirmed it’ll be doing science for a long time. NASA finished running the numbers, and its perfect launch means Webb . Last week, NASA reported that it had finished unfurling the observatory’s massive sunshield. This past weekend, the agency confirmed the primary mirror’s wings swung into place to complete the deployment. And that’s it — Webb is now in its final operation conformation.
For the third year in a row gamers and press from around the world will not be flocking to Los Angeles to check out the latest the gaming industry has to offer at the annual E3 gaming expo, due to the fact that there is still a pandemic raging across the country at this time. Instead, the event will be online-only, just like almost every other big name conference has been since the pandemic began. Although the larger Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was in-person just last week, that’s only because it was planned prior to Omicron arriving, causing most big name companies to pull out at the last minute, and hardly anyone to actually attend in-person, which is surely something the E3 organizers are hoping to avoid.
Regulators and the airlines are zeroing in on a compromise that will allow AT&T and Verizon to light up their mid-band 5G networks. These vital wireless bands were supposed to be online late last year, but the FAA expressed concern that the “C-band” frequencies could interfere with aviation. The carriers have , but we now expect the new network to be live later in January. However, it won’t be active around as potentially vulnerable to 5G interference. This disagreement stretches back almost two years. The FCC warned the aviation industry that it was going to auction C-band frequencies for cellular network usage.
(Photo: Canon)If you buy new Canon printer cartridges anytime soon, chances are they won’t contain a key component: the brand’s widely-hated copy protection chips. The chips, an integral part of Canon’s digital rights management (DRM), are the latest casualty of the global semiconductor shortage. A new on Canon Germany’s website states that the company has chosen to ship out ink cartridges lacking copy protection chips. As the continues to grip countless industries, Canon has struggled to source materials to support its DRM efforts, forcing the brand to reevaluate its priorities in regards to production and sales.
As expected, Nvidia is going ahead with the launch of a 12GB version of its vaunted RTX 3080 graphics card, which is 2GB more than the previous version. Nvidia mildly bumped up some other specs as well, so it’s not just a simple “slap some more memory on that bad boy” scenario, but such a modest upgrade to an existing model is rare in the GPU world. And just like with previous launches in the pandemic, it comes with the asterisk that most people won’t even be able to purchase one, even if they are willing to pay an inflated MSRP for it, making it another GPU launch that elicits more sadness than jubilation.
China made history in 2018 when it landed the Chang’e 4 mission on the lunar surface. The lander deployed a plucky little rover known as Yutu-2, which is still trundling around the far side of the moon—a first for humanity. Late last year, the rover spotted something unusual in the distance: a small square object dubbed the “mystery hut.” The rover approached to get a closer look, and sure enough, . It has a better name now, though. Say hello to the Jade Rabbit. The bizarre object appeared on a photo from Yutu-2 in November 2021. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) said it would spend the next several lunar days getting closer to the object to take a closer look.
(Photo: Mark Konig/Unsplash)With how easy it is to access the latest weather forecast—many of us have our local forecasts pinned to our smartphone home screens or even displayed on our smart thermostats—it would be easy to assume most meteorological predictions are fully automated. As it turns out, this is far from the case. A recent by Wired reveals that while many weather prediction efforts are supported by intricate computer algorithms, humans are still doing a good amount of the legwork. We currently rely on the GOES-16 and -17 satellites (AKA the latest geostationary satellites) as well as the Global Forecasting System (GFS) and European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) models to forecast the weather with more precision than ever before.
It seems like every tech company these days is jumping on the Metaverse bandwagon, but according to noted Apple soothsayer Mark Gurman, Apple will not be one of them. In the latest issue of his Power On newsletter, Gurman dishes on Apple’s plans for its long-rumored Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) headset, which apparently includes a design that will disincentivize users from wearing it for extended periods of time. Whether that includes a construction that simply makes it uncomfortable to wear after several hours, like Crocs, or some sort of software-based timer that tells you to take a break is unclear, but it is notable that Apple seemingly wants no part of Mark Zuckerberg’s futuristic digital fantasy world.
Fans of the original Mavic and Mavic Pro camera drones have waited literally years for their successor. Now that it’s arrived in the form of the Mavic 3, the feature list includes just about everything a drone owner could wish for. But those features come with a much higher price tag ($2,199 for the basic kit, $2,899 for the Fly-more Combo, and a whopping $4.999 for the Cine version). We’ve been flying a Mavic 3 since before its launch, and have plenty to report. All of this comes with the important caveat that several heavily promoted features — some of which were briefly available prior to launch — have been delayed.
