Monthly Archives: August 2016

SpaceX finds a customer for its first reused rocket, satellite operator SES

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Enlarge / SpaceX landed its latest booster on August 13, after the JCSAT-16 mission. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX has been running out of room in its facilities in Florida as it lands rockets by sea and air, so it would like to begin reusing some of these first-stage Falcon boosters as soon as possible. The first step was finding a customer, and now SpaceX has done that. The Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES said Tuesday that it intends to launch a geostationary satellite, SES-10, on a reusable rocket in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Having been the first commercial satellite operator to launch with SpaceX back in 2013, we are excited to once again be the first customer to launch on SpaceX’s first ever mission using a flight-proven rocket,” said Martin Halliwell, Chief Technology Officer at SES. “We believe reusable rockets will open up a new era of spaceflight and make access to space more efficient in terms of cost and manifest management.”

SpaceX has not yet specified how much it will charge for launch services on one of its flown boosters, but industry officials anticipate about a 30 percent discount on SpaceX’s regular price of $62 million for a Falcon 9 launch. The company has not shared how much it is spending to refurbish and reuse a Falcon 9 stage, nor has it offered much public information about the extent to which the vehicle’s engines have had to be tested and prepared for a second flight.

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Source: Ars Technica – SpaceX finds a customer for its first reused rocket, satellite operator SES

Verizon Rolls Out 50 Percent Faster LTE Advanced Network Across 461 U.S. Cities

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Verizon Rolls Out 50 Percent Faster LTE Advanced Network Across 461 U.S. Cities
Verizon just launched LTE Advanced technology to bring 50% faster peak wireless data speeds. This launch includes 288 million people in 461 cities across the United States. Customers will be able to experience faster music, video, gaming, and VR streaming.

How does Verizon’s LTE Advanced work? Verizon utilizes software that combines two

Source: Hot Hardware – Verizon Rolls Out 50 Percent Faster LTE Advanced Network Across 461 U.S. Cities

MIT Researchers Found a Way to Make Pesticides Stick to Plants

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When farmers spray their crops with pesticides and other treatments to help ensure their survival, 98 percent of those chemicals bounce right off the plants and end up in the groundwater as pollution. It’s a waste, and harmful to the environment, so researchers at MIT came up with a cheap but effective way to instead make those chemicals stick to crops.

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Source: Gizmodo – MIT Researchers Found a Way to Make Pesticides Stick to Plants

FairWare Ransomware Strikes Linux Systems, Deletes Files, Demands Bitcoin Payment

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FairWare Ransomware Strikes Linux Systems, Deletes Files, Demands Bitcoin Payment
If you operate a Web server that runs on Linux, we’re here to give you a bit of a prod in case you haven’t updated it in a while. A piece of ransomware called FairWare is floating around, and as you’ll soon see, its name is ironic as it’s anything but “fair”.

Reports are coming in of users who have been struck with this awful type of malware,

Source: Hot Hardware – FairWare Ransomware Strikes Linux Systems, Deletes Files, Demands Bitcoin Payment

Tablet Sales Aren’t Expected To Rebound Globally Until 2018 Says IDC

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Tablet Sales Aren’t Expected To Rebound Globally Until 2018 Says IDC
2016 has not been a great year for tablets, but experts predict that tablets sales will perk up by 2018. Tablet sales have been down 11.5% this year and “only” 183.4 million units have been shipped. Many experts, however, expect that tablet sales will begin to increase in 2018 and reach 194.2 million shipments by 2020.

Why is the tablet

Source: Hot Hardware – Tablet Sales Aren’t Expected To Rebound Globally Until 2018 Says IDC

Watch a High-Powered Cleaning Laser Annihilate Everything in Its Path

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The next time you’re staring down a tough cleaning job—be it removing paint, rust, or lasagna off of a baking dish—don’t waste your time with harsh chemicals, sand paper, or scrubbers. Get yourself a 1,000-watt laser and blast away that filth and grime in just seconds.

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Source: Gizmodo – Watch a High-Powered Cleaning Laser Annihilate Everything in Its Path

$479 Dell Inspiron Intel Core i5 15.6" Laptop, $5 Amazon Credit With Gift Card Reload, And More

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$479 Dell Inspiron Intel Core i5 15.6
Welcome back for the latest installment of HOT deals, direct from our friends at TechBargains. On tap for you all today, we have deals on a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Intel Core i5-6200U based notebook, a Vizio SmartCast E55-D0 55″ 1080p LED LCD Smart HDTV, a Belkin 3-Outlet Mini Charger Surge Protector, and more. Full details for all of today’s

Source: Hot Hardware – 9 Dell Inspiron Intel Core i5 15.6″ Laptop, Amazon Credit With Gift Card Reload, And More

Needy robot babies are annoying and creepy, but ineffective birth control

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Enlarge / A virtual baby identical to those used in the study (credit: Australian Science Media Centre)

Babies can be a drag. Their utter helplessness and disappointing lack of communication skills often leaves new parents sleep-deprived and playing frantic guessing games amid ear-piercing cries (mostly from the baby). Such exhausting pains of parenthood should be enough to deter any unprepared teen from getting frisky too early—or so the makers of an infant simulator called “Baby Think It Over” seemed to think. But those makers may have their own reconsidering to do.

The life-like dolls are needy and a bit creepy to boot, but completely lousy at deterring teens from getting pregnant, according to the first randomized, controlled trial on the popular sex education tool. In fact, the study, involving more than 2,800 Australian girls between the ages of 13 and 15, actually hinted that the dolls may increase the risk of teen pregnancy.

Of the 1,267 teens that had to care for, burp, change, and feed the robot babies over a weekend, 17 percent (or 210 girls) had at least one pregnancy by the age of 20. That’s a slight jump from pregnancy rate of the 1,567 girls in the control group, who received a standard school curriculum on sex education and parenting. Their pregnancy rate was just 11 percent (or 168 girls).

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Source: Ars Technica – Needy robot babies are annoying and creepy, but ineffective birth control

Tackle Your DIY Projects With This Compact Cordless Dremel, Now just $69

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You might not need to use a Dremel all that often, but it’s one of those things everyone should keep in their tool box, if only for sanding wood and carving jack-o-lanterns, and this compact battery-operated model is marked down to $69 today on Amazon. There are cheaper corded models out there, but this thing is small enough for one-handed use, and it even comes with a docking station to keep the battery topped off.

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Source: LifeHacker – Tackle Your DIY Projects With This Compact Cordless Dremel, Now just