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Watch SpaceX’s last Falcon 9 rocket launch for 2017
SpaceX is launching its last mission of 2017 later today, with a planned launch window of 5:27 PM PST (8:27 PM EST). The mission is for client Iridium, and will send a fourth set of 10 satellites into low Earth orbit for Iridium’s NEXT constellation, which will eventually consist of 75 satellites launched by SpaceX in total. SpaceX is launching the Falcon 9 for Iridium-4 from… Read More
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Laser-equipped shoes help Parkinson’s patients take the next step
Here’s an unexpected but pleasant little way tech might be able to improve a few lives: laser shoes. Yes, seriously. Shoes equipped with small laser emitters were shown in recent tests to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease to walk normally. Read More
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This humanoid robot works out (and sweats) like we do (or should)
There are plenty of humanoid-looking robots out there, but very few actually have bodies that are particularly analogous to our own when it comes to moving and interacting with the environment. Japanese researchers are working to remedy that with a robot designed specifically to mimic not just human movements but the way humans actually accomplish those movements. Oh, and it sweats. Read More
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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket sets up at Cape Canaveral ahead of launch
SpaceX won’t hit its 2017 target for a test flight of its new, huge Falcon Heavy rocket – but the massive launch craft is now in place at Cape Canaveral in Florida, where it will undergo testing including a full static test fire, as well as final assembly, before attempting its inaugural launch early next year. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared images of the Falcon Heavy set up in a… Read More
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Bio-programming toolkit maker Asimov launches with $4.7M from Andreessen Horowitz
Biotech is one of today’s many hot tech frontiers, but one thing holding it back is that it’s significantly less amenable to traditional computing techniques than other areas. A new startup is working on bridging the gap between the digital and the biological by creating a set of computer-aided biology design tools. It’s a prescient enough idea that it has attracted $4.7… Read More
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Google’s Tacotron 2 simplifies the process of teaching an AI to speak
Creating convincing artificial speech is a hot pursuit right now, with Google arguably in the lead. The company may have leapt ahead again with the announcement today of Tacotron 2, a new method for training a neural network to produce realistic speech from text that requires almost no grammatical expertise. Read More
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NASA engineers stare at the sun to see shockwaves from supersonic flight
Before the eclipse this summer, NASA warned us over and over again not to stare directly at the sun — but now they’re doing just that. Its researchers have reinvented a photography technique more than a century old, using the sun itself as a backdrop in order to capture the shockwave produced by a new supersonic jet. Read More
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World View’s high-altitude Stratollite balloons capture some great images
Pioneering near-space company World View is showing off what its so-called ‘stratollite’ balloons can do with a simple, off-the-shelf imaging sensor and a view of Earth from between 65,000 and 75,000 feet up. The company is hoping to use its ultra high-altitude balloons in a variety of commercial applications, including real-time image capture, and so it sent up one of its balloons… Read More
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Carnegie Mellon’s ‘Superhuman AI’ bests leading Texas Hold’em poker pros
A new paper published by Science today details how Libratus, an AI developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s computer science department, managed to take on and defeat top industry professionals at one of the most challenging forms of poker: No-limit Texas Hold’em. Yes, the same variant of poker that swept the nation during the heady days of the early to mid-aughts. This is… Read More
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SpaceX launches a reused Dragon atop a reused Falcon 9 for the first time
SpaceX has moved one step closer to its dream of affordable, efficient reusable space flight: Today for its CRS-13 resupply mission for the International Space Station it managed to launch a previously flown Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket with a flight-proven first stage booster. That’s the first time it’s flown both types of reused equipment at the same time. The… Read More
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Google AI helped find the first solar system outside our own with 8 planets
Google and NASA today announced the discovery of a new planet in solar system Kepler 90, achieved using machine learning. By applying neural networking to Kepler data, scientists have found, for the first time, an eighth planet in the Kepler-90 system – this ties the Kepler-90 system with our own system for the most planets in any known system. Kepler-90 i is the new planet discovered… Read More
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Observation of interstellar object ‘Oumuamua shows no evidence of artificial signals
You may recall that last week, researchers from the Breakthrough Initiatives set out a plan to observe ‘Oumuamua, an object thought to be from an another star system. Based on its shape and density — it’s about 800 meters long and only 80 meters wide, and appears to be more solid than your average asteroid — scientists believed there was a very small chance that it… Read More
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Genalyte hires Facebook and Google exec Kevin Lo as company president
Khosla-backed one drop blood test startup Genalyte has hired former Facebook exec Kevin Lo as president of the company. Lo comes to Genalyte after leading “connectivity efforts” at Facebook “for the four billion people not online, and the 1.5B under-served who use the Internet at ‘2G’ speeds,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, Lo worked for… Read More
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Ginkgo Bioworks secures $275 million in Series D, valuing the company at over $1 billion
Boston biotech startup Ginkgo Bioworks has announced the raise of $275 million in Series D funding to build out its Bioworks3 production facility. The funding comes from previous investors Viking Global, Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, Cascade Investment, Bill Gates, as well as new investor, General Atlantic. The company previously raised over $154 million, bringing the total up to… Read More
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ispace just raised $90 million to launch two private moon missions by 2020
Japanese company ispace has raised $90.2 million in a Series A funding round, an amount it’s calling the “largest ever” Series A in commercial space financing. The funding comes from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Development Bank of Japan, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Konika Minolta and others, and will help the company continue its progress towards a very… Read More
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Scientists make kale plants glow in the dark with firefly enzymes
A team of MIT research have engineered plants that glow in the dark, using luciferase, the enzyme that lights up firefly butts. The answer to the question of why, precisely, anyone would want to do such a thing is clearly, “because science is cool.” The longer and slightly more boring answer, however, has to do with energy savings. Thus far, the scientists have only been able… Read More
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Blue Origin flies its Crew Capsule 2.0 for the first time
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin recorded a new milestone today – an inaugural flight for Crew Capsule 2.0, the latest version of the vehicle it’s creating to bring astronauts into space for its first passenger flights. The Crew Capsule 2.0 craft flew atop a New Shepard reusable booster, traveling up to an altitude of over 322,000 feet. The New Shepard rocket, which… Read More
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Watch SpaceX launch a reflown ship on a reflown rocket live here
UPDATE 2: The launch has been postponed until at least December 15 while SpaceX ensures successful status across all preflight checks. Taking additional time for the team to conduct full inspections and cleanings due to detection of particles in 2nd stage fuel system. Now targeting CRS-13 launch from SLC-40 on Dec. 15. Next launch opportunity would be no earlier than late… Read More
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‘Oumuamua, an interstellar space oddity, is Breakthrough Listen’s next challenge
Right now, an interstellar object dubbed ‘Oumuamua is hurtling through space on its way out of our solar system. I say ‘interstellar object’ because there is a shadow of a doubt about whether or not this object was formed naturally. Moreover, it’s the first object to fly through our solar system that is believed to have originated in another star system. Its shape… Read More
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Watch Ultrahaptics use ultrasound to let you feel imaginary objects
Ultrahaptics lets you touch what you see in virtual and augmented reality, or even give a 2D poster 3D feeling. It uses small speaker-like ultrasound wave emitters to give the sensation of pressure and texture when you’re just waving your hands in the open air. Ultrahaptics CTO Tom Carter demoed the technology onstage today at TechCrunch’s Disrupt Berlin conference. Read More
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