Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Tech

How to watch NASA’s Artemis II splash back down to Earth

Published

on

NASA’s Artemis II crew of four astronauts from the United States and Canada are set to return to Earth on Friday after their historic trip to the far side of the moon.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen have spent 10 days aboard the Orion spacecraft. They are expected to begin re-entry at 7:33 p.m. ET with a splashdown of 8:07 p.m.

NASA has a live feed for when the crew lands in the Pacific Ocean later today. The Orion spacecraft is expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego, California.

Advertisement

The Artemis II mission marks the first time humans have ventured to the moon’s orbit in more than 50 years. The crew traveled farther from Earth than any humans have before, reaching an estimated 252,760 miles from our planet. That’s the same distance as traveling between New York City and Los Angeles around 100 times, only the astronauts are inside a capsule with 330 cubic feet of habitable space, which is about the size of two minivans.

The objective of the Artemis II mission is to collect data and insights that will help NASA prepare for future lunar missions and landings — the astronauts put the Orion spacecraft through planned tests to evaluate how it performs with a crew in deep space. This involves testing communication systems with colleagues on Earth, making trajectory adjustments, and making a safe re-entry and splashdown.

The splashdown could be one of the most dangerous moments of the whole mission. On the Artemis I mission in 2022, which did not have a crew, Orion’s protective heat shield was unexpectedly damaged upon its return to Earth. The heat shield is made of AVCOAT — a material designed to slowly dissipate and protect the crew from temperatures approaching 5,000 degrees as it penetrates Earth’s atmosphere — but the shield was charred and cracking in places, which was not supposed to happen.

If humans had been aboard Artemis I, they would’ve still returned safely, NASA said. The agency has also conducted extensive research on how the heat shield was damaged in the first place. Still, the heat shield remains top of mind as people around the world hope to see these four astronauts return safely.

Advertisement

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Advertisement

The crew left Earth on April 1, and the astronauts quickly encountered some mundane mishaps, including issues with Microsoft Office and their toilet. But these early moments were easily overshadowed by the wonder of the images and information that the crew sent back from the moon. You can already see new photos from the lunar flyby on the dark side of the moon.

The astronauts also named new craters, including one that was named after mission commander Wiseman’s late wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020 at age 46.

The crew was also able to witness a total solar eclipse from just a few thousand miles away from the moon, a unique vantage point that no astronaut had experienced before.

“It wasn’t just an eclipse with the Sun hidden behind the Moon,” Koch, the crew’s mission specialist, explained. “We could also see earthshine, the Sun’s light reflecting off Earth, wrapping the Moon in a soft, borrowed glow.”

Advertisement

The rest of the live broadcast is streaming here.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Tech

Zuvi ColorBox Review: A Hair Dye Printer That Struggles

Published

on

I will say that I think this product could be neat in a few scenarios. If you like to dye your own extensions, or you continually change the color of a streak and don’t need to buy oodles of full-size dye containers, or you’re a parent with kids that are always dip-dying their bleached ends, then it might make sense. And the resulting product does smell good. I also like the included container that lets you store leftover dye. If you’re specifically seeking washed-out, pastel tones, I still think you should just … get some hair dye and dilute it with conditioner.

Image may contain Cecil Kishimoto Text Adult Person Face and Head

ScreenshotZuvi app via Louryn Strampe

In the end, based on my assessment, the product fails to do its job. And even if this improves—even if eventually, you can get a black pigment to help darken the shades, or Zuvi moves from using primary colors to using cyan, magenta, and yellow, or the company starts making the process of bleaching your hair at home easier, or the use of generative AI stops and Zuvi starts actually standing behind its own results … at the end of the day, you’re still left with a proprietary machine that uses proprietary cartridges, all of which will become paperweights if the company folds.

I’ve combed through every single result I can find of other reviews on the Internet. I’m not a licensed cosmetologist, but I have been coloring my own hair for around 20 years, and I have yet to see a result that’s more impressive than one the user could have achieved for less money from their local beauty supply. Semipermanent fashion dyes are available in hundreds and hundreds of shades, all of which can be mixed together. It may take some trial and error to dial in your perfect pink or blue or red, but it can be done without a machine. Your local beauty supply store likely has an associate who’s been dyeing their own hair for decades and would be happy to point you in the right direction. And respectfully, if you can’t figure out color theory or add conditioner little by little to dilute your own dye, perhaps you should go to a professional and save yourself the trouble of doing it incorrectly. The Zuvi ColorBox adds more guesswork instead of taking it away.

While I do like the initial low price, color corrections from a professional are very expensive, and the refill cartridges from Zuvi (around $22 each) could easily cost the same amount as the supplies would for dyeing your hair with products from the local beauty supply, especially if your hair is long, thick, and/or curly. And I like the idea of reducing leftover dye waste, but again, you don’t need to buy a gadget for that.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

Anthropic temporarily banned OpenClaw’s creator from accessing Claude

Published

on

“Yeah folks, it’s gonna be harder in the future to ensure OpenClaw still works with Anthropic models,” OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger posted on X early Friday morning, along with a photo of a message from Anthropic saying his account had been suspended over “suspicious” activity.

The ban didn’t last long. A few hours later, after the post went viral, Steinberger said his account had been reinstated. Among hundreds of comments — many of them in conspiracy theory land, given that Steinberger is now employed by Anthropic rival OpenAI — was one by an Anthropic engineer. The engineer told the famed developer that Anthropic has never banned anyone for using OpenClaw and offered to help.

It’s not clear if that was the key that restored the account. (We’ve asked Anthropic about it.) But the whole message string was enlightening on many levels.

To recap the recent history: This ban followed news last week that subscriptions to Anthropic’s Claude would no longer cover “third-party harnesses including OpenClaw,” the AI model company said.

Advertisement

OpenClaw users now have to pay for that usage separately, based on consumption, through Claude’s API. In essence, Anthropic, which offers its own agent, Cowork, is now charging a “claw tax.” Steinberger said he was following this new rule and using his API but was banned anyway.

Anthropic said it instituted the pricing change because subscriptions weren’t built to handle the “usage patterns” of claws. Claws can be more compute-intensive than prompts or simple scripts because they may run continuous reasoning loops, automatically repeat or retry tasks, and tie into a lot of other third-party tools.

Steinberger, however, wasn’t buying that excuse. After Anthropic changed the pricing, he posted, “Funny how timings match up, first they copy some popular features into their closed harness, then they lock out open source.” Though he didn’t specify, he may have been referring to features added to Claude’s Cowork agent, such as Claude Dispatch, which lets users remotely control agents and assign tasks. Dispatch rolled out a couple of weeks before Anthropic changed its OpenClaw pricing policy.

Steinberger’s frustration with Anthropic was again on display Friday.

Advertisement

One person implied that some of this is on him for taking a job at OpenAI instead of Anthropic, posting, “You had the choice, but you went to the wrong one.” To which Steinberger replied: “One welcomed me, one sent legal threats.”

Ouch.

When multiple people asked him why he’s using Claude instead of his employer’s models at all, he explained that he only uses it for testing, to ensure updates to OpenClaw won’t break things for Claude users.

He explained: “You need to separate two things. My work at the OpenClaw Foundation where we wanna make OpenClaw work great for *any* model provider, and my job at OpenAI to help them with future product strategy.”

Advertisement

Multiple people also pointed out that the need to test Claude is because that model remains a popular choice for OpenClaw users over ChatGPT. He also heard that when Anthropic changed its pricing, to which he replied: “Working on that.” (So, that’s a clue about what his job at OpenAI entails.)

Steinberger did not respond to a request for comment.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

Some Mac Studio, Mac mini configurations are not available from Apple online

Published

on

Some configurations of Mac mini and Mac Studio aren’t available in Apple’s online store. It’s an indicator that a desktop Mac refresh is on the way.

Silver Mac Studio desktop computer on a desk below a monitor, with front ports visible, next to a red smart speaker and other tech accessories against a colorful brick wall background
Mac Studio

So far, Apple’s updates to bring its products up to the M5 chip generation has involved portable products, like the MacBook Pro. While the world waits for desktop Macs to get the same treatment, it seems that Apple is preparing for its own product launches.
Customers attempting to buy some models of Mac mini and Mac Studio from the online Apple Store in the United States are seeing some configurations marked as “Currently Unavailable.” Spotted by 9to5Mac, some listings are showing extremely long lead times or are outright unavailable.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

The AI RAM Shortage is Also Driving Up SSD Prices

Published

on

In 2024 the Verge’s consumer tech reporter paid $173 for a WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD. But “now that same SSD costs $649…”

“Like with RAM, demand from the AI industry is swallowing up supply from a limited number of manufacturers, leading to a drastic reduction in the inventory that’s available to consumers” — and skyrocketing prices:

The price on my WD Black drive nearly quadrupled since November 2025, and consumer SSDs across the board are seeing similar increases, much like with RAM. The 4TB version of the popular Samsung 990 Pro SSD previously cost $320, but will now run you nearly $1,000. External SanDisk SSDs saw a 200 percent price hike at the Apple Store in March….

According to price trends from PC Part Picker, NVMe SSD prices began ticking upward in December 2025, with prices on 256GB to 4TB SSDs now double or triple what they were just a few months ago, and continuing to climb.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

DJI ‘confirms’ the Osmo Pocket 4 with a tempting teaser

Published

on

DJI has all but confirmed that the Osmo Pocket 4 will be unveiled later this month, and we can’t wait.

launch event is scheduled for April 16 at 12PM GMT. The company’s teasers also suggest this will be a global release, rather than a China-only debut.

The Osmo Pocket 4 has been a long time coming. Early references to the device date back to mid-2025.

There were multiple sightings of test units surfacing in the months that followed. It’s expected to replace the popular Osmo Pocket 3. That camera helped cement DJI’s position in the compact vlogging camera space.

Advertisement

While DJI hasn’t shared full specifications yet, early details point to a meaningful upgrade rather than a minor refresh.

Advertisement

The Osmo Pocket 4 is expected to feature improved camera hardware. In addition, it should have better subject tracking and built-in storage, which could make it a more self-contained option for creators on the go.

Advertisement

There have also been rumours of a more advanced “Pro” variant, though DJI has yet to acknowledge its existence. For now, the company is keeping the focus firmly on the standard Osmo Pocket 4 ahead of its official reveal.

If the leaks hold up, pricing is expected to land at around $499 in the US, putting it in line with its predecessor. That would position it as a competitive option for vloggers. It will appeal to those looking for a compact, stabilised camera without stepping up to larger mirrorless setups.

Reaction online has been quick, and in some cases, already looking ahead. Some users welcomed the long-awaited announcement but noted that attention may soon shift to a rumoured Pro version. Others pointed to teaser imagery that might hint at a dual-lens design, fuelling speculation that DJI could expand the Pocket range further.

There’s also a knock-on effect for the current model. Several users mentioned snapping up discounted Pocket 3 bundles, while others are now tempted to buy one outright or hold off in anticipation of price drops once the new model lands.

Advertisement

Advertisement

With just days to go before the announcement, the Osmo Pocket 4 looks set to build on DJI’s existing formula. However, there are enough upgrades to keep it relevant in an increasingly crowded creator market.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

Meta’s Superintelligence Labs debuts first product Muse Spark

Published

on

Muse Spark is part of a ‘ground-up overhaul’ of Meta’s AI efforts, the company said.

Nearly a year after being established, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) has finally debuted its first product, a multimodal model “purpose-built” for Meta’s products.

Muse Spark is the first in the family of Muse models and represents a “ground-up overhaul” of the company’s AI efforts, Meta said in a statement. The launch comes after the company poured multiple billions into its supposed efforts towards ‘superintelligence’, a hypothetical AI system with abilities beyond human intelligence.

Muse Spark is the “first step toward a personal superintelligence”, Meta said. The model can be accessed via Meta.ai and the Meta AI app.

Advertisement

According to the company, Muse Spark achieves strong performance on visual STEM questions, entity recognition and localisation. It performs on par with existing models from AI rivals such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.4, Anthropic’s Opus 4.6 and Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro.

Muse is also marketed as a way to “learn about and improve” user health, Meta added, and is expected to be rolled out to WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and the company’s AI glasses in the coming weeks.

The company said it collaborated with more than 1,000 physicians to curate training data that enables “factual and comprehensive” responses. For comparison, OpenAI said it worked with 260 physicians to develop its ChatGPT Health offering.

Moreover, Meta found that Muse Spark demonstrated a “strong refusal behaviour” across high-risk areas such as biological and chemical weapons. The model also does not demonstrate requisite autonomous capability or hazardous tendencies to realise threat scenarios around cybersecurity, Meta added.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, Anthropic’s new Claude Mythos, released in preview to select users earlier this week, was found to be significantly more capable at generating exploits than other models.

Concerned that Meta was lagging behind the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, CEO Mark Zuckerberg set up MSL last June after acquiring Scale AI for $14.3bn and hiring its CEO Alexandr Wang to lead the team.

“This is only the start. As we expand these features, expect richer, more visual results, with Reels, photos and posts woven directly into your answers,” Meta said.

MSL has continued to make big-name hires to add to the efforts, including Moltbook founders Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr, co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Daniel Gross and Apple’s former AI lead Ruoming Pang. The company cut 600 jobs at MSL in October.

Advertisement

Earlier this year, Meta said that it is budgeting up to $135bn in total expenses for 2026. The growth, it said, is driven by an increased investment to support MSL as well as its core business.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

Sam Altman responds to ‘incendiary’ New Yorker article after attack on his home

Published

on

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post on Friday evening responding to both an apparent attack on his home and an in-depth New Yorker profile raising questions about his trustworthiness.

Early Friday morning, someone allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s home. No one was hurt in the incident, and a suspect was later arrested at OpenAI headquarters, where he was threatening to burn down the building, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

While the police have not identified the suspect publicly, Altman noted that the incident came a few days after “an incendiary article” was published about him. He said someone had suggested that the article’s publication “at a time of great anxiety about AI” could make things “more dangerous” for him.

“I brushed it aside,” Altman said. “Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.”

Advertisement

The article in question was a lengthy investigative piece written by Ronan Farrow (who won a Pulitzer for reporting that revealed many of the sexual abuse allegations around Harvey Weinstein) and Andrew Marantz (who’s written extensively about technology and politics).

Farrow and Marantz said that during interviews with more than 100 people who have knowledge of Altman’s business conduct, most described Altman as someone with “a relentless will to power that, even among industrialists who put their names on spaceships, sets him apart.” 

Echoing other journalists who have profiled Altman, Farrow and Marantz suggested that many sources raised questions about his trustworthiness, with one anonymous board member saying he combines “a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction” with “a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”

Techcrunch event

Advertisement

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

In his response, Altman said that looking back, he can identify “a lot of things I’m proud of and a bunch of mistakes.”

Advertisement

Among the mistakes, he said, is a tendency towards “being conflict-averse,” which he said has “caused great pain for me and OpenAI.”

“I am not proud of handling myself badly in a conflict with our previous board that led to a huge mess for the company,” Altman said, presumably referring to his removal and rapid reinstatement as OpenAI CEO back in 2023. “I have made many other mistakes throughout the insane trajectory of OpenAI; I am a flawed person in the center of an exceptionally complex situation, trying to get a little better each year, always working for the mission.”

He added, “I am sorry to people I’ve hurt and wish I had learned more faster.”

Altman also acknowledged that there seems to be “so much Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field,” which he attributed to a “‘ring of power’ dynamic” that “makes people do crazy things.”

Advertisement

Of course, the correct way to deal with the ring of power is to destroy it, so Altman added, “I don’t mean that [artificial general intelligence] is the ring itself, but instead the totalizing philosophy of ‘being the one to control AGI.’” His proposed solution is “to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly, and for no one to have the ring.”

Altman concluded by saying that he welcomes “good-faith criticism and debate,” while reiterating his belief that “technological progress can make the future unbelievably good, for your family and mine.”

“While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally,” he said.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

Two-Week Social Media ‘Detox’ Erases a Decade Age-Related Decline, Study Finds

Published

on

Critics say social media is engineered to be as addictive as tobacco or gambling, writes the Washington Post — while adding that “the science has been moving in parallel with the court’s recognition.”

A growing body of research links heavy social media use not only to declines in mental health but to measurable cognitive effects — on attention, memory and focus — that in some studies resemble accelerated aging. Science also suggests we have more control than we realize when it comes to reversing this damage, and the solution is surprisingly simple: Take a break… “Digital detoxes” can sound like a fad. But in one of the largest studies to date, published in PNAS Nexus and involving more than 467 participants with an average age of 32, even a short time away produced striking results — effectively erasing a decade of age-related cognitive decline.

For 14 days, participants used a commercially available app, Freedom, to block internet access on their phones. They were still allowed calls and text messages, essentially turning a smartphone into a dumb phone. Their time online decreased from 314 minutes to 161 minutes, and by the end of the period the participants had improvements in sustained attention, mental health as well as self-reported well-being. The improvement in sustained attention was about the same magnitude as 10 years of age-related decline, the researchers noted, and the effect of the intervention on depression symptoms was larger than antidepressants and similar to that of cognitive behavioral therapy.

But two things were even more mind-blowing… Even those people who cheated and broke the rules after a few days seemed to have positive effects from the break; and in follow-up reports after the two weeks, many people reported the positive effects lingered. “So you don’t have to necessarily restrict yourself forever. Even taking a partial digital detox, even for a few days, seems to work,” Kushlev said.
The article also notes a November study at Harvard published in JAMA Network Open where nearly 400 people ‘found that even a short break can make a measurable difference: After just one week of reduced smartphone use, participants reported drops in anxiety (16.1 percent), depression (24.8 percent) and insomnia (14.5 percent)…”

Advertisement

“Other experiments point in the same direction — whether decreasing social media use by an hour a day for one week or stepping away from just Facebook and Instagram.”

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

I’ve tested every iPhone since the iPhone 12, and Ceramic Shield 2 is the first iPhone glass I fully trust

Published

on

Marketing is one thing, but reality is quite another. Like many of us, I won’t forget the claimed “durable” microtwill of FineWoven, the shaky initial launch of Apple Maps, or the infamous butterfly keyboard that was supposedly four times more stable. Remember the promise of AirPower? Of course you don’t.

It’s worth celebrating when the real-world experience does actually live up to the hype, then. And that’s the case with Apple’s Ceramic Shield 2, the tech giant’s latest and unquestionably greatest iPhone glass.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Tech

IBM settles its DEI lawsuit with the DOJ for $17 million

Published

on

IBM has agreed to settle the US Department of Justice’s accusations that the company violated civil rights laws with its DEI practices. According to a press release from the DOJ, IBM will pay more than $17 million to resolve allegations of taking “race, color, national origin, or sex” into account when making employment decisions. This settlement is the latest development in a longstanding effort from the Trump administration to end DEI programs, which was kick-started from an executive order in early 2025.

IBM denied any wrongdoing and said the settlement wasn’t an admission of liability, while the US government said this conclusion wasn’t a concession that its claims weren’t well founded, according to the settlement agreement. According to the DOJ, IBM had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with practices that included altering “interview criteria based on race or sex,” developing “race and sex demographic goals for business units,” using “a diversity modifier that tied bonus compensation to achieving demographic targets” and more.

An IBM spokesperson told Engadget in an email that the company “is pleased to have resolved this matter,” adding that “our workforce strategy is driven by a single principle: having the right people with the right skills that our clients depend on.”

According to Todd Blanche, the agency’s acting attorney general, this action is one of the first resolutions to come out of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative, which was launched in May 2025. IBM isn’t the only company to alter its policies, with both T-Mobile and Meta agreeing to put an end to its DEI initiatives last year.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2025