Japanese researchers just sent the world’s first wooden satellite to space, as reported by CNN. LignoSat, named after the Latin word for wood, was developed by Kyoto University and a company called Sumitomo Forestry. It was included in a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and will soon be released into orbit above the Earth.

Why do this? There are two main reasons. First of all, it’ll be a test as to the durability of wood when faced with the harsh conditions of space. If successful, the researchers plan on making more wooden structures and jettisoning them to the cosmos.

“With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever,” said Takao Doi, an astronaut affiliated with Kyoto University. This is the first step in a 50-year plan that includes planting trees and building actual timber houses on the moon and even Mars.

“Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood,” said Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata. “A wooden satellite should be feasible, too.”

For those balking at the idea of wooden structures being used in space, consider some of the benefits. The material should actually be more durable in space than on Earth because, well, the endless void doesn’t have any water or oxygen. There’s nothing to cause rot and it’s very hard for it to catch fire. It even offers fairly decent protection from radiation.

The other reason has to do with all of those other satellites in orbit. The planet’s currently surrounded by more than 3,000 satellites, not to mention all kinds of affiliated space debris. Wooden satellites would eventually fall back down to Earth and burn up during re-entry.

Metal satellites will (mostly) burn up during the return trip, but not before creating harmful aluminum oxide particles. We don’t really have a plan in place for the ever-expanding amount of space junk entombing the planet, so this could help. Doi envisions a scenario in which “metal satellites might be banned in the future.” In any event, having a log cabin on the moon would be one heck of a good time. There’s literally an Apple TV+ show plus about just that.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said that the company’s upcoming Switch successor will be backward compatible. But he did so without saying anything about what the Switch 2 will be.

That means the new Switch console, perhaps dubbed the Switch 2, will be able to play games from the older Switch that debuted in 2017.

The Kyoto, Japan-based company said it expects to announce the next device in the financial year ending March 31, 2025, but it did not say more.

“Nintendo Switch is currently being played with by many customers so we decided it would be optimal for them to be able to play their Switch software on the successor model,” Furukawa said, according to Reuters.

Nintendo is definitely due for a new console, as the company just reported its revenues were down 34% in the first six months of its fiscal year. For the period ending September 30, Nintendo lowered its forecast for how many Switch units would sell by March of next year from 13.5 million to 12.5 million.

Backward compatibility

Backward compatibility used to be very hard to do with emulation technology. In older days, it was cost prohibitive. But it is much easier to do when there are big gaps in processing power from the older tech to the newer tech. And it’s easier to do backward compatibility if Nintendo stays with its current hardware architecture, using the same key vendors such as Nvidia.

This is speculation, but to me that means that the hardware in the Switch 2 would likely be very similar to the hardware in the Switch, which uses a variant of the Nvidia Tegra processor. This would suggest that Nintendo is going with a console that improves on the processing power of the latest semiconductor technology but does not change the architecture in a dramatic way.

The Nvidia Tegra X1 Mariko processor is a system-on-chip, with a lot of components woven into the same piece of silicon. It has four Arm-based Cortex A57 cores, with a max of 2GHz. The Nvidia GPU has 256 CUDA cores, with a max of 1GHz. It’s a second-generation Maxwell chip, which is pretty archaic by modern PC standards, and it only has 4GB of DRAM, or memory for running programs.

My guess is that the upgraded version for the Switch 2 will have the same Arm-based tech to make it easy to run Switch games on the new device. I doubt that Nintendo would make a complex chip based on a different architecture and then run the Switch software through emulation. That would be expensive, and Nintendo isn’t known for spending a lot of money on hardware.

Rather, it often sells the cheapest game console compared to its rivals and it has the lowest processing power too. And it still gives its rivals a run for the money by coming up with something like the Switch, which has sold 146 million units compared to 61.8 million for the Sony PlayStation 5 and 27.7 million for the Microsoft Xbox Series X/S.

Flash, the payment management service that tracks all your online purchases, announced Tuesday its entry into the U.S. market, giving American customers the ability to manage all of their spending in one place while also earning rewards, such as gift cards and cash back. 

The U.S. is home to many big spenders, making it a strategic choice to launch the app here. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce estimates that online shopping in the U.S. brought in about $291.6 billion during the second quarter of 2024. It estimated that total retail sales amounted to roughly $1.8 trillion. Projections for the global e-commerce market are also promising, with estimates suggesting it will surpass $6 trillion this year. 

The app was previously only available to users in India. 

Flash, available now to download on both iOS and Android devices, lets you centralize all of your online purchases into one place, while also letting you track multiple shipments, receipts, and your entire order history for the year. By connecting your email to the app, it compiles all the messages sent from brands to create an overview of where you shop, how much you spend, and which brands you frequent the most. It also categorizes your spending into separate areas such as shopping, travel, food and groceries, and entertainment. The insights feature could help you budget more effectively and gain a clearer understanding of your spending habits. For instance, maybe refrain from all those sweet treats at Starbucks (it adds up!). 

Additionally, when you place new orders through various brands, such as Amazon, Booking.com, DoorDash, Instacart, Target, and Walmart, you’ll earn points that can be redeemed for $5-$100 gift cards. With the free version of the app, you earn 10 points for every order and 100 points for flights and hotels. If you opt for the paid plan, you can earn five times the number of points. 

The app is free to download; however, if you upgrade to the Flash Plus plan for $49/year, you’ll receive an email ID (@flash.co) to get a dedicated smart inbox that you can use for all shopping-related emails. The subscription also includes AI-powered spam protection, advanced tracking features, and other benefits. 

Founded by Flipkart’s former senior vice president, Ranjith Boyanapalli, the India-based startup got its start in 2022, when Boyanapalli realized how flooded his email inbox had become with promotional messages from brands.

“If you look at the genesis, it started by being a power shopper and realizing 60% of all my personal communication, the primary email that I use, is actually commerce related,” Boyanapalli told TechCrunch. “I find myself spending across 20 to 30 brands in a year minimum, across all these domains. For example, last year, I received about 12,500 [shopping-related] emails, of which probably 10,400 emails were promotional in nature… So that created the genesis that, ‘Hey, it’s probably time to have a separate shopping identity.’ And that’s how Flash got created.”

Since its launch, the platform has achieved success among users in India, with one million app downloads.

The company has always planned to expand into additional markets, with the U.S. being a clear choice. Boyanapalli noted that Flash’s U.S. app has been tested by around 200 beta users. Over the past year, these users collectively placed nearly 35,000 orders, totaling around $2 million across hundreds of different brands.

“We thought now is the right time for us to launch and scale up, especially given the holiday season kicking in,” Boyanapalli added.

The only difference between the two versions is the subscription offering, which is exclusively available in the U.S. Meanwhile, Flash opted for an advertising model in India. However, Boyanapalli noted that this could change.

Next on the roadmap is a global version of the app, which is set to launch in mid-June 2025. The company also plans to raise new capital to support its expansion in the U.S., which is set to take place in the first quarter of 2025. 

The story was updated to clarify that Flash doesn’t have any direct partnerships with brands as of yet.

Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty is suing Elon Musk and his pro-Trump America PAC in a Texas federal court, alleging that the PAC’s $1 million-a-day lottery to registered voters in swing states was fraud. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed a day after a Philadelphia judge denied the city’s request to order Musk to end the lottery — and seems to have been spurred by Musk’s legal defense in the Philadelphia case.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in Austin, alleges that Musk falsely claimed the PAC would choose sweepstakes winners randomly when the selections were, in fact, predetermined. The complaint cites comments made yesterday by Chris Gober, a Republican lawyer CNBC identified as America PAC’s former treasurer. 

“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said during the Monday hearing in the Philadelphia case. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.” Grober’s testimony contradicted Musk’s own claim that the funds were awarded “randomly,” as he said when he announced the contest at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

McAferty signed the petition on October 20th, the day Musk announced the contest, according to the complaint. Musk “made the false statements with the intention of inducing individuals to sign the America PAC petition,” which was a scheme to obtain users’ data, the complaint alleges. McAferty is accusing Musk of fraud and breach of contract.

To sign the petition, voters had to provide their first and last name, email address, mailing address, and cell phone number. “The America PAC petition places no limitations on America PAC’s use of or sale of the personal data it collects, nor does it provide any additional information about the planned use of data,” the complaint claims.

The suit also claims that Musk used the lottery to drive “significant traffic to Musk’s X platform.”

Global cybercrime is projected to escalate by 15% annually over the next five years, reaching a staggering $10.5 trillion per year by 2025. Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) systems are prime targets for cyber threat actors. A cyberattack on an OT system can halt production, resulting in significant downtime and financial losses potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Consequently, IT leaders are tasked with fortifying their organization’s OT cybersecurity posture.

Historically, OT systems were not considered significant threats due to their perceived isolation from the Internet. Organizations relied on physical security measures, such as door locks, passcodes, and badge readers, to protect against hands-on access and disruption to physical operational processes. However, the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, has introduced smart technologies and advanced software to optimize efficiency through automation and data analysis. This digital transformation has interconnected OT and IT systems, creating new attack vectors for adversaries to exploit and access sensitive data.

The nation’s goal of landing an Indian on the moon by 2040 “underscores our dedication to human space exploration and a powerful inspiration for the next generation,” said ISRO chief S. Somanath. He was talking at the third edition of the Indian Space Conclave, organised by the Indian Space Association (ISpA), which kicked off in Delhi on Tuesday.

A platform for the space economy in general and for encouraging the participation of private players, the event still grabbed headline-worthy statements with the larger government-ISRO targets, ranging from India launching space tourism as well as the next step in the nation’s ambitious sun mission.

Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Science and Technology, Space, and Atomic Energy announced that India will be launching a satellite from the European Space Agency aimed at the Sun next month. India’s solar mission is already off the ground, with the Aditya L-1 reaching its intended halo orbit around the sun earlier this year.

Singh pointed out how India has transformed remarkably from being an observer to one of the potential leaders in the space sector. “Once perceived as a follower, we have now established ourselves as a front-line nation in scientific and technological achievements. This shift has been fuelled by a series of groundbreaking missions and innovative partnerships that have garnered international respect and collaboration.”

Singh added, “India is no longer waiting for technologies to be handed down to us; we are now innovators in our own right, developing solutions that are shaping global standards. The sense of confidence that permeates our space endeavours is a reflection of our commitment to excellence and our vision for a self-reliant India.”

ISRO chief Somanath said, “Realising our vision requires new players, inspired young talent, and a thriving startup ecosystem. With policies that enhance data accessibility, we’re enabling space-based applications to support sectors like agriculture and finance, aiming to create a robust, multifaceted space ecosystem,”

“India’s Vision 2047 marks a historic, long-term commitment to transforming our space programme and expanding our space economy…defining a future where space drives economic growth, national security, and technological innovation,” Somanath said, pointing out how India already has 450 private companies in the space sector, launching and building satellites.

Jayant Patil, Chairman, Indian Space Association (ISpA) said, “Every rupee invested in the space sector is returning over 2.5 times to our economy, and over $60 billion added to GDP in the last decade; this sector is driving significant technological advancement and job creation.”