Light Start — A printed sub, LG sales, Nokia’s cash boost, and Destiny 2 PC
Brett Venter
And now, a US Navy-made 3D-printed submersible
You know your tech is having a good time when the US military starts using it. In which case, 3D printing must be pleased, because the US Navy has just printed its first submarine. Or submersible, rather. But not the whole thing. Just the carbon fiber hull, a process that took the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) about a month and six sections to put together. Called the Optionally Manned Technology Demonstrator (OMTD), this shell was put together in a fraction of the time and a considerable fraction of the expense of more traditional manufacturing methods. Though, sadly, this one won’t get out to sea. It’s a proof-of-concept but it is leading to more — the US Navy will be printing and testing others, with an aim of putting them to sea by 2019.
LG’s G6 hasn’t had the response the company was hoping for
Man, sometimes things just don’t go your way. LG, for example, altered most of their design philosophy to give the world the G6 and now… people aren’t buying as many of them as the company was expecting. In a recent earnings report, the company said that “…weaker than expected premium smartphone sales and increase in component costs” were the cause of some less-than-stellar numbers. It doesn’t help that the G6 launched in the face of Samsung’s best phone to date, the faster, prettier relative overshadowing the changes that LG made. Made to keep all of us happy, bear in mind.
Nokia got a patent-related cash injection from Apple to the tune of €1.7 billion
Man, we have got to start investing in patents. They do tend to make companies money. Take the newly resurrected Nokia, for example. The company was involved in a patent dispute with Apple recently, one which was settled in May this year. Apple was willing to throw money at the problem to make it go away, because that’s a legitimate option when you’re Apple. Nokia’s recent financial earnings report reveals just how much money they got for letting Apple off the hook — a cool €1.7 billion. That’s just what we know about, as neither Apple nor Nokia are saying much else about the agreement, but we reckon that’s more than enough money to keep Nokia’s comeback going for a while.
PC gamers will be getting their Destiny 2 beta on from 28 August
We’re old enough to remember a time when console games had to wait to catch up to the PC. Now it’s the other way around, despite the PC featuring clearly superior hardware. Which is a convoluted way of saying that PC gamers will be getting their crack at the Destiny 2 beta at last — it’s been set for 28 August, if you have a pre-order beta code, and it’ll run for four days. If not, you’ll have to wait till…. 29 August for a chance to play. PC specs have been released too (read them here) but you’re going to need at least a Core i5-2400, 6GB of RAM, and a GTX 660 or a Radeon 7850 GPU. Those are specs for the beta, though, and might change before Destiny 2‘s eventual release.
