Thirty seconds (and two years) to Mars
Humans are going to Mars… in four years. And that’s if, and only if, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to send five uncrewed Starship missions to the Red Planet don’t result in utter catastrophe. We harbour no disbelief that SpaceX can pull off the insane feat – having just sent up a regular citizen on the first commercial spacewalk.
Our issue lies in Musk’s continual ambition to assign timelines that simply cannot be met. We’re still on for the Roadster in 2019, right? In a post on X, Musk said “If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years.”
Fortunately, it may not be up to Musk to postpone the missions or not. It’s quite literally in the hands of planetary movements – like some dodgy fortune-teller – and missing the mark could result in another two-year-long wait. According to the tweet, Earth-to-Mars travel is only possible when “the planets are aligned.”
Two years is absolutely nothing to the waiting universe, but it does put Musk’s plans to eventually see “thousands of Starships going to Mars” off the mark a bit. Should the missions be delayed, Musk has already laid the blame at the feet of the government and the Democratic Party in the US.
Qualcomm’s got big plans for Intel (allegedly)
Qualcomm could be the new Intel. We don’t mean that figuratively. Qualcomm has, according to rumours out of Reuters, approached the chipmaker to discuss a potential buyout of the company, to help it out of the troubling times it’s currently facing according to a source “familiar with the situation.”
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s top dog, is said to be personally involved in the negotiations to bring Intel under Qualcomm’s wing, while another source said that Amon has been desperate to secure some sort of deal for the company, with earlier reports noting an interest in only acquiring bits of Intel’s business.
That’s reportedly progressed to wanting the whole pie, though no formal offer has yet been made for the chipmaker at the time of writing. There’s no denying this would be the time to go after Intel, whose shares have fallen off dramatically since the start of the year, something nobody would have believed possible even a few years back.
Rayman is a board game now. Kinda
One of the best things to ever come out of Ubisoft is undoubtedly Rayman, though you could easily make a case for Assassin’s Creed 2 holding that title. While Assassin’s Creed has since slipped into… whatever that is, Rayman has been an excellent platformer since the days the company was still named “Ubi Soft.”
Spanning nearly thirty years of consoles, Rayman’s next adventure will tackle a wholly new area of 3D platforming – your table. Yup, Rayman is getting a board game and of course, it’s being financed through Kickstarter (see it here), rather than the mega-corporation currently valued at $1.75 billion.
Rayman the Board Game does appear to be in good hands at the very least. Maxime Tardif of EARTH fame heralds the game’s design, joined by two of Flyos’ own employees to make up the crux of the game, the rules of which can be checked out in this rather uninspiring trailer that rains on Rayman’s parade.
Of course, being a Kickstarter project, the game’s success isn’t quite certain. In this case, it requires at least $37,000 in backing before it’ll become official. Rayman being Rayman, however, the board game had no trouble steamrolling the figure, currently sitting with $182,000 from 1,351 backers. Expect these to start shipping in June 2025 if you’ve got the funds to buy once they’re shipped in this direction.
28 Years Later was shot on the iPhone 15 Pro Max for… some reason
Remember when Apple revealed that it had shot one of its events on the newly announced iPhone 15 Pro Max, much to the surprise of everyone? It was later revealed that the iPhone 15 Pro Max in question looked less like an iPhone 15 and more like Neo waking up from the Matrix, what with all the wires and extra tech packed on.
And 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel (not you) to the cult classic 28 Days Later has recreated the gimmick according to a new report from Wired. Its massive estimated budget of $75 million likely makes the sequel the most expensive film ever shot on an iPhone.
We’re guessing it’s the last bit Apple really cares about. It’s not as if customers will be lining up outside the nearest Apple store after walking out of 28 Years Later, considering the massive DSLR lenses and cages fixed to the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s body to give it a professional feeling.
It’s a cheap gimmick (not the massively altered iPhone 15 Pro Max) that Apple can only parade around briefly, considering only a short stretch of the film uses Apple’s tech before heading back to the good stuff.