Starship will have a proper go at orbital flight… next week
Clear your calendars; SpaceX’s Starship is no longer gunning for its 14th launch tomorrow, 22 September, despite the intent. Citing nothing, SpaceX confirmed the launch will now go ahead on Monday, 28 September — aiming for a 75-minute launch window at 8h15 Eastern Time. For Saffas, that’ll take place at 14h15 on the same day.
What makes this launch special — more special than the thirteen others, anyway — is that this will mark Starship’s first-ever orbital flight. Those that came before it have all been sub-orbital while SpaceX ironed out the kinks. This is still a test flight, prepping the hardware for future flights and testing whether it’ll hold up for another go.
Starship will orbit the Earth six times during the ‘nearly’ ten-hour flight, travelling about 275km above the planet. Starship will also deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites into SpaceX’s ever-growing constellation. Whether Starship completes the journey or cascades into a fiery death, it’s sure to be quite a spectacle. A live webcast will kick off about thirty minutes before the launch, hosted on the SpaceX account. See ya there.
Retroid adds a Plus to its Pocket Duo Lite
Tell us you added a product at the last minute without saying you added a product at the last minute. Retroid has expanded on its Pocket Duo lineup by adding a Pocket Duo Lite Plus to the lineup.
If the company had been thinking ahead, its specs suggest this should be the Pocket Duo. Then, the Pocket Duo could have a Plus added, and everything would be shorter to type out. The Pocket Duo Lite Plus matches the beefier version of the dual-screen console in most respects.
The same Qualcomm Dragonwing Q-7790 processor, 8GB RAM, and 128GB storage layout exist inside the handheld. It takes its screen tech from the Pocket Duo Lite, with smaller displays that cap out at 60Hz.
There’s speedier charging than the Lite, better WiFi specs, and an actual video-out option for players. Otherwise, it lives in pretty much the same chassis. The retail price? Around R3,600, almost R800 cheaper than the sturdier, better-screened Pocket Duo.
AP30 Music Boy, howdy
The glass slab that controls your life is also in charge of the fun stuff. Who decided that? We did, we guess. But in recent years, humanity has pulled back, paving the way for something like Hidizs’ AP30 Music Boy.
That’s the colourful Game Boy-looking device you see above. As the name implies, it’s a dedicated music player, loaded up with modern hi-res audio inside to keep people interested. It launched on Kickstarter, amassing $507,514 (∼R8.2 million) from 4,192 backers to make this little gadget a reality.
The campaign is technically over, but late backers can still pledge their bucks to try to get hold of one. There are two models — one sheathed in aluminium and another in lightweight plastic, weighing only 56g. You’ll either clip it to your clothes, bags, or literally around your neck. Or it will snap to the back of your smartphone magnetically, if you don’t mind the irony. It’s got a 2i9n HD screen to view the tunes and… other stuff.
It’s all controlled via physical buttons on the face and a scroll wheel on the device’s side. You’ll use 3.5mm or 4.4mm ports for physical connection, and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless. It supports MP3, WAV, APE, FLAC, ALAC, OGG, WMA, native DSD256, PCM playback (192kHz/24-bit), and DSF and DFF formats. It’ll even function as an e-reader (we know snapping it to your phone had a real purpose) and is loaded with six games, including Snake.
Meta’s next smart glasses may ditch the camera
Meta’s line of smart glasses is impressive. Perhaps too much so, packing a camera that many would rather not be in front of. These issues have seemingly fallen on deaf ears as Meta continues to prop up the range with newer models that many have deemed ‘pervy’. The next model might go in a different direction.
Codenamed Luna, The Information reports that the Facebook company is working on a camera-less pair of specs. It may do much to quell the concerns floating around the internet, but it’s also a bold move for a company whose entire glasses range relies on the camera gimmick. It should, at the very least, be a fair bit more affordable.
The rest of the specs’ specs are still unknown, but you get it, right? It’s a pair of glasses that whisper in your ear. It won’t have the context that the company’s current Ray-Ban or Oakley glasses have, though, so their intelligence is still a worry. If these exist, we may see them turn up at Meta Connect this week.
