Author: Brett Venter

The 2021 Mars mission aside, NASA’s Artemis project is the next big thing in space exploration. The American space agency intends to set up a more solid presence on Earth’s moon, and it’s roping in several companies to make that happen. SpaceX has been contracted to create the lunar lander for NASA (though there’s some ‘debate’ on that point), and now the fate of the new Artemis rover has been decided. NASA shoots for the Moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5869l2cKLZw General Motors (GM) has announced that it is partnering with Lockheed Martin to create the new Artemis lunar rover. Only ‘rover’ is the…

We’re not entirely sure how we’re supposed to take this news, but Amazon is installing ZenBooth meditation rooms in its warehouses as part of the company’s WorkingWell initiative. These are little spaces where its warehouse workers can escape for a few minutes to “…watch short videos featuring easy-to-follow wellbeing activities, including guided meditations, positive affirmations, calming scenes with sounds, and more.” They sound positively terrifying. Why do you need a ZenBooth? They’re terrifying because you’re not supposed to have to take frequent wellness breaks in a dedicated room in order to work at a warehouse. Lately Amazon has been under…

There are still in-person events taking place this year, despite reduced attendance by companies who normally participate. Blizzcon 2021, however, will not be one of them. The November event has been postponed to 2022, according to an announcement from Blizzard. Bumping up Blizzcon 2021 Saralyn Smith, executive producer of Blizzcon, confirmed the event cancellation in a post yesterday. The reasoning behind the cancellation was that the “…ongoing complexities and uncertainties of the pandemic” have slowed progress on planning the event to the point where Blizzard doesn’t feel like it could provide the sort of event it would like. But the…

Facebook has become one of the primary sources for information on the internet. Unfortunately, much of what you’ll encounter on the social network holds about as much credibility as a drunk ranting from the darkest corner of the pub at 2PM on a Monday. The company has, since 2016, trotted out various measures to suppress the spread of misinformation (though it can be argued that Facebook is structured to explicitly spread false information, since it tends to be more attractive and easy to spread). Now, it is going one step further — individual accounts are in line to be down-ranked,…

Several months ago we learned that Google Photos would be restricting its previously unlimited image uploads to just 15GB per person — the same 15GB that comes free with your Gmail account, no less, so you’re probably already using some of that storage. This is partly a reminder that the 1 June 2021 deadline is fast approaching. If you’ve got several terabytes of memories stored in Google Photos’ cloud, now is the time to do something about them. What to expect from Google Photos next week Google is aware that you might have large quantities of images backed up on…

Iceland is known for several things: its small population, Ari Eldjárn (who will make this list a little longer for us), and volcanos. But it’s the last point that we’re really concerned with. DJI teamed up with Ása Steinars, gave her one of its new FPV drones and got her to check out the eruption of Mount Fagradalsfjall back in March this year. The footage is… impressive. Iceland’s looking hot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV1wPhjrWls And yet, as impressive as getting up close and personal with an erupting volcano is on video, it must have been quite the experience to do it in person.…

China is set to crack down on bitcoin mining in that country, according to a statement from the  State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee (FSDC). The statement from the regulator is so severe that it’s speculated that the country will completely ban the mining of bitcoin soon. According to China’s FSDC, that country’s government intends to “…crack down on bitcoin mining and trading behaviour and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to the society.” That doesn’t bode well for the cryptocurrency in the short term at all. Banning bitcoin mining Li Yi, chief research fellow at the Shanghai…

It looks, if a leak from the German Samsung website is any indication, as if Samsung’s readying the launch of a Galaxy Tab S7 FE — the acronym stands for Fan Edition, in case you haven’t seen those before. Samsung, once upon a time, used to release Lite edition smartphones and tablets. In fact, we’ve seen this tablet before but in the guise of the Galaxy Tab S7 Lite. But the South Korean company has decided that it likes the term Fan Edition more (probably because people are little more eager to buy them). A gander at the Galaxy Tab…

Virgin Galactic was the very first company to announce that it was selling tickets to space, way back in 2012. Ever since its first round of $200,000 (now $250,000) tickets went on sale, however, the space agency has suffered a few setbacks. Which, you know, is fair. When your primary aim is to function as a space tourism company, you really want to be certain everything is working correctly. Happily, the fledgling space company has reported some fresh success. Its VVS Unity has, for the first time, completed a rocket-powered flight from its New Mexico-based Spaceport America facility. Fly, Virgin…

It wasn’t long ago that Huawei was forced to sell off its Honor sub-brand to a Chinese consortium following US sanctions imposed by former US President Donald Trump’s administration. Honor was also affected by Huawei’s placement on the Entity List, which saw it losing access to Google Mobile Services in its operating system. But the sale was made and the brand was back up and running in no time, revealing its first post-Huawei smartphone in January this year. But there’s even more cause to celebrate now — Honor’s getting Google services back on its 50-series handsets. Return to Honor The…