Author: Brett Venter

Didn’t we say that 2021 was space’s year? NASA has two new exploration projects on the boil: Lucy, a spacecraft launching this year with plans to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids and the Dragonfly, which is set to take off in 2027 bound for Saturn’s moon Titan. Lucy goes first Lucy has a 23-day launch window this year, starting on 16 October. The Lockheed Martin-created spacecraft itself was dropped off at the Kennedy Space Center at the end of July. It’s set to undergo final checks and fuelling but, once that hurdle is passed, it’ll be blasting off on a…

Any plan for human colonisation of another celestial body includes the idea that we’ll use what we find there as construction material. A 3D printer, obviously, is our best chance at turning whatever we find on the surface of the moon or Mars into buildings. Why fly a bunch of bricks into space when we can just make ’em when we get there, after all. American space agency NASA is investigating just how possible it would be to ship over a 3D printer to the moon with its upcoming Artemis missions by sending a regolith 3D printer (part of the…

Facebook, the final resting place for all the information on the planet (if Mark Zuckerberg gets his way), might be forced to get rid of one of its more recent acquisitions. Last year, the company bought Giphy — and if you don’t know what they do, we hope you’re enjoying your first day on the internet — for $400 million. Now, a major source of user information might disappear into the arms of another. Tech company, that is. Facebook wants the CMA to Giphy them a break The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s competition regulator, says that it…

The Boeing Starliner crew capsule was supposed to get its second attempt at a test flight in July this year, an event that was set back by an issue with the International Space Station (ISS) being knocked around by a misfiring thruster. Now it turns out that the unintended delay may have been a good thing, as the Starliner test has been set back further by issues with the oxidiser valves on the capsule’s propulsion system. (Still) reaching for the Starliner The issue turned up during prelaunch checks and Boeing has said that it’s now working with both NASA and…

Social media is a powerful thing. Whether that’s good or bad really depends on the situation but it’s powerful enough that Zambia, which yesterday conducted its general elections, was reported to have shut down the country’s access to WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook’s suite of apps as voting was taking place. What happened in Zambia? https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1425817892482818059? Several groups, including Access Now and NetBlocks, reported that the country had blocked access to WhatsApp and other social media platforms. That the Zambian government was considering taking this step during its elections was first reported last week by the Lusaka Times. Initially, Zambia’s government…

It’s a fact that mobile platforms live and die by their app support, which means you need mobile developer buy-in. Huawei’s own mobile ecosystem might have been forced on them by a certain orange person but they’re attempting to make a serious go of it. Part of that is the company’s ongoing HMS App Innovation contest — and, if you’re a local dev, you’ve still got some time to get your entry in. Maxing out mobile developers Why do you want to do that? Well, Huawei’s giving each region (there are five) a total of $200,000 (a shade under R3…

We’ve been expecting Samsung to announce new folding smartphones — the Galaxy Fold 3 and the Galaxy Flip 3 have turned up online in several ways in the last few months. At today’s Unpacked, the South Korean company made both of its 5G foldables official. Now that they’re official, here’s what you need to know about them both. As expected, the S Pen has been tweaked for use with the more fragile folding screens. But Samsung’s going to announce a new Galaxy Note anyway, right? Right? A more durable Galaxy Fold 3 5G  One of the biggest criticisms of Samsung’s…

In the latest illustration that influencers are paid to hold the opinions they do, Facebook has detailed an anti-COVID vaccination campaign it has dismantled on its network that used paid influencers to undermine trust in the vaccines. The now-banned entity behind the campaign, Fazze, is linked to a UK-based marketing firm but the subsidiary does most of its business in Russia. The campaign was directed, perhaps unusually, at Facebook users in India, Latin American and parts of the United States. Facebook removes influencer influence 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts associated with the campaign were removed from the platform,…

We’re very fond of concept cars, mostly because they look like the sort of whacky things we were sketching when crayons were still a big part of our daily lives. Audi’s new Skysphere concept car certainly springs from the mind of a pre-teen child who’s mad about cars — it’s an electric roadster that can extend its wheelbase to turn into a grand tourer. The only things missing are the flamethrowers and the ejection seat. Reach for the Skysphere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0McQmw0h5mQ&feature=emb_logo The German automaker’s concept vehicle is a two-door electric convertible (in more ways than one). It goes from a roadster…

If you were wondering whether we’d one day live in a world where robot dogs are common, Xiaomi’s new Cyberdog (which, naturally, has to sit in the back of your Cybertruck while you play Cyberpunk) might just be your answer. See, we’re getting used to the idea of Spot the robot dog but at more than R110,000 a pop, we’ll probably never own one — no matter how well it can dance. Xiaomi’s newly-announced entry into the burgeoning robotic dog market is looking to go a lot more affordable. Throw a cyberdog a cyberbone here Let’s get the price out…