SpaceX’s persistence pays off, Falcon 9 lands on an ocean barge
So your Monday’s off to a bad start? How about looking at one of the most technologically-challenging things we’ve seen in a while, done right? That’s correct, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, after several missteps, has finally landed on of their returning Falcon 9 rockets on a barge floating in the ocean. This is on top of successfully resupplying the International Space Station. The returned rocket will apparently be ready to reuse by June this year at the latest, according to Elon Musk. Considering what the company pays for one of those things, that’s a substantial saving on their next trip.
Source: SpaceX (YouTube)
BlackBerry will be launching two mid-priced Androids this year
BlackBerry’s Priv, the company’s first Android handset, was a good phone but it was also an expensive phone. The company is looking into that, with CEO John Chen saying that BlackBerry intended to launch two mid-range Androids onto the market this year. One of them will feature a keyboard and the other will have a touchscreen, but both will be in the $400 (R6,000) price range). This statement lends credence to a leak seen recently which purported to show two new BlackBerry handsets – even if the leaked image was very, very blurry.
Source: via Ars Technica
Google-owned company Schaft reveals new bipedal robot
We can think of several jokes using the name ‘Schaft’ but we’re not going to use them here. That wouldn’t be appropriate. That’s because the company has just revealed a new bipedal bot that can navigate the obstacles that we’d normally use to keep ourselves safe from robotic invasion – like stairs – and we’d like to stay on the droid’s good side. Of course, that versatility is good news if you’re using said robot for disaster recovery or something similar. Catch the little robot, which doesn’t have a cutesy name just yet, in action in the video above.
Source: The Next Web
In case you missed them: Alan Wake’s Signal and Writer DLC are now free
Alan Wake as a fantastic title. The sequel, not quite so much (but still good). If you somehow managed to miss all the awesome of this horror-writer title, you can get it, and more, for very little. Alan Wake has just made the jump to Xbox One and to celebrate the two pieces of downloadable content, The Signal and The Writer, are now free for all users on Xbox. See? Mondays aren’t so bad after all.
Source: Polygon
