NASA’s Apollo programme was one of the most challenging technological achievements in the 20th century. Beyond the space race and exploration, it contributed to several inventions and innovations that are still having an impact on our lives. But at the same time, there are several myths regarding what technologies actually came out of it.
The HoloLens is a powerful example of this, as multiple demonstrations of its capabilities showed. The original model was launched four years ago and was used by NASA for its Mars Rover mission. Because of the eight-minute delay in communications from earth to the red planet, controllers needed to map, plan and execute the path the rover would take, former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told me last year.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing. This was possible thanks to an extraordinary acceleration of…
The Apollo computer was state-of-the-art in its time, but what would have been different if the moon landing had the state-of-the-art computers that are available today?
I suspect that the software development time would have been a lot faster, due to the software development tools that are available today. It would have been a lot quicker to write, debug and test the complex code required to deliver a man to the moon.
Despite all the advances of technology and transportation, what hasn’t transformed is the amount of time it takes the average person to get to work, says Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber.
Access to a city’s centre is a greater success factor than education, he told the Uber Elevate conference in Washington last week. “It Is the key to success in society.”
If you blinked last night you might have missed Apple’s mention of tvOS, the operating system being used to run the Apple TV. The company doesn’t typically place a massive emphasis on the operating system, perhaps because it’s not quite as… sexy as iOS and macOS. But Apple’s looking to change that, thanks to the new Apple TV features announced in March this year.
Another day, another Lego store opening. Okay, that makes two Lego Certified Stores in South Africa, with more on the way. This one, launched today for media and partners ahead of an official opening on 1 June, is in Tshwane/Pretoria at the Menlyn Park shopping centre
It’s a fact that just about all the tech we make use of will eventually become obsolete. Unless you’re the US Military or NASA, in which case you’ll be using the same operating systems long after the rest of us are done. Hey, some of those probes were programmed in the 1970s — doubtful there’s gonna be an OS update for those things. WhatsApp is moving at a bit of a faster clip, though. Several older versions will soon see no further updates, which means the service will likely stop working.
A sister company of Google, Alphabet’s Wing Aviation, just got federal approval to start using drones for commercial delivery. Amazon’s own drone-delivery program is ready to launch as well. As drones take flight, the world is about to get a lot louder – as if neighborhoods were filled with leaf blowers, lawn mowers and chainsaws.
A blue moon, if you’re being technically correct (the best kind of correct), is the second full moon to appear in a single calendar month. A Blue Moon, though, is the lunar lander unveiled by Amazon head and Blue Origin founder, Jeff Bezos.