Technology

Today, NASA announced the selection of its newest class of astronauts: six men and four women chosen from more than 12,000 people who applied to the space agency in March of 2020. Once they train and become full astronauts, these selectees have some exciting spaceflight opportunities ahead of them, potentially including flights to the Moon someday. The astronauts announced today are part of the so-called Artemis Generation. The name is a reference to NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface as early as 2025 (a landing date that is considered incredibly ambitious). The program calls for launching astronauts on a series of flights into deep space on NASA’s new massive rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, eventually culm...

Toyota will build a $1.29 billion battery factory in North Carolina in an effort to bring some of its electric vehicle supply chain to the US. The news comes on the heels of Toyota’s announcement that it will invest around $13.6 billion in battery tech over the next decade, including a $9 billion investment in production, as it attempts to electrify its vehicle lineup. Toyota plans on spreading the $1.29 billion for the new factory over the next decade, but production at the facility is scheduled to begin in 2025, said Chris Reynolds, chief administrative officer for Toyota Motor North America. In the first year, Toyota plans on producing 1.2 million battery packs for its upcoming lineup of electric vehicles, Reynolds said. Toyota has said it will create 1,750 new jobs “This investment, wh...

Engineered Arts, a UK-based robot manufacturing company, has recently unveiled a new humanoid creation, dubbed “Ameca,” that is capable of mimicking a series of human-like facial expressions, as seen in a video recently posted to YouTube. At the beginning of the video, Ameca replicates the act of “waking up” with a series of confused and frustrated facial expressions after opening its eyes. Then, after looking at its arms and hands, Ameca appears to be amazed by opening its mouth and raising its eyebrows. Following a series of movements and various expressions, the robot then extends a hand out toward the viewer with a smile in the video’s conclusion. While the robot has seemingly mastered the art of human expression, Engineered Arts says Ameca is currently incapable of walking, though the...

WhatsApp is adding new functionality to its disappearing messages feature, which lets users set messages in a chat to automatically be deleted after a set period of time. WhatsApp says users will now have the option to turn on disappearing messages automatically for all their new one-on-one chats, so that all future messages will be automatically deleted from the service. The Meta-owned messaging service also says it’s giving users more options for how long before a message is deleted. When the feature first launched in November last year, users only had the option of having messages disappear after seven days. Going forward, however, there will also be the option of deleting them after just 24 hours or 90 days. The new functionality was previously reported as being in development by WABet...

Microsoft is adding a simple label to its Xbox app for Windows, letting PC gamers know if a title runs well on their machine before they go ahead and download it. The feature is currently in testing and limited to certain games before it rolls out to all Xbox app users. While system requirements have always been listed in the Xbox app, this simple label should make it easier for PC owners to figure out if a game can run on their system. Microsoft is running a performance check against a variety of PC games to build this label. The new label in the Xbox app. There are a number of games that don’t have the label yet and simply show “performance check not available yet,” which suggests the Xbox app doesn’t just simply check your PC system requirements. It appears Microsoft is building its own...

Food delivery platform DoorDash has launched its “ultra-fast” DashMart delivery service in New York City because apparently delivery couriers aren’t already frazzled enough and no one can possibly wait more than 15 minutes for anything (not quite what Andy Warhol predicted, but we’re way past that now). However, there is a key difference between the delivery jobs on the main DoorDash platform and positions with the new DashMart fast delivery service: DashMart workers will be part of what the company calls DashCorps, considered full- and part-time employees — instead of independent contractors — and many will be eligible for benefits. DashCorps workers will have set schedules and be paid $15 per hour, plus tips, the company said. To start in NYC, the ultra-fast deliveries — which will arriv...

Epic Games has created The Matrix Awakens, an interactive tech demo built in Unreal Engine 5. A teaser for the interactive Matrix experience appeared today, and the tech demo will be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X / S consoles. You can pre-install the demo right now (29GB) on PS5 or Xbox Series X / S, and it will launch during The Game Awards on December 9th. Members of the original movie team, including Lana Wachowski, have worked with Epic Games to create The Matrix Awakens. The Xbox store listing promises “a wild ride into the reality-bending universe of The Matrix that features performances by Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.” The teaser video appears to show a digital version of Keanu Reeves and not the Cyberpunk 2077 kind. “How do we know what is real?” Reeves asks, mysteriousl...

Apple is challenging antitrust action taken by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which wants iOS developers to be able to tell customers about alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment option, Reuters reports. Apple wants a judicial review of the regulator’s warning, Russia Today notes, which was originally issued with a deadline of September 30th for the US tech giant to change its anti-steering policies. When Apple didn’t comply, FAS announced it was opening an antitrust case against the company at the end of October. The US tech giant’s policies on in-app payments are contentious, to say the very least. Apple requires iOS developers to use its own in-app payment system, which in many cases allows it to collect up to a lucrative 30 percent commission on any purchases. Not only do...

Despite their recent legal battle, NASA has now announced a funding program for Blue Origin‘s upcoming space station project. Through the Space Act Agreement, the agency has now decided to help fund the commercial space firm’s Orbital Reef as part of its Commercial LEO Development program, which focuses on developing commercial low-Earth orbit destinations. The space station itself will be constructed by Blue Origin and its partner Sierra Space, with the former responsible for the station’s architecture and infrastructure while the latter is to design its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE). The company is hoping to launch its first modules by the end of the 2020s, with more expansions to come in the early 2030s. “We are pleased that NASA supports the development of Orbital Reef, ...

Language learning app Duolingo said its phrase of the year is “I am mentally exhausted,” which appears as part of its Japanese course and does seem to nicely sum up 2021. Like Spotify and Apple, Duolingo is giving users a look back at the year that was. Starting today, anyone who completed at least 10 Duolingo lessons in 2021 can get a personalized look at what kind of language learner they are, based on when they practice their lessons, how many courses they’ve taken, and how many hours they spent learning on the app. Duolingo’s Year in Review will tell you want kind of language learner you were in 2021.Duolingo In its 2021 language report and survey, Duolingo said the top five languages learned on the app this year were Spanish, English, French, Japanese, and German, with Korean rising i...

Clearview AI is on track to receive a US patent for its facial recognition technology, according to a report from Politico. The company was reportedly sent a “notice of allowance” by the US Patent and Trademark Office, which means that once it pays the required administration fees, its patent will be officially approved. Clearview AI builds its facial recognition database using images of people that it scrapes across social media (and the internet in general), a practice that has the company steeped in controversy. The company’s patent application details its use of a “web crawler” to acquire images, even noting that “online photos associated with a person’s account may help to create additional records of facial recognition data points,” which its machine learning algorithm can then use t...

Engineered Arts, a UK-based designer and manufacturer of humanoid robots, recently showed off one of its most lifelike creations in a video posted on YouTube. The robot, called Ameca, is shown making a series of incredibly human-like facial expressions. Ameca opens its mouth and raises its brows in what it looks like is amazement At the start of the video, Ameca appears to “wake up,” as its face conveys a mix of confusion and frustration when it opens its eyes. But when Ameca starts looking at its hands and arms, the robot opens its mouth and raises its brows in what it looks like is amazement. The end of the video shows Ameca smiling and holding a welcoming hand out towards the viewer — if that’s how you want to interpret that gesture. Sorry to disappoint, but Ameca doesn’t walk, flip, or...