Technology

This afternoon, a NASA spacecraft more than 200 million miles from Earth successfully touched the surface of an asteroid, in an attempt to grab a handful of pebbles and dust from the space rock. Data from the spacecraft confirmed that the vehicle did indeed touch the asteroid today, but NASA won’t know until tomorrow if it actually snagged a sample of material. “Touchdown declared,” a mission controller announced when the team received data confirming the maneuver. “Sampling in process.” The news of the success was met with cheers and applause from engineers following along with the procedure. The spacecraft that just tapped the asteroid is OSIRIS-REx, and this sampling maneuver has been years in the making. The main purpose of the spacecraft is to bring a pristine sample of an asteroid ba...

Netflix is planning a two-day “event” that will allow non-subscribers in India to stream the company’s library without a subscription plan. The move follows news that Netflix has ended free trial periods, choosing instead to focus on other marketing promotions to try and amass new subscribers. Netflix’s chief operating officer Greg Peters confirmed the promo on the company’s third quarter earnings call, calling it “StreamFest,” and that it’s just for India for now. Peters believes that something like StreamFest “could really create an event.” The free trial will kick off on December 4th, Variety confirmed. Peters did not offer any information on whether or not it’ll come to the United States. Protocol first reported the story. “We’re always looking at different marketing promotions to attr...

The Hummer — symbol of pre-2008-recession, gas-guzzling excess — has been resurrected as a 350-mile range “electric supertruck” with three electric motors, 1,000 horsepower adjustable air suspension, and a diagonal driving feature called “Crab Mode.” The electric truck is set to go into production in late 2021, possibly ahead of Tesla’s Cybertruck. The Hummer EV is arguably the most important vehicle to be announced as part of General Motors multi-billion dollar pivot to electrification. It was revealed during a virtual event set to air during the World Series, “The Voice,” and across a barrage of social media and streaming platforms. The electric truck will be the first vehicle to feature General Motors’ new modular electric vehicle platform and battery, known as Ultium. the first vehicle...

The Fast & Furious saga will finally end after its 11th installment, Deadline and Variety report — which, if you’re counting, is one more movie than we were expecting until now. Justin Lin, who directed five of the past eight F&F films (counting the upcoming F9), is reportedly set to direct the last two as well. Of course they were going to make another movie. Unlike Chaim and Julia, I may know next to nothing about Fast’s plot or characters, but I do know spectacle — and there was no way in hell a $5+ billion box office blockbuster franchise, a series whose every installment attempts to jump the shark in the most spectacular ways possible, and a series that’s literally about tuning cars to the max, wasn’t going to turn it all the way up to 11. Also, that money. Money is a big reas...

Netflix’s business soared during the pandemic, but as it heads into 2021 and faces a potential shortage of films and movies, the company will have to prove it can continue performing. Netflix reported its third quarter earnings today, and although Netflix is acknowledging slower growth, the company is still adding subscribers. The company added 2.2 million net subscribers in Q3, compared with the company’s 2.5m guidance. The company saw $6.44 billion in revenue, beating expectations. Still, the looming question for co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos is how they plan to ensure Netflix won’t run out of things to watch. “The state of the pandemic and its impact continues to make projections very uncertain, but as the world hopefully recovers in 2021, we would expect that our growth will r...

Facebook moderators located in India were pressured by their employer, third-party contracting firm Genpact, to return to the office despite safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from nonprofit publication Rest of World. Genpact, one of many firms Facebook outsources moderation to around the world, employs roughly 1,600 moderators in India, where employees analyze offensive and disturbing content posted in large volumes to Facebook’s platforms for potential rule violations. The company was pressuring employees to return to its offices in Hyderabad as early as July, Rest of World reports, with Genpact claiming key parts of its moderation services had to be performed in the office due to privacy issues and other technical hurdles. Genpact claims any in-office ...

VidCon, an annual convention focused on digital creators, is tentatively planning to return to Anaheim, California next summer if conditions allow, but organizers are preparing to let people attend digitally for the first time. The new digital option will allow people to purchase tickets for a number of live-streaming and “key fan-focused sessions” for those who don’t or can’t travel to the actual convention. The move comes after VidCon saw success in many of the digital sessions the convention held this year (referred to as VidCon Now) after the COVID-19 pandemic led to organizers deciding to cancel the actual in-person event. Nearly 1 million people tuned into digital events held by VidCon over the last few months, according to general manager Jim Louderback, adding that nearly half of t...

Snapchat’s anime filter was used more than 3 billion times in the first week after it was released, Snap said today, confirming what we already knew: it was a huge hit. The filter, which morphs its subject into an anime character, is just the latest in a line of fun AR lenses from Snapchat that have gone viral and helped drive usage on the platform. During its third quarter, Snapchat had 249 million daily users, up from 238 million last quarter. The company’s revenue was also up to $679 million, a 52 percent increase even as the pandemic chilled ad spending elsewhere. “The adoption of augmented reality is happening faster than we had previously anticipated.” There are signs that Snap’s growth is more robust than drive-by filter users. The average number of Snaps created each day is up 25 p...

If you’re someone who never prints out any of the photos you take with your smartphone, Google might have a good solution. For $6.99 a month, it’ll use machine learning to automatically select 10 of your best photos and send the prints right to your door. The company announced the service today, which it started trialing earlier this year. There don’t seem to be any differences between the trial and the newly announced “premium print series,” which will be available “in the coming weeks,” but Google has at least lopped a dollar off the monthly price. That’s nice, though you’re still paying extra for the convenience of having your photos selected and mailed to you. For the trial service, Google allowed subscribers to give directions to the algorithm, telling it to prioritize “people and pet...

This afternoon, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will grab a small sample of rocks from the surface of an asteroid named Bennu zooming through space more than 200 million miles from Earth. It’s an ambitious task, but if it works, OSIRIS-REx may eventually return to Earth with the largest sample of material from another space body since NASA’s Apollo missions to the Moon. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been circling Bennu for the last two years, mapping its surface and hunting for the right spot to snag these rocks. After an intense amount of planning from the mission team, the engineers have a target all picked out on Bennu and are ready to send their spacecraft down to the surface. OSIRIS-REx will lightly touch the surface of Bennu with an extended robotic arm, which will then blast air onto t...

Microsoft is releasing its Windows 10 October 2020 Update to over a billion users today. Much like last year, this second Windows 10 update of 2020 is more of a Service Pack than a major release. Microsoft has, however, made some interesting tweaks, including a refreshed Start menu, some Alt Tab changes, and the bundling of the new Chromium-powered Microsoft Edge. The biggest visual change is, of course, the updated Start menu. Microsoft’s new design kills off the solid color behind app logos and adds a transparent background to tiles instead. The end result is a Start menu that’s functionally the same, but that’s a lot easier to scan to find your apps. New Alt Tab interface. Microsoft’s second significant change is how Alt Tab works. Traditionally, you use Alt Tab to cycle through desktop...

Google is bringing Windows app support to Chromebooks today through a partnership with Parallels. First announced earlier this year, Chrome OS will now boot a full version of Windows inside a virtual machine to gain access to existing desktop apps. It’s designed for businesses, which means only enterprise customers will be able to purchase the app for $69.99 per user. Parallels Desktop for Chromebook Enterprise will launch a full copy of Windows, allowing Microsoft’s operating system to sit side by side with Chrome OS and Android apps. Chrome OS even redirects certain Windows file types directly to the Parallels instance to make it easier to launch files that you’d typically use a desktop app for. The integration isn’t as seamless as the Coherence mode that’s typically found in Parallels D...