Month: April 2021
NASA suspends SpaceX’s $2.9 billion moon lander contract after rivals protest
NASA has suspended work on SpaceX’s new $2.9 billion lunar lander contract while a federal watchdog agency adjudicates two protests over the award, the agency said Friday. Putting the Human Landing System (or HLS) work on hold until the GAO makes a decision on the two protests means SpaceX won’t…
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What3Words sends legal threat to a security researcher for sharing an open-source alternative
A U.K. company behind digital addressing system What3Words has sent a legal threat to a security researcher for offering to share an open-source software project with other researchers, which What3Words claims violate its copyright. Aaron Toponce, a systems administrator at XMission, received a letter on Thursday from a law firm…
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Federal COVID-19 vaccine website launches with Spanish-language version
The Biden administration’s version of a COVID-19 vaccine-finding website launched today, along with a Spanish-language version, text messaging tool, and phone hotline. The new website, vaccines.gov, is a new version of VaccineFinder, a site run through a partnership between Boston Children’s Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.…
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Want a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro? You may have to wait until July
If you’re hoping to get one of the new 12.9-inch iPad Pros with a Mini LED display, you may be waiting a while — the delivery times for even the base model have slipped to late June or early July (via Bloomberg). Leading up to the device’s announcement, there were…
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Acing its fourth flight on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity will advance to a new testing round
After acing a set of historic test flights on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter will embark on a new, more advanced test mission, engineers said today. Having proved itself capable of flying higher and farther with its fourth flight on Friday, the mini helicopter will get ready to demonstrate how it…
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Telegram plans launch of video conferencing service Telegram
Telegram will soon be rolling out its own video conferencing service that promises to be just as secure as its encrypted messaging app. In a post on his own personal Telegram channel, the company’s founder Pavel Durov explained how the service aims to improve upon existing video conferencing solutions, saying:…
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