Month: July 2023
NASA Plus is the latest streaming competitor
The new NASA Plus logo. | Image: NASA
NASA is about to voyage into the streaming-verse. The federal space agency is announcing a new “NASA Plus” streaming service that will bring the on-demand non-sci-fi space content you crave to TVs and mobile devices everywhere. And best of all, NASA says it will be “ad-free, no cost, and family-friendly” (via Gizmodo).
You’ll be able to watch live coverage of future launches, documentaries, and brand-new original series the agency is producing exclusively for NASA Plus. The agency is looking to “better tell the stories of how NASA explores the unknown” and connect with more people by transforming its digital presence, Marc Etkind, NASA’s associate administrator of communications, states.
NASA Plus is launching “later this year,” according to the agency. It will be available in all the places you watch other services, like Netflix and Disney Plus, and it’ll also have a home on the agency’s brand-new beta website.
In a press release, NASA’s CIO, Jeff Seaton, states that the new beta web experience is designed to make the agency’s information “more accessible, discoverable, and secure.” The site will include NASA mission details, research, climate data, and more. It will also be the place to get up-to-date information on next year’s crewed Artemis II mission.
Once NASA Plus officially launches, it will be integrated into an upgraded NASA app available on iOS and Android. The app will also be available on streaming boxes like Apple TV, Roku, and Fire TV. NASA Plus will probably never let you stream Andor or Strange New Worlds, but it will let you get your space fix without having to pay a fee.
The new NASA Plus logo. | Image: NASA
NASA is about to voyage into the streaming-verse. The federal space agency is announcing a new “NASA Plus” streaming service that will bring the on-demand non-sci-fi space content you crave to TVs and mobile devices everywhere. And best of all, NASA says it will be “ad-free, no cost, and family-friendly” (via Gizmodo).
You’ll be able to watch live coverage of future launches, documentaries, and brand-new original series the agency is producing exclusively for NASA Plus. The agency is looking to “better tell the stories of how NASA explores the unknown” and connect with more people by transforming its digital presence, Marc Etkind, NASA’s associate administrator of communications, states.
NASA Plus is launching “later this year,” according to the agency. It will be available in all the places you watch other services, like Netflix and Disney Plus, and it’ll also have a home on the agency’s brand-new beta website.
In a press release, NASA’s CIO, Jeff Seaton, states that the new beta web experience is designed to make the agency’s information “more accessible, discoverable, and secure.” The site will include NASA mission details, research, climate data, and more. It will also be the place to get up-to-date information on next year’s crewed Artemis II mission.
Once NASA Plus officially launches, it will be integrated into an upgraded NASA app available on iOS and Android. The app will also be available on streaming boxes like Apple TV, Roku, and Fire TV. NASA Plus will probably never let you stream Andor or Strange New Worlds, but it will let you get your space fix without having to pay a fee.
Scientists Resurrected an Extinct Animal Frozen for 46,000 Years in Siberia
Scientists have revived tiny animals called nematodes from a slumber that lasted 46,000 years, reports a new study. From a report: The microscopic animals were successfully woken from a state of suspended animation after researchers found them in the permafrost, or frozen soil, that flanks Siberia’s northern Kolyma River. A radiocarbon analysis revealed that they hail from a prehistoric era when Neanderthals and dire wolves still roamed the world, and that they belong to a functionally extinct species called Panagrolaimus kolymaensis that was previously unknown to science.
The astonishing discovery is “important for the understanding of evolutionary processes because generation times could be stretched from days to millennia, and long-term survival of individuals of species can lead to the refoundation of otherwise extinct lineages,” according to a study published on Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics. “Their evolution was literally suspended for 40k years,” wrote Philipp Schiffer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Cologne and a co-author of the study, in an email to Motherboard. “We are now comparing them to species from the same genus, which my team samples around the world,” he continued, noting that he is currently conducting fieldwork in the Australian Outback. “Studying their genomes we hope to understand a lot about how these populations became different in the last 40k years.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Scientists have revived tiny animals called nematodes from a slumber that lasted 46,000 years, reports a new study. From a report: The microscopic animals were successfully woken from a state of suspended animation after researchers found them in the permafrost, or frozen soil, that flanks Siberia’s northern Kolyma River. A radiocarbon analysis revealed that they hail from a prehistoric era when Neanderthals and dire wolves still roamed the world, and that they belong to a functionally extinct species called Panagrolaimus kolymaensis that was previously unknown to science.
The astonishing discovery is “important for the understanding of evolutionary processes because generation times could be stretched from days to millennia, and long-term survival of individuals of species can lead to the refoundation of otherwise extinct lineages,” according to a study published on Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics. “Their evolution was literally suspended for 40k years,” wrote Philipp Schiffer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Cologne and a co-author of the study, in an email to Motherboard. “We are now comparing them to species from the same genus, which my team samples around the world,” he continued, noting that he is currently conducting fieldwork in the Australian Outback. “Studying their genomes we hope to understand a lot about how these populations became different in the last 40k years.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Jon Prosser on Marques Brownlee
Lovely, heartfelt salute to MKBHD from Jon “Front Page Tech” Prosser. Brownlee is so good at what he does, it almost defies description. His reviews are fair, deeply informed, and fun to watch. His taste is exquisite. He’s a dynamic, compelling presence on screen. He’s incredibly prolific yet always leaves you wanting more. The production values of his videos push the envelope of the state of the art: they look and sound (including the music) better than anything else on YouTube, and top YouTubers long ago surpassed broadcast TV in this regard. He’s simultaneously an expert pundit, worldwide star, and talented filmmaker.
★
Lovely, heartfelt salute to MKBHD from Jon “Front Page Tech” Prosser. Brownlee is so good at what he does, it almost defies description. His reviews are fair, deeply informed, and fun to watch. His taste is exquisite. He’s a dynamic, compelling presence on screen. He’s incredibly prolific yet always leaves you wanting more. The production values of his videos push the envelope of the state of the art: they look and sound (including the music) better than anything else on YouTube, and top YouTubers long ago surpassed broadcast TV in this regard. He’s simultaneously an expert pundit, worldwide star, and talented filmmaker.
Here are all the movies that have been pushed back due to the Hollywood strikes
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) still refuses to bargain with Hollywood’s striking writers and actors on issues like fair pay and the use of AI in filmmaking — and that refusal is beginning to impact studios’ release calendars in a major way. Many films and TV shows have already halted production, but now we’re seeing studios push back movies with already-established release dates, shifting them months or even years down the road. Striking actors and writers are unable to promote their work without risking undermining the strike, so the release date changes seem in part like a tactic to wait out the dual strikes in order for actors and writers to do promotion again. Notably, a two-week extension in the negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP allowed actors to promote major releases like Oppenheimer and Barbie, a clear acknowledgment of the value of promotional work.Here, in order of new release date, are all the films that have been pushed back as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue.
SEE ALSO:
How to support the writers’ and SAG strikes online and off
Poor Things
Emma Stone in “Poor Things.”
Credit: Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures
The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone for this comedic, fantastical take on the classic Frankenstein story, which also stars Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, and Christopher Abbott. Despite being pushed back from an initial September release date, Poor Things is still set to make its world premiere at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.New release date: Dec. 8, 2023Challengers
Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O’Connor in “Challengers.”
Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist square off in Challengers, the highly anticipated tennis drama from Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino. Not only did MGM, Amazon Studios, and Warner Bros. shift the film’s release date from Sept of this year to spring of 2024, they also pulled Challengers from the Venice Film Festival entirely — a decision which Guadagnino fought, according to the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera.New release date: Apr. 26, 2024White Bird
Helen Mirren in “White Bird.”
Credit: Lionsgate
2017’s Wonder gets a spin-off in White Bird, starring Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson. The film centers Wonder’s bully Julian (Bryce Gheisar), whose grandmother (Mirren) tells him the story of her youth in Nazi-occupied France. Originally set for an Aug. release date, the film is now “undated for Q4” of 2023, according to Deadline.New release date: TBD, fall or winter of 2023Dirty Dancing sequelJennifer Grey returns to the Catskills in this follow-up to 1987’s Dirty Dancing, also titled Dirty Dancing. Director Jonathan Levine’s sequel has yet to start filming, but its release date has already been moved from Feb. 9, 2024 to the summer of 2025.New release date: Summer 2025Problemista
Julio Torres and Tilda Swinton in “Problemista.”
Credit: A24
Julio Torres makes his directorial debut with Problemista, an offbeat comedy about an aspiring toymaker (Torres) trying to get his artsy boss (Tilda Swinton) to co-sign his visa. Problemista distributor A24 has received interim waivers from SAG-AFTRA to continue shooting independent projects, as they are not part of the AMPTP. However, A24 is still pausing Problemista’s release in order to support Torres and allow him to promote the film around the time of its release.New release date: TBDPossible postponements: Dune: Part Two, The Color Purple, Aquaman and the Lost KingdomAs reported by Variety, Warner Bros. is considering new dates for sci-fi epic Dune: Part Two, musical The Color Purple, and superhero sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. While these new dates are yet to be officially announced and confirmed, they would mark a sizable shift to Warner Bros.’ end-of-year release slate, which otherwise includes the Timothée Chalamet-led Wonka. This is a developing story and will be updated.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) still refuses to bargain with Hollywood’s striking writers and actors on issues like fair pay and the use of AI in filmmaking — and that refusal is beginning to impact studios’ release calendars in a major way.
Many films and TV shows have already halted production, but now we’re seeing studios push back movies with already-established release dates, shifting them months or even years down the road. Striking actors and writers are unable to promote their work without risking undermining the strike, so the release date changes seem in part like a tactic to wait out the dual strikes in order for actors and writers to do promotion again. Notably, a two-week extension in the negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP allowed actors to promote major releases like Oppenheimer and Barbie, a clear acknowledgment of the value of promotional work.
Here, in order of new release date, are all the films that have been pushed back as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue.
Poor Things
Credit: Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures
The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone for this comedic, fantastical take on the classic Frankenstein story, which also stars Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, and Christopher Abbott. Despite being pushed back from an initial September release date, Poor Things is still set to make its world premiere at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.
New release date: Dec. 8, 2023
Challengers
Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist square off in Challengers, the highly anticipated tennis drama from Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino. Not only did MGM, Amazon Studios, and Warner Bros. shift the film’s release date from Sept of this year to spring of 2024, they also pulled Challengers from the Venice Film Festival entirely — a decision which Guadagnino fought, according to the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera.
New release date: Apr. 26, 2024
White Bird
Credit: Lionsgate
2017’s Wonder gets a spin-off in White Bird, starring Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson. The film centers Wonder‘s bully Julian (Bryce Gheisar), whose grandmother (Mirren) tells him the story of her youth in Nazi-occupied France. Originally set for an Aug. release date, the film is now “undated for Q4” of 2023, according to Deadline.
New release date: TBD, fall or winter of 2023
Dirty Dancing sequel
Jennifer Grey returns to the Catskills in this follow-up to 1987’s Dirty Dancing, also titled Dirty Dancing. Director Jonathan Levine’s sequel has yet to start filming, but its release date has already been moved from Feb. 9, 2024 to the summer of 2025.
New release date: Summer 2025
Problemista
Credit: A24
Julio Torres makes his directorial debut with Problemista, an offbeat comedy about an aspiring toymaker (Torres) trying to get his artsy boss (Tilda Swinton) to co-sign his visa. Problemista distributor A24 has received interim waivers from SAG-AFTRA to continue shooting independent projects, as they are not part of the AMPTP. However, A24 is still pausing Problemista‘s release in order to support Torres and allow him to promote the film around the time of its release.
New release date: TBD
Possible postponements: Dune: Part Two, The Color Purple, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
As reported by Variety, Warner Bros. is considering new dates for sci-fi epic Dune: Part Two, musical The Color Purple, and superhero sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. While these new dates are yet to be officially announced and confirmed, they would mark a sizable shift to Warner Bros.’ end-of-year release slate, which otherwise includes the Timothée Chalamet-led Wonka.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
NASA temporarily loses contact with one of its most distant spacecraft
The Voyagers were launched nearly half a century ago.
Enlarge / An artist’s interpretation of Voyager 2, pointed to transmit data to Earth. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
About a week ago, operators of the Voyager 2 spacecraft sent a series of commands that inadvertently caused the distant probe to point its antenna slightly away from Earth. As a result, NASA has lost contact with the spacecraft, which is nearly half a century old and presently 19.9 billion km away from the planet.
For the time being, NASA and the mission’s scientists aren’t panicking. In an update posted Friday, the space agency said Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation several times a year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth. It is scheduled to do so again on October 15, which should allow communication to resume. In the meantime, NASA said it does not anticipate the spacecraft veering off course.
Launched separately in 1977 on two different rockets, the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have been true trailblazers for NASA and the world. Never before had a spacecraft visited four worlds in a single, grand tour as the two Voyager probes did in the 1970s and 1980s with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
You won’t find 100 players in a Team Fortress 2 server, but that’s a good thing
You may not be able to play in Team Fortress 2’s new 100-player servers but thankfully the game is in a better state.
Trapped in spawn with my back against the wall and a gaggle of pyros waiting at the exit, I can’t help but think to myself that more players in Team Fortress 2 servers may not be a good thing.
There’s been a ton of great updates for Team Fortress 2 over the year ever since Valve announced its ‘Big Summer Update’. Complete with 14 new maps and 25 cosmetics; there’s a ton of new and great content available to players. Like this update, the newest announcement that the player count has been raised from 32 to 100 was not made by Valve, so it is “unsupported and not recommended”.
While this new capacity sounds intriguing, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a server which actually tests the limits of everything we know Team Fortress 2 is capable of. Unfortunately, if you log onto the 16-year-old game, it doesn’t seem as if anyone is playing in these gigantic areas. Instead, many are still opting for the good old 32 players.
Despite missing out on getting to see just how chaotic these 100-player servers are, the TRG team did have the perfect excuse to dive back into TF2 and what the state of this iconic title was like.
The last time I ran around with a Scattergun was a few years ago when my group of friends had played through every multiplayer game known to man and had run out of ideas. At first, it was pleasantly fun, but soon we were plagued by hordes of bots, all pointing their sniper rifle to the sky and downing us with one shot as soon as we peeked out of spawn.
Thankfully this time around, there was nothing of the sort. I was happily surprised not to play cat and mouse, running away from bots from one server to the next. Instead, we played through entire games with only the occasional cheater rearing their head.
After the initial joy wore off, we got to play a proper game of Team Fortress 2 for the first time in years, and it went exactly as you’d expect. While it’s definitely true that it plays better than expected, as I was only phased into the backrooms once, it took a few games for the team matchmaking to balance out.
(Image credit: Valve)
Playing medic in the first few rounds meant that I spent most of my time trapped in spawn in a futile effort to give the heavy enough healing to make a dent in the enemy team’s defense or at least make a dent in the turret. Sadly, none of this worked out quite the way we wanted it to, as most of our games ended pretty quickly.
Luckily, by the end, we managed to find a match with balanced matchmaking. This was enough to remind me why I used to spend hours and hours playing Team Fortress 2 with my friends as I sped around the map as Scout and had the thrilling fights that I had long forgotten.
Despite our experience in Team Fortress 2 being a mixed bag, it’s great to see such a well-loved game getting some attention after all these years. It can often be hard to freshen up a title like this, so even if 100-player servers may be hard to comprehend and even harder to find, it’s at least a sign that this multiplayer FPS is still alive and kicking.
If you’re in the mood for a shooter that is slightly more current, then check out our best FPS games list for all the must-haves.
SmartWorks Technology, BlinkNow Foundation join forces to prepare rural Nepalese students for technology careers
In a truly inspiring partnership to bring hope and promise to underserved students in rural Nepalese, BlinkNow, a global nonprofit committed to transforming lives, has teamed up with SmartWorks Technology Partners, a leading provider of recruiting and staffing services in
In a truly inspiring partnership to bring hope and promise to underserved students in rural Nepalese, BlinkNow, a global nonprofit committed to transforming lives, has teamed up with SmartWorks Technology Partners, a leading provider of recruiting and staffing services in […]