After successful Antares launch, NASA wants Orbital ATK to launch on ULA’s rocket again

NASA has asked commercial partner Orbital ATK to set aside its Antares rocket for the company’s next mission to the International Space Station and instead fly cargo on an Atlas V rocket — the premier vehicle of the United Launch Alliance. The move is aimed at getting more cargo to the ISS in early 2017, since the Atlas V has a greater lift capability than the Antares.

THE ANTARES RETURNED TO FLIGHT JUST LAST MONTH

It’s an ironic decision since the Antaressuccessfully returned to flight just last month. The rocket had been grounded for the past two years, after a previous version of the vehicle exploded in a spectacular fireball during a launch in October 2014. The accident prompted Orbital ATK to do an intense refurbishment of the Antares, and the updated rocket performed a flawless first launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia three weeks ago.

The rocket will be sidelined only temporarily, however. Orbital ATK will launch its Cygnus cargo capsule on top of an Atlas V rocket this spring from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company’s remaining four cargo missions in 2017 and 2018 will be done with the Antares in Virginia. "With five Antares launches from October 2016 through 2018, together with the Atlas V rocket, this plan represents the company’s commitment to establishing schedules that are realistic and achievable," Orbital ATK said in a statement.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that NASA was interested in the Atlas V, and the agency confirmed the switch today to The Verge. "We mutually agreed with Orbital ATK to use an Atlas V for the company's seventh contracted cargo resupply mission to the space station in the spring," NASA told The Verge in a statement.

Everyday life can be annoying, but now you can share your pain in this challenge

There are many moments in my day that I would classify as deeply annoying and utterly inconsequential. Such as: the subway not taking my card swipe the first, second, or fifth time. Stepping out for five minutes and missing the UPS guy. HBO Go buffering during crucial scenes in Game of Thrones.We all have snapshots of irritation over stupid things, and my god it feels good to share them. Misery loves company and so on. It’s this line of thinking that inspired Parallel Studio’s The Unsatisfying Challenge — a prompt for anyone to share their own bitter disappointments.

Over the summer, Parallel Studio created a video illustrating “the frustrating, annoying, disappointing little things of everyday life, that are so painful to live or even to watch.” The group had so many ideas after they finished, designer Thibault de Fournas told me, that they decided to push the prompt out to others.“I hope we [will] discover a lot of unsatisfying situations we didn’t think [of],” de Fournas says. “We are also hoping that some people will present really weird and twisted things.

“[Everyday frustrations are] something that everybody [has experienced].”The call closes on November 15th, and Parallel will add Vimeo submissions to the challenge’s channel. Anyone can make a submission, though you should read the guidelines on the website. De Fournas doesn’t think they’ll pick a winner — “people will decide which one is their [personal favorite],” he says. Instead, Parallel will likely publish a best of compilation.

Microsoft’s IFTTT alternative is now open to everyone

Microsoft Flow, the company’s own take on IFTTT, is officially available to the general public after being released in beta back in April. The tool lets you connect cloud services like Slack, G Suite, Twitter, Office 365, and Dynamics 365 to create action “Flows” for the workplace.

A Flow is an action that takes place after something else happens — like having a photo uploaded to Dropbox after emailing it to yourself. Unlike IFTTT, which lets you link two single actions with each other, Microsoft’s version can perform multiple actions in a single Flow. For example, you can choose to have a tweet containing a certain keyword trigger both a push notification and an email simultaneously instead of creating two separate recipes.

Compared to IFTTT, Flow is compatible with fewer third-party apps (58 supported apps to IFTTT’s 366). This makes sense, though, given that Flow is designed to be used at an enterprise level while IFTTT targets Internet of Things users.

Microsoft Flow is available for free and starts at $5 per user monthly if you want to run Flows more often (the free version limits you to 750 runs per month). It’s being released alongsidePowerApps, a business app building tool for non-coders. You can sign up for Flow with any email — no association with Office required.Flow’s public release also lets system administrators control which apps and services can be used within the company, and which teams or geographic regions specific Flows can be targeted to. Like IFTTT’s Do suite of apps, Flow’s mobile app lets you make buttons that can trigger actions on the go, such as emailing a colleague if you’re running behind to a meeting.

Slack shows it’s worried about Microsoft Teams with a full-page newspaper ad

Microsoft is just minutes away from unveiling its Slack competitor, Microsoft Teams, at an event in New York City today. The software giant is expected to position its Teams software with tight integration into Microsoft Office, Skype, and the company's Office 365 services, and as a direct competitor to Slack. Microsoft hasn't even officially unveiled its Teams service, but that's not stopping Slack from getting some words out before the software maker's event.

In a full back page ad in the New York Times, Slack welcomes Microsoft's competition into the messaging market with some "friendly advice." In a long note, that's also published on Slack's blog, the company warns Microsoft that it's not the features that matter, it's the craftsmanship and human aspects of the software. "We've spent tens of thousands of hours talking to customers and adapting Slack to find the grooves that match all those human quirks," says the Slack team. "The internal transparency and sense of shared purpose that Slack-using teams discover is not an accident. Tiny details make big differences."

Dell just teased its own Surface Studio PC

Microsoft announced its Surface Studio all-in-one PC last week, with a plan to appeal to creatives. At Adobe's Max conference in San Diego today, Dell aired a teaser video for its upcoming all-in-one PC that looks like its own take on Microsoft's Surface Studio. Spotted by SurfaceProArt on Twitter, the teaser doesn't mention specs or pricing, but it looks like a PC with two screens and additional input through its own Surface Dial-like hardware. In a subsequent tweet, Dell confirmed that the machine will be unveiled at CES 2017. Apparently it's been in development since 2014.

Microsoft unveiled the Dial as an additional input tool for creatives, and Windows chief Terry Myerson told The Verge last week that Microsoft was open to letting partners use its own technology to bring similar devices to the market. It looks like that's about to happen with Dell's all-in-one. Dell's machine appears to include stylus support, with input primarily driven from a touchscreen that lays on a desk where a mouse or keyboard would traditionally sit.Dell ends its 90-second teaser with a mention that this unannounced device will be unveiled soon, and "welcome to your new workspace." That sounds a lot like Microsoft's pitch: turn your desk into a studio.

Xiaomi’s new affordable Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A launched

After the launch of two premium smart phones just a few days back, Xiaomi has launched its new budget handsets in China.The new Redmi 4 is an upgraded its previous version of Redmi 3 that was launched earlier this year that has proved to be the benchmark smart phone model in the market, which makes for a phone with exciting specs at an affordable price.

Backed by a nice unibody metal design, the phone also features a fingerprint scanner mounted at the back, similar to that of the previous phone. It share a similar design detail like that of the Note 4 that has small bezels and over all features a 5 inch HD display with a resolution of 720p, where as speeding the handset is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 SoC that clocks at a speed of 1.4GHz along with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage for saving your precious data, that can be increased to 128GB with the help of an expandable storage. It also has an inferior variant that hosts Snapdragon 430 processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM.

The back metal panel also hosts a 13MP camera sensor where as the front comes with a 5MP selfie camera. It runs on Google’s v6.0 Android Marshmallow OS, skinned heavily with MIUI. For long usability, the phone also uses a 4,100mAh battery and also has support for VoLTE-ready and 4G LTE.

Alongside, the company also launched the Redmi 4A that runs n Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 CPU paired with 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and uses a 3, 120mAh battery. This handset too comes with a fingerprint scanner.

The Redmi4 Snapdradon 625 version is priced at CNY 899( Rs 8,888 approx.), while the Snapdragon 430 is priced at CNY 699 (Rs 6,905 approx.).There is no news on India launch as if now for these handsets, as the Redmi3 too did not come to India, but were launched later in different versions of Redmi 3S and 3S Prime in India.

Lenovo's mobile shipments increase; Massive boost in Motorola sales in India

There is good news for Lenovo all around. Right after dethroning Micromax from 2nd place in the Indian mobile industry, Lenovo got a boost from its smartphone division during Q3 2016. 

Substantial increase in Mobile shipments 

The company announced that it sold a total of 14 million smartphone in the third quarter of 2016, which was up 25% compared to Q2. Lenovo’s overall revenues for the quarter stood at $11.2 billion, 8% down from the same period in 2015. On a more positive side, Net income cam in at $157 million in Q3, a radical improvement compared to a loss of $174 million in Q3 2015.

Massive boost from sales of Moto Z 

This is where the news gets a little interesting. Lenovo’s mobile division, which has been struggling a bit as of late, saw a 40% increase in sales this quarter thanks to the Moto Z, Moto Z Play and the innovative Moto Mods. You can read about our initial impressions of the Moto Z here and the Moto Modshere . However, despite the increase in smartphone sales, the mobile division still posted a loss of $156 million (against a revenue of $2billion). Although, this is still a 4.4% improvement over last year.

Major sales of Motorola smartphones in India 

 Majority of the increase in smartphone shipments came from Asia, with India in particular seeing a massive 15% increase in shipments compared to last year. Lenovo’s Motorola division, thanks to the Moto Z, Moto Z Play and Moto Mods saw a 40% boost in sales.