Elon Musk: After three month hiatus, SpaceX will return to flight in December

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Friday his space launch company is aiming to return its rockets to flight in mid-December following a launch pad accident two months ago.During an interview with CNBC, Musk said investigators had figured out why a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames on 1 September as it was being fueled for a routine, preflight test.The accident destroyed a $200 million Israeli communications satellite and grounded the Falcon 9 fleet for the second time in 14 months.The cause of the accident was a fueling system issue that inadvertently produced solid oxygen inside the rocket’s upper stage tank. The oxygen then reacted with a carbon composite bottle containing liquid helium that sits inside the oxygen tank, triggering an explosion.

“I think we’ve gotten to the bottom of the problem,” said Musk, who is also chief executive of Tesla Motors Inc. He added that the issue had never been encountered in the history of rocketry.

Musk did not specify what mission would launch next, nor whether SpaceX would fly from a new launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or from its West Coast site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.SpaceX’s primary launch pad, located just south of Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, was damaged in the Sept. 1 accident. SpaceX has declined to release details on the extent of damage.

The company has a backlog of about 70 missions, worth more than $10 billion.

Also on Friday, NASA and Orbital ATK Inc said Orbital’s next cargo run to the International Space Station would use the heavier-lift Atlas 5 rocket, made by United Launch Alliance, rather than Orbital’s Antares booster. The switch will allow NASA to fly an extra 660 pounds (300 kg) of cargo to the station while SpaceX returns to flight.NASA hired Orbital and SpaceX to fly cargo to the station after the shuttles were retired in 2011.Terms of Orbital’s contract with United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, were not released. The launch is targeted for early 2017, NASA said.

4G vs LTE: Why you're not getting true 4G speeds

Tech jargon is confusing at the best of times, but 4G is a real minefield. We explain the differences between 4G and LTE so you're better equipped to choose not only the best phone, but also the best tariff.

It’s not just the download speed that dictates overall responsiveness of a 4G connection; latency also plays an important part. A lower latency provides better responsiveness and reduced delays when using data for browsing, video calling, etc.

Surprisingly, EE wasn’t the best provider when it came to latency – that award went to Three. Ofcom reports that Three took the least time to deliver data on both 4G (47.6ms) and 3G (53.8 ms), while O2 came last with the highest levels of latency, measuring in at 62.7ms on 4G and 86.4ms on 3G.

What is 4G?

Now you know more about what the difference is between true 4G and the 4G LTE we’re being sold, which UK network provides the best 4G LTE connection? In November 2014, Ofcom tested the 3G and 4G connections of every major provider in the UK in five cities.

The results proved that EE has the fastest 4G LTE connection, measuring in at 18.4Mb/s on average, though still far from the theoretical top speed of LTE. You can see the results in the graph below:

What is LTE?

Though originally marketed as 4G technology, LTE (Long Term Evolution) didn't satisfy the technical requirements that the ITU-R outlined, meaning that many early tariffs sold as 4G weren't actually 4G.

However due to marketing pressures and the significant advancements that LTE brings to original 3G technologies, the ITU later decided that LTE could be called 4G technology.So, LTE is a first-generation 4G technology that should theoretically reach speeds of around 100Mbit/s. Unfortunately, Ofcom reports that the UK average is around 15.1Mbit/s. While that's around twice the speed of an average 3G connection, it’s a long way off from the theoretical top speed of LTE.

UK Data Speeds – who offers the fastest 4G LTE connection?

Now you know more about what the difference is between true 4G and the 4G LTE we’re being sold, which UK network provides the best 4G LTE connection? In November 2014, Ofcom tested the 3G and 4G connections of every major provider in the UK in five cities.The results proved that EE has the fastest 4G LTE connection, measuring in at 18.4Mb/s on average, though still far from the theoretical top speed of LTE. You can see the results in the graph below:

It’s not just the download speed that dictates overall responsiveness of a 4G connection; latency also plays an important part. A lower latency provides better responsiveness and reduced delays when using data for browsing, video calling, etc.Surprisingly, EE wasn’t the best provider when it came to latency – that award went to Three. Ofcom reports that Three took the least time to deliver data on both 4G (47.6ms) and 3G (53.8 ms), while O2 came last with the highest levels of latency, measuring in at 62.7ms on 4G and 86.4ms on 3G.

Optoma BE Sport3 Review: Bluetooth earbuds for cheap audiophiles

As a general rule, sports headphones kind of suck. Sweat-proofing and secure fit for some reason seem to equate with bloated bass and a lack of clarity. That, or you have to spend a couple hundred bucks to get decent audio.

Thankfully the Optoma NuForce BE Sport3 (geez, what a mouthful) don’t fit into this mold.

You might not be familiar with NuForce – a sub brand of Optoma, a company best known for its projectors – but they have a small following in headphone forums for providing solid audio quality at reasonable prices, and the company’s recent wireless BE6i were met to solid reviews.

Specs

• 10 hour battery life
• Bluetooth 4.1
• 6 mm dynamic drivers
• Up to 10 m range
• Siri and Google Now integration
• IP55 rating for rain, sweat and dust resistance
• AptX and AAC compatibility

Qualcomm announces the world’s first 5G modem to bring 5Gbps download speeds to smartphones

Qualcomm Technologies prides itself on being a wireless technology leader. It’s at the very heart of our identity, the core of what defines and drives us. Our inventions have pushed the boundaries of wireless technology for decades.And now the company that brought you 3G and 4G is doing it again. Today, we’re announcing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem. It is Qualcomm Technologies' first 5G modem, and it will help usher in a new generation of cellular services.With this announcement, 5G becomes more than just an ambitious collection of ideas about what the future of cellular systems should look like and what it will make possible. Qualcomm Technologies has led the 5G conversation, and now we’re leading the way with the realization of actual 5G products.

The Snapdragon X50 5G modem is a remarkable milestone in and of itself. But its capabilities are even more impressive. It’s engineered to support unprecedented download speeds of up to 5Gbps. It is designed to achieve these breathtaking speeds by utilizing very wide bandwidths available in the 28 GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) band combined with advanced signal processing technologies.

Given the challenges posed by the propagation characteristics of mmWave spectrum, many had speculated that mmWave would be confined to fixed wireless applications. But the X50 modem bears the Snapdragon name and is made by Qualcomm Technologies, so naturally, it’s built from the ground up for mobility.

Years of research and development have allowed us to invent technologies to overcome mmWave’s limitations. Instead of using only a handful of antennas (as with 4G), the Snapdragon X50 5G modem relies on multi-element antenna arrays. The antennas are designed to work together intelligently, using beamforming and beam tracking technologies, extending mmWave’s mobility and reach to non-line-of-sight scenarios. For example, the Snapdragon X50 5G modem can direct the energy of the mmWave beam, bouncing off obstacles to reach the mmWave 5G small cell with which it is communicating.

But what happens when the 5G device moves completely out of range of the 5G small cell? This is where our leadership in 4G LTE will play a crucial role. Just today, Qualcomm Technologies, along with Telstra, Ericsson, and NETGEAR, announced the first commercial Gigabit Class LTE device and network. Gigabit Class LTE is now a reality, and again we’re at the forefront. It’s our firm belief that Gigabit Class LTE will be the advanced coverage layer that co-exists, and interworks, with 5G deployments.

This means that when a mobile device moves out of the range of the 5G small cell, LTE will provide the coverage. The drop in broadband speed during this transition won’t be precipitous; after all, it’s inconceivable that people will tolerate a drop from multi-gigabit per second peak download speeds to only a few hundred megabits. Application developers should be able to count on a predictable high-speed mobile broadband link to the device to develop new generations of applications, services, and user experiences. With Gigabit Class LTE, the experience will be much more uniform in those mobility scenarios, emboldening developers and delighting users.

The Snapdragon X50 5G modem is designed to make this seamless mobility possible. It can be paired with a Snapdragon processor with an integrated Gigabit Class LTE modem. In addition to supporting 4G LTE and mmWave 5G, the complete 4G/5G multi-mode platform is designed to help provide dual-connectivity to both (so a mobile device can connect simultaneously over both generations of technology) to achieve seamless mobility between the two.

This type of multi-mode capability was crucial for the success of 4G LTE technology, as 3G/4G multi-mode devices based on Qualcomm Technologies' chipsets were able to fall back to 3G wherever 4G coverage wasn’t available in nascent networks. Here we are at the cusp of a new generation of cellular networks, and multi-mode capability will once again be supporting the success of the fledgling generation. That’s why leadership in 4G is critical in order to lead the way to 5G.

Though the Snapdragon X50 5G modem represents many firsts for the industry and Qualcomm Technologies, our sights are set on the ultimate goal: a true, global standard for 5G. This is coming to fruition: We’re an active contributor and champion of the 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard.The Snapdragon X50 5G modem is expected to begin sampling in the second half of 2017, and the first products integrating it are expected to surface throughout 2018. As we take on the challenge of integrating new mmWave technology into commercial devices, we’ll learn a lot. We can use this learning to accelerate the finalization of the 5G NR standard and usher in 5G NR networks and devices.

We are pleased to help usher in the 5G era with the Snapdragon X50 5G modem, and will work diligently to bring it to an entirely new generation of cellular devices and networks.

This new, magical video mapping technology is perfect for clothing

If you’ve ever seen an example of projection mapping or video mapping before, prepare to have your mind blown by the latest advancement in this technology.For those out of the loop, it refers to projecting an image onto a surface – be it a sheet of fabric or the side of a building – while having it conform to the shape of your target. It’s a way harder to achieve when the object isn’t stationary and can be moved in different ways.

If you’ve ever seen an example of projection mapping or video mapping before, prepare to have your mind blown by the latest advancement in this technology.

Google is changing search in a big way

Google is now starting to experiment with one of its biggest changes to search. The company is beginning to test a new "mobile first" version of its search index, meaning the company will prioritize mobile content in its search results.First, a refresher on how Google Search works: Google's bots crawl the web tracking more than 60 trillion web pages and the links within them. Google then categorizes them into a massive index based on hundreds of different factors. This index, along with a series of algorithms, is what enables Google to return relevant search results — that list of blue links — when you enter a query into the search box.

With the new update, Google will determine the rankings of pages based on their mobile content. (While it was previously reported that Google was creating an entirely separate mobile index, the company says it will be using the same index as before but that it will use mobile sites for its page ranking.)"Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results," writes Google product manager Doantam Phan. There are a lot of implications to this change, but the most obvious one is that sites that don't have functional mobile versions will likely lose out, and turn up farther down in search results. With this move, Google's message is very clear: The time to adapt to mobile is now. 

This is a big change and one that "will take some time" to be implemented fully, according to Phan, but for users this means mobile search results will get a lot better. That's good news for users since the majority of Google searches now come from mobile devices — the impetus behind Google's desire to optimize its core product for that audience.Though Google is still only testing the change, the company offers a few suggestions to those who want to make sure their sites are ready for the change. You can take a look at them over at Google's Webmaster blog

Facebook Messenger is testing “Instant Games” like this one from King

Facebook Messenger is preparing to launch a new “Instant Games” platform that will let people play lightweight games against friends. Candy Crush maker King.com is already testing one of these Instant Games called “Shuffle Cats Mini” in New Zealand, TechCrunch has discovered. And other studios including Big Viking also appear to be prepping for the Instant Games launch.Facebook has been largely shut out of the native mobile gaming world by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. But by building games into Messenger by using it as a portal to mobile web apps, Facebook could create a new platform that drives Messenger engagement. Users could come to Messenger to play Instant Games, challenge friends via Facebook Messages, and potentially earn Facebook a cut of in-game purchases. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Earlier today, The Informationreported that Facebook is building the Instant Games platform for asynchronous games that you can take turns playing with friends, not necessarily at the same time. Instant Games expands on the success of the chess,basketball, and soccer mini-games Facebook itself built for Messenger earlier this year by allowing third-party developers to build them too. Facebook plans to release a development kit or tool later this month, though developers haven’t been told if they’ll be able to charge for in-game purchases.