Month: May 2019
DEAL: Google Nest Hub for $67, Down From the Usual $129
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For a limited time, massgenie is hosting a big time sale on Google Nest Hub units, the smart displays from Google that used to be called Home Hubs.
Thanks to the deal hitting its Power Deal minimum, the units are going for just $67, which is an insane mark down from its usual $129 price on the Google Store. I’d go so far as to say this is the cheapest we’ve ever seen them, so if you’ve been waiting, now’s the time. If you don’t buy it via the Power Deal, it still only costs $78, which is also a crazy good price.
Both Chalk and Charcoal colors appear to be available for purchase at this time.
Have at it.
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The world’s largest airplane may be grounded after a single flight
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The Stratolaunch aircraft took flight for the first and only time in April. [credit:
Stratolaunch ]
The aerospace company founded by Paul Allen, Stratolaunch, is closing operations according to a report by Reuters that cited anonymous sources. The company will cease its efforts to challenge traditional aerospace companies in a new “space race,” four people familiar with the matter told the wire service.
In response to a query from Ars about potentially ending operations, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based company replied, “We don’t have any news or announcements to share at this time. Stratolaunch remains operational.”
Questions about the future of Stratolaunch arose almost immediately after Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, died in October, 2018, at the age of 65. According to Reuters, the decision to set an exit strategy was made late last year by Allen’s sister, Jody Allen. In January, Stratolaunch abandoned efforts to build a series
NASA picks three companies to attempt Moon landings in 2020 and 2021
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With its Z-01 lander, Orbit Beyond will make the first attempt to land on the Moon in September, 2020. [credit:
Orbit Beyond ]
NASA has begun to make good on its promise to use commercial companies to help with its lunar exploration efforts.
On Friday, the space agency announced that it has contracted with three companies—Orbit Beyond, Astrobotic, and Intuitive Machines—to deliver scientific payloads to the Moon in the years 2020 and 2021. The announcement is significant for several reasons, not least because no private company has ever landed successfully on the Moon and because the United States has not made a soft landing on the Moon in 46 years.
This program, formally named Commercial Lunar Payload Services, represents the vanguard of a decade-long plan for NASA to return to the Moon and potentially establish an outpost for crew on the surface. With this first tentative step, NASA will
Power systems company to build world’s first 1 GW energy storage project in Utah
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Enlarge / The Intermountain Power Project plant stands in Delta, Utah, U.S., on Wednesday, May 24, 2017. The largest coal-fired power plant in Utah plans to shutters its facility by 2025 as the company’s largest customer base, Southern California municipalities, move towards regulations limiting coal-fueled electricity. (credit: George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
This week, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) announced that it planned to build the world’s first one-gigawatt (GW) energy storage network. The Mitsubishi and Hitachi joint-venture said the storage network would incorporate several different kinds of energy storage, including renewable hydrogen, Compressed Air Energy Storage, flow batteries, and solid oxide fuel cells.
MHPS has only said that it will be able to deliver 1 GW of power, but it did not specify how the project will be rated in terms of gigawatt-hours.
The project appears to center around an advanced natural gas turbine
Microsoft practically begs Windows users to fix wormable BlueKeep flaw
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Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Microsoft security officials say they are confident an exploit exists for BlueKeep, the recently patched vulnerability that has the potential to trigger self-replicating attacks as destructive as the 2017 WannaCry attack that shut down computers all over the world.
In a Blog post published late Thursday night, members of the Microsoft Security Response Center cited findings published Tuesday by Errata Security CEO Rob Graham that almost 1 million Internet-connected computers remain vulnerable to the attacks. That indicates those machines have yet to install an update Microsoft issued two weeks ago patching against the so-called BlueKeep vulnerability, which is formally tracked as CVE-2019-0708. The exploits can reliably execute malicious code with no interaction on the part of an end user. The severity prompted Microsoft to take the unusual step of issuing patches for Windows 2003, XP, and Vista, which haven’t been supported in four, five, and
Podcast: Moto Mods Live!
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On this episode of the Droid Life Show, we’re catching up on a couple of weeks worth of news, but will kick off with the Moto Z4. Motorola is back with another Moto Mod-ready phone that has some decent upgrades and a not-terrible price.
We’ll also dive into the future of headphone jacks, Sprint’s 5G network, the new Google Play refresh, whether or not it’s a good time to be a smartphone buyer, and share poll results on what everyone’s least favorite Google phone was.
Trivia is back again! We’ve got a whole bunch of OnePlus accessories to give away!
We’ll be live at 12:00PM Pacific (3PM Eastern).
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Report: Amazon Has Interest in Buying Boost Mobile
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For the merge between T-Mobile and Sprint to take place, it’s been reported that the joined companies, known as the New T-Mobile, would have to sell off Boost Mobile, a Sprint-operated prepaid brand. A likely buyer appears to be Amazon, as reported by Reuters.
Along with getting Boost Mobile, Amazon would receive 6+ years usage of New T-Mobile’s network, as well as the possibility to acquire divested spectrum from the carrier merge.
According to the Reuters, the sale price of Boost Mobile would be about $3 billion or up to $4.5 billion if it includes wireless spectrum.
We have no idea what Amazon would do with a prepaid carrier, but if we had to guess, it’d be to sell its lineup of Prime phones that come loaded with Amazon’s suite of apps and services. They could also use Boost as an outlet to sell its Echo … Read the rest
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Uber reports $1 billion loss in first post-IPO quarterly results
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Enlarge / Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. (credit: George Grinsted)
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Uber lost slightly more than $1 billion in the first three months of 2019, the company announced on Thursday. It’s Uber’s first quarterly earnings release since the company went public earlier this month.
Uber’s loss wasn’t a surprise—indeed, it was right in line with expectations. Wall Street shrugged off the news, with the stock rising around one percent in the hours after the results were announced. Uber’s stock price is now slightly below Thursday’s closing price at $39.60.
Uber has lost money almost every quarter since its founding a decade ago. Uber lost $4.46 billion in calendar year 2017 on a GAAP basis. Uber suffered a relatively modest $370 million GAAP loss in 2018, largely thanks to a one-time boost from a multi-billion dollar deal with Yandex.
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Amazon cell service? Company reportedly interested in buying Boost Mobile
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The Amazon Fire Phone! (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
You buy everything else from Amazon, so why not cellular service? A report from Reuters claims the retail juggernaut is “considering” buying Sprint MVNO Boost Mobile.
Sprint and T-Mobile are currently in the process of a big merger, and one of the concessions required by the FCC is the divestiture of Boost mobile, Sprint’s low-cost, prepaid carrier. With Boost up for sale (for up to $3 billion, according, again, to Reuters), Amazon is evidently considering jumping into the cellular business.
As an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), Boost Mobile doesn’t own its own network. Instead, it resells Sprint’s network, so in the future it would still rely on the merged T-Mobile/Sprint network for service. Buying Boost would reportedly score Amazon a sizable (7-8 million strong) customer base, along with a six-year license to operate on and resell service to the new
New Google Home Device Stops at FCC, but What the Hell is It?
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I don’t know what exactly it is, but a new Google “media device” showed up at the FCC this morning with a model number that looks like it would fit nicely into the Google Home or Google Nest families of products.
The device is listed under Google’s FCC ID as A4RH2B, or model number H2B. For reference, Google Home Mini was H0A, Google Home Max was H0B, Home Hub was H1A, and the new Nest Hub Max is H2A. As you can see, H2B is likely a Home or Nest-related device.
But what is it? Well, you can see the shape of it below, thanks to a shot of its “bottom side.”
The FCC tested it for both Bluetooth and WiFi (802.11ac), plus it’s powered by a 3.8V lithium ion battery. That sure makes it sound like it takes replaceable batteries or needs to be … Read the rest
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