Android 9 Pie proves Android’s update situation is actually getting better

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1353935


  • The Essential Phone.


    Ron Amadeo

  • The back is all ceramic.


    Ron Amadeo

  • The screen goes all the way to the edge, but there’s that camera notch.


    Ron Amadeo

  • The bottom has a chin.


    Ron Amadeo

  • On the back, you’ve got the LED flash, a dual-camera setup, two contact points for the modular system, and a fingerprint reader.


    Ron Amadeo

  • You can make out the earpiece, which is a tiny slot in the top bezel.


    Ron Amadeo

  • The bottom has a slot for a speaker and another for a microphone. There’s also the USB-C port.


    Ron Amadeo

  • The top is blank, which means there’s no headphone jack.


    Ron Amadeo

  • This side is blank…


    Ron Amadeo

  • …while this side has the power and volume buttons.


    Ron Amadeo

Android 9 Pie launch day was yesterday, and while a major new version of Android is always a big deal, today Android hit another big milestone: the first ever day-one update on a non-Google phone.

For years, the Android ecosystem has made updating the OS of a device seem like an impossible task. Some of Android’s biggest OEMs take anywhere from three to six months to update their flagship phone, and this is the best support they offer—many devices do not get updated at all. Consider that Android 8.0 Oreo is about a year old now and has shipped on a whopping 12 percent of the Android active install base. The terrible state of Android updates has led some people to call Android a “toxic hellstew of vulnerabilities” due to all the devices running old software.

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

August 7, 2018 at 09:21AM

Landspace of China to Launch First Rocket in Late 2018

https://www.space.com/41382-landspace-china-first-rocket-launch-2018.html



HELSINKI — Emerging private Chinese company Landspace is set to launch its first rocket into orbit in the final quarter of 2018, carrying a small satellite for a state television company.


Landspace announced Aug. 2 that­­­ the three-stage solid-propellant LandSpace rocket, named Zhuque-1, will carry the China Central Television (CCTV) satellite for space science experiments and remote sensing before the end of the year.


It is expected to be China’s first private orbital launch with the privately developed satellite to operate for two years in a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). Measuring 320 by 295 by 248 millimeters, the satellite is roughly the size of a three-unit cubesat. [China Joins Private Space Race with Landmark OneSpace Rocket Launch]

Illustration of the CCTV small satellite payload for the Zhuque-1 debut launch.

Credit: Landspace


Zhuque-1 is a 19-meter-tall, 1.35-meter-diameter rocket with a takeoff mass of 27 metric tons and thrust of 45 tons, able to carry 200 kilograms to 500-kilometer SSO and 300 kilograms to a 300 kilometers low Earth orbit.


No launch site was named in the Aug. 2 press release but a contract signed by Danish cubesat maker Gomspace and Landspace for a rideshare service in 2018 previously identified the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre, China’s new coastal launch site, as the location for Landspace’s debut launch.


Beyond this demonstration, Landspace has much grander plans. Last month the company said it had designed a methane- and liquid-oxygen-powered rocket it aims to test launch in 2020.


The two-stage Zhuque-2 (ZQ-2) rocket will measure 48.8-meters tall with a diameter of 3.35 meters and be capable of delivering a 4,000-kilogram payload capacity to a 200-kilometer low Earth orbit and 2,000 kilograms to 500-kilometer SSO, using 80-ton and 10-ton methane engines.


The future ZQ-2A, B and C three-stage rockets will aim to be able to lift 6,000, 17,000 and 32,000 kilograms to 200-kilometer low Earth orbit, respectively – indicating ambitions that currently go well beyond those of other emerging private launch companies in China.


OneSpace, others to follow into orbit


OneSpace, established in 2015, last month announced it had test fired the first-stage rocket motor for its OS-M1, the first of an orbital series of rockets, which is also now expected to fly around the end of 2018.


In an email to SpaceNews last month, a OneSpace representative said that a payload has been arranged for this first flight as it looks find its place in the market.


OneSpace, along with other emerging companies, have come a long way since their founding following a Chinese government policy shift to allow private enterprise into the space sector in 2014. Availability of talent and technology have been key to progress.


“OneSpace [has] already gathered 130 talents all from first-class universities and scientific institutes,” according to Luo Zihao of OneSpace, who also said access to mature technology has been crucial.


“The launch success rate of China’s rockets is at the international advanced level. Thus, China already have mature space technologies. What private enterprises do is to apply original military aerospace technologies into private rockets.”


Luo explained that Chinese President Xi Jinping promoted military-civilian integration as a national strategy in 2015 and the Chinese government began to solicit opinions on commercial space industry from all stakeholders.


“Policies for Chinese commercial space industry have opened gradually, and private capital began to enter into this specific area, which raised a new development trend of the commercial space industry. All of the above have provided us with very good support,” Luo said.


With its OS-M series rockets OneSpace, “aims to provide launch service to small and micro satellites, providing customers launch service with efficient, reliable and rapid response at a competitive price.”


Coordination with the national launch sites – three inland at Jiuquan, Taiyuan and Xichang and the coastal Wenchang complex – and proving the reliability of OS-M1 rocket’s components were stated as the major challenges OneSpace faces in establishing itself as a launch provider. Also in the road ahead will be competition from Landspace and others. [China’s Space Station Will Be Open to Science from All UN Nations]


Private and state launch competition grows


iSpace, set up in 2016 and which launched its Hyperbola-1S solid rocket above the Karman line from Hainan in April , is also looking to compete with orbital solid-fueled Hyperbola rockets in the near future, followed by more capable liquid-propellant rockets. Another company, Linkspace, is looking debut its vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket in 2020.


The country’s state-owned space behemoths are also providing competition in the micro and small launcher market. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the main contractor for the space program, is aiming to use its light-lift Long March 11 solid-fueled rocket for low latitude sea launches using a large, modified vessel starting this year.


Earlier this week it was announced that Chinarocket Co., Ltd., operating under CASC, is developing the ‘Lightning Dragon-1’ (Jie Long-1) micro launcher, designed to be “fast, agile and flexible” and capable of putting 150 kilograms into a 700-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit. No test flight date was stated.


Expace, a nominally private launch provider under the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), the state-owned missile maker and defense giant, is also expected to launch multiple commercial satellites this year using its Kuaizhou solid propellant rockets.


This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

via Space.com https://www.space.com

August 6, 2018 at 06:44AM

SpaceX Re-Launches ‘Block 5’ Rocket for 1st Time, Nails Landing Again

https://www.space.com/41395-spacex-launches-used-block-5-rocket-nails-landing.html



SpaceX has checked off another reusability milestone, re-flying the latest version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time ever.


The two-stage “Block 5” Falcon 9 launched at 1:18 a.m. EDT (0518 GMT) today (Aug. 7) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, successfully lofting an Indonesian telecommunications satellite to orbit. Less than 9 minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage came back to Earth for a vertical touchdown on SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship, which was stationed a few hundred miles off the Florida coast.


The landing was the second for this particular first stage, which also pulled one off on May 11 during the first-ever flight of a Block 5 Falcon 9. [Photos: SpaceX Launches, Lands 1st ‘Block 5’ Falcon 9 Rocket]


Today’s launch lofted the Merah Putih satellite to a high geostationary transfer orbit. The spacecraft — whose name translates as “red and white,” a reference to the colors of the Indonesian flag — will become part of the network run by PT Telkom Indonesia, the nation’s largest telecommunications provider.


Merah Putih “will carry an all C-band payload capable of supporting a wide range of applications, including providing mobile broadband across Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The satellite is expected to have a service lifetime of 15 or more years,” SpaceX representatives wrote in a mission description.


The Block 5, which has now flown four orbital missions, is the latest (and final) variant of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9. The Block 5 is slightly more powerful than its Block 4 predecessor, and it features a variety of upgrades designed to improve its reusability and reliability.


Block 5 first stages are designed to fly 10 times with just inspections between landing and liftoff, and 100 times or more with some refurbishment involved, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said. Musk views such rapid and extensive reuse as key to slashing the cost of spaceflight enough to make bold exploration efforts, such as Mars colonization, economically feasible. 


No Block 4 first stage has ever flown more than twice. (And SpaceX has yet to attempt reuse of the Falcon 9’s second stage or its payload fairing, the protective shroud that covers satellites during launch. The company has tried to catch falling fairing halves using a net-equipped boat named Mr. Steven, but such efforts have come up empty to date.)


“It’s really better in every way than the Block 4,” Musk said during a teleconference with reporters on May 10, a day before the Block 5’s debut flight. “This rocket is really designed to be — the intent is to be the most reliable rocket ever built.”


It’s unclear if any Block 5 first stage will reach 100 flights, because SpaceX plans to phase out the Falcon 9 — and all of its other currently operational space hardware, including the Dragon capsule and the Falcon Heavy rocket — in favor of the company’s in-development BFR spaceflight system. The BFR, a huge, reusable rocket-spaceship combo, will be able to ferry people to and from Mars, launch satellites, clean up space junk, perform “point-to-point” passenger flights around Earth and do anything else SpaceX needs it to do, Musk has said.


The Block 5 that lifted off this morning will fly for a third time later this year, if it passes post-landing tests and inspections, SpaceX representatives said during the Merah Putih launch webcast.


Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @SpacedotcomFacebook orGoogle+. Originally published on Space.com.

via Space.com https://www.space.com

August 7, 2018 at 01:00AM

Firefighting PyroLance Can Cut Through Steel To Extinguish An Enclosed Fire Without Adding Oxygen

http://geekologie.com/2018/08/firefighting-pyrolance-can-cut-through-s.php

pyrolance.jpg
This is a video demonstration of the PyroLance (not to be confused with pyro Lance, who will burn your house down when you’re on vacation), a firefighting tool that looks like an assault rifle and can cut through steel with an ultra-high pressure stream of water and extinguish an enclosed fire through the small hole it creates, and without providing the fire with any more oxygen fuel. Pretty smart. Almost as smart as the time I hired the Big Bad Wolf to blow up pool floats for a party.
Keep going for the video demonstration.

Thanks to hairless, for inspiring me to watch Backdraft tonight.

via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://geekologie.com/

August 6, 2018 at 01:52PM

SpaceX relaunches the final Falcon 9 rocket design

https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/spacex-falcon-9-block-5-relaunch/

Tonight, SpaceX has launched a satellite to geostationary orbit, but that payload isn’t what makes this mission special: it’s the rocket itself. The private space corporation has reused a Block 5 booster for the first time, the same one it used to launch a Bangladesh communications satellite back in May. Block 5 is the final version of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX expects to reuse for up to 100 times.

That launch back in May was the first time the company used Block 5 for an actual mission. SpaceX had to take it apart after it landed to make sure that it can be flown again without the need for maintenance in between flights in the future. The hope is to use it for 10 launches before it needs to be looked at and restored. That it only took the company a few months to send the booster back to the launchpad is very promising and could mark the beginning of an era of more affordable flights with reusable boosters.

SpaceX launched Block 5 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It will now attempt to land on the Of Course I Still Love You barge — if successful, the company will most likely be planning for its third launch.

Update: 1:30AM ET

SpaceX has successfully landed the booster on the Of Course I Still Love You barge.

Via: Ars Technica

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

August 7, 2018 at 12:36AM

Hospital superbugs are evolving to survive hand sanitizers

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1353373


Popular hand sanitizers may be heading the way of antibiotics, according to a study published this week in Science Translational Medicine.

Bacteria gathered from two hospitals in Australia between 1997 and 2015 appeared to gradually get better at surviving the alcohol used in hand sanitizers, researchers found. The bacteria’s boost in booze tolerance seemed in step with the hospitals’ gradually increasing use of alcohol-based sanitizers within that same time period—an increase aimed at improving sanitation and thwarting the spread of those very bacteria. Yet the germ surveillance data as well as a series of experiments the researchers conducted in mice suggest that the effort might be backfiring and that the hooch hygiene may actually be encouraging the spread of drug-resistant pathogens.

The researchers, led by infectious disease expert Paul Johnson and microbiologist Timothy Stinear of the University of Melbourne, summarized the findings, writing:

We have proposed here that the significant positive relationship between time and increasing alcohol tolerance is a response of the bacteria to increased exposure to alcohols in disinfectant preparations and that the more tolerant strains are able to displace their less alcohol-tolerant predecessors.

Johnson, Stinear, and colleagues cracked open the research after noting a puzzling pattern in hospital-acquired infections. While healthcare settings were upping their sanitation game with alcohol-based rubs, certain nefarious germs seemed to be in decline—methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, for instance—yet another set of germs seemed to be thriving. Those would be Enterococci bacteria, which are usually harmless occupants of the human gut but can become opportunistic pathogens that lurk in hospitals and pounce on vulnerable patients.

A species called Enterococcus faecium is of particular concern as it has become a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections and often carries resistance to multiple antibiotics, including a last-line drug called vancomycin.

To understand why these germs seemed to be in such high spirits, the researchers examined a collection of 139 E. faecium bacteria collected from infected patients in two Australian hospitals between 1997 and 2015. First, they subjected the germs to low levels of isopropanol, a type of alcohol found in hand sanitizers.

Hand sanitizers often contain 70 percent or more isopropanol or ethanol, which usually annihilates bacteria. The alcohols essentially shred the microbes’ outer membranes, causing molecular mayhem and the germs’ innards to leak out. In high concentrations, the alcohols are quickly fatal.

Stiff drink

To keep from simply massacring their isolates, the researchers poured them to a watered-down 23-percent isopropanol mixture. This wiped out some, but not all, of the germs. But when they compared the isolates in batches based on when they were collected, they saw a clear shift. The bacteria collected between 2009 and 2015 had a tenfold higher survival rate than those collected before 2004.

The researchers noted that hospitals began guzzling the alcohol-based sanitizers in 2002. In fact, they went from using 100 liters of alcohol-based hand rubs per month in 2001 to using 1,000 liters per month in 2015—a tenfold increase.

Of course, the hospitals don’t use weak-sauce, 23-percent alcohol sanitizers; they use the deadly 70-percent concentrations. To see if the bacteria’s shift in tolerance was at all relevant to sanitation and infection risks in the hospitals, the researchers turned to mice.

First, the researchers coated the floors of mouse cages with E. faecium strains, either strains that were easily killed by alcohol or ones that had relatively high levels of tolerance. Then, they mopped the floors with a 70-percent alcohol solution and unleashed the mice to play in the cages for an hour. Afterward, the researchers scanned the rodents’ poops to see how many of them had managed to pick up E. faecium from the cages, despite the cleaning.

In repeated experiments (and with mock water treatments as controls), the researchers found that the more alcohol-tolerant bacteria were better at surviving the floor cleaning and infecting the mice than their less-tolerant counterparts.

The researchers did genetic comparisons to try to rule out that the alcohol-tolerant isolates were just more infectious than the others—the isolates didn’t seem to be. The team also went on the hunt for genetic changes that might explain the germs’ ability to hold their liquor. In the case of antibiotic resistance, for example, single genes or mutations can sometimes explain a microbe’s survival. But in this case, alcohol tolerance appears more complicated, involving many genes that act together to harden germs. Some of those genes seem to be involved in metabolism.

Researchers will need to do far more work to verify and understand alcohol tolerance. But for now, the researchers conclude that:

The development of alcohol-tolerant strains of E. faecium has the potential to undermine the effectiveness of alcohol-based disinfectant standard precautions and may, in part, explain the increase in [vancomycin-resistant Enterococci] infection that is now widely reported in hospitals in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia.

Science Translational Medicine, 2018. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115  (About DOIs).

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

August 5, 2018 at 08:03AM