Month: February 2016

The Raspberry Pi 3. (credit: Raspberry Pi Foundation)

The third major version of the Raspberry Pi will go on sale Monday, with the $35/£30 credit card-sized computer now sporting a 64-bit processor and embedded Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In previous versions, the Pi needed USB adapters to get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Raspberry Pi 3 supports 802.11n Wi-Fi (2.4GHz only) and Bluetooth 4.0 without an adapter, freeing up its four USB ports for other purposes.

The computer will be on sale Monday from “all the usual resellers,” the Raspberry Pi Foundation told us. That would likely include Element14, Think Allied, and RS Components.

Hey everybody! I didn't have to wear miniskirt armor in this movie, so I count that as a big win! (credit: Gods of Egypt)

By now you’ve heard rumors or seen the reviews, so you know that Gods of Egypt, out this weekend, is quite possibly the most terrible movie ever made. There’s a lot of competition for that dubious honor, so let’s just say it’s ONE of the most terrible. And that’s what makes it so damn fascinating.

On its surface, Gods of Egypt sounds like the premise of a cheesy 1990s fantasy game—or a 1950s B-movie. A young thief named Bek is trying to get by on the skill of his dextrous fingers in Egyptian Mythical Times (sort of like where Xena Warrior Princess is set, except in Egypt). All he wants to do is marry a cute girl but then she’s killed by a bad guy, so Bek decides to rescue her from the underworld. Activate dramatic arc involving an intensely uncharismatic hero and his thrilling ability to do things like jump around and grab stuff (yep his range of abilities is pretty much defined by what you can do with the arrows on a keyboard).

SpaceX's Falcon 9 and the SES-9 satellite are on the launch pad, and ready to go. (credit: SpaceX)

Twice SpaceX attempted to launch the SES-9 communications satellite into space last week, and twice the rocket company had to scrub. The reason was not weather, but rather issues with ensuring the rocket was fueled with the right amount of liquid oxygen postponed the festivities.

With its new, more powerful variant of the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX is having to handle this super-cold, dense propellant more carefully, and one of the things it is trying to do is deliver the right amount of fuel just before launch. With near perfect weather conditions expected for launch today, look for that to be the main issue to watch as SpaceX counts down toward the 6:46pm ET opening of the launch window.

As with other recent launches, SpaceX will try yet again to fly its booster back to an automated ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. However, because this is a high orbit (about 35,000km above the equator) and will require a heavy vehicle with more fuel and more speed, returning safely back to Earth is far from a sure thing. Additionally, at 5,300kg, this is the heaviest payload SpaceX has attempted to deliver to a geostationary orbit.

"Roses are red, the water is... purplish?" (credit: Nathan Mattise)

Like all of the scattered recollections I can access from the earliest years of my life, the memory is fuzzy. It’s more a cluster of blurry snapshots unified by a jumble of vague feelings. There is box of crayons, a wooden sailboat floating across the page, and a teacher’s loaded question.

“Why is the ocean purple?”

In this moment, there’s confusion, embarrassment, and about as much self-doubt as this barely self-aware first grader is capable of.