Month: September 2016

(credit: Melinda Sue Gordon for Netflix)

While Netflix gained popularity by streaming licensed content, the company has been switching gears. According to a Variety report, Netflix aims to make 50 percent of its content original programming over the next few years; the other half will continue to be licensed TV shows and movies.

At the start of 2016, the company announced it would launch 600 hours of original programming, a bump from the 450 hours it released in 2015. Over the next couple of years, Netflix plans to release a mix of content owned and produced by the company itself, in addition to co-productions and acquisitions. According to Netflix CFO David Wells, the company is currently “one-third to halfway” to reaching its 50 percent goal.

In many cases, Netflix original programming has surpassed the popularity of its licensed content. Shows like House of Cards and Master of None have received numerous awards, and the new show Stranger Things has become a breakout hit in the past few months and has already been renewed for a second season. But Netflix acknowledges that not all of its original programs have been major hits, and the company is fine with that as it knows that not every new program will pick up major followings. "We don’t necessarily have to have home runs," Wells is quoted in Variety. "We can also live with singles, doubles, and triples especially commensurate with their cost."

Artist's concept of Tiangong-1 space station with a Shenzhou spacecraft docking. (credit: CNSA)

China says its first space station, launched in 2011, will return to Earth sometime during the second half of 2017. Chinese space officials cannot say exactly when, or where the Tiangong-1 laboratory will return to Earth, however.

The small space station, named "Heavenly Palace," is presently at an orbit of about 370km, Chinese officials said. But it can no longer sustain such a high orbit and will gradually begin falling back to Earth. China's official news service, Xinhua, further reported:

"Based on our calculation and analysis, most parts of the space lab will burn up during falling," she said, adding that it was unlikely to affect aviation activities or cause damage to the ground.

China has always highly valued the management of space debris, conducting research and tests on space debris mitigation and cleaning, Wu said.

Now, China will continue to monitor Tiangong-1 and strengthen early warning for possible collision with objects. If necessary, China will release a forecast of its falling and report it internationally, said Wu.

The 8.5-ton, 10.4-meter-long facility served as an initial test bed for life-support systems in orbit and served as a precursor for China's plans to launch a larger space station in the 2020s. A second "Heavenly Palace," Tiangong-2, was launched earlier this month for further studies. It, too, will eventually return to Earth in an uncontrolled manner.

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Samsung has unveiled its next generation M.2 PCIe SSDs, the 960 PRO and 960 Evo. Like the 950 Pro, which was released last year, the 960 Pro and 960 Evo are PCIe 3.0 x4 drives that use the latest NVMe protocol for data transfer.

As you'd expect, both are faster: the 960 Pro offers a blistering peak read speed of 3.5GB/s and a peak write speed of 2.1GB/s, while the Evo offers 3.2GB/s and 1.9GB/s respectively. The 950 topped out at a mere 2.5GB/s and 1.5GB/s.

The 960 Pro and the 960 Evo are due for release in October. The Pro starts at $329 for 512GB of storage, rising up to a cool $1,299 for a 2TB version. The Evo is a little lighter on the wallet, starting at $129 for a 250GB version, rising to $479 for a 1TB version. UK pricing is yet to be confirmed, but a 512GB 950 Pro currently retails for around £300.

You can be forgiven for not being familiar with Huawei (pronounced "wah-way"). Other than the Nexus 6P, the Chinese company hasn't had much presence in the US. Despite mostly not dealing with the United States, Huawei is the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world and the third-largest smartphone OEM behind Samsung and Apple.

At the beginning of this year though, Huawei finally started bringing phones to the US. Today we're looking at the value entry from Huawei's sub-brand, "Honor," called the "Honor 8." The Honor 8 occupies Ars' favorite $400 price point, which hits the (hopefully) perfect balance of high-end specs without all the often-gimmicky bells and whistles of $700-$800 phones.

Design and build quality

The Honor 8 can best be described as the Huawei P9's cheaper cousin. Huawei's more expensive phones, like the P9, get metal bodies, while the cheaper devices like the Honor 8 get glass backs with a metal frame. The Honor is basically built like a Samsung flagship, but for around half the price.