Month: March 2018

Enlarge / The Formosat-5 mission launches in August, 2017, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (credit: SpaceX)

Contrary to popular belief, most of the time when a rocket launches, it does not go straight up into outer space. Rather, shortly after launch, most rockets will begin to pitch over into the downrange direction, limiting gravity drag and stress on the vehicle. Often, by 80 or 100km, a rocket is traveling nearly parallel to the Earth's surface before releasing its payload into orbit.

However, in August of last year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from California did not make such a pitch over maneuver. Rather, the Formosat-5 mission launched vertically and stayed that way for most of its ascent into space. The rocket could do this because the Taiwanese payload was light for the Falcon 9 rocket, weighing only 475kg and bound for an orbit 720km above the Earth's surface.

As a result of this launch profile, the rocket maintained a nearly vertical trajectory all the way through much of the Earth's ionosphere, which ranges from about 60km above the planet to 1,000km up. In doing so, the Falcon 9 booster and its second stage created unique, circular shockwaves. The rocket launch also punched a temporary, 900-km-wide hole into the plasma of the ionosphere.

(credit: Flickr: Rego Korosi )

YouTube is placing more restrictions on weapons-related videos, focusing on guns with new, forthcoming policy changes. According to a Bloomberg report, YouTube intends to ban videos that "promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories," including bump stocks, beginning this April. The new policy will also prohibit instructional videos that detail how to build firearms.

These new restrictions come over a month after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and just a few days before the March for Our Lives rally organized by the student survivors of the Parkland shooting. YouTube took similar action after the Las Vegas shooting last year by banning gun-modification tutorials.

"We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies," a YouTube representative said in a statement to Bloomberg. "While we’ve long prohibited the sale of firearms, we recently notified creators of updates we will be making around content promoting the sale or manufacture of firearms and their accessories."

Enlarge / The Oculus Go was finally available to play at a press event. How'd it turn out? (credit: Sam Machkovech)

SAN FRANCISCO—After testing the upcoming Oculus Go headset for 30 minutes, I had to gather my bearings and ask the company's hardware PM Sean Liu to clarify something important. How much is this thing going to retail for, again?

$199, he reminded me.

I needed to double check, because that price sounds very different on the other side of trying Oculus Go at its world-premiere hands-on event at the 2018 Game Developers Conference. Throw out your expectations for what $199 will buy you in terms of standalone, no-wires VR. It used to be that you'd expect to pay half that amount ($99) for a dumb, no-screen, no-memory shell meant to turn your $700+ smartphone into a virtual reality facsimile.

Enlarge / Tim Schafer (second from right) and Will Wright (third from right) share more than a love of nice formalware. (credit: WikiCommons)

SAN FRANCISCO—Since 2004, games from Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions have included a "special thanks" to Will Wright, the founder of Maxis and creator of SimCity and The Sims. Schafer disclosed the reason for all those thank yous in a heartfelt and teary-eyed acceptance speech while receiving a LifeTime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards here Wednesday night.

The reason, which Schafer said he was finally revealing under the influence of four shots of tequila, is that without Will Wright, Double Fine games ranging from Psychonauts on through Brutal Legend, Broken Age, and more would probably not exist.

Flashback to early 2004, when the four-year-old Double Fine Productions was struggling. Microsoft had just canceled a publishing deal for Schafer's ambitious 3D platform game idea, Psychonauts, and it would be months before Majesco would become the only other publisher interested in scooping up the title. During those months, as Schafer recalled Wednesday night, "there was a long period where we didn't have any money, we ran out of money."