Month: April 2018

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launches a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2016. (credit: SpaceX)

A new analysis finds that NASA will pay significantly more for commercial cargo delivery to the International Space Station in the 2020s rather than enjoying cost savings from maturing systems. According to a report by the space agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, NASA will likely pay $400 million more for its second round of delivery contracts from 2020 to 2024 even though the agency will be moving six fewer tons of cargo. On a cost per kilogram basis, this represents a 14-percent increase.

One of the main reasons for this increase, the report says, is a 50-percent increase in prices from SpaceX, which has thus far flown the bulk of missions for NASA’s commercial cargo program with its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket.

This is somewhat surprising because, during the first round of supply missions, which began in 2012, SpaceX had substantially lower costs than NASA’s other partner, Orbital ATK. SpaceX and Orbital ATK are expected to fly 31 supply missions between 2012 and 2020, the first phase of the supply contract. Of those, the new report states, SpaceX is scheduled to complete 20 flights at an average cost of $152.1 million per mission. Orbital ATK is scheduled to complete 11 missions at an average cost of $262.6 million per mission.

Enlarge / Mug shot of Joseph James DeAngelo. (credit: Sacramento County Sheriff's Department)

For over four decades, a suspect in more than 50 extremely sadistic rapes and 12 murders eluded police in Northern California. On Tuesday, he was arrested after investigators tracked him down using online genealogical databases that contained genetic information from a relative, news organizations reported Thursday.

The identification of 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo as the East Area Rapist began with the recovery years ago of DNA from a crime scene. Over the years, investigators compared the DNA to profiles on one or more undisclosed genealogy databases. Eventually, investigators found one or more distant relatives of DeAngelo's and traced their DNA to him. The Sacramento Bee, citing the Sacramento County District Attorney's office, reported here that the crucial lead came from "various websites that cater to individuals wanting to know more about their family backgrounds by accepting DNA samples from them."

The New York Times, meanwhile, said here that the match came from a commercial online genealogy database. The NYT continued:

(credit: Julien GONG Min / Flickr)

Microsoft has posted the results of the third quarter of its 2018 financial year, running up until March 31, 2018. Revenue was $26.8 billion, up 16 percent year on year; operating income was $8.3 billion, up 23 percent; net income was $7.4 billion, up 35 percent; and earnings per share was $0.95, up 36 percent.

Microsoft currently has three reporting segments: Productivity and Business Processes (covering Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, and Dynamics), Intelligent Cloud (including Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, and Enterprise Services), and More Personal Computing (covering Windows, hardware, and Xbox, as well as search and advertising). This reporting structure has been retained even though the Windows division has been reorganized with responsibilities split between different groups.

The company also continues to report numbers from LinkedIn both as part of the Productivity group and independently. Microsoft has now owned LinkedIn for a full year, enabling for the first time year-on-year comparisons. LinkedIn revenue was $1.3 billion, up 37 percent, with a cost of revenue of $0.4 billion, up 11 percent, and operating expenses of $1.1 billion, up 19 percent. This produces an operating loss of $0.25 billion, which is 35 percent lower than it was for the same quarter last year.

Enlarge / iTunes listing in the Microsoft Store. (credit: Apple)

Promised just over a year ago at Microsoft's Build conference in 2017, Apple iTunes is now finally available in the Microsoft Store.

It's a hefty install at some 477MB, and once installed, it's still just iTunes: it can sync and upgrade iPhones and iPads, it can play and manage music, and it can make purchases from the iTunes Store. The Store version of iTunes uses Microsoft's Centennial technology—a way of packaging up regular Windows applications for distribution and installation through the Store—so, for the most part, it's identical to the traditional iTunes application.

However, because this iTunes is a Store app, it's installed and updated not with Apple's installer and updater but with the Windows Store updater. This means that it will never try to install iCloud or other Apple software. It also doesn't install any services in the background: Centennial apps aren't allowed to do that.