Month: October 2018

Enlarge / Coking coal. (credit: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Earlier this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a dire warning about climate change: unless governments of the world coordinate to implement multiple long-term changes, we risk overshooting the 2°C warming scenario that countries strived to target in the Paris Agreement. This would lead to ecosystem damage, increasingly dramatic heat waves and previously-irregular weather patterns in different regions, and subsequent health impacts for humans.

Retiring coal-fired power plants is a significant action that could limit our race toward an unstable future. But Australia's officials don't quite care. According to The Guardian, the country's deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said that Australia would "'absolutely' continue to use and exploit its coal reserves, despite the IPCC's dire warnings the world has just 12 years to avoid climate-change catastrophe."

McCormack also reportedly said that Australia would not change its coal policies "just because somebody might suggest that some sort of report is the way we need to follow and everything that we should do."

Horror novelist Stephen King is having a cultural moment with various film and TV projects. The latest is Pet Sematary, coming next year from Paramount Pictures. This is the second film adaptation of the bestselling 1983 novel by Stephen King, and judging from the trailer, it could well prove to be the definitive one.

The story is well-known by now. A doctor named Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves his family from the big city (Chicago in the book, Boston in the 2019 film) to a charming small town in Maine. The new house is right by a busy highway on one side and bumps up against a forest in back. So many local pets meet their demise on the highway that the children have set up a "Pet Sematary" in the forest to bury their beloved animals.

(Spoilers below)

Enlarge / The Air Force evidently likes what it sees in Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. (credit: Blue Origin)

On Wednesday, the US Air Force awarded its much-anticipated new round of "Launch Service Agreements," which provide funds to rocket companies to complete development of their boosters. There were three winners:

• United Launch Services: $967,000,000 for the development of the Vulcan Centaur launch system.
• Northrop Grumman: $791,601,015 for development of the Omega launch system
• Blue Origin: $500,000,000 for the development of the New Glenn launch system

At least two other companies were believed to be in the running for these awards, as they won grants during an earlier round of funding in 2016. It was not a surprise to see Aerojet Rocketdyne fail to win an award, as that company does not appear to have a customer for its AR1 rocket engine, which the military initially supported. It was something of a surprise not to see SpaceX win an award. We will have some speculation on why this might have occurred in a moment.

These are hugely consequential awards for the rocket companies. Essentially the US Air Force, which launches more complex, heavy payloads than any other entity in the world, believes these boosters will have a significant role to play in those missions during the next decade. And when the military has confidence in your vehicle, commercial satellite contracts are more likely to follow as well.

Enlarge / Time for another streaming service! (credit: HBO)

According to a report from CNN, WarnerMedia plans to launch its own streaming service in the fourth quarter of 2019, adding to growing list of OTT (over-the-top) services that bypass cable providers and bring television series and movies directly to viewers—most of them for a monthly fee.

The organization (formerly Time Warner) has several TV-content networks under its umbrella, including HBO, Turner, and Warner Bros. Turner's assets include CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, and others. Warner Bros. produces series such as The Big Bang Theory, The Voice, and The Bachelor for distribution on other networks, as well as feature films like Crazy Rich Asians, Wonder Woman, Blade Runner 2049, Ready Player One, and Dunkirk. Warner Bros. also owns DC Comics.

And of course HBO produces original series like Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, Westworld, and Silicon Valley, and others, plus documentaries and other films and specials.

Enlarge / A Tesla Motors Inc. Model S P85D vehicle sits plugged in at a charging station in Nephi, Utah, on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. (credit: George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Some Tesla Model S and Model X customers in the path of Hurricane Michael will get a little extra boost in the coming days thanks to a remote software update from Tesla headquarters that temporarily increases the battery capacity of its cars.

This is at least the third time Tesla has done this. Tesla did the same thing for customers affected by Hurricane Florence last month and for Hurricane Irma last year. The upgrades provide Tesla customers with up to 40 miles of additional range.

The update is possible because Tesla sold some Model X and Model S cars with more battery capacity in hardware than the customer actually paid for. Tesla sometimes shipped 75kWh batteries to customers who had only paid for 60kWh or 70kWh worth of battery capacity. In other cases, Tesla shipped 60kWh batteries to people who had ordered 40kWh batteries.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | vladru)

The Federal Communications Commission should let phone companies get more aggressive in blocking robocalls, 35 state attorneys general told the commission yesterday.

The FCC last year authorized voice service providers to block more types of calls in which the Caller ID has been spoofed or in which the number on the Caller ID is invalid. But the FCC did not go far enough, and robocallers have "evolved" to evade the new rules, the 35 attorneys general wrote in an FCC filing:

One specific method which has evolved recently is a form of illegal spoofing called "neighbor spoofing." A neighbor-spoofed call will commonly appear on a consumer's caller ID with the same area code and local exchange as the consumer to increase the likelihood he/she will answer the call. In addition, consumers have recently reported receiving calls where their own phone numbers appeared on their caller ID. A consumer who answered one such call reported the caller attempted to trick her by saying he was with the phone company and required personal information to verify the account, claiming it had been hacked.

The attorneys general said they "encourage the FCC to adopt rules authorizing providers to block these and other kinds of illegally spoofed calls."