Month: September 2019

Enlarge / NASA chief Jim Bridenstine has been looking for a new Associate Administrator for human spaceflight. (credit: NASA)

Nearly two months have now passed since NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine essentially fired Bill Gerstenmaier, the agency's chief of human spaceflight. Since then, Bridenstine has been winnowing a field of potential candidates for this critical position at NASA—a position which has oversight of all human spaceflight activities, including the space station, commercial crew, and Artemis lunar programs.

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel on Friday urged Bridenstine to move quickly on finding a qualified replacement for the highly respected Gerstenmaier.

"It is important to recognize the sense of uncertainty that accompanies a vacuum in a key leadership position, and address the need for stable and credible direction for the future," said panel chair Patricia Sanders during a meeting at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "NASA personnel are continuing to move forward and progress on the programs of record. It’s in their DNA. But having positive confirmation of the specific direction from a permanent leader is imperative. And a sense of uncertainty should not be allowed to linger during this critical time."

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Fitbit's first smartwatch may have been the Ionic, but the company is throwing all of its resources behind the Versa. While the Ionic targeted serious athletes, the original Versa was more accessible in design, features, and price. That combination won over a lot of users, so much so that Fitbit made an even more affordable version with the Versa Lite.

But now the $200 Versa 2 is revamping the original Versa by bringing some special edition features down to the regular model and including all-new ones—voice commands, Spotify playback control, and the like—that Fitbit likely added to keep up with the Joneses of the smartwatch world. Fitbit only added to the Versa 2—it didn't remove anything that was already present in the original Versa. Even so, that doesn't make it a no-brainer upgrade for happy OG-Versa owners.

What’s new

Hardware

The Versa 2 retains that rounded-square case design that the original Versa had, only now it has a new AMOLED display, one side button, and an improved processor. The AMOLED panel gives the watch a higher-quality look and feel with deeper blacks and more vibrant colors. Images should also look crisper, and indeed the photos used in the Exercise app appear to have more detail than they did before. But Fitbit OS doesn't use too many photographs, so you'll mostly enjoy the improved screen through the operating system's color iconography.

Enlarge / Artist's impression of the deal being altered. (credit: Disney / 20th Century Fox)

If you're one of the millions of Americans who received an email this weekend from the Equifax Breach Settlement Administrator, you're not alone. Nor are you alone if you were surprised or confused by the message, as more than a half-dozen Ars readers who forwarded theirs were. The message, however, is entirely legitimate, and the information it seeks is part of the claims process.

Equifax and the Federal Trade Commission in July reached a settlement relating to the company's completely massive data breach of more than 140 million Americans. As part of that agreement, anyone whose data was part of the breach could file a claim to receive either cash compensation or several years of free credit monitoring.

In order to receive the cash compensation, however, claimants certified that they already have some form of credit monitoring services in place. Such services are not only freely available to many credit card and bank account holders, but also are routinely given out to customers whose data is lost in a breach, and so tens of millions of claimants did indeed ask for the cash instead.