Month: November 2019

Fans of sci-fi series The Expanse have been patiently awaiting the much-anticipated fourth season. That wait is almost over. Amazon Prime just dropped the first full-length trailer for the new season, featuring the intrepid crew of the Rocinante venturing into exploring the many worlds beyond the Ring.

As we reported back in July when the first teaser dropped, The Expanse is based on a series of novels by James S.A. Corey (the pen name for writing team Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) that explore interplanetary tensions that are breaking out all over a solar system long since colonized by humans—mostly between Earthers, Martians, and "Belters." Part mystery, part political thriller, part classic space opera, The Expanse has earned almost nothing but praise from critics and its devoted fans alike, not just for its gripping storytelling, but also for its excellent use of accurate physics. The third season earned a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes (seasons one and two earned 76% and 96%, respectively).

So it was something of a shock when SyFy cancelled the series, citing "restrictive distribution arrangements," specifically, just first-run linear rights in the US. Fortunately, Amazon soon stepped in to save the show.

Enlarge / An artist's concept of Starliner on top of an Atlas V rocket. (credit: Boeing)

Last week, NASA's Inspector General issued a report critical of NASA's extra payments worth $287 million to Boeing for operational flights of its Starliner spacecraft. "In our judgment, the additional compensation was unnecessary," the agency's inspector general, Paul Martin, wrote in his report.

For the first time, the report also published an estimate of seat prices that NASA will pay Boeing for crewed Starliner missions to the International Space Station alongside prices the organization will pay for SpaceX's Dragon vehicle: $90 million for Starliner and $55 million for Dragon. Each capsule is expected to carry four astronauts to the space station during a nominal mission.

This report has evidently not sat well with Boeing, which on Monday fired off a lengthy statement in reply to the inspector general's report.

Enlarge / iPadOS.

It has only been 11 days since Apple released iOS 13.2.2, but once again we're seeing evidence of a greatly increased update cadence. Today sees the release of iOS and iPadOS 13.2.3.

This latest release is mostly a bug fix update—of course, that was apparent from the version number. Traditionally, Apple numbers its updates to signify their importance. Top-level updates like iOS 12 or iOS 13 are annualized major releases that start a new update cycle. One decimal point down (like iOS 13.2) denotes an update that adds major new features. One further point down (like this one, iOS 13.2.1) usually indicates that it is a bug fix update.

The update this week fixes problems users have encountered with search in the Mail, Files, and Notes apps. It also addresses a bug with attachments in Messages, an issue that stopped apps from downloading properly, and another with Exchange accounts under Mail that has frustrated many users.

Enlarge / T-Mobile CEO John Legere during an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 30, 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

T-Mobile CEO John Legere will leave the company's top job after his contract runs out on April 30, 2020, T-Mobile announced today. Mike Sievert, T-Mobile's president and chief operating officer, will replace Legere as CEO on May 1.

Legere, who became CEO in September 2012, revived a struggling company and led the "Un-carrier" strategy that pitched T-Mobile as a customer-friendly alternative to the AT&T/Verizon duopoly. T-Mobile's Un-carrier moves changed some of the punitive business practices that mobile carriers routinely inflected on customers.

But Legere's T-Mobile also helped lead the way in making throttling of streaming video a standard industry practice, T-Mobile was also punished by the federal government in 2016 for failing to adequately disclose speed and data restrictions on its "unlimited data" plans, and like other carriers, it sold its customers' real-time location data to third parties. Legere often offered better deals than competitors, but US wireless prices still rank among the most expensive in the world.

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  Embossed text, 'cause it's fancy. [credit: Kyle Orland ]

Streaming is the future of gaming. You can ask practically anyone, as long as that "anyone" is involved in selling games.

Ask Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, who said in May that "the streaming era is upon us" (convenient for him, since Sony has been streaming games since 2014). Ask Microsoft, which is testing streaming through its xCloud service and plans to add the feature to its regular game offerings next year. Ask the CEOs of Ubisoft and Activision, both of whom seem to think traditional game downloads and discs will be a thing of the past in a few years' time.

(Just don't ask OnLive, whose spectacular implosion in 2015 only proved that streaming wasn't the past of gaming.)