Month: May 2020

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Have you ever looked up at the Moon and thought "hmm, pretty good, but maybe our closest celestial companion could use some extra racing?" If so, your wish may well become a reality next year. That's thanks to a partnership between an STEM group called Moon Mark and the space company Intuitive Motion, which has a NASA contract to deliver a since payload to the Moon's surface in 2021. Part of that payload? A pair of small lunar rovers, which will conduct the Moon's first race. And if you're a high school student, you've got a chance to design one of those moon racers.

Moon Mark is looking for submissions from teams of up to six students (between grades 9-12). Teams only have to design the rovers, not actually build them, and the winners will be rewarded with $1,000 donations to the charities of their choice, with the possibility of their designs actually being built and sent into space.

The design criteria are quite interesting. For starters, there's an 11lb (5kg) weight limit. But 3.6lbs (1.6kg) are already spoken for thanks to a standardized battery and power-control module, solar panel, UHF radio and antenna, Wi-Fi module, and a single-board computer that will run the rover. All of these components were chosen by Moon Mark as suitable for the extreme temperatures experienced on the lunar surface, which can range between -173˚C and 126˚C.

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  The LG Velvet, in many colors. [credit: LG ]

After lots of teasing, LG has officially announced its next "flagship" smartphone for 2020: the LG Velvet. The Velvet represents a major change for LG in that it's officially a replacement for the LG "G" line—this would have been the LG G9. This phone also is a bit more downmarket than other flagships—it has a Snapdragon 765G instead of the Snapdragon 865 in most high-end devices. This phone has leaked all over the place, but the big news today is a full spec sheet and an official price (in Korea at least): ₩899,800 or ~$738.

For specs, we have a 6.8-inch, 2460×1080 OLED display, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage, and a 4300mAh battery. For extras, there is nearly everything you could want: a MicroSD slot, NFC, wireless charging, a headphone jack, IP68 dust and water resistance, stereo speakers, and an in-screen fingerprint reader. For cameras, there is a front 16MP camera and three rear cameras: a 48MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a 5MP depth camera.

One unusual extra is pen support—not a dockable, passive pen like on early Galaxy Notes but straight-up Wacom Stylus support. Pick from the many Wacom Stylus pen options and you'll have 4,096 levels of pressure and 60-degree tilt detection in supported apps. We're mostly picking though a Korean-language LG site for this post, so in-depth questions like "What Android apps support a Wacom pen?" are not things that can be answered at this time. I would guess the number is very small, but this "Nebo" app was given as the one example.

Enlarge (credit: Thomas Trutschel / Getty Images)

Twitter is failing to rein in “superspreaders” of coronavirus misinformation on its platform, according to research detailing dozens of posts shared by high-profile accounts apparently flouting the social media company's rules.

Tech companies including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all introduced new policies to clamp down on the so-called infodemic of false coronavirus information that has swept the Internet in recent weeks amid panic and national lockdowns.

But a report from NewsGuard, which monitors and rates news websites on trustworthiness, found multiple posts from accounts on Twitter with 100,000 or more followers—some of which are verified—promoting misinformation about questionable treatments or cures that appear to violate recent policies banning such content.

Enlarge / I, too, leave my electronics artfully placed in the middle of my stylish living room for the cat to knock over. (credit: Wink)

A popular smart-home hub is suddenly a lot less popular with its users after making a surprise announcement that customers will have to start paying a monthly subscription fee next week or lose access altogether.

The Wink Hub first launched in 2014, promising a way for smart-home enthusiasts to connect and control all their devices at once through one master interface. Basically, Wink exists to simplify life for someone whose lights, locks, thermostat, cameras, and appliances all come from different brands and therefore need different apps to operate.

Many such platforms operate on a subscription basis, but Wink was not traditionally among them. For the past six years, consumers have happily plunked down cash to buy Wink's hardware and then used the app for free. As of May 13, though, that will no longer be the case, Wink said yesterday, giving customers one week to pay up or lose access to the hubs they've used for years.