Month: October 2020

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  The Dell U2421E UltraSharp 24-inch USB-C hub monitor. [credit: Dell ]

Dell announced today that it is refreshing its lineup of UltraSharp monitors—part of the lineup, anyway—with new models arriving now and more trickling out through December.

The most mainstream of the big new introductions is probably the UltraSharp 24 USB-C Hub Monitor (U2421E), which is available to order starting today at $449.99. As the name suggests, it's meant to double as a hub, so it can deliver up to 90W of power to your connected laptop, and it can daisy-chain with up to two additional monitors.

Notably, the U2421E has a 16:10 aspect ratio as opposed to the usual 16:9 for a lot of monitors like this. The resolution is 1,920×1,200, and the refresh rate is 60Hz. Dell claims 99 percent sRGB coverage, a maximum brightness of 350 cd/m2, and a 1,000:1 typical contrast ratio. Ports include DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 1.4, USB-C, and USB.

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  Falcon 9 with 60 Starlink satellites flying directly in front of the Sun from Titusville, Florida. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann for Ars. ]

SpaceX has been trying to get its twelfth batch of operational Starlink satellites into orbit for a while.

The company's first attempt on September 28 was scrubbed due to thick clouds over the launch site at Kennedy Space Center. A second attempt on October 1 got to within 18 seconds of launching before a ground systems issue delayed the launch. Finally, having addressed that issue, poor weather on Monday morning forced yet another delay.

But the fourth time proved the charm for SpaceX on Tuesday morning, as the company's Falcon 9 rocket got its payload of 60 Starlink satellites off the pad and into space shortly after the Sun rose over the Florida coast. With Tuesday's mission, SpaceX has now launched 775 total Starlink satellites, although most of the original 60 prototype satellites have since been de-orbited.

(video link)

This summer, the US Air Force awarded contracts to four companies to develop prototypes for the Skyborg Program, the Air Force's effort to provide relatively inexpensive autonomous uncrewed combat aircraft to serve as robotic wingmen to human-piloted F-22 and F-35 fighters. Skyborg is one of three Vanguard initiatives—programs intended to stretch the Air Force's capabilities with disruptive new technologies.

The US military has been talking about so-called "loyal wingman" drones for close to a decade. The Navy had its own carrier-based drone effort, which after successes in early testing morphed into a robotic refueling tanker program. But most of the US combat drone efforts have focused on providing slower, longer-flying propeller-powered drones for the least-sexy jobs in the air: surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeted air support. And the stars of that show, the General Atomics Predator and its larger Reaper sibling, are flown from a distance by human pilots communicating with ground and air forces.