Month: August 2022

Enlarge / NASA's SLS rocket will power the Artemis I mission to the Moon. (credit: NASA)

NASA's imminent launch of the Artemis I mission to the Moon—the US space agency's first in a series of missions to return humans to deep space—will garner widespread attention in the United States and abroad.

No humans have launched beyond low Earth orbit for nearly five decades, and although this mission will have no astronauts on board, the Artemis II mission in a few years will. Moreover, unlike the all-American Apollo program in the 1960s, the Artemis program will include a rich vein of international cooperation.

A Canadian astronaut will fly on board the Artemis II mission around the Moon, and Japanese and European astronauts are likely to join later missions to the lunar surface. Already, 20 nations have signed the Artemis Accords to be a part of NASA's lunar program, and that coalition is likely to grow.

Enlarge (credit: Tuxedo Computers)

Ultralight laptops are great for slipping into a bag and traveling with, and they look pretty stylish. However, a trim build often comes with trade-offs. Battery capacity is a common one, as companies struggle to fit larger batteries into machines that are under an inch thick. German PC-maker Tuxedo Computers' latest ultralight InfinityBook Pro 14 seeks to address that challenge with a massive battery.

The InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen7 announced today comes with either big storage or a big battery. The company is selling it with the option for a 99 watt-hour (Wh) battery, which is about as big as a lithium battery can be while being allowed on an airplane (100 Wh).

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  You can get the laptop with a 56 Wh battery... [credit: Tuxedo Computers ]

Notably, the laptop uses a lithium-polymer (LiPo) battery rather than lithium-ion (Li-Ion), which is more common among laptops. LiPo batteries tend to be smaller, more stable, and have a longer lifespan, making them popular in smartphones. However, Li-Ion batteries tend to have larger capacities for their size and slower self-discharge.

Enlarge / The lettering "Hey Google" on the Google pavillon at the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in 2018. These words activate Google Assistant, Google's virtual personal assistant. (credit: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance)

Voice assistant hotwords are nice when you need them and annoying when they go off accidentally. For Google, maybe a valuable signal for disabling a hotword is when you have a meeting scheduled?

Google is launching a new feature for Google Meet Hardware that will disable the "Hey, Google" hotword during a meeting and 10 minutes before. Google says, "We've heard from our customers that due to the increase in teams transitioning to hybrid meetings, the "Hey, Google" control can unintentionally be triggered during meetings. We hope this improvement helps reduce any accidental disruptions during your calls."

Google isn't yet smart enough to disable "Hey, Google commands across all your devices, just "Google Meet Hardware." These are custom Internet appliances specifically built to do room-scale Google Meet video calls and combine speakers, microphones, cameras, and smart displays. They're primarily geared for corporate meeting rooms where one device connects the whole table to a video chat.

With HBO's House of the Dragon debuting to a record nearly 10 million viewers, one might have forgotten that another new big-budget fantasy series is waiting in the wings. Prime Video reminded us of that by dropping a new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Based on notes and lore penned by J.R.R. Tolkien, the eight-episode series will revolve around the late author's "Second Age" era. Per the official description:

This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

As we've reported previously, the large ensemble cast includes Morfydd Clark as a young Galadriel, "now a hardscrabble warrior leading the Northern Armies," who is determined to hunt down her brother's killer. She ends up adrift at sea with a new character named Halbrand (Charles Vickers). Charles Edwards plays Celebrimbor, whom hardcore LOTR fans will recognize as the elven smith who forged the legendary rings. Robert Aramayo plays a younger version of Elrond, and Maxim Baldry will play the infamous Isildur, ancestor of Aragorn, who eventually defeated Sauron but fell victim to the One Ring's corrupting power. Peter Mullan plays the dwarf King Durin III.