Month: December 2022

Enlarge / On December 1, 2022, Google honored Black game pioneer Jerry Lawson with a Google Doodle game. (credit: Google)

On Thursday, Google published a playable Google Doodle game honoring Black video game pioneer Jerry Lawson on what would have been his 82nd birthday. Lawson, who died in 2011, played a pivotal role in the development of the Fairchild Channel F console, which introduced the concept of programmable video game cartridges to the market in 1976.

On Google's home page, the Doodle shows a pixellated cartoon of Lawson beside a rendition of the Channel F console and a TV set. Upon clicking the image, the Doodle loads a custom web browser game inspired by Super Mario Maker that allows players to build and edit games using retro tile-based graphics. After a brief tutorial that introduces elements of Lawson's history, players can select preexisting games to edit or create their own.

Throughout the Doodle game, the motif of the Channel F's distinctive yellow cartridge (which allowed interchangeable games) ties the experience together.

Enlarge / Observation of a BlueWalker 3 pass from Oukaimeden Observatory on Nov. 16 2022. The bright star lower left is Zeta Puppis. (credit: CLEOsat/Oukaimeden Observatory/IAU CPS/A.E. Kaeouach)

Last month, a Texas-based company announced that it had successfully deployed the largest-ever commercial communications satellite in low-Earth orbit.

This BlueWalker 3 demonstration satellite measures nearly 65 square meters, or about one-third the size of a tennis court. Designed and developed by AST SpaceMobile, the expansive BlueWalker 3 satellite is intended to demonstrate the ability of standard mobile phones to directly connect to the Internet via satellite. Large satellites are necessary to connect to mobile devices without a ground-based antenna.

In this emerging field of direct-to-mobile connectivity, which seeks to provide Internet service beyond the reach of terrestrial cellular towers, AST is competing with Lync, another company that also has launched demonstration satellites. In addition, larger players such as Apple and a team at SpaceX and T-Mobile have announced their intent to provide direct connectivity services.

Enlarge (credit: picture alliance / Contributor | picture alliance)

Elon Musk said he had a “good conversation” with Apple chief executive Tim Cook and “resolved the misunderstanding” about his claim that Twitter could be removed from the App Store, just days after the world’s richest man unleashed a tirade against the most valuable tech company.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Musk said that “Tim was clear that Apple never considered” potentially removing Twitter from the App Store, describing it as a “misunderstanding.”

Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last month, also thanked Cook for “taking me round Apple’s beautiful HQ,” and posted a video from Apple Park.