Month: October 2023

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You can consider this the start of NASA's Falcon Heavy era. The launch of the Psyche asteroid mission this week is the opening act among five launches the space agency has directly reserved on SpaceX's heavy-lift rocket over the next few years.

These Falcon Heavy flights will cut across NASA's portfolio of robotic space missions, dispatching probes deep into the Solar System, deploying a flagship-class astronomical observatory, sending up a weather satellite, and launching the keystone to NASA's Gateway mini-space station around the Moon.

The launch of the Psyche asteroid explorer, scheduled for Thursday from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, kicks it off. "We’ve been preparing for this for several years, and we’ve benefited from SpaceX's manifest. They’ve launched four Falcon Heavies since last November," said Tim Dunn, a NASA launch director based at the Florida spaceport.

Enlarge / The 2024 Porsche Macan is still months away from going on sale, but Porsche let us drive the prototype in Los Angeles this summer. (credit: Porsche)

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—Porsche's plans to electrify 80 percent of its product range by 2030 requires the German automaker to offer more than just Taycans. Other than the 911, which probably won't be a battery-electric vehicle (unless and) until solid-state batteries alter the energy-to-mass calculations, that means everything else in the lineup will need to trade engine, exhaust, and fuel tank for a battery pack and an electric motor or two. And it's starting with its second-best-selling model, the Macan crossover.

An all-new Macan arrives in showrooms next year for model year 2024 and will confusingly coexist for some time alongside the current gas-burning Macan, which recently went through its midlife refresh. The new version is entirely electric, however, and will be built on a new 800 V architecture called Premium Platform Electric, being developed by Porsche together with its corporate sibling, Audi.

These were prototype Macans, and Porsche wasn't ready for us to see the rest of the dashboard yet. (credit: Porsche)

Spy shots of barely disguised Macan EVs have been circulating for some time as Porsche puts on its finishing touches. Some of those test cars have even been spotted here in the US; a couple of years ago, it decided to develop local market prototypes. For our market, that means things like making sure the satellite radio works and that the advanced driver assistance system (or ADAS) can read our road signs and knows that on US highways, faster traffic rarely sticks to the leftmost lane.

Enlarge / The 2024 Porsche Macan is still months away from going on sale, but Porsche let us drive the prototype in Los Angeles this summer. (credit: Porsche)

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—Porsche's plans to electrify 80 percent of its product range by 2030 requires the German automaker to offer more than just Taycans. Other than the 911, which probably won't be a battery-electric vehicle (unless and) until solid-state batteries alter the energy-to-mass calculations, that means everything else in the lineup will need to trade engine, exhaust, and fuel tank for a battery pack and an electric motor or two. And it's starting with its second-best-selling model, the Macan crossover.

An all-new Macan arrives in showrooms next year for model year 2024 and will confusingly coexist for some time alongside the current gas-burning Macan, which recently went through its midlife refresh. The new version is entirely electric, however, and will be built on a new 800 V architecture called Premium Platform Electric, being developed by Porsche together with its corporate sibling, Audi.

These were prototype Macans, and Porsche wasn't ready for us to see the rest of the dashboard yet. (credit: Porsche)

Spy shots of barely disguised Macan EVs have been circulating for some time as Porsche puts on its finishing touches. Some of those test cars have even been spotted here in the US; a couple of years ago, it decided to develop local market prototypes. For our market, that means things like making sure the satellite radio works and that the advanced driver assistance system (or ADAS) can read our road signs and knows that on US highways, faster traffic rarely sticks to the leftmost lane.

Enlarge / Former Unity CEO John Riccitiello. (credit: Unity)

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

Riccitiello "will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition," the company stated, as it seeks to find a permanent CEO. James M. Whitehurst, a former Red Hat and IBM executive, will serve as interim CEO, while Roelof Botha, lead independent director of the Unity board, is now chairman.

“It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth,” Riccitiello said. “I look forward to supporting Unity through this transition and following the Company’s future success.”

Enlarge / Former Unity CEO John Riccitiello. (credit: Unity)

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

Riccitiello "will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition," the company stated, as it seeks to find a permanent CEO. James M. Whitehurst, a former Red Hat and IBM executive, will serve as interim CEO, while Roelof Botha, lead independent director of the Unity board, is now chairman.

“It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth,” Riccitiello said. “I look forward to supporting Unity through this transition and following the Company’s future success.”

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Thousands of sites running the WordPress content management system have been hacked by a prolific threat actor that exploited a recently patched vulnerability in a widely used plugin.

The vulnerable plugin, known as tagDiv Composer, is a mandatory requirement for using two WordPress themes: Newspaper and Newsmag. The themes are available through the Theme Forest and Envato marketplaces and have more than 155,000 downloads.

Tracked as CVE-2023-3169, the vulnerability is what’s known as a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that allows hackers to inject malicious code into webpages. Discovered by Vietnamese researcher Truoc Phan, the vulnerability carries a severity rating of 7.1 out of a possible 10. It was partially fixed in tagDiv Composer version 4.1 and fully patched in 4.2.