MissionControl
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'The Martian' author to make NASA TV drama with CBS
It's been a while since we've had a fictional TV series based around the present-day exploits of the folks at NASA. That's all set to change with the news that CBS has commissioned a pilot for a drama about the next generation of astronauts, entitled Mission Control. The show will focus on the personal and professional exploits of a group of young, would-be space cowboys on a "critical mission with no margin for error." The show has been written and created by Andy Weir, who rose to fame as the author of hit sci-fi novel The Martian.
Spacewalk cancelled after water found in helmets again
Mission control had to cut short an ISS spacewalk on Friday after US astronaut Tim Kopra noticed water building up in his helmet hours into the excursion. Both Kopra and British astronaut Tim Peake are back and safe inside the International Space Station.
Breakfast NY's Mission Control Center merges MLB info with NASA-flair, uses 20 feet of switches and screens
The team at Breakfast NY never leaves us hungry when it merges the digital and physical worlds -- and this time it's created something that hits it out of the park for the start of this year's US baseball season. Here at the Major League Baseball Fan Cave in downtown NYC, the team has just unveiled its space program-inspired Mission Control Center. As creative director and co-founder Andrew Zolty explained, "The idea is try and pull in pretty much everything you can possibly imagine that's going on during the 2013 MLB season, and do it in a way that feels reminiscent of NASA's control room: Mission Control." The 20-foot-long installation houses 30 screens measuring roughly eight inches each. The displays are grouped into two sets of 15 (one side for American League teams and the other for the National League), separated in the middle by a large LCD and a consumer-grade webcam. Below the screens you'll notice a plethora of switches with LEDs, info lights and a trio of gauges. Both sides feature three rows of five screens, each pertaining to one of the 30 MLB teams and their stadiums. At the flick of a switch, the screens display real-time connected data like recent Foursquare check-ins, weather, Facebook Likes and Instagrams, along with team stats, facts and more for each stadium at once. %Gallery-183916% Those smaller screens, by the way, are actually physically modded Android-tablets -- unfortunately, Breakfast wasn't at liberty to tell us exactly which kind they are. Essentially, they are all running custom apps, with support from MLB.TV to pull real-time, live streams from each stadium in the league. In total, we're told that 13 APIs and seven software languages work in conjunction to make up the Mission Control Center. The setup will also allow players visiting the Cave to have live chats with roughly 10 fans at a time who participate from MLB's site (sort of like Google+) -- of course, the chats allow an essentially unlimited number of spectators. Curious for more of the nitty gritty? Join us past the break.
Create your own space program: NASA quietly flogging bits of the Kennedy Space Center
The idea of private space tourism is certainly taking off, but at such high costs, only 1 percent of the 1 percent will be able to afford it. But, what if you could just do it all yourself? You're going to need some infrastructure to get you started, and luckily, NASA is reportedly looking to lease or sell off some Kennedy Space Center assets it no longer needs. While that list has not been made public, it apparently includes Launch Pad 39A, a landing strip, the Launch Control Center, and various other high-tech equipment and buildings from its late shuttle program. NASA also wants some quick deals before anything falls into disrepair, so if you're serious about your new space venture, you might be able to snag a bargain or two with some strategic low offers. Now you've just gotta wait for a cheap rocket deal to pop up on eBay and you're good to go.
Mac 101: Don't forget about Hot Corners
More Mac 101, tips and tricks for novice Mac users. After reading fellow TUAW blogger Dave Caolo's post on Mac OS Lion and Mission Control, and then TUAW blogger Chris Rawson's Additional Tips for OS X Lion's Mission Control, I thought it pertinent to mention a few further words on Hot Corners. With the advent of advanced multi-touch gestures in new Macs, it's easier than ever to get around Mac OS X, and even more so in OS X Lion with Mission Control. But since I don't have a newer Mac with advanced multi-touch gestures, I find Hot Corners invaluable in Lion, as I did in Snow Leopard and previous versions of Mac OS X before it. Even if I did have access to advanced multi-touch gestures, I'm certain I'd still make full use of Hot Corners. Hot Corners are the assignment of certain features to the four corners of your desktop. A Hot Corner is activated by shoving your mouse pointer in the respective corner of your desktop screen. A Hot Corner can be assigned to turn your screen saver on, put your display to sleep, display all open windows or, as Dave mentioned in his post, open Mission Control -- which is useful if you're like me and don't have a newer multi-touch trackpad like me. Personally, I've assigned my bottom right Hot Corner to open Launch Pad, it's a quick and easy way to access all my applications. I find using a Hot Corner much quicker than opening Launch Pad from the dock and then opening an application. My bottom left Hot Corner is assigned to show my desktop. Activating this Hot Corner shoves every open window on my desktop to the left, leaving me free to peruse files and documents on my desktop, and then by activating the Hot Corner again, all my open windows return to exactly the way they were before. My top right Hot Corner opens Mission Control and my top left Hot Corner puts my display to sleep. It couldn't be simpler! To assign a Hot Corner in OS X Lion, go to System Preferences and click on Mission Control. You'll find the Hot Corners button at the bottom left of that window. For previous versions of OS X, go to System Preferences and click on Dashboard and Expose.
Mac 101: Additional tips for OS X Lion's Mission Control
TUAW's Dave Caolo did an in-depth look at OS X Lion's new window/application manager, Mission Control, the day of OS X Lion's launch. If you're completely confused about Mission Control's features, Dave's post is a good place to get a baseline of knowledge on this new feature. In this post, I'll be covering two additional features of Mission Control that will help alleviate some of the confusion associated with it, especially if you're used to the way Spaces worked in earlier versions of Mac OS X. Tip 1: Assigning applications to a specific Desktop Mac OS X Snow Leopard had a preference pane in System Preferences that allowed you to assign applications to a particular Space. Unfortunately, Mission Control's preference pane in OS X Lion has no such feature, which has led to a lot of confusion amongst users who were comfortable with Snow Leopard's method of assigning apps to Spaces. It turns out this feature hasn't vanished altogether in OS X Lion, but it has been moved to a somewhat less "discoverable" location. It's also less configurable than the preference pane setup Spaces had in Snow Leopard, but that may actually be of benefit to novice users. First, use Mission Control to navigate to the Desktop you want your application to be assigned to. Once there, right click the Dock icon for the application you want to assign -- if the application isn't one you normally keep in the Dock, you'll need to launch the app first. After right clicking the app's icon, you'll see a contextual menu pop up. On this menu, under Options, you'll see a submenu called "Assign To" with three different options: All Desktops, This Desktop, or None. "All Desktops" is just that; the app will follow you around no matter which Desktop you're using. "This Desktop" will "pin" the app and its windows to your current Desktop, both now and for all future launches of the application. You can still move windows between Desktops manually if you desire, but by default they'll open in the assigned Desktop. The third option, "None," is the default; applications aren't assigned to any particular Desktop, will simply launch in whichever one you're currently using, and will stay there when you navigate to a different Desktop. Assigning applications to a particular Desktop can help a lot in keeping things organized. I'll offer my own setup as an example: Desktop 1: Safari, Echofon, Mail, iChat -- My main Desktop gets all my communication tools assigned together. Desktop 2: Aperture, Photoshop -- All my photo editing apps in one spot. Desktop 3: Pages, Keynote, Numbers -- I have this desktop set aside for "Productivity" apps. Desktop 4: iMovie, Handbrake -- This Desktop is devoted to video editing/transcoding apps. All Desktops: Finder -- Obviously I don't want to move to a different Desktop every time I need to dive into the file system. This may not be true for all users migrating from Snow Leopard, but my Spaces preferences from Snow Leopard carried over to Lion, so I didn't have to re-assign any applications after upgrading. Tip 2: Assign a different wallpaper to each Desktop A feature I always wanted to see in Snow Leopard's Spaces was the ability to assign different background pictures to each Space in order to make them visually distinctive. Without that, it was sometimes difficult to tell which Space I was in. This feature has found its way into OS X Lion, and it's quite simple to set up, especially if you already know how to change your desktop background (easy to find in System Preferences under "Desktop & Screen Saver"). To simplify things, first assign System Preferences to "All Desktops" using the tip above -- this will save you some headaches if you're changing multiple Desktop backgrounds at once. Then, navigate to the Desktop whose background you want to change. Once there, change the background in System Preferences. Simple. Using different backgrounds for each of your Desktops will make navigating between them in Mission Control much easier -- especially since Apple hasn't yet implemented any way to rename Desktops. Hopefully these two tips will help you get more out of Mission Control than you would otherwise. The feature is above all meant to help you organize things and make them easier to navigate, but it does take some tweaking to get Mission Control to realize its full potential.
Poll: Did you download Mac OS X Lion (10.7)?
Apple confirmed Lion's big day during the company's Q3 earnings call this week, and Mac OS 10.7 hit the App Store right on schedule yesterday morning, allowing us to give Snow Leopard the boot and make room for the king of the jungle. We've already installed Lion on a half-dozen of our own systems, testing the new operating system with a variety of configurations for our review. But we want to know about your experience. Did you pull an all-nighter on Tuesday, backing up files, reformatting drives, and updating to 10.6.8? Are you still rockin' dial-up and waiting for the $69 flash drive version to ship next month? Or perhaps you're a PC user, holding out for Windows 8? Let us know in the poll below, and feel free to expand on your decision in the comments as well.%Poll-66596%
Mac OS X Lion and Mission Control
Lion's Mission Control represents the evolution of three technologies introduced with earlier versions of Mac OS X: Spaces, Exposé and Dashboard. With Mac OS X Lion, Apple has merged the three into a single interface, called Mission Control. It offers an at-a-glance overview of the applications and documents you've got open as well as distinct virtual workspaces (which I'll call "desktops"). With Mission Control, you can keep applications separated while maintaining a bird's-eye view of what's going on. Here's what you need to know about Mission Control in Mac OS X Lion. Opening Mission Control You must open Mission Control to use it, of course, and Lion offers several methods. For many, the easiest will be a multi-touch gesture. However, those without a multi-touch surface, like a trackpad (either built-in to a laptop or Apple's Magic Trackpad accessory) still have several options, as keyboard shortcut support is extensive. First, let's look at the supported gestures. %Gallery-128706% Those with a trackpad have a few options. The default gesture is to swipe "up," (bottom-to-top) with three fingers. Alternatively, you can opt to use four fingers for this gesture. You'll find the preference settings by opening System Settings, clicking on Trackpad and then clicking the "More Gestures" tab. Those with a Magic Mouse can open Mission Control by double-tapping on the mouse's surface. Note that there are no other options for opening Mission Control via gesture on a Magic Mouse. It's double-tap or nothing. If you don't have a multi-touch surface, you've still got plenty of options. For example, you can: Drag the Mission Control app into the Dock and launch with a click Assign it to a hot corner (which I'll explain later in this post) Press the Dashboard key on your Apple keyboard That's really just the beginning. Later in this post, I'll describe the Mission Control preference pane, which really opens up the launch options. For now, I'll describe how Mission Control looks and behaves. How Mission Control Looks As I mentioned before, Mission Control combines Dashboard, Spaces and Exposé into a single interface. For now we'll leave Dashboard and discuss Spaces and Exposé. Together, they make up the bulk of Mission Control, in both form and function. Here's a look at each. Along the top of the main Mission Control interface you'll find a horizontal listing of the thumbnail images of your various desktops. This is, of course, the the current iteration of Spaces. By default, there are two desktops available: the Dashboard and the current desktop. Each is labeled ("Dashboard" and "Desktop 1"). As you've probably guessed, subsequent desktops are labeled sequentially ("Desktop 2," etc.). Below the desktop thumbnails you'll find the Exposé area. It depicts the applications and documents currently open. Documents and windows are sorted into piles, according to their parent application and each is labeled with the appropriate icon. For example, a "pile" of Word documents will bear a Word icon (bottom center), while Pages files will show the Pages icon. I'll discuss working in the Exposé area later in the post. For now, let's look at the desktops. How it Works - Spaces and Desktops As I said, you start with two desktops by default: the Dashboard on the left and the current desktop on the right. Each desktop thumbnail shows the frontmost application in the space. When using desktops in Mission Control, you'll typically do five things: Add new desktops Navigate between desktops Move applications between desktops Jump to a given desktop Close unwanted desktops Here's now to do each. Adding New Desktops The are two ways to do this. The first is to move your cursor to the upper right-hand corner of the Mission Control interface. As you do, a new desktop will partially appear with a "+" on its edge. To create it, just give it a click. It slides into place and receives the appropriate label. The other method lets you create a new space and add an application to it in one fell swoop. Here's how. Click on an application window in the Exposé area. Drag it to the upper right-hand corner. The "new desktop" appears. Drop the window onto it. That's it! A new desktop will be created, containing all open files relating pertaining to the application you just dropped inside. Navigating Between Desktops There are three ways to move between desktops. The first is to simply click a thumbnail image. You'll immediately leave Mission Control and jump to that desktop. However, there may be times when you want to review available desktops before jumping into one. To do this, hold down the Control Key while pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard. You'll move from desktop to desktop (the Exposé area will also change accordingly) without exiting Mission Control. Additionally, you can use a three- or four-finger swipe on a trackpad (use two fingers on a Magic Mouse) to move between desktops. The final method is exactly moving through desktops via Mission Control, but it's sort of the same thing. You can move between open desktops without launching Mission Control by swiping with either three or four fingers (configurable via System Preferences) on a trackpad or with two fingers on a Magic Mouse. Moving Applications Between Desktops The whole point of this feature is to keep your current workspace uncluttered. For example, you can keep Mail on one desktop, Twitter on another and TextEdit on a third. Of course, you might want to switch up the order at any time. Here's how to move applications between desktops with Mission Control. There's only one real way to do this, and it's pretty darn simple. First, open Mission Control and navigate to the desktop containing the app you'd like to move (the Control > arrow key method is best here). Next, click-and-hold on that app's window (or stack of windows) in the Exposé area, and drop it into the desired desktop. It'll be moved, but you'll stay on the original desktop. Note that if doing so "empties" a desktop -- that is to say, leaves it without any applications -- it will remain. I'll discuss closing unwanted desktops later in this post. Jumping to A Desktop As mentioned earlier, this couldn't be easier. Simply click the desktop you'd like to work in. Conversely, use the three- for four-finger swipe gesture to move between desktops without opening Mission Control. Closing Unwanted Desktops This couldn't be simpler. To close an unwanted desktop, you've got two options. First, mouse over the thumbnail image and let your cursor sit for a second or two. A black-and-white "X" will appear in the upper left-hand corner. Give it a click and the desktop disappears. The less-than-patient can press the Option key to bring up the X immediately. Note: you cannot close Desktop 1 or the Dashboard with this method (in fact, you can't dismiss Desktop 1 at all). How it Works - Exposé Along with Spaces, Mission Control has used its Borg-like powers to assimilate Exposé. Beneath the vertical row of desktop thumbnails is the Exposé area. Here's what to expect from Exposé via Mission Control. When Mission Control is launched, your current desktop "recedes" into your display and is presented on a linen background. The Exposé shows all of the documents that are currently open. As I explained, these documents are sorted by their parent application. Each "pile" of windows bears that application's icon for quick reference. To jump to a given app, simply click its pile. Of course, those piles present a problem...they're piles! What's behind the first item? To find out, move your cursor over each item in the pile. You'll notice that the blue focus border appears over each document in turn. Once that happens, hit the Space Bar to get a Quick Look-style peek at that document. If that's one you'd like to jump to, click it. Mission Control Preferences Unlike some of Lion's other marquee features (I'm looking at you, Launchpad), Mission Control offers a huge amount of customization via preferences. Here's what you'll find. Open System Preferences and then click Mission Control. The control panel is divided into three sections: general preferences, keyboard and mouse shortcuts and finally hot corners. There's a lot of fiddling to do in here, so let's take a look at each section. General Preferences Here you've got three options. Show Dashboard as a space. De-select this option to remove Dashboard from the horizontal row of desktop thumbnail images. Those uninterested in using Dashboard or widgets might want to do so. Automatically re-arrange spaces based on most recent use. This is kind of handy. Mission Control will keep the desktops you're using most often next to each other, making the back-and-forth even easier. When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for that application. For example, if you've got Word open in Desktop 3 while you're working in Twitter from Desktop 1, and then select Word with a Command-Tab, you'll jump right over to Desktop 3. De-selection this option prevents the leap; you'll select Word but stay in Desktop 1. Keyboard and Mouse Shortcut Preferences Prepare to go nuts, keyboard jockeys. There are a huge number of options for launching Mission Control, revealing application windows, showing the desktop and finally showing the Dashboard. I won't go into detail here because this post is long enough. Suffice to say, if you have a keyboard shortcut or mouse click in mind for producing any of those functions, you'll probably find it here. Hot Corners Preferences Finally, click the Hot Corners button in the lower left-hand corner to assign a corner of the screen to a given Mission Control function. Then, you can simply move your cursor to that corner to produce the desired function. Dashboard Finally, a word on Dashboard. Other than a launch option (you can view it as a desktop thumbnail or not), there's nothing new in Dashboard. So, there you go. Bits and Bobs There are a few little things to keep in mind regarding Mission Control. Desktop images appear in the thumbnail images. Some people use certain desktop images to quickly identify workspaces. Mission Control represents each desktop's image (or wallpaper) in its thumbnail. Two screens = two Mission Control UIs. Those running two displays will find two distinct Mission Control UIs. You cannot move applications from a desktop on Display A to one on Display B. You can't re-arrange windows, etc. within the Exposé area. It reflects their current position only. Fiddling must be done on the desktop itself. Forget about scripting and other high-level geek stuff. Mission Control is for home users and LaunchBar wizards will want to look elsewhere. Now, a couple closing thoughts. For the first time, I'm using Spaces. It's really the swiping that makes it useful. I'm in front of the app I want in less than a second, and no workspace becomes especially cluttered. As for the Exposé area, yeah, it gets pretty cluttered despite the fact that its very purpose is to prevent clutter. Once you've got several documents open across applications, the piles pile up, if you'll forgive that poor analogy. I also wish I could move apps between desktops on different displays. Minor quibbles, really. I've been using and enjoying Mission Control and suspect that many of you will, too. The images used in this article are taken from the upcoming Apress book Taking Your OS X Lion to the Max.
Apple Mac OS X Lion available now in the App Store
For 'developers' willing to shell out $99 for an annual membership in Apple's group of Mac OS app creators, Lion is old news already. But the rest of you can finally download Apple's latest operating system -- Mac OS 10.7 -- by hitting up the App Store on your Snow Leopard (10.6.8)-equipped Mac, assuming it's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, i5 or i7 processor. From our experience with the pre-release version, the 4GB download could take over an hour, even on a high-speed connection, but once you have the installer in hand the upgrade process itself should be complete in about 20 minutes. As Apple previously announced, those with slower connections can also download Lion at an Apple retail store, and the company's also now revealed that it will be offering it on a USB thumb drive as well, which will be available through its online store later this August for $69 (yes, that's a $40 premium). We'll be posting a full review of Lion later this week, but you can check out our hands-on preview for a sneak peek at Apple's latest consumer OS in the meantime.
Apple: Mac OS X Lion to hit the App Store tomorrow
Well it looks like the cat's finally out of the bag virtual box. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer just confirmed during today's earnings call that Mac OS 10.7 is due to hit the Mac App Store tomorrow, making Lion available as a 4GB download for $30. The new operating system packs 250 new features, including an iOS-like app launcher, multi-touch gestures, AirDrop for direct file sharing, and system-wide Resume. More enhancements that will feel particularly familiar to iOS users include a new version of Mail with conversation view, and reverse touchpad scrolling. We'll have a full review of Lion later this week, but check out our hands-on preview for our initial impressions. Want to collaborate on projects with multiple machines? Lion Server will also be available as a $50 download -- for those of you that need to support an entire pride.
Mini Cooper Connected app adjusts music based on driving style, stops when airbags deploy
We're always looking for excuses to get behind the wheel, so naturally the new Dynamic Music function in the Mini Connected app made us yearn for a chance to hit the road. Version 2.0 brings this headline feature to the iPhone, which includes exclusively-composed music that adjusts based on things like a compatible Mini Cooper's "longitudinal and lateral acceleration." In other words, the faster and crazier you drive, the more exciting the music becomes. So instead of having mom in the passenger seat begging you to slow down, there's music that encourages you to do the opposite. The press release even references a "hallmark Mini go-kart feeling," so you might want to make sure everyone's buckled up before you plug in. Should anyone fail to do so, a new feature called Mission Control will let you know, also nagging about poor driving conditions. How's that for a mixed signal?
Mac OS X Lion hands-on preview
Apple announced Mac OS X Lion with considerable fanfare at its Back to the Mac event last October, and now it's dropped the first developer preview on the world -- giving us a chance to sample some of the big cat's new features and UI concepts. We installed the dev build on one of our MacBook Pros and used it over the weekend, and while we won't be able to see any huge changes in day-to-day workflow until our favorite apps are updated to take advantage of Lion, we did see plenty of interesting system-level features and additions -- and yes, iOS's influence is all over the place. Read on for a full breakdown of what's new! %Gallery-117806%
Rumor: Mac OS X Lion to have UI overhaul, developers to see beta build soon?
Since Apple's official announcement of Mac OS Lion last October, there's not been so much as a peep, let alone a roar, on the new operating system. We know to expect Lion at some point this summer, but as summer fast approaches, all we know about Lion is what Apple has told us (full-screen apps, Launchpad and Mission Control). However, TechCrunch is reporting it's got wind of a few OS X Lion tidbits. First, they claim that OS X Lion will have a major user interface overhaul. With Apple already introducing Launchpad, Mission Control and full-screen apps as key features of Lion -- all user interface related -- as well as saying its bringing the best of iOS to the Mac, it's not too far a stretch to expect we'll see some further significant changes to the new version of OS X. Unfortunately, that's all TechCrunch has got to say on the matter. Second, in light of the above, TechCrunch says, "we're hearing that a developer beta [of Lion] should begin soon." With summer about four months away, developers will need time to prepare for the new UI features. While there's not much to corroborate this claim, MacRumors reports they've heard "...whispers that Lion may begin seeding soon," too. [Via MacRumors]
