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China launches a rocket from a ship for the first time
China has joined the US and Russia as the only nations to have successfully launched a rocket at sea. The National Space Administration's Long March 11 took off from a launchpad on a ship in the Yellow Sea today. The rocket carried five commercial satellites (including two for a company that plans to set up a global network of internet satellites) and two research-focused experimental ones.
SpaceX plans to launch a rocket every two weeks
SpaceX has a bold plan in place to get through its backlog. The space corporation's president Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters that SpaceX aims to send a rocket to space every two to three weeks as soon as its new launch pad in Florida opens next week. As you know, the company put its schedule on hold after a Falcon 9 exploded on its old launch pad at Cape Canaveral last year -- its comeback mission took place just a few weeks ago in mid-January at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Google is opening a dedicated space for startups in San Francisco
With its close ties to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Google naturally has its hands in the region's huge startup economy. To further its involvement, the company has announced plans to open a 14,000 square foot space right in the heart of San Francisco to work directly with various startups and developers. Google hasn't released a ton of details yet, but it says that the space will hold events including the company's Codelabs, Design Sprints and Tech Talks. It'll also host meetups of the Google developer community.
Amazon shines a spotlight on startup products in the UK
After going live in the US this summer, Amazon has today brought its Launchpad program to the UK. Appearing sans fanfare on the UK portal, Launchpad is a dedicated storefront specifically showcasing the products of early stage companies. That said, the initial catalogue features some relatively well-known brands, such as Sphero, Withings, Pebble, Elgato, Misfit and new smartphone player Wileyfox, though it's not limited to products in the technology realm. The idea behind Launchpad is that startups can use the program -- and Amazon's delivery expertise -- to get their products to customers without having to become logistics experts themselves.
Amazon Launchpad helps startups get products to customers
If you're an inventor, then your expertise probably lies in developing hardware and software rather than knowing the ins-and-outs of the logistics business. Amazon is hoping to help these individuals with Launchpad, a system that lets startups harness the company's vast marketing and transportation resources. Essentially, if you run a venture capital-backed startup or have made a splash on Indiegogo, then you can send Amazon a box of devices and Jeff Bezos will take care of the rest. For instance, Launchpad will be one of the first places that you can buy Thync's mood-changing wearable and Eero's distributed WiFi hardware.
TI shows off LaunchPad-based prototype mouse, hints at a big follow-up
If you've been needing a little inspiration for your next TI LaunchPad project, look no further than the company itself. Texas Instruments set up shop in the maker tent across from the Austin Convention Center this week, showing off creations built atop its line of microcontrollers. The rep we spoke with was particularly excited about this mouse hack that the company put together in a few hours, while getting ready for SXSW. The creation utilizes the Stellaris board's accelerometers to control the cursor of a Windows machine on X, Y and Z axes, via USB. The project is more than just a hack, according to the company -- it's actually a prototype of something it's set to unveil later this year. No specifics on that front, but TI promised a "big surprise." In the meantime, you can check out video of the project after the break.%Gallery-181193%
TiVo Premiere now loaded with Flingo LaunchPad, nets more than 70 video apps
If that TiVo Premiere of yours still doesn't have enough content sitting in its memory to satisfy your appetite, you're in luck, as Flingo's LauchPad on-demand video platform has just been baked into the hardware. Now, channel surfers can stream content from more than 70 video apps from the likes of A&E, CollegeHumor, Crunchyroll, History, Showtime and others. LaunchPad for TiVo will also feature exclusive content, but details regarding just what it might be are scarce. In addition to the bevy of streaming options, users can even "fling" online videos from other devices to their television screen with the aid of a bookmarklet. Ashwin Navin, Flingo co-founder and CEO, tells Venture Beat that he'd like to implement the firm's SyncApps second screen tech into TiVo's box, but that won't be coming in the near future. [Image credit: Zatz Not Funny]
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.
Meet Heroes of Evermore, Dungeon Runners' spiritual successor
Almost three years ago, a quirky and charming MMO died. It was NCsoft's Dungeon Runners, a Diablo-like action title that had a wicked funny streak running through it. We were genuinely sad to see it go away, but perhaps not as sad as its producer, Steve Nichols. In fact, Dungeon Runners was such an influence on his life that when he moved on to a new studio, he brought with him the idea of creating another MMO in the same vein. Today we caught up with Nichols to talk about that project, called Heroes of Evermore. Heroes of Evermore is currently in pre-alpha but is pushing hard to make strides in 2013 toward release. What would the spiritual successor to Dungeon Runners look like? You're about to find out!
OS X Launchpad bug is annoying, pretty
Tyler Lee over at Ubergizmo pointed out an interesting OS X bug that affects the way that the Launchpad window is displayed. It's an annoying bug, but strangely enough it's also quite beautiful. The bug doesn't apply the blur effect when Launchpad is opened -- instead, it applies the crystallize effect which gives your app icons a nice "stained glass" appearance. It doesn't last for long, and the bug apparently isn't hitting many Macs. But it is kinda cool. If you see the bug in action and happen to be able to nab a screenshot, let us know in the comments.
Top 10 subtle Mountain Lion features (and a few more)
Lifehacker has put together a list of what they call the "top 10 secret features of Mountain Lion." That's not quite right -- these features aren't secret, because it would be pretty silly to release an OS update and not tell anyone about it. But they are subtle, and this is a nice list of features you may not have noticed yet. For example, the fact that you can tweet right from the top of Notification Center, or that you can share photos straight from QuickLook using the Share button. You can also rename files in TextEdit (or share them to iCloud) just by clicking on the document's name at the top of the window, and you can even insert pages into PDF files in Preview through the Edit menu. Helpful tips, for sure. We'll even add a few more features in that you may not have noticed yet: Over in Launchpad (which you can access from your dock or pressing F4 on a new Mountain Lion install, or set up a hot corner for), just typing will start you on a search for any app you've installed through the Mac App Store. And you may not have noticed, but Apple's added some brand new Screen Saver and slideshow options for when your Mac goes to sleep. Just like Apple's other OS releases lately, there's a lot of new stuff to go find and play with in Mountain Lion. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Mountain Lion 101: Game Center
Yes, with the arrival of Mountain Lion on the Mac today, Apple has finally extended its Game Center iOS gaming social service to the desktop. The easiest way to find Game Center on your Mountain Lion-equipped Mac is to jump on over to the Launchpad, where Apple's already set up an icon for you. Click that sucker, and you'll be able to sign in, either with a brand new account or (even better) the same account you use on iOS. Once logged in, you're able to see all of your friends, any leaderboard ranks and achievements you've racked up on iOS games, and any pending friend requests you happen to have. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of Game Center-enabled games on the Mac yet, but a few popular games have been able to make the jump, including Cut the Rope, SpellTower, Osmos, and Firemint's popular Real Racing 2. I'm sure we'll see plenty of other games making the jump soon enough -- part of Game Center's charm is that it's relatively easy for developers to implement and include in their titles. Other than that bigger screen (the wood and felt look really great, actually), and the fact that desktop games will be included, this implementation of Game Center isn't radically different from what we've known before. There are still achievements and leaderboards, and presumably there will be multiplayer tie-ins soon as well. But perhaps it's enough that Apple has enough faith in its social gaming system to finally bring it back to the desktop, and let it grow there, too.
NASA opens up Launch Control Center for public tours
The NASA control center, responsible for a huge chunk of space-faring history, will open its doors to tour groups for the first time in over 30 years, celebrating the Kennedy Space Center's 50th anniversary. Starting this Friday, a "limited number" of tours will take bright-eyed enthusiasts into the Launch Control Center, where all 152 launches were counted down -- visitors will even get to peer at the very same clock. NASA has also granted access to the "bubble room", which is surrounded by windows showing what went on in the firing room just below. The daily tour also throws in a drive-by viewing of one of the shuttle launch pads. The tours will run through the end of 2012 -- adults will need to fork out an extra $25, while kids will cost $19 on top of the typical entrance fee. [Image Credit: Britannica Online, 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com]
Visualized: Where NASA's SLS will get high
We've still got quite a while to go before NASA gets back into the space travel game with SLS, but the first pieces of the potential inter-planetary transportation puzzle are starting to fall into place. The $500 million mobile launch tower of the future has already been rolled out and is undergoing structural testing at the Kennedy Space Center. You owe it to yourself to hit up the source link for some more images, including a few from atop the tower.
New EVE Online launcher will simplify patching
EVE Online developer CCP Games has dedicated this winter's expansion to small features, balance changes and small quality-of-life improvements. Most of the changes we've heard about so far have been gameplay features and graphical improvements, from starbase tweaks and blaster balance changes to magnificent new nebula graphics. In a new devblog, CCP Topknot shows off a brand new launcher program designed to simplify the patching process. Currently, players launching an out-of-date client get a pop-up about the latest patch and have to restart the client. This becomes a nuisance when frequent optional updates are released. The new patcher will work like a standard MMO launcher, detecting which files aren't up to date and downloading new versions. "A big-ass progress bar will tell you what's going on and how much work is left," explains Topknot, "and an unnecessarily huge button allows you to play the game once it is ready." The new patcher is currently on the test server and should be making its way to the main game with the winter expansion. In the future, the patcher will be able to download updates in the background and may be able to download content in stages, giving new players access to character creation while the game content downloads.
10.7.2 update adds some Lion interface tweaks
Amid the flurry of software updates Apple released yesterday was OS X Lion 10.7.2. The big feature of the latest delta release of Lion was, of course, iCloud. But the 10.7.2 update also brought other features, such as a speedier Safari web browser and stability improvements. However, there are also some small, very welcome, interface changes I've been noticing as I've been using 10.7.2 over the last 24 hours: Launchpad icons got bigger. The most noticeable UI change is that the size of the icons in Launchpad got much larger. About 60% larger actually. This is a very welcome improvement for those with less than perfect eyesight. It makes finding and launching an app in Launchpad that much easier and faster. Desktop preferences got iPhoto Places country flags. Another small, but useful, tweak is in the Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences pane. Since OS X 10.6, you have been able to navigate your iPhoto photos by Places in the Desktop pane, but now under 10.7.2 Apple has added country flags that sort where you photos were taken. You can then navigate down through the hierarchy by State/territory (highway sign icon), city (building icon), and location of interest (globe icon). Before 10.7.2 you had the navigation hierarchy, but it was much harder to distinguish between countries because of the lack of flags. Remove apps from purchase history in the Mac App Store. A final tweak I've noticed is that now you can remove purchases from your Purchased history in the Mac App Store. Click the Purchased button at the top of the store then move your cursor over an app from your purchase list. You'll see a small X appear at the far right. Click it to delete the app from your purchase history. Deleting a currently-installed app from your purchase history won't delete it from your computer. If you've found any other unadvertised interface tweaks in 10.7.2 let us know in the comments!
Lion: Deleting apps in Launchpad, and starting clean
Launchpad in Mac OS Lion shares a key behavior with its iOS counterpart: deleting an app from the launcher also uninstalls it from the computer, as long as the app was purchased from the Mac App Store. Of course, it's quick and easy to redownload the MAS apps if they're needed. While this insta-delete, complete with jiggling icons, may be counterintuitive for longtime Mac users, it makes perfect sense to iPhone or iPad users where there's a one-to-one mapping between apps on the launcher screen and apps installed on the device. On other mobile platforms, that's not necessarily the case: both Android and Blackberry devices have the ability to hide or subset visible apps versus the full suite of installed programs. The flip side of this strong linkage between installation/removal and visibility of MAS apps in Launchpad is that non-MAS/conventionally installed apps cannot be deleted from the Launchpad UI. If you don't want all that app clutter, the only default options are to move the space-wasting apps into Launchpad folders (laborious) or move the apps themselves out of the Applications folder in the Finder (boneheaded, and actually won't work, per commenters). Even resetting your Launchpad (as Erica noted last week) still includes all your apps in the launcher's pages. There is another way, however, to blank out your Launchpad and start clean. Web developer Loren Segal points out the 'nuclear option' of deleting all the app records from the Launchpad database, which lets you select individual apps to include by dragging their icons onto the Launchpad dock icon (command-click to select multiple apps before dragging). He suggests backing up the relevant database file beforehand, in case of issues, and I concur. Here's the process in the Terminal, line by line: mkdir ~/Desktop/DB_Backup [makes a folder on your desktop to back up the data files] cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db ~/Desktop/DB_Backup/ [copies the database] sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db 'DELETE FROM apps;' && killall Dock sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db 'DELETE from apps;' \ ' DELETE from groups WHERE title<>""; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;' \ && killall Dock [deletes the app records from Launchpad's database, and restarts the Dock process; you'll see your minimized windows pop back to the screen. Update: Loren posted a new version, as above, that fixes the folders issue.] Blank Launchpad! You may notice that any folders previously in Launchpad will still be there, albeit vacant. To get rid of them, simply load at least one app into Launchpad, then drag the app into & out of the folder. It will 'evaporate' when it's empty. If you do decide that you prefer the full-list Launchpad, you can either restore the database to its original location, or follow the tip in Erica's post to reset/rebuild and get all your apps back.
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%
How to refresh OS X Lion's Launchpad contents
The young guys over at HaiTeq have been running into issues with Launchpad updating after installing software that wasn't bought on the Mac App Store. Because of this, they've figured out a workaround to force Launchpad to refresh its data base. Removing the database files from the user's Dock application support folder and restarting the Dock allows Mission Control and the Launchpad to re-build the database from scratch, updating the presentation with all the new applications. Here are HaiTeq's steps, with a few modifications on my part for safety. Admittedly, if you are not comfortable at the command line, this is not the hack for you. Launch Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal). Navigate to the Application Support folder in question (cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock) Open the folder (open .) and drag all the .db files to the trash. Restart Dock (sudo killall Dock, followed by authentication) I am not a Launchpad/Mission Control user and cannot verify these steps will reflect newly installed software. However, I did test them out for safety, and my Lion install is still working; my db file was instantly re-generated, and I did not find any harmful side-effects. Please share your experiences in the comments.
Mac OS X Lion and Launchpad
Mac OS X Lion introduces Launchpad, an app launcher that borrows heavily from iOS. With the flick of a gesture, you can open Launchpad and have access to your applications. Once Launchpad is running, you can sort, organize and delete your apps. Here's what to expect from Lauchpad. Opening Launchpad To use Launchpad, you must, well, launch it. Fortunately, Apple provides several methods. The easiest is a with a Multi-Touch gesture. Note that you'll need a trackpad for this, either one built into your laptop or Apple's Magic Trackpad. Unfortunately, the Magic Mouse does not offer a gesture to launch Launchpad. To open Launchpad with a gesture, place three fingers and a thumb on the trackpad, slightly spread apart. Gather them all together, as if you're picking up something small, like a paper clip. As you do, Launchpad will open. Those without a Multi-Touch surface can either click the Launchpad icon (Lion adds it to the dock) or assign it to hot corner via the Screen Saver preference pane. Then you can move your cursor into that corner to open Launchpad. %Gallery-128696% Navigating Launchpad Launchpad displays your apps on pages, much as iOS does. You can move from page to page with a gesture, with a mouse or with your keyboard. Here's how. Those with a tracked (built-in or Magic Trackpad) can swipe with two fingers. If you've got a mouse with a scroll wheel, move the wheel left or right. Finally, the arrow keys on your keyboard also work. Organizing, Launching and Adding Apps Anyone with an iOS device will find this familiar. Laucnhpad lets or re-arrange your apps and sort them into folders. To organize things, simply click and hold on an icon, drag it to its new location and drop it in place. You'll see the surrounding icons scoot out of the way, just like iOS apps. Creating folders also works as it does on the iPhone, etc. Grab an icon and drop it onto another. A folder is created right away. You can accept the suggested name or use your own by double-clicking the title Lion provides and typing over it. When you're through, click anywhere outside the folder. Finally, folders can be re-ordered with a simple drag and drop. There are two ways to add an application to Launchpad. The first is to make a purchase from the Mac App Store. That app will "jump" out of the store's window and open Launchpad. It's icon will display a progress bar as the app loads an is installed (again, much like iOS). Apps not purchased from the App Sore are added to Launchpad when placed in your Applications folder. To launch an application, simply give it a click. You'll exit Launchpad for the desktop as the app launches. Deleting Apps You can delete apps via "Jiggle Mode," another feature borrowed from iOS. Click and hold on an icon to get them shaking. You'll see the familiar "X" appear in the upper left-hand corner of apps available for deletion. Click it and a confirmation dialog box appears. Click "Delete" and poof! The app is gone. You'll notice I said "available for deletion." Not all apps can be deleted via Launchpad jiggle mode. For example, apps that ship with Lion (like Photo Booth) and those not purchased from the Mac App Store. What Launchpad Can't Do Lauchpad is a capable app launcher, but there are several things it can't do. For example, you can't add a folder to Launchpad. Also, documents and aliases can't be added. Those interested in scripting, file manipulation, etc. ought to consider Alfred, LaunchBar etc. as a supplement to Launchpad. Thoughts I can tell you right now that there will be a large, vocal group of nerds who merrily bash Launchpad. They'll call it underpowered eye-candy, lacking in more advanced features. But really, that's not what Launchpad is meant to be. Instead, it offers a convenient way to find an app, launch it and then get back to what you were doing. As with iOS, you can put your most frequently-used apps front and center. No more scrolling through the Applications folder, stuffing your Dock to its gills or lining up aliases on the desktop. Launchpad is all about ease and convenience. In this area, it excels. Sure, it's for so-called "end users." But we nerds forget that those folks make up the majority of computer users. I suspect that most of them will love Launchpad. The images used in this article are taken from the upcoming Apress book Taking Your OS X Lion to the Max.
