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Engadget Podcast 249 - 07.22.2011
Here at Engadget, and here on the Engadget Podcast in particular, we're all about customer service. OK, maybe not all about customer service, but on this episode we've dedicated twenty percent of our breath to answering your questions! If you happen to enjoy a bunch of Apple news too -- which we heard you do you -- then we're at about fifty percent on-track to serving you completely. If you like Apple news, having your questions answered, and a healthy dose of other up-to-the-minute information in the spacecraft, e-reader, and digital camera realms...well, let's just say we got this.Host: Tim Stevens, Brian HeaterGuests: Dana WollmanProducer: Trent WolbeMusic: Paradise City02:44 - Apple Mac OS X Lion available now in the App Store06:00 - Apple refreshes MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt, and backlit keyboards08:35 - Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review17:32 - The MacBook drops from Apple's Store (update: confirmed)22:37 - Apple updates Mac mini: Core i5 and i7, Thunderbolt, AMD Radeon HD, no SuperDrive22:55 - Apple rolls out 27-inch Thunderbolt Display with FaceTime HD camera, built-in speakers23:45 - Apple's Q3 earnings exceed estimates: $28.57 billion revenue, $7.31 billion profit, 20 million iPhones sold25:13 - Apple outpaces Nokia in global smartphone shipments28:00 - Nokia Q2 2011: 'clearly disappointing' results as challenges prove 'greater than expected'32:35 - Motorola Droid 3 review37:35 - Sony Alpha NEX-C3 review42:55 - iRiver Story HD review49:51 - Space Shuttle Atlantis touches down in Florida, won't be going back up again50:44 - Google 'winding down' Labs, likely due to meddling older sister51:40 - Listener questionsHear the podcastSubscribe to the podcast[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune MarketplaceDownload the podcastLISTEN (MP3)LISTEN (AAC)LISTEN (OGG)Contact the podcastSend your questions to @tim_stevens.Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005)E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot comTwitter: @tim_stevens @bheater @danawollman
The end of an era: what the space shuttle means to Engadget
It's hard to even believe these words, but they're true: the last scheduled US space shuttle launch happens today. What started as a frenetic race to another world has ended as a program that will forever be remembered for sparking the interest of mere tykes, and if this so-called economy ever gets turned around -- heck, maybe we'll see the hiatus end. In all likelihood, it'll be Sir Richard Branson making the next moonwalk, but rather than sit around and mourn the quiet death of the space shuttle, we'd prefer to share a few of our fondest memories here. And by all means, please deliver any final words of your own in comments below.
5 apps for the armchair astronaut & the final Space Shuttle launch
Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you know that today's launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, mission STS-135, signals the end of the shuttle program as we know it and the closing of a chapter in American human spaceflight. Weather and ten trillion other mechanical considerations permitting, the launch is at 11:26 a.m. ET and you can watch a live stream of the events right on NASA's website. You can also watch the launch on the NASA apps (listed below). Given the historic nature of the launch, you'll probably be able to find it on television as well. If you won't be near a TV or internet connection, don't worry. We've got your back. Here are five apps to keep you in the loop through the final countdown and beyond. NASA App for iPhone and iPad - These apps are really robust and pack a lot of cool stuff into one neat package. Stream NASA TV right to your phone or iPad, watch videos of everything from spacewalks to astronaut training exercises, and browse thousands of images taken in space. It even has Facebook and Twitter integration so you can blast all your friends with rapid-fire status updates during the excitement of the launch. They'll just love you for it. Really. GoAtlantis - This app was designed specifically for the STS-135 mission and helps you track Atlantis' post-launch movement in real-time. Watch the tiny orbiter on your screen zip around earth in low-earth orbit as it catches up and eventually docks with the International Space Station (ISS) two days later. The coolest feature in this app is its ability to predict when the ISS will pass over your location to you can catch a glimpse as it goes by. Yes, you really can see it winking and blinking in the sky if you know just where to look, and GoAtlantis will tell you. AstroApp: Space Shuttle Crew - As the mission clock ticks down, use the time to learn the history of the Space Shuttle program, its missions, and the astronauts that flew them. Commissioned by NASA, AstroApp contains full biographies of each crew member and are searchable via mission or alphabetically. For the imaginative at heart, app developers threw in a nice little tool that allows you to superimpose your face onto a flight suit so you see what you'd look like if you were ready for liftoff. Mission Clock - Speaking of mission clocks, if you're a diehard space junkie with $5 burning a hole in your pocket, this app is worth every penny. It provides up-to-the-minute information on all NASA launches as well as those at other space agencies around the world and also provides alerts with breaking news from mission control. The neatest thing about this app is that it doesn't just count down the time until launch, it tells you what the crew is doing every step of the way. SpaceGeek - Like the NASA App mentioned above, SpaceGeek offers live streaming of NASA TV, but it brings more to the table. The app has videos, pictures, mission updates, a breaking news feed, Twitter updates, and more. For such a full-featured app, it's hard to believe its only a buck, but it's worth it. %Gallery-127998% Have a favorite shuttle hugger app of your own? Share it with us in the comments.
Shuttle tablets at Computex 2011 (hands-on)
Computex 2011 is fast approaching here in Taipei, and today Shuttle introduced a trio of Android-based tablets to complement its fleet of small form factor computers. The 10-inch (WXGA) N10CN12 and 9-inch (XGA) N09CN01 models are both based on NVIDIA's Tegra 2 CPU paired with 1GB RAM, and target the consumer market. The 8-inch (SVGA) V08CT01 -- a ruggedized tablet for education -- features an 800 MHz Texas Instruments Cortex A8 processor and 512MB of memory. Pricing and availability are still up in the air -- no surprise considering the Froyo-running devices we handled still felt very much like prototypes. Take a look at our hands-on gallery below and hit the break for the full press release. %Gallery-124733%
Captain's Log: Back to the future
Captain's Log, Stardate 64884.1... Hello, computer (and players)! Guess what's back? That's right! Hailing frequencies are now reopened -- Captain's Log is no longer on hiatus. Over the past few weeks, there has been some great news released about the Star Trek Online universe: the winner of the Design the Next Enterprise Contest was announced, the May Ask Cryptic was released, the dev team revealed the 500-day veteran rewards, and the Featured Episode reruns began. While everyone has had his or her own opinions on these stories, there is one piece of news that everyone can agree on: the awesomesauceness of the latest Engineering Report. As first announced earlier this week, Executive Producer Dan Stahl dropped his latest report, which describes the updates to the game coming in Season Four. As usual, aside from the imminent new content, Dan foreshadows the future for us. Captain's Log is no stranger to talking about the future of the game, so I am excited to share some more details about the upcoming updates with you. Since Season Four is right around the corner and I believe it will be the "game changing update this game has needed since launch," let's get on to this week's Log entry. Ensign, warp 10! Let's talk about Season 4 and beyond...
Elon Musk says SpaceX will send a man to space in three years, Mars within the next two decades
Elon Musk has never been one to shy from making bold predictions, which is why we're not surprised to hear that he has high hopes for the future of space travel. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the SpaceX founder said his company will "probably" put a man in space within the next three years, in the hopes of sending passengers to Mars within the next ten to 20 years. Earlier this month, Musk's company unveiled plans for the "world's most powerful rocket," the Falcon Heavy, just a few weeks before receiving $75 million from NASA to help spur the development of its commercial spaceflight projects. Musk, it seems, is approaching these projects with an almost sacred sense of duty. "A future where humanity is out there exploring stars is an incredibly exciting future, and inspiring," he explained, "and that's what we're trying to help make happen." Head on past the break to see the full interview (space talk begins around the 13:00 mark).
Captain's Log: Warp trails through deliberation
Captain's Log, Stardate 64806.6... Hello, computer (and players)! It has been said that the development of a MMO and the direction it takes can attributed to those who were not afraid to speak out and gather followers who are in support of abstract ideas. As I have preached about since I took over the helm of the Captain's Log, the community has been at the forefront of the Star Trek Online universe. Bolstered by numerous fan sites and thousands of fleets and cemented by transparent developer posts and interviews, STO wouldn't be where it is today without such a passionate community. A lot of this passion takes its form through posts in Cryptic's official forums. Whether the residence of your most beloved troll or the dwellings of your favorite developer, a game's official forums are a place to come together to rant, rave, and be that person who stands out and speaks up. The STO forums are no different. While the past few columns of mine have been about what the developers have said are coming in the future, I thought we should set a course this week for the forums and blaze a trail through the vast expanse filled with wants, desires, and demands. Shields up. Red alert. Ensign, warp 10! What are the players asking for this week?
Space Shuttle Discovery returns from final trip, immediately begins search for final resting place
It's a bittersweet occasion, really. Space Shuttle Discovery has just returned from the unknown that we call "space," safely returning six astronauts and one zero Robonaut 2s to Earth after a 13-day mission. Discovery's legacy stretches back 27 years, compiling 39 flights during that span and making an indelible mark on the history of American space exploration. This guy is also the first shuttle to be retired after NASA was rocked a few years back by the impossible-to-ignore budget crunch, and already museums and institutes (29 at last count) are lining up to lobby their case for capturing it. No question, having this 170,000 pound benemoth at your museum would likely benefit admission numbers, but it's not like Discovery will be the only craft calling it quits in the near future. As of now, no decision has been made as to where it'll wheel off to for the final time, but you can bet whoever lands it will make quite the scene. [Image courtesy of Stephen Clark]
Shuttle H7 Pro, H3, and XG41 HTPC hands-on
Shuttle's diving headlong into Sandy Bridge to shore up its ever-expanding line of barebones HTPC systems at CeBIT this week, showing off the H3 model (pictured above) featuring support for up to 16GB of DDR3-1333 RAM alongside one PCI Express x16 slot, one x1 slot, and another mini-PCI Express x1 slot -- but considering that you've got HDMI and eight-channel HD audio on board, you won't likely use all three. Moving on, they've got a re-upped version of the H7 -- aptly named the H7 Pro -- with two built-in USB 3.0 ports and a pair of 6Gbps SATA connectors. Finally, there's the slim, sexy XG41, though it's on the aging G41 Express chipset; needless to say, it's the lowest-power (both in terms of electricity and capability) of the three. See galleries of all three models below! %Gallery-117854% %Gallery-117852% %Gallery-117855%
Visualized: the fate of the most ambitious Soviet-era space exploration project
Project Buran was the USSR's answer to NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia. Unlike its highly decorated American counterpart, however, this child of the 1970s produced only one unmanned space flight during its operation and was ignominiously shut down by Russian authorities in 1993. The remains of this most ambitious (and expensive) effort are still around, however, and have now taken on a layer of rust, weeds and general decay that would make any post-apocalyptic set designer swoon with admiration. It's as beautiful as it is sad, this gallery of failed human endeavor, and you can see it in full at the link below.
NASA's Space Shuttle launch videos are spectacularly incredible, incredibly spectacular
Did you know that it takes nearly seven and a half million pounds of thrust to get a Space Shuttle off the ground and into the final frontier? NASA opts to generate that power by burning through 1,000 gallons of liquid propellants and 20,000 pounds of solid fuel every second, which as you might surmise, makes for some arresting visuals. Thankfully, there are plenty of practical reasons why NASA would want to film its launches (in slow motion!), and today we get to witness some of that awe-inspiring footage, replete with a silky voiceover explaining the focal lengths of cameras used and other photographic minutiae. It's the definition of an epic video, clocking in at over 45 minutes, but if you haven't got all that time, just do it like us and skip around -- your brain will be splattered on the wall behind you either way.
NASA's shuttle PCs sold with sensitive data intact, insert WikiLeaks joke here
Let this be a warning for John and Jane Q. Public (always a cute couple, those two) to always wipe sensitive / secret data from your hard drives before selling a computer. Or better yet, take out the drive entirely and physically destroy it. That's what we'd expect from our government entities, but an internal investigation found that a number of PCs and components from NASA's shuttles had been sold from four different centers -- Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers, and Ames and Langley Research Centers -- that "failed sanitization verification testing," or weren't even tested at all. In Langley's case, while hard drives were being destroyed, "personnel did not properly account for or track the removed hard drives during the destruction process." Meanwhile at Kennedy, computers were found being prepped for sale that still had "Internet Protocol information [that] was prominently displayed." Helluva way to start a shuttle launch retirement, eh?
Visualized: Robonaut 2 settles in for month-long shuttle delay
NASA's recent announcement of a month-long delay for the launch of the space shuttle Discovery is no doubt disappointing for everyone involved, but it's hitting our friend Robonaut 2 particularly hard. While the human astronauts are able to relax and go about their business, Robonaut is forced to stay in his custom-made SLEEPR crate for the duration of the delay, with nothing but a pair of hand koozies and some "trash foam" for comfort. In fact, the real state of affairs is even less dignified than what you see above -- head on past the break for a look at the hard life of a robot.
$2 billion antimatter detector to go on last shuttle mission, taxpayers agree it better find -something
The airspace above the Atlantic Ocean will get a lot more expensive tomorrow as a U.S. Airforce Galaxy jet transports the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer -- developed at CERN -- from Geneva to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The last-ever Space Shuttle mission in February will transport the AMS to the International Space Station, where it will stay docked for 20 years to "search for antimatter and dark matter by measuring cosmic rays." We're not sure what that means, but we trust it will lead to a microwave that heats the interior of our Hot Pockets while keeping the crust crisp and flaky, bringing us one step closer to World Peace.[Image credit: US Mission Geneva's flickr]
Space shuttle fire sale! Free after $28.8m in S&H and some Congressional lobbying
Hey, you! Yeah, you! Come here and listen. Have you ever wanted to own your very own space shuttle? Of course you have, and now NASA is giving away one orbiters apiece to three lucky winners free of charge. All you need to do is follow these three steps: Be a qualified institution. Currently there's just 21 in the running, including the Kennedy Space Center and the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Possess the proper indoor facility to house the veteran astro-car in a climate-controlled environment. It should also have a big door since at no time can it be dismantled. Pay for shipping and handling. According to the Wall Street Journal, that entails having a runway in your backyard, strapping the shuttle to the back of a specialized 747 jet, and covering post-flight repairs. Estimated cost is $28.8 million. Should you meet the above requirements and manage to add yourself to the list of suitors, that gives you a 13.64 percent unweighted probability to nab one! Just because NASA picks you, though, doesn't mean you actually win -- and if that logic seems fuzzy, allow us to clarify with a quote from aerospace engineer and shuttle historian Dennis Jenkins: "Congress will immediately go into an uproar and un-decide for them." Tricky fine print, best of luck!
Shuttle's excessively thin XS35 nettop now shipping, 1080p Ion 2 graphics and all
It's been a long wait (nearly half a year, in fact), but Shuttle has finally transitioned the XS35 from a luscious HTPC promise into a retail reality. The 1.5-inch thick nettop is today rolling out to online retailers in the US and Canada, offering three preconfigured options to suit a variety of budgets. All come with built-in 802.11n WiFi, a dual-core 1.66GHz Atom D510 CPU, 5 USB ports, and a 4-in-1 media card reader, while the pricier two also include DVD-RW drives for good measure. The top XS35 spec gives you 500GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a HDMI output, and the crowning glory of NVIDIA's scrumptious Ion 2 powering 1080p video playback. Newegg doesn't seem to yet have that SKU available, but it's priced the other two at $240 and $290, suggesting a price somewhere north of $300 for the complete package. Full press release after the break. Update: And sure enough, the Ion 2-equipped SX35 has also made its Newegg debut, yours for $380. Thanks, RatioTitle!
NASA TV launches full time HD channel July 19
Over the years, NASA has, from time to time, piped some HD of shuttle launches and other space related video via its satellite network, but starting July 19 it will be broadcasting 24/7. Beyond exclusive videos like shuttle launches, there will be a daily ISS update and plenty of file footage, all in MPEG-2 encoded HD. Media, cable and satellite providers should all have access so if it's not yet a channel in your area, you probably know who to call, or you can check out the webpage to see what direction you'll need to point that dish in.
Shuttle opens US pre-orders for pricey Core i7-based J3 SFF PC
Shuttle teased us just under a month ago with its Core i7-powered J3 desktop, and now that little bugger is finally up for pre-order in the States. The J3 5800P workstation is easily one of the most powerful small form factor PCs this planet has ever seen, boasting a six-core Core i7 980X Extreme Edition CPU, your choice of NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FirePro professional graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, room for two SATA hard drives, an optional Blu-ray drive, plenty of ports and a 500-watt power supply. Somehow or another, all of that fits into a chassis that measures just 8.5- x 7.5- x 13.1-inches, and if you've been looking to downsize without taking a hit in the performance department, you can finally do so starting at $1,899. The journey begins right there in the source link -- good luck keeping it below three large, Yes Man.
Shuttle unveils Core i7-powered J3 desktop, changes how you look at little PCs
Earlier in the month Shuttle unveiled a pair of serious little desktops, the J1 and G2, and teased about a third model that would knock all of our proverbial socks off in one fell swoop. That desktop is here and, well, our feet are bare. The J3 packs an Intel Core i7-980X Gulftown processor, about the fastest available for consumers today, and pairs it with NVIDIA's monster GeForce GTX 480. Shuttle isn't telling other details of the machine at this point (all will be unveiled at Computex in early June), but in a video after the break you can gaze upon its healthy stack of USB ports and stare longingly at its shapely cooling system as it spins about slowly shedding its clothing -- and its dignity.
Boeing X-37B autonomous space shuttle launched last night, due back 'whenevs'
Boeing's X-37B, the test craft that's been kicking around for the last decade or so, has finally made it into orbit. Formerly a NASA project, we've heard little about the thing since it passed into DARPA hands in 2004 -- and statements like those of the Air Force's Gary Payton don't help much: "in all honesty, we don't know when it's coming back for sure." How's that for autonomous? Also uncommented upon, yet tantalizing, are the military's intentions for the unmanned vehicle, which can remain in orbit 270 days at a time. Spy drone? Orbital weapons platform? Plaything for our future robot overlords? (Let's hope it's not the last one.) The success of the mission will depend on a couple things, namely: how the return trip goes (it should make it back to California's Vandenberg Air Force Base via autopilot... sometime) and whether the thing can be re-launched quickly enough. Ideally, the craft should be ready for another flight in fifteen days. Another test is planned for 2011. [Thanks, One Love!]