Tech News Feed

An anonymous reader shares a report: Inside a sealed clean room near Toulouse, France, Maurice Sylvestre points out something called SuperCam. Sylvestre is outfitted in Tyvex and hairnets, necessary to keep out dust, skin particles, and dirt that could mar the super-smooth surface of his device. SuperCam sits underneath a ventilator hood, glimmering inside a golden-metallic housing. The device is designed to scan the Martian surface with a camera, laser, and spectrometer in hopes of finding organic compounds that could be related to early life on Mars. In two years, this 12-pound, microwave oven-sized unit will blast off as part of the Mars 2020 mission, a spacecraft/lander/rover combo by NASA and its partners that will replace the long-serving Curiosity mission. Sylvestre is a planetary scientist at France's Institute for Research and Planetary Astronomy, and deputy principal investigator for SuperCam. But he's an international collaborator: Over the years, he's worked on missions to Saturn, the moon, and Mars with NASA colleagues. Sylvestre's lab is currently building an instrument similar to SuperCam that will fly to Mercury on the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission, as well as one called Eclair that is part of a joint French-Chinese satellite. Notably, that makes him one of a small number of planetary scientists who are working with China to boost their science, while doing his best to keep Western technology from getting pilfered. It's a tightrope that not everyone is willing to walk. "We are careful what we are doing," Sylvestre says. "We understand the security issues. We understand that we should be careful and not be too naive. But at the same time I feel the idea of planetary exploration is for everyone." Working with both NASA and China may seem like a contradiction, or even a conflict. The two superpowers are butting heads on trade, military, and cybersecurity issues. Congress has banned NASA officials and NASA money from going to China. That might be because of a recent history of Chinese espionage targeting US military, aerospace, and technological secrets.

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The Korean automaker's new performance N division wants to make an exciting, range-topping model.

Some wearables and smart speakers could soon face a price increase because of US tariffs on Chinese goods, according to US Customs and Border Protection classifications. Reuters reported that Apple Watch, Fitbit devices and some Sonos speakers fall u...

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter have teamed up for a new open source project that strives to make it easier to transfer your data between online services. From a report: The Data Transfer Project (DTP) was officially founded last year, and there have been whisperings about it on the likes of GitHub, but the initiative was officially unveiled today with its first four members. The DTP is actively seeking other members too. The ultimate aim of the Data Transfer Project is to improve data portability, allowing users to not only download their data but transfer it directly to any other service.

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Tesla's Model 3 production rate has been a topic of interest for some time, but lately, so has the company's order rates. Following an analyst's suggestion that Tesla was now receiving more cancellations than orders, CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to...

Normally $140, this luggable battery has two AC outlets, four USB ports and more.

The "well-planned" attack affected 1.5 million people in the city-state, officials said.

When DC officially announced its own streaming service, we couldn't help but ask whether it could offer enough content to justify its $8-per-month pricing. For loyal fans, the price is probably worth it, because in addition to old Batman animated sho...

In a special episode of the Carfection podcast, we talk to the fascinating Lynn Park, aka Mr. Cobra, to talk about the car that's been the center of his world for more than 50 years.

Martian dust storms can make nasty sand devils look cute, and every six to eight years, they can grow large enough to engulf the whole planet. Global-scale storms happen when several smaller ones kick up enough dust to envelope the planet's surface....

In Singapore's worst cyber attack, hackers have stolen the personal particulars of 1.5 million patients. Of these, 160,000 people, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and a few ministers, had their outpatient prescriptions stolen as well. From a report: The hackers infiltrated the computers of SingHealth, Singapore's largest group of healthcare institutions with four hospitals, five national speciality centres and eight polyclinics. Two other polyclinics used to be under SingHealth. At a multi-ministry press conference on Friday, the authorities said PM Lee's information was "specifically and repeatedly targeted." The 1.5 million patients had visited SingHealth's specialist outpatient clinics and polyclinics from May 1, 2015, to July 4, 2018. Their non-medical personal data that was illegally accessed and copied included their names, IC numbers, addresses, gender, race and dates of birth.

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Toshiba has started building prototype sample flash memory with the highest capacity yet, 1.33 terabits (166GB) per chip. The 96-layer 3D NAND flash chips have four bits per cell, as compared to its current-gen three-bit tech, which allowed for chip...

So much great stuff, so little money required. Hint: The TV series? Serenity now!

The Porsche brand has never really been synonymous with family. The legendary 911 just doesn't lend itself to playdates, Target runs and road trips with the kids. Then the German automaker introduced its SUV line in 2003 and suddenly the offsprin...

Game of Thrones is one of the most beloved, watched and pirated TV shows in recent history, but it's not the only George R. R. Martin tale being adapted for the small screen. The author's sci-fi horror novella Nightflyers was first published in 1980...

Carrier has named half the markets it expects to roll out the super speedy network to this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The New Zealand company behind a landmark trial of a four-day working week has concluded it an unmitigated success, with 78% of employees feeling they were able to successfully manage their work-life balance, an increase of 24 percentage points. Two-hundred-and-forty staff at Perpetual Guardian, a company which manages trusts, wills and estate planning, trialled a four-day working week over March and April, working four, eight-hour days but getting paid for five. Jarrod Haar, professor of human resource management at Auckland University of Technology, found job and life satisfaction increased on all levels across the home and work front, with employees performing better in their jobs and enjoying them more than before the experiment. Work-life balance, which reflected how well respondents felt they could successfully manage their work and non-work roles, increased by 24%. In November last year just over half (54%) of staff felt they could effectively balance their work and home commitments, while after the trial this number jumped to 78%. Staff stress levels decreased by 7 percentage points across the board as a result of the trial, while stimulation, commitment and a sense of empowerment at work all improved significantly, with overall life satisfaction increasing by 5 percentage points.

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Last month, Under Armour launched its Project Rock on-ear headphones, which are built for intense workouts and were designed in collaboration with Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock). But not every fitness buff is going to be a fan of him (even though they...

Just a day after Hyperloop TT announced a deal in China, another high-speed transport startup has done the same. Arrivo, Brogan BamBrogan's not-quite Hyperloop company, has entered into partnership with GTA a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company that...

Moderators are being told to lock the accounts of those suspected to be children.