Tech

Falcon 9 lifts off on its most important mission to date: carrying NASA Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into orbit.. Trevor Mahlmann Another shot of liftoff. Trevor Mahlmann The Falcon 9 rocket climbs to space on Saturday. Trevor Mahlmann A streak of light, out of sight. NASA Birds of a feather NASA A wide shot. NASA The rain showers ended. The clouds parted. And so on Saturday afternoon, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had blue skies above it during the final minutes of a countdown to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket had launched 84 times before. In fact, no U.S. rocket now flying has launched as much as the Falcon 9 rocket. So, this was all kind of routine in that sense. But for the first time, the Falcon 9 rocket carried two humans on board, inside a Crew Dragon spacecraft. That changed everything. So much was at stake, the immensity of this almost became too much to bear as the clock ticked down. Two human lives, NASA astrona..

WASHINGTON — Twitters decision to fact-check President Donald Trumps tweets has vaulted Silicon Valleys biggest players into a political fight with Washington when they least wanted it. The deepening feud between the president and his go-to social media platform is forcing companies like Facebook and Google to gird for a lobbying battle to defend the legal protections that underpin their lucrative business models, sooner and much more publicly than they had originally expected. Those preparations accelerated this week, even as Facebook made it clear to Trump that it doesnt share Twitters view of how online platforms should handle political speech. Now the industry has no choice but to wade into an increasingly partisan debate over free expression, in a preelection season already torn by tensions surrounding the pandemic, mass unemployment and racial unrest. “This is a debate that had been inside the Beltway thats now gone national, and that means that advocates of online free speech..

Enlarge / Olivia de Havilland—pictured here as Melanie Hamliton in the 1939 Oscar-Winning film Gone with the Wind—successfully sued Warner Bros. in 1943 to free herself from her studio contract. The groundbreaking lawsuit contributed to the breakup of the Hollywood studio system.YouTube/MGM The so-called Golden Age of Hollywood produced some of the most memorable films ever made, from 1927's The Jazz Singer to Gone With the Wind (1939) and Citizen Kane (1941). But it wasn't so golden for women in the film industry, according to a recent paper published in PLOS One that analyzed a century's worth of data and concluded that the rise of the infamous studio system produced severe gender inequality. Female representation started rising again in the 1950s, after two pivotal lawsuits effectively broke the studios' stranglehold on the industry. Lead author Luis Amaral, of Northwestern University, is a physicist by training, specializing in the study of complex systems. Thi..

Enlarge / Olivia de Havilland—pictured here as Melanie Hamliton in the 1939 Oscar-Winning film Gone with the Wind—successfully sued Warner Bros. in 1943 to free herself from her studio contract. The groundbreaking lawsuit contributed to the breakup of the Hollywood studio system.YouTube/MGM The so-called Golden Age of Hollywood produced some of the most memorable films ever made, from 1927's The Jazz Singer to Gone With the Wind (1939) and Citizen Kane (1941). But it wasn't so golden for women in the film industry, according to a recent paper published in PLOS One that analyzed a century's worth of data and concluded that the rise of the infamous studio system produced severe gender inequality. Female representation started rising again in the 1950s, after two pivotal lawsuits effectively broke the studios' stranglehold on the industry. Lead author Luis Amaral, of Northwestern University, is a physicist by training, specializing in the study of complex systems. Thi..

Enlarge / Binary code, illustration.KTSDESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images Attackers are putting considerable skill and effort into penetrating industrial companies in multiple countries, with hacks that use multiple evasion mechanisms, an innovative encryption scheme, and exploits that are customized for each target with pinpoint accuracy. The attacks begin with emails that are customized for each target, a researcher at security firm Kaspersky Lab reported this week. For the exploit to trigger, the language in the email must match the localization of the targets operating system. For example, in the case of an attack on a Japanese company, the text of the email and an attached Microsoft Office document containing a malicious macro had to be written in Japanese. Also required: an encrypted malware module could be decrypted only when the OS had a Japanese localization as well. Recipients who click on a request to urgently enable the documents active content will see no indica..

Enlarge / Binary code, illustration.KTSDESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images Attackers are putting considerable skill and effort into penetrating industrial companies in multiple countries, with hacks that use multiple evasion mechanisms, an innovative encryption scheme, and exploits that are customized for each target with pinpoint accuracy. The attacks begin with emails that are customized for each target, a researcher at security firm Kaspersky Lab reported this week. For the exploit to trigger, the language in the email must match the localization of the targets operating system. For example, in the case of an attack on a Japanese company, the text of the email and an attached Microsoft Office document containing a malicious macro had to be written in Japanese. Also required: an encrypted malware module could be decrypted only when the OS had a Japanese localization as well. Recipients who click on a request to urgently enable the documents active content will see no indica..

It could be one of the few good news stories of the pandemic. As lockdowns across Europe kept millions at home, doctors appointments moved online; e-prescriptions became a necessity; and patients turned to digital self-management of their long-term health conditions. While the coronavirus pandemic forced many industries to grind to an abrupt halt, digital health care is booming. Take KRY, a digital health care company operating in several European countries including Sweden, the U.K, and France. It saw a 128 percent increase in appointments between February 1 and May 18, and a 139 percent year-on-year growth in registrations for its app. “Weve had five or 10 years of change in a very short time,” Johannes Schildt, the companys CEO and co-founder, told POLITICO. He described the change as “dramatic.” In the U.K., over 90,000 remote meetings between National Health Service (NHS) staff are taking place every day. Its not just doctors talking to patients. In the U.K., over 90,000 rem..

It could be one of the few good news stories of the pandemic. As lockdowns across Europe kept millions at home, doctors appointments moved online; e-prescriptions became a necessity; and patients turned to digital self-management of their long-term health conditions. While the coronavirus pandemic forced many industries to grind to an abrupt halt, digital health care is booming. Take KRY, a digital health care company operating in several European countries including Sweden, the U.K, and France. It saw a 128 percent increase in appointments between February 1 and May 18, and a 139 percent year-on-year growth in registrations for its app. “Weve had five or 10 years of change in a very short time,” Johannes Schildt, the companys CEO and co-founder, told POLITICO. He described the change as “dramatic.” In the U.K., over 90,000 remote meetings between National Health Service (NHS) staff are taking place every day. Its not just doctors talking to patients. In the U.K., over 90,000 rem..

Stormclouds roll into NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the evening of May 29th, 2020 as xenon lights illuminate historic pad 39A. Trevor Mahlmann Sunrise on pad 39A on Saturday Hopefully launch day weather resembles these clear skies. Trevor Mahlmann Launch Pad 39A. Where Neil, Buzz, and Michael left for the Moon. Where the first and last Space Shuttle flew from. And now, where Bob and Doug will launch on May 30th, 2020. Trevor Mahlmann Beautiful partly cloudy skies grace the background of Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon one day before their 2nd launch attempt to send NASA Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the Space Station. Trevor Mahlmann Close-up of the Crew Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 rocket featuring the NASA meatball and United States flag. Trevor Mahlmann One of the 4 remote camera sites near historic launch pad 39A that Ars launch photographer Trevor Mahlmann has a camera established at. Should make for a gorgeous liftoff view. Trevor Mahlmann Exhi..

The official trailer for Amazon's The Vast of Night. Update: We saw a lot to like at Fantastic Fest last fall—the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner, a crazy PhD project on urban evolution turned arthouse horror film—but even among that crowd, a small budget sci-fi flick big on style stood out. Evidently, Amazon also really enjoyed The Vast of Night, as it acquired this debut feature before fall festival season wrapped. The plan was originally for the film to enjoy a theatrical run in May 2020 before landing on Prime in the summer—but that was before COVID-19 changed everything, of course. Instead, Amazon has been showing The Vast of Night at drive-ins this spring and moved up the film's Prime release to this weekend. With the film finally widely available, we're resurfacing our review and interview with filmmaker Andrew Patterson. This story originally ran in October 2019. AUSTIN, Texas—Everyone kinda, sorta knows the story of The Vast of Night before they even hear ..