Designed to carry crews of up to six astronauts, the craft tested weighed 14 tons and is designed to be the primary transport to China’s future space station. CASC and the CNSA, China’s space agency, are also working on a 21.6-ton variant for deep space, designed to be used in future manned lunar missions. However, the CNSA has yet to nail down details for the larger craft and its moon missions are at least a decade away.
On top of doing orbital maneuvers, the prototype craft (with no life-support systems) conducted experiments on 3D printing of composite materials, high-definition image transmission and more. The mission was largely a success, apart from the malfunction of a cargo return capsule equipped with an inflatable heat shield.
Like most redesigns, Facebook’s new desktop interface can be jarring at first, particularly if you have a high-resolution display. The main thing to note is that Facebook has simplified navigation significantly, with a top bar that provides easy access to the website’s home, watch, marketplace, groups and gaming pages.
Facebook
You’ll also notice the company’s signature blue tone no longer adorns the top navigation bar. Facebook tweaked the design element so that it could more easily build a dark mode into the website. You can enable the feature through a toggle located in the drop-down settings menu.
Facebook claims the home page will load faster and transitions between pages will be smoother. Another tweak is that the website’s responsive design now better scales to different window sizes. It’s particularly noticeable if you use Windows 10’s snap functionality or if you have a window manager on macOS.
If you don’t have access to the new interface the next time you visit Facebook, you may have to wait a couple of days. In the meantime, you can read more about what went into the project in an interview Engadget’s Nick Summers did with Facebook’s design team. While the company works on completing the rollout, you can switch back to the classic interface through the drop-down settings menu.
“Our customers are turning to Dropbox for help with this transition to remote work,” CEO Drew Houston said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’ve certainly seen record trial volumes, we’ve seen increases in direct purchases, we’ve seen increases in engagement.”
While companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Uber are laying off thousands, Dropbox has slowed its rate of hiring but is still filling certain roles.
“We are mindful of the macroeconomic environment and the unpredictability that the second half of the year may bring,” Houston said.
When Dropbox filed to go public in 2018, it was valued at $10 billion, but it reported a $1 billion deficit. According to Bloomberg, Dropbox has exceeded analysts’ estimates for sales and profit every quarter since going public. So even without the drastic shift to remote work driven by the pandemic, Dropbox was headed in the right direction.
The company now has 14.6 million paying users. That’s up from 13.2 million at this time last year and 11 million in March 2018.
Google has joined forces with Visible Body to create 3D models of animal, plant and bacteria cells, as well. You’ll be able to zoom in on the cells’ organelles, making it much easier to get acquainted with them if you’re studying for a test or if you’re simply curious.
The tech giant is also giving you a way to turn your house into a virtual museum and perhaps provide you with a virtual escape during a time when you have to stay at home. You can search for Neil Armstrong to get a 3D view of his spacesuit or for Apollo 11 to see its command module in augmented reality. If you’d rather get a close look at some of the oldest known cave paintings, though, just do a search for Chauvet Cave.
Finally, Google is rolling out the ability to record AR videos for Android devices. That makes them easier to share with friends and family, especially since you may not be able show them the 3D objects in person.
It’s a Microsoft heavy week! This week, Devindra and Cherlynn are joined by Alex Cranz, Gizmodo’s Senior Consumer Tech Editor, to chat about the bevy of new Surface devices. In particular, they explore why the Surface Go 2 and Book 3 are a bit disappointing — it turns out a slight spec bump might not be enough to make them competitive. But hey, at least the Headphones 2 and Earbuds are cheaper than we expected.
Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Over the last few years, social networks have instituted slightly stiffer policies against misinformation, but those systems are being pressed to their limit by a fast-spreading new video. The ‘Plandemic’ clip “spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and features a discredited biologist.” Meanwhile, the removal of coronavirus misinformation has pushed theorists to suggest such reasonable moderation is just another conspiracy. Ugh.
— Richard
Apple MacBook Pro review (13-inch, 2020)
Finally.
Dana Wollman / Engadget
For the first time in years, our discussion of new Apple laptops doesn’t include any consideration of waiting for an updated keyboard. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is the last machine in its lineup to get the new/old Magic Keyboard design as part of a hardware refresh that also brings Intel’s latest 10th-generation Core CPUs with more power and better battery life. Now, about that Touch Bar… Continue reading.
Xbox Series X third-party games take the stage
Microsoft’s ‘gameplay’ event was just the beginning
Neon Giant
Well. We’ve had our first look at a bunch of next-gen games, and even if Microsoft is slightly massaging the meaning of “gameplay,” its 20/20 event gave some impressive previews of Xbox Series X action. Jessica Conditt has a breakdown of the 13 games shown, with 10 supporting Smart Delivery that stretches purchases across console generations.
The new Surface notebooks are a grab bag of bad decisions
Certain design choices make Microsoft’s latest convertibles hard to recommend.
Microsoft
Microsoft’s new Surface lineup looks good, and Cherlynn Low was impressed by the company’s efforts in audio with new earbuds and headphones. Where she does have questions is its notebook strategy — the Surface Go 2 gets expensive quickly when you upgrade the processor and add on a must-have keyboard cover, while the Surface Book 3’s detachable screen design is the thing holding it back from including more powerful six- or eight-core CPU options. Continue reading.
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Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs abandons its Toronto smart-neighborhood project
Just like that, it’s over.
Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs will no longer pursue its dream of a smart neighbourhood in Toronto. In a Medium blog post, CEO Daniel Doctoroff said, “unprecedented economic uncertainty” meant it was “too difficult” to achieve its dreams for Quayside, a proposed redevelopment on the city’s waterfront.
Doctoroff said the coronavirus pandemic had made his team “feel even more strongly about the importance of reimagining cities for the future.” He said his team would continue to work on smart city innovations, including factory-made mass-timber construction. The big question, though, is whether Sidewalk will attempt another large-scale development like Quayside. Continue reading.
This means Shopify merchants get access to distribution across Pinterest, as well as reporting and results tracking. Importantly, it’s a free service, so indie sellers ad big brands alike can get organic promotion without spending a penny. Of course, there is a paid option too, which lets merchants promote their pins as a paid ad, bringing customers directly into their brands online store. But Pinterest shoppers are generally pretty savvy and could likely find their own way there anyway, which makes this is a genuinely useful feature for everyone — not just those with spare marketing budget.
This is the latest push for Pinterest to drive shopping on its platform. Just last month it made things easier for pinners to buy what they see, while last year saw an explosion of activity from the company, including shopping-orientated Lens updates, a refreshed take on digital storefronts and the hiring of former Walmart CTO Jeremy King as head of engineering. No doubt there are more initiatives in the pipeline.
The Pinterest app on Shopify is available now for merchants in the US and Canada, and will go live in countries where Pinterest ads are available — including Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain — in the coming weeks.
This year’s Tokyo Game Show has been officially canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. It definitely doesn’t come as a surprise, seeing as Game Developers Conference and other big gaming and tech events for 2020 had to be scrapped in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Social distancing at huge conferences would be impossible, after all, especially since going to TGS’ usual venue (Makuhari Messe) usually means having to take Tokyo’s packed trains.
“Due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on a global scale and the situation remains unpredictable in Japan as well, the organizer and the co-organizers have reached this decision after a long consideration to place the utmost priority on the health and safety of visitors, exhibitors and stakeholders. We ask for your kind understanding and cooperation,” the organizers said in a statement.
When HBO Max launches on May 27th, it will offer 17 anime titles from Crunchyroll, a streaming service that’s also owned by WarnerMedia. In the media giant’s announcement, it said the platforms are “teaming up to bring more dubbed and subtitled anime to fans across the US” and that it won’t be a one-time deal — HBO Max is bringing more of Crunchyroll’s offerings onto its service in the future.
The 17 initial titles include fan favorites and classics such as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Rurouni Kenshin and ERASED. They also include some lesser-known shows and supernatural Crunchyroll Original series In/Spectre. That list is bound to expand in time, since Crunchyroll is giving HBO Max subscribers access to more curated titles every quarter. It doesn’t have a full list of what you can expect yet, but Hunter x Hunter and Death Note will be among the shows arriving on the platform within its first year.
The leak listed companies like Best Buy and Macy’s as clients, showing how far-reaching the surveillance tech could become. In public statements and blog posts Clearview AI has pushed back against the idea that its system is a “consumer tool” or for use by anyone other than “law enforcement agencies and select security professionals,” although that’s not exactly reassuring.
In a statement, ACLU staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler said “These promises do little to address concerns about Clearview’s reckless and dangerous business model. There is no guarantee these steps will actually protect Illinois residents. And, even if there were, making promises about one state does nothing to end Clearview’s abusive exploitation of people’s faceprints across the country. Instead of taking real steps to address the harms of face recognition surveillance, Clearview is doubling down on the sale of its face surveillance system to law enforcement and continues to fuel large scale violations of Americans’ privacy and due process rights. The only good that Clearview has achieved here is demonstrate the vital importance of strong biometric privacy laws like the one in Illinois, and of laws adopted by cities nationwide banning police use of face recognition systems.”
