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NASA reveals the next company to deliver expedition tech to the Moon

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Humankind is one step closer to its next lunar expedition, as NASA has awarded a contract that will see foundational exploratory kit delivered to the surface of the Moon ahead of manned missions in 2024. California’s Masten Space Systems has won the $75.9 million contract to transport and operate eight payloads to the Moon’s South Pole in 2022 as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

These payloads will comprise nine scientific instruments that will assess the composition of the lunar service, test precision landing technologies and evaluate radiation on the Moon — all of which is necessary to achieve NASA’s ambition of establishing sustainable lunar exploration by 2028. It’s hoped that what we learn on and around the Moon will help NASA take the next step of sending astronauts to Mars.

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Rivian has delayed production of its pickup EVs due to the coronavirus

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Rivian’s electric pickups are some of the most hotly anticipated EVs in the US, but potential buyers will have to wait to get their hands on one. After shutting down its plant last month due to the coronavirus crisis, the startup has announced that production will be delayed until 2021, according to the Chicago Tribune. Rivian had aimed to deliver its first EV pickups and SUVs later this year, but it can’t get its facility (a former Mitsubishi plant), retooled quickly enough.

Rivian planned to hire thousands of employees in a push to start producing the fully electric R1T pickup and R1S SUV, but the pandemic has interrupted that process. It has been forced to furlough many of its full-time and hourly workers (with full pay), but now it only has a skeleton crew of maintenance workers and contractors. “There are 11 Rivian employees there in 2.6 million square feet,” spokesperson Amy Mast told the Tribune. Other automakers, including Ford, Telsa and GM, have also been forced to stop production due to COVID-19.

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Google expands its conversational Duplex AI to the UK, Australia and Canada

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Google’s high-tech Duplex AI calling service has quietly made its way to the UK, Australia and Canada. The tech giant originally launched the feature in the US back in 2018 before it started a pilot testing for it in New Zealand a year later. With Duplex, you can ask Google Assistant to call, say, restaurants or car rentals for you, so you can make a table reservation or book a vehicle.

VentureBeat has spotted a change on a Help Center page that shows the phone numbers Google will use to call business owners per country. The updated list now includes the UK, Australia and Canada in addition to the US and New Zealand.

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Zoom forms security council and adds features to prevent ‘zoombombing’

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In addition, the company has also rolled out a new version of the app that removes the meeting ID from the title bar so that it can’t be leaked through screenshots. If you’ll recall, one of the biggest security issues Zoom has to deal with is trolls crashing shared video calls by guessing meeting IDs. In addition, hosts will now have access to a security icon that has all of the app’s in-meeting security controls, including the ability to switch on Waiting Room. Zoom recently enabled the feature by default so that hosts would have to approve attendees first before they can enter a chat.

Those changes and the company’s promises weren’t enough to stop Google from banning its workers from using Zoom, though. According to BuzzFeed News, the tech giant told its employees that Zoom will no longer work on its computers, because it doesn’t meet the company’s security standards.

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LG teases curved edges and ‘Raindrop’ camera for its next phone

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Engadget

The other part is the camera. For once there’s no megapixel stunting here, instead LG is touting its “Raindrop” camera design with a main camera that pops above the surface, above two lenses and a flash that are flush with the surface. It’s a little different than the usual bulges and humps in modern smartphone camera housings, but it should at least make for something interesting to see.

Is a “minimalistic” approach enough to pull people away from other phones and avoid the rough edges of its predecessor, the G8X? A recent rumor claimed it would launch May 15th with a new brand name, 5G and a step-down Snapdragon 765 processor. It likely won’t be long before we find out if any or all of those details hold up.

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Maingear is building ventilators using gaming PC cases

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Numerous tech and automotive companies have stepped up to make ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that now includes gaming PC builders. Maingear has developed a ventilator, the LIV, that uses an old version of its F131 PC case as the chassis. Based on a platform already in use in Italy and Switzerland, it’s designed to be easy to use with automatic operation, presets and a touchscreen interface. Healthcare workers can start delivering oxygen in as little as 1.5 seconds.

The off-the-shelf components help keep the costs down. Maingear claims the LIV can be produced at a quarter of the price of conventional ventilators. That still makes it relatively expensive (a ventilator typically costs tens of thousands of dollars), but the savings could make all the difference for hospitals already struggling to cope with high patient loads.

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Hangouts Meet has been renamed to Google Meet

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If it wasn’t already clear that Google is less than fond of the Hangouts name, it is now. As noticed by Android Police, the internet giant has rebadged Hangouts Meet as Google Meet. The old branding is still present for mobile apps. However, we wouldn’t count on that lasting for long given changes on the web.

We’ve asked Google if it can comment on the switch, including on the possibility of changes to Hangouts Chat.

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Facebook will provide free Portal devices to UK hospitals and care homes

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Facebook’s support for the fight against COVID-19 now includes a simple but important addition: keeping people in touch. It’s partnering with the UK’s National Health Service to offer up to 2,050 free Portal video calling devices to the country’s hospitals, care homes, hospices and other medical settings. The hardware will help patients contact friends and family at a time when they can’t see each other in person.

About 50 Portals are already in use at pilot locations in Surrey, with London, Manchester and Newcastle cities coming soon. Wired shared leaked details on April 6th. While this will initially be useful only to locations with sufficient WiFi connections, the NHS is looking at options like LTE hotspots and cellular-equipped tablets to enable chats in areas where WiFi isn’t an option.

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Disney+ racks up 50 million subscribers in five months

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Disney+ hasn’t had much trouble attracting customers now that its honeymoon phase is over. Disney has revealed that its streaming service now has over 50 million subscribers in the five months since launch. International expansion played a significant role, as you might have guessed. In addition to European launches, last week’s India launch added another 8 million. That was helped by an attachment to the existing Hotstar service in the country, but it’s still no small feat.

While the company didn’t go into depth explaining its growth, there are a number of likely factors at work. The Mandalorian and its fandom undoubtedly helped, although many of the service’s top-tier originals are still months away. Multi-year offers, relatively low standard pricing and a promo from Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) also made sure many customers were committed for the long haul. And of course, Disney+ has the luxury of a healthy back catalog that includes Fox, Marvel, Pixar and all things Star Wars.

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Here’s what Twitter’s weird ‘data-sharing’ notification really means

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Twitter's updated its data sharing settings so most users can no longer opt out of data sharing with advertisers.

Twitter

Prior to this update, Twitter allowed users to opt out of data sharing that enabled Twitter to tell advertisers how users interacted with ads for mobile apps, and share some “non-public” information like device identifiers. Now, most Twitter users have no choice whether or not that data is shared with Twitter’s advertisers. Those in Europe and the United Kingdom will still be able to opt out, according to the company.

Additionally, Twitter says it will now run ads for its app on Facebook and Google. Users can opt out of sharing “non-public” data — such as whether or not they installed Twitter’s app as a result of an ad — with Google and Facebook. That setting is available here, under “Share your data with Twitter’s business partners.”

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson described the change as “part of our ongoing work around transparency and control.”

“We’re updating a data sharing setting that relates to sharing additional information with business partners, specifically to measure the effectiveness of mobile app ads on Twitter,” the spokesperson said. “This is part of our ongoing work around transparency and control. We want to ensure that people understand the settings we provide, what they do, and how to use them.”

The company likely sees the update as a necessary move to bring in more ad dollars. As The Verge points out, Twitter recently blamed issues with some of these privacy settings for missing revenue targets in 2019. And, more recently, Twitter has warned that the coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected ad revenue, despite a surge in usage. 



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