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SpaceX video shows a simulated Crew Dragon mission to the ISS

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The two-minute clip shows flight crew boarding the capsule, countdown, take off and separation from the Falcon 9 rocket. There’s a patriotic shot of an American flag patch, dramatic music and a look back at Earth. The video shows the capsule attaching to the ISS, circling the planet a few times and then parachuting home through the clouds.

Of course, many things will have to go right for the capsule’s first crewed flight to look like this. But last we heard, SpaceX had successfully completed the Crew Dragon engine tests without any unwanted explosions, so this vision of the future may not be too far off.



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Jabra’s Elite 85h headphones are almost 50 percent off at Amazon

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While they’re not our favorite pair of noise-cancelling headphones, there’s still a lot to like about the Elite 85h. When he reviewed them, Engadget’s Billy Steele gave the headphones a score of 84. One of the main highlights for him was the 36 hours of battery life he was able to get out of the 85h. His biggest gripe was their $300 price tag, which he thought made them hard to recommend over options like the Sony WH-1000XM3. For $157, however, it will be tough to find a pair of noise-cancelling headphones that are as good as the Elite 85h.

Buy Jabra Elite 85h on Amazon – $157.14 and up

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‘The Witcher 3’ is now more popular on Steam than it was at launch

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It won’t surprise you to hear what likely prompted the spike. You see, there’s this little Netflix series called The Witcher that premiered on December 20th — there’s a good chance that seeing Henry Cavill and crew in the show prompted players to fire up the game. And when Witcher 3 is currently on sale for $15, there are few obstacles for newcomers who want more of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri than Netflix (and in some cases, the books) can provide.

We wouldn’t expect resurgences like this to happen very often. The Witcher spike is the result of a popular show feeding into a popular but semi-recent game. However much you liked the Castlevania series, it wasn’t about to revive sales of a vampire-slaying game franchise past its prime. Nonetheless, this appears to be proof that streaming shows can fuel demand well beyond TV screens.

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The 10-year challenge: Video game edition

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Nintendo

Top product in 2009: Wii

Top product in 2019: Switch Lite

Progress report: In 2009, the Wii dominated the console market and changed the way people across the world interacted with video games. Today, the Switch and Switch Lite are on the same path, bridging the divide between living-room and mobile gaming. The House of Mario traditionally operates in its own universe, but that’s changing just a little. Nintendo launched its first service for online gaming in late 2018, and it’s been an early advocate of cross-console play, alongside Microsoft. Nintendo is still the home for strange and heartwarming gaming experiences with oddly restrictive policies, and it’s heading into 2020 with a strong console release at its back.

The last time it was in this position, Nintendo launched the Wii U. I’ll just leave it at that.

Activision Publishing

Top product in 2009: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Top product in 2019: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Progress report: No, that’s not a typo. Activision may publish other games, but Call of Duty is the company’s main money maker, and the franchise keeps on delivering, even when the naming structure gets confusing. Call of Duty consistently outsells the competition, and Activision has established a multi-studio development structure that keeps the games coming annually. Activision remains a major name in AAA gaming, but in the future, it’s going mobile — the smartphone version of Call of Duty came out in October and saw more than 100 million downloads in its first month.

Call of Duty: Mobile also represents Tencent’s growing influence over the video game industry. Massive Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent has a 4.9 percent stake in Activision Blizzard, following the company’s split from its former owner, Vivendi, in 2013. Tencent owns or has a stake in Epic Games, Riot Games, Ubisoft, Bluehole, Supercell, Grinding Gear Games and Paradox Interactive. China’s video game market is nearly four times the size of the US audience, and partially due to a lack of Western consoles in the country, Chinese players are really into mobile gaming. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is really into censorship, and these partnerships have already resulted in a few troubling situations for Western studios.

Blizzard Entertainment

Top product in 2009: World of Warcraft

Top product in 2019: Overwatch

Progress report: Activision’s partner in profit is Blizzard. World of Warcraft was Blizzard Entertainment’s main concern in 2009, and 10 years later, it’s Overwatch. Blizzard has been running PC-focused franchises, such as StarCraft and Diablo, for well over a decade, and it’s now a hub for popular esports titles including Overwatch and Hearthstone. While World of Warcraft has lost a significant portion of its audience since 2009, Blizzard has picked up new players with friendly looking competitive games and flashy, story-driven YouTube animations. When all else fails, use the Pixar method.

Ubisoft

Top product in 2009: Assassin’s Creed II

Top product in 2019: Far Cry: New Dawn

Progress report: Ubisoft’s publishing business has shrunk significantly since the early 2010s, and instead of churning out Rabbids titles, licensed games and experiments like ZombiU, it’s focusing on just a handful of important IPs. Even then, it’s struggling — Ubisoft just delayed basically every game on its 2020 roster after the poor reception of The Division 2 and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, this year. Personally, I miss weird, free-wheeling Ubisoft, though I’m happy to leave The Expendables 2: The Video Game in the past.

Electronic Arts

Top product in 2009: FIFA 09

Top product in 2019: FIFA 2019

Progress report: You know when someone posts a 10-year challenge and you can’t tell which photo is supposed to be the new one? Yeah, that’s EA. In late 2008, EA launched FIFA 09, and in 2019, it’s all about FIFA 19 and FIFA 20. Or, replace “FIFA” with “Madden NFL,” or “NHL” or basically any other athletic organization. EA Sports remains a crucial brand for EA, and the company’s catalog hasn’t changed much overall in the past decade. It still handles The Sims, Battlefield and the sprawling RPG franchises that spawn out of BioWare. Apex Legends, an online competitive shooter, represents EA’s ability to adapt with the times. EA is publishing new, familiar titles while slowly evolving its online services. This business model isn’t necessarily sexy, but it just might be sustainable.

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The Pixel 3a was a turning point for affordable smartphones

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When he reviewed it earlier this year, Chris Velazco wrote of Google and the 3a that “none of the compromises it made in producing this cheap Pixel actually feel like compromises.” You could buy a great budget phone before the Pixel 3a, but more affordable devices used to mean some kind of compromise.

Take OnePlus, for example: The brand most Android enthusiasts for years recommended to their friends as the best bang-for-your-buck choice. Up to and including the OnePlus 7 Pro, buying a OnePlus phone often meant skipping on flagship features, like waterproofing and wireless charging, and, more than anything else, a good camera. And as OnePlus added better cameras to its devices, each subsequent phone cost more than its predecessor.

Pixel 3a XL

What makes the $400 and $480 Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL so pervasive is that they erased one of the last points of hardware differentiation between high-end and mid-range phones. While other features and specifications like high-resolution screens and fingerprint sensors have appeared in more affordable devices, cameras that don’t take blurry photos — or become a noisy mess as night falls — have stubbornly stayed the domain of expensive phones.

At first glance, there isn’t anything all that impressive about the Pixel 3a’s camera. It lacks the dual- and triple-camera arrays of most other mid- to high-end phones released in the last year, it’s not as versatile, nor does it take the most detailed shots, with a lower-resolution sensor than rivals. But what it’s missing technically, it makes up for by being one of the most consistent phone cameras you can get for the price.

Google Pixel 3a Camera

The computational photography features Google pioneered for the Pixel 3 are what make the 3a’s camera so great. Instead of following the trend of just adding more cameras, the company made the interesting decision to build devices with a better camera. But consumers can easily see the value of more cameras (and, for that matter, other flashy hardware features like bigger displays and faster processors) — it’s much harder to convince them of the value of good software.

In the context of a budget phone, it makes sense. Not only could Google avoid cutting corners elsewhere but it also allowed the company to deliver one great camera, instead of multiple mediocre ones. With features like Night Sight and Super Res Zoom, the Pixel 3a was able to match and surpass more expensive single-lens phones like the iPhone XR.

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EV maker Nio struggles to grow as Tesla delivers first China-made cars

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The company does have plans for a stronger lineup, although you won’t see these new models for a while. It just introduced the EC6 (shown above), a “coupe SUV” that boasts a 0-62MPH time of 4.7 seconds and a claimed 382-mile range with a 100kWh battery pack. It also revamped its larger ES8 SUV with up to 360 miles of range. The updated ES8 won’t ship until April, though, and the EC6 isn’t slated to arrive until September. In the near term, it’s counting on a sharp spike in deliveries that could see it move over 8,000 cars in the fourth quarter.

However, the Chinese car market isn’t static. Tesla just started delivering its first cars made in the country, giving customers 15 Model 3 sedans made at its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai. While there isn’t a lot of overlap between the two lineups (the Model X is as close as Tesla gets), there’s still a concern that Tesla could offer fierce competition for Nio and lure away EV customers who are more interested in aggressive pricing and a well-known name than the form factor or a homegrown brand.



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WhatsApp ends support for Windows Phone and older versions of Android

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On its website, WhatsApp confirms that it now only supports the following devices:

  • Android running OS 4.0.3+

  • iPhone running iOS 9+

  • Select phones running KaiOS 2.5.1+, including JioPhone and JioPhone 2

Some older operating systems which will continue to receive support for a limited time. The app will continue to work on devices running Android 2.3.7 and older or iOS 8 and older until February 1st, 2020. However, WhatsApp will no longer be supported on the Windows Phone operating system from December 31st, 2019.

WhatsApp warns that features of the app may stop working at any time after this. The creation of new accounts and the re-verification of existing accounts has already been blocked on these older operating systems as well.

If you need to transfer your WhatsApp account to a new device, you can’t transfer your chat history between platforms. However, you can export your chat history as an email attachment, so do this soon if you want to back up your old chats before the deadline.

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Polar’s Vantage fitness watches now offer daily training guides

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The upgrade also adds a Race Pace feature that lets you set a running pace target and get advice on how to meet that goal while you’re in mid-stride. And if you have the Vantage V, you can use Strava Live Segments to compare your running and cycling times to both your earlier results and potential rivals.

Both Vantage watches are receiving the update today. These features won’t convince you to get a Vantage by themselves, especially when smartwatch apps can cover many of the bases. They might, however, make the hardware that much more compelling if you were serious enough about fitness to consider Polar in the first place.

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The Morning After: Foldable phone hype flopped in 2019

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Has anyone seen a Royole Flexpai in the wild?2019 wasn’t the year of foldables we were promised

For a while there, it seemed like 2019 would be the year foldable phones took over. You know how it played out: flaws, delays and mentions on “worst of” lists. Chris Velazco takes a look back at what went wrong for convertible devices over the last twelve months, and what there is to be optimistic about in 2020.

The court said the team violated the ‘bottom line’ of ethics.Scientist who edited babies’ genes sentenced to three years in prison

He Jiankui and two of his associates have been sentenced to three years in prison following a secret trial in China. The court convicted the team of “illegal medical practice” for performing human embryo gene editing “for reproductive purposes,” according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The court noted the gene editing technique had not been “verified for safety and effectiveness,” and that He and others forged documents to convince patients and doctors to help. The team reportedly told patients they were part of an AIDS vaccine trial, not genetic modifications. Shortly after He revealed the CRISPR trials, experts condemned it as “unconscionable” and “immoral and unethical.”

Luxury SUVs like the Bentley Bentayga, Jaguar I-Pace and Audi e-Tron debuted in 2019.The next wave of electric vehicles will appear in 2020

Over a million plug-in vehicles now drive on US roads and account for 2.5 percent of all new vehicle sales in the country. More than a century after Ferdinand Porsche introduced his electric P1, automakers are taking notice and developing their own electric offerings in an effort to tap into the growing market.

If they’re too fast then the old 486 Turbo button may need to come back.Intel 10th-gen desktop chips may pack better multitasking across the board

Leaks at Informatica Cero and VideoCardz have detailed a Comet Lake-S CPU lineup where every Core chip, from the i3 to the i9, reportedly includes Hyperthreading. You might not need need to buy a Core i7 or better to wring truly strong multitasking performance out of your system.

Stargazing.Tesla’s Cybertruck found its way into a Travis Scott music video

Rapper Travis Scott has shared a very car-centric video for “Gang Gang,” featuring extensive, conspicuous shots of Scott and crew performing around (and occasionally using) both the Cybertruck and the Cyberquad electric ATV. There’s even a Boring Company Not-A-Flamethrower in there for good measure.

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Wyze leaks personal data for 2.4 million security camera users

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The issue was uncovered by consulting firm Twelve Security, who announced that sensitive user data had been left exposed on the internet. This included a staggering array of personal information including email addresses, a list of cameras in the house, WiFi SSIDs and even health information including height, weight, gender, bone density and more.

The Twelve Security researcher who disclosed the issue wrote that the database of information was live and open, with anyone able to access it. They described it as the largest breach they had even seen in their ten year career, and concluded, “If this was intentional espionage or gross negligence, it remains a malicious action that must be answered in the form of a decisive, external, and fast investigation by US authorities.”

For its part, Wyze responded with a series of forum posts confirming the leak but denying some parts of the Twelve Security report. “We are confirming that some Wyze user data was not properly secured and left exposed from December 4th to December 26th,” the company said. It denied that it had leaked bone density information, for example, but confirmed it had leaked “body metrics” for a small number of beta testers.

Wyze says it is investigating what happened and how the leak occurred, and that it plans to send an email notification to affected customers. In the meantime, if you have a Wyze account it’s a good idea to change your password and turn on two-factor authentication.

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