Technology

NASA and SpaceX have signed an agreement to study the possibility of using a Dragon spacecraft to lift the Hubble telescope to a higher orbit. The Hubble telescope’s orbit decays over time due to atmospheric drag, and reboosting it to a more stable one could add more years to its life. SpaceX proposed the idea … Read more

Oil and gas companies regularly use flaring (that is, burning unwanted methane) to limit the amount of natural gas escaping into the atmosphere, but the practice might not be as kind to the planet as previously thought. Scientists at the University of Michigan, Stanford and elsewhere have discovered that flaring is much less effective than … Read more

Despite denials until mid-2022, Stadia is winding down. The technically impressive game streaming service, which delivered current-gen games through smartphones, PCs, tablets and even Chromecast, is the latest victim of Google’s long list of service casualties. Google said the service “hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected.” That’s entirely true. Google closed its … Read more

Twitch is testing a new feature that gives viewers a way to make sure their favorite streamer (and their fellow fans) can see their message in the chatbox. The livestreaming platform has given select channels access to an experimental feature called “Elevated Chat,” which pins a viewer’s message for visibility if they’re willing to pay … Read more

Meta is done rolling out support for non-fungible tokens or NFTs in the US. The company first started giving select creators in the country the option to display their tokens on Facebook and Instagram earlier this year. But now everyone in the US can display their collections on both platforms, whether they’re NFTs they’ve created … Read more

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted new rules to address the growing risk of “space junk” or abandoned satellites, rockets and other debris. The new “5-year-rule” will require low-Earth operators to deorbit their satellites within five years following the completion of missions. That’s significantly less time than the previous guideline of 25 years.  … Read more

New York is following California’s lead by mandating that all new cars, pickups and SUVs sold in the state must be either EVs or plug-in hybrids, Governor Kathy Hochul announced. To reach that goal, 35 percent of new cars must be zero-emission by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030. New school buses must also be … Read more

Two of the eBay executives who were charged for staging a cyberstalking campaign against the creators of the eCommerceBytes newsletter have been sentenced to prison. The Justice Department says that these execs, along with five other former eBay employees, worked together to intimidate David and Ina Steiner. They apparently hatched a scheme targeting the Steiners … Read more

Ahead of bringing its Arc desktop GPUs to everyone in a couple of weeks, Intel has revealed more details about what to expect from the graphics cards in terms of specs and performance. The A770, which starts at $329, will have 32 Xe cores, 32 ray-tracing units and a 2,100MHz graphics clock. In terms of … Read more

A tranche of Elon Musk’s private messages have been made public as part of his ongoing lawsuit with Twitter. The messages, revealed in a court filing Thursday, shed new light on Musk’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with Twitter’s leadership, as well discussions with former CEO Jack Dorsey, and how Musk’s talks with CEO Parag Agrawal quickly soured. … Read more