Kalakshar US

NASA has pulled the plug on its Lunar Flashlight project, which was designed to look for sources of ice on our nearest neighbor. The agency spent the last few months trying, and failing, to get the craft to generate the necessary amount of thrust to get the small satellite to its intended destination. Officials say that the issue was likely caused by debris buildup in the fuel lines, which prevented the CubeSat from working to its full potential. 

The “briefcase sized” Lunar Flashlight first launched in December, and was developed by students at Georgia Tech. Once deployed, it was expected to start a four-month journey to the moon, after which point it would look for surface water ice at the moon’s perpetually-dark south pole. Unfortunately, despite a months-long effort to remedy the issue, the craft will proceed past Earth and then fly into the orbit, but hopefully not too close to, the sun.

NASA is choosing to take a glass half-full approach to the failure, pointing to the success of many of the project’s components. Barbara Cohen, principal investigator at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said that while it’s disappointing, the mission proved the efficacy of several tools first used on the satellite. And that researchers “collected a lot of in-flight performance data on the instrument that will be incredibly valuable to future iterations.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-ends-its-lunar-flashlight-mission-101557786.html?src=rss 

The Apple Watch Ultra is is one of the best wearables for sports and outdoors enthusiasts thanks to the durable design and high-end features, but that $799 price tag can be hard to digest. If you’ve been waiting for a deal, now’s the time to buy as it’s on sale at Amazon for just $702 ($97 or 12 percent of) — the lowest price we’ve seen to date.

The Apple Watch Ultra is truly built for outdoor activity. It offers refined navigation and compass-based features, like the ability to set waypoints and ability to retrace your steps if you get lost. For scuba enthusiasts and others, there’s a depth gauge and dive computer too. As such, it’s the ideal wearable for hikers and divers.

Other features are geared toward endurance athletes, like the accurate route tracking and pace calculations that make use of a dual-frequency GPS. And Apple still includes the health features found in other Watch models too, like sleep tracking, temperature sensing and electrocardiogram readings, along with messaging, audio playback and Apple Pay. It offers a stellar 36 hours of battery life as well and up to 60 hours in low-power mode.

On the downside, the Apple Watch Ultra has a chunky (though rugged) case that you may not find comfortable to wear to bed. Moreover, the positioning of the action button is a little awkward, because it’s right where many people will go to steady the Apple Watch Ultra with one finger while they press the digital crown or side button. Still, it garnered an excellent score of 85 in our review. That $702 price is a killer deal, but keep in mind that it’s only offered on the model with the Ocean Yellow band. 

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-ultra-is-almost-100-off-right-now-104546127.html?src=rss 

Apple’s iPhone 14 Emergency SOS satellite feature launched last year in the US and Canada, then came to France, Germany, Ireland and the UK shortly afterwards. Now, it’s finally launching elsewhere on the planet, coming to New Zealand and Australia — two countries with large wilderness areas lacking any cellular service. As before, it’s available to all iPhone 14 users ( iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max) on iOS 16.4 or greater and is free for two years following activation. 

“Australians know full well the importance of remaining connected in regional, rural, and remote areas, particularly when they need emergency services,” said Australia’s minister of communications, Michelle Rowland, in a statement. “The ability to contact Triple Zero with Emergency SOS via satellite when there is no mobile coverage is a strong backup to keep Australians connected in an emergency.” 

Emergency SOS via Satellite is activated by a long press on the power and volume buttons, or rapidly pressing the power button five times. The interface guides you on the best direction to point your iPhone for the best signal. Once connected, you can open a message interface with emergency service providers, and the phone will also communicate your location. If everything goes to plan, you’ll receive a message that responders have been notified, and to stay where you are.

You can also share your location with family members in a non-emergency using the Find My app. Users simply open the Me tab, swipe up to see My Location via Satellite, and tap Send My Location. It also works with iPhone and Apple Watch Crash and Fall Detection features. There’s even a demo mode that lets you practice using Emergency SOS so you can act quickly if a real emergency arises.

“Since launching last year, Emergency SOS via satellite has already helped save lives in the 12 countries where it has been available,” Apple noted. It added that users should be patient if they use the feature, as “it can take a few minutes for even short messages to get through” due to the low bandwidth and rapid speeds of satellites. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-iphone-14-emergency-sos-feature-arrives-in-new-zealand-and-australia-090241910.html?src=rss 

Apple is testing an M3 chipset with a 12-core processor and 18-core GPU, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman reports a source sent him App Store developer logs that show the chip running on an unannounced MacBook Pro with macOS 14. He speculates the M3 variant Apple is testing is the base-level M3 Pro the company plans to release sometime next year.

Notably, the M3 line is expected to take advantage of TSMC’s forthcoming 3nm node process. The move from 5nm to 3nm would appear to account for the increase in core density. If you recall, the M1 Pro and M2 Pro feature eight- and 10-core processors, alongside 14 and 16-core GPUs. Put another way, the M3 Pro reportedly features 50 percent more CPU cores than its first-generation predecessor. Per Gurman, Apple has gone with an even split between high-performance and efficiency cores on the new silicon. He says the chip was spotted configured with 36GB of RAM. For context, the M2 Pro starts with 16GB of memory, and you can upgrade it to feature up to 32GB of RAM.

Of course, before Apple announces the M3 Pro, the company first needs to release the standard M3 chip. “My belief is the first Macs with M3 chips will begin arriving toward the end of the year or early next year,” Gurman notes. In the meantime, Apple is expected to announce its newest Mac, the long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, at WWDC 2023 next month.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m3-pro-chipset-could-feature-12-cpu-cores-205959150.html?src=rss