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Scott Kelly Returned to Earth Smiling After a Year in Space

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Scott Kelly Returned to Earth

Today marks the day when Scott Kelly returned to Earth along his two crewmates after a year spent atop the International Space Station. One of the three is none other than astronaut Scott Kelly, the one who is currently holding the world record for the longest time spent in outer space (summing up about 530 days), after a nearly year-long experiment.

340 days devoted to living on the ISS with the sole purpose of research, discovery and the betterment of humanity. Scott Kelly represents a key in all of the above as his personal experience will serve our species advance and understand how our kind can survive the harsh conditions of space. Because Kelly has a biologically identical twin brother back on Earth, scientists can thoroughly study the way exposure to prolonged time spent away from the conditions of our planet can physically and psychologically alter humans.

Scott Kelly has been a vital key to raising awareness regarding the prospect of humanity in space. He became more than just a symbol or a mere name in a hall of fame thanks to his courageous mission. He became a symbol to hundreds of thousands because all along his journey, he never ceased staying in contact with planet Earth. His Twitter account is filled with daily photos taken from the ISS of our planet, our moon and the great black void that surrounds us. Kelly even did an entire Reddit AMA as well as a Tumblr series of Q&As for his fans back on Earth.

After loading into the Soyuz TMA-18M descent module, Scott Kelly and his two crewmates departed from the ISS and began their journey back home. The space capsule descended through the stratosphere and landed in Kazakhstan on Tuesday night. His reaction to coming back on Earth after so long, as he was being pulled up by medical staff in order to make sure he is alright was priceless. “The air feels great out here, I have no idea why you guys are all bundled up”, followed by pumping his fist victoriously.

While a year in space has undoubtedly been harsh and challenging, his next few months will hardly be a breeze. After 340 days spent in a no-gravity environment, away from all the things that a human being is used to and needs to thrive from a biological perspective, Scott Kelly will have to undergo intensive recovery treatments. Right after researchers perform the study on him and his twin brother who has remained on Earth this entire time.

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The Solar Panels That Can Rest On a Soap Bubble

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The Solar Panels That Can Rest On a Soap Bubble

A number of scientists from MIT are behind the solar panels that can rest on a soap bubble that have been announced for the first time several days ago. While the whole ‘resting on a soap bubble’ technology catchphrase may feel like it’s been overused, it is merely because the new solar panels are so small, thin, light and flexible that they were literally shown as they were set down on a huge soap bubble that didn’t burst when that happened.

The very way it’s constructed provides for more than just being extremely light; because it was made with the idea of building it as a whole piece, with both the substrate and the overcoating being produced under the motions of the same process and using the same type of materials, the new tiny solar panel manages to achieve many. Both parts are made from a flexible polymer known as parylene – something that is also used as a protective material in biomedical devices and circuit boards – and the final, light-absorbing outer layer is made of DBP.

Because of that, the substrate will never require cleaning or tampering with, without losing any performance potential, while the light-absorbing surface has demonstrated an amazing amount of light-capture, at least when compared to the sheer size that it comes in. Naturally, the concept behind this new type of solar panels has just been presented by researchers at MIT in a paper published in the gournal Organic Electronics by Vladimir Bulović, Annie Wang and Joel Jean.

The team that worked on these solar panels insists that the materials used were mere examples of how the application of the concept should be used, and that the process of building the panels as part of the same whole is the concept that should be used in order to apply the construction at a larger scale.

The researchers also mentioned that the example they provided is much too thin and small for practical use, but a good demonstration of how it can be achieved even at extremely small scales when an 80 micron thick parylene film is used in the construction. However, if the same type of process is used with different materials, such constructed solar panels could easily be the next method of powering up space crafts or other, much heavier types of machinery, without ever needing to tend to it or the risk of environmental factors diminishing its power of capturing solar light.

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256 GB Storage Options Are Incoming for Smartphones

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256 GB Storage Options Are Incoming for Smartphones

Not necessarily something that we didn’t see coming but now it’s very certain that 256 GB storage options are incoming for smartphones. The reason why 2016 should be the year when we start seeing 256 GB phones on stores’ shelves is because Samsung is the company that has begun mass producing 256 GB chips. Those are based on the Universal Flash Storage 2.0 standard (UFS).

This means more than just doubling the current maximum storage that you can find on phones (128 GB). The new chips that Samsung has developed are almost twice as fast as what the current technology can provide us, clocking at a speed of 850 MB per second. The writing speed may be lower than the reading speed – at 250 MB per second – but that is quite natural and still a huge amount of transfer power if you stop to think about it.

Simultaneously though, the new chips developed by Samsung advertise themselves to support up to 45,000 IOPS (40,000 IOPS on the writing aspect), once again doubling the value of their predecessors. IOPS – also known as Input/Output Operations Per Second value – is a method of measuring and benchmarking different types of storage. All these values manage to almost catch up with the speeds of a solid state drive for computers.

This is the second major hardware improvement that smartphones are promised to be getting soon this year, the first being the addition of the new Snapdragon 820 processor series. However, while the latter has already been announced as being part of some of the upcoming flagship smartphones coming out in the following months, the storage option is not yet part of the plan in any of the announced devices. But there’s nothing stopping Samsung from adding this storage option later on throughout the first half year of the Galaxy S7’s life.

That was the method they applied to the S6 after all. While it didn’t have the 128 GB version as a purchasable option on launch, it became one later on so there’s hardly anything stopping Samsung from doing that again.

This hardware addition compliments the other plans that Samsung seems to be cooking up. In another attempt to bring more capability to smartphones and phablets alike, Samsung announced back in September that it was also working on a new dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip that could take the phone RAM value up to 6 GB of onboard memory. That number is hardly all there is to it, as the new DRAM memory is said to consume 20 percent less energy and be 30 percent faster at the same time.

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Siri Will Finally Be Integrated in the Next Version of the OS X

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Siri will finally be integrated in the next version of the OS X

It’s unknown why Apple feels it’s necessary to test out the intelligent assistant for several years before its implementation in a full-fledged computer operating system, but it seems that Siri will finally be integrated in the next version of the OS X. After four years of testing, it would seem that Siri will finally be added with full capability on the upcoming OS X 10.12, that’s due to be released in about seven months from now.

Judging from what we have learned so far about the PC version of Siri, it won’t be a feature that comes enabled from the very start. Instead, users will have to enable in in the system. This can be done either via its native icon next to the Spotlight Search and Notification Center in the menu bar, or directly from the keyboard via an activation shortcut.

Naturally, Siri will be fully customizable through the system preferences, just as it is on the mobile platform operating system and will also make its appearance through the colorful voice soundwaves in a small window that will stay on the top-right of the screen (probably customizable to either change position or not even show).

And computer Siri will pretty much act just like its mobile version. As long as you have a microphone plugged in or you’re using your inbuilt microphone on Macbooks, you’ll be able to call out Siri just the way you do on your phone, for example. By simply saying “Hey Siri”, the voice assistant will be activated automatically and you can skip right ahead to starting to use it.

The Siri integration is part of the upcoming new version of the Apple Mac operating system, so far code named Fuji, which may be subject to change if the company decides on a different OS name. The OS X 10.12 ‘Fuji’ isn’t exactly a full-fledged operating system, but instead only comes to bring several changes to the system, as well as minor user interface tweaks across core system application windows.

However, at this point there’s not much known regarding the Apple Mac OS X 10.12. Other than the obvious fact that it won’t be a major overhaul or a brand new iteration of the operating system just like the OS X Yosemite was, and some rather generic pieces of information, Apple has not yet released much on the topic so far.

However, more is expected to be showcased at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference – also known as WWDC – later this year, in June 2016, mere months before the operating system’s release.

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The Fireball That Hit the Atlantic Ocean Without Anyone Noticing

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The Fireball That Hit the Atlantic Ocean Without Anyone Noticing

If you’re in touch with the NASA newsfeed, you may have recently read about the baffling event regarding the fireball that hit the Atlantic Ocean without anyone noticing. The report read a fair amount of scary sounding facts that only become even more frightening to think about once you realize that mankind was particularly lucky without even realizing it.

The event in question seems to have taken place on February 6th at 1:55 PM UTC; a rather quiet Saturday for anyone on the east coast of the United States and South America for sure. It would appear that at the same time that individuals were peacefully having their lunches, a meteor with roughly the same explosive power as a nuclear bomb descended from space, was set on fire by its travel through the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded right over the Atlantic Ocean.

Luckily, this occurred above the ocean and very far away from any sort of land, preventing the event from becoming catastrophic in any way for human settlements. Not to mention that thanks to the fact that it exploded before any collision, it did not end up affecting ocean currents or risking tidal waves.

Even so, scientists say that the fireball occurrence recorded on February 6th this year was hardly worrying even if it had exploded above a populated area. Astronomer Phil Plait reminded us of the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russian territory in 2013. The Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to have had the explosive power of 500,000 tons of TNT, while the one that dropped over the Atlantic Ocean only had the same potential as 13,000 tons of TNT.

Scientists say that had it exploded over a city such as New York, it would have surely rattled windows and scare the bejesus out of anyone who was there to see it leave a scorched trail in the sky before exploding, but not much else.

Plait also added that individuals are hardly aware of just how exposed the planet really is. The scientist stated that on average, about 100 tons of meteor debris fall onto the Earth on a daily basis. The reason behind that is the fact that most pieces of debris end up disintegrating during their fall through the atmosphere, reaching 10 to 100 kilometers per second.

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Chasms of Charon Suggest a Former Subsurface Ocean

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Chasms of Charon Suggest a Former Subsurface Ocean

The news coming from New Horizons may soon subside but in the meantime, we can still be thankful for snippets of information such as the one supporting the idea that the chasms of Charon suggest a former subsurface ocean. The discovery was made thanks to LORRI – the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager onboard the New Horizons craft that has just several months ago passed by Pluto and its moons.

The photos that the probe managed to shoot when passing Charon – the largest moon of Pluto’s total of five – depict a lot of terrain signs that suggest the existence of a subsurface ocean that, at one point, froze over and expanded outward into becoming the jagged exterior that can be spotted these days. Across the equatorial belt of Charon, there are numerous chasms and fractures that are, at times, as long as 1,100 miles and 4.5 miles deep.

If the theory that suggests that is true, it would explain the simple phenomenon that would have taken place to create Charon’s stretched out surface. The theory is that as a result of the formation process and radioactive decay of elements, there could’ve been at one point enough internal heat to melt underground water ice. This, instead, would have turned into a subsurface ocean that, as temperatures started dropping again, turned frozen solid and expanded outward.

The photos taken by New Horizons was able to immortalize the nature of Charon’s terrain, but not so much study its composition. However, in terms of the topography of Charon, the probe noticed a huge amount of chasms, similar to what a canyon looks like. The studied images would suggest that the elevation in those fractures and canyons reach as much as 7 miles altitude, although that value is the absolute maximum found so far on the surface of Charon.

Serenity Chasma, the name of the equatorial portion of Charon that was captured in the photos taken by New Horizons is one of the most easily visible portions of the moon that suggests the existence of a subsurface ocean a long time ago. The pictures were taken from a distance of 78,700 km and approximately an hour and 40 minutes before the probe came closest to Charon in its trek.

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The Largest Telescope in the World Is Being Built in China

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The Largest Telescope in the World Is Being Built in China

Reportedly, 9,000 people are about to or in process of being relocated because the largest telescope in the world is being built in China. The scientists and authorities explain the necessities behind such a dire act where thousands of people are being forced to leave their homes for new ones. But it’s all for science and in order to create the perfect environment for what is meant to be one of the world’s most recent and largest telescope up to this date.

The radio telescope in question is being constructed in the Guizhou Province that was dubbed Five Hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) last year when the Guizhou Provincial Committee secretary-general approved its construction. Beyond the fact that FAST is an amazingly large construction itself, the engineers who designed it said that it is made in such a way that it requires a sound electromagnetic wave environment in order to return proper results.

In that sense, Li Yuecheng, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference secretary-general in Guizhou Province said that things such as radio waves produced by house appliances and electronic devices such as cell phones, microwave ovens and many others could actually lead to a large amount of interference of the telescope’s good functioning.

So the approximately 9,000 individuals living on a 5 kilometer radius from the site of this massive scientific project have no choice but to leave and find somewhere else to live. The officials have said that they have made 4 different settlement locations available for the ones affected in two different counties – Pingtang and Luodian. The families living near the scientific site will still have until September this year to relocate as that is when the Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope is expected to be completed and be put to action.

This year will mark the end of a more than 5 years long construction which only commenced after 17 more years of searching for a large enough natural depression optimal for the construction of this telescope dish. Once it is completed, the FAST telescope will officially become the largest of its kind, 200 meters wider in diameter than the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which is currently holding the world record.

Once it becomes functional, the FAST telescope will be capable of detecting much fainter radio waves across the galaxy, as well as sensing much further away than previously, scientists say. Even radio waves coming from distant pulsars and even other galaxies could be picked up by it, not ruling out the chance of detecting signals from other intelligent forms of life.

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One Day Remaining Until Apple Pay Is Released in China

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One Day Remaining Until Apple Pay Is Released in China

The much expected launch of the service is nearly here as there is only one day remaining until Apple Pay is released in China. What that means is that points of sale supported by several banks in China will start working via near field communication contact too, enabling individuals to pay with their iPhones only, after they’ve loaded their cards’ information in their smartphones.

This movement is the mere attempt of Apple to make NFC payments a more popular method than paying with cash or swiping your card. Considering that its release of Apple Pay in the United States nearly a year and a half ago was rewarded with only mild success, but far from the amount of adoption that the company was expecting, it would seem that the tech giant is now preferring to look towards a country such as China.

The reason is the fact that China is officially the second biggest market for Apple and its services were also approved and supported by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. This is the factor that may make the difference when it comes to China – part of the reason Apple Pay was not as successful when it tried expanding its services into United Kingdom and Australia was the major banks’ reticence towards the service. They took a while to start accepting the Apple Pay system and support it in stores, so the service too had a slow evolution.

However, while Apple is receiving a huge amount of support for their payment service in China doesn’t make it easy for the company to breakthrough and establish themselves as a wildly popular alternative. They are currently up against 2 other already very popular payment systems: Tencent’s WeChat Payment and Alipay. It’s not known whether Apple Pay’s ‘attraction points’ have what it takes to steer public away from already well established services to themselves.

There are currently 19 Chinese banks that will support Apple Pay on launch in total, counting ICBC, China Construction Bank and China Guangfa Bank in their midst.

There are currently over 358 million Chinese individuals who make use of online mobile payments in China alone and Apple hopes to gain at least a portion of the market by allowing payment via iPhones, iPads and even Apple Watches. However, the company is not only treading in unknown waters, but also waters that their direct competitors have a lot more knowledge and experience in.

Samsung is planning to brings its own version of the payment service, Samsung Pay, to China later this year as well.

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IOFIT Smartshoe Is Probably the First of Its Kind

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IOFIT Smartshoe Is Probably the First of Its Kind

While everyone has already heard the high and low of fitness trackers for example, the IOFIT smartshoe is probably the first of its kind and not something you saw coming. The IOFIT is a wearable tech item, you could say, and one that takes its title as literally as you can. But it doesn’t have the exact same functionality as the fitness trackers I mentioned earlier, even though its sole purpose is fitness-related.

IOFIT was designed by Salted Venture, a Samsung Electronics-supported startup company, that believed that there is a huge amount of trackers out there that make use of only a limited amount of sensors in order to track information. Instead, all the specifics of running or pacing usually get missed out on because nobody attempts to track them.

However, with the help of the technology that was put into the IOFIT, you don’t get to see just how many steps you took. You get to see valuable information about your body posture, your balance as well as how to improve your fitness routine and more specific things such as how to improve your golf swings too.

Employing the help of force plates, something that you may have also heard of when talking about things such as posture rehabilitation equipment, the IOFIT shoe tried to achieve several things by designing a piece of wearable tech that is both cost effective and portable – and the second of the two if pretty much inbuilt.

By integrating tracking methods into a piece of apparel that we always wear regardless, the IOFIT smartshoe ends up having so much more utility packed into it than most other fitness trackers. There has always been a problem with the mere concept of wearable tech that goes on your arm for example. Even if it was about tracking the number of daily steps you take. Using different trackers at the same time would result in data inconsistencies simply because of the way they track data while clinging to your arm for example – which may not be an accurate representation of your real movements.

However, the main focus of the IOFIT is not counting your steps and calorie intake for the day. Instead, it gives you insightful information regarding the way you use your body in different kinds of fitness and how you can improve and coach yourself when it comes to it. Also, because all of the data your IOFIT records can be shared via your mobile device, you can forward it to trainers regardless of where they are.

The IOFIT smart shoe will be showcased at MWC starting with February 22nd to February 26th.

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Apple Watch Discount May Mean the Successor Is Underway

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Apple Watch Discount May Mean the Successor Is Underway

Whether it’s simply wishful thinking or a hope come true, a recent Apple Watch discount may mean the successor is underway. The only rumored second generation of Apple Watch is a bit of a mystery to everyone as there’s hardly any information about it, but certain sources insist that it’s a possibility. With an official “unveiling” event that Apple will hold next month and the knowledge that the second iteration of the Apple Watch is due to be released this year, it’s normal to suspect it.

But with literally no news regarding an Apple Watch 2, leaked or otherwise, it’s hard to believe the device would really make an appearance in any of the announcements due in March. The only detail that people are basing their beliefs on is the simple fact that recently, many major retailers seem to have discounted the Apple Watch by as much as $100.

This is a very well-known trend in the technology world that usually occurs when there’s a newer model of the particular gadget right around the corner. Take the Galaxy S7 for instance: more details about it are due to be revealed to the public on February 21st and meanwhile the Galaxy S6 is seeing a lot of interest from buyers as it has gone down in price with a lot of retailers.

However, chances are very slim that we will be hearing anything about the second Apple Watch that soon. The official website still lists the watch at $349 and $399 for the two regular versions, and it seems that the discount is only available in third party stores such as Best Buy, Target, B&H and so on.

It has been rumored that the March event will finally lift the curtains on devices such as the iPhone 5se and the iPad Air 3, devices that have been waited for far too long – an iPhone 6 spec smartphone that comes in iPhone 5 size and the next generation of the iPad tablet. The only mention of the Apple Watch in terms of event announcements was a new series of band options.

Rumored for some of them to have been made in collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger and include an entire selection of classy and fashionable leather bands, a new selection of colors for the sports band and a space black version of the Milanese Loop.

While there are a few sources suggesting that we may be seeing an Apple Watch S, the only real way we will find out is by waiting until March 15th.

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