Will There Be a Commercial Replacement for the International Space Station?

“Axiom Space has announced that it is creating an office park and manufacturing center at the Houston SpacePort at Ellington Field,” notes an opinion piece for The Hill by Houston-based space writer Mark R. Whittington. “The development is a hopeful sign that, despite foot dragging by Congress, a commercial replacement for the International Space Station may well happen.”
The United States has…

Google’s Annual Spectacle at CES is No More, With Tech Show Going Virtual

One of the biggest disappointments from CES 2021 going virtual will be the lack of a splashy booth by Google. Whether you cared about the company’s bevy of Google Assistant-related announcements, it was hard to deny the stagecraft employed by the tech giant. From a report: For the last few years, Google boasted some of the most eye-catching CES booths, from…

Nuro Becomes First Company To Receive Commercial Autonomous Vehicle Permit From California DMV

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Hours after announcing that it acquired self-driving truck startup Ike, Nuro revealed it’s the first company to receive permission from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to charge a fee and receive compensation for its driverless delivery service. Unlike the autonomous testing licenses the California DMV previously granted to Nuro and others,…

Dramatic images of erupting Kilauea volcano in Hawaii

Overnight on Sunday, USGS reported lava fountains that shot nearly 165 feet into the sky from a fissure on the eastern side of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. Lava has replaced the water that was in the basin of the crater, and a new lava lake was formed. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/dramatic-images-kilauea-volcano-hawaii-eruption-dec-2020…

Personal solstices

Photos from EarthSky community members around the world, showing what the December solstice – bringing winter to half of Earth, and summer to the other half – means to them. Thanks to all of you for sharing these evocative images with us! Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/personal-solstices-photos-dec-earthsky-community…

‘Super Nintendo World’ Amusement Park Previewed By Mario’s 68-Year-Old Creator

“On Friday, Nintendo and Universal Studios Japan took the veil off a years-in-the-making project: the very first Nintendo-themed theme park,” reports Ars Technica (in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader mprindle): And who better to introduce the world to this life-sized walk through of all things Mario than the character’s creator himself, longtime Nintendo developer and designer Shigeru Miyamoto… Many…

The ‘Great’ Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

On Monday, December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will merge in the night sky in an astronomical event known as a “Great Conjunction,” appearing closer to one another than they have since Galileo’s time in the 17th century. NASA reports: The planets regularly appear to pass each other in the solar system, with the positions of Jupiter and Saturn being aligned in…

‘Will Remote Work Kill Innovation?’ Ask Silicon Valley Experts

Remote work “is here to stay,” argues a new article in Silicon Valley’s newspaper The Mercury News (also re-published in the East Bay Times). But they’ve also asked industry professionals around Silicon Valley whether this will hurt our ability to innovate. Software engineer/entrepreneur Joyce Park (who’s worked in Silicon Valley over 20 years): “Fast feedback is what we’re all about in…

Disney Stock Skyrockets 13% Friday to New All-Time High

CNN reports:
If it wasn’t abundantly clear that content is king, especially in the Covid-19 era, Disney hammered that point home Thursday when it previewed dozens of new series and movies for its Disney+ streaming service. And investors are loving it. Shares of Disney jumped 13% Friday to a new all-time high. The stock is now up more than 20% this year,…