[ If you’ve been wondering when you’ll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420. Thermonator is a quadruped robot with an ARC flamethrower mounted … Read more
[ Throughout the five months of troubleshooting, Voyager’s ground team continued to receive signals indicating the spacecraft was still alive. But until Saturday, they lacked insight into specific details about the status of Voyager 1. “It’s pretty much just the way we left it,” Spilker said. “We’re still in the initial phases of analyzing all … Read more
[ Kotz, Levermann, and Wenz suggest that this is an indication of warming we’re already committed to, in part because the effect of past emissions hasn’t been felt in its entirety and partly because the global economy is a boat that turns slowly, so it will take time to implement significant changes in emissions. “Such … Read more
[ NASA has confirmed that the object that fell into a Florida home last month was part of a battery pack released from the International Space Station. This extraordinary incident opens a new frontier in space law. NASA, the homeowner, and attorneys are navigating little-used legal codes and intergovernmental agreements to determine who should pay … Read more
[ The Victus Haze mission is more complicated than Victus Nox, involving two prime contractors, two spacecraft, and two rocket launches from different spaceports, all timed to occur with short timelines “to keep the demonstration as realistic as possible,” a Space Force spokesperson told Ars. “This demonstration will ultimately prepare the United States Space Force … Read more
[ The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs the city’s Muni Metro light rail, claims to be the first US agency to adopt floppy disks. But today, the SFMTA is eager to abandon its reliance on 5¼-inch floppy disks—just give it about six years and a few hundred million dollars more. Members of the … Read more
[ Elon Musk has been talking publicly about his sweeping vision for Mars settlement for nearly eight years now, dating to a speech in Guadalajara, Mexico, in September 2016. This weekend, at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas, Musk once again took up the mantle of his “making life multiplanetary” cause. Addressing employees at the … Read more
[ A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero’s home, and NASA is on the case. In all likelihood, this nearly 2-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida. Otero … Read more
[ Voice synthesis has come a long way since 1978’s Speak & Spell toy, which once wowed people with its state-of-the-art ability to read words aloud using an electronic voice. Now, using deep-learning AI models, software can create not only realistic-sounding voices but can also convincingly imitate existing voices using small samples of audio. Along … Read more
[ On Wednesday, author David Brin announced that Vernor Vinge, sci-fi author, former professor, and father of the technological singularity concept, died from Parkinson’s disease at age 79 on March 20, 2024, in La Jolla, California. The announcement came in a Facebook tribute where Brin wrote about Vinge’s deep love for science and writing. “A … Read more
