What you need to know about the Apollo 11 moon landing
Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot on another celestial body, misspoke his historic line. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as it turns out, was missing a crucial letter when Armstrong spoke it to a live audience back on Earth. What he was supposed to say as he placed his foot on the surface of Luna, the Earth’s moon, was: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” thus highlighting the bigger picture of his small step onto the surface of the moon. Thankfully, the 600 million people watching weren’t quite as pedantic as us: the public easily overlooked the mistake, understood the meaning, and let it go. Hey, the guy flew to the moon, right? Cut him some slack.
WHAT IS IT?
The Apollo 11 spacecraft is most well-known in space exploration history for being the first manned spacecraft to land on another celestial body. It carried three American astronauts to the Earth’s satellite, Luna, in 1969: Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins. In fact, yesterday marks 45 years since Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of the ship onto the moon.
The spacecraft itself was divided into three components: living quarters (which came back to Earth with the three astronauts), a service module (which supplied propulsion, electricity, and oxygen), and a lunar module (the crazy-looking shuttle that brought Armstrong and Aldrin from lunar orbit onto the surface of Luna). We’re focusing on the living quarters (“Columbia”) and the lunar lander (“Eagle”) in this piece.
The massive, American-built spacecraft — by which we mean “all three parts of Apollo 11 together as one ship” — weighed just under 100,000 pounds. A single Saturn V (pronounced Saturn “five”) rocket carried the hulk of metal (and three human beings) into space, and staged detonations enabled that rocket to propel Apollo 11 into lunar orbit.
After eight days — from takeoff at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to splashdown in the north Pacific Ocean near Wake Island — Apollo 11′s command module (where the astronauts lived while aboard) returned to Earth. The lunar module (“Eagle”) was left in lunar orbit and is believed to have crashed into the surface in the following years.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Apollo 11′s mission to bring the first human beings to Earth’s moon was the effective end of the so-called “space race” between the Soviet Union and the United States. After years of both superpowers dumping resources into said race, Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” definitively declared victory for the United States.
More importantly, the Apollo 11 landing signaled the opening of the next frontier for human exploration. Without the Apollo program, Elon Musk’s Space X and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic might not exist. The International Space Station, launched as a joint effort between fifteen partner nations (including the US and the post-USSR breakup Russian Federation), might not exist. Heck, Star Wars might not exist. And we’re quite partial to Star Wars.
But beyond the whole “glory of human advancement” business, the act of putting three human beings on Earth’s moon — safely — and then bringing them back home — again, safely — in 1969 is… somewhat unfathomable. We’re 45 years out and humanity remains far from the concept of commercial space flight.
China just last year landed its first unmanned rocket on the moon. In 2013. That isn’t intended as an insult to China, but to say, “Hey, seriously, it’s really hard to launch a spacecraft and land it on another celestial body.”
WHAT’S THE ARGUMENT?
It’s not much of an argument given that it’s been proven wrong over and over, but a group of folks claim that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked on a soundstage. Those same folks argue that all subsequent moon landings were faked as well.
Per the Apollo 11 landing specifically, the argument is that certain photos taken on the moon show shadows that don’t go in the same direction. So the logic goes: multiple shadow directions, multiple sources of light (which is to say, “more sources of light than just the sun“). Mythbusters took on this theory in a 2008 episode, seen in part below:
There are myriad other theories, zero of which offer credibility to the side of the doubters.
WANT EVEN MORE?
And who wouldn’t? The moon, and space travel in general, has fascinated human beings for centuries. For more on the Apollo 11 mission specifically, we suggest you check out Tom Wolfe’s excellent book on NASA’s ambitious plan to put human beings on the moon: “The Right Stuff“. Oh, you’d prefer a movie? That exists as well, and it’s also really good!
For a less bombastic approach to the Apollo 11 landing, we suggest How Stuff Works‘ excellent piece on lunar landings, as well as Stuff You Should Know‘s podcast about the same subject. There’s kind of a lot of material out there on the Apollo 11 landing considering it’s one of humanity’s greatest achievements, including books from the astronauts themselves and countless tales from NASA scientists involved in the project. We’re barely scratching the surface here, so we suggest digging in on the history and branching out from there. You could spend a lifetime just studying the Saturn V rockets that propelled many American spacecraft into orbit.
[Image credit: NASA (Buzz Aldrin on the moon), NASA (moon landing video), NASA (Apollo 11 launch), NASA (lunar module), Alexis Santos/Engadget (SpaceX), “Mythbusters” S6/Ep. 11, The Ladd Company (theatrical trailer for The Right Stuff)]
Filed under: Misc, Transportation, Science
Framed gesture-controlled digital canvas debuts on Kickstarter, starting at $399
It’s shaping up to be a big month for digital art displays. Electric Objects popped up on Kickstarter with its successfully funded 23-inch LCD for $299, and now a familiar face has turned to the funding site with its own rebooted version. Framed 2.0, an update to 2011′s overpowered 40-inch model, includes integrated WiFi, a 720p front-facing camera and motion sensors, so you can interact with the frame using gestures. There’s also a companion smartphone app, for purchasing and swapping art, creating schedules and adjusting settings. The first 250 backers can take home a 24-inch 1080p screen for $399. A 40-inch version will be available for $1,500, while a “super limited” 55-inch model will go for a whopping $10,000, including dinner with the design team in Tokyo. All three frames are available for pre-order on Kickstarter now, with select models shipping in November.
Filed under: Displays, Household
Source: Framed (Kickstarter)
The Trinity Magnum VR controller is like a PlayStation Move for your PC
The Oculus Rift isn’t even a consumer product yet, but it already has a shadow hanging over its head: how, exactly, are its users going to interact with its intangible, virtual worlds? It’s starting to look like the answer will be multifaceted, requiring users to own different devices for different gameplay scenarios. Trinity VR wants to be gamer’s go-to product for the FPS genre, and have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund its Magnum VR controller. We caught up with the company in San Francisco to give its prototype controller a quick look; here’s what we found out.
It’s hard to look at the Trinity Magnum without thinking about the PlayStation Move. It’s not an intentionally likeness, but rather a necessity of the technology it uses: optical light tracking. Just like Sony’s kit, the Magnum uses a webcam and a bright glowing ball on its front end to facilitate 1:1 positional and orientation tracking. Unlike the Move, however, Trinity’s motion controller is specifically designed to be a firearm analog — peppering a two-handed rifle grip with four buttons, two analog nubs and, of course, a trigger. The 3D printed prototype we saw seemed well designed, placing a horizontal analog nub directly under the thumb’s natural position on the forward grip, but the model was sadly non-functional: we never found out how the sideways inputs felt during practical use.
Trinity did have a functional prototype on hand, but it didn’t quite have all the features the prototype promised. A single analog stick and a trigger were all the hand-built device had to offer (aside from some charming exposed wires and, of course, a glowing green ball), but it performed well in it virtual space: handily tracking movements with little to no visible latency. It certainly performed well with the limited FPS demos we were shown, but we couldn’t help but wonder what set the Trinity Magnum apart from its competitors. The answer surprised us: price. While there are plenty of complicated, versatile and amazing VR control setups on the way, they all ring into the triple digits. Trinity told us that its developer kits will be closer to the $100 price tag, and it hopes the eventual consumer controller will be priced competitively with standard console gamepads.
Trinity VR’s Magnum controller isn’t going to become the de facto control standard for all virtual reality experiences, but it certainly shows promise as a motion tracking FPS controller – and if it can secure a competitive price tag, it could do well as a go-to niche controller for the genre. Still, there’s a long way to go before the product becomes a reality — the firm needs to finalize its ergonomic design and button layout, improve its positional tracking and catch the eye of budding VR developers. Want to help? Well, there’s a Kickstarter page for that: early backers can nab a developer kit for $75 a pop, while regular backers will have to cough up a full $99. Check out the source link below for full details.
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Source: Kickstarter
Sainsbury’s becomes first supermarket to power a store with food waste alone
Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has found a new way to put its food waste to good use: by using it to power one of its stores. A branch in Cannock, West Midlands will be exclusively powered by energy generated from bio-methane gas expelled by broken down food. You see, Sainsbury’s gives any food from its stores that can’t be used by charities or fed to animals to waste specialists Biffa, which uses microbes to turn it into gas. Biffa’s plant is very close to the supermarket chain’s Cannock store, and a new 1.5km cable connecting the two feeds the latter electricity created from the gas. Sainsbury’s food recycling program generates enough energy to power 2,500 homes each year, but only now is it diverting some of that back to the source. The company says the store will come completely off the National Grid for its day-to-day energy consumption, allowing it to “close the loop on food recycling” in the process.
[Image credit: Elliott Brown, Flickr]
Source: Sainsbury’s
Engadget UK Giveaway: win a GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition courtesy of Tagstr
It’s currently the British definition of summer: a few short weeks in which to fit all the swimming, surfing, skating, cycling and sightseeing you possibly can. And, to prove you actually took advantage of the sun instead of sitting in a darkened room complaining it’s too hot, we’re giving away a GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition for you to catalog it all. This top of the range GoPro comes with a wireless remote, waterproof housing and selection of mounts to get you started, and was provided by the team at Tagstr.
Accessible on the web or through its iOS app, Tagstr is a media-centric social network that groups uploaded photos, videos and audio based on their hashtags, creating “shared moments” from the content of its users. You have a personal profile (Facebook and Twitter login is supported) which friends can follow, but the real point of Tagstr is to explore and contribute to “moments” for different events, themes and more — the perfect place to share some of your #summer GoPro footage, perhaps? In pursuit of a free GoPro, anyone can submit up to three entries via the Rafflecopter widget below. Oh, and give the rules a quick once-over while you’re down there.
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the UK, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive one (1) GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email or Facebook login. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. GoPro, Tagstr and Engadget / AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until July 25th at 11:59PM BST. Good luck!
Filed under: Cameras
Source: Tagstr
Seoul plans to ban Uber and introduce its own GPS-based app for taxis
Uber may win some and lose some, but the battles rage on in cities where it operates. Seoul, Korea has now indicated that it would outright ban Uber, calling it illegal and harmful to taxi drivers. Uber operates its UberBLACK service there to connect professional chauffeurs to passengers via its app. That differs from UberX, UberPOP or Lyft — the services that have faced the most bans and protests — since those mostly use non-professional drivers. Seoul’s city council called Uber an illegal threat to traditional cabs, since its drivers didn’t have the usual insurance and safety controls. However, Uber told the WSJ that the city council’s comments “show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement.” Despite that, the city must feel Uber is doing something right — it said that it would soon launch its own, Uber-like geo-location app to connect regular taxis to passengers.
Filed under: Transportation, Software
Via: WSJ
Source: AFP
HTC is developing 2 other tablets next to the Nexus 9/Flounder/Volantis, rumor says
We’ve seen many leaks when it comes to Nexus 8/9/Flounder/Volantis tablet… it’s been called so many names we quite frankly don’t know which one to use and apparently neither does @evleaks from whom today’s leak comes from.
The known leaker posted yet another HTC Nexus 9 rumor:
“Besides the T1 Volantis/Flounder/Nexus 9, HTC is developing two other tablets: the T7 and T12″
He seems rather convinced HTC is working on the upcoming Nexus tablet and you can see its alleged specs here. Well, the Taiwanese manufacturer is allegedly working on additional tablet hardware next to the Nexus tablet. Codenames the leaker mentions are T7 and T12. Unfortunately we don’t get any additional information at this time, but this sure does sound interesting considering HTC has been out of the tablet business for a while now.
Do you think there’s any truth to this? Note that @evleaks is usually spot on when it comes to leaks. Would you be interested in a non-Nexus tablet made by HTC?
Source: @evleaks
The post HTC is developing 2 other tablets next to the Nexus 9/Flounder/Volantis, rumor says appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Virgin Mobile set to add LG Pulse, LG Unify, HTC Desire 816, and ZTE Emblem
Virgin Mobile will soon add another four Android smartphones to its no-contract portfolio, according to recent report from @evleaks. Slated to arrive in the near future are the LG Pulse, LG Unify, HTC Desire 816, and ZTE Emblem. It’s not immediately clear when each will arrive however we suspect it will be sooner rather than later. And, given the number of devices showing up we expect to see the prices fall all over the place; all could fall under $300.
The post Virgin Mobile set to add LG Pulse, LG Unify, HTC Desire 816, and ZTE Emblem appeared first on AndroidGuys.
[Review] L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch from GearBest: What do you get from a $30 wearable device?
The wearable device market is currently booming, and there’s no shortage of options depending on what you want from your wearable. Smartwatches are a particularly hard fought battleground with the essential formula of smartwatches still up for interpretation. If you want a smartwatch right now, your options range from the wildly popular Pebble watch at around $150, to the brand-new Android Wear watches which will set you back around $250; obviously there are watches in and around these price points, but these are the most popular. With that range of prices in mind, what could the $30 (or $31.43 USD, to be exact) L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch from GearBest hope to achieve in such a competitive climate? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.
What’s in the box
The bracelet watch comes accompanied by a charging cable and a stand should you want to show off your latest acquisition. The bracelet watch is charged using a micro-USB cable, so for us Android users, it’s nice to know that we can charge it wherever we are.
The bracelet watch itself looks quite sleek. That shiny, plastic exterior definitely gives a futuristic first impression and it’s definitely something that gets noticed more often than it doesn’t; like most wearable devices, it’s a great conversation starter. There’s only one visible button on the bracelet watch and just the one port for charging, making it a very homogeneous exterior. On the underside of the bracelet watch is what is supposed to be a heart rate sensor and inside the device is a fairly robust vibration motor.
The bracelet watch also comes in other colours. We have the blue one here, but you can also get it in orange, red, yellow, white, purple, green and black.
How does it perform
This is where the review gets interesting. I’m sure many people who come across this review will dismiss the bracelet watch before even learning about what it can do. To be honest, before reviewing this bracelet watch, I might have done the same; however, I was determined to give it a chance.
First of all, I’d like to talk about the interface. While the curved glass panel takes up about 40% of the outside surface of the device, the actual screen of the device makes up a very small portion of it. In fact, it’s positively tiny, which means you have to scroll through menu items one at a time. It must be said, though, that the same has to be done on the Samsung Galaxy Gear, which made spectacularly bad use of its screen real estate.
Despite the small screen, quite a large area of the glass top case can be used as a touch interface. Yes, a touch interface on a $30 device. It’s not perfect, but it does register up, down and long press commands, and it appears to be of a capacitive nature, making it quite responsive. It takes a bit of getting used to exactly which areas are for which function, but overall it is quite a nice control scheme.
The bracelet watch connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and as easy to connect as any Bluetooth device. Unfortunately though, the Bluetooth radio in the bracelet watch doesn’t appear to automatically reconnect (despite the Bluetooth indicator on the screen sometimes staying on).
The features that are said to be available on the bracelet watch include:
- Mobile sync music player
- Call remind, answer and ID display
- SMS remind and read
- Pedometer
Of all the functions that are available to the bracelet watch, being able to answer your phone on the smartwatch is kind of neat, though I don’t think I would do it in public. The microphone is very clear from a reasonable distance away from your face, though the speaker is very quiet and wouldn’t be usable in a moderately crowded place. Not that you would. In the car, depending on how noisy your car is, the road noise may slightly drown out the diminutive speaker. This speaker is also supposed to be used as a music speaker, but I would again say that it lacks the power to truly do this effectively.
Of the other features, none of them really strike me as particularly well implemented; the pedometer feature is a bit rough and the SMS push notifications only work for SMS, and in an age where most people use third party messaging apps, that’s a bit inconvenient. That said, there are digital watches that cost $30 and don’t do half the things this bracelet watch is able to.
What I like about the L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch
I like the touch screen on the bracelet watch. Perhaps it’s just my amazement that a $30 has a functioning capacitive touchscreen and my $150 Pebble watch doesn’t, but it really was quite convenient and nice to use throughout the time I reviewed this device. Sure, it could have had swipe and other functionality as well, but for what it is, I was impressed.
I also do like being able to answer calls on the bracelet watch as a Bluetooth headset. Yes, it’s kind of gimmicky and perhaps isn’t that practical, but I haven’t had enough experience with answering calls on my arm to to say otherwise.
What I don’t like about the L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch
I don’t like that there isn’t a mute, or volume function at all, for the key tone that happens when you interact with the device. This makes it particularly conspicuous in office situations, especially when the tone that is made sounds like the key pad tones from a Nokia 5110.
I also don’t like how tight the mouth of the bracelet watch is; while it’s not uncomfortable to wear, it is quite difficult to put on and take off. My wrists are quite skinny already, so people with thicker wrists might struggle as the band is not adjustable; sure there’s a little give in the band, but it’s not the most comfortable device to be removing regularly.
Final Thoughts
The review of this L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch has been very interesting for me; I’ve often wondered how there are always dirt-cheap versions of devices that exist and how they can possibly offer even part of what the more expensive devices do. The bracelet watch we reviewed here is not going to blow your mind; it says it can do quite a few things, and while it can, it doesn’t quite do it to the same level we might expect from other, more expensive devices. But then you remember the price.
I’m not saying the device’s shortcomings are made legitimate by the price, as there’s quite a lot that could be improved, but if you’re wondering if the wearable craze is right for you, there are worse ways to spend $30 and get a taste of what that world is like.
If you’re interested in trying the L12S OLED Bluetooth Bracelet Watch out, you can visit the product page on GearBest here and pick up the bracelet watch today for $31.43 USD.
Gallery of Photos
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The Motorola Moto G2 allegedly gets spotted, will bring even more value for even less Money
The Motorola Moto G was one of the surprise standouts from the end of last year, and still stands as a monument to great value in the budget Android marketplace. We assumed that Motorola would want to ride that momentum in the budget market with a follow-up device, and sure enough, a photo of such a device has allegedly been leaked. This photo above is supposedly of this so-called Motorola Moto G2, and is accompanied by info that suggests the device will be even cheaper than the original Moto G.
And would you be getting lesser hardware for the cut in price? Absolutely not, says this leak. In fact, Motorola is apparently going to keep the brilliant 720p screen, bumping up the quadcore processor with Adreno 305 (which still sounds like a Snapdragon 400, but probably tweaked), and will allegedly also have a 8MP rear camera. Dual-SIM versions will again be available and the Moto G2 will go on sale towards the end of this year, if no early 2015. That pretty much fits in around the yearly anniversary of the Moto G, which will be a perfect time to replace the old with the new.
Would you consider a Motorola Moto G2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Mallando Android via Phones Review
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