NASA working with students on Mars airplane concept

NASA is hard at work on designing the perfect aircraft to land on Mars. Just a couple of weeks ago, the space administration showed a new wing shape it is testing for future Red Planet-bound planes. As part of furthering these developments, NASA recently brought on a few students to help with its Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars program, otherwise known as Prandtl-m aircraft. The participants built a boomerang-shaped plane made of carbon fiber, which was then tested in an aircraft hangar and a different set of higher altitudes outdoors. Unfortunately, NASA says test flights didn’t turn out as expected every time, namely due to the complexity of having an adequate launch system in place. One option, for example, was to have a radio-controlled plane that would take the research aircraft to the necessary altitude and have it be released.

Along the way, the Mars plane concept also developed a crack, leading students and NASA Flight Scholars to make modifications to its wing shape in order to gain more lift and stability — it was basically about going back to aerodynamic basics and trying new materials, a student said. Trial and error is part of what the program is about, of course, so these results will be helpful going forward either way. But, if successful, NASA notes that the project can “collect and transmit valuable information about future landing sites for human exploration.”

An image of the Prandtl-m flying after being released from NASA’s Carbon Cub transporter.

[Image credits: NASA]

Source: NASA

Adblock Chrome extension has been sold to an unknown buyer

Ad blockers have been all over the news lately, in large part because of Apple’s decision to allow them in iOS 9. Now, the creator of one of the most well-known ad blockers has apparently decided to sell his creation to an undisclosed company. As reported by The Next Web, creator Michael Gundlach posted a note in an update to his Adblock Chrome Extension saying that he was selling the company, with his “long-time managing director” taking over the role of working with that new company. It seems that Gundlach is no longer working with Adblock at all

The update itself turned on the “acceptable ads” feature; Adblock will now show “useful ads” by default, with more aggressive and annoying ads getting blocked. There’s still an option to turn off all ads, but the default state will start letting some ads in. According to Gundlach’s note, the new owner is the one that turned on the acceptable ads feature, but it sounds like he’s supportive of that decision.

Was casually browsing earlier using Google Chrome, opened a new tab, and this popped up: pic.twitter.com/BTmPabAwkd

— Adam Haworth (@aahaworth) October 1, 2015

The Next Web wasn’t able to find out who the buyer of the software was, and we haven’t been able to contact anyone with details of the transaction either. At some point, we imagine that more details will come out about the new owner of Adblock, but for now users will just have to hope that the buyer doesn’t decide to shut it down.

[Image credit: Pascale PirateChickan/Flickr]

Source: The Next Web

Yet another Samsung Pay ad pushes massive support

Samsung Pay is accepted in more locations than any other mobile payments service. Samsung is making that pretty clear, right? The first television advertisement for Samsung Pay knocked Apple Pay for this reason and the second showed how simple it is to use Samsung’s offering at various places. Now we have the third ad that once again emphasizes Samsung Pay’s advantage of being supported where other mobile payments services are not. Samsung says you can “pay where you’ve always used your credit card.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: Yet another Samsung Pay ad pushes massive support

AT&T files a complaint involving other carrier’s approval of Wi-Fi calling

A new report out of The Verge states that AT&T is in a debate with the FCC over why carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint didn’t need approval for Wi-Fi calling. As it stands, T-Mobile and Sprint already have Wi-Fi calling capabilities and AT&T does not.

AT&T is accusing competitors for not gaining approval from the FCC prior to adding Wi-Fi calling capabilities to their smartphones. In order to provide Wi-Fi calling services, the rule is a carrier must be granted a support waiver for teletypewriter communications (TTY) from the FCC. In order to stay out of the issue, AT&T didn’t follow the actions of it competitors and decided to come up with an idea of their own. The carrier recently made a filing to receive support for a real-time-text solution, however it’s yet to gain approval as a proper replacement for teletypewriter communications. If approval is given by the FCC, AT&T will be able to provide the much-needed Wi-Fi calling capabilities to supported devices. There is no word on what’s going to happen as a result of the other carrier’s actions by breaking the commission’s rule. We’ll keep a close eye out.

Source: The Verge
Via: Engadget

Come comment on this article: AT&T files a complaint involving other carrier’s approval of Wi-Fi calling

Google will officially become a subsidiary of Alphabet today

When the market closes today, Google as we know it, in a small way, will be no more. Our long-time internet guide and companion will become a subsidiary of Alphabet, which is a holding company made up of Google’s founders, chairman, CFO and legal boss.

The shift has been a long time coming. The idea is to structure Google in such a way that its reliably profitable ventures will be separate from its more risky, exploratory investments and projects.

If everything goes well, Google’s stock shares will be translated into the very same amount of Alphabet shares. Stock tickers for shares of Class A ($GOOGL) and Class C ($GOOG) should stay the same, as will shareholder rights and the board. There is some degree of contention regarding Class B shares, as these are held by only the very top executives.

This stock market realignment shouldn’t affect the everyday operations of any of the involved companies. However, it is a slick move of financial engineering that will afford Alphabet more flexibility to justify its spending to its investors, and it will also give the company a greater ability to buy up other companies.

Assuming all goes as planned, the maneuver may give individual companies within Alphabet’s corporate environment greater freedom to innovate and give employees more liberty to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors.

Alphabet doesn’t intend to share the individual financials of its subsidiaries, which are broken out of the original Google Inc, until it releases its fourth quarter earnings in January. For now, nine subsidiaries exist publicly including Google Capital and Google ventures.