In the age of coronavirus, we all have to resist the urge to touch our faces. It’s how the virus can travel from doorknobs or other objects to your mucus membranes and get you sick. Luckily, a startup called Slightly Robot had already developed a wristband to stop another type of harmful touching — trichotillomania, a disorder that compels people to pull out their hair.
I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups.
According to a report from 9to5mac, Apple could be working on full cursor support for the next major version of iOS and iPadOS. The report is based on code of an early version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.
The FCC is finally going to require wireless carriers to implement an anti-robocalling technology, after asking them nicely for more than a year to do so at their convenience. Of course, the FCC itself is now required to do this after Congress got tired of waiting on them and took action itself.
The technology is called Secure Telephony Identity Revisited / Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs, mercifully abbreviated to STIR/SHAKEN, and amounts to a sort of certificate authority for calls that prevents phone numbers from being spoofed. (This is a good technical breakdown if you’re curious.)
STIR/SHAKEN has been talked about for quite some time as a major part of the fight against robocalls, and in 2018 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that carriers would have until the end of 2019 to implement it. 2019 came and went, and while the FCC (and indeed carriers) took other actions against robocallers, STIR/SHAKEN went largely undeployed.
Meanwhile, Congress, perhaps tired of receiving scam calls themselves, managed to collectively reach across the aisle and pass the TRACED Act, which essentially empowers the FCC and other departments to take action against robocallers — and prevents carriers from charging for anti-robocall services.
It also ordered the FCC to set a timeline for STIR/SHAKEN implementation, which is what Pai is doing now.
“It’s clear that FCC action is needed to spur across-the-board deployment of this important technology. There is no silver bullet when it comes to eradicating robocalls, but this is a critical shot at the target,” he said in a statement issued today.
There does not, however, appear to be any great hurry. The proposal, which will be voted on at the FCC’s meeting later this month, would require voice service providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN by June 30… of 2021. And one-year extensions will be available to smaller providers who claim difficulty getting the system up and running.
In other words, you can expect to keep receiving strange calls offering discounts on cruises and warning you of IRS penalties for some time to come. Of course, there are some things you can do to stem the flow of scammers — check out our 101 on preventing robocalls for some simple tips to save yourself some aggravation.
Building a rocket is a big operation, even when you’re printing them from the ground up, like Relativity Space . The launch startup is graduating from its initial office, which is a bit cramped for assembling rockets, to a huge space in Long Beach, where the company will go from prototype to first flight.
We recently visited Relativity at their old headquarters, which had the scrappy (literally — there were metal scraps everywhere) industrial feel you’d expect from a large-scale hardware startup. But except for the parking lot, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to put together… you know, a rocket.
So it was no surprise when co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis said that the company was just starting the process of moving to a gigantic new open-plan warehouse-style building in Long Beach.
Relativity CEO Tim Ellis is obviously excited about the new HQ.
“It’s a big step,” Ellis told TechCrunch. “It’ll actually be the first factory we fully build out with 3D printers. This new space is actually big enough that we’ll be printing the first and second stages, and the fairing at the same time. The new ceiling height is approximately 40 feet, which will allow us to build taller — about twice the height of our current facility. We’re on track to start shipping parts to Stennis for testing later this year.”
In addition to the three “Stargate” printers that can print parts up to 15 feet high, they’ll have three more that can go up to 20 feet and two that can go up to 30. It’s a bit hard to imagine a single printed rocket part 30 feet tall until you’ve seen some of the pieces Relativity has already made.
Not only do the rockets take up a lot of space, but the company itself is growing.
“From two years ago to now we’ve over 20X-ed our entire footprint as a company,” Ellis pointed out. In other words, it was starting to feel a bit overpopulated in their old spot near LAX.
This the space as it is now; the image up top is a render of how it will look once active.
Assembly of the launch vehicle, called Terran 1, its Aeon engines and R&D will all take place in the new HQ. It’s nearly 120,000 square feet, and will be built as a very high-tech manufacturing operation indeed. There will be no fixed tooling, meaning the factory can be rapidly reconfigured, and will be highly automated. The company’s 3D printers aren’t like the simple ones used for rough prototyping, but enormous, carefully monitored robot arms that perform real-time analysis of the metal they are laying down.
“It’s really the first autonomous factory, and it’s not just for rockets,” Ellis said. “Once we prove out the factory with this first launch vehicle, we’re convinced this works towards our long-term plan of launching factories to Mars and building a wide range of products that you’re going to need there. It’s on the path for the long-term vision but also a way for us to be a pioneer in this new value chain for aerospace.”
“It’s going to be cool,” he added.
For a decade, Apple has solely relied on third-party sellers, stores and marketplaces to sell its products in India. That will begin to change this year.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has updated its flagship model, the Raspberry Pi 4. It’s still the same awesome tiny single-board computer with a lot of connectors. But the entry-level device now comes with 2GB of RAM instead of 1GB of RAM for the same price of .
The foundation says that RAM prices have been dropping lately, so it has become cheaper to build Raspberry Pi devices with more RAM. If you want more RAM, you can still buy a 4GB model for $55 — the price hasn’t changed.
If you’re using a ton of 1GB models for your industrial projects, you can still buy the old 1GB model for $35. This way, it doesn’t create compatibility issues or you don’t have to split your fleet of Raspberry Pi devices between 1GB models and 2GB models. But makers and hobbyists should definitely buy the 2GB over the 1GB model from now on, as it’s the same price.
As the Raspberry Pi Foundation is approaching its eighth birthday, it is looking back at the evolution of the Raspberry Pi. The original Raspberry Pi also cost $35, but it is drastically more powerful today.
In eight years, you get a 40x CPU performance increase, 8x memory increase, 10x input/output bandwidth increase and there’s a Wi-Fi chip. This isn’t just a tiny computer to play around with. You can now do a ton of stuff with a Raspberry Pi, and even replace your desktop computer if you mainly use it for web browsing and basic tasks. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has sold 30 million devices so far.
India is unlikely to have any substantial coverage of 5G until at least the end of next year, with telecom operators in the country yet to participate in a spectrum auction. But that hasn’t stopped Chinese vendors Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi from bringing 5G-enabled smartphones to the world’s second largest handset market.
Tempo wants to be the Peloton of barbells. It’s a 42-inch tall screen with 3D machine vision that tracks and teaches you as you workout. The giant upright HD display makes it feel like your personal trainer is right there with you while you compete with others in live and on-demand classes.
The specter of constant surveillance hangs over all of us in ways we don’t even fully understand, but it is also possible to turn the tools of the watchers against them. Forensic Architecture is exhibiting several long-term projects at the Museum of Art and Design in Miami that use the omnipresence of technology as a way to expose crimes and violence by oppressive states.
