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Filed under: Transportation

Wipe those tears away, budding astronaut. SpaceX’s latest failure wasn’t completely in vain. According to head honcho Elon Musk, the problem came just after a “picture perfect first stage flight” when a longer than expected thrust decay transient of the new Merlin 1C regeneratively cooled engine became “just enough to overcome the stage separation pusher impulse.” You honestly may need to be a rocket scientist to digest all of that, but here’s something even the layman can understand: Musk wants flight 4 in the air as early as next month. We’re told that the long gap between flights 2 and 3 was simply due to all that engine engineering, but technologically speaking, nothing will change for the next attempt. Godspeed, Falcon 1 (v4).

[Thanks, Kenneth]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We knew it was coming, and after waiting for quite some time for FreeSat to go from concept to reality, television viewers across the UK can finally indulge. If you’ll recall, a recent survey found that just 5-percent of Europe’s HDTV owners actually bothered to tune into HD programming, but now that number is likely to change. Effective today, 98-percent of the UK can fork out a one-time fee of £49 ($96) to £120 ($234) in order to acquire a FreeSat set-top-box, and after an £80 ($156) installation, users will have subscription-free access to BBC HD, ITV HD (coming soon), Channel 4’s digital service and around 70 other TV / radio channels. Better still, that number is slated to rise to 200 before the year’s end, and unsurprisingly, the launch is expected to boost available high-def offerings in the region. Anyone across the pond have their equipment set up already? How’s the service?

[Thanks, Ivan]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Laptops

While not radically different than the Satellite A300 and P300 we peeked late last month, Toshiba is rolling out yet another pair in the L300 (pictured) and U400. As for the former, you can expect a 15.4-inch 1,280 x 800 resolution panel, a 1.3-megapixel camera, integrated WiFi and the usual complement of ports. Moving onto the U400, you’ll find a smaller 13.3-inch display, ATI Mobility Radeon graphics, built-in Harman Kardon speakers, integrated webcam / microphone, Bluetooth and WiFi to boot. Unfortunately, we’re not told whether or not the L300 will be available with a Penryn chip, but word on the street has the April-bound U400 checking in with one of Intel’s prior processors or a CPU from its arch rival AMD.

Read - Satellite L300
Read - Satellite U400

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Looks like we’ll be able to watch first hand as the US attempts to blast its failed spy satellite from the heavens on Thursday as rumored. That’s the first picture of the tumbling spacecraft as taken from the Kumamoto observatory in Japan. That picture was taken with a 20 second exposure but it may still be visible with the naked eye. A certainty if that thousand-pound, hydrazine fuel tank lands in your backyard.

[Thanks, Kaztm]

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Source: Thomas Ricker

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Good news, everyone! Remember that Alien-infested, out of control satellite we told you about a few weeks ago? Well, the US government has finally put together a plan to avoid the civilization-decimating disaster that would have resulted from its impact with Earth: they’re gonna blow it up. That’s right — US officials have confirmed that they’re going to use modified SM-3 missiles fired from a cruiser and destroyer off the Northwest coast of Hawaii to take the thing out. The weapons have additional fuel and new software which will allow them to reach the object in orbit, thus blasting it to smithereens. The resulting impact will leave nothing but “space junk,” which will endlessly pollute the galaxy until we’re wiped out by a reverse “Big Bang” or doomsday device. You may now return to your overpriced latté.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Cellphones

TerreStar certainly hasn’t been flooding us with news over the years, but it looks like the company’s been keeping itself busy nonetheless, and its now scored an impressive $300 million in funding for its efforts. That money, coming from EchoStar and Harbinger Capital Partners, will largely be used to fund the company through the launch of its TerreStar-1 “hybrid mobile satellite” (pictured above in a circa 2005 mockup), which promises to power cellphones that’ll be able to use traditional terrestrial networks and fall back on satellite when there’s no other signal. What’s more, despite the three-year-gap since the initial announcement, TerreStar says it’s still shooting for a launch by the end of this year, with Arianespace confirming that it’s able to provide the transport into space during the December 2008 through February 2009 launch window.

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: HDTV

You want to know — nay, you deserve to know — which service provides the most HD content. Engadget HD’s got the answer, see how your HD provider stacks up.

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Source: Ryan Block

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Filed under: Laptops

We know you Toshiba lovers out there have been twiddling your thumbs for weeks on end just waiting, praying, hoping that the beastly X205-SLI would get updated with a Penryn chip. Thankfully for all four of you, the wait is over. Announced today, Tosh is cranking out the 17-inch X205-SLi2 and X205-SLi4, which both house a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 processor, integrated HD DVD-ROM / DVD burner, built-in Harman Kardon speakers (with subwoofer) and twin 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPUs. As for the former, you’ll find 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a pair of 160GB 5400 RPM drives, a 1,440 x 900 resolution panel, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 802.11a/g/n WiFi, webcam / microphone and a fingerprint reader to boot. The SLi4 ups the ante by tossing in an extra gig of memory, 7200 RPM HDDs, an external USB HDTV tuner, 1,680 x 1,050 panel and a bundled remote. Grab yours now for $1,999.99 or $2,499.99, respectively.

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Source: Darren Murph

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