SpaceX did not return a request for comment, and typically does not interact with news media.
Local media reports said at least three pieces of debris have been recovered in the mountain range near Australia’s southernmost tip, and according to a statement from the Australian Space Agency, it “has confirmed the debris is from a SpaceX mission and continues to engage with our counterparts in the US, as well as other parts of the Commonwealth and local authorities as appropriate.”
According to NASA’s statement, SpaceX also confirmed the debris is likely to be a part of the Dragon’s trunk. The trunk provides electricity and other necessary services to the main capsule during its time in orbit but is discarded as the main capsule slices back through the thick upper atmosphere on its way home.
“The trunk segment … typically burns up in the atmosphere over the open ocean posing minimal risk to public safety,” according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses and oversees commercial spaceflight operations in the United States.
“In this case, it likely remained in orbit for more than one year and some pieces of trunk hardware survived to reach the Earth,” the FAA statement reads.
SpaceX operates two types of Dragon spacecraft: one that is designed solely for shuttling food, research and other supplies to the International Space Station, and another, called Crew Dragon, that’s designed for carrying astronauts. The scraps of the Dragon trunk found in Australia were likely part of a spacecraft that carried four astronauts home from the ISS on May 2, 2021, according to NASA.
The Crew-1 astronauts — comprised of NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency — made a safe return aboard the main portion of the capsule, which splashed down off the coast of Florida before being hauled to safety by nearby recovery ships last year.
Members of the public who believe they may have found a piece of space debris can reach out to SpaceX’s recovery hotline at 1-866-623-0234 or at [email protected].
Typically, discarded pieces of space hardware fall to a watery grave in the ocean. But they do sometimes turn up on land.
Last year, for example, what was believed to be a piece of a SpaceX rocket’s second stage — which powers the rocket after the lower first stage expends all its fuel — landed on a farm in Washington state.
SpaceX does not attempt to recover the second stage of its rockets, though it does land, refurbish and refly most of its first-stage rocket boosters, which are the largest part of the rocket and give the initial boost at liftoff. Dragon capsules ride to orbit sitting atop the rockets.
Australia may have seen the worst of the third Omicron wave but the nation’s top doctor has warned we’re not out of the woods just yet.
A downturn in Australia’s seven-day rolling average and hospitalizations suggests the country could be nearing peak Covid-19 infections sooner than expected.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, chief medical officer Paul Kelly said he was “increasingly confident” cases had peaked.
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly is cautiously optimistic about the current wave. NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage Credit: News Corp Australia
“The actual data that we’re seeing, particularly from hospital admissions, are decreasing in all states over the last… week support that,” he said.
But he said the current wave would not be the last, stressing the need for governments to plan accordingly.
It follows a virtual meeting of state and territory leaders to discuss the national response to the virus.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters he was “hopeful” the wave had reached its peak but warned against the threat of complacency.
“We know that last summer there was another spike and we shouldn’t be complacent about this issue,” he said.
In June, the Albanese government agreed to extend a 50-50 public hospital funding agreement for an additional three months amid concerns of the third Omicron wave.
But with cases peaking earlier than expected, Mr Albanese remained coy on if the states were pushing for another extension beyond September.
“The update that national cabinet received today, I’m pleased to say, is consistent with what was envisaged when we met… after I came back from PIF,” he said.
“Our funding arrangements and big decisions that were made by the national cabinet then in terms of those dates are consistent with the advice that we received.”
On Wednesday, the government fused to be tied down on a time frame on the release of modeling used to guide decision making.
“We don’t want to see an uncoordinated release of modeling that potentially contradicts modeling released by other jurisdictions,” Health Minister Mr Butler said.
The Health Department estimates there are more than 325,000 active cases nationally.
More than 4800 people are in hospital receiving treatment, with 162 in intensive care and 39 on ventilators.
While it’s not the most powerful console out there, the smaller and more affordable Xbox Series S has been a big hit for Xbox. But reportedly, some devs have felt the strain of getting bigger, more advanced games to work on the console and in response, Microsoft is freeing up some memory to help improve the tiny console’s performance.
As spotted by TheVergeMicrosoft is hoping to make the Xbox Series S a bit more powerful by freeing up some memory and letting developers access that extra memory if needed. In a video explaining this new developer-focused update, Microsoft says that it is unlocking “hundreds of additional megabytes of memory” and that this will, in theory, give studies more control over how to use the console’s limited memory. Microsoft says this “can improve graphics performance in memory-constrained conditions.”
The June Game Development Kit (GDK) is Available Now
To be clear, this isn’t like Microsoft quadrupling the power of the Series S. Nor is this Microsoft flipping some secret switch to let the console start running games at 8K and 240hz or anything wild like that. Instead, the amount of memory dedicated to non-gaming functions in the $300 Series S is being tweaked.
While the more powerful xbox series x console has 16GB of RAM the cheaper Xbox Series S has only 10GB. But before this update, devs only had access to 8GB of that memory as Microsoft reserved around 2GB for the console’s OS. Now devs will have a few hundred extra megabytes of memory, which could help some games run a bit better moving forward.
The Xbox Series S has always been positioned by Microsoft as a cheaper, less-powerful, but still capable next-gen console option. and it’s proven to be a very popular piece of hardware since releasing alongside the beefier Xbox Series X in 2020. Hell, I already had an xbox series x and I ended up buying one. It’s become the main way we play games in our living room, perfect for Fall Guys and Fortnite. But for more intense games it can struggle, requiring cutting down on framerate or resolution. This has reportedly led to some issues and frustration from devs trying to get certain games running on the lesser machine.
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A recent example of a game performing differently on Series S is the Evil Dead game, which launched without a 60fps performance mode on the cheaper machine. Resident Evil Village also limits the game to only 45fps at 1440p and 30fps if you turn ray tracing on.
Hopefully, a few extra bits and bobs of memory can help devs working on Xbox ports not feel as hamstrung by the weaker Xbox Series S.
Snapchat fans have never been able to officially use the hugely successful app on their computer – until now.
The social media company, which has 332 million users, has announced that Snapchat for Web allows you to log on and continue conversations online, make and receive video and voice calls, plus send text-based Snaps all via a web-browser.
Ryan Thomas, head of synchronous experiences at Snap Inc, says the move to a PC screen for Snapchat fans seemed an obvious step for the platform.
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“With over 100 million Snapchatters making calls to their friends on Snapchat every month, we knew this was a critical element to get right,” he told Mumbrella.
While users in the US, UK and Canada have to pay a monthly fee to access Snapchat on their laptops, it’s a different story for people in Australia and New Zealand.
All Australians can use the web-based function free of charge – at no additional cost.
Australians can now use Snapchat on their computers. Credit: AP
Want to use Snapchat on your computer? Here’s how.
How to use Snapchat for Web on your computer
To use Snapchat for Web on your computer, follow these simple steps:
Go to web.snapchat.com in either Chrome or Edge, and then log in with your Snapchat account. At present, you cannot access Snapchat for Web on any other web browser, including Safari and Firefox.
Once you are logged into your account, you’ll be able to make video and voice calls and send messages from your laptop.
Popular features such as Chat Reactions and Chat Reply can also be used. Insiders say Lenses will roll out in the coming months.
Up until now, users could only access Snapchat via the app. Credit: AP
Kate Ritchie shares throwback Home and Away performance.
Kate Ritchie shares throwback Home and Away performance.
Apple silicon—including the M1 and new M2 chips—has a reputation for staying cool even under intense workloads. Intel Macs, on the other hand, run notoriously hot. They’re still capable computers, but they heat up fast, which, in turn, slows things down. If you have an Intel-based Mac, you’ve probably experienced this computational heatwave for yourself. Rather than guessing how hot your computer is getting, however, there’s a hidden monitor built into every Intel-based Mac that lets you know exactly what the internal temperature is.
Why your Mac overheats (and why it’s bad)
I talked about this subject beforewhen I mostly focused on laptops. Whether you have a MacBook or an iMac, however, the general principle is the same: You don’t want your machine to overheat.
Computers heat up because the internal components, namely the CPU and GPU, generate heat as they work. Depending on your computer, you might not notice it while performing light tasks. Once you start pushing the machine, however, you’ll feel the temperature ramping up.
It’s not that this heat will damage or break your computer. I mean, it absolutely could, but manufacturers make sure that will never happen. A little heat is okay; the parts are designed to operate normally within a wide range of temperatures. However, when the chips start to get too hot—usually around 90 degrees FAhrenheit—your computer will slow down its processing speed in order to cool things down, a process referred to as “throttling.”
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Throttling sucks, because it means you’re not getting the performance you expect from your machine. Truea slow machine is better than a burnt and broken one, but avoiding the overheating problem in the first place can help you prevent throttling before it kicks inand push your Mac to its maximum potential.
While there are many ways to combat overheating, one is to keep tabs on your Mac’s temperature. And if you have an Intel Mac, you already have a monitor built right into macOS.
macOS’ hidden temperature monitors for Intel Macs
You won’t find these temperature monitors by searching through the apps installed on your Mac. You won’t even find them in Activity Monitor, as useful a utility as it is. Rather, your Mac’s temperature monitor is found in Terminal. Using Terminal likely seems intimidating to many users, because it allows you to control your Mac using only text-based commands. But you don’t actually need to memorize any of thosee commands to use Terminal; a copied and pasted command works just as well.
There are plenty of useful Terminal commands everyone can use (we covered many of them in this piece) but we’re focusing on the temperature monitors this time. There are two commands you can use here. The first lets you see temperature stats for your Mac’s CPU. Copy and paste the following command exactly as-is into a new Terminal window (quotation marks and all):
sudo powermetrics —samplers smc |grep -i “CPU die temperature”
If done right, Terminal will ask for your password. Enter it (you won’t be able to see what you’re typing, unfortunately), then press the return key. After a moment, you’ll begin seeing temperature readings, updating roughly every five seconds. The temperatures are written in Celsius, so you’ll need to convert to Fahrenheit on your own, but, after a while, you start to pick up which temperatures are cool, warm, hot, and too hot.
Speaking of which, you will also get access to one of my favorite data points in macOS: When things start to get too hot and your Mac decides it needs to cool things down, you’ll see (fan) written next to the temperatures (if your Mac has fans, that is). That lets you know the fans are starting to work harder to move hot air out of your machine. Fans are obviously a good tool for cooling computers, but they aren’t perfect: If your CPU is still heating up to unsafe levels—usually 98 degrees Fahrenheit, going by my experience in Terminal—you’ll start to see (power) instead. When this reading appears, it means macOS is throttling your CPU to keep the temperature from going overboard.
You can also check your GPU temperatures with the following command:
sudo powermetrics –samplers smc |grep -i “GPU die temperature”
Notice that you won’t see (fan) or (power) appear on this Terminal windowonly temperature readings.
Options for Apple silicone
While Apple’s suite of silicon chips don’t face as many heat ramps as Intel-based Macs, they can still overheat and throttle like any other chip. Unfortunately this built-in Terminal command won’t work on M1 and newer, since those chips are designed differently than Intel chips in how they handle heat.
The only solid temperature monitor for Apple silicon available rright now is TG-Prowhich comes at a cost. It’s usually $20, though at the time of this writingit’s on sale for $10. If you’re looking for a temporary solution, the app offers a two-week free trial, so you can monitor your temperatures on M1, M2, or any other Apple silicon variant for 14 days free of charge.
Hopefully, as Apple silicon is adopted by more and more of the Mac user base, developers will write more temperature monitoring apps for the platform. Hey, maybe Apple will even make their own—for free.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the biggest contract chipmaker in the world. But it has been thrust in the middle of US-China geopolitical tensions. logo displayed on the screen.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have left Taiwan but the visit has cast a spotlight once again on the island’s critical role in the global chip supply chain and in particular on the world’s biggest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC.
The controversial visit, which angered Beijing, saw Pelosi meet with TSMC Chairman Mark Liu, in a sign of how critically important semiconductors are to US national security and the integral role that the company plays in making the most advanced chips.
Semiconductors, which go into everything from our smartphones to cars and refrigerators, have become a key part of the US and China’s rivalry over technology in the past few years. More recently, a shortage of semiconductors has spurred the US to try to catch up with Asia and maintain a lead over China in the industry.
“Taiwan’s unresolved diplomatic status will remain a source of intense geopolitical uncertainty. Even Pelosi’s trip underlines how important Taiwan is for both countries,” Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Wednesday.
“The obvious reason being its crucial strategic importance as a chip manufacturer and in the global semiconductor supply chain.”
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and meeting with TSMC show the US can’t do it alone and will require collaboration with Asian companies that dominate the most cutting-edge chips.
TSMC’s crucial role
TSMC is a foundry. That means it manufactures chips that other companies design. TSMC has a long list of clients from Apple to Nvidia, some of the world’s biggest technology companies.
As the US fell behind in chip manufacturing over the last 15 years or so, companies like TSMC and Samsung Electronics in South Korea, pushed ahead with cutting-edge chipmaking techniques. While they still rely on tools and technology from the US, Europe and elsewhere, TSMC in particular, managed to cement its place as the world’s top chipmaker.
TSMC accounts for 54% of the global foundry market, according to Counterpoint Research. Taiwan as a country accounts for about two-thirds of the global foundry market alone when considering TSMC alongside other players like UMC and Vanguard. That highlights the importance of Taiwan in the world’s semiconductor market.
When you add Samsung into the mix, which has 15% of the global foundry market share, then Asia really dominates the chipmaking sphere.
That’s why Pelosi made it a point to meet with TSMC’s chairman.
Taiwan invasion fears
China views democratically, self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to be reunified with the mainland. Beijing spent weeks telling Pelosi not to come to Taiwan.
During her visit, China ratcheted up tensions by carrying out military drills.
There is a concern that any kind of invasion of Taiwan by China could massively affect the power structure of the global chip market, giving Beijing control of technology it had not previously had. On top of that, there is a fear that an invasion could choke off the supply of cutting-edge chips to the rest of the world.
“Most likely, the Chinese would ‘nationalize it,’ (TSMC) and begin integrating the company, and its technology, into its own semiconductor industry,” Abishur Prakash, co-founder of advisory firm the Center for Innovating the Future, told CNBC via email.
What is the US doing?
How does China stack up?
SMIC is crucial to China’s ambitions, but sanctions have cut it off from the key tools it requires to make the most cutting-edge chips as TSMC does. SMIC remains years behind its rivals. And China’s semiconductor industry still relies heavily on foreign technology.
TSMC does have two chipmaking plants in China but they are producing less sophisticated semiconductors unlike the manufacturing facility in Arizona.
Chipmaking alliances
The US has been looking to form partnerships on semiconductors with allies in Asia including Japan and South Korea as a way to secure supply of the crucial components and maintain a lead over China.
TSMC meanwhile is caught in the middle of the US-China rivalry and could be forced to pick sides, according to Prakash. Its commitment to an advanced semiconductor plant in the US could already be a sign of which country it is siding with.
“In fact, a company like TSMC has already ‘picked sides.’ It’s investing in the US to support American chip making, and has said it wants to work with ‘democracies,’ like the EU, on chip making,” Prakash said.
“Increasingly, companies are striking an ideological tone in whom they work with. The question is, as tensions between Taiwan and China increase, will TSMC be able to maintain its position (aligning with the West), or will it be forced to recalibrate its geopolitical strategy.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the biggest contract chipmaker in the world. But it has been thrust in the middle of US-China geopolitical tensions. logo displayed on the screen.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have left Taiwan but the visit has cast a spotlight once again on the island’s critical role in the global chip supply chain and in particular on the world’s biggest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC.
The controversial visit, which angered Beijing, saw Pelosi meet with TSMC Chairman Mark Liu, in a sign of how critically important semiconductors are to US national security and the integral role that the company plays in making the most advanced chips.
Semiconductors, which go into everything from our smartphones to cars and refrigerators, have become a key part of the US and China’s rivalry over technology in the past few years. More recently, a shortage of semiconductors has spurred the US to try to catch up with Asia and maintain a lead over China in the industry.
“Taiwan’s unresolved diplomatic status will remain a source of intense geopolitical uncertainty. Even Pelosi’s trip underlines how important Taiwan is for both countries,” Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Wednesday.
“The obvious reason being its crucial strategic importance as a chip manufacturer and in the global semiconductor supply chain.”
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and meeting with TSMC show the US can’t do it alone and will require collaboration with Asian companies that dominate the most cutting-edge chips.
TSMC’s crucial role
TSMC is a foundry. That means it manufactures chips that other companies design. TSMC has a long list of clients from Apple to Nvidia, some of the world’s biggest technology companies.
As the US fell behind in chip manufacturing over the last 15 years or so, companies like TSMC and Samsung Electronics in South Korea, pushed ahead with cutting-edge chipmaking techniques. While they still rely on tools and technology from the US, Europe and elsewhere, TSMC in particular, managed to cement its place as the world’s top chipmaker.
TSMC accounts for 54% of the global foundry market, according to Counterpoint Research. Taiwan as a country accounts for about two-thirds of the global foundry market alone when considering TSMC alongside other players like UMC and Vanguard. That highlights the importance of Taiwan in the world’s semiconductor market.
When you add Samsung into the mix, which has 15% of the global foundry market share, then Asia really dominates the chipmaking sphere.
That’s why Pelosi made it a point to meet with TSMC’s chairman.
Taiwan invasion fears
China views democratically, self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to be reunified with the mainland. Beijing spent weeks telling Pelosi not to come to Taiwan.
During her visit, China ratcheted up tensions by carrying out military drills.
There is a concern that any kind of invasion of Taiwan by China could massively affect the power structure of the global chip market, giving Beijing control of technology it had not previously had. On top of that, there is a fear that an invasion could choke off the supply of cutting-edge chips to the rest of the world.
“Most likely, the Chinese would ‘nationalize it,’ (TSMC) and begin integrating the company, and its technology, into its own semiconductor industry,” Abishur Prakash, co-founder of advisory firm the Center for Innovating the Future, told CNBC via email.
What is the US doing?
How does China stack up?
SMIC is crucial to China’s ambitions, but sanctions have cut it off from the key tools it requires to make the most cutting-edge chips as TSMC does. SMIC remains years behind its rivals. And China’s semiconductor industry still relies heavily on foreign technology.
TSMC does have two chipmaking plants in China but they are producing less sophisticated semiconductors unlike the manufacturing facility in Arizona.
Chipmaking alliances
The US has been looking to form partnerships on semiconductors with allies in Asia including Japan and South Korea as a way to secure supply of the crucial components and maintain a lead over China.
TSMC meanwhile is caught in the middle of the US-China rivalry and could be forced to pick sides, according to Prakash. Its commitment to an advanced semiconductor plant in the US could already be a sign of which country it is siding with.
“In fact, a company like TSMC has already ‘picked sides.’ It’s investing in the US to support American chip making, and has said it wants to work with ‘democracies,’ like the EU, on chip making,” Prakash said.
“Increasingly, companies are striking an ideological tone in whom they work with. The question is, as tensions between Taiwan and China increase, will TSMC be able to maintain its position (aligning with the West), or will it be forced to recalibrate its geopolitical strategy.”
Nothing is a brand that has been around for less than two years, but has made a lot of noise in the tech world the past few months.
The company’s founder is Carl Pei, who previously headed up OnePlus – a brand famous for their tagline ‘Never Settle’. Pei left OnePlus in October 2020 to focus on a new hardware business, called Nothing.
Based in London, Nothing has quite the backing, including an iPod inventor, Twitch co-founder, Reddit CEO and a big YouTuber and the launch of its first phone has certainly caused a lot of hype.
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How do I get it and what will it cost?
Nothing Phone 1 is available in Australia now through the official website.
In white and black colourways, starting price is $749 for the 128GB model.
Who is it good for?
Nothing aims to provide “tech that just works,” which was the early philosophy of a certain fruity tech company.
The company has already released its own wireless earbuds called Ear 1 with a very striking see-through design language. Its smartphone follows that same direction with a transparent back, and a familiar design – more on that soon.
Phone 1 is certainly a tech enthusiast’s product. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t read the latest tech news to know about this smartphone. Therefore, if you love trying out the latest gadgets and want something a little different – Phone 1 is right up your alley.
The entire phone is well-rounded and offers a sprinkling of familiarity and innovation with its Glyph lighting back. Overall, it’s a practical choice, rather than something that has top-tier specs – and that could be part of the appeal for Nothing Phone 1.
How does it work?
There was a common conversation happening between friends and work colleagues while using Phone 1. They’d never heard of the Nothing brand, let alone the Phone 1 – yet they were intrigued by this “new iPhone”.
Yes, the design is extremely familiar to an iPhone 12 or 13 and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering Apple make some of the best products around.
However, Nothing’s design also has some different elements that tend to improve on what Apple offers. The phone is more comfortable in the hand due to slightly smoothed edges, there is no big cutout at the top of the display, and the back is unlike anything that we’ve seen from a smartphone before, with what Nothing calls the Glyph interface.
The back is covered in Gorilla Glass 5, however it is a fingerprint magnet – especially on the black version. White may be the better option if this is something that would trouble you.
The conversation starter here is that Glyph lighting system, which is a series of 900 white LEDs that cover the back of the phone. These run around two camera lenses, the wireless charging coil and towards the USB-C charging port – which creatively doubles as a battery indicator.
There are multiple glyph patterns that can be customized according to different contacts – for phone calls – but there are currently no options to personalize these for individual app notifications. The LEDs can also be activated to provide an almost ring lighting effect for photos and video.
Nothing Phone 1 has a 6.55-inch OLED display with 120Hz high refresh rate and compatibility with HDR10+. A single hole sits to the top-left of the display to house the selfie camera.
The screen is decent and can be viewed in direct sunlight, which can be problematic with smartphones in this price bracket. There are two color profiles that can be selected to suit your tastes, and these can be further tweaked with a color temperature slider in the settings.
A dynamic high refresh and touch sampling rate makes Phone 1 look and feel very responsive, and the software – while pretty basic – keeps things close to stock Android. While on the software side, Nothing promises three years of Android update and four years of security updates, which is more than most manufacturers offer in this price segment.
There’s an under-display fingerprint reader and this works very well, which is pleasing for a device that costs under $800. But the less secure face unlock method is a mixed bag and is inconsistent at best.
Haptics on Phone 1 is also something to note. For some reason, when on silent it’s very loud. It has a mechanical whirring sound rather than a simple silent vibration, and this could be a turn-off for most people. I’ve also turned off vibration when typing because it was more an annoyance than a pleasure.
When it comes to performance, Phone 1 uses an older Snapdragon 778G+ chip. While it’s definitely a controversial decision, the chip is reliable. It handles multitasking, casual gaming and multimedia content easily. The real test will be how this chip holds up over time with feature and operating system updates, as well as security patches.
While Nothing has said they wanted to focus on including two great cameras rather than adding lenses that you won’t use, there is a bit of work that the company needs to do here.
The main 50MP sensor (Sony IMX766) offers some sharp, bright and punchy photos but can struggle when there is movement. The 50MP ultrawide (Samsung JN1) tends to be a little soft when pixel peeping. While this is good enough for social media posting, it doesn’t match the likes of Google’s latest Pixel 6a – which comes in at the same price point but offers up much better photos.
This is to be expected from the first phone from a newcomer, and hopefully some work on these cameras can be done with software updates in the future.
Phone 1 has dual stereo speakers, however they aren’t exactly balanced, with the bottom-firing speaker louder than the earpiece speaker. While the clarity is good, they don’t have a lot of bass.
In terms of battery life, while it’s very subjective on how different people use their devices, I have been impressed with how Nothing Phone 1 has been performing since almost two weeks of use. It’s definitely not class-leading, but almost six hours of screen time is acceptable to me. You won’t get through more than a single day, though. Standby time is quite good too, and you won’t lose as much juice as more expensive devices.
There is fast charging (up to 33W), wireless charging and reverse wireless charging all available on Phone 1.
Finally it’s worth noting local network connectivity which can be hit-and-miss between our three major telcos – especially on new devices from unpopular brands. However, Phone 1 works across Telstra, Optus and Vodafone networks with 5G, VoLTE (HD voice calling) and VoWiFi all working as they should.
What we think
There was a lot of hype around Nothing Phone 1, and while it won’t compete with the likes of the iPhone 13, Pixel 6 or Galaxy S22 it tends to balance most things quite well, while keeping the price relatively low.
If you’re someone who wants a powerful and feature-rich smartphone, Phone 1 won’t be for you, and you’re better off looking at Apple, Samsung, Google and OPPO. However, this will also come at a cost to you.
While the camera isn’t the strongest, it can take some good photos with the main lens, and that’s more than good enough for sharing with family and friends across social media. But if you want to start creating framed prints, you’ll start to notice what is lacking.
Nothing Phone 1 is an impressive first release, and it will be exciting to see what comes next for this new brand. But it’s in a hard spot with Google’s tried and tested Pixel 6a being priced the same in Australia, and Samsung’s A73 series only a few extra dollars.
Our reviews always remain independent of the manufacturer and the first time they will see the review is at the same time you’re reading it.
The enduring appeal of Lego comes not from the complexity of the sets, nor the adorable minifigure versions of pop culture icons, but from the build process itself, and turning a box of seemingly random pieces into a completed model. It’s a satisfying experience, and another one that robots might steal from you one daythanks to researchers at Stanford University.
Lego’s instruction manuals are a masterclass in how to visually convey an assembly process to a builder, no matter what their background is, their experience level, or what language they speak. Pay close attention to the required pieces and the differences between one image of the partly-assembled model and the next, and you can figure out where all the pieces need to go before moving on to the next step. Lego has refined and polished the design of its instruction manuals over the years, but as easy as they are for humans to follow, machines are only just learning how to interpret the step-by-step guides.
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to machines learning to build with Lego is interpreting the two-dimensional images of the 3D models in the traditional printed instruction manuals (although, several Lego models can now be assembled through the company’s mobile app, which provides full 3D models of each step that can be rotated and examined from any angle). Humans can look at a picture of a Lego brick and instantly determine its 3D structure in order to find it in a pile of bricks, but for robots to do that, the researchers at Stanford University had to develop a new learning-based framework they call the Manual-to-Executable-Plan Network—or, MEPNet, for short-as detailed in a recently published paper.
Not only does the neural network have to extrapolate the 3D shape, form, and structure of the individual pieces identified in the manual for each step, it also needs to interpret the overall shape of the semi-assembled models featured in every step, no matter their orientation. Depending on where a piece needs to be added, Lego manuals will often provide an image of a semi-assembled model from a completely different perspective than the previous step did. The MEPNet framework has to decipher what it’s seeing, and how it correlates to the 3D model it generated as illustrated in previous steps.
looks good Aside from being 65″ in size, this TV offers UHD 4K visuals which are a constant feast for the eyes, features HDR to make sure you can appreciate the full range of colors and contrasts, and it also allows you to use it as a hub for all of your streaming services.
The framework then needs to determine where the new pieces in each step fit into the previously generated 3D model by comparing the next iteration of the semi-assembled model to previous ones. Lego manuals don’t use arrows to indicate part placement, and at the most will use a slightly different color to indicate where new pieces need to be placed—which may be too subtle to detect from a scanned image of a printed page. The MEPNet framework has to figure this out on its own, but what makes the process slightly easier is a feature unique to Lego bricks: the studs on top, and the anti-studs on the underside that allow them to be securely attached to each other. MEPNet understands the positional limitations of how Lego bricks can actually be stacked and attached based on the location of a piece’s studs, which helps narrow down where on the semi-assembled model they can be attached.
So can you drop a pile of plastic bricks and a manual in front of a robot arm and expect to come back to a completed model in a few hours? Not quite yet. The goal of this research was to simply translate the 2D images of a Lego manual into assembly steps a machine can functionally understand. Teaching a robot to manipulate and assemble Lego bricks is a whole other challenge—this is just the first step—although we’re not sure if there are any Lego fans out there who want to pawn off the actual building process on a machine.
Where this research could have more interesting applications is potentially automatically converting old Lego instruction manuals into the interactive 3D build guides included in the Lego mobile app now. And with a better understanding of translating 2D images into three-dimensional brick-built structures, this framework could potentially be used to develop software that could translate images of any object and spit out instructions on how to turn it into a Lego model.
the sonic the hedgehog video games are more or less about one thing: blasting through a level with as much speed as possible. So as lovely as this Sonic-themed keyboard from Higround is, it seems almost antithetical to the spirit of the games, at least if you don’t have all your key positions perfectly memorized.
The keyboard is part of a new ‘capsule collection’ (yes, we’re just as upset about writing those words as you are about reading them) from Higround, who partnered with Sega to help pay tribute to the company’s most recognizable characters and one of its most beloved consoles.
The collection includes t-shirts, pants, bags, keycap sets, and even mouse pads, but the highlight definitely has to be the three heavily-themed keyboards. The most flamboyant of the bunch features elaborately decorated keys (with TTC Speed Silver switches underneath) recreating the iconic Green Hill Zone from the first sonic the hedgehogwhile a slightly more subtle alternative mirrors the key art for sonic adventure 2.
The last keyboard of the bunch pays homage to the Dreamcast, with the console’s logo on the space bar and the arrow keys matching the colors and labels from its controller’s action buttons. Each keyboard appears to be completely free from labels to prioritize the artwork on the keycaps, but in reality, the alphanumeric labels have been moved onto the side of each key for aesthetic reasons, prioritizing form over function. At least there’s some form of safety net.
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Amazon Fire 65″ 4K Smart TV
looks good Aside from being 65″ in size, this TV offers UHD 4K visuals which are a constant feast for the eyes, features HDR to make sure you can appreciate the full range of colors and contrasts, and it also allows you to use it as a hub for all of your streaming services.
Higround’s Sega collection officially becomes available starting at noon, PST, on August 5, through the company’s website. Wthread pricing hasn’t been revealed for any of the items yet, other keyboard releases from the company have ranged in price from $135 to $145.
