Imagine it’s 2001. You turn on your old Dell shoebox computer and boot up your newly-installed Windows XP copy to hear that choppy “bummm” sound and see the classic rolling hills of the stock desktop wallpaper. Well, if you’re really interested in returning to the ancient operating system more than 20 years after its…
Avoiding manual floor maintenance is a lovely thing, but a good robot vacuum will cost you. Our current favorite pick for a mop and vac combo, iRobot’s Roomba j7+ usually sells for $1,099 but Wellbots will knock $300 off the list price when you use the code 300ENGADGET at checkout. That beats a $200 discount we saw earlier this year and represents an all-time low for a gadget that “earned its place” in on of our senior editors’ smart home. Wellbots has a few other vacs on sale too, also with discount codes, listed below.
Unlike some combo machines, in which you have to program where to mop and where to use the vacuum, the Roomba Combo j7+ senses when it’s rolling over hard floors and drops down the on-board mop pad accordingly. It comes with a clean base, which sucks out the dry debris after a run, but you’ll have to take care of adding and emptying the mop water yourself. iRobot machines continually top our lists, in part thanks to the accurate room mapping, easy-to-use app and excellent obstacle avoidance — qualities it shares with the vac-only sibling.
Wellbots is currently discounting the Roomba j7+ by $220 when you use the code 220ENGADGET. That brings the unit down to $579, which also beats a previous discount from the same seller earlier this year, and is the lowest price we’ve seen outside of Black Friday promotions last November. The standard (non-combo) Roomba j7 is the runner up mid-range vac in our guide and this version simply includes a clean base to suck out the dirt after it runs. One thing we should note is that process is loud but it gets you a bit closer to fully autonomous cleaning.
If you’re fine with emptying the collected debris yourself, you can save a little on the base model Roomba j7. Wellbots is also offering $220 off that model, using the same code. That brings it down to just $379, which doesn’t quite beat the deal Wellbots offered late last year, but is still a tidy discount.
And finally, if premium is what you want, you can get just that with iRobot’s Roomba s9+. The same code also takes $220 off the $999 list price, making it $779 instead. It’s the premium pick in our robot vacuum guide and comes complete with copper accents. Of course, doesn’t just look pretty, our resident robot expert, senior commerce editor Valentina Palladino, calls it, “nothing if not one of the best robot vacuums out there.”
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irobots-roomba-j7-combo-vacuum-is-300-off-right-now-140009152.html?src=rss
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ispace is done analyzing data from its failed Hakuto-R lunar landing, and it sounds like tricky terrain and a late change in the landing site are to blame. Apparently, Hakuto-R was able to complete the whole deceleration process in preparation of touching down on lunar soil. The spacecraft activated its descent sequence when it reached an altitude of around 100 kilometers (62 miles) and was able to slow down until it was only moving at a speed of less than 1 m/s.
However, its software had mistakenly estimated its altitude to be zero when it was still hovering around 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the ground. In other words, it thought it had already landed when it hasn’t yet, and it continued descending at a very slow speed near the surface until its propulsion system ran out of fuel. ispace wasn’t able to establish contact with the spacecraft again, but it believes it went on a free fall and ultimately crashed on the moon.
That’s the how, but what about the why? Well, the company thinks the most likely reason why Hakuto-R’s software suffered from an altitude estimation issue was because it got confused. While it was flying to its landing site, it passed over a large cliff that was determined to be the rim of a crater. The spacecraft’s onboard sensor got an altitude reading of 3 kilometers when it passed by the elevated terrain, and that was apparently larger than the estimated altitude value the Hakuto-R team set in advance.
The spacecraft’s software erroneously thought that the sensor reported an abnormal value, and it kept filtering out its altitude measurements afterward. ispace built the ability to reject abnormal altitude measurements into the lander as a safety measure in the event of a hardware issue with the sensor. However, it backfired for Mission 1 because simulations of the landing sequence failed to incorporate the lunar environment on the spacecraft’s route. ispace made the decision to change Hakuto-R’s landing site after its critical design review was already completed in 2021.
The Hakuto-R Mission 1 was poised to become the first successful moon landing by a private company and the first Japanese lunar landing overall. While it didn’t get to land on the moon, ispace will use the data from the mission to design preparatory landing sequences for Mission 2 and 3, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/japans-ispace-says-hakuto-r-crashed-because-it-got-confused-by-a-crater-rim-113115803.html?src=rss
The high school student’s attorneys argued in a hearing Friday that the school district decision violates her free speech rights.
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