Hasta La Gadget!

“My whole dream of my life has been taken,” Audrey Southard-Rumsey reportedly said in a 15-minute tirade.

Electric vehicle startup Canoo has delivered its first shipment to NASA. This week, a trio of the company’s Crew Transportation Vehicles (CTVs) arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Although they look like they’re made for exploring the surface of the Moon, the vans are designed to carry astronauts to the KSC’s launch pads, starting with NASA’s forthcoming Artemis 2 mission.

According to Canoo, the vans, based on the company’s existing lifestyle vehicle design, can carry fully-suited astronauts, as well as flight support crew and any equipment they may need. “The vehicles have an exclusive interior and exterior design that will provide astronaut and crew comfort and safety while on the nine-mile journey to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center,” the company said, adding it would share interior shots of the vehicles later this year.

Canoo

The Artemis 2 mission will see NASA launch its first crewed mission to the Moon since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. Four astronauts will travel around the satellite during the 10-day flight. During Artemis 2, NASA plans to conduct additional tests of its Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) super heavy-lift rocket to ensure both spacecraft are safe for future crewed missions to the lunar surface.

As for Canoo, this is a chance for the automaker to drum up interest for its EVs. In May 2022, the company warned investors it was running low on cash. Since then, it announced an agreement with Walmart to provide the retailer with 4,500 EVs. The company also delivered a test vehicle to the US Army. Still, even with those deals in place, it has a long way to go before achieving financial sustainability.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/canoo-made-a-cute-trio-of-evs-to-carry-nasas-artemis-2-astronauts-to-the-sls-214804476.html?src=rss

Twitter is still spending more money than it’s making, according to Elon Musk. In the early hours of Saturday morning, the billionaire tweeted the company was suffering from an ongoing negative cash flow issue due to an approximately 50 percent drop in advertising revenue and heavy debt burden. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Musk said.

The admission comes in the same week that Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program began paying out some creators, including a handful of far-right influencers. On Friday, Musk also claimed the social network could see “all-time high device user seconds usage” sometime this week. He also previously said almost all the advertisers who had left the platform following his takeover in October had “either come back” or “said they will come back.”

According to an estimate research firm Sensor Tower shared with Bloomberg, advertising spending fell by 89 percent to $7.6 million during a two-month period earlier this year. Per Reuters, Twitter has annual interest payments of about $1.5 billion due to the debt the company took on when Musk took it private for $44 billion. This is the latest sign the aggressive cost-cutting measures Musk has undertaken in the last year have not been enough to put the company on solid financial footing. It also suggests the company’s newly appointed CEO, Linda Yaccarino, has her work cut out for her as she works to rebuild Twitter’s advertising base.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-says-twitters-ad-revenue-has-dropped-by-50-percent-202600398.html?src=rss

Biden administration officials can freely communicate with social media companies — for now. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has put a pause on Judge Terry A. Doughty’s order that prohibits most federal officials from talking to companies like Meta about content. According to The New York Times, the three-judge panel has ruled for Doughty’s preliminary injunction to be put aside “until further orders of the court.”

If you’ll recall, the state attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and other top government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci. They accused the current administration of pressuring social media companies to censor certain topics and remove content. The lawsuit, the Washington Post reports, is based on emails between the administration and social networks, wherein the former questioned the companies’ handling of posts on their websites containing conservative claims on the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential elections, as well as anti-vaccine sentiments. 

Doughty, a Trump-appointed judge, said the plaintiffs “produced evidence of a massive effort” by the defendants “to suppress speech based on its content.” He also wrote in his decision that if the allegations are true, “the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” His order prohibits federal agencies that include the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security from asking online platforms to take down content with “protected free speech.” They could still, however, communicate with those entities for issues related to criminal activity, national security and election interference by foreign players. 

Conservatives have long believed that mainstream social media platforms are biased against right-wing ideologies. That had led to the launch of social networks associated with conservatives, such as Parler and Donald Trump’s Truth Social. The state attorneys argued that federal officials crossed the line by threatening to take antitrust actions against social networks and to limit their Section 230 protections, which allow internet companies to moderate content on their platforms as they see fit. It’s worth noting that former President Trump previously signed an executive order that sought to limit federal protections offered by Section 230 after Twitter fact-checked a false tweet he posted.

The Justice Department appealed Doughty’s order the day after it was issued, arguing that it was too broad and could limit the government’s ability to warn people about false information in times of emergency. Apparently, the administration has already felt its effects after its scheduled meeting with Meta to discuss strategies on how to counter foreign disinformation campaigns was cancelled. This stay will allow federal agencies to continue working with online platforms until the court can look further into the complaint. The appeals court has ordered for the case’s oral arguments to be expedited so a final decision could be reached in the near future. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/appeals-court-pauses-order-that-restricts-biden-officials-from-contacting-social-networks-123040377.html?src=rss