Aug 24
NASA is getting ready to launch the next crew of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) after SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft was declared a “go” for launch earlier this week.
Aug 24
Wing, Alphabet’s aviation subsidiary, is partnering with Walmart to kick off drone deliveries from the retail chain in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metro area. The flights will begin taking off “in the coming weeks” from a Walmart Supercenter in Frisco, TX, and the companies plan to expand to a second DFW location before the end of the year. The companies say the coverage area from both stores will cover 60,000 homes.
The service will be available to homes within about six miles of the supported stores. Residents in those areas can order things like quick meals, groceries, essentials and over-the-counter medicines. The drones can fly up to 65 mph, and Wing says you’ll get your items in under 30 minutes. They use a retractable tether to “gently deliver even delicate items” — including challenging products like eggs and frozen treats.
Wing’s drones are largely automated and monitored remotely. “Wing’s technology allows operators to oversee the system from a remote location, which means pilots won’t need to be stationed at stores or customer homes,” Alphabet’s company wrote in an announcement blog post. “The aircraft essentially fly themselves, so each operator is approved to safely oversee many drones at the same time.”
Wing has already partnered with Walgreens for drone deliveries in the DFW region. Meanwhile, Walmart said in 2022 that its own DroneUp delivery service had covered around four million households in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. However, the retailer reportedly laid off 418 DroneUp employees earlier this year.
If you live in the DFW metroplex, you can check eligibility by installing the Wing Drone Delivery app from the App Store or Google Play. You’ll need to create an account and enter your address to view the results. A “coming soon” message means you’ll be covered as soon as deliveries begin. If the app tells you you’re not eligible, Wing says it will add new DFW neighborhoods soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wing-and-walmart-will-offer-six-mile-drone-deliveries-over-dallas-204501938.html?src=rss
Aug 24
Priscilla Presley Felt Something Was Amiss With Daughter Lisa Marie Before Her Death
Posted in: Today's Chili“I did know there was something not right,” Elvis Presley’s ex-wife said of her last joint appearance with their daughter, who died in January at age 54.
Aug 24
Feds Accuse SpaceX of Hiring Discrimination Against Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Posted in: Today's Chili
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday against SpaceX for allegedly refusing to hire refugees and asylum seekers. The DOJ said the company incorrectly cited federal regulations to justify discriminatory hiring practices.
Aug 24
I haven’t seen much of Ahsoka. Not just in the sense that there are only two episodes of her show currently released, but in the sense that I haven’t watched much of the animated shows where she shows up. I haven’t seen all of Clone Wars, I’ve got no memory of Tales of the Jedi, and I’ve dipped into maybe three…
Aug 24
The same federal agency that once helped bring down the biggest crypto-based dark web drug marketplace Silk Road got swindled by one of the oldest tricks in the crypto scammer playbook. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly handed a fraudster a little more than $55,000 in confiscated crypto funds after…
Aug 24
Dropbox ditches unlimited storage in its Advanced plan because of crypto goons
Posted in: Today's ChiliDropbox is killing off unlimited storage in its business-focused Advanced plan following a surge in shady activity. It wrote in a blog post that as other services made similar changes to limit storage capacity, it has seen an increase in people using Advanced plans “not to run a business or organization, but instead for purposes like crypto and Chia mining, unrelated individuals pooling storage for personal use cases or even instances of reselling storage.”
While there will of course be legitimate outliers when it comes to unlimited storage plans, Dropbox says bad actors “frequently consume thousands of times more storage than our genuine business customers, which risks creating an unreliable experience for all of our customers.” It already has policies that prohibit abusive behavior, but the company says that creating a set of acceptable-use restrictions is unworkable. To that end, Dropbox is moving to a metered model.
The company will gradually move current users over to the modified Advanced plan starting on November 1st. Customers will get at least a 30-day heads up before Dropbox migrates them to the new policy.
Over 99 percent of customers on the Advanced plan each use less than 35TB of storage per license. Dropbox says those teams can continue to use however much storage they’re taking up at the time they get migration notification, plus an extra 5TB of pooled storage for five years with no price increase to their current plans.
The minority of users taking up over 35TB of storage per license will receive a similar offer but for one year. Dropbox will work with them in the aim of finding a plan that works for everyone involved in the long run. All versions of the Advanced plan will max out at 1,000TB of storage.
From today onward those who buy an Advanced plan with three licenses will get a total of 15TB of pooled storage. Every additional license will add 5TB of storage. Beyond that, starting on September 18th for newcomers (November 1st for current users), Dropbox will start offering storage add-ons. These cost $10 per month for 1TB on a month-to-month payment plan, and $8 per month if purchased annually.
If that all seems necessarily complicated compared with the previous version of the Advanced plan, there’s only one thing for it: blame crypto bros.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dropbox-ditches-unlimited-storage-in-its-advanced-plan-because-of-crypto-goons-195335867.html?src=rss
Aug 24
After the Fox News host claimed the Democrats would run on “pot, porn, Planned Parenthood,” Twitter users joked she was helping them win the 2024 election.
Aug 24
We all know not to judge a book by its cover, but apparently, that also extends to movies. Take the above officially licensed still for Foe, starring Oscar nominees Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. If you don’t know anything about the source material, you look at that image and form a pretty clear picture. It’s some…
Aug 24
Within the coming weeks, you should see options in the Google Home app for any indoor Nest cameras you have in your smart home from the original 2015 run. Finally, all my Nest security cameras can be accessed and maintained from the same app. Google announced a while back that it would eventually deprecate the Nest…
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