Technology

USA Today reports: Boeing and NASA are once again “adjusting” the return home of two astronauts from the International Space Station on the Starliner spacecraft. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were scheduled to stay at the ISS for just a week after docking there June 6. Now they aren’t expected to make the trip back to Earth until at least …

Via press release from NASA: Although there are no known significant asteroid impact threats for the foreseeable future, hypothetical exercises provide valuable insights by exploring the risks, response options, and opportunities for collaboration posed by varying scenarios, from minor regional damage with little warning to potential global catastrophes predicted years or even decades in the future. During the exercise, participants …

Reuters reports: Amazon is working to replace what it refers to internally as “Classic Alexa,” the current free version, with an AI-powered one and yet another tier that uses more powerful AI software for more complicated queries and prompts that people would have to pay at least $5 per month to access, some of the people said. Amazon has also …

Ars Technica reports: Victor Miller is running for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, with an unusual campaign promise: If elected, he will not be calling the shots—an AI bot will. VIC, the Virtual Integrated Citizen, is a ChatGPT-based chatbot that Miller created. And Miller says the bot has better ideas—and a better grasp of the law—than many people currently serving in …

Gothamist reports: New Yorkers who tend to forget their wallets at home or lose their purses now have another way to officially prove their identities: a digital version of their state-issued IDs. The New York DMV is rolling out a secure mobile ID that residents can download and use on their phones, whether at airports or bars that accept it. …

Reuters reports: Boeing’s new Starliner capsule and its inaugural two-member NASA crew safely docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, meeting a key test in proving the vessel’s flight-worthiness and sharpening Boeing’s competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The rendezvous was achieved despite an earlier loss of several guidance-control jet thrusters, some of them due to a helium propulsion leak, …

The New York Times reports: Starship, the gargantuan rocket under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, launched on Thursday morning to make a fourth attempt to get to space and back. The previous three flights of the vehicle all ended in explosions, but each got farther than the last. Such progress is regarded as success in SpaceX’s break-it-then-fix-it approach to engineering …

CNN Business reports: A nationwide AT&T outage is once again leaving some customers in the dark on Tuesday. In a statement sent to CNN, the company said a problem is preventing many AT&T customers from completing calls between carriers. That also means customers from a rival service can not place calls to an AT&T customer. Calls between AT&T customers are …

NBC News reports: Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the cost of the technology, according to people with knowledge of Amazon’s plans. The Seattle-based tech and retail giant will launch a more conversational version of Alexa later this year, potentially positioning it to better …

The Washington Post reports: After more than a year and a half, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin launched another space tourism mission, the first since the company suffered an engine failure on a flight that ended with the capsule’s emergency escape system blasting it away from the rocket booster, which crashed in the West Texas desert. On board the flight is …

The Washington Post reports: Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) stepped to the microphone on the House floor Monday to speak about one of her latest pieces of legislation, as she has done many times before during her five years in Congress. But the voice that gave the speech wasn’t hers — it was from a text-to-voice application, an assistive device she …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet rescinded under former President Donald Trump. The commission voted along party lines to finalize a proposal first advanced in October to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission’s broadband authority. Reinstating the …

Ars Technica reports: The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone. It also includes a LIDAR sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person view (FPV) navigation …

Ars Technica reports: SpaceX is reportedly working with at least one major US defense contractor, Northrop Grumman, on a constellation of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. According to Reuters, development of the network of hundreds of spy satellites by SpaceX is being coordinated with multiple contractors to avoid putting too much control of a highly sensitive intelligence program …

NBC News reports: Boston Dynamics unveiled Wednesday a new version of its humanoid robot, “Atlas,” that the company says is “designed for real-world applications.” Like many of its previous announcements, the company released a video of its robot in action. “In the months and years ahead, we’re excited to show what the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot can really do …

The New York Times reports: Tesla has agreed to recall nearly 4,000 of its Cybertruck pickups to fix an accelerator pedal that can get stuck, raising the risk of crashes, a federal safety agency said on Friday. The defect could cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a notice posted on its website. …

Bloomberg News reports: Apple Inc. has teams investigating a push into personal robotics, a field with the potential to become one of the company’s ever-shifting “next big things,” according to people familiar with the situation. Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified …

Ars Technica reports: Amazon is giving up on the cashier-less “Just Walk Out” technology at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores. The Information reports that new stores will be built without computer-vision-powered surveillance technology, and “the majority” of existing stores will have the tech removed. In the early days, Amazon’s ambitions included selling Just Walk Out to other brick-and-mortar stores. The …

Ars Technica reports: Meet ANYmal, a four-legged dog-like robot designed by researchers at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, in hopes of using such robots for search-and-rescue on building sites or disaster areas, among other applications. Now ANYmal has been upgraded to perform rudimentary parkour moves, aka “free running.” Human parkour enthusiasts are known for their remarkably agile, acrobatic feats, and while …

The Associated Press reports: Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fool’s Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago. The jokes were so consistently over-the-top that people learned to laugh them off as another example of Google mischief. And that’s why …