SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit.

Upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle delivers SES-8 satellite to targeted orbit

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida – Today, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully completed its first geostationary transfer mission, delivering the SES-8 satellite to its targeted 295 x 80,000 km orbit.  Falcon 9 executed a picture-perfect flight, meeting 100% of mission objectives.

Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 5:41 PM Eastern Time.  Approximately 185 seconds into flight, Falcon 9’s second stage’s single Merlin vacuum engine ignited to begin a five minute, 20 second burn that delivered the SES-8 satellite into its parking orbit. Eighteen minutes after injection into the parking orbit, the second stage engine relit for just over one minute to carry the SES-8 satellite to its final geostationary transfer orbit.  The restart of the Falcon 9 second stage is a requirement for all geostationary transfer missions.

“The successful insertion of the SES-8 satellite confirms the upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle delivers to the industry’s highest performance standards,” said Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Designer of SpaceX.   “As always, SpaceX remains committed to delivering the safest, most reliable launch vehicles on the market today.  We appreciate SES’s early confidence in SpaceX and look forward to launching additional SES satellites in the years to come.”

Today’s mission marked SpaceX’s first commercial launch from its central Florida launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years.  SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60% are for commercial customers. 

This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions.

High-resolution photos are available for download at www.spacex.com/media.

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Juno Streaking Towards Earth.

NASA’s Jupiter bound Juno spacecraft is streaking towards earth for critical gravity assist today, September 9^th. This flyby is critical as Juno will use the earth’s gravity to boost its speed allowing it to get to Jupiter in 2016. While Juno executes this maneuver, it will have a front row seat, an amazing view of the earth/moon system. The spacecraft will capture unprecedented footage as it streaks towards the planet giving us a unique, never before seen perspective of our home world. 

When Juno arrives at Jupiter on July 4^th, 2016 its prime mission will be discovering Jupiter’s origins, how the planet was formed and how that relates to the other plants of the solar system. The mission will last one year entailing 33 orbits around the gas giant each lasting 11 days bringing the spacecraft to within 3000 miles above the Jupiter’s cloud deck. Juno will also take unprecedented measurements of the planet’s extraordinary magnetic field, map the interior structure, atmosphere and try to determine whether or not Jupiter has a rocky core, or is it just a big ball of gas.

Juno was launched on August 5^th, 2011 atop an ATLAS V Rocket. Juno is a fairly massive spacecraft so the 551 configuration (the most powerful configuration) of the ATLAS V was used. Even with the added power of the 551 a flyby of earth was still needed to get that extra speed boost to continue on to Jupiter. A direct trajectory to Jupiter would have required a larger more expensive rocket, more fuel and a larger spacecraft.

Source: NASA

While Juno probably won’t be visible to the naked eye, it should be possible to see the spacecraft with the aid of binoculars. For those who won’t be able to spot the flyby, Slooh will be tracking Juno live. You can watch it all live below.

Source: Slooh

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AMD Unleashes R9 Series Graphics Cards (270X & 280X)

AMD today launched AMD Radeon™ R9 270X and AMD Radeon™ R9 280X, GPUs engineered from the bottom up to enable a new era of hyper-realistic ultra resolution gaming. AMD Radeon™ R9 Series graphics cards are designed for enthusiast gamers who demand high-performance hardware that shatters the boundaries of realism and performance.

Based on AMD’s award-winning Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, the AMD Radeon R9 Series graphics cards receive a boost from Mantle¹, an industry-acclaimed technology developed by AMD to enable today’s top game developers to harness the GCN-powered cores of both PCs and consoles.  Mantle delivers a streamlined development process and games enabled with Mantle will be able to speak the native language of the GCN architecture, benefiting from hardware optimization that unlocks revolutionary performance and image quality.

“With GCN architecture and now Mantle, fully unlocked graphics performance and unrivaled quality is entrenched in the DNA of all AMD-powered GPUs and soon all of our APUs as well,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. “With our new line of R9 Series graphics cards, tailor-made to perform with the next generation of PC games, AMD has proved that Radeon™ is gaming.”

AMD Radeon R9 Series graphics cards enable ultra-resolution gaming through both UltraHD (4K) and AMD Eyefinity technology, providing industry-leading visual experiences for gamers playing current and upcoming PC titles. AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics card is ideal for 1080p gaming with the highest quality settings. AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics card is ideally suited for 2560x1440 resolution and loaded with 3GB of memory, built to play graphically demanding upcoming titles like “Battlefield 4”.

Product Specifications

Product Model	R9 270X	R9 280X
Price	$199 (2GB) $229 (4GB)	$299
Stream Processors	1,280	2,048
Engine Clock	Up to 1.05 GHz	Up to 1 GHz
Compute Performance	2.69 TFLOPS	4.1 TFLOPS
Memory Configuration	2GB or 4GB GDDR5 / 256-bit	3 GB GDDR5 / 384-bit
API Support	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle

See more at: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/r9/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-r9-series.aspx

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AMD Releases R7 Series Graphics Cards

AMD today launched AMD Radeon™ R7 240, AMD Radeon™ R7 250 and AMD Radeon™ R7 260X, new GPUs for a new era in gaming. AMD Radeon™ R7 Series graphics cards are an ideal solution for everyday gamers looking to boost the graphics performance of their PCs.

Based on award-winning AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, the AMD Radeon R7 Series graphics cards all support Mantle, technology developed by AMD to enable game developers to harness the GCN-powered cores of both PCs and consoles for a streamlined development process¹. Games enabled with Mantle will be able to speak the native language of the GCN architecture, offering an unmatched level of hardware optimization that unlocks revolutionary performance and image quality.

 “Built on GCN architecture, AMD Radeon R7 Series GPUs are designed to deliver optimal performance and quality for users looking to enhance the graphics performance of their PCs,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. “We have winning products at every price point and AMD is proud to be able to deliver affordable hardware designed for performance to suit the needs of every gamer.”

AMD Radeon R7 240 and AMD Radeon R7 250 graphics cards deliver stunning graphics performance, from web browsing to video editing. With AMD App Acceleration, users can accelerate application performance with the powerful parallel computing capabilities of the GCN architecture². In addition, AMD Radeon R7 Series graphics fully support DirectX® 11.2 and enable users to unlock incredible graphics performance and new features in Windows 8.1.

AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card packs the performance and enthusiast-class features at a spectacular price. A signature feature of the AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card is the new AMD TrueAudio technology, which enables revolutionary audio experiences through stereo headsets and speakers³. Equipped with a dedicated audio processor right on the GPU, AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card will deliver a richer and deeply immersive soundscape for gamers, including true to life echoes, convolution reverbs and fuller sounding environments. AMD Radeon R7 260X is the epitome of performance, efficiency and value for gamers in the market for a mid-range graphics card.

AMD Radeon R7 240, AMD Radeon R7 250 and AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics cards will be available on Oct. 11, 2013.

Product Specifications 

Product Model	R7 240	R7 250	R7 260X
Price	$69	$89	$139
Stream Processors	320	384	896
Engine Clock	Up to 780 MHz	Up to 1.05 GHz	Up to 1.1 GHz
Compute Performance	499 GFLOPS	806 GFLOPS	1.97 TFLOPS
Memory Configuration	1GB GDDR5 or 2GB DDR3 / 128-bit	1GB GDDR5 or 2GB DDR3 / 128-bit	2GB GDDR5 / 128-bit
API Support	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle

See more at:http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/r7/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-r7-series.aspx

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LG Display brings innovation to the smartphone market with cutting-edge panel

LG Display, the world’s leading innovator of display technologies, today announced that it will start mass-production of the world’s first flexible OLED panel for smartphones. This state-of-the-art panel represents another milestone following the company’s commercial rollout of the world’s first 55-inch OLED TV display earlier this year.

“LG Display is launching a new era of flexible displays for smartphones with its industry-leading technology,” said Dr. Sang Deog Yeo, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of LG Display. “The flexible display market is expected to grow quickly as this technology is expected to expand further into diverse applications including automotive displays, tablets and wearable devices. Our goal is to take an early lead in the flexible display market by introducing new products with enhanced performance and differentiated designs next year.”

LG Display’s flexible OLED panel is built on plastic substrates instead of glass. By applying film-type encapsulation technology and attaching the protection film to the back of the panel, LG Display made the panel bendable and unbreakable. The new display is vertically concave from top to bottom with a radius of 700mm, opening up a world of design innovations in the smartphone market. And only 0.44mm thin, LG Display’s flexible OLED panel is the world’s slimmest among existing mobile device panels. What’s more, it is also the world’s lightest, weighing a mere 7.2g even with a 6-inch screen, the largest among current smartphone OLED displays.

In March 2012 LG Display developed the world’s first 6-inch Electronic Paper Display (EPD) based on e-ink which utilizes a plastic backplane. Having previously showcased the world’s first curved 55-inch OLED TV panel at CES 2013, today’s announcement highlights the company’s leading position in advanced flexible display technologies.

According to research firm IHS Display Bank, the global flexible display industry will see dramatic growth and become a USD 1.5 billion market by 2016, exceeding USD 10 billion by 2019. LG Display plans to advance flexible display technologies and bring innovation to consumers’ daily lives with the introduction of rollable and foldable displays in various sizes

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EK introduces ASUS® Maximus VI Gene / Hero MOSFET water blocks

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce the EK-MOSFET ASUS M6G - a new water block for water cooling of the power regulation (VRM / MOSFETs) module on ASUS® Maximus VI Gene and -Hero series motherboards. This product features pre-installed nickel-plated brass standoffs and utilizes ASUS factory provided backplates.

EK-MOSFET ASUS M6G features a high flow design allowing the water block to be easily used with systems using weaker water pumps and is available in three different flavours:

Enclosed:
- EK-MOSFET ASUS M6G series water block
- thermal pads
- mounting mechanism

EK-MOSFET ASUS M6G is readily available for purchase through EK Webshop and Partner Reseller Network.

Made in Slovenia - Europe!

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AMD Releases the Catalyst 13.10 Beta2 Driver

Latest Catalyst Beta is live.

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta2 Driver for Windows

• AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta2 includes all of the features/fixes found in AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta
• Includes a 32-bit single GPU, and a AMD Crossfire game profile for Battlefield 4
• Total War: Rome 2 AMD CrossFire profile update
• AMD CrossFire frame pacing improvements for CPU-bound applications
• Resolves image corruption seen in Autodesk Inventor 2014
• Resolves intermittent black screen when resuming from a S3/S4 sleep-state if the display is unplugged during the sleep-state on systems supporting AMD Enduro technology
• Updated AMD Enduro technology application profiles for AMD Radeon HD notebook users

Profile Highlights:
Total War: Rome 2
Battlefield 4
Saints Row 4
Splinter Cell Blacklist
FIFA 14

Latest Catalyst Beta is live, go get em! This latest beta features support for the HD 5000-HD 7000 series desktop cards and also has support for HD 5000M-HD 8000M Mobile GPUs.

DOWNLOADS

Desktop Graphics Windows 7 64bit

Mobile Graphics  Windows 7 64bit

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AMD Selects SAPPHIRE as Exclusive Global Distribution Partner for AMD FirePro™ Professional Graphics

AMD today announced SAPPHIRE Technology as its exclusive global distribution partner for AMD FirePro™ professional graphics. An international supplier and leading manufacturer of innovative technologies, SAPPHIRE has successfully collaborated with AMD for more than a decade, managing AMD products in various markets and acting as an AMD FirePro professional graphics channel partner in Asia.

The distribution partnership will be beneficial in driving stronger support for AMD FirePro professional graphics by delivering new distribution resources to AMD’s channel ecosystem companies worldwide.

 “For many years we have enjoyed a strong, productive and mutually beneficial relationship with SAPPHIRE. This new collaboration marks yet another exciting step in our award-winning AMD graphics history by opening up new markets for AMD FirePro,” said David Cummings, senior director and general manager, Professional Graphics at AMD. “AMD is committed to growth in the professional graphics market, and as we build on the success of AMD FirePro, we sought out a distribution partner that would allow us to broaden our reach, support growing sales and embrace new opportunities. SAPPHIRE was the natural choice.”

The company engaged SAPPHIRE to deliver focused distribution on a global basis. SAPPHIRE’s experience in a variety of regions – including more than five years in the Asia-Pacific workstation market – enables AMD to service the needs of even larger numbers of users throughout the world.

“We are very pleased to be the primary champion for the channel,” said Adrian Thompson, VP of Marketing, SAPPHIRE. “SAPPHIRE has experience in key professional markets that AMD FirePro targets including manufacturing CAD, media and entertainment, display walls and more. By strengthening our association with AMD, both companies win. We look forward to our expanded role to broaden the reach of AMD FirePro.”

The distribution partnership is effective immediately, with AMD FirePro products distributed in the channel through SAPPHIRE from Oct. 1, 2013. Meanwhile, original equipment manufacturing (OEM) customers will still have the ability to purchase products directly from AMD.

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BitFenix Introduces Phenom

(BitFenix Design Lab, September 26, 2013) – Today,BitFenix is proud to officially announce Phenom, the newest creation from the BitFenix Design Lab. Featuring clean, uncluttered styling and tremendous build flexibility, Phenom represents the perfect marriage of advanced functionality with next-level SFF design for a case that's sure to be an instant classic.


Engineered to be a sleek modern cube design that suits any environment, fans of clean and elegant chassis are going to feel right at home with Phenom. The mesh accents along the sides of the case perfectly complement the smooth surfaces of the SofTouch-coated top and front panels. In the center is a highly-polished BitFenix logo that contrasts the subtle matte contours perfectly, creating a design that is ideal for any modern décor. And because different systems have different requirements, Phenom comes in both mini-ITX and micro-ATX variants to meet the needs of an even larger group of users.  Both BitFenix Phenom Mini-ITX and Phenom Micro-ATX will be available on store shelves in October. Both BitFenix Phenom Mini-ITX and Phenom Micro-ATX will be available on store shelves in October.

         

Phenom Mini-ITX: Superior Water Cooling and Massive Storage

                         
Compatible with mini-ITX motherboards, Phenom Mini-ITX is a case that's ideal for both water cooling enthusiasts and storage mavens. The top intake easily accommodates thick radiators up to 240mm in length. The easy-to-use FlexCage™ can store up to five 3.5" hard disks or SSDs, or removed entirely to accommodate long graphics cards up to 330mm in length, or additional water cooling on the front panel. Along with the included 5.25" drive adapter and additional mounts on the side panel and PSU cage, Phenom can support up to six 3.5" hard disks, or an incredible 11 SSDs. Five fan locations and room for tower CPU coolers up to 175mm in height make Phenom Mini-ITX ideal for air coolers. If either extreme cooling or maximum storage in minimal space is on the SFF wish list, Phenom Mini-ITX is a perfect choice.

Phenom Micro-ATX: Micro ATX Compatible and Dual Graphics Ready

With full support for micro-ATX motherboards, Phenom Micro-ATX brings with it five PCI slots for enhanced expansion capabilities. For an intense gaming rig, install dual graphics cards such as SLI or Crossfire for tremendous graphics performance. The removable hard drive rack accommodates up to two 3.5" hard drives or three 3.5" SSDs. The bottom panel can either be equipped with exhaust fans, or up to two additional 3.5" hard disks. Should you opt to install hard disks on the bottom of the case, the included magnetic heat shield prevents warm exhaust from the PSU from re-entering the case, and with its uniquely micro-textured surface, looks great doing it. With a single graphics card installed, the top panel can even fit slim radiators, such as the increasingly popular all-in-one water coolers up to 240mm in length. For air coolers, five fan locations and support for CPU coolers up to 160mm in height ensure a frosty system. Have added expansion cards? Then the Phenom Micro-ATX is for you.

For more information on the Phenom Series, please click below:
Phenom Mini-ITX
Phenom Micro-ATX

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Next Gen Radeons incoming!

AMDs line up of next gen radeons are in the house, well sort of as they aren't available for purchase just yet. But we now know that the names that have leaked over the past few days are official! So what we will be getting is the Radeon R9 290X, that will go head to head with Nvidias GTX TITAN, the Radeon R9 280X that will compete with the GTX 780 and the Radeon R9 270X will compete with the GTX 770. The R7 Series will represent the mid-range and will feature the R7 250 and R7 260X.

The R9 290X is based on second generation GCN2(Graphics Core Next) architecture while the 280X is simply a rebadged Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. I wouldn’t expect anything drastically different in the case of the 280X maybe a slightly higher clock speed and a new cooler slapped on top, but from what I see so far it’s just a HD 7970 with a new track suit. The 290X on the other hand is shaping up to be a titan slayer (get it TITAN slayer.........…...never mind). The 290X sports a whopping 6 billion transistors and has a bandwidth of 300GB per second pumping out 4 billion triangles per second. The 290X will sport 4GB of GDDR5 memory and also signals the return of a 512bit memory interface, reminds me of the 512 bit monsters of the past. The 290X is also the first card to support Direct X 11.2. Unfortunately no info is available on exact stream processor counts but from what I hear it’s somewhere in the range of 3,000.

The R7 250 will be priced at US $89. The R7 260X will come in at US$ 139. The R9 270X and 280X will be priced at US$ 199 and US$299 respectively. Unfortunately no prices have been announced for the 290X as of yet. 

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New era has begun! Watch AMD live stream Now.

AMD is launching its new line of GPUs Watch the Live stream here

amdlivestream on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

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Nintendo Pioneer Hiroshi Yamauchi Dead at 85

To anyone outside the gaming circle this may not mean a thing to you but to us gamers especially the 80s and 90s babies who grew up playing super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda, it hits a little closer to home. Ex Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi died this morning of Pneumonia at a hospital in Japan.

Yamauchi was at Nintendo's helm when they single handedly resurrected what was a dead video games industry after the video game crash of 1977. In fact, If it wasn't for him the Nintendo we know and love today probably would not exist! He took over the then 60 year old playing card company (yes, Nintendo is old………real old) from his grandfather in the late 1940s and set out on his mission to modernize and diversify the company. This led to many different ventures, a Taxi company, a food company (selling instant rice) , a TV network and; get this, a “love hotel” yea you read that right! Eventually all these ventures failed and in 1966 Yamauchi moved Nintendo into the toy industry launching a number of successful products designed by Gupei Yokoi who would go on to invent the Game Boy.

The stage was now set as Yamauchi led Nintendo into the arcade industry releasing a number of light gun shooter games. This eventually led to Nintendo securing the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in japan. Nintendo would eventually manufacture their own hardware, known as simply the Colour TV Game. All this led to the NES/Famicom and the rest is history! The Nintendo we all know and love was born.

Yamauchi left Nintendo in 2002 and reportedly did not accept his retirement pension worth something in the area of $14 million, stating that Nintendo could put the money to better use. Yamauchi’s net worth is estimated at around $2.1 billion and was ranked the 13^th richest man in japan.

Yamauchi is survived by his wife and 3 kids.

Now if you will excuse me, I shall go forth and stomp as many Koopa Troopas in his honor!

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Cyanogen Mod is now Cyanogen Inc.

Yup that’s right, Cyanogen mod has gone commercial! Cyanogen mod has been powering devices all the way back to the original G1 and continues to breathe life into devices both old and new the world over! Hell Cyanogen Mod is the force that keeps my aging Nexus S ticking over every morning. I know what many of you are thinking, they have gone commercial, and so that obviously means they sold out to the corporate machine, gone over to the dark side! Well founder Steve Kondik has made it clear that not much will change as the Cyanogen team will still be as committed to the community as always. 

So far Cyanogen Inc. has received some $7 million in funding and the benefits have slowly been trickling down to the end users in the form of the new professional grade camera app and remote device management features. There is even talk of a Cyanogen Mod installer that will provide a bullet proof method of installing the Custom OS on a variety of devices.  This should be available on the play store in a few weeks so stay tuned. I for one can’t wait to see what else the team at Cyanogen Mod…..I mean Inc. has to offer to the community so until then, good luck to team Cyanogen going forward, I expect great things in the future! To the rest of the community, keep calm, flash Cyanogen mod nightlies!

More details can be found here.

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Space X Falcon 9 v1.1 fires its engines for the first time.

Falcon 9v1.1 Roll out.

SpaceX has conducted their first hot fire test of the Falcon 9v1.1 a.k.a Falcon 9 Reusable (F9-R). During a hot fire or static fire test all crucial systems are enabled and the rocket is fully fueled and fully prepared for launch, sort of a dress rehearsal if you will. Engines are fired and throttled to full power for a few seconds before an abort command is issued to shut them down. All this while the rocket remains firmly bolted to the pad. By doing this, engineers can collect performance data on all the rockets vital systems to determine whether or not the rocket is ready for its mission. This is all in preparation for the launch of the CASSIOPE satellite, the first passenger to ride the F9-R to orbit. The launch which was scheduled for September 15^th has slipped unfortunately and SpaceX has yet to confirm a new launch date.

Business end of the F9-R

The F9-R sports a stretched first stage that will eventually become the core stage of the Falcon Heavy and as the name suggests, is the first steps towards creating a fully reusable rocket. Future incarnations of the F9-R will sport landing legs and will have the ability to return safely to earth after each launch. SpaceX is already hard at work on this endeavor. The first stage is powered by 9 upgraded merlin 1D engines arranged in an octagonal pattern (octaweb) with a single centrally mounted engine. The Merlin 1D engines are a significant step above the older Merlin 1C. Not only are they more powerful providing 147,000 lbf when compared to 94,000 lbf of the 1C, the Merlin 1D also has the highest thrust to weight ratio ever achieved by a rocket engine. The manufacturing process has also been optimized meaning lower manufacturing costs in the long run. The first flight of F9-R will also see the introduction of a payload fairing. A payload fairing is simply a shell made of composite materials that protect payloads whether it be a satellite or a space probe during the accent through the densest part of the earth’s atmosphere after which the fairing is jettisoned so that the payload can be released into orbit. Since all previous launches took the Dragon capsule to orbit, no fairing was needed. A fairing however will be crucial as it is needed to protect the delicate instruments on the CASSIOPE satellite during the climb to orbit.

SpaceX has a lot riding on the F9-R as this may be potentially the most challenging launch in the company’s history. The F9-R incorporates the most technological changes since the introduction of the block 1 Falcon 9 back in 2010. When you have so many new modifications all debuting at the same time, the risk of failure is significantly higher! However the Falcon 9 has proven itself to be a very reliable booster thus far, even surviving an engine failure at launch during the CRS-1 ISS resupply mission. Falcon 9 is designed to make it to orbit even after losing two of its 9 Merlin engines, thankfully it hasn’t had to make use of that feature. Let’s hope it never has to.

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Voyager 1 Now In Interstellar Space!

Its official! Vaoyager 1 is now in interstellar space! The most distant object that man has ever sent into space has finally crossed over into a region where the sun no longer has any influence!  Actually, scientists believe that voyager 1 may have crossed this boundary some time last year. Voyager was launched back in 1977 atop a Titan 3E Rocket as part of NASA’s “grand tour”, an ambitious plan that would see the twin voyager probes visiting the outer planets of the solar system. This venture would only be possible by taking advantage of the alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in the late 1970s. Scientists jumped at the opportunity as this unique alignment would not recur for another 175 years. Although Voyager 2 was launched a week before Voyager 1, Voyager 1 was able to overtake her sister craft and get to both Jupiter and Saturn sooner using a shorter trajectory.

 

Both Voyager 1 and 2 completed their prime missions studying the outer gas giants in 1980 and have been darting towards the edge of the solar system collecting a wealth of data ever since. Voyager 1 is currently traveling at a speed of 38,120mph relative to the sun at a distance of 125 AU. Sounds pretty fast huh? The thing is even at that speed it would still take voyager thousands of years (73,775 years to be exact) to get to the nearest star Proxima Centauri ! Voyager will continue to send back data until 2025 when all its remaining instruments will be shut down.

Approximate location of Voyager 1 as of 2013

Launch of Voyager 1

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Gaming TraxX: Dirt 3

Music Info
Track: Ok Luv
Artist: Starkey

Game Info
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
Genre: Racing
Platform: PC, PS3, Xbox 360

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Apple announces iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C

Apple has just dropped the details one their next generation iphone models and this time around we have not one but 2 variants, well the iphone 5C is just a rebadged iphone 5 in a colorful polycarbonate shell. The 5c sill have support fot global LTE and will come in 16 and 32GB configurations. Both will be cost $100 and $200 respectively on a 2 year contract.

Now that we have got that out of the way, onward to the real bit of news, iPhone 5S. Not much has changed on the outside from last year’s model as it looks almost identical at a glance. However quite a lot has changed on the inside.

For starters the 5S is powered by apples new 64-bit A7 system on a chip (SoC). Apple claims that the new A7 chip is 2x faster than the old clunker that powered the iphone 5 both in computational power and graphics performance. The A7 also brings with it OpenGL ES 3.0 support allowing game developers to push the limits of graphical quality.

The A7 is supplemented by what apple is calling the M7. This is basically a low powered co-processor designed to handle all sensor data in real time. What this simply means is the M7 chip will continuously monitor data coming in from the accelerometer, gyroscope compass, ambient light sensor etc.

Next up is the camera. Sporting a larger sensor and a f/2.2 aperture add that to a dual-element flash that apple is calling “True Tone”. This allows the flash to match its output to over 1,000 different colour temperatures, the end result….more natural looking colours when using the camera flash. The main thing that got my attention however was the ability to record 720p video at 120 FPS! What does this mean you ask, well it allows for slow-motion video recording. Simply record at 120FPS and playback at 30FPS.

Onward to what Apple believes is the icing on the cake, the Pièce de résistance, “Touch ID”.This what apple is calling this new feature. What it is I basically a figure print scanner located inside the home button. This presents a host of new security features, namely the ability lock your phone with your figure print or using your figure print as a means to authenticate purchased content. 

The iphone 5S will be available in the usual storage configurations 16,32 and 64 GB at $200, $300 and $400 respectively on a 2 year contract. The 5S will be available in 3 colours; Gold, Silver and Gray. Both the 5C and 5S will be available on September 20^th.

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