On Monday NASA’s Juno space probe, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, will get a close-up look at Jupiter’s biggest moon Ganymede, the agency said in a press release. It will be the closest NASA has gotten to the largest moon in the solar system for more than 20 years— Galileo cruised by Ganymede in 2000— coming within 645 miles of its surface. The information Juno gathers will give insight into the moon’s composition and ice shell, as well as provide data for future missions to Jupiter.
“Juno carries a suite of sensitive instruments capable of seeing Ganymede in ways never before possible,” said principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “By flying so close, we will bring the exploration of Ganymede into the 21st century, both complementing future missions with our unique sensors and helping prepare for the next generation of missions to the Jovian system.”
Those missions include NASA’s Europa Clipper (launch date still TBD) and the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer [JUICE] mission, slated to launch next year and arrive at Jupiter in 2029 (and kudos to the ESA for going the extra mile on that acronym).
Ganymede is bigger than Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetosphere, which NASA describes as “a bubble-shaped region of charged particles” that surrounds it. The JunoCam, which has taken many of the most striking photos of Jupiter during its mission will only be able to snap about five images during the flyby, since Ganymede will appear and fade from view all within a 25-minute window. Three hours before Juno gets to its closest point near Ganymede, its science instruments will begin collecting data.
“Literally every second counts,” said Matt Johnson, Juno mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “On Monday, we are going to race past Ganymede at almost 12 miles per second (19 kilometers per second).” And less than 24 hours later, Juno will make its 33rd science pass of Jupiter, he added.
Juno is expected to get closest to Ganymede at about 1:35PM ET on Monday. You can track where Juno is now with NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System interactive.
After being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, E3 is back for 2021 in an all-digital format, kicking off on June 12th. And with Microsoft and Nintendo finally having announced the dates and times for their big showcase presentations, the event schedule is starting to fall into place.
If you want to attend the virtual event as a fan, you can now register to attend on E3’s website so that you can get access to the E3 portal and app. But if you want to follow along with the press conferences and announcements, we’ve put together a rough timeline of events with everything that we’re aware of. (Note that the exact times of some presentations haven’t been announced yet.)
When is E3?
E3 technically takes place from Saturday, June 12th, to Tuesday, June 15th, but you can expect some big announcements a couple days before E3 at Summer Game Fest’s Kickoff Live event.
Thursday, June 10th
2PM ET: Summer Game Fest’s Kickoff Live event hosted by Geoff Keighley
Saturday, June 12th
11AM ET: Guerrilla Collective (note that this is the second Guerrilla Collective show — the first takes place on June 5th)
1PM ET: E3 broadcast pre-show
3PM ET: Ubisoft Forward
TBA time: Gearbox press conference, Devolver Digital show
Sunday, June 13th
11:45AM ET: E3 broadcast pre-show
1PM ET: Microsoft’s Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase
3:15PM ET: Square Enix Presents
TBA time: “Special presentations” from the PC Gaming Show and the Future Games Show. E3 parent company ESA also says that Warner Bros. Games & Back4Blood and 24 Entertainment “will be featured” on the E3 broadcast on Sunday.
Monday, June 14th
11AM ET: E3 broadcast pre-show
TBA time: “Press conferences from several indie developers” and “presentations from Take-Two Interactive, Mythical Games, Freedom Games, Razer and Capcom.” Verizon and Intellivision will also be “featured,” the ESA says.
Tuesday, June 15th
11AM ET: E3 broadcast pre-show
12PM ET: Nintendo’s Nintendo Direct, which will have “roughly” 40 minutes of information about upcoming games, followed by a Treehouse Live with about three hours of gameplay demoed.
TBA time: “Focused events” from Bandai Namco, Yooreka Games, and GameSpot
The day will close out with the Official E3 2021 Awards Show
How can I watch E3?
E3 will be airing its broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. For the presentations hosted by individual companies, you may be able to find official streams on their social platforms.
Update June 3rd, 11:18AM ET: Added Square Enix Presents.
One of the instruments aboard Solar Orbiter, a probe built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, caught its first video of a coronal mass ejection while whizzing around the other side of the Sun in February. Solar Orbiter, which launched in early 2020, has detected these massive bursts of energy in the past, but the explosion captured in February this year was an exciting first for NASA.
NASA built the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager, or the SoloHI instrument for the Solar Orbiter. It recently captured an energetic gust of solar plasma jetting from the star’s surface as the spacecraft was meandering around the Sun. Scientists didn’t expect the spacecraft to beam back any exciting images at this point — data is slow to reach Earth from such a far distance, and Solar Orbiter’s main mission doesn’t kick off until November.
The first coronal mass ejection captured by the Solar Orbiter’s Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI).ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/SoloHI team/NRL
But SoloHI delivered the goods anyway, as it came out from behind the Sun and reentered Earth’s line of sight, beaming back what NASA called a “happy accident.” Two other instruments aboard the Solar Orbiter, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and the Metis coronagraph, may have captured different views of the coronal mass ejection around the same time.
Scientists are still piecing together the images from the different instruments to get a clear picture of what was going on near the Sun that day. Around the same time that SoloHi recorded its first detection of a coronal mass ejection, EUI and METIS detected a pair of coronal mass ejections. Other solar-focused spacecraft also captured images and video of the eruptions that day.
The same coronal mass ejection Solar Orbiter’s SoloHI instrument observed, captured by NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A — one of two spacecraft launched in 2006.NASA/STEREO/COR2
Coronal mass ejections are lively bursts of plasma that send geomagnetic shockwaves across the solar system. The bigger ones that cross paths with Earth can wreak havoc on satellites in space, potentially disrupting radio transmissions or (for really rare and massive ones) knocking power grids offline. The plasma emitted from these ejections pummel Earth’s protective magnetosphere and slide around into its polar regions, clashing with the atmosphere and giving rise to the Northern and Southern Lights, or aurora.
Solar Orbiter’s main mission is to study the Sun up-close, helping scientists understand the causes of solar wind and how it affects Earth. The minivan-sized craft, coming as close as 26 million miles from the Sun, is among the closest human-made objects to probe the star. It’s second only to NASA’s Parker Solar Probe which is designed to get even closer, zipping around the Sun at a distance of just 3.8 million miles.
In July last year, Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager nabbed some high-resolution shots of what scientists dubbed “campfires” — tiny surface explosions more formally called nanoflares.
The world’s biggest gaming showcase, E3, is going all-virtual for the first time in its history, with organizers revealing today how they plan to keep enthusiasts interested without the sights and sounds of the show floor. The virtual E3 will run from June 12th to June 15th. The showcase will include an online portal with access to virtual exhibitor booths with video content and articles, live streams, and social elements like forums, customizable user profiles, leaderboards, and “lounges.” Registration is free and opens later this month.
This will be the second year in a row that E3 has not taken place in person in Los Angeles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the show’s cancellation was announced in March, and the show’s organizers, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), did not present an official online version of the event. In its place, a collection of digital events emerged, collectively called the Summer Game Fest. This year, however, the ESA is coordinating a centralized virtual E3 event, while the Summer Game Fest is also returning.
Along with its virtual show floor, the E3 app and portal will host video streams with interactive elements like viewer polls and featured tweets. Broadcasts will include press conferences, industry panels, and game showcases. In addition to the official app and portal, streams will also be available via the official E3 Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook pages.
As well as the public show, there’ll also be a “media access week” running from June 7th in which the ESA says media will be able to use the online portal and app to connect directly with E3 exhibitors. Today’s press release doesn’t detail exactly who these exhibitors are, but last month the ESA announced that E3’s lineup would include Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, and Warner Bros. Games. Sony and EA were absent from the list. The PlayStation manufacturer skipped E3 2019 and announced it would not be attending E3 2020 prior to its cancellation. Meanwhile, EA will host its own EA Play Live event the following month in July. Despite being on the ESA’s original list, Konami later announced in a tweet that it would not be participating at this year’s E3.
E3 has evolved a lot over its history. Although certain aspects like the big publisher press conferences have been publicly viewable for years, until recently, the in-person show itself was an industry and media-only affair. It was only in 2017 that the ESA officially opened its doors to the public with tickets priced at $250. This year’s format is dropping the high price of attending in person, though it’s unclear how much of the magic of the show floor can be recreated in virtual booths.
Update May 13th, 9:18AM ET: Updated to note Konami’s tweet confirming it will not be presenting at this year’s E3.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts aboard successfully docked with the International Space Station early Saturday to start its six-month mission, NASA announced. Crew-2, as it’s been dubbed, is SpaceX’s third astronaut mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. It brings NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Thomas Pesquet, a French aerospace engineer from the European Space Agency (ESA) to the ISS, which travels at more than 17,000 miles per hour in orbit roughly 250 miles above Earth.
A Falcon 9 rocket which was used for SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission in 2020, launched early Friday for its 24-hour trip to the ISS. The Falcon 9 carried Endeavour, the same Crew Dragon capsule that launched SpaceX’s debut astronaut mission last year.
The four astronauts were welcomed aboard the ISS shortly before 8AM ET by the Expedition 65 crew of Shannon Walker, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Mark Vande Hei of NASA, as well as Soichi Noguchi of JAXA and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov.
Kimbrough, McArthur, Hoshide, and Pesquet will now spend six months in space conducting science experiments, including a focus on “tissue chips,” which NASA describes as “small models of human organs containing multiple cell types that behave much the same as they do in the body.” The chips may help identify drugs or vaccines more quickly than the current processes.
The mission marks the first time SpaceX has reused a craft for a crewed mission. SpaceX has launched and reused several Falcon 9 rockets and uncrewed Dragon capsules as part of an initiative to save time and money on space exploration.
SpaceX launched its third crew of astronauts to the International Space Station early Friday morning, reusing a Crew Dragon space capsule to fly humans for the first time. The mission, dubbed Crew-2, is the latest flight under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and will add four more astronauts to the orbital space station.
A used Falcon 9 rocket, last flown for SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission last year, lifted off at 5:49AM ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying Endeavor, the same Crew Dragon capsule that first launched SpaceX’s debut astronaut mission nearly one year ago. For this flight, the Endeavor capsule carried four astronauts from three different countries — SpaceX’s most diverse NASA-managed crew yet.
“Off the Earth, for the Earth, Endeavor is ready to go,” NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the mission’s spacecraft commander, told SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California minutes before lifting off.
Kimbrough and fellow NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, serving as the pilot, accompanied mission specialists Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Thomas Pesquet, a French aerospace engineer from the European Space Agency (ESA). The crew will spend roughly 23 hours in transit as Endeavor autonomously raises its orbit toward the ISS ahead of a 5:10AM ET docking tomorrow, April 24th.
Sunlight beamed into the windows of Crew Dragon Endeavor as it separated from its Falcon 9 second stage booster roughly 12 minutes after its pre-dawn liftoff, prompting cheers and applause from engineers on a video feed in SpaceX’s mission control. “Thanks for flying our first flight-proven, crewed Falcon 9,” mission control said to Endeavor.
“We’re great, it’s good to be back in space for all of us, and we’ll send our regards to Crew-1 when we get there,” Kimbrough replied from Endeavor. The capsule’s separation occurred just as Falcon 9’s first stage booster returned back to Earth for landing on SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” drone-ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Kimbrough, McArthur, Hoshide and Pesquet will spend six months in space and join seven astronauts already aboard the space station, an orbital science laboratory flying more than 17,000 miles per hour in orbit roughly 250 miles above Earth. Two days after the crew’s arrival, four other astronauts from SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission, which launched to the ISS November 15 last year, will board a separate Crew Dragon capsule and return to Earth to cap their own six-month stay.
Crew-2 marks SpaceX’s third astronaut mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the agency’s public-private initiative to revive its human spaceflight capabilities after a nearly 10-year dependence on Russian rockets. It’s the second of six operational missions SpaceX is contracted to fly under that program, which awarded the company $2.6 billion in 2014 to develop and fly Crew Dragon. SpaceX’s first crewed mission in May 2020, carrying Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, counted as a test flight.
Accompanied by two Russian cosmonauts and NASA’s Mark Vande Hei, who all launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket on April 9th, Crew-2’s stay aboard the ISS will make for an 7-person crew in space for the next several months. During their stay, the crew will conduct an array of microgravity science experiments. The Crew-2 astronauts’ science efforts will center on a cassette-sized device containing human cells to study how those cells respond to various drugs and health conditions in microgravity.
The increased crew size means other science experiments, including a few projects tracking how plants grow and behave in space, will also see some progress. “It’s like a party up there,” said Annmarie Eldering, a project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3, a device astronauts will use to measure carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. “When you get all those measurements from space, in the same time, same place, it’s really powerful for science,” Eldering said Friday morning in a live NASA broadcast.
SpaceX is slated to launch its third crew to the International Space Station early Friday morning, ferrying two astronauts from NASA, one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the first European Space Agency astronaut to fly a private US spacecraft to orbit. The four-person crew will launch atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 5:49AM ET on Friday.
The mission, dubbed Crew-2, marks the second operational mission under the Commercial Crew Program, NASA’s public-private initiative to revive its human spaceflight capabilities after a 10-year dependence on Russian rockets. It will mark the first time NASA astronauts fly a reused crew capsule — Crew-2’s ride first flew in May 2020 as SpaceX’s first astronaut mission, carrying Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
The crew includes NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, the mission’s spacecraft commander, and Megan McArthur, serving as the pilot. JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, a French aerospace engineer, will serve as mission specialists. All the astronauts are in Florida ahead of the launch, and they’ll wake up at 11:09PM ET Thursday to prepare for flight.
NASA’s live coverage of the mission will begin hours before liftoff, at 1:30AM ET Friday. Liftoff is at 5:49AM ET. The trek to the International Space Station will take a little less than a day — the crew is scheduled to dock with the space station at around 5:10AM ET Saturday, April 24th. They’ll spend six months on the station.
WHAT TIME IS SPACEX’S CREW-2 LAUNCH?
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will take off on Friday, April 23rd, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Matthew Wilson 1 day ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
Last week, the ESA finally began making some of its plans for E3 2021 official announcing press conferences and appearances from a number of large publishers. Now, we are starting to get date and times for when to tune in, with Ubisoft being the first to announce its major E3 conference.
For those who missed last week’s announcement, E3 2021 will include appearances from Nintendo, Xbox, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Warner Bros, Capcom, Konami and Koch Media. Not every conference has been given a date and time yet, but we do know when Ubisoft will be taking over the spotlight.
Ubisoft’s E3 conference, known as Ubisoft Forward, will be taking place on the 12th of June at 8PM BST here in the UK, 9PM CEST, 3PM EST and 12PM PST. Whether or not a new Assassin’s Creed will be announced is up in the air, with recent rumours pointing to a 2022 return for the series to give Valhalla some extra breathing room.
What we can expect to see is future updates for Rainbow Six Siege, Rainbow Six Quarantine/Parasite, Far Cry 6, the Prince of Persia remake and the long-awaited return of Skull & Bones. We’ll likely see Splinter Cell pop up again in the rumour mill and of course, Ubisoft is also now working on a Star Wars game, but that project is still in very early development, so I wouldn’t place any bets on it being shown.
E3 2021 takes place from the 12th of June through to the 15th.
KitGuru Says: Ubisoft has a lot of projects in the works, so there’ll be plenty to announce at E3. Will many of you be tuning in for Ubisoft’s E3 showcase?
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The ESA, who is responsible for the annual E3 gaming convention, recently confirmed that after skipping 2020, E3 would be coming back later this year. With the event being digital this year, and in order to “extend its reach to video game fans worldwide,” the ESA announced that it has teamed up with IGN, Polygon, GamesRadar and more.
Making the announcement, the ESA revealed that it “has joined forces with IGN, Future Games (PC Gamer and GamesRadar), GameSpot, Polygon, IGN China and Game Bonfire” in order to expand the reach of 2021’s digital E3 event as far and as wide as possible.
This has reportedly been done with the intention of providing “an unmatched experience with new levels of access for fans around the globe with major publisher showcases, press conferences, thrilling reveals, extended livestreams and special guest appearances, available free online for all attendees.”
These media outlets have been brought in to “integrate and cross promote programming and coverage within the E3 experience. This includes coordinated broadcasts, wide coverage, media talent participation and original programming, among other features.”
E3 historically has relied on its in-person events as well as the spectacle of the games showcases (many of which featured live performances, stage props and more) in order to draw in as big a crowd as possible. With this not being the case this year, it is understandable that the ESA has pursued this audience reach via other methods. It will be interesting to see how E3 pans out this year.
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Google Earth is getting a new 3D time-lapse feature that lets you observe how Earth has changed from 1984 to 2020, allowing you to see just how much the devastating effects of climate change have already shaped the geography of the planet.
“It’s best for a landscape view of our world,” Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Google Earth Engine, and Google Earth Outreach, said in a call with reporters this week. “It’s not about zooming in. It’s about zooming out. It’s about taking the big step back. We need to see how our only home is doing.”
The feature (which Google calls “Timelapse,” one word) will be available in Google Earth starting Thursday. To access it, launch Google Earth and then click or tap on the Voyager tab (which has an icon that looks like a ship’s wheel). You can search for a place of interest or check out one of Google’s five “guided tours” about forest change, urban growth, warming temperatures, mining and renewable energy sources, and “the Earth’s fragile beauty.”
To get an idea of what the feature lets you see, check out this time lapse GIF of the changing shores of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, from Google:
Or this GIF of the Columbia Glacier’s retreat:
To create the 3D time-lapse imagery for Google Earth, the company says it used more than 24 million satellite images taken from 1984 to 2020 to create one 4.4 terapixel-sized video mosaic. (To give you a sense of the scale there, one terapixel is 1 million megapixels.) The company worked with NASA, the US Geological Survey (USGS), the European Commission, and the European Space Agency (ESA) to collect the data used in the time lapses.
“Timelapse and Google Earth sits at the nexus of science, technology, public-private partnerships, and the next generation as we think about both climate change and climate action,” Moore said.
This isn’t the Google Earth team’s first time-lapse feature. In May 2013, the team released a time-lapse feature displaying 2D images of Earth from 1984 to 2012, and it made a big update to that in November 2016. The feature announced Thursday, however, offers a 3D time lapse of the Earth’s geological changes, allowing you to look at the changes in the Earth in more detail.
Google has also released 800 time-lapse videos of different areas around the planet as free downloads. The company aims for them to be used by teachers, nonprofits, policymakers, and others to show how the geography of Earth has changed over time.
Two satellites from the fast-growing constellations of OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink dodged a dangerously close approach with one another in orbit last weekend, representatives from the US Space Force and OneWeb said. It’s the first known collision avoidance event for the two rival companies as they race to expand their new broadband-beaming networks in space.
On March 30th, five days after OneWeb launched its latest batch of 36 satellites from Russia, the company received several “red alerts” from the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron warning of a possible collision with a Starlink satellite. Because OneWeb’s constellation operates in higher orbits around Earth, the company’s satellites must pass through SpaceX’s mesh of Starlink satellites, which orbit at an altitude of roughly 550 km.
One Space Force alert indicated a collision probability of 1.3 percent, with the two satellites coming as close as 190 feet — a dangerously close proximity for satellites in orbit. If satellites collide in orbit, it could cause a cascading disaster that could generate hundreds of pieces of debris and send them on crash courses with other satellites nearby.
Currently, there’s no national or global authority that would force satellite operators to take action on predicted collisions. Space Force’s urgent alerts sent OneWeb engineers scrambling to email SpaceX’s Starlink team to coordinate maneuvers that would put the two satellites at safer distances from one another.
While coordinating with OneWeb, SpaceX disabled its automated AI-powered collision avoidance system and manually steered its Starlink satellite out of the way, according to OneWeb’s government affairs chief Chris McLaughlin. It was unclear why exactly SpaceX disabled the system. SpaceX, which rarely responds to reporters, did not return multiple requests for comment for this story, nor did David Goldman, the company’s director of satellite policy.
SpaceX’s automated system for avoiding satellite collisions has sparked controversy, raising concerns from other satellite operators who say they have no way of knowing which way the system will move a Starlink satellite in the event of a close approach. “Coordination is the issue,” McLaughlin says. “It is not sufficient to say ‘I’ve got an automated system,’ because the other guy may not have, and won’t understand what yours is trying to do.”
OneWeb satellites (left) launch in batches of 36. SpaceX’s Starlink satellites (right) launch in batches of 60.Images: OneWeb / SpaceX
SpaceX has roughly 1,370 Starlink satellites in orbit and is on track to launch thousands more, with ambitions to build a 12,000-satellite network of global broadband coverage. OneWeb has launched 146 satellites so far, of the roughly 650 it plans to send into orbit for a similar global network, operating in higher orbits around Earth. And Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has pledged to join the same race, planning to launch over 3,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. All companies want to beam broadband internet into Earth’s most rural regions to meet increasing demand from consumers and governments alike.
“This event was a good example of how satellite operators can be responsible given the constraints of global best practices,” says Diana McKissock, the head of the Space Force 18th Space Control Squadron’s data sharing and spaceflight safety wing. “They shared their data with each other, they got in contact with each other, and I think in absence of any global regulation, that’s… the art of the possible.”
Still, the sharp increase of satellites in orbit, mainly driven by SpaceX’s Starlink venture, has moved faster than any authority can regulate the industry for safety. McKissock says SpaceX has made efforts to increase its transparency in orbit; the company currently provides location data of its satellites to other operators. But its automated system for avoiding collisions is a closed book where openness and coordination are needed the most, analysts and operators say.
“What is the point of having it if you have to turn it off when there’s going to be a potential collision?” Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation says, adding that the void of any clear international framework for managing active objects in space makes it largely unclear who would be held responsible if a collision actually occurred.
Satellite maneuvers in space are common, but worry in the industry is mounting as OneWeb, SpaceX, Amazon, and other companies race to toss more satellites into space. And this Starlink close call isn’t the first. In 2019, a European Space Agency satellite had to move out of the way of a Starlink satellite to avoid a potential collision. SpaceX didn’t move its satellite because of a computer bug that prevented proper communication with ESA, it said at the time.
With more OneWeb satellite launches planned on a monthly basis, and with planned constellations from Amazon and Telesat in higher orbits than Starlink, the need to establish clear rules of the road in orbit is becoming more urgent than ever. SpaceX looms especially large, not just because of the size of its constellation but because of where it’s sending them. “OneWeb and others will have to transit through Starlink to reach their destinations, so SpaceX needs to ensure now that other satellite operators can do that safely,” says Caleb Henry, a satellite industry analyst at Quilty Analytics.
McKissock says the 18th Space Control Squadron is fully aware of the industry concerns with SpaceX’s autonomous avoidance approach. “So it’s been interesting,” she says. “But like I said, I’m glad they talked to each other. The scary situation is when one of the operators is not communicative, and then it’s just crossing your fingers.”
E3 2021 will be an all-digital event. The Electronic Software Association has announced that this year’s event, which will be free of charge, will take place from June 12 to June 15.
Last year, the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing. For the virtual event, Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games and Koch Media will participate, with promises of “more to come.” It is likely that other companies will have adjacent events, much like they have during in person E3s.
“For more than two decades, E3 has been the premier venue to showcase the best that the video game industry has to offer, while uniting the world through games,” said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA said in a press release. “We are evolving this year’s E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games.”
The exact format has yet to be unveiled, though it will likely feature a number of pre-recorded presentations and interviews, and possibly some game demonstrations. And surely, there will be a lot of world premiere trailers.
E3 typically makes the ESA a lot of money, so this is yet another hit for the trade group’s budget. But at least, for the fans, everyone will be able to attend. ESA ended its announcement by saying, “ESA looks forward to coming back together to celebrate E3 2022 in person.” Let’s hope that actually happens.
E3 2021 will take place June 12th-15th this year as a free, “reimagined, all-virtual” event, the Entertainment Software Association announced today. Organizers announced that the lineup includes companies such as Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, and Warner Bros. Games. Sony is notably missing from that list so far.
E3, gaming’s biggest annual conference in North America, typically takes place in downtown LA every June and attracts a mix of developers, press, and consumers. Last year’s event was canceled in April due to COVID-19. In its absence, Geoff Keighley launched Summer Game Fest in partnership with many developers to deliver game reveals and news; the digital event is also returning this June.
E3 is expected to resume in person next summer.
ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis says the organization is “evolving this year’s E3 into a more inclusive event” that will still include game reveals and news. The organization confirmed in February that it would hold an online event only this year.
The end of lockdown may be just around the corner, but if you’re craving some contact, Audiozen has you covered with its latest product: the Alchemy Embrace, an amp designed to hug you. Kind of.
Based at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily, the boutique brand has been making high-end amps since 2009 with the mantra ‘let your ears be your guide’. The Embrace, a replacement for the company’s best selling Alchemy ‘hybrid’ integrated amplifier, uses separate tube preamp and power stages – a decision the company describes as being derived from the isolation most people have experienced over the past year, with the hope that the amp will “embrace” both music and the listener.
Audiozen says its choice of components is meticulous, with the preamp containing two NOS tubes, ClarityCap ESA series polypropylene capacitors and a transistor power stage.
The power supply section houses three toroidal transformers: a50 VA pair dedicated to the preamplifier section and a larger 300 VA unit connected to the power stage. On the front panel, the power switch has been labelled ‘hug power’ and features a stand-by setting to gently heat the core of the tubes before switching on.
The volume knob has been re-dubbed ‘hug intensity’; the VU-meters are ‘hug meters’ (with the level of backlighting controlled by a ‘hug meters light’ dial), and when selecting between the four RCA stereo inputs, you can use the amenably named ‘your choice’ switch. But rest assured, it also comes with a remote.
The sleek aluminium front panel is contrasted by wooden sides made from sustainable Asian doussié wood and a transparent perspex cover on the top letting you view all the inner workings.
The Embrace is available in black or silver and costs £2830 ($3890).
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San Diego Comic-Con has just announced this year’s show will not go on, at least not in person. For the second time in 50 years — the first was last year — Comic-Con has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There’ll still be a virtual event from July 23rd to the 25th, and organizers are planning a three-day in-person convention tentatively set for November, but they’re clear that the full shebang has been postponed until 2022 — and offering refunds and rollovers as appropriate.
And it’s not the only big California geek gathering that’s not going to happen: the Los Angeles Department of Convention and Tourism has filed documents (PDF) that show that the biggest US video game and anime shows — E3 and Anime Expo — have also ditched their in-person gatherings (via ResetEra and Kotaku).
E3 typically draws upwards of 60,000 attendees while Anime Expo can attract over 100,000, so they’re big losses for tourism that the city will be discussing later this week.
Mind you, the Entertainment Software Association that runs E3 already hinted that it would be “transforming” its showcase, so a virtual event wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Anime Expo held a successful virtual event last year that drew 500,000 viewers, and it sounds like organizers will try that again. Neither E3 nor Anime Expo organizers have technically confirmed that their events won’t be happening in-person yet, but the city would know. An ESA spokesperson would only reaffirm that they’re “transforming” E3, and that “we’ll have official details very soon.”
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