Space agencies and private companies around the world have scheduled their lunar missions over the next few years, and coordinating that can be very complicated when they’re all using different time zones. During a meeting at the European Space Agency’s ESTEC Technology Center in the Netherlands last year, space organizations discussed “the importance and urgency of setting a common reference time for the moon.”
In a new announcement, ESA navigation systems engineer Pietro Giordano said “a joint international effort is underway to make this happen.” There are some challenges: They will have to decide whether or not to keep moon time in synchronous with the earth because the clocks on the moon run faster based on the location of the satellite. Each lunar day, from Earth’s perspective, is 29.5 days long.
– Matt Smith
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It is now released in closed beta.
Jack Dorsey’s new Twitter replacement, Bluesky, is available in closed beta on the App Store. The invite-only app joins a list of Twitter alternatives, including Mastodon, as Twitter is sticking around with a staff drain and precarious stability. Bluesky started in 2019 as a Twitter-funded side project. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and was still CEO when the initiative began, saw it as a more open alternative to an increasingly centralized Twitter. Bluesky then spun off as its own company in 2021.
You will have to enter your email address to join the waiting list. Bluesky’s app is said to borrow heavily from Twitter. However, it does include minor variations such as “What’s Up?” instead of “what’s going on?” Along with a simplified process to create a post (which can also include images) by selecting the plus button. So yeah. Everything is beautiful on Twitter.
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Bigger, brighter and better looking.
Engadget
One big company was missing from this year’s barrage of TVs at CES: Sony. Now he’s finally ready to show off his latest flagship collection. The 2023 line of Bravia XR TVs is powered by the company’s own XR Cognitive Processor, so they all include support for things like Sony’s XR Clear Image technology, which allows for adaptive noise reduction, automatic HDR tone mapping and more. Sony also tries to take as much guesswork out of setup as possible by making its TVs in standard video or cinema modes look great right out of the box. Read on for the full roundup of both the LED and OLED families.
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The company has reportedly shared its AR/VR roadmap with employees.
Meta shared its latest augmented and virtual reality hardware roadmap with employees, and according to the edge, it plans to release its first full-fledged AR glasses in 2027. While the company intends to launch other AR glasses before then, the device it will launch in four years is the same device that Mark Zuckerberg believes can become the Meta’s “iPhone moment.” The glasses, which will reportedly display avatars as high-quality 3D images superimposed on the real world, are expected to be expensive.
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The company’s policies lean heavily on the side of the homeowners.
Airbnb bans users who may be associated with people the company considers a safety risk. Although the short-term rental company faces the impossible balancing act of making landlords feel safe without unfairly discriminating against tenants, the appeals process—a critical step in catching transgressions—seems to err on the side of the homeowner’s perceived security.
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