And NASA's volcano drones |
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Today we take a look at some of the best gadgets reviewed by Digital Trends over the last month. We also report on how NASA is planning to use drones to monitor active volcanoes, and find out about a tech-savvy student who's caught the attention of Elon Musk. Enjoy! |
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January can be a slower month for new tech releases. The shopping season is behind us, as is the insanity of new product releases to get announced at CES.
And yet, we're always busy working on reviewing unique, new gadgets to find the very best. So from affordable wireless earbuds to a posture training device, these are the best gadgets we reviewed over the past four weeks ... |
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NASA doesn't only work on space projects: The agency also takes part in Earth-monitoring projects, particularly those related to the climate. Currently, it is working on a plan to use drones to monitor active volcanoes and give warnings of potential eruptions.
NASA is collaborating with the company Black Swift Technologies, which creates highly rugged drones of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) which can withstand the tough environments above volcanoes.
"We needed it to be really rugged, to withstand flying in the turbulent conditions and corrosive gases around volcanoes," said Florian Schwandner, director of the Earth Sciences division at NASA Ames in a statement. "We also developed a gas-sensing payload the UAS could carry to look for signs of volcanic unrest."
A first version of the UAS was tested for monitoring a volcano in Costa Rica in 2013, and a newer version of the craft has recently been tested with flights at Makushin Volcano in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The drone can fly even when it is out of visual range of the pilots, by using autonomous systems combined with a pre-set flight plan to reach the volcano's summit. From there, it can collect visual and thermal information on volcanic activity ... |
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A teen who built a Twitter bot that provides real-time updates on the movements of Elon Musk's private jet says he'll delete the account if the billionaire entrepreneur pays him $50,000.
Jack Sweeney, 19, hit the headlines last week when a Protocol article revealed that Musk contacted the college freshman via Twitter DMs toward the end of last year, asking him to take down @ElonJet due to security concerns.
The account, which Florida-based Sweeney set up in June 2020 and currently has 185,000 followers, uses publicly available data and automatically posts a tweet every time Musk's jet takes off and lands.
After a short conversation via DMs, Musk offered to pay Sweeney $5,000 if he agreed to delete the account.
"Any chance to up that to $50k?," Sweeney responded, adding that it would be "great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3."
Musk said he'd think about it, but in a later message seen by Insider the boss of both SpaceX and Tesla said that it "doesn't feel right to pay to shut this down." ... |
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TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES |
If you're getting a bit tired of Instagram, you might want to consider deactivating your account. With Instagram, you have two choices: You can learn how to deactivate your Instagram account, or you can delete it completely.
We'll review both options, so you can decide if you'd rather take a break or cut ties with Instagram forever.
Just be cautious, as deleting your Instagram account removes all of your content permanently, and you won't be able to get it back ... |
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