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NASA's next eye into the cosmos is due to leave our planet later this year. The agency says it's targeting an early September launch for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Roman (for short) has a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble's. The September date is the earliest possible launch for Roman. NASA says it will go up (aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket ) no later than May 2027. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named after NASA's first chief astronomer and "mother" of Hubble , was introduced in 2016. (Back then, it was known as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST .) The telescope's mirror is roughly the same size as Hubble's, but it can capture sections of the sky at least 100 times larger than its predecessor. NASA "Roman will work in tandem with NASA observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory , which are designed to zoom in on rare transient objects once they've been identified, but seldom if ever discover them," Julie McEnery, Roman's senior project scientist, said in 2023. "Roman's much larger field of view will reveal many such objects that were previously unknown. And since we've never had an observatory like this scanning the cosmos before, we could even find entirely new classes of objects and events." After leaving our atmosphere, Roman will set course for a vantage point nearly 1 million miles from Earth. There, it will rely on a pair of instruments to study space. The first is a 300.8-megapixel camera that captures light from visible to near-infrared. There's also a high-contrast coronagraph that will allow it to capture exoplanets that would otherwise be blocked by starlight. Roman’s mission: "to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets and astrophysics." Despite decades of study, astronomers know surprisingly little about dark energy , which makes up about 68 percent of the universe’s contents. And while scientific discoveries are cool and all, you’ll be pleased to know that Roman is also sure to beam back more dazzling pictures of our cosmos . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-targets-a-september-launch-for-its-next-big-space-telescope-204140176.html?src=rss
Tesla still doesn’t have a solid pathway for how to give Hardware 3 cars Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities, based on what Elon Musk said during the company’s latest earnings call . The automaker has known for quite a while that its vehicles equipped with Hardware 3 aren’t capable of unsupervised FSD, even though the company built the system specifically to give its cars the ability . Tesla used Hardware 3 on cars manufactured from 2019 until early 2023 before Hardware 4 shipped. During an earlier earnings call back in January 2025, Musk admitted that the company was “going to have to upgrade people’s Hardware 3 computer for those that have bought Full Self-Driving.” At Tesla’s latest earnings call, Musk said that Hardware 3 “simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD.” Tesla thought it would be able to at one point, but Hardware 3 apparently has 1/8th the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4. Musk explained that memory bandwidth is “one of the key elements” needed for unsupervised FSD. Tesla will be offering to upgrade and replace the computers and cameras on older vehicles, but it doesn’t have a concrete plan in place yet. “I do think over time it’s going to make sense for us to convert all Hardware 3 cars to Hardware 4,” he said. To do so at service centers would be extremely slow, Musk has admitted. Around 4 million cars or so have Hardware 3, though not everyone has paid for FSD. Still, to be able to replace its vehicles’ hardware efficiently, Musk said Tesla is going to have to set up “microfactories or small factories in major metropolitan areas.” He didn’t give any indication that Tesla has already started building those microfactories, though, or even that construction is already scheduled to begin. He did say that in the meantime, the company is going to be releasing FSD version 14 for Hardware 3 around the end of June. Musk also said during the same earnings call that Tesla’s Fremont factory will start manufacturing the company’s humanoid Optimus robots in late July or August. The Tesla CEO is known for announcing highly optimistic and aggressive timelines. Tesla made the decision to kill off its Model X and S cars earlier this year, so that it can convert its Fremont facility into an Optimus factory. The last Model S and X vehicles will be rolling off the production line in May, which gives the company just a few months to dismantle the facility’s current equipment and put new ones in place. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/musk-pledges-to-fix-2019-2023-teslas-that-cant-fully-self-drive-095002120.html?src=rss
Last year, Ecco the Dolphin creator Ed Annunizata teased plans to remaster the first two games in the series and create an entirely new sequel. Ecco the Dolphin: Complete , announced by Annunziata's studio A&R Atelier , appears to be the result of that work. The game doesn't have a release date yet, but A&R Atelier says it combines the planned remasters and third title into "the complete, definitive Ecco the Dolphin experience, created by the people who made the originals." Complete includes "all versions of Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco: The Tides of Time ," according to the developer, alongside "a brand-new contemporary Ecco game." Besides graphical improvements, A&E Atelier says the game will introduce "built-in speedrunning support, achievements and leaderboards," and things like the ability to create custom courses from existing levels. And while A&R Atelier's announcement doesn't include footage of the new game or the platforms it'll release on, the official Ecco the Dolphin website has a countdown clock that could point to when more information will be released. Annunziata sued Sega to try and win the rights to the Ecco the Dolphin IP in 2013, the same year he failed to get The Big Blue , a spiritual sequel to Ecco the Dolphin , fully funded on Kickstarter. Sega and Annunziata ultimately settled their lawsuit in 2016 , which may have laid the groundwork for Ecco the Dolphin: Complete to happen. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ecco-the-dolphin-complete-will-combine-remasters-and-a-sequel-into-one-package-222020243.html?src=rss
Prediction market Kalshi has taken action against three political candidates, alleging that each was engaged with insider trading of information about their campaigns. The company implemented new rules last month aimed at preventing politicians and athletes from placing bets on events they can control, and it said those guardrails helped to flag this trio of cases. The three candidates are Mark Moran of Virginia, Matt Klein of Minnesota and Ezekiel Enriquez of Texas. Kalshi reached settlements with Klein and Enriquez , both of whom cooperated in the platform's investigations. Each will face a fine of less than $1,000 and suspensions of up to five years. Moran's case has resulted in a disciplinary action , with a five year suspension and a fine of more than $6,000. He posted on X about the situation and claimed this was essentially a stunt to see if he'd be caught and "to highlight how this company is destroying young men." Kalshi and other prediction markets have been the subject of several lawsuits by state attorneys general that are attempting to regulate the sector as gambling. Nevada , Arizona and New York have cases underway, but the state-level attempts are not looking promising. An appeals court ruled against New Jersey's effort to govern this industry, and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has launched a lawsuit of its own in an effort to ensure it will be the only party to regulate prediction markets. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/kalshi-suspended-three-political-candidates-from-its-platform-for-insider-trading-222433937.html?src=rss
