- **Mars Ingenuity Back in Action**: After an unexpected landing last month, NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter is once again soaring the Martian skies.
- **Boeing's Starliner Setbacks**: The launch of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner to the International Space Station faces further delays, with crewed flights postponed until at least March 2024.
- **Deep Space Network's Dual Role**: Beyond its primary function of communicating with spacecrafts like those orbiting the Moon, NASA's Deep Space Network of massive radio antennas aids scientists in studying the gravity and density of distant planets.
- **The Science Report Highlights**: - **Climate Change's Grip on Antarctica**: Recent findings confirm that the impacts of climate change have touched every corner of Antarctica. - **Post Hepatitis C Risks**: Even after being cured of Hepatitis C, patients are still at a risk of death that's approximately four times higher. - **Chinese Solar Panel Security Concerns**: The potential cybersecurity risks associated with Chinese-manufactured solar panels and inverters. 5. **Alex on Tech**: Delving into the battle against online fraudsters and cybercriminals. Stay updated with the latest in space and science with SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support.
00:00:00
This is SpaceTime series 26 episode 98 for broadcast on the
00:00:04
16th of August 2023. Coming up on SpaceTime ingenuity cleared
00:00:10
for flight following an earlier mishap more delays for Boeing
00:00:14
Starliner spacecraft and how NASA uses radio waves to study
00:00:19
the gravity of distant worlds. All that and more coming up on
00:00:24
Space Time.
00:00:26
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Garry.
00:00:46
NASA's ingenuity. Helicopter has taken to the skies of the red
00:00:49
planet again following its sudden unscheduled landing. Last
00:00:52
month, the tissue box sized rotocop performed a short hop to
00:00:56
help mission managers back on earth. Better understand why its
00:00:59
previous flight was interrupted.
00:01:01
The 25 seconds straight up and straight back down again. Hop
00:01:05
provided data that could help ingenuity teams determine why
00:01:08
its 53rd flight ended. So abruptly flight 53 had been
00:01:13
planned as a 136 2nd scouting flight dedicated to collecting
00:01:17
imagery of the surface ahead for the perseverance rover's next
00:01:20
scouting mission.
00:01:22
The complicated flight profile included flying north for 203 m
00:01:26
at an altitude of 5 m and a speed of 2.5 m per second.
00:01:30
It was then supposed to descend vertically to 2.5 m where it
00:01:34
would hover and obtain imagery of a rocky outcrop which
00:01:37
scientists wanted the perseverance rover to study in
00:01:40
detail, ingenuity would then climb straight up to 10 m again,
00:01:44
allowing its hazard divert system to initiate before
00:01:47
descending vertically for a touchdown.
00:01:50
Instead, the helicopter executed the first half of its autonomous
00:01:53
journey flying north at an altitude of 5 m for 142 m. But
00:01:58
then a flight contingency program was triggered and
00:02:01
ingenuity automatically landed. The total flight Time was just
00:02:05
74 seconds.
00:02:07
Ingenuity team lead Emeritus Teddy Zinos from NASA's Jet
00:02:11
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California says that
00:02:13
ever since the very first flight on the red planet, he's also
00:02:17
included a program called land. Now that was designed to put the
00:02:20
helicopter back down on the deck as soon as possible.
00:02:23
If any one of several dozen off nominal scenarios were
00:02:26
encountered, he says that during flight 53 ingenuity encountered
00:02:31
one of these anomalies and the helicopter worked as planned and
00:02:34
executed an immediate landing.
00:02:37
The ingenuity team believed the early landing was triggered when
00:02:40
image frames from the helicopter 's navigation camera didn't sync
00:02:43
up as expected with data from its internal measurement unit.
00:02:47
The unit measures ingenuity's acceleration and rotational
00:02:50
rates data that makes it possible to estimate where the
00:02:53
helicopter is, how fast it's moving and how it's oriented in
00:02:57
space.
00:02:58
Now, if all this sounds familiar. It's because this
00:03:01
wasn't the first occasion on which image frames were dropped
00:03:04
by the helicopter's NAV CAM during a flight way back on May
00:03:08
the 22nd 2021 multiple image frames were dropped by ingenuity
00:03:12
resulting in excessive pitching and rolling near the end of
00:03:15
flight six.
00:03:16
After flight six, the team updated the flight software to
00:03:20
help mitigate the impact of dropped images and the fix
00:03:23
worked well for the subsequent 46 flights.
00:03:26
However, on the last flight flight 53 the quantity of
00:03:30
dropped navigation images exceeded what the software patch
00:03:33
allowed. Zinos says that while he hoped to never trigger a land
00:03:37
now event, the flight was a valuable case study that will
00:03:40
benefit future aircraft operations on other worlds.
00:03:44
He says with a better understanding of what occurred
00:03:46
on flight 53 and with flight 54 success, he's now confident the
00:03:51
1.8 kg chopper is ready to fly again. Ingenuity of course began
00:03:56
life on Mars as a technology demonstrator.
00:03:59
It was only designed to last for about four or five flights. Its
00:04:04
first flight was back on April the 19th 2021. It flew
00:04:08
vertically for 3 m and then hovered for 30 seconds before
00:04:12
landing again.
00:04:13
Four more test flights in as many weeks added 499 seconds and
00:04:17
saw the helicopter flying horizontally over the surface
00:04:20
for 357 m after proving flight was possible on Mars Ingenuity
00:04:26
entered an operation demonstration phase in May 2021
00:04:30
in order to show how aerial scouting could benefit future
00:04:33
exploration of Mars and other worlds. This report from NASA.
00:04:38
Tv will send the helicopter up to take photos of terrain that
00:04:43
the rover might be driving over in the future.
00:04:47
The ingenuity helicopter doesn't look exactly like a helicopter
00:04:50
like you might see on earth. It 's sort of the shape of a tissue
00:04:54
box with four long spindly legs and it has a pair of rotors
00:04:59
above the main fuselage that are far wider than the helicopter
00:05:03
itself.
00:05:04
These two rotors allow it to generate a lot more lift than
00:05:08
you would need for an earth bound helicopter because the air
00:05:13
on Mars is so thin and that we need to push really hard to
00:05:16
actually be able to get up into the air. There's a lot of work
00:05:19
that goes into flying a helicopter on a different
00:05:21
planet.
00:05:22
We have a system of radio dishes called the Deep Space Network
00:05:26
and we use those to send commands and receive data from
00:05:30
the different rovers that we have on Mars. And the
00:05:32
perseverance rover is sort of the parent of the ingenuity
00:05:35
helicopter and all communications with the
00:05:38
helicopter goes through that rover.
00:05:40
There's a lot of work that goes into looking at the data coming
00:05:43
in from the rover and from the helicopter to assess is the
00:05:47
helicopter healthy? Is it ready to go? Does it have enough power
00:05:51
for another flight.
00:05:52
We look at that data and we're able to put together a plan of
00:05:57
what we want to do for a given day. Once we have that plan put
00:06:00
together, we're able to write a sequence of commands that walk
00:06:03
it through, step by step of what to do. And then we send it on
00:06:07
up.
00:06:08
When we look at Mars, we can see a lot of preserved history that
00:06:12
we don't see on earth. On earth, we have all of these processes,
00:06:16
rain and waves and all sorts of different things that mulch up
00:06:21
the ground and change it on. Mars. The rocks are pretty much
00:06:25
the same as they've been for millions or even billions of
00:06:28
years. And we can see far deeper into Mars's history, which can
00:06:32
teach us a lot in turn about earth's history.
00:06:37
This is Space Time still to come. More delays for Boeing's
00:06:42
new Starliner spacecraft. And we study how NASA uses radio waves
00:06:47
to determine the gravitational fields of distant worlds. All
00:06:51
that are more still to come on Space Time.
00:07:09
Ok. Let's take a short break from our show for a word from
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So Nord VPN gives you peace of mind as well and don't forget if
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you grab our exclusive Space Time Nord VPN deal, you'll get a
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huge discount on your Nord VPN plan plus a bonus gift. Just go
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So why not get the best protection available today? It's
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just a few clicks away and it's a really great deal. And of
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course, as always, you'll find the URL details in the show
00:08:59
notes and on our website and now it's back to our show.
00:09:06
This is Space Time with Stuart Gary.
00:09:10
A NASA press conference has now confirmed that Boeing's troubled
00:09:14
CST 100 Starliner spacecraft won't fly crew to the
00:09:17
International Space Station until at least March next year.
00:09:22
After a long series of delays, Starliner was meant to undertake
00:09:25
its first manned mission during the first half of this year, but
00:09:29
that was repeatedly bumped back.
00:09:31
Flight engineers were concerned about two issues. They were
00:09:35
worried about the parachute system, soft links in the
00:09:38
parachutes needed to be reinforced with Kevlar and
00:09:41
stronger stitching applied.
00:09:43
And they were also concerned about the glue being used on the
00:09:46
insulation tape which is used in the spacecraft's wire harness
00:09:50
system. It was found to be flammable under certain
00:09:53
conditions and that met a massive task of removing and
00:09:57
replacing electrical wiring where possible and covering
00:10:00
other areas where this wasn't possible.
00:10:02
Boeing Vice President and Starliner program manager Mark
00:10:06
Napa says that at the moment based on current plans, he's
00:10:10
anticipating that the spacecraft will be flight ready by March
00:10:13
2024.
00:10:15
But he puts in a proviso pointing out that that launch
00:10:18
date will depend on constraints with the space calendar and be
00:10:21
decided together with NASA as well as the United Launch
00:10:23
Alliance, which will provide the Atlas five rocket that will
00:10:26
carry Starliner to orbit.
00:10:28
It's been a long and much delayed road for Starliner, its
00:10:33
first unmanned test flight to orbit back in 2019, failed to
00:10:37
reach the space station after the spacecraft began its orbital
00:10:40
insertion burn too early and too low in the process using too
00:10:44
much fuel all due to a badly planned and programmed mission
00:10:47
clock.
00:10:48
Later, engineers discovered that even if the spacecraft had made
00:10:51
it to the space station, a software glitch meant it
00:10:54
wouldn't have been able to dock anyway. Worse still, the
00:10:57
spacecraft would have been destroyed during its re-entry
00:10:59
phase due to another faulty computer program.
00:11:02
This one would have caused Starlin a service moulter to fly
00:11:05
into the capsule rather than away from it. After being
00:11:08
jettisoned. Luckily, mission managers spotted that error in
00:11:11
Time and were able to uplink a correction.
00:11:14
A second unmanned test flight to the space station had to be
00:11:17
scrapped after engineers detected corrosion in the
00:11:20
orbital maneuvering system valves, forcing an expensive and
00:11:23
Time consuming strip down and rebuild. The company finally
00:11:27
succeeded in reaching the space station with its unmanned test
00:11:30
flight in May 2022.
00:11:32
But because of all the earlier problems, scientists and
00:11:35
engineers have been going over the spacecraft in minute detail
00:11:39
before it's man rated. It's all quite a contrast to Boeing's
00:11:44
rival company SpaceX, which has been reliably flying crew to the
00:11:47
space station aboard its Dragon capsule since 2020 sending
00:11:51
supplies and equipment aboard a cargo version of Dragon to the
00:11:54
space station since 2012.
00:11:57
And Boeing aren't alone with their problems. Sarah Nevada's
00:12:01
Dream Chaser winged lifting body Space Play, which has been
00:12:04
contracted by NASA as a third cargo transport system to the
00:12:08
space station is also years behind schedule.
00:12:11
The Dream Chaser design is based on NASA's HL 20 manned space
00:12:15
plane concept which in turn is descended from a series of test
00:12:19
vehicles including the X 20 dinosaur military manned
00:12:23
spacecraft which was designed to be launched into space on a
00:12:26
Titan II missile.
00:12:27
There are also several Northrop and Martin variants all based
00:12:31
around the same winged lifting body design. Dream Chaser was
00:12:35
supposed to start delivering cargo to the space station
00:12:37
several years ago using an Atlas five to reach orbit.
00:12:41
But because of ongoing delays, it's now not expected to fly
00:12:44
until at least next year. And that'll be after the arrival of
00:12:48
the new Vulcan Centaur launch system which replaces the Atlas
00:12:51
five at this stage. A manned version of Dream Chaser is still
00:12:55
planned to fly by 2025.
00:12:58
It'll carry crude to a proposed commercial space station called
00:13:01
Orbital Reef and of course will be available to transport people
00:13:04
to the International Space Station as well if NASA so
00:13:07
desires will keep you informed. This is Space Time still to
00:13:13
come.
00:13:14
How NASA uses radio waves to study distant worlds in Deep
00:13:18
Space. And later in the science report, a potential internet and
00:13:22
power security threat posed by using Chinese made solar panels
00:13:26
and inverters all that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:13:46
NASA's Deep Space communications network is a collection of giant
00:13:50
radio antenna dishes used to communicate with spacecraft
00:13:53
traveling to the Moon and beyond. But it can also help
00:13:57
scientists undertake scientific investigations such as studying
00:14:01
a planet or asteroid's gravity density.
00:14:04
You see when a spacecraft reaches its destination, it uses
00:14:07
radio antennas to communicate with the Deep Space Network
00:14:11
which in turn transmits radio signals back to the spacecraft.
00:14:14
Every spacecraft travels in a predetermined path emitting
00:14:18
radio signals as it orbits around its target.
00:14:21
Scientists and engineers can infer spacecraft's location
00:14:25
exactly how fast it's going by measuring changes in the
00:14:28
spacecraft's radio signal frequency. This is made possible
00:14:32
because of the Doppler effect.
00:14:34
It's the same phenomenon that causes a siren to change pitch
00:14:37
as it travels towards you and away from you. The sound waves
00:14:41
are compressed as they come towards you and they're
00:14:43
progressively expanded as it moves away from you.
00:14:46
Electromagnetic waves do the same thing.
00:14:49
In this case, the Doppler phenomenon is observed as the
00:14:52
spacecraft and the Deep Space Network antenna move in relation
00:14:56
to each other. The differences between the frequency of radio
00:14:59
signals sent by the spacecraft as it orbits and the signals
00:15:02
received on earth give scientists details about the
00:15:05
gravitational field of the celestial body that the
00:15:08
spacecraft's orbiting.
00:15:10
For example, if the gravity is slightly stronger, the
00:15:12
spacecraft will accelerate slightly more and if the gravity
00:15:16
is slightly weaker, the spacecraft will accelerate
00:15:19
slightly less the amount of gravity.
00:15:21
The spacecraft's feeling can be determined by the density of the
00:15:25
material it's flying over by developing a model of a
00:15:28
celestial body's gravitational field which can then be mapped
00:15:31
as a gravitational shape. Scientists and researchers can
00:15:34
deduce new information about its internal structure.
00:15:38
The Deep Space Network is developed and managed by NASA's
00:15:41
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Its
00:15:44
antenna complexes are located at Goldstone, California, Madrid
00:15:48
Spain and at Tid Bin Villa just south of Canberra. This report
00:15:54
from NASA TV.
00:15:55
NASA has dozens of robotic spacecraft exploring our solar
00:15:59
system and beyond. Scientists and engineers communicate with
00:16:02
and navigate far away spacecraft using the Deep Space Network.
00:16:06
NASA's International collection of giant radio antennas used to
00:16:11
communicate with spacecraft at the Moon and beyond. But the
00:16:14
Deep Space Network or DSN is more than just a messaging
00:16:18
service.
00:16:19
In fact, scientists use the DSN to perform radio and gravity
00:16:23
science experiments. But what is radio and gravity science and
00:16:27
how can it help us learn more about the planets, moons and
00:16:31
other small bodies in our solar system? We're all familiar with
00:16:34
gravity. It's the force by which an object attracts other objects
00:16:38
such as a planet, pulling a spacecraft toward it.
00:16:42
Gravity is also the force that keeps all of the planets in
00:16:45
orbit around the sun. Here on earth, we experience this every
00:16:49
day. If you drop an object, it will accelerate toward the
00:16:52
ground because earth's gravity causes it to fall faster and
00:16:55
faster. And the acceleration of a spacecraft toward a planet
00:16:59
depends on the mass of the planet.
00:17:00
Less mass means less gravitational pull these
00:17:04
properties of gravity. Combined with our understanding of radio
00:17:08
waves help us use gravity to study other planetary bodies in
00:17:11
our solar system. After reaching its destination, a spacecraft
00:17:16
uses radio antennas to communicate with the Deep Space
00:17:19
Network on earth which in turn transmits radio signals back to
00:17:22
the spacecraft.
00:17:23
Every spacecraft travels in a predetermined path emitting
00:17:27
radio signals as it orbits around its target. Scientists
00:17:31
and engineers can infer the spacecraft's location and how
00:17:34
fast it's going by measuring changes in the spacecraft's
00:17:37
radio signal frequency. This is made possible by the Doppler
00:17:41
effect, the same phenomenon that causes a siren to sound
00:17:45
different as it travels towards and away from you.
00:17:48
The Doppler phenomenon is observed here when the
00:17:51
spacecraft and the DSN antenna move in relation to each other
00:17:55
differences between the frequency of radio signals sent
00:17:58
by the spacecraft as it orbits and signals received on earth.
00:18:01
Give us details about the gravitational field of a
00:18:04
planetary body.
00:18:06
For example, if the gravity is slightly stronger, the
00:18:09
spacecraft will accelerate slightly more. If gravity is
00:18:12
slightly weaker, the spacecraft will accelerate slightly less by
00:18:16
developing a model of the planetary body's gravitational
00:18:19
field which can be mapped as a gravitational shape. Scientists
00:18:23
and researchers can deduce information about its internal
00:18:26
structure all while using the Deep Space Network.
00:18:30
This is Space Time and Time had to take another brief look at
00:18:49
some of the other stories making news in science. This week. With
00:18:52
the science report, a new study has confirmed that extreme
00:18:56
events from climate change have influenced every realm of
00:19:00
Antarctica including breeding failures for entire penguin
00:19:04
colonies.
00:19:05
Ice shelf collapses the invasion of non native plants and the
00:19:09
recent lack of winter sea ice. The findings reported in the
00:19:13
journal frontiers in environmental science have for
00:19:15
the first Time brought together a new synthesis of evidence,
00:19:19
looking at how extreme events have affected the ice continent.
00:19:23
The authors conclude that fossil fuel burning will continue to
00:19:26
affect the Antarctic environment and countries which have adopted
00:19:30
the environmental Protocol for the Antarctic treaty must ask
00:19:33
themselves whether their greenhouse gas reduction targets
00:19:36
put them on the path to enable true protection for Antarctica.
00:19:40
The World Meteorological Organization says China remains
00:19:44
the world's biggest carbon dioxide polluter producing
00:19:47
almost a third of the total global output amounting to more
00:19:50
than 10.1 million tons annually. That's almost double the amount
00:19:55
produced by the United States which is in second place and
00:19:58
four times the amount produced by India, which is the world's
00:20:01
third worst polluter.
00:20:02
They're followed by Russia, Japan, Iran, Germany, Saudi
00:20:06
Arabia, Indonesia and South Korea in 10th place. Next comes
00:20:11
Canada, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and Mexico with Australia
00:20:16
in 16th place, followed by the United Kingdom, Italy Poland and
00:20:20
Vietnam. Rounding up the top 20 a new study claims hepatitis C
00:20:26
patients who are cured of the infection still face a fourfold
00:20:29
higher risk of death than the general population.
00:20:33
A report in the British Medical journal looked at the health
00:20:35
outcomes of 21 patients who were cured of HEP C using
00:20:40
interferon free antivirals. They found that 1572 of the patients
00:20:46
died during the course of their study.
00:20:48
And the researchers said the rate of death among the group
00:20:51
was much higher than that of the general population across all
00:20:54
studies. They say the most common cause of death were drug
00:20:57
related liver failure or liver cancer. They found those whose
00:21:01
livers were more damaged at the Time they were cured had a
00:21:04
higher risk of death than those whose liver disease was less
00:21:07
severe.
00:21:09
The Australian government has raised concerns over the
00:21:12
potential internet security threat being posed by using
00:21:15
Chinese made solar panels and inverters which use Chinese
00:21:19
chips to connect to power grids and the internet in Australia
00:21:23
and around the world. Beijing dominates the solar energy
00:21:27
market. Controlling some 76 per cent of all solar panel sales.
00:21:30
Globally. A review of solar panel systems in Australia found
00:21:34
nearly 60 per cent of smart inverters which connect solar
00:21:38
panels to the power grid and the internet in Australia are also
00:21:41
made by Chinese firms and that means they fall under Beijing's
00:21:45
strict national intelligence laws.
00:21:48
Federal opposition energy spokesman Ted O'Brien says the
00:21:51
inverters could be taken over by Chinese officials for sabotage
00:21:54
or for spying purposes. O'Brien says energy security is national
00:21:59
security and providing affordable and reliable energy
00:22:02
that's free from foreign interference should be a first
00:22:05
order priority for government.
00:22:07
He says nothing's more important for a government than
00:22:10
guaranteeing Australian security and the electricity grid is
00:22:13
central to that. Meanwhile, opposition Home Affairs
00:22:16
spokesperson James Patterson who oversaw the review says the
00:22:19
number of inverters in the energy grid will continue to
00:22:22
grow thanks to the government's renewable energy target of 82
00:22:25
per cent by the end of the decade.
00:22:27
Patterson warns the current situation has left the energy
00:22:31
grid vulnerable to potential foreign attacks. He says the
00:22:34
real danger point will come when these products reach a
00:22:37
significant proportion of Australian rooftops and
00:22:40
therefore a significant proportion of the energy grid.
00:22:43
He says at that point, they could be remotely disrupted by
00:22:46
an agency like China's People's Liberation Army state security
00:22:50
cyber hacking unit.
00:22:51
The problem is it's virtually impossible to buy Australian
00:22:55
European or American made solar panels and inverters in
00:22:58
Australia. Despite Australian research being used in the
00:23:01
development of the current technology in the first place.
00:23:04
A spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill points
00:23:07
out that Senator Patterson and the opposition need to explain
00:23:10
why they turned a blind eye to the procurement of these solar
00:23:13
panels from high risk vendors for over a decade while they
00:23:17
were in government this week. Alex on tech looks at Dyson's
00:23:22
new noise canceling headphones which come complete with a built
00:23:25
in air purification system.
00:23:27
We look at the latest stats on Australian gamers who are they
00:23:30
and what are they playing? Elon Musk's latest moves to get
00:23:33
inside your brain. But we begin by looking at the continuing
00:23:36
battle to beat the online crooks and scam artists trying to rip
00:23:40
you off with the details. We're joined by our technology editor,
00:23:43
Alex Aroy from tech advice.
00:23:46
Well, the Australian government is reporting through ACMA that
00:23:48
over a billion scams have been stopped over the last 12 months
00:23:52
and in the last quarter, that's 256 million scam calls and 85
00:23:57
million scam texts, but they're still coming through. But the,
00:24:00
the scams stopped in the last quarter are 33 per cent greater
00:24:03
than for the same Time last year. So look, they are having
00:24:06
some success but the bad guys just keep trying.
00:24:08
Well, it's just a numbers game, isn't it? Tri is times and all
00:24:12
they need is one to get caught and it's been worth it for them.
00:24:15
That's right.
00:24:15
And you know, people are busy, they've got kids, they've got
00:24:17
work, they've got all sorts of things happening. It's easy to
00:24:20
make a mistake to click on the wrong link to pay something
00:24:22
thinking that it's real.
00:24:23
And the next thing you know, you've been scammed. So you
00:24:25
definitely have to be super vigilant and not trust anything
00:24:27
you get on text messages that you weren't expecting and even
00:24:29
if you do think you're expecting it, double check.
00:24:31
Ok. Let's move on to the big E Elon Musk. We know him from
00:24:35
Tesla and SpaceX and he's also got a they called neuralink.
00:24:38
What's that about?
00:24:39
Well, neuralink is to create a general purpose high bandwidth
00:24:42
interface to the brain and it's just raised in the past few
00:24:46
days, $280 million. And this comes after the US food and drug
00:24:50
administration. The FDA has green lit. The company's work to
00:24:53
implant neural links into human brains.
00:24:55
Now, they've already implanted them into pig brains. And there
00:24:58
's a video at my website tech advice dot life on the article
00:25:01
about this where you see a monkey, the game pong, but he's
00:25:05
doing so completely with his brain. He's not controlling a
00:25:08
game pad in his hands or anything like that.
00:25:09
Is it actually inserted into the brain or is it kept on the
00:25:13
outside of the skull? And it's just picking up and sending
00:25:16
signals through the skull and into the soft?
00:25:18
Well, in 2020 in 2020 new implanted a chip into a pig's
00:25:21
brain and in 2021 another chip was implanted into a monkey's
00:25:25
brain. And again, you can see inside so it's not wireless. Let
00:25:29
's put it that way.
00:25:30
I'm assuming that means he's solved the problem of corrosion
00:25:33
with the chips and the problem of infection as well.
00:25:35
Well, look, I think I'd say it's all still all being tested. I
00:25:39
mean, he only just received FDA approval to test this inside of
00:25:42
human brains. But yeah, that would have to definitely be one
00:25:45
of the things to look out for. You don't want to infect your
00:25:47
brain with some sort of bacteria disease just because you have a
00:25:51
chip inside.
00:25:52
But now this is something that any kind of implant in the human
00:25:56
body would have to deal with. Whether it's a chip in your hand
00:26:00
or people who have been planted r to eat chips into their hands,
00:26:03
whether it's a pacemaker in your heart. So there's a lot of Steve
00:26:06
Austin, hasn't it? Absolutely yes. The $6 million.
00:26:10
People of a certain age will understand what we just said.
00:26:13
Absolutely. Ok. Four out of five Australians play video games on
00:26:17
a regular basis, this comes as no surprise to me as you'd
00:26:20
expect.
00:26:21
So 81 per cent of all Australians are playing video
00:26:24
games up from 67% last year according to the interactive
00:26:28
games and Entertainment Association, from their latest
00:26:30
Australia plays 2023 report. And they say that they're using
00:26:34
games to improve their mental health and they prefer puzzle
00:26:37
games over action games.
00:26:38
Now, puzzle games are sort of actually achieving something
00:26:41
more than just wiping out hordes of aliens or other soldiers 94
00:26:45
per cent of Australian households have a device for
00:26:47
playing video games. Up from 92% 76% of game households have two
00:26:52
or more devices for playing games. 48 per cent of gamers are
00:26:55
female, more women and girls are playing than ever before.
00:26:58
Up from 46 per cent. After age 55 Australian women are playing
00:27:03
more video games than Australian men. 35 years is the average age
00:27:06
of video game players in Australia. 75 per cent of
00:27:09
Australians play video games with others and 91 per cent of
00:27:12
parents play with their children to connect as a family.
00:27:15
Dyson's officially launched its new noise canceling and air
00:27:18
purifying headphones. Are these the same air purifying
00:27:21
headphones? We talked about a couple of months.
00:27:24
Well, actually they launched this to the world a couple of
00:27:26
days before April fools last year. And a lot of people
00:27:29
wondered whether this was an April fools joke and they said
00:27:32
no, they swore black and blue but no, it's actually real and
00:27:35
it's called the Dyson Zone in Australia. The standard version
00:27:38
will sell for $999.
00:27:40
So about the same price as Apple 's Airpod max headphones and
00:27:43
sort of double the price of what you pay for the Sony or the Bos
00:27:45
equivalent. But because Dyson has had such a long history in
00:27:49
having these motors and also air purification they've been able.
00:27:53
So in the cups that go over your ears.
00:27:54
They've got some fans in there that are spinning around and not
00:27:58
only is there 50 hours of listening Time, despite the
00:28:01
fact, they have to spin and we've got 11 microphones, a
00:28:04
number of which are used to reduce noise pollution by up to
00:28:07
38 decibels. But it's also purifying the air with particles
00:28:10
removed as small as 0.1 microbes and activated carbon filters,
00:28:14
absorb gasses such as nitrogen dioxide from urban pollution.
00:28:17
So when you're walking down the street, a lot of the pollutants
00:28:19
from the various cars, in theory, that will all be
00:28:22
filtered out. You have this visor that you can remove, you
00:28:25
don't have to have it. You don't have to have the air
00:28:27
purification on if you don't want it.
00:28:29
And yet another big story. And what's been a big week for tech
00:28:32
news is the idea of almost weekly updates for Beta IOS
00:28:36
Seven.
00:28:36
Yes. Look, that's normally around about this Time is when
00:28:39
Apple starts launching weekly updates because there's only
00:28:42
four or five weeks to go before the new iphones will be
00:28:44
launched. And of course, the IOS 17 has to be ready.
00:28:47
So there's a new PB three, public beta three as we speak
00:28:51
and develop beta five. And hopefully this Time next week,
00:28:54
we should see, develop a beta six and public beta four and
00:28:58
which will make a lot of people who are actually using the
00:29:00
Beaters every day on their primary devices. Very happy for
00:29:03
me.
00:29:04
I've just installed it on a secondary device and also we
00:29:06
have beers for the Watch the Mac, for home pods for the tvs
00:29:11
again. Unless you're really keen and you can put up with bugs.
00:29:14
Don't install these yet. Wait for the final version. It's just
00:29:17
a few weeks away.
00:29:18
That's Alex Sahara Roy from tech Advice. Do live and that's the
00:29:37
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