Techlife News #363

A characteristic twinkle in his eye, Ronald Reagan waves to a crowd from aboard a rail car in a hologram revealed Wednesday at the late president’s namesake library in Southern California. “We think we made a good beginning, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” the digital resurrection of the nation’s 40th president says in his steady voice as a flurry of balloons falls in front of him. Reagan, who died in 2004 at age 93, was speaking about the nation’s future during a 1984 campaign stop but easily could have been referencing the technology that brought him back to life in 2018. The audio used is edited from his real remarks. “We wanted to make President Reagan as lifelike as possible,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Reagan Foundation. “It’s a stunning…

New York state is investing $40 million in technology that stores energy from solar power. The office of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the funding decision on Wednesday. The money will support solar power projects around the state that are designed to ensure energy derived from the sun can be stored for use when demand is greatest. That can reduce the need for other, less environmentally friendly forms of power. Cuomo has set a goal for the state to generate half of its power from renewable energy sources by 2030.…

Nearly a half-century has passed since the majestic moment when Neil Armstrong stepped carefully onto the lunar landscape, left foot first, taking that giant leap for mankind. Whether you were alive then and glued to the TV, or relived it later through that iconic, grainy NASA footage, what you probably remember is just that: The majesty. You’re probably not thinking much about the deafening noise, the claustrophobia, the terror of blasting off in a rickety sardine can that could fail at any moment for any of a thousand reasons. Or the fact that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could have ended up stranded, left to die on the moon; President Richard Nixon had a speech ready for that dark scenario. You will, though, be thinking of these things as you watch “First Man,” the…

AT&T and WarnerMedia are joining the ever-expanding list of companies offering a streaming video service. They say the service due to launch in late 2019 will include films, TV shows, documentaries, animation and other offerings. No pricing was announced. It’s the second product AT&T has unveiled since its $81 billion acquisition in June of Time Warner, which it renamed WarnerMedia. That same month it launched WatchTV, a cable-like package of more than 30 TV channels delivered over the internet. More people are switching to streaming video from traditional cable bundles. Other streaming services include Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, CBS All Access, Showtime, Amazon, YouTube Premium and others. And Disney is set to launch its own service later next year as well. While details about the service have not been announced, WarnerMedia has media properties…

As Walmart, AT&T and Disney join stalwarts such as Netflix in streaming video and creating original shows, a reality sets in: Not all will survive. Over the past week, Walmart announced plans to partner with MGM Studios on original shows for Walmart’s video-on-demand service, Vudu, while AT&T’s WarnerMedia said it would create its own streaming service centered on HBO and Turner properties. Disney, meanwhile, is buying Fox’s entertainment businesses to beef up its planned streaming service , set to debut next year. Add to that some existing, but little-known services, such as Filmstruck, Sundance Now, Mubi and others that offer older movies or niche offerings to subscribers. These companies are trying to keep up with the changing tastes of consumers as they stream video on demand rather than rely on traditional cable subscriptions.…

Two astronauts from the U.S. and Russia were safe Thursday after an emergency landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan following the failure of a Russian booster rocket carrying them to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Alexei Ovchinin lifted off as scheduled at 2:40 p.m. (0840 GMT; 4:40 a.m. EDT) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but their Soyuz booster rocket failed about two minutes after the launch. The rescue capsule automatically jettisoned from the booster and went into a ballistic descent, landing at a sharper than normal angle and subjecting the crew to heavy gravitational force. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who watched the launch at Baikonur along with his Russian counterpart, tweeted that Hague and Ovchinin are in good condition. He added that a “thorough investigation into…