The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing

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From Facebook to creepy online ads, the worst tech of the year made the internet feel like an unsafe place to hang out. Yet there were some products that were fixed, our personal tech critic writes. Personal technology was so awful this year that nobody would think you were paranoid if you dug a hole and buried your computer, phone and smart speaker under six feet of earth. Facebook made headlines week after week for failing to protect our privacy and for spreading misinformation. Juul, the e-cigarette company under investigation for marketing products to teenagers, emerged as the Joe Camel of the digital era. And don’t get me started on just how intrusive online advertising has become. On the other hand, there was good technology this year that improved how we live, like parental controls to curb smartphone addiction and a web browser with built-in privacy protections. For the last two years, I’ve reviewed the tech that needed the most fixing and the tech t...
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A Deep Blue Vision of Earth From an Asteroid Hunter

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A Deep Blue Vision of Earth From an Asteroid Hunter

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona



As it slingshotted past Earth at 19,000 miles per hour on its journey to an asteroid, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft took a moment to admire the view — from 106,000 miles away.


This composite image was taken on Friday by an onboard camera as the spacecraft flew past the planet. It shows the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean flanked by Australia in the lower left and the southwestern United States and Baja California in the upper right.


At the top of the image there are several black vertical streaks, the result of the camera’s short exposure times. According to NASA, the camera’s rapid exposures — less than three-milliseconds each — are necessary when taking a picture of something as bright as our blue planet, but are not required for taking images of the spacecraft’s dark primary target: the asteroid Bennu.



Osiris-Rex is on a mission to collect samples from Bennu and bring them back to Earth. Launched in September 2016, the probe made a quick circle around the sun. To get on the right trajectory for traveling toward the asteroid, it needed to fling past Earth last week. The flyby tilted the spacecraft upward by about six degrees, which would put it in the correct position to rendezvous with Bennu in August 2018.


The carbon-rich asteroid is like a time capsule from more than 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system formed. Scientists hope that the samples that Osiris-Rex collects and brings to Earth in 2023 will contain clues from the earliest history of our stellar neighborhood.







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