The Morning After: Friday, December 30 2016
2016 is almost over, but sliding in just under the wire is a wild new delivery idea from Amazon. There’s also donut-shaped Mars shelters, and our take on Apple’s 2016: it’s not a positive one.
Amazon apparently wants to deploy delivery drones from flying warehouses
While Amazon only just recently started delivering to real customers via drone, it has even bigger ideas. A patent filing reveals a system where they take off from floating blimps stocked with commonly requested products.
Sex at CES: An uncomfortable coupling
The adult industry and CES have a longer relationship than you might know. From 1984 to 1998 porn was a part of CES, until AVN split off for its own concurrently running show. Now, the two expos take place weeks apart, and porn has almost no presence at the electronics show. Christopher Trout’s latest column explains how we got here, and how sex is creeping back in via VR and connected toy makers like OhMiBod.
2016 was a hard year to be an Apple fan
The company didn’t have a great year: iPhone sales declined for the first time, and Apple’s profits followed suit. Apple also launched confusing product lineups with weird and arguably unnecessary compromises. It seems like plenty of loyal Apple supporters might be contemplating life outside the company’s ecosystem.
US officially responds to Russian “malicious cyber activity”
After months of consideration, the feds have taken action in response to suspected Russian election hacking. The DHS and FBI released a joint report describing how Russia attacked the US, while the State Department is shutting down two Russian compounds and expelling 35 intelligence operatives. According to President Obama: “These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized.”
“Super Mario Run” pre-registrations open for Android
We still don’t have a release date, but Nintendo’s auto-runner is coming to Android. To make sure you don’t miss out on the arrival of Super Mario Run, pre-register via Google Play for a notification.
Inflatable ice shelters could protect astronauts on Mars.
Welcome to the Mars Ice Home. This conceptual design consists of a torus — a large, inflatable inner tube — lined with a shell of water ice. Not only is the structure lightweight, it incorporates materials from Mars itself. In addition, the water, which protects against cosmic rays, could be repurposed as rocket fuel for the Mars Ascent Lander. Useful when all resources and space is at a premium.
DirecTV Now’s $35 special offer will only be available for a few more days
AT&T launched its streaming TV service with a package offering 100 channels for $35 a month, but only for a limited time. We now know how limited that is, since its website says the offer will go away after January 9th. If you sign up in time then you can keep the promo price (for how long is unspecified), but once it’s gone, it’s gone.
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