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The US won’t be getting the Honor 9 any time soon
While the Honor 9 isn’t spanking new, the Huawei-backed company announced European availability at its press event in Berlin. Unfortunately for the US, though, Honor currently does not have plans to launch the phone in The States.
In a statement to Android Central, Eva Wimmers, Vice President of Honor EU/Global noted that a States-side release for the Honor 9 was “not planned at this moment”. While that doesn’t rule out the phone actually making it here, you can bet it won’t be happening for quite some time.
Honor 9
Last year, Honor held a press event in San Fransisco, announcing…
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Xperia XZ Premium is now a part of Sony’s Open Devices program
Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium has been added to the company’s Open Devices program. The company is happy to provide developers with the resources to build aftermarket ROMs for participating devices. The Xperia XZ Premium is Sony’s latest flagship device. If you dropped money on a premium device, Sony wants to make sure you can get the most out of the device, especially if you’re all about flashing ROMs.
The Open Devices program is also a great way for Sony to learn from outside developers. By providing the software binaries for its devices, Sony can take notes on what the developer…
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New Star Trek series will abandon Gene Roddenberry’s cardinal rule
Enlarge/ Sonequa Martin-Green plays protagonist Michael Burnham, first officer of the U.S.S. Shenzhou, on new CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery. (credit: CBS)
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a lot of strict rules for writers on his shows. Some, like the requirement that both female and male officers be called “sir,” were thrown out a while ago (Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway, wanted to be called “ma’am”). Now, with forthcoming series Star Trek: Discovery, we’re about to see one of Roddenberry’s most cherished rules bite the dust.
When Roddenberry first framed his ideas for the Star Trek universe, he wanted to be sure that writers would emphasize the Utopian aspects of future life in the Federation. Some of that Utopianism was hardwired into the show’s basic premise, in which money, war, and racial discrimination are things of the distant past. But Roddenberry wasn’t satisfied with that—he wanted characters whose behavior was exemplary, too.
So he made a rule, which endured long after his death, that main characters were not allowed to mistreat each other or have conflicts that weren’t quickly resolved. Writers for the various series also weren’t allowed to show characters being malevolent or cruel. Of course, there were exceptions. Aliens or non-crew members could be as awful as the writers wanted, as could protagonists whose minds were being controlled by outside forces. (This helps explain why our heroes are always being possessed or hopping over to the Mirror Universe.)
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Nokia 6 available in the US via Amazon Prime Exclusive, Alcatel IDOL 5S and Moto E4, too
Today, Amazon has added five new smartphones to its Prime Exclusives category of unlocked smartphones. This category of smartphones gives you a deal on the phone if you don’t mind Amazon’s ads on the lock screen.
Alcatel has three new “Prime Exclusive” devices: Alcatel IDOL 5S, A50, and A30 PLUS. Both the IDOL 5S and A50 feature a 5.2-inch display, though the A30’s is 720p and the IDOL 5S’ is 1080p. Meanwhile, the A30 PLUS has a larger 720p 5.5-inch display. As for CPUs, the A30 PLUS and A50 run a MediaTek 6738 Quad Core CPU 1.5GHz while the IDOL 4S runs a beefier octa-core Snapdragon…
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OnePlus 5 receives second OTA update
This is the second day since many of you started receiving your OnePlus 5 devices from the early sale. Just over the weekend, the phone received an update to OxygenOS 4.5.2 offering a number of stability fixes and optimizations. Today, another OTA update is being pushed to the OnePlus 5, though it’s not the promised stabilization for 4K recording.
The new OTA update bumps OxygenOS to 4.5.3 and offers bug fixed for dropped Wi-Fi signal, a Google Translate hiccup, and a fix for the Expanded screenshot feature. In addition, tweaks and optimizations have been made to the System, Camera app…
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A Groundbreaking Discovery Just Verified the Existence of Orbiting Supermassive Black Holes
Supermassive Orbit
Researchers at the University of New Mexico (UNM) have made an incredible discovery that could help us better understand not just black holes, but also the universe.
For the first time ever, astronomers have observed and measured two supermassive black holes orbiting one another. The black holes are hundreds of millions of light-years from us, but that just happens to be the perfect distance from the Earth for optimal observation.
Artist’s concept of two supermassive black holes, similar to those observed by UNM researchers, orbiting one another. Image Credit: Joshua Valenzuela/UNM
The observation process was an undertaking 12 years in the making. “For a long time, we’ve been looking into space to try and find a pair of these supermassive black holes orbiting as a result of two galaxies merging,” professor Greg Taylor explained in a UNM news release. “Even though we’ve theorized that this should be happening, nobody had ever seen it until now.”
The team used the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to plot the black holes’ trajectories and confirm that they are indeed in orbit with one another. However, the size of the black holes makes their orbital period around 24,000 years, so even after viewing the binary system for over a decade, the scientists have yet to witness any curvature in their orbit.
Learning Opportunity
These orbiting black holes could teach us a great deal about our universe. “Supermassive black holes have a lot of influence on the stars around them and the growth and evolution of the galaxy,” Taylor explained. “So, understanding more about them and what happens when they merge with one another could be important for our understanding for the universe.”
Bob Zavala, an astronomer with the U.S. Naval Observatory, likens the potential of this discovery to what astronomers were able to learn about stars from studying their binary orbits. “Now we’ll be able to use similar techniques to understand super-massive black holes and the galaxies they reside within,” he told UNM.
The UNM team plans to observe the black holes again in three or four years to confirm their findings and get a more precise reading of the orbit. This discovery will undoubtedly provide a wealth of new knowledge for many years to come.
