The Challenge of the Planets, Part One


aaaaa

NASA



In the 1950s and early 1960s, many who made it their business to consider the yawning gulfs between the planets foresaw that only through enormous efforts, spanning perhaps centuries, could those immensities be crossed. To be sure, rocket engines burning chemical propellants akin to those already in use in missiles could accomplish round-trip journeys to the moon, and probably also reach and return from Mars and Venus; beyond those near neighbors, however, new propulsion technology and techniques would be required.


One approach sought to mimic the European and Chinese Ages of Exploration, during which ships sought repair and resupply at exotic seaports and remote islands as they slowly made their way to distant destinations. The moon, the planets, and the moons of planets would serve as ever-moving stepping stones. Earth and Venus, for example, become aligned every 19 months so that advanced chemical or perhaps nuclear-thermal rocket engines could propel a spaceship on a minimum-energy course to a Venus-orbiting station from an Earth-orbiting spaceport or from a base on Earth’s moon. Upon arrival at Venus four or five months later, the crew would assist technicians based there as they rechecked, refueled, resupplied, and refurbished their spaceship.


When, months later, Venus and Mercury moved along their orbits so that they became aligned for a minimum-energy crossing, the crew would board their spaceship and move on to their ultimate destination. If they were the first crew to reach Mercury, they would look for valuable resources – chiefly rocket propellants – and perhaps establish the nucleus of a permanent base. When Mercury and Venus lined up again, they would begin to retrace their steps to Earth.


If a spaceship’s destination lay in the other direction – that is, beyond Mars, in the outer Solar System – then the challenges of interplanetary voyaging were far greater. Though spacecraft would not travel in straight lines between worlds – they would instead follow curving minimum-energy Hohmann transfer orbits about the Sun – the straight-line distances between Earth and the planets serve to illustrate the problem. Mercury is at its most distant about 120 million miles from Earth; Jupiter, on the other hand, approaches Earth no nearer than about 480 million miles.


Because Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto orbit far from the Sun, their years are long, so opportunities for minimum-energy transfers between them occur infrequently. Jupiter orbits the Sun in a dozen Earth years, Saturn circles the Sun in 26, and Uranus has a year lasting 84 Earth years. A spaceship starting from Earth bound for Uranus would have to wait for an Earth-Mars minimum-energy transfer opportunity (these occur every 26 months). Upon arrival at Mars, they would ready their spaceship to take advantage of a Mars-Jupiter transfer opportunity (they happen every 28 months). The journey from Mars to Jupiter would require about six years.


The intrepid Uranus-bound crew would then have to wait for a minimum-energy Jupiter-Saturn transfer opportunity. These happen every 20 years. The journey from Jupiter to stunning Saturn would last a decade. While they awaited a Saturn-Uranus transfer opportunity (they occur every 54 years), the crew might refuel at Saturn’s moon Titan, which was known to have an atmosphere; 1950s astronomers thought it was made of methane, which could serve as rocket fuel. The journey from Saturn to Uranus would last 27 years. Hence, even if the wait time at every stop along the way were minimal, the one-way journey from Earth to Uranus would need at least 40 years.


Confronted with these kinds of numbers, most 1950s space writers felt certain that the planets were virtually off-limits. Patrick Moore, for example, wrote in 1955 that none of his readers would live to see Mars and Venus up close. As for the nearest and largest of the gas giants, Moore declared that “for generations of men to come, there can be no hope of seeing the wonders of Jupiter from close range.” He added that “[w]e must be content to look at the king of planets from a respectful distance, and leave him alone in his cold, proud glory.”


Even as these florid words saw print, propulsion engineers sought new fast ways of reaching the planets. Part Two of this post will look at some of the spacecraft designs they proposed; it will then describe the discoveries that undermined their plans and threw open the entire Solar System to scientific exploration.


Reference


Guide to the Planets, Patrick Moore, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1955; pp. 141, 195.



Shure’s New Mics Turn Your Smartphone Into a High-End Audio Recorder


The MV88 connects to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad with a Lightning connector and captures high-quality field recordings.

The MV88 connects to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad with a Lightning connector and captures high-quality audio with the help of Shure’s free mobile recording app. Shure





Your iPhone and iPad are fine for recording voice memos or the occasional interview in a small and quiet space. But if you’re looking for real audio quality (not just basic legibility), you’re pretty much screwed unless you opt for an external mic.

As luck would have it, Shure has gone ahead and created just such a mic. Announced today at CES, the MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone is part of the company’s new Motiv line of Apple MFi-certified plug-and-play devices. There’s also a free app that lets you fine tune the MV88’s performance in real time with various DSP preset modes, microphone gain adjustment, and stereo width control.


I’ve spent the past week or so futzing around with both the app and the mic and I have to admit it produces some pretty amazing results—far better than other digital condenser mics I’ve used with the iPhone. In addition to recording sound at 24-bit/48 kHz, the mic itself has a handy 90-degree hinge that lets you adjust its position for whatever recording situation you’re in. I haven’t had time to really put it through its paces, but the few interviews and field recordings I’ve captured so far all sound impeccable.


Unfortunately, I also wasn’t able to record with the early version of Shure’s app (only adjust the various DSP and gain settings), but I could use the mic with other Apple audio recording apps like Voice Memos and Garageband. Shure says it will be adding a high-quality recording option soon, however.


All the mics, including the $149 MV88, the $199 MV51 large-diaphragm version, and the $99 MV5, will go on sale this summer, along with the Motive MVi Digital Audio Interface. The latter will cost $99 as well. Stay tuned for a formal review of the MV88 in the coming weeks.


BWOJc9DRm1bMECwTT5FI8X_ItpQP6yVfM0R9ldp1C2g

Shure




Shure’s New Mics Turn Your Smartphone Into a High-End Audio Recorder


The MV88 connects to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad with a Lightning connector and captures high-quality field recordings.

The MV88 connects to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad with a Lightning connector and captures high-quality audio with the help of Shure’s free mobile recording app. Shure





Your iPhone and iPad are fine for recording voice memos or the occasional interview in a small and quiet space. But if you’re looking for real audio quality (not just basic legibility), you’re pretty much screwed unless you opt for an external mic.

As luck would have it, Shure has gone ahead and created just such a mic. Announced today at CES, the MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone is part of the company’s new Motiv line of Apple MFi-certified plug-and-play devices. There’s also a free app that lets you fine tune the MV88’s performance in real time with various DSP preset modes, microphone gain adjustment, and stereo width control.


I’ve spent the past week or so futzing around with both the app and the mic and I have to admit it produces some pretty amazing results—far better than other digital condenser mics I’ve used with the iPhone. In addition to recording sound at 24-bit/48 kHz, the mic itself has a handy 90-degree hinge that lets you adjust its position for whatever recording situation you’re in. I haven’t had time to really put it through its paces, but the few interviews and field recordings I’ve captured so far all sound impeccable.


Unfortunately, I also wasn’t able to record with the early version of Shure’s app (only adjust the various DSP and gain settings), but I could use the mic with other Apple audio recording apps like Voice Memos and Garageband. Shure says it will be adding a high-quality recording option soon, however.


All the mics, including the $149 MV88, the $199 MV51 large-diaphragm version, and the $99 MV5, will go on sale this summer, along with the Motive MVi Digital Audio Interface. The latter will cost $99 as well. Stay tuned for a formal review of the MV88 in the coming weeks.


BWOJc9DRm1bMECwTT5FI8X_ItpQP6yVfM0R9ldp1C2g

Shure




Sony’s CES Highlights Include Wafer-Thin UltraHD TVs and 4K Camcorders


Sony X900C Quantum Dot 4K TV

The razor-thin 65-inch X900C is one of Sony’s new quantum-dot 4K TVs. Sony





One of the major themes at CES 2015 is that 4K is here to stay. The coming year will see far more UltraHD sets, far more readily available 4K content, and probably more new 4K TVs than 1080p sets.

Sony is covering both ends of the 4K spectrum—watching it and making it—with its announcements at this year’s show. There will be new wall-hangable, impossibly thin “floating” 4K sets. And because our eyeballs will likely decide that only UltraHD is good enough for them in the coming years, there are also some very affordable 4K camcorders to record things with.


The most immediately accessible, especially for Mountain Dew drinkers, is the 4K Action Cam FDR-X100V. It’s a water/shock/freeze-proof GoPro rival that shoots UltraHD video at 30fps and 24fps in XAVC S format. In 4K, the camera captures at a bitrate up to 100Mbps, and you can dial back the resolution to 1080p to record at 120fps or 720p to record at 240fps.


Sony FDR-X100V

The FDR-X100V is a tiny 4K action camcorder. Sony



The rugged camcorder also has an optical-stabilization system built with correcting drone-specific shake in mind, and Sony says the lens has an ultra-wide 170-degree field of coverage. A few manual controls are in the mix, including exposure-compensation and white-balance adjustments. The 4K action cam is due in February for $500 or $600 as a kit with a dedicated remote.


Bigger—but not by much—is the new HDR-AX33 Handycam, which is the smallest handheld 4K camcorder Sony has released to date. It shoots 3,840 x 2160 XAVC S video at 30p and 24p, and it has built-in Wi-Fi that enables it to live-stream footage to Ustream. Its manual controls are deeper, and it has the trippy “Balanced Optical SteadyShot” system that allows the entire lens housing to float around and combat hand shake. That camcorder is coming in mid-February for $1,100.


And as you might expect, Sony wants to sell you some new sets for watching all that 4K footage. The new top-of-the-line models are the 55- and 65-inch XBR-X900C and 75-inch XBR-910C, all of which have the company’s “Triluminous” wide color gamut displays. In past years, Triluminous has been Sony’s code name for quantum-dot technology, and that’s likely to be the case with the new X900 series models. A Sony spokesperson described this year’s models as having a wider color gamut, higher dynamic range, and plasma-like deep blacks.


In any event, they’re absurdly thin (less than 0.2 inches thick at their slimmest point), with barely any bezels. And although they come with a cosmetically pleasant stand, you can also mount them “flush with the wall,” according to Sony.


All of those sets come equipped with Android TV and ChromeCast features baked in, as do a couple of beefier higher-end models that also have the same panel and processing technology. The quantum-dot “Triluminos” X930C (65 inches) and X940C (75 inches) trade in the thin profile and easy wall-hangability for better built-in speakers. Each of them has front-facing speakers, including a subwoofer, and the sets support 24-bit/96kHz audio.


You’ll have to wait till the Spring to get the new sets, and pricing hasn’t been announced yet.



Facebook’s New AI Acquisition Could Give Its Messenger App Siri-Like Powers


Print

Getty Images



Facebook is buying Wit.ai, a small Palo Alto, California startup that lets software developers add like Siri-like voice recognition and natural language processing to their products.

On the surface, it seems like a bit of an oddball acquisition. Wit.ai is used by more than 6,000 software developers, most of whom don’t have that much to do with Facebook. This guy used it to build voice-activated Christmas tree lights; these guys to soup up a microwave. But according to a source familiar with the deal, the Wit team’s language processing smarts will give a big boost to one of Facebook’s most important projects: Messenger, the instant-messaging app it spun off from its main social network app last year.


Whatever the case, the acquisition is part of wider effort to mimic Apple’s Siri voice recognition with a wide range of other devices and apps. Most notably, Google and Microsoft are developing their own voice recognition systems for Android and Windows phones.


Facebook isn’t saying much about the deal. The company wouldn’t confirm that Messenger is absorbing Wit.ai, and it confined its comments to a statement it emailed to the press. “Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and text into actionable data,” the statement reads. “We’re excited to have them onboard.”


But the social network could use this type of technology to build a Messenger that can better understand what’s in your messages and suggest further actions to you—much like Google’s Gmail recognizes potential calendar entries, says Tanay Tandon, the founder of a Clipped, a language-processing startup. He interned last summer at Wit. Further on, Facebook might even use Wit’s nascent voice recognition technology to help Messenger convert audio to text or even respond to voice commands.


In a blog post announcing the deal, Wit said it has no plans to kill off its developer platform. “Facebook has the resources and talent to help us take the next step,” the startup wrote.


That’s good news for Ilan Abehassera, the CEO of smart-device startup Insensi, and an early investor in Wit. Wit lets his developers add language processing services without having to be experts—and that’s pretty valuable. “The Siri-as-a-service product doesn’t exit outside of Wit,” he says. “It’s especially interesting for connected devices and the internet of things.”


The main goal here may be to improve Messenger, but the acquisition could also benefit another Facebook technology called Parse, which simplifies app development for mobile developers. “It might be a nice add-on to the Parse software development kit to add natural language processing and voice processing capabilities,” Tandon says.



Sony’s CES Highlights Include Wafer-Thin UltraHD TVs and 4K Camcorders


Sony X900C Quantum Dot 4K TV

The razor-thin 65-inch X900C is one of Sony’s new quantum-dot 4K TVs. Sony





One of the major themes at CES 2015 is that 4K is here to stay. The coming year will see far more UltraHD sets, far more readily available 4K content, and probably more new 4K TVs than 1080p sets.

Sony is covering both ends of the 4K spectrum—watching it and making it—with its announcements at this year’s show. There will be new wall-hangable, impossibly thin “floating” 4K sets. And because our eyeballs will likely decide that only UltraHD is good enough for them in the coming years, there are also some very affordable 4K camcorders to record things with.


The most immediately accessible, especially for Mountain Dew drinkers, is the 4K Action Cam FDR-X100V. It’s a water/shock/freeze-proof GoPro rival that shoots UltraHD video at 30fps and 24fps in XAVC S format. In 4K, the camera captures at a bitrate up to 100Mbps, and you can dial back the resolution to 1080p to record at 120fps or 720p to record at 240fps.


Sony FDR-X100V

The FDR-X100V is a tiny 4K action camcorder. Sony



The rugged camcorder also has an optical-stabilization system built with correcting drone-specific shake in mind, and Sony says the lens has an ultra-wide 170-degree field of coverage. A few manual controls are in the mix, including exposure-compensation and white-balance adjustments. The 4K action cam is due in February for $500 or $600 as a kit with a dedicated remote.


Bigger—but not by much—is the new HDR-AX33 Handycam, which is the smallest handheld 4K camcorder Sony has released to date. It shoots 3,840 x 2160 XAVC S video at 30p and 24p, and it has built-in Wi-Fi that enables it to live-stream footage to Ustream. Its manual controls are deeper, and it has the trippy “Balanced Optical SteadyShot” system that allows the entire lens housing to float around and combat hand shake. That camcorder is coming in mid-February for $1,100.


And as you might expect, Sony wants to sell you some new sets for watching all that 4K footage. The new top-of-the-line models are the 55- and 65-inch XBR-X900C and 75-inch XBR-910C, all of which have the company’s “Triluminous” wide color gamut displays. In past years, Triluminous has been Sony’s code name for quantum-dot technology, and that’s likely to be the case with the new X900 series models. A Sony spokesperson described this year’s models as having a wider color gamut, higher dynamic range, and plasma-like deep blacks.


In any event, they’re absurdly thin (less than 0.2 inches thick at their slimmest point), with barely any bezels. And although they come with a cosmetically pleasant stand, you can also mount them “flush with the wall,” according to Sony.


All of those sets come equipped with Android TV and ChromeCast features baked in, as do a couple of beefier higher-end models that also have the same panel and processing technology. The quantum-dot “Triluminos” X930C (65 inches) and X940C (75 inches) trade in the thin profile and easy wall-hangability for better built-in speakers. Each of them has front-facing speakers, including a subwoofer, and the sets support 24-bit/96kHz audio.


You’ll have to wait till the Spring to get the new sets, and pricing hasn’t been announced yet.



Facebook’s New AI Acquisition Could Give Its Messenger App Siri-Like Powers


Print

Getty Images



Facebook is buying Wit.ai, a small Palo Alto, California startup that lets software developers add like Siri-like voice recognition and natural language processing to their products.

On the surface, it seems like a bit of an oddball acquisition. Wit.ai is used by more than 6,000 software developers, most of whom don’t have that much to do with Facebook. This guy used it to build voice-activated Christmas tree lights; these guys to soup up a microwave. But according to a source familiar with the deal, the Wit team’s language processing smarts will give a big boost to one of Facebook’s most important projects: Messenger, the instant-messaging app it spun off from its main social network app last year.


Whatever the case, the acquisition is part of wider effort to mimic Apple’s Siri voice recognition with a wide range of other devices and apps. Most notably, Google and Microsoft are developing their own voice recognition systems for Android and Windows phones.


Facebook isn’t saying much about the deal. The company wouldn’t confirm that Messenger is absorbing Wit.ai, and it confined its comments to a statement it emailed to the press. “Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and text into actionable data,” the statement reads. “We’re excited to have them onboard.”


But the social network could use this type of technology to build a Messenger that can better understand what’s in your messages and suggest further actions to you—much like Google’s Gmail recognizes potential calendar entries, says Tanay Tandon, the founder of a Clipped, a language-processing startup. He interned last summer at Wit. Further on, Facebook might even use Wit’s nascent voice recognition technology to help Messenger convert audio to text or even respond to voice commands.


In a blog post announcing the deal, Wit said it has no plans to kill off its developer platform. “Facebook has the resources and talent to help us take the next step,” the startup wrote.


That’s good news for Ilan Abehassera, the CEO of smart-device startup Insensi, and an early investor in Wit. Wit lets his developers add language processing services without having to be experts—and that’s pretty valuable. “The Siri-as-a-service product doesn’t exit outside of Wit,” he says. “It’s especially interesting for connected devices and the internet of things.”


The main goal here may be to improve Messenger, but the acquisition could also benefit another Facebook technology called Parse, which simplifies app development for mobile developers. “It might be a nice add-on to the Parse software development kit to add natural language processing and voice processing capabilities,” Tandon says.



Samsung Reveals a New Curved-Screen PC and a MacBook Air Rival


Samsung ATIV One 7 Curved

The Samsung ATIV One 7 Curved is an all-in-one PC with a concave screen. Samsung





Last year was the year of curvy TVs. In 2015, concave screens will be less pronounced in the world of television sets, but Samsung is bringing those curves closer to your eyeballs. It makes sense. Curvy works best when it’s right in front of your face, getting jiggy with your peripheral vision.

The new Ativ One 7 Curved is an all-in-one PC with a 27-inch screen. That matches the size of the 5K iMac, but its 1080p display doesn’t match the resolution. Instead, the Ativ One 7 has a curved 300-nit LED screen, giving users a slight immersive effect when they’re playing games or watching movies.


Let’s talk specs. The concave 27-incher packs a 2.2GHz Core i5 with 8GB RAM and integrated graphics, a 1TB flash drive, a pair of 10W speakers, and a 1080p Webcam. It runs Windows 8.1 and is about an inch and a half deep. Those are clearly more-modest specs than the UHD iMac, and the price matches up. Due in the first quarter of the year, it’s priced at $1,300.


Also curved for your eyeballs’ pleasure is the even-bigger SE790C, a 34-inch 21:9 monitor that bumps up the resolution to WQHD+ (3440 x 1440). It’ll accept sources via Display Port and HDMI 1.4 and also comes with five USB 3.0 ports. There’s a tradeoff for all that size and resolution, as it only has a 60Hz refresh rate.


Samsung’s new computers and peripherals aren’t all curveballs. The new Ativ Book 9 is more of a cutter. It’s a slick 12.2-inch ultraportable laptop that’s less than half an inch thick.


Samsung ATIV Book 9

The Ativ Book 9 isn’t curved, but this 12.2-inch laptop weighs less than the 11-inch MacBook Air. Samsung



Despite having a bigger screen, the laptop weighs less than the 11-inch MacBook Air, clocking in at a mere 2.09 lbs. The Ativ Book 9 has a 2560 x 1600 LED screen, a Broadwell Intel Core M 5Y70 processor with 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, and 10.5 hours of battery life. That fully loaded configuration will go for $1,400 starting in the first quarter of 2015.



Amazon Could Finally Grow Its Profits—By Selling Other People’s Stuff


Inside an Amazon fulfillment center in Tracy, California.

Inside an Amazon fulfillment center in Tracy, California. Drew Kelly/WIRED



Amazon isn’t an unprofitable company. Though it posted losses in two quarters out of the three reported so far for 2014, it ended 2013 at $274 million in the black. The trouble is: This is world’s biggest online retailer, with annual revenues creeping toward $90 billion. With that in mind, Amazon’s profits are paltry, especially when compared to other tech giants.


A key reason for its suffering is that, unlike competitors such as Google or Apple, Amazon requires a massive physical infrastructure to operate its business. Amazon can’t be Amazon without its million-square-foot fulfillment centers and the tens of thousands of workers who staff them. The company has been building and staffing new warehouses in recent years at a rapid clip—and at a major cost to Amazon’s bottom line.


But all that construction might finally start allowing a little more daylight to peak through the tiny margin between what Amazon spends and what it makes. On Monday, Amazon said that third-party sellers had sold more than 2 billion items on its site in 2014, a record that apparently doubles the previous year’s total. Those sales accounted for more than 40 percent of all items sold on Amazon.


In other words, a little less than half of what was sold on Amazon last year wasn’t sold by Amazon. And though it may sound like a contradiction, the less stuff Amazon has to sell itself, the more money it stands to make.


Money Already Spent


Third-party sellers on Amazon are those mysterious entities that show up in some product listings just below the price next to the “sold by” caption. More than 2 million such sellers sell their wares on Amazon, the company says. And for the privilege of reaching Amazon’s vast international consumer audience, Amazon takes a cut.


The advantage to Amazon of such an arrangement is that none of its money is tied up in the inventory sold by others. For example, I’m a big fan of the Golden State Warriors, but even I’m not likely to buy this lanyard with the team’s logo. But Amazon can still offer this and countless other niche items at almost zero risk to itself because someone else is going to the trouble of trying to sell it. In the case of the lanyard, the seller is also using Fulfillment by Amazon, which means the item is stored and shipped by Amazon, also in exchange for a fee.


The economics of retail are complex and don’t guarantee that Amazon is always making more money selling other people’s stuff than selling its own. But the logic is sound.


Amazon is already spending the money on real estate, both physical and web, to store, ship, and sell products. If someone else is shouldering the cost of the merchandise stored on its shelves, those are dollars Amazon doesn’t have to spend. And for a company that has seen its shares lose nearly one-quarter of their value over the past year of chronically dismal profits, every dollar saved counts.



Cord Cutters Rejoice: Dish Is Bringing Live Sports to Internet TV


dish-tv

Getty Images





Live sports is the last big battleground for cord cutters. For all the services that let people watch television content over the internet—from Netflix to HBO’s upcoming standalone streaming service—there’s not a totally reliable way to watch sports without a cable package.

But Dish Network is trying to change that. On Monday, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Dish debuted its much-anticipated streaming service, Sling TV. For $20 a month, viewers get access to live programming as well as on-demand content from a small bundle of channels, including the holy grail for would-be cord cutters: ESPN.


“Live television, including ESPN, for $20 per month with no commitment or contract, is a game changer,” said Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV, in a statement. “The arrival of Sling TV lets consumers, who’ve embraced services like Netflix and Hulu, take more control of their video entertainment experience.”


Sling TV demonstrates the important position that cable and satellite companies can play in the movement to internet TV. Until now, these streaming services have primarily spun out of the networks, which offer viewers access to their content, and their content alone. CBS did it with its All Access service, and that’s HBO’s plan for its upcoming streaming service, too. That means the environment for internet TV is slowly, but surely, becoming extremely fragmented, with viewers forking over small sums of money to every content provider.


Sling's TV Guide

Sling’s TV Guide Dish Network



But cable and satellite companies like Dish aren’t married to the content itself. They’re free to strike deals with whatever networks they choose and offer viewers bundles of channels that are not only more cost effective than the traditional cable package, but more manageable than paying for each channel a la carte. By offering viewers a middle ground, between paying hundreds of dollars to one cable company and cutting the cord altogether, Dish stands to retain some of the customers that the rest of the industry is rapidly losing.


“Sling TV provides a viable alternative for live television to the millennial audience,” said Joseph P. Clayton, Dish president and CEO, in a statement. “Sling TV fills a void for an underserved audience.”


In addition to ESPN and ESPN2, Sling TV subscribers will also get access to channels like TBS, The Food Network, The Disney Channel, CNN, and more. For an extra $5 a month, subscribers can tack on additional channels as well. The Kids Pack, for instance, includes access to Disney Junior and Baby TV. A Sports Pack is coming soon, and Dish says the add-on options will likely grow over time. Sling TV is also device agnostic and will be available on a range of set-top boxes and smart TVs, as well as on mobile phones and the web.


With this launch, Dish is validating the field of internet TV in a way that few other incumbents in the television industry have been willing to do. More often, they’ve used regulation to fend off newcomers, like Aereo, a recently shuttered service that gave viewers access to network television online. By embracing the future of internet TV, Dish just may be ensuring its own.



Lenovo Expands Its Line of Multi-Mode, Flip-Screen Laptops


The Lenovo Yoga 3 14-inch. It's a hybrid Windows PC that can be used as a laptop or a tablet.

The Lenovo Yoga 3 14-inch. It’s a hybrid Windows PC that can be used as a laptop or a tablet. Lenovo



Lenovo’s bendy-screen laptops have proven to be big hits. So of course, the company is doubling down.


Today at CES, the PC-maker has unveiled an army of new Windows laptops in its ThinkPad, Yoga, and Flex product lines, all of them featuring Lenovo’s hinge design that allows for the screen to be folded all the way back against the rear of the keyboard so you can use it like a touchscreen tablet.


Fans of the older Yoga PCs will undoubtedly be taken with this year’s Yoga 3, which has been updated with a slightly slimmer design and new chips. The Yoga 3 comes in two sizes: an 11-incher with Intel Core M chips, and a 14-incher with fifth-generation Intel processors and a 16:9 IPS display. Both have integrated graphics, but discrete Nvidia graphics chips are an upgrade option on the 14-inch model. The new Yogas arrive in March, and will cost $800 for the 11-inch and $980 for the widescreen 14-inch.


The 14-inch model ThinkPad Yoga.

The 14-inch model ThinkPad Yoga. Lenovo



If you love that bendy hinge but you prefer hardware that’s a little more “grrr” than the bright and playful Yoga, check out the updated ThinkPad Yoga. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a flat-black, Ultrabook spec’d, awesomely keyboarded ThinkPad laptop dressed up with Lenovo’s flippity Yoga screen hinge. The 2015 version of the ThinkPad Yoga comes in 12-inch, 14-inch, and 15-inch sizes. All of them have bright touchscreens and fifth-gen Intel processors. Discrete Nvidia graphics are available as an upgrade to the 14-inch and 15-inch models only. The two bigger models are also the only ones capable of displaying 1080p content natively — the 12-incher tops out at 1366×768. The new ThinkPad Yogas will be on sale in February for with starting prices between $1,000 and $1,200.


Lenovo’s entry-level Flex PCs get updated as well. The new Flex 3 models will be available in 11-inch, 14-inch, and 15-inch sizes. The 11-incher has a Pentium processor, and the larger models have fifth-gen Intel Core chips. They’ll be priced between $400 and $580, with availability slated for May.


The ThinkPad Yoga 15-inch model in "tent mode."

The ThinkPad Yoga 15-inch model in “tent mode.” Lenovo




Samsung Reveals a New Curved-Screen PC and a MacBook Air Rival


Samsung ATIV One 7 Curved

The Samsung ATIV One 7 Curved is an all-in-one PC with a concave screen. Samsung





Last year was the year of curvy TVs. In 2015, concave screens will be less pronounced in the world of television sets, but Samsung is bringing those curves closer to your eyeballs. It makes sense. Curvy works best when it’s right in front of your face, getting jiggy with your peripheral vision.

The new Ativ One 7 Curved is an all-in-one PC with a 27-inch screen. That matches the size of the 5K iMac, but its 1080p display doesn’t match the resolution. Instead, the Ativ One 7 has a curved 300-nit LED screen, giving users a slight immersive effect when they’re playing games or watching movies.


Let’s talk specs. The concave 27-incher packs a 2.2GHz Core i5 with 8GB RAM and integrated graphics, a 1TB flash drive, a pair of 10W speakers, and a 1080p Webcam. It runs Windows 8.1 and is about an inch and a half deep. Those are clearly more-modest specs than the UHD iMac, and the price matches up. Due in the first quarter of the year, it’s priced at $1,300.


Also curved for your eyeballs’ pleasure is the even-bigger SE790C, a 34-inch 21:9 monitor that bumps up the resolution to WQHD+ (3440 x 1440). It’ll accept sources via Display Port and HDMI 1.4 and also comes with five USB 3.0 ports. There’s a tradeoff for all that size and resolution, as it only has a 60Hz refresh rate.


Samsung’s new computers and peripherals aren’t all curveballs. The new Ativ Book 9 is more of a cutter. It’s a slick 12.2-inch ultraportable laptop that’s less than half an inch thick.


Samsung ATIV Book 9

The Ativ Book 9 isn’t curved, but this 12.2-inch laptop weighs less than the 11-inch MacBook Air. Samsung



Despite having a bigger screen, the laptop weighs less than the 11-inch MacBook Air, clocking in at a mere 2.09 lbs. The Ativ Book 9 has a 2560 x 1600 LED screen, a Broadwell Intel Core M 5Y70 processor with 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, and 10.5 hours of battery life. That fully loaded configuration will go for $1,400 starting in the first quarter of 2015.