Zitchas writes: On Tuesday evening, SpaceX launched a testbed system which flew 150m into the air, hovered, and made a controlled landing. This testbed is noteworthy for being made out of stainless steel, as well as for being powered by a single off-center raptor engine. It demonstrates that the propulsion system can successfully compensate for the off-balanced propulsion via vectored thrust, as well as handle the stresses involved with landing and take-off. You can watch the testbed system launch here.

Important note: The vehicle that was launched was not the entirety of Starship, the large spacecraft that will be launched into orbit atop a Super Heavy rocket. "This prototype lacked key structural elements, including a large nose cone, flaps, an interstage, and more. But critically, this vehicle contained Starship's propulsion system," reports Ars Technica. "Among the key aspects of Tuesday's test was demonstrating that Starship's stainless-steel structure could withstand the harsh environment of a launch and landing."

SpaceX is set to mark a huge milestone in its own company history, with a first-ever crewed spaceflight set to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida later today. From a report: The mission is Commercial Crew Demo-2, the culmination of its Crew Dragon human spacecraft development program, which will carry NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station. The launch is currently set to take off from Kennedy Space Center at 4:33 p.m. EDT (1:33 p.m. PDT), though that'll depend on weather conditions. Those haven't been looking too favorable over the past few days, but SpaceX and NASA have said they could make the call as late as around 45 minutes prior to the planned launch time about whether to delay. If today's attempt is scrubbed, there are backup opportunities on the schedule for May 30 and May 31.

UPDATE: The launch has been scrubbed due to weather conditions. NASA and SpaceX will reattempt on Saturday.

"Not all of Elon Musk's projects have been thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic," writes Bloomberg.

Slashdot reader Charlotte Web quotes Popular Mechanics: After a year's worth of digging, Elon Musk's The Boring Company has completed the second tunnel for its underground people-mover system at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It's keeping in step with an anticipated opening date in January 2021 — just in time for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES)...

Back in May 2019, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Board of Directors first approved the contract, and by February 2020, The Boring Company had completed the first tunnel...

The Boring Company plans to carry groups of 12 to 16 passengers in pods constructed with modified Tesla chassises. At speeds of up to 155 miles per hour, these adapted Model 3 and Model X trams will have the capacity to transport about 4,000 visitors per hour, said Steve Hill, the CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in an interview with The Verge.

Hill said the pods will one day operate through the tunnels autonomously (Musk's company refers to them as autonomous electric vehicles, or AEVs), but will use human drivers at the outset. "Whenever we get to the point where we know that [it's safe to let the vehicles drive themselves]," Hill said, "that's when we'll take that step. But there is not a deadline for making that happen."
"No matter the barrier, Vegas doesn't stop," brags a tweet from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (using the hashtag #VegasMeansBusiness).

"Once completed, the people mover will be The Boring Company's first commercial transportation project in operation," notes the Verge, "following only a test tunnel next to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California."

wiredmikey writes: An abundance of iOS exploits being submitted to be sold should alarm iPhone/iPad users, according to the CEO of exploit acquisition firm Zerodium. The company announced that it was no longer buying certain types of iOS exploits in the next two to three months [including local privilege escalation, Safari remote code execution, and sandbox escape exploits] due to a surplus. And the company expects prices to drop in the near future.

"iOS Security is fucked," Chaouki Bekrar, CEO of Zerodium said on Twitter, noting that they are already seeing many exploits designed to bypass pointer authentication codes and a few zero-day exploits that can help an attacker achieve persistence on all iPhones and iPads. "Let's hope iOS 14 will be better," he added.

Bekrar said that only pointer authentication codes — which provide protection against unexpected changes to pointers in memory — and the difficulty to achieve persistence "are holding [iOS security] from going to zero."

New submitter quantumghost writes: SpaceX has opened up a new online simulator that mimics the Crew Dragon capsule controls. The game was released in anticipation of SpaceX's upcoming launch of Crew Dragon to the International Space Station. On May 27th, it'll be the first American-built spacecraft to haul American astronauts to the ISS in 11 years.

The goal of the simulator is to see if you can dock your spacecraft to the ISS. "According to the new game's opening slide, this is the actual interface on which astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, Crew Dragon's inaugural test pilots, have been," reports Popular Mechanics. "The central interface is packed with a slew of numbers. The green numbers indicate whether corrections need to be made. When they're below 0.2, it means you've successfully docked and beat the simulation."

According to The Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan Chase has taken on Coinbase and Gemini Trust as banking customers (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) -- "the first time the bank has accepted clients from the cryptocurrency industry." From the report: The move is the latest in a string of positive developments for bitcoin and another sign that Wall Street is becoming more comfortable with the business of cryptocurrencies. Coinbase, founded in 2012, is the largest U.S.-based bitcoin exchange, with more than 30 million accounts. Gemini, founded in 2014 by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, is a smaller exchange, but it has been in the vanguard of the industry's movement to attract mainstream clients and embrace regulation. The accounts were approved in April, and transactions are just starting to be processed, the people said.

The bank is primarily providing cash-management services to the firms and handling dollar-based transactions for the exchanges' U.S.-based customers, according to the people. It will process wire transfers, and deposits and withdrawals through the Automated Clearing House network, an electronic funds-transfer system. Although Coinbase and Gemini are built around trading cryptocurrencies, many of their customers link traditional bank accounts to their accounts on the exchanges. Handling transfers in and out of those bank accounts requires a payments processor. JPMorgan's services don't extend to any bitcoin or cryptocurrency-based transactions. The firms handle those themselves.

9to5Mac has learned more exclusive details about Apple's upcoming over-ear headphones, dubbed the "AirPods Studio," including specifications and settings. From the report: One of the key features of regular AirPods is ear detection, which automatically pauses the song when you take the earphones off. We've learned that AirPods Studio will have a similar feature, but it will work in a different way. Instead of ear detection, Apple is working to include sensors that can detect whether the headphones are on your head or neck. Based on this, we assume that AirPods Studio will play or pause content when they detect being placed on your head. Neck detection can be used to keep the headset turned on while the music is paused, just like when you take just one of the AirPods out of the ear.

Another new sensor will be able to detect left and right ears to automatically route the audio channels. That means there's likely no right or wrong side to use AirPods Studio, whereas current headphones have fixed left and right channels. Just like the AirPods Pro, Apple's new headphones will have Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode. Users will be able to easily switch between the two modes to reduce external noise or to hear the ambient sound.

As AirPods Studio are expected to be mainly focused on professional users, pairing the earphones with a Mac or iOS device will unlock custom equalizer settings, with low, medium, and high frequency adjustments available, sources told us. According to a Bloomberg recent report, Apple's own-brand over-ear headphones will be available in at least two variations of the headphones -- one using leather fabrics and another with lighter materials to fitness use cases. Bloomberg also said Apple is testing a new modular design with exchangeable magnetic ear pads. [...] As for the price, rumors suggest that it will cost $349.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Monday that the company's factory in Fremont, California is open and has restarted production despite a stay-at-home order issued by Alameda County. TechCrunch reports: Musk said in tweet Monday afternoon that he will "be on the line," a reference to the assembly line at the factory where Tesla makes the Model X, Model S, Model 3 and Model Y. He added "if anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me." Musk's reopening follows days of public venting on Twitter as well as a lawsuit all aimed at pressuring Alameda County officials to allow the company to reopen its factory. Tesla filed a lawsuit Saturday against Alameda County seeking injunctive relief, an effort to invalidate orders that have prevented the automaker from reopening.

Tesla had planned to bring back about 30% of its factory workers Friday as part of its reopening plan, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued new guidance that would allow manufacturers to resume operations. However, the governor's guidance included a warning that local governments could keep more restrictive rules in place. Alameda County, along with several other Bay Area counties and cities, last week extended the stay-at-home orders through the end of May. The orders were revised and did ease some of the restrictions. However, it did not lift the order for manufacturing.

UPDATE (5/16/2020): "We have met with Tesla representatives and have confirmed that Tesla is not engaged in full operations, contrary to media reports" this week, read an announcement Wednesday from Alameda County's office of emergency services in its health care services agency.

"Tesla has confirmed that its operations require a substantial lead time to become fully operational, and their current operations are only slightly above Minimum Business Operations."

Because a California county is preventing Tesla from reopening its plant, "The County's position left us no choice but to take legal action," Tesla announced Saturday. Reuters reports: Tesla filed a lawsuit against the county in San Francisco federal court on Saturday, calling the continued restrictions a "power-grab" by the county since California's governor had said on Thursday that manufacturers in the state would be allowed to reopen.... The county said it does not consider Tesla an essential business. County officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The outspoken Musk also took to Twitter on Saturday to complain and threatened to leave the state. "If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen (sp) on how Tesla is treated in the future," he tweeted, referring to the San Francisco Bay area facility that is Tesla's only U.S. vehicle factory.
One member of the California state government's Assembly tweeted a three-word response: "F*ck Elon Musk." Then they followed it up with a longer tweet. "I'm tired of subsidizing a company that continues to put workers at risk, union busts & bullies public servants."

And an Inc. magazine columnist argues "Elon Musk is bluffing... Tesla isn't going anywhere," calling Musk's remarks "mostly a personality-driven publicity stunt by a tech billionaire." Building a new manufacturing facility from the ground up, or even retrofitting an existing plant isn't something that happens quickly... [Reuters cited an analyst at Wedbush who estimated that relocating Tesla's production would take between 12 and 18 months.] Obviously, no one can fault Musk for being frustrated that Tesla is unable to reopen its factory. Continuing as a business when you're unable to actually build the products you sell is no easy task. And Tesla's founder and CEO hasn't been shy about his feelings towards the Covid-19 lockdown...

Right now, however, Tesla's biggest problem isn't that it can't turn the assembly lines back on. Right now, its biggest problem is that it's hard to tell when to take its leader seriously. If, for example, GM's CEO, Mary Barra, said that the company was frustrated with how Michigan was handling the coronavirus pandemic and was moving the company's HQ out of the state as a result, it would be astonishing news. Thousands of people would worry about their jobs; the state would have seek to address the comment. In other words, people would take it seriously.

Not so, Musk's tweets, which are met with head shakes and smirks. That's a big deal, now more than ever.

The Starship SN4, a prototype of a SpaceX ship meant to one day take humans to the moon and Mars, has remained intact during pressure testing. ExtremeTech reports: Last year, SpaceX successfully tested the "Starhopper" prototype with one of the company's new Raptor engines. However, the full-scale prototypes haven't fared well in pressure testing. SN1 blew its top in February, and both SN2 and SN3 suffered similar fates during the "cryo" testing phase, which simulates a full-pressure tank in the vacuum of space. SN4 is the first version of the rocket to survive that test.

The success of the SN4 prototype is a big step forward for the Starship program. The next step is to set up a static fire test with a single Raptor engine on the SN4. That could happen as soon as next week. Assuming it's still in one piece, SpaceX will then conduct a brief flight up to 500 feet (150 meters) before setting down. Elon Musk says that the next variant (predictably called SN5) will feature the full-scale tank and a trio of Raptor engines. The final design calls for six Raptor engines on the Starship and a further 37 of them on the Super Heavy stage.

Elon Musk shared a new video today from Tesla Engineering. "We're trying to make some ventilators from some car parts, so we can help the medical industry without taking away from their supply," it begins. (All three people who appear in the video are wearing a face mask.)

It ends with a demonstration of a prototype using a touchscreen display from the Model 3 infotainment system. "There's still a lot of work to do," the video concludes, "but we're giving it our best effort to make sure we can help some people out there."

Yesterday ventilator manufacturer Medtronic also tweeted that Musk's other company SpaceX "is now making a vital component for critical care ventilators," meaning more of the devices would arrive sooner for Covid-19 patients.

Meanwhile, the New York Post writes: Musk promised last month to shift production to the sorely-needed medical devices, but evidently found that buying existing ventilators with his own largesse was more practical. He shelled out to send 1,000 of the life-saving machines to California, and also vowed to buy some for New York, earning the gratitude of Mayor Bill de Blasio. Musk made good, with the city's public hospital system on Saturday tweeting their gratitude for ventilators Tesla donated, now in use at Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx.

But, with the apex of the contagion possibly upon New York, Cuomo said Sunday that time had run out for Tesla to make new ventilators. "Their time-frame, frankly, doesn't work for our immediate apex, because whether we're talking two days or 10 days, you're not going to make ventilators at that time," said Cuomo, noting that the hang-up is that some parts have to come from overseas.

After several weather delays, SpaceX successfully launched its fourth batch of Starlink satellites into orbit and nailed a rocket landing today. Space.com reports: A sooty Falcon 9 rocket -- which made its third flight with this launch -- roared to life at 9:06 a.m. EST (1406 GMT), lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here in Florida. The rocket carried 60 more Starlink satellites for SpaceX's growing constellation, the second such launch by the company this month. The satellites all successfully deployed about an hour after liftoff.

The star of this mission, the Falcon 9 first stage dubbed B1051.3 by SpaceX, previously lofted a Crew Dragon capsule as part of the company's uncrewed mission to the space station (Demo-1) as well as a trio of Earth-observing satellites for Canada. Following the successful launch, the rocket's first stage gently touched down on a SpaceX's drone ship landing platform "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean, marking the company's 49th booster recovery. [...] Today's launch is part of SpaceX's goal of connecting the globe with its Starlink network. Each satellite is identical, weighing in at roughly 485 lbs. (220 kg), and is part of a larger network that aims to provide internet coverage to the world below. With this launch, it brings SpaceX's burgeoning constellation up to 240, making it the largest in orbit to date.

At an event in Los Angeles, California, Elon Musk unveiled the company's first electric pickup truck, called the Cybertruck. The design is unlike any other vehicle on the road today, consisting of a stainless steel alloy body that is dent-resistant, scratch-resistant, and sledgehammer proof, as evident by the onstage demo. (The glass is stronger than standard car glass, but sadly it didn't survive the sledgehammer test.) The truck will come in three versions with 250-500 miles of range, depending on the model. It will start at $39,900 for the Single Motor RWD configuration and can be pre-ordered today for $100.

According to Musk, the Cybertruck has pretty much the same dimensions as every other pickup on the market today. It's 231.7 inches long, 79.8 inches wide, 75.0 inches tall and can seat six people. Where it differs is in the performance. Musk claims the Cybertruck can reach 60 mph in 2.9 seconds before continuing through the quarter-mile marker in under 11 seconds. It can also tow up to 14,000 pounds and carry 3,500-pound cargo in its industry-standard 6.5-foot bed.

We covered the Cybertruck unveiling live in LA. Check our Twitter for updates, videos, and photos. Here are some close-up shots of the Cybertruck (via our Twitter page):

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ExtremeTech: SpaceX has cleared a major hurdle on the way to launching manned missions with its Dragon spacecraft. The company had to push back its launch plans after the stunning explosion of a Crew Dragon capsule during testing earlier this year. Now, SpaceX has successfully tested the engines without incident, paving the way for a test flight next year. The SpaceX Dragon is one of two commercial spacecraft NASA hopes to use to launch manned missions to the International Space Station, the other being Boeing's CST-100 Starliner. SpaceX was on track to beat Boeing to launch before its April testing failure, but picking through the pieces of the demolished capsule pushed back the timetable.

After an investigation, SpaceX confirmed the craft's SuperDraco engines themselves were not at fault. These innovative launch abort engines use hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which mix together and ignite, but most launch abort systems use solid propellants. SpaceX went this way because it intends to do propulsive landings with the Dragon in the future, but NASA hasn't authorized that for crewed flights. Unfortunately, a leaky fuel valve in the abort propulsion system allowed nitrogen tetroxide to leak into the helium pressurization system. It was then driven back into the titanium check valve, which caused the explosion. The new and improved Dragon has a burst disk in the fuel lines that keeps propellant from leaking into the high-pressure lines before ignition. This week's test-firing demonstrates that the new system functions as intended, and SpaceX says it can now move forward with launch plans. The next step is to test the SuperDraco engines in-flight later this year. Then, once SpaceX can prove that its spacecraft can handle an in-flight abort, it'll prepare for the first crewed flight in early 2020.