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India fails to soft-land Vikram on the Moon but its scientific mission continues
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has located its Vikram lander on the Moon's surface after an attempt to soft-land the spacecraft failed on Friday, when communication was lost around 2km out (Space.com).
The lander was spotted by its accompanying Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, but no signal from it has been detected – efforts to make contact will reportedly continue for the next two weeks. However, even without the lander, Chandrayaan-2 itself is well equipped to study our natural satellite, mapping its surface and composition, including water ice analysis.
Australian ISPs ordered to block hosts of Christchurch terror footage
Internet service providers in Australia have been ordered to block eight unnamed websites that host copies of a video of the Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand, in which a white supremacist opened fire on worshippers at a mosque (The Guardian). Sites will be unblocked if they remove the content – 43 websites were originally and voluntarily blocked by ISPs in the wake of the attack.
Europe is battling with the US in a race to predict the weather
Accurate weather forecasting can save lives. Know where flash flooding is about to occur or where a hurricane is likely to tear through a town and you can warn people to flee the area and save them from harm (WIRED). But what do you do when models differ in their predictions about how the weather will unfold? Two competing models – one from Europe and the other from the US – are battling to provide the most accurate weather reports possible.
Apple is upset about Google's iPhone tracking vulnerability disclosure
Apple released a statement on Friday criticising Google Project Zero's blog about iOS vulnerabilities used to secretly install monitoring software on iPhones when their users visited a specific website (Ars Technica). However, although Apple correctly identifies China's Uighur ethnic minority – rather than all iOS users – as the target of the attacks, it – like Google – hedges round the systematic Chinese state discrimination thought to be behind the attacks and the security relevance of the existence of such vulnerabilities in the wild.
The best new tech from the IFA 2019 showfloor
This year's edition of Europe's biggest technology show saw the world's premier tech companies competing for many square metres of stand space and press conference slots to announce... not very much headline-worthy tech at all (WIRED).
Amazon kicked off proceedings with a big, ambitious Fire TV-focused event and foldable phones came back into play with Samsung announcing a September 18 release for its redesigned Galaxy Fold and Huawei CEO Richard Yu stating that the also-delayed Mate X will launch as soon as October. As ever, we've rounded up our WIRED highlights.
Japan's high-tech toilets are finally conquering the West
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
