Pentagon IG refuses to investigate Starlink/Starshield slowdown in Ukraine

Pentagon IG refuses to investigate Starlink/Starshield slowdown in Ukraine

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

The Pentagon inspector general's office declined a request from US senators to investigate restrictions recently imposed on the Ukraine military's use of SpaceX's satellite network.

Ukraine, which uses SpaceX's Starlink service and the military version known as Starshield, said earlier this month that military drones lost satellite connectivity when traveling above 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour). The limit was removed after about 10 days.

Five Democratic and four Republican senators sent an October 15 letter to Department of Defense Inspector General Platte Moring, asking for a probe into the reported disruptions of Starlink and Starshield. The letter asked, among other things, "whether any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other US government entities; whether such restrictions were consistent with applicable US government contracts, and what actions, if any, the Department of Defense took in response."

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Turning a solar power system into its own backup

Turning a solar power system into its own backup

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

Rather than directly converting photons into electricity, concentrated solar energy uses mirrors to turn sunlight into heat, which can then be used to drive traditional generating turbines. Up to about a decade ago, there was a case to be made that concentrated solar energy had a bright future, as improvements in heat storage had turned it into a way to generate power around the clock.

It wasn't to be. While concentrated solar costs fell enough to compete with nuclear power, the price of photovoltaics plunged, making solar panels the cheapest source of power in most locations. Currently, if you have a good site to generate solar power, then the economics of PV panels are hard to beat.

That has left us needing to build a mixture of other facilities—typically batteries and natural gas facilities—to handle overnight needs or weather-driven shortfalls. But a small company is promising that it can help avoid the need to build a separate facility. Its version of concentrated solar is designed so that a fossil-fueled backup system shares most of the generating hardware with the solar side.

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ULA's Vulcan rocket is set to return to flight on Friday the 13th

ULA's Vulcan rocket is set to return to flight on Friday the 13th

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

United Launch Alliance announced Wednesday it plans to return its Vulcan rocket to service on November 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly threw the company's 2026 launch schedule into oblivion.

The return-to-flight mission will launch 40 satellites for the Amazon Leo broadband constellation, the first of 38 Vulcan flights Amazon has booked to deploy the bulk of its network. The mission will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and ULA said the launch date is pending range approval.

The launch is critical for ULA after its new flagship rocket suffered nozzle failures on its solid rocket boosters on two of its first four missions, most recently during a flight in February. In both cases, the rocket overcame the nozzle failure and completed its mission, but officials at the US Space Force, ULA's primary customer, lost confidence in Vulcan.

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Touchscreen MacBook Pro hands-on: OLED looks great on a Mac

Touchscreen MacBook Pro hands-on: OLED looks great on a Mac

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

LOS ANGELES—For about five minutes on an extremely crowded showroom floor, I got to take pictures of the new MacBook Pro and test out some of its new features. First impressions: It's not as much of a departure from the previous design as I expected, but the outstanding OLED display steals the show regardless.

The first thing I noticed was that it's lighter. My daily driver is a 14-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Max), and it's a bit weighty for a 14-incher. Picking up the new model, I could immediately tell it was lighter. It's not like it's in a different general weight class, but it's a noticeable difference.

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Google announces Gemini 4 Carbon, its latest frontier AI model that you can't use

Google announces Gemini 4 Carbon, its latest frontier AI model that you can't use

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

It's almost like Google's got something to prove after taking a break from releasing new frontier AI models earlier this year. Just two weeks after rolling out Gemini 4 Argon, Google has announced Gemini 4 Carbon. This isn't the Flash model equivalent we've been waiting for but, rather, is an improvement on Argon, and like that model, Google is working on a staged release that could take a while.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Google says its latest AI model reaches a new threshold in coding, agentic tasks, and scientific analysis. It's so capable, in fact, that Google can't let you use it just yet.

Gemini 4 Carbon reportedly makes big gains in cybersecurity applications. Google says the model shows a "significant leap" in vulnerability detection, validation, and remediation. Carbon is also apparently twice as likely to generate code that is free of vulnerabilities versus Argon. Meanwhile, the Chrome team claims that Carbon is 10 times better at generating "high-quality" patches compared to non-Google models. Google also notes that Carbon has increased its score by 89 points on WebDev Arena, now ranking at number four on the leaderboard.

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Amazon turns its most capable smart speaker into a smart camera, too

Amazon turns its most capable smart speaker into a smart camera, too

fivenewscrypto    octobre 30, 2026   

Since debuting in 2019, Amazon's Echo Studio targeted users who wanted superior audio quality from their Alexa-based smart speaker. The latest Echo Studio adds another less-expected differentiator: an integrated camera.

The Echo Studio with Home Camera, released alongside a pile of other Alexa devices today, doesn’t have many audio upgrades over the standard Echo Studio. Each speaker has one 3.75-inch high-excursion woofer and three full-range drivers. They both support Dolby Atmos and Amazon’s proprietary algorithm for adding a surround sound-like effect to stereo audio. Per the devices’ product pages, the speakers have lossless HD audio, Advanced Room Adaptation, and features for fighting noise distortion. Amazon announced the Advanced Room Adaptaion today, saying that the feature “continuously tunes the sound to your space, automatically adapting to the room's acoustics.”

Both speakers have four-microphone arrays and the same AZ3 Pro processor that Amazon introduced a year ago. The processor has an AI accelerator for using Amazon's Alexa+ generative AI chatbot.

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Cadillac Escalade IQ review: Huge battery, huge range, huge SUV

Cadillac Escalade IQ review: Huge battery, huge range, huge SUV

fivenewscrypto    octobre 29, 2026   

“Please have at least 125 miles of range left when we pick it up.” That request from the people who look after the Cadillac press cars wasn’t going to be hard to honor. The electric Escalade IQ arrived with an indicated range of 440 miles (708 km), and with a full week of work to squeeze in, getting anywhere close to needing to recharge it seemed unlikely. With more than 200 kWh of lithium-ion battery between its axles, range is one thing the big electric Caddy needn’t worry about.

Designed and debuted during a time of greater EV optimism, the Escalade is Cadillac’s statement that swapping out a V8 for a pair of powerful electric motors is no compromise to its ambitions, even if the brand’s future will now include a mix of electric and combustion cars beyond 2030. It shares a battery pack and much else with other full-size GM EVs we’ve tested: the Chevrolet Silverado EV, the GMC Sierra EV, and of course the divisive Hummer EVs. And like those trucks and SUVs, the Escalade is large and heavy—just small enough to fit into a standard parking space, with a curb weight sufficient to push it into the Class 3 truck category.

So, the side mirrors are flat, and there’s no formal EPA range—Cadillac says it achieves 460 miles (740 km) on the EPA test cycle—but there are plenty of airbags, even though the 9,046 lb (4,103 kg) curb weight does not require them. Yes, you did read that right, it does weigh 4 tons. And yes, the electric Escalade does weigh a third more than the last gas-powered one we tested.

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