Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today, including Vivo’s flagship gimball camera phone, Moore’s Law getting a boost and a historic space launch. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
A new era for space exploration
Image credit: Saul Martinez/Getty Images
SpaceX makes history with successful first human space launch
Over the weekend, SpaceX successfully launched Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into space aboard the Crew Dragon capsule, which was perched on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. This is a historical moment and incredibly exciting for the future of space exploration.
After a flight of 19 hours, the Dragon capsule docked at the International Space Station where Behnken and Hurley will stay from anywhere between six to sixteen weeks. After launch, the first stage Falcon 9 booster was successfully brought back to Earth. It performed a perfect landing on Of Course I Still Love You, SpaceX’ ocean landing pad. All of this combined means that SpaceX is officially the first commercial company in history to launch astronauts, bring them to the ISS and bring back the booster that let them do so.
This is incredibly important for the future of exploration. You might not think this achievement is all that impressive - we did land on the moon already in 1969, which is quite a while ago. However, it’s important to remember the context here. SpaceX’ achievement is a huge step towards making space exploration more commercially viable, which traditionally is vey expensive.
ISS docking simulator
Phone cameras are next-level
Image credit: Vivo
Vivo’s flagship X50 phones with gimbal-style camera will drop in the second half of 2020
Vivo has announced three new smartphones coming to its lineup - the X50, X50 Pro and the X50 Pro Plus. The phones will be released internationally in the second half of 2020.
By the looks of things, these promise to be solid phones. They will all be 5G-capable and displays will have refresh rates of up to 120Hz. The X50 Pro Plus will come with gimball setup in the main camera. The Pro Plus will also feature Samsung’s 50-megapixel sensor with faster auto-focus. We’ll have to wait for the final spec sheet before drawing any conclusions but so far the phones look very exciting.
The best phone cameras so far
Moore’s Law may get boosted
Image credit: Edd Gent
Carbon Nanotube Transistors May Soon Give Waning Moore’s Law a Boost
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have long been seen as contenders to help us exceed the capabilities and speeds offered by silicon chips, but the tubes are hard to build. Now, scientists have managed to make it happen in a commercial silicon plant. This might just be the helping hand that Moore’s Law needs right now.
In a paper in Nature Electronics, the team explain how they achieved this by tweaking one of the most common ways of creating CNT transistors, which sees silicon wafers dipped into a CNT solution. There’s still a long way to go, but this is an important step to making computing even faster than before.
The first ever processor
A close neighbour could host life
Image credit: Futurism
New Research: Closest Exoplanet to Earth Could Host Life
An international team of scientists has confirmed the existence of Proxima b.
The planet is 1.17 times the size of Earth. It orbits its star, Proxima Centauri, in only 11,2 days. And, given that the energy it gets from its star is similar to what Earth receives from our Sun, astronomers are pretty excited about the potential of finding life on the planet. However, Proxima b also receives a deadly dose of X-rays from its star - 400 times more than the Earth does.
Regardless, scientists are holding on to the potential of life on the planet and hope that future research plans can answer the question.