SpaceIL’s Crashed Spacecraft Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are microscopic animals that can survive for years without food or water. And now they're on the moon!Getty ImagesIt was just before midnight on April 11 and everyone at the Israel Aerospace Industries mission control center in Yehud, Israel, had their eyes fixed on two large projector screens. On…

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Want to Know the Real Future of AR/VR? Ask Their Devs

If you want to get a rosy view of the future of virtual and augmented reality, ask a company that works in the space. If you want to get a pessimistic view, ask an investor. But if you want a realistic view, one shaped by experience instead of conjecture and wishful thinking, ask the folks…

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‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Ruled the Box Office Last Weekend

These two just had a big weekend at the box office.Frank Masi/Universal PicturesGreetings and salutations, and welcome to today's edition of The Monitor, WIRED's pop culture news roundup. What's topping the (news) charts this day? For starters, the latest Fast & Furious flick Hobbs & Shaw made bank at the box office. Also, Phil Lord…

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Huawei’s Latest Earnings Mask Its Trouble Outside China

Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty ImagesAmid ongoing tension with the US government, Huawei put a good face on its half-year earnings report last week. The Chinese telecom giant touted a 23 percent increase in year-over-year revenue for the first six months of 2019, a contrast from recent woes including the arrest of CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada last…

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Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2: Price, Specs, Release Date

In a relatively short period of time, Apple has become the clear leader in smartwatches. But Samsung isn’t going down without a fight, and the company has the numbers to prove it. According to two separate analyst’s reports, Samsung’s wearables business has grown by more than 100 percent over the past year. And now Samsung…

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Cashless Stores Alienate Customers in the Name of Efficiency

Brands increasingly seek to provide "frictionless" experiences—a sense of ease and efficiency that enables users to engage with them on their terms. However, in a small but growing number of cases, frictionless means eliminating cash as an accepted payment method.This is a seemingly minor but significant shift in the retail landscape. As a society, it…

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The BedJet Blows Warm (or Cool) Air Between Your Sheets

As much as I loved (and still love) the BedJet V2, the inimitable whole-bed climate-control system/giant hairdryer, the product has its share of quirks. To recap, those include oversize, dated hardware (particularly the clunky remote) and the need for a large, reticulating hose that snakes from under your bed to between your sheets. The BedJet…

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