The Starship’s seventh test flight ended in an explosion when the vehicle’s upper stage “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn” over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX chief Elon Musk posted a video of the event, with debris streaking across and lighting up the sky. During the company’s webcast, Dan Huot from SpaceX’s communications team said they “saw engines dropping out on telemetry” by the end of the ascent burn and that they ultimately lost contact with the Ship, which is what the company calls the vehicle’s upper stage. SpaceX said in a tweet that it will continue reviewing data from the test to understand the explosion’s root cause. 

The Federal Aviation Administration issued an advisory for pilots after the incident, warning them about falling debris in certain areas. SpaceX said before the test that it’s meant to “launch a new generation ship with significant upgrades” and it was supposed to conduct Starship’s first payload deployment test with the help of 10 Starlink simulators.

Despite the Starship’s upper stage burning up, the test …read more

Pre-orders are now open for four new PlayStation 5 accessories in a new colorway: Midnight Black. That’s better than other types of black because it stays up past bedtime. The collection includes the DualSense Edge wireless controller, the Portal remote player and the Pulse Explore wireless earbuds — each going for $200 — and the Pulse Elite wireless headset, which is selling for $150. All four are expected to ship February 20. 

Sony announced the collection earlier this month and the new accessories join the already-available Midnight Black standard Dual Sense controller ($75) and PS5 console cover ($55). Like PlayStation’s 30th Anniversary collection, the Midnight Black accessories let you add a bit of personalized flair to your gaming setup, but these are far more sleek and brooding. If previous PlayStation releases are any indicator, there’s a chance these new accessories will sell out before everyone gets one, so if Midnight Black feels as sexy to you as the video makes it look, you might want to start adding things …read more

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and OnStar for allegedly sharing details about drivers to third parties without their consent. The agency launched an investigation into the automotive company after The New York Times found that GM had collected data about customers’ vehicle use and sold it to third-party platforms used by insurance companies.

The information came from the OnStar Smart Driver program, which customers with GM vehicles were encouraged to participate in or didn’t realize they had agreed to join. The program gathered data about behaviors such as hard braking, late night driving and speeding and reportedly sold the information to LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk, which in turn sold that data to insurance companies. Shortly after the Times report, GM said it had stopped sharing the sensitive information with the two data brokers.  

Today, the FTC proposed a settlement that will see both GM and OnStar banned from disclosing consumers’ geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. These companies will also be ordered to take additional steps to increase the transparency and choice for customers surrounding the information they collect and share.

“GM monitored …read more