May 2020
- Crew Dragon Demo-2: The Countdown to America's Return to Human Spaceflight
SpaceX and NASA are targeting May 27 to launch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard Crew Dragon, the first crewed orbital flight from U.S. soil since 2011.
- PS5 vs Xbox Series X: What We Actually Know So Far
With E3 cancelled, Sony and Microsoft are set to reveal PS5 and Xbox Series X separately — here's what's confirmed and what's still a guess.
- How Zoom, Slack and GitHub Became Pandemic Lifelines
Lockdowns turned video calls, chat, and cloud dev tools into daily infrastructure almost overnight, and the numbers are staggering.
- The 13-inch MacBook Pro Finally Gets the Magic Keyboard
Apple refreshes the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the scissor-switch Magic Keyboard, more storage, faster chips, and a 32GB memory option.
- WWDC 2020 Goes Fully Digital — No Campus, No Line for Wristbands
Apple confirms WWDC 2020 will run entirely online from June 22-26, the first Worldwide Developers Conference without any in-person component.
- Betelgeuse's Great Dimming Looks Like a Starspot, Not a Supernova Countdown
New spectroscopy points to a giant cool starspot and a temperature drop behind Betelgeuse's historic dimming, not an imminent explosion.
- GitHub Satellite 2020: Codespaces, Discussions and npm join the family
GitHub's virtual Satellite conference brought cloud dev environments, community forums, and the npm registry closer to home.
- Zoom Settles With New York Over Its Security Promises
NY Attorney General Letitia James reached an agreement with Zoom requiring mandatory passwords, better encryption, and other safeguards after a spring of Zoombombing.
- OnePlus 8 Review Roundup: The Cheapest Way Into 5G
Reviews of the OnePlus 8 are in, and the consensus is that this is the most sensible way to buy a 5G flagship right now.
- Why NASA's Next Mars Rover Is Racing a Launch Window
Perseverance must launch in a narrow July 2020 window to reach Jezero Crater, where it will hunt for ancient microbial life and cache samples.
- AMD's 'Big Navi' and the GPU Arms Race Heating Up for Late 2020
Lisa Su confirmed AMD's RDNA2 'Big Navi' GPU for late 2020, set to power next-gen consoles and take on Nvidia's flagship cards.
- Google I/O 2020 Cancelled: Here's What Happened Instead
Google I/O was supposed to open today; instead we got a surprise Android 11 preview and a tentative June 3 beta date.
- There's More Water on the Moon Than We Thought
New lunar research suggests water may be widespread across the Moon's surface, even in sunlit regions, strengthening the case for Artemis-era resource use.
- Nvidia Unveils the Ampere A100, Its Biggest Generational Leap Yet
Nvidia's new A100 GPU packs 54 billion transistors and up to 20x the AI performance of its predecessor, launching at a virtual GTC 2020.
- Inside the Apple-Google Contact-Tracing API, Ahead of Its Launch
A look at the Exposure Notification API before Apple and Google hand it to public-health agencies this week.
- Summer of Gaming Fills the E3-Shaped Hole in Our Calendars
With E3 2020 cancelled, IGN and partners are launching a Summer of Gaming showcase to carry reveals through to PS5 and Xbox Series X news.
- Artemis and the New Race Back to the Moon
NASA's Artemis program is targeting a 2024 crewed lunar landing with SLS, Orion, and commercial partners like SpaceX.
- What to Expect from Microsoft Build 2020
A preview of Microsoft's free 48-hour digital Build conference, covering Windows tools, Azure, and its OpenAI partnership.
- Build 2020: Terminal Goes 1.0, WSL2 Ships, and Windows Gets a Package Manager
Microsoft's Build 2020 keynote delivers Windows Terminal 1.0, WSL2, a winget preview, Project Reunion, and details on its OpenAI supercomputer.
- Apple and Google Flip the Switch on Exposure Notification
The joint Apple/Google Exposure Notification API is now live for public health agencies, running Bluetooth-based COVID exposure alerts at the OS level.
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons gets a bug-catching overhaul
Update 1.2.0 flattens insect spawn rates to a 25% chance per species per month, changing how you hunt bugs on your island.
- Inside the 2020 SSD Boom: Why Laptop Storage Doubled Overnight
Falling NAND flash prices and Apple's storage bump are pushing PC makers toward bigger, faster default SSDs in 2020.
- Starlink's Satellite Swarm Has Astronomers Worried
SpaceX has launched hundreds of Starlink satellites since May 2019, and astronomers are increasingly vocal about the trails they leave in telescope images.
- Who Pays the Maintainers?
As remote work spotlights enterprise reliance on open source, GitHub Sponsors and similar programs face fresh attention.
- 5G Phones Are Finally Getting Affordable
A wave of new launches from Motorola, Infinix, Realme, and Xiaomi shows 5G handsets creeping toward mainstream prices, led by the $699 OnePlus 8.
- T-Minus One Day: Final Countdown to Crew Dragon's First Crewed Flight
NASA and SpaceX are one day from launching Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard Crew Dragon 'Endeavour,' with weather already looking iffy.
- Windows 10 May 2020 Update arrives with WSL2 built in
Microsoft's version 2004 rollout starts today, making WSL2 a standard feature and bundling Cortana changes plus a Cloud Download reset option.
- GPT-3 Arrives: OpenAI's 175-Billion-Parameter Language Model
OpenAI's new paper introduces GPT-3, a 175B-parameter model that tackles NLP tasks from a handful of examples with no fine-tuning.
- Starship SN4 Goes Out With a Bang After Its Sixth Static Fire
SpaceX's SN4 prototype, the most durable Starship test article yet, was destroyed at the South Texas site when a ground fitting failed post-test.
- Google Pumps the Brakes on Android 11's Beta Launch
Google postponed its June 3 Android 11 beta event, saying now isn't the time to celebrate amid nationwide unrest.
- Liftoff: SpaceX Launches NASA Astronauts, Ending a 9-Year Gap
SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavour carried NASA astronauts to orbit and docked with the ISS, the first crewed U.S. launch since 2011.