What’s new
China has started a 200-day simulation of living on another planet
Four students from Beijing University are part of a new 200-day isolation project called Lunar Palace 365, where they will live on the resources that they would have if they were on the Moon, or Mars. President Xi Jinping wants China to become a global power in space exploration, with plans to send the first probe to the dark side of the moon by 2018 and to put astronauts on the moon by 2036.
You can read more here.
Google and Facebook join “Day of Action” protest to protect net neutrality
The “Day of Action” is on July 12 and it aims to preserve rules that forbid Internet providers from favoring some websites over others. The campaign has been backed until now by a range of tech companies and advocates, including Amazon, the ACLU, Etsy, Kickstarter, the Electric Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, Vimeo, Greenpeace and Reddit.
More info are available here.
New products
Meizu Pro 7
The phone will have a 5.2-inch display, Helio X30 chipset and two 12 MP sensors from Sony (IMX386 and IMX286). It will come with a 16 MP front camera and a 3,300 mAh battery.
More info here.
Moto Z2 Force
Moto Z2 Force will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, a 12 MP main camera and a 5 MP front camera. It will come with Adreno 540 GPU, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
More info here.
You might want to know about this
The Google Calendar app adds a new ‘Today Widget’ for iOS
The widget can show the next two events on users calendar, and expand to show another four. Like other Today widgets, the preview can also be accessed on iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 devices by pressing down with 3D Touch on the Google Calendar icon. he new Today Widget is available in the latest update for Google Calendar, version 2.4.0.
You can read more here.
Microsoft’s new Surface Pro has an unexpected hibernation problem
Some unknown number of users of Microsoft’s newest Surface Pro devices are reporting they’re having hibernation issues that are causing unwanted, random shutdowns. A Microsoft representative said that Microsoft was aware of the issue and looking into it. It’s not clear whether this problem could be fixable through a software update or not.
More info can be found here.
Fun stuff
The first self-driving grocery delivery van
Ocado has unveiled a prototype driverless van designed to deliver goods at short distances. The vehicle spent two weeks completing autonomous loops of a two-mile (3km) semi-pedestrianised area of Greenwich, south-east London. The CargoPod trial was part of a broader £8m research project into driverless technology.
You can read more here.
