A Walmart Plus launch date in August seems likely, as America’s largest retailer is teasing a ‘coming soon’ landing page for its new money-saving subscription service.
What is Walmart Plus – which is being stylized as Walmart+ – and how closely will it compare to Amazon Prime? We’re here to explain the annual subscription service.
The Walmart Plus price may be a bargain: $98 a year, according to reports, although the same news stories pegged July as the launch month. That… didn’t happen.
In its announcement, Rocket Lab said that it was able to gather the data it needs, because the vehicle was unharmed and was able to continue sending information to its ground team. It also explained that it wasn’t able to detect the issue before the flight, because the electrical connection remained secure throughout testing. However, its now knows that the issue can be avoided through additional tests. Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement:
“The issue occurred under incredibly specific and unique circumstances, causing the connection to fail in a way that we wouldn’t detect with standard testing. Our team has now reliably replicated the issue in test and identified that it can be mitigated through additional testing and procedures.”
Over the last ten years, a variety of different Chinese tech companies have started selling their devices in the west. Companies like Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus and Oppo have all found popularity bringing phones, smartwatches, headphones and more to countries like the US, UK and more.
A new company is following in their footsteps – Vivo, which has been making consumer gadgets since 2009 and is one of the biggest smartphone manufacturers on the planet – is readying to start selling phones in several European countries, including the UK.
Rocket Lab has received clearance to launch from the FAA following the failure of its Electron rocket on July 4 and the loss of the half-dozen satellites on board. “This was a very, very sneaky and tricky issue,” said CEO Peter Beck. “However, the issue is well understood by the team. We’re really looking forward to getting back on the pad.”
The failure, Beck explained on a call with press, was nowhere near as catastrophic as many such incidents are. While the payloads were lost in the vehicle’s uncontrolled descent, the rocket did not explode or break up suddenly as sometimes happens, but rather seems to have calmly shut itself down during the second stage burn due to “a single anomalous electrical connection.”
Less than a month after Rocket Lab lost one of its vehicles during a mission, the small satellite launcher has approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to start launching its Electron rockets again. The company plans to launch its next rocket sometime in August from the company’s primary launch site in New Zealand.
On July 4th, Rocket Lab launched its 13th mission to space from New Zealand, carrying seven small satellites, most of which were designed to image the Earth from above. Just a few minutes into the flight, the engine on the upper portion of the Electron shut down too early, according to Rocket Lab. As a result, the rocket didn’t achieve orbit and fell back into Earth’s atmosphere where it burned up and destroyed all the satellites on board.
Nokia, which has partnered with Flipkart for the TV lineup, unveiled a new Smart TV in India. The newly launched 65-inch Smart Android TV variant sits right above the 43-inch model that launched back in June and is priced at ₹64,999.
The new 65-inch Android TV listed on Flipkart has an LED panel with 4K resolution of 3840×2160 pixels. Nokia says the display is an A + Grade panel and has a 60Hz refresh rate. Peak brightness is up to 480nits.
Viewing angles look pretty good at 178-degree FOV but the contrast ratio is 1100:1. Nokia says the display has Dolby Vision and Intelligent Dimming support for enhancing darker regions, improving contrast and colours.
Users gearing up to buy the latest iPhones are going to have to wait longer than they did last year.
In a call following the release of Apple’s Q3 earnings, the company’s CFO Luca Maestri shared that compared to the September 2019 release of iPhone 11 models, Apple is expecting this year’s supply of new iPhones “to be available a few weeks later.” It’s an exceedingly rare move for the company, which generally refuses to even acknowledge its timeline for releasing new products, even the iPhone, which refreshes annually.
It seems like Apple’s steady cadence of product releases in the midst of a pandemic has seriously paid off. The company released its Q3 2020 earnings this afternoon, in which it reported $59.7 billion in quarterly revenue and $11.25 billion in net income — that’s up significantly compared to Apple’s performance in the year-ago quarter. According to CEO Tim Cook, healthy growth across Apple’s product and services divisions and notable sales gains around the world over the past three months have been enough to make this a record-setting quarter.
Rocket launch startup Astra is readying for its first orbital flight test, set to take place either this weekend or next week, weather permitting. The company will launch its ‘Rocket 3.1’ from Kodiak, Alaska – and while these are technically classified as orbital test flights, the company was quick to caution journalists on a press call on Thursday that it doesn’t necessarily believe each the three initial launches it has planned will make it all the way to orbit proper.
“We don’t intend to get a hole-in-one here,” said Kemp. “It’s a par three course. We intend to really accomplish enough to ensure that we’re able to get to [orbital] flight after three flights, and for us, that means a nominal first stage burn, and getting that upper stage to separate successfully. After that, pretty much everything that we learn is additional upside, and will be just delighted if that upper stage lights and we’ll be delighted if the upper stage teaches us something so that so that our next flight can even be more successful.”
Google’s next budget phone, the Pixel 4A, is likely just days away from going on sale. The company has posted a teaser on its online store, saying that “the Google just what you’ve been waiting for phone” will be revealed on August 3rd. 9to5Google spotted the page.
Indeed, the wait for the sequel to last year’s Pixel 3A has gone longer than expected. In May, Google canceled its I/O developer conference, expected to mark the Pixel 4A’s announcement, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But earlier this month, the device turned up on Google’s website after the company mistakenly posted an image to its store. That was the first real hint that the 4A is really, actually coming soon — and now Google has confirmed that it’s less than a week away.
