50th Anniversary of Historic Moon Landing

This year we celebrate the 50th Anniversary one of the greatest achievements in human history, the human Moon landing. On July 16th 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins went on a voyage that took them to the Moon.

It took NASA only 8 years not only to build  the spacecraft, but also to invent the technology, procedures and even science which would allow them to land on the Moon. During Gemini and Apollo programs, NASA mastered the rocket launches, they learned how to bring two spaceships together and dock them on Earth's orbit. With Apollo 8, for the first time ever, human left Earth's orbit, went around the Moon and was safely brought back to Earth. And, of course, the culmination of all the efforts was on July 20 1969, when Neil Armstrong, as first human in history, set foot on the Moon.

I really wish that US government didn't stop fundings. With this speed and rate of innovations, the space travels would be now a "routine". Maybe we would be celebrating not only the Moon landing, but also the Mars one. Not to even mention innovations in other branches of science and their impact on day-to-day life.

But the history went differently ☹️  Even with limited fundings the innovation did not stop and we achieved some of those things. Thanks to the private companies, like SpaceX, the spaceflights became "cheap" and "routine". Also, we are still benefiting from Apollo program in other areas. All of that is awesome, but we have not reach the Mars yet. Hopefully we will not have to wait for long.

Interesting links

• Apollo 11 in Real Time
• This Augmented Reality app lets you visit the Apollo 11 landing site through a portal
• 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing by Google
• Apollo 11 Launch
• Apollo 11 Saturn V launch, 1969 TV broadcast
• Apollo 11 Moon Launch 50th Anniversary | CBS News Special Coverage, live stream
• Restored Apollo 11 Moonwalk - Original NASA EVA Mission Video
• Narration-Free Apollo 11 Documentary Put Viewers in the Thick of It
• The Real Story Behind the Apollo 11 Computer Error
• Apollo 11 Had a Hidden Hero: Software
• Original Apollo 11 Guidance Computer (AGC) source code for the command and lunar modules
• The ACTUAL Computer from the Saturn V Rocket
• Elon Musk Told Us Why He Thinks We Can Land on the Moon in ‘Less Than 2 Years’
• LEGO NASA Apollo Saturn V
• LEGO NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander
  

Image credits: NASA

2019 iPhone design

Mark Gurman tweeted a photo of alleged case molds for upcoming iPhones. Those molds align with previous rumors and shows much bigger, square camera bump. The bigger bump could be justified on the next iPhone XS ans XS Max, which are suppose to get 3 rear cameras, but XR model, despite the rumors about having only 2 cameras, also has square bump, almost the same size as XS will have.

Next Star Wars movies

Last week we got confirmation of the next Star Wars trilogy. This week, Bob Iger confirmed the rumors that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Games of Thrones show runners, will create next movie.  I'm stoked to see next movies, but looking at the turmoil the last season of Games of Thrones created I'm also a little bit worried.

Beside this, we also got more detailed release dates:

• Part 1 - 16th December 2022
• Part 2 - 20th December 2024
• Part 3 - 18th December 2026

3rd Star Wars TV show

Bob Iger also revealed that during 3 years break from the movies we will get 3 Star Wars TV shows. So far we know about The Mandalorian and Cassian Andor series. The third one was a surprise and becomes an interesting mystery.

App Store Monopoly Lawsuit Against Apple

The U.S. Supreme Court decided to proceed with the class action lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by some iPhone users who believe that Apple violates federal antitrust laws by requiring apps to be sold only through  the App Store. This allows Apple to collects a 30% cut from all purchases, which leads to inflated prices of the applications.

Long story short, iPhone users believe that apps would be priced lower outside of the App Store, as Apple's 30 percent cut would not be calculated into  prices.

I have mixed filings about this. I agree that 30% cut is a big one and it didn't change since the beginning of the AppStore, but I also doubt that apps would be priced differently outside of the AppStore.  

Interesting links

• When will Starman return to Earth?
• Apollo 11 HoloLens 2 Demo | Microsoft Build 2019 | Unreal Engine
• God of War - Raising Kratos: Full Length Feature
• Reinventing God of War
• Marvel's Spider-Man: A Technical Postmortem
• How Video-Game Engines Help Create Visual Effects on Movie Sets in Real Time
• What to Expect From Marzipan
• I am a Web Dev. And I am Burnt The F#*K Out
• Node, Express, PostgreSQL, Vue 2 and GraphQL CRUD Web App
• Serverless Authentication with AWS Amplify and Vuex Modules
• You should never ever run directly against Node.js in production. Maybe.
• LEGO Stranger Things

Image credits: Mark Gurman

As I mentioned last week, we had Star Wars Celebration. I've already covered Rise of Skywalker and  Jedi Fallen Order. Now, it's time to catch up with other news.

The Mandalorian

This is the first, beside Star Wars TV Special, live action Star Wars TV series, so I've been really excited for this panel. Unfortunately we have not learnt many details, but what have been leaked looks promising. It looks like we will get dark, greedy world that I love in Rogue One. And if Dave Filoni created the story on level of Rebels, we will get Netflix's quality show. Can't wait to 15th of November, when series will debut on Diney+.

Star Wars The Clone Wars

This panel haven't brought any surprises as most of the story have been already told one way or another, but at least we've got official trailer. Unfortunately we still don't know when it will be released.

Notre Dame

On Monday the Notre Dame cathedral burned down. Normally I would not cover such tragedy, but Ubisoft released Assassins Creed Unity, which featured the detailed recreation of the cathedral, for free. I thought it was cheap and low marketing action, but later on Ubisoft announced that they will give $500K for restoration process. Maybe it was a PR stunt, but at least those money will be used to something good.

Playstation 5

This week we got couple of details about next generation of Sony's console. Here is what we learnt, so far:

• It will not be released in 2019,
• 8-core CPU  based on AMD’s 3rd gen Ryzen (7nm Zen 2),
• GPU based on AMD’s Radeon Navi with support for  8K resolution and ray-tracing,
• Custom AMD chip for 3D audio,
• SSD storage,
• Backward compatibility with PS4 games,
• Physical drive, probably Blue-ray, but the type of the drive has not been confirmed.

So far it looks promising. The only thing that is a mystery now is pricing, but I think we will find it out next year.

Broken Samsung Galaxy Fold

Samsung has started shipping review units and multiple phones already broke after couple days of usage. I knew this device will be a prototype to see how this technology behaves and how people use foldable phones, but I didn't expect to see such problems before the premiere. Hopefully Samsung finds out the root of the problem and the next generation will not have such issues.

Crew Dragon anomaly

On Sunday SpaceX was doing static fire test of the Crew Dragon capsule, but something went wrong and vehicle exploded. At the moment we don't know why it happened and how is it going to affect the manned mission, originally planned for this July.

Interesting links

• Star Wars logos: the evolution of a film icon
• Star Wars Celebration is a Reminder That Fandom is Far Healthier, and Far More Positive, Than the Internet Would Lead You to Believe
• Easy CSS Animation With Transition & Transforms
• Cool uses of the ::before and ::after pseudoelements
• The Web Developer's Guide to DNS
• Introduction to Elasticsearch
• Four Startup Engineering Killers
• Original Apple wallpapers optimized for iPhone X
• Retro Tech: Game Boy

This was a busy week. We have news from our galaxy as well as the one that was a long time ago, far, far away. So without further ado, lets get started.

First black hole picture

For the first time ever we finally were able to capture the black hole. This is a breakthrough moment for the astronomy. We knew about black holes for a while now, but we have definite proof of their existence. I'm sure, this is the one of those pictures that become iconic.

Star Wars: Episode IX The rise of Skywalker

When I write this post, in Chicago, there is Star Wars Celebration happening right now. So Star Wars related news will be split into 2 weeks. But the main event, Episode IX panel, has already happened. Panel itself didn't unveil too many details, but we finally got the title and the teaser trailer.
I have to admit, J.J. Abrams knows how to tease a movie. The voice of the Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine, at the end, literally gave me a goosebumps.
Regarding the title, I believe that Skywalker will become a new name for a force sensitive people. Although I still prefer Jedi and Sith, it might not be a bad conclusion of the Skywalker saga.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

Finally we got our first look at this game. It is so long in the production that I started worrying it was canceled. Thankfully I was wrong and it will be release on 15th November this year. According to developers this game is singleplayer and story driven game, without any microtransactions, but I won't believe it until I see it.
Story wise, the game will take place between episodes III and IV, and will tell the story of the young Jedi named Cal Kestis. Beside that we don't know too much, but Lucasfilm already started planting some elements of the game into the universe.

SpaceX Arabsat-6A Mission

This week Space X launched, for the second time ever, the Falcon Heavy rocket. This time it was not only first commercial mission, but, for the first time, all 3 boosters have been successfully retrieved.
By retrieving most of the rocket, SpaceX has set the bar really high. The next milestone is successful crew mission.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has release first preview of the WebKit powered Edge.

Interesting links

• How to Understand the Image of a Black Hole
• Google Graveyard - Killed by Google
• What the Hex?
• Checklist Design - best UI elements for the best UX practice
• When does an anchor becomes a button?
• How to use CSS position to layout a website
• 339 bytes of responsive CSS

Image credits: Event Horizon Telescope.

The main event of this week was the launch and docking of the SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. Capsule was launched to orbit on Saturday with Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was perfect, capsule has been deployed to orbit and the couple minutes later, rocket booster landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic becoming SpaceX's 35th successful landing.
In the meantime, the Crew Dragon capsule was on its way to ISS. On Sunday capsule reached the station and docked by itself to International Docking Adapter. During its stay, the crew members of the Space Station will perform various tests on the capsule to see how it performs in the space. Nasa and SpaceX plans to return capsule to Earth on Friday.
This mission is a final test of the Crew Dragon. If this mission is successful, we will be one step closer to real mission with the crew on board, which is scheduled for July this year.

That all folks. If you want more interesting things check this list out.

Learning about .NET Core futures by poking around at David Fowler's GitHub

An awesome guide on how to build RESTful APIs with ASP.NET Core

Scott Hanselman & Damian Edwards Talk about Microsoft & .Net Core 3

The Complete Guide to SCSS/SASS

Mask Compositing: The Crash Course

How “defer” operator in Swift actually works

Data structures to name-drop when you want to sound smart in an interview

How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

Role of colour in UI

How to recognize fake AI-generated images

Image credits: Nasa.