This week, it's cool space news you can use (if you're not stuck on the ISS!). We look at the recent flight of Fram 2, the first spacecraft to fly a polar orbit; recent revelations about the flight of Starliner from commander Butch Wilmore; a mysterious Russian satellite behaving strangely; and carnivorous Martian dust devils. We also update you on SpaceX's next test of Starship, SpinLaunch's mighty "space cannon," recent experiments on abating lunar dust, and much more. Join us!

• Fram 2 Mission - SpaceX's private orbital mission financed by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang completed a four-day flight, making history as the first mission to send astronauts over Earth's poles.
• Amazon's Kuiper Satellites - Amazon launched its first batch of 27 Kuiper internet satellites on an Atlas 5 rocket, beginning its planned 3,200-satellite constellation to compete with SpaceX's Starlink.
• Blue Origin's All-Female Flight Controversy? - Actress Olivia Munn is blasting the all-female crew for Blue Origin's next suborbital flight for its costly, gluttonous mission.
• Tariffs Impact on Space Industry - The hosts discussed how new tariffs could affect aerospace companies that rely on international partnerships and imported components for spacecraft manufacturing.
• US Military Cargo Delivery with SpaceX - The US military's Rocket Cargo Vanguard program plans to test using SpaceX's Starship to deliver 100 tons of cargo anywhere in the world in under 90 minutes.
• Starliner's Harrowing Mission - New details revealed that Boeing's Starliner mission was more dangerous than initially reported, with multiple thruster failures creating serious maneuvering issues, threatening to leave them adrift in space.
• Mysterious Russian Satellites - Three Russian satellites (Cosmos 2581-2583) were observed performing proximity operations and possibly deploying another object in orbit, raising concerns about their purpose.
• Starship Test 9 Preparations - SpaceX is preparing to refly a Starship booster with 29 reused engines, marking progress toward their fully reusable rocket system.
• Japan's Mars Plans - JAXA is planning to send multiple mini rovers to Mars using an inflatable heat shield technology to enable larger payload deliveries, and add a lander to Phobos.
• Cannibal Dust Devils on Mars - The Perseverance rover captured images of two dust devils on Mars merging, with the larger one (210 feet wide) absorbing a smaller one (16 feet wide).
• Lunar Dust Mitigation Technology - NASA successfully tested an electrodynamic dust shield on Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander that could help manage the highly problematic lunar dust on future missions.
• Asteroid 2024 YR4 Update - James Webb Space Telescope observations determined the asteroid is about 200 feet wide with a slightly increased 3.8% chance of hitting the moon in 2032, up from 1.7%.
• SpinLaunch's Satellite Plans - SpinLaunch received $12 million in funding to develop an enhanced system using centrifugal force to launch up to 250 satellites at once, potentially offering a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly launch alternative.

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

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Amazon makes a bid for TikTok in the US. What Amazon's new Alexa+ can and cannot do. Nintendo officially unveils the Switch 2 console. And OpenAI & Anthropic are taking on the education market.

• Abrar Al-Heet of CNET joins Mikah Sargent this week! Abrar talks about Amazon making a bid to purchase TikTok in the US as Bytedance scrambles to divest ownership of the social media app.
• Mikah talks about Amazon's Alexa+ and some of the features that the service has yet to include following its launch.
• Kyle Orland of Ars Technica joins the show to talk about Nintendo's new Switch 2 console and some of the positives and negatives of the newly unveiled console.
• And Mikah rounds things out with OpenAI and Anthropic's push into the education market with new features to support university students.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Abrar Al-Heeti

Guest: Kyle Orland

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Scott Wilkinson featured this Middle East-inspired home theater on AVS Forum way back in 2018. He normally prefers a simple, blacked-out room for a dedicated home theater, but this one is a stunning example of themed room that really works.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

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Unlock the secrets of seamless smartphone integration with Windows 11 in our latest episode. Discover how the PhoneLink app revolutionizes your digital experience by granting direct access to your Android phone's file system through Windows' File Explorer, all without the tangled mess of cables. We're putting a spotlight on the innovative features that empower you to send files directly to your phone, though you might encounter a hiccup or two. Plus, explore the exciting potential of integrating your phone's capabilities with the new Copilot app, promising a new era of connectivity and interaction between your devices.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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the secrets to efficient photo management with the latest updates in macOS Sequoia 15.4. Join Mikah Sargent, as he unravels the enhanced features of the Photos app that are set to transform your digital album experience.

Host: Mikah Sargent

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Struggling with allergies, symptoms, or invisible illnesses? Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard explore a range of iOS apps and features designed to help you track your health, monitor symptoms, and manage illness right from your iPhone and Apple Watch.

• Built-in Health app features - Apple has added an extensive list of symptoms you can track directly in the Health app, from abdominal cramps to sore throat, allowing users to log severity and duration.
• Peak app - A widget-focused app that displays your health metrics on your home screen, with options to track heart rate, blood oxygen, time in daylight, and other metrics related to health conditions.
• My Pollen Forecast Pro - A $4.99 app that shows local pollen counts with color-coded indicators and forecasts, plus a diary feature to help correlate symptoms with specific pollens.
• Plume Labs - Free air quality tracking app that provides localized air quality index measurements, pollution maps, and recommendations for outdoor activities based on current conditions.
• Pedometer++ and Sleep++ - This pair of David Smith apps track your steps and sleep patterns, with badges for achievements and integration with Apple Health data to monitor trends and potential health indicators.
• Visible - A subscription service using a Polar armband to track heart rate and daily exertion, designed for people with long COVID or invisible illnesses, providing "pace points" to help manage energy throughout the day.

Feedback

• Separate volume controls - Robert shared a tip about iOS having separate volume channels for Siri/navigation and media, explaining how to adjust the Siri volume by asking Siri to read a message and then changing the volume while it's speaking.

Shortcuts Corner

• Symptom logging shortcut - Rosemary created a simple one-action shortcut to log health symptoms directly from your home screen, using the "Log Health Sample" action with customizable options for tracking different symptoms.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard

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• Interview with Keach Hagey
• The Secrets and Misdirection Behind Sam Altman's Firing From OpenAI
• OpenAI's Latest Funding Round Comes With a $20 Billion Catch
• Startup Founder Claims Elon Musk Is Stealing the Name 'Grok'
• Elon Musk Says He Has Sold X to His A.I. Start-Up xAI
• Replit CEO Amjad Masad says learning to code is a waste of time, citing Dario Amodei's prediction that AI may generate essentially all code by next year
• AI: history of a brand by Thomas Haigh
• Bloomberg Has a Rocky Start With A.I. Summaries
• First Trial of Generative AI Therapy Shows It Might Help With Depression
• Tinder wants you to chat with an AI bot before you fail with a real person
• Twitter (X) Hit by 2.8 Billion Profile Data Leak in Alleged Insider Job
• The hottest AI models, what they do, and how to use them
• Amazon Said to Make a Bid to Buy TikTok in the U.S.
• (Oh, no) Andreessen Horowitz in talks to help buy out TikTok's Chinese owners
• Trump to hold a meeting on possible investors to buy TikTok with possible ban at stake
• Amazon unveils Nova Act, an AI agent that can control a web browser
• Get ready! Catch Coachella 2025 live, only on YouTube
• Amazon Nova
• Perplexity AI CEO Denies Rumors Company Is Disintegrating Behind the Scenes
• AI accent conversion
• Kat Abughazaleh, from YouTube to Congress?
• Wurst cursor
• The fastest, most-accurate fast-food drive-throughs, and more!

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Richard Campbell

Guest: Keach Hagey

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Bill Gates celebrates the 50th anniversary of Microsoft with the release of the source code for Altair BASIC 1.0. Plus, Paul celebrates with 99 cent books: The Windows 10 Field Guide, Windows 11 Field Guide, and Windows Everywhere are all 99 cents for 24 hours! Also available: Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico City in preview!

Windows

• The plot thickens. Paul writes epic take on future of Windows 11, describes Dev channel-only features and when/if they were ever released - in other words, an extensive but partial Windows 11 feature roadmap for 2025
• Two days later, Microsoft announces a Windows 11 feature road map - one that is woefully incomplete, pathetic, and sad
• Microsoft announces when (sort of) new on-device AI features will come to all Copilot+ PCs, meaning Intel and AMD, too - "not a glimpse at the future of the PC, but the future of the PC."
• Live captions with live language translations, Cocreator in Paint, Restyle image and Image creator in Photos, plus Voice access with flexible natural language (Snapdragon X only)
• But not Recall or Click to Do in preview, go figure
• As expected, March 2024 Preview update for 24H2 arrives, a few days late - with AI-powered search experience enabled
• Dev and Beta builds - Friday - Quick Machine Recovery (Beta only?), Speech recap in Narrator, Blue screen to get less blue, WinKey + C shortcut for Copilot returns, Spanish and French Text actions in Click to Do, Edit images in Share, AI-powered search (Dev only?)
• Then, Microsoft more fully describes Windows Quick Recovery
• Beta (23H2) - Monday - A lot of familiar 24H2 features - Narrator improvements, Copilot WinKey + C, Share with Image edit, plus System -- About FAQ for some freaking reason
• Proton Drive is now native on Windows 11 on Arm, everyone gets new features
• Proton VPN is now built into Vivaldi desktop browser
• Intel's new CEO appears in public, vows to spin off non-core businesses. Everything but x86 chip design and Foundry, then

Microsoft 365

• Windows 365 Link is now available
• The Office apps on Windows already launch instantaneously but apparently that's not invasive enough - we need fewer auto-start items, not more of them
• Microsoft Excel to call out rich data cells with value tokens

AI & Dev

• NYT copyright infringement lawsuit against Open AI and Microsoft can move forward, judge rules
• And now Tim O'Reilly says Open AI stole his company's paywalled book content too. Book piracy is sadly the easiest thing in the world
• Open AI raised more money than any private firm in history, now worth $300B
• ChatGPT releases awesome new image generation feature for ChatGPT
• And now it's available for free to everyone
• Google's Gemini Pro 2.5 is now available to everyone too
• Amazon launches Alexa+ in early access, US only
• Some thoughts about vibe coding, which isn't what you think it is
• AMD pays $4.9 billion to take on Nvidia in cloud AI
• Apple Intelligence + Apple Health is the future of something something

Xbox & Games

• Nintendo announces Switch 2. Looks awesome, coming earlier than expected. But that price! And no Xbox/COD news at the launch??
• Luna's not dead! Amazon announces multi-year EA partnership, expands Luna to more EU countries
• Microsoft announces a new Xbox Backbone controller for smartphones
• New titles for Xbox Game Pass across PC,

Ti

These show notes have been truncated due to length. For the full show notes, visit https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly/episodes/926

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell