Tech News Roundup for June 1, 2020

Here are a few things that got my interest in the last few days

SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 Launch

After weather scrubbed the launch attempt last Wednesday, the SpaceX Demo-2 mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.  Two astronauts launched in a Crew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, a milestone launch in several aspects.  It was the first launch of humans on a privately developed space ship and the first launch of US/NASA astronauts from US soil since the final flight of the Space Shuttle in 2011.  The launch occurred on Saturday afternoon, and the Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on Sunday morning.  The astronauts will spend anywhere from 30 to 120 days on the space station, evaluating the performance of the Crew Dragon as it remains docked.

NASA

The Accuracy of Fitness Trackers

Fitness tracking is a technology category that has exploded in recent years.  Many companies make devices that can track many metrics of fitness, from steps, to calories, to full workouts of differing types.  The Next Web has an article questioning the accuracy of these “mainstream” fitness trackers.

I’ve owned and used devices that can track some kind of metrics for many years at this point, and my personal stance is that I don’t count any of these as 100% accurate, or gospel.  I like to use them as a guide.  If a tracker tells me I walked 7000 steps one day, 9000 steps the next and then 3000 the day after that I don’t consider those numbers 100% accurate, but it does give me a gude as to how active I was on a a given day.  That’s how I use them.

The Markup

Shaw asks the CRTC to exempt it’s Fibre+ Gig plan from being offered to resellers

Internet providers in Canada are required to lease space in their infrastructure to smaller, 3rd party providers.  This has been one of the CRTC’s efforts to increase competition and reduce prices for internet service.  The major ISP’s in the country, Telus, Rogers, Bell, and Shaw, have all fought against this provision at every possible turn, so Shaw’s petition to the CRTC here is not surprising, but disappointing.

Mobile Syrup