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Signs you need a new phone

You know by now your phone’s battery performance degrades the older it gets. That’s just how lithium-ion batteries work, unfortunately. With each charging cycle, they wear down a bit. Eventually, it becomes too big a problem to ignore.

Let’s look at the symptoms — and see how to check your battery health.

Signs you can’t ignore

Your phone’s battery used to stay charged for over a day. Now, you’re looking for an outlet by the afternoon.
You unplug your phone, only to see the battery level drop quickly, even though you’re not doing anything unusual.
You leave your phone plugged in for hours, but it never returns to a full charge.
Your phone is off-the-charts hot when it’s charging. You may even notice a physical bulge. Unplug it immediately if this happens, or you risk a fire or worse.

Apple makes it easy

It’s simple to see if your iPhone battery is struggling with a few clicks.

Open Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.

At the top, you’ll see your battery’s maximum capacity. Don’t panic if it’s below 100%. Your battery’s designed to maintain 80% of its original capacity by 500 charges so that that percentage will tick down over time.

Under Peak Performance Capability, you’ll see whether your battery is operating normally. If it’s seriously degraded, you’ll see a message here.

It’s a little trickier on an Android

Most manufacturers have different steps. Here are a few to try:

Open the Phone app, dial *#*#4636#*#* and look for an option to check your battery health. If you don’t see it, try another option.
On Samsung, open the built-in Samsung Members app. Tap Get Help > Check Android battery health.
Apps like AccuBattery can provide a good estimate if all else fails.

Sorry, but your laptop battery won’t last forever, either. Here’s how to check yours.

Charge better

No matter how old your phone is, a few tips and tricks can help you get the most out of that battery.

Don’t rely on knock-off chargers

High-quality chargers have circuits inside of them that switch off when there’s too much power draw. This protects your phone battery from overcharging, breaking, or overheating.

Heat is your battery’s biggest enemy. Some cheap chargers and cables have even led to fire and injuries. Saving money is excellent, but don’t skimp on quality here.

Be careful with power banks

Cheap power banks can ruin your battery over time. Be sure any power bank you use has overcharge protection. If not, you can still use it, but keep an eye out. Once your battery is almost full, unplug it.

It’s best to avoid power banks with quick charge options unless they’re from a reliable brand. Here’s a rule of thumb: Say no if you’ve never heard of it.

Don’t download battery-draining apps

Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer phone batteries only have limited charging cycles before they degrade. This is why most people encounter battery problems after two years of use.

There’s nothing you can do about your battery wearing down eventually, but some things have more of an impact. If you have performance apps that monitor your battery life, they could harm it in the long run. These apps constantly use power to monitor your battery life.

Don’t use your phone while it’s charging

Your phone is at 1%, so you plug it in. Leave it alone! Using your phone while charging can rapidly increase the temperature, putting strain on your battery, screen, and processor.

Take it out of the case

When it comes to charging, phone cases can cause temperature problems. When your phone battery heats up too much, it can cause damage to the rest of your phone. To be safe, take the case off while you charge — especially if you notice your phone heats up while it’s plugged in.

Keep your tech-know going

My popular podcast is called “Kim Komando Today.” It’s a solid 30 minutes of tech news, tips, and callers with tech questions like you from all over the country. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. For your convenience, hit the link below for a recent episode.

Plus, your AI girlfriend collects a lot of data. Kim and Andrew also talk about the White House’s plan to tackle deepfakes and take a look back at the first kiss ever recorded.

Check out my podcast “Kim Komando Today” on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.

Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for my last name, “Komando.”

Sound like a tech pro, even if you’re not! Award-winning popular host Kim Komando is your secret weapon. Listen on 425+ radio stations or get the podcast. And join over 400,000 people who get her free 5-minute daily email newsletter.

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Computer mouse controlled by your tongue? 11 life-changing gadgets shocking techies at CES 2024

Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

World-changing breakthroughs are being debuted and displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as companies harness recent, vast breakthroughs in artificial intelligence to bring the future to today’s market.

These on-display innovations at the four-day demo span from big, even life-altering game-changers to smaller must-haves for the home.

The range features new types of electric vehicles for both ground and air travel, a revolutionary form of free television and immersive screen use, user-friendly biotechnology that pairs with smart devices and much more.

There’s even a super toilet that’s a flush above the rest.

Here’s what to keep an eye out for from CES 2024.

A free — yes, free — 55-inch, 4K TV with permanent ads on a second screen

We might be looking at the future of consumerism here.

A 55-inch television with 4K picture compatibility and a built-in soundbar can easily run upwards of around $1,000. But the company Telly is dishing them out completely for free in exchange for allowing a de facto billboard in your home and electronically sharing viewing habits with the company.

Advertisers cover the entire cost of Telly’s state-of-the-art device — which has a ChatGPT-infused vocal assistant — in exchange for having a perpetual flow of commercial spots on a second screen. It’s situated beneath the huge TV’s soundbar.

Honda’s super electric vehicles

The Japanese carmaker is revving up a new fleet of electric vehicles that are slated to take the streets in 2026.

Called Honda Zero, these slender and sleek-looking automobiles aim to break a streak of clunky-style EVs that have dominated the market lately.

We’re looking at your Telsa Cybertruck, Elon.

Honda’s “flagship” sedan-style EV, the Saloon — which looks a little like Lamborghini meets “Tron” — is the first expected in North America. The company boasts it has “a low and wide exterior coupled with a surprisingly spacious interior.”

An anti-snore pillow

Don’t sleep on this one. The DeRUCCI Group has unveiled a pillow that, according to trial data, has capabilities to alienate snoring by 89%, the company announced.

Aptly called the Anti-Snore Pillow, the all-in-one, app-paired device can adjust a user’s head position so that they and their partner — couples are taking separate beds in flocks for reasons like this — can sleep a little sounder.

It targets sleep apnea as well.

A 100-inch laptop that fits in a backpack

It’s giving major Tony Stark vibes.

The tech company Sightful harnessed the power of augmented reality to create a first-of-its-kind, 100-inch laptop for which users only need to carry a minuscule amount of hardware.

Called Spacetop, the device relies on a pair of AR glasses a user wears to see a vast array of virtual screens and common programs — including ChatGPT and various Google programs — that they interact with only through a tangible keyboard that has a built-in webcam and five hours of battery power.

It can be yours for $2,150.

A mouse … for your tongue

Techies are salivating over this.

The company Augmental has designed a smart mouse that goes inside a user’s mouth and is toggled by a person’s tongue.

Aptly called “MouthPad^,” the “pressure sensitive” bio-device “detects every movement and gesture of your tongue in real-time to support standard cursor control and clicks.”

The company suggests that it is especially useful for individuals with spinal cord injuries.

The drooler’s delight, which is still in an early access sales mode, can be harnessed right out of the box, according to Augmental.

A transparent TV

Competitors are seeing ghosts.

LG just unveiled what they call the world’s first wireless, transparent TV that runs on organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology.

In other words, it’s 77 inches of 4K quality movies and shows when you want with a see-through panel that doesn’t obstruct home furnishings when turned off. Samsung debuted a similar style of futuristic screening at CES as well.

A smart mirror that knows if you’re sick

It’s bound to have people reflecting on their health.

The company Nuralogix unveiled a 21-inch, tabletop smart mirror that can analyze facial blood flow as a way to accurately calculate a user’s vital signs, as well as “disease risk assessments.”

The oversized iPad-looking device is powered by Nuralogix’s cloud-based AI DeepAffex.

The future of flying

The next major step for aviation — and the potential for flying taxis — is the rollout of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vessels, and a Hyundai-backed company just took their bird out of the hangar.

Meet Supernal’s SA-2 eVTOL which fits four in a luxury-focused cabin, plus a pilot, and reaches speeds of 120 miles per hour and a cruising altitude of 1,500 feet.

Testing begins for the SAA-2 next year, and the current goal is to have it ready for a 2028 takeoff.

A “Star Wars”-esque home aid droid

Here’s the latest robo-pet that can take a byte out of household chores.

Samsung showed off the AI-powered Ballie — which has a loose resemblance to Oscar Isaac’s BB-8 droid from the “Star Wars” film franchise — as a handy device that connects to home appliances.

The astrodroid-esque device can also send video updates to owners regarding circumstances like checking up on pets or people inside of their homes.

Ballie also can answer phone calls, play music and project videos onto screens, walls and floors.

A Blackberry-style keyboard — for iPhones

IPhone users are becoming the very thing they swore off in the early 2010s now.

A company called Clicks has rolled out an iPhone case that doubles as a hard-button keyboard and gives the Apple device a striking resemblance to the hallmark of once-competitor Blackberry.

It’s sold in either yellow or gray for $139 to $159.

The Alexa and Google Home paired toilet

This one’s a real gas.

Kohler has let rip a $2,149 bidet that pairs with smart devices like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home so users might enjoy a hands-free experience on the potty while commanding their water flow.

The PureWash E930 also has plenty of other bells and whistles like an ultraviolet automatic cleaner and a heated seat mode.

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Hertz plans to sell 20,000 EVs, including Teslas

Rental firm Hertz Global Holdings said Thursday it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles from its US fleet due to higher expenses related to collision and damage, and will opt for gas-powered vehicles.

Shares of the company, which operates vehicles from Elon Musk’s Tesla and Swedish EV maker Polestar among others, fell about 3% at market open.

Hertz had said it would order 100,000 Teslas by the end of 2022 and followed that with a decision to buy up to 65,000 units over five years from Polestar.

Hertz had said it would order 100,000 Teslas by the end of 2022. REUTERS

“Expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter…,” Hertz said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The company had previously set a target for 25% of its fleet to be electric by the end of 2024.

Hertz expects about $245 million of incremental depreciation expenses from the proposed sale in the fourth quarter of 2023 and warned of a hit to adjusted corporate core profit for the period.

Tesla shares fell on Thursday. CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Tesla cars — Tesla shares fell on Thursday. CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The company said it would continue to focus on improving profitability for the remainder of its EV fleet.

Hertz’s used car website lists more than 700 EVs on sale including BMW’s i3, Chevrolet’s Bolt and Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y SUVs.

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New York state to invest in $10B chip research complex

New York state is joining tech giant IBM and semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology to invest $10 billion in a state-of-the-art chip research facility at the University of Albany, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

NY Creates, a nonprofit entity that oversees The Albany NanoTech Complex where the 50,000-square-foot facility will be built, will supervise the project, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Upon its completion in 2026, the facility is expected to include some of the most advanced chip-making equipment in the world courtesy of ASML Holding, a Dutch company that sells machines worth upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars, The Journal reported.

Once the machinery is installed, the project and its partners — including material-engineering company Applied Materials and electronics firm Tokyo Electron — will work on next-generation chip manufacturing there, per The Journal, citing Hochul’s office.

ASML’s advanced machines use lasers and drops of tin in a highly-complex process that uses silicon and ultraviolet light to turn semiconductor materials into chips, according to the company’s website — all while keeping the chip “about 10,000 cleaner than the outside air.”

Acquiring machines capable of this advanced technology at this Albany complex expansion is part of the $53 billion Chips Act, which the Commerce Department initiated earlier this year to counter technological advances in China while boosting national security by slashing America’s reliance on imported chips.

New York state has committed $1 billion to the project, which will be used to purchase the ASML equipment and construct the building, The Journal reported.

The facility could also help New York’s bid to be the designated research hub under the Chips Act — which included $11 billion for a National Semiconductor Technology Center designed to advance domestic chip research and development, according to The Journal.

The University of Albany’s new building is set to have a larger impact on the economy.

Hochul’s office predicts its opening will create some 700 new jobs and bring in at least $9 billion in private money.

The Post has sought comment from Hochul’s office, as well as the University of Albany.

The Albany NanoTech Complex — which was first constructed in the late ’90s as a lone 70,000-square-foot facility and has since ballooned into a 1.65 million square-foot complex — has already made headway on its chip research efforts.

New York boasts a number of large chip factories, including ones operated by semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries, which works with San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm, the maker of chips that come in Android, Asus and Sony devices.

Fellow semiconductor manufacturing company Onsemi also boasts a manufacturing facility in Rochester, NY, and Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer that focuses on silicon carbide, expanded to the East Coast with the opening of its Marcy, NY, facility last year.

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Pornhub takeover is about tech — not sex: sources

Yes, it’s true – a buyout firm called Ethical Capital Partners has bought the parent company of Pornhub – and some insiders say the deal isn’t about sex, but tech.

In a press release, Canada-based Ethical declared that the giant smut site’s parent company, MindGeek – which has spent the past few years fending off accusations of sex-trafficking and child porn – was “built upon a foundation of trust, safety, and compliance.”

But what may be still more surprising to some, according to industry insiders, is the fact that technology could be a key driver for the deal – and that tech could help solve ethical issues that have dogged porn since the beginning, even as it boosts the bottom line.

In particular, some believe that human porn stars are destined to become a relic of the past – as outdated as the mustaches and perfunctory plot lines that riddled porn flicks in the 70s and 80s – and that they’ll be replaced by computer-generated stars.

“Every major piece of technological change is mastered by porn first: from VHS tapes to DVDs to internet video—all became popularized because of porn.”

“And now the same thing is happening with generative AI and deep fakes — buying this is a great way to get into this business before most porn is computer generated and dramatically reducing the costs of content creation.”

The source adds that in a few years creating pornography could cost almost nothing — and ECP could end up with an asset that requires little investment to run and generates significant revenues.

Ethical Capital Partners has promised it will be transparent about the leadership it puts in charge of the company but is still refusing to disclose who that will be.

“We have defended sex workers and we have seen the stigma,” ECP Partner Solomon Friedman said in a press release. “There is stigma and there is shame and that means there are discussions and debates happening in the absence of those who are most affected by it.”

But some financial types think ECP’s spin is strategic — and makes the acquisition seem like it’s helping and empowering women.

“Many institutions are not allowed to invest in “sin stocks” like tobacco. Playboy had the same issue with their initial IPO. It seems that they are trying to spin this company into one that sells porn to one that protects the safety of children and sex workers,” one financial insider told The Post.

The acquisition was announced just one day after Netflix premiered a documentary about the company, “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story.” After a New York Times article accused the site of hosting child porn, the company was sued by 34 women who said the PornHub profited from videos in which they were trafficked. Visa and Mastercard temporarily suspended payment services.

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Short seller Hindenburg accuses Jack Dorsey’s Block of ‘facilitating fraud’

Hindenburg Research, the short-seller whose damning report on Indian billionaire Gautam Adani triggered a $150 billion loss from the mogul’s net worth, is now accusing Jack Dorsey’s mobile payment firm Block of “facilitating fraud against consumers and the government.”

Hindenburg on Thursday alleged that Block overstated its user numbers and understated its customer acquisition costs.

Shares of Block, which developed the popular Cash App mobile payment facilitator, plunged by some 20% just after the opening bell rang on Wall Street on Thursday.

The Post has sought comment from Block.

“Our 2-year investigation has concluded that Block has systematically taken advantage of the demographics it claims to be helping,” the short seller said in a note published on its website.

Hindenburg claims that Block “obfuscates” the number of customers registered on its Cash App platform by reporting misleading “transacting active” metrics filled with fake and duplicate accounts.

In January, Hindenburg released a damning report alleging fraudulent business practices by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.

REUTERS

The firm said that Block co-founders Dorsey and James McKelvey collectively sold over $1 billion of stock during the pandemic as the company’s share price soared.

Other executives including finance chief Amrita Ahuja and the lead manager for Cash App Brian Grassadonia also dumped millions of dollars in stock, the report added.

Before releasing its findings on Thursday morning, Hindenburg teased that it would be issuing a “new report soon — another big one.”

The tweet on Wednesday went viral, generating more than 31,000 likes and 6 million views as of Thursday morning.

New report soon—another big one.

— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) March 22, 2023

About 5.2% of Block’s free float shares were in short position as of March 22, according to Ortex data.

The company’s ticker was third most trending on retail investor focused forum StockTwits.

Last month, Block said it is “meaningfully slowing” the pace of hiring this year to control costs.

Founded in 2017 by Nathan Anderson, Hindenburg is a forensic financial research firm that analyses equity, credit and derivatives.

Shares of Block sank by some 20% after the opening bell on Wall Street on Thursday.

Hindenburg on Wednesday teased that it would be releasing a “big” report.

Hindenburg invests its own capital and takes short-positions against companies. After finding potential wrongdoings, the company usually publishes a report explaining the case and bets against the target company, hoping to make a profit.

In late January, Hindenburg published a report alleging that Adani’s port-operating conglomerate engaged in stock manipulation and fraudulent accounting practices to artificially inflate the value of his company.

Block is the developer of the popular payments facilitator Cash App.

At the height of his wealth, Adani was worth more than $150 billion last year — exceeding that of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Earlier this month, Adani’s net worth dipped to less than $38 billion.

He has since been seeking to win back investor confidence after the Hindenburg report triggered a massive selloff in company stock.

With Post Wires

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Elon Musk apologizes after mocking Haraldur Thorleifsson

Elon Musk is sorry.

The billionaire mogul apologized for mocking a fired Twitter employee who suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair.

Musk had accused Haraldur Thorleifsson of using his disability as an “excuse” to do “no actual work” after the Iceland-based software engineer complained that he had not heard about his job status for nine days.

“I would like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday night to his 130 million followers, referring to Thorleifsson by his nickname.

“It was based on things I was told that were untrue or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful.”

The Twitter boss also revealed he spoke with Thorleifsson on a video call about a possible return to the beleaguered social media platform.

“He is considering remaining at Twitter,” Musk tweeted, adding it is “better to talk to people than communicate via tweet.’”

The Post has sought comment from Thorleifsson and Musk.

Elon Musk apologized to Haraldur Thorleifsson on Tuesday.

Thorleifsson, 45, was among several high-profile individuals who were apparently let go as part of the Twitter’s latest round of job cuts. He had tweeted at Musk on Monday after logging in to his computer to do some work — only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.

“Dear @ElonMusk, 9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees. However your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You’ve not answered my emails. Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” Thorleifsson tweeted.

“What work have you been doing?” Musk replied.

Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy, learned he was laid off from Twitter more than a week after the company locked him out of the computer system.

Thorleifsson responded with a list of accomplishments during his tenure at Twitter.

His personal website notes that he “led an innovation team” that “spearheaded” the Twitter Communities project and helped to develop an edit button on the platform.

But Musk was skeptical. At one point he responded with a pair of laughing emojis, insisting that he post “pics or it didn’t happen.”

Thorleifsson fired back by noting the company had “locked [his] computer.”

Musk eventually replied with a scene from the 1999 comedy “Office Space,” in which two outside consultants ask a soon-to-be-fired employee, “What would you say you do here?”

“Would you say that you’re a people person?” Musk tweeted.

Musk was slammed online for his mocking reaction to Thorleifsson.

Thorleifsson noted during his back-and-forth with Musk that Twitter’s human resources department reached out to him and informed him that he was no longer employed by the San Francisco-based company.

Musk then tweeted that Thorleifsson “did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm.”

Musk’s criticisms of Thorleifsson ignited pushback from Twitter users who are ordinarily sympathetic to the tech mogul, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion last October.

Esther Crawford, the Twitter executive who was famously pictured sleeping on the office floor in the early days of Musk’s stewardship of the company, tweeted: “Cruelty is the worst.” Crawford had also been canned in the latest purge.

When a Twitter user claimed to have worked with Thorleifsson and vouched for his “next level” work ethic, Musk replied that he gave him a video call “to figure out what’s real vs what I was told.”

Thorleifsson was among some 200 programmers and software engineers who were recently laid off by Twitter.

Thorleifsson is a noted tech entrepreneur. He joined Twitter in 2021, when the company, under the prior management, acquired his startup Ueno.

He has been hailed in Icelandic media for insisting on being paid in wages as part of the acquisition of Twitter.

Instead of opting to be paid in shares or other financial instruments which would be categorized as capital gains and would thus be taxed at a lower rate, Thorleifsson chose to accept the proceeds in the form of a regular wage so that he would pay a higher rate of tax.

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Residents of Musk’s Texas space city rip billionaire for destroying quiet beach town

Residents of Elon Musk’s “space city” in southeastern Texas blasted the SpaceX CEO’s treatment of them as he transformed their quiet beach town into his grand Starbase vision, a report said.

Boca Chica was a small, seaside village at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican border with just a few streets before SpaceX moved in, promising to turn the town into a terrestrial terminus for space travelers.

The company broke ground on its launch facility in 2014 and started testing rockets there in 2019. As work on the project progressed, SpaceX gradually bought up most of Boca Chica’s three dozen homes, though a few homeowners held out, according to reports.

“Creating the city of Starbase, Texas,” Musk tweeted in March 2021. “From thence to Mars. And hence, the stars.” Starbase, he added, “would encompass an “area much larger than Boca Chica.”

SpaceX reportedly bought out the homes of numerous residents of Boca Chica, where Musk built his SpaceX rocket launch facility.

REUTERS

“It was a little neighborhood, and Elon Musk came and took it over,” Mary Helen Flores, a teacher from nearby Brownsville, told The Sunday Times. “He renamed it Starbase without asking anyone. He just announced it on Twitter.”

Maria Pointer, who used to live in “the last house in Texas” before the border, told the paper that her home is now being used by SpaceX to store medical supplies.

She could still point out her old home, as it stands, juxtaposed to Starbase’s massive rocket assembly towers.

In 2012, Musk received bids from states and territories that wanted to host a new SpaceX base, with Florida and Puerto Rico being the two leading candidates before Musk settled on Boca Chica after meeting with Texas officials, according to The Sunday Times.

SpaceX ignites 31 out of 33 raptor engines during a Starship booster static fire test at Starbase on Feb. 9.

“He picked Texas because it’s a dirty red state where no one’s going to care what he does in a poor border town,” Flores told the paper.

Flores said she “knew when I saw them putting the launchpad right behind the dune line that it was going to be a disaster for our beach.”

“He has destroyed a pristine paradise in the name of saving animals? Come on,” she said, dismissing the world’s richest man as “just a delusional billionaire.”

“They are destroying an ecosystem that has been there for hundreds of years,” Flores added.

She said she’s seen several fires and “a lot of sea turtle deaths,” following repeated launches and multiple explosions at the site.

Musk has defended the Boca Chica site as necessary for the future of humankind.

Earlier this month, SpaceX fired up 31 of 33 heavy booster engines on the world’s largest rocket ever built at Starbase.

Musk, whose plans to expand Starbase have reportedly been put on hold, has defended the site as necessary for the survival of humankind.

“Something could go wrong on Earth,” he said at an event on the Starbase launchpad last year, according to The Sunday Times.

“We are life’s guardians,” he said. “The creatures that we love, they can’t build spaceships but we can bring them with us.”

A spectator watches a SpaceX test launch near Boca Chica with binoculars earlier this month.

In March 2021, Musk claimed that Starbase’s population will “grow by several thousand people over the next year or two” as the company — headquartered in Hawthorne, California — expands its workforce.

To sweeten the deal for prospective residents and local officials, Musk pledged to donate $20 million to schools in Cameron County, which is home to the Boca Chica.

He also said he’d give $10 million toward “downtown revitalization” in Brownsville, where about 29 percent of the population lives in poverty.

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SpaceX launches 9,000-pound satellite into orbit from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a 9,000-pound satellite into orbit on Monday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The reusable rocket’s first stage landed back on the Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Atlantic Ocean roughly eight minutes after takeoff, marking SpaceX’s 170th recovery of an orbital class rocket.

The first stage booster on the Falcon 9 rocket in Monday’s mission was previously used in three Stalink launches, SES-22, and ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1.

Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus satellite was deployed roughly 36 minutes after launch.

The Spanish company said that the satellite will cover the “entire American continent, Greenland and the North and South Atlantic corridors and will be focused on connectivity services in remote areas and in air and maritime mobility environments.”

A photo shows Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone-ship.

Twitter/Space X

SpaceX contracts with private companies like Hispasat to carry cargo into space, and also conducts missions for the U.S. Space Force and other government agencies.

The Falcon 9, which was used on Monday, is the company’s primary reusable rocket. The Falcon Heavy, which is essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together, is deployed for heavier payloads.

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Apple 1Q profit dented by weak iPhone sales

Apple on Thursday reported sales and profits that missed Wall Street expectations driven by weak iPhone sales after COVID lockdowns in China disrupted production of the company’s biggest seller.

Apple sales fell 5% to $117.2 billion and were down in every part of the world in the quarter. Sales from each product category dropped, except for gains in services and iPads. Earnings per share were $1.88, Apple’s first miss of Wall Street’s profits expectations since 2016.

Analysts had expected sales of $121.1 billion and profits of $1.94 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters that the production disruptions that plagued Apple’s key quarter were now over.

During its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31, Apple faced a wave of challenges that left Wall Street expecting lower sales. Chief among those were supply chain pressures when COVID lockdowns at a production facility in Zhengzhou, China, slowed production of iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max devices, both premium priced models that would traditionally help drive Apple’s margins higher.

In an interview with Reuters, Cook said that production disruptions “lasted through most of December” but that “production is now back where we want it to be.” Cook said the lockdowns in China created a dual challenge where both supply and demand were constrained, with greater China sales falling 7% to $23.9 billion.

Apple said iPhone sales were $65.8 billion, down 8% from the year before and below analyst estimates of $68.3 billion.

REUTERS

“When things started to reopen in December (in China), we did see an increase in traffic to our stores as compared to November and an increase in demand as December rolled around,” Cook told Reuters.

The strong US dollar also hurt Apple, which derives more than half its sales from outside the Americas, but the effect was less than anticipated as the dollar eased from last year’s highs. Apple had warned investors that such foreign-exchange issues would put a 10% on drag on sales but said on Thursday that the actual effect was 8%.

“I would point out that 8% is still a very severe headwind,” Cook told Reuters. “I wouldn’t want to underestimate that. We would have grown on a constant currency basis.”

On top of supply chain problems for the iPhone, Wall Street analysts had expected iPhone sales to fall this year as part of a larger pattern in which the iPhone 14 family released last year sells more slowly after two straight years of strong sales of iPhone 12 and 13 models. Apple said iPhone sales were $65.8 billion, down 8% from the year before and below analyst estimates of $68.3 billion.

The company’s services segment, which includes content businesses such as Apple TV+ and software business like the App Store, rose 6% to $20.8 billion in revenue, compared with analyst expectations of $20.7 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Cook told Reuters that the company now has a base of 2 billion active devices, up from 1.8 billion a year ago. The company now has 935 million paid subscriptions, up from 900 million the quarter before, and that services sales set a record in several markets, including China, he said.

Sales of the company’s Mac computers, which had boomed during the wave of working from home during the pandemic, declined 29% year over year to $7.7 billion, compared with expectations of $9.6 billion, according to Refinitiv data. Apple executives had warned last year that Mac sales were likely to decline year over year because the previous year’s results included a burst of sales associated with the release of new MacBook Pro computers with Apple’s house-designed processors.

Sales of the iPad, which also saw a pandemic-related boost, grew 30% to $9.4 billion, compared with analyst expectations of $7.8 billion, according to Refinitiv data. The wearable and accessories segment, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, fell 8% to $13.5 billion compared with analyst estimates of $15.2 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Cook told Reuters the iPad’s strong performance stemmed from the launch of new models and the absence of supply constraints that had hindered sales of the device a year earlier.

Apple investors are waiting to see whether the company dives into new markets this year. Technology publication The Information has reported that Apple plans to launch a mixed-reality headset that could retail for around $3,000 this year and is also working on a more affordable follow-up device.

Apple is one of the few large technology firms that has not announced major layoffs, though its ranks never grew as rapidly as that of its peers. In late 2022 it said it had 164,000 employees, up less than 20% from its 2019 headcount. By contrast, other companies such as Meta Platforms, which is laying off about 11,000 employees, had roughly doubled its headcount between 2019 and 2022.

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