A Vatican astronomer has come to the help of NASA with a historic mission to study an asteroid. Meteorite expert and Vatican astronomer, Jesuit Brother Bob Macke, came to the aid of the US space agency after building a custom device that would allow the study of material of a sample collected from an asteroid. The mission is that of the unmanned spacecraft, Osiris-Rex, which was launched in 2016 in order to collect samples on an asteroid named Bennu. Bennu is located close to Earth and Osiris-Rex successfully collected a cup of material from the asteroid in 2020. Now, the vessel is approaching Earth and is due to release the sample in a return capsule on 24 September before continuing its orbit of the sun. Macke was contacted by the lead of the mission’s sample analysis working group, Andrew Ryan, who asked him to build the device that was needed in order to analyse the sample of the Bennu asteroid. The device has been devised so that it can analyse the density and porosity of the samples to help identify the make up of the asteroid surface. It is known as a pycnometer and NASA has strict requirements for the device, though other companies contacted were not willing to custom make one. Macke, however, took up the task and was able to build it in five weeks thanks to the assistance of students at the University of Arizona who collaborate with the Vatican Observatory’s advanced technology telescope in Tucson. In March it was delivered to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston for a test run and is hoped to be used for the real thing when the sample arrives from space. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Apple is working on its own ‘Apple GPT’, according to a new report. The system is an artificial intelligence chatbot like those offered by other companies, Bloomberg reported. It uses Apple’s own large language model framework and is built on tools from Google, the report said. The company is still unclear what purpose the system will serve, Bloomberg reported. But it is gearing up for a major announcement next year, it said. Multiple teams are currently working on the project, the report claimed, with some of those tasked with working on privacy concerns around the technology. Apple has focused on privacy as one of its fundamental principles, especially in recent years. If released, ‘Apple GPT’ would mark Apple’s first major step into artificial intelligence as its own product. Apple has been much more slower than competitors in offering own AI tools, and has been publicly cautious about embracing the technology. In an earnings call earlier this year, for instance, chief executive Tim Cook said that Apple was planning to “weave” artificial intelligence into its products, but that it would have to be “deliberate and thoughtful”. He said there is a “number of issues that need to be sorted”. Many had expected that Apple could address the growth of and hype around artificial intelligence during its Worldwide Developers Conference event last month, where it also released its Vision Pro virtual reality headset. But the topic went notably unmentioned, and Apple did not use the phrase at all, instead referring to those products using the technology as being powered by machine learning. Apple already offers a host of products powered by technologies that are often referred to as artificial intelligence. Siri uses such capabilities to power its voice recognition and responses, for instance – though Apple does not tend to publicly refer to it as such. Previous reports have suggested that Apple’s progress on artificial intelligence has been hindered by its characteristic private approach, which set it against a research community that is focused on publishing papers and sharing research. In recent years, however, it has made a number of high profile hires in the field and allowed them to publicly publish some of that work. Read More Beats launches updated version of Studio Pro over-ear headphones Rare ‘Holy Grail’ iPhone sells for almost $200,000 Apple’s next iPhone may include new battery technology, report suggests

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Apple plans to overhaul almost all of its AirPods next year, according to a major new report. The standard version of the AirPods earphones will be replaced with two new options, and the long-neglected AirPods Max headphones will finally get an update, according to a new report from Bloomberg. At the moment, Apple offers two versions of its basic AirPods, alongside the higher-end AirPods Pro and larger AirPods Max. The cheaper AirPods are known as the second generation and include most AirPods features, but the ones known as third-generation are more expensive and add water resistance, personalised spatial audio and other features. Those newer, third-generation AirPods are selling less well than Apple had expected, according to the new report. Apple believes that is because more customers are opting to buy the cheaper, older second-generation version, Bloomberg said. Instead of offering those various options, Apple will take all the existing AirPods off sale and replace them with two new AirPods that will go on sale at the same time, the report said. The higher-end option would get some AirPods Pro features such as noise cancellation and speakers inside the case to make it easier to find. The two new generations would also continue Apple’s move towards USB-C charging. Last month, Apple updated the AirPods to drop support for the Lightning cable and include the standard, which came alongside the same change in the iPhone line-up. Both of the new sets of AirPods are expected to be released next year. The last AirPods update came in October 2021, when the third-generation was released. Apple will also update the expensive, over-ear AirPods Max headphones next year, the report claimed. Those headphones have gone without any changes since they were first introduced in 2020, which means they do not have access to Apple’s newer wireless technologies and still use the old Lightning cable to charge. The AirPods Pro will get their own redesign in 2025, the report said. It gave no indication of what would change about the earphones, which were updated to get USB-C last month. Read More Apple TV+ and other subscriptions are about to get a lot more expensive The Apple Watch feature everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived What to expect Apple’s surprise, spooky upcoming launch

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