Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner is seen atop an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

A difficult summer for the Starliner program continued this week, with Boeing reporting additional losses on the vehicle's development and NASA saying it's too early to discuss potential launch dates for the crewed spacecraft.

Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. However, just weeks before this launch was due to occur, Boeing announced on June 1 that there were two serious issues with Starliner. One of these involved the "soft links" in the lines that connect the Starliner capsule to its parachutes, and the second problem came with hundreds of feet of P-213 glass cloth tape inside the spacecraft found to be flammable.

On Wednesday, as a part of its quarterly earnings update, Boeing announced that the Starliner program had taken a loss of $257 million "primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." This brings the company's total write-down of losses on the Starliner program to more than $1.1 billion. Partly because of this, Boeing's Defense, Space, & Security division reported a loss of $527 million during the second quarter of this year.

Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner is seen atop an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

A difficult summer for the Starliner program continued this week, with Boeing reporting additional losses on the vehicle's development and NASA saying it's too early to discuss potential launch dates for the crewed spacecraft.

Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. However, just weeks before this launch was due to occur, Boeing announced on June 1 that there were two serious issues with Starliner. One of these involved the "soft links" in the lines that connect the Starliner capsule to its parachutes, and the second problem came with hundreds of feet of P-213 glass cloth tape inside the spacecraft found to be flammable.

On Wednesday, as a part of its quarterly earnings update, Boeing announced that the Starliner program had taken a loss of $257 million "primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." This brings the company's total write-down of losses on the Starliner program to more than $1.1 billion. Partly because of this, Boeing's Defense, Space, & Security division reported a loss of $527 million during the second quarter of this year.

Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner is seen atop an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

A difficult summer for the Starliner program continued this week, with Boeing reporting additional losses on the vehicle's development and NASA saying it's too early to discuss potential launch dates for the crewed spacecraft.

Throughout this spring, NASA and Boeing had been working toward a July launch date of the spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts for the first time. However, just weeks before this launch was due to occur, Boeing announced on June 1 that there were two serious issues with Starliner. One of these involved the "soft links" in the lines that connect the Starliner capsule to its parachutes, and the second problem came with hundreds of feet of P-213 glass cloth tape inside the spacecraft found to be flammable.

On Wednesday, as a part of its quarterly earnings update, Boeing announced that the Starliner program had taken a loss of $257 million "primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." This brings the company's total write-down of losses on the Starliner program to more than $1.1 billion. Partly because of this, Boeing's Defense, Space, & Security division reported a loss of $527 million during the second quarter of this year.

Enlarge / The Renault Zoe (left) and Nissan Leaf (right) were two early mass-market EVs. (credit: Nissan)

Nissan has agreed to invest $663 million (600 million euros) in Ampere, Renault's electric vehicle operation, the two companies announced today. It's a sign of a renewed alliance between the two automakers that have been in a partnership since 1999, but relations have strained following the 2019 arrest of Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn .

"With the finalization of the definitive agreements, we have entered the next phase of collaboration with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors in mutually beneficial areas of innovations," said Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida. "This will create additional value through initiatives aligned to Nissan's Ambition 2030 and electrification strategy. The investment opportunity in Ampere complements and strengthens Nissan’s ongoing electric push in Europe and will deliver numerous synergies, including cost efficiencies, regulatory compliance, and a broader range of EV products and powertrains."

Both Nissan and Renault have been early entrants into the EV market, with more than a million Nissan EVs sold since 2010 and about 300,000 Renault Zoes delivered since that car went on sale in 2012.

Enlarge / The Renault Zoe (left) and Nissan Leaf (right) were two early mass-market EVs. (credit: Nissan)

Nissan has agreed to invest $663 million (600 million euros) in Ampere, Renault's electric vehicle operation, the two companies announced today. It's a sign of a renewed alliance between the two automakers that have been in a partnership since 1999, but relations have strained following the 2019 arrest of Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn .

"With the finalization of the definitive agreements, we have entered the next phase of collaboration with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors in mutually beneficial areas of innovations," said Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida. "This will create additional value through initiatives aligned to Nissan's Ambition 2030 and electrification strategy. The investment opportunity in Ampere complements and strengthens Nissan’s ongoing electric push in Europe and will deliver numerous synergies, including cost efficiencies, regulatory compliance, and a broader range of EV products and powertrains."

Both Nissan and Renault have been early entrants into the EV market, with more than a million Nissan EVs sold since 2010 and about 300,000 Renault Zoes delivered since that car went on sale in 2012.

Enlarge / The Renault Zoe (left) and Nissan Leaf (right) were two early mass-market EVs. (credit: Nissan)

Nissan has agreed to invest $663 million (600 million euros) in Ampere, Renault's electric vehicle operation, the two companies announced today. It's a sign of a renewed alliance between the two automakers that have been in a partnership since 1999, but relations have strained following the 2019 arrest of Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn .

"With the finalization of the definitive agreements, we have entered the next phase of collaboration with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors in mutually beneficial areas of innovations," said Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida. "This will create additional value through initiatives aligned to Nissan's Ambition 2030 and electrification strategy. The investment opportunity in Ampere complements and strengthens Nissan’s ongoing electric push in Europe and will deliver numerous synergies, including cost efficiencies, regulatory compliance, and a broader range of EV products and powertrains."

Both Nissan and Renault have been early entrants into the EV market, with more than a million Nissan EVs sold since 2010 and about 300,000 Renault Zoes delivered since that car went on sale in 2012.

Enlarge (credit: OpenAI)

On Tuesday, OpenAI released an official ChatGPT app for Android, now available in the Google Play Store in four countries: the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with more coming soon. As a client for OpenAI's language model family, the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models run on the cloud and provide results to your Android device. It also integrates OpenAI's Whisper model for speech recognition.

ChatGPT, launched in November, is a conversational AI language model interface. As an AI assistant, it can help with summarization, text composition, and analysis. OpenAI bills its use cases as a way to seek "instant answers," "tailored advice," "creative inspiration," "professional input," and "learning opportunities."

A series of images showing OpenAI's proposed uses of the ChatGPT Android app, taken from the Google Play Store. (credit: OpenAI)

However, as we've noted in the past , ChatGPT is occasionally prone to confabulation (that is, making things up)—especially the GPT-3.5 model—so it's not entirely trustworthy as a factual reference. It can come in handy as a way to analyze data you provide yourself, though, so long as you're familiar with the subject matter and can validate the results.

Enlarge (credit: OpenAI)

On Tuesday, OpenAI released an official ChatGPT app for Android, now available in the Google Play Store in four countries: the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with more coming soon. As a client for OpenAI's language model family, the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models run on the cloud and provide results to your Android device. It also integrates OpenAI's Whisper model for speech recognition.

ChatGPT, launched in November, is a conversational AI language model interface. As an AI assistant, it can help with summarization, text composition, and analysis. OpenAI bills its use cases as a way to seek "instant answers," "tailored advice," "creative inspiration," "professional input," and "learning opportunities."

A series of images showing OpenAI's proposed uses of the ChatGPT Android app, taken from the Google Play Store. (credit: OpenAI)

However, as we've noted in the past , ChatGPT is occasionally prone to confabulation (that is, making things up)—especially the GPT-3.5 model—so it's not entirely trustworthy as a factual reference. It can come in handy as a way to analyze data you provide yourself, though, so long as you're familiar with the subject matter and can validate the results.

Enlarge (credit: OpenAI)

On Tuesday, OpenAI released an official ChatGPT app for Android, now available in the Google Play Store in four countries: the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with more coming soon. As a client for OpenAI's language model family, the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models run on the cloud and provide results to your Android device. It also integrates OpenAI's Whisper model for speech recognition.

ChatGPT, launched in November, is a conversational AI language model interface. As an AI assistant, it can help with summarization, text composition, and analysis. OpenAI bills its use cases as a way to seek "instant answers," "tailored advice," "creative inspiration," "professional input," and "learning opportunities."

A series of images showing OpenAI's proposed uses of the ChatGPT Android app, taken from the Google Play Store. (credit: OpenAI)

However, as we've noted in the past , ChatGPT is occasionally prone to confabulation (that is, making things up)—especially the GPT-3.5 model—so it's not entirely trustworthy as a factual reference. It can come in handy as a way to analyze data you provide yourself, though, so long as you're familiar with the subject matter and can validate the results.