The Hustle
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Most. American. Story. Ever.
Usually we talk exclusively about business and tech, but considering the United States celebrated its 240th birthday yesterday, we thought it’d be alright to change things up a bit with quite possibly the most patriotic story that’s ever existed.
Yes, even more red, white, and blue than the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Last Thursday, an army veteran with 2 tours in Afghanistan, was on his way to pick up some bait when he saw a bald eagle hanging upside down from a tree and struggling.
The bird was caught on some rope about 75 feet from the ground and, after weighing all the options and talking to authorities, the man decided to borrow a .22 caliber rifle and shoot the bird free. Like something straight out of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
After firing roughly 150 shots and systematically mowing down three branches, the 4 inch rope was cut and the eagle fell safely to the ground.
Obviously they named the bird “Freedom.” And based on a Facebook album put up by the veteran’s wife, Freedom’s gonna be juuuuust fine.
Apple pie.
BIG weekend for NASA
The phrase “coming in hot” may have met its match. Yesterday, NASA announced that its solar-powered spacecraft, Juno, successfully pulled off the mother of all maneuvers to achieve orbit around Jupiter. Here’s what the celebration at HQ looked like.
After traveling for 5 years, the small vessel threw on the main engine for a full 35 minutes to slow itself down by around 1,212 mph, preventing it from flying past the planet.
For some perspective: this is a $1.13B project that relies on an 8,000 pound machine to execute a 35 minute engine burn. Oh, and it’s more than 365 million miles away, so there’s a 48 minute time delay in communication meaning NASA didn’t know if move worked until 13 minutes after it happened.
Now it’s time to nerd out
Juno will spend the next 5ish years orbiting Jupiter a total of 37 times before crashing itself into the planet…but NASA’s not wasting any time getting to the good stuff.
Yesterday they released a YouTube video of Juno’s approach showing the planet’s orbiting moons. The exact same moons that Galileo observed over the course of a few nights, which led to his realization that Earth wasn’t the center of the universe.
And let’s not forget about Juno’s Twitter profile with 296k followers, the dedicated website, or Google’s doodle for the day.
This is going to be the most “science” ever conducted on Jupiter, so keep your ears open for new info about water in the atmosphere, gravity and magnetic field levels, and aliens plotting to steal our freedom.
Not so big weekend for Huawei
In order to sell its newest smartphone (called the P9), Chinese electronics giant, Huawei, made a big deal about the phone’s camera. Maybe too big a deal.
The company recently uploaded this picture to its Google+ page, along with the following caption:
“We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The #HuaweiP9’s dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photography and share your sunrise pictures with us. #OO”
Here’s the problem…
Google+ makes EXIF (exchangeable image file format) metadata available for all pictures posted on it. And as it turns out, the picture Huawei claims was taken with a smartphone was actually taken by a $2,600 Canon EOS 5D Mark III, which was paired with a…wait for it…$1,900 lens.
Hey Huawei, it's 2016. Google knows my favorite sushi order and my preference for “hah” over “haha.” You didn't think somebody’d figure this out?
Wait, a positive news story out of Brazil?
It’s official. Uber has chosen São Paulo, Brazil’s “congested financial hub of 20 million people,” to test its helicopter service, UberCopter.
While the ride-hailing behemoth has offered helicopters during rich people events like The Cannes Film Festival, this will be the first time UberCopter goes live full-time.
Why Sao Paulo?
It appears there are three main reasons. First, São Paulo is famous for its rampant gridlock and frequent traffic jams that can stretch for hundreds of miles. That makes it the perfect city for experiments in urban mobility.
Second, Brazil is in the midst of an auto boom, thanks to tax incentives from President Dilma Rousseff.
And lastly, São Paulo has a “glut of helicopters” that are, on average, used 400 hours per year. However, they have the capacity for 2k hours. Therefore, that means Uber has room to “quintuple usage without adding a single helicopter to its 400-strong fleet.”
How’s it work?
Here’s a reporter’s first-hand account of his UberCopter trip, edited down.
“I opened up my Uber app and selected the UberCopter option. You’re even given the ability to share helicopter rides with others, similar to UberPool.
An UberX driver picked me up and dropped me off at the helipad. The UberCopter concierge called three times during the drive to coordinate my departure.
Once inside the helicopter, it took about 15 minutes for clearance. The ‘paperwork’ was minimal – I punched in a few personal details in two minutes in the app.
The flight took 10 minutes and cost 211 reals ($64), plus 30 reals ($9) for the car ride, or about twice what the trip would have cost by cab alone. However, the same trip in a cab could have taken an hour or two.”
SIGN ME UP!
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Kendall "shot on an iPhone" Baker (writer), John Havel (editor), Lois Faire (travel coordinator)
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