Windows 8.1 hits stores October 18th, as well as a free upgrade to existing users of Windows 8 on October 17th in the Windows Store.  Here we look at some quick details on the revamped OS.

SpaceX just took another leap forward, or should we say hop with its Grasshopper test flight.  It hit 2440 feet (744 meters) above the McGregor, Texas facility.  They filmed using a hexacopter equipped with an HD camera.  This achievement occurred on October 7th 2013.  This is a rocket capable of launching and landing vertically, as seen in this video.  The goal of this program is to create a reusable first stage rocket engine for the Falcon 9.  Typically the first stage falls back to the earth and crashes in the ocean.  The goal is to have that first stage return to earth controlled and save money for future flights. 

Summary

In this episode we interview Brano Kemen of Outerra and discuss his world rendering engine.

Summary

In this episode we interview Brano Kemen of Outerra and discuss his world rendering engine.

As we celebrate Earth Day, Google Earth has announced that it will support the Leap Motion controller with its desktop application.  Google Earth works on PC, MAC and Linux.  A billion downloads strong, Google Earth will showcase the Leap Motion 3-D control device, due to be released to the public in a few months.

In this article I'll outline the steps I had to take to get Team Foundation Server 2010 server (TFS) upgraded to TFS 2012.  This is just one particular example of the various upgrade paths that might exist, but should give everyone a good rundown on how the process typically works.  I won't cover every possible upgrade scenario in this example, but I will briefly list some of them before digging in deeper.

Windows Blue (Windows 8.1) which is coming later in the year, most likely in the fall, may have the option to boot directly to the desktop.  This would make power users who prefer getting straight to the desktop experience happy and not require third party workarounds, though we had previously outlined some easy ways to boot directly to the desktop for the current iteration of Windows 8.

I recently came across this USB 3.0 dock offered on Newegg for around $35, the Syba Connectland CL-ENC50038.  It features the ability to connect up two 3.5" harddrives at the same time, or two 2.5" size drives, or a combination of the two.  It supports up to 3TB according to the documentation, though a 4TB Western Digital that was tested also worked.  In this article I'll show you some of the features and some real world benchmarks of the drive from my own testing.