The office, Federal Trade Commission, will strengthen the agency's ability to keep pace with technological challenges in the digital marketplace.4 min read
A trio of suitcase-size rovers and their base station have been carefully wrapped up and shipped off to join the lander that will deliver them to the Moon’s surface.
Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the Moon.
The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration), which aims to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth. They’ll use their cameras and ground-penetrating radars to send back imagery of the lunar surface and subsurface while testing out the novel software that enables them to work together autonomously.
The CADRE rovers will launch to the Moon aboard IM-3, Intuitive Machines’ third lunar delivery, which has a mission window that extends into early 2026, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Once installed on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, they’ll head to the Reiner Gamma region on the western edge of the Moon’s near side, where the solar-powered, suitcase-size rovers will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day (the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth) carrying out experiments. The success of CADRE could pave the way for potential future missions with teams of autonomous robots supporting astronauts and spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements.
Construction of the CADRE hardware — along with a battery of rigorous tests to prove readiness for the journey through space — was completed in February 2024.
To get prepared for shipment to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, each rover was attached to its deployer system, which will lower it via tether from the lander onto the dusty lunar surface. Engineers flipped each rover-deployer pair over and attached it to an aluminum plate for safe transit. The rovers were then sealed in protective metal-frame enclosures that were fitted snuggly into metal shipping containers and loaded onto a truck. The hardware arrived safely on Sunday, Feb. 9.
“Our small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test, and we have been eagerly waiting for the moment where we finally see them on their way,” said Coleman Richdale, the team’s assembly, test, and launch operations lead at JPL. “We are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can’t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE’s eyes.”
The rovers, the base station, and a camera system that will monitor CADRE experiments on the Moon will be integrated with the lander — as will several other NASA payloads — in preparation for the launch of the IM-3 mission.
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The technology demonstration was selected under the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which was established to expedite the development of technologies for sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate manages the CLPS initiative. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.
For more about CADRE, go to:
Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-018
China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday marveled at the high-tech entertainments on display for this year’s Spring Festival, praising a troupe of dancing robots as evidence the Communist nation has become the world’s leading tech power.
The post China Tries to Spook U.S. with Army of Dancing Robots appeared first on Breitbart.
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The mystique of Mars has been studied for centuries. The fourth planet from the Sun is reminiscent of a rich, red desert and features a rugged surface challenging to traverse. While several robotic missions have landed on Mars, NASA has only explored 1% of its surface. Ahead of future human and robotic missions to the Red Planet, NASA recently completed rigorous rover testing on Martian-simulated terrain, featuring revolutionary shape memory alloy spring tire technology developed at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland in partnership with Goodyear Tire & Rubber.
Rovers — mobile robots that explore lunar or planetary surfaces — must be equipped with adequate tires for the environments they’re exploring. As Mars has an uneven, rocky surface, durable tires are essential for mobility. Shape memory alloy (SMA) spring tires help make that possible.
Shape memory alloys are metals that can return to their original shape after being bent, stretched, heated, and cooled. NASA has used them for decades, but applying this technology to tires is a fairly new concept.
“We at Glenn are one of the world leaders in bringing the science and understanding of how you change the alloy compositions, how you change the processing of the material, and how you model these systems in a way that we can control and stabilize the behaviors so that they can actually be utilized in real applications,” said Dr. Santo Padula II, materials research engineer at NASA Glenn.
Padula and his team have tested several applications for SMAs, but his epiphany of the possibilities for tires came about because of a chance encounter.
While leaving a meeting, Padula encountered Colin Creager, a mechanical engineer at NASA Glenn whom he hadn’t seen in years. Creager used the opportunity to tell him about the work he was doing in the NASA Glenn Simulated Lunar Operations (SLOPE) Laboratory, which can simulate the surfaces of the Moon and Mars to help scientists test rover performance. He brought Padula to the lab, where Padula immediately took note of the spring tires. At the time, they were made of steel.
Padula remarked, “The minute I saw the tire, I said, aren’t you having problems with those plasticizing?” Plasticizing refers to a metal undergoing deformation that isn’t reversible and can lead to damage or failure of the component.
“Colin told me, ‘That’s the only problem we can’t solve.’” Padula continued, “I said, I have your solution. I’m developing a new alloy that will solve that. And that’s how SMA tires started.”
From there, Padula, Creager, and their teams joined forces to improve NASA’s existing spring tires with a game-changing material: nickel-titanium SMAs. The metal can accommodate deformation despite extreme stress, permitting the tires to return to their original shape even with rigorous impact, which is not possible for spring tires made with conventional metal.
Since then, research has been abundant, and in the fall of 2024, teams from NASA Glenn traveled to Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, United Kingdom, to test NASA’s innovative SMA spring tires. Testing took place at the Airbus Mars Yard — an enclosed facility created to simulate the harsh conditions of Martian terrain.
“We went out there with the team, we brought our motion tracking system and did different tests uphill and back downhill,” Creager said. “We conducted a lot of cross slope tests over rocks and sand where the focus was on understanding stability because this was something we had never tested before.”
During the tests, researchers monitored rovers as the wheels went over rocks, paying close attention to how much the crowns of the tires shifted, any damage, and downhill sliding. The team expected sliding and shifting, but it was very minimal, and testing met all expectations. Researchers also gathered insights about the tires’ stability, maneuverability, and rock traversal capabilities.
As NASA continues to advance systems for deep space exploration, the agency’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility program enlisted Padula to research additional ways to improve the properties of SMAs for future rover tires and other potential uses, including lunar environments.
“My goal is to extend the operating temperature capability of SMAs for applications like tires, and to look at applying these materials for habitat protection,” Padula said. “We need new materials for extreme environments that can provide energy absorption for micrometeorite strikes that happen on the Moon to enable things like habitat structures for large numbers of astronauts and scientists to do work on the Moon and Mars.”
Researchers say shape memory alloy spring tires are just the beginning.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that would ban the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok just two days before the bipartisan divestiture law is slated to take effect.
"There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community," the court wrote in the unsigned ruling. "But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.
"For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is affirmed."
There were no noted dissents.
At issue was the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a law passed by Congress last April with wide bipartisan support. The law gave TikTok nine months to either divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or be removed from U.S.-based app stores and hosting services.
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In passing the law, Congress cited concerns over the app's Chinese ownership, which members said meant the app had the potential to be weaponized or used to amass vast amounts of user data, including from the roughly 170 million Americans who use TikTok.
TikTok, ByteDance and several users of the app swiftly sued to block the ban in May, arguing the legislation would suppress free speech for the millions of Americans who use the platform. After a lower court upheld the ban, the Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok's emergency request to either block or pause implementation of the law under a fast-track timeline just nine days before the ban was slated to go into effect.
President-elect Donald Trump did not immediately respond to the Supreme Court decision, which comes just days before his inauguration. As president, Trump could move to delay the law, either by not enforcing it vigorously— which would allow TikTok more time to find a buyer, or continue operating as-is—or take other actions that would uphold the status quo.
Trump said he spoke by phone Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping hours before the Supreme Court decision was published. Trump described the conversation between the two as being "a very good one" both for China and the U.S. He noted that the two had discussed shared interests, including TikTok.
Trump has also invited TikTok CEO Shou Chew to attend his inauguration. Chew said he plans to attend.
READ THE SUPREME COURT RULING ON TIKTOK LAW – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:
During oral arguments, lawyers for the Biden administration reiterated the argument that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a "grave" national security risk for American users.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar cited risks that China could weaponize the app, including by manipulating its algorithm to prioritize certain content or by ordering parent company ByteDance to turn over vast amounts of user data compiled by TikTok on U.S. users.
TRUMP SAYS FATE OF TIKTOK SHOULD BE IN HIS HANDS WHEN HE RETURNS TO WHITE HOUSE
TikTok’s lawyers, meanwhile, sought to frame the case primarily as a restriction on free speech protections under the First Amendment, which the company has argued applies to TikTok’s U.S.-based incorporation.
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, argued that the U.S. government has "no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda," and reiterated TikTok's position that the platform and its owners should be entitled to the highest level of free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution.
Francisco also argued TikTok cannot divest from its Chinese parent company, citing portions of its source code and intellectual property that are housed in China.
First Amendment protections must be considered under strict scrutiny, which requires the government to sustain a higher burden of proof in justifying a law's constitutionality.
More specifically, laws that deal with First Amendment protections must be crafted to serve a compelling government interest, narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.
It's a difficult legal test to satisfy in court. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit used it last month in considering the divestiture law, and still voted to uphold it— outlining a way that the Supreme Court could have theoretically considered the case under strict scrutiny and still opted to uphold the law.
During oral arguments at the Supreme Court, several justices appeared skeptical of the company's core argument, which is that the law is a restriction of speech.
"Exactly what is TikTok's speech here?" Justice Clarence Thomas asked in the first moments of oral arguments in an early sign of the court's apparent doubt that the law is in fact a First Amendment violation.
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The Supreme Court and its 6-3 conservative majority have been historically deferential to Congress on matters of national security.
The divestiture law in question passed Congress last year under the guidance of top Justice Department officials, who worked directly with House lawmakers to write the bill and help it withstand possible legal challenges.
But it also comes at a time when President-elect Trump has signaled apparent support for the app in recent months.
In December, Trump hosted TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and later told reporters that his incoming administration will "take a look at TikTok" and the divestiture case.
Attorneys for the president-elect also filed a brief with the Supreme Court last month, asking justices to delay any decision in the case until after Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20.
The brief did not signal how Trump might act, but cited his request for the court to pause the ban from taking effect until Trump's inauguration.
Fox News' Bill Mears and Shannon Bream contributed to this report.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Allstate insurance company for allegedly illegally collecting, using and selling the driving behavior data of over 45 million Americans.
Paxton filed the suit in the District Court for Montgomery County, Texas, on Monday morning. In the suit, he accuses Allstate, and its subsidiary data analytics company "Arity," of secretly using driving data from over 45 million Americans’ mobile devices, in-car devices and vehicles to build the "world’s largest driving behavior database," consisting of "trillions of miles" worth of data.
"Our investigation revealed that Allstate and Arity paid millions of dollars to install Allstate’s tracking software," Paxton said in a Monday statement. "The personal data of millions of Americans was sold to insurance companies without their knowledge or consent in violation of the law. Texans deserve better and we will hold all these companies accountable."
Allstate is one of the largest auto, home and life insurance companies in the U.S. It is headquartered in Glenview, Illinois.
The suit said that in 2015, Allstate and Arity developed and integrated software into several third-party apps so that when a consumer downloaded these apps onto their phone, they unwittingly downloaded the tracking software. Once Allstate’s software was downloaded onto a customer’s device, they could monitor the consumer’s location and movement in real time.
According to the suit, the company used the driving data to justify raising customers’ insurance rates and further profited by selling the data to third parties, including other insurance companies.
"Defendants [Allstate and Arity] never informed consumers about their extensive data collection, nor did Defendants obtain consumers’ consent to engage in such data collection," the suit said. "Finally, Defendants never informed consumers about the myriad of ways Defendants would analyze, use, and monetize their sensitive data."
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Because tens of millions of Americans, including millions of Texans, were never informed about their driving data being gathered, Paxton argues that Allstate’s data-gathering scheme violates the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, the Data Broker Law, and the Texas Insurance Code’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts and practices in the insurance business.
He is asking the court to permanently block Allstate from continuing to gather and use customers’ data and to impose thousands of dollars in civil penalties per customer.
According to Paxton, this suit is the first enforcement action ever filed by a state attorney general to enforce a comprehensive data privacy law.
Fox News Digital reached out to Allstate but did not immediately receive a response.
The Supreme Court on Friday heard oral arguments in a fast-tracked case over the future of TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media app that will be barred from operating in the U.S. in just nine days barring divestiture or eleventh-hour intervention from the high court.
At issue is the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a law signed by President Biden that passed Congress in April with bipartisan approval. The act gave TikTok either nine months to either divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or be removed from U.S.-based app stores and hosting services.
On Friday, lawyers for the Biden administration reiterated their argument that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a "grave" national security risk for American users.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar cited risks that China could weaponize the app, including by manipulating its algorithm to prioritize certain content or by ordering parent company ByteDance to turn over vast amounts of user data compiled by TikTok on U.S. users.
"We know that the PRC has a voracious appetite to get its hands on as much information about Americans as possible, and that creates a potent weapon here," Prelogar said. "Because the PRC could command ByteDance [to] comply with any request it gives to obtain that data."
"TikTok's immense data set would give the PRC a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment and espionage," she added.
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Earlier in oral arguments when TikTok was presenting its case, justices on the bench as a whole appeared skeptical of the company's core argument, which is that the law is a restriction of speech.
"Exactly what is TikTok's speech here?" Justice Clarence Thomas asked in the first moments of oral arguments in an early sign of the court's apparent doubt that the law is in fact a First Amendment violation.
At the conclusion of oral arguments, it remained unclear as to how the Supreme Court might proceed in the matter — though a ruling or order is expected before the Jan. 19 ban comes into force.
The Supreme Court and its 6-3 conservative majority have been historically deferential to Congress on matters of national security.
The divestiture law in question passed Congress last year with strong bipartisan support — as well as the guidance of top Justice Department officials, who worked directly with House lawmakers to write the bill and help it withstand possible legal challenges.
But the argument also comes at a time when President-elect Trump has signaled possible support for TikTok. His attorneys filed an amicus brief last month, urging the Supreme Court to delay the ban until he is sworn in as president.
If the goal of China and ByteDance, through TikTok, is "trying to get Americans to argue with each other," said Chief Justice John Roberts, "I’d say they are winning."
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, on Friday sought to frame the case primarily as a restriction on free speech protections under the First Amendment, which the company argues applies to TikTok’s U.S.-based incorporation.
First Amendment protections must be considered under strict scrutiny, which requires the government to sustain a higher burden of proof in justifying a law's constitutionality. More specifically, the law must be crafted to serve a compelling government interest and be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest — a test TikTok says the law fails to meet.
It's a difficult legal test to satisfy in court. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit used it last month in considering the divestiture law, and still voted to uphold it — meaning that justices could theoretically consider the case under strict scrutiny and still opt to uphold the law — and the looming Jan. 19 ban.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Friday noted that the case before them appears to be the first one to be heard by the court centered directly on the ownership of a platform or app, rather than speech.
The liberal justice also questioned whether the court might consider the divestiture requirement under the law as a data control case, not properly a free-speech issue, as TikTok's legal team has sought to frame it.
Weighing the case as a data control case would trigger a lower level of scrutiny — a point that Francisco also acknowledged.
Francisco told justices in oral arguments on Friday that the U.S. government has "no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda," and that he believes the platform and its owners should be entitled to the highest level of free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution.
Francisco told Chief Justice John Roberts that he believes the court should grant TikTok First Amendment protections because it is operating as a U.S.-incorporated subsidiary.
The TikTok attorney was also grilled over the Chinese government’s control over the app, and ByteDance’s control over the algorithm that shows certain content to users.
Asked by Justice Neil Gorsuch whether some parts of the recommendation engine are under Chinese control, Francisco said no.
"What it means is that there are lots of parts of the source code that are embodied in intellectual property, that are owned by the Chinese government" and which a sale or divestiture would restrict, he said. "It doesn't alter the fact that this is being operated in the United States by TikTok incorporated."
TRUMP SAYS FATE OF TIKTOK SHOULD BE IN HIS HANDS WHEN HE RETURNS TO WHITE HOUSE
Unless justices intervene, or TikTok’s owners agree to sell, the app will be barred from operating in the U.S. by Jan. 19.
Oral arguments center on the level of First Amendment protections that should be granted to TikTok and its foreign owner, ByteDance.
This is not the first time the Supreme Court has grappled with whether full First Amendment protections should be extended to foreign speakers. In previous cases, they have ruled that speech by a foreign government or individuals is not entitled to the full protections.
The Biden administration, for its part, will argue that the law focuses solely on the company’s control of the app, which attorneys for the administration argue could pose "grave national security threats" to Americans rather than its content.
Lawyers for the administration will also argue that Congress did not impose any restrictions on speech, much less any restrictions based on viewpoint or on content, and therefore fails to satisfy the test of free speech violations under the First Amendment.
The court’s decision could have major ramifications for the roughly 170 million Americans who use the app.
Justices agreed in December to hold the expedited hearing and will have just nine days to issue a ruling before the ban takes place on Jan. 19.
The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments Friday morning over whether the social media platform TikTok should be required to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company or be banned in the U.S., in a highly watched case that pits concerns over national security against free speech protections.
Unless justices intervene, or TikTok’s owners agree to sell, the app will be barred from operating in the U.S. by Jan. 19.
Oral arguments center on the level of First Amendment protections that should be granted to TikTok and its foreign owner, ByteDance.
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, told justices in oral arguments Friday that the U.S. government has "no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda," and that he believes the platform and its owners should be entitled to the highest level of free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution.
This is not the first time the Supreme Court has grappled with whether or not full First Amendment protections should be extended to foreign speakers. In previous cases, they have ruled that speech by a foreign government or individuals is not entitled to the full protections.
The Biden administration, for its part, will argue that the law focuses solely on the company’s control of the app, which attorneys for the administration argue could pose "grave national security threats" to Americans rather than its content.
Lawyers for the administration will also argue that Congress did not impose any restrictions on speech, much less any restrictions based on viewpoint or on content, and therefore fails to satisfy the test of free speech violations under the First Amendment.
The court’s decision could have major ramifications for the roughly 170 million Americans who use the app.
Justices agreed in December to hold the expedited hearing and will have just nine days to issue a ruling before the ban takes place on Jan. 19.
Oral arguments began shortly after 10 a.m. Stay here for live updates as the oral arguments unfold.
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