News

SpaceX Inspiration4 Tourists Share Incredible Photos Of Earth

While the views from the large glass cupola were spectacular, the three-day expedition was not without its challenges.

Published

5 years ago

November 16, 2021

Joanna Melki

Inspiration4

In September, four space tourists spent three days circling the Earth on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, and Inspiration4 has published magnificent new photographs shot by the crew.

The photographs show stunning views of the Earth below, including unusual angles of the Sun peaking up from beyond the horizon, bordered by the spacecraft’s large glass dome as a protective cover.

Inspiration4

The photos taken from Inspiration4 can be downloaded in high resolution from Flickr, which is a huge improvement over the slow stream of selfies and blurry in-orbit shots we were getting at the time.

Also Read: SpaceX To Launch The Arab World’s Most Advanced Satellite In 2023

While the views from the large glass cupola were spectacular, the three-day expedition was not without its challenges. For example, when the crew adjusted to life after launch, the onboard toilet began to malfunction, and at least one of the crew members got space sick.

Inspiration4

Despite the challenges, the high resolution photographs prove once and for all that the sights from hundreds of kilometers above the Earth’s surface are indeed breathtaking.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.