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Virgin Designs a Spaceship Like a Picture Frame; the NBA Summons Absent Fans; Quibi Dreams of Memes
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Welcome back. Would-be space tourists got a look at the interior design of the ship they hope to ride into the atmosphere. The NBA is trying something new to create live-crowd ambience at games where crowds are banned. And Quibi added a feature that it hopes will help its best shows become memes.
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The Art of the Space Selfie
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The designers said they spent years creating a cabin that balanced familiar elements from air travel with the considerations of a visit to space. PHOTO: VIRGIN GALACTIC
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Virgin Galactic revealed its design for the passenger cabin in SpaceShipTwo, the suborbital craft it is building to send tourists into space, giving customers who have spent up to $250,000 per ticket the first look at their seats.
The cabin aims to provide the astronauts with a photo frame for the Earth as the craft climbs out of the atmosphere, Katie Deighton writes for the Experience Report.
But passengers won’t be able to take their own photos. Smartphones and most other personal effects are banned from the flight, according to the company, to prevent them from flying loose in the cabin.
Selfies can’t do the spectacle justice in any case, said Jeremy Brown, Virgin Galactic’s design director. “The intense dark blackness of space and the intense brightness of the Earth is something you cannot capture on a hand-held device,” he said.
Instead, 16 cameras installed in the cabin and two more outside will record video and take still photos throughout the flight.
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Courtside During the Coronavirus
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Fans using Microsoft Teams will appear on courtside screens when the NBA resumes play tomorrow. PHOTO: MICROSOFT
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The NBA plans to restart its season Thursday night with games played inside empty arenas, but it has plans to give fans a presence nonetheless.
TV viewers and players will see real fans appear in virtual seats depicted on a 17-foot sideline video board. The fans will use Microsoft Teams videoconferencing to talk with one another and cheer, the Verge reports.
Audio will also be moderated and mixed so players don’t hear anything inappropriate from the fans—another departure from the usual live-game experience.
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Joe Jonas in the Quibi series “Cup Of Joe.” PHOTO: QUIBI VIA YOUTUBE
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Quibi has had its share of problems since the short-form, big-budget streaming video service debuted for smartphones in April, including a coronavirus pandemic that trapped many people at home with their big-screen TVs.
But it’s also suffered a quirk of UX that’s made it harder for its shows to spark the kind of memes that can double as promotion. Because of the digital rights management system used, phones blocked Quibi viewers from taking screenshots.
So Quibi set about building a screenshot tool into the app itself. It isn’t as user-friendly as your phone’s native screen capture, but it’s what was possible, according to the company.
“Products live with constraints & in this case we have to honor the [digital rights management] preferred by our content creators while satisfying your desire to meme-ify @joejonas,” Quibi’s chief product officer wrote on Twitter.
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PHOTO: SPACE FORCE
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The U.S Space Force released a logo and motto, both conceived to signal that it is “always above.” [TechCrunch]
CES will go online-only in 2021 as coronavirus fears creep into next year’s event plans. [WSJ]
Studio Ghibli still plans to open a theme park based on movies like “Princess Mononoke” in 2022. [i-D]
Twitter is considering introducing subscription products, which would be a significant departure from the free, ad-supported model typical of social media. [CNN]
Amazon redesigned its Alexa app for the iPhone, Android and its Fire tablets, adding a home screen customized for each user. [CNBC]
How Starbucks remade itself as a customer-centric company. [Knowledge @ Wharton]
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