Updated 5:16 pm, Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: Nemesis”
Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: Nemesis”
Photo: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Suds away
A team of engineering students at UC San Diego wants to brew beer — on the moon. “We thought we could combine our hobby with the competition by focusing on the viability of yeast in outer space,” team member Neeki Ashari told Mashable. The students are tagging on to TeamIndus, which is competing for the $30 million Google Lunar Xprize by launching a spacecraft onto the moon. This would not be a first for extraterrestrial alcohol, however: NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin once took communion on the moon’s surface, including some wine.
Make it so
You may have heard of Amazon’s Star Trek-like Echo, whose Alexa voice assistant can play music, report the weather, and do other simple tasks. Well, the technological homage just got a lot more explicit, according to the Verge . You can now make “Computer” the word that wakes up Alexa, instead of “Amazon,” “Alexa,” or “Echo.” Put on your best Jean-Luc Picard voice and start issuing orders, captain.
Number of the day
$100 million
That’s how much real estate developer John Sobrato and his wife Susan have given to Santa Clara University. The Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation will promote undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. John Sobrato graduated from Santa Clara in 1960. Their gift is the largest in the university’s history.
Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techbriefing
