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Last month, Space X’s CRS-7 exploded after take-off. I was 4 miles from the launchpad that morning, but there wasn’t much news that day as to what had failed on the Falcon 9 rocket. Today, there’s more news. Here’s Loren Grush’s at The Verge:

The SpaceX explosion on June 28th was caused by a failed strut in the rocket’s upper stage liquid oxygen tank, SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk said today. The strut was one of several hundred used to hold together the helium pressure vessels in the tank, which help to pressurize and maintain the buoyancy of the rocket. According to Musk, the strut was designed to handle 10,000 pounds of force, but failed at just 2,000 pounds of force.

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Casey Newton at The Verge:

Libin will take the title of “executive chairman,” and continue to work on the product, the company says. Chris O’Neill, who previously ran business at Google Glass, is the new CEO, and will focus on building a sales team and preparing the company for eventually going public. In an email interview with Recode, O’Neill offered up some empty boilerplate: “Global user growth looks strong as do early returns on recent monetization efforts. User growth and revenue are the oxygen for any successful company so we’ll be looking to double down on this traction.”

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FeedPress Is Made for Bloggers and Podcasters

FeedPress is a simple, intuitive, and powerful RSS analytics and podcast hosting platform. We feature powerful subscriber and podcast download tracking, integrated newsletters, automated publishing to popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, a slick drag and drop podcast hosting interface, and everything you need in order to submit an optimized feed to iTunes.

With 250MB of flexible file storage that rolls over monthly, you can easily upload 4 episodes per month. Upgrading storage is easy and affordable, starting at a flat rate of just $20 for 1GB.

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You know what to do: fire this up now and call in sick to work, or send it to your read-it-later service.

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Matt Birchler:

With this week’s update to the entire iPod lineup, many have been asking “who are iPod’s even for these days?” Well, I worked the last 3 years managing an electronics department for Target, and have sold a lot of Apple devices over that time. Since Apple doesn’t break down demographics for who is buying each device, I thought I would share my experience.

It should of course be noted that I am just one person and my experience may not be 100% accurate with its representation of the market. After doing some quick mental math, it’s fair to say 5,000-10,000 Apple devices moved through my department in my tenure. That’s quite enough to pick up some trends, so here we go.

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There’s just about 24 hours left to order the 2015 512 Pixels shirt. A huge thank you to those of you who have ordered already!

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The best way to support 512 Pixels is with an RSS sponsorship. I currently have just three spots left open before October. Get in touch if you’d like to share your app, service or product with some of the best people on the Internet.

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This month at iMore, I took a look at the introduction of the iTunes Music Store, and how the idea of streaming music has changed in the decade since Apple first started selling music.

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For the first time since 2012, Apple’s updated its line of music players.

Kinda. The iPod nano and iPod shuffle remain the same as their predecessors, but in new colors: space gray, blue, gold, pink, silver and Product Red.

The big news is that The iPod touch takes a big step into the future with a much better camera and the A8 processor from the iPhone. The huge increase in power should make it a much better gaming device than the A5-powered it replaces. The iPod touch ships with a 4-inch Retina display, no doubt to cater to children who are often given iPods instead of iPhones or iPads.

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Depending on the version of Mac OS X you’re running, your backup options for your Stickies data will vary.

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This may win for my favorite “how big is the solar system?” demonstration.

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This morning, NASA released this image of Pluto, as part of its on-going New Horizons mission.

Currently, the piano-sized spacecraft is in radio silence, collecting data as it flies by Pluto and its moons. Tomorrow marks the start of a 16-month data download about the dwarf planetary system as the space craft flies into the Kuiper belt. For today, however, this image is an amazing gift from the countless scientists and engineers who have been working for over a decade on this project.

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