Microsoft now has 10 million subscribers to its Xbox Game Pass service, the company said during an investor call yesterday. It’s the first time Microsoft has publicly disclosed Xbox Game Pass numbers, and it’s a sign that the company’s ambitious bet on subscription gaming is starting to pay off. From a report: Microsoft has been trying to build a “Netflix for…
Tag: expansion
Future detectors to detect millions of black holes and the evolution of the universe
Gravitational-wave astronomy provides a unique new way to study the expansion history of the Universe. On 17 August 2017, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations first detected gravitational waves from a pair of neutron stairs merging. The gravitational wave signal was accompanied by a range of counterparts identified with electromagnetic telescopes. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-future-detectors-millions-black-holes.html…
A long-lost type of dark matter may resolve the biggest disagreement in physics
Right now, key measurements of the universe’s expansion are contradicting each other. A lost form of dark matter could help them agree. Source: https://www.livescience.com/lost-dark-matter-hubble-tension.html
US Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession
The record-long U.S. economic expansion is over after almost 11 years, with what’s likely to be the deepest recession in at least eight decades now under way. The world’s largest economy shrank at a 4.8% annualized pace in the first quarter, the biggest slide since 2008 and the first contraction since 2014, as the need to fight the coronavirus forced businesses…
Zoom Taps Oracle For Cloud Deal, Passing Over Amazon, Microsoft
Zoom selected Oracle to expand its cloud on Tuesday, bypassing major cloud leaders Amazon Web Services, Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure Cloud. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. CNBC reports: “We recently experienced the most significant growth our business has ever seen, requiring massive increases in our service capacity. We explored multiple platforms, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure…
NYC Will Close Public Roads To Traffic To Create More Recreational Space
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday the city will close 40 miles worth of streets near parks to give residents a lot more room to get out of their homes. CNET reports: The eventual goal is to open 100 miles of public roads for residents to bike, walk, jog and more while spreading groups of people out….
Hubble celebrates its 30th anniversary
For 30 years, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, launched April 24, 1990, has been snapping photos of distant stars, providing a time machine that has taken astronomers back to when the universe was less than a billion years old. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/hubble-30th-anniversary-video…
A beloved exoplanet turns to dust
Fomalhaut b was thought to be one of the few exoplanets photographed so far, but new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show it’s really an expanding dust cloud. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/fomalhaut-b-not-an-exoplanet-instead-a-dust-cloud…
Elon Musk Says Starlink Internet Private Beta To Begin In Roughly Three Months, Public Beta In Six
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that a private beta for the company’s Starlink satellite internet service would begin in around three months, with a public beta to kick off roughly three months after that. TechCrunch reports: The initial beta test will apply to those located in “high latitudes,” Musk added. To date, SpaceX has said that Starlink service will…
Milan Announces Ambitious Scheme To Reduce Car Use After Lockdown
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis. The northern Italian city and surrounding Lombardy region are among Europe’s most polluted, and have also been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 outbreak. Under the nationwide…