Video tour – via satellite – of the Amazon River meandering through the Amazon rainforest in South America. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/amazon-river-satellite-image…
Tag: New York City
Photos of the moon’s sweep past bright Mars
Earth will pass between Mars and the sun in October 2020, and we’re already hot on the Red Planet’s heels. That is, the distance between our 2 worlds is relatively small. And so Mars is very bright now! Thanks to all in the EarthSky Community who contributed photos. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-moon-mars-september-2020…
Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Makes a Global Bet on the Film Industry
In Christopher Nolan’s new thriller, “Tenet,” the fate of humanity pivots on characters moving back and forth through time. It is an epic, brain-bending exploration of ideas the filmmaker has spent decades examining. But now, as “Tenet” opens after multiple delays in cinemas around the world, it comes loaded with symbolism that its writer and director could never have foreseen. From…
Ann Syrdal, Who Helped Give Computers a Female Voice, Dies at 74
Ann Syrdal, a psychologist and computer science researcher who helped develop synthetic voices that sounded like women, laying the groundwork for such modern digital assistants as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, died on July 24 at her home in San Jose, Calif. She was 74. From a report: Her daughter Kristen Lasky said the cause was cancer. As a researcher at…
Tens of Suspects Arrested For Cashing-out Santander ATMs Using Software Glitch
An anonymous reader writes: The FBI and local police have made tens of arrests across the tri-state area this week as part of a crackdown against multiple criminal gangs who exploited a glitch in the software of Santander ATMs to cash-out more money than was stored on cards. According to reports in local media, the bulk of the arrests took place…
COVID-19 has the potential to be as deadly as the 1918 flu
Mortality rates in New York City during the early COVID-19 outbreak and in the peak of the 1918 flu pandemic were “in the same ballpark.” Source: https://www.livescience.com/1918-flu-covid-19-comparison.html
Facebook and NYU Set Out To Develop AI-Powered 5-Minute MRI Scan
Researchers at NYU Langone Health and Facebook’s artificial intelligence division have teamed up to develop an AI model that uses less data and creates images faster than traditional MRI techniques, according to a Wall Street Journal report. From a report: The goal of the project is to create a five-minute MRI as an alternative to the 20 minutes to an hour…
Russell Kirsch, Inventor of the Pixel, Passed Away This Week
Computer scientist Russell A. Kirsch, the inventor of the pixel and an undisputed pioneer of digital imaging, passed away on Tuesday in his Portland home from complications arising from a form of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 91 years old. From a report: Russell Kirsch may not be a name that you immediately recognize, but his contributions to computer science made digital…
T-Mobile Passes AT&T To Become Second Biggest US Carrier
In T-Mobile’s Q2 2020 earnings call today, the company says that it has surpassed AT&T in total branded customer count to become the second biggest carrier in the U.S., trailing only Verizon. PhoneDog reports: In Q2 2020, [which is the first quarter that includes Sprint following the merger of the two carriers] T-Mobile added 1.245 million customers, giving it a total…
Human-linked Earth vibrations dropped 50% during Covid-19 lockdown
Between March and May 2020, many people across Earth went into lockdown. During those months, seismographs recorded a drop in human-linked vibrations in the solid Earth, by an average of 50%. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/covid19-lockdown-2020-caused-50-percent-global-reduction-human-linked-earth-vibrations…