Tag: zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Has Shut Down the Use of Mobile Money For Cash Transactions

Mobile money is fast blossoming in Africa, boosted by rising mobile adoption across the continent, but in Zimbabwe — which is battling a severe financial crunch — the most common cash-in and cash-out functionalities have just been killed off as the government battles to contain the country’s economic crisis. From a report: Cash-out is process of converting mobile wallet balances into…

Watch for the young moon after sunset

As September ends and October begins, you’ll find the moon back in the evening sky. Look west shortly after sunset! Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/seek-for-a-young-moon-after-sunset…

Google Loans Cameras To Volunteers To Fill Gaps in ‘Street View’

NPR explains why a man “applied to borrow a 360-degree camera through Google’s Street View camera loan program.” Kanhema, who works as a product manager in Silicon Valley and is a freelance photographer in his spare time, volunteered to carry Google’s Street View gear to map what amounted to 2,000 miles of his home country. The Berkeley, California, resident has filled…

Tesla Batteries Are Keeping Zimbabwe’s Economy Running

Zimbabweans are relying on Tesla to help them pay their bills. From a report: Amid power outages of as long as 18 hours a day, Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe’s biggest mobile-phone operator, is turning to the Palo Alto, California-based automaker and storable-energy company for batteries that can keep its base stations running. The southern African country faces chronic shortages of physical cash,…

Eclipses make animals do strange things

How do solar and lunar eclipses influence animal behavior? While the human world gathers to see tonight’s lunar eclipse, what’s the rest of nature doing? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/lunar-solar-eclipse-animals…

Earth farthest from the sun on July 4

Earth is farthest from the sun for all of 2019 on July 4. Astronomers call this point in our orbit “aphelion.” Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earth-farthest-from-sun-for-year-in-early-july…

Best photos of the Mercury-Mars conjunction

It was the closest conjunction of 2 planets in 2019, between Mercury and Mars. It happened low in the evening twilight – and was best seen from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere. Check out these photos from EarthSky Community members. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-mercury-mars-conjunction-june-2019…

Is The Global Internet Disintegrating?

‘The global internet is disintegrating,” argues BBC Future, calling Russia “one of a growing number of countries that has had enough of the Western-built, Western-controlled internet backbone…aided as much by advances in technology as by growing global misgivings about whether the open internet was ever such a good idea to start with.” “The new methods raise the possibility not only of…

Waxing moon with Golden Handle

Peter Lowenstein in Mutare, Zimbabwe caught this photo of a waxing moon, setting, with what’s called a Golden Handle (the curved feature at right, jutting up along the line between light and dark on the moon). Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photo-waxing-moon-with-golden-handle…