An Eta Aquarid meteor streaks over northern Georgia on April 29, 2012.NASA
Night owls and early-morning risers, don't forget to look toward the sky in the wee hours on Tuesday morning. You just might get the chance to see a meteor shower.
Eta Aquarids, a meteor shower that occurs annually and peaks during early May, is known for its speed. Traveling about 148,000 miles per hour -- 44 miles per second -- into Earth's atmosphere, these meteors can leave glowing bits of debris in the sky, lasting for several seconds to minutes, according to NASA.
Visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, the peak-activity meteor count is higher in the Southern hemisphere than in the Northern, which is 45 meteors per hour in the Southern versus only 10 meteors in the Northern hemisphere.
There will be several meteor showers going on at once,notes CBS San Francisco. To make certain that you are watching the Eta Aquarids, trace the meteor to its radiant. If the origin is the constellation of Aquarius, you are watching the correct one.This is due to the difference in latitude that the radiant -- the point in the sky from which meteors appear to originate -- appears to the observer. For observers in the Southern hemisphere, the constellation of Aquarius appears higher in the sky, resulting in what looks to be more meteors.
To get a better view of the meteor shower, NASA suggests stargazers get away from city and street lights. However, poor weather conditions could prevent them from seeing it as well, as there are reports of cloudy skies for Monday night into Tuesday morning.
The space debris that creates the Eta Aquarids originates from Comet Halley. Named after British astronomer Edmund Halley, the comet takes about 76 years to orbit the sun once -- last appearing in 1986 and appearing again in 2061. The space debris, a mixture of rock and ice, is shed from Comet Halley each time it enters the solar system. The mixture, if it collides with Earth's atmosphere, becomes the Eta Aquarids in May and the Orionids in October, according to NASA.
Meteors themselves come from the bits of ice and rocks that come after contact with the sun. When the Earth passes through the bits and pieces of debris that form, the meteors often come in contact with the planet's atmosphere, causing disintegration and leaving a fiery streak across the night sky.
These cells could soon get smaller, and without any toxic, brain-damaging elements.GE
New research seems to indicate that we can have more solar power without that pesky, toxic lead that's been used to boost efficiency in the lab in recent years.
Solar power has long been one of the darlings of the environmental movement, given its endless supply of energy that can be harvested by simply plunking down a photovoltaic panel under a sunny sky. Of course, we don't have an endless supply of roof space and empty desert floor on which to place those big clunky panels.
This makes efficiency a kind of holy grail for those in the photovoltaic world. In recent years, new solar cells that use what's called a perovskite structure have produced some of the most promising advances in creating more efficient methods of reaping as much juice as possible from our nearest star.
But now researchers out of Northwestern University say they've developed a perovskite solar cell that uses tin rather than lead to collect energy.There's just been one problem with the perovskite approach -- it relies on using toxic lead. So much for clean and green and not potentially causing brain damage.
"Our tin-based perovskite layer acts as an efficient sunlight absorber that is sandwiched between two electric charge transport layers for conducting electricity to the outside world," said Northwestern nanoscientist Robert P. H. Chang, who helped engineer the new type of cell, in a release from the university.
Details of the lead-free solar cell have been published in Nature Photonics.
Right now the tin cells aren't quite as efficient as lead, but the researchers are confident they have the potential.
"Other scientists will see what we have done and improve on our methods," said lead researcher Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, an inorganic chemist with the rare distinction of being something of an expert in tin. "There is no reason this new material can't reach an efficiency better than 15 percent, which is what the lead perovskite solar cell offers. Tin and lead are in the same group in the periodic table, so we expect similar results."
Excellent. I'll start lining up all my old tin cans on the roof immediately. That is how it works, right?
The completed lighsaber with laser-glow.Valcrow/YouMagine
Star Wars Day was Sunday, but the celebration is never over. Keep your fan passion going by making your own lightsaber using Ultimaker's free 3D-printed lightsaber source files, released in honor of May the 4th. The design is modeled after one of Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsabers, so you know you'll be wielding premium Jedi equipment.
Once you download the files and print it out, you can take a cue from Valcrow at Redicubricks and give it a killer paint job that makes it looks like it's been through the Clone Wars, dropped in the dirt on Dagobah, and stepped on by an AT-AT. This lightsaber has seen some things, man.
Reddit user passim took a stab at printing the fictional weaponusing an Ultimaker 2 printer and came out with a pretty sweet new sword. Passim reports it took 22 hours of production on the printer's "normal" print-quality setting to make the handle.Valcrow went the extra mile and printed a glow-in-the-dark blade and then lit it up with a blue laser, which should be the cause of a considerable amount of envy at the next sci-fi convention Valcrow attends.
The Ultimaker lightsaber isn't the only 3D model available. If you're feeling a little more ambitious and want to print out a more complex version, then check out reddit user theandymancan's Wookiee Scalper on Thingiverse. I just wouldn't recommend actually trying it on a Wookiee. Those guys will tear your arms off.
Aiming to please users, Microsoft announced Tuesday that it updated Office for iPad with printing support, along with a couple of other features. This is the company's first update to its Office apps forApple's iPad tablet.
Since the company released its Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote apps for iPad last month, users' No. 1 request has been for printing support, according to Microsoft
"Your top request is here," Microsoft wrote in a blog post. "You can now print Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations to an AirPrint printer. In Word for iPad, you can choose to print a document with or without markup. In Excel, print a selected range, a single worksheet or an entire spreadsheet."
Along with printing support, Microsoft also added a couple of other features. One is SmartGuides for PowerPoint, which helps users align pictures, shapes, and textboxes on a slide. The other is AutoFit for Excel, which lets people adjust the width and height of multiple columns and rows.
E-Home Entertainment comprises of Microsoft and BesTV, and takes advantage of the slightly more relaxed rules of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone.
The current rules allow for the sale of consoles only in the zone, and we've contacted Microsoft to find out if the Xbox One will be restricted to the same guidelines.
Also announced was a new developer program to develop and sell games "fused with Chinese culture" for local as well as international distribution.
Microsoft reckons China will be a big market -- the company says there are half a billion gamers in China and the gaming industry has generated $13 billion in revenue as of 2013. However, this is from PC, mobile and online gaming.
Besides China, Microsoft's Xbox One will also debut in 28 other countries in September, such as India, Japan, Korea and Singapore for a total number of 42. Previously, only 26 markets had been confirmed.
A screen from the first live-action Halo series, "Forward Unto Dawn," that helped lay the groundwork for the confirmed Steven Spielberg-produced TV show.Microsoft
Last week, in an industrial-themed San Francisco loft full of sleek furniture, flat screens, and Xbox One consoles, Microsoft showed polished trailers for half a dozen original TV shows it plans to start airing in June. Some are green-lighted projects in production now, while others are still in development. In total, the company intends to serve up 12 original series to its Xbox audience.
But the Halo live-action TV show produced by Steven Spielberg, and announced alongside the Xbox One last May, was nowhere to be seen. The project is well under way, Microsoft says, but it's not ready to be shown off. In its place is a slate of shows designed for mainstream audiences, the kind of programs you might expect to see alongside "The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother," and "The Voice."
That's no surprise, given who's running the show. Microsoft's TV ambitions are the purview of the 2-year old Xbox Originals division, which is headed by former CBS TV President Nancy Tellem.
Working out of a Los Angeles-based studio -- with teams strewn across Santa Monica, Calif., Redmond, Wash., and Vancouver -- Tellem, who helped create "Friends" and "ER" and oversaw programming for "Survivor" and "CSI," is charged with leading the Xbox platform to the forefront of digital-first programming.
What the forefront looks like, however, is unclear. Even with experienced leadership, a sizable war chest, and original content -- from notable comedy stars including Seth Green and Sarah Silverman and big directors like Spielberg and Ridley Scott -- Microsoft is wading into a crowded arena, with Netflix and Amazon already in the lead.
The appointment of Satya Nadella as Microsoft's new CEO earlier this year hasn't illuminated much about any change in Microsoft's commitment to Xbox or how the device fits in to the company's "mobile-first, cloud-first" world. However, Nadella's decision to promote Phil Spencer -- the former head of the company's game-development venture, Microsoft Studios -- to run every facet of the Xbox divisionindicates that Microsoft sees games and Xbox as a lucrative way to bridge the gap between its many arms.
Ultimately, the goal is to try to turn the Xbox platform into the delivery system, across all Microsoft's devices, for a new kind of digital-media venture that's about more than just games. Think of it as the natural extension of the company's bid for the living room, with the Xbox as its Trojan horse. What to do once you're past the wall and inside the city is a different breed of challenge.
Microsoft's TV vision: Get involved and see what happens
Nick Statt/CNET
"Microsoft has given us the opportunity to look at the next iteration of television and take media closer to the tech industry," Tellem said during a Q&A session last week. "As our content is distributed across Microsoft devices and services you can imagine our audience will broaden as well. With that in mind, we are first and foremost developing original content for the 85 million Xbox owners who are predominantly millennial males."
Tellem does admit that there's some ambiguity surrounding Xbox Originals' direction. "We don't know," she said when describing the potential appeal of Microsoft's lineup of shows. "Knowing our audience, we'll know pretty soon once we put it up if they'll respond positively."
Microsoft will soon be brushing up against Netflix, with the video-streaming site's Emmy-nominated "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black;" Amazon, with original shows like "Betas" and "Alpha House;" and Hulu, with "Battleground" and "Spoilers." AOL and Yahoo are entering the original content mix as well, having announced their plans earlier this week. Yahoo said it will deliver its first two comedy series in 2015. AOL is partnering with Nielsen for ratings -- a first for on-demand programming -- and creating 16 shows, featuring actors and producers like James Franco, Steve Buscemi, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zoe Saldana, and Ellen DeGeneres.
"And we don't know. Knowing our audience, we'll know pretty soon once we put it up if they'll respond positively."
Nancy Tellem, Xbox Entertainment Studios chief
With 85 million consoles sold worldwide, between Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and 48 million of those consoles with an Xbox Live subscription, Microsoft has a good sense of its potential audience size. The company said its audience already watches TV on its consoles more than it plays games. Microsoft's Xbox One currently sits at No. 87 on the CNET 100 leaderboard.
Microsoft is developing its own shows to go with those from other streaming services and traditional TV networks. As for delivery and pricing -- meaning which Xbox users get what content and for what cost -- the company is still working it out. Tellem has said the company will likely put some of its series behind the $60 per year Xbox Live Gold paywall and release other series more widely on a case-by-case basis. Xbox Live Gold is the subscription service that lets users access apps like Netflix and play video games online. At the very least, that will give 48 million people the potential to watch some of Microsoft's original programming.
Even as it works to make the Xbox a broader consumer entertainment platform, Microsoft Entertainment Studios executives such as newly appointed Executive Vice President Jordan Levin (who Tellem poached from the TV industry) are steadfast in their defense of the gaming focus.
Still, while game titles like Gears of War and Fable are possible franchises for live-action TV series, none except Halo are yet in development.
The meaningful analog to all of Microsoft's complex maneuvering is Amazon, which -- like Microsoft -- now runs both a television and video game development studio while delivering shows from competing streaming services on its own hardware. Amazon will do anything and everything it can to create value out of having a Prime membership alongside its Kindle tablets and Fire TV media-streaming box, even if that means starting up and then canceling two dozen TV shows.
For Microsoft, it's not as clear-cut. Tellem and Levin won't say for sure what the long-term goal is, whether it's to increase the value of Xbox Live Gold or to pump up the Xbox One user base. That raises a couple of rather large questions: Is Microsoft trying to compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon? And if not, do viewers need another 12 TV shows in their lives?
Interactivity: The big difference
The NFL viewing experience on Xbox One that mixes in interactivity -- in this case a real-time monitoring of your fantasy football team.Microsoft
"We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon on our platform, so it really is not a question that we're competing with them -- because frankly we're not," Tellem said when pressed about Microsoft's relationship with the very services that made its platform an entertainment center.
So what does Microsoft have to offer that its rivals don't? Xbox Originals, Tellem said, is in the unique position to change the perspective of watching passively on your couch to an approach that blends its gaming DNA with the TV experience.
"I think first of all if we can keep the content standpoint at a certain level, very high, and also add that interactive capability, I think that's a big differentiator," Tellem said. "They're offering linear content. We have the interactivity." Examples of interactivity will go beyond the real-time voting Microsoft allowed during the 2012 presidential debates to show-specific features built exclusively for the program. For example, Xbox One users with a cable subscription and a fantasy football team can put up their team info on the screen and manage it alongside live NFL games.
Would Microsoft let other streaming services offering original programming develop interactive features for Xbox? "Sure," Tellem said. But the example she provided -- the partnership with the NFL announced last year -- didn't directly address whether Microsoft would let Netflix build custom interactive features for season two of "House of Cards," for instance.
"They're offering linear content. We have the interactivity."
Nancy Tellem, Xbox Entertainment Studios chief
The Xbox Originals interactive team consists of about 125 people based in Vancouver, Tellem said. "If there's any pitch that we have enough of a hint that we think there's something cool there that we want them [the interactive team] to hear, from inception they're in it," Levin added. "We don't pick anything up without running stuff past them."
There is a snag in Microsoft's ambitions to make interactive features the main draw. That's the fact that the Xbox One install base has yet to break 5 million units. The interactive features are geared toward the $499 next-gen console, not the Xbox 360, which has been around since 2005. Microsoft shipped800,000 Xbox 360 units in the first three months of 2014, and during Black Friday last year sold almost 1 million units in a single week, meaning that growth of the console's installed base is slowing down, but it's still the overwhelming majority for the Xbox platform.
"The capabilities of Xbox One are really different than 360," Tellem said. "Whatever we produce will be on both platforms, but clearly, some of the things you' ll be able to do only on Xbox One, [but] certainly we hope we can achieve a similar experience." With nearly 80 million Xbox 360s out in the wild, and the Xbox 360 accounting for 43 million of the 48 million active Live accounts that will presumably determine your ability to watch Xbox original series, the reach of interactivity will remain severely limited for the foreseeable future.
Still, 48 million viewers, regardless of what special features they're able to access, is nothing to scoff at, Tellem notes. "It will be only on Xbox or best on Xbox," Tellem said, quoting the internal motto outlining Xbox Originals' guiding principle. It translates to, "We will have everything you could ever want to watch."
It remains to be seen whether Microsoft can make the Xbox the center for all entertainment -- and figure out the right business model, or how Halo and the live-action game series could really help Xbox Originals stand apart. For now, the company has thrown enough paint on the walls to guarantee that it's in this for the long haul.
"We see this as a very long journey. We've learned that things don't happen overnight," Tellem said. "Hits happen in the most indirect and bizarre ways."
Microsoft cut off support for Windows XP on April 8, but users of the aged OS aren't exactly jumping ship in droves.
For April, Windows XP scored a 26.3 percent share of all desktop OS Web traffic monitored by Net Applications. That number was down from the 27.7 percent share seen in March. Though XP's grip of the market continues to drop, it's still by far the second most popular desktop OS, at least based on Net Applications' stats.
Microsoft no longer provides bug fixes, security patches, or other updates to XP, leaving users of the almost 13-year-old OS more vulnerable to security threats. Microsoft began announcing the end of XP support nearly seven years ago to give people plenty of opportunity to migrate to a newer version of Windows. XP's share will certainly continue to inch down, but for now the OS still holds a tight grip on many users.
Windows 7 continues to dominate with almost half of all desktop OS traffic, snagging a 49.3 percent share in April, up from 48.7 percent the previous month. Windows 8 and 8.1 combined took home a 12.24 percent share, up from 11.3 percent in March, according to Net Applications.
