List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

The April 2020 supermoon will be the biggest and brightest of 2020 as its elliptical orbit brings it closer to the Earth in more than a year. On 7-8 April, the full moon will reach as close as 356,907km (221,772 miles), and will appear most impressive at moonrise on Tuesday and moonset on Wednesday. Clear skies in the UK, combined with unusually low air pollution due to the coronavirus lockdown, make it one of the best opportunities in years to view the rare celestial phenomenon. Here’s how to take the perfect picture of it: Use a landmark to get perspective Everyone will be taking pictures of the supermoon by itself, but some of the best pictures show the moon next to a land mark or trees and houses, which is what helps to give the picture “a sense of place”, says Nasa’s senior photographer, Bill Ingalls. “Think of how to be creative – that means tying it into some land-based object. It can be a local landmark or anything to give your photo a sense of place.” Pick the best spot Location isn’t everything, but it can definitely help with getting a perfect picture of the supermoon if you have time to plan it. You can look up the best monuments or statues in your area to photograph the image of the moon against, like Mr Ingalls does in Washington D.C., where he lives. “It means doing a lot of homework. I use Google Maps and other apps – even a compass – to plan where to get just the right angle at the right time,” he told Nasa. Use an app to find the moon Unless you're an astronomer, the best way to know where the moon will rise or set is to use a app on your smartphone to locate it. There are several free or cheap options you can choose from, each using your phone's inbuilt accelerometer to know which way you're facing. The apps can also tell you what phase the moon is in, while some even give other celestial details, like the location of planets and star constellations. Decent options for iOS and Android devices include Star Chart, Sky Safari and Skyview. Get the right exposure If you’re using a camera where you can control the shutter speed, don’t go for a long exposure even though the picture will be taken in low light, National Geographic photographer Mark Thiessen told the magazine, as it will lose any chance of capturing lunar detail and make the moon itself appear too bright. If you’re taking a picture on your camera, control the light balance by first tapping the screen where the moon appears to get the camera to focus on the object before dragging your finger up and down to play with the exposure. “You’ll usually want to drag it down for underexposure to be sure you have all the highlight detail,” National Geographic photographer Michael Christopher Brown said. Use a tripod for your camera or rest your phone on a solid surface David Reneke, an astronomer and writer for Australian science magazine told ABC.net that if you’re using an SLR or DSLR then it’s important to play with aperture settings on your camera to photograph the supermoon, but that using a tripod is essential. It’s worth using a tripod for taking pictures with a smartphone too, as any camera shake can compromise the quality of the pictures – but if you don’t have one to hand you can simply rest your phone on a window ledge. For older smartphones that use a digital zoom rather than an optical zoom, it’s generally best not to use the zoom as it could compromise the quality of the image. Instead, take the picture and then crop it. Newer phones like the Huawei P30 and P40 series feature incredible zoom capabilities that can take detailed pictures of far away objects. Other cameras come with special features to improve pictures of the night sky, such as the Google Pixel 4’s Astro mode. Read More How to take the perfect picture of tonight's supermoon Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material could change the world Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material could change the world Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies As Twitter becomes X - Seven disastrous rebrands from Royal Mail to New Coke

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In a complaint, the city of San Francisco says they have visited Twitter headquarters twice since Friday regarding the new flashing "X" sign on top of the building.

Walmart Inc. paid $1.4 billion to buy Tiger Global Management’s remaining stake in Flipkart, boosting its bet on

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By Nicholas P. Brown A giant, glowing X marks the San Francisco spot where Elon Musk says he

(Corrects to remove erroneous Refinitiv Instrument Code) (Reuters) -Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said on Sunday that issues with cryptocurrency Ethereum's funding

Social media platform Twitter, now called X, has reinstated the account of rapper Ye, the artiste formerly known as Kanye West, after he was suspended eight months ago for hate speech. The account was reinstated on Saturday eight months after the rapper was suspended for breaking the platform’s rules prohibiting incitement to violence. Ye got his account back after assuring the platform owned by Elon Musk that he wouldn’t use it to share antisemitic or otherwise harmful language, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter. The artiste will also not be eligible to monetise his account, a new feature added by Mr Musk for paid subscribers, while advertisements won’t appear next to his posts either, the report said citing the social media platform. Ye has not posted anything new since coming back on the platform. His account showed his last post to be from December 2022, which was just two months after it was reinstated following an earlier lock out of his account. Mr Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, had in November welcomed the return of the rapper to the platform, after his account was reinstated for the first time. But on December, one of his posts appeared to show a swastika symbol inside a Star of David, which led to Mr Musk suspending his account after he violated the platform’s policy against inciting violence. Ye lost his account and his partnership with Adidas and Gap for Yeezy products soon after, when he went on a string of antisemitic rants in interviews and on social media. Mr Musk had previously also reinstated former US president Donald Trump’s account after conducting a poll in which some 14.8 million Twitter users had voted with 51.8 per cent voting in favour of the reinstatement. But Mr Trump said he had no interest in returning to Twitter and would stick to his own platform Truth Social. Additional reporting by agencies Read More TikTok ‘failing to act’ as Andrew Tate videos still seen by children as young as 13 Kanye West used offensive phrases about Jewish people, ex-business partner claims As Twitter becomes X - Seven disastrous rebrands from Royal Mail to New Coke

The co-founder of the OceanGate is now planning to send 1000 people to Venus despite the bad press the company has received following the doomed Titanic submersible trip in June which killed five people. Despite the tragedy, which saw the submersible implode killing everyone onboard, including the company's co-founder Stockton Rush, his colleague Guillermo Söhnlein is not deterred and has told Insider that he now has ambitions for space. According to Söhnlein he now wants to see 1000 people living on the surface of Venus, the hottest planet in the solar system, by 2050. The American businessman born in Argentina said: "I think it is less aspirational than putting a million people on the Martian surface by 2050. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "You're absolutely right that when you talk about going to Venus, it would raise eyebrows outside the space industry. And it even raises eyebrows inside the space industry." "I think I've been driven to help make humanity a multi-planet species since I was 11 years old, I had this recurring dream of being the commander of the first Martian colony." This all sounds well and good and after all Elon Musk has similar aspirations for Mars but Venus is an odd one as at this moment in time its one of the least hospitable planets in the galaxy. Aside from being the hottest planet in the solar system, as mentioned, its atmosphere is made up of greenhouse gases and its clouds contain sulphuric acid which make Venus so hot that temperatures can reach 475 °C. Regardless of this, Söhnlein thinks it is "very doable" that a floating space station could withstand the harsh conditions on Venus but will likely be met with skepticism. Söhnlein's Humans2Venus project has been co-founded with researcher Khalid Al-Ali and will strive to develop technologies that will reduce launch costs and fund space projects without government money. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Since the break up of Pangea that formed the world, we have been taught that there are seven oceans. But now, scientists believe a brand new ocean is currently forming as the continent of Africa is slowly beginning to split in half. Researchers have found two large parts of the land within Africa have begun to separate and it's believed a whole new ocean will form in the divide. Africa is the second-largest continent in the world, with a landmass of more than 30 million square kilometres, and is also the second-most populous. Many of its 54 countries are landlocked, however for some that could be about to change. Geologists believe countries such as Uganda and Zambia could come to have their own coastlines if the two land masses continue to separate. In the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, experts have confirmed that the split in the African continent is creating a way for a new ocean to form. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists have identified the exact location where the continent first started to split, very deep underground. The crack first began to appear in 2005 in Ethopia’s deserts. The crack is known as the East African Rift and is 35 miles long. The start is positioned at the meeting point of three tectonic plates which have been gradually pulling apart from each other. Christopher Moore, a Ph.D. doctoral student at the University of Leeds, told NBC News: “This is the only place on Earth where you can study how continental rift becomes an oceanic rift.” Moore and other researchers have used satellite radar to monitor the volcanic activity in East Africa as this is associated with tectonic shifts. Despite being able to monitor movement, the split is a very gradual process, and scientists believe it will take another 5 to 10 million years for the new ocean to fully form. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.