GeekwithEnvy

Richard Vincenti Jr

Massive Iceberg Breaks Off, Largest Caught on Video

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An absolutely massive iceberg almost two miles wide breaks off from a glacier and it’s all caught on video. This is the largest glacial break off ever recorded on video and it’s a stunning site. It’s almost difficult to put the size of these ice chunks into perspective, the filmmakers mention it would be like watching the buildings in Manhattan just fall apart and then hit the ground.

This break up occurred on the Ilulissat glacier in Greenland and was being filmed as part of Chasing Ice, a film that’s trying to convey the reality of climate change to the masses by bringing us up close and personal with areas of the world where climate change is having a dramatic effect. There’s no doubt that our climate is changing but many debate the reasons why. Some believe humans are the root cause while others believe it’s part of a natural cycle that we have yet to understand.

 

 

Yahoo Mail Gets A Makeover

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Yahoo Logo

Yahoo mail has just been redesigned and it’s looking really good. The new look isn’t just on the web either it’s also translating to your mobile devices as well. Yahoo mail has been a bit behind other mail services like Gmail for a while now and it’s refreshing to see Yahoo reinvest some time into making it’s mail application a little more appealing.

The first thing you will undoubtedly notice is that there is a lot less clutter. One big feature of a good UI design is when it lets the content shine and basically stays out of the way. The new Yahoo mail does exactly that. Right away I can see only two tabs, inbox and contacts. The tabs are a nice size and located in an convenient  area of the screen. Folders and applications are tucked away nicely and collapsable, settings are easy to find and navigate through. Yahoo now looks very good on mobile devices as well and no matter which device you’re using, the experience should be the same. All Yahoo mail apps have been updated to feature this new look, including the Windows 8 app.

NewYahooMail

The new design is a success and I’m glad to see that many companies are taking this newer, cleaner approach to apps that we use everyday to get things done, like mail apps and audio libraries like iTunes, which also just recently got a new look. Microsoft attempted a similar move earlier this year by transitioning Hotmail into Outlook. The new Outlook was also re-designed, not just to fit in with Windows 8 but to also to make it a better fit on mobile devices as well.

 

A Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 3 Miles Wide To Pass Earth Tonight

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A potentially hazardous asteroid named “Asteroid 4179 Toutatis”,  is about 3 miles wide  and will be flying by Earth in a cosmic “near-miss”. The asteroid will be about 4.4 million miles away from Earth at it’s closest approach, that’s about 18x the distance of the Moon. Fortunately, the asteroid will be just passing by but if it were to collide with Earth, it would most certainly be catastrophic.

Toutatis Asteroid
Toutatis Asteroid (Source:NASA)

This isn’t the only asteroid getting up close and personal with Earth as another smaller asteroid (about 2.1 miles wide) named 2012 XE54 just squeezed between Earth and the Moon earlier today at a distance of just 141,000 miles from Earth. This pass was much much closer, close enough for Earth to be able to cast it’s shadow on the asteroid.

Video of Asteroid Toutatis Orbit 2012 – courtesy NASA JPL

This is a live feed of the 4179 Toutatis event, you get more detailed information information including the abillity to switch channels at www.slooh.com.

Google Goes Down For A While

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Some people went into a state of shock today as many of Google’s services including Gmail, Drive and just about everything else went down. All of this happened early in the afternoon today and as of 9 PM PST there doesn’t appear to be any official word on exactly what happened earlier today. Google did however post information stating the they were aware of the issue and working quickly to get it resolved.

Gmail Logo
Gmail Logo (Source:Google)

Google has gone down in the past but this was a pretty good punch. Social media sites like Twitter were blowing up with tweets about the outage and it felt kind of like the internet had disappeared.

It’s a strange feeling when things “mess up” on the internet that aren’t supposed to. Not to long ago Godaddy.com went down and so did many of the websites that depend on Godaddy to operate. Server errors were handed out to millions upon millions of users and it seemed that for a short moment the world had suddenly come to an abrupt stop.

Our dependency on the internet is substantial and when it’s not functioning, neither are we. It’s kind of a scary thought and it’s a thought I have discussed before, we really need to continue to improve the reliability of the internet and continue to improve web-security. Even though Google was able to quickly resolve most issues, it still shows a giant vulnerability in our system.

When a team of divers enter underwater caves, often referred to as “blue holes”, they tie a rope to rocks as they go deeper into the cave. This rope leads back to the entrance of the underwater cave and acts as a life line for these underwater explorers. Our modern world relies so heavily on the internet and our safety line is getting thinner and thinner as many of us move away form doing things offline. Many companies, including banks and utilities have encouraged us to go to paperless statements only to find that when their site goes down, your essentially helpless. If the service goes down for hours or in some cases days, it can be difficult to get through busy phone lines to make sure issues get resolved.

Now imagine loosing it all and things begin to get very serious. I laugh as I begin to recall a particular South Park episode in which the internet goes down. Google seems to be back on it’s feet and as soon as we see an official explanation we will let you know.

Apple to Create More U.S Jobs

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Many large corporations that are U.S based find that sending the jobs over seas is a no brainer and Apple is no different. It’s not that these corporations are evil and hate the U.S, it’s that globalization is an integral part of doing business in today’s world, but does it leave enough behind for the U.S?

Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook (Source:Apple)

A great question was asked of Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) in an interview with Bloomberg last week. The question was, “What are the obligations of an American company to be patriotic, and what do you think that means in a globalized era?”. Cook replied with, ” I do feel we have a responsibility to create jobs. I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job, but I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs.”

Further in the discussion Cook mentioned that businesses are often being evaluated by the number of employees that a company has in order to deduce what kind of job growth they have contributed to over the year, he went on to mention that this is an outdated technique and that Apple, for example, has created jobs in many other ways. One of the ways that Apple has indirectly created jobs is by offering entrepreneurs a way to be successful through software development and utilizing the App Store.

Apple is going a step further in U.S job creation by taking a more direct approach as Cook mentions bringing some Mac production back to the states. There could be as many as 200 new jobs in the U.S with Apple’s effort to bring some work back home. This of course would be great news for a tough U.S economy. Many of these jobs will be manufacturing jobs that offer pay from 30k up to 65k a year.

I feel that any U.S company should offer some direct employment opportunities right here in the U.S. Although it’s not a requirement, it’s expected and why not reward the country that allows you to become successful in the first place? I understand the importance of a global economy but how much risk is there in bringing even a handful of jobs back home, perhaps in areas of the country that need them the most. It’s more of an investment in the stability of the U.S economy that you grow in, albeit small. We should look at a company the way Cook mentions in the interview and try to see all aspects of job growth provided by a company and not just it’s employees.

As a software developer myself, (currently by hobby) I can’t help but to stand back and look at how many tools today’s software companies  and even individuals have at their disposal. Thanks to companies like Apple and Microsoft there are tons of resources available to get you off the ground and then there’s this great platform to showcase your product in front of millions and millions of people. The logistics of software production and distribution even 10 years ago was a huge stone wall to many and now it’s possible to sell millions of copies of the game digitally and practically overnight. This creates jobs and yes Apple is partly responsible for that happening.

Hopefully, other corporations will continue to bring jobs back to the U.S and not just manufacturing jobs either. We need high skilled jobs as well, but that requires that we have high skilled workers and our obligation is to improve our educational system to allow for better opportunities to learn the skills required for these jobs. Most employers don’t want to spend the time and money to train new employees, they expect you to have the experience when you walk in the door. Unfortunately, this creates a catch 22 situation. You need the experience to get the job but no one will hire you without the experience. We need to address this issue in the U.S and employers should work a bit closer with educators to make this problem disappear.

In the meantime, having any direct job creation here in the U.S is a good thing because we have all kinds of skilled people here at home that could benefit greatly from any opportunity given to us by these large corporations. We will have to wait and see how things work out for Apple in this new U.S job push.