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King Tides Show Up On West Coast

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Tidal movements on Earth

For the next few days ocean tides will be much higher ( and lower) than they typically are due to a phenomenon called “King Tide”‘. These tides are popular among surfers as they create the best conditions for the sport. Some people use the very low tides to explore areas of the beach that are normally always underwater, a metal detector could turn up something cool.

So where do these King Tides come from? Well how these tides work is actually pretty amazing. Our orbit around the Sun isn’t a perfect circle, it’s actually an elliptical orbit. As the Moon travels around Earth it also travels in an elliptical orbit. This means that at certain points in our orbit around the sun or our moon’s orbit around the Earth, we are closer and farther away. When we are closest to the sun we call this point, the perihelion. When the moon is closest to Earth we call that point the perigee. When we are closer to the moon or the sun this causes us to see a greater influence from these celestial bodies on our tides.

Every once and a while the sun will be at perihelion and the moon will be at perigee at the same time, or very close to the same time. This causes the greatest posible influence on our tides (King Tide). We are closest to the sun in January and usually within the first week, we are farthest from our sun in July.

Panasonic Reveals a 4K Tablet?

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Yes, they just did that. Panasonic unveils a 4K tablet at CES and it looks amazing but that’s not what I thought when I first saw it. Initially, I had to laugh because I thought it was ridiculous but after looking at it and thinking about the possible uses for such a large tablet, I began to change my mind.

Panasonic 4K Tablet
Panasonic 4K Tablet (Photo Credit: Gizmodo)

It features 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce Graphics, 4GB of memory and an 128GB SSD. This tablet is designed for engineers, artists, architects and other business related tasks as its UHD screen offers amazing clarity that will help with tasks that require precision. No details have been released about what this product will cost and when it will be available on the market.

Here are the full Specs:

Specifications

Display: 20.0 inch IPS Alpha Panel

Resolution: 3840 x 2560 pixels (230 ppi): Approx. 16.77 million colors

Aspect Ratio: 15:10

OS: Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

CPU: Intel Core i5 3427U vPro 1.80 GHz

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce Graphics

Memory: 4GB (max.16GB)

Flash Memory Drive (SSD): 128GB

Interface: High resolution digital pen (Anoto Live pen), Electrostatic multi-touchpanel (10 fingers)

Wireless: IEEE802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0

USB Port: USB2.0 x 1

Expansion Slots: microSD memory card slot x 1 (supports microSDXC memory card)

Embedded Camera: Resolution: HD 720P, Effective pixels: max. 1280×720 pixel

Battery Life: Approx. 2 hours (using internal battery)

Size: 18.7″ (W) x 13.1″ (D) x 0.4″ (H)

Weight: 5.3 lbs

Another Cosmic Catastrophe Avoided

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Eros
Eros (Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)

It seems that we have survived several “end-of-the-world” scenarios but now you can add another reason to celebrate to your list. Another massive asteroid named ‘2011 AG5’ was expected to possibly hit Earth sometime around the year 2040. The asteroid was discovered early in 2011 and ever since we have been keeping track of it’s movement to see if it really could be a world-ender.

Space is a massive place and it can be truly difficult to pinpoint whether or not a single chunk of space rock will hit Earth, but University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers along with the help of NASA, can safely say that the asteroid is not on a collision course with Earth.

It’s good to know that somebody is watching the skies above us. Now we can only hope that when we are in the path of a giant, we can do something about it. There are a few methods being drawn up about how to avoid an impact. Some of these ideas include crashing spacecraft into astroids to alter their course and steer them away from our planet. However, there are not any solid plans in place at this time to help avoid such impacts.

If there are any space projects that are going to be put together, you would hope that one of the top priority missions would include saving our planet. I would like to see missions that focus on landing on asteroids and studying them, with the ultimate goal being to understand how to alter their trajectory. It sounds simple enough but it takes a lot of force to move these giant and all of this would have to be controlled over long distances. Again, it’s a case of us knowing so much but knowing so little. For now it seems that we have a little more time to figure things out, let’s hope we do before we absolutely have to.

Steven Sinofsky Gets a New Gig

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Steven Sinofsky was a Microsoft executive who ran the Windows division of the company for many years. Sinofsky had recently left Microsoft after not seeing eye-to-eye with other senior management at the company. One of those people included Steve Ballmer, the current CEO. Now, Sinofsky is heading to Harvard to teach product development, planning and more. Currently, is unclear how long Sinofsky will remain at Harvard.

A few days ago Sinofsky tweeted about heading to Harvard,

Steven_Sinofsky_at_BUILD
Steven Sinofsky at BUILD

“Excited to return to @HarvardHBS to teach again this spring!” Sinofsky wrote. “New perspectives, recharge, share experiences, write.”

Sinofsky is credited with restoring user’s faith in Windows by pushing out Windows 7, which has done quite well. He was also the main man behind Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 8.

Instagram Selling Your Photos

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Everyone seems to be just a little worried about the recent changes to Instagram’s terms of service. One of the concerned users of Instagram included National Geographic, who stated that they will be suspending new posts due to concern with the new terms of service and that they may close their account. So what the heck is all the fuss about?

Terms of service often include language that is difficult to interpret but it would seem that an update to Instagram’s new TOS included some language that involves using your username, location and photos for advertising purposes, and of course without having to tell you or pay you. Here’s the controversial section of the TOS.Instagram logo

“Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you. If you are under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to this provision (and the use of your name, likeness, username, and/or photos (along with any associated metadata)) on your behalf.”

So, is this actually going to happen? Well, not really. Due to the big reaction to the upcoming changes, Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram) has tried to calm everyone down by telling us that they’re not trying to sell our photos for profit. It would seem that Instagram will still be using our content along side advertisements, which really isn’t all that bad. A free service needs to make money somehow and by selling ads they can use our data to help them figure out what we like and what you and our friends would most likely be interested in. If this all sounds familiar it’s because Facebook does the exact same thing. Also, remember that Facebook and Instagram are family now.

Are you concerned about these changes? You can read the official post about Instagram’s TOS changes on their website.