satellites

Landsat watches over the Earth, documenting 28 years of change

NASA's Landsat 5, which recently set a Guinness World Record for the "Longest Operating Earth Observation Satellite," has been delivering high-quality, global data of Earth's land surface for 28 years and 10 months.

Using the annual Landsat satellite imagery captured since 1984, Google has created dramatic composites, alongside other Google Earth satellite imagery, depicting our changing world, the death and growth of natural lands, and humans' impact on the landscape.

The animated GIFs shown here chronicle the development and destruction of life on Earth, pulsing like a living being, with forests receding, water evaporating, and cities … Read more

Time-lapse images let you witness 28 years of Earth's changes

A newly released series of dramatic time-lapse satellite images, available at Google's Timelapse Web site, shows just how quickly the world's landscapes have changed in the last 28 years.

The pictures, captured by the series of Landsat satellites and released in conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and Time magazine, show several startling examples of how humans and natural processes have changed Earth from 1984 to 2012. You'll see the depressing decline of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska, the blossoming of Dubai's epic cityscape, and Las Vegas' urban explosion. There's also an alarming look at the deforestation occurring in the Brazilian Amazon forest. … Read more

NASA's Fermi telescope dodges a 3,100-pound bullet

The near miss that happened with a high-tech telescope orbiting the Earth last month was so dramatic that I have to assume Hollywood thrill makers will soon be calling up NASA project scientist Julie McEnery to get all the details and begin determining how feasible it is to jam Ben Affleck or Morgan Freeman into the story line.

McEnery works with NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which has the mission of mapping the highest-energy light in the universe. On March 29, McEnery learned that Fermi and a dead Russian spy satellite, Cosmos 1805, were speeding toward the same point in space on nearly perpendicular orbits. They would miss being in that same place at the same time by only 30 milliseconds, likely passing within about 700 feet of each other.… Read more

Check the weather in style with the Yahoo Weather app

Yahoo Weather is a weather app that displays stunning Flickr photos as a backdrop to a wide range of weather information on your iPhone -- more than you get with Apple's weather app. There are certainly other options with more weather information, but for a quick look at what's happening in your area, Yahoo Weather is a good-looking and well-made app.

When you launch Yahoo Weather, you'll be asked immediately if the app can use your location so it can give you information on the weather around your area. From there you'll be presented with a … Read more

Satellite Eyes for Mac 1.2.4 Review

Some users find that their computer background images are important. Satellite Eyes for Mac, which automatically changes the background image to a map of the user's current location, is an interesting personalization option for Mac.

Available as a freeware program, Satellite Eyes requires no payments to unlock its full functioning. The program downloaded and installed easily, with no interaction required by the user. Upon startup, the program prompts the user to enable the computer's location settings. It would have been a nice feature if the program took the user to that menu automatically, but it did not. Once … Read more

Blast your angry face into space to ward off alien invasions

While NASA has been busy sending friendly messages out into space, it's overlooked one important issue. What if the aliens aren't friendly? Haven't the folks at NASA watched the "Alien" movies? A Kickstarter project is aiming to counteract NASA's open-arms policy by blasting a satellite into space with a less likeable version of humanity onboard.

In the 1970s, NASA sent two Pioneer spacecraft out into the universe bearing plaques with directions to Earth and illustrations of naked humans to show what extraterrestrial visitors could expect upon arrival at our humble planet. Ridiculo.us, creators of the Your Face in Space Kickstarter, is more concerned about warding off hostile invasion forces from beyond our solar system.… Read more

Microsoft Store slashes prices on Windows 8 tablets, hybrids

In what could be a sign of things to come, the Microsoft Store is slashing prices on a variety of hybrid laptop-tablet models.

Here are some of the highlights now appearing on the Microsoft Store "Tablets and Convertibles" page:

Toshiba Satellite U925t-S2130 Convertible Ultrabook: Cut to $799 from $1,149. 12.5-inch screen, Core i5 Intel chip, 128GB solid-state drive (SSD). ( Read the CNET review.) Acer Iconia W510-1674 Tablet: reduced to $399 from $499. 10.1-inch display, Intel Atom 1.8GHz "Clover Trail" Z2760 chip, 32GB SSD. ( Read the CNET review.) HP ENVY x2 11-g012nr Touchscreen: … Read more

Google Earth for iPhone brings a virtual map to your phone

You know all that time you spend looking up your house and your friends' houses on Google Earth? Well, now you can do it anytime, anywhere with Google Earth for iPhone. It brings the popular virtual map service to your fingertips.

To begin, Google Earth for iPhone has a very helpful tutorial for navigating the app. For example, it uses circles to show you how to move up, down, tilt, zoom, and reset the view. We tapped the My Location button and gave it access to our current location. In just a few seconds, an overview of our neighborhood appeared … Read more

Wireless mobile storage expander roundup: Your iPad wants one of these

It's really a shame that the iPad, or any tablet or smartphone for that matter, comes with such a limited amount of internal storage -- usually around 64GB (OK, there's a 128GB iPad, but it's just too expensive). And after the operating system and apps, the remaining space for digital content is much less than that. This is the reason a wireless storage expander is a must for savvy users who want to carry their entire digital library around with them.

The good news is there is now a relatively big selection of these type of devices. … Read more

Canada orbits suitcase-size camera to hunt asteroids

Aside from giant laser beams, can eyes in the sky help save us from asteroid hits?

Canada thinks so, and it has launched a space telescope to track hazardous objects including asteroids, space junk, and satellites.

The Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) was launched from an Indian rocket this week as the first dedicated space-based sentinel of its kind.

Managed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), NEOSSat is about the size of a suitcase and orbits some 500 miles above Earth, circling every 100 minutes. … Read more