In the next four months, robotic submersible vehicles will swim the frigid waters of South Georgia Island. to gather evidence in determining whether a massive Antarctic iceberg might have harmed the ecosystem there, scientists said on Wednesday.
“Many of these icebergs could still go in and scour large areas of the seabed,” said British Antarctic Survey ecologist Geraint Tarling. “They could become lodged in bays or obstruct routes of penguins out to their feeding grounds.”
Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey and Britain’s National Oceanographic Centre said they launched two 1.5 metre-long gliders to study how the freshwater melting off the ice is affecting the seawater in the surrounding area.
Tarling said that A68’s rupture from Antarctica had been a natural process. But mentioned that such bergs were likely to drift away from the continent more frequently amid warmer temperatures.
Robotic gliders launched to investigate penguin island’s ecosystem
How you can get more space in your Google storage
For many people, Google storage is the modern-day hard drive, the place where our most important documents and memories are placed. But just like the traditional hard drive, the space in Google storage is finite, and running out of space can be a problem.
Google gives you, by default, 15GB of space to use for everything associated with your account; including content connected to Google Drive and Gmail. Ultimately, data adds up fast.
You can check your current storage statues by going to this page. You can purchase more space there as well, for as little a $2 a month for the extra 100GB. But purchasing may not be necessary because a quick round of old-fashioned clearing out could be enough to clear you virtual clutter and here’s how:
- delete drive debris by opening this link– which enables you to see a list of all your drive files with the largest items at the top, look through it and delete anything you no longer need
- You can also go to the Photo setting page and select “High quality (free unlimited storage)”
- and say goodbye to your gmail junk by opening your spam folder and click the link to “Delete all spam messages now”
Isn’t feeling lighter great?
Youtube Shorts beta will launch in the US this March
Youtube gears up to launch a beta version of its Tiktok competitor Shorts, in the United States beginning in March, Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan announced Wednesday.
In a blog post, the Youtube team said the features will include giving more access to Shorts in the United States.
Reports that Youtube was working on a Tiktok competitor first emerged in April 2020. But Youtube didn’t roll out Shorts in India until September.
In addition, Youtube’s team is also expanding its “chapters” feature which would add specific timestamps to videos.
More information about the updates can be read in Mohan’s blog, together with videos that Youtube’s product team will release through the year detailing what’s to come.
Jaguar will be an all-electric car brand by 2025
UK automaker Jaguar Land Rover said its Jaguar Luxury brand will be all-electric by 2025.
JLR’s plan is ambitious, as the automaker has previously been slow to embrace electrification. The company had to pay around $48.7 million fine in the EU for missing emissions targets last year alone.
The advantage of JLR is that Jaguar has is that Jaguar is still a premium car brand, which allows it to charge high prices necessary to cover the cost of its modern batteries.
The company also plans to share more technology with Tata motors to reduce development costs.
And if all goes according to plan, JLR expects all Jaguars and 60 percent of Land Rovers sold to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2030, the year its home market in the UK will ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles.
Facebook blocks Australian users from sharing or viewing news
The Facebook pages of plenty of Australian government agencies seem to be caught up in the social media network’s ban on news posts by media organisations and users in the country.
Users on twitter reported that the pages of agencies like the Queensland Health, Department of Fire and Emergency Services Western Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology have no posts available.
Facebook says it’s using a “combination of technologies” to restrict news content and it will have processes for reviewing content that was removed inadvertently, but it is not sharing those processes at this time.
Facebook’s news ban is the result of a proposed Australian law which would require tech companies to pay Australian news publishers for use of their content. Australian users of the social media platform will no longer be able to access any new posts, whether it’s international or from the country. And Australian news publishers will no longer be allowed to post on their pages.
Google renews G Suite for Education to Google Workspace for Education
Google announced that the G Suite for Education is rebranded to Google Workspace for Education. The new feature includes:
- The ability to mute everyone on a call and end a call for all attendingThis feature will roll out soon and will come to education customers first
- Emoji reactions, which will be launched in August for all Meet users
- Meeting transcript, which are launching for enterprise Meet customers and education later this year
Google is also integrating Meet and its Google Classroom much more tightly. Meet will be able to restrict meetings to only teachers and students in a class which is based on a Classroom roster. And Students won’t be able to join Meet calls from Classroom before the teacher does. All these features along with others will launch later this year.
Skittish is the new virtual event space created from the lessons of the pandemic
Skittish may look like a much cuter version of video game social spaces like VRChat but it is built specifically to host online events. You attend events as a cute animal avatar and would be able to explore worlds created for you by clicking around with your mouse. You navigate with the WASD keys on your keyboard like you would in a video game.
XOXO Festival co-founder Andy Baio unveiled the adorable virtual space on Tuesday.
While you explore a Skittish world, you can overhear something exciting going on because of the spatial audio, which enables sound to fade in and out depending on your proximity to the source.And if you are an event organizer on Skittish, the platform is designed to provide you tons of tools to craft a space that caters to your needs.
The project was inspired by Baio’s time attending virtual events during the pandemic saying such events “weren’t social in any way”- Baio said in his interview with The Verge.
The project is still in its early stages, with no set timeline when it will be available to the public. But there is a mailing list you can sign up for if you would like to help with beta testing or keep updated on the project.
Google: Chrome OS now has a built-in screen recorder
“Teachers have long recorded lessons to help students do homework and study for tests, but in the past year it’s become downright critical for virtual learning,” stated in Google’s blog post.
Google hopes that the tool will make it easier for teachers and students to record virtual lessons.
It appears pretty simple: Once you pressed the appropriate button on your Chromebook, you will see a countdown in the center of your screen. While your Chromebook records, a red circle will appear on the right side of the shelf.
Google for Education is launching 40 new Chromebooks which would include convertible Chromebooks that would function like a table or laptop, and the devices come with a stylus, touch screen and dual-cameras for students to make notes in
In addition, Google for education has created a resource to help users find the right Chromebook– whether it is for in-class learning, devices for staff or virtual learning.
Ford said it will go all-electric in Europe by 2030
On Wednesday, Ford said it will only sell electric vehicles in Europe by 2030.
The company said it will spend $1 billion to convert its factory in Germany, into its first ever EV production line on the continent.
Ford said it will gradually transition to EV-production over the next decade. And by 2024, the company’s entire commercial vehicle lineup will be” zero-emissions capable, all-electric or plug-in hybrid”. And by 2030m Ford expects two-thirds of its commercial vehicle sales will be plug-in hybrid or all-electric.
Ford aims to deliver more than 600,000 European vehicles using MEB architecture in over six years. This move would help Ford comply with European government mandates that push strict emissions standards and push electric vehicles.
Google Maps app will now allow payment for public transportation and parking
Google maps is integrating two mobile parking payment services into its app: ParkMobile and Passport.
Both payment services offer the ability to find, and replenish parking meters or parking lot fees through a smartphone app.
This ability to pay for parking in Google MAps will be available in 400 plus cities including Los Angeles, New York, Houston and more. Android phone users will be able to get the feature first, with iPhone users to follow.
As you search for transit directions in Google Maps, you will see the option to purchase tickets alongside your results.Payment will work much in the same way. Customers will need to have a Google Pay account linked to a valid debit or credit card to make transactions.
