Month: March 2024

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  All the available Immersive Video launch content fit on a small strip in the TV app. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Tonight, Apple will debut some new Immersive Video content for the Vision Pro headset—the first sports content for the device. It doesn't seem like much after two months of no new content, though.

Starting at 6 pm PT/9 pm ET, Vision Pro users will be able to watch a sports film captured for the platform's Immersive Video format. The video will be a series of highlights from last year's Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs, and according to Six Colors, it will run just five minutes. It will be free for all Vision Pro users.

On February 2, Apple released what appeared to be the first episodes of three Immersive Video series: Adventure, Prehistoric Planet, and Wildlife. Each debuted alongside the Vision Pro's launch with one episode labeled "Episode 1" of "Season 1."

Enlarge (credit: LifeSpan)

I enjoy getting my exercise, but hate doing it indoors. I'd much rather get some fresh air and watch the world drift past me as I cycle or hike somewhere than watch a screen while sweating away on something stationary.

To get a bit more of what I like, I've invested in a variety of gear that has extended my cycling season deeper into the winter. But even with that, there are various conditions—near-freezing temperatures, heavy rains, Canada catching fire—that have kept me off the roads. So, a backup exercise plan has always been on my to-do list.

The company LifeSpan offers exercise equipment that fits well into a home office and gave me the chance to try its Ampera model. It's a stationary bike that tucks nicely under a standing desk and has a distinct twist: You can pedal to power the laptop you're working on. Overall, the hardware is well-designed, but some glitches, software issues, and design decisions keep it from living up to its potential.

Enlarge (credit: LifeSpan)

I enjoy getting my exercise, but hate doing it indoors. I'd much rather get some fresh air and watch the world drift past me as I cycle or hike somewhere than watch a screen while sweating away on something stationary.

To get a bit more of what I like, I've invested in a variety of gear that has extended my cycling season deeper into the winter. But even with that, there are various conditions—near-freezing temperatures, heavy rains, Canada catching fire—that have kept me off the roads. So, a backup exercise plan has always been on my to-do list.

The company LifeSpan offers exercise equipment that fits well into a home office and gave me the chance to try its Ampera model. It's a stationary bike that tucks nicely under a standing desk and has a distinct twist: You can pedal to power the laptop you're working on. Overall, the hardware is well-designed, but some glitches, software issues, and design decisions keep it from living up to its potential.

Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series. (credit: Facebook)

Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta's streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn't produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

The streaming business' demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [PDF] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

As spotted via Gizmodo, a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [PDF] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

Enlarge / Scientists have found a large black hole that “hiccups,” giving off plumes of gas. (credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT)

In December 2020, astronomers spotted an unusual burst of light in a galaxy roughly 848 million light-years away—a region with a supermassive black hole at the center that had been largely quiet until then. The energy of the burst mysteriously dipped about every 8.5 days before the black hole settled back down, akin to having a case of celestial hiccups.

Now scientists think they've figured out the reason for this unusual behavior. The supermassive black hole is orbited by a smaller black hole that periodically punches through the larger object's accretion disk during its travels, releasing a plume of gas. This suggests that black hole accretion disks might not be as uniform as astronomers thought, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Co-author Dheeraj "DJ" Pasham of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space research noticed the community alert that went out after the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) detected the flare, dubbed ASASSN-20qc. He was intrigued and still had some allotted time on the X-ray telescope, called NICER (the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) on board the International Space Station. He directed the telescope to the galaxy of interest and gathered about four months of data, after which the flare faded.