Slip Into The Past Via Smartphone! New App Pinpoints Old And New Cityscapes To Discover

New York, New York, it's a hell of a town.  That much is obvious.  But in the gleaming city of glass, it can sometimes be difficult to remember the extent of the history that has happened through the many years the Big Apple has grown, fallen, gotten chomped up, and re-budded on the tree of life.  Now, thanks to a new app, you can enjoy some top-shelf time-travel right on your phone.

Yes, Mulberry Street in Chinatown/Little Italy has always been madness.
(Image courtesy ny.curbed.com.)

New GoPro Camera Arrives; Ski Season Can't Show Up Fast Enough

They've already become their own advertisement, product, and terminology, and now GoPro is adding another cool camera to its line of sporty, sturdy tech toys...

Sure it's cute, but how well does it shoot?
(Image courtesy petapixel.com.)

Bodies And Oddities: New "Figure 1" Medical Photo-Sharing App Offers Different Doctors' Opinions, Crazy Pics

One of the most popular social media apps, Instagram, has been growing in popularity so much that some users have even been abandoning their Facebook for it.  Now, an Instagram-type app has found a niche community for people who need to use the photos for research that goes further than what you're wearing or what you ate today.  Enter Figure 1, a photo-sharing app for doctors.

Physical graffitti?
(Image courtesy linkedin.com.)

Space Station Sunday: Success And Space Jams

Good evening, space fans!  It was a calm but productive week on the ISS.

New Year's celebrations got multiplied 16-fold for our orbiting adventurers, who got to see a dozen-and-a-quarter daybreaks from their perfect perch.  As alcohol is not allowed on the ISS, no champagne toasts were made, but that's a fair price to pay for saying you got to literally party around the world on New Year's Eve.

With much Martian goodness to follow...
(Image courtesy NASA.gov.)

According to NASA, approximately 3,575 hours worth of research on some 300 different projects were conducted by the space station crews during 2014 alone, bringing more insight and innovation into the micro-g lifestyle as well as new developments for all the rest of us who remain ground-bound.

Over the course of the 2014, nine different unmanned vehicles visited the ISS (four Russian Progress ships, two SpaceX Dragons, two orbital Cygnus craft, and one final flight of Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle.)  Four Russian Soyuz crafts spirited up three new crew members apiece to join the stellar ranks of the ISS team, and eleven of the astronauts and cosmonauts participated in seven different spacewalks over the course of the year.  By all accounts, this helped make 2014 a tremendously productive year in space.

Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, the NASA astronaut currently commanding the space station, got to celebrate a little extra on this successful year, as his 52nd birthday fell a few days previous on December 29th.  The Flight Control team in Houston was even on hand to sing him Happy Birthday from mission control!

Butch's ISS comrades also helped him age in style.
(Image courtesy NASA.gov.)

From an earthly perspective, the ISS captured the imagination of Israeli photographer Gadi Edelheit, who tracked the station using the HeavensAbove astronomy site and captured images of the ISS as it was in transit past the face of the moon.  The video of the flyby, made famous via Gizmodo, puts into dramatic perspective how small our space force is in the face of all that space.  

And as for snaps from the other direction, NASA astronaut Terry Virts maintains a fascinating Instagram account of his space voyage, with station life and earth life all getting examined via his lens.  With the astronauts adopting an ever more lively presence on social media, the imagery and intrigue from space can touch even the most remote corners of earth!

Want more?  There's a unique ISS Instragram as well!  

This image of the Viedma glacier was captured from the ISS as part of  the Expedition Earth And Beyond program,
which provides space-based earth photos to students.
(Image courtesy NASA.gov.)

And if you'd like a spacey soundtrack to go along with all the excellent imagery, check out the "80UA" collection of remixed space sounds  - everything from rocket blasts to ambient cosmic noise - made by Italian artists Fabrica Musica.

That's all for this week, space fans!  Tune in next time for more from our stars in the stars.  Don't let gravity get you down...have a great week and remember to watch this space!

Flickr Redesign Adds 1 Terabyte of Free Space

From the Verge:

Yahoo has just announced a complete redesign of Flickr at its New York City event — the new site is live now and it comes with one terabyte of free photo space. Yahoo SVP Adam Cahan just made the announcement and said that "Flickr had become about words, little images, blue links. It was not about the photo anymore." But the new photostream changes that, will full-resolution images and a clean homepage with all the emphasis on images — it looks a lot like the Instagram web profile header.

From the Flickr Blog:

In the beginning, Flickr innovated the way people share and discover photos. Today, we are shifting the photo-sharing landscape again. We’re releasing a Flickr that’s more spectacular, much bigger, and one you can take anywhere.

Biggr. A free terabyte of space

At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality. No limited pixels, no cramped formats, no memories that fall flat. We’re giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.

And yep, you heard us. It’s free. 

Spectaculr. A new, beautiful experience for your photos

We want Flickr to be the most amazing community and place for you to share your photos. So, we’re also revealing a beautiful new design that puts photos at the heart of your Flickr experience, where they should always be. Whether it’s a sweeping landscape or a family portrait, we want every photo to be at its most spectacular . . .