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ABC, ESPN and other Disney networks go dark on Dish and Sling TV
Dish claimed Disney wanted nearly $1 billion more to extend a contract that has now expired.
James Cameron's new Nat Geo show will explore the mysteries of the ocean
National Geographic announced today that he'll be executive producing a new series for the network, OceanXplorers, which will follow a team of experts and scientists as they investigate the deep with advanced technology.
The best online STEM resources, according to a veteran teacher
After the schools shut down last week, my social media feeds and inbox lit up with color-coded homeschooling charts and agonizingly long lists of everything I should use to educate my kids. Fear, panic and an overwhelming sense of grief settled over me as I considered not only how I was going to explain what was happening to my curious kindergartener and second grader but also how we were going to manage working, schooling, living and staying sane and healthy in our tiny condo for the foreseeable future. As veteran teachers, my husband and I vowed to maintain normal as best we could. We'd stay virtually connected to family and friends and let the kids play and be bored and eat cookies and watch movies and attempt whatever work their school sent home. To calm myself, I composed my own non-exhaustive list of resources, called "Things I might actually use if the internet doesn't die" and sent bits of it to a few friends, who exhaled relief and gratitude. "Thanks," they said. "I might actually use these!" Here it is, reconstituted. I hope it lets you exhale too.
‘Cosmos: Possible Worlds’ finds hope for humanity in a hopeless era
In a time where it's easy to feel a bit concerned about the fate of civilization -- take your pick of calamities, really -- National Geographic's Cosmos is like a hope-filled salve. Developed by Ann Druyan, the co-creator of the original show together with her husband Carl Sagan, and hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: Possible Worlds is an exploration of humanity, our past, present and our potential future. The 1980 series redefined how complex topics could be communicated on TV. And with Possible Worlds, Druyan and her co-writer, Star Trek alum Brannon Braga, recapture that magic. But, it's delivered with a new sense of urgency for our turbulent era, which is fueled by climate change and political instability.
Disney deal will keep ESPN on PlayStation Vue for years to come
Don't worry about the fate of ESPN channels on PlayStation Vue -- they're not going anywhere. Sony and the Walt Disney Company have struck a "multi-year" deal that will keep delivery Disney-owned channels to Vue, including several ESPN channels, ABC, the Disney Channel and recently acquired Fox channels like FX and National Geographic. There's no mention of how much the deal is worth.
Mount Everest expedition installs highest weather stations on Earth
Scientists installed the two highest weather stations in the world in an expedition to Mount Everest that wrapped up this week. A team led by the National Geographic Society and Tribhuvan University installed the two weather monitoring stations at 8,430 meters (27,657 feet) and 7,945 meters (26,066 feet), as well as three other stations across Everest. Data gathered from the stations will help scientists better understand how rising global temperatures are impacting the rapidly melting glaciers.
National Geographic is bringing an Antarctic adventure to Oculus Quest
National Geographic is delving deeper into VR with a 30-minute Antarctic adventure that will hit Oculus Quest this spring. In National Geographic Explore VR, you'll be tasked with finding a lost penguin colony. The adventure will take you on a kayak ride through frigid water, and on a climb up an ice sheet as you search for the missing birds.
National Geographic photographer praises the iPhone 5s' camera
National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson has praised the new camera in the iPhone 5s after using it to shoot more than 4,000 photos on his recent trip to the Scottish highlands. In a blog post on NationalGeographic.com Richardson writes: With intense use (I've made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I've discovered that the iPhone 5s is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in [tough] situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing -- seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting. Once I figured out what the camera could do well, I began to forget all the things it couldn't do at all. Understandably, after Richardson's article went live, Apple's Phil Schiller tweeted a link to it with the word "iPhoneography." You can check out more of Richardson's iPhone 5s pics from Scotland at his Instagram account.
National Geographic TOPO! maps find their way to Magellan eXplorist GPS devices
If you're more about the mountainous views, than Mountain View, then you might be pleased to hear that Magellan is bringing National Geographic's TOPO! maps to its eXplorist range of outdoor GPS devices. More specifically the 310, 510, 610 and 710 models. If you like the sound of the full color USGS topographic maps, then they are available on a subscription basis for $30 a year. If you don't already own a Magellan device, however, then you might be more interested in one of the forthcoming TOPO! bundles, if you can find your way to a retailer that is.
Daily iPad App: National Geographic Today
National Geographic is known for its stunning photography and outstanding videos. Now you can get a portion of both each day with the National Geographic Today App. Released last week, the iPad app includes news, videos, quizzes, articles, and jaw-dropping photography. The National Geographic Today app serves up a fresh dose of material each day and lets you browse through seven days of back content. Like the other National Geographic apps, the format and content of the Today app looks fantastic on the first iPad and the iPad 2. Unfortunately, it does not take advantage of the retina display of the new iPad but, hopefully, this is just a temporary situation and a retina update will be available soon. You can download National Geographic Today from the iOS App Store for free.
Daily iPad App: Weird but True!
While geared toward kids, National Geographic's Weird but True! is a treat for anyone with an iPad who enjoys perusing random trivia. Shake or swipe the iPad within the app to get a random interesting fact, then rate it based on how weird you think the fact is. You can bookmark facts you like, email them to someone or use a fact finder to look for something specific. You also can see weekly top weird facts as rated by users. Weird but True! has 300 facts, and I can see future updates adding more. The type is large and easy to read, and the graphics are catchy and have the same professional quality as National Geographic magazine. If you want an educational trivia app for the iPad, Weird but True! is a good deal for US$1.99.
Guild War 2's art director illustrates cover of National Geographic
ArenaNet's Daniel Dociu has another high-profile project in addition to his work on Guild Wars 2: the cover of National Geographic. In this month's issue of the magazine, Dociu provides artwork to illustrate a "magical mystery treasure" of Anglo-Saxan origin that was recently found. Both the cover and the article piece show an era soldier with appropriate armor, clothing, and weapons. Dociu currently holds the positions of both creative director and art director for Guild Wars 2. His skill and prestige certainly isn't hurting the game's profile any, as this achievement comes on top of the Exposé 9's Grand Master Award he won this past July. The National Geographic issue is on news stands (or, to you whippersnappers, the "website") now.
Kinect adds Sesame Street and National Geographic to Xbox Live, makes motion control wholesome fun
Kinect -- it's the Xbox 360 peripheral that just keeps on giving, now with more edutainment. Yes, that collision of worlds typically yields cringe- and boredom-inducing interactive experiences. Not so with this marriage of MS' motion-controlling sensor and the fine folks behind TV mainstays like Sesame Street, National Geographic and Disney. The newly inked content partnerships will see the creation of specifically tailored episodes of Kinect Nat Geo TV, in addition to a season's worth of Kinect Sesame Street TV for Xbox Live, letting your youngins play virtual connect the dots with Elmo. Plans are also underway for a virtual storybook effort, codenamed Project Columbia, aimed at indoctrinating children into the fundamentals of reading, and Rush, a videogame that'll lead adults and their tots alike through Pixar's virtual worlds. These various family-friendly titles and TV shows are set to rollout sometime next spring, so if you need to get your little ones' blood pumping (and slim down those love handles while you're at it), it looks like X's prepping to mark that spot. Official presser after the break.
Pixar's 'Rush,' new Sesame Street game coming to Kinect (for kids)
Microsoft's latest batch of kid-friendly Kinect games includes projects developed in collaboration with Disney Pixar, Sesame Workshop, National Geographic and the Games for Learning Institute. Wow. Back in our day, we had to make do with The Castle of Dr. Brain. Disney Pixar's game, codenamed "Rush," will scan and deposit you and your diminutive kin into the wonderful worlds seen in five Pixar movies: The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3 and Cars 2. It sounds like you can expect some minigames while you're in there, though Microsoft prefers to call them "exciting challenges." (One of them is pictured above.) Kinect Sesame Street TV purveys basic education in the best way possible: via adorable muppets, with Sesame Street footage filmed specifically for Xbox 360. Kinect will also host Kinect Nat Geo TV, which lets you interact with the natural world as an animal (in case you've grown tired of being a hedgehog all the time), and a game tentatively called "Project Columbia." It's proposed as a way to immerse young gamers in books, pairing storytelling with interactive music and illustrations. We'll see more of these projects before they start arriving in Spring 2012. Another game, Double Fine's Happy Action Theater, is due this holiday. You'll just have to see the trailer to understand its insane exuberance.
Google Science Fair winners announced: grilled chicken, ovarian cancer, asthma take center stage
Google's first-ever science fair came to a close yesterday, as 15 finalists, ranging in age from 13 to 18, showed off their smarts at Google HQ. Top honors went to three young ladies -- score one for the girls -- in three separate age groups, but there could only be one Highlander Grand Prize winner. The big win went to Shree Bose for an experiment which focused on improving treatment of ovarian cancer, following accumulated resistance to chemotherapy drugs. Lauren Hodge and Naomi Shah also took home trophies for their experiments which dealt with carcinogens in grilled chicken and reducing reliance on asthma treatment, respectively. Along with trophies built of Legos, these young brainiacs took home prizes that included lifetime subscriptions to Scientific American and big-money scholarships ranging from $25,000 to $50,000. A very long video documenting the award ceremony can be found -- featuring a shocking lack of baking soda volcanoes -- after the break.
Zinio comes to Android tablets, gives you 24 magazine issues for free
The iPad has yet to transform the publishing world as many expected it would, but some healthy competition from Android tablets should help to keep that process in motion. Zinio's reader app is now available on select Android 2.2, 2.3, and all 3.0 tablets, bringing Esquire, National Geographic, and 20,000 other magazine titles to the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and a half dozen other devices. And, to kick off the launch, Zinio is picking up the tab on the most recent issues of 24 top magazines, as long as you download by June 15. Digital subscriptions are still often more expensive than their print counterparts, but at least Android tablet owners will have a safer place to hide their issues of Playboy.
Researchers claim discovery of lost city of Atlantis, conveniently located in southern Spain
We had to do a double take when we read this headline from Reuters, but sure enough, it's not April1st yet and its writers don't seem to be joking: the location of the lost city of Atlantis has finally been discovered. Such is the bold claim from an international team of researchers, dreamers and intrepid adventurers. With the use of ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography, they've unearthed evidence to suggest that a spot on the southern coast of Spain, just north of Cadiz, played host to what may have been human society's first metropolis. One of the reasons why it's taken archaeologists so long to pinpoint its whereabouts may be the fact that it lies 60 miles inland, where you wouldn't really expect it to be susceptible to the effects of tidal waves (which is what Plato's account of the ancient city identified as its demise). A National Geographic documentary on the subject will be broadcast this evening where we may learn more about what was discovered, the methods for doing so, and the gorgeous tans those scientists built up in sunny Spain.
Ultimate Dinopedia brings dinosaurs to life on your iPad
The Ultimate Dinopedia (US$5.99) from National Geographic is a wonderful reference app that will quickly become the go-to source for kids who want to find out everything about dinosaurs. There are other dinosaur apps in the store, but this is by far the most complete and expansive. It started as a hardcover book last year and has since been turned into a terrific iPad app for kids four and older. The app is broken down into three parts: Discovering Dinosaurs, Meat Eaters and Plant Eaters. It's chock full of paintings of many dinosaurs by Franco Tempsesta, and the text was written by "Dino" Don Lessem, just as in the book. (Don even has a dinosaur named after him.) The app covers about 700 dinosaurs. Each dinosaur comes with a button to play a sound of the correct pronunciation of its name, plus much more information. For many dinosaurs, that's all you get, but others have full-page paintings, Dino Stats (which give you info from the overview page) and a paragraph on the story of the dinosaur, which you can either read yourself or have read to you in a slightly sinister sounding narration paired with nice sound effects. Each of these pages have Fun Facts like "Riojasaurus had only five teeth in the front of its top jaw and 24 more behind them. So chances are it gulped down its food and digested plants in its stomach." There's also Picture Info, such as "Riojasaurus fed in the southern forests of Pangea, the single landmark that stretched across the middle of the earth". Along with this, there are 13 very short CGI videos showing a number of dinosaurs in action. The videos certainly aren't up to the quality of Pixar, but they get the job done. The videos are the only part of the app that works in landscape mode. %Gallery-118554%
Fox, Dish play the blame game over disappearing FX, sports networks
The latest carriage dispute is already a few days old and shows no signs of breaking yet, as Fox and Dish Network square off. Naturally both have issued the usual press releases and promotional websites blaming the other but at the moment, the only thing to know is for Dish customers, Fox regional sports networks, National Geographic Channel and FX are off the air. For its part, Dish is throwing in CBS College Sports, NBA TV, NHL Network, NBig Ten Network and a few others for affected customers. Of course, that doesn't do much for missing the conclusion of pennant races in baseball or preseason NBA games hitting many of those RSNs, though Fox claims things could get worse -- November 1 Fox and MyNetworkTV could be next to go.
Final roll of Kodachrome processed in Kansas; angel sheds a rainbow-colored tear
Kodak stopped manufacturing the oldest film in its catalog last year, but Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas kept its Kodachrome processing rig around just in case. Last week photographer Steve McCurry processed the final manufactured roll of Kodachrome there - 33 frames taken around New York City, and three taken in Parsons. A crew from National Geographic (where McCurry made his name, specifically with the iconic "Afghan Girl" cover photo) documented the final roll's journey from the factory to processing, so you'll probably be able to find out more on it soon. Oh, and if grandma's a real shutterbug, you might want to tell her to check the attic for any spare Kodachrome rolls she has lying around -- Dwayne's is the last remaining Kodachrome processing facility in the world, and that service will stop on December 10th. Now, if it's quite alright -- pardon us while we attempt to capture a meaningful moment on our soulless Easyshare ecosystem of products.
