Technologies

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope delivers epic new views of gas giant planets

Dazzling glamour shots for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune from the workhorse scope.

Our solar system sure has some pretty planets. On Thursday, NASA and the European Space Agency released fresh looks at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

All four of the planets are gas giants, making them very unlike Earth or Mars, which are rocky. As NASA poetically said in a statement on the Hubble images, «Stretching from 500 million to 3 billion miles from the sun, these monsters are as remote as they are mysterious, dwelling so far from the sun that water instantly freezes to solid ice.»

Hubble, a joint project of NASA and ESA, annually monitors the outer planets so scientists can track weather and atmospheric changes over time. The images are part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL) and were taken in September and October.

On Jupiter on Sept. 4, the telescope noticed new storms. «Every time we get new data down, the image quality and detail in the cloud features always blow me away,» said Amy Simon of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

A Sept. 7 view of Saturn revealed color shifts connected to seasonal changes. Hubble’s sharp eye lets researchers dial in which bands of the stripy planet are changing colors.

Uranus is sporting a bright white polar region in Hubble’s Oct. 25 image. «Researchers are studying how the brightening polar hood results from changes in the concentration of atmospheric methane gas and the characteristics of haze particles, as well as the atmospheric flow patterns,» NASA said.

Neptune looks like a blue marble in the telescope’s Sept. 7 view. It’s rocking some intriguing dark spots, one of which has been moving around. NASA said the planet is looking very much like it did back in 1989 when the Voyager 2 mission took a look.

Hubble has spent more than three decades unveiling the secrets of space. The telescope’s team is currently working through a technical glitch, but one of its main science instruments is up and running during the troubleshooting. If all goes well, we can expect Hubble to deliver another round of planetary portraits in 2022.

Technologies

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Technologies

Apple’s New Smart Home Display Delayed Until Fall Over Siri Issues

It has been nearly a year and a half since the company announced the AI-powered product.

Your home could get smarter with Apple’s Siri, but it will have to wait a few more months. Bloomberg reported the iPad-shaped AI home hub won’t be ready until September, several months after the company was hoping to launch it this spring. Apple engineers first need to complete work on a new and improved Siri assistant for the home device, code-named J490, according to Bloomberg.

Apple was hoping to release J490 this month, along with a slew of other new devices, including the iPhone 17e, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air M5, new Pro models, and iPad Air M4. Apple first teased the smart home display in November 2024.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that uses voice recognition and AI to fulfill a variety of tasks and commands, along with intriguing uses. You might use Siri to find your iPhone — «Hey Siri, where are you?» — or to hear the weather forecast — «Siri, what will the weather be today?» Siri is available on iPhones, MacBooks and iPads. It was launched in 2011 as a feature of the iPhone 4S.

As CNET reported last month, Apple engineers have struggled to push the upgraded Siri assistant out the door. It isn’t fast enough, gets confused by complex commands and doesn’t interact well with other Apple AI models. The company is also wrestling with how much personal data to access to inform the AI, and the new Siri is not yet able to complete in-app tasks, such as finding a photo and posting it to socials, all with one command.

It has been nearly two years since Apple announced that it would give Siri a major upgrade. In the meantime, competitors like Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home have entered the marketplace.

Tech tester Jon Rettinger, whose YouTube channel has 1.66 million subscribers, says the repeated delays in upgrading Siri can «erode» confidence in Apple’s ability to keep up in the AI race.

«Apple as a whole is still one of the strongest companies on the planet. But their AI play is clearly the weakest link in an otherwise very strong chain,» Rettinger told CNET.

Rettinger said he has had issues getting Siri to complete basic commands, such as setting two alarms at the same time, and that it’s a bit of «a mess» right now.

«Having said that, the iPhone has such massive market penetration that I’m not sure it will actually matter in the end. Which is kind of wild when you think about it,» Rettinger said.

Facial recognition for residents

The hardware for the forthcoming smart home display has already been finished. It resembles an iPad and can be either attached to a wall or rest on a half-domed-shaped base, the Bloomberg report said.

The device will be equipped with facial recognition, so when residents walk up to it, they will be shown personalized data such as music preferences, news headlines, appointments, reminders, tasks and so on.

The screen interface will include a bunch of circular app icons, similar to the display on an Apple Watch. The Bloomberg report said the smart home display will be the first of several home devices by Apple. Future products include a tabletop robotic limb with a 9-inch screen, a smart security camera and a Face ID-enabled smart doorbell.