Technologies

Look Up on Friday Night and You Just Might See the Bootids Meteor Shower

Some folks already caught a sci-fi-level glimpse of it on Thursday, when a blazing meteor put a hole in a Georgia house.

Earth gets pelted by meteors all the time, but only a few showers are large enough to warrant names. Bootids is one such meteor shower, and it generally occurs in June every year as the Earth moves through the tail of the 7P/Pons-Winnecke comet. For 2025, the best night to catch a potential glimpse of Bootids is this Friday, June 27.

It isn’t an easy meteor shower to spot. Its «radiant» — the point in the sky from which the meteor shower appears to originate — is in the constellation Boötes (hence the shower’s name), which means herdsman or ox-driver in ancient Greek.

According to Stellarium’s sky map, Boötes will be in the western sky, close to the horizon, all Friday evening before dipping below the horizon at sunrise. This applies to the entire continental US, so there aren’t any special instructions based on location.

The reason viewers will need a little luck to see it is twofold. For starters, the constellation is pretty low on the horizon, which will make it much harder to see from a well-lit city or suburb.

Secondly, the American Meteor Association classifies Bootids as a Class III meteor shower. That means it may light up the sky with plenty of meteors or average less than one per day, even at its peak. We won’t know the strength of this year’s Bootids until Saturday after the peak has passed.

One meteor hit a Georgia house

Despite its finicky nature, the shower did produce an incident here on Earth.

On Thursday, a meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere and mostly burned up, but it did leave a golf-ball-size hole in a Georgia family’s home. Observers reported seeing the meteor as far away as Tennessee, Florida, and North Carolina.

Here’s an excellent video — like something out of War of the Worlds — that shows the Georgia meteor. With Bootids at its peak, there’s an increased risk of such an event occurring again.

Tips for watching the Bootids meteor shower

Much like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. City dwellers and suburbanites will have the hardest time spotting a shooting star, since the light pollution of larger populated areas can get in the way of seeing dimmer meteors. For context, the Perseids meteor shower can spit out upward of 100 meteors per hour, but in the city, you may see only one to two per hour, if any.

The best tip is getting out of the city as far as you’re willing to go. The further out you go, the less light pollution will hinder your progress and the more chance you’ll have of catching sight of a meteor. If you can swing it, take a pair of binoculars. A telescope isn’t necessary and in fact will restrict your view of the open sky too much, which may cause you to miss meteors.

Other than that, the key is patience. With inconsistent showers like Bootids, it may be a steady shower all night or bursts of activity. Finally, it’s best to temper expectations. You may go home not seeing anything at all, especially if the weather is not on your side.

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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.