Technologies

The Longest Night: A Short Guide to the Winter Solstice

The winter solstice arrives later this month, and here’s what that means.

For many people in the US, winter has come a little early, as a few waves of snow and blisteringly cold temperatures have colored the landscape white. It isn’t officially winter yet, and it won’t be until Dec. 21 when the winter solstice takes place. So get ready because Earth’s shortest day is on its way.

What is the winter solstice?

The winter solstice has a few different meanings, so here are all of them. The most common definition, and the one you’re most likely familiar with, is that it denotes the shortest day and longest night of the year on Earth. These times vary depending on your location on the globe, but the further north you live, the less sunlight you’ll get. In the tropics, they’ll get about 12 hours of sunlight. In Sweden, it’ll be closer to six hours. In Svalbard, there isn’t any.

The reason this occurs is due to the second definition of the winter solstice: During this time, the North Pole is tilted as far away from the sun as it can get. According to The Farmer’s Almanac, the moment at which the Earth’s axis is physically tilted as much as it can be is at 10:03 a.m. ET on Dec. 21. After that moment, the process will begin to reverse until the South Pole takes its turn during the summer solstice. At that point, the North Pole will be at its closest tilt to the sun, giving us the longest day and shortest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.

How much sunlight will we get?

It’ll vary by location. The southern US will have the most sunlight, with Florida getting a little over 10 hours during the winter solstice. The Midwest and Great Lakes portion of the country will get roughly nine hours. The Pacific Northwest can expect a little less than nine hours. Southern Alaska will get about six hours, and the northern areas of Alaska will see around three hours.

If you want to see how your area will fare, Time and Date has a sunrise and sunset tool you can use. Input your zip code into the search bar, and you’ll be able to see your sunrise and sunset times.

The city of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, will have it worse than most in the US: It won’t get any sun at all. The sun won’t rise there again until Jan. 22. We hope the people living there packed their vitamin D supplements.

The difference between a solstice and an equinox

The autumn equinox was just a few months ago, so you may be curious about the differences. A solstice occurs when the Earth’s poles are tilted as far away from the sun as they’ll be over the course of one year, which is also one orbit around the sun. The equinoxes take place at the halfway points between each solstice. The autumn equinox takes place in September between the summer and winter solstices, while the spring equinox takes place in March between the winter and summer.

During an equinox, the poles are minimally tilted, and the days are as even as they can be. This also has a couple of other interesting side effects: The sun is pointed directly at the equator during an equinox, and the sun will rise and set directly east and west, respectively.

Humans use the solstices and equinoxes to mark the change of the seasons. There are two equinoxes and two solstices, which mark the start and end dates for Earth’s four seasons.

Celebrating the winter solstice

While the solstice is close to the holidays, celebrations for the winter solstice have been around for significantly longer, and some winter solstice traditions have become Christmas traditions as well. One of the most historically famous winter solstice celebrations is Yule, a winter festival originating thousands of years ago among the Ancient Norse. It became commonly celebrated in Europe and involved bonfires and massive feasts. Yule celebrations also included decorating with evergreen tree decorations, like holly and ivy.

If these sound familiar, it’s because Christmas co-opted many of those traditions centuries ago, and the two traditions have kind of merged into a single seasonal holiday. The terms Yule and Christmas are often used interchangeably these days in many cultures.

So if you want to celebrate the winter solstice, just do all of the stuff you would normally do for the holidays. Burn a Yule log, decorate a tree, eat a big feast with your family and hang up mistletoe and wreaths — those are all hat tips to traditional winter solstice celebrations.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal

Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
WATCH: Waymo launches new autonomous system in Chinese-made vehicle

Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.