Month: December 2025

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Apple and Google Are Making It Easier to Switch Between iPhone and Android

https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-and-apple-are-making-it-easier-to-switch-between-iphone-and-android

When it’s time to buy a new car, you don’t necessarily need to stick with the one you had before. You don’t lose your cloud-based photos by switching from Toyota to Subaru, nor will your friends yell at you for ruining the group chat by buying a Kia. That’s not the case with smartphones: When you buy an iPhone, it’s tough to switch away from it. The same goes for Android: While it’s easy enough to switch within the Android ecosystem, such as between Pixel or Galaxy, moving from Android to iPhone can also be a pain. Tech companies tend to make it tempting to stick with their platform, and introduce friction when you try to leave.

That, of course, is entirely business-based. Apple hasn’t traditionally made it easy to move to Android, because, well, you might actually do it. It doesn’t have to be this way, either. There’s nothing inherent to smartphones that should make it so challenging to break out of any particular ecosystem. All it takes is some intentional design: If smartphones were made to be traded, you could migrate from one to another, without worrying about losing pictures, messages, or any other important data or processes.

As it happens, that intentional design may be on the horizon. As reported by 9to5Google, Apple and Google are actually working together to make it easier to transfer data between iPhone and Androids, which would make switching between the two platforms more seamless. This isn’t theoretical, either: Google has already released some of this progress as part of the latest Android Canary, the company’s earliest pre-release software. All compatible Pixel devices can currently access this latest build, though it doesn’t seem there are any user-facing features available to test. 9to5Google says that similar features will roll out to testers in a future iOS 26 beta. Perhaps at that time, Google will roll out its features to the Android beta as well, which has a much larger user base than Canary.

While details are slim here, any cooperation between Apple and Google on this front is huge. Current migration tools do exist, but they can be problematic. By actually working together on a native transfer solution, it might actually be seamless to move between platforms. Apple and Google might not be motivated by charity, of course, as the EU has been cracking down on restrictive practices by tech companies in recent years. But while both companies may see this as a way to lose customers, it’s also a way to gain them: Sure, some iPhone users may switch to Android if it’s easier to do so, but some Android users may do the reverse for the same reasons.

More choice is good for everyone—even if it doesn’t guarantee exponential growth to shareholders.

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December 8, 2025 at 04:00PM

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SpaceX Hypes 2026 IPO With Predictable Ingredient: AI in Orbit

https://gizmodo.com/spacex-hypes-2026-ipo-with-predictable-ingredient-ai-in-orbit-2000697922

SpaceX is reportedly preparing a 2026 initial public offering that would raise over $30 billion, targeting a valuation of about $1.5 trillion. Part of the funding is said to toward an ambitious venture that CEO Elon Musk and other tech billionaires have been eyeing for some time now: AI in space.

As data centers proliferate across the U.S. to support surging demand for AI training and operation, the resulting strain on energy, water, and land resources is becoming impossible to ignore. Facing limits on the growth of this booming industry, Big Tech has proposed another solution: building data centers in orbit.

Two sources familiar with SpaceX’s IPO plans told Bloomberg the company expects to use some of the new capital to develop orbital data centers, including purchasing the chips required to build them. Musk has expressed strong interest in the idea in recent weeks, claiming that SpaceX could leverage Starlink for this purpose.

“Simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which have high speed laser links would work. SpaceX will be doing this,” he posted on X in late October. During a recent event with Baron Capital, Musk said he sees a path to putting 100 gigawatts of computing power from solar-powered AI satellites into orbit each year.

Gizmodo reached out to SpaceX for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

SpaceX’s vision for Starlink-based data centers

Proponents of orbital data centers say their advantage lies in tapping limitless solar energy while avoiding the environmental and public-health consequences of building them on Earth. Meanwhile, critics contend that the expense and technological complexity of putting data centers in the unforgiving environment of space makes the idea impractical.

Many tech billionaires, including Musk, fall squarely into the “proponents” category. With a blockbuster IPO on the horizon and Musk’s forecast that SpaceX’s newest rocket will start launching Starlink V3 satellites in 2026 as well, the company does appear uniquely well-positioned to lay the groundwork for orbital server farms.

It’s unclear exactly how SpaceX would adapt its Starlink architecture for AI data centers, or how much this venture would cost. It would be a major leap, but not an impossible one. Each Starlink V3 satellite is expected to have a downlink speed of 1 terabyte per second, a 10-fold increase from the V2 mini Starlink satellites, which is comparable to terrestrial data centers. It’s also not yet clear how much processing power SpaceX can pack into each spacecraft.

A large hurdle will be launching the many Starlink V3 satellites required to build the equivalent of a terrestrial data center. SpaceX can already launch thousands of satellites per year with its Falcon 9 rocket. But the V3s will be much bigger and will need to launch on Starship, which is not yet fully operational. Even if SpaceX hits the ground running next year, it could take decades to achieve this goal.

The AI space race is heating up

SpaceX isn’t the only company interested in orbital data centers. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has also touted them as a viable way to protect Earth’s resources and the AI industry’s growth, predicting that humans will start building gigawatt-scale orbital data centers within the next 10 to 20 years. In November, Google announced Project Suncatcher, a research initiative aimed at building its own satellite-based orbital data centers.

Several smaller companies are also developing space-based data center technologies, including Aetherflux, Lonestar Data Holdings, and Axiom Space. The potential advantages of moving these facilities off the Earth have clearly captured the tech sector’s attention.

Though SpaceX has not publicly confirmed plans for an IPO or for investment in orbital data center research and development, its reputation as an aerospace pioneer means these rumors are likely to spur competitors’ interest in taking AI infrastructure to space.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/

December 10, 2025 at 11:55AM

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Hackers tricked ChatGPT, Grok and Google into helping them install malware

https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/hackers-tricked-chatgpt-grok-and-google-into-helping-them-install-malware-185711492.html?src=rss

Ever since reporting earlier this year on how easy it is to trick an agentic browser, I’ve been following the intersections between modern AI and old-school scams. Now, there’s a new convergence on the horizon: hackers are apparently using AI prompts to seed Google search results with dangerous commands. When executed by unknowing users, these commands prompt computers to give the hackers the access they need to install malware.

The warning comes by way of a recent report from detection-and-response firm Huntress. Here’s how it works. First, the threat actor has a conversation with an AI assistant about a common search term, during which they prompt the AI to suggest pasting a certain command into a computer’s terminal. They make the chat publicly visible and pay to boost it on Google. From then on, whenever someone searches for the term, the malicious instructions will show up high on the first page of results.

Huntress ran tests on both ChatGPT and Grok after discovering that a Mac-targeting data exfiltration attack called AMOS had originated from a simple Google search. The user of the infected device had searched "clear disk space on Mac," clicked a sponsored ChatGPT link and — lacking the training to see that the advice was hostile — executed the command. This let the attackers install the AMOS malware. The testers discovered that both chatbots replicated the attack vector.

As Huntress points out, the evil genius of this attack is that it bypasses almost all the traditional red flags we’ve been taught to look for. The victim doesn’t have to download a file, install a suspicious executable or even click a shady link. The only things they have to trust are Google and ChatGPT, which they’ve either used before or heard about nonstop for the last several years. They’re primed to trust what those sources tell them. Even worse, while the link to the ChatGPT conversation has since been taken off Google, it was up for at least half a day after Huntress published their blog post.

This news comes at a time that’s already fraught for both AIs. Grok has been getting dunked on for sucking up to Elon Musk in despicable ways, while ChatGPT creator OpenAI has been falling behind the competition. It’s not yet clear if the attack can be replicated with other chatbots, but for now, I strongly recommend using caution. Alongside your other common-sense cybersecurity steps, make sure to never paste anything into your command terminal or your browser URL bar if you aren’t certain of what it will do.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/yrmZ0ID

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

December 10, 2025 at 01:08PM

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The Entire ‘Planet of the Apes’ Franchise Explained in 10 Infographics

https://lifehacker.com/entertainment/planet-of-the-apes-franchise-explained-in-infographics

For more than half a century, audiences have been captivated by the Planet of the Apes—a sprawling sci-fi epic that spans at least three timelines, 3,000 years of history, and a franchise that includes 10 feature films, two TV series, three video games, and dozens of comics and novels. Whether you’re a long-time fan trying to make sense of the lore or a newcomer wondering how a talking chimpanzee led to a post-apocalyptic planet dominated by primates, I’ve laid out the Planet of the Apes series by release order, chronological continuity, critical and commercial reception, the technological milestones of ape civilizations, and more.

This is your illustrated guide to the rise (and fall… and rise again, and fall, etc.) of the Planet of the Apes.

What is the Planet of the Apes?

Planet of the Apes is one of the strangest, most ambitious, and longest-running film franchises in cinema history. Films in the series vary wildly in quality, ambition, competence, and style, but all Apes movies, from the 1968 original to 2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, share a narrative focus: a world-shaking conflict between humans and intelligent apes.

Every Planet of the Apes movie, in chronological order

The original saga (1968–1973)

Planet of the Apes (1968): Based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 sci-fi novel La Planète des Singes, 1968’s Planet of the Apes tells the story of astronaut George Taylor, who crash lands on what he thinks is a distant planet where apes are intelligent and in charge, and the people are dumb slaves.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970): While star Charlton Heston appears in the film briefly, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is really the story of Brent, an astronaut who’s been sent to rescue Taylor.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971): You’d think the annihilation of the entire planet would end the Planet of the Apes series, but no: In Escape, Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo manage to flee the planet on Taylor’s ship before the doomsday bomb explodes; the trio time-travel to 1973.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972): The last two old-school Planet of the Apes movies had lower budgets than their predecessors, and it definitely shows. Lore-wise, Conquest presents a divergent narrative path to explain the development of ape intelligence and other events.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973): In the years since the Ape rebellion in Conquest, a nuclear war has killed most humans; humans and ape relations are good enough, but the fragile detente is broken by human-hating gorilla Aldo.  

The Burton reboot (2001)

Planet of the Apes (2001): After a nearly 30-year hiatus, 2001’s Apes is a thematically and tonally uneven summer blockbuster featuring a by-the-numbers plot, mid-tier action, and an ending that confuses everyone. (The makeup and production design are top-notch, though.) 

The modern quadrilogy (2011–2024)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): This movie blows the dust off the hoary old apes and breathes fresh creative life into a moribund franchise; Rise is a film packed with both action and dignity.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014): Dawn takes place about a decade after the events of the last movie, and apes are definitely on the come-up: It features the most nuanced (and most depressing) take on the conflict between species.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017): If the message of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is “war is inevitable…,” the message of War for the Planet of the Apes is “..and war is hell.” It’s a grim movie. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024): Kingdom explores an ape-dominated world where the few humans left are brainless scavengers (or so it seems). It doesn’t break new ground the way Rise did, but Kingdom opens the way for more Planet of the Apes sequels in the future.

Geographic location of each Planet of the Apes movie

Over more than five decades of films, Planet of the Apes has taken audiences from the shattered ruins of New York City to the tranquil redwood forests of Northern California, and even to entirely different worlds (maybe). This map tracks the primary settings of each movie, showing how the saga’s conflicts play out across Earth.

Who traveled where in time?

From astronauts overshooting the present by millennia, to apes hurtling back to the 20th century’s hippy era, time travel is integral to the Planet of the Apes, so lets take a look at the franchise’s major temporal tourists, charting when they left, when they arrived, and just how far they jumped.

The complicated chronology of the Planet of the Apes

If you’re considering a watch order for the Planet of the Apes, "in order by chronology" is the worst option—the Apes timeline is simply all over the place. While there are a few moments in the modern quadrilogy (2011–2024) that suggest the films are prequels to the original pentalogy (1968–1973), these are ultimately fan-service Easter eggs; the two series just don’t connect unless you get very creative with time-travel loops and offscreen assumptions. Hell, the first five films don’t connect with themselves unless you get creative with time-travel. So, I got creative with time travel to break down the major historical milestones in the Planet of the Apes Universe, across three timelines. (Four, if you count the self-contained 2001 Planet.)

Here are the Planet of the Apes movies listed in order of the year that each one takes place:

Critical reception of Planet of the Apes movies

Critics have a love-hate relationship with Planet of the Apes movies. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the “best” Apes movie is War for the Planet of the Apes, which was praised by 94% of critics. The “worst” is Battle for the Planet of the Apes, with only 33% positivity. That’s a big spread!

How much money did each Planet of the Apes movie make? 

Critical acceptance is great; but in cynical Hollywood terms, the only measure of a good movie is how much money it makes. By that metric, the “best” Apes movie is the 2001 reboot, Planet of the Apes. Despite mixed review, the movie made $328,049,530.32 in domestic ticket sales (adjusted for inflation), which is even more than the original and the 2014 blockbuster Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

A who’s-who of ape leadership

Any society is defined by its leaders, including ape society, so here is a breakdown of the doctors, generals, and tribal chiefs who have ruled the apes over the last 50 years.  

Dr. Zaius (Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes): An orangutan Minister of Science and Defender of the Faith who balances political control with the fear of humanity’s return. 

General Ursus (Beneath the Planet of the Apes): This violent gorilla warlord never encountered a problem he couldn’t meet with violence. 

Dr. Zira (Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1970): A compassionate and sharp-witted chimpanzee thrust into the role of cultural ambassador between societies on the verge of war, Dr. Zira is the defacto leader of a small band of ape time-travelers.

Caesar (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes): The original Caesar is a fiery revolutionary who transforms ape resentment into a successful uprising against humanity.

General Thade (Planet of the Apes, 2001): A sadistic and cunning chimpanzee general obsessed with wiping out humanity.

Caesar (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes): A hyper-intelligent chimp raised by humans, Caesar’s combination of tactical brilliance, political savvy, raw charisma, and genuine compassion for both apes and humans make him the best overall ape leader.

Koba (2014, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes): A bitter, scarred veteran of human torture and hero of the ape revolution, Koba has been through some shit.  

Proximus Caesar (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes): An iron-fisted militarist who twists the past to justify authoritarian rule, Proximus Caesar rules through fear and historical revisionism.

Ape technological and intellectual milestones by movie

Across the Planet of the Apes films, the ever-shifting balance of power between apes and humans often comes down to brains as much as brawn. Each installment shows apes using technologies, social systems, and tactics that they’ve either developed or borrowed from humans. From crude tools and simple rules to heavy artillery and complex political structures, these milestones mark the evolving capabilities of ape society over the decades (and timelines) of the franchise. Here’s a breakdown of the technological highlights of ape society in each movie.

Ape-adjacent TV shows, video games, comic books and movies

If ten feature films isn’t enough Apes for you, there’s plenty more material out there. The Ape-verse began with a novel, and has grown to include a live-action TV series, a cartoon series, three video games, and dozens of novelizations and comic books.

via Lifehacker https://ift.tt/KJzNlUe

December 8, 2025 at 12:26PM

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Infrasound Tech Silences Wildfires before They Spread

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/infrasound-tech-silences-wildfires-before-they-spread/

December 8, 2025

2 min read

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How Sound Waves Can Fight Fires without Water

A new sound-based system could squelch small fires before they grow into home-destroying blazes

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier

Candle flame being blown out by sound waves

A wildfire burns in the hills of a Los Angeles suburb, leaping from one patch of dry brush to another as it approaches a cluster of homes. The landscaping at the first house burns, but the house itself stubbornly refuses to catch fire: any small flames that start along its walls or roof quickly die out. There’s no water in sight—the flames are being quenched by sound waves. This kind of acoustic fire suppression may soon play a vital role in fighting wildfires.

The key ingredients for a fire are heat, fuel and oxygen; take one of these away, and the flames are extinguished. Sound waves can stifle a fire by pushing oxygen molecules away from the fuel, preventing the fire from getting the air it needs to continue its combustion reaction.

Geoff Bruder, an aerospace engineer who researched thermal energy conversion at NASA, co-founded Sonic Fire Tech to build a sound-generating machine for this purpose. “It’s basically vibrating the oxygen faster than the fuel can use it, so you block the chemical reaction,” Bruder says. The company has demonstrated fire suppression from up to 25 feet away.

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Using sound waves to fight fire isn’t a brand-new concept. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency studied the method from 2008 to 2011, and academic researchers explored the technique over the next decade (including a George Mason University team that built an extinguisher similar to a subwoofer in 2015).

“Acoustic influence on flames is well known in combustion,” says Albert Simeoni, head of the department of fire protection engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. “The challenge is to scale up the technology without creating disrupting or even damaging sound effects.”

Sonic solves this challenge by using infrasound. Whereas previous efforts used sound waves in the range of 30 to 60 hertz, which can be produced with simpler equipment, Sonic stays at or below 20 hertz. These waves are inaudible to people, and they travel farther than higher-frequency waves.

Homes often catch fire from embers accumulating in adjacent foliage or entering attic vents, Bruder says. Sonic’s system uses a piston pulsed by an electric motor to create sound waves, which travel through metallic ducts installed on a building’s roof and under its eaves. The system autoactivates when sensors detect a flame, creating a kind of force field of infrasound to extinguish it and prevent new ignition.

Acoustic waves can have a strong effect on fire, but they work only on small flames, says Arnaud Trouvé, chair of the University of Maryland’s department of fire protection engineering. Nevertheless, homeowners and utilities are game to give it a try: Sonic is working with two California utilities to demonstrate its technology. Homeowners have also signed contracts with the company, which is aiming to have 50 pilot installations early in 2026.

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December 8, 2025 at 06:39AM

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AI is making spacecraft propulsion more efficient – and could even lead to nuclear-powered rockets

https://www.space.com/technology/ai-is-making-spacecraft-propulsion-more-efficient-and-could-even-lead-to-nuclear-powered-rockets

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets into space – and that number is set to grow dramatically with ambitious missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. But these dreams hinge on one critical challenge: propulsion – the methods used to push rockets and spacecraft forward.

Machine learning and reinforcement learning

Machine learning is a branch of AI that identifies patterns in data that it has not explicitly been trained on. It is a vast field with its own branches, with a lot of applications. Each branch emulates intelligence in different ways: by recognizing patterns, parsing and generating language, or learning from experience. This last subset in particular, commonly known as reinforcement learning, teaches machines to perform their tasks by rating their performance, enabling them to continuously improve through experience.

As a simple example, imagine a chess player. The player does not calculate every move but rather recognizes patterns from playing a thousand matches. Reinforcement learning creates similar intuitive expertise in machines and systems, but at a computational speed and scale impossible for humans. It learns through experiences and iterations by observing its environment. These observations allows the machine to correctly interpret each outcome and deploy the best strategies for the system to reach its goal.

Reinforcement learning can improve human understanding of deeply complex systems – those that challenge the limits of human intuition. It can help determine the most efficient trajectory for a spacecraft heading anywhere in space, and it does so by optimizing the propulsion necessary to send the craft there. It can also potentially design better propulsion systems, from selecting the best materials to coming up with configurations that transfer heat between parts in the engine more efficiently.

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Reinforcement learning for propulsion systems

In regard to space propulsion, reinforcement learning generally falls into two categories: those that assist during the design phase – when engineers define mission needs and system capabilities – and those that support real-time operation once the spacecraft is in flight.

Among the most exotic and promising propulsion concepts is nuclear propulsion, which harnesses the same forces that power atomic bombs and fuel the sun: nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.

Fission works by splitting heavy atoms such as uranium or plutonium to release energy – a principle used in most terrestrial nuclear reactors. Fusion, on the other hand, merges lighter atoms such as hydrogen to produce even more energy, though it requires far more extreme conditions to initiate.

Fission splits atoms, while fusion combines atoms.  (Image credit: Sarah Harman/U.S. Department of Energy)

Fission is a more mature technology that has been tested in some space propulsion prototypes. It has even been used in space in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, like those that powered the Voyager probes. But fusion remains a tantalizing frontier.

Nuclear thermal propulsion could one day take spacecraft to Mars and beyond at a lower cost than that of simply burning fuel. It would get a craft there faster than electric propulsion, which uses a heated gas made of charged particles called plasma.

Unlike these systems, nuclear propulsion relies on heat generated from atomic reactions. That heat is transferred to a propellant, typically hydrogen, which expands and exits through a nozzle to produce thrust and shoot the craft forward.

So how can reinforcement learning help engineers develop and operate these powerful technologies? Let’s begin with design.

Reinforcement learning’s role in design

Early nuclear thermal propulsion designs from the 1960s, such as those in NASA’s NERVA program, used solid uranium fuel molded into prism-shaped blocks. Since then, engineers have explored alternative configurations – from beds of ceramic pebbles to grooved rings with intricate channels.

Why has there been so much experimentation? Because the more efficiently a reactor can transfer heat from the fuel to the hydrogen, the more thrust it generates.

This area is where reinforcement learning has proved to be essential. Optimizing the geometry and heat flow between fuel and propellant is a complex problem, involving countless variables – from the material properties to the amount of hydrogen that flows across the reactor at any given moment. Reinforcement learning can analyze these design variations and identify configurations that maximize heat transfer. Imagine it as a smart thermostat but for a rocket engine – one you definitely don’t want to stand too close to, given the extreme temperatures involved.

Reinforcement learning and fusion technology

Reinforcement learning also plays a key role in developing nuclear fusion technology. Large-scale experiments such as the JT-60SA tokamak in Japan are pushing the boundaries of fusion energy, but their massive size makes them impractical for spaceflight. That’s why researchers are exploring compact designs such as polywells. These exotic devices look like hollow cubes, about a few inches across, and they confine plasma in magnetic fields to create the conditions necessary for fusion.

Controlling magnetic fields within a polywell is no small feat. The magnetic fields must be strong enough to keep hydrogen atoms bouncing around until they fuse – a process that demands immense energy to start but can become self-sustaining once underway. Overcoming this challenge is necessary for scaling this technology for nuclear thermal propulsion.

Reinforcement learning and energy generation

However, reinforcement learning’s role doesn’t end with design. It can help manage fuel consumption – a critical task for missions that must adapt on the fly. In today’s space industry, there’s growing interest in spacecraft that can serve different roles depending on the mission’s needs and how they adapt to priority changes through time.

Military applications, for instance, must respond rapidly to shifting geopolitical scenarios. An example of a technology adapted to fast changes is Lockheed Martin’s LM400 satellite, which has varied capabilities such as missile warning or remote sensing.

But this flexibility introduces uncertainty. How much fuel will a mission require? And when will it need it? Reinforcement learning can help with these calculations.

From bicycles to rockets, learning through experience – whether human or machine – is shaping the future of space exploration. As scientists push the boundaries of propulsion and intelligence, AI is playing a growing role in space travel. It may help scientists explore within and beyond our solar system and open the gates for new discoveries.

via Latest from Space.com https://www.space.com

December 7, 2025 at 10:03AM

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NASA spots huge sunspot complex facing Earth. What that means for us

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2998951/nasa-spots-huge-sunspot-complex-facing-earth-what-that-means-for-us.html

One of the largest sunspot formations of the past several years is currently visible on the sun. The group, catalogued as AR 4294-4298, is so large that several of the dark regions exceed the Earth’s diameter. According to Newsweek, these are the largest sunspots in a decade.

With binoculars or a telescope and an appropriate solar filter, the spots on the western side of the sun can be clearly identified. NASA’s solar probe Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recently documented a solar flare in this region.

Possible effects on Earth

The sunspots are currently pointing towards Earth. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that coronal mass ejections (CME) from the active regions have not yet hit Earth. Nevertheless, experts predict that they could turn to more favorable positions over the next week, such that activities like solar flares could also be felt on Earth.

For those of us on Earth, this could mean a special visual spectacle: auroras are possible when the plasma hurled into space by the sun hits the Earth’s magnetic field. The sunspot AR 4274 already caused spectacular northern lights some time ago. After rotating around the sun’s axis, the sunspot is now back under the new designation AR 4294-4298 and it’s significantly larger than before.

Historical comparison and risks

SpaceWeather.com draws a comparison with the sunspot region of 1859, which triggered the so-called “Carrington Event,” which was the strongest documented solar storm to date. The current formation is around 90 percent the size of that historical one.

Although the exact impact on Earth and technology is still unclear, strong solar storms can jeopardize satellites, including systems like Starlink as well as GPS-based navigation systems. According to some studies, underwater internet repeaters could be particularly vulnerable, leading to regional or even global outages. Land-based fiber optic connections are less affected, so the US is somewhat less at risk.

Experts are monitoring the sunspot activity closely so that they can react in good time in the event of an emergency.

via PCWorld https://www.pcworld.com

December 3, 2025 at 10:46AM