How to Watch the Lyrid Meteor Shower at Its Dazzling Peak The annual spectacle, which is happening now, will last until around April 25—but the best viewing will fall between the 21 and 22 The Lyrid meteor shower coincided with a nearly full moon at its peak in 2024, seen here at Joshua Tree National Park. This year, conditions will be more favorable. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The annual Lyrid meteor shower will soon peak, lighting up the night sky with dazzling shooting stars. Lyrid meteors began appearing this week, and the shower will last until around April 25—but the best time to view it will be from the night of April 21 into the early hours of April 22. That peak period will offer the chance to see around 10 to 20 meteors per hour passing through the sky. Historical records show that sometimes, people have been lucky enough to catch 100 meteors per hour, according to NASA. Here’s what to know about this year’s show and how to get the best view. What causes the Lyrid meteor shower? This celestial spectacle happens around mid- to late April every year. It’s one of the oldest recorded meteor showers in history—Chinese astronomers first spotted the Lyrids in 687 B.C.E. Meteor showers are seen when the Earth passes through the debris field left by a comet or asteroid on its trip around the sun. In this case, the debris source is the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which takes 415.5 years to complete an orbit. As the comet’s leftover fragments of rock and dust crash into our atmosphere at high speeds, they burn up, explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, to Alana Wise at NPR. The resulting streaks of light are what we see as meteors from the ground. A view of the Lyrid meteor shower from the International Space Station, captured in 2012 NASA / JSC / D. Pettit Tips for watching the Lyrid meteors The ideal time to head outside for the show, according to NASA, is from 10:30 p.m. local time on April 21 until dawn the following morning. And for the dedicated sky watchers who are awake to see it, the shower’s best view should come around 5 a.m. You won’t need any special equipment to catch this celestial event. Just grab a blanket or a chair after dark, sit down and look up. But for the best visibility, try to travel somewhere with less light pollution, away from cities if you can. Last year, the nearly full moon washed out some of the meteors. “This year, the light from the crescent moon will not interfere too much with the viewing,” says Cooke in a statement. “But it is best to look away from the moon, preferably placing it behind you,” after it rises. It’s also best to look at the whole sky, rather than focusing on the shower’s radiant—the point where the meteors appear to come from. For the Lyrids, that’s the Lyra constellation, identifiable by its brightest star, Vega. Keeping a wide view will make the shooting stars “appear longer and more spectacular,” according to NASA. “If you do look directly at the radiant, you will find that the meteors will be short.” Then, give your eyes about 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness—and keep the glow of your phone screen away to preserve your night vision. The meteors can come in little bursts, says Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, to Nicola Davis at the Guardian. “And if you blink at the wrong time, you might miss that one,” he adds. “So, it’s quite a personal experience, because you’ve no time to alert anybody to it.” “You just have to bliss out a little bit, or be a bit Zen and just look at the sky,” Bloomer adds. If you miss the Lyrids, don’t worry—they’re only the first in a series of meteor showers that promise to dazzle sky watchers in the coming months. The next up is the Eta Aquarids, which will peak in early May, offering the chance to catch another light show. And of course, the Lyrids will always come back around next year. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Nintendo has set a new date for Switch 2 pre-orders in the U.S., and while the console won't be more expensive, some accessories will be.Read More

A federal judge in Nevada has ruled that it’s unconstitutional to obtain swaths of cellular records through “tower dumps” — but will still let police get away with using it as evidence, as reported earlier by 404 Media and Court Watch. With tower dumps, authorities can dig through the cell records that pinged off a particular tower during a specific time. Though police may be looking for just one record, these dumps often expose the data of thousands of people, making it a major privacy concern. In a 2010 case involving the High Country Bandits, for example, officers caught the two bank robbers by looking through a tower dump containing more than 150,000 phone numbers. In the ruling, Judge Miranda Du said that searching through these records violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. However, Du denies a motion to suppress using these records as evidence because the court seems to be the first “within the Ninth Circuit to reach this conclusion and the good faith exception applies.” As noted in the filing, the tower dump exposed the data of 1,686 users, but the records helped authorities build their case against Nevada man Cory Spurlock, who faces charges related to a murder-for-hire conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. In February, a federal judge in Mississippi similarly deemed tower dumps unconstitutional, preventing FBI officials from pulling information from cell towers spanning nine locations and four carriers, as reported by Court Watch. The Department of Justice has since appealed the decision.

🧠 Building an AI Study Buddy: A Practical Guide to Developing a Simple Learning Companion 0 like April 18, 2025 Share this post Author(s): Hemanth Sanisetty Originally published on Towards AI. AI Generated Image In the era of digital transformation, education is undergoing a significant evolution. Traditional study methods are being augmented and in some cases, replaced by intelligent tools that cater to individual learning styles and needs. This project serves as a practical demonstration of how AI can be harnessed to process educational content efficiently. This AI Study Buddy is designed to: Summarize educational materials from PDFs and YouTube videos.Generate quizzes and flashcards to reinforce learning.Provide a modular architecture that can be expanded upon. In this guide, we’ll build it from scratch using Groq API for ultra-fast inference using models like LLaMA 3 and Mistral, LangChain, FAISS, and Sentence Transformers for RAG, Streamlit for a production-ready front end. This module focuses on extracting text from PDF documents, enabling the tool to process and summarize textual content effectively. In this module, we use PyMuPDF to iterate through each page of the PDF to extract text. import fitz # PyMuPDFdef extract_text_from_pdf(uploaded_file): """ Extracts and returns the full text from a PDF file using PyMuPDF. """ text = "" with fitz.open(stream=uploaded_file.read(), filetype="pdf") as doc: for page in doc: text += page.get_text() return text The YouTube Transcript Retrieval Module is designed to extract textual transcripts from YouTube videos, enabling subsequent… Read the full blog for free on Medium. Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming a sponsor. Published via Towards AI Towards AI - Medium Share this post

Need a handy USB charging solution for your car but don't want to deal with a rat's nest of pesky cables in your glovebox? For a limited time, Amazon is offering this Lisen 69W Retractable Car Charger for only $14.94 after you apply coupon code "12ZYRGF8" during checkout. This little car charger plugs into a standard 12V vehicle socket and can charge any iPhone (including both new and legacy models). It comes with retractable cables so you don't have to supply your own cable.Lisen 69W Retractable Car Charger for $14.94Lisen 69W Retractable Car Charger with Retractable USB Type-C and Lightning CablesThe Lisen 69W car charger is relatively compact, measuring in at 5.9" x 2.64" x 1.38". It plugs into a standard 12V vehicle socket and can be rotated for optimal positioning. That's especially handy if your 12V socket is right next to your gear selector. There are a total of four ports. Two of the ports - a USB Type-C port and a Lightning port - are retractable cables that pull out to about 2.5 feet. They're useful for pretty much any Apple iPhone model, since you have a USB Type-C cable for the newer iPhone 15 and 16 and the legacy Lightning cable for the iPhone 14 and older.Note that although the charger is marketed as 69W of charging, that is the total charging output across all four ports. The charging output of each individual port is as follows:USB Type-C retractable cable: 30W (PD)Lightning retractable cable: 12WUSB Type-C port: 15WUSB Type-A port: 12WIf you have an Apple iPhone with USB, then the USB Type-C port with PD will charge it at its fastest rate. ChargerLAB has shown that the maximum charging rate caps at about 30W, even for the Pro Max model.Lisen 96W Retractable Car Charger for $14.99Updated 2025 ModelLisen 96W Retractable Car Charger with Retractable USB Type-C and Lightning CablesAlternatively, the newer Lisen 96W Retractable Car Charger is also on sale for $14.95 after you apply coupon code "40275KAM" during checkout. Technically this is a better deal since it is a newer 2025 model with a higher 96W power rating (and more powerful individual outputs as well), a digital display, and a smaller footprint. So why did we put this deal second? For one reason or another, this item has fewer reviews and is marked "Frequently Returned".Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

“We love getting to play with the incredible DC library of characters and stories,” declares DC Studios co-head Peter Safran. “And we really want to do justice for them.” Safran’s comments come as part of a new Superman clip focused on James Gunn‘s process of discovering the story and the actors’ passion for the characters in the director’s reinterpretation of the Kal-El mythos. The producer’s observation also shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following his and Gunn’s work in the DC Universe. After all, The Suicide Squad pitted Z-Listers like Javelin and Bloodsport against Starro the Conqueror. Meanwhile Peacemaker referenced Matter-Eater Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes. So yes, Superman has some surprising pulls, including Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner. But the weirdest inclusion just got his first big reveal in the below sizzle reel… In Superman, Metamorpho the Element Man, played by Barry breakout Anthony Carrigan, is a whole new breed of strange. And while we’ve seen a glimpse of Metamorpho’s face in previous Superman teasers, this new Superman Day footage gives fans their first full-look at Carrigan’s Metamorpho in action, which somehow manages to be even weirder in live action than on the page. Of course Metamorpho was made to be weird. Originally the idea of DC editor George Kashdan, who wanted to see a science based hero, Metamorpho was developed by writer Bob Haney and pioneering illustrator Ramona Fradon. Fradon wanted to go beyond the traditional superhero look for the character, eschewing the full-body tights for skin of four different colors and textures, one for each of the four elements. Kashdan, Haney, and Fradon introduced Metamorpho to the world in 1965’s The Brave and the Bold #57. More swingin’ ’60s adventure than standard superhero tale, the story followed adventurer Rex Mason to Egypt where he sought the Orb of Ra for his employer Simon Stagg. On their boss’ orders, Stagg’s henchman Java, an unfrozen caveman, traps Rex in a pyramid and leaves him there for dead. However, a meteorite trapped within the pyramid emits cosmic rays which transform Stagg’s body, giving him the ability to assume the form of any element. Thus Metamorpho was born. Metamorpho’s initial adventures played like wacky takes on James Bond stories, complete with secret lairs, globetrotting capers, and a best girl in the form of Sapphire Stagg, Simon’s daughter. Eventually, Metamorpho moved more into the mainline superhero world of the DC Universe, most notably in the Outsiders, a team of misfits that Batman put together upon leaving the Justice League. Placing him alongside characters like Katana and Black Lightning, Outsiders writer Mike W. Barr and artist Jim Aparo made Metamorpho more of a crusty, blue-collar guy in the vein of the Thing of the Fantastic Four. He still had his beautiful girlfriend and her duplicitous father, but Metamorpho seemed more like a regular guy who had a stroke of bad luck compared to his teammates. That characterization has continued on since the mid-1980s in the pages of Justice League Europe, in the edgier reboot of the Outsiders in the 2000s (where he acquired the facial swirls used for Carrigan’s version), and especially in The Terrifics, a DC comics take on the Fantastic Four. Recently, writer Al Ewing and artist Steve Lieber have brought the character back to his ’60s mod roots with a delightful new ongoing about Metamorpho’s strange adventures. The black and white pants that Carrigan’s Metamorpho sports in Superman certainly recall his costume in The Terrifics, as do those worn by other side heroes in the movie, including Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, and, of course, Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific. Moreover, a scene featured heavily in the promotional material shows Gardner and Hawkgirl coming to confront Superman in a building with Stagg Enterprises signage. It seems likely, then, that Mr. Terrific, Gardner, and Hawkgirl all serve with Metamorpho on a variation of the Terrifics, one run by Mr. Terrific, but supported in some way by Simon Stagg. Then again, DC hasn’t announced an actor to play Stagg yet, and they have announced that Sean Gunn will appear as Maxwell Lord, a character who often finances the Justice League. Will Superman‘s Metamorpho be connected somehow to the major threats that Superman must face? Will he be a shagadelic adventurer? Will he be a blue-collar everyman? We can’t tell yet, but we can be sure of one thing. However Metamorpho appears in Superman, he will be weird. Superman flies into theaters on July 11, 2025. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

This fall Apple will launch four new iPhones, including the ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air. But with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the company is leaning hard in the opposite direction, and thus fulfilling the wish of many users over the years for the most battery life possible. iPhone 17 Pro Max battery getting bigger than ever In a year where a thinner, lighter flagship iPhone is being introduced, Apple isn’t forgetting the age-old request for a model that does the opposite. Do you want the most possible battery life in your next iPhone? Apple’s about to grant that wish with the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Current Pro Max models already boast impressive battery life. That was true before the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which got larger than before and packed extra battery life too. The changes Apple made to the Pro line last year even made my smaller iPhone 16 Pro’s battery feel just right. But the 16 Pro Max offers, per Apple’s website, up to 33 hours of video playback with its massive battery. This is up from the 29 hours quoted for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. And this year, it’s getting even better. Rumors have indicated the iPhone 17 Pro Max is getting thicker to make space for a larger battery. Is current battery life not good enough? I’d argue it’s plenty, but I’m not the Pro Max’s target customer. Perhaps inspired by the Apple Watch Ultra’s popularity, it seems Apple will give many users exactly what they want: the biggest battery possible. This is partly why I believe we could see this year’s Pro Max rebranded as iPhone 17 Ultra. Whether that happens or not, though, Apple plans to offer flagship models for two very different customer preferences. Want thin and light? iPhone 17 Air is the answer. Prefer a beast of a phone with over-the-top battery life? This year’s iPhone 17 Pro Max will make that happen more than ever before. Do you want more battery life on your iPhone? Or would you prefer a thinner model? Let us know in the comments. Best iPhone accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Tech CEOs rallied behind Donald Trump in hopes that he would lower regulations and increase profits — and although he's already done the former, the latter now seems like a pipe dream.As Vox reports, any gains tech companies have gleaned from Trump's deregulation are minuscule in comparison to the economic havoc the president has wreaked with his foolhardy tariffs.As the election ramped up last July, tech venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz insisted in a Substack blog post that the only way for the United States to maintain "economic and technological preeminence" over China and its "much darker, more totalitarian" policies would be, essentially, to beat our erstwhile trading partner.Shortly thereafter, the monied pair revealed on their podcast that they were all-in for Trump despite being lifelong Democrats because he was, to their minds, America's last best hope at defeating China and becoming the tech utopia they've always wanted.Though such warmongering sentiments are clearly behind the president's enormous tariffs on Chinese goods, it also undermines the Silicon Valley CEOs who lined up to kiss his ring because, to put it bluntly, almost all the components for American tech are made in China.Beyond cutting tech manufacturers off from their Chinese suppliers, the tariffs have also sent shockwaves through the global economy and brought the United States to the brink of a recession. The trickle-down effect from the tariffs has been more like a waterfall, with tech companies going bankrupt, canceling IPOs, and losing billions in share value.Though Silicon Valley's biggest Trump supporters haven't started publicly trashing dear leader just yet, one need look no further than the never-ending drama between the president and his unelected aide Elon Musk to see just how badly this administration's trade war is messing with Big Tech.Earlier in April, the billionaire began a fiery spat with Peter Navarro, the president's trade and manufacturing adviser, calling the Trump surrogate "dumber than a sack of bricks" as they traded barbs over whether or not the tariffs are a good idea. While that drama played out on Musk's social network, the multi-hyphenate business owner allegedly implored Trump in private to reconsider the tariffs — a scheme that clearly did not work.With the stock market rebound following the president's announcement of yet another 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs — for everyone except China, of course — it's not a huge surprise that the tech CEOs who threw their weight and money behind Trump are not talking smack where other people can hear.Behind closed doors, however, there's unquestionably a lot of hand-wringing and regret going on as these short-sighted Silicon Valley-ers look at economic forecasts for the coming years.More on tech: Google Is Helping Government Build an AI-Powered Border Surveillance SystemShare This Article

Miller Lite and Pringles may just be the mash-up you didn’t know you needed.Not something you’ve been clamoring for? What if I told you there was meat involved with this crispy snack?What Do Miller Lite Pringles Taste Like?Miller Lite and Pringles announced this week that they had developed a “first-of-its-kind innovation.” The Pringles x Miller Lite collab brings the debut of two limited-edition chip flavors.Pringles x Miller Lite Beer Can Chicken is touted as tasting like roasted chicken with hints of garlic, onion and beer.Beer can chicken pringlesPringles/Canvaloading...Pringles x Miller Lite Griller Beer Brat combines black pepper, caramelized onion, and brown spice to make it seem like you’re eating a grilled bratwurst while being both smoky and salty.There’s also a hint of beer, of course. Both flavors include “beer extract” to help bring out the Miller Lite taste.READ MORE: What’s On Miller High Life's New Beer-Filled Vinyl Record?“No need for a grill,” Pringles said in a press release announcing the new flavors.Let’s take it easy, Pringles. Relying on a canister of chips to feed our cookout guests might not be the best way to make friends.Beer Brat PringlesPringles/Canvaloading...How To Get Beer PringlesYou’ll have to wait until May to try the new beer-infused chips. Pringles does promise they will be available nationwide starting next month.The brand also has a tracker on its website to help you locate the nearest stores selling the beer brat and beer can chicken Pringles.The collab with Miller Lite is the latest in Pringles’ efforts to offer unexpected chip flavors, much like other leading brands. Other recent Pringles flavors have included Everything Bagel, Philly Cheesesteak, and Carnitas Tacos.Get our free mobile app’90s Foods We Wish They Still MadeThese foods, drinks, and snacks from the ’90s were all so great. Sadly, they’ve all been discontinued.Filed Under: FoodCategories: Original Features

Part-time (10–20 hrs/week) • Content + Technical Focus • Remote • U.S. Time Zones Preferred • $50–$70/hr DOEHelp tell better stories on the web—with a team that moves slow to go deep.TELL ME MORE® is a boutique marketing agency that builds soulful, high-converting websites for purpose-driven brands (including higher education institutions). We’re looking for an experienced SEO Specialist to join our team—someone who can lead thoughtful research, support content strategy, optimize site performance, and collaborate across disciplines to help our clients grow.You’ll work closely with our Operations Director, alongside a collaborative team of writers, designers, and developers who value presence, beauty, and depth. This is a part-time, hands-on role for someone who’s equal parts analyst, content thinker, and curious problem-solver.💼 What You’ll DoConduct keyword research, topic clustering, and content gap analysisTrack keyword positions and visibility to inform ongoing content and optimization decisionsProvide on-page SEO recommendations: title tags, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, schema markup, etc.Monitor and optimize evergreen pages to improve rankings, traffic, and performance over timeAudit and improve technical SEO foundations (crawlability, indexing, redirects, site speed, etc.)Coordinate with our content team and operations lead to support SEO-informed briefs and strategyManage tasks and priorities using AsanaMonitor and report on SEO performance via GA4, Search Console, and Looker StudioBring strategic ideas, emerging trends, and algorithm updates proactively to the teamOptimize local SEO elements such as Google Business Profiles and citations✅ You’ll Thrive Here If You…Have 3+ years of hands-on SEO experience, ideally at a creative or web-focused agency Communicate at a native level in English—both written and spoken—with strong grammar, clarity, and toneAre fluent in technical SEO, schema markup, and structured site auditsHave a strong grasp of keyword tracking tools and how to monitor rankings, trends, and site visibility over timeThink like a content strategist—able to tie search intent to smart, useful, engaging contentAre experienced in optimizing and iterating on evergreen pages for high-traffic websitesAre highly organized and comfortable working in Asana and across multiple projectsCommunicate clearly and proactively—especially when working cross-functionallyEnjoy deep research, staying curious, and connecting dots others might missCan work 10–20 hours/week depending on workloadLive and work in a U.S. time zone (or can align your hours accordingly)💵 Pay$50–$70/hour depending on experience and skillset.🌱 Why This Role?We value deep work, flexible schedules, and meaningful relationships. You’ll be supported by a thoughtful team that’s more interested in quality than quantity—and who appreciates collaborators who care.This is a long-term freelance role with room to grow—especially if you’re excited by cross-functional collaboration, performance strategy, and building systems that scale beautifully.✨ About TELL ME MORE®We’re not a churn-and-burn agency. We’re poets in marketers’ clothing. We believe presence and clarity are business superpowers. We aim for delight. We value depth. If that sounds like your vibe, we’d love to meet you.Our values:🧘‍♂️ Be here now🎈 Keep it playful🌊 Surrender to what is🎚 Go to 11🎨 Make it beautiful📬 How to ApplySend an email to [email protected] with the subject line referencing one of our values and the words "SEO Specialist":A short note about why this feels like a fitYour weekly availability (days/hours you’re typically online)A resume or LinkedIn profileLinks and/or short descriptions of your SEO work, audits, briefs, and results.