Aurora Borealis

You don't have to be in chilly Fairbanks, Alaska or Yellowknife, Canada, to see the Aurora Borealis tonight.

Seattle, New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington might see a display of the northern lights after sunset. At least that's what some forecasting models are saying.

Thanks to a big solar flare that left the Sun Thursday,Accuweather.com is generating some buzz online by predicting a "dazzling" light show tonight:

"The flare is also expected to cause vibrant northern lights from the Arctic as far south as New York, the Dakotas, Washington and Michigan, with a smaller possibility of it going into Pennsylvania and Iowa, even Kansas. The lights are currently estimated for 8 p.m. EDT Saturday arrival, with a possible deviation of up to seven hours. If the radiation hits much after dark settles on the East Coast the lights may be missed and will instead only be visible for the West."

They've also provided a pretty cool map (see above) that may or may not prove accurate.

Solar flares are waves of charged plasma that come streaming toward our planet at about four million miles per hour. When they hit the Earth's upper atmosphere they release visible light and are channeled toward the Earth's poles by the planet's magnetic field. The norther aurora borealis is called the northern lights. The displays over the southern pole are called the southern lights or aurora australis. 

This particular blast of plasma may also put on a light show over parts of Europe and Russia too. Accuweather says the British Isles, and as far south as the northern parts of Germany, Poland,Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia may see the northern lights.

Accuweather's Hunter Outten has been updating this latest aurora borealis watch on the company's Facebook page. At 3:35 p.m., he wrote:

"Still have not seen any key signs yet of the CME close to hitting the planet. Looks like the time is shaping up right on schedule for anywhere from 5-9PM EDT."

CME refers to the Coronal Mass Ejection, the burst of plasma released from the Sun. Mr. Outten shares how he's tracking the arrival of the plasma burst via the compression of the magnet field with this NOAA chart..

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has its own forecasting model, including a chart, which is a lot harder to parse. You can check out the Ovation Auroral Forecasthere.

The opportunity to see the northern lights at many of these latitudes is a rare treat, but the usual caveats for celestial events still apply. A successful sighting will be dependent on a variety of local factors, such as cloud cover, full moon, and urban light pollution.

And if you happen to be in Fairbanks or Yellowknife tonight, the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute says the prospects are also good for viewing  the aurora borealis.

CSmonitor

Wrestlemania 29

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- As a squeaky-clean company man, John Cena helped steer WWE from the Attitude Era to PG success.

Sunday night he won back the WWE Championship from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and proved that clean can still equal cash.

The event at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. drew announced crowd of 80,676, trailing only WrestleMania III's announced attendance of 93,173.

The event, according to a WWE news release distributed Sunday night, was the highest grossing live event in WWE history and is the highest grossing entertainment event in MetLife Stadium history, totaling $12.3 million.

There have been whispers in the past that Cena could turn bad guy, a potential shot in the arm creatively, but a possible threat to WWE's greatest cash cow.

Cena addressed questions on how he would respond had he lost a second-straight WrestleMania to Rock during a news conference at MetLife Stadium just a couple of hours before WWE's marquee event. Rock beat Cena in Miami last year at WrestleMania XXIII

According to Cena, the next step might not have been a pretty one.

"When you have a business model and that model starts to fail, you can either let that ship sink or change the business model," Cena told reporters.

When asked if he would use tactics "less than noble," Cena hesitated before saying, "The winner writes the history books."

In the end he didn't have to go to the dark side. The pair traded hitting each other with their finishing move -- and Rock and Cenatrying to use the other's finisher -- before an Attitude Adjustment slam off a fireman's carry put the championship back around Cena's waist. The pair hugged after the match.

Cena said before the show WWE did an outstanding job transforming MetLife to where it didn't even resemble a football stadium. When asked about WrestleMania serving as a precursor to next year's Super Bowl, Cena answered, "If you can accomodate what we've done out there, the Super Bowl will be fine."

Cena said he hadn't been around Vince McMahon much Sunday, but he added he's sure the boss was proud to be promoting such a big card in the area his grandfather promoted in, and the region in which his father turned the old WWWF into a success.

Cena complimented "The People's Champ" liberally, saying Rock earned his respect by returning to the company. Cena had previously criticized Rock for abandoning the company to pursue movies,

"He's shut me up," Cena said of that complaint.

NEWSDAY.COM

Facebook phone software

Facebook unveiled a new application for Android-driven smartphones and tablets Thursday, a move that comes as a fast-growing number of its 1.06 billion users access the social networking site on their mobile devices.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage a little after 1 p.m. ET in Menlo Park, Calif., to unveil what the company is calling Facebook Home.

It's essentially an all-encompassing app for any Android device. Facebook Home becomes the homescreen for the phone, a filter through which all other devices and applications can be used.

Zuckerberg began the presentation by noting that currently, smartphone users spend 20 per cent of the time they're using their devices on Facebook. And the company wants to increase that by transforming itself into a central hub through which all other applications can be used.

Among the features are something the company is calling "chatheads" that boil down to having a user's facebook profile picture come up whenever a user's contact interacts with them, without the smartphone user ever having to leave whatever they were doing in the first place."We’re not building a phone," Zuckerberg said. "We’re not building an operating system. But we are building something that’s a whole lot deeper than an app."

Later in the presentation, Facebook announced that Taiwanese phone maker HTC will build a Facebook-branded phone, called First, which will be available to U.S. consumer starting April 12th and will come with all the latest Facebook-related apps and the Home technology pre-installed. That's the news that people were expecting, but as it turns out, the software being used on more Android devices was the larger news of the day.

Others, including HTC's One X and One X Plus and Samsung's Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 2 will follow. And the upcoming HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S IV will also be able to run Home.

The move is aimed at helping Facebook make gains in the mobile space. Although it's the most popular social network on the planet, with more than a billion users, Facebook is a laggard in the mobile space as it struggles to get advertising revenue from the growing base of users who go on Facebook through their phones.

Last year, the company began showing ads to its mobile audience by splicing corporate sponsorships and content into users' news feeds, which also includes updates from friends and brands they follow. Among the challenges Facebook faces now is showing people mobile ads without annoying or alienating them.

Ads will eventually be incorporated into Home, but not at first.

Gartner analyst Brian Blau says he's impressed with Facebook's commitment to update Home once a month with additional features. He says Home "could be a game changer if you are a heavy Facebook user."

The mobile advertisement market is growing quickly. That's thanks in large part to Facebook and Twitter, which also entered the space in 2012. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 per cent this year to $7.29 billion, from $4.11 billion last year.

"What Facebook wants is to put itself at the front of the Android user experience for as many Facebook users as possible and make Facebook more elemental to their customers' experience," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

EMarketer said Wednesday that it expects Facebook Inc. to reap $965 million in U.S. mobile ad revenue in 2013. That's about 2.5 times the $391 million in 2012, the first year that Facebook started showing mobile ads.

Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer, said it's "tough to speculate" how much effect Thursday's announcement would have on ad revenue.

At the same time, he says "there are some clear reasons why a deeper integration with mobile operating systems and handsets make sense for Facebook. At the end of the day, the more deeply Facebook can engage consumers, no matter what device or operating system or handset," the better.

Facebook's rival, Google Inc., makes the Android software that Facebook would operate under. Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, meaning others including rivals are free to adapt it to their needs. Amazon.com does just that in modifying Android to run its Kindle tablet computers.

Facebook is No. 2 behind Google Inc. when it comes to mobile advertisements, and it isn't expected to surpass the online search leader any time soon. Google dominates the mobile search market with 93 per cent of U.S. mobile search advertising dollars, according to eMarketer. Online music service Pandora Inc. is in third place when it comes to mobile ad dollars, followed by Twitter.

CBC

Key dates in U.S. military moves near North Korea

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(CNN) -- Amidst North Korea's ongoing verbal salvos, the United States has made a show of military strength in the annual drills taking place in the Korean Peninsula.

Here are the key dates:

March 8: US flies B-52 bombers over South Korea

The Cold War-era bombers flew out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as part of what the U.S. Pacific Command called a routine mission to highlight a "continuous bomber presence" in the region. A second fly-over was planned for March 26.

March 22: US and South Korea sign joint military agreement

The Combined Counter-Provocation Plan was signed in order to improve the countries' mutual readiness and response capabilities in the event of a North Korean provocation.

March 26: US flies B-52 bombers over South Korea again

The exercise -- the 2nd in a month -- was a routine mission meant to "reiterate the U.S. commitment to the security of our allies and partners," according to the Pentagon.

March 28: US flies nuclear-capable B-2 Spirit bombers over South Korea

The stealth bombers flew from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to drop inert munitions as part of annual joint US-South Korea military exercises. The US military said the mission demonstrated "the United States' ability to conduct long range, precision strikes quickly and at will."

March 31: US deploys F-22 Raptor jets to US Air Force Base in South Korea

The US Command in South Korea says the stealth fighter jets were deployed to support annual US-South Korea training exercises.

April 1: US Navy moves warship and sea-based radar platform closer to North Korean coast

The Defense Department said the USS John S. McCain destroyer and the oil rig-like SBX-1 will better monitor North Korea's military moves, and may be the first of other naval deployments.

April 3: US announces missile defense system to be send to Guam in coming weeks

The land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) will defend against North Korean ballistic missile launches, according the Defense Department.

Finding Dory

Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo was announced today by Disney and Pixar. Finding Dory will arrive in cinemas in the USA on November 25th, 2015, and will follow the adventures of Dory, the absent-minded Blue Tang from the original movie.

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