Welcome to The Gizmodo Shooting Challenge, where Giz readers get to pit their photographic skills against each other for the admiration of their editors on a dedicated theme each week. This week’s challenge: Xmas And New Years. More »
Hot on the heels of the top 10 posts from our US brethren comes the top 10 stories on Giz AU for 2008. And boy, they’re totally not what I expected… More »
If you’re heading out to watch the midnight fireworks tonight to say goodbye to the year that was 2008, be prepared for a slight delay. And when we say slight, we mean slight – one second, to be precise. Boffins at Greenwich will be adding a single second onto the year 2008 to adjust time for the minute slowing of the earth’s rotation. According to AP, the move has reignited the debate between GMT and atomic time as the worldwide standard for timekeeping – atomic clocks are precise to the nanosecond and don’t need sporadic adjustments of a second to maintain accuracy. However, they don’t take into account changes to the planet’s rotation, either and in hundreds of years midday would actually be closer to 1pm than today’s 12pm. In any case, if any of you have an X-men like ability to slow down time and you’re wondering why tonight’s fireworks don’t kick off until 12:00:01, now you know.
This incredible photo was taken two minutes after midnight in Oslo, Norway. While some cities might set off fireworks from one location to celebrate the ringing in of 2008, the people in Oslo went crazy, setting off fireworks pretty much everywhere. But hey, when you’re a city where spending over $10 on a beer is pretty normal, I guess you can probably afford to go a little crazy on New Year’s. Hit the jump for a bigger version. And a local’s explanation of the display.
Most of us know the Times Square Ball as the symbol of the new year, fresh starts and the last moment of celebration before you puke up cheap champagne. But it’s also an interesting gadget, so to speak, changing with the times alongside consumer trends. So for its 100th birthday, we’ve made a mega timeline (big size after jump) to show the ball through its various tech fashions. And it’s pretty neat. Yes, we just said neat.
