Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today including a giant star disappearing without a trace, Spotify turning romantic and the actual centre of our solar system. For today’s Start-up Stories we’ll be talking about Timekettle. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Spotify’s premium couple plan
Spotify makes sharing easier for couples. Image credit: Spotify
Spotify is launching a premium plan for couples
Are you and your partner both heavy metal fans? Or do you prefer a bit of indie? Whatever your preferences, Spotify is making sharing an account easier for couples. Premium Duo, which will cost $12.99 a month, will split the cost of a premium membership and merge you and your partner’s music tastes.
Duo will allow two users at the same address to share a single plan all while maintaining their own accounts. Next to this, Duo will create a special Duo Mix playlist that regularly updates with music that both people enjoy.
Spotify vs Apple Music - the eternal debate
Gone without a trace
Vanished. Image credit: Victor Tangermann
A Giant Star Appears to Have Winked Out of Existence
A giant star, 2.5 times brighter than our Sun, just disappeared without a trace. Located in the nearby Kinman galaxy, the star was subject to a decade’s worth of observations. But when astronomers decided to check on it, it had vanished.
While the disappearance is unusual, Trinity College Dublin astronomers reckon they might know what happened. According to them, one of the causes for the disappearance could be a drastic decrease in the star’s brightness combined with a cloud of dust obscuring it. However, a more mysterious second cause could be that the star died and turned into a black hole - without ever exploding in a supernova. Should the latter be the case, it would be the second-ever failed supernova astronomers have observed.
Supernovae explained
WhatsApp lets new features loose
WhatsApp’s new features. Image credit: WhatsApp
WhatsApp confirms a raft of fun new features, rolling out right now
Every WhatsApp user will soon get to use a host of new features, all rolling out in the coming weeks.
The most noteworthy new feature is animated stickers. WhatsApp is also making it easier to share your contact details with people with the introduction of QR codes. Rather than swapping phone numbers, you’ll be able to scan the QR code on a friend’s phone. Dark mode is seeing some changes as well and the feature will soon be available on desktop and web versions of WhatsApp.
Group video calls are being updated too. In April, WhatsApp increased the maximum capacity in a video call to eight people, which proved enormously helpful, especially during the earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this had limitations - when this many people were in a video call, you could only see a very small image of each participant. Soon, you’ll able to zoom in on any participant by tapping and holding on their picture, making it full-screen.
Which messaging service should you use?
Caught in the middle
The sun isn’t quite the centre of our solar system. Image credit: Dan Cook/Unsplash
Scientists Say They’ve Found the Exact Center of the Solar System
Our solar system is massive - not compared to the rest of the universe of course, but massive compared to distances we’re used to here on Earth. Now, scientists say they’ve managed to pinpoint the precise centre of gravity - the barycenter - in our solar system, down to about 100 metres. A margin of 100 metres on Earth sounds like a very inaccurate measurement - in the scale of our solar system, it can hardly get more precise.
Finding the barycenter is no small task, as doing so is only possible when the gravitational pull of every planet, moon and asteroid in the system is factored in. With all the gravitational pulling - especially from Jupiter - accounted for, the real centre of our solar system can be determined. According to research published in The Astrophysical Journal, that centre lies just above the Sun’s surface.
This knowledge makes it easier for astronomers to more accurately hunt gravitational waves given off by faraway pulsars and supermassive black holes.
Our solar system has a centre - but does the universe?
Start-up Stories
Timekettle
Image credit: Timekettle
Co-founded by Leal Tien in 2018, Timekettle is a translation tech start-up that creates instant translation devices. Their headline product is the WT2, a pair of AI-powered translation earpieces with more than $3 million in sales, despite very little advertising. Timekettle don’t just prioritise translation - communication, building closer relationships and comfortable interactions are at the core of Timekettle’s products.
Currently, most translation tools require more effort from the user than the WT2 does. Other translation products usually only allow one person to speak at a time, require one person to speak into a smartphone while the other uses an earpiece or require that someone downloads an app. The WT2 allows people to communicate much more simply - each person dons one of the two earpieces, after which they can communicate immediately.
The earpieces use neural networks for dual-noise reduction and can translate more than 36 languages.