BBC and ITV team up to keep Six Nations rugby out of Sky’s hands

Bidding for TV rights to major UK sporting events has always been hotly contested, but things have really hotted up over the past year. BT Sport has done what it can to wrestle some control away from Sky’s firm pay-TV grip, but now terrestrial broadcasters are enjoying some success. Having secured exclusive access to rugby’s Six Nations championship, where England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy battle it out for European dominance, for the last 12 years, the BBC announced today that it’s teamed up with rival broadcaster ITV to ensure the Six Nations remains on free-to-air TV for another six years.

After it had its licence fee funding frozen, the BBC has had to pick and choose its battles. That meant the broadcaster lost golf’s Masters to Sky and the Olympics to Eurosport (even though it may licence broadcasts), but it’s been keen to maintain its legacy with events like Wimbledon and the Six Nations. That said, it’s had to compromise on its coverage, as all England, Ireland and Italy home games will be shown live on ITV, with the BBC showing Wales, Scotland and France. In fact, the BBC will lose access to two-thirds of England matches from 2016. It’s another big win for ITV after it acquired exclusive rights to this year’s Rugby World Cup.

Under the new agreement, the BBC and ITV will show highlights of each of the 15 Six Nations matches shortly after they’re played. Sky will be limited to autumn internationals and future British Lions tours, while BT Sport will continue its live coverage of the Aviva Premiership until 2021. It means Rugby fans may have to pay for their choice of matches, but the majority of internationals won’t cost them a thing (if you don’t include the licence fee).

[Image credit: David Farquhar, Flickr]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: BBC Sport

Tubular waves are, like, totally common in space

“Surfer” tube-shaped waves are created when a speedy fluid, like wind, moves over a sluggish one, like water. These so-called Kelvin-Helmholtz waves occur everywhere in the universe, as you can see in the image of Saturn’s upper atmosphere, above. They also happen when solar winds strike the Earth’s protective magnetosphere, and researchers now believe that they occur much more often there than we thought. Not only that, but they might cause the magnetosphere to be charged with plasma, affecting how it works to protect life on our planet from radiation.

The first team from the University of New Hampshire examined the Earth’s magnetic field with NASA’s THEMIS and Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) craft. When solar winds blow past our magnetosphere, scientists thought they could only create surfer-type waves when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with Earth’s. But using ACE, which is parked between the Earth and the sun, and THEMIS, which orbits near our magnetosphere, they found that wasn’t necessarily the case. Instead, Kelvin-Helmholtz waves can occur practically any time, regardless of solar wind speeds and the direction of magnetic fields.

Another team from Boston University and Virginia Tech then figured out why such waves might occur so often. They found that just before Kelvin-Helmholtz waves start propagating at the magnetosphere’s boundary, a thin plume of plasma shoots out, depositing extra atoms. The researchers think those plumes may actually trigger the waves, since it bumps up the density of the magnetosphere boundary compared to the solar winds blasting past it — just like wind blowing over water.

Scientists aren’t sure whether such waves can trigger space weather events near our home planet. Nevertheless, they now think that Kelvin-Helmholtz waves could cause solar plasma to get into the Earth’s magnetosphere, affecting how it behaves. And since the magnetosphere is what protects all of us from getting cooked by radiation, that sounds like a good thing to know.

Filed under: Science

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Source: NASA

Uber driver threatens to cut the neck of user who canceled ride

Uber really couldn’t be more of a magnet for controversy. When it’s not being banned or prompting sometimes violent protests from traditional taxi competitors, it’s being scrutinized for the behavior of its drivers. The company added a panic button to its app in India after a driver was accused of raping a female passenger; another driver was arrested on sexual assault charges in France; and in San Francisco, one passenger was allegedly beaten in the head with a hammer following a disagreement over routes. And those are just a few examples. Today, the company is on the hook for yet another unpleasant incident, after a London driver threatened to slit the throat of a user who canceled their ride.

As the user tells BuzzFeed, she had originally booked a car to take her to meet friends for Sunday brunch. Admitting she suffers from the occasional anxiety attack, she decided on the day she’d be more comfortable walking to her destination, and so canceled the booking a few minutes before it was due to arrive. She thought nothing more of it, but today discovered the driver in question left her a threatening and aggressive voicemail message following the cancelation (you can listen to it in full below). In it, the driver insults her several times and repeatedly tells her not to “do [that] again,” before saying “otherwise, I’ll cut your neck.”

Understandably, the user’s rattled by the verbal attack, especially since she ordered the car to pick her up at home, and has launched a complaint with Uber. The company is now on the case, and a spokesperson has issued this statement in response:

“We have spoken to the rider to ensure they are OK and encouraged them to report this to the police. The driver has been immediately suspended, as is our policy, and we are investigating fully.”

It’s yet another controversy Uber could do without, and it’ll no doubt fuel further criticism of driver background checks, which have been deemed inadequate in the past. But, more importantly, it leaves users and critics alike asking: do a few bad apples spoil the bunch?

[Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: BuzzFeed