By Jamie Barrie I f you are a space geek who owns an AppleTV you likely haven’t left your sofa very much recently. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched a free app full of amazing content to entertain the savy space expert or even a novice sky watcher alike. The app has already been downloaded over 16 million times for Apple, Andrioid and Kindle platforms combined. There are numerous features ranging from satellite tracking maps to a repository of nearly 15,000 unique images. The new NASA app is designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV. While many love the content, the organization of the material is difficult to follow. There are three main sections for users to focus on. The first is still images. This section features a vast array of insider shots of astronaut teams and mission-prep pro- cedures. As expected there is a large database of plan- etary and stellar shots. Many say the most enjoyable are the astronomical installations and natural phenomena pictures. Another area sure to be one of the most viewed
is Earth as Art which shows wildly colorful pictures of our planet taken from space.
The second main area contains a lot of content falling under the audio and video live feeds category. There are 2 NASA TV feeds in addition to a live Earth cam which shows our planet from the International Space Station. NASA also provides access to documentary type material including their weekly news series and ScienceCasts. There is even a feed for a pop radio channel apparently originating from the IIS. In a third section we’ll include all of the other neat stuff NASA has released like 2D and 3D satellite tracking maps. In addition, they have made it easy for you to identify sat- ellite pass-overs. Users can now find out exactly when to watch the skies based on their own geographical location. As mentioned before, the app is available for a lot of plat- forms but true techies insist that the only place it really provides the full experience is on the big screen. They recommend downloading the app to an AppleTV and enjoying the show
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AUGUST 2016 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS
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