Sneaky asteroid spotted whizzing between Earth and moon

An asteroid roughly the size of a 10-story building gave Earth a particularly close pass Monday morning.

Asteroid 2017 AG13 came within half the distance from Earth to the moon as it buzzed by early Monday morning at 4:47 a.m. PT. The fly-by happened shortly after scientists at the Catalina Sky Survey first discovered the space rock on Saturday.

As you can see in the GIF below, the asteroid looks to just barely miss us as it passes. In the cosmic sense, it really was a close shave. In real terms, Earth had well over a 100,000-mile (161,000 kilometer) buffer of distance.

 

Samsung has 5 million Gear VR headsets in the real world

Samsung announced today at CES 2017 that it's shipped more than 5 million Gear VR headsets to consumers globally.

The virtual reality Gear headset is a joint venture between the South Korean tech company and Oculus, the Facebook-owned VR pioneer. Unlike the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, Samsung's VR headset doesn't have its own internal projectors. Instead, like the Google Daydream, there's a cradle for your phone and it uses that screen.

 

2017: The year digital assistants for kids began to flourish at CES

I've spent days now, walking the show floors at CES, listening to pitches from baby- and kid-tech developers, and writing up analyses on all of it. I'm a smart-home reporter, so I knew coming into CES how ubiquitous Alexa and her retinue would be. But I wasn't prepared for how fundamentally it would affect kid-tech. If CES 2017 is any indicator, Alexa's biggest skill in five years will be nannying.

Here are three things I've discovered at CES about voice assistants for kids.

 

T-Mobile CEO, fortune teller, offers 8 predictions for 2017

T-Mobile's bombastic CEO, John Legere, brought out his crystal ball to offer some bold predictions for the wireless industry in 2017.

Speaking at the company's CES press conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Legere rattled off eight possibilities for 2017. These predictions include everything from big cable companies entering and quickly exiting the wireless market to the unseating of three of the nation's four major wireless carrier CEOs.

Here's a full list of what Legere sees for the coming year.

 

Nick Offerman: Ron Swanson would hate CES (Q&A)

Nick Offerman is an avid wood worker, a noted whiskey drinker, an actor and one of the least likely people to show up at the world's biggest technology show. But show up he did.

Known to fans of the TV series "Parks and Recreation" as the gruff but lovable Ron Swanson, Offerman was at CES in Las Vegas to promote the launch of a "device like no other" -- greeting cards from American Greetings. Offerman wanted to endorse the message that cards are the best way to deliver a truly heartfelt sentiment.