It’s not a stretch to say that Microsoft’s Windows is one of the most ubiquitous and well-known pieces of software the world has ever seen. At one point or another you’ve almost certainly spent some time with one of the many iconic Windows releases. And today is the 35th birthday of the one that started it all.
Windows 1.0 was released on November 20th, 1985, though, chances are most of you don’t have fond memories of it. If you have memories of it at all. It was received poorly by critics, in part because Windows 1.0 wasn’t an operating system, but more of a GUI tacked on top of MS-DOS. But Windows has come a long way since those humble beginnings, from the highs of Windows 95 and XP, to the more infamous versions like Vista, Windows ME and Windows 8.
Not every release has been a hit, but with more than 1 billion devices running Windows 10, Microsoft’s OS remains the dominant personal computing platform. Sure, mobile may be the future, with more than 2 billion active Android devices out in the wild — but traditional computers aren’t going anywhere any time soon, and it’s fair to say that Windows will continue to be a dominant force for years to come.
T-Mobile customers can now call 988 to access free emergency mental health services. It added support for the number more than 18 months ahead of the deadline that the Federal Communications Commission set for providers to do so.
In July, the FCC voted to designate 988 as the three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It gave phone service providers until July 2022 to ensure they direct all 988 calls to the NSPL. It should be easier to remember than the NSPL's ten-digit number. You can also contact the lifeline by calling 1-800-273-8255 (1-800-273-TALK) or using online chats.
The 988 service will connect callers to the NSPL's network of around 180 local- and state-funded crisis centers across the US for free mental health support. However, there's no option to text the number. If you try to do that, T-Mobile will send you a bounce-back message that advises you to call instead.
T-Mobile says it's the first major provider to add support for the three-digit number. Engadget has contacted AT&T and Verizon (Engadget's parent company) for details on their 988 rollout plans.
Update (7 PM ET): In a statement, an AT&T spokesperson said it’s working on providing 988 access for wireless customers “in the months ahead.” “The three-digit 988 hotline dialing code is a critical feature for Americans in crises. We’ve already implemented this feature for the majority of our traditional wireline customers, and 988 will be available for our wireless customers in the months ahead.”
Structural engineers and repair crews have done all that they can but the end result is as we feared: the Arecibo radio telescope has to come down. The venerable space observatory has been out of commission since August when a cable atop Tower 4, which supports the platform, snapped and gutted a 100-foot long section from the telescope’s reflecting dish. At the time, the University of Florida, which runs the facility on behalf of the National Science Foundation, deployed three different engineering teams to investigate the problem.
That damage alone was enough to knock the observatory offline for months, however a second cable front the same tower subsequently snapped in November, further damaging the array and putting it in danger of an uncontrolled collapse. The situation has grown so dangerous that the National Science Foundation had serious doubts as to whether it could be repaired without putting lives in danger during the repair process.
“The telescope is in danger of catastrophic failure,” the NSF wrote in a November statement. “Any attempts at repairs could put workers in potentially life-threatening danger.” As such, the NSF announced on Thursday that it will be dismantling the array before it can come crashing down on its own.
“Until these assessments came in, our question was not if the observatory should be repaired but how,” Ralph Gaume, director of the astronomy division of the National Science Foundation, told the New York Times on Thursday. “But in the end, a preponderance of data showed that we simply could not do this safely.” It’s the end of an astronomical era and we’re all a little poorer for it.
In 1959, Cornell University contracted with ARPA to manage a gargantuan new radio telescope being built in the karst foothills, just outside Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The next year, crews broke ground as Cornell astronomer William E. Gordon oversaw the design and construction of the telescope, officially known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC). Stewardship of the site transferred in 2018 to the University of Central Florida, Yang Enterprises and UMET.
Completed in 1963, the Arecibo telescope was initially tasked with studying the ionosphere, one of Gordon’s specialties. However the reasoning behind the telescope’s construction actually grew out of an ARPA defense program which sought to create an early detection system for incoming nuclear missiles by spotting the atmospheric ionization generated by the high-speed friction of their flight. At the time, we didn’t have a very solid understanding of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, hence the need for an NAIC. The telescope was also clandestinely used to snoop for Soviet radar sites by detecting signals bounced off the moon.
The Arecibo telescope was simply massive. Its primary collection dish measures more than a 1,000 meters in diameter and is covered in nearly 39,000 individual aluminum plates. With a total collection area of 73,000 square meters (roughly 20 square acres), the NAIC stood as the largest single aperture telescope on the planet from the date of its completion in 1963 to 2016 when China completed its FAST telescope. The cables that snapped were two of 18 running between a trio of concrete support towers used to support a 900-ton receiver suspended nearly 500 feet above the surface of the dish.
Its gigantic footprint allowed the Arecibo telescope capabilities that smaller sites simply could not match. As such, competition to use the facility was brutal, necessitating an impartial three-person panel to assign observing time for only the most promising research. Even with the strict admittance policies, roughly 200 scientists visited the telescope each year.
It was used in a wide array of scientific studies -- observing everything from the Earth’s upper atmosphere and the heliophysics of the sun to distant fast radio bursts and pulsar emissions. In fact, the first exoplanets ever found were discovered orbiting a pulsar, PSR 1257+12, using the Arecibo telescope. What’s more, the Arecibo was behind the first detection of gravitational waves created by pulsars. That discovery wound up winning a Nobel in 1993. The telescope has also provided an invaluable aid in the search for extraterrestrial life.
The first attempt came on November 16th, 1974 with what is today known as the Arecibo Message. As part of a celebration marking the telescope’s recent remodeling, researchers from SETI blasted a radio signal -- “the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space,” according to DARPA -- towards the M13 globular star cluster. It delivered a seven-part message devised by Cornell astronomer Frank Drake (as in Drake’s Equation) and Carl Sagan. We have yet to hear back. The Arecibo telescope also generated the data that the SETI@home project chewed through while the similar Edison@Home program discovered nearly two dozen new pulsars within the Arecibo’s reams of data.
The telescope had experienced a number of difficulties in recent decades including damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017 and unreliable funding. Still, the NSF’s decision has come as a gut punch to the scientific community. “Think about what the Golden Gate Bridge means to San Francisco, what the Statue of Liberty means to New Yorkers. Arecibo is this and more to Puerto Rico because it has gone beyond an icon,” Edgard Rivera-Valentín of the Lunar and Planetary Institute wrote to National Geographic. “For some of us, it became that goal to reach towards, that symbol that we can achieve great things, that pride that in our own backyard; we were serving the entire planet.”
Others, such as planetary scientist Ed Rivera-Valentín, have responded to the news with fond memories of their experiences there:
I have such a vivid memory of the first time I visited Arecibo. My family took me as a child, some 4 or 5 years old. I was in awe. This facility... was in my backyard! This goal post for science was here in Puerto Rico. We were part of science. I was part of science. pic.twitter.com/u3zaZOzG6D
Still others took a more pragmatic view of the situation. “I'd say that the Arecibo closing is bad for SETI, but not disastrous,” Dr. Christopher Conselice, Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy at the University of Manchester, told Engadget. “It is a very sensitive telescope for searching for signals but is not the only game in town anymore.”
“For example, the $100M Breakthrough Listening project uses other telescopes, including Jodrell Bank in the UK and the Allen array, but does not use Arecibo,” he continued. “However, as we don't know if, how, or where a SETI signal would appear, the loss of Arecibo could potentially mean we do miss out on a detection.”
While it will cease operations, the facility will not be demolished. Instead, only the 305 meter tall telescope will be coming down and that process has already started. The NSF is also employing a fleet of HD camera drones to conduct photographic surveys of the area. There’s no timetable yet for when the decommissioning will be completed.
"For nearly six decades, the Arecibo Observatory has served as a beacon for breakthrough science and what a partnership with a community can look like,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement Thursday. “While this is a profound change, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain that strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico."
The caption on the front of the century-old postcard reads, “Gruesome scene, Juarez, Mex.,” and this is no lie: the image shows a dozen bodies laid flat on the scrubby desert floor in the shadow of at least fifty handmade wooden crosses. The message on the other side of the card? Bizarrely mundane. It reads, in its entirety, “Friend Edith, How is every thing Bob.” Such peculiar juxtapositions are among the unpredictable payoffs of collecting old photos that were abandoned, for reasons unknown, by their owners. This postcard, picked up by artists Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey during thirty years of poking around the dark corners of junk shops, flea markets, and websites, is one of five thousand postcards, vintage snapshots, and other photo-oriented ephemera…View Original Post
Nintendo’s free-to-play mobile game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is getting new AR features to let you interact with your favorite characters in the real world. The company announced AR Camera and AR Cabin modes that will let you place your animal neighbors in your surroundings via your phone and either hang out or take pictures with them.
The camera, for example, lets you choose a character, then drop it on tabletops, sidewalks, or wherever you want via the viewfinder. You can also pose with them in the scene if you want and snap a picture. The cabin, meanwhile, lets you overlay a door on what’s in front of you, open it and enter a room. You can invite up to 8 different characters to hang out with in this space, in case you were feeling lonely and wanted a faux party during the pandemic.
With the update on Nov. 19, two AR Modes will be added to Pocket Camp. Get even closer to your animal pals with the AR Camera and AR Cabin! #PocketCampARpic.twitter.com/BxAtMyJ1Fj
In addition to the new modes, additional areas in Pocket Camp campsites will be opening up for users to customize with furniture and items. To encourage users to try out more items, Nintendo is also offering a month’s free trial of the Furniture and Fashion Plan, which usually costs $7.99. The plan will also get you extra storage so you can hoard more stuff.
At the same time, Nintendo also announced on its website that “certain smart devices will no longer be supported.” Users responding to the company’s AR news on Twitter have complained that they’re no longer able to play the game because of this addition, although it’s not clear why they are having issues. Nintendo said that devices must run at least iOS 11 or Android 5.0 or newer, and those not using an Apple device need something with a 64-bit CPU and 1.5GB or more of RAM.
One Friday morning in the spring of 1971, Geoff Winningham picked up the sports section of the now defunct Houston Post. At the time, Winningham had just begun teaching photography at Rice University, but at night, he’d grab his camera and head wherever he could find a crowd to shoot. In the paper, he saw an ad for a wrestling event happening that night at the Sam Houston Coliseum. “I’d bet there be some crowds there,” he thought. Winningham was familiar with wrestling; he’d grown up in Tennessee, watching Saturday night fights on TV. Yet what he saw at the coliseum that Friday floored him. “I walked in and walked down the aisle, through the crowd, and toward the ring,” he remembers. “All these bright…View Original Post
El Paso County detention facility inmates help move bodies to mobile morgue units outside the medical examiner's office in El Paso.
Credit: REUTERS/Ivan Pierre Aguirre
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EL PASO — El Paso County officials sent out a plea Thursday evening for applicants to work at the county medical examiner’s office as the number of fatalities caused by COVID-19 here continues to rise.
“The Morgue Attendants will be provided maximum PPE [personal protective equipment], and will receive a COVID test prior to starting. All Morgue Attendants will be tasked with physically moving Decedents,” the notice reads. “Not only is this assignment physically taxing, but it may be emotionally taxing as well.”
The request comes as the county has resorted to using low-level offenders from the county jail to help transport the deceased. Their work will continue until there are enough new hires, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said Thursday.
“Not everybody is going to be able to do that. We’ve had people there that have lasted an hour, 30 minutes, half a day,” he said. “So, it’s a difficult process.”
Samaniego is also waiting for the Texas National Guard to respond to the county’s request to have units stationed at the morgue to help with transport.
“They asked for an assessment of our fatalities situation, and it’s been submitted,” he said. “It’s in their hands to determine whether or not they’re going to be able to come to El Paso for fatalities management.”
The county has seen nearly 78,000 cases of the disease since the pandemic began, according to statistics from the Texas Department of State Health Services. The total is the third-highest in the state.
There are about 35,000 active cases in El Paso County, and 876 people have died because of the outbreak.
The call for personnel comes a week after a Texas appeals court struck down Samaniego’s attempt to shut down nonessential businesses as the outbreak continues.
A group of restaurants and the Texas attorney general’s office sued to have the order stopped, successfully arguing that it went beyond Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive orders.
Abbott was also critical of the order, saying Samaniego “failed to do his job” of enforcing existing rules to slow the spread of the virus.
At a news conference Thursday, Abbott repeated his accusation that local officials have not adequately enforced statewide orders. Abbott also ruled out any new statewide business restrictions.
Samaniego said Abbott’s criticism of his order missed the point.
“I felt that the county was doing a good job, our constables were very active,” he said. “The majority of bars and restaurants and enforcement that needed to take place was with the El Paso Police Department, not with the sheriff’s [department].”
Samaniego also defended the county’s use of inmates at the medical examiner’s office. He said it was either that or having families wait longer than then necessary to begin funeral arrangements.
“I think that’s the bottom line, I think anybody would choose that the process continues,” he said. “We are shorthanded and we have no one but the inmates to do it.”
A medical professional works at a COVID-19 testing site at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Credit: Joel Angel Juarez for The Texas Tribune
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COVID-19 is surging in El Paso, Lubbock, Amarillo and other spots in Texas, and some of the biggest American family gatherings of the year — Thanksgiving — are just a few days away.
Gov. Greg Abbott is sticking to his approach — not shutting things down as quickly as some local and health officials would like, and not allowing them to go outside the regulatory boundaries set in Austin. He’s been slow, in the view of some in West Texas, to send help.
State government is getting calls for help from all over — some for aid and some for permission. And some responses from the state come easier: 220 murders in Dallas are getting a more immediate response from Austin than the 800 COVID-19 deaths in El Paso.
Dallas has had more murders so far this year than it had in all of 2019. And for the second time in two years, Abbott is sending in people from the Texas Department of Public Safety — the state police — to help Dallas police get a grip on that situation. The governor said he was acting at the request of local police, The Texas Tribune’s Jolie McCullough reports, and will send in DPS special agents, troopers, intelligence analysts and Texas Rangers to “reduce violent crime and protect the communities in the city of Dallas.”
City officials said they were happy for the help. And the governor is acting in line with what he was saying emphatically about backing law enforcement during the weeks leading to this month’s general election. It was a fruitful political position, and the new deployment will show whether it’s also good state policy.
It also edges on a yearslong debate over the powers of state and local governments in Texas — of which duties and responsibilities belong at each level. Abbott wasn’t on the ballot this year, but he was involved in GOP efforts to maintain Republican control of Texas government. His campaign rhetoric sprouted in reaction to a “defund the police” movement that grew out of summer demonstrations against police violence and gained traction as city governments in Austin and elsewhere began voting to move money and responsibilities from police budgets to other areas.
Abbott has threatened to send state troopers to police Austin if the city cuts back. The Dallas operation isn’t part of that. But it could serve as a demonstration project of the state stepping into local policing, not to mention the political win for the governor if the murder rate goes down as a result.
The coronavirus pandemic has been harder to contain than the crime rate. The state has entered its third wave of rising COVID-19 cases, with hot spots in El Paso, Lubbock, Amarillo and Midland. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price has tested positive, a prominent reminder of the rise in cases in Tarrant County. It’s part of the national increase in the coronavirus in the week before Thanksgiving.
“More than 1 million COVID-19 cases were reported in the United States over the last 7 days,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a holiday news release. “As cases continue to increase rapidly across the United States, the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate at home with the people you live with.”
That’s a passive message, and the state government is sticking with a passive message, too.
“You will not get COVID if you don’t expose yourself to COVID,” Abbott said Thursday at a news conference in Lubbock. He said Texans have a case of COVID fatigue and need to get back to wearing masks, keeping their distance and washing their hands.
“All we need is for people … to return to those safe practices,” he said. “It’s easy to let our guard down.”
But he won’t order that, and has rebuffed efforts by local officials, like El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, to close so-called nonessential businesses to try to thwart the spread of the disease.
Abbott said Thursday that local officials need to follow the state’s guidelines for stopping the spread and said it’s possible to limit COVID-19 and also to keep local businesses open. “If these protocols are followed, it will lead to a decrease in COVID,” he said.
And he stressed his resistance to new statewide closures: “It’s important for everyone to know that statewide, we’re not going to have a shutdown.” He said it wouldn’t achieve what people think it would achieve. “Shutdowns will not lead to the positive results that people expect.”
That holiday approach to controlling the pandemic, like the decision to send state police to Dallas, is the governor’s bet that he’s right on the policy, and on the politics.
The move comes a day after the family of a deceased employee sued Tyson, claiming "incorrigible, willful and wanton disregard for worker safety at its pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa."
NPR's Rachel Martin talks with Clark Kauffman of the Iowa Capital Dispatch about a lawsuit involving Tyson Foods supervisors betting money on the number of workers who would contract COVID-19.
Abbott traveled to hard-hit Lubbock to trumpet the fact that bamlanivimab, the antibody therapy made by Eli Lilly & Co., is being distributed across Texas.
In a world where falsehoods come from the top and are amplified louder and louder all the way down, we all need to focus on evidence, rather than unsubstantiated bluster. Because right now it's not just democracy in danger, but reality itself, writes North America bureau chief David Lipson.
Mere weeks before Adobe’s planned end of support date for Flash, the Internet Archive has come in to save everyone’s favorite mid-aughts plugin and the creative content that came out of it. Over on its website, the organization has created a new collection dedicated to Flash that allows you to experience decades-old animations and games through a built-in emulator, meaning you don’t have to worry about any of the security issues that come along with the notoriously insecure software.
In the past 24 hours, the Internet Archive and other contributors have uploaded more than 1,000 experiences to the collection. You’ll find beloved proto-memes like Badger and Loituma Girl alongside more obscure gems. Powering the entire experience is an in-development emulator called Ruffle. While the Internet Archive says not every Flash animation and game will work in the emulator, the vast majority will look just as smooth as you remember them. Moreover, as long as you’re using a browser that supports WebAssembly — that is, any modern browser — you’ll be able to view and enjoy the collection.
Arecibo has been a vital resource for radio astronomy, astrophysics, atmospheric studies and solar system astronomy. Now, it's set to close due to structural damage.
Thousands of workers across the state have counted each ballot to ensure that President-elect Joe Biden did narrowly defeat President Trump in the Nov. 3 contest in Georgia.
Beginning November 30, 2020, Pokémon GO will receive its largest content update to date: the GO Beyond Update. GO Beyond update brings a rebalanced leveling system from 1 – 40, includes a level cap increase to 50, adds Generation VI Pokémon and introduces Seasons into Pokémon GO.
GO Beyond is a massive update, but we’ve prepared a simple survival guide to help you understand what’s coming and when. We strongly suggest you bookmark this page and refer to it when needed.
Additionally, there will be a lot of content from other press outlets, Youtubers and Twitch streamers, so be sure to check out their channels for more information as well. We’ll try our best to collate everything into this guide and we’ll be publishing more specific guides as features become available.
Beginning November 30, Trainers will experience a rebalanced leveling system that includes a level cap increase to 50. The new system dramatically changes player progression from Level 1 to 40 and introduces 10 new levels for Trainers to progress. And yes, you will be able to power up your Pokémon beyond Level 40.
The existing CP formula is seemingly unchanged, but there should be more CPM values for levels beyond 40. We’re not sure if there will be a CP rebalance coming as a part of this update.
In preparation for the level cap increase, Niantic has announced a handful of changes that are coming or are already active.
Experience bonuses until end of year
To help Trainers reach level 40 faster, a double Catch XP bonus will be live from Wednesday, November 18, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Thursday, December 31, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. local time.
XP rewards rebalance
Starting on November 30, 2020, you’ll earn more XP from catching Pokémon, evolving Pokémon, hatching Eggs, registering new Pokédex entries, and more. In some cases, the XP earned will be as much as double what it was before.
Trainers who reach level 40 before Thursday, December 31, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. local time will earn the title of Legacy 40 Trainer and earn some exclusive rewards, like Timed Research that rewards an exclusive Gyarados Hat avatar item and a special Legacy 40 medal!
Trainers will soon be able to power up their Pokémon to a higher CP than was previously possible at each Trainer level. Try powering up your Pokémon to see the difference! Level 40 Trainers, get ready for a whole new challenge!
Currently, Trainers can powerup Pokémon to Pokémon Levels 2 levels above their current Trainer level. In other words, a Pokémon can be maxed out to Level 40 starting from Trainer level 38.
The change after the Level Cap increase will make adjust that value from 2 to 10. Players will be able to power up Pokémon up to 10 levels above their current Trainer Level.
Some notable things:
Level 30 Trainers can powerup Pokémon to 40 assuming they have enough Candy and Stardust
Level 40 trainers can powerup Pokémon to 50 assuming they have enough Candy XL and Stardust
Niantic is rolling out the level-cap increase to Australia tomorrow for testing before making it available to Trainers around the world. Trainers who make it to level 41 and above during the testing period will receive a survey to provide their feedback.
Level 40 Trainers who power up Pokémon past their previous CP maximum will be unable to use those Pokémon in the Master League format for the time being in order to maintain a fair competition. However, those Pokémon can still defend Gyms.
Leveling above Level 40 will be quite different, as it requires you to complete new Level-Up research between levels, in addition to the usual XP requirement. The Level-Up research quests are different at every level but they are concentrated around one theme.
Here’s a preview of what to expect from these quests:
Level 41: Submit your catching skills to a test of endurance! You’ll be expected to catch a high number of Pokémon in a single day, along with other tasks, in order to reach level 41.
Level 42: From evolving Eevee into each of its available Evolutions, to using certain Evolution items on specific Pokémon, reaching level 42 will test your knowledge of Pokémon Evolutions.
Level 43: Show us your mastery of Gym battles and Raid Battles! You’ll also need to have earned a certain number of Platinum medals before you can advance to level 43. You might find yourself with a surprise avatar item at the end, too!
Level 44: Battling other Trainers has been a fundamental aspect of the Pokémon RPGs since the beginning, but it’s still relatively new to Pokémon GO. Have you been developing your skills in battle? You’ll have to if you want to reach level 44!
Level 45: You’ve battled in Gyms, raids, and the GO Battle League, but to reach level 45 you’ll need to focus your efforts on taking down those pesky Team GO Rocket villains! You might find yourself with a surprise avatar item at the end, too!
Level 46: Get ready to explore, intrepid Trainers! To reach level 46, you’ll need to complete a number of Field Research tasks, hatch a certain number of Eggs, and document your daily adventures using GO Snapshot!
Level 47: You may think you’ve mastered the art of battling in raids, but the requirements to reach level 47 will really test your mettle! For example, one challenge will require you to win raids with teams that meet certain qualifications—and that’s just the beginning!
Level 48: The requirements to reach level 48 are focused on one of the most important things in all of Pokémon GO: your friendship with your Buddy Pokémon! From kilometers walked to the number of Souvenirs you’ve collected, reaching level 48 will require you and your buddy to be laser-focused on developing your friendship with one another. You might find yourself with a surprise avatar item at the end, too!
Level 49: If there’s one thing that matches the importance of your friendship with your Buddy Pokémon, it’s your friendships with other Trainers. The people we meet on our Pokémon journeys bring so much to our lives, and cultivating those friendships is key to becoming an amazing Pokémon Trainer. Reach level 49 by sending Gifts, acquiring Lucky Pokémon through trades, and more.
Level 50: This is it! The home stretch! To reach the highest available level in Pokémon GO, you must master all aspects of the game. Some examples include making Excellent Throws, catching Legendary Pokémon, and defeating Team GO Rocket Leaders with Pokémon under 1,500 CP, so you can tell this will be the ultimate test of whether you’re ready to stand among the most accomplished Trainers in Pokémon GO. And, of course, you might also find yourself with a surprise avatar item at the end!
Pokémon GO will also be introducing Candy XL. These Candies will be required to power up Pokémon to even higher CP than was previously possible, and can be acquired either by catching Pokémon or by converting and combining Candy into Candy XL. There will also be other ways to obtain Candy XL, so stay tuned!
Every three months, Trainers can expect to see a new season with major changes and new Pokémon. In-game events will continue to run within each season, but may be more heavily tied to the season itself. In addition to regular changes at the start of each season, Trainers can also expect to see mega updates to Mega Evolution Pokémon throughout, and changes to GO Battle League format, rankings and rewards structure.
What are Pokémon GO Seasons?
Every three months, you can expect to see a new season in Pokémon GO that brings major changes, such as the following.
Different Pokémon will be appearing more often in the wild, hatching from Eggs, and appearing in raids. Some Pokémon will be more difficult to find depending on the Season, so catch them while you can!
Based on what hemisphere you’re in, you can find different Pokémon appearing in the wild each Season. For example, in the first Season, Pokémon related to winter will be appearing in the wild in the northern hemisphere, while Burmy, Darumaka, and other Pokémon related to summer will be appearing in the wild in the southern hemisphere. You might notice other differences in the Pokémon you can find in the wild, too.
In addition, different forms of Deerling will be appearing in the wild depending on which hemisphere you’re in, so keep a lookout!
In-game events will be themed based on the Season they occur in!
Seasons will be continually updated with more features and content.
Seasonal Mega changes are coming
With each new Season, Trainers can also expect to see updates to Mega-Evolved Pokémon.
Different New Mega-Evolved Pokémon will be appearing in raids each Season!
Certain Mega-Evolved Pokémon will have limited periods where they will have increased total CP and Trainers will have more opportunities to use these Mega-Evolved Pokémon more easily!
GO Battle League changes once Seasons start
The introduction of Seasons also brings exciting changes to the GO Battle League! The GO Battle League will expand from 10 to 24 ranks, and the top four ranks will have all-new names and corresponding badges. The expanded ranks will be accompanied by a totally new reward structure, which gives Trainers more opportunities to earn exclusive rewards through ranking up. You can expect the GO Battle League rewards to be tied to the theme of the current Season, too!
GO Battle League seasons will occur in tandem with the overarching Seasons and will rotate formats on the same three-month schedule.
Starting on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. local time, the first Season will begin—the Season of Celebration! Pokémon originally discovered in the Kalos region will be appearing in Pokémon GO. To celebrate their arrival and the new year, Professor Willow is embarking on a quest to research the different regions of the Pokémon world, and he needs your help!
During this Season, Trainers will be able to participate in a series of in-game events featuring Pokémon first discovered in different regions. Whether you’re a fan of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, or Kalos, Pokémon originally discovered in each of these regions will be appearing as Professor Willow looks to discover and celebrate their rich histories.
At the end of the Season of Celebration, we’ll be introducing a brand-new global event experience. Stay tuned for more details!
Starting December 2, Pokémon originally discovered in the Kalos region will start appearing in Pokémon GO, including: Chespin, Fennekin, Pyroar, Froakie, Fletchling, and more.
Pokémon originally discovered in the Kalos region are coming!
Pokémon such as Chepsin, Fennekin, Froakie, Fletchling, and their Evolutions will be coming to Pokémon GO—including the highly anticipated Greninja and Talonflame! Pyroar will also be available in both of its forms.
Here’s a list of many of the Pokémon you can expect to encounter either in the wild, through Evolution, or by hatching Eggs starting on December 2, 2020.
Celebrate the arrival of new Pokémon with a special event!
From Wednesday, December 2, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday December 8, 2020, at 10:00 p.m. local time, Pokémon originally discovered in the Kalos region will be appearing more often in the wild! More details to come soon.
A mysterious Raid Egg?
There seems to be a mysterious Pokémon preparing to hatch from a one-star Raid Egg soon! We’re tracking the progress of this Egg on our social channels, and we might need your help to get it to hatch sooner!
Quality of Life Improvements
Updates to encountering and catching Pokémon, Adventure Sync, Buddy Adventure, Field Research, Gifts, and more are also part of the GO Beyond update.
According to Lisa Dahlseide, a naturalist with the Weaselhead/Glenmore Park Preservation Society, the beavers are hard at work to prepare food storage for winter and repair their lodgings.
The caption on the front of the century-old postcard reads, “Gruesome scene, Juarez, Mex.,” and this is no lie: the image shows a dozen bodies laid flat on the scrubby desert floor in the shadow of at least fifty handmade wooden crosses. The message on the other side of the card? Bizarrely mundane. It reads, in its entirety, “Friend Edith, How is every thing Bob.” Such peculiar juxtapositions are among the unpredictable payoffs of collecting old photos that were abandoned, for reasons unknown, by their owners. This postcard, picked up by artists Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey during thirty years of poking around the dark corners of junk shops, flea markets, and websites, is one of five thousand postcards, vintage snapshots, and other photo-oriented ephemera…View Original Post
One Friday morning in the spring of 1971, Geoff Winningham picked up the sports section of the now defunct Houston Post. At the time, Winningham had just begun teaching photography at Rice University, but at night, he’d grab his camera and head wherever he could find a crowd to shoot. In the paper, he saw an ad for a wrestling event happening that night at the Sam Houston Coliseum. “I’d bet there be some crowds there,” he thought. Winningham was familiar with wrestling; he’d grown up in Tennessee, watching Saturday night fights on TV. Yet what he saw at the coliseum that Friday floored him. “I walked in and walked down the aisle, through the crowd, and toward the ring,” he remembers. “All these bright…View Original Post
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Deerling
Chespin
Quilladin
Chesnaught
Fennekin
Braixen
Delphox
Froakie
Frogadier
Greninja
Bunnelby
Diggersby
Fletchling
Fletchinder
Talonflame
Litleo
Pyroar
Klefki