Latest news with #CTIO
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Milky Way and zodiacal light glow above telescopes in Chile
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Recently, the Chilean night sky was illuminated by the glow of the Milky Way galaxy as it was seen above the domes of telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a facility of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) NOIRLab. What is it? A cone of zodiacal light intersects the iconic Milky Way, creating an x-shape in the night sky. NOIRLab highlighted this x-shape in a recent LinkedIn post, saying: " X marks the spot at Cerro Tololo!" Zodiacal light extends in a triangular shape from Earth's horizon along the ecliptic, the apparent annual path of the sun across the sky, serving as the baseline for positions of the planets and zodiac constellations. This special light is the reflection of sunlight off particles and dust in the solar system. Astronomers can study zodiacal light to map the distributions and possible origins of cosmic dust, revealing further insights about the processes happening in our solar system. Where is it? This image was taken at the CTIO facility, around 310 miles (500 km) north of Santiago, Chile at an elevation of 7,200 feet (2200 meters). Its location allows it to avoid light pollution from urban areas. Why is it amazing? As a major astronomical research facility, the CTIO hosts nearly 40 telescopes at it site, which offers exceptionally clear dark skies to peer deep into space. These telescopes are used for many different projects, from studying near-Earth asteroids to space debris to exoplanets. CTIO's mission is to provide world-class observing capabilities to the global astronomical community, supporting key discoveries while helping us to further understand more about our universe. Want to learn more? You can read more about telescopes based in Chile and night sky photography. Solve the daily Crossword
Forbes
25-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Breaking The Telco Legacy Paradox In The GenAI Era
Yogesh Malik, Global CTIO / CTO of the Year 2017 / Embracing New Tech Trends for Customer Experience / Telco Digitalization. The telecom industry has long been at the heart of digital transformation—from the first dial tones to the immersive, low-latency promise of 5G. We've helped usher in a fully digital lifestyle, enabling faster speeds, better experiences and seamless connectivity. But telecommunications companies now face a profound internal contradiction: the Telco Legacy Paradox—the tension between the need to transform and the convenience of remaining a commodity. As a chief technology innovation officer (CTIO), I've encountered this paradox continuously over the past 30 years, transforming telcos across continents. While consumers and enterprises thrive in a fast-paced, digital-first ecosystem, telcos still manage deeply entangled legacy environments. Think radio stacks spanning from 2G to 5G, over-customized IT systems, undocumented business logic and aging domain expertise. Every generation of technology layered on complexity without fully retiring the past. The result: decades-old systems weighing down innovation and stretching already tight budgets. This isn't just a technical challenge—it's structural, economic and deeply human. Change requires a steep learning curve, and shutting down legacy systems carries real risk. Even 2G and 3G networks still power critical services, from utility IoT devices to rural voice access. Regulatory requirements, multi-generational customer bases and long-standing operational dependencies all make transformation harder than simply rolling out the next "G." With CAPEX and OPEX consumed by keeping the past alive, investments in next-gen architecture, platforms and experiences often struggle for support. Optimizing seems safer than transforming. But this safety is an illusion—it only delays the inevitable. GenAI: A New Path Through Legacy Until recently, eliminating legacy environments seemed prohibitively complex. Today, GenAI presents a compelling inflection point—an opportunity to overcome barriers with greater intelligence and automation. With the right mindset, bold leadership and smart application of GenAI, telcos can finally address legacy challenges in cost-effective and scalable ways. Unlike transformation tools of the past, GenAI can reason across the messiness of legacy systems. It can map undocumented data flows, automate IT operations, translate legacy codebases into modern languages and simulate the impact of sunsetting old technologies. GenAI is not just another tool—it's a catalyst for rearchitecting complexity at its core. By understanding data flows more deeply and using GenAI's capabilities, telcos can tackle legacy in these key ways: • Building A Knowledge Fabric: Leverage data flows to build a metadata-driven knowledge layer that reduces reliance on undocumented institutional knowledge. • Modeling Sunset Impact: Predict the cost, revenue and user experience implications of phasing out legacy technologies. • Automating IT Operations: Automate repetitive tasks and enhance support through AI-powered operations and intelligent assistance. • Refactoring Legacy Code: Analyze and modernize outdated codebases by translating millions of lines—such as COBOL—into more modern programming languages like Java. • Modernizing Infrastructure In Real Time: Deploy specialized AI agents to dynamically assess, update and rebuild complex infrastructure with minimal downtime. Mindset Over Mechanics But cutting-edge tools alone aren't enough. To fully leverage GenAI, CTIOs must lead a mindset shift—from reactive maintenance to proactive transformation. That means investing in data observability across the telco and IT stack, treating metadata as a strategic asset and creating a "living knowledge fabric' that outlasts individual tenures. It also means rethinking organizational structures, governance and KPIs to prioritize long-term simplification over short-term patchwork fixes. We must also acknowledge what we can't do alone. Legacy isn't just an internal challenge—it's a symptom of industry-wide fragmentation. Despite global standards like 3GPP, implementations remain highly customized. Interoperability is poor, vendor lock-in is high and talent pools are shrinking. Collaboration is essential. CTIOs should drive partnerships across GSMA, regulators and industry alliances. Initiatives like Open Gateway and standardized APIs are steps in the right direction. But we must push further—toward modular, federated architectures that de-risk future evolution. Reclaiming Telco's Place In The Digital Economy Digital connectivity is no longer a luxury—it's foundational to daily life. Yet 57% of the world remains offline. Telcos have a responsibility to close this gap and support broader digital infrastructure equity. The future CTIOs must go beyond technology orchestration. We must become data stewards, ecosystem builders and business model innovators. Only then can we turn telcos into 'data super factories,' unlocking the value of rich network telemetry and customer behavior datasets to power smart cities, public planning and ethical AI governance. Done right, this shift will improve economics, reinforce national digital strategies and reestablish telcos at the center of the digital economy. This is the moment to break the paradox. Yes, the challenge is real. But GenAI gives us the chance to eliminate legacy intelligently—if we're bold enough to act. The cost of inaction is no longer just technical debt. It's strategic irrelevance. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
CBS News
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- CBS News
Dozens of Colorado drivers take concerns for express lane citations to court
It's dangerous when drivers change in and out of express lanes where they're not supposed to. Cameras used by the Colorado Transportation Investment Office catch it all the time. So a number of drivers in the state are now raising concerns over these citations. CBS John Bowlin was heading to a birthday celebration for his wife last May when he incorrectly merged into an express lane. "I knew that entrance, but I got distracted by my kids enough not to follow the GPS instructions, and I missed the entrance," Bowlin said Bowlin doesn't deny crossing the solid white line to enter the express lane, but receipts show he never missed paying a toll. He received a $75 ticket for a safety violation. "I looked at it, and I looked at the statute and the regulation that they were citing in this notice of civil penalty," Bowlin explained. "And when I looked those up, it said that the CTIO could impose a civil penalty for toll evasions, and then it had a whole definition of toll evasions. It talked all about toll evasions, but it didn't say anything about safety violations." Bowlin is also an attorney. "Look, I may have actually broken another law, and if there was a sheriff's deputy there, he may have been able to pull me over and give me a ticket," Bowlin admitted. "But that's a whole different question. Then, can you send me something in the mail?" Bowlin argues the statute doesn't give CTIO the authority to issue safety violations, and he is challenging the ticket in court for himself and thousands of others likely in the same position. "Very, very few people are going to do that, and even fewer will do that successfully," Bowlin said In March in Douglas County, a county court judge agreed with Bowlin and tossed out the ticket, and, before that, another driver, also an attorney, won his case in Jefferson County using the same argument. We know in the first year of the new camera system CTIO issued roughly $45 million in civil penalties. Losing in court would put all that revenue at risk, and the Colorado Attorney General is appealing both cases. "They have taken the opposite approach at every step of the way, at least in my case," Bowlin said. "They have litigated hard every issue. They have made things difficult at every turn, and so this appears to be their strategy, which tells me that they are mostly after the money." CBS Colorado found CTIO spent nearly $1 million on its internal administrative dispute hearings, and a public records request shows the Colorado Attorney General's office has taken on more than 70 cases and spent roughly 2,300 hours litigating those cases at a rate of no more than $145 dollars an hour, costing taxpayer's approximately $300 so far. With so much at stake, Bowlin says he is willing to take the case to the Colorado Supreme Court. "I think I am right on the law, and I think that it is important for a whole lot of Colorado consumers that the decision be decided at the highest level." Bowlin said. Another step being considered is filing a class action lawsuit. CBS Colorado asked Colorado Department of Transportation for a comment on the different outcomes in these court cases and if there are concerns that this could go to the Colorado Supreme Court. In a statement CDOT said, "For matters such as this where there is pending litigation, our comments are made through formal filings as part of the legal process." The Attorney General's office declined to comment.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Dazzling photos of this month's total lunar eclipse showcase a blood red moon near the Milky Way's heart
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Breathtaking photos of the total lunar eclipse from earlier this month capture a glowing, blood red moon and star-studded heart of the Milky Way in the night skies over Chile. A total lunar eclipse occurred overnight across March 13-14, coinciding with the Full Worm Moon. The maximum phase, or totality, occurred at 2:59 a.m. EDT (6:59 GMT) on March 14, causing the moon to appear a deep red color in the night sky. The "Blood Worm Moon" total lunar eclipse rose over the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), located on the summit of Mt. Cerro Tololo in northern Chile. The National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, which oversees the observatory, shared stunning photos of the ground-based telescopes beneath a glowing blood red moon and dazzling view of the Milky Way in a post on X (formally Twitter). During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth passes between the sun and the moon, casting its shadow on the moon. This causes the surface of the moon to darken, and sometimes appear reddish when viewed from the night side of Earth, as the planet's atmosphere scatters sunlight. Because of this, a total lunar eclipse is sometimes referred to as a "blood moon.' The recent lunar eclipse — the first total lunar eclipse since 2022 — was visible across North America and most of South America. Viewers in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile experienced totality as the moon passed entirely within the darkest part of Earth's shadow, or umbra, so that the sun was completely blocked. Other areas including Western Europe and parts of West Africa experienced totality at moonset, before the moon disappeared below the horizon. In New Zealand, the eclipse was partially visible as the moon rose on March 14. — Total lunar eclipse March 2025: Best photos of the "Blood Worm Moon" — Earth shines over the moon in amazing 1st photos from private Blue Ghost lander. 'We're all in that picture.' — Water mining on the moon may be easier than expected, India's Chandrayaan-3 lander finds The images taken at CTIO offer a breathtaking view of the total lunar eclipse, showcasing the bright red glow of the moon blanketed by Earth's shadow. Clear night skies also revealed the striking section of the Milky Way that we can see despite living within the galaxy, and twinkling stars above the observatory's ground-based telescopes. Be sure to check out our roundup of the best photos of the "Blood Worm Moon" total lunar eclipse for even more spectacular views.
