Today's newest and best technologies will go obsolete someday. That's the nature of progress, and long-term investors have to account for this inconvenient fact.

Some of them just head over the hill quicker than others. So what once-amazing gadgetry is starting to show its age right now?

We asked a panel of Motley Fool contributors that very question, looking for items that are sure to be nothing more than quaintly nostalgic memories by 2025. They came up with two reasons consumer-electronics veteran Sony should worry about the march of progress, an inevitable shocker for navigation-systems expert Garmin, and some bad news for Microsoft. Amazon.com is poised to win some and lose some; Netflix looks like a big winner.

But wait -- there's more! Dive in below for the full rundown on three industries heading straight for massive makeovers in the next 10 years.

Dan Kline, gaming consoles: While the current top-tier game consoles -- Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 -- are outselling their predecessors at this point in their sales cycle, these two could be the last of the line. It's not that people won't want to play games at home. That could actually increase. It's that a dedicated device will no longer be necessary.

Gaming has been possible on computers, tablets, and other devices for a long time. The problem is, aside from a top-of-the-line gaming PC hooked up to a huge monitor (which costs a lot more than a console), none of those delivered an experience that rivals the top-tier dedicated gaming boxes. In recent years, however, that has been changing, and it's possible to game on your TV using set-top streaming boxes such as Amazon's Fire TV.

Priced at $99, this video player offers a pretty good gaming experience, with older high-end titles such as various& Grand Theft Auto games, as well as a number of titles that first made their mark on tablets. Amazon even sells a console-like game controller as an add-on for the device, which enhances the gaming experience. This will not yet rope in the hardcore game-players, but it's a viable, cheaper option for families.

This is a subtle shift in the console/set-top-box market. In the past, consoles played games first. Other services, such as the ability to use apps, were a secondary function. That has changed with the current generation, where Xbox One and PS4 are meant to control your living room. As time moves on, the lines will blur and games will just be another thing your streaming box offers.

There might be some form of a console aimed only at high-end gamers, but they won't be mass products such as PS4 and Xbox One. Games were the original draw that sold everything from the Atari 2600 to Sega Genesis and every other hit console. Now, apps and other video services are the stars along with games, and people will want devices (probably relatively inexpensive ones) that can offer both.

Anders Bylund, Blu-ray players: The Blu-ray disc is having a good run, replacing the DVD for all intents and purposes. Higher picture quality, better sound, more interactive extra features, and larger storage for today's increasingly complex video games -- what's not to love?

But the Blu-ray was always a dead device walking. Today's high-def storage format isn't good enough for the coming 4K video makeover(and 4K itself looks like a short-lived stopgap --8K video is already knocking on your living room door).

Sure, there will be another hardware format, but the real replacement is not a next-generation optical disc or holocube. Instead, media storage is moving into the cloud, and you'll access tomorrow's 8K video (and 16K, 32K, and so on) via online streaming services.

Netflix is leading the way and will remain a front-runner for years to come. Consumers enjoy the company's clean interfaces and single-minded business focus on streaming services.

Amazon isn't far behind, though the company's online retailing focus is distracting Amazon from going all-in on streaming video today. Amazon's streaming services are peppered with attempts to make you buy Blu-ray, DVD, and downloadable file versions of the stuff you just want to watch once.

These are today's biggest streaming-video leaders, running just ahead of a pack of hungry wolves. And of course, I can't talk about whatever upstart businesses that inventors, venture capitalists, and media geniuses are cooking up right now or next year. But it's clear that the streaming model is taking over the jobs of both Blu-ray discs and traditional cable TV subscriptions.

None of this was possible 10 years ago, when sluggish dial-up connections still outnumbered broadband customers in the U.S. and 3 megabits per second counted as a high-speed service. But today, fast and reliable broadband connections are everywhere, including in your pocket if you want to catch the latest Game of Thrones or Walking Dead on the go.

Specialized hardware just can't compete with that. Online streaming services offer more flexibility, faster content delivery, and quicker access to next-generation video quality upgrades. Blu-ray poster boy Sony and the other nine royalty-grabbing members of that consortium will soon lose this temporary cash cow.

Your living room is ready to go all digital, all the time. The Blu-ray player just isn't invited to that party.

Sam Mattera, GPS units: Demand for dedicated GPS units is slowly dwindling. Smartphones, equipped with a variety of robust mapping services, rendered them obsolete years ago. The market has been slow to react, but it seems unlikely that these devices will exist for too much longer.

In 2008, Apple introduced built-in turn-by-turn navigation with its second-generation iPhone. Around the same time, the first Android-powered handsets launched and included full support for Google Maps. Today, virtually every smartphone available is equipped with GPS and comes with some sort of mapping service pre-installed.

Not every adult has a smartphone, but we're slowly nearing the point of total saturation -- almost two-thirds of American adults currently own smartphones, up from just over one-third in 2011.

The mapping capabilities of these devices should only increase in the months ahead. Android Auto and Apple's Car Play allow iPhone and Android handset owners to access apps -- including mapping apps -- directly from their dashboard. Dozens of automotive manufacturers have agreed to install both systems on their new cars.

In terms of individual companies, Garmin is notably exposed. Garmin's personal navigators generated about 37% of its revenue last quarter. Management admits that its GPS business is challenged and projects annual declines of around 10% to 15% for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, Garmin has other business segments to rely on, including activity trackers, aviation systems, and action cameras.

But the traditional GPS business is going away.

SEE ALSO: Apple's new iPhone update is making the home screen obsolete for me

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NOW WATCH: How to use Apple's Spotify killer — now on everyone's iPhone

During the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" panel at San Diego Comic-Con, fans didn't get to see any scenes or a new trailer for the film.

Instead, they showed off over three minutes of incredible behind the scenes footage.

When will you be able to see a new trailer?

Abrams told the over 6,000 crowd in Hall H we'll have to wait a few months.

"Here's the thing. The truth is, we aren't ready to show you scenes from the movie or a new trailer," said Abrams. "We really want to wait and do the trailer later in the fall."

"We knew that this was too important coming to you, who care about this, and love this so much. And, we wanted to bring something that was as unique and unexpected as we could. We put together a piece that you're gonna see that we hoped would bring you into the process a little bit of what it was like to make this movie and see some of the people who are doing it so, we have that."

In case you haven't seen the behind-the-scenes footage, here it is below:

Watch the full panel below:

SEE ALSO: Stormtroopers escorted fans to a secret "Star Wars" concert at Comic-Con and we were there

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NOW WATCH: Meet the dark side of the new 'Star Wars' cast

Every August, without exception, a new "Madden" video game arrives. It's been this way for over 20 years.

But it almost wasn't.

"Making football into a franchise coming out every year was something nobody wanted," Electronic Arts co-founder and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers told game website Polygon in a recent interview. At the time – the late 1980s – the concept of making sports games into sequelized franchises was unheard of. 

"Everybody thought it was impossible. If you turn back time, there was zero percent of people who were market researchable who thought there should be a second 'John Madden Football,'" Gordon said.

EA was only convinced to annualize "Madden" by a fantasy football game, played on paper cards, named "Strat-O-Matic." 

"These guys would stay up all night and open their new [Strat-O-Matic] cards. We looked at each other and said, it’s a new season, there’s new players and new rules. We’d buy it. And so we built it," Gordon explained to Polygon.

That decision flew in the face of market research, which not only told EA that branding the game with John Madden's name wasn't worthwhile, but that making the game into an annual franchise with regular sequels wouldn't work. "All the market research said, no, you can’t sequel sports games. The retailers like Toys 'R Us said, ‘We won’t even buy it from you. All you’re going to do is obsolete our old game.’ They said, ‘What, you’re going to make us return this stuff? It’s selling fine.’”

Of course we all know how that story ended: The annual release of "Madden" is an event both for dedicated game players and more casual folks as well. "Madden," alongside "FIFA," is one of EA's crown jewels, one of its most important franchises, and assuredly EA's most well-known franchise here in the United States. 

"Madden 16"– the next game in the franchise – arrives, as usual, this August for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. And yes, there will be another next year.

SEE ALSO: I hate sports games — but 'Rocket League' is the best game of the year so far

AND: 10 reasons you should start playing 'Destiny'

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NOW WATCH: EA Sports just showed off the new Madden NFL game and it looks unbelievably realistic

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' had a huge showing at this year's San Diego Comic Con, like holding panels for fans and even throwing a free 'Star Wars' themed concert.

Harrison Ford surprised everyone by showing up at a 'Star Wars' panel for the first time since his accident. 

Produced by Corey Protin. Video Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures. 

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Snapchat is one of the hottest social networks on the planet, but a lot of people are freaking out over a big change Snapchat made to its app.

If you don't know anything about Snapchat, this is the general idea: you take a photo or short video (also called a "snap") and share it with other people. After it's viewed, the snap disappears forever.

But lately Snapchat has been adding more features to make itself a place for all kinds of entertainment beyond just sending snaps. And it's one of those changes that's made so many people angry.

Earlier this week, Snapchat tweaked the design of its app to more prominently feature its live events coverage and Discover, a collection of hand-picked media partners that pump out daily content designed specifically for viewing on Snapchat.

Since the update, the app has been flooded with nearly 2,000 one-star reviews in Apple's App Store, criticizing the decision to place Discover and live events above other people's individual snap stories. The feedback is so negative that Snapchat's average review rating in the App Store has dropped from two-and-a-half to one-and-a-half stars.

Snapchat did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

"Nobody views the discover page"

Discover, which includes video and text stories from media partners like CNN, Vice, and The Daily Mail, was previously limited to its own tab to the right of the main Stories window. This meant that if you wanted to see a story from Vice, you had to actively seek it out.

Now, Discover is lumped in where you view all of your friends' stories, so you see the logos from Snapchat's media partners anytime you want to see a new story.

"This discover thing is so dumb"

 "A horrible, useless feature"

Snapchat has already been criticized heavily for its confusing interface. It's a common complaint among the app's nearly 67,000 one-star App Store reviews. And the last couple of updates don't seem to be making things better.

The option to hide live stories has been removed, and people want it back.

Because Snapchat auto-loads some live event stories, people have also complained that the app is using up their valuable data on videos they don't even want to watch.

"No one wants to see something that's completely unrelated to what they WANT to see"

"It's like you're forcing it down our throats"

Reviews are more positive among Android users on Google Play.

Out of nearly three-in-a-half million reviews in the Google Play store, the average rating for Snapchat is four stars. Not bad.

But there are still haters.

People just don't see the point of Discover.

Does all this mean Snapchat is doomed? Far from it. The Venice, California based startup is worth an estimated $16 billion and rapidly adding new users.

But are these concerns worth paying attention to? Probably, especially if Snapchat wants its advertising business model to take off. Advertisers are paying huge rates to be part of Discover, but if the feature doesn't do well, it could be trouble for Snapchat.

SEE ALSO: What millennials think of Snapchat Discover

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NOW WATCH: Mark Cuban explains why downloading Snapchat is a huge mistake

Weight Watchers is one of the most popular diet programs on the planet.

You input your weight, height, and age information along with your goals and a few other things. When you're done, you get a plan to help you reach your desired weight safely. The idea is that you get an allotment of daily "points" to consume along with flexible weekly points. If you stay inside the guidelines, you are supposed to lose weight.

It's very popular, and it's also $19.95 per month. That can be pretty steep for some folks looking to lose weight. And it costs more if you want to go to their meetings as well.

This is why an app in the iOS App Store called "iTrackBites" is gaining so much popularity (also available for Android but the app is much worse).

I've been using this app for a few months after years using Weight Watchers, and I can say quite plainly that it does nearly everything the official app does. And it's just a one-time cost rather than monthly. It's even built on what seems to be the Weight Watchers plan, complete with "Daily Points,""Weekly Points,""Activity Points," and many other features. 

Weight Watchers assigns point values to different foods based on their nutritional information. These same values are used in iTrackBites.

We reached out to Weight Watchers to ask them if they had any comment on the app. They told us that they had no comment at this time.

It's $3.99 in the App Store with additional features inside you can pay for that are not necessary. You may end up shelling out around $10, but when you consider that a Weight Watchers base membership is $19.95 per month, it's a bargain.

Here's how it works.

SEE ALSO: 'Suicide Squad' star Margot Robbie is taking over Hollywood

First, a look at the official Weight Watchers app on iOS, as a point of reference.

And here's how the main screen of iTrackBites looks.

Here's a breakdown of the main screen. As you can probably tell, it's very similar to the official Weight Watchers app.

NOW WATCH: What Adderall is actually doing to your body

The hype is real.

I just tried HTC's virtual reality headset Vive, and I'm certain we're on the precipice of a major change in computing. This is going to change the world as we know it. Really.

The HTC Vive was born out of a partnership with Valve, one of the most important gaming companies in the industry: Valve runs the Steam store, which is the biggest distribution platform for online games, and the company is also famous for making several critically-acclaimed games, including the "Half-Life" series. HTC, of course, makes consumer technology products, including the gorgeous HTC One smartphone line.

So when Valve and HTC introduced the Vive at Mobile World Congress in early March, the response wasn't just "good." It was overwhelmingly positive. Just look at these headlines from around the web at the time:

Having just experienced the HTC Vive first-hand, I can tell you that the device truly lives up to its expectations, and then some. And this was just an early version of the headset. The final version launches later this year.

Here's a quick rundown of what I experienced:

• I'm ushered into a hotel room in Manhattan to test out the Vive. The windows are covered with a dark shade and all of the reflective surfaces were covered, too.
• J.B. McRee, HTC's senior manager of product marketing, explains that the final consumer version of the HTC Vive won't require you to turn the lights off or cover all your reflective surfaces; they simply did this to ensure a stable VR experience for all the demos throughout the day.
• I don the Vive headset and McRee throws some headphones over my ears. I'm suddenly standing in a white room with a ring of applications for games and demos floating around me.
• McRee holds two symmetrical controllers, and I can see them in my white environment, just floating in the air. I instinctively grab them, and I can hold them now. The two symmetrical hand controllers are now wireless (they were wired when the Vive was introduced in March). Both controllers have small touch-sensitive pads, and triggers on the back.

• The demo starts, and I'm suddenly standing on an underwater shipwreck on the ocean floor. Fish are swimming around me, and I see the shadow of a manta ray cross the boat. I look up and see a small school of manta rays swim by. I turn around again and see a giant blue whale approach the ship and slow down, just to greet me. We have a small staring contest. I'm pretty sure I win because the whale swims away.
• The next demo begins. Suddenly, I'm in a colorful Italian kitchen. I see a cutting board, a rolling pin, a full stove, and tons of ingredients in front of me: mushrooms, tomatoes, sriracha, and more. In the background, I see instructions to make some kind of tomato stew. So I use the trigger on my hand controllers to grab the ingredients and throw them in the pot. I'm dropping some supplies occasionally, but all in good fun. I need one more mushroom, so I open the fridge and get one. Turning around in that tiny kitchen made me feel like I was actually a chef in a restaurant, not just playing a game.
• Next, I try a painting application. The environment actually looks like our hotel room, but very dark, so as to highlight the activity. A flower appears in front of me and I start using my hand controllers to paint: The right controller is my brush, and the left controller is my palette. I use the "brush" to point to the color I want on the palette, and begin painting. I draw a bunch of squiggly circles, but then I look around my drawing only to realize it's in 3D, not 2D. What looked like a simple 2D ball now actually looks like a spiral strand of DNA. I've never painted in 3D before, so this felt like an entirely novel experience.
• Finally, I'm dropped into a familiar setting: The scientific testing grounds of Aperture Labs, home to Valve's "Portal" series, one of my favorite games. I walk around a small white and beige room, which looks like an office for a scientist or tinkerer. I'm asked to flip switches, open drawers, and fix a broken down robot. At one point, the walls of the room fall away and I'm standing in the center of a giant factory. It was awe-inspiring.

Following my demo, I had a chance to sit down with Jeff Gattis, HTC's executive director for marketing and emerging devices. I had tons of questions about my experience, and how HTC and Valve hope to get this product into people's homes. Here's a brief synopsis of what I learned:

• HTC and Valve are aiming to release the Vive before year's end. That said, it's not certain if only pre-orders will be available by that time, or if the companies intend to ship the first batch of products out to customers before the start of 2016. We will learn more in October at an HTC event, apparently.
• As McRee previously told me, lights and reflective surfaces won't be much of an issue for the final consumer release. HTC and Valve are taking into account that most people's living rooms also have tables and counters, as well as televisions, so they're building in smart ways for Vive users to navigate those spaces safely without bumping into furniture, or even stepping on a cat.
• Vive content (games, demos, and more) will be available through the Valve VR store, but considering many developers for Facebook-owned Oculus Rift will also want to build applications for the HTC Vive, it's likely there will be other ways to download virtual reality content.
• Many brands have reached out to HTC to start building applications for Vive. All the big car companies, including Mercedes, want to use the Vive to create immersive virtual reality experiences for their customers, but plenty of other huge companies, like Nike and Coca-Cola, are also getting involved early.
• HTC and Valve will soon announce the PC requirements for the Vive, but both companies want to offer this experience to as many people as possible. So as HTC and Valve work on lessening the requirements for Vive to work — it's mainly about having a capable graphics processor — Gattis insists Vive will work on Windows PC, Linux, and Mac.

The biggest takeaway from my talk with Gattis, however, was that Vive's potential is almost limitless.

Virtual reality experiences, or the ability to transport a person to any place at any time to experience anything you could dream of, have tons of applications in almost every major industry you can think of.

Education

Kids love visuals, and with virtual reality, you can take them on a field trip without ever leaving the classroom. You can also teach them things like animals, biology, and history, just by taking them to those places in virtual settings.

Entertainment

Games are a popular application for virtual reality, but imagine being able to sit courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game without needing to visit the Staples Center. Imagine being able to watch a live concert, in perfect 3D, without needing to stand in a mob of people. 

Medicine 

Doctors, researchers, and patients can learn more about the human body, particularly with regards to conditions and treatments, to improve internal practices and patient care. Plus, spending time in virtual reality I imagine is extremely therapeutic; for a period of time, you forget you're in the real world, and that immersion is helpful as a means of distraction.

Retail 

Shopping online isn't always easy, but trying on virtual clothes, or being able to see and manipulate a product in the virtual world could be a helpful tool for making purchase decisions.

Military

Simulation is an important part of training, and military groups have long used virtual reality for things like flight and vehicle simulation, as well as battlefield training. As these tools improve, our soldiers will be better prepared for what's out there, and they won't need to spend money on using expensive physical tools to do so.

Engineering 

As Microsoft showed off in its HoloLens demo, being able to create and manipulate 3D objects in real-time — and potentially even print out those 3D objects from a nearby printer — could have massive implications for the maker community. With fewer barriers to creation, more people can design and construct systems large and small — it could even help engineers create houses, or new forms of transportation.

Social experiences

Right now, the Vive is more or less a solo experience. But Gattis said HTC is certainly looking into making the virtual reality experience a social one, where you can meet and chat with people in a virtual environment, even if those people are on the other side of the globe. Some companies have even created these kinds of applications: A company called AltspaceVR, for instance, once showed me how multiple people's avatars could interact with each other in real-time, exploring virtual spaces or even just watching YouTube videos together.

Many of these virtual experiences are in development right now, but after my brief 30-minute demo with HTC, I'm convinced of VR's limitless potential. It's immersive, it's functional, it's intuitive, and it's addictive. Taking off the Vive was, dare I say it, sad. My colleague Antonio Villas-Boas tried the Vive after I did, and his reaction upon taking off the headset summed up the experience perfectly: "Well, thanks for ruining reality for me!"

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NOW WATCH: Thanks to Facebook's virtual reality device, I've been to 'The Matrix' and all I want is to go back

After hours of tense waiting, NASA finally released the first images its New Horizons spacecraft took during its historic flyby of Pluto and its moons.

That full collection of images will trickle in over the next year or so, but NASA's first release included some unprecedented views of Pluto's largest moon Charon (pronounced Shar-on, according to its discoverer):

"Charon just blew our socks off," Cathy Olkin, New Horizons deputy project scientist, said during a NASA press conference Wednesday. "The team has just been abuzz, 'look at this, look at that, that's amazing!'"

We've known about Charon since the 1970s — well before the New Horizons mission. But the best images we had of it were fuzzy blobs, like the one below, which the Hubble space telescope captured in 1998. Charon is the top right object:

The New Horizons team expected to find a cold, dead, and cratered satellite of Pluto. But the mission's principle investigator Alan Stern shared some surprising news:

"Charon has been active [recently], and there are mountains in the Kuiper belt," Stern said during the press conference. 

Charon is the same size as other objects in the Kuiper Belt, and scientists always thought these objects were just "candy-coated lumps of ice," New Horizons scientist John Spencer said. Now they're entirely questioning that assumption.

Olkin explained that the smooth band that runs from the northeast part of Charon to the southwest corner suggests that the moon might be geologically active and resurfacing the world.

The canyon in the top right corner of Charon is four to six miles deep, Olkin said, and there are cliffs that extend about 600 miles across.

Researchers are also learning a lot more about Charon's mysteriously dark-colored north pole that they have nicknamed "Mordor." 

"We think that the dark coloring could perhaps be a thin veneer," Olkin said, as evidenced by bright-white impact craters.

Charon has already blown away scientists, and it will certainly continue to do so as we slowly download more data from New Horizons.

"Pluto did not disappoint. I can add that Charon did not disappoint either," Olkin said. 

But that wasn't all we learned about Pluto's moons. In the last decade we've discovered four new ones orbiting Pluto. We got a glimpse of two — Nix and Hydra — in this image taken by Hubble in 2006:

"Pluto and Charon are going to steal the day today, but let's not forget that Pluto has four small moons," Hal Weaver, project scientist for New Horizons, said during the NASA press conference.

And we got our first-ever image of one of them — Hydra. It's not as clear as the Charon photo, since it was farther away from the New Horizons spacecraft:

But there's a trove of surprising information hidden in the pixelated blob.

"The surface of Hydra is surprisingly large — about 45% percent of sunlight gets reflected away," Weaver said. "The surface is composed primarily of water ice. That's the only way to get it that bright. And that's cool."

SEE ALSO: NASA has taken us to Pluto for the first time

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You're going to have to wait a little longer before an Apple-powered smart home becomes a reality. 

That's because home automation devices that are compatible with HomeKit, which is the system that enables smart gadgets to be easily controlled using one app or via Siri voice command, are in short supply.

When Apple introduced its HomeKit plan back in 2014, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, said that the company was working with the leaders in home automation devices as he showed a slide that mentioned more than 15 manufacturers.

But there are fewer than 20 accessories that work with HomeKit from only five manufacturers, according to the company’s website.

What gives?

Well, the reason there are currently so few compatible devices could have something to do with Apple overhauling its security approach for home automated devices.

Apple had previously planned to allow device makers to run their own security solutions inside peoples’ homes, but the company shifted gears and is now requiring manufacturers to integrate Apple-certified chips and firmware into their products if they want to be compatible with HomeKit, according to a report from The Register.

While the changes would help improve security by handling things like wireless communication and encryption on these devices, it’s causing manufacturers a huge headache because they have to redesign products, which is expensive and time consuming.

Business Insider reached out to Apple to see if this was the case, but has not yet received a reply.

SEE ALSO: There's a dangerous side to turning your home into a smart home

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NOW WATCH: We unboxed the Amazon Echo — it's like Siri for your house

Ever since the first trailer for "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" premiered, the one thing people can't stop talking about is that insane airplane stunt that Tom Cruise pulls off. 

That stunt was not aided with CGI; Cruise was really hanging off the side of a plane. 

A new behind-the-scenes video gives a closer look at how exactly they pulled this wild stunt off. He even had to pull the stunt off eight times in order to get it just right.

It took a lot of preparation, including putting something in Cruise's eyes. A Paramount spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider Cruise had to wear special contact lenses so he could keep his eyes open despite the wind pressure.

Here's Cruise getting strapped in and closed off:

Cruise said he "couldn't sleep the night before," but he doesn't look too scared.

The only thing keeping him attached to the plane was a rope and harness.

The stakes were high.

"If something went wrong, I can't get into the airplane until we land." Cruise said.

Here he is just as the plane is about to take off:

And here he is, dangling in the air with very little support:

"I'm feeling the force of the wind hit me and I'm actually scared s***less." Cruise said.

"Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" opens in theaters on July 31.

You can watch the full behind-the-scenes video below:

SEE ALSO: Here's how Tom Cruise filmed the crazy plane-hanging stunt in the new 'Mission: Impossible'

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NOW WATCH: Watch 52-year-old Tom Cruise beat up bad guys in the new 'Mission: Impossible' trailer

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured highly detailed photos of Pluto's surface.  

The spacecraft spent more than eight hours recording the planet's information, and the images and measurements gathered have quickly changed the understanding about this previously mysterious world.

Video courtesy of Reuters

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We've finally seen the first up close of images of Pluto and a few of its moons, and they're breathtaking.

The stunning new photos came from New Horizon's 15-minute flyby on July 14, and after seeing them, scientists say they've been left with more questions than answers.

"The terrain down toward the lower right [of Pluto's close-up image] looks really strange. It looks like piles of grooves and stuff, to use really technical language," said John Spencer, a New Horizons team member, during a NASA press briefing Wednesday. "It's baffling, and it's baffling in a very special way."

Some of these piles are actually 11,000-foot-high mountains. "They'd stand up respectably against the Rocky Mountains," said Spencer, who's also a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Colorado.

Here's what the mountains look like in the close-up photo, which New Horizons took from about 478,000 miles away:

Scientists on the New Horizons team think these strange mountains are made of something surprising: water.

"The bedrock that makes those mountains must be made of H2O," the mission's principle investigator, Alan Stern of SwRI, said during the press conference. "We see water ice on Pluto for the first time. We can be very sure that the water is there in great abundance."

There could even be geysers or cryovolcanoes in this or other mountain ranges on Pluto:

"We haven't found geysers and we haven't found cryovolcanoes, but this is very strong evidence that will send us looking ... for evidence of these exact phenomena," Stern said.

The water-ice mountains and possible volcanoes are found near the planet's "heart"— an adorably shaped geologic feature discovered by New Horizons, which they're now calling "Tombaugh Regio" (after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto).

And while that heart looks like one special area, it's actually two, as you can see in this exaggerated color image released on July 14:

The image reveals Pluto's heart is made of a bunch of different materials. The left lobe is a light peach color, while the right lobe is more bluish. They don't know, for sure, what those colors mean, but more data in the coming months will likely crack open some of those mysteries.

Another fascinating finding from that close-up photo? There are almost no craters on the surface of Pluto (at least in that area). This is incredibly surprising — planetary scientists said today they haven't seen anything like it.

That also means that the surface there is incredibly young (young, at least, when it comes to planetary bodies in our solar system). They dated that area of the planet to about 100 million years old, compared to the 4.56-billion-year age of the Solar System.

The springy youth of that area of Pluto could mean the dwarf planet is still geologically active. This is another incredibly shocking idea for researchers, since — unlike large moons the size of Pluto — it doesn't have the tidal push-and-pull of a giant planet to warm it up inside.

Scientists always thought a big planet's gravity was the cause of any warmth and geological activity on such small worlds. But nope! There's obviously something else going on on Pluto to keep it moving and warm and making mountains.

"This may cause us to rethink what powers geological activity on many other icy worlds," Spencer said in a NASA press release. New Horizons think the leading candidate for warmth is radioactive elements, like thorium

Water ice isn't the only type of ice on Pluto. This infrared spectral image of Pluto shows methane ice abundantly coating the dwarf planet's surface:

"We just learned that in the north polar cap, methane ice is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice resulting in strong absorption of infrared light," New Horizons co-investigator Will Grundy, of Lowell Observatory, said in a press release.

But Grundy said no one is sure what the darker patches near the equator are made of: "The spectrum appears as if the ice is less diluted in nitrogen," he said, "or that it has a different texture in that area."

We'll find out more about Pluto's atmosphere and chemical makeup from light-sampling spectrometers on board the spacecraft. And as soon as Friday, New Horizons should beam down a brand-new set of images.

SEE ALSO: This is the best image we've ever seen of Pluto's largest moon — and it has stunned scientists

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NOW WATCH: Bill Nye and NASA scientists react to seeing a clear picture of Pluto for the first time

Business Insider is hiring a paid video intern to join our growing news team.

The role includes conceptualizing and editing videos across a range of subjects, including breaking and viral news, with a focus on science and technology. It also involves editing video for multiple mediums, from Facebook to Snapchat to YouTube, in addition to our website.

Video interns should be ready to get out in the field, too. 

The ideal candidate has a passion for storytelling and the ability to edit video quickly and creatively. He or she is a news buff who always knows what's going on in the world, and is addicted to social media.

Candidates should know how to edit on Final Cut X or Premiere and how to use Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, various types of audio and digital video equipment including Canon and Sony cameras, and how to shoot awesome video with their iPhone. 

Here are some of our recent videos to give you a feel for the types of things you'd be creating:

3 keys to getting a good night's sleep

Here's how Cristiano Ronaldo spends his money

The future of our everyday devices is a material you've never heard of

CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW. 

Please note that this internship requires you to work in our New York office. 

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NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it

As more and more American women are waiting longer to start families than was common in the past, the effects of this trend are starting to come into focus.

Delaying starting a family by a year is associated with a 9% increase in a woman's earnings over the course of her career; that increase adds up for every extra year she waits.

Besides that benefit for women, waiting longer to start having kids is also linked to some good things for the kids themselves.

Amalia Miller, an economist at the University of Virginia, looked at test scores in reading and math for over 1,000 students and found that a year's delay in a woman starting a family was associated with a small but significant increase in her child's test scores, on average. "A 7 year delay," Miller notes in the paper, "produces gains on par with the black-white score difference"— a major and much-studied disparity.

Now, this doesn't mean that children born to older mothers always scored better on the tests than those with younger mothers, and in her paper Miller notes that "motherhood timing is clearly not the main source of test score differences."

Still, in analyzing the data (pulled from a national survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics), Miller found that the increase in test scores she saw held even when she controlled for financial status, family structure, race, and level of education. She also factored in how long it took women to get pregnant, whether they had used contraception, and whether they'd had any miscarriages. That helped Miller gauge the effect of unintentional delay, to try to rule out the possibility that women's personal traits or situations were the driving force behind when they decided to have kids and what those kids' test scores were.

But whether women had waited by design or by chance, the higher test scores for kids with mothers who delayed starting a family remained.

So, what's the reason?

Test scores are by no means a perfect measurement of intelligence, and there may be some other factor that affects intelligence that Miller didn't control for. But one potential explanation might be quality of parenting increasing with age, Miller suggests.

She notes that more research is necessary to provide evidence supporting that hypothesis, but Miller isn't the only one to posit that older women make better parents.

Lois Nachamie, a board certified psychotherapist in private practice in New York City who specializes in parenting issues, told Business Insider that in her experience, older women are generally more emotionally ready to be mothers than younger women are. (There's some research supporting this view.)

Parents have to put the needs of their child above their own, and this can be harder for a younger person who is, appropriately for her age, focused on her own career, growth, fun, and intellectual development, Nachamie told Business Insider. With age, people develop to the point where they're more willing and able to meet the needs of another, in general.

"By the time you're in your 30s, you have a fair amount of accomplishment under your belt, which I think gives you a little bit more ability to not necessarily resent the neediness of an infant and a toddler," Nachamie said.

Whether or not the difference in older and younger parents Nachamie pointed out is related to the trend in test scores Miller observed, as more women wait longer to have kids, the consequences for individual families and society are significant, changing our society in ways we may not expect.

SEE ALSO: There's a big difference between having kids at 30 and 35

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NOW WATCH: This is why doctors recommend that women drink less than men

If you're looking to change up your morning commute, try hopping in the nearest river. 

On Tuesday, Boulder, Colorado hosted its eighth annual "Tube To Work Day,"9 News reported. 

Participants brought inner tubes and floated down Boulder Creek to their respective day jobs.

Sporting business attire, many of the participants gave new meaning to the word "wetsuit."

With 200 people joining in the fun, Tuesday's tubers shattered last year's record of 40 participants, Daily Camera noted. 

Thanks to Instagram, you can check out the event without ever getting your feet wet. 

Here's a closeup look at Tube to Work Day. 

SEE ALSO: 'Sunburn Art' is an Instagram trend so painful you'll immediately want to slather on as much SPF as possible

Dress code is important on Tube to Work Day.

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Despite the chilly temperature, this squad was all smiles before their commute.

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If Tube to Work Day had a "best dressed" award, we're sure this guy would be a top contender.

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NOW WATCH: What Adderall is actually doing to your body

Smart home products are supposed to help keep you safe, but some of these connected devices could put you in danger.

As home automation products flood the market, there’s growing concern that these internet connected devices — like smart cameras and thermostats — are an easy target for hackers because they lack basic security measures. 

“Really, the state of security on these things right now is pretty atrocious,” Colby Moore, a security research engineer at the cybersecurity firm Synack, told Business Insider.

Earlier this year, Synack tested 16 home automation devices and found only one that its researchers couldn't easily break into. 

This is a problem because if a cyber criminal can break into your home devices they can start to understand your behaviors and patterns — like when you are home and when you are not — putting your safety and privacy at risk, said Joe Loomis, CEO and founder of CyberSponse.

“It’s almost like casing a bank. When somebody knows your behaviors and where you are going to be it’s easier to take advantage of their vulnerabilities,” Loomis told Business Insider. “The other problem is on the privacy side. If somebody wants to take your video or your pictures and exploit it in some way or another, that’s another bad issue.”

Why hacking the home could become a big problem

While we are still in the early days of the smart home automation, these products, which are part of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), could become a big problem because so many of the devices simply lack basic security measures. 

Part of the issue stems from the fact that some of the companies making these products just don't have strong backgrounds in security.

“A lot of these device manufacturers are just not security people and they really just don’t have security people on staff, especially when it comes to IoT start-ups,” Moore said. “What they are doing is phenomenal with all of these new uses for technology. But security isn’t a concern for everybody. It’s ship now and patch later mentality.”

Also, there are no industry standards for security on these types of devices, so some manufacturers  just opt to do as little as possible, Moore said.

Apple has run into this problem recently with manufacturers looking to get onto the HomeKit Platform, which is the technology used to control smart home products with an Apple iPhone or iPad.

Apple is requiring manufacturers who want their devices to be compatible with HomeKit to include special chips and firmware, but manufacturers are reluctant because the changes take more time and money, according to a report from the Register published earlier this week.

“There’s no industry standard and there’s is no way to tell if a product is secure or not if you are the average Joe. That is a big problem and it’s a problem that the industry needs to address and is thinking about,” Moore said.

How to keep your smart home secure

While you can’t just install some sort of anti-virus software on your automated home devices, there are a few steps you can take to decrease the odds of being hacked. 

First, only buy products that are made by companies you trust.

“The best thing you can do is buy devices that are well established in the marketplace and buy devices that are backed by a real company who takes security seriously,” Moore said.

Second, treat your smart home products like any other computer in your home and make sure you are updating the software as updates are released and changing your password regularly.

And the most effective way to avoid getting your home hacked is to simply avoid buying smart home products until there is a better security standard put in place.

“If you are worried about it then don’t put yourself at risk,” Moore said. “It’s kind of up to us to demand a higher security standard and hold the manufacturers to it.”

SEE ALSO: Apple is now selling a thermostat you can control with your voice

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NOW WATCH: We unboxed the Amazon Echo — it's like Siri for your house

Caitlyn Jenner has a staunch ally in the form of Siri, iPhone's voice-activated virtual assistant.

Siri got attention recently after users discovered its sassy response to the question, "What's zero divided by zero?"

Since that revelation, iPhone users have been discovering even more quirky responses from Siri, uncovering a programmed personality of sorts. 

The latest revelation? Siri is more capable than some humans when it comes to understanding gender identity.

Check out how Siri reacts when users ask a question about Jenner's gender.

Ask a question using Jenner's former first name, Bruce, and Siri will reply using Jenner's new name.

Keep asking about "Bruce," and Siri might even get a little impatient with you.

This also applies when you ask Siri questions about Jenner's life.

Siri respects Jenner's chosen name and gender identity, refusing to call her by her previous name.

Caitlyn Jenner isn't the only transgender person on Siri's radar. 

Siri aced the gender pronouns when I asked it about four other famous transgender people.

Balian Buschbaum is an accomplished German pole vaulter and a transgender male. He was born with the name Yvonne Buschbaum.

Laverne Cox is a member of the cast of "Orange is the New Black." She is a transgender woman.

Alexis Arquette was born with the name Robert Arquette. Siri acknowledges Alexis's female gender identity.

Chaz Bono is a transgender male born with the name Chastity Sun Bono. He is the son of entertainers Sonny Bono and Cher. 

This isn't the first time a computer proved it was able to adapt to gender changes more quickly than humans could — a Twitter bot spent the day of Jenner's Vanity Fair cover reveal scolding people for messing up her pronouns online.

SEE ALSO: 14 Easter-egg questions you can ask Siri to get a hilarious response

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NOW WATCH: You get a really long-winded answer when you ask Siri to tell you a story

NASA's New Horizons team has just revealed the most detailed images of Pluto yet, and they're ecstatic about what they've seen — a smooth, young, and active surface on what they had previously thought was an old battered ball of ice.

The New Horizons spacecraft took the following images on July 14, almost a decade after the mission launched, shortly before the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto at a distance of 478,000 miles away.

The latest close-up image reveals a young, pointy mountain range that's about 11,000 feet high. Members of the New Horizons team believe this region, which covers less than 1% of Pluto's surface, is no more than 100 million years old — a youngster compared to the 4.56-billion-year age of the Solar System.

What's more: The mountain ranges are probably still growing.

"This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,"Jeff Moore, a member of the New Horizons geology, geophysics, and imaging team, said in a NASA press release.

Scientists expected Pluto to be heavily pocked with craters, i.e. from billions of years of pummeling by space rocks. Instead, they discovered the dwarf planet's surface — at least what they've seen of it — to be relatively free of craters.

"We have not yet found a single impact crater on this image," said John Spencer, one of the co-investigators on the New Horizons team in a press conference. "This means that Pluto has a very young surface."

But that doesn't mean it's smooth. The mountain range is about as tall as the Rocky Mountains here on Earth.

Those are both signs that the dwarf planet is geologically active. Moore, Spencer, and the researchers can't explain where that activity is coming from, since it doesn't have the push-and-pull of gravity from a larger planet to heat it and keep it active.

This tells us that there must be some other type of process making Pluto's surface geologically active.

One theory is that radiation in the planet keeps it warm and active.

"We know there’s radioactive material in Pluto and Charon [Pluto's largest moon], as the same as bodies in our solar system," Spencer said. "This may be telling us that even in small bodies, if they’re icy, radioactive heat is enough to produce [geologic] activity."

Another possibility is a thawing and freezing ocean just under Pluto's surface, the researchers said during a NASA press conference.

The team has their work cut out for them as more data and images continue to stream in over the next days, weeks, and months.

Pluto is "going to send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing boards," said Alan Stern, the team's principle investigator from the Southwest Research Institute. "We haven't found geysers and we haven't found cryovolcanoes, but this is very strong evidence that will send us looking ... for evidence of these exact phenomena."

This is just the tip of the iceberg for Pluto. There are currently more questions than answers at this point. But a couple things are clear: These preliminary images of Pluto have far exceeded the expectations of the team — and there's still a lot more to learn about this icy yet surprisingly youthful world.

SEE ALSO: The Pluto flyby is just the start of NASA's epic New Horizons mission

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NOW WATCH: Bill Nye and NASA scientists react to seeing a clear picture of Pluto for the first time

Music has been the core of the 'Star Wars' franchise since it's inception. To showcase this major component of the films, Disney held a free concert at this year's San Diego Comic Con to celebrate the upcoming film, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

Produced by Corey Protin. Video Courtesy of Disney. 

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When was the last time you burst into laughter because something you’re experiencing is abso-freaking-lutely amazing?

This happened to me on Wednesday when I tried the Vive, a virtual reality headset made by HTC and gaming platform company Valve, for the first time.

I'm now convinced the HTC Vive and similar devices like Facebook's Oculus Rift are the next biggest thing for computing.

In fact, when you think of the Vive's endless applications, it could be one of the biggest things to happen not just in tech, but in the modern world. 

In a darkened room cleared of its furniture, HTC product marketing manager J.B. McRee stood with the Vive and two posts positioned diagonally opposite each other in two corners. The posts were holding small cubes high up above my head that emitted invisible lasers, which helped the Vive and the multiple sensors all over its exterior recognize where I was standing and moving in the room.

I put the Vive onto my head, and my obsession with virtual reality began.

The demos were actually very similar to most VR demos I’ve seen on the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and Google’s Cardboard. I could look around and marvel at the digital surroundings that were limited only by the imagination of those who designed the scenes.

The key differentiator that took me from an excited state about VR to total obsession was the fact that I could move around fluidly and intuitively throughout the entire experience. (Most VR demos make you sit or stand still.)

The first demo brought me to the front deck of a sunken ship underwater while fish swam around me. The amount of detail was incredible. With the controllers in both hands, I could swat the fish, and they’d swim away in response. Silhouettes of stingrays gliding above me broke the sun’s light coming through the water’s surface, and then a huge whale cam for a swim-by.

It looked so good. The depth of field was spot on. It was clearly digitally animated, but the image was the sharpest I’ve seen on a VR headset, and it was extremely responsive to my head’s movements, which closed the gap between reality and virtual reality.

And the sound was stellar, too. I was completely immersed. The sound of a scuba gear allowed me to think I was scuba diving, and the sound of the water was intensely realistic. The notion that I was not actually underwater on a shipwreck was present in my mind, but it was distant enough to make me feel like my body was in that scene. All that was missing was the feeling of the water.

Even though I could have walked around and looked over the side of the ship, I only took a couple steps around me because I was in such awe of what was surrounding me.

But the next demo would encourage me to move around a little more. From the ocean floor, I was taken to a cartoony kitchen setting where I had to walk forwards to get to a table. White gloved hands appeared when I held the controllers in front of me, and a robotic voice instructed me to put ingredients on the table into a pot. So I did. With incredible ease.

I was picking up tomatoes and mushrooms and placing them in the pot, and I had to open the fridge next to me to get more ingredients, which I also had to walk to. I did all of this as easily and seamlessly as I would do it in real life.

I never felt that I needed to adjust to the game’s own spatial dimensions. The distance of one of my foot steps in reality felt the same in the virtual world.

I had to push the trigger button on the controller instead of clenching my fingers around vegetables and fridge handles, but it was completely intuitive, easy, and accurate. I had experienced other devices that let you use your hands to interact with your computer, like the Leap Motion, for example. The difference with the Vive is that it worked well. Very well.

Another demo let me draw with various tools. I could draw in thin air and walk around what I had drawn to inspect the 3D image I created. It was beautiful. The applications are endless for art, design, architecture, and even science and medicine.

In other Vive demos, I could walk around the entire span of the room, and I never bumped into a wall as I completed tasks. I was confident I wouldn’t because the lasers I mentioned earlier create a virtual barrier that warns you you’re about to hit a wall in the real world.

So far, the size of the room needs to be under 15 x 15, or 225 square feet. But that’s bound to increase over time. And until wireless models of the Vive become available, you’re not going to want to move around too much as the Vive is still connected by some cabling that leads to some very expensive and high-performance computers.

Jeffrey Gattis, director of emerging devices marketing at HTC, told my colleage Dave Smith (who came with me to the demo) that the scenes are responsive. They adapt to the size of the room where you’re using the Vive, and each scene is designed to let you use the Vive in a very small space.

It’s the closest thing we currently have to Star Trek’s “Holodeck." And if you're not familiar with the Holodeck, then think of the Vive as a tool that lets you plug in to the Matrix. And like in The Matrix, the real world looks bland, decrepit, and sad when you take the Vive off. I have post-Vive depression right now, but it’s now just a matter of time until it becomes a reality.  

SEE ALSO: I tried both of the two hottest virtual reality headsets this week — here's why Vive beats Oculus

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NOW WATCH: This is Microsoft's ambitious plan to own virtual reality