Skip to main content

Facts and apps for tonight’s New Year’s Eve Times Square ball drop

New Year's Eve Ball Test
It’s a classic American New Year’s Eve tradition. Say goodbye to the old year (and as far as 2016 goes, that’s probably a good thing) and ring in the new year with help from the massive Times Square ball in New York City. As you read this, people in Times Square are huddled together in the chilly weather waiting for the big countdown.

The year 2016 is ready to be retired to the record books, but there are other numbers to consider tonight. A billion people will watch worldwide, with a million people expected at the NYC event itself. According to the Times Square Ball Facebook account, more than 32,000 LEDs will light up the ball, which can produce 16 million colors and “billions” of patterns.

Other facts about the ball: The first ball was made of iron and wood and was lowered in 1907, while the current model weighs almost 12,000 pounds and is covered with over 2,600 Waterford crystal triangles.

If you can’t make it to the Big Apple for the festivities, there are a few ways you can still tune in without having to brave the cold. Webcam fans can tune in to the Earthcam site beginning tonight at 10 p.m. ET. The cam will display different street-level vantage points you can check out. Get on the site early though, since everyone else will be hitting the site at the same time.

Since this is a special event, of course there’s an app for that. The official Times Square Ball App has an essential countdown timer, access to the live webcast, Twitter integration so you can let your fellow tweeps know about the #BALL, and info on the event itself.

Other online platforms available so you can check out the biggest party on the planet include the official Times Square Ball Twitter account, and Instagram.

Editors' Recommendations

Brinke Guthrie
Brinke’s favorite toys include his Samsung Galaxy Tab S, Toshiba Chromebook 2, Motorola Moto G4, and two Kindles. A…
WhatsApp users are experiencing New Year’s Eve outages
Afghanistan

On New Year's Eve, WhatsApp briefly experienced service outages in Europe, Asia, and South America, VentureBeat reports. Down Detector showed that the majority of service problems are concentrated in England, the Netherlands, and other parts of central Europe. The app's service problems first started showing up on Down Detector at about 9 a.m. PT. However, a WhatsApp spokesperson informed VentureBeat that the troubles began at around 10:30 a.m. PT.

"WhatsApp users around the world experienced a brief outage today that has now been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience," the spokesperson stated.

Read more
Alphabet is helping The New York Times improve its comments section
alphabet new york times moderator comments the

The New York Times recently announced plans to retire its public editor position, on the basis that comments submitted by readers served a similar purpose. Now, the publication has detailed how a partnership with Alphabet will help ease the transition to an automated comment moderation system dubbed Moderator.

A team of 14 human moderators were responsible for approving an average of 12,000 reader comments every day up until recently, according to a report from The Verge. However, Moderator currently approves around 20 percent of comments, and is set to take on a greater role over the coming months.

Read more
New York Times to start printing reporters’ tweets in new trending section
new york times tweets print

The New York Times will start highlighting the best and most relevant tweets from its reporting staff in a new section in its newspaper.

The move recognizes the importance of Twitter as a breaking news service, one that is used by Times’ reporters to reel off tweetstorms that can precede an article and elucidate it. As Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton has previously pointed out, the Times has (until now) missed out on capitalizing on its reporters most relevant tweets.

Read more