Foreign visitors and local residents have been hitting the shops and snapping up a range of sci-tech goods in China's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as many look to offer gifts to their family and friends during the upcoming Spring Festival.
The festive spirit is growing ahead of the Spring Festival, China's most important annual holiday which marks the start of the Chinese New Year and will this year fall on Feb 17, ushering in the Year of the Horse.
In the Greater Bay Area, a dynamic city cluster in south China encompassing the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and nine major cities across Guangdong Province, many shoppers are keen to get their hands on the latest gadgets on offer.
Foreign tourists are excitedly choosing various types of smart products, from smart musical instruments to advanced robots that are able to do Tai Chi.
"This (smart piano) is what I wanted, especially for my friends who play the piano or other instruments," said a visitor from the Philippines.
"It's very advanced and very complicated, and it's nice to see it," said a tourist from Pakistan who bought one of the Tai Chi robots.
Shopping malls in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are also providing customized products centered around the Spring Festival including 3D-printed red packets, which are traditionally filled with money and gifted to relatives to bring good fortune, and Spring Festival couplets, scrolls emblazoned with messages of luck to welcome the new year.
Among the many other festive items for sale is a type of AI-powered lion-dance robot, which is able to recommend travel routes for those feeling like embarking on an adventure during the Spring Festival period.
Customized sci-tech goods entice shoppers in Greater Bay Area ahead of Spring Festival
Austria's Pasterze Glacier, the country's largest glacier, is disappearing at an alarming pace and may split into two sections this year as relentless heat waves have accelerated the melting.
Tourists are flocking to the glacier, one of the country's most iconic natural landmarks, hoping to see it one last time before the ice giant breaks apart. As the extreme heat persists, what was once eternal ice has been turned into cascading waterfalls.
"Of course, it's always sad when a national thing is destroyed," said Caroline Hoffmann, a visitor from Germany.
Over the past three decades, scientists have monitored the ice connecting the glacier's lower and upper sections melt away. Data show that in the 1990s, the ice bridge was nearly 300 meters thick, while it has been barely visible as of the report is made.
Climate change is heating up the region and speeding up that process, splitting the Pasterze in two, according to a local conservation officer.
"There have always been glacial advances and glacial retreats. But human activity is definitely accelerating the process. We are now seeing temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius up here, that's not the norm. As a result, the glaciers will retreat a little faster," said Markus Lackner, ranger of the Hohe Tauern National Park, where the glamorous ice mass locates.
Ice melt records also indicate that summers in the high Alps are not only hotter but also longer. Two decades ago, glacial melt was largely confined to July and August. Today it can stretch from May through November, driving the glacier's dramatic retreat.
The heat is also taking a toll on local wildlife. Marmots are forced to seek shelter because they cannot sweat or regulate their body temperature effectively, leaving them with less time to forage while their habitat shrinks as the tree line climbs higher.
"It's a cute. It's a cute animal. But I think it will be still hard to live here at one point," Hoffmann said.
As the glacier nears its breakup, large meltwater lakes are forming alongside the ice. Scientists warn that Austria could become largely ice-free within the next 40 years, forever altering the country's landscape.
Austria's largest glacier splitting due to heat wave
