Scientists have discovered a nearby “stellar stream” containing thousands of stars spanning the southern sky. They made the discovery thanks to the recent release of data from the Gaia sky survey.
Source: Gizmodo – Enormous Stream of Stars Discovered in Southern Sky
Electronic Arts is opting all users out of the “real name sharing” option on its Origin gaming service following complaints that some users may have been entered into the program without their consent.
The option to “show my real name on my profile” (as opposed to just sharing an online handle) is buried in the privacy settings for every EA Origin account, as it is for many other gaming networks. But Randi Lee Harper, the founder of the nonprofit Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, recently noted in a Twitter thread that her real name was being shared via the account without any opt-in.
Harper said anecdotal reports and spot checks of others with Origin accounts showed that the setting “has been seemingly randomly enabled” for a number of other Origin users. Accounts created between 2013 and 2015 seem to have more likelihood of having the option enabled by default, Harper said, but she added that she “can’t find any kind of commonality in the data. It seems so random.” (New accounts created today default the real name sharing to be off.)
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Source: Ars Technica – EA opts Origin users out of “real-name sharing” after complaints
Out today are the first alpha releases for Wayland 1.17 and the Weston 6.0 reference compositor. This alpha release is about two weeks behind schedule but the developers have updated their plans to now ship the beta releases on 5 March, release candidates begin on 12 March, and potentially releasing the stable versions of Wayland 1.17.0 and Weston 6.0.0 on 19 March…
Source: Phoronix – Wayland 1.17 & Weston 6.0 Reach Alpha, Officially Releasing Next Month
The US Food and Drug Administration has stepped in to officially warn consumers against buying young blood in an attempt to improve their health. Yes, enough people thought it would be a good idea to infuse young blood — an actual plot from The Simp…
Source: Engadget – FDA: Infusing yourself with young blood is pointless, dangerous
Slashleaks on YouTube has leaked a Samsung commercial that features the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10+ phone and Samsung Galaxy Buds products.
Samsung Galaxy s10+ & Galaxy buds TV commercial
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Samsung Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy Buds Commercial Leaks
When Georgia police arrested Thomas Cheung, a well-known Twitch streamer and World of Warcraft community figure, as part of a child sex sting two weeks ago, a common reaction among his friends, fans, and business associates was shock.
Source: Kotaku – When Your Favorite Streamer Turns Out To Be A Creep (Or Worse)
Far Cry New Dawn, the newest release in Ubisoft’s open world Far Cry series, is set years after the apocalyptic nuclear event that ended Far Cry 5. Hope County, Montana has been nearly destroyed, but a rag-tag band of survivors wants to rebuild. Your job is to help them by scavenging supplies, building up the…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Play Far Cry New Dawn in ‘Dad Mode’
A new study finds that active middle aged men who can do more than 40 push-ups at a time have a significantly lower risk of heart disease. From a report: Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health followed more than 1,100 middle-aged male firefighters over a decade. They looked at two specific measures: how many push-ups they could do and their exercise tolerance on a treadmill. They found that men who could do more than 40 push-ups had a 96-percent lower risk of heart disease than those who could do no more than 10 and their ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Middle-Age Men Who Can Do 40+ Push-Ups Have Lower Heart Disease Risk, Study Finds
Facebook is facing even more government scrutiny this week. Members of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee have asked to meet Facebook over concerns about group privacy. They’re responding to an FTC complaint alleging that the…
Source: Engadget – House committee hopes to question Facebook over group privacy
Intel developers have begun posting their Linux kernel patches for enabling multi-die/package topology support to the Linux kernel as part of their Cascade Lake AP upbringing…
Source: Phoronix – Intel Preparing The Linux Kernel For Cascade Lake AP Multi-Die Support
Last summer, voice actor Vic Mignogna went into a booth with a few others to record audio for a video game. At one point, Mignogna asked the client, who was overseeing the session, if she was okay with his performance. When she didn’t answer right away, he followed up with: “You know the old Latin—or is it Greek?…
Source: Gizmodo – One of Anime’s Biggest Voices Accused of Sexual Harassment
Did you drop everything and change your day’s schedule yesterday when you realized it was National Drink Wine Day? No? But perhaps you (or somebody you know) shared a meme or two featuring a giant wine glass. Because you deserve it.
Source: LifeHacker – Don’t Believe the ‘National Drink Wine Day’ Hype
Google has sent out invites to an event happening at the annual Game Developers Conference or GDC. The event will be on March 19 at 10am PST, and the focus of the keynote is expected to be the unveiling of all the details on Google’s game streaming service. Rumors suggest that Google is working on a subscription-based streaming service that
Source: Hot Hardware – Google ‘Yeti’ Game Streaming Service Announcement Set For GDC 2019
Following weeks of speculation, Donald Trump signed the Space Policy Directive 4 during a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, a document which explains how his administration will establish his Space Force.
“Just as we’ve done in ages past, the…
Source: Engadget – Trump signs directive explaining his ‘Space Force’
On Saturday night, I logged into BioWare’s new game Anthem and loaded up what I thought was a mission called Finding Old Friends. Instead, I got to play an entirely different mission: Finding Old Friends On Facebook While Wondering If Anthem Will Ever Actually Load.
Source: Kotaku – Anthem’s Loading Times Are A Real Problem
Earlier today, President Donald Trump signed a directive to create the Space Force, what will become the sixth branch of the U.S. military—but the new branch will be placed under the purview of the U.S. Air Force, rather than being a separate and autonomous branch, as the president had initially hoped.
Source: Gizmodo – Trump’s Space Force Now Planned as a Division of the Air Force
Bodies change a great deal over time, and sometimes those transformations are dramatic. When you see a friend who suddenly looks different, there’s a strong impulse to remark on it. Sometimes that kind of comment will be extremely welcome—even expected—and sometimes it will be unappreciated and downright hurtful.
Source: LifeHacker – Here’s When It’s Appropriate to Comment on Someone’s Body Transformation
Enlarge / Marketing material for SkyStream TV, which uses video from Omniverse. (credit: SkyStream TV)
Most of the major Hollywood movie studios are trying to cripple multiple alleged pirate TV services with a single lawsuit.
The studios last week filed a copyright infringement suit against Omniverse One World Television Inc., which provides streaming video to several online TV services. Omniverse claims to have legal rights to the content, but the studios say it doesn’t.
The complaint was filed Thursday in US District Court for the Central District of California by Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. The studios previously used lawsuits to shut down the maker of a streaming device called the Dragon Box and another called TickBox. The studios’ new lawsuit says that Omniverse supplied content to Dragon Box and to other alleged pirate services that are still operating.
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Source: Ars Technica – Pirate TV provider lied about paying for licensing, Hollywood lawsuit says
In September 2013, Valve founder Gabe Newell gave a rare, 20-minute presentation at LinuxCon. He called Linux “the future of gaming,” predicting that as the industry became more user-driven and connected across both distances and devices, an open-sou…
Source: Engadget – Linux gaming is on a life-support system called Steam
The PC DRAM market is experiencing high inventory levels and this oversupply is expected to cause notable price declines in the 1H19. Market demand remains weak due to the off-season and the substantial amount of inventory that has carried over from the previous quarter. Contract prices of DRAM products already declined 15% month-over-month (MoM) in January and are expected to slide lower in February and March. The PC DRAM market is expected to see a 20% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) decline in Q1 2019 while the server DRAM market is forecast to decline nearly 30% QoQ.
According to the latest analysis from DRAMeXchange, the PC DRAM and server DRAM inventory problem will persist into Q2 2019. An extended period is needed to deal with the inventory issues even if some recovery in demand occurs. New emergent technologies that will fuel demand such as 5G and automotive electronics are in the early stages of development. Thus they won’t have much influence on the DRAM market in 2019. DRAM suppliers have scaled back their capacity expansions and this is expected to narrow the gap between supply and demand. The price downswing is expected to moderate over the next several quarters. The mobile DRAM market will experience less of a price swing, but the demand for products is still too weak to prevent prices from falling.
With respect to the price trends in the major application markets, PC DRAM prices are the most sensitive to demand changes and often serve as an indicator of the overall price trajectory. The average QoQ decline in contract prices of PC DRAM products was already 10% in 4Q18 and is projected to be nearly 25% in 1Q19. Currently, the average contract price of mainstream 8GB PC DRAM modules is on its way to under US$45.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – High Inventory Levels of PC DRAM Cause Contract Prices to Drop
