As World of Warcraft players prepare for the launch of the game’s sixth expansion, Legion, I’m working my way through the previous five, beginning with our first trip to Outland in The Burning Crusade. It was so good nine years ago.
Source: Kotaku – World Of Warcraft Expansions Revisited: It Burns When I Crusade
At least 16 people are dead after a hot air balloon caught on fire and crashed into a pasture in Texas, according to the Associated Press.
Source: Gizmodo – At Least 16 Dead After Hot Air Balloon Crashes in Texas
The language bindings for the Vulkan high-performance graphics API have exploded since the debut of Vulkan 1.0 earlier this year. There’s support from Rust to Java for interacting with this Khronos graphics API, including support for Python…
Source: Phoronix – Playing With Vulkan Through Python, Basic Performance Figures To C++
The night is dark and full of terrors, also sadness. HBO has confirmed that Game of Thrones’ eighth season will be its last.
Source: io9 – It’s Official: Game of Thrones Ends After Season 8
Sometimes you need to escape from the news by plunging into a fictionalized version of it. Malka Older’s second novel Infomocracy is a sci-fi thriller about the third election cycle in the world’s first global government, a data-driven “microdemocracy.” The first in a trilogy, Infomocracy manages to be incredibly action packed while also exploring plausible political futures you may never have imagined.
Election integrity in the world of Infomocracy is guaranteed by a techno-political organization called “The Information” (think Google merged with Facebook). Committed to non-partisan transparency, The Information is supposed to give citizens the data they need to vote wisely. Its real mission, of course, is more ambiguous. The action reaches a fever pitch and stays there, as our protagonists race to find out who is behind a series of bombings aimed at shutting down the election.
From page one, Older plunges us into a bewildering global election season with only two semi-trustworthy guides to the madness. Ken is an idealistic campaigner for the progressive Policy1st party, which is devoted to openness and free exchange. Mishima is an operative for The Information with ninja powers and a mysterious “narrative disorder” that helps her find patterns in vast quantities of data. After hooking up randomly at a drunken party in Tokyo, the two discover they are the only people who seem to care that Liberty, a political party that’s one of the top contenders for the next Supermajority, is quietly spreading propaganda about the need to start a war.
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Source: Ars Technica – This science fiction novel is a perfect antidote to the U.S. election season
Space may be called the “final frontier” but what about unexplored areas that are on our very own Earth?
Source: Gizmodo – Watch A Robot Possibly Discover Weird Shit On The Ocean Floor
Ian Kar, writing for Quartz: Over the last year or so in the U.S., a lot of the plastic credit cards we carry around every day have been replaced by new one with chips embedded in them. The chips are supposed to make your credit and debit cards more secure — a good thing! — but there’s one little secret no one wants to admit: The U.S.’s transition to chip cards has been an utter disaster. They’re confusing to use, painstakingly slow, less secure than the alternatives, and aren’t even the best solution for consumers. If you’ve shopped in a store and used a credit card, you’ve noticed the change. Retailers have likely asked you to insert the chip into the card reader, instead of swiping. But reading the chip seems to take much longer than just swiping. And on top of that, even though many retailers now have chip reading machines, some of them ask us just the opposite — they say not to insert the card, and just swipe. It seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to the whole thing.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – The Chip Card Transition In the US Has Been a Disaster
It feels like we’ve been waiting for HBO’s Westworld forever. The science fiction western/Firefly with robots was originally supposed to come in 2015, then 2016, then maybe 2017. We recently learned it was definitely coming in October 2016, but now we know exactly when. HBO has unveiled its fall release calendar and here’s when Westworld premieres this year: Sunday, Oct. 2.
Source: io9 – HBO’s Westworld Finally Gets a Release Date
Alcatel isn’t a tier-one company. And the Idol 4S, its latest creation, isn’t a tier-one phone. So why did we even bother reviewing it, then? It’s all about the value — specifically, what comes in the box. For $399 (or $350, if you pre-order), you g…
Source: Engadget – Mini review video: Our quick verdict on the Alcatel Idol 4S
The Ukrainian government said more than 1,000MW of solar and 400MW of other renewable energy could be generated if the plan to transform Chernobyl comes to fruition. The original plant, which resulted in the world’s worst nuclear accident, had an installed capacity of around 4,000MW.
In a presentation sent to major banks and seen by the Guardian, 6,000 hectares of “idle” land in Chernobyl’s 1,000 square km exclusion zone, which is considered too dangerous for people to live in or farm, could be turned to solar, biogas and heat and power generation. Pressure has been mounting for years to allow industrial development, but no indication is given of where the solar panels would be located. “There has been a change in the perception of the exclusion zone in Ukraine. Thirty years after the Chernobyl tragedy [it] reveals opportunities for development. A special industrial area is to be created in compliance with all rules and regulations of radiation safety within the exclusion zone,” says the presentation.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Chernobyl Could Be Reinvented As A Solar Farm
Is Nougat landing next month? @evleaks and testing build leaks would suggest so. With the new Nexus phones coming in the fall, this would also be a sensible timeframe for the latest (and hopefully greatest) Android to drop.
…there are further signs of an impending stable release, as one Nexus 6P owner on Reddit appears to have inadvertently received an over-the-air update to an internal Google testing build. Poster Brian Moyano received the 49MB OTA when attempting to revert back to the Marshmallow from the Nougat developer preview; instead of going back to Android 6.0.1, it pushed him to 7.0, build NRD90M. The “R” in that build number means it’s on the “release” branch (as opposed to P for preview), suggesting it’s almost ready for prime time.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Android 7.0 Nougat Tipped For August Release
We’re loving Tessa Thompson’s addition to Thor: Ragnarok as the badass warrior Valkyrie, and now we’ve got a look at her (possible) weapon.
Source: io9 – Take a Look at Tessa Thompson’s Sweet Thor: Ragnarok Sword
“The Russians are top notch,” says Chris Finan, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, now a CEO at security firm Manifold Technology, and a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration. “They are some of the best in the world… ” Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack “may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake”: In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world’s great and most active cyber powers. The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee… The evidence — plainly not definitive but clearly substantial — has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have “high confidence” that Russia is behind the attack… Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlinâ(TM)s expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat. The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the “historic and precedent-setting” cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. “Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Russia’s Rise To Cyberwar Superpower
(credit: M. Garlick/University of Warwick/ESO)
When observing AR Scorpii, researchers noticed that its brightness varied over a 3.5 hour period. So they labelled it a periodic variable and paid it no further attention. Now, however, a large international team of astronomers has gone back and taken a more careful look at the star. The astronomers found that AR Scorpii is much more variable than first thought, with 400 percent changes in brightness occurring within only 30 seconds. The reason for this? AR Scorpii is actually two stars, and one of them is launching relativistic electrons at the other.
The paper describing these results was published this week in Nature.
The researchers were drawn to AR Scorpii because of seven years of archival images that revealed a lot of additional variability layered on top of its well-described 3.5 hour period. Rather than peaking at a similar level each time, the output could vary by as much as a factor of four.
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Source: Ars Technica – White dwarf bombards its companion with relativistic electrons
Apple’s slow evolution of its Photos app—Camera Roll, iCloud library and all—has been a little confusing for users at times, but with iOS 10
and macOS Sierra
now on the horizon, it’s finally settling down into a coherent, reliable service.
Source: Gizmodo – 10 Tricks to Make Yourself an Apple Photos Master
For those playing TORCS, The Open Racing Simulator, its performance for this driving game simulator should be slightly faster if using one of Mesa’s Gallium3D drivers…
Source: Phoronix – The TORCS Racing Car Simulator Should Now Be Slightly Faster With Gallium3D
The Marvel Ultimate Alliance re-release was bad, but Marvel Games creative director Bill Rosemann says it’s getting better, with PC fixes and the downloadable content not included at launch on the way (Hope not included.)
Source: Kotaku – The Marvel Ultimate Alliance re-release was bad, but Marvel Games creative director Bill Rosemann sa
Wireless headphones are apparently more popular than ever. Cheaper options and new technologies (e.g., Bluetooth low energy) are just some of the reasons that consumers are shifting to BT headphones, which are now outselling wired options, with Apple’s Beats leading the pack.
Bluetooth headphone purchases are on the rise, according to new data shared by NPD Group. In June, Bluetooth headphone revenue overtook non-Bluetooth for the first time, accounting for 54 percent of headphone dollar sales and 17 percent of unit sales in the United States. The overall headphone category saw seven percent year-over-year growth in pure dollar sales during the first half of 2016, but Bluetooth headphones saw double-digit growth during the same time period. A solid cost decrease helped spur Bluetooth headphone sales, with average selling prices down 5 percent. Nearly 30 percent of Bluetooth headphones sold during 1H 2016 were less than or equal to $50.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Bluetooth Headphones Overtake Traditional Headphones In Sales
If you’re in the market for a new notebook with USB-C ports, you may have to look harder. Most vendors aren’t in a rush to adopt the new design, which is easier to connect and delivers more power. The primary reason, of course, is that vendors would have to spend more money to implement it.
…USB Type-C interface has two issues that have been stopping it to become a mainstream technology in the notebook market. First is that the interface features electric current that is larger than one of the previous-generation interfaces, and could lead to interference and heat dissipation problems when adopting too many at once. Second is that the USB Type-C features a high-speed transmission, but in order to achieve its maximum speed, it requires an amplifier chip, a receiver chip and a special-spec transmission wire, which significantly raise product costs.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – USB-C Failing To Impress Notebook PC Vendors
It’s been a week of surprising sequels. First, The Woods was unveiled
at San Diego Comic-Con to be a continuation of the Blair Witch saga. Now, Kiefer Sutherland has confirmed the Flatliners “reboot” is actually a sequel.
Source: io9 – Kiefer Sutherland Confirms New Flatliners is Actually a Sequel