Correction: Sorry, almost the second we posted this video, Disney had it removed from YouTube. We’ll update as soon as a more official version is online.
Source: io9 – Everyone Is Having Too Much Fun in This Captain America: Civil War Gag Reel (UPDATED)
Holy shit I used to love those clocks!
This is the rap video created by first year Chicago school district teacher Dwayne Reed welcoming his students to fourth grade and laying down some ground rules and expectations for the class. The whole thing was beautifully executed. I still remember my fourth grade teacher — Mr. Besser. He had a glass eye he would polish when we were all taking turns reading. He wouldn’t take it out though, he’d just give it a little spit-shine while it was still in the socket. He was a great teacher. I just tried to look him up online, but I couldn’t find any record of him. I did see that my middle school principal is now the superintendent of the school district though, so there’s that. Of course they spelled superintendent wrong on the website, leading at least one former student to speculate just what the hell kind of Micky Mouse education he was receiving all those years.
Keep going for the video, then wish you were in Mr. Reeds class.
Source: Geekologie – First Year 4th Grade Teacher Produces A Rap Video For His Incoming Class
In the newest Hitman level, there’s this guy. He’s smoking a cigarette and taking in the view, reminiscing about what sounds like the grimmest safari ever.
Source: Kotaku – I Want To Know More About This Hitman NPC’s Extremely Grim Safari
Security researchers have discovered an unprecedented exploit on iOS that was used by a “digital arms dealer” to spy on political dissidents and high-value targets.
Source: LifeHacker – Remains of the Day: Apple Issues Important iOS Security Update
Blizzard’s been hinting at a new Overwatch hero, Sombra, for months
. What began with cheeky easter eggs has evolved into a full-blown alternate reality game (ARG). After the latest countdown-based twist, people are worn out.
Source: Kotaku – Overwatch Players Are Getting Sick Of The Sombra ARG
Not everything Google touches turns to gold—just ask Robert Scoble—and Google Fiber, it seems, is in the midst of joining those not-so-illustrious ranks.
Source: Gizmodo – Google Fiber Got Kicked in the Nuts by Alphabet
Source: Engadget – Universal Music Group is reportedly done with streaming exclusives
It seems like every person you talk to wants Google Fiber to come to their town but, if this report is to be believed, Google Fiber isn’t doing so well when it comes to subscribers. Maybe they are just picking crappy towns?
The report says that Google had expected to land 5 million subscribers over the course of five years, but the company’s actual progress was much slower. At the end of 2014 Google Fiber only had 200,000 subscribers. Its TV service has also suffered from sluggish growth. Last month, CEO Larry Page reportedly asked Google Fiber head Craig Barratt to cut his staff in half, to 500 people, and reduce costs of delivering fiber to customers’ homes to one-tenth of their current rate.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Google Fiber Hits Speed Bumps As Alphabet Looks To Cut Costs
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at Princeton announced at Hot Chips this week their 25-core Piton Processor. The processor was designed specifically to increase data center efficiency with novel architecture features enabling over 8,000 of these processors to be connected together to build a system with over 200,000 cores. Fabricated on IBM’s 32nm process and with over 460 million transistors, Piton is one of the largest and most complex academic processors every built. The Princeton team has opened their design up and released all of the chip source code, tests, and infrastructure as open source in the OpenPiton project, enabling others to build scalable, manycore processors with potentially thousands of cores.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Princeton Researchers Announce Open Source 25-Core Processor
ADATA has formally introduced its first SSDs based on 3D NAND flash memory. The Ultimate SU800 drives are designed for price-conscious market segments and use SATA interface, which means that they do not offer very high performance. Nonetheless, usage of high-capacity 3D NAND chips helps the manufacturer to increase its MTBF rating and could eventually help ADATA to offer very competitive pricing for these drives.
The family of ADATA’s Ultimate SU800 SSDs includes models with 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB capacity. The drives are based on Silicon Motion’s SM2258 controller (which has four NAND flash channels and LDPC ECC technology) as well as 3D TLC NAND flash memory from an unknown manufacturer (either IMFT or SK Hynix). The drives come in 2.5”/7 mm form-factor and use SATA 6 Gbps interface.
The manufacturer claims that the Ultimate SU800 SSDs support sequential read performance up to 560 MB/s as well as sequential write performance up to 520 MB/s when pseudo-SLC caching is used. The 128 GB model is naturally slower than its brethren are when it comes to writing (up to 300 MB/s), but its read speed is in line with higher-capacity SKUs. ADATA did not mention random performance of the SSDs as well as their power consumption, but the SM2258 controller is capable of up to 90,000 read and up to 80,000 IOPS.
| ADATA Ultimate SU800 Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 128 GB | 256 GB | 512 GB | 1 TB |
| Model Number | ASU800SS-128GT-C | ASU800SS-256GT-C | ASU800SS-512GT-C | ASU800SS-1TT-C |
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2258 | |||
| NAND Flash | 3D TLC NAND | |||
| Sequential Read | 560 MB/s | |||
| Sequential Write | 300 MB/s | 520 MB/s | ||
| Random Read IOPS | Up to 90K IOPS | |||
| Random Write IOPS | Up to 80K IOPS | |||
| Pseudo-SLC Caching | Supported | |||
| DRAM Buffer | Yes, capacity unknown | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | No | |||
| Power Management | DevSleep | |||
| Warranty | 3 years | |||
| MTBF | 2,000,000 hours | |||
| MSRP | $59.99 | $79.99 | $139.99 | $269.99 |
Thanks to higher endurance of 3D TLC NAND compared to planar flash memory made using thin process technologies, ADATA declares 2 million hours MTBF and offers three-year limited warranty on its new SSDs. While the warranty is standard for modern solid-state drives, the MTBF rating 0.5 million hours higher compared to current-generation entry-level SSDs from the company.
At present ADATA already has a number of affordable SATA SSDs (e.g., Premier SP550 and SP580) based on planar TLC NAND flash memory. The company specifically noted in its press released that the new Ultimate SU800 will be faster than its existing entry-level models (and will provide higher MTBF). As a result, the new SSDs will be positioned above the currently available inexpensive models.
Now, about the retail pricing. ADATA plans to charge $60, $80, $140 and $270 for 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB versions of its Ultimate SU800 SSDs, but they are not the cheapest in the company’s model range (even though the price of the 256 GB SKU seems very competitive). Moreover, next month the company plans to introduce another family of 3D NAND-based drives (the Ultimate SU900) with higher performance.
Source: AnandTech – ADATA Introduces Ultimate SU800 SSD: SMI Controller, 3D NAND, SATA Interface
These crispy tortilla pizzas are easy to make, take very little time, and are the perfect snack for gameday or movie nights. Here’s how to make your own at home.
Source: LifeHacker – Make an Extra-Crispy Tortilla Pizza With a Cast Iron Skillet
Most folks know Justin Roiland as the co-creator and lead voice actor behind Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, but it’s less widely known that he’s obsessed with virtual reality. The entertainer was one of the first backers of Oculus’ original Kickstarter…
Source: Engadget – The co-creator of ‘Rick and Morty’ just founded a VR studio
The spyware takes advantage of weaknesses in Apple’s iOS to take complete control of iPhone handsets.
Source: TG Daily – Apple Issues Update After Spyware is Found
The hate for the Star Wars prequels is vociferous and seemingly unending, but a new documentary wants to go back to the movies and re-examine if they were ever worth the anger… and maybe get you to reconsider your opinion on them.
Source: io9 – New Star Wars Documentary Invites You to Unlearn What You Have Learned About the Prequels
Statistics show that most small businesses only utilize a scant 10% of top tier marketing automation platform’s capabilities. You should change that.
Source: TG Daily – Review: Choosing the Best Marketing Automation Platform for Your Small Business
In news that has me doubling quadrupling my efforts to finish building a rocketship, astronomers have announced that there’s a rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone (where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface) around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun. The planet, Proxima b, has 1.3 earth masses but orbits Proxima Centauri at just 5% the distance between earth and our sun because Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf with just 0.12 the mass of our sun. The teensy solar system is a scant 4.5-light years away, or the distance light travels in 4.5-years. So traveling at the speed of light it would take 4.5 years to get there. For reference, we will never get there. We will probably go extinct having never left our own solar system, or, in the very best case scenario, floating just outside our solar system praying for some aliens take pity on us. They will not take pity though, they’ll see us through their googly eyes for the no-good planet-ruiners we are. Then they’ll blast the ship carrying earth’s last human hope right out of the blackness of space, and the whole galaxy will sound a sign of relief. Amen. *rereads* Man, that story did not include nearly enough alien sex, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll take things in a different direction next time.
Hit the jump for two more pictures, but feel free to tell your mom or anybody else that the picture above is a real photo of the planet taken by a probe we sent there and let me know if they believe it.
Source: Geekologie – Let’s Go: Potentially Habitable Planet Found Orbiting The Closest Star To Our Sun
Rare today are opportunities for gamers to step outside the prescribed outlines of a developer’s intended gaming experience, especially in MMORPGs. Back in the early 200s, anarchic players eagerly hunted down the virtual unknown, where possibility and impossibility were deadlocked within some specter of the original game.
Source: Kotaku – The Surprising And Allegedly Impossible Death Of EverQuest’s ‘Unkillable’ Dragon
If you want to make more friends, and hold on to the ones you’ve got, it all boils down to three key personality traits.
Source: LifeHacker – The Personality Traits You Need to Be a Great Friend, According to Science
Source: Engadget – Judge orders the release of additional Clinton emails
An anonymous reader quotes a report from DSLReports: Sources claim that Google Fiber has been disappointed with the company’s overall number of total subscribers since launching five years ago. A paywalled report over at The Information cites a variety of anonymous current and former Google employees, who say the estimated 200,000 or so broadband subscribers the company had managed to sign up by the end of 2014 was a fary cry from the company’s original projection of somewhere closer to 5 million. Google Fiber has never revealed its total number of subscribers. A report last October pegged the company’s total broadband subscribers at somewhere around 120,000, though it’s unclear how many of those users had signed up for Google Fiber’s symmetrical 5 Mbps tier, which was originally free after users paid a $300 installation fee. Disappointed by sluggish subscriber tallies, The Information report states that last month Alphabet CEO Larry Page ordered Google Fiber boss Craig Barratt to cut the total Google Fiber staff in half to roughly 500 people. That’s a claim that’s sure to only fuel continued speculation that the company is starting to get cold feet about its attempts to bring broadband competition to a broken duopoly market.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Google Fiber To Cut Staff In Half After User Totals Disappoint, Says Report
