All too often, what’s out of sight is also out of mind. Jeremy Carroll’s work shocks people into realizing what plastic waste is doing to marine life.
Source: TreeHugger – Artist depicts humans entangled in plastic ocean waste
Monthly Archives: January 2017
FCC exempts small ISPs from broadband truth-in-billing rules
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | JamesBrey)
The Federal Communications Commission is exempting ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from rules that require greater disclosures about billing and other aspects of Internet service.
The enhanced transparency requirements were passed in February 2015 as part of the commission’s net neutrality order. To comply, home Internet providers and cellular carriers must make public disclosures with the following information:
- Price—the full monthly service charge. Any promotional rates should be clearly noted as such, specify the duration of the promotional period, and note the full monthly service charge the consumer will incur after the expiration of the promotional period.
- Other fees—all additional one-time and/or recurring fees and/or surcharges the consumer may incur either to initiate, maintain, or discontinue service, including the name, definition, and cost of each additional fee. These may include modem rental fees, installation fees, service charges, and early termination fees, among others.
- Data caps and allowances—any data caps or allowances that are a part of the plan the consumer is purchasing, as well as the consequences of exceeding the cap or allowance (e.g., additional charges, loss of service for the remainder of the billing cycle).
The enhanced transparency rule from 2015 also required ISPs to disclose packet loss statistics. That was in addition to other network performance measures that ISPs were required to disclose by earlier rules passed in 2010.
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Source: Ars Technica – FCC exempts small ISPs from broadband truth-in-billing rules
Ransomware Strikes Austrian Hotel's Electronic Door Locking System, Bitcoin Ransom Paid
When ransomware strikes, its impact could range from mild to severe. Sometimes, ransomware targets regular users, while other times, it targets important mega-corporations (or even police stations). In this latest incident, it affected a hotel, and subsequently ran the risk of affecting all of its guests.
Here it is, the downright gorgeous
Source: Hot Hardware – Ransomware Strikes Austrian Hotel’s Electronic Door Locking System, Bitcoin Ransom Paid
Batman: The Animated Series' Intro Gets a Fantastic Lego Remake
It’s undoubtedly just a coincidence that Kyle Roberts and Nathan Pope’s fantastic Lego remake of the Batman: The Animated Series intro happened to appear online a couple of weeks before the Lego Batman movie hits theaters. But even if the pair is trying to cash in on the popularity of superheroes and building toys,…
Source: io9 – Batman: The Animated Series’ Intro Gets a Fantastic Lego Remake
Let Us Now Praise MacroMind Director
Adobe announced last week that it is discontinuing sales of Contribute, and Director, adding that support to Shockwave for Mac will also be stopped in March. Fast Company’s editor Harry McCracken ran into Marc Canter, the industry legend who cofounded MacroMind, the company that created Director back in the 1980s. Following is an excerpt from their conversation: I took the opportunity to ask Canter for his thoughts about Director, which was born in the pre-web era when CD-ROMs seemed to be the future. He told me that 85% of the CD-ROMs published in the medium’s golden age were assembled using the package. “You’d buy this $800 product and hang a shingle and make multi-millions,” he said. Canter also lamented that Director doesn’t receive the same appreciation for its pioneering role in interactive content creation as does Apple’s HyperCard, which appeared two years after Videoworks and had a much briefer period of relevance. He’s right. Even though Director long ago faded away, it gave way to Flash, which was rendered irrelevant by HTML5 — and it deserves a spot on any list of the most significant foundational technologies of all time.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Let Us Now Praise MacroMind Director
Intel Core i7 7700K Linux Benchmarks
After a preview last week, Phoronix has made good on its promise of serving up the full Linux and Kaby Lake Benchmark Enchilada plate. If you like graphs, you will get some damn graphs! Lots of graphs covering a wide range of benchmarks. There is not much analysis however. You can buy the 7700K at Amazon for $350 and the 7600K for $235.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Intel Core i7 7700K Linux Benchmarks
The Earth Sends Oxygen to the Moon
The man in the Moon knows a lot more about us than we think. For instance, it’s keeping tabs on the air we breath by collecting samples of it.
Source: Gizmodo – The Earth Sends Oxygen to the Moon
GM and Honda will mass-produce hydrogen fuel cells together
Just weeks after the car and energy industries began their big push on hydrogen, the first real action is being taken. General Motors and Honda have leapt into bed together to begin work on a new factory that’ll mass-produce hydrogen fuel cells for t…
Source: Engadget – GM and Honda will mass-produce hydrogen fuel cells together
You'll Need A Powerful PC To Pull Off Fallout 4's Hi-Res Texture Pack
If you want the power armor in your PC version of Fallout 4 to look this gloriously scratched and rusted, you’d best bring the hardware. Bethesda’s official high-resolution texture pack features some weighty recommended specs, including an AMD card that isn’t even out yet.
Source: Kotaku – You’ll Need A Powerful PC To Pull Off Fallout 4’s Hi-Res Texture Pack
Fear and Loathing In La La Land
I haven’t seen La La Land yet, but I want to. Trouble is, the word of mouth, glowing reviews, and endless awards have placed it on a pedestal so high I feel the actual experience won’t be able to reach it. The hype is strong with this one. But maybe there’s a way to go in with a clean slate. Maybe there’s a way to…
Source: LifeHacker – Fear and Loathing In La La Land
Mushkin Announces Helix SSDs: 2.5 GB/s, 3D MLC NAND, SM2260, 2 TB Capacity
Mushkin introduced its new lineup of high-performance SSDs at CES. The Helix drives use 3D MLC NAND flash memory as well as Silicon Motion’s SM2260 controller. The M.2 SSDs aimed at premium desktops and laptops are listed to promise high performance and improved endurance of previous 3D NAND.
The Mushkin Helix family of SSDs will offer various models targeting different performance and price targets, including a 250 GB version for the entry-level segment as well as a 2 TB SKU for high-end PCs. The drives come in an M.2-2280 form-factor with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and are based on Silicon Motion’s SM2260 controller (which sports two ARM Cortex cores, has eight NAND flash channels, LDPC ECC technology, 256-bit AES support and so on) as well as 3D MLC NAND flash from an unknown manufacturer.
Mushkin rates Helix’s sequential read performance at up to 2.5 GB/s and its write performance at up to 1.1 GB/s when pseudo-SLC caching is used, which is exactly what the SM2260 controller is listed as offering. As for random performance, things start to get interesting. Mushkin indicates that the drives can deliver up to 232K/185K 4KB read/write IOPS, which is well beyond capabilities of the SM2260 declared by Silicon Motion (120K/240K). Apparently, Silicon Motion and Mushkin have implemented firmware optimizations that improve random speeds significantly. Keep in mind though that SSD makers tend to disclose maximum performance of the higher-end SKUs, so the entry-level 250 GB model is expected be slower than the 2 TB top-of-the-range SKU.
| Mushkin Helix SSD Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 250 GB | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB |
| Model Number | – | – | – | – |
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2260 | |||
| NAND Flash | 3D MLC NAND | |||
| Form-Factor, Interface | M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.2 | |||
| Sequential Read | – | – | 2500 MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | – | – | 1100 MB/s | |
| Random Read IOPS | – | – | 232K | |
| Random Write IOPS | – | – | 185K | |
| Pseudo-SLC Caching | Supported | |||
| DRAM Buffer | Yes, capacity unknown | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | No | |||
| Power Management | DevSleep, Slumber | |||
| Warranty | 3 years | |||
| MTBF | 1,000,000 hours | |||
| MSRP | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
Mushkin showed a pre-production version of its Helix SSDs in its suite at CES. The drive looks like a typical M.2 PCIe/NVMe SSD without any heat spreader. We do not know whether the final product will employ a heat spreader it to ensure extra cooling, but that is certainly a possibility. As for endurance and reliability, Mushkin rates MTBF of its Helix SSDs at one million hours for now, which is below that of some competing offerings.
Mushkin is among the first of the independent suppliers of SSDs to announce a high-end PCIe 3.0 x4 drive based on 3D MLC NAND flash memory. At present, only ADATA ships similar products (XPG SX8000) in high volume. Mushkin did not announce when exactly it plans to start selling its Helix drives and we may be months away from their retail availability and information about price.
Related Reading:
- ADATA Launches XPG SX8000: High-End M.2 NVMe SSD Featuring 3D MLC NAND
- Micron Cancels Ballistix TX3 NVMe SSD
- The Intel SSD 600p (512GB) Review
Source: AnandTech – Mushkin Announces Helix SSDs: 2.5 GB/s, 3D MLC NAND, SM2260, 2 TB Capacity
FDA confirms toxicity of homeopathic baby products; Maker refuses to recall
Enlarge / Hyland’s Homeopathic Teething Gel. (credit: Getty | Miami Herald)
After investigating reports that more than 400 babies were sickened and 10 died in connection with homeopathic teething products, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Friday that it had indeed found elevated levels of the toxic substance, belladonna, in the products.
Belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade, was the prime suspect of the investigation from the beginning, which Ars reported about last fall. Nevertheless, the products’ maker, Hyland’s, would not agree to recall the products when it was notified of the FDA’s conclusion, the agency reported.
Hyland’s has not responded to Ars’ request for comment.
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Source: Ars Technica – FDA confirms toxicity of homeopathic baby products; Maker refuses to recall
Researchers give driverless cars better cooperation skills
Are you really ready to ride with just a robot at the wheel? To make self-driving cars safer, researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland want them to communicate both with each other and n…
Source: Engadget – Researchers give driverless cars better cooperation skills
“Science curious” more likely to explore data contradicting their world view
In the US, the science of climate change is among the topics where public opinion is generally controlled by which political wing a person identifies with. Of course, human beings are a varied lot, and this dividing line is not without exceptions—some conservatives accept the conclusions of climate science, some liberals reject them. If you’re an optimistic kind of person, you might hope that shows we could potentially overcome these political barriers and converge on a shared reality.
A common response is the expectation that people who are not convinced climate change is real simply don’t know about the extensive evidence and research. But this ignores the source of the division in public opinion. People are exceptionally talented at selectively noting and crediting information that reinforces their position while waving the rest aside. When this defense system is fully operational, information is largely just cannon fodder.
It gets even worse when you look to see if, perhaps, people who are generally knowledgeable about science or good with numbers will buck this trend. Research has shown that those who should be the best-equipped to recognize what the science is saying are actually the most polarized on climate change. It seems we just put our cognitive skills to work running a stronger defense system.
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Source: Ars Technica – “Science curious” more likely to explore data contradicting their world view
Stranger Things Star Rallies 'Freaks and Outcasts' in Stirring SAG Award Speech
Stranger Things pulled the rug from under Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, and Westworld at the Screen Actors Guild awards last night to win the award for best ensemble cast. And while there’s a lot to love about the cast’s reactions to the win—especially Winona Ryder’s—it’s David Harbour’s powerful acceptance speech…
Source: io9 – Stranger Things Star Rallies ‘Freaks and Outcasts’ in Stirring SAG Award Speech
Sources: Eidos Working On Guardians of the Galaxy Game, Future of Deus Ex Murky
We may be waiting a long time for the next big Deus Ex game. The developers of the iconic franchise have moved on to other big franchises, according to sources speaking both to Kotaku and other outlets. Sources say Eidos Montreal has cancelled a planned sequel to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which came out last year.
Source: Kotaku – Sources: Eidos Working On Guardians of the Galaxy Game, Future of Deus Ex Murky
How’d You Do During the January Money Challenge?
You didn’t forget about it, did you? This month, we invited you to join our 30-Day Savings Challenge, which involved saving a little more cash every day for a monthly grand total of $456. Were you successful?
Source: LifeHacker – How’d You Do During the January Money Challenge?
Giant wind turbine sets record for wind energy generated in 24 hours
The world’s most powerful wind turbine to date backs up its massive size with serious power output.
Source: TreeHugger – Giant wind turbine sets record for wind energy generated in 24 hours
Hitman’s January Update release notes are out, which hits on January 31 to coincide with the physica
Hitman’s January Update release notes are out, which hits on January 31 to coincide with the physical release of the game. The January Update will feature a new difficulty mode, Professional Difficulty, and will make Hitman’s soundtrack and “making of” documentary available for all players.
Source: Kotaku – Hitman’s January Update release notes are out, which hits on January 31 to coincide with the physica
Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon
An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: The problem with asteroids passing near Earth is that they’re often difficult to spot. Fortunately the hardest ones to see in our neighborhood also tend to be the smaller ones. Such is the case with 2017 BH30, which was discovered Sunday by the Catalina Sky Survey just hours before passing by us at the creepy-close distance of only 40,563 miles (65,280 kilometres). This asteroid is estimated to be between 15-32.8 feet (4.6-10 metres) in length, making it somewhere between the size of a truck and a… big truck. That’s pretty small by asteroid standards, but it’s also the closest spotted asteroid to pass us since September when asteroid 2016 RB1 passed within 24,000 miles (about 39,000 kilometres) of our planet’s surface, putting it almost as close as satellites in geosynchronous orbit. This is the third asteroid to buzz by earth closer than the distance to the moon this year. We don’t expect a closer pass by one of these visitors until October, when asteroid 2012 TC4 could come more than twice as close.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon