On a recent Friday night, I arrived home from a social engagement and set my alarm for 4 am, because I needed to call House Speaker Paul Ryan. It’s become a lonely, private habit, this last two weeks, calling Paul Ryan. Specifically, I dial his constituent hotline numbers, all three of them—one in DC and two in…
Source: Gizmodo – What the Hell Is Wrong With Paul Ryan’s Phones?
As many know, the heroes of Power Rangers aren’t a wholly western creation—they’re really the stars of Super Sentai, a Japanese kid’s franchise that’s over four decades old. Since Power Rangers began, nearly every Super Sentai series since has been adapted for the show, but not all of them have made it over. These…
Source: io9 – The Power Rangers Shows That Never Were
These days there isn’t much we can all agree on, but here’s a perennial truth: online dating isn’t easy. If you’re looking for love and haven’t found any luck on Tinder or similar platforms, the dating app Hinge is testing a new service for the online dater who thinks sex is cool but way too time-consuming. It’s…
Source: Gizmodo – Dating App Creates Service for People Who Are Too Lazy to Make Dates
Even if it came in this retail packaging, beware of Blackphones bought from unauthorized sellers—Silent Circle is trying to disable them. (credit: Sean Gallagher)
On January 16, the makers of the Blackphone 2 warned would-be customers to stay away from eBay. Silent Circle, the company behind the privacy-focused smartphone with encrypted voice services, issued an alert about purchasing devices from unauthorized resellers. Now that alert has turned into action with the latest update to Silent OS, the Android-based operating system built for the Blackphone. Silent OS 3.0.8 will disable phones that were not purchased through Silent Circle’s approved channels.
A reader in Germany contacted Ars after the update “bricked” his phone, which he had purchased through eBay. “The Blackphone 2 I’ve received came in retail packaging and looks just like the one that you guys reviewed,” the reader told Ars. “It worked up to Silent OS 3.0.7 Silent OS, [but] 3.0.8 seems to intentionally brick the baseband on some devices.”
Silent Circle’s support site doesn’t list any details for Silent OS 3.0.8. Release 3.0.7 was issued on December 29, 2016 to catch up with Android security notices and to make some tweaks to features.
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Source: Ars Technica – Black market Blackphones get sent a kill message that bricks them
HardOCP broke the story of NVIDIA moving into the retail video card market back in 2010. Since then, NVIDIA has gone on to move more into the retail market with it Founders Edition cards, and that certainly has gotten a lot of attention last year with the Pascal launch. A couple days ago, Digitimes reported that brisk sales of Founders Edition cards was going to impact NVIDIA partners, which is very likely true. This Seeking Alpha editorial just came through my box and it seemed to round out the week’s NVDIA discussion, however Motek Moyen is arguing that NVIDIA competing with its partners will help improve designs. Now considering that Moyen references “Ryzen GPU chips” in his analysis, you have to wonder if he knows WTF he is talking about. So….come on Vega and Volta!
Unless Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) offer deep discounts for its upcoming Ryzen GPU chips, third-party video card manufacturers will continue to favor Pascal or Volta GPU chips for their higher-priced video card products.
Gaff aside, the likes of ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI have not exactly been sitting around with a thumb up their collective butts when it comes to excellent in-house video card design for years and years now. So all in all, I don’t think Moyen knows what he is actually talking about, at least as far as his headline goes. Founders Edition cards sales in no way push better designs from NVDIA partners, as the FE cards sell in a more front-loaded fashion anyway. FE only truly impacts their reference card sales is how I see it. ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI need to just keep on doing what they have been doing.
Cool Pascal video to cool me down.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – NVIDIA Competing Against Partners a Good Thing – Sure
Is Facebook using your Oculus Rift to spy on you? That’s the question UploadVR is asking after a University of California, Davis researcher has come forward demonstrating how easy it is to pull image data off of an Oculus.
Oculus is adamant that this is not the case, and image data is only used for motion tracking and then quickly disgarded, but who knows? And, in a world where even Mark Zuckerberg puts tape on his webcam, maybe Oculus or Facebook are not who we should be worrying about? Tell us your thoughts in the forum comments!
Essentially what this means is that Oculus told the Sensor not to announce itself to the Windows operating system as a camera. If it did, Windows might automatically pull up its standard webcam drivers, which is not what Oculus wants. Instead, there’s a custom driver they want Windows to use to interface with the Sensor so that it functions only in tandem with the Rift. Kreylos describes this as a layer of “obfuscation” and says it is one of a few that Oculus employs to keep what is, in essence, a camera from behaving like one.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Oculus Sensors are Technically Hackable Webcams
A new feature could be coming to your Amazon checkout process. It’s called PayPal. Amazon and PayPal are in talks about the possibility of the online retail giant supporting PayPal payments at checkout, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said in an interview. While Schulman didn’t say when — or even if — a deal might happen between the companies, he did tell Bloomberg that the companies are trying to determine how they can “use one another’s assets to the mutual benefit” of their customers. From the report:”We’re closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now. At that scale, it’s hard for any retailer to think about not accepting PayPal,” Schulman said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – PayPal Has Been Talking With Amazon on Payments, CEO Says
Winter 2017’s anime selection is a desert. Out of the nearly 50-title lineup Kotaku East’s Brian Ashcraft detailed in his seasonal guide, I found only four anime I can recommend.
Source: Kotaku – Four Must-Watch Anime of Winter 2017
With so many options for contraception, choosing the right one can be difficult. Iodine has a new comparison tool that includes survey results to help you figure out when the perks of a method beat the downsides.
Source: LifeHacker – Iodine’s Birth Control Reviews Help You Pick the Best Method for You
Last December Microsoft tried out something it hadn’t done in quite awhile: adversarial cross-platform multiplayer. For a single weekend, there was a test between folks playing against each other in Gears of War 4 on PC and Xbox One. Now, that’s movi…
Source: Engadget – ‘Gears of War 4’ makes cross-platform multiplayer official
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to backtrack on his decision to sue hundreds of native Hawaiians, which would have likely forced the families to sell their land at a public court auction to the highest bidder.
Source: Gizmodo – Mark Zuckerberg Decides He Won’t Sue Hundreds of Hawaiians to Secure His Property
These are the Wino Sippers wine glasses ($24 for a set of two). They’re designed for drinking red wine without staining your teeth (although they might be able to double as neti pots). They’re basically port wine sipping glasses (which have existed forever) except much larger to hold more wine, because it’s annoying to constantly have to get up for more. “Tell me about it.” My aunt, ladies and gentlemen! Why don’t you tell everybody what you say when I ask what your favorite wine is. “Whatever you’re pouring.” LOLOL, gets me every time. Do you want to also share your secret for not staining your teeth drinking wine? “Use a straw.” Or? “Stop caring.” She really is a wealth of knowledge.
Thanks to Dunc, who agrees the best wine is a bottle shared between lovers on a faux bearskin rug in front of the fireplace in a quant cabin in the snow-covered woods while you sensually feed chocolate covered strawberries to one another and prepare TO HOP ON THE TRAIN TO BONETOWN LIKE TWO HOBOS.
Source: Geekologie – Red Wine Sipping Glasses To Prevent Stained Teeth
Greetings and salutations all, and welcome to Friday. We’re going to make it a quick one — I’ve been unexpectedly laid up with back pain this week so the whole Public Access machine has sort of ground to a halt. That means a lot of you have been wa…
Source: Engadget – The Public Access Weekly: Feel the pain
And Alice in Wonderland, now that I think about it. And fairy tales. We’ve seen enough versions of these stories, so maybe everyone should take a break for a bit.
Source: io9 – Please Stop Remaking The Wizard of Oz
For those who opposed Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House, the first week of his presidency confirmed a number of fears. Many of Trump’s perceived worst characteristics were on full display. He openly lied about crowd sizes at his inauguratio…
Source: Engadget – Trump’s first week: An affront to the web and science
So you’ve been hearing good things about Resident Evil 7, and you want to play it. There’s only one problem: you’re a huge coward. Don’t worry! I’ve got your covered.
Source: Kotaku – How To Enjoy Resident Evil 7 If You’re A Big Scaredy Cat
I don’t know about you, but I am loathe to throw away my empty liquor bottles. They’re just so pretty, and tossing them in the recycling bin makes my heart sad. Luckily, Food52 has a brilliant use for your empties: turn them into oil lamps.
Source: LifeHacker – Turn Empty Liquor Bottles Into Beautiful Oil Lamps
This elegantly designed small space presents yet another solution for the bed: lifting it up to the ceiling and out of the way.
Source: TreeHugger – Bed automatically retracts in this contemporary tiny house (Video)
Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel won’t say if he is funding the latest $15 million lawsuit brought by Shiva Ayyadurai, in which he claims to have “invented email: the electronic mail system as we know it today,” against the website Techdirt.
Source: Gizmodo – Peter Thiel Won’t Say If He’s Bankrolling Lawsuit Against Techdirt
Reader Krystalo writes: Adobe today announced Adobe Contribute and Adobe Director will no longer be for sale nor supported as of February 1, 2017. At the same time, Adobe is also stopping Shockwave for Mac updates and support on March 14, 2017 after the last release of the product. The reason Adobe gives for the death of Contribute and Director is simple: The company’s customers are embracing “the new features and efficiencies offered by Creative Cloud.” As for Shockwave, its content is made with Director, so the company is merely tying up loose ends. It’s about time.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Adobe Is Killing Contribute, Director, and Shockwave
