Aren’t there rules against this kind of thing? It does seem like false advertising when you slap the shiny 5G moniker on a service that is actually 4G LTE. Hopefully, AT&T’s new “5G Evolution” doesn’t make fools out of too many people or dilute the perceived potential of the faster standard before it even genuinely lands.
…AT&T [is] beginning its campaign to sully the still-whole notion of 5G with its new campaign promoting its “5G Evolution” network rolling out in Austin, Texas and, soon, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville and San Francisco. 5G Evolution, according to AT&T, is still entirely based on 4G LTE. There is nothing — nothing — in its current incarnation that has to do with what will eventually become 5G. Instead, it incorporates the same advanced 4G LTE features that T-Mobile, in its own admittedly bravuro way, has been touting for the past few months: 3x carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM modulations.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – AT&T Rolls out Fake 5G Network
Monthly Archives: April 2017
Analyst: Next-Gen PlayStation System Will Launch in 2018
Would that be too soon, considering that the PS4 Pro just launched in November 2016? If this analyst is right, Sony will be countering Microsoft’s Scorpio system with another updated version of the PlayStation as early as next year. Man, console releases are going to get so much less exciting as they ramp up their release schedules like this.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong “said he expected Sony to release its next-generation PlayStation by the second half of 2018.” Analyst predictions don’t always pan out, and this isn’t necessarily based on some inside scoop. But the WSJ’s reporter notes on Twitter that this is the same “analyst who correctly predicted PS4 Pro and Slim” ahead of their respective launches. That certainly lends credence to the prediction, though in all likelihood, we won’t receive any official word from Sony for quite some time.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Analyst: Next-Gen PlayStation System Will Launch in 2018
How a Slack UI change sparked the Ars Technica civil war
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Something strange happened at work the other day: internecine warfare broke out over emoji use on Slack. The psycho-nerdism level was at 11, and it happened among a geeky staff that included someone who had recently merged a toy teddy bear with Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service. The things you can do with that freaky device are probably illegal in several states. But I’m digressing.
Our civil war was straight out of HBO’s Silicon Valley. It kinda rivaled the Tabs versus Spaces scene from Season 3, Episode 6. However, we weren’t fighting about coding methods. What sparked our “first-world problems” brouhaha was Slack finally answering our staff’s wishes.
This month’s Slack update granted Slackers the ability to type a “status” message—or an emoji—next to their name and avatar. Presumably, this new feature would be used by staffers to display their availability—useful because our US staff of 26 doesn’t see each other much. We all work remotely, and much of our real-time communications occur on Slack. We also use Slack to instantly communicate with our London-based Ars brethren and with freelancers across the globe.
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Source: Ars Technica – How a Slack UI change sparked the Ars Technica civil war
ICYMI: The Hoff speaks for AI and MIT builds a mobile 3D printer
Today on In Case You Missed It: David Hasselhoff stars in a short film about an AI that takes over people’s lives and decides what they should do and say. The kicker is that all of The Hoff’s lines were written by — you guessed it — an AI. As M…
Source: Engadget – ICYMI: The Hoff speaks for AI and MIT builds a mobile 3D printer
This Week In The Business: Lost in Translation
QUOTE | “It was never our intention to threaten people with copyright strikes, but we clearly chose the wrong tone for how to communicate this.” – Atlus apologizes for the threatening tone of its initial Persona 5 streaming guidelines, which explicitly threatened people with copyright strikes, as well as content ID…
Source: Kotaku – This Week In The Business: Lost in Translation
NVIDIA & Netflix Now Previewing 4K Support on GeForce GTX 10 Series Cards
Way back in May of 2016 when NVIDIA launched the Pascal architecture powered GeForce GTX 10 series, one of the notable features they announced for the product family was support for Netflix’s newly launched 4K streaming option. At the time no PCs could access the service; due to the tighter DRM requirements imposed by Netflix and its content providers, PCs that wanted to stream 4K Netflix would need to support HDCP 2.2 and Microsoft’s PlayReady 3.0 DRM. Pascal in turn was the first GPU that was released to support the new DRM standards, and while NVIDIA didn’t know exactly when support would launch, the expectation was that it would be sooner than later.
However as the months have ticked by, we never did see any further progress from NVIDIA and Netflix on enabling 4K support. And rather unexpectedly, NVIDIA even ended up being surpassed in the PC space by Intel, who became the first vendor to actually launch 4K Netflix support when it was enabled on their Kaby Lake CPUs back in November.
Now just shy of a year later, NVIDIA and Netflix have finally taken the next step towards launching 4K Netflix support on Pascal. In an article posted on NVIDIA’s customer support portal, the company has (quietly) announced a 4K Netflix technology preview, allowing customers with the right hardware and software configurations to access Netflix’s 4K streams via both Microsoft Edge and the Netflix app.
While the article itself doesn’t offer any real explanation for the delay, the system requirements end up giving us a pretty good hint about what’s going on. Along with the expected hardware requirements – a Pascal-based video card and an HDCP 2.2 monitor – the Netflix preview also requires that users are on a Windows Insider build of Windows 10. The NVIDIA article notes in particular that receiving Insider builds is necessary to get the specific NVIDIA driver version supported – 381.74 – as it’s only being distributed as part of the Insider program.
NVIDIA doesn’t make much mention of the OS itself, but the situation is especially interesting since this comes just weeks after Microsoft launched the Windows 10 Creators Update, their latest major update to the OS. According to Microsoft’s API documentation, several new calls were added to PlayReady in this update. This strongly hints that Windows 10 itself was the piece of the puzzle holding back 4K Netflix support.
Further complicating matters however, with the release of the Creators Update, the Windows Insider program is now in early testing of features that will be going into the next version of Windows 10, codenamed “Redstone 3”. So it’s not clear whether the recently-released Creators Update is even enough, or if support hinges on additional functionality intended for Redstone 3.
In any case, for the moment NVIDIA is calling this a preview, presumably due to the Insider OS requirements. Despite this qualifier, 4K Netflix support should fully work on all Pascal GPUs with 3GB or more of VRAM, though this means that 2GB GTX 1050 cards are oddly excluded. NVIDIA does note however that support isn’t currently working with SLI configurations, and in that scenario the video cards need to be unlinked first. NVIDIA has also posted a helpful chart on HDCP 2.2 compliance, noting that 4K support is only available when all active displays support HDCP 2.2; any active HDCP 1.x displays will limit the stream quality to 1080p.
Source: AnandTech – NVIDIA & Netflix Now Previewing 4K Support on GeForce GTX 10 Series Cards
NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 Retail Card Spotted With Pascal GP108-300 Core And 30W TDP
Hot on the heels of NVIDIA’s release of the super-powerful GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (read our review!) comes another release that’s on the complete opposite end of the performance spectrum. The new GeForce GT 1030 is for those that need a GPU, but can’t stomach an integrated solution.
At face value, the card actually seems like more of a “me-to”
Source: Hot Hardware – NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 Retail Card Spotted With Pascal GP108-300 Core And 30W TDP
Speed of poop: Big or small, mammals drop a deuce in ~12 secs, study finds
Enlarge (credit: Brandon Weeks)
In 2015, mechanical engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology calculated that all mammals take about the same amount of time to empty their bladders: roughly 21 second of urinating. With the finding, they won an Ig Nobel prize—parody Nobel awards given to comical, yet interesting research.
In pursuit of further toilet tidbits—or perhaps another Ig Nobel—the researchers have now squeezed out a mathematical model of the hydrodynamics of pooping. And they’ve estimated that all mammals, big or small, void their bowels in 12 seconds, plus or minus seven seconds. Their findings were published this week in the aptly titled journal Soft Matter.
To come up with a universal deuce-dropping time, the researchers turned to YouTube, a dog park, and Zoo Atlanta. There, they filmed elephants, giant pandas, and warthogs producing bum brownies. In all, they collected 23 clips of pooping from 11 types of animals—which included cats, a mountain gorilla, lions, a black bear, zebras, a hippopotamus, and white rhinos, in addition to the others listed. It’s unclear if more data would alter their estimate of a universal time. They also eliminated power-poopers from the study, such as rabbits, rodents, and ruminants, which can serve up a bundle of turd pellets in short order.
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Source: Ars Technica – Speed of poop: Big or small, mammals drop a deuce in ~12 secs, study finds
Let's Talk About Google's Crazy Year in Hardware
Google needs to be in the hardware business. It’s infiltrated nearly all aspects of our lives to an alarming degree. It controls our emails through Gmail, knows where we go through Maps, has a list of every person we communicate with via Android, and understands our every interest thanks to its search engine and…
Source: Gizmodo – Let’s Talk About Google’s Crazy Year in Hardware
Italian Police Say Amazon Has Evaded $142 Million of Taxes
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Milan tax police have told Amazon they believe the world’s largest online retailer has evaded around 130 million euros ($142 million) of taxes in Italy, a source close to the matter said on Friday. The allegedly unpaid taxes refer to the period between 2011 and 2015, when Amazon made revenues of around 2.5 billion euros in Italy, the source said. The tax police’s findings have been handed to Milan prosecutors, the source added. Amazon issued a statement denying it had evaded any taxes, and said its profits in Italy, on which taxes are paid, had been low due to its considerable investments in the country.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Italian Police Say Amazon Has Evaded 2 Million of Taxes
Find a Place to Play Board Games for International Tabletop Day Today
Today is International Tabletop Day! It’s time to grab some buddies and head to a local game store, coffee shop, or book store and play some board games. Here’s how to find a gathering spot near you.
Source: LifeHacker – Find a Place to Play Board Games for International Tabletop Day Today
Get Two of OxyLED's Uber-Popular Motion-Sensing Night Lights for $22 [Exclusive]
OxyLED’s T02-U is my favorite motion-sensing night light in the uber-popular T-02 line, and the popular lighting company is offering our readers the best deal ever on it today. Just add two to your cart and use code 2KINJA2U at checkout to get them both for $22.
Source: LifeHacker – Get Two of OxyLED’s Uber-Popular Motion-Sensing Night Lights for [Exclusive]
Gloomhaven is the best dungeon crawl board game I’ve ever played
Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.
Gloomhaven, the new cooperative, campaign-driven dungeon crawl board game from designer Isaac Childres, is big. Really big.
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Source: Ars Technica – Gloomhaven is the best dungeon crawl board game I’ve ever played
Google Pixel 2 Leaks Reveal Three Big Android Fish Coming To The Smartphone Pond
Something fishy is going on at Google, though not in a bad way. During a discussion at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Google’s Rich Osterloh confirmed that there would be a successor to the company’s Pixel smartphone in 2017. He stopped well short of offering up any sort of details, but if you go fishing for information like we did,
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Pixel 2 Leaks Reveal Three Big Android Fish Coming To The Smartphone Pond
Amonkhet review: A gleaming Egyptian city where humans are fattened for slaughter
©2017 Wizards of the Coast LLC in the USA & other countries. Illustration by Sam Burley.
Magic: The Gathering dives into classic Egyptian mythology in Amonkhet, its second expansion set of the year after Aether Revolt. The new set is released today, April 28, and you’re strongly encouraged to go along to your local game store (or open up Magic Online) and give it a whirl.
Of course, if you want to read about the set before you spend some money, we’ve got you covered as well. We’ve been playing with the new cards for a couple of weeks—here’s our review.
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Source: Ars Technica – Amonkhet review: A gleaming Egyptian city where humans are fattened for slaughter
Merriam-Webster Adds ‘Sheeple’ To Dictionary Citing Apple Fans As Prime Examples
Wake up sheeple! Merriam-Webster recently added “sheeple” to its online dictionary, and a quote regarding Apple fans was used a prime example of the word.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word is naturally a blend of “sheep” and “people”. “Sheeple” are defined as “ people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened
Source: Hot Hardware – Merriam-Webster Adds ‘Sheeple’ To Dictionary Citing Apple Fans As Prime Examples
KDE Kirigami 2.1 Released To Help Build Convergent Linux Apps
While convergence may be dead at Ubuntu/Canonical, KDE developers continue working on Plasma Mobile and their convergence vision driven in part by the Kirigami user-interface framework…
Source: Phoronix – KDE Kirigami 2.1 Released To Help Build Convergent Linux Apps
New ARM Support Going Into The Linux 4.12 Kernel
The ARM changes for the mainline Linux kernel are usually quite extensive each cycle and with the Linux 4.12 merge window likely opening on Sunday evening it will be no different this time around…
Source: Phoronix – New ARM Support Going Into The Linux 4.12 Kernel
Stray WiFi Signals Could Let Spies See Inside Closed Rooms
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: Your wireless router may be giving you away in a manner you never dreamed of. For the first time, physicists have used radio waves from a Wi-Fi transmitter to encode a 3D image of a real object in a hologram similar to the image of Princess Leia projected by R2D2 in the movie Star Wars. In principle, the technique could enable outsiders to “see” the inside of a room using only the Wi-Fi signals leaking out of it, although some researchers say such spying may be easier said than done. Their experiment relies on none of the billions of digital bits of information encoded in Wi-Fi signals, just the fact that the signals are clean, “coherent” waves. However, instead of recording the key interference pattern on a photographic plate, the researchers record it with a Wi-Fi receiver and reconstruct the object in a computer. They placed a Wi-Fi transmitter in a room, 0.9 meters behind the cross. Then they placed a standard Wi-Fi receiver 1.4 meters in front of the cross and moved it slowly back and forth to map out a “virtual screen” that substituted for the photographic plate. Also, instead of having a separate reference beam coming straight to the screen, they placed a second, stationary receiver a few meters away, where it had a direct view of the emitter. For each point on the virtual screen, the researchers compared the signals arriving simultaneously at both receivers, and made a hologram by mapping the delays caused by the aluminum cross. The virtual hologram isn’t exactly like a traditional one, as researchers can’t recover the image of the object by shining more radio waves on it. Instead, the scientists used the computer to run the radio waves backward in time from the screen to the distance where wave fronts hit the object. The cross then popped out.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Stray WiFi Signals Could Let Spies See Inside Closed Rooms
AMDGPU Gets More Fixes For Linux 4.12
While the DRM-Next merge window is over for new feature material ahead of the Linux 4.12 merge window opening tomorrow, some AMDGPU fixes have been sent out for this next kernel cycle…
Source: Phoronix – AMDGPU Gets More Fixes For Linux 4.12