Source: Engadget – Texas bill could mean jail time for flying a drone over oil facilities
Monthly Archives: May 2017
RiME game review: An unforgettable memorial vacation
Enlarge / RiME is often a peaceful game, but it has a few harrowing moments. (credit: Tequila Works)
I have had one of the most gorgeous Memorial Day weekends that I can recall, replete with beautiful, exotic memories. Some are dotted with endless coastlines and remarkable rock formations. Others are covered by bizarre memorials to an unnamed past, all scorched by the sun and set into contrast by raging thunderstorms. Each has contained its fair share of sky-burning sunsets, foliage-lined cavern glades, and wild animals.
Roughly every 15 minutes, I have stopped, marveled, and taken a photo. Now that my trip is complete, I have a scrapbook of my experiences. It’s among my favorites of the past few years.
This has been my experience with the video game RiME, which launched a few days ago on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs. I got behind on other work ahead of the Memorial Day weekend and figured I’d play this cute, “narrative puzzle-platformer” in a few hours, then write some impressions before I clocked out for the holiday.
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Source: Ars Technica – RiME game review: An unforgettable memorial vacation
Will It Sous Vide? Mom's Meatloaf
Welcome to this week’s edition of Will It Sous Vide?, the weekly column where I usually make whatever you want me to with my immersion circulator.
Source: LifeHacker – Will It Sous Vide? Mom’s Meatloaf
Motorola Moto Z2 Play Leaks Again In New Press Images And Unboxing Video
It looks as though Lenovo/Motorola simply can’t contain the leaks when it comes to its upcoming second-generation Moto Z family. Today we’re getting a closer look at the Moto Z2 Play, which confirms previous leaks and gives us a better look at the smartphone via new official renders.
We’ve received confirmation that Qualcomm’s new mid-range
Source: Hot Hardware – Motorola Moto Z2 Play Leaks Again In New Press Images And Unboxing Video
The Most Popular Linux News Of The Past 13 Years
One week from today marks Phoronix’s 13th birthday and for the occasion will be a number of recap articles plus a number of new, large hardware comparisons, some special benchmarks, and more. But for getting things kicked off this week, let’s begin by looking back at the most popular articles in the past 13 years on Phoronix…
Source: Phoronix – The Most Popular Linux News Of The Past 13 Years
The Kindle Voyage Is Actually (Somewhat) Affordable, Today Only
The Kindle Voyage probably isn’t worth it for most readers at $200—not when you can regularly purchase a very good Kindle Paperwhite for around $100—but it’s worth your consideration at $135.
Source: LifeHacker – The Kindle Voyage Is Actually (Somewhat) Affordable, Today Only
Qbs 1.8 Released — Planned To Replace QMake Build System In Qt 6
Besides releasing Qt 5.9 RC2, The Qt Company is kicking off this new week by the release of Qbs 1.8 as their new build system…
Source: Phoronix – Qbs 1.8 Released — Planned To Replace QMake Build System In Qt 6
Are There More Developers Than We Think?
JavaScript’s npm package manager reports 4 million users, doubling every year, leading to an interesting question from tech industry analyst James Governor:
Just how many developers are there out there? GitHub is very well placed to know, given it’s where (so much) of that development happens today. It has telemetry-based numbers, with their own skew of course, but based on usage rather than surveys or estimates. According to GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath, “We see 20 million professional devs in the world as an estimate, from research companies. Well we have 21 million [active] users — we can’t have more users than the entire industry”…
If Github has 21 million active users, Wanstrath is right that current estimates of the size of the developer population must be far too low… Are we under-counting China, for example, given its firewalls? India continues to crank out developers at an astonishing rate. Meanwhile Africa is set for crazy growth too… You certainly can’t just count computer science graduates or software industry employees anymore. These days you can’t even be an astronomer without learning code, and that’s going to be true of all scientific disciplines.
The analyst attributes the increasing number of developers to “the availability, accessibility and affordability of tools and learning,” adding “It’s pretty amazing to think that GitHub hit 5 million users in 2012, and is now at 20 million.” As for the total number of all developers, he offers his own estimate at the end of the essay. “My wild assed guess would be more like 35 million.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Are There More Developers Than We Think?
Qt Applications Will Now Look Better On Flatpak'ed GNOME Desktops
KDE/Qt applications will now look better on GNOME desktops when sandboxed using Flatpak…
Source: Phoronix – Qt Applications Will Now Look Better On Flatpak’ed GNOME Desktops
openSUSE Announces The Kubic Project For Designing Next-Gen Container OS
The openSUSE project has announced “Kubic” as a new initiative around making their Linux operating system more container-friendly…
Source: Phoronix – openSUSE Announces The Kubic Project For Designing Next-Gen Container OS
Qt 5.9 RC2 Released, Qt 5.9.0 Still On Track For This Week
The Qt Company has released their second and final release candidate for the big Qt 5.9 tool-kit update…
Source: Phoronix – Qt 5.9 RC2 Released, Qt 5.9.0 Still On Track For This Week
Nomadic tiny bookshop on wheels is wandering through France
Bringing books to small villages and festivals where they are needed most, this traveling bookshop runs out of a custom-built tiny house that’s also the bookseller’s home.
Source: TreeHugger – Nomadic tiny bookshop on wheels is wandering through France
Can you be zero-waste without a bulk store nearby?
When you live in the country, not everything can be purchased in a Mason jar.
Source: TreeHugger – Can you be zero-waste without a bulk store nearby?
The Morning After: Monday, May 29th 2017
Hey, good morning!
Welcome to the new week. Most of you are probably enjoying a three-day weekend, but the show never stops at Engadget. We have a team of reporters settling into Taipei for Asia’s biggest PC show, Computex, while we also look at the…
Source: Engadget – The Morning After: Monday, May 29th 2017
ASUS Outs Dazzling ZenBook Flip S 2-in-1 Alongside ZenBook 3 Deluxe And ZenBook Pro Laptops
ASUS is kicking off Computex with a bang, unleashing a slew of new notebooks and convertibles that add a premium touch and Intel Kaby Lake power (of course). There are a variety of new mobile computing products spread across ASUS’ ZenBook and VivoBook product families.
The ZenBook Flip S is the star of the show, sporting a convertible form-factor
Source: Hot Hardware – ASUS Outs Dazzling ZenBook Flip S 2-in-1 Alongside ZenBook 3 Deluxe And ZenBook Pro Laptops
The Fleischer 100: Pi-powered sound effects
If there’s one thing we like more than a project video, it’s a project video that has style. And that’s exactly what we got for the Fleischer 100, a Raspberry Pi-powered cartoon sound effects typewriter created by James McCullen.
The Fleischer 100 | Cartoon Sound Effects Toy
The goal of this practical project was to design and make a hardware device that could play numerous sound effects by pressing buttons and tweaking knobs and dials. Taking inspiration from old cartoons of the 1930s in particular – the sound effects would be in the form of mostly conventional musical instruments that were often used to create sound effects in this period of animation history.
The golden age of Foley
Long before the days of the drag-and-drop sound effects of modern video editing software, there were Foley artists. These artists would create sound effects for cartoons, films, and even live performances, often using everyday objects. Here are Orson Welles and the King of Cool himself, Dean Martin, with a demonstration:
Dean Martin & Orson Welles – Early Radio/Sound Effects
Uploaded by dino4ever on 2014-05-26.
The Fleischer 100
“The goal of this practical project was to design and make a hardware device that could be used to play numerous sound effects by pressing buttons and tweaking knobs and dials,” James says, and explains that he has been “taking inspiration from old cartoons of the 1930s in particular”.
Images on the buttons complete the ‘classic cartoon era’ look
With the Fleischer 100, James has captured that era’s look and feel. Having recorded the majority of the sound effects using a Rode NT2-A microphone, he copied the sound files to a Raspberry Pi. The physical computing side of building the typewriter involved connecting the Pi to multiple buttons and switches via a breadboard. The buttons are used to play back the files, and both a toggle and a rotary switch control access to the sound effects – there are one hundred in total! James also made the costumized housing to achieve an appearance in line with the period of early cartoon animation.
Turning the typewriter roller selects a new collection of sound effects
Regarding the design of his device, James was particularly inspired by the typewriter in the 1930s Looney Tunes short Hold Anything – and to our delight, he decided to style the final project video to match its look.
Hold Anything – Looney Tunes (HD)
Release date 1930 Directed by Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising Produced by Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising Leon Schlesinger(Associate Producer) Voices by Carman Maxwell Rochelle Hudson (both uncredited) Music by Frank Marsales Animation by Isadore Freleng Norm Blackburn Distributed by Warner Bros.
We wish we had a Fleischer 100 hidden under a desk at Pi Towers with which to score office goings-on…
The post The Fleischer 100: Pi-powered sound effects appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Source: Raspberry Pi – The Fleischer 100: Pi-powered sound effects
Google Play Music Free Trial For New Subscribers Extends To Four Months
Music lovers have a bunch of options when it comes to streaming on-demand subscription services. One of them is Google Play Music, which has attempted to set itself apart from the pack by tossing in free access to YouTube Red, its ad-free membership program for YouTube that also lets you save videos for offline viewing. If you’re still on
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Play Music Free Trial For New Subscribers Extends To Four Months
ARM's Next Gen Cortex-A75, Cortex-A55 And Mali-G72 Mobile Chips Flex Mobile Machine Learning Muscle
ARM has developed a new generation of mobile chips that will empower the smartphones and tablets of tomorrow with machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. The company’s new Cortex-A75 CPU for premium devices and Cortex-A55 processor for mid-range gadgets will also both be the first to feature ARM’s DynamIQ technology, which
Source: Hot Hardware – ARM’s Next Gen Cortex-A75, Cortex-A55 And Mali-G72 Mobile Chips Flex Mobile Machine Learning Muscle
Toshiba Unveils XG5 High-Performance NVMe SSD Featuring 64-Layer BiCS 3D Flash Memory
We gave you a glimpse of an unnamed Toshiba NVMe SSD at Dell EMC World a few weeks back, featuring 64-layer BiCS 3D flash memory. We couldn’t reveal much about the drive then, but Toshiba is lifting the veil on it today, and is announcing a new family of drives dubbed the XG5, which offer a combination of high performance and high density,
Source: Hot Hardware – Toshiba Unveils XG5 High-Performance NVMe SSD Featuring 64-Layer BiCS 3D Flash Memory
Silicon-laced diamonds could lead to practical quantum computers
Scientists already believe that diamonds could be a solid foundation for practical quantum computers. You can use atom-scale defects in diamond to store quantum bits that hold contradictory data (say, both on and off) in a way that lets you read the…
Source: Engadget – Silicon-laced diamonds could lead to practical quantum computers