The non-profit defender of civil liberties online responds to Zillow’s unfounded legal claims
Source: TreeHugger – McMansion Hell update: Electronic Frontier Foundation to the rescue
Monthly Archives: June 2017
Dolby Atmos Comes to Netflix
Those of you who own an Xbox One/S or 2017 LG OLED TV and Atmos setup may now enjoy Dolby’s modern surround sound technology through Netflix. Only Okja and BLAME! include Atmos tracks thus far, but the catalog will grow later this year with features such as Death Note and Bright. Dolby Atmos technology allows up to 128 audio tracks plus associated spatial audio description metadata; height speakers are added to traditional configurations (e.g., 5.1/7.1) for increased immersion.
Much like how 4K and HDR bring more stunning and realistic visuals to the screen, Dolby Atmos delivers captivating sound that places and moves audio anywhere in the room, including overhead, to bring entertainment to life all around you, all in the comfort of your own living room. Imagine being surrounded by the sounds of the scene you’re watching – an airplane passing overhead, or the subtlety of the wind rustling tree leaves all around you. Having the extra dimension of immersive audio is a game changer for experiencing the realism of a story, and feeling like you’re a part of it.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Dolby Atmos Comes to Netflix
Happy 10th Anniversary to the iPhone
Like it or hate it, the original iPhone was a genuine game changer responsible for the ubiquity of smartphones and apps: it put the internet into everyone’s pocket, changed the way software was created and distributed, transformed photography from a hobby to a habit, and much more. Perhaps Google and Android would have come along to drive all of this anyway, but Apple nevertheless gets top credit. It’s amazing how quickly a decade can go by…
No product in recent history has changed people’s lives more. Without the iPhone, ride-hailing, photo-sharing, instant messaging and other essentials of modern life would be less widespread. Shorn of cumulative sales of 1.2bn devices and revenues of $1trn, Apple would not hold the crown of the world’s largest listed company. Thousands of software developers would be poorer, too: the apps they have written for the smartphone make them more than $20bn annually.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Happy 10th Anniversary to the iPhone
Uber Crosses 5 Billion Rides
An anonymous reader shares a report: The ride-hailing company just reached a big milestone: 5 billion Uber rides around the world. With Uber’s endless bad headlines, and Lyft gaining real momentum in the war against Uber, it’s easy to forget how much else Uber has going on. Lyft is only competing with Uber in the U.S.; billions of Uber’s trips have taken place outside America. Uber officially reached 5 billion rides with 156 simultaneous trips at exactly 7:29:06 a.m. GMT on May 20. The company announced the news on Thursday.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Uber Crosses 5 Billion Rides
macOS High Sierra preview: It's what you can't see that counts
You can tell by its name: The next version of Apple’s macOS, High Sierra, isn’t a huge and transformative update. Instead, like Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, the new OS refines what came before it. It’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed, though,…
Source: Engadget – macOS High Sierra preview: It’s what you can’t see that counts
I Tried a Foraging App and It Went Okay I Guess
Renowned chef/forest sprite René Redzepi has released an app called VILD MAD
to help you find “delicious edibles” by using your phone. As someone who enjoys a good forage (and looking at her phone), VILD MAD seemed like an app that could definitely improve my quality of life, so I downloaded it onto said phone and set…
Source: LifeHacker – I Tried a Foraging App and It Went Okay I Guess
Exclusive: Elon Musk Explains Lusty Floor Tweets
Yesterday was SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s birthday. But instead of getting some loving from his beautiful girlfriend or perhaps one of his fancy cars (they can do that now, right?), Musk apparently decided to pop a few Ambien and craft a love poem to the floor.
Source: Gizmodo – Exclusive: Elon Musk Explains Lusty Floor Tweets
Huawei's MacBook clone is slightly less pricey at $1,100
We were reasonably impressed with Huawei’s first bold foray into the Windows 10 notebook market, the Matebook X. Partially because it’s a dead ringer for Apple’s 12-inch MacBook and partially because Huawei’s machine improved on it in a few key ways…
Source: Engadget – Huawei’s MacBook clone is slightly less pricey at ,100
When Kids Break Rules, Emphasize The Consequences For Others
When my four-year-old misbehaves (and boy, does she), I have about 3.7 seconds to run through a litany of possible parental responses in my brain, and choose one.
Source: LifeHacker – When Kids Break Rules, Emphasize The Consequences For Others
Tumblr's Unclear Future Shows That There's No Money in Internet Culture
Earlier this month as Verizon completed its acquisition, a number of Tumblr employees, as well as those at other Verizon-owned properties, like the Huffington Post, were laid off. This comes at an interesting time for Tumblr, which is increasingly struggling to find a business model. From an article on NYMag: The future of Tumblr is still an open question. The site is enormously popular among the coveted youth crowd — that’s partly why then-CEO Marissa Mayer paid $1 billion for the property in 2013 — but despite a user base near the size of Instagram’s, Tumblr never quite figured out how to make money at the level Facebook has led managers and shareholders to expect. For a long time, its founder and CEO David Karp was publicly against the idea of inserting ads into users’ timelines. (Other experiments in monetization, like premium options, never caught on: It’s tough to generate revenue when your most active user base is too young to have a steady income.) Even once the timeline became open to advertising, it was tough to find clients willing to brave the sometimes-porny waters of the Tumblr Dashboard. Since it joined Yahoo, the site has started displaying low-quality “chum”-style ads in between user posts on the Dashboard. Looked at from a bottom-line perspective, Tumblr is an also-ran like its parent company — a once-hot start-up that has eased into tech-industry irrelevance. […] It is rare, but not at all unprecedented, for a site to reach Tumblr’s size, prominence, and level of influence and still be unable to build a sustainable business. Twitter steers a huge portion of online culture, and has become an essential water cooler and newswire for journalists, tech workers, and otaku Nazis, but still has trouble turning a profit.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Tumblr’s Unclear Future Shows That There’s No Money in Internet Culture
'Achievement Spam' Games Are Causing Controversy On Steam
Achievements might be arbitrary indicators that you Did A Thing, but they’re still thrilling to earn. On Steam, you can even put achievements on display and turn your profile into a gleaming monument to your accomplishments. Some developers have recently taken to front-loading subpar games with thousands of…
Source: LifeHacker – ‘Achievement Spam’ Games Are Causing Controversy On Steam
Car-charging company is on a tear, buying GE stations, securing investments
Enlarge / Closeup of Chargepoint electric-vehicle charger at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images). (credit: Getty Images)
Car-charging network Chargepoint announced that it would buy General Electric’s electric vehicle (EV) charging stations today for an undisclosed amount of money. Chargepoint also announced a $42 million investment from Siemens, which will be used to improve European infrastructure for EVs.
The purchase of the GE stations will add close to 10,000 charging stations to Chargepoint’s network, with 1,800 commercial charging stations and 8,000 residential. GE’s charging hardware and software won’t be changed, but Chargepoint said in a press release that existing GE station customers and owners would be able to “take advantage of smart features such as access control, pricing capabilities, and software solutions like energy management and scheduled charging.” Drivers who previously used GE charging stations can now track their usage and search for Chargepoint stations through the company’s mobile app.
The latest $45 million investment in the company from Siemens closed out a $125 million funding round (Daimler was the other largest investor in this round). Siemens supplies ChargePoint with direct-current charging components. Ralf Christian, CEO of the Siemens Energy Management Division, will join the Chargepoint board of directors.
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Source: Ars Technica – Car-charging company is on a tear, buying GE stations, securing investments
Roomba Allegedly Takes Wagon Full Of Stuffed Animals On House Tour By Itself
This is a video posted by Youtuber Jesse J Bueno, who claims his wife came home and witnessed the Roomba taking a wagon full of their daughter’s terrifying stuffed animals out for a joyride. Allegedly the Roomba hooked up the wagon all by itself. Did it really? I have no clue, but will that stop me from leaving a ‘FAKE YOU FILTHY LIARS’ comment on Youtube? Yes it will, because I’m not an a$$hole. Well, I’m not that big an a$$hole. Fine I’m a huge a$$hole I just don’t have a Youtube account to comment.
Keep going for the video.
Source: Geekologie – Roomba Allegedly Takes Wagon Full Of Stuffed Animals On House Tour By Itself
I don't regret being an iPhone early adopter
Do you remember where you were when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone, more than 10 years ago? It’s a pretty nerdy thing to admit, but I do. I spent the day glued to my computer, at my desk — theoretically hard at work. But I was actually devou…
Source: Engadget – I don’t regret being an iPhone early adopter
What to Look for When Choosing a Laptop Cooler
The trend for laptop design has always leaned toward thinner, not fatter, leaving less space for ventilation. That makes a whining fan during intensive work like photo editing or gaming an unwanted but common occurrence, especially when combined with the summer heat.
Source: LifeHacker – What to Look for When Choosing a Laptop Cooler
Windows 10 will try to combat ransomware by locking up your data
Enlarge / Cryptolocker was one of the ransomware pioneers, bringing together file encryption and bitcoin payment. (credit: Christiaan Colen / Flickr)
The latest Windows 10 build, today’s 16232, contains a few new security features. In addition to the richer control over exploit mitigation that Microsoft announced earlier this week, the new build also includes a trial of a new anti-ransomware capability.
The long-standing approach that operating systems have used to protect files is a mix of file ownership and permissions. On multi-user systems, this is broadly effective: it stops one user from reading or altering files owned by other users of the same system. The long-standing approach is also reasonably effective at protecting the operating system itself from users. But the rise of ransomware has changed the threats to data. The risk with ransomware comes not with another user changing all your files (by encrypting them); rather, the danger is that a program operating under a given user’s identity will modify all the data files accessible to that user identity.
In other words, if you can read and write your own documents, so can any ransomware that you run.
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Source: Ars Technica – Windows 10 will try to combat ransomware by locking up your data
Enormous Genetic Study Will Help Scientists Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease
There’s no doubt that inflammatory bowel disease is horrible. Its consequences, all sorts of gastrointestinal distress, can be downright debilitating. But treating it is full of uncertainty—folks with the same symptoms might respond in wildly different ways. That’s why scientists are trying to pinpoint its cause,…
Source: Gizmodo – Enormous Genetic Study Will Help Scientists Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The 'Final Fantasy XV' mobile game is a mess, but at least it's free
Mobile games can make a ton of money, with titles like Clash of Clans making billions of dollars for their respective developers. Square Enix has been active in mobile gaming with titles based on its own popular role-playing games, with original free…
Source: Engadget – The ‘Final Fantasy XV’ mobile game is a mess, but at least it’s free
Ps4 Server List
Could anyone please lead me in the right direction?
I am looking for a ps4 psn server list as I am also looking for Rockstar server list. If anyone could help me it would be great.
I basically need a list to block psn login from happening and…
Ps4 Server List
Source: PS4 News – Ps4 Server List
James Cameron Is Still Very Bullish on 3D
3D has remained a fad, but that isn’t stopping James Cameron from salvaging what was supposed to be a revolutionary cinema experience. The director spearheaded the idea with Avatar back in 2009 and hopes to do it again with his (four) sequels, but he has recently admitted that the technology needs to go much further, alluding to the necessity for a glasses-free experience in the future.
For the sequels to Avatar – the most successful movie ever made – the filmmaker, tech innovator and explorer said, “I’m going to push. Not only for better tools, workflow, high dynamic range and high frame rates – the things we are working toward. I’m still very bullish on 3D, but we need brighter projection, and ultimately I think it can happen – with no glasses. We’ll get there.” Cameron told the estimated 500 guests that movie “magic has to amaze … and that involves constant creation of new tools and techniques. The audience’s eyes adjust to what we did, and so we need to up our work.”
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Source: [H]ardOCP – James Cameron Is Still Very Bullish on 3D