Monthly Archives: October 2017

Twitter Says It Overstated Monthly-User Figures For 3 Years

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): Twitter said on Thursday that it had overstated its monthly-user figures since 2014 after mistakenly including data from third-party applications in its counting. The revelation came as the company reported that its net loss had narrowed in the third quarter and that its number of daily active users had risen 14 percent. The company said it had discovered that its measure of monthly active users had been improperly including figures from third-party applications that used Digits, a software-development program. Digits is part of the Fabric mobile application platform that Twitter sold to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, this year. Digits allowed third-party applications to send authentication messages through Twitter’s systems and did not reflect activity on the Twitter platform, the company said. As a result, the company lowered the number of monthly active users by two million for the first and second quarters of this year and by one million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Twitter said its data-retention policies made it unable to reconcile the figures for periods before last year’s fourth quarter.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Twitter Says It Overstated Monthly-User Figures For 3 Years

The Rumor That Amazon Will Sell Prescription Drugs Just Got Serious

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The St. Louis Dispatch just dropped a helluva news nugget. Citing public records, the paper reports that Amazon “has gained approval to become a wholesale distributor from a number of state pharmaceutical boards.” That might mean that Amazon wants to sell prescription drugs. Then again, it might not.

Read more…



Source: Gizmodo – The Rumor That Amazon Will Sell Prescription Drugs Just Got Serious

Good Ideas: Colin Furze Builds A Gas Travel Fireplace Inside A Briefcase

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briefcase-fireplace.jpg

Because winter is coming, this is a video of inventor Colin Furze demonstrating his Briefcase Fireplace, a portable gas fireplace built inside a briefcase. WARNING: The TSA will think it’s a bomb, which it technically could be. Still, a great idea for non-flying travelers who like to cozy up to a warm fireplace at night, but the cheap motel you’re staying at doesn’t have one. Hopefully it doesn’t have blood stains on the mattress either. I just tried building one myself, but I don’t think I added enough heat and flame resistant backing, because now my dad’s entire briefcase is on fire. Obviously, it’s gonna take some pretty quick thinking to get myself out of this one. “Son, have you seen my–” The devil made me do it he said he’d put a fireball in my ass!

Keep going for the video.

Source: Geekologie – Good Ideas: Colin Furze Builds A Gas Travel Fireplace Inside A Briefcase

PCIe 4.0 Specs Revealed: 16GTps Rate and Not Just For Graphics Cards Anymore

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Freshly Exhumed writes: PCI-SIG has released the specifications for version 4.0 of the PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) bus, which, according to Chairman Al Yanes, promises data transfer rates of 16GTps, extended tags and credits for service devices, reduced system latency, lane margining, superior RAS capabilities, scalability for added lanes and bandwidth, improved I/O virtualization and platform integration. Tom’s Hardware has posted a slide deck of the new version’s specifications.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – PCIe 4.0 Specs Revealed: 16GTps Rate and Not Just For Graphics Cards Anymore

Bloodhound SSC finally runs, breaks 210mph in first runway test

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Bloodhound SSC

On Tuesday, what might well be the world’s fastest-ever car completed its first public test at a runway in Newquay, England. Bloodhound SSC is designed to shatter the existing land speed record, aiming for a top speed of over 1,000 mph (1,600km/h). Achieving that goal will require more space than is possible on a runway in the UK, but today’s shakedown test saw RAF Wing Commander Andy Green—the current Land Speed Record holder—hit 210mph in just eight seconds.

When Bloodhound SSC travels to South Africa’s Hakskeen Pan to attempt to break the record, it will be powered by an EJ200 jet engine and a Nammo hybrid rocket. But for today’s test, the vehicle made do with that Rolls Royce ex-Eurofighter engine. This was also Green’s first opportunity to log some miles in the speed machine. The runs were livestreamed—scroll forward to the 50-minute mark in the video below to see Bloodhound SSC get its first taste of speed:

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Source: Ars Technica – Bloodhound SSC finally runs, breaks 210mph in first runway test

Doctors warn new parents: Step away from the vaginal fluid swabs

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Enlarge (credit: Getty | BSIP)

To slather, or not to slather—that is the question that has been roiling doctors, scientists, and new parents recently. And a new ruling by a doctor’s group stands to muck up the debate further.

Amid the birth of microbiome research, some scientists have advocated for smearing bacteria-laden vaginal secretions on any newborns who missed out—namely those born via Caesarian section. Scientists keenly hypothesize that such a gooey glaze can “seed” a more-or-less sterile infant with life-long microbial companions. These wee chums may help train an infant’s immune system and dodge issues like allergies and asthma later in life. Several studies have indeed found correlations between C-section deliveries and higher risks of those conditions.

With that, motherly coatings caught on. More and more parents are now requesting “vaginal seeding” for babies delivered via C-section. But infectious disease experts, pediatricians, obstetricians, and gynecologists have pushed back, questioning the safety and noting that there’s no evidence of a health benefit.

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Source: Ars Technica – Doctors warn new parents: Step away from the vaginal fluid swabs

Saudi Arabia's Robot Love Is Getting Weird

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In the latest example of “Philip K Dick-inspired nightmare becomes real life,” Saudi Arabia just became the first nation to grant citizenship to a robot. The robot’s name is Sophia. It is artificially intelligent, friends with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, and, arguably, a glimpse into the dark future that will kill us…

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Source: Gizmodo – Saudi Arabia’s Robot Love Is Getting Weird

MSI Introduces Six GTX 1070 Ti Model Video Cards

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While we are just now getting GTX 1070 Ti cards into our hands for testing, I thought it was noteworthy of just how many 1070 Ti models that MSI is planning. Worthy of mention also is that all GTX 1070 Ti models will come at “reference” GPU clock speeds.








As the world’s most popular GAMING hardware vendor, MSI is proud to announce a full line up of graphics cards based on NVIDIA’s new gaming GPU. Building on the monumental success of MSI’s award winning GAMING series, the MSI GeForce® GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G and GTX 1070 Ti GAMING 8G come equipped with the full force of the TWIN FROZR VI cooler, allowing for higher core and memory clock speeds for increased performance in games. The famous shapes of the eye-catching TWIN FROZR cooler are intensified by a fiery GAMING glow piercing through the cover, while the MSI GAMING dragon RGB LED on the side can be set to millions of colors to match your mood or build. A completely new custom 10-phase PCB design using Military Class Level components with 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors enables higher performance to push your graphics card to the max.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – MSI Introduces Six GTX 1070 Ti Model Video Cards

Alphabet's ads rake in billions, but its 'other bets' are growing

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Google’s parent company Alphabet saw its stock price hit an all-time high last week, and the financial good times continue to roll in the company’s newly released quarterly earnings. Over the past three months, the companies under Alphabet’s purview…

Source: Engadget – Alphabet’s ads rake in billions, but its ‘other bets’ are growing

This Machine Kills Captchas

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New submitter dmoberhaus writes: It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an artificial intelligence has finally cracked a widely used tool that was literally made to differentiate humans from robots: the CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAs are the annoying puzzles that might ask you to rewrite a piece of distorted text or click on all the automobiles in a photograph to log on to sites like PayPal. According to research published today in Science, a new type of AI was able to solve certain types of CAPTCHA with up to 66.6 percent accuracy. To put this in perspective, humans can solve the same type of CAPTCHA with about 87 percent accuracy due to multiple interpretations of some examples and a CAPTCHA is considered broken if a bot can pass it 1 percent of the time.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – This Machine Kills Captchas

Singing, racing, and sporty electric cars dominate Nissan’s Tokyo Motor Show

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Thank Tesla, blame Dieselgate: whatever the reason, the fact remains that the auto industry is finally taking electrification seriously. And Nissan has been doing it better—and longer—than most when it comes to electric vehicles. On sale since 2010, the Leaf is the world’s best-selling EV. Now in its second generation, there’s a long-range version in the works scheduled for 2019.

There might also be a go-fast Leaf in the works. Nissan showed off a NISMO-badged version of the EV at the Tokyo Motor Show, and design chief Alfonso Albaisa told Autocar that a more muscular look ought to sell a few more cars.

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Source: Ars Technica – Singing, racing, and sporty electric cars dominate Nissan’s Tokyo Motor Show

Ten Minutes Of Scorpion's Motion Capture From The Original 1992 Mortal Kombat Game

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This is ten minutes of vintage motion capture footage of Scorpion going through his moves for the 1992 release of the first Mortal Kombat game. It was a real treat to watch. I especially liked when his shin guard falls off at 0:42, and all the uppercuts starting around 2:30. After that I just skipped around looking for the part when they filmed the fatality where he takes his mask off to reveal a skull and burns his opponent with a fireball, but I didn’t see it. They must have filmed that another day. “Computer graphics.” I have no clue what you’re talking about, but I wish you’d keep your opinions to yourself.

Keep going for the video, along with one of Sonya Blade’s motion capture and one of Lui Kang’s, but you can see even more at the Arquivo Mortal Kombat Youtube channel HERE if this is really your thing.

Source: Geekologie – Ten Minutes Of Scorpion’s Motion Capture From The Original 1992 Mortal Kombat Game