Google Assistant on your Google Home is going to get a lot more useful this week. The AI butler has recently been updated to support commands that have up to two conditions. Meaning, now you can tell your smart speaker to do things like the bump the…
Source: Engadget – Google Home can now do two things at the same time
Monthly Archives: November 2017
Justices hear case that could reshape location privacy in the cellular age
Enlarge / A man walks up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on January 31, 2017 in Washington, DC. (credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Supreme Court justices on Wednesday wrestled with how to apply Fourth Amendment privacy protections to cell phone location records.
Cell phones produce “minute-by-minute account of a person’s locations and movements and associations over a long period regardless of what the person is doing at any given moment,” the ACLU’s Nathan Freed Wessler pointed out in an argument before the Supreme Court. The ACLU is urging the Supreme Court to rule the government can’t access these records without a warrant.
But the government pointed to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling called Smith v. Maryland. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the government doesn’t need to get a warrant to obtain a customer’s dialing history because they are merely the business records of the phone company. The government argues that the same principle, known as the third-party doctrine, applies here: data about which cell phone towers a customer’s phone has talked to are merely the cell phone company’s business records, and should be available to the government without a warrant.
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Source: Ars Technica – Justices hear case that could reshape location privacy in the cellular age
Gamer Gets Peer-Pressured Into $#iT-Talking Fallen Opponent, Fails
Note: Language. Watch at full volume and hold a megaphone up to the speaker.
This is a short video from a match of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds of a gamer killing an opponent, at which point two of his teammates encourage him to shit-talk the fallen player, and he drops a rather timid “You’re bad.” He claims it was because he can’t think under pressure, but I bet it’s because he’s just too nice a guy. I wish there were more of him in the world. Although, the more that I think about it, “You’re bad,” is actually pretty hurtful. Especially when you’ve heard if your whole life from every single parent and teacher and coach and haha, why am I crying?
Keep going for the video.
Source: Geekologie – Gamer Gets Peer-Pressured Into $#iT-Talking Fallen Opponent, Fails
Homeland Security Thinks DJI Is Using Its Drones to Spy on America
Various members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, are famous for buying into crazy conspiracy theories. Now, the Los Angeles office of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has come up with a whopper of its own. These guys think China is spying on unsuspecting…
Source: Gizmodo – Homeland Security Thinks DJI Is Using Its Drones to Spy on America
Engadget giveaway: Win a DiskStation DS418 courtesy of Synology!
After a quick setup and you could be running your own private cloud server with one of Synology’s NAS drives like the DiskStation DS418. This device can handle a variety of tasks while providing more storage space at an ultimately more affordable pri…
Source: Engadget – Engadget giveaway: Win a DiskStation DS418 courtesy of Synology!
A Sleep Regression Isn't a Setback, It's a Sign
If you belong to any online parents’ groups and you make a word cloud, there will be one word in 72-point font in the dead center: SLEEP. No one gets through the first months or years of parenthood without wondering how the f*$% to get the kid to go to sleep, stay asleep, or sleep just a bit later in the morning.
Source: LifeHacker – A Sleep Regression Isn’t a Setback, It’s a Sign
Bungie opens up about Destiny 2 changes after hidden “scaling” debacle
Enlarge / Bigger weapons and clearer XP gains are coming to Destiny 2, along with private competitive matches.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, intrepid player-investigators caught Bungie misleading players about how much experience they were actually getting for repeated quests in the game. In the wake of that embarrassing revelation, Bungie last night posted a lengthy “State of Destiny 2” development post promising to be “more open” about the game’s systems and offering a detailed roadmap of upcoming changes.
“Our team has been reading feedback and working on updates to improve the game,” design director Luke Smith and game director Christopher Barrett wrote in the post. “We’ve also been reading some tough criticism about our lack of communication, and we agree we need to be more open… We know it’s frustrating when there isn’t enough of a dialog with the development team. You have our commitment that we’re going to do a better job going forward.”
Addressing the XP system complaints specifically, Bungie explained that the hidden scaling for repeated missions was intended to “keep slower-paced activities as rewarding as high-intensity grinding without confusing variations in displayed XP values.” That said, Bungie acknowledged “the silent nature of the mechanic betrayed the expectation of transparency that you have for Destiny 2.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Bungie opens up about Destiny 2 changes after hidden “scaling” debacle
New Study Finds That Most Redditors Don't Actually Read the Articles They Vote On
Michael Byrne, writing for Motherboard: According to a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems by researchers at Notre Dame University, some 73 percent of posts on Reddit are voted on by users that haven’t actually clicked through to view the content being rated. This is according to a newly released dataset consisting of all Reddit activity of 309 site users for a one year period. In the process, the researchers identified signs of “cognitive fatigue” in Reddit users most likely to vote on content. Online aggregation is then somewhat a function of mental exhaustion.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – New Study Finds That Most Redditors Don’t Actually Read the Articles They Vote On
The IRS Has Come Knocking at Bitcoin's Door
At a time when regulations, glitches, price swings, forks, hacks, and fraud can’t seem to keep the cryptocurrency-mania down, there’s a new hurdle for it to overcome: the taxman.
Source: Gizmodo – The IRS Has Come Knocking at Bitcoin’s Door
Amazon wants Alexa to be your new office assistant
Alexa could soon be coming to work with you. At Amazon’s annual re:Invent conference, the company revealed its plans to make the voice-activated virtual assistant office-friendly with an Alexa for Business platform, which will come with specific skil…
Source: Engadget – Amazon wants Alexa to be your new office assistant
Apple Explains How to Fix File Sharing after Security Update Breaks Feature
Apple’s latest update for macOS High Sierra hasn’t gone well. The update included a bug that made it pretty easy for anyone to gain admin rights to your Mac — an obvious privacy concern. Apple rolled out a patch for the issue, but it seems that’s not without its problems either, as some users are now unable to authenticate or connect to file shares on their Macs.
Briefly outlined in a document posted to Apple’s Support pages, the issue appears to impact only a portion of macOS High Sierra users who downloaded and installed today’s security update. The number of people affected by the file sharing bug is unknown, but it seems a system library error is to blame for failed authentications. Impacted users took to social media to report the problem, which is quickly solved with a minor Terminal procedure.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Apple Explains How to Fix File Sharing after Security Update Breaks Feature
Meet the Man Who Deactivated the President's Twitter Account
Earlier this month, the very active, very watched Twitter account of the President was abruptly deactivated for 11 minutes. The man responsible for those 11 minutes moved back home to Germany, and he agreed to speak to TechCrunch about what happened that day.
Someone reported the account on Duysak’s last day; as a final, throwaway gesture, he put the wheels in motion to deactivate it. Then he closed his computer and left the building. Duysak describes the event as a “mistake.” Specifically, he told us, he never thought the account would actually get deactivated.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Meet the Man Who Deactivated the President’s Twitter Account
Star Citizen Now Selling Nonexistent In-Game Properties
If you thought micro-transactions couldn’t get any stranger, we suggest you hold on to your seat, as Cloud Imperium Games has opened a new chapter in the book that is paid content. Those looking to pre-purchase a plot of land on the planet with a nice view of the local neutron star, or any other approved planet, can do so now for a mere $50.
This new form of monetization dubbed “Land Claim Licenses” offers gamers two plot sizes they can choose from; a plot with an area of four square kilometers, and one that comes in at eight square kilometers for $100. The developer noted that even though this feature is not implemented yet, it gives those willing to part with their money a chance to ‘pre-order’ a piece of land they are interested in.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Star Citizen Now Selling Nonexistent In-Game Properties
Coinbase Ordered to Turn Over Identities of 14,355 Cryptocurrency Traders to the IRS
A California federal court has ordered the popular cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service Coinbase to turn over records on thousands of customers to the Internal Revenue Service. The requested records include the name, birthdate, address, and account activity for any user who bought, sold, sent, or received more than $20,000 worth of Bitcoin in their accounts between 2013 and 2015.
The court order is a reaction by the IRS to possible tax avoidance on cryptocurrency gains. Arguably, though, tax law simply hasn’t caught up with cryptocurrency, and the order effectively places over 14,000 Coinbase users under investigation simply for using a new technology. US legislators introduced a bill in September that would exempt any cryptocurrency transaction under $600 from taxation.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Coinbase Ordered to Turn Over Identities of 14,355 Cryptocurrency Traders to the IRS
NVIDIA Releases DOOM VFR Game Ready Driver
NVIDIA’s new GeForce Game Ready driver is optimized for DOOM VFR, id Software’s Virtual Reality follow-up to last year’s critically-acclaimed DOOM. To download and install, simply fire up GeForce Experience and click the “Drivers” tab.
If you loved DOOM (2016) and have an HTC Vive Virtual Reality headset, you can soon experience Hell’s horrors in a new dimension thanks to DOOM VFR. Set shortly after the demonic invasion on the UAC’s Martian research facility, you are the last known human survivor–until your death.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – NVIDIA Releases DOOM VFR Game Ready Driver
Google Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Gathering Data from Millions of iPhone Users
A group going by the name Google You Owe Us is taking Google to court in the UK, complaining that the company harvested personal data from 5.4 million iPhone users. It alleges that Google bypassed privacy settings on iPhones between June 2011 and February 2012. The lawsuit seeks compensation for those affected by what is described as a “violation of trust.”
Even if the case is successful, the people represented by Google You Owe Us are not expected to receive more than a few hundred pounds each, and this is not an amount that would make much of an impact on Google’s coffers. The complaint alleges that between the specified dates, Google ignored users’ browser settings and placed ad-tracking cookies on millions of devices.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Google Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Gathering Data from Millions of iPhone Users
Canadian charity is building social housing to PassiveHouse standard
Indwell is doing remarkable things in and around Hamilton, Ontario
Source: TreeHugger – Canadian charity is building social housing to PassiveHouse standard
Toshiba Unveils 10TB HDDs for Video Surveillance: Support for up to 64 HD Streams
Toshiba has announced its third-generation SV-series hard drives designed for always-on video surveillance applications. The new HDDs can record videos from 64 HD cameras simultaneously, offer up to 10 TB capacity, and offer a considerable increase in the performance-per-dollar metric compared to their direct predecessors due to higher spindle speed and areal density.
The Toshiba MD06ACA-V family of hard drives includes models with 6 TB, 8 TB and 10 TB capacities featuring a 7200 RPM spindle speed, a 256 MB cache buffer, and a SATA 6 Gbps interface. The SV-series HDDs are aimed at various video surveillance applications (SDVR, SNVR, Hybrid SDVR) and therefore support a number of specific enhancements, such as ATA streaming technology and ability to record data from up to 64 HD cameras at once. Surveillance-class HDDs have to quickly wake up from idle and resume work, which these drives support.
Since devices like surveillance digital video recorders and surveillance network video recorders usually contain many hard drives (and to some degree resemble a NAS), Toshiba’s new SV-series HDDs are prepared to work in vibrating multi-drive environments. To a large degree, the new SV-series HDDs from Toshiba rely on the platform originally developed for the enterprise-grade MG06ACA HDDs (which also work in vibrating environments) launched earlier this year. Not all capabilities of the MG06ACA are supported by the MD06ACA-V, but the drives feature top and bottom attached motors, RVFF sensors, second-generation dual-stage actuators, and some other enhancements. Toshiba rates its 3rd generation SV-series HDDs for 180 TB per year and one million hours MTBF, which is considerably below ratings of enterprise hard drives, but is in line with HDDs for surveillance applications from other makers.
When it comes to actual performance, Toshiba’s MD06ACA-V drives resemble their enterprise-grade brethren: a 240-249 MB/s maximum sustained transfer rate, which is natural as the drives use the same PMR platters. Meanwhile, the power consumption of the SV HDDs varies between 7.88 W and 9.48 W, depending on the model, but this is lower compared to the aforementioned enterprise-grade hard drives. It is noteworthy that from the pure performance point of view, the Toshiba’s MD06ACA-V are the fastest HDDs for surveillance applications in the industry. However, since flagship Seagate SkyHawk/SkyHawk AI and WD Purple drives use helium for high-capacity models, their power consumption is tangibly lower when compared to that of Toshiba’s MD06ACA-V.
Since there are a lot of legacy video surveillance systems deployed, and their HDDs are aging, owners may want to upgrade them. Because older systems use outdated software designed for hard drives with 512B sectors, the MD06ACA-V series supports emulation of such sectors and thus the read-modify-write (RMW) operation to align the source write request with the physical sectors on the disk. The SV-series drives do not feature persistent write cache (PWC) with power loss protection (PLP), unlike the more expensive enterprise HDDs.
| Specifications of Toshiba’s MD06ACA HDDs | ||||||
| AnandTech.com | 10 TB | 8 TB | 6 TB | |||
| P/N | MD06ACA10TV | MD06ACA800V | MD06ACA600V | |||
| RPM | 7200 RPM | |||||
| Interface | SATA 6 Gbps | |||||
| DRAM Cache | 256 MB | |||||
| Persistent Write Cache | ??? | |||||
| ATA Streaming | Supported | |||||
| Read-Modify-Write | Supported | |||||
| Sequential Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) | 249 MB/s | 241 MB/s | ||||
| MTBF | 1 million | |||||
| Rated Annual Workload | 180 TB | |||||
| Acoustics (Seek) | 34 dBA | |||||
| Power Consumption | Random read/write | 9.48 W | 8.61 W | 7.88 W | ||
| Idle | 7.15 W | 6.33 W | 5.59 W | |||
| Warranty | 3 Years | |||||
Samples of Toshiba’s MD06ACA-V hard drives are now available to interested parties. Since the HDDs will be sold primarily to makers of video surveillance systems, Toshiba does not publish any information about pricing of the new drives as it depends on volumes and other factors.
Related Reading
- Seagate Launches SkyHawk AI HDDs for Intelligent NVRs
- Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD
- Toshiba Announces 10 TB MG06ACA HDD: Seven Platters, 249 MB/s, NAND Cache
- Toshiba Commercializes SDK’s 9th Gen PMR, Tech Enables 14 TB PMR HDDs in 2018
- Toshiba’s 8 TB X300 HDD Now Available: 7200 RPM Drive For Under $260
- Toshiba Launches N300 HDDs for NAS: Up to 8 TB, Up to 240 MB/s
Source: AnandTech – Toshiba Unveils 10TB HDDs for Video Surveillance: Support for up to 64 HD Streams
How to Choose the Perfect Christmas Tree
In our house, we’re still eating Thanksgiving leftovers when I start thinking about getting the Christmas tree. Last year we chose badly and ended up with a tree that died within two weeks, a mildly depressing turn of events; I’m too alert to metaphors to be joyful about opening an excessive amount of consumer goods…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Choose the Perfect Christmas Tree
Thursday's Best Deals: Philips OneBlade, Wiper Blades, Bluetooth Transmitter, and More
Deeply discounted Philips OneBlade and OneBlade Pro, Michelin wiper blades, an external bluetooth transmitter, and more start off today’s best deals.
Source: LifeHacker – Thursday’s Best Deals: Philips OneBlade, Wiper Blades, Bluetooth Transmitter, and More