Never mind 3D-printing organs — the real dream is to make the tissue itself bend to your will, and UCSF scientists have managed just that. They’ve discovered that they can ‘hack’ special cells that help fold tissue (mesenchymal cells) to create 3D…
Source: Engadget – Scientists ‘hack’ cells to create 3D shapes from live tissue
Monthly Archives: December 2017
Our 10 most popular stories of 2017
From giant whales and tiny living to Tesla, trees, and death cleaning, the year’s most read stories are like a field guide to groovy green living.
Source: TreeHugger – Our 10 most popular stories of 2017
Apple Keeps Losing Legal Battles to an Italian Company Called ‘Steve Jobs’
When two brothers from Naples decided to stop doing fashion design for other companies and start a brand of their own, they went hunting for an attention-grabbing name. They discovered that “Steve Jobs” wasn’t trademarked and decided on that. Now, a protracted legal battle has come to an end, and they have big plans…
Source: Gizmodo – Apple Keeps Losing Legal Battles to an Italian Company Called ‘Steve Jobs’
Postcard From Pyongyang: The Airport Now Has Wi-Fi, Sort of
Eric Talmadge, writing for AP: North Korea is one of the least Wi-Fi-friendly countries in the world. Having a device that emits Wi-Fi signals can result in detention and a major fine. Worse, if you are a North Korean. Public use of the internet is a concept that just makes North Korean officials really nervous. But here’s a sign that might be changing. North Korea’s main internet provider appears to have put up a Wi-Fi trial balloon at the international departure area of Pyongyang’s airport. It’s a logical place to start. The service is only available, or even visible, to travelers who have already cleared customs, which included me last week. The reporter was unable to actually get the Wi-Fi to work, however.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Postcard From Pyongyang: The Airport Now Has Wi-Fi, Sort of
Urban-like post-disaster rural housing incorporates rooftop gardens
This reconstruction scheme in China encourages resilience and self-sufficiency.
Source: TreeHugger – Urban-like post-disaster rural housing incorporates rooftop gardens
Crazy Aunt Releases 1,500 Ladybugs In House For Christmas
NOTE: Some very brief cursing.
“Don’t you EVER kill a ladybug!”
“Oh he knows better.”
“That’s how she got pregnant!”
This is a video of crazy aunt Cathy releasing 1,500 ladybugs in the living room of her home during Christmas for good luck, much to the surprise and outrage of her family. Cathy, a six-time cancer survivor, believes in ladybug luck, and I’m not going to argue with her because there’s no way I’m surviving anything six times, not even a hard dodgeball throw. You do you, Cathy. Although I still can’t help but wonder just how lucky 1,500 dead ladybugs in your house within the week will be.
Keep going for the vertical video.
Source: Geekologie – Crazy Aunt Releases 1,500 Ladybugs In House For Christmas
Snapchat wants help you relive your best 2017 memories
Source: Engadget – Snapchat wants help you relive your best 2017 memories
I Love This Real Life Little Engine That Could, And There’s Nothing You Cynical Bastards Can Do to Change That
I’m not really into sports, and I’ve never found the energy to care about what happens to characters in most movies and TV shows. But for some reason, watching this little toy train derail and eventually make its way back onto its tracks had me cheering louder than a Patriots fan at the Super Bowl.
Source: Gizmodo – I Love This Real Life Little Engine That Could, And There’s Nothing You Cynical Bastards Can Do to Change That
GCC 8 vs. LLVM Clang 6 Performance At End Of Year 2017
For those wondering how the LLVM Clang vs. GCC C/C++ compiler performance is comparing as we end out 2017, here are some recent benchmarks using the latest Clang 6.0 SVN and GCC 8.0.0 compilers in a range of benchmarks.
Source: Phoronix – GCC 8 vs. LLVM Clang 6 Performance At End Of Year 2017
Confessions of a Digital Nazi Hunter
People are upset at Twitter again: this time, the company reportedly banned a bot that was fighting “Nazi trolls.” The bot, which reporter Yair Rozenberg decided to build after being harassed, unmasked “impersonator accounts” until it was eventually shut down by Twitter.
The Nazis realized they couldn’t beat the bot, so they started mass-reporting it to Twitter for “harassment.” Just as they duplicitously cast themselves as minorities, they disingenuously recast our response to their ongoing abuse as harassment. Twitter sided with the Nazis.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Confessions of a Digital Nazi Hunter
Red Dead Redemption 2 May Be Released in June
According to European retailer Coolshop, Red Dead Redemption 2 will be released on June 8 2018. They did manage to reveal the release date of the PS4 and Xbox One ports for GTA V before their official announcement some years ago, so maybe this is a genuine slip-up.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Red Dead Redemption 2 May Be Released in June
LEDs Cut 570 Million Tons of CO2 in '17
New data from IHS Markit suggests that LEDs are doing an admirable part in reducing global warming: thanks to their efficiency, carbon dioxide emissions of lighting have been reduced by “some 570 million tons” this year. That’s an estimated 1.5 percent reduction of the global carbon footprint.
LED lighting uses an average of about 40 percent less power than fluorescent and 80 percent less than incandescents to produce the same amount of light, according to Fox. He expects the impact of LEDs on the global carbon footprint to become more pronounced as more LEDs are installed around the world.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – LEDs Cut 570 Million Tons of CO2 in ’17
Apple Loses Copyright Battle against Italian Company "Steve Jobs"
A clothing company has gotten away with naming itself “Steve Jobs” because Apple lacked the foresight to trademark his name. The owners, Brothers Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato, are even using a logo that is a clear derivative.
While the Barbatos currently produce bags, t-shirts, jeans, and other clothing and fashion items, they told Business Insider Italia that in the future, they plan to produce electronic devices under the Steve Jobs brand. “We are working on a line of highly innovative electronic devices, projects we have been working on for years,” said the two.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Apple Loses Copyright Battle against Italian Company “Steve Jobs”
The Year in Crowdfunded PCs: Who Succeeded? Who Failed?
Sean Portnoy, writing for ZDNet: The ever-maturing PC industry hasn’t deterred manufacturers large and small from embracing crowdfunding as a method of bringing new systems to market, whether they need the funds to produce their new product, or just want to gain publicity and guarantee some upfront sales. Not every launch on Kickstarter or one of its rivals is a roaring success, but enough are to keep the campaigns coming. It was no different in 2017, as several companies offered new devices for crowdfunding, although some of them were clearly drawing inspiration from the past. That includes the Gemini, which answers the question: What would a PDA look like in a world filled with smartphones that have essentially replaced it? That answer is a clam-shell handheld with a physical keyboard, 5.99-inch screen, and Android and Linux dual-boot capability (along with built-in Wi-Fi and 4G option to keep up with the times). As unlikely as you might think such a device would be attractive in a world of iPhones, tablets, Chromebooks, and other portables, the company behind the Gemini, UK startup Planet Computers, easily surpassed its campaign target on IndieGogo, raising over $1.1 million. Another tiny computer, the GPD Pocket, doesn’t look all that different from the Gemini, though it doesn’t try to market itself specifically as a PDA. Instead, parent company GamePad Digital (or GPD) defines it as a 7-inch Windows laptop, complete with 8GB of RAM, 128GB solid-state drive, and full HD touchscreen. The list goes on.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – The Year in Crowdfunded PCs: Who Succeeded? Who Failed?
The best games of 2017
It had just turned April when we declared that 2017 was a great year for video games. The post-holiday quarter is usually fairly quiet for new releases, but in 2017 it brought us legitimate contenders for game of the year in The Legend of Zelda: Brea…
Source: Engadget – The best games of 2017
The Most Commented Posts of 2017
This year, as every year, we provided you with hacks. And you gave us your opinions about said hacks. It’s been … lively. Truly, Lifehacker would not be what it is without our commenters. Here are the 10 most commented posts of 2017.
Source: LifeHacker – The Most Commented Posts of 2017
A 'Final Fantasy' VR coaster is coming to Universal Studios Japan
Universal Studios Japan is launching a limited-time Final Fantasy ride and just released a video and other info to show what it’ll be like. Called the Final Fantasy XR ride, it uses the existing Space Fantasy the Ride roller coaster, with the additio…
Source: Engadget – A ‘Final Fantasy’ VR coaster is coming to Universal Studios Japan
Giant Hot Wheels Track That Begins Out A Second Story Window
This is the giant Hot Wheels track build by the folks at Youtube channel 5MadMovieMakers (previously: their Hot Wheels beach track, another beach track, Hot Wheels nighttime nightmare track, slow motion stunt video, this other crazy video and Thomas The Tank Engine stunt reel). It starts out of a second story window, runs along the top of a fence, and around the backyard. It does one single loopy-loop. They even send a car down the track with a camera attached so you can pretend like you’re driving it. That’s what I did, yelling “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” the whole time. FUN FACT: Uber passengers generally will 1-star you for that, no matter how many times you offer them a phone-charging cord or a drag off your cigarette.
Keep going for the video.
Source: Geekologie – Giant Hot Wheels Track That Begins Out A Second Story Window
YouTube Access On Amazon Fire TV Devices Yanked Days Ahead Of Schedule
If you’re an Amazon Fire TV owner, it looks as though your access to the native YouTube client is coming to an end sooner than expected. Google originally stated that access to the app would be removed from Fire TV and Echo Show devices on January 1st 2018, which is next Monday. However, customers are reporting that access was revoked today.
Customers
Source: Hot Hardware – YouTube Access On Amazon Fire TV Devices Yanked Days Ahead Of Schedule
NVIDIA to Cease Driver Development for 32-Bit Operating Systems
NVIDIA has announced plans to cease developing drivers supporting 32-bit operating systems for any GPU architecture in the near future. All NVIDIA GPU drivers published after the release 390 (due in early 2018) will only support x86-64 OSes. The decision marks an important milestone in the transition of the PC industry to 64-bit computing that has been ongoing for over a decade, but may upset some of the users who still run older machines or those that require drivers for embedded systems.
NVIDIA driver version 390 will be the final drivers from the company that will support 32-bit Windows 7/8/8.1/10, Linux or FreeBSD. Whatever version comes after, it will only run on 64-bit versions of OSes. The company will continue to release 32-bit drivers containing security fixes till January 2019, but has no plans to improve the performance or add features to such releases.
The transition of the PC industry from 32-bit to 64-bit has taken a very long time, but it seems to be in the final stages of completion, at least for consumer-based machines. AMD released the first x86-64 processors for PCs in late 2003, whereas Microsoft came up with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for client computers in mid-2005, kicking off the transition of the PC industry to 64-bit computing. By now, all contemporary x86 processors are 64-bit capable and the vast majority of personal computers in all form-factors come with four or more gigabytes of RAM (that’s the maximum user addressable memory for a 32-bit OS), so the absolute majority of new PCs today run a 64-bit OS. The last remnants of 32-bit machines are often long-standing hold-overs, such as the machine that George RR Martin writes his Game of Thrones novels on (although he is still DOS based).
There other reason that springs to mind for using a 32-bit OS is for embedded systems, such as those running point-of-sale type environments, display walls, gambling machines, or monitoring. Although these systems are typically deployed for the super-long term, at some point between now and 19th January 2038 they will have to be replaced due to the Unix Epoch time-rollover bug that will affect all 32-bit systems (bug? feature? oversight! Surely no-one will still have a 32-bit system in 2038, right?).
According to Steam hardware survey there are 2.19% of users who continue to use 32-bit Windows. Those 32-bit systems are legacy machines and PCs that have to run old programs or hardware natively. Owners of such computers are hardly interested in the latest GPUs (modern graphics cards may come with more memory than a 32-bit OS can address) or driver features, so the end of support will likely go unnoticed by the vast majority of involved parties. Meanwhile, 2% – 2.2% out of a billion of PCs in use worldwide is 20 – 22 million systems (the actual number will be higher because not all PCs run Steam). Therefore, there definitely will be disgruntled owners of 32-bit PCs running entry-level GPUs released in the recent years and now left without updated driver support for the latest GPUs.
Related Reading
- NVIDIA Releases 388.43 WHQL Game Ready Driver
- NVIDIA Releases 388.31 WHQL Game Ready Driver
- NVIDIA Releases 388.00 WHQL Game Ready Driver
Source: AnandTech – NVIDIA to Cease Driver Development for 32-Bit Operating Systems