The screenwriter who penned the 2007 zombie movie I Am Legend starring Will Smith has been forced to clarify something on Twitter that’s sure to make us all depressed today. The writer, Akiva Goldsman, had to explain that I Am Legend is, in fact, fiction. It’s not a documentary about zombies or something like that.
Source: Gizmodo – I Am Legend Screenwriter Forced to Tell Anti-Vaxxers His Zombie Movie Is Fake
Sony officially owns both Crunchyroll and Funimation. Its Sony Pictures division completed the $1.175 billion acquisition yesterday and the plan now, according to CEO Tony Vinciquerra, is to “create a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible.”
For anime fans, it might be a relief that Sony’s purchase has gone through. Funimation pulled most of its content from Crunchyroll when Sony acquired a majority stake. This move should mean all this content can happily coexist on the same service (again).
Sony might have made a smart purchase. In an era of streaming services everywhere, it gets a dedicated audience that continues to grow. When Sony first announced the acquisition, Crunchyroll had 3 million subscribers. Less than a year later, there are 5 million paying for the service and 120 million registered users.
-Mat Smith
A surprise Xbox Series X/S optimization patch for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has appeared, three years after the action-adventure game arrived on Xbox One. Along with enhanced visuals, you can take advantage of ray-tracing on your next playthrough. A PC update is also in the works, although no word on a PS5 upgrade. Lest we forget, Ninja Theory is now a Microsoft studio. Continue reading.
Facebook has added two new destinations for when you want to move your data from the social network. In a blog post, the company said that users will be able to move their images to Photobucket and event listings to Google Calendar. It also promises a simpler and more intuitive process to move your data across. Continue reading.
According to a new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it’s no longer possible to prevent the planet from heating over the next 20 to 30 years. Since the mid-19th century, the planet’s temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, as a direct result of greenhouse gas emissions related to humans burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels for energy. “We can expect a significant jump in extreme weather over the next 20 or 30 years,” climate scientist Piers Forster told The New York Times. “Things are unfortunately likely to get worse than they are today.” Continue reading.
Before Gamescom 2021 gets officially underway on August 25th, Microsoft will kick off the all-digital event with a livestream of its own. The company will share an update on its holiday Xbox lineup on August 24th at 1PM ET/10AM PT. “Holiday lineup” will probably translate to more details on two of its biggest upcoming games, Starfield and Halo Infinite. Continue reading.
But that’s not all
Roku will release most of Quibi’s remaining library on August 13th
SpaceX is buying an Internet of Things smallsat company
Record labels sue Charter over copyright infringement claims
Engadget Deals: Beats Studio Buds drop to a new record low of $130
Engadget Deals: Apple’s AirPods with the wireless charging case are on sale for $130
Source: Engadget – The Morning After: Sony now owns anime streaming service Crunchyroll
‘We have labelled this as an enhancement’ says engineer. Elastic has modified the official Python client for its Elasticsearch database not to work with forked versions, and closed the GitHub issue to comments.…
Source: LXer – Elastic amends Elasticsearch Python client so it won’t work with forks then blocks comments
As an ‘80s and ‘90s kid, I have a special affinity for Disney Television’s animation lineup of the time, packaged as the “Disney Afternoon” on my local station (WPIX, aka PIX 11). My favorite was Gargoyles. I have a special place in my heart for TaleSpin, but DuckTales was the undisputed king of the lineup. One hundred episodes and a movie with plenty of race cars, lasers, airplanes, robots, super suits, caveducks and, of course, Scrooge’s Lucky Number One Dime.
Plenty of cartoons from the ‘80s have seen reboots in the past decade, but few have failed to outshine the original or gain a real fandom. So when a DuckTales reboot was announced, I was admittedly a bit wary, though the cast announcement certainly was enough to get my jaded self at least a little excited, with David Tennant as Scrooge McDuck and Beck Bennett as Launchpad McQuack.
The show debuted in July 2017 and I have to say they nailed it. It straddled the line between giving fans all the little in-jokes and callbacks to the original show they loved, but also introducing new characters (like tech mogul Mark Beaks) and plotlines to make the show feel fresh and modern. Huey, Dewey and Louie were given different color-coded outfit designs, distinct personalities and separate character arcs. Mrs. Beakley was upgraded from Scrooge’s housekeeper to also being a former secret agent he used to work with. And Webby was aged up and made more adventurous, so she could hold her own on any journey and even make a few friends along the way.
The show’s biggest strength was how heavily it drew from its source material, not just the original series but the original Carl Barks comics that inspired it in the first place. DuckTales (2017) marks the first animated appearance of Huey, Dewey and Louie’s mother (and Donald’s sister) Della. She was also modernized, made into an adventuring pilot with a short temper, not unlike her brother’s. The show also referenced other Disney Afternoon shows like TaleSpin, Chip ’N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop. It was truly a love letter to fans, but one with a solid plot and some wicked humor that today’s kids could still enjoy.
The show came to an end earlier this year, with the third season hitting Disney+ back in March. While the first season dealt with Magica DeSpell and season two was all about the Moon, season three pit Clan McDuck against the evil agency F.O.W.L. The creators knew this would be the last season, so it also pulls double duty on tying up stray plotlines and checking off their bucket list. That included bringing back Darkwing Duck and setting up a possible spinoff show, telling us the story of how Scrooge met Donald and Della, and even giving us a pseudo-sequel to TaleSpin.
Family was also a constant theme in the last season, with the show delving into Della’s newfound parenthood as well as where Webby ultimately sits within the family. I didn’t quite cry during the finale, but I came close. One thing that kept me going in the end was the knowledge that the story would continue in some form, not just in comics but in a weekly podcast featuring all the original voice actors. Seven episodes of This Duckburg Life are available (yes, it is a parody of Ira Glass), and a nice thing about the program is that it contains no spoilers for the cartoon so you can check it out even before you binge the show on Disney+. The episodes are fairly short, less than 15 minutes, which is fine because DuckTales has always been good at packing a lot of adventure into its 22-minute runtime.
Dubbed the THEA500 Mini, this is the latest gaming machine to get a mini version. Retro Games Ltd. is releasing what it says is a fully-licensed homage early next year. Inspired by the Amiga 500, it’s filled with 25 Amiga games, including Worms, The Chaos Engine, Another World, and Simon The Sorcerer.
Source: Kotaku – The Commodore Amiga Gets A Mini Version
Future AMD CPUs — potentially AMD EPYC 7004 “Genoa” — will be supporting 5-level paging…
Source: Phoronix – AMD Preparing 5-Level Paging Linux Support For Future CPUs
If you subscribe to the 2TB / $10-per month (or higher) Google One plan, then you get a little something extra over those who do not: Access to Google’s mobile VPN. This feature has, until now, been limited to customers in the US, but now Google is letting a far greater number of countries get their hands on the goodies. As of today, the Google One VPN is available to Android users in Mexico, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
This particular product is designed to encrypt all of your mobile traffic when you’re out and about to prevent sniffers from getting access to your personal data. The VPN itself is baked into the Google One app, and the company says it will encrypt and protect you no matter what app you’re using. Plus, if you’re unsure how exactly to get connected, you can schedule a Pro Session for an expert to coach you through the basics.
At the same time, Google is reminding folks that the VPN has seen a number of feature upgrades since its launch, including the ability to block internet traffic when the VPN is inactive. You can also bypass the VPN in specific situations or with specific mobile apps, and set timed controls for when you need to be free from its protective embrace. Google added that the VPN has been independently audited and found to be robust enough for most folks to trust it.
Source: Engadget – Google’s One Plan VPN is now available outside the US
When Microsoft released the Xbox 360, it was designed to be unhackable. Security-wise, the machine was a step up from the original Xbox with custom hardware and encryption keys to keep hackers and modders at bay. Of course, they figured out an in, but what makes this exploit for the Xbox 360 Slim so wild is that it…
Source: Kotaku – One Of The Wildest Console Hacks Ever
A pretty little white flower that grows near urban centers of the Pacific Northwest turns out to be a killer. NPR reports: The bog-dwelling western false asphodel, Triantha occidentalis, was first described in the scientific literature in 1879. But until now, no one realized that this sweet looking plant used its sticky stem to catch and digest insects, according to researchers who note in their study published Monday that it’s the first new carnivorous plant to be discovered in about 20 years. “We had no idea it was carnivorous,” says Sean Graham, a botanist with the University of British Columbia. “This was not found in some exotic tropical location, but really right on our doorstep in Vancouver. You could literally walk out from Vancouver to this field site.” Fewer than a thousand plant species are carnivorous, and these plants tend to live in places with abundant sun and water, but nutrient-poor soil.
Graham’s team was doing an unrelated project on plant genetics and noticed that the western false asphodel had a genetic deletion that’s sometimes seen in carnivorous plants. The researchers started to think about the fact that this flower grew in the kind of environment that’s home to various other insect-eating plants. “And then they have these sticky stems,” says Graham. “So, you know, it was kind of like, hmm, I wonder if this could be a sign that this might be carnivorous.”
To see if the plants could actually take in nutrients from insects, researcher Qianshi Lin, now at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, fed fruit flies nitrogen-15 isotopes, so that this nitrogen could be used as a tracker. He then stuck these flies to stems of this plant. Later, an analysis showed that nitrogen from the dead insects was indeed getting into the plants. In fact, Triantha was getting more than half of its nitrogen from prey. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published online Monday, Lin and his colleagues say that this is comparable to what’s seen in other carnivorous plants. What’s more, the researchers showed that the sticky hairs on the flower stalk produce a digestive enzyme that’s known to be used by many carnivorous plants. And when the research team looked at specimens of this plant preserved in herbariums, they found small dead insects stuck to the stems.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – New Carnivorous Plant Discovered In Pacific Northwest
AMC Theaters will accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin for movie tickets and concessions in the U.S. by the end of 2021, according to CEO Adam Aron, who first made the announcement during an earnings call on Monday. The theater chain will also start accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay, but there are still plenty of…
Source: Gizmodo – AMC Theaters to Accept Bitcoin by End of 2021 But Plenty of Questions Remain
Intel’s Graphics Compiler “IGC” that is used by their Windows driver as well as the Intel Compute Runtime for OpenCL / Level Zero support (and potentially the Mesa drivers in the future) has now landed Alder Lake P enablement…
Source: Phoronix – Alder Lake P Support Added To Intel’s IGC Graphics Compiler
Google has announced that it is retiring the Bluetooth version of its Titan security key in order to streamline its security product line. The search giant will now only offer two editions; one with USB-A and USB-C, both of which will pack NFC to enable it to be used by most mobile devices. That should reduce any confusion that would-be purchasers had with the current lineup, where some models packed the Near Field standard, and others did not. Google’s Christiaan Brand said that the company was going to focus on the “easier and more widely available NFC capability” going forward, although support and warranties for the existing Bluetooth keys would be “honored per their terms.” The new keys are now available on the Google Store.
Titan keys were initially launched in 2018 as Google’s take on the sort of hardware security key made by Yubikey and others. They’re designed to be far more secure than standard methods of two-factor authentication and, when implemented, Google said that their use had completely eliminated internal phishing attacks. In the run-up to the 2020 US elections, Google even pledged to hand out Titan keys to political groups to help them secure their campaign data.
Source: Engadget – Google simplifies its Titan security key lineup
Amazon is updating its return policy to make it easier for customers to file complaints over defective products from third party marketplace sellers. Starting September 1st, you’ll be able to contact Amazon directly with a property damage or personal injury claim, and then Amazon will connect you with the seller. If it determines a complaint is valid, Amazon will directly pay out any claims under $1,000, the company wrote in a blog post.
“Claims under $1,000 account for more than 80 percent of cases in our store, and Amazon will bear these costs and not seek reimbursement from sellers who abide by our policies and hold valid insurance,” the company wrote. “Sellers will be kept informed at every step so they can continue to ensure their products are safe.”
Amazon noted that it may also step in for claim over $1,000 if the seller is unresponsive. It may also address customer concerns if a claim is rejected by the seller, though “sellers will continue to have the opportunity to defend their product against the claim,” it said. The company will vet the claims using independent insurance fraud experts and its own fraud and abuse detection systems.
Currently, Amazon encourages customers to contact third-party sellers directly with complaints about products. That left users to fend mostly for themselves following accidents caused by faulty or dangerous products. A short list of those includes defective carbon monoxide detectors, hair dryers without required shock protection and flammable clothing for kids, according to a complaint from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
The new policy comes after complaints from lawmakers and consumer organizations about the proliferation of counterfeit, faulty and even dangerous products sold on Amazon’s sprawling third-party marketplace. Last month, the CPSC sued Amazon to force it to recall faulty items that posed safety risks. Regulators said they had warned Amazon about the hazardous items on its site, but deemed its response insufficient.
Apparently snownados exist and if you guessed that they’re dust devils but with snow you’d be correct. They’re not nearly as interesting as Sharknados or firenados, but those are impossibly high bars for a ‘nado.
Keep going for another video of a snownado. According to The Weather Network they’re so rare only a half dozen or so have ever been caught on camera.
Source: Geekologie – This is a snownado
In the latest issue of Custom PC magazine, Gareth Halfacree reviews Oratek’s TOFU, a carrier printed circuit board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.
The launch of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 family (reviewed in Issue 209) last year sparked an entirely unsurprising explosion of interest in designing carrier boards. This was aided in no small part by the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s decision to release its own in-house carrier board design under a permissive licence from which others could springboard with their own creations.
Oratek doesn’t hide its inspiration. ‘Inspired by the official CM4IO board,’ chief executive Aurélien Essig openly admits, ‘it is intended for industrial applications. With user-friendly additions, it may also be used by enthusiasts looking for a compact yet complete solution to interface the many inputs and outputs of the single-board computer.’
The board is undeniably compact, although it bulks out when paired with the optional 3D-printed Switchblade Enclosure designed by Studio Raphaël Lutz. The reason for the name is that there are hinged lids on the top and bottom, which swing out for easy access, locking into place with small magnets when closed.
At least, that’s the theory. In practice, the magnets are a little weak; there’s also no way to fasten the lid shut beyond overtightening the screw in the corner. Otherwise, it’s a well-designed enclosure with top and bottom ventilation. Sadly, that’s not enough to prevent a Compute Module 4 from hitting its thermal throttle point under sustained heavy load, so you’ll need to budget for a third-party heatsink or fan accessory.
The Tofu board itself is well thought out, and finished in an attractive black. Two high-density connectors accept a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 board – or one of the increasing number of pin-compatible alternatives on the market, although you’ll need to provide your own mounting bolts.
The 90 x 90mm board then breaks out as many features of the computer-on-module as possible. The right side houses a Gigabit Ethernet port with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support if you add a Raspberry Pi PoE HAT or PoE+ HAT, two USB 2 Type-A ports, along with barrel-jack and 3.5mm terminal-block power inputs. These accept any input from 7.5V to 28V, which is brought out to an internal header for accessories that need more power than is available on the 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) port.
Meanwhile, the bottom has 22-pin connectors for Camera Serial Interface (CSI) and Display Serial Interface (DSI) peripherals, a full-sized HDMI port and an additional USB 2 port. These ports aren’t available outside the Switchblade Case by default, although a quick snap of the already-measured capped-off holes fixes that.
The left side includes a micro-SD slot for Compute Module 4 variants without on-board eMMC storage, plus a micro-SIM slot – hinting at another feature that becomes visible once the board is flipped. There’s also a USB Type-C port, which can be used for programming or as an On-The-Go (OTG) port. Oddly, there’s no cut-out at all for this in the Switchblade Case; if you want one, you’ll need to take a drill and file to it.
Turning over the board reveals the micro-SIM slot’s purpose. The Compute Module 4’s PCI-E lane is brought out to an M.2 B-Key slot, providing a connection for additional hardware including 3G/4G modems. For storage, you can use an optional adaptor board to convert it to M-Key for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) devices, with a spacer fitted for 2230, 2242, 2260, or 2280 form factor drives.
That’s not as flexible as it sounds, unfortunately. The spacer is soldered in place and needs to be chosen at the time of ordering. If you want to switch to a different-sized drive, you’ll need another adaptor.
There’s one other design point that makes the Tofu stand out: the inclusion of a user-replaceable fuse, a Littelfuse Nano 2 3.5A unit that was originally designed for automotive projects.
While it’s primarily there for protection, it also enables you to cut off the on-board power supply when the board is driven through PoE. With the fuse in place, there’s clearly audible coil whine, which can be silenced by carefully popping the fuse out of its holder. Just remember to put it back in if you stop using PoE.
The biggest problem is price. At 99 CHF (around £78 ex VAT) you’ll be into triple figures by the time you’ve picked up a suitable power supply and Compute Module 4 board. The M.2 M-Key adaptor adds a further 19 CHF (around £15 ex VAT), and the Switchblade Case is another 35 CHF (around £28 ex VAT). If you have access to a 3D printer, you can opt to print the latter yourself, but you’ll still pay 8 CHF (around £6 ex VAT) for access to the files.
The Tofu is available to order now from oratek.com. Compatible Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 boards can be found at the usual stockists.
You can read more features like this one in Custom PC issue 217, available directly from Raspberry Pi Press — we deliver worldwide.
And if you’d like a handy digital version of the magazine, you can also download issue 217 for free in PDF format.
The post TOFU for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Source: Raspberry Pi – TOFU for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
MiTac’s “PH12CMI” thin Mini-ITX board features Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake-s along with up to 64GB DDR4, 2x GbE, 2x SATA, 4x USB 3.2 Gen2, triple displays, 2x M.2, and mini-PCIe and PCIe x4 slots. German tech distributor ICP sent us one of their periodic MiTac product announcements about an unnamed new thin Mini-ITX board […]
Source: LXer – Thin Mini-ITX board runs on Comet Lake
Following below is a brief set of instructions to install sqlitebrowser on RockyLinux 8.4 , which installs sqlite-devel before building the most recent Python release via source tarball
Source: LXer – Install Sqlitebrowser on RockyLinux 8.4
SpaceX is acquiring satellite data start-up Swarm Technologies, in a rare deal by Elon Musk’s space company that expands the team — and possibly the technological capabilities — of its growing Starlink internet service. CNBC reports: Swarm, which has 120 of its tiny SpaceBEE satellites in orbit, reached an agreement with SpaceX on July 16 to merge, according to an Aug. 6 filing with the Federal Communications Commission. The company will become “a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of SpaceX upon consummation of the Proposed Transaction,” Swarm wrote in the filing. Terms and financial details about the deal were not disclosed. Swarm last completed a fundraising round in January 2019 at a $85 million valuation, according to Pitchbook.
The deal marks an uncommon acquisition for SpaceX, which tends to design and build systems in-house. But FCC licenses can be difficult and time-consuming to get approved, and Swarm will transfer control of of its satellite and ground station licenses to SpaceX as part of the deal, according to the filing. “Swarm’s services will benefit from the better capitalization and access to resources available to SpaceX, as well as the synergies associated with acquisition by a provider of satellite design, manufacture, and launch services,” the filing said. The company noted that the acquisition benefits SpaceX by bringing “access to the intellectual property and expertise developed by the Swarm team.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – SpaceX Is Buying Satellite Data Startup Swarm
It looks like X.Org Server 21.1 (long in development the past few years as X.Org Server 1.21) will see a stable release in the coming weeks…
Source: Phoronix – X.Org Server 21.1 Will Aim To Release In The Coming Weeks
Here’s why many DevOps teams are now considering GitOps as an essential part of their Kubernetes deployment strategy.
Source: LXer – What the GitOps Model Is and Why It’s Taking Off