The biggest news this week—probably this year—is Microsoft’s proposed $70 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. Online, people have opinions about this massive event and its ramifications, and in that regard, Japan is no different. The way Microsoft’s flagship console is viewed by many in Japan, however, is…
Source: Kotaku – Japanese Internet Reacts To Microsoft’s Billion Proposal To Buy Activision
Photos and screenshots take up a lot of space on hard drives and cloud storage—in their unedited form, 5-6MB for an image file isn’t uncommon. If you’re trying to save space or just need to send smaller image files, you’ll want to compress them first. There are multiple ways to do shrink image files, and some will get…
Source: LifeHacker – The Easiest Ways to Shrink Large Image Files on Your Mac
A group of physicists recently placed a microscopic animal known as a tardigrade onto a superconducting qubit, in an attempt to mingle the realms of quantum and classical mechanics. The researchers argue that the tardigrade was entangled at a quantum level, but some scientists say the team’s claims go beyond what they…
Source: Gizmodo – Scientists Tried to Quantum Entangle a Tardigrade
To the casual observer, the world of cryptocurrency may seem like the modern version of the Wild West. It definitely doesn’t help the optics when hackers infiltrate one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Crypto.com, and swipe $15 million worth of Ethereum, as a blockchain security and data analytics company claims happened this week.
According
Source: Hot Hardware – Crypto.com Says All Funds Are Safe After Hackers Allegedly Pilfered M In Ethereum
After being hospitalized yesterday after a serious ski accident at the La Rosière resort in the French Alps, it has been reported that actor Gaspard Ulliel has died of his injuries at age 37.
Source: Gizmodo – Moon Knight Star Gaspard Ulliel Dies After Ski Accident
Void Linux is a lightweight and innovative Linux distribution for Power Users. Learn what makes it different and how to install it on your PC
Source: LXer – What is Void Linux and How to Install It
Samsung has unveiled the Exynos 2200, its first smartphone processor with AMD graphics. More specifically, the chip uses AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture which enables variable-rate shading and hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a technique used to make lighting effects in virtual environments appear more realistic.
Source: Gizmodo – Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Could Get a Graphics Boost From a New AMD-Fueled Chip
Two days ago, Disney dropped the trailer for Moon Knight, the next in a line of streaming series set on the ever-expanding fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starring Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, the show looks intriguing, suggesting a darker edge than much of the post-Netflix era of MCU TV. Unfortunately, it…
Source: LifeHacker – What’s New on Disney+ in February 2022
Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series is scheduled to debut on Prime Video in September, which might just be far enough away to get used to the unwieldy title. The company revealed the full name of the show — The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — in a short video.
“This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics,” showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay said in a statement. “The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.”
The video shows what looks like a few valleys with wispy fog before we see what’s actually going on. Molten metal fills in the grooves before it’s cooled with water. The camera then zooms out to reveal the show’s name. The clip was shot using practical effects instead of CGI.
The teaser doesn’t feature any characters or provide plot details. There’s plenty of time for that in future trailers. However, the narration underscores the fact the show will once again focus on the 20 rings at the heart of the LOTR saga — just in case the title didn’t do enough to hammer that home.
Source: Engadget – Amazon gives its ‘Lord of the Rings’ series a redundant name
Humans have produced so many chemicals and environmental pollutants that we’re currently exceeding the limits of a “safe operating space for humanity,” a new study finds. That could mean that the planet, as well as our health and wellbeing, is in serious jeopardy.
Source: Gizmodo – Chemical Production Has Exceeded the ‘Safe Operating Space for Humanity’
NASA will be livestreaming Russian cosmonauts as they go on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station today. The two cosmonauts will be preparing the new Prichal module for future Russian spacecraft.
The relationship between the US and Russia has seen its better days here on Earth. The political landscape between the two nations
Source: Hot Hardware – NASA Livestreams Russian Spacewalk To Install ISS Module, Watch It Here
Version
7.0 of the ONLYOFFICE office suite is available.
With the release of Docs v7.0, ONLYOFFICE opens the source code
of the professional editing features, such as document
comparison, content controls and sheet views for spreadsheets,
and makes them available in all solutions. Previously, all
these features were exclusively accessible on a paying basis.
There is a long list of new features; see the announcement for details.
Source: LWN.net – ONLYOFFICE 7.0 released
Sweden’s Ericsson has filed another set of patent infringement lawsuits against Apple in the latest salvo between the two companies over royalty payment for use of 5G wireless patents in iPhones. From a report: Both companies have already sued each other in the United States as negotiations failed over the renewal of a seven-year licensing contract for telecoms patents first struck in 2015. Ericsson sued first in October, claiming that Apple was trying to improperly cut down the royalty rates. The iPhone maker then filed a lawsuit in December accusing the Swedish company of using “strong-arm tactics” to renew patents. “Ericsson has refused to negotiate fair terms for renewing our patent licensing agreement, and instead has been suing Apple around the world to extort excessive royalties … we are asking the court to help determine a fair price,” an Apple spokesman said on Tuesday. Patent lawsuits are quite common among technology companies because every dollar saved could amount to significant amounts over the duration of the agreement, with companies such as Ericsson charging $2.50 to $5 for every 5G handset.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Ericsson Sues Apple Again Over 5G Patent Licensing
The U.S. currently has the oldest ruling political class in the history of the country. Joe Biden is 79 years old, the oldest president ever, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is 81, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is 79. Sens. Diane Feinstein and Chuck Grassley are both 88.
Source: Gizmodo – Mitch McConnell Is Older Than Duct Tape: 9 Politicians Born Before the Invention of Everyday Tech
As you probably already heard, Microsoft is looking to purchase Activision Blizzard for a whopping $68.7 billion. But why Activision CEO Bobby Kotick suddenly decided to give up control of the company and where that leaves the beleaguered executive after the ink dries changes depending on who you ask.
Source: Kotaku – The Real Reasons Activision Blizzard Was Sold, Without Bobby Kotick’s PR Spin
For something that’s such a big part of our lives, we rarely think twice about how we spend time with technology. We’ll work towards building good real-world habits, but what about the hours we waste doomscrolling in bed?
Source: LifeHacker – 7 Tech Habits You Should Build (and the Best Apps to Get You Going)
The southern Pacific nation of Tonga is struggling following the eruption of a volcano, and that includes challenges getting online. According to Reuters and The Verge, the Tonga government has warned internet access is “down” following damage to the lone undersea fiber optic cable keeping the archipelago online. While the country didn’t provide an initial estimate, the Southern Cross Cable Network’s Craige Sloots told Reuters it might take as long as two weeks to repair the cable “all things going well.”
It will take the repair ship up to nine days to travel from Papua New Guinea to Tonga, according to Sloots. The timing for the repair will also hinge on safety clearance and any lingering activity from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano. The 514-mile cable is secured through a Fiji relay.
Tonga has been somewhat prepared for incidents like this. It struck a 15-year agreement for satellite internet access with Kacific in 2019 after damage to the underwater cable. However, ZDNetlearned a contract dispute with Kacific kept that access from being activated. Officials said the country’s two telecoms were “working on satellite options” to restore service, but didn’t provide timelines.
The outage underscores the vulnerability of internet access for island nations and other remote communities. While many countries connect to the rest of the world through undersea cabling, these more distant areas are frequently dependent on either a very limited cable network or expensive satellite service that can degrade in bad weather. Until these places have more reliable cables or lower-cost satellite data, they can’t depend on the internet for vital services to the degree other regions can.
FIRST OFFICIAL UPDATE FOLLOWING THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF TONGA 🇹🇴 pic.twitter.com/fX3KPlKx2E
— Consulate of the Kingdom of Tonga (@ConsulateKoT) January 18, 2022
Valve continues to tweak more of their games ahead of the Steam Deck release in February and their focus now appears to be on CS:GO with a fresh update out.
Source: LXer – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive updated, more tweaking for Steam Deck + Vulkan
Under normal circumstances, thermal compound or paste should last at least a year once applied to your CPU (or GPU if installing something like, say, an Accelero Xtreme IV cooler), and potentially much longer (as in several years), depending on the type. However, that might not be the case if you picked up a tube of Arctic’s popular MX-5.
Source: Hot Hardware – Seeing High CPU Temps? You May Have A Bad Batch Of Arctic MX-5 Thermal Compound
Those who subscribe to the higher tier of Nintendo Switch Online will be able to play another classic on January 20th. That’s when Banjo-Kazooie comes to the service. Nintendo announced last month that the platformer would hit Expansion Pack — which offers Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games on top of NES and SNES titles — sometime in January.
Banjo-Kazooie, which was originally released in 1998, tasks players with finding musical notes and jigsaw pieces in 3D environments so they can progress and ultimately rescue Banjo’s sister, Tooty. Here’s hoping Nintendo has smoothed out the emulation issues that plagued several N64 titles when Expansion Pack arrived in October.
Banjo-Kazooie will return to a Nintendo system on a busy day for game releases, albeit mainly on non-Switch platforms. Windjammers 2 and Rainbow Six Extraction debut on Thursday and both will be available on all three versions of Game Pass. So too will the Hitman World of Assassination trilogy. Expeditions: Rome arrives on the same day and, perhaps most importantly of all, the adorable-looking dog photography game Pupperazzi comes to Xbox and PC.
Source: Engadget – ‘Banjo-Kazooie’ hits Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack on January 20th