Love them or hate them, fireworks have been an American fourth of July staple since 1777. And while the displays have become more elaborate since then, the basic composition of fireworks—gunpowder and chemicals put into a casing with a fuse attached—hasn’t changed all that much in the last 245 years. Unfortunately,…
Source: LifeHacker – Why You Should Always Close Your Windows During Fireworks
It seems the upcoming Google Pixel 6a will be faster than its more expensive siblings…well, at least in one area. A YouTuber was able to get his hands on a Pixel 6a, and his testing of the fingerprint sensor has some interesting results.
In our review of the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro back in October of last year, it was noted that the devices
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Pixel 6a May Be Better Than The Pixel 6 Pro In One Key Feature
The viral image-generation app is good, absurd fun. It’s also giving the world an education in how artificial intelligence may warp reality. From a report: On June 6, Hugging Face, a company that hosts open source artificial intelligence projects, saw traffic to an AI image-generation tool called DALL-E Mini skyrocket. The outwardly simple app, which generates nine images in response to any typed text prompt, was launched nearly a year ago by an independent developer. But after some recent improvements and a few viral tweets, its ability to crudely sketch all manner of surreal, hilarious, and even nightmarish visions suddenly became meme magic. Behold its renditions of “Thanos looking for his mom at Walmart,” “drunk shirtless guys wandering around Mordor,” “CCTV camera footage of Darth Vader breakdancing,” and “a hamster Godzilla in a sombrero attacking Tokyo.” As more people created and shared DALL-E Mini images on Twitter and Reddit, and more new users arrived, Hugging Face saw its servers overwhelmed with traffic. “Our engineers didn’t sleep for the first night,” says Clement Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, on a video call from his home in Miami. “It’s really hard to serve these models at scale; they had to fix everything.” In recent weeks, DALL-E Mini has been serving up around 50,000 images a day.
DALL-E Mini’s viral moment doesn’t just herald a new way to make memes. It also provides an early look at what can happen when AI tools that make imagery to order become widely available, and a reminder of the uncertainties about their possible impact. Algorithms that generate custom photography and artwork might transform art and help businesses with marketing, but they could also have the power to manipulate and mislead. A warning on the DALL-E Mini web page warns that it may “reinforce or exacerbate societal biases” or “generate images that contain stereotypes against minority groups.” DALL-E Mini was inspired by a more powerful AI image-making tool called DALL-E (a portmanteau of Salvador Dali and WALL-E), revealed by AI research company OpenAI in January 2021. DALL-E is more powerful but is not openly available, due to concerns that it will be misused.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – DALL-E Mini Is the Internet’s Favorite AI Meme Machine
Amid news of misconduct and hush money payouts at the WWE, Rita Chatterton, the first female referee for the then-World Wrestling Federation, revisited her rape accusation against WWE CEO and chairperson Vince McMahon in an interview with New York Magazine.
Source: Kotaku – Vince McMahon 1986 Rape Allegation Resurfaces As Former Wrestler Corroborates Story
Now more than ever, it might be time to get a vasectomy. Many people are saying this—or googling it, anyway; online searches for “vasectomy” spiked dramatically in the wake of the May leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion on the fate of Roe v. Wade, a trend that seems poised to continue now that the…
Source: LifeHacker – Everything You Need to Know About Getting a Vasectomy
Thanks to this morning’s peculiarly throwaway Nintendo Direct Mini, we have finally seen footage of Ron Gilbert’s Return To Monkey Island. While there has been a blitz of information and PR for the game since its announcement in April, this is the first time we’ve got a glimpse of how it will look when playing.
Source: Kotaku – Return To Monkey Island Looks Damned Pretty
Google Hangouts is about to go the way of the dodo bird. However, you will not immediately be cut off from your beloved Hangouts. Here is everything you need to know about backing up your Google Hangouts data and transitioning to Chat.
Google Hangouts mobile users will soon begin to see an in-app screen that requests they move to the Chat
Source: Hot Hardware – Google Hangouts Is Shutting Down, Here’s How To Back Up Your Data And Migrate
Intel has not yet released its 13th Gen Core processor lineup based on Raptor Lake and probably won’t for at least another a few months. As it gets closer to the eventual launch, however, early engineering samples will permeate the market, facilitating leaked benchmarks. It’s already started to happen, and there’s even been a supposed sale
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Core i9-13900K Raptor Lake CPU Allegedly Sold For Less Than A 12900K
Celebrity-endorsed cryptocurrency scams in the UK are on pace to almost double this year, Banco Santander SA’s local unit said. From a report: “Case volumes” jumped 61% in the first quarter from the prior three months, Santander said in a statement on its website on Tuesday. The average value of the scams was $14,540, up 65% from a year earlier. Around $2.4 million was lost to such schemes in the quarter, according to the bank. “We’re seeing a worrying rise in ‘celebrity-endorsed’ cryptocurrency scams, where familiar faces are being misused on social media in order to con people out of often life-changing sums of money,” said Chris Ainsley, Santander UK’s head of fraud risk management, said in the statement. Crypto scams are getting increased attention as regulators and politicians grapple with how to encourage technological innovation while at the same time protecting unsuspecting consumers. Santander said it expects the number of celebrity-endorsed crypto scams to rise 87% in 2022 based on the current rate of growth.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Celebrity-Endorsed Crypto Scams Soaring in UK, Santander Says
A few months ago, Valve announced that both of its excellent Portal games were coming to the Nintendo Switch, but we didn’t know when. Today’s Nintendo Direct presentation cleared that up. Portal Companion Collection will arrive on the Switch later today for $19.99. The collection includes both the original Portal from 2007 as well as the more expansive, story-driven Portal 2 from 2011. Whether you missed these games the first time out or just want to replay a pair of classics, this collection sounds like a good way to return to one of the most intriguing worlds Valve ever created.
While the original Portal was strictly a single-player experience, Portal 2 has a split-screen co-op experience; you can also pay this mode with a friend online as well. And while these games originated on the PC, Valve also released Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 — and if I recall, the game’s controls mapped to a controller very well. Given that the Portal series is more puzzle-based than traditional first-person games, you shouldn’t have any problems navigating the world with a pair of Joy-Con controllers.
Source: Engadget – Both of Valve’s classic Portal games arrive on the Switch today
Love is exciting and fulfilling—at least, until the dishes and laundry start piling up. Before you know it, the honeymoon is over on your new relationship and you’re arguing with your partner over chores, finances, and general responsibilities like everyone else. Enter, the relationship contract. It might sound a…
Source: LifeHacker – You Should Consider a Relationship Contract
Today’s Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase featured a bunch of third-party games that are coming to Switch, including a bunch of big hitters. For one thing, three Persona games are coming to the hybrid console. Persona 5 Royal is the only one with a confirmed release date (October 21st) for now, but more details about Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable are coming soon.
It recently emerged that Atlus’ games are also coming to Xbox Game Pass, as well as Steam, PlayStation 4 and (in P5 Royal‘s case) PS5. Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden were ports of PlayStation 2 titles Persona 3 and Persona 4. They were released on PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita, respectively.
Nintendo confirmed Nier: Automata is bound for Switch too. Nier: Automata The End of YoRHa Edition will arrive on the console on October 6th. It includes all previously released DLC expansions, as well as some exclusive costumes.
Leaks had suggested Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope will debut on Switch on October 20th and that turned out to be the case. Even though the game stars Mario, Nintendo technically stuck to its claim that the showcase would only feature third-party titles, since Ubisoft’s Paris and Milan studios co-developed it.
Meanwhile, a cloud version of A Plague Tale: Requiem will be available for Switch on October 18th, the same date that the game will hit other platforms. Focus Home Interactive brought the first game in the series, A Plague Tale: Innocence,to Switch last year, also as a streaming-only version.
You can find out more about all these announcements, as well as other third-party games that are coming to Switch, by checking out the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase below:
A look into the new Open Programmable Infrastrucutre project., DPUs/IPUs and similar technologies, and how they will improve cloud systems.
Source: LXer – Open Programmable Infrastructure: 1+1=3
Russell Crowe gets ready to exorcise in his next project. Susan Sarandon offers a Blue Beetle filming update. Adult Swim’s Uzumaki anime has been delayed again. Plus, Outlander casting, what’s coming next on The Orville, and more. Spoilers, away!
Source: Gizmodo – Kevin Feige Teases Even More Thors Coming to the MCU
With our online courses programme, launched in 2017, we made it our mission to provide computing educators with the best possible free training we can design. Five years on, here are some of the key stats about the courses’ impact:
Designed and created in-house, each and every course is a real cross-team effort that involves a lot of careful planning and a number of different stages. Here we’re taking you behind the scenes to show you how we make our courses, introduce you to the people involved, and explain how we ensure our courses are of high quality.
But first, here’s some quick answers to questions you may have:
They are online training courses to help you learn about computing and computing education. The courses are hosted on the FutureLearn website. They are asynchronous, meaning you can take them whenever and wherever you want.
Yes! All our courses are free when you sign up for time-limited access, which gives you full access to the learning materials for the complete course duration. FutureLearn also has a paid-for ‘unlimited’ option, where you receive a certificate for each course you take.
They are aimed at educators, particularly classroom teachers, but they are also beneficial to anyone who wants to learn more about computing.
To help you structure your learning, our courses are divided into three or four weeks, but it’s up to you how quickly you work through them. You can complete a course in one afternoon, or spread your learning out and study for 30 minutes a day over three or four weeks. This flexibility makes it easy to fit a course into a busy schedule.
Creating our online courses is a team effort involving writers, videographers, illustrators, animators, copy editors, presenters, and subject matter experts working together over months of production. The entire process is guided by our online course producers, Martin O’Hanlon, Ross Exton, and Michael Conterio, who know a thing or two about creating high-quality learning experiences. We spoke to them about what it takes to create an engaging course.
Martin: We are driven by the needs of teachers. “What are teachers telling us they want to learn? Or what are the gaps in the curriculum where our learners need additional support?”
For example, our Introduction to Machine Learning and AI course was introduced as a result of feedback from teachers that while the subject wasn’t necessarily on the curriculum, they felt underprepared to answer questions from students or provide context when teaching other topics.
Michael: Working with the course authors, we’ll generally agree on the big topics we want to cover or questions that we want to answer. We’ll often also have individual elements that we want to fit in somewhere, for example an activity involving making a learning resource more accessible. From there it’s a case of taking the bigger topics and working out how we can split them up into smaller chunks, until we get down to individual learning activities.
Ross: But then we’ll end up shuffling things around until we are happy — not only that we’ve got everything that we wanted to cover, but that the overall structure makes sense. We often talk about the ‘narrative’ of a course.
Martin: At the Raspberry Pi Foundation we have a set of 12 pedagogy principles that we use through our learning resources (including online courses). We take particular care to lead with concepts, model processes, and activities; add variety for our learners; and include opportunities to create projects.
Michael: Because the learner is not present, you have to be incredibly precise with instructions as you can’t help learners directly as they are working through the content. And even if you think something is obvious, it’s easy for learners to accidentally miss an instruction, so it’s generally good to try to keep them together rather than spread out.
Martin: Luckily, it is often possible to tell from comments that learners have shared when something is hard to understand so we can improve future runs of the course.
Ross: It’s essential! It brings the abstract concepts of computing to life. The media in our courses helps our learners to visualise the ideas we’re presenting in ways that are engaging and relatable.
As we’re writing the course, we capture every creative idea that will best support our learners in gaining the knowledge and skills that they need. From ‘how-to’ guides with live coding, to physical computing demonstrations, or animations of robots, we think carefully about each image and video and how we’re not just telling the learner something, but showing them.
We then work with a brilliantly talented team of illustrators, animators, videographers, and presenters to create all of that media.
Ross: Social learning is a really important part of our online courses experience. Over the past year we have made significant investment to make it easier for participants to share programs they’ve written as part of their learning, for example, and for facilitators to provide support.
Martin: It is important people have the opportunity to share their learning with others. This is something often lost when taking an online course and it can feel like you are ‘on your own’.
In the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s online courses learners are given the opportunity to ask questions, share what they have created, and provide their own insight in the comments. Educators from the Foundation facilitate the courses — responding to comments and providing advice is a big part of what they do.
Thank you Martin, Michael, and Ross.
What new online course would you like us to create? Tell us in the comments below.
The post How do we create engaging online courses for computing educators? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Source: Raspberry Pi – How do we create engaging online courses for computing educators?
After more than two years of pandemic disruptions, many of us are being hit especially hard by the travel bug this summer. Whether you have a huge list of dream destinations or you’re stuck at home dream-Googling flight info, there is a whole world of podcasts out there that can inspire your next trip, make you a…
Source: LifeHacker – 9 of the Best Travel Podcasts to Take You Away
In addition to announcing the GeForce GTX 1630 budget card today (expect our Linux review soon), NVIDIA published 515.57 as their newest stable NVIDIA Linux driver release…
Source: Phoronix – NVIDIA 515.57 Linux Driver Released With Fixes, NvFBC Improvements
Airbnb is permanently banning all parties and events at host properties around the world, it announced. That follows a temporary 2020 ban it had instituted on house parties to comply with COVID-related social distancing restrictions. “Over time, the party ban became much more than a public health measure,” Airbnb said in a blog post. “It developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors.”
Airbnb had already banned “chronic party houses” in 2019 following a California Halloween shooting that resulted in five deaths. It later barred all “open-invite” house parties, but still allowed invitation-only parties in single family dwellings. However, those too are now prohibited, under penalty of account suspension or full removal from the platform.
On a more positive note, Airbnb lifted a 16-person occupancy cap also instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because certain properties “from castles in Europe to vineyards in the US to large beachfront villas in the Caribbean” can easily accommodate more than 16 people, it said, adding that “properties like these thrive on hosting multi-generational family trips and larger groups.”
The company runs a tip line that allows neighbors or others to report parties. Airbnb noted that it saw a 44 percent drop in the rate of party reports after the ban was implemented in 2020 and it suspended the accounts of around 6,600 guests for breaking the policy last year.
Source: Engadget – Airbnb is banning party houses permanently
The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has approved a fresh batch of features for the next Fedora Linux distribution release…
Source: Phoronix – Fedora 37 Gets A Batch Of New Features Approved
There aren’t many options when it comes to consumer 360 cameras these days, so when Insta360 launched its more powerful One RS modular camera back in March, I was a little disappointed with its 5.7K “360 Lens” option — basically on par with the Sphere, One X2, One R and the One X. Don’t get me wrong, they all do well for their form factors (not to mention the computational improvements), but after three years or so, it’s about time for a major upgrade. As it turns out, Insta360 was saving its “one more thing” for today: a “1-inch 360 Edition” One RS co-branded with Leica.
As the name implies, this new kit comes with a chunkier 360 lens module powered by two 1-inch CMOS sensors, and these are capable of capturing at higher resolutions — up to 6K for 360 videos, or up to 21 megapixels for 360 photos. This should guarantee a boost in image quality, especially in low light. This also happens to be the world’s first 360 camera to be “co-engineered with Leica,” following the two companies’ earlier collaboration on the One R’s 1-inch Wide Angle Mod.
Unlike the regular One RS kit (with either the new “4K Boost Lens” or the regular “360 Lens”), this “1-inch 360 Edition” uses a vertical assembly to accommodate the bigger lens module. From top to bottom: lens, core (with a touchscreen), then a vertical battery.
The One RS core benefits from an upgraded processor to support onboard “FlowState Stabilization” (which is faster than the app) as well as “Active HDR” video capture for action sports. As for battery life, this whole kit is apparently good for up to 62 minutes of 6K@30fps video recording.
The core and battery are inserted into a housing, which then clips to the lens to secure the entire device (thus enabling IPX3 water resistance, which is good enough for rain and snow). You’ll still have access to the 1/4-inch standard screw mount at the bottom of the battery.
To disassemble this kit (especially when you need to access the microSD slot), you’ll have to first open the USB port flap on the housing, then press the two clips under the lens to detach. It’s obviously best to keep the soft protection case (included) on the lens while doing so.
The Insta360 One RS “1-inch 360 Edition” is now available for $800, which is quite a jump from the $549.99 “Twin Edition” (which comes with a “4K Boost Lens” and a “360 Lens” instead). A company rep explained that this new kit is targeting the prosumer market, such as users who want to create virtual tours for museums or real estate properties.
That said, if you already own a One RS, you can buy the same “1-inch 360 Edition” kit sans core for $650, thus saving you $150. This also applies to those who have the older One R, as this lens is backwards compatible.