The first season of Andor is over, putting an end to one of, if not the best, stories in the Star Wars franchise. While we have a very long while to see where Cassian’s story will take us in season 2, let’s take a look back at some of the best moments from its stellar debut.
Source: Gizmodo – The 25 Greatest Moments From Andor’s Incredible First Season
Attorneys general in nine states and the District of Columbia are urging Apple this week to introduce new App Store requirements designed to safeguard sensitive health data linked to reproductive care.
Source: Gizmodo – ‘Gap’ in iPhone Privacy Endangers Reproductive Data, Law Enforcement Chiefs Say
Robots that can whack a golf ball down a fairway aren’t exactly new, but building one that can play the nuanced short game is a more complex problem. Researchers at Paderborn University in Germany have done just that with Golfi, a machine that uses a neural network to figure out how to line up a putt and how hard to hit the ball to get it into the hole from anywhere on the green.
The robot takes a snapshot of the green with a Microsoft Kinect 3D camera and it simulates thousands of random shots taken from different positions. It takes factors like the turf’s rolling resistance, the ball’s weight and the starting velocity into account. Paderborn doctoral student Annika Junker told IEEE Research that training Golfi on simulated golf shots takes five minutes, compared with 30-40 hours were the team to feed data from real-life shots into the system.
Once Golfi has figured out the shot it should take, it rolls over to the ball and uses a belt-driven gear shaft with a putter attached to make the putt. The robot doesn’t get the ball in the hole every time, though. Junker said the robot nailed the shot around 60-70 percent of the time. That’s still a better accuracy rate than most amateur golfers and at least you won’t see Golfi fly off the handle like Happy Gilmore if it misses.
However, Golfi sometimes drove over the ball and moved it out of position. The researchers have only tested the robot in the lab, so real-world conditions, like greens with divots or steep slopes, may pose problems for a system that relies on a bird’s-eye view.
In any case, the researchers didn’t set out to build a robot capable of competing with PGA Tour pros. They hope that the techniques they used in Golfi could be used for other robotics applications. “You can also transfer that to other problems, where you have some knowledge about the system and could model parts of it to obtain some data, but you can’t model everything,” Niklas Fittkau, another Paderborn University doctoral student and co-lead author of a paper on Golfi, told IEEE Research.
Back in 2016, a different robot called LDRIC sank a hole-in-one at a PGA event (albeit on the fifth attempt). I wonder who footed the bill for a round of drinks at the clubhouse afterward.
Source: Engadget – This golf robot uses a Microsoft Kinect camera and a neural network to line up putts
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission features a host of demonstration technologies, including Callisto—a collaboration between Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco. The Callisto team is making it possible for anyone to communicate with the system, in which messages will be shown on an iPad screen “for the world to see.”
Source: Gizmodo – NASA Will Let You Send Messages to an iPad On Board Orion
In its published format, The Hanged God trilogy is unapologetically epic fantasy, featuring Vikings, gods, giants, fire demons, and magical runes, but the story did not begin that way. At the beginning, I believed that I was setting out on an epic quest to write historical fiction, with an emphasis on the historical.
Source: Gizmodo – In Historical Fantasy, When Does History End and Fantasy Begin?
How to change folder color in Ubuntu with GNOME desktop Files, Nemo and Caja file manager to make you more productive.
Source: LXer – Boost Your Productivity with Folder Color App in Ubuntu
James Bond has been saving the world on the big screen since 1962, and to help mark the 60th anniversary of the 007 films, Omega, Bond’s preferred timekeeper since 1995, is releasing a pair of Seamaster Diver 300M watches with a subtle tribute to Bond’s Hollywood appearances on the back.
Source: Gizmodo – Omega Recreated the Iconic James Bond Opening on This ,600 Watch Using Only Mechanical Parts
Hundreds of Chinese-manufactured drones have been detected in restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in recent months, a trend that national security agencies fear could become a new means for foreign espionage. From a report: The recreational drones made by Chinese company DJI, which are designed with “geofencing” restrictions to keep them out of sensitive locations, are being manipulated by users with simple workarounds to fly over no-go zones around the nation’s capital.
Federal officials and drone industry experts have delivered classified briefings to the Senate Homeland Security, Commerce and Intelligence committees on the development, three people privy to the meetings said. A spokesperson for the Intelligence Committee — which has been kept closely apprised of the counterintelligence risks — declined to comment on the briefings. The other two committees did not respond. This story is based on interviews with seven government officials, lawmakers, congressional staffers and contractors. They were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about private and sometimes classified discussions involving government officials.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Senators Alarmed Over Potential Chinese Drone Spy Threat
Google has disclosed several security flaws for phones that have Mali GPUs, such as those with Exynos chipsets. The company’s Project Zero team says it flagged the problems to ARM (which produces the GPUs) back in the summer. ARM resolved the issues on its end in July and August. However, smartphone manufacturers including Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and Google itself hadn’t deployed patches to fix the vulnerabilities as of earlier this week, Project Zero said.
Researchers identified five new issues in June and July and promptly flagged them to ARM. “One of these issues led to kernel memory corruption, one led to physical memory addresses being disclosed to userspace and the remaining three led to a physical page use-after-free condition,” Project Zero’s Ian Beer wrote in a blog post. “These would enable an attacker to continue to read and write physical pages after they had been returned to the system.”
Beer noted that it would be possible for a hacker to gain full access to a system as they’d be able to bypass the permissions model on Android and gain “broad access” to a user’s data. The attacker could do so by forcing the kernel to reuse the afore-mentioned physical pages as page tables.
Project Zero found that, three months after ARM fixed these issues, all of the team’s test devices were still vulnerable to the flaws. As of Tuesday, the issues were not mentioned “in any downstream security bulletins” from Android manufacturers.
Engadget has contacted Google, Samsung, Oppo and Xiaomi to ask when they will deploy the fixes to their Android devices and why it has taken so long for them to do so. As SamMobile notes, Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series devices and the company’s Snapdragon-powered handsets aren’t affected by these vulnerabilities.
Source: Engadget – Google says Google and other Android manufacturers haven’t patched security flaws
So, you’ve decided to bring a live tree into your home for a few weeks. How festive! Now, it’s time to determine what type of Christmas tree you’d like—or, more accurately, what qualities you’re looking for in an indoor evergreen. A particular look? A certain price point? A robust fragrance?
Source: LifeHacker – The Best-Smelling Types of Live Christmas Trees
Using C++, this exciting tool allows you to learn about any given constellation. Learn more about how to install and use it here.
The post startfetch: A fetch That Shows the Zodiac Constellations appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – startfetch: A fetch That Shows the Zodiac Constellations
Critter & Guitari’s lineup of hackable music computers and video synths are undeniably unique. They do things that practically no other instrument can, plus they’re probably the most visually distinctive portable music devices out there. Its latest creation is the 201 Music Synthesizer, an arguably long overdue replacement for the company’s first product — the Pocket Piano.
Like its flagship Organelle, the 201 is built on open source software, specifically Pure Data and Faust. But rather than trying to be all things to everyone, it’s more narrowly focused. It ships with six built-in synth engines covering chiptune-style bleeps, analog-esque sounds, drum samples, physical modeling (likely via Karplus Strong), and vocal synthesis. Rather than four knobs that vary in purpose depending on what patch you’ve loaded (which may or may not have particularly good documentation, depending on who created it), the 201 has three parameter knobs for envelope, tone and “surprise” — for when you just want a happy accident.
One of the things that makes the 201 really standout though, is the pattern generator and sequencer. While you can simply play notes live and record them for later recall, the synth can also create patterns for you. A couple of presses on the unique maple keys and the 201 will start spitting out simple octave jumps, arpeggios or random polyphonic chaos. And if something strikes your fancy, you can save that as well. And you can save literally thousands of sequences to the included 8GB microSD card.
Like the Organelle, you can actually hack together your own patches for the 201 using Pure Data or Faust, but that’s more of a nice bonus than the main selling point here. Under the hood of the 201 is a 900Mhz ARM processor with 512MB RAM, which should be plenty for most synth patches, but it’s not quite as powerful as the Organelle M. The 201 also has a built-in speaker, a 1/4-inch stereo out jack, 1/8-inch MIDI in and out, USB-A for connecting MIDI controllers, and USB-C for accessing the files on the microSD card.
Of course, to be a true replacement for the Pocket Piano, the 201 also needs to be portable. So, in addition to the AC adapter, it can be powered by three AA batteries. And at about one pound and a little over nine-inches long, it’s pretty easy to toss in a backpack.
The Critter & Guitari 201 Music Synthesizer is currently crowd funding over at Kickstarter and has already surpassed its goal. If you’d like to secure one when they start shipping in April of 2023 you can back it before December 20th for $295.
Source: Engadget – Critter & Guitari’s 201 Music Synthesizer is the long-awaited successor to its Pocket Piano
Enlarge / Getting those few last dollops of ketchup out of the bottle can lead to unexpected splattering. (credit: Getty Images)
Ketchup is one of the most popular condiments in the US, along with mayonnaise, but getting those few last dollops out of the bottle often results in a sudden splattering. “It’s annoying, potentially embarrassing, and can ruin clothes, but can we do anything about it?” Callum Cuttle of the University of Oxford said during a press conference earlier this week at an American Physical Society meeting on fluid dynamics in Indianapolis, Indiana. “And more importantly, can understanding this phenomenon help us with any other problems in life?”
The answer to both questions, per Cuttle, is a resounding yes. Along with his Oxford colleague, Chris MacMinn, he conducted a series of experiments to identify the forces at play and develop a theoretical model for ketchup splatter. Among the most interesting findings: squeezing the bottle more slowly and doubling the diameter of the nozzle helps prevent splatter. There is also a critical threshold where the flow of ketchup shifts suddenly from not splattering to splattering. A preprint paper has been posted to arXiv and is currently undergoing peer review.
Isaac Newton identified the properties of what he deemed an “ideal liquid.” One of those properties is viscosity, loosely defined as how much friction/resistance there is to flow in a given substance. The friction arises because a flowing liquid is essentially a series of layers sliding past one another. The faster one layer slides over another, the more resistance there is, and the slower one layer slides over another, the less resistance there is.
Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Oxford scientists crack case of why ketchup splatters from near-empty bottle
EU countries agreed to a 45-billion-euro ($46.6 billion) plan to fund the production of chips, putting the 27-country bloc a step closer to its goal of reducing its reliance on U.S. and Asian manufacturers. From a report: EU envoys unanimously backed an amended version of the European Commission’s proposal, the Czech Republic which holds the rotating EU presidency said. European Union ministers will meet on Dec. 1 to rubber stamp the chip plan that will still need to be debated with the European Parliament next year before it can become law. The EU executive, which is hoping state subsidies will help the bloc achieve a 20% share of global chip capacity by 2030, came up with its proposal after a global chip shortage and supply chain bottlenecks hit car makers, healthcare providers and telecoms operators.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – EU Countries Back Billion-Euro Chip Plan Ahead of Talks With Lawmakers
Thanksgiving is here. A day to sit back, reflect, and think about all the good things in your life. Family, friends, your health—those are all worthy. But what about shows, movies, and comics?
Source: Gizmodo – The Pop Culture We’re Thankful for Getting Us Through 2022
Black Friday may still be a few hours away, but we’re already seeing a bunch of great deals on our favorite tech. This comes after a slow trickle of deals popping up across the web ever since the start of November. While we don’t have the supply chain issues we did last year, it’s still a good idea to start your holiday shopping as early as possible — even if it’s just a few hours before the biggest sale day of the year. The sooner you check off items from your list, the sooner they’ll arrive and you’ll be ready to go for the holidays. To make things easier for you, we’ve collected the best early Black Friday tech deals here so you don’t have to go searching for them.
The Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones are back on sale for $249 right now, or 32 percent off their usual price. These are some of our favorite over-ear cans thanks in part to their excellent active noise cancellation and clear, balanced audio. The design isn’t as slick as some of our other favorites, but they’re comfortable to boot, plus their 24-hour battery life means you’ll be able to wear them for long stretches of time without interruption.
Buy QuietComfort 45 at Amazon – $249
The latest AirPods Pro are on sale for $200 for Black Friday. That $50 discount is the most significant we’ve seen on these buds that just came out a couple of months ago. The new Pros earned a score of 88 from us for their improved sound quality, excellent Transparency Mode and solid active noise cancellation. We also appreciate the addition of the U1 chip inside the buds’ wireless charging case, which enables Precision Finding using the Find My app.
Buy AirPods Pro (2nd gen) at Amazon – $200
The 2021 iPad remains on sale for $270, which is the best price we’ve seen it. While Apple did just come out with an updated version, that latest model is much more expensive, coming in at $449. The 10.2-inch iPad is still a great option if you want iPadOS but only have so much to spend. We gave it a score of 86 for its solid performance, improved front cameras and excellent battery life.
Buy 10.2-inch iPad at Amazon – $270
A four-pack of Apple’s AirTags is on sale for $80 right now, which is $20 off their usual price. That also brings the price per tracker down to $20, which is one of the lowest we’ve seen. These stocking-friendly gadgets make great gifts for iPhone users who want to digitally keep track of their things. They can use the Find My app to check the last known location of their keys, wallet and other belongings, and use their iPhones to be led directly to their stuff with on-screen directions if it’s nearby.
Buy AirTags (4 pack) at Amazon – $20
Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones are down to $348 right now, which is the best price we’ve seen since they came out earlier this year. These are our current favorite wireless headphones, and Sony essentially changed only a few things about the previous WH-1000XM4 to make these cans even better. They have improved noise cancellation and sound quality, plus a slick new design and a solid battery life. We also appreciate their Speak-to-Chat feature and multi-device connectivity.
Buy WH-1000XM5 at Amazon – $348
Both the 4K and HD Chromecasts with Google TV are on sale for Black Friday, coming in at $40 and $18, respectively. These two streamers are essentially the same, expect for the resolution that each support: the higher-end model with stream 4K content, while the other tops out at 1080p. They share a compact design and both come with a handy remote that makes navigating the Google TV interface much easier. Plus, you can speak to the Google Assistant through these dongles, calling about it to search for things to watch, answer questions and more.
Buy Chromecast with Google TV (4K) at Amazon – $40Buy Chromecast with Google TV (HD) at Amazon – $18
Sonos’ Black Friday deals include the Sonos One speaker for only $175, which is $44 off its normal price. Sonos gadgets rarely go on sale, much less direct on Sonos’ site, so the entire sale is one to consider this Black Friday. The One earned a score of 90 from us when it first came out for its attractive design, excellent audio quality and its support for Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant and AirPlay 2. Also included in the sale is the Sonos Arc, one of our favorite soundbars, which is $180 off and down to $719.
Buy One at Sonos – $175Buy Arc at Sonos – $719Shop Sonos Black Friday deals
Google’s best earbuds yet, the Pixel Buds Pro, have dropped to $150, which is $50 less than their usual price. these are the Android-maker’s answers to Apple’s AirPods Pro, and they are, without a doubt, one of the best pairs of wireless earbuds you can get if you don’t have an iPhone. We gave them a score of 87 for their deep, punchy bass, reliable touch controls and wireless charging case.
Buy Pixel Buds Pro at Amazon – $150
Elgato’s Stream Deck MK.2 has dropped to $120 for Black Friday, which is a new record low. We’ve recommended various versions of the Stream Deck for a while now as an essential accessory for game streamers, but also a handy peripheral for power users to have, too. The MK.2 has 15 programmable buttons that let you trigger actions like launching an app, muting your mic and more, plus you can truly make it your own with a custom faceplate.
Buy Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 at Amazon – $120
The excellent and already affordable ATH-M20xBT are on sale for $59 for Black Friday, which is a record low. These are our current favorite budget cans thanks to their good sound quality, comfortable design, Bluetooth multi-point connectivity and 60-hour battery life. They may not have as slick of a design as more expensive headphones, or advanced features like noise cancellation, but you can’t beat their value.
Buy ATH-M20xBT at Amazon – $59
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 4 is on sale for $770 right now. Each iteration of Samsung’s foldable phones is better than the last, and the Flip 4 is no different. It has a slick design that neatly folds in half, rendering it small enough to slip into your pocket. Not only do we appreciate its attractive and more durable design, but we also like its improved battery life and the increased number of hands-free applications it supports.
Buy Galaxy Z Flip 4 at Amazon – $800
Samsung’s latest flagship foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 4, is $430 off and down to $1,370. It’s certainly the most polished Fold Samsung has created, and we gave it a score of 86 for its brighter main screen, upgraded main and telephoto cameras, sleeker hinge and noticeably better battery life.
Buy Galaxy Z Fold 4 at Amazon – $1,370
You can pick up the OnePlus 10 Pro smartphone for only $549 right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen it. The standout feature of this handset is its remarkably fast charging technology: you can get a full charge in just over a half hour using 80W SUPERVOOC charging. However, US users are capped at 65W SUPERVOOC, but that’s still the speediest charging standard available stateside. Otherwise, we also appreciated the 10 Pro’s lovely 120Hz display and its fast face-unlock feature.
Buy OnePlus 10 Pro at Amazon – $549
iRobot’s Roomba j7 is on sale for $349 right now, which is the cheapest we’ve seen it, and you can get the j7+ for $599. This is one of iRobot’s latest robo-vacs and it has enhanced obstacle avoidance which lets it navigate around a robot vacuum’s arch nemesis: pet poop. It also has 10x the suction power of a standard Roomba, plus support for smart mapping and Alexa and Google Assistant voice control. With the j7+ model, you’re also getting a clean base into which the robo-vac will empty its bin after every job.
Buy Roomba j7 at Amazon – $349Buy Roomba j7+ at Amazon – $599
The latest version of Shark’s AI Robot Vaccum has dropped to $299 for Black Friday. This is one of our favorite robo-vacs thanks to its strong suction power, smart mapping feature and the included clean base into which it empties its bin after every job. We also appreciate that the clean base is bagless, so you don’t have to regularly buy proprietary bags for it.
Buy Shark AI Robot Vacuum at Amazon – $299
August’s WiFi smart lock is cheaper than ever at $159 for Black Friday. That’s more than $70 off its usual price and a great deal if you’re looking for a smart lock that’s easy to install over most deadbolts and equally as easy to use. After you put ti on your door, you can use the companion mobile app to remote lock or unlock your home, and you can send limited-time keys to loved ones you who want to have access.
Buy August WiFi smart lock at Amazon – $159
Crucial’s MX500 internal drive is down to a new low of $68 for the 1TB version, and you can find discounts on the other configurations, too. We’ve long recommended this drive for its standard form factor, its sequential reads/write speeds of up to 560/510 MB/s and its AES 256-bit hardware encryption. It also has integrated power loss immunity, which saves all of your work even when there’s a power outage.
Buy Crucial MX500 (1TB) at Amazon – $68
Jabra’s Elite 3 wireless earbuds are on sale for $50, which is the best price we’ve seen. Considering these buds start out at less than $100, you won’t find some advanced features on them like noise cancellation or wireless charging. However, they pack impressive sound quality for the price, along with a comfortable design, reliable onboard controls and good battery life.
Buy Jabra Elite 3 at Amazon – $50
Amazon’s Echo Show 5 is back on sale for $35 for Black Friday. This has been one of our favorite smart displays for quite some time, primarily because it acts as a great smart alarm clock. It has a 5-inch display that shows the date, time, weather conditions and more, plus it has a handy tap-to-snooze feature. And if you want it to wake you up visually, too, its sunrise alarm will slowly adjust the screen’s brightness to wake you up more naturally.
Buy Echo Show 5 at Amazon – $35
The latest Echo Dot has dropped to $25, and that’s the first real discount we’ve seen since the device came out a few months ago. Amazon added a bigger speaker inside this Echo Dot for improved sound, and it has a new built-in temperature sensor as well. That will come in handy if you have other smart home devices you control with Alexa because, if the temperature sensor reaches a certain level, you can program a routine to, say, start a fan to keep your environment precisely how you like it. The new Dot can also pair with an Eero WiFi system to add up to 1,000 extra square feet of coverage.
Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite has been discounted to $95 for Black Friday. While we consider the Signature Edition to be the best e-reader, period, the standard Paperwhite comes in at a close second. It has a 6.8-inch display with 17 front LEDs for better illumination, plus a water-resistant design, Audible support and a battery that can last weeks on a single charge.
Buy Kindle Paperwhite at Amazon – $95
Amazon’s most affordable streaming stick is on sale for only $15 right now, which is half off its usual price. This is a good option if you want to upgrade an old, “dumb” TV in your home into a smart one. The Fire TV Stick Lite provides access to Amazon’s Fire TV OS, through which you can access services like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and others. The TV Stick Lite supports FHD content, and you can use the included Voice Remote Lite to ask Alexa to show you the content you want to watch. If you want to upgrade a bit to Dolby Atmos, you can get the standard Fire TV Stick for only $5 more.
Buy Fire TV Stick Lite at Amazon – $15
Amazon has brought back the two for $30 Blink Mini deal for Black Friday. This compact, wired security camera is only meant for indoor use and you’ll have to keep it close to an outlet, but it shares all of the basic features with the larger Blink Indoor and Outdoor cameras. It record 1080p video and supports two-way audio, plus it’ll send motion alerts to your phone and you can control it via Alexa voice commands.
Buy Blink Mini (2 pack) at Amazon – $30
The original Peloton Bike is $300 off and down to $1,145 for Black Friday. If you’re somehow unfamiliar, this is the company’s first exercise bike that comes with a built-in screen for taking cycling classes as well as other strength, yoga and bootcamp routines. Also, one of the company’s latest gadgets, the Peloton Guide, is on sale for $245, too.
Buy Peloton Bike at Amazon – $1,145
Your Cyber Week Shopping Guide: Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter. Also, shop the top Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals on Yahoo Life. Learn about Black Friday trends on In the Know, and our car experts at Autoblog are covering must-shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday auto deals.
Source: Engadget – The best early Black Friday tech deals for 2022
As the rest of Team Kotaku are off chasing turkeys through their local Macy’s (I’ve done more research about what a Thanksgiving is this year), once more I have the keys to the site, have locked everyone out, and then immediately lost those keys. While I’m stuck here, I figure I should tell you about some…
Source: Kotaku – 10 Incredible Games You Should Be Wishlisting Right This Minute
Whether you’re drinking or cooking with wine, you may not go through the entire bottle at one time. Sure, you could use a wine stopper to keep your wine fresh(ish) until you’re ready to finish it, but what if you don’t have one? As it turns out, there is a proper way to recork a bottle of wine. Here’s what to know.
Source: LifeHacker – The Right Way to Recork Wine (and Why It Matters)
The Moon is a cold, dead, and desolate place, as these new images, captured by NASA’s Orion, attest.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA’s Orion Sends Back Haunting New Views of the Moon’s Tortured Surface
An international police operation has dismantled an online spoofing service that allowed cybercriminals to impersonate trusted corporations to steal more than $120 million from victims. From a report: iSpoof, which now displays a message stating that it has been seized by the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service, offered “spoofing” services that enabled paying users to mask their phone numbers with one belonging to a trusted organization, such as banks and tax offices, to carry out social engineering attacks. “The services of the website allowed those who sign up and pay for the service to anonymously make spoofed calls, send recorded messages, and intercept one-time passwords,” Europol said in a statement on Thursday. “The users were able to impersonate an infinite number of entities for financial gain and substantial losses to victims.”
London’s Metropolitan Police, which began investigating iSpoof in June 2021 along with international law enforcement agencies, in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Ukraine, said it had arrested the website’s suspected administrator, named as Teejai Fletcher, 34, charged with fraud and offenses related to organized crime. Fletcher was remanded to custody and will appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on December 6. iSpoof had around 59,000 users, which caused $58.2 million of losses to 200,000 identified victims in the U.K., according to the Met Police. One victim was scammed out of $3.64 million, while the average amount stolen was $12,100.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – US Authorities Seize iSpoof, a Call Spoofing Site That Stole Millions
