This seven-inch car infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, Android Audio, and phone mirroring capabilities is on sale for $99.99 (reg. $139.99) now through Oct. 31. It works with most, but not all, car models.
Source: LifeHacker – This Wireless Car Display Is 0 Right Now
A UK-based software company called Threads Software Limited is threatening legal action against Meta over its use of the name Threads. The company, which says it’s owned the “Threads” trademark since 2012, makes an “intelligent message hub” that uses AI to help businesses keep track of phone calls, emails and other messages.
Threads Software Limited claims that Meta lawyers made four separate attempts, beginning in April 2023, to buy the software company’s threads.app domain, and eventually shut down its Facebook account. “Every offer was declined,” the company said in a statement. “It was made clear to Meta’s Instagram that the domain was not for sale. In July 2023, Meta’s Instagram announced its ‘threads’ social media platform and removed Threads Software Limited from its Facebook platform.”
The software company said that it’s giving Meta 30 days to “stop using the Threads name” and that it will “seek an injunction from the UK courts” if the social media company declines to do so. In a statement, Threads Software’s CEO John Yardley said it was “not an easy decision” to take on Meta, but that the “business now faces a serious threat from one of the largest technology companies in the world.”
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s not clear how much money Meta may have offered for threads.app, but Yardley’s statements offer a rare look at the kind of backroom negotiations that can happen in order to secure a sought-after domain or username.
It’s also worth noting that the software maker wasn’t the only company using the Threads name at the time Meta launched its Twitter competitor. Fashion retailer American Threads controlled the @Threads handle on Instagram at the time of the service’s launch. The company jokingly responded to commenters at the time, and posted on the new Threads service about people mixing up the clothing brand with the Meta-owned service. Meta used @threadsapp on Instagram and threadsapp.net on Threads, at the time of the service’s launch.
A month later, the retailer’s Instagram account changed handles to @americanthreads (and americanthreads.net on Threads) without explanation, while Meta took control of the @Threads handle. Representatives for the clothing brand didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but the circumstances are strikingly similar to how Meta quietly gained control of the @Meta handle on Instagram more than a year ago. That username was also controlled by a separate entity — an independent motorcycle publication called META — but the account was later subsumed by the social network without explanation.
Representatives of Meta, the magazine, never commented directly on how their account changed hands, but wrote about their dismay in learning of Facebook’s name change. “With the flip of a switch our identity was suddenly watered down, and we watched our name circle the drain and wash away with something we had no control over,” the magazine’s cofounder wrote in a blog post that’s since been deleted. The magazine now uses the name Vahna.
For now, it appears Threads Software Limited is hoping for a different outcome. “Over the last 10 years, we have made a large investment in the Threads name and we did not want to potentially have to write-off this investment simply because Meta happened to like the name we had already coined for a messaging service,” it wrote in a blog post. “For us to change the service name simply to avoid confusion with Meta’s product could well set back the service enough for us to lose that technological lead.”
If you have been offered money in exchange for your domain name or handle from Meta or another social media company, reach out to me at karissa.bell [at] engadget.com or on Signal at +1.628.231.0063.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-software-company-called-threads-says-meta-tried-to-buy-its-domain-and-kicked-it-off-facebook-221928864.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – A software company called Threads says Meta tried to buy its domain and kicked it off Facebook
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: After a weekend of almost complete internet blackout, connectivity in Gaza has been partially restored. On Friday, internet monitoring firms and experts reported that access to the internet had significantly degraded in the Palestinian enclave. The local internet service NetStream “collapsed,” according to NetBlocks, a firm that tracks internet access across the world. At the same time, IODA, another internet monitoring system, showed outages and degradation across several Palestinian internet providers. The lack of internet communications caused emergency lines to stop ringing, made it hard for paramedics to locate the wounded, and for family members to reach relatives and friends, according to The New York Times.
On Sunday, IODA reported “marginal restoration” of internet connectivity in Gaza. Abdulmajeed Melhem, chief executive of the Palestinian main telecommunications company Paltel Group, told The Times that the internet had come back even though the company had not made any repairs. Then on Monday, Gaza had roughly the same access to internet connectivity as before Friday, according to several experts and firms that are monitoring the internet in the region, including Doug Madory, an expert who for years has focused on monitoring networks across the world. “There was the 34 hour complete blackout from Friday to Sunday — a first for Gaza. Then there was last night’s partial outage in northern Gaza,” Madory, who is the director of internet analysis at Kentik, told TechCrunch on Monday. “The situation is still very precious: no power, little water. Service could potentially drop out again at any time.” […]
It’s unclear what caused the internet outages in Gaza on Friday and what caused the improvements on Sunday and Monday. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the U.S. government put pressure on the Israeli government to switch the internet back on in Gaza, citing an unnamed U.S. official. “We made it clear they had to be turned back on,” the official said. “The communications are back on. They need to stay on,” The Post quoted the official as saying. Also on Sunday, The Times reported that the U.S. government believed that the Israeli government was responsible for the near-blackout of the internet in Gaza.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Internet Access In Gaza Partially Restored After Blackout
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)
It was a proto-netbook, it was a palmtop, it was a PDA, it was Windows Phone 7 but not Windows Phone 8, and then it was an embedded ghost. It parents never seemed to know what to do with it after it grew up, beyond offer it up for anybody to shape in their own image. And then, earlier this month, with little notice, Windows CE was no more, at least as a supported operating system. Windows Embedded Compact 2013, better (but not popularly) known as Windows CE 8.0, reached end of support on October 10, 2023, as noted by The Register.
Windows CE, which had a name that didn’t stand for anything and was often compacted to an embarrassing “wince,” is not survived by anything, really. Remembrances have been offered by every Microsoft CEO since its inception and one former Ars writer. A public service for the operating system will be held in the comments.
Windows CE was initially Microsoft Pegasus, a team working to create a very low-power, MIPS or SuperH-based reference platform for manufacturers making the smallest computers with keyboards you could make back then. Devices like the NEC MobilePro 200, Casio (Cassiopeia) A-10, and HP 300LX started appearing in late 1996 and early 1997, with tiny keyboards, more-landscape-than-landscape displays, and, by modern standards, an impressive number of ports.
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Source: Ars Technica – Windows CE, Microsoft’s stunted middle child, reaches end of support at 26 years
Ubisoft has announced plans to shut down online services for nearly a dozen video games, including Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The games will lose online functionally on January 25, 2024.
Source: Kotaku – Ubisoft Shutting Down Online Service For Old Assassin’s Creed Games And More
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
A vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass multifactor authentication and access enterprise networks using hardware sold by Citrix is under mass exploitation by ransomware hackers despite a patch being available for three weeks.
Citrix Bleed, the common name for the vulnerability, carries a severity rating of 9.4 out of a possible 10, a relatively high designation for a mere information-disclosure bug. The reason: the information disclosed can include session tokens, which the hardware assigns to devices that have already successfully provided credentials, including those providing MFA. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-4966 and residing in Citrix’s NetScaler Application Delivery Controller and NetScaler Gateway, has been under active exploitation since August. Citrix issued a patch on October 10.
Attacks have only ramped up recently, prompting security researcher Kevin Beaumont on Saturday to declare: “This vulnerability is now under mass exploitation.” He went on to say, “From talking to multiple organizations, they are seeing widespread exploitation.”
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Source: Ars Technica – “This vulnerability is now under mass exploitation.” Citrix Bleed bug bites hard
Back at Innovation ’23, Intel announced that its Meteor Lake processors would be officially-launched on December 14th. Despite the fact that they haven’t made their debut, Intel’s first disaggregated CPUs have already appeared in a few places, including a handheld from Hong Kong as well as in some Lenovo laptops being sold in Bulgaria.
This
Source: Hot Hardware – Lenovo Yoga Laptops With Intel Meteor Lake CPUs Inside Pop Up At Retail
Hasbro’s 6″ line of Star Wars action figures, the Black Series, launched a decade ago, and has gone on to give us many great representations (and some not so great) of Star Wars heroes and villains from across the galaxy. It is, however, absolutely insane that it will take until 2024 for the line to give us a second Pa…
Source: Gizmodo – Hasbro’s Next Star Wars Toys Are Giving Us Some Phantom Menace Classics
An anonymous reader shares a report: Users have been reporting that their iPhone 15’s NFC chips were failing after using BMW’s in-car wireless charging, but until now, Apple hasn’t addressed the complaints. That seems to have changed as MacRumors reported this week that an Apple internal memo to third-party repair providers says a software update later this year should prevent a “small number” of in-car wireless chargers from “temporarily” disabling iPhone 15 NFC chips.
Apple reportedly says that until the fix comes out, anyone who experiences this should not use the wireless charger in their car. Users have been complaining about BMW wireless chargers breaking Apple Pay and the BMW digital key feature in posts on Reddit, Apple’s Support community, and MacRumors’ own forums.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Apple Says BMW Wireless Chargers Really Are Messing With iPhone 15s
Android users can finally join the realm of the easy login life. Google revealed Monday that Credential Manager will arrive on Android devices beginning Nov. 1, ushering in the next phase of the company’s conversion to passkeys. This also means Android users will finally have the iPhone’s FaceID-like unlocking…
Source: Gizmodo – Android Users to Get Apple-like Login Features This Week
NYU is launching a project to spur the development of immersive 3D video for dance education — and perhaps other areas. Boosted by a $1.2 million four-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the undertaking will try to make Point-Cloud Video (PCV) tech viable for streaming.
A point cloud is a set of data points in a 3D space representing the surface of a subject or environment. NYU says Point-Cloud Video, which strings together point-cloud frames into a moving scene, has been under development for the last decade. However, it’s typically too data-intensive for practical purposes, requiring bandwidth far beyond the capabilities of today’s connected devices.
The researchers plan to address those obstacles by “reducing bandwidth consumption and delivery latency, and increasing power consumption efficiency so that PCVs can be streamed far more easily,” according to an NYU Engineering blog post published Monday. Project leader Yong Liu, an NYU electrical and computer engineering professor, believes modern breakthroughs make that possible. “With recent advances in the key enabling technologies, we are now at the verge of completing the puzzle of teleporting holograms of real-world humans, creatures and objects through the global Internet,” Liu wrote on Monday.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI launched a model last year that can create 3D point clouds from text prompts. Engadget reached out to the project leader to clarify whether it or other generative AI tools are part of the process, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.
The team will test the technology with the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance Center. Dancers from both organizations will perform on a volumetric capture stage. The team will stream their movements live and on-demand, offering educational content for aspiring dancers looking to study from high-level performers — and allowing engineers to test and tweak their PCV technology.
The researchers envision the work opening doors to more advanced VR and mixed reality streaming content. “The success of the proposed research will contribute towards wide deployment of high quality and robust PCV streaming systems that facilitate immersive augmented, virtual and mixed reality experience and create new opportunities in many domains, including education, business, healthcare and entertainment,” Liu said.
“Point-Cloud Video holds tremendous potential to transform a range of industries, and I’m excited that the research team at NYU Tandon prioritized dance education to reap those benefits early,” said Jelena Kovačević, NYU Tandon Dean.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nyu-is-developing-3d-streaming-video-tech-with-the-help-of-its-dance-department-211947160.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – NYU is developing 3D streaming video tech with the help of its dance department
Linus Torvalds announced today the final release of the Linux 6.6 kernel series as a major update that introduces several new features, updated and new drivers for better hardware support, and other changes.
Source: LXer – Linux Kernel 6.6 Officially Released, This Is What’s New
Enlarge / Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai departs federal court on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. Pichai testified on Monday to defend his company in the largest antitrust case since the 1990s. The US government is seeking to prove that Alphabet’s Google Inc. maintains an illegal monopoly in the online search business. The trial is expected to last into November. (credit: Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images North America)
Google’s star witness in the Justice Department’s monopoly trial, Sundar Pichai, took the stand on Monday. The Google CEO finally admitted that his company pays as much as $26.3 billion annually to set its search engine as the default in browsers and mobile devices because those default placements can be “very valuable,” The Financial Times reported.
When “done correctly,” Pichai testified, these deals “can make a difference.” The Apple deal, Pichai said, is one such scenario because it “makes it very, very seamless and easy” for Safari users to use Google’s services,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
“We know that making it the default will lead to increased usage of our products and services, particularly Google search in this case,” Pichai said. “So, there is clear value in that and that’s what we were looking for.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Sundar Pichai explained why Apple gets paid so much more for its default deal
In It Follows, an unstoppable entity stalks its victims to the ends of the Earth. It’s slow, steady, and it can’t be stopped. So it’s almost fitting that while it took a long time, now, after a 10-year wait, a sequel is finally on its way to us.
Source: Gizmodo – The Terrifying It Follows Is Finally Getting a Sequel
The PlayStation Pulse Explore earbuds will be available on Dec. 6, allowing holiday shoppers just enough time to grab the wireless, low-latency buds for $199.99, Sony revealed Monday. The earbuds will be the only Bluetooth headphones on the market compatible with the PlayStation Portal, Sony’s upcoming portable gaming…
Source: Gizmodo – Sony PlayStation Wireless Earbuds Set to Release Just in Time for the Holidays
10 years ago, Ubisoft launched Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, an open-world pirate-themed RPG that set the stage for the modern iteration of the long-running series by revitalizing its open-world exploration and adding remarkable naval combat. And in that time, millions of people have played the game.
Source: Kotaku – 34 Million People Have Played The Best Assassin’s Creed Ever
After traveling millions of miles over the past two years, the Lucy spacecraft has almost reached its first destination. NASA’s asteroid probe will briefly rendezvous with Dinkinesh in the main asteroid belt on Wednesday to prepare for its future visits of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA’s Lucy Ready to Explore Its First Asteroid This Week
Enlarge (credit: Henry Sharpe / AMNH)
In 2015, Deborah Shepherd returned to the site where she and other volunteers had worked on a public fossil dig with family members. That’s when she saw it: a fossil lying there, exposed on the surface. Most people would not have recognized it for what it was: It wasn’t a skull, a leg bone, or even a partial jaw. It was just a chunk of bone.
Shepherd immediately notified a park ranger. That ranger then notified the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. Her actions ultimately led to the discovery of what scientists say is not only a new species, but an entirely new genus of mosasaur, a giant marine predator from Late Cretaceous seas. Bite marks preserved on the fossil also suggest that it met its end at the hands—or rather teeth—of another mosasaur.
The new mosasaur was described Monday in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Jǫrmungandr walhallaensis, or “Jorgie” for short, is the name suggested by co-author Clint Boyd, and it’s steeped in Norse mythology. Jǫrmungandr is the name of a sea serpent who circles the world with its body, clasping its tail in its jaws.
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Source: Ars Technica – Fossil found on the side of the road is a new species of mosasaur
After just one weekend in theaters, Five Nights At Freddy’s is already breaking records and racking up an impressive $130 million at the global box office since releasing on October 27 to less-than-stellar reviews.
Source: Kotaku – Despite Negative Reviews, Five Nights At Freddy’s Film Killing At The Box Office
If the ship’s going down, at least the employees all get a piece of the pie. As X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) continues to devalue itself with decisions that are scaring off advertisers and pissing off users, owner Elon Musk is at least willing to offer some stock to company employees.
Source: io9 – As Banks Write Down X, Musk Offers Employee Stock Options
