Teachers are typically familiar with project-based learning—it’s a popular classroom technique. But it’s less well-known among students, which is a shame. Because even if you’re studying on your own, there are ways to modify this approach to enhance your own understanding of subjects. It’s all about finding real-world…
Source: LifeHacker – Use ‘Project-Based Learning’ to Study on Your Own
BioWare laid off 50 employees at the end of August. Mary Kirby was one of them. A 17-year veteran of the studio beloved for its story-driven RPGs, Kirby has worked on every Dragon Age game, and her contributions have shown up in some of the series’ most memorable characters and questlines. The franchise is estimated…
Source: Kotaku – Ex-Dragon Age Devs Sue BioWare Over Denying Full Severance
Patreon announced a rebranding of its platform through a series of updates on Wednesday. New features give creators more personalization and control while offering supporters more ways to follow their favorites. In addition, the platform is integrating more free content, allowing every creator to host communities non-paying members can access. Patreon also tweaked its branding with a new logo, color themes, photography and fonts.
Perhaps the most notable update for creators is the ability to bolster their communities for free members. Creators can now let people join for free, offering content and updates for non-paying members while (optionally) hiding things like early access to podcasts or videos behind a paywall. They can also use a new commerce tool to sell individual pieces of content like recordings, videos and downloadable files. It makes the platform more of an all-in-one social hub for fans who aren’t ready to pay but may decide to later.
Patreon frames its changes as moving creators away from being prisoners to algorithms and back to connecting directly with their most eager and loyal fans. The company says those with early access to the program attracted over 160,000 new fans to their communities.
Creators now have greater customization over their pages, including their layout, colors and how posts display. “Whether you’re highlighting your most popular posts, organizing your podcast episodes into seasons, or putting together a video series, you have the creative freedom to arrange and present your work in a way that helps your members dive into exactly what they’re looking for and discover new posts to love,” the company wrote in a blog post. Patreon says early testing shows increased discovery and engagement (especially on older posts) when featured in one of the new collections.
Patreon is also adding chats and member profiles. “Chats are led and managed by creators, which means they can shape the culture and set the right tone for their communities,” the company wrote in a post announcing the features. Members can report problematic messages, and creators will have a hub to review them.
Finally, the Patreon app is getting a redesign. The company says the updated app is crafted for the most hardcore fans, prioritizing their experience. Fans’ homepages will now display content as creators arranged it instead of chronologically. “Instead of dropping into a content overload, members log in and instantly see everything they want at a glance,” the company wrote about the new app. “Their homepage is organized by creator, not by post, which means fans can see a creator’s latest work next to their community conversations and anything else going on in their world. It’s creativity in context, the way creators intended.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/patreon-overhauls-its-platform-with-free-content-and-more-creator-control-202357279.html?src=rss
It’s no secret that the crossover between video games and professional wrestling, be it through the hilarious signs fans bring to events or the intricate wardrobes stars wear into the ring, is a strong one. As such, it’s hardly surprising to learn that WWE’s Randy Orton is an avid gamer who plays Elden Ring on his…
Source: Kotaku – WWE’s Randy Orton Paid Someone ,000 To Level Up His Elden Ring Character
Enlarge / iPhones running iOS 17. (credit: Apple)
When Apple released its statement about iPhone 15 Pro overheating issues earlier this week, the company indicated that an iOS update would be able to partially address that issue. That update has arrived today in the form of iOS 17.0.3, an update which claims to address “an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,” as well as patching a pair of security exploits.
Apple also said that specific apps like Instagram and Uber were also causing phones to heat up and that it was working with developers on fixes. The iPhonedo YouTube channel recently demonstrated that version 302.0 of the Instagram app running on iOS 17 could also make iPhone 14 Pro phones and even an iPad Pro run hot, confirming that the issue wasn’t unique to the new phones.
Initial reports claimed that the iPhone 15 Pro’s new Apple A17 Pro chip, its new 3 nm manufacturing process, and/or the phone’s new titanium frame could be causing or exacerbating the heat problems. Apple has denied these claims. Even after the fix, you can still expect a new iPhone to run a bit warm during and immediately after initial setup, as it downloads apps and data and performs other background tasks.
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Source: Ars Technica – Apple fixes overheating problems and 0-day security flaw with iOS 17.0.3 update
Today, during Blizzard’s Diablo IV Developer Update livestream, members of the game’s dev team dove right into the myriad changes expected to arrive with the game’s next big update: Season of Blood. But tweaks to loot drops and XP rewards won’t be the only new experience for PC players, as the game is now confirmed to…
Source: Kotaku – Diablo IV Is Coming To Steam In 2 Weeks
Microsoft is not a friend of “Open Source”. GitHub is a proprietary prison which besieges Open Source (or “Inner Source”) projects and Microsoft continues to lobby against the adoption of Free software, including what it wrongly labels because Microsoft is a Trojan horse.
Source: LXer – Openwashing by Microsoft is a Threat to Your Freedom
Enlarge / Claus Scholz is offered tea and moral encouragement by his robots, MM7 and MM8, also known as “Psychotrons,” in 1950 Vienna. This could be us, but many home automation platforms are only playing at being helpful. (credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Google today released a new Android OS with some modest improvements, a smartwatch with an old-but-still-newer chip, and a Pixel 8 whose biggest new feature is seven years of updates. But buried inside all the Google news this week is something that could be genuinely, actually helpful to the humans who get into this kind of gear—help for people setting up automations in their homes.
It’s easy to buy smart home gear, and it’s occasionally easy to set it up, but figuring out all the ways that devices can work with one another can be daunting. Even smart home systems with robust scripting abilities mostly let users develop great ideas for connecting two or more devices. That’s where, according to Google, AI can help.
Google says it will use AI (the company’s broad definition of AI, at least) at two different levels. At an app level, Google Home can start condensing all the notifications from cameras, sensors, and other devices into a streamlined summary, patched together by generative AI, and which you can respond to with natural language.
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Source: Ars Technica – Setting up home automation is rough. Google, shockingly, has good ideas for it
Learn how to install the open-source Reddit-like content aggregator and microblogging platform for the fediverse Kbin on Ubuntu 22.04.
The post How to Install Kbin on Ubuntu 22.04 appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – How to Install Kbin on Ubuntu 22.04
A notorious group of hackers blamed for recent breaches on major casino companies is also suspected of being behind a recent cyberattack against Clorox that has led to a nationwide shortage of its cleaning products. Bloomberg News: Officials suspect that “Scattered Spider” is responsible for a breach that Clorox first disclosed in August, according to four people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The same group, known for its so-called social engineering tactics, was tied to attacks on Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International in recent weeks, Bloomberg News previously reported.
Scattered Spider hackers specialize in targeting call centers and IT help desks, impersonating employees to trick support staff into coughing up information to gain access to accounts. The fallout from their recent attacks has been profound. At MGM properties, guests couldn’t charge purchases to their rooms, slot machines were shut down and reservation websites weren’t working. The impact on Clorox was arguably much worse. The company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. On Friday, Clorox indicated that it was still working to recover from the disruption. “We are ramping up production and working to restock trade inventories,” the company said in a statement. “We are focusing on maximizing shipments and restocking trade inventories.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Clorox Security Breach Linked to Group Behind Casino Hacks
You can get two three-year AdGuard subscriptions on sale for $29.99 right now—the first subscription is for AdGuard VPN, and the second is for AdGuard Ad Blocker. The VPN connects to 10 different devices and is compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. Its servers span 60 locations across 53 countries, and…
Source: LifeHacker – AdGuard VPN Is for Three Years Right Now
Samsung released its 2023 foldables just a couple of months ago, but already there’s a new raft of Samsung hardware. The Korean consumer electronics giant has revealed the Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Tab S9 FE, and the Galaxy Buds FE. These mid-range devices undercut the mainline S-series on price, but you can still expect most of the same features.
In
Source: Hot Hardware – Samsung Unveils Galaxy S23 FE With Upgrade Path To Android 17, New Buds And Tablet Too
Forget about switching into a different holiday mode when October is over—November is going to keep Halloween alive thanks to a theatrical re-release of 2022 horror breakout Terrifer 2. And there’s more enticement than big-screen extreme gore: fans can expect their first eyeball-gouging tease of Terrifier 3.
Source: Gizmodo – Horror Sensation Terrifer 2 Returning to Theaters With a Terrifer 3 Tease
Enlarge / A courtroom sketch of Sam Bankman-Fried in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday. (credit: AP)
Sam Bankman-Fried has been painted as a “cartoon villain” by prosecutors whose case depends largely on hindsight, the former crypto tycoon’s lawyers told a Manhattan jury on Wednesday as they laid out their defense at the start of the hotly anticipated criminal trial.
In opening arguments earlier on Wednesday, US prosecutors had accused Bankman-Fried of committing “fraud on a massive scale,” lying to investors, lenders and customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchanges.
“This man stole billions of dollars from thousands of people,” assistant US attorney Thane Rehn told jurors, pointing forcefully at Bankman-Fried, who sat impassively at the defense table.
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Source: Ars Technica – Sam Bankman-Fried lawyer complains US portrays him as “cartoon villain”
Tree planting projects seem like a great climate solution—lots of trees can sequester lots of carbon that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere. But, surprise surprise, it turns out you can’t just plop any old tree into the ground and expect to reap environmental benefits, new research finds.
Source: Gizmodo – How Planting Artificial Forests Could Backfire
Open enrollment for the next U.S. healthcare plan year kicks off Nov. 1—and the process can be overwhelming, to say the least. As you review your employer-provided health insurance options, it’s easy to make mistakes that could negatively impact your coverage and costs for the next year. Even if you consider yourself…
Source: LifeHacker – Avoid These Common Mistakes During Open Enrollment
While Intel’s Arc Alchemist series is almost exclusively known for the Arc A750 and Arc A770, which are midrange gaming GPUs, there are several other members of the family, and now there’s another one you can get at retail: the Arc A310. The A310 technically launched late last year, right alongside the A750, but it was an OEM-only graphics
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Arc A310 GPU Makes Its US Debut And Is Super Affordable, Should You Buy It?
The Bezos-Musk rivalry intensifies this week as Amazon gears up for the launch of two demo internet satellites. This marks the beginning of the Amazon billionaire’s 3,236-satellite-strong megaconstellation that might one day compete with Musk’s leading space-based service, SpaceX—with “one day” being the operative…
Source: Gizmodo – Amazon Prepares to Challenge SpaceX’s Starlink With Maiden Satellite Launch
Tsubame Industries’ Archax robot. [credit:
Robot Start/YouTube
]
Robots are already cleaning our homes and patrolling our cities. Now, they’re ready to embody our favorite mecha-themed science fiction indulgences—if you have 400 million yen (about $2.7 million) to splurge.
Tsubame Industries, a Tokyo-based startup, currently has five Archax units, a pilotable robot, available for preorder, as reported by Reuters this week. Tsubame unveiled the robot this summer and plans on demoing the robot at the Japan Mobility Show from October 26 through November 5. Tsubame won’t just have a giant robot on display; the robot will demonstrate movement of its upper body and arms, according to a Google translation of an August report from Japanese publication Robot Start.
Built with human-like proportions, Archax has moving rear legs and front legs and uses front-wheel steering. It also has a movable head (left and right), waist (left and right), shoulders (up and down), elbows, wrists, and fingers.
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Source: Ars Technica – Archax is a .7 million pilotable robot for the ultra-wealthy
Apple is telling users they can finally take their iPhone 15 models out of the freezer. The company released an iOS patch Wednesday with the stated purpose of fixing some bug that’s making the phones run hotter than they should.
Source: Gizmodo – Apple Releases Update to Fix Your Overheating iPhone 15 Pro
