If you are still using the same email address for everything, it’s time to diversify. Don’t make the mistake I made for too long, clogging up one inbox with absolute nonsense unrelated to the things you actually want to receive and read. You likely already have separate emails for your job, school, and personal life,…
Source: LifeHacker – All the Different Email Addresses You Should Set Up (and What to Use Them For)
Qualcomm has just announced its new S7 and S7 Pro Gen 1 Snapdragon Sound platforms at its Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii today. The company’s most advanced audio platforms are designed for earbuds, headphones, and speakers, as well as various smart audio devices.
On-Device AI Processing And New Connectivity Tech
According to Qualcomm, the new
Source: Hot Hardware – Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon Sound S7 Series With XPAN For Ubiquitous HiFi Jams
Since AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx and working to broaden the portfolio of offerings for the data center, more AMD-Xilinx drivers have been working their way toward the mainline Linux kernel. There’s been upstreaming efforts such as the Versal EDAC driver, generating DeviceTree nodes for PCI devices, Versal watchdog driver, QDMA driver, CDX bus support, and more. The latest driver working its way toward the mainline kernel from AMD is the AXI 1-wire driver…
Source: Phoronix – AXI 1-Wire Driver Is AMD’s Latest Upstreaming Effort To The Linux Kernel
Enlarge / Fish-eating kingfishers execute plunging dives into the water to capture prey, yet never seem to get concussed. (credit: Richard Towell)
There are many different species of kingfisher, and those that eat fish hunt by repeatedly diving head-first into the water when they spot tasty prey without suffering brain injuries like concussions. It turns out that diving kingfishers have several modified genes associated with diet and brain structure, according to a new paper published in the journal Communications Biology—notably mutations in genes related to the tau proteins that help stabilize neuron structure, although they can be harmful if too many build up.
“I learned a lot about tau proteins when I was the concussion manager of my son’s hockey team,” said co-author Shannon Hackett, associate curator of birds at the Field Museum. “I started to wonder, why don’t kingfishers die because their brains turn to mush? There’s gotta be something they’re doing that protects them from the negative influences of repeatedly landing on their heads on the water’s surface.”
It’s not the first time scientists have pondered this question, not just for kingfishers, but for other birds like gannets and woodpeckers. For instance, physicists at Virginia Tech studied diving gannets back in 2014 (publishing their conclusions in 2016), which fold their wings back as they dive, hitting the water with their whole body to snag underwater prey. From a physics standpoint, we’re talking about an elastic body hitting the surface of water as fast as 55 MPH. The stress of moving from the medium of air to the much denser medium of water exerts a huge force on the bird’s body, with an impact akin to tornadoes hitting the water. Yet despite the stress on their bodies, gannets (like the kingfisher) manage the feat again and again without injury, especially concussions.
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Source: Ars Technica – How do kingfishers avoid concussions when diving? It might be in their genes
Action role-playing game Diablo IV wants fans to bleed for it. Really. The demon dungeon-crawler announced on October 20 that, for the next month, players can donate their actual blood in exchange for in-game items and, ultimately, for the chance to win a liquid-cooled PC infused with more human blood.
Source: Kotaku – Diablo IV Sweepstakes Requires 666 Quarts Of Human Blood
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will look to add child psychologists to its staff to advise its efforts on regulating the internet. Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said the FTC plans to add a psychologist to its staff by next fall, if not sooner, and said he is embarrassed he hasn’t previously focused on how…
Source: Gizmodo – FTC Plans to Add Child Psychologists to Address Internet’s Impact on Kid’s Mental Health
Mac computer and iPhone maker Apple on Tuesday will announce plans to make parts, tools and documentation needed to repair its products available to independent repair shops and consumers nationwide, at fair and reasonable prices, the White House said. From a report: National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard made the announcement in remarks prepared for a White House event later Tuesday focused on the so-called “right to repair,” calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring such action across the country.
The event is part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s push to promote competition and crack down on so-called junk fees and other actions that increase prices for consumers. The latest effort is aimed at giving consumers more control over fixing what they own, from tractors to smart phones. Brainard said California, Colorado, New York and Minnesota had already passed right to repair laws, and 30 other states had introduced similar legislation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Apple To Make Tools and Parts To Fix Phones and Computers Available Nationwide, White House Says
It’s an inescapable fact that genre fiction is littered with tropes. Tropes provide something of a backbone to almost any story you will ever read, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. They are the thing we writers use to ground our stories before drenching them in weird locals and unfathomable magic. From the…
Source: Gizmodo – The Ageless Allure of Found Family in Science Fiction and Fantasy
What exactly makes a movie a “classic” varies wildly and with the viewer, as does the appropriate timescale. For some, a movie from a decade ago might be eligible (I call these movie fans “children”). For others, you have to go back a lot further.
Today, I’m going to do the latter, taking a look at some of the great…
Source: LifeHacker – The 45 Best Classic Movies (1970s and Earlier) You Can Stream Right Now
An encouraging new study has found that the interference from exoplanets—planets that orbit stars outside our solar system—has been overestimated in searches for extraterrestrial signals.
Source: Gizmodo – We’ve Underestimated Our Ability to Spot Alien Signals From Exoplanets
The lakeFS project got its start back in 2020 and has been steadily improving in the years since, providing an open source technology to help organizations with version control for object storage based data, stored in data lakes.
Source: LXer – Open Source lakeFS data version control levels up to 1.0
Google says Samsung Wallet is spying on you! (It isn’t.) [credit:
User 7072490759456883590
]
Most Android users have probably never seen Google Play Protect in action. The malware-scanning service is built into every Android device and is supposed to flag malware that users have installed. Recently it flagged some popular apps that are very much not malware: Samsung Wallet and Samsung Messages.
As spotted by 9to5Google, Samsung users have been getting hit with Play Protect warnings since earlier this month. Users on the Google Support forum have posted screenshots of Play Protect flagging the Samsung system apps, and even Samsung responded to the issue, explaining (in Korean) how to fix any damage caused by the bug. Samsung says (through translation) the issue was caused by “a temporary failure of the Google server” and should now be fixed.
Samsung Wallet and Samsung Messages both come bundled with most Samsung phones as system apps, so they have a wide install base. When Play Protect flags an app as harmful, it pops up a message suggesting users remove the app, but since these are both system apps, users can only disable them.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google falsely flags Samsung apps as “harmful,” tells users to remove them
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced Tuesday that it has suspended GM-owned Cruise’s permits to operate driverless vehicles in the state — effective immediately. The suspension was based on several safety-related issues. It isn’t yet clear if the move is directly related to an incident earlier this month when a Cruise robotaxi pinned a pedestrian under its tire in San Francisco after another car’s hit-and-run.
According to an emailed statement the California DMV supplied to Engadget, the suspension was based on safety-related regulations. These include:
13 CCR §228.20 (b) (6) – Based upon the performance of the vehicles, the Department determines the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation.
13 CCR §228.20 (b) (3) – The manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.
13 CCR §227.42 (b)(5) – Any act or omission of the manufacturer or one of its agents, employees, contractors, or designees which the department finds makes the conduct of autonomous vehicle testing on public roads by the manufacturer an unreasonable risk to the public.
13 CCR §227.42 (c)- The department shall immediately suspend or revoke the Manufacturer’s Testing Permit or a Manufacturer’s Testing Permit – Driverless Vehicles if a manufacturer is engaging in a practice in such a manner that immediate suspension is required for the safety of persons on a public road.
The CA DMV says it has supplied Cruise with a path back to driverless operation in the state. “The DMV has provided Cruise with the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits, which the DMV will not approve until the company has fulfilled the requirements to the department’s satisfaction,” the statement reads. The agency added that the suspension doesn’t affect Cruise’s ability to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver.
Cruise and Waymo received approval from California regulators earlier this year to operate and charge fares for fully autonomous cars in San Francisco at any time of the day. But the DMV asked the company in August to rein in its fleet by half, citing an investigation into crashes involving the autonomous vehicles. At the time, Cruise agreed to operate no more than 50 robotaxis in San Francisco during the day and at most 150 of them at night. However, today’s move abruptly stops those agreements, at least temporarily ceasing all safety-driverless autonomous operations in California until further notice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/california-dmv-suspends-cruises-driverless-permits-181110566.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – California DMV suspends Cruise’s driverless permits
The crowded field of Twitter clones has just winnowed a bit, as Pebble has officially exited the game, announced via an email to Engadget. The social media site, formerly called T2 Social, was actually created by ex-Twitter employees and this announcement occurs just five weeks after the rebrand to Pebble.
The company is transparent when it comes to the reasoning behind the closure, saying “we were not growing quickly enough for investors to believe that we will break out.” Pebble also noted the crowded field of competitors and the “uphill climb” to garner traffic and sustained use. It simply needed more time to “build out a complete Pebble”, but investors put the kibosh on that idea.
Though the app’s going the way of the dodo, current users will be given some time to login and download their personal archives. Just head to account settings on the web version and look for an option marked “wrap it up please.” Additionally, the company says this might not be the absolute end for Pebble, suggesting that folks “stay tuned” for a potential reinvention of the platform at some point in the future.
Pebble was committed to Twitter’s original mission of becoming a “public town square” and even tried to lure verified Twitter users by allowing them to keep their checkmarks. The app’s shutdown suggests this strategy didn’t work. Good night, sweet prince.
In the meantime, there are still plenty of Twit-alikes out there for those looking to escape endless porn bot scam accounts commenting on every single post you make and blue check bozos bloviating about nonsense. There are the big apps, like Threads and Bluesky, but also Mastodon, Post, Spoutible, Spill, Hive Social, CounterSocial and that Trump one, among others. The last day to post on Pebble is November 1.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitter-clone-pebble-is-shutting-down-just-five-weeks-after-a-rebrand-180707578.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Twitter clone Pebble is shutting down just five weeks after a rebrand
A search engine that uses facial recognition to help people scan billions of images to find their photos strewn across the Internet has officially banned searches of minors, The New York Times reported. The move comes after years of criticism from privacy experts, media outlets, and regulators, warning that tech like PimEyes could be abused to stalk children online.
PimEyes CEO Giorgi Gobronidze told The Times that in addition to setting a “no harm policy,” the company has also implemented new AI age-detection technology to detect and block searches of minors. This update is due to privacy concerns that “images of children might be used by [some] individuals with a twisted moral compass and values, such as pedophiles, child predators,” Gobronidze said. Critics had long warned that PimEyes’ tech made it easy to upload a photo of any child and quickly find other photos or discover their name and address.
By design, PimEyes is supposed to make it easy for people to figure out where their own photos have been posted online, but PimEyes has no way to stop people from searching for photos of other people, The Times reported. The platform’s “data security unit” has monitored suspicious activity in the past by flagging any upload of a child’s photo or detecting when male users repeatedly search for photos of women, the BBC reported. Gobronidze confirmed to The Times that out of 118,000 searches per day of PimEyes’ database of 3 billion images, the company has detected and banned more than 200 accounts conducting “inappropriate searches of children’s faces.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Search engine that scans billions of faces tries blocking kids from results
Downloading Chrome using Microsoft Edge is already a nightmare filled with banners and stop-gaps, and nothing seems to be stopping Microsoft from adding even more. From a report: Last weekend, we noticed that an attempt to download Google Chrome using Microsoft Edge results in the latter opening its sidebar with a poll, asking you to explain to Microsoft how you could dare try downloading Google Chrome. Of course, the exact wording is more tame, but you get the idea. Now, besides dismissing several banners and a full-size ad injected on the Chrome website, Edge wants you to answer a questionnaire with the following options:
We love having you!
Can you please take a minute to tell us why you are trying another browser?
I can’t search Google easily
I can’t access my Google documents
I don’t have my favorites or passwords here
Too many ads and pop-ups
I don’t like the news feed
It’s too slow
My websites don’t work on Microsoft Edge
My reason is not listed
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Now Wants You To Take a Poll Before Installing Google Chrome
We’ve already recommended you the very best ways to dress up Peter Parker for the most stylish city traversal, but what about his partner-in-crime-fighting, Miles Morales? Worry not, for here we’ve collated the ten best ways to dress to impress the denizens of New York City.
Source: Kotaku – Miles Morales’ 10 Best-Looking Suits In Spider-Man 2
Apple’s Focus feature lets you reduce distractions on your iPhone when you need to, well, focus. A Focus can be used to block notifications from everyone except your significant other, or to automatically enable Do Not Disturb (DND) the moment it’s bedtime. And you can use “Share Focus Status” to make this feature…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Share Your Focus Status on iPhone (and Why You’d Want To)
Nightdive Studios has revealed when you’ll be able to check out its remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces. The latest version of the first-person shooter is scheduled to hit PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC on February 29, 2024.
The Nightdive team used its KEX engine to revitalize Star Wars: Dark Forces for modern gaming platforms, on which it will be able to run at up to 4K resolution at 120fps. The studio is promising updated lighting and atmospheric effects thanks to advanced 3D rendering. Controller users can take advantage of a weapon wheel and rumble features, along with gyro controls. Of course, you’ll be able to earn trophies and achievements too.
Mark your calendars… Star Wars™: Dark Forces Remaster is set to release on February 28, 2024 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC! 💫✨ pic.twitter.com/jjnrlSpz5h
— Nightdive Studios (@NightdiveStudio) October 24, 2023
LucasArts originally released the first FPS game in the Star Wars franchise in 1995. The game sees you take control of Kyle Katarn, a mercenary who joins the Rebel Alliance after defecting from the Galactic Empire. Katarn discovers that the Empire is developing the Dark Trooper Project, under which it’s attempting to amass an army of battle droids and stormtroopers with power armor. As far as gameplay goes, it was one of many titles from around that time that took a page (or 12) out of Doom‘s playbook.
Nightdive is well known for modernizing old games for new consoles. The studio also has remasters of System Shock 2 and Turok 3 in the pipeline.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-star-wars-dark-forces-remaster-will-arrive-on-february-28-2024-175502427.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The Star Wars: Dark Forces remaster will arrive on February 28, 2024
Ever wondered where the creepy clowns—the most unsettling part of Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC found-footage horror series—came from? Enter Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, the fourth film in the series, which follows an internet sleuth whose cold-case digging unearths fresh frights.
Source: Gizmodo – Hell House LLC Finds Life After Death in a New Origin Story
