As if the movies themselves didn’t make it more than obvious, fans have long come to understand that the Star Wars sequel trilogy changed drastically throughout development. Multiple writers and directors worked on The Force Awakens as well as The Rise of Skywalker, sometimes with radically different results, while The…
Source: Gizmodo – Kylo Ren Wasn’t Originally Supposed to Become Ben Solo Again
Learn about the new minimal snap-free option in Lubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat with additional new features and updates.
Source: LXer – Lubuntu 24.04 LTS Plans for Snap-Free Minimal Option
The era of streaming services being reticent to share viewership information appears to be ending, as Netflix, one of the biggest in the biz, is now touting the arrival of its twice-yearly “What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report.”
Source: Gizmodo – Netflix Releases Its First ‘What We Watched’ Report Following Union Win
Dune: Part Two is the next chapter in director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel.
We didn’t get to see Dune: Part Two—the second film in director Denis Villeneuve’s stunning adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic—last month as originally planned since the film’s November release was delayed until next March due to the Hollywood strikes. But Warner Bros. doesn’t want us to completely forget about Dune in the meantime, so it dropped another trailer for the holiday season.
(Spoilers for Dune: Part One below.)
As reported previously (also here and here), Herbert’s novel Dune is set in the distant future and follows the fortunes of various noble houses in what amounts to a feudal interstellar society. Much of the action takes place on the planet Arrakis, where the economy is driven largely by a rare, life-extending drug called melange (“the spice”). Melange also conveys a kind of prescience and makes faster-than-light travel practical. There’s betrayal, a prophecy concerning a messianic figure, giant sandworms, and battle upon battle as protagonist Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) contends with rival House Harkonnen and strives to defeat the forces of Shaddam IV, Emperor of the Known Universe.
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Source: Ars Technica – Love blooms in the midst of war in latest trailer for Dune: Part Two
Tomorrow, 12/13/23, at 4:30 PM ET you absolutely should join us LIVE from New York with our friends from Intel, VP & GM of Client Performance Marketing Dan Rogers and Senior Director of Technical Marketing, Robert Hallock.
We’re going to be running new Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake laptops LIVE with these two very special guests!
Hit
Source: Hot Hardware – Exclusive First Look At Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra Performance With Intel!
Valve has a message to all you folks (myself included) who love huffing your Steam Deck exhaust fumes: Stop it. Please.
Source: Kotaku – Valve To Steam Deck Owners: Stop Huffing Its Vent Fumes
Konstantin Ryabitsev has announced
that the movement of kernel mailing lists away from the venerable
vger.kernel.org system is nearly complete:
Over the past few months we’ve migrated all of the vger.kernel.org
mailing lists, with the exception of the Big One (linux-kernel, aka
LKML). This list alone is responsible for about 80% of all vger
mailing list traffic, so we left it for the last.This Thursday, December 14, at 11AM Pacific (19:00 UTC), we will
switch the MX record for vger to point to the new location
(subspace.kernel.org), which will complete the mailing list
migration from the legacy vger server to the new infrastructure.
Source: LWN.net – The end of vger.kernel.org
Broadcom has moved forward with plans to transition VMware, a virtualization and cloud computing company, into a subscription-based business. As of December 11, it no longer sells perpetual licenses with VMware products. VMware, whose $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom closed in November, also announced on Monday that it will no longer sell support and subscription (SnS) for VMware products with perpetual licenses. Moving forward, VMware will only offer term licenses or subscriptions, according to its VMware blog post.
VMware customers with perpetual licenses and active support contracts can continue using them. VMware “will continue to provide support as defined in contractual commitments,” Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Cloud Foundation Division, wrote. But when customers’ SnS terms end, they won’t have any support.
Broadcom hopes this will force customers into subscriptions, and it’s offering “upgrade pricing incentives” that weren’t detailed in the blog for customers who switch from perpetual licensing to a subscription.
Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Broadcom ends VMware perpetual license sales, testing customers and partners
Snapchat’s first foray into AI wasn’t exactly a success. It started with “My AI,” an AI chatbot that lives at the top of your Snapchat chats, back in April, and people weren’t happy. For one, you couldn’t get rid of it, so you had to deal with the chatbot in your app whether you were interested in it or not. Plus, there was a concern that the bot was lying about having access to your location. That wasn’t exactly the case, but the damage was done.
Eight months later, and My AI lives on. Not only that, Snapchat is doubling down on its AI efforts. The company announced on Tuesday that it would be rolling out a dedicated AI image generator for Snapchat+ subscribers. If you’ve used one of these before, such as Meta’s recently released generator, you know the drill: When you tap the new AI button on Snapchat, you can prompt the bot to generate whatever image comes to mind. Give it a simple prompt, or something complex, and the bot will try its best to replicate it. You can send these AI images like regular snaps, too: Your friends might open your snap assuming to see your face, only to be met by an AI abomination. Snapchat+ users previously had the option to generate AI images for their My AI chat wallpaper, but this is a full-fledge image generator.
But it isn’t just image generation that’s getting an AI boost in Snapchat+. When you take a snap, you’ll now see a new “Extend” option. Use this button when you think you’ve taken a photo too close to your subject, and Snapchat will use AI to “zoom” out, filling in the space with generative images. Dreams, Snapchat’s AI selfie feature, is now collaborative. You can add your friends to your AI selfies, and you’ll receive an eight-pack for free once a month.
These features are all exclusive to Snapchat+, Snap’s paid tier. You can subscribe for $3.99 per month, or $29.99 per year. But will these features be enough to convince you to actually pay for Snapchat? Personally, I’m about this close to deleting the app because their notifications are so spammy lately; thank goodness for notification settings.
Source: LifeHacker – Even Snapchat Has an AI Image Generator Now
The story of Canonical’s takeover of the LXD container manager, and the
subsequent creation of the Incus fork, has been
simmering for a while. Now Incus developer Stéphane Graber reports
that Canonical has changed the license and contribution terms for LXD:
Per the commit message performing the re-licensing, all further
contributions will be under the AGPLv3 license and all
contributions from Canonical employees have been re-licensed to
AGPLv3.However, Canonical does not own the copyright on any contribution
from non-employees, such as the many changes they have imported
from Incus over the past few months. Those therefore remain under
the Apache2 license that they were contributed under.As a result, Canonical cannot release LXD under the AGPLv3 license
and likely never will be able to. LXD is now under a weird mix of
Apache2 and AGPLv3 with no clear metadata indicating what file or
what part of each file is under one license or the other.
He also notes that this change will put an end to the flow of patches — in
either direction — between the two projects.
Source: LWN.net – Graber: LXD now re-licensed and under a CLA
Netflix has published the first of a new twice-a-year engagement report called “What We Watched.” The first installment, launched Tuesday as a Microsoft Excel file, lists the hours viewed for every title (original and licensed) that has tallied more than 50,000 viewing hours. Although it’s an uneven performance comparison since episodic series will rack up many more hours than standalone films, this is the first ultra-detailed glimpse at what people watch on Netflix.
The first spreadsheet, covering January to June 2023, includes 18,214 entries of eligible content. The first season of the action-thriller series The Night Agent: Season 1 sat comfortably at the top with 812,100,000 hours during that period. Following (far behind) in second place was season two of the drama Ginny & Georgia (665,100,000 hours). Rounding out the top five are season one of The Glory (622,800,000), the inaugural season of the Jenny Ortega-led Wednesday (507,700,000) and the limited prequel series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (503,000,000).
The J.Lo action flick The Mother was the top-ranked movie on the list, raking in 249,900,000 viewing hours and falling at number 20 behind a glut of multi-episode series. Idris Elba’s Luther: The Fallen Sun (209,700,000) came in at 26, while the Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction 2 (201,800,000) slotted in at 29.
In addition to hours viewed, the spreadsheet denotes each title’s release date and whether it’s available globally. For curiosity’s sake, the lowest-ranking globally available item on the list is the 2020 comedy special Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill.
Netflix stressed the importance of not using total hours viewed alone to determine a movie or series’ impact. “Success on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes, and is not determined by hours viewed alone,” the streamer wrote in its announcement blog post. “We have enormously successful movies and TV shows with both lower and higher hours viewed. It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience — and the size of that audience relative to the economics of the title.”
Netflix says the new biannual spreadsheets will combine with its weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists to paint a more comprehensive picture for viewers, creators and industry watchers.
You can rev up Excel or Numbers and download the inaugural Netflix spreadsheet drop here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflixs-first-engagement-report-reveals-its-most-popular-shows-and-movies-214509788.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Netflix’s first engagement report reveals its most popular shows and movies
It might seem contrary to gift-giving norms to present someone with tools meant for housework, but there are simply some neat freaks out there who love cleaning and would be thrilled to get a vacuum or something. Whether or not you understand them, you can get them what they want this year. TikTok is full of recommendations for awesome cleaning supplies, so let’s look at some of the trending tools to make their floors sparkle and their hearts sing.
These tools are getting hyped on TikTok for their ability to clean the dirtiest spots in a home. They’re time- and energy-saving, too, so they make relatively relaxing and considerate gifts.
Electric scrub brushes are very trendy among influencers and CleanTokkers. Your best option is one that does a lot of different things, like this one from Voweek ($42.29). It has four different heads, plus it’s extendable, so they can clean near and far without ever having to bend over.
The O-Cedar EasyWring Mop ($24.49) is the reigning cleaning gadget of TikTok and is also the #1 best selling mop on Amazon. If your gift recipient doesn’t have one yet, you’re about to become the hero of the holidays.
Another solid mop option is the Scratch self-cleaning mop, but it’s sold out on Amazon, probably because it’s super popular on social media. Don’t worry! There are dupes, like the Joymoop mop and bucket ($37.90), which comes with a wringer set and three washable pads.
The Broombi silicone broom is kind of like a squeegee that you can use on both hard flooring and carpet to easily corral dirt, pet hair, crumbs, or whatever else. Plus, it’s satisfying to watch, which is why there are so many videos of people using it.
The kitchen and bathroom always get the most press when it comes to cleaning since they’re dirty in the unhygienic, germ-y way. But you know what? Cleaning a living room is still important, and any true neat freak cares very deeply about how their common spaces look.
If your giftee has a pet, try this bone-shaped sponge from Casabella ($11.25), which removes pet hair from surfaces, looks way cuter than those scary hair rakes, and is—you guessed it—big on TikTok.
The Bissell SteamShot ($36.04) is a standard steam cleaner, which is great, but also has a jet nozzle that can coax dirt out of hard-to-reach spots like windowsills, as seen here.
Splurge on your giftee with a Shark StainStriker ($109), which does wonders for upholstery and can occupy them for hours on end. Here’s the little beast in action.
Some cleaning tools don’t fit neatly into categories but are very useful for specific things. Neat freaks can be particular, so if you’re worried about getting the wrong big cleaning tool, why not try a small, fun one?
SneakErasers ($11.99) remove scuffs and dirt from shoes, plus they come in a 10-pack and are trending right now. Bonus: The cylinder shape of the packaging makes them easy to wrap or stuff in a stocking.
Duster sponges ($6.99 for eight) are also really popular for their ability to clean crumbs and dirt off of basically anything. People love sharing videos of themselves using the ridges to trap crumbs that, frankly, never stood a chance.
Multifunction tech cleaning tools are big online because they help tidy up the devices we use every day. This one from Crysfiy ($9.99) has everything you need to clean under your keyboard keys, inside the crevices of your phone, and the exterior of all your tech. Best of all, it’s not likely your intended gift recipient will already have one. Watch a demonstration here.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Gifts for Neat Freaks, According to TikTok
Enlarge / Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, November 30, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bill Clark )
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republican senators are fighting a Federal Communications Commission plan to impose new data-breach notification requirements on telecom providers. In a letter sent to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel today, the senators claim the pending FCC action would violate a congressional order.
The letter was sent by Cruz, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). They say the proposed data-breach notification rules are preempted by an action Congress took in 2017 to kill an assortment of privacy and security rules issued by the FCC.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was used in 2017 by Congress and then-President Donald Trump to throw out rules that would have required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before using, sharing, or selling Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information.
Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Ted Cruz wants to stop the FCC from updating data-breach notification rules
Jami is one such communication platform that utilizes a distributed network to let you make video calls, share files, communicate via chat, and more. This means that there is no server at all between people.
The post Jami: A Versatile Open-Source Distributed Communication App appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – Jami: A Versatile Open-Source Distributed Communication App
Robot vacuums are great, and whoever tells you otherwise doesn’t own one (or just doesn’t have the right one for their situation). Right now, you’re in the position of potentially gifting someone the power of never needing to vacuum up those day-to-day messes ever again.
The iHome AutoVac Juno Robot Vacuum is the most basic robot vacuum of the bunch for the lowest price. Despite its low price, it still has helpful mapping features and allows for scheduled cleaning times via an app. It also has a drop sensor that helps it from falling down stairs. You’ll also get Google and Alexa support to command it with your voice. The battery boasts 100 minutes of runtime and it’ll automatically go back to the base to charge itself when it needs to. You can get it from Walmart for $85 (originally $199.99). This is the lowest price it’s been over the past four months, according to Honey’s price history.
If you know someone who would love a robot vacuum but you’re not sure exactly what type to go for, the Yeedi Vac is a great overall choice because it has a lot of upgradable features, like mopping and a self-cleaning station. This particular Yeedi has 3,000 Pa suction power, 110 minutes of run time, smart mapping, and cleans in neat rows. You can get it for $110 (originally $299.99) when clicking the $40 coupon on the Amazon page before adding it to your cart. This is the lowest price it’s ever been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history.
The Eufy LR20 Robot Vacuum is also a great choice for most people. This Eufy robot vacuum has multi-floor mapping and you can get it for $149 (originally $399). This is the lowest price it’s been over the past four months, according to Honey’s price history.
Getting home from doing the groceries and finding your floors vacuumed and mopped is a great feeling you can gift to a loved one. The iRobot Roomba Combo j5 Robot can do just that, and it also avoids obstacles, like pet waste, cables, or anything dangerous, so it doesn’t make a mess. (If it vacuums poop, iRobot will replace it for free.) If you want to splurge on an upgrade and get them a self-cleaning base, too, go for it. You can get this model from Amazon for $299 (originally $599.99), which is the lowest price it’s ever been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history.
If you’re looking for a more budget-friendly option that can also vacuum and mop, consider the Yeedi Vac 2 Robot for $99 (originally $199.99).
A self-emptying robot vacuum makes an automated process even more hands-off. Once it’s full of debris, it will go to its home base and get cleaned out. Eventually, you’ll also have to empty out the home base, but it will happen way less often than emptying the robot vacuum. The Shark AI Ultra claims it can hold 60 days’ worth of debris in its base, meaning you’ll only be emptying the base about every two months. This Shark robot vacuum also has all the basic features like home mapping, vacuuming in neat rows, a self-cleaning brush (great for pet owners or for people with long hair), Alexa and Google Assistant compatibility, etc. You can get it for $298 (originally $599), which matches the lowest price it’s ever been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history.
Source: LifeHacker – These Robot Vacuums Are Over 50% Off for Christmas
In contemporary fandom, canon is king. This is not a jab against an admiration of an ordered continuity and worldbuilding, the necessary aspects of creating a story to be lost in. But what goes beyond it—a yearning for raw, wiki-able data and facts that can be collated and held in amber, where interpretation gives way…
Source: Gizmodo – Doctor Who’s Big Regeneration Twist Means Everything and Nothing
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are about to get some powerful upgrades thanks to improvements to the social network’s AI assistant. The company is finally adding support for real-time information to the onboard assistant, and it’s starting to test new “multimodal” capabilities that allow it to answer questions based on your environment.
Up to now, Meta AI had a “knowledge cutoff” of December 2022, so it couldn’t answer questions about current events, or things like game scores, traffic conditions or other queries that would be especially useful while on the go. But that’s now changing, according to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, who said that all Meta smart glasses in the United States will now be able to access real-time info. The change is powered “in part” by Bing, he added.
Separately, Meta is starting to test one of the more intriguing capabilities of its assistant, which it’s calling “multimodal AI.” The features, first previewed during Connect, allow Meta AI to answer contextual questions about your surroundings and other queries based on what your looking at through the glasses.
The updates could go a long way toward making Meta AI feel less gimmicky and more useful, which was one of my top complaints in my initial review of the otherwise impressive smart glasses. Unfortunately, it will likely still be some time before most people with the smart glasses can access the new multimodal functionality. Bosworth said that the early access beta version will only be available in the US to a “small number of people who opt in” initially, with expanded access presumably coming sometime in 2024.
Both Mark Zuckerberg shared a few videos of the new capabilities that give an idea of what may be possible. Based on the clips, it appears users will be able to engage the feature with commands that begin with “Hey Meta, look and tell me.” Zuckerberg, for example, asks Meta AI to look at a shirt he’s holding and ask for suggestions on pants that might match. He also shared screenshots showing Meta AI identifying an image of a piece of fruit and translating the text of a meme.
In a video posted on Threads, Bosworth said that users would also be able to ask Meta AI about their immediate surroundings as well as more creative questions like writing captions for photos they just shot.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-are-getting-ai-powered-visual-search-features-204556255.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are getting AI-powered visual search features
Five benchmarks comparing an upcoming Intel Core Ultra 125H against AMD’s Ryzen 7 7840HS along with Intel’s own current-generation Core i5-13500H popped up on Baidu yesterday. The tests reveal that Intel’s new Meteor Lake processor seemingly isn’t that much faster than the Core i5-13500H it is replacing, and is actually slower than AMD’s latest
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Core Ultra 125H, AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS Battle For Mobile Supremacy In Early Benchmarks
Enlarge / The New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen is made to be pointed at, rapidly, in a crowded environment. (credit: Machinery Enchantress / Crowd Supply)
“Hong Kong has better food, Shanghai has better nightlife. But when it comes to making things—no one can beat Shenzen.”
Many things about the Hua Qiang market in Shenzen, China, are different than they were in 2016, when Andrew “bunnie” Huang’s Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen was first published. But the importance of the world’s premiere electronics market, and the need for help navigating it, are a constant. That’s why the book is getting an authorized, crowdfunded revision, the New Essential Guide, written by noted maker and Shenzen native Naomi Wu and due to ship in April 2024.
Naomi Wu’s narrated introduction to the New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen.
Huang notes on the crowdfunding page that Wu’s “strengths round out my weaknesses.” Wu speaks Mandarin, lives in Shenzen, and is more familiar with Shenzen, and China, as it is today. Shenzen has grown by more than 2 million people, the central Huaqiangbei Road has been replaced by a car-free boulevard, and the city’s metro system has more than 100 new kilometers with dozens of new stations. As happens anywhere, market vendors have also changed locations, payment and communications systems have modernized, and customs have shifted.
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Source: Ars Technica – A New Essential Guide to Electronics by Naomi Wu details a different Shenzen
Enlarge (credit: Getty | Jeffrey Greenberg)
All of the big pharmacy chains in the US hand over sensitive medical records to law enforcement without a warrant—and some will do so without even running the requests by a legal professional, according to a congressional investigation.
The revelation raises grave medical privacy concerns, particularly in a post-Dobbs era in which many states are working to criminalize reproductive health care. Even if people in states with restrictive laws cross state lines for care, pharmacists in massive chains, such as CVS, can access records across borders.
Lawmakers noted the pharmacies’ policies for releasing medical records in a letter dated Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. The letter—signed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.)—said their investigation pulled information from briefings with eight big prescription drug suppliers.
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Source: Ars Technica – CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants
