The next iPhone will reportedly have a beautiful OLED display. Sharp executive Tai Jeng-wu essentially confirmed the next iPhone’s hardware upgrade in a recent trip to his alma mater, Tatung University in Taiwan, according to Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review . Read more…
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The Next iPhone Will Probably Have a Beautiful, Curved OLED Display
Here’s a simple experiment you can try at home that produces a unique substance called sodium acetate from baking soda and vinegar. It’s also often referred to as “hot ice” because at room temperature it forms crystals just like ice does—but without the need for a freezer. Read more…
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How to Make Hot Ice That Magically Freezes at Room Temperature
An anonymous reader writes: “Wow, dude I did not even know we were fighting, ” Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami posted on the company’s blog Saturday — responding to WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg, who on Friday accused Wix of stealing their code. “The claim is that the Wix mobile apps distribute GPL code and aren’t themselves GPL, so they violate the license, ” Mullenweg wrote. Abrahami argued that “Everything we improved there or modified, we submitted back as open source, ” adding “we will release the app you saw as well… ” Mullenweg responded “It appears you and [lead engineer] Tal might share a misunderstanding of how the GPL works, ” ultimately adding “software licensing can be tricky and many people make honest mistakes.” Wix had also argued they’re giving back to the open source community by listing 224 public projects on their GitHub page. “Thank you for the offer to use them, ” Mullenweg responded. “If we do, we’ll make sure to follow the license you’ve put on the code very carefully.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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WordPress Founder Accuses Wix Of Stealing Code
I’ve been into old-fashioned mechanical keyboards lately; Sonder’s e-ink model promises to bring the fetish into the 21st century. Each key is both mechanical and a tiny e-Ink display that can change on a per-application basis. The Sonder Keyboard combines a sleek new design with a built-in rechargeable battery and enhanced key features. With an improved mechanical mechanism beneath each key for increased stability, as well as optimized key travel and a lower profile, the Sonder Keyboard provides a remarkably comfortable and precise typing experience. It pairs automatically with your Mac, so you can get to work right away. And the battery is incredibly long-lasting — it will power your keyboard for about a month or more between charges. The styling is minimal and Apple-oriented. Sonder’s keyboard uses Bluetooth, but comes with USB and a lightning port too. It’s $200, which seems reasonable for such a specialized device: compare to Art Lebedev’s Optimus Popularis color LED model, still a pricey curiosity at $1500.
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e-ink keyboard changes for every purpose
Hillary Clinton’s email woes won’t die . Federal investigators today obtained a fiercely-sought warrant to begin searching a large cache of emails sent to or from Huma Abedin, longtime confidante and senior aide to Hillary Clinton. Federal law enforcement officials told reporters the warrant was in on Sunday, as prosecutors with the Justice Department and agents from the F.B.I. rushed to review as much of the emails as possible before Election Day, which is now only one week away. (more…)
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FBI gets warrant to search Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s email
Shut it down, NASA wins. They made your pumpkin carving game look like child’s play. You should just give up right now. Put the knife away, set that pumpkin aside and use your time in a more productive manner—like looking at these beautiful pumpkins. Read more…
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NASA Absolutely Killed the Halloween Pumpkin Carving Competition
If Starbreeze is going to get you wearing VR headsets in IMAX theaters and pods, it’ll have to create a wow-inducing experience… and it might have taken one step closer toward that goal. The company has bought Nozon, a visual effects house whose recent breakthrough is an interactive parallax effect that gives you more freedom when watching computer-generated or 3D-scanned VR video. You ideally get quality closer to pre-rendered 3D, but the freedom to tilt your head and otherwise look around more naturally. You should feel more like you’re present in a given scene, instead of staring at a giant video wall. You don’t need Nozon’s tech to have freedom of movement in VR tracking — just ask HTC . However, existing approaches are generally designed for gaming, not the pay-per-view experiences Starbreeze wants. This could help studios produce VR recreations of movie and TV scenes that you’d actually want to watch , or guided tours that are more immersive than the usual 360-degree video clips . It’ll take a while for this technology to find its way into something you can watch, but it should give you a better reason to leave home for a VR extravaganza. Via: VentureBeat Source: Starbreeze
Ransomware attacks are on the rise, and once your computer or network has been infected, it can be really difficult to recover. No More Ransom can help, and more importantly, help you now, before an infection, and later, after one. Read more…
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No More Ransom Helps You Prevent and Recover from Ransomware Attacks
Apple released new MacBook Pros yesterday that feature Intel’s year-old Skylake microarchitcure, as opposed to the newer Kaby Lake architecture. Two days earlier, Microsoft did the same thing when it released the Surface Studio. Given the improvements Kaby Lake processors have over Skylake processors, one would think they would be included in the latest and greatest products from Microsoft and Apple. Gizmodo explains why that’s not the case: In the case of the new 15-inch MacBook the answer is simple. “The Kaby Lake chip doesn’t exist yet, ” an Apple rep told Gizmodo. Kaby Lake is being rolled out relatively slowly, and it’s only available in a few forms and wattages. The 15-inch MacBook Pro uses a quad-core processor that has no Kaby Lake equivalent currently. That particular laptop really does have the fastest processor available. The same goes for the Microsoft Surface Studio and updated Surface Book — both also use a quad-core Skylake processor with no Kaby Lake counterpart. But the Studio and Surface Book are also using much older video cards from the Nvidia 900 series. Nvidia has much faster and less power-hungry chips (the 1000 series) available based on the Pascal architecture. Microsoft’s reasoning for going with older video cards is nearly identical to Apple’s for going with a slower processor in its 13-inch MacBook Pro: the Nvidia 1000 series came out too late. The major intimation was that Kaby Lake and Pascal came so late in the design process that it would have delayed the final products if they’d chosen to use them. New technology, no matter how amazing an upgrade it might be, still requires considerable testing before it can be shipped to consumers. One minor bug, particularly in a system as engineered as the Surface Studio or MacBook Pro, can turn catastrophic if engineers aren’t careful. In the case of Microsoft, it’s frustrating, because that old GPU is significantly slower than the Pascal GPUs available. It’s a little less frustrating in Apple’s case, largely because of the old processor microarchitecture that Apple elected to shove into its new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple went with a new Skylake dual core processor that draws a lot of power — more so than any Kaby Lake processor available. It then uses all that extra power to ramp up the speeds of the processor. Which means it is capable of pulling off speeds that can actually match those of the fastest Kaby Lake processor out there. The only downside to this decision is battery life. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Why Apple and Microsoft Are Using Last Year’s Skylake Processors In Their New Computers
At Universal Studios in Los Angeles Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the company’s solar roof-top panels and new Energy initiative. It also showed off its new $5, 500 Powerwall 2 high-capacity residential batteries and Powerpack 2 for businesses. Musk and company have been teasing the photovoltaic cell-embedded rooftop panels for a few weeks . It’s also using the announcement of the new product as an explanation for why its acquiring Solar City. Musk said that if the merger doesn’t go through, the launch of the new tiles will be difficult. During the event, Musk sort of talked about the price of the panels. He said that when a house has these the “installed cost is less than a normal roof and the cost of electricity.” But there was no concrete pricing announced. The event was held on a Hollywood backlot where Solar City and Tesla had installed non-operating solar panels onto the houses you might recognize for the TV show, Desperate Housewives . The houses didn’t attract any attention before the event because they appeared so normal. He also showed off a house with a Tuscan style glass tiles that to the naked eye, you would be hard-pressed to notice that the roof was actually sucking up the energy of the sun. “People love their homes and we want them to be better, ” Musk said. Of course the entire equation requires batteries for a home to keep it lit up when the sun goes down. Tesla says the new Powerwall 2 will power a four bedroom house with lights, refrigerator and other appliances for an entire day. Musk said that they expect to start installing the glass tiles in summer 2017 and for the roofs to last a very very long time. “We expect this to have two or three times the longevity of asphalt. It’s really never going to wear out. It’s got a quasi-infinite lifetime. It’s made of quartz, ” he said. Tesla and Solar City are working with 3M on the coating on the glass tiles. Tesla has just come off an impressive quarter where it posted a profit for the first time in two years . It also announced earlier this month that all vehicles produced going forward would have the hardware capable of full autonomous driving . Developing. Source: Tesla
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Tesla unveils its solar roof and Powerwall 2