Day: October 4, 2016

Outage Knocks Out All Major Phone Providers On the East Coast

Every major phone carrier experience outages on United States’ east coast this morning at around 11am local time. The outage lasted for about 45 minutes. DownDetector, which monitors outages of services, confirmed AT&T, Verizon, Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, US Cellular, and Vonage among others were affected. From a DailyDot report: T-Mobile CEO John Legare tweeted about the incident, pointing to issues with Level 3, a major internet backbone. Other tech firms quickly pointed to a Level 3 outage as well. No specific information has been released on potential causes of the outage or consequences that may result from it. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Outage Knocks Out All Major Phone Providers On the East Coast

Hands-on with the Google Pixel and Pixel XL

 Google has two new smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, and these are the first that Google says it has designed on its own in terms of both hardware and software: It shows. These are great looking devices that also feel excellent when held, with industrial design that clearly inherits some of its sensibilities from Google’s work with the Pixel Chromebook, and recalls last year’s… Read More

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Hands-on with the Google Pixel and Pixel XL

Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones start at $649 and $769, pre-orders begin today

Google’s Rick Osterloh announces the Pixel phones at Google’s hardware event. Ron Amadeo SAN FRANCISCO—We’re live from Google’s 10/4 event where the company has finally taken the wraps off its flagship phones for 2016. Just as the rumors predicted , the Nexus line is taking a backseat to the new “Pixel” phones and will no longer be the company’s flagship phone brand. Google has announced two high-end devices: the 5-inch Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL. Pre-orders for the Pixel phones start today, and pricing starts at $649 for the Pixel and $769 for the Pixel XL—much higher than the Nexus phones and more in line with what Apple and Samsung charge for their premium devices. Jumping from 32GB to 128GB of storage adds $100 to the cost of each device, and Google’s device protection plans cost an additional $99. If you don’t want to pay the full unlocked price up front, Google’s financing will give you the phones starting at $27.04 a month for the Pixel and $32.04 a month for the Pixel XL. The two devices are basically big and small versions of the same design. They have aluminum bodies with a large glass panel on the rear. The panel covers about a third of the back and surrounds the camera and fingerprint reader. The phones will be available in three colors: “quite black,” “very silver,” and a limited-edition “really blue.”  Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones start at $649 and $769, pre-orders begin today

Google’s New 4K Chromecast Ultra Is Way Fast

Google has sold more than 30 million Chromecasts for the simple reason that it’s a super easy, super cheap way to get the stuff you’re watching on your computer on to your TV. Now it’s getting an upgrade for the TVs of tomorrow. Read more…

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Google’s New 4K Chromecast Ultra Is Way Fast

Exotic ‘Twilight Zone’ Reef Is Brimming With Unique Forms of Life

We tend to think of coral reefs as luminous, undersea jungles that pepper the shallow, scuba-friendly tropics. But deeper down, in a region about as bright as Pluto on a sunny day , there lie vast reef ecosystems unknown to science. Read more…

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Exotic ‘Twilight Zone’ Reef Is Brimming With Unique Forms of Life

Police complaints drop 93 percent after deploying body cameras

 A study from Cambridge University documents an immense drop in complaints against police officers when their departments began using body cameras. But even more surprising is that the data suggests everyone is on their best behavior whether the cameras are present or not. Read More

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Police complaints drop 93 percent after deploying body cameras

Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon is making a significant change to its Community Guidelines, announced today, which will eliminate any incentivized reviews, except for those that emerge from within its own Amazon Vine program. This program allows Amazon — not the seller or vendor — to identify trusted reviewers, and has a number of controls in place in order to keep bias out of the review process. Amazon has historically prohibited compensation for reviews — even going so far as to sue those businesses who pay for fake reviews, as well as the individuals who write them, in an effort to make its review and rating system fairer and more helpful to online shoppers. However, it has allowed businesses to offer products to customers in exchange for their “honest” review. The only condition was that those reviewers would have to disclose their affiliation with the business in question in the text of their review. Reviewers were generally offered the product for free or at a discounted price, in exchange for their review. Although, in theory, these reviewers could write their true opinion on the product — positive or negative — these incentivized reviews have tended to be overwhelmingly biased in favor of the product being rated. Amazon says that, going forward, the only incentivized reviews will be those from Amazon Vine. These don’t work the same way, however. For starters, Amazon selects who will be allowed to review products, and it does so mainly to boost the review count on new or pre-release products that haven’t yet generated enough sales to have a large number of organic reviews. Vine reviewers are invited to join the program only after having written a number of reviews voted as “helpful” by other customers, and tend to have expertise in a specific product category. In addition, vendors don’t have any contact with Vine reviewers, nor do they get to influence which reviewers will receive their products, which are submitted directly to Amazon for distribution. These changes will apply to all product categories other than books, as Amazon has always allowed advance copies of books to be distributed, the retailer notes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews Tied To Free Or Discounted Products

FBI Agreed To Destroy Laptops of Clinton Aides With Immunity Deal, Sources Say

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Fox News: Immunity deals for two top Hillary Clinton aides included a side arrangement obliging the FBI to destroy their laptops after reviewing the devices, House Judiciary Committee sources told Fox News on Monday. Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015. This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public — in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said. The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee fired off a letter Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking why the DOJ and FBI agreed to the restrictive terms, including that the FBI would destroy the laptops after finishing the search. The immunity deals for Mills and Samuelson, made as part of the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state, apparently included a series of “side agreements” that were negotiated by Samuelson and Mills’ attorney Beth Wilkinson. The side deals were agreed to on June 10, less than a month before FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency would recommend no charges be brought against Clinton or her staff. Judiciary Committee aids told FoxNews.com that the destruction of the laptops is particularly troubling as it means that the computers could not be used as evidence in future legal proceedings, should new information or circumstances arise. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FBI Agreed To Destroy Laptops of Clinton Aides With Immunity Deal, Sources Say