Day: November 4, 2016

More Than 50 Percent of All Pages In Chrome Are Loaded Over HTTPS Now

Reader Trailrunner7 writes: After years of encouraging site owners to transition to HTTPS by default, Google officials say that the effort has begun to pay off. The company’s data now shows that more than half of all pages loaded by Chrome on desktop platforms are served over HTTPS. Google has been among the louder advocates for the increased use of encryption across the web in the last few years. The company has made significant changes to its own infrastructure, encrypting the links between its data center, and also has made HTTPS the default connection option on many of its main services, including Gmail and search. And Google also has been encouraging owners of sites of all shapes and sizes to move to secure connections to protect their users from eavesdropping and data theft. That effort has begun to bear fruit in a big way. New data released by Google shows that at the end of October, 68 percent of pages loaded by the Chrome browser on Chrome OS machines were over HTTPS. That’s a significant increase in just the last 10 months. At the end of 2015, just 50 percent of pages loaded by Chrome on Chrome OS were HTTPS. The numbers for the other desktop operating systems are on the rise as well, with macOS at 60 percent, Linux at 54 percent, and Windows at 53 percent. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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More Than 50 Percent of All Pages In Chrome Are Loaded Over HTTPS Now

Adobe Is Working On ‘Photoshop For Audio’ That Will Let You Add Words Someone Never Said

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Adobe is working on a new piece of software that would act like a Photoshop for audio, according to Adobe developer Zeyu Jin, who spoke at the Adobe MAX conference in San Diego, California today. The software is codenamed Project VoCo, and it’s not clear at this time when it will materialize as a commercial product. The standout feature, however, is the ability to add words not originally found in the audio file. Like Photoshop, Project VoCo is designed to be a state-of-the-art audio editing application. Beyond your standard speech editing and noise cancellation features, Project VoCo can also apparently generate new words using a speaker’s recorded voice. Essentially, the software can understand the makeup of a person’s voice and replicate it, so long as there’s about 20 minutes of recorded speech. In Jin’s demo, the developer showcased how Project VoCo let him add a word to a sentence in a near-perfect replication of the speaker, according to Creative Bloq. So similar to how Photoshop ushered in a new era of editing and image creation, this tool could transform how audio engineers work with sound, polish clips, and clean up recordings and podcasts. “When recording voiceovers, dialog, and narration, people would often like to change or insert a word or a few words due to either a mistake they made or simply because they would like to change part of the narrative, ” reads an official Adobe statement. “We have developed a technology called Project VoCo in which you can simply type in the word or words that you would like to change or insert into the voiceover. The algorithm does the rest and makes it sound like the original speaker said those words.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Adobe Is Working On ‘Photoshop For Audio’ That Will Let You Add Words Someone Never Said

BMW sold 100,000 EVs in 3 years, now turns attention to autonomy

EVs have come a long way in just a few years. Just look at the waves Tesla has made since introducing the Model S in 2012. Nissan just sold its 100, 000th Leaf in the US. BMW , too, would have you know that it has been pulling its weight in this grand acceleration of EVs. In fact, the German automaker has also recently hit a major milestone since it first launched battery-powered cars under its i sub-brand. BMW has announced that it has achieved 100, 000 plug-in vehicle sales worldwide . Beginning with the battery electric i3 in November of 2013, BMW went to work building upon the knowledge and experience gained from its field tests with the ActiveE . In the three years since then, BMW has sold over 60, 000 examples of the i3. The German automaker points out that those sales figures make the i3 “the most successful electric vehicle in the premium compact segment.” It’s not a very crowded segment, but BMW filled a hole and did it well, so we’ll give them that one. Say it proudly, BMW. And, impressively, the automaker reports that 80 percent of i3 buyers are new to BMW, which means first-time owners and those ever-important conquest sales. Next came the ultra-desirable i8 plug-in hybrid. The production car looked a lot like the eye-popping concept, which the public appreciated. Demand initially outstripped production , and the car will probably continue to turn heads for some time to come, particularly when the i8 Roadster allows owners to be seen more easily. BMW says it has sold some 10, 000 examples of the i8 since its launch in mid-2014. Additionally, BMW has sold about 30, 000 plug-in hybrid versions of its other core products, which now fall under the iPerformance label. Just as EV sales are expected to grow in general, we can expect to BMW’s plug-in sales to gather momentum in the coming years, especially as it increases the number of offerings. “BMW i remains our spearhead in terms of innovation and it will continue to open up groundbreaking technologies for the BMW Group, ” says BMW Chairman of the Board of Management Harald Krüger. “When it comes to electric drivetrains, we’ve already successfully managed to put this technology transfer on the road. The next technological advance we will address is automated driving, where the BMW iNEXT will set a new benchmark.” Following a Mini Countryman PHEV and the i8 Roadster in 2018, and an all-electric Mini in 2019, BMW has confirmed it will introduce the all-electric X3 in 2020, with another EV due in 2021. We can’t wait to see what’s (i)Next. Related Video: Source: BMW

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BMW sold 100,000 EVs in 3 years, now turns attention to autonomy

Learn the Russian alphabet in ten minutes

With Putin and Russia in the news more and more thanks to Trump and Steven Seagal, maybe it’s high time to learn how to pronounce Russian text. Thanks to the instructor’s lovely accent in this ten-minute tutorial , you’ll be pronouncing (if not understanding) in short order. (more…)

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Learn the Russian alphabet in ten minutes

Samsung’s Nightmare Continues as It Recalls 2.8 Million Washing Machines

2016 has not been a great year for Samsung, and it doesn’t look like it will be getting better anytime soon. The company just recalled 2.8 million of its top load washing machines, because the machines can basically fall apart during use. Read more…

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Samsung’s Nightmare Continues as It Recalls 2.8 Million Washing Machines

Samsung Starts Preventing the Note 7 From Connecting to Cell Towers

Samsung New Zealand has had it with idiots who refuse to turn in their recalled, explodey Galaxy Note 7 devices. Starting on November 18th , Note 7 owners in New Zealand “will no longer be able to connect to any New Zealand mobile network services to make calls, use data, or send SMS messages.” Read more…

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Samsung Starts Preventing the Note 7 From Connecting to Cell Towers

Every Year of Smoking Causes About 150 New DNA Mutations That Can Make Cancer More Likely, Says Study

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: For every year that you continue your pack-a-day habit, the DNA in every cell in your lungs acquires about 150 new mutations. Some of those mutations may be harmless, but the more there are, the greater the risk that one or more of them will wind up causing cancer. The threat doesn’t stop there, according to a study in Friday’s edition of the journal Science. After a year of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day, the cells in the larynx pick up roughly 97 new mutations, those in the pharynx accumulate 39 new mutations, and cells in the oral cavity gain 23 new mutations. Even organs with no direct exposure to tobacco smoke appear to be affected. The researchers counted about 18 new mutations in every bladder cell and six new mutations in every liver cell for each “pack-year” that smokers smoked. The findings are based on a genetic analysis of 5, 243 cancers, including 2, 490 from smokers and 1, 063 from patients who said they had never smoked tobacco cigarettes. The researchers used powerful supercomputers to compare thousands of cancer genome sequences. The computers grouped the sequences into about 20 distinct categories, or “mutational signatures.” Mutations tied to five of these signatures were more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers. One of the signatures involves a specific DNA nucleobase change — instead of a C for cytosine, there was an A for adenine — that “is very similar” to the change that occurs in the lab when cells are exposed to benzo[a]pyrene, a compound that the International Agency for Research on Cancer says is carcinogenic to humans. Most of the lung and larynx cancers obtained from smokers had this type of mutation, the researchers reported. They also found that the signature was more common among smokers than nonsmokers. Another mutational signature was characterized by Cs that should have been Ts (thymine) and vice versa. Although these changes can be found in all kinds of cancers, the signature was 1.3 to 5.1 times more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers, according to the study. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Every Year of Smoking Causes About 150 New DNA Mutations That Can Make Cancer More Likely, Says Study

After sagging sales numbers, Fitbit’s stock price collapses by over 33%

Enlarge / The Charge 2 is a slightly bigger version of Fitbit’s Alta. (credit: Valentina Palladino) In Thursday afternoon trading, Fitbit’s stock price lost more than one-third of its value after the company announced a significant drop in profits. According to its latest quarterly numbers , the company made $26.1 million in the third quarter of 2016 compared with $45.8 million during the same quarter a year ago. In mid-September, the company released the Fitbit Charge 2, a mid-range $150 device. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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After sagging sales numbers, Fitbit’s stock price collapses by over 33%

Japanese Craftsman Demonstrates Intricate Marquetry Technique

This is a crazy combination of low-tech production methods, precision hand craftsmanship, graphic design and utter patience. Here craftsman Noboru Honma demonstrates a fabrication technique that yields CNC-like visual complexity, yet has been executed for centuries, long before the discovery of electricity: The technique was developed in the Hakone region of Japan during the Edo period (1600s to 1800s). You can learn more about this Hakone Yosegi-Zaiku technique at the Japanese Traditional Culture Promotion and Development Organization’s website .

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Japanese Craftsman Demonstrates Intricate Marquetry Technique