Month: November 2016

Zotac Zbox EN1060 review: Better than console gaming in a tiny package

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton) Specs at a glance: Zotac Zbox EN1060 (barebones) CPU Intel Core i5-6400T GPU Nvidia GTX 1060 (mobile) Networking Dual gigabit LAN, 802.11ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 Ports Microphone, headphone, 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x USB 3.1, 2x USB 2.0 RAM 2 x DDR4-1866/2133 SODIMM Slots (up to 32GB) Storage 1x 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gbps HDD/SSD bay, 1x M.2 PCIe x4 slot (22/42,22/60,22/80) Price £875 Nvidia blurred the line  between desktop and laptop graphics earlier this year when it replaced its mobile-centric “M” line with nearly full-blown GTX 1080 , GTX 1070 , and GTX 1060 GPUs. But impressive thin, light, gaming-ready laptops and wallet-busting desktop replacements aside—I’m looking at you, Razer Blade Pro —there’s another small-but-compelling computer that’s benefited from all this graphics goodness: the mini PC. For the first time (Gigabyte’s awful Brix Gaming range notwithstanding), you can buy a PC that’s smaller than a games console, yet packs in enough processing power to run games at ultra settings and 60FPS. Enter the Magnus EN1060, the latest model from mini PC champions Zotac. Inside its tiny 20cm-by-20cm footprint sits a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card, giving it enough graphics grunt to power games at the highest settings, even at resolutions above 1080p. It makes for a mean, highly portable, VR-ready PC . Unfortunately, stuffing such powerful components into a chassis barely bigger than a DVD case was always going to result in some compromises—and the EN1060 isn’t quite the desktop powerhouse its spec sheet promises. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Zotac Zbox EN1060 review: Better than console gaming in a tiny package

First Color Images Produced By an Electron Microscope

Slashdot reader sciencehabit quotes Science magazine: Imagine spending your whole life seeing the world in black and white, and then seeing a vase of roses in full color for the first time. That’s kind of what it was like for the scientists who have taken the first multicolor images of cells using an electron microscope. Electron microscopes can magnify an object up to 10 million times, allowing researchers to peer into the inner workings of, say, a cell or a fly’s eye, but until now they’ve only been able to see in black and white. The new advance — 15 years in the making — uses three different kinds of rare earth metals called lanthanides…layered one-by-one over cells on a microscope slide. The microscope detects when each metal loses electrons and records each unique loss as an artificial color. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First Color Images Produced By an Electron Microscope

The FBI Spent Two Years Investigating An Online Cult That Didn’t Exist

A two-year FBI investigation apparently centered on the satirical web site “GodHatesGoths”. Long-time Slashdot reader v3rgEz writes: In 2005, the FBI launched an investigation into the “Church of the Hammer, ” a fundamentalist Christian sect which called for the wholesale slaughter of practitioners of the goth subculture. Two years later, the investigation was closed, on grounds that the Church didn’t exist. The FBI’s threat assessment detailed “an extremely right-wing Christian group that adheres to a Middle Ages Catholic text called the ‘Malleus Malificarum.'” But MuckRock.com reports that “The Bureau’s main source on the case was a goth who had engaged with members of the Church via their Yahoo Group…trying to dispel their misconceptions about the relationship between the subculture and Satanism.” After two years of scouring through crime databases and making phone calls to the Salem police department, FBI investigators actually visited the GodHatesGoths web site — which turned out to be a parody. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The FBI Spent Two Years Investigating An Online Cult That Didn’t Exist

A New Process Turns Sewage Into Crude Oil

Big Hairy Ian shares this report from New Atlas: The U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has found a way to potentially produce 30 million barrels of biocrude oil per year from the 34 billion gallons of raw sewage that Americans create every day… [T]he raw sewage is placed in a reactor that’s basically a tube pressurized to 3, 000 pounds per square inch and heated to 660 degrees Fahrenheit, which mimics the same geological process that turned prehistoric organic matter into crude oil by breaking it down into simple compounds, only…it takes minutes instead of epochs… The end product is very similar to fossil crude oil with a bit of oxygen and water mixed in and can be refined like crude oil using conventional fractionating plants. After six years of development, they’ve licensed the process for a $6 million pilot plant that’s expected to launch in 2018. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A New Process Turns Sewage Into Crude Oil

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