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Atlassian Acquires Trello For $425M

An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch report: Atlassian today announced that it has acquired project management service Trello for $425 million. The vast majority of the transaction is in cash ($360 million), with the remainder being paid out in restricted shares and options. The acquisition is expected to close before March 31, 2017. This marks Atlassian’s 18th acquisition and, as Atlassian president Jay Simons noted, it is also the largest. Just like with many of Atlassian’s other acquisitions, the company plans to keep both the Trello service and brand alive and current users shouldn’t see any immediate changes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Atlassian Acquires Trello For $425M

Samsung EV battery offers 500km range with 20 minutes of charge

By the time 2021 rolls around, a number of major car makers will have a varied selection of electric cars available . Developments in battery technology will dictate the range and features that these cars can offer, but Samsung wants to give consumers a brief insight into what will be available at the start of the next decade. Samsung SDI, the Korean conglomerate’s lithium ion and renewable division that provides power for auto giant BMW, today announced a “next generation” battery that offers 600 kilometers (373 miles) of driving and can be “fast charged” in just 20 minutes. The high density battery is designed to provide 500 kilometers (310 miles) of range or 80 percent of capacity in the time it takes for a quick roadside coffee break. For reference, that’s more than what the average fully-charged Tesla Model S currently offers. Instead of fitting cars with more battery cells, which in turn adds weight, Samsung hopes that by delivering smartphone-like fast charging, consumers won’t suffer from range anxiety and will be able to drive longer distances without lengthy top-ups. That wasn’t the only announcement Samsung SDI made today at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) 2017. The company also confirmed an improved “21700” cylindrical battery, a large shotgun shell-shaped cell with “improved energy density, power and performance.” Major EV makers, like Tesla, are focusing on the 21700 — named after its 21mm diameter and 70mm length — which confirmed recently that its Gigfactory had begun full production of its own lithium-ion battery cells developed in partnership with Panasonic. Source: Samsung SDI

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Samsung EV battery offers 500km range with 20 minutes of charge

This Hack Might Unlock Your NES Classic or Brick It

If you really wanted to go out of your way, it’s definitely possible to make your own Raspberry Pi-powered NES Classic. But for most, that cute and convenient little package by Nintendo is the best way to go. That’s why using this hack to load ROMs onto the new-retro device is a gift from the gaming gods. Read more…

Apple’s Share of PC Users Drops To A Five-Year Low

Windows 10 is installed on 24.5% of devices — but that’s only half the story. “Apple’s Mac share of personal computers worldwide fell to a five-year low in December, ” reports Computerworld, adding that Linux and Windows “both benefited, with increases of around a half percentage point during 2016.” An anonymous reader quotes their report: According to web analytics vendor Net Applications, Apple’s desktop and notebook operating system — formerly OS X, now macOS — powered just 6.1% of all personal computers last month, down from 7% a year ago and a peak of 9.6% as recently as April 2016… The Mac’s 6.1% user share in December was the lowest mark recorded by Net Applications since August 2011, more than five years ago… In October, the company reported sales of 4.9 million Macs for the September quarter, a 14% year-over-year decline and the fourth straight quarterly downturn. Apple’s sales slide during the past 12 months has been steeper than for the personal computer industry as a whole, according to industry researchers from IDC and Gartner, a 180-degree shift from the prior 30 or so quarters, when the Mac’s growth rate repeatedly beat the business average. Apple’s success through 2016 was “fueled by Microsoft’s stumbles with Windows 8 and a race-to-the-bottom mentality among rival OEMs, ” according to the article, which also notes that the user share for Linux exceeded 2% in June, and reached 2.3% by November. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nintendo mini NES modders figure out how to add new games

There was no doubt Nintendo’s miniature NES Classic Edition was going to be a hit , especially around the holiday season. The affordable retro console hit all the right nostalgic notes, but there’s a consensus Nintendo missed a trick by omitting any way to add new games to the system beyond the 30 preinstalled titles. Also, it shouldn’t be that hard — the mini NES is just an emulator in a pretty package, after all. Well, leave it up to the internet to do what Nintendo wouldn’t. The modding community has successfully cooked up ways to load additional games onto the system, and all you need is a PC and a micro-USB cable. Though no specialist equipment is required, a certain amount of technical knowhow is recommended. A post on the NESClassicmods subreddit links to an English translation of a method discovered by a Russian hacker (a Japanese modder has also published a guide) if you’re confident enough to give it a try. But be warned, you could irreparably fry the little console if anything goes wrong. The step-by-step is a little complex, but if you’re interested, you first need to have created a save file in Super Mario Bros. Then you have to hook the console up to a PC and boot it into special “FEL” mode while running an interfacing tool on your computer. You then have to copy data off the mini NES, unpack it, modify it, add any game ROMs you’ve downloaded — most of which are illegal if you don’t own the original cartridge, just FYI — before zipping it all back up again and overwriting the data on the console with this new package. The added games should then be listed in the regular UI if everything went to plan. It’s not the simplest of hacks and as it’s early days, there’s no definitive list of what ROMs will work (or not) when side-loaded onto the NES Classic Edition. But apparently, storage isn’t an issue, with the bravest of souls reporting smooth sailing after adding tens of extra titles to the little box. While the modding community is adding longevity to the NES Classic Edition, perhaps even persuading more people to give the hardware a look, Nintendo might have something to say about these hacking efforts. The company is notorious for taking issue with anything outside of its control, whether that be using its hardware in unintended ways or fan-made homages to classic characters . Via: Ars Technica Source: Reddit (NESClassicmods)

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Nintendo mini NES modders figure out how to add new games

Iran censored porn so hard it broke the internet in Hong Kong

If you had trouble visiting explicit websites in the last few days, the fault may have come from an unexpected source: Iran. According to a new report from The Verge , a recent attempt to block pornography websites in the country’s borders hampered access in Russia, Hong Kong and other nations in the region. What happened? Apparently, Iran’s national telecom abused the honor system. The issue is an ancient, insecure and essential part of the internet called Border Gateway Protocol. It’s a commonly used method service provider use to exchange and distribute routing information — the insturctions your computer uses to find web addresses. The only problem is that BGP kind of works on the honor system : there’s no standard in place to stop someone from putting forth a false routing path and taking a site down. It happened in 2008, when Pakistan accidental blocked YouTube . Turkey once filtered the majority of traffic from Amazon, Microsoft, CNN and other sites through its own servers. When Iran used BGP to spoof traffic away from a few hundred porn sites, the false routes spread — blocking users as far away as Hong Kong. It’s not clear if it’s an honest mistake, or if the wider blocking was intentional, but it also wasn’t a careful solution. Iran’s networks are a major routing center for the region, and it’s easy for malicious or false BGP data to spread from Iran’s sources. The issue is mostly resolved down, with exterior networks blocking the false routes — but the event serves as a good reminder: the internet is fragile, and open to attack. Browse carefully, my friends. Source: Verge

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Iran censored porn so hard it broke the internet in Hong Kong

The Markforged Metal X prints real metal parts

The new Markforged Metal X is pretty great. It is a full metal 3D printer that generates real metal parts out of powdered metal which is then hardened under massive heat and allows for amazingly strong and light materials. The printer uses tubes of powered metal bound with plastic. The “extruder” first creates the shapes on a regular build plate and then you bond the material in… Read More

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The Markforged Metal X prints real metal parts

Etcher Is the Easiest Way to Make a Raspberry Pi SD Card

Windows/Mac/Linux: While it’s gotten easier over the years to make a Raspberry Pi SD card, it’s still a little confusing for people new to the idea of burning images. Etcher is a cross-platform tool that simplifies the process dramatically. Read more…

Apps that rely on Google Hangouts won’t work after April 25th

When Google launched Allo and Duo last year, it recast hangouts as a cross-platform chat app for enterprise customers. Now it’s making changes to help ensure that fate. A quiet update to the Google Hangouts FAQ reveals that the sun will set on the platform’s API in late April. Effectively, this means any consumer app that integrates with Google Hangouts will be dead in a matter of months. “At the Google Horizon event in September 2016, we previewed a new experience for Hangouts focused on meetings, ” The updated FAQ reads. “In order to streamline our efforts furhter, we will be retiring the Google+ Hangouts API.” According to Google, the integration simply isn’t needed anymore. “Hangouts is now turning to focus on enterprise use cases.” This is hardly a surprise — Google outlined its vision for Hangouts’ new market early last year — but it is a bummer for apps that rely on the platform like PingPong Hangouts, Draw with your Face and Roll20 . Still, some apps will still have access to Hangouts, but only if they qualify as enterprise communication tools, like Slack. Bummer. Source: Techcrunch

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Apps that rely on Google Hangouts won’t work after April 25th

Fewer People Are Dying of Cancer Than Ever Before

The number of Americans dying of cancer has dropped to a 25-year low, equaling an estimated 2, 143, 200 fewer deaths in that period, says the new annual report from the American Cancer Society. In that time, the racial and gender disparities that exist in cancer rates have also narrowed somewhat, but they remain wide in many places. From a report on The Outline: Though the incidence of cancer remained stable for women and dropped slightly — by 2 percent — in men, rates remain overall 20 percent higher in men while rate of death for men is 40 percent higher than in women. The rates of both incidence and death vary wildly based on the type of cancer. The data that the ACS is using run through the end of 2014 for incidents of cancer and through 2013 for deaths. Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women.. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fewer People Are Dying of Cancer Than Ever Before

Ken May

Author: kenmay