Author: kenmay

The liquid that pours itself – Polyethylene Oxide

Steve Mould demonstrates an unusual mucilaginous substance that pours itself out of a beaker, once you get it started. This stuff reminds me of some bad head colds I’ve had.

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The liquid that pours itself – Polyethylene Oxide

DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015

An anonymous reader writes: Github’s transparency report for 2015 shows that the site received many DMCA notices that removed more than 8, 200 projects. “In 2015, we received significantly more takedown notices, and took down significantly more content, than we did in 2014, ” Github reports. For comparison, the company received only 258 DMCA notices in 2014, 17 of which responded with a counter-notice or retraction. In 2015, they received 505 takedown notices, 62 of which were the subject of counters or withdrawals. TorrentFreak reports: “Copyright holders are not limited to reporting one URL or location per DMCA notice. In fact, each notice filed can target tens, hundreds, or even thousands of allegedly infringing locations.” September was a particularly active month as it took down nearly 5, 834 projects. “Usually, the DMCA reports we receive are from people or organizations reporting a single potentially infringing repository. However, every now and then we receive a single notice asking us to take down many repositories, ” Github explains. They are called ‘Mass Removals’ when more than 100 repositories are asked to be removed. “In all, fewer than twenty individual notice senders requested removal of over 90% of the content GitHub took down in 2015.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015

Facebook updates News Feed to show your friends’ posts first

Over the next few weeks, Facebook is tweaking its News Feed ranking to ensure you see your friends’ and family members’ status updates before anything else. The social network gave its feed algorithm an overhaul back in 2015 to prioritize people in your friends’ lists, but it sounds like that upgrade didn’t quite do the trick. This update is supposed to make sure all the posts by people you know show up and that they’re near the top above updates made by FB Pages. But how does Facebook pick out the person you want to interact with the most? The company has also explained how its upgraded feed works. As you’d expect, your feed will prioritize posts by people whom you’ve chosen to “see first, ” and those whose posts you’re inclined to Like or comment on. “[I]f you tend to like photos from your sister, ” Facebook VP Adam Mosseri said, “we’ll start putting her posts closer to the top of your feed so you won’t miss what she posted while you were away.” On the other hand, it will assume that you’re not as thrilled to hear from people whose posts you hide all the time. Since you probably follow various Pages, as well, such as those owned by businesses, publications or celebrities, the revamped News Feed also ranks their posts based on how informative and entertaining they are. If you liked a lot of stories about a certain celeb in the past, for instance, your News Feed will deem reports about that celeb informative and will make sure you see them in your stream. At the same time, if you’re inclined to like photos and Live videos, then the social network will put those near the top. The company also took the chance to say that it doesn’t “favor specific kinds of sources — or ideas” and that it’s not “picking which issues the world should read about.” Mosseri explained: “Our aim is to deliver the types of stories we’ve gotten feedback that an individual person most wants to see. We do this not only because we believe it’s the right thing but also because it’s good for our business. When people see content they are interested in, they are more likely to spend time on News Feed and enjoy their experience. ” Facebook didn’t detail what compelled it to issue that statement. If you’ll recall, though, the Senate Commerce Committee launched an official investigation in May after the website was accused of routinely suppressing politically conservative news stories. The company denied the allegations that it gamed the Trending Topics section and announced after an internal investigation that it didn’t find evidence of political bias.

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Facebook updates News Feed to show your friends’ posts first

Wi-Fi gets multi-gigabit, multi-user boost with upgrades to 802.11ac

(credit: Aurich Lawson) The Wi-Fi Alliance industry group is now certifying products that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds and improve coverage in dense networks by delivering data to multiple devices simultaneously. The new certification program, announced today , focuses on the so-called “Wave 2” features of the 802.11ac specification. 802.11ac is a few years old , but it includes several important features that were not available at launch. One such feature is MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple-input, and multiple-output), which we wrote a feature on in May 2014. MU-MIMO is powered by multi-user beamforming technology that lets wireless access points send data streams to at least three users simultaneously. Without MU-MIMO, routers stream to just one device at a time but switch between them very fast so that users don’t notice a slowdown except when lots of devices are on the network. With the 80MHz channels supported in 802.11ac Wave 1, each data stream could provide up to 433Mbps and, when coupled with MU-MIMO routers, can send up to 433Mbps to at least three users simultaneously for a total of 1.3Gbps. But in addition to supporting MU-MIMO, Wave 2 also doubles the maximum channel bandwidth from 80MHz to 160MHz, boosting the potential throughput of each stream to 866Mbps. Wave 2 also supports four spatial streams instead of three, further boosting the theoretical maximum capacity. Technically, 802.11ac supports up to eight streams, but the certification program is still at four. Delivering eight streams with these data rates would use a lot of electricity. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Wi-Fi gets multi-gigabit, multi-user boost with upgrades to 802.11ac

Build an Automatically Updating Digital Photo Frame with a Raspberry Pi and Google Photos

We already know the Raspberry Pi makes a great photo frame , but DIYer Paul Stamatiou took it another step and integrated in Google Photos. Read more…

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Build an Automatically Updating Digital Photo Frame with a Raspberry Pi and Google Photos

Twitter launches Dashboard app for small business accounts

To help business owners connect with their fans and soothe angry patrons, Twitter is launching yet another stand-alone app with a specific audience in mind. Twitter Dashboard is the social network’s attempt to streamline engagement for business accounts, whose users probably have better things to do than babysitting their mentions or constantly searching their own name. Dashboard lives both in a web and iOS version , and includes features that have popped up in other Twitter products in the past. In both versions, Twitter guides you through a quick process to create a custom “About You” feed tailored to show tweets about your company or business (or personal brand, as the case may be). The feed takes into account what type of business you’re running (say a restaurant or an art gallery), then combines @-mentions and keyword searches to find people talking about your brand, even if they don’t tag your handle directly. In addition to a tweet scheduling feature and a reconfigured analytics page, Dashboard also offers tips so business owners who might be new to Twitter can get the most engagement out of their tweets. At this point, Twitter’s app ecosystem is starting to look a little fractured with the standard Twitter app, Tweetdeck for the power users and Engage for the celebrities . But, more than anything, the app lineup speaks to the range of different ways in which people actually use the social network.

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Twitter launches Dashboard app for small business accounts

Porn studio that sued thousands for piracy now fighting its own lawyer

(credit: Getty Images) For years now, a porn studio called Malibu Media has filed more copyright lawsuits than any other company. Each month, Malibu, which produces adult content under the brand name X-Art, sues hundreds of “John Doe” Internet users, accusing particular IP addresses of illegally downloading their movies using BitTorrent networks. Malibu’s owners, Brigham Field and Collette Pelissier Field, have said the flood of lawsuits is necessary to deter piracy. Now, though, they’re targeting the very lawyer who headed up their giant copyright enforcement campaign, Florida-based Keith Lipscomb. Earlier today, Malibu filed suit against Lipscomb and his firm, Lipscomb, Eisenberg & Baker, in federal court. The lawsuit claims Lipscomb didn’t provide them the proper paperwork for their cases and related finances, and that he was negligent in his representation. The  complaint (PDF) discloses that Lipscomb sued Malibu in Florida state court on June 10 and alleges that confidential information was revealed in the lawsuit. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Porn studio that sued thousands for piracy now fighting its own lawyer

Researchers Find Game-Changing Helium Reserve In Tanzania

An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNN: Helium is an incredibly important element that is used in everything from party balloons to MRI machines — it’s even used for nuclear power. For many years, there have been global shortages of the element. For example, Tokyo Disneyland once had to suspend sales of its helium balloons due to the shortages. The shortages are expected to come to an end now that researchers from Oxford and Durham universities have discovered a “world-class” helium gas field in Tanzania’s East African Rift Valley. They estimate that just one part of the reserve in Tanzania could be as large as 54 billion cubic feet (BCf), which is enough to fill more than 1.2 million medical MRI scanners. “To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet (BCf) per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf, ” said University of Oxford’s Chris Ballentine, a professor with the Department of Earth Sciences. “Total known reserves in the USA are around 153 BCf. This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away, ” Ballentine added. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Find Game-Changing Helium Reserve In Tanzania