Author: kenmay

What’s New In GNOME 3.18

prisoninmate writes: In this release, GNOME improves the general user experience for users and new developers alike. GNOME 3.18 adds a feature called “Automatic Brightness, ” which, when enabled, it will make use of your laptop’s light sensor to dim or increase the screen’s brightness depending on the surrounding lighting. GNOME 3.18 also improves the touch screen experience, especially when selecting and modifying text, implements a new view in the Nautilus (Files) sidebar, which collects all the remote and internal locations in a single place. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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What’s New In GNOME 3.18

Groupon Is Closing Operations In 7 Countries, Laying Off 1,100

New submitter joesreviewss writes: Groupon is laying off about 10% of its workforce and is shutting down operations in seven countries. 1, 100 people worldwide will be let go and the company will take a pre-tax charge of $35 million in the process. A Groupon statement reads in part: “Let’s be clear: these are tough actions to take, especially when we believe we’re stronger than ever. We’re doing all we can to make these transitions as easy as possible, but it’s not easy to lose some great members of the Groupon family. Yet just as our business has evolved from a largely hand-managed daily deal site to a true ecommerce technology platform, our operational model has to evolve. Evolution is hard, but it’s a necessary part of our journey. It’s also part of our DNA as a company and is one of the things that will help us realize our vision of creating the daily habit in local commerce.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Groupon Is Closing Operations In 7 Countries, Laying Off 1,100

Study: People Emit a "Germ Cloud" of Bacteria As Unique As a Fingerprint

An anonymous reader writes: According to a new study, we are all surrounded by a personal “germ cloud” as unique as a fingerprint. Lead author of the study Dr James Meadow says: “We expected that we would be able to detect the human microbiome in the air around a person, but we were surprised to find that we could identify most of the occupants just by sampling their microbial cloud. Our results confirm that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and demonstrate for the first time that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud.” The findings were published today in the journal PeerJ. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Study: People Emit a "Germ Cloud" of Bacteria As Unique As a Fingerprint

Ultimate VR simulator throws you around in mid-air

Virtual reality headsets can trick our eyes and ears into believing we’re someplace else. Fooling the rest of the body is a little trickier though. Companies have tried spinning chairs and omnidirectional treadmills , but nothing comes close to the ” Cable Robot Simulator ” developed at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. The player wears a wireless VR headset inside a carbon fibre cage, which is then suspended in mid-air and thrown around the room using eight steel cables. The exposed pod is able to tilt, bank and move with an acceleration of up to 1.5g in response to the VR experience. Researchers have shown off some basic flight and racing simulations, but we’re already imagining how it could be used in our favorite video games. A dogfight in Star Wars: Battlefront ? Tearing around corners in F-Zero GX ? The possibilities are endless. It’s still very much a prototype, and hardly suitable for home use, but we’re desperate to have a go ourselves. [Image Credit: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen] Via: Eurogamer Source: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

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Ultimate VR simulator throws you around in mid-air

Is a Roku 4 with 4K coming this way?

It was 2013 the last time that Roku launched a new flagship streaming box, and while we still adore the 3 , the hardware can’t avoid the ravages of time. Our friends over at Zatz Not Funny are reporting that the company is gearing up to replace it with a new high-end unit, the imaginatively-named Roku 4. As well as being the fourth in the series, the hardware expected to launch with 4K video playback as its primary selling point. The rumor began when streaming service Cinema Now accidentally launched a promotion for free HD rentals with every new Roku 4. Whoops. That’s not the only piece of evidence on the rap sheet, either. UKRokuChannels discovered a 4K Showcase offering on the platform’s channel store, which was swiftly pulled by the company. It’ll come as no surprise that the company is embracing the standard, since it revealed in January that it was working on a 4K reference design . In addition, now that Amazon has added the feature to the new Fire TV , it’s only a matter of time before Roku joined in. The firm wasn’t able to respond in time for publication, but we’ll keep a beady eye on the FCC’s website over the next few weeks — just in case. Source: CinemaNow (Cached) , Zatz Not Funny , UKRokuChannels

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Is a Roku 4 with 4K coming this way?

Physicists successfully map individual atoms in 3D

Technology can evolve at such a rapid rate that many scientific discoveries are not just pushing boundaries, they’re practically barging them. Example, Physicists at UCLA have managed to 3D-map the position of individual atoms to a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter (that’s several times smaller than a hydrogen atom, for those of you playing at home) using a creative scanning technique. The method will help scientists and engineers build things — such as aircraft components — that lack point defects (i.e. missing atoms) that can have detrimental effects on structural integrity. The new procedure is called “scanning transmission electron microscopy” and works by passing an electron beam over a sample and measuring how many electrons interact with the atoms in said sample. Different arrangements of atoms react with the electrons in different ways so the outcome is unique to a particular atomic structure. The team conducts the initial scan which produces a 2D image, and in order to get to the final 3D product, they combine several scans from different angles. The downside of this technique is that multiple scans can potentiality damage the sample. The research is led by Jianwei (John) Miao, a UCLA professor of physics. Currently, a method known as X-Ray crystallography is used to map the layout of billions of atoms at a time, but has never been able to pinpoint an atom’s exact coordinates. This all encompassing procedure makes identifying a missing atom impossible. “Our measurements are so precise, and any vibrations — like a person walking by — can affect what we measure, ” said Peter Ercius, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The team of UCLA scientists who happened across this discovery now plan to use it in order to study magnetic properties. [Image Credit: Mary Scott and Jianwei (John) Miao/UCLA] Source: UCLA Newsroom

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Physicists successfully map individual atoms in 3D

Feds recover emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server

The FBI has recovered emails from the private server Hillary Clinton surrendered to the Justice Department back in August, according to Bloomberg . If you recall, Clinton admitted to deleting all her personal correspondences long ago but turned over copies of her work emails (around 30, 000 in number) to the government. You can even read thousands of them — mostly schedules, press clippings, speech notes and the like — on the State Department’s website. However, she decided to hand over her server anyway after the Intelligence Community Inspector General told Congress that some of the work emails she turned in could be classified as “top secret.” Now, the feds have managed to salvage those deleted digital missives, though it’s unclear if they were able to restore them all or just a few. Bloomberg says the FBI is now hard at work segregating the pile, separating truly personal ones ( e.g. Chelsea Clinton’s wedding details and yoga routines) from those that can still fall under the “work” category. The authorities’ investigation is expected to last a few more months, though, so it could take a while before we find out whether other top secret emails were among the deleted ones. [Image credit: Shutterstock / Frontpage] Source: Bloomberg

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Feds recover emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server

Documentarian wipes out Warner’s $2M “Happy Birthday” copyright

(credit: From court records in Good Morning to You v. Warner/Chappell) More than two years after a documentary filmmaker challenged the copyright to the simple lyrics of the song “Happy Birthday,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the copyright is invalid . The result could undo Warner/Chappell’s lucrative licensing business around the song, once estimated to be $2 million per year. The company is likely to appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. US District Judge George King held  that the two sisters who authored the song, Patty and Mildred Hill, gave the melody and piano arrangements to Summy Co., which was eventually acquired by Warner/Chappell. But King wrote that there’s no evidence they ever transferred a copyright on the words. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Documentarian wipes out Warner’s $2M “Happy Birthday” copyright

NVIDIA Announces GeForce GTX 980 GPU For High-End Gaming Notebooks

MojoKid writes: NVIDIA is taking things is a slightly different direction today, at the ultra-high-end of their mobile graphics offering, introducing a “new” mobile GPU implementation, that’s not really a mobile part at all, the GeForce GTX 980. Notice, there’s no “M” on the end of that model number. NVIDIA is betting that the enthusiasts that are most likely to buy a notebook with a GeForce GTX 980 in it are savvy enough to understand the difference. Through some careful binning and optimization of the components that accompany the GPU, including the memory, voltage regulation module, and PCB, NVIDIA was able to take the full desktop GeForce GTX 980 GPU and cram it into mobile form factors. The mobile flavor of the GeForce GTX 980 features selectively binned GPUs that are able to achieve high frequencies at lower-than-typical voltages. And those GPUs are paired to 7Gbps GDDR5 memory and a heat sink with up to 2X the capacity of typical solutions. Notebooks powered by this GPU will be unlocked, and fully overclockable.The performance of the GeForce GTX 980 will also allow notebooks powered by the GPU to push multiple screens or power VR gear. NVIDIA was demoing a GTX 980-powerd Clevo notebook at an event in New York, connected to a trio of 1080P monitors, running GTA V at smooth framerates. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NVIDIA Announces GeForce GTX 980 GPU For High-End Gaming Notebooks