The Kindle’s screensaver is pretty, but useless. If you want to spice it up with relevant information, including weather, time, and more, programmer Pablo Mateo shows you how to do it. Read more…
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Add Weather and Google Calendar Information to Your Kindle
You may not have noticed it yet, but Google is in the middle of sweeping changes to Hangouts that should offer big improvements to image quality and accessibility. The company tells GigaOM that it’s currently upgrading its video chat service to 720p by switching from the H.264 video codec to the more efficient (and Google-controlled) VP8 standard . HD-quality Hangouts should be available soon after Google finishes the VP8 rollout to web users late next week. A sharper picture is just one part of the puzzle, however. The switch to VP8 also sets the stage for WebRTC support, which will let Google offer plugin-free Hangouts in browsers like Chrome and Firefox within the next several months. The search giant will still offer a plugin for holdouts , but they may soon be the exceptions to the rule. Filed under: Internet , Google Comments Source: GigaOM
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Google+ Hangouts moving to HD video soon, going plugin-free within months
Trent Reznor has a treat for audio nerds. When Nine Inch Nails’ new record Hesitation Marks drops next week, it’ll be available in regular and audiophile versions. The two sonic flavors will be mixed differently—One mix for the headphone clutching masses who demand “loundness, ” and one mix for the nerds who want to hear every frequency the way it sounded in the studio. Read more…
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NIN’s Hesitation Marks Will Come In an Audio-Nerds-Only Version
A major new patent bill, passed in a 117-4 vote by New Zealand’s Parliament after five years of debate, has banned software patents. The relevant clause of the patent bill actually states that a computer program is “not an invention.” Some have suggested that was a way to get around the wording of the TRIPS intellectual property treaty which requires patents to be “available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology.” Processes will still be patentable if the computer program is merely a way of implementing a patentable process. But patent claims that cover computer programs “as such” will not be allowed. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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In historic vote, New Zealand bans software patents
rjmarvin writes “Two developers were able to successfully reverse-engineer Dropbox to intercept SSL traffic, bypass two-factor authentication and create open-source clients. They presented their paper, ‘Looking inside the (Drop) box’ (PDF) at USENIX 2013, explaining step-by-step how they were able to succeed where others failed in reverse-engineering a heavily obfuscated application written in Python. They also claimed the generic techniques they used could be applied to reverse-engineer other Frozen python applications: OpenStack, NASA, and a host of Google apps, just to name a few…” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Researchers Reverse-Engineer Dropbox, Cracking Heavily Obfuscated Python App
Take this with a grain of salt for now, but the Syrian Electronic Army claims it’s taken over Twitter’s domain registration. Indeed, several public Whois listings show sea@sea.sy as the contact information for Twitter.com. We’ve reached out to Twitter, and the company responded that they’re “looking into it” Read more…
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Syrian Electronic Army Claims to Have Taken Over Twitter’s Domain (Updating)
Microsoft’s SkyDrive Pro is helpful for cloud-savvy businesses, but its 7GB of storage per person now seems restrictive next to improved offerings from rivals like Box . The company won’t let itself be outdone, however: it just bumped SkyDrive Pro’s base storage to 25GB per user, and administrators can raise that limit to 100GB if they’re willing to pay. There’s some incentives to take advantage of that extra space, too. Microsoft now offers a larger 2GB file cap, automatic versioning for new users and a client view that displays all shared documents. If your employer depends on Microsoft for online collaboration, you should notice the additional storage today. Filed under: Storage , Internet , Microsoft Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: Office 365 Technology
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Microsoft boosts base SkyDrive Pro storage to 25GB, lets administrators add more
So far, Bethesda Softworks (and parent company Zenimax Media) has bucked industry trends by planning a $15 per month subscription for its upcoming The Elder Scrolls Online , adding a bit of insult to injury by including a real-money shop for nonessential items . Now the company says it’s trying to get Microsoft to agree to waive the additional requirement of an Xbox Live Gold subscription for Xbox One players, though without much success so far. Microsoft currently requires a $60/year Xbox Live Gold account to play any and all online games on the system, even otherwise free-to-play titles like World of Tanks . Speaking to the UK’s official Xbox Magazine , though, Zenimax Online Creative Director Paul Sage says the company has “been in talks with Microsoft” about getting a waiver for The Elder Scrolls Online since the game already has its own subscription fee. “[We’re] seeing whether or not there’s any room to change their minds about that, for folks who are only paying The Elder Scrolls Online and don’t want to pay for an Xbox Live Gold subscription, just to pay The Elder Scrolls Online , ” Sage said. So far Microsoft has been less than responsive to these concerns, reportedly answering, “that’s the way it works, ” but Sage promises that Bethesda will “keep on pushing” on the issue. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Bethesda “pushing” against Xbox Live Gold fee for Elder Scrolls Online
Nissan got bold on Tuesday afternoon by announcing plans to build and, more notably, sell an affordable self-driving car by 2020. And when Nissan say affordable, it means it. The company estimates the cost of upgrading a luxury sedan to a luxury autonomous sedan will be just $1, 000. Read more…
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Nissan Wants Self-Driving to Be a $1000 Car Upgrade by 2020
Google’s not the only one trying to build self-driving cars , despite the fact that it gets a ton of attention for all those autonomous autos roaming Bay Area streets. Many manufacturers are interested in taking human error out of the driving equation, and now Nissan aims to do so by 2020. That’s right, folks, Nissan Executive VP Andy Palmer stated today that the plan is to sell multiple affordable models of fully autonomous cars by 2020. And, to meet that goal, the company is constructing a facility to test self-driving systems that’ll be up and running in 2014. Nissan’s development timetable falls right in line with some of its competitors , but talk is cheap — time will tell if Nissan can deliver on both its autonomous and affordability promises. Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: Wall Street Journal Source: Nissan
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Nissan to sell multiple affordable self-driving cars by 2020