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Invader Zim will return to TV “soon-ish” with creator, original cast

Invader Zim teaser for a new animated TV movie Invader Zim , the Nickelodeon animated series that ran for two seasons in the early ’00s, will end its longtime television absence “soon-ish.” The cable network announced its intentions on Tuesday in the form of a dry press release and a far-less-dry animated teaser. In the teaser, Zim, the series’ neurotic titular alien, announces his evil intentions under the veil of darkness—and then is interrupted by his longtime robo-pal Gir. “I like your voice!” Gir chuckles mid-video. “It’s funny!” “I’m not BEING funny!” Zim retorts. “I’m being, you know, terrifying and spooky!” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Invader Zim will return to TV “soon-ish” with creator, original cast

Reebok will introduce plant-based sustainable shoes this year

While others try shoes that lace themselves or have 3D printed soles , Reebok will have “plant-based” footwear on shelves this year. Adidas already sold a sneaker produced from ocean-plastic , but Reebok’s “Cotton + Corn” push is focused on shoes that are made from sustainable, growing materials, that can even be used as compost after they’re worn out. According to Reebok Future head Bill McInnis “We like to say, we are ‘growing shoes’ here at Reebok. Ultimately, our goal is to create a broad selection of bio-based footwear that can be composted after use. We’ll then use that compost as part of the soil to grow the materials for the next range of shoes. We want to take the entire cycle into account; to go from dust to dust.” While the shoe itself won’t arrive until later this year, Reebok says it’s using DuPont’s Susterra Propanediol to create the sole. It originates from “non-food source” industrially grown corn, while the upper will be made of organic cotton. Last year, the Future department the Liquid Speed shoes made with 3D drawing technology , and this next project will fit right alongside them. More importantly, McInnis claims this is “just the beginning, ” and expects to use it as a blueprint moving forward. Source: Reebok

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Reebok will introduce plant-based sustainable shoes this year

‘Arctic World Archive’ Will Keep the World’s Data Safe In an Arctic Mineshaft

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Norway’s famous doomsday seed vault is getting a new neighbor. It’s called the Arctic World Archive, and it aims to do for data what the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has done for crop samples — provide a remote, impregnable home in the Arctic permafrost, safe from threats like natural disaster and global conflicts. But while the Global Seed Vault is (partially) funded by charities who want to preserve global crop diversity, the World Archive is a for-profit business, created by Norwegian tech company Piql and Norway’s state mining company SNSK. The Archive was opened on March 27th this year, with the first customers — the governments of Brazil, Mexico, and Norway — depositing copies of various historical documents in the vault. Data is stored in the World Archive on optical film specially developed for the task by Piql. (And, yes, the company name is a pun on the word pickle, as in preserving-in-vinegar.) The company started life in 2002 making video formats that bridged analog film and digital media, but as the world went fully digital it adapted its technology for the task of long-term storage. As Piql founder Rune Bjerkestrand tells The Verge: “Film is an optical medium, so what we do is, we take files of any kind of data — documents, PDFs, JPGs, TIFFs — and we convert that into big, high-density QR codes. Our QR codes are massive, and very high resolution; we use greyscale to get more data into every code. And in this way we convert a visual storage medium, film, into a digital one.” Once data is imprinted on film, the reels are stored in a converted mineshaft in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The mineshaft (different to the one used by the Global Seed Vault) was originally operated by SNSK for the mining of coal, but was abandoned in 1995. The vault is 300 meters below the ground and impervious to both nuclear attacks and EMPs. Piql claims its proprietary film format will store data safely for at least 500 years, and maybe as long as 1, 000 years, with the assistance of the mine’s climate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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‘Arctic World Archive’ Will Keep the World’s Data Safe In an Arctic Mineshaft

Driverless pods begin ferrying the public around Greenwich

It’s been almost a year since the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) opened sign-ups for a driverless pod trial in Greenwich. The original plan was to start before Christmas, but given today’s date that obviously didn’t happen. Still, better late than never, eh? Over the next three weeks, roughly 100 people will clamber aboard “Harry, ” a self-driving shuttle named after clockmaker John Harrison. It will take them around a two-mile course in North Greenwich, near The O2, to demonstrate how the technology could be used for “last mile” trips in urban areas. The shuttle is a repurposed Ultra Pod , which is already in operation at London’s Heathrow Airport. With a maximum speed of 10MPH (16KPH), it’s not the fastest electric vehicle — you could beat it on a Boosted Board — however it’s hoped the leisurely pace will reassure pedestrians and minimise dangerous incidents. Each pod carries up to four people, including a safety operator who can pepper the breaks in an emergency. It’s able to ‘see’ it’s surroundings using a mixture of cameras and lasers, and use that information to track obstacles and create a collision-free route. Notably, it doesn’t need to rely on GPS for any of these calculations. The purpose of the trials is to see how the public reacts to self-driving vehicles, and to examine how the technology can best be applied in built-up areas. Each trip will give the research team a wealth of valuable information — four terabytes of data every eight hours, to be precise. It’ll be supplemented with passenger interviews, taken before and after each trip, and written feedback that anyone can submit online through an interactive map . “It is critical that the public is fully involved as these technologies become a reality, ” Professor Nick Reed, academy director at TRL said. The “GATEway Project” at Greenwich is one of many research initiatives being funded by the UK government. We’ve already seen the ” Lutz Pathfinder ” pod, which is being tested in Milton Keynes, and a modified Land Rover that’s serving as a research testbed in Bristol. Plans are also underway for a 41-mile ” connected corridor , ” which will be used to test LTE, local WiFi hotspots and other forms of connectivity in self-driving vehicles. In the private sector, Nissan is testing its electric Leaf cars in the capital, and Roborace is developing a driverless motorsport . It’s an impressive hub of activity, even without Google and Uber’s involvement. Via: BBC

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Driverless pods begin ferrying the public around Greenwich

Samsung’s created a new IoT OS, and it’s a dumpster fire

Tizen is Samsung’s long-touted OS to replace Android and Israeli security researcher Amihai Neiderman just delivered a talk on it at Kapersky Lab’s Security Analyst Summit where he revealed 40 new 0-day flaws in the OS, and showed that he could trivially send malicious code updates to any Tizen device, from TVs to phones, thanks to amateurish mistakes of the sort not seen in real production environments for decades. (more…)

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Samsung’s created a new IoT OS, and it’s a dumpster fire

Spotify Premium Users Will Get Some Albums Two Weeks Before Free Users

Spotify has signed a long-term licensing agreement with Universal Music Group, allowing new albums from Universal artists to be restricted to its premium service for up to two weeks. The Verge reports: In a statement, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek admitted that Spotify understands that its policy of releasing albums across its entire service couldn’t last forever. “We know that not every album by every artist should be released the same way, and we’ve worked hard with UMG to develop a new, flexible release policy, ” Ek stated. “Starting today, Universal artists can choose to release new albums on premium only for two weeks, offering subscribers an earlier chance to explore the complete creative work, while the singles are available across Spotify for all our listeners to enjoy.” The agreement with UMG should allow for deals with Spotify’s other two major label partners, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group, to be completed in short order — deals that likely will match the parameters set in the Spotify-UMG deal — paving the way for Spotify’s initial public offering. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why Intel Insists Rumors Of The Demise Of Moore’s Law Are Greatly Exaggerated

From an article on FastCompany: Intel hasn’t lost its zeal for big leaps in computing, even as it changes the way it introduces new chips, and branches beyond the PC processor into other areas like computer vision and the internet of things. “Number one, too many people have been writing about the end of Moore’s law, and we have to correct that misimpression, ” Mark Bohr, Intel’s technology and manufacturing group senior fellow and director of process architecture and integration, says in an interview. “And number two, Intel has developed some pretty compelling technologies … that not only prove that Moore’s law is still alive, but that it’s going to continue to provide the best benefits of density, cost performance, and power.” But while Moore’s law soldiers on, it’s no longer associated with the types of performance gains Intel was making 10 to 20 years ago. The practical benefits of Moore’s law are not what they used to be. For each new generation of microprocessor, Intel used to adhere to a two-step cycle, called the “tick-tock.” The “tick” is where Moore’s law takes effect, using a new manufacturing process to shrink the size of each transistor and pack more of them onto a chip. The subsequent “tock” introduces a new microarchitecture, which yields further performance improvements by optimizing how the chip carries out instructions. Intel would typically go through this cycle once every two years. But in recent years, shrinking the size of transistors has become more challenging, and in 2016, Intel made a major change. The latest 14 nm process added a third “optimization” step after the architectural change, with modest performance improvements and new features such as 4K HDR video support. And in January, Intel said it would add a fourth optimization step, stretching the cycle out even further. The move to a 10 nm process won’t happen until the second half of 2017, three years after the last “tick, ” and Intel expects the new four-step process to repeat itself. This “hyper scaling” allows computing power to continue to increase while needing fewer changes in the manufacturing process. If you divide the number of transistors in Intel’s current tick by the surface area of two common logic cells, the rate of improvement still equals out to more than double every two years, keeping Moore’s law on track. “Yes, they’ve taken longer, but we’ve taken bigger steps, ” Bohr said during his three-hour presentation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why Intel Insists Rumors Of The Demise Of Moore’s Law Are Greatly Exaggerated

IoT Garage Door Opener Maker Bricks Customer’s Product After Bad Review

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Denis Grisak, the man behind the Internet-connected garage opener Garadget, is having a very bad week. Grisak and his Colorado-based company SoftComplex launched Garadget, a device built using Wi-Fi-based cloud connectivity from Particle, on Indiegogo earlier this year, hitting 209 percent of his launch goal in February. But this week, his response to an unhappy customer has gotten Garadget a totally different sort of attention. On April 1, a customer who purchased Garadget on Amazon using the name R. Martin reported problems with the iPhone application that controls Garadget. He left an angry comment on the Garadget community board: “Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iPhone app, powered phone off/on – wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here…” Shortly afterward, not having gotten a response, Martin left a 1-star review of Garadget on Amazon: “Junk – DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY – iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.” Grisak then responded by bricking Martin’s product remotely, posting on the support forum: “Martin, The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I’m happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I’m not going to tolerate any tantrums. At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036… will be denied server connection.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android 7.1.2 leaves beta, arrives on Pixel and Nexus devices

After a lengthy beta period that began in January, Google released Android Nougat 7.1.2 on Monday. Images and OTAs are up on Google’s factory image page , and a rollout has started to creep across the Google device landscape. Google is releasing the update for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 6P, 5X, and Nexus Player. As we reported during the beta release, 7.1.2 marks the end of the line for the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, Google’s flagship devices from 2014. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android 7.1.2 leaves beta, arrives on Pixel and Nexus devices

Uber exec accused of stealing from Google made $120M while working on the side

Anthony Levandowski giving a presentation in Japan in 2011, when he worked for Google. (credit: shinnygogo ) New legal filings in the Waymo v. Uber litigation lay out more of Google’s allegations against ex-Googler Anthony Levandowski, who now heads up Uber’s self-driving car unit. According to a Google document filed in court yesterday, Levandowski created “competing side businesses” as early as 2012 while he was still working for Google. That’s when Levandowski is said to have incorporated a company called Odin Wave LLC, with a physical address at a building he owned in Berkeley, California. Odin Wave submitted an order to a hardware maker asking for a “customer-fabricated part” similar to what Google used in its self-driving cars. Google employees investigated Odin Wave, noted the connections to Levandowski, and questioned the engineer about it, but Levandowski denied having any ownership, according to Google lawyers. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ken May

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