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Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016

Slashdot reader rudy_wayne writes: Despite constant claims of losing billions of dollars to “piracy”, the North American box office closed out 2016 with $11.4 billion in ticket sales. That marks a new record for the industry, bypassing the previous record of $11.1 billion that was established in 2015. Disney had four of the top five highest-grossing films, including “Finding Dory, ” the year’s top film with $486.3 million. “When holdovers are taken into account, Disney had six of the year’s ten highest-grossing releases, a group that includes Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which debuted in 2015, ” reports Variety. Other top films include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($408.2 million), Captain America: Civil War ($408.1 million), The Secret Life of Pets ($368.4 million), and The Jungle Book ($364 million). Disney “controlled more than a quarter of the domestic market share despite releasing fewer films than any of the major studios, ” according to the article, which notes that the record was achieved despite the absence of big releases in several major movie franchises partly through higher ticket prices (and possibly also inflation). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016

Lucasfilm Creates A 4K Ultra-HD Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’

An anonymous reader quotes 4K.com: When the first ever of the Star Wars films, “A New Hope” turns 40 in 2017, millions of dedicated fans of the immensely popular franchise might get a very unique treat in the form of a limited theater screening in beautifully restored form with theatrical 4K resolution of the first movie released in the series. According to recent comments made by Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, a 4K restoration of Star Wars Episode IV “A New Hope” does indeed exist and now the only real question is whether or not the cleaned up and sharpened version of the movie will be hitting the big screen once again. White it’s release status is unknown, the ultra-high definition footage is said to be spectacular. In the interview, Edwards says “You can’t watch it without getting carried away… It just turns you into a child.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lucasfilm Creates A 4K Ultra-HD Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’

France gives you legal permission to avoid work email

New Year’s Day 2017 isn’t just a chance to reflect on the past and plan for the future… in France, it’s a new lease on life for many workers. As of January 1st, the country has enacted a law that requires companies with over 50 employees to negotiate times when staff have the right to ignore email and other communications. If there’s a deal, your employer can’t punish you for refusing to look at your messages beyond set hours. Does your manager need a spreadsheet update while you’re eating dinner? Too bad. And if there’s no deal, the company still has to explicitly outline expectations (and your rights) when you’re off the clock. The deal isn’t completely revolutionary when numerous companies have binding deals that prevent them from messaging workers who’ve finished for the day. And there’s a possibility that at least some companies will squirm out of this legal obligation by refusing to compromise on expectations and settling for the charter. Technology firms in particular have worried that this might hurt their productivity (the internet runs 24/7, after all), especially for employees that want to put in extra time. Still, it’s an important step in an era when many companies use smartphones to extract more hours from the rank and file. French companies will be more likely to respect your work/life balance — even if they don’t mark certain hours as off-limits, they can’t make unexpected requests that force you to drop everything. It could also reduce the pressure to prove your corporate loyalty by working whenever you’re asked. Source: Guardian

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France gives you legal permission to avoid work email

Guy Builds Intricate Star Trek Klingon Warship Using 25,000 LEGO Blocks

All photos courtesy Kevin J. Walter It was a project eight years in the making—well, technically nine now. One LEGO fan has built his own Star Trek Klingon Bird of Prey using about 25, 000 blocks, based on a virtual blueprint he started all the way back in 2008. Read more…

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Guy Builds Intricate Star Trek Klingon Warship Using 25,000 LEGO Blocks

Library Creates Fake Patron Records To Avoid Book-Purging

An anonymous reader writes: Chuck Finley checked out 2, 361 books from a Florida library in just nine months, increasing their total circulation by 3.9%. But he doesn’t exist. “The fictional character was concocted by two employees at the library, complete with a false address and driver’s license number, ” according to the Orlando Sentinel. The department overseeing the library acknowledges their general rule is “if something isn’t circulated in one to two years, it’s typically weeded out of circulation.” So the fake patron scheme was concocted by a library assistant working with the library’s branch supervisor, who “said he wanted to avoid having to later repurchase books purged from the shelf.” But according to the newspaper the branch supervisor “said the same thing is being done at other libraries, too.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Library Creates Fake Patron Records To Avoid Book-Purging

Verizon and AT&T Prepare to Bring 5G To (Select) Markets In 2017

An anonymous reader quotes IEEE Spectrum: This year, Verizon and AT&T plan to deliver broadband internet to select homes or businesses using fixed wireless networks built with early 5G technologies. These 5G pilot programs will give the public its first glimpse into a wireless future that isn’t due to fully arrive until the early 2020s. With 5G, carriers hope to deliver data to smartphone users at speeds 10 times as fast as on today’s 4G networks, and with only 1 millisecond of delay… Over the past year, companies have completed a flurry of lab tests and trials to figure out what types of radios, antennas, and signal processing techniques will work best to deliver 5G in hopes of bringing those technologies and their capabilities to market as soon as possible. The article notes that standards groups are halfway through their eight-year process of finalizing technical specifications (set to finish in 2020), but “With so much cash on the line, and facing pressure from data-hungry customers, carriers are moving fast.” In Japan, NTT Docomo has even tested dozens of programmable antennas simultaneously transmitting signals, resulting in transmissions at 20 gigabits per second. “At that speed, a complete 2-hour, 1080p, high-definition movie can be transmitted in a second and a half.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Verizon and AT&T Prepare to Bring 5G To (Select) Markets In 2017

Baby’s Skull Rebuilt With Help From A 3D Printer

schwit1 writes: A team at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital was able to use a 3-D printer to produce a replica of baby Vincent’s skull, which, in turn, allowed the medical team to fully rehearse the surgery long before they stepped into the operating room. Through a collaboration with Medical Modeling in Colorado, known now as 3D Systems, Egnor and Duboys were able to virtually plan the entire surgery in advance. Duboys said images from a CT scan of baby Vincent’s head were sent to the company, which then manufactured a model skull using the CT information as a template. The company also created a model of what Vincent’s skull should look like after surgery. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Baby’s Skull Rebuilt With Help From A 3D Printer

Pull Requests Are Accepted At About The Same Rate, Regardless of Gender

An anonymous reader writes: Remember that story about how women “get pull requests accepted more (except when you know they’re women).” The study actually showed that men also had their code accepted more often when their gender wasn’t known, according to Tech In Asia — and more importantly, the lower acceptance rates (for both men and women) applied mostly to code submitters from outside the GitHub community. “Among insiders, there’s no evidence of discrimination against women. In fact, the reverse is true: women who are on the inside and whose genders are easy to discern get more of their code approved, and to a statistically significant degree.” Eight months after the story ran, the BBC finally re-wrote their original headline (“Women write better code, study suggests”) and added the crucial detail that acceptance rates for women fell “if they were not regulars on the service and were identified by their gender.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pull Requests Are Accepted At About The Same Rate, Regardless of Gender

Quickly Improve a Smartphone Portrait in Photoshop with a Simple Depth of Field Effect

A portrait is often defined with a little depth of field of effect that makes the person in focus really pop. Most smartphone’s can’t produce this effect, but How-To Geek shows off a way to use a single Photoshop effect to create the same look. Read more…

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Quickly Improve a Smartphone Portrait in Photoshop with a Simple Depth of Field Effect