Solar power is getting much, much better . Now, a team of scientists has created the world’s most efficient nanostructured black silicon solar cell—which converts an impressive 22.1 percent of incident light into electricity. Read more…
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This Is the World’s Most Efficient Black Silicon Solar Cell
The Pirate Bay will probably never be the darling of any government; we’ve seen various Pirate Bay domains cracked down on, and the arrests of site founders. An anonymous reader writes now with the news reported this morning by TorrentFreak that: the Stockholm District Court has ordered two key domains owned by The Pirate Bay to be seized. While the ruling means that the site will lose its famous ThePirateBay.se domain, don’t expect the site to simply disappear. TPB informs TorrentFreak that they have plenty more domains left in store. From the point of view of the down-crackers, It’s a hard problem, particularly when it’s easy for people to spin up their own instances of the site. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Swedish Court Orders Seizure of Pirate Bay Domains
RIP, EZTZ: One of the largest TV pirating rings is dead . Torrent sites like Kickass and Pirate Bay have also added a warning to EZTV’s files reading: THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY SCAMMERS. STAY AWAY. Read more…
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Coup d’eTorrent: Scammers Hijack a Major File-Sharing Site
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleges that PayPal engaged in unfair, abusive and deceptive practices in the marketing and management of its PayPal Credit service, formerly known as Bill Me Later. To rectify the (many) outlined abuses, the CFPB filed a complaint and proposed consent order that directs PayPal to refund $15 million to affected consumers, plus pay a $10 million fine to the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund. The proposed consent order isn’t an official ruling just yet — a judge with the US District Court for the District of Maryland must approve the order for it to be enforced. “The CFPB alleges that many consumers who were attempting to enroll in a regular PayPal account, or make an online purchase, were signed up for a credit product without realizing it, ” the bureau writes. “The company also failed to post payments properly, lost payment checks, and mishandled billing disputes that consumers had with merchants or the company. Tens of thousands of consumers experienced these issues.” Specifically, the CFPB claims that PayPal deceptively advertised promotions, abusively charged deferred interest, enrolled people in PayPal Credit without their knowledge or consent, forced customers to use PayPal Credit, engaged in illegal billing practices and mishandled disputes. The CFPB has the authority to take action against companies engaging in unfair and abusive business practices under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The “affected consumers” in this case are, generally, “any consumer identified by the Bureau and Defendants who paid late fees or interest charges between January 1st, 2011, and May 1st, 2015, ” the proposed consent order reads. PayPal recently agreed to pay the US Department of Treasury $7.7 million after processing payments for numerous individuals and companies on the US sanctions list. For an in-depth look at the CFPB’s allegations against PayPal Credit, see the full complaint ( PDF ) and proposed consent order ( PDF ). Filed under: Misc , Internet Comments Source: CFPB
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PayPal will refund $15 million to customers if the CFPB has its way
Today the Hoolpa service and apps added e-books and comic to its media library of audiobooks, movies, TV shows and albums. While the app has always synced with local libraries, it wasn’t until today that the app was meant for reading. The new offerings will be from IDW Publishing , RosettaBooks , Chicago Review Press and others with more publishers being announced in the coming months. The reading feature includes options similar to Amazon’s Whispersync with the ability to read a book across multiple devices and the options to adjust fonts, line spacing, columns and background. For comic book fans, a feature called “Action View” enlarges individual panels with a double tap for easier reading on mobile devices. “One of our main objectives for libraries is to be mobile centric, ” said owner and founder Jeff Jankowski. Developer Midwest Tape has been supplying books and other media to libraries for 25 years. The Hoopla app is the evolution of that relationship. When you attach your library card to the app, you’re allotted a certain amount of “check outs” per month (for example, San Francisco allows 10). The 6, 000 e-books and comic books added today join the 300, 000 movies, TV shows, audiobooks and albums currently on the service. Filed under: Misc Comments Source: Hoopla
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Hoopla lets you digitally borrow almost anything from your library
Bitcoin’s march toward legitimacy just took a hop, skip and jump with the news that the New York Stock Exchange is going to start monitoring its value. The NYSE Bitcoin Index (NYBXT) will keep a beady eye on how much the cryptocurrency is worth, relative to the US dollar, with the data being pulled from Coinbase . That way, investment types can get a quick read on how bitcoin is doing at any one time, with the value being updated at 11:00 AM ET each day. Essentially, bitcoin will look and feel like any other foreign currency market on the NYSE’s ticker. Investors looking to make some money can put their cash into bitcoin and hopefully take it out, when its value increases. Those who are curious as to why the data is being pulled from Coinbase should note that NYSE made a small investment in the business earlier this year. The exchange has pledged, however, that if other bitcoin exchanges can meet its rigorous quality standards, they’ll be allowed to join the index at some point in the future. Between this and the impending launch of the Winklevoss-backed Gemini exchange, it looks like New York’s financial district is the place to be for would-be bitcoin speculators. Filed under: Misc , Internet Comments Source: NYSE (BusinessWire)
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New York Stock Exchange begins monitoring bitcoin value
The Verge obtained the 2011 agreement between the label and the music streaming service, which launched later that year. ” Sony Music came out the winner, ” reports Micah Singleton
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Sony’s contract with Spotify revealed
Some good news for power users ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference next month: the company has just updated its 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, completing the 2015 MacBook refresh it began with the new MacBook Air , 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro , and the MacBook . The 15-inch Pros include some upgrades that other MacBooks have gotten this year—faster PCI Express storage enabled by increasing the number of PCIe lanes used from two to four and the Force Touch trackpad are chief among them. The discrete graphics option on the high-end $2,499 version of the laptop has also been upgraded, from an Nvidia GeForce GT 750M to an AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB of DDR5 RAM. The entry-level $1,999 version still comes with Intel’s Iris integrated graphics. Visually, the MacBook Pro looks much like the 2012 and 2013 models. The one noticeable physical difference is its Force Touch trackpad, also included in the 13-inch Pro and the new MacBook. These pressure-sensitive trackpads use haptic feedback to simulate the feel of a standard clicky trackpad, but they don’t need as much physical space to move. The trackpad’s inclusion in the MacBook is obviously necessary because of how thin the device is, but its presence in the new Pros is probably intended to encourage developers to adopt Force Touch APIs in their software. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Apple announces new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch and other upgrades [Updated]
The entire magazine industry has been hurt by the web, but pornographic magazines have been hit the hardest. From an essay in Quartz by Lee Quarnstrom, former editor of Hustler : In a January 2014 interview with Erin Moriarty of CBS, Flynt announced that he didn’t expect Hustler , the heart of his porn empire, to last more than two or three years. Read the rest
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Because of net porn, Hustler’s circulation has dropped 97%
We all have our own different coping mechanisms when it comes to stress. A nice walk outside. A cold beer. A punching bag. Blowing up at your friends. And glowing in the dark. What? Scientists believe that these millipedes evolved to glow in the dark to deal with stress (and to let predators now that they’re packing toxic cyanide). Read more…
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These eerie millipedes glow in the dark because of stress