Apple’s iBooks to become “Books” in forthcoming reading app redesign

Enlarge (credit: Apple) Apple is reportedly tweaking its e-book offering to better take on Amazon, the current leader of the digital book market. According to a Bloomberg report , Apple will release a revamped version of the iBooks app for iOS, which will be dubbed “Books,” that will have an interface more like the iOS 11 App Store, a Reading Now tab, and a separate section for audiobooks. There’s no official date for the debut of the new app, but it’s reportedly slated to be released in the coming months. Limited details are known about the app, which is in testing right now. Bloomberg’s report describes it having a “simpler interface” that emphasizes books the user is currently reading. There’s also a new digital book store within the app that’s said to be similarly designed to Apple’s current App Store, which received a drastic redesign in iOS 11. That could mean that Apple plans to make discovering new books through the Books app easier, possibly with categorical tabs and book cover art throughout the digital store. Apple recently moved its audiobook offerings from the Music app to the iBooks app, but having a dedicated tab for audiobooks will make them more easily accessible for customers. Apple has also reportedly hired a lead executive from Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook platform, to help reinvigorate its e-book efforts. The iBooks app remains one of the few Apple programs that hasn’t received a significant update in years. That is likely due in part to a 2013 ruling by the U.S. Department of Justice covering fixed pricing for e-books in Apple’s iBooks store. Apple was fined $450 million. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple’s iBooks to become “Books” in forthcoming reading app redesign

Darren Aronofsky-backed VR series ‘Spheres’ lands a 7-figure deal

If you want evidence that VR is maturing as an entertainment medium, you just got it. CityLights just bought the rights to Spheres , the three-part VR black hole series written by Eliza McNitt and produced by Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures, for a “seven-figure” amount at the Sundance Film Festival. That might not sound like much by Hollywood standards, but it’s the first-ever seven-figure VR purchase at the event. It was slated to reach the Oculus Rift in 2018 (Oculus and Intel backed the project) and should get wider distribution as a result. The project’s pedigree helps, and not just because Aronofsky’s outfit is involved. While McNitt is best-known for producing conventional shorts and documentaries, she’ll have Jessica Chastain as narrator and Stranger Things artists Survive providing the series’ all-important soundtrack. You aren’t about to see VR titles fetching the prices normally associated with blockbuster movies and TV shows. Not when VR headsets are rare both at home and public venues, at least. However, the Spheres deal could set the tone for Sundance and other VR-friendly festivals in the future. You might soon see more star-studded VR titles as companies feel they can make a serious profit, even if the viewership doesn’t hold a candle to what they’ll get from movie theaters. Source: Oculus (Twitter)

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Darren Aronofsky-backed VR series ‘Spheres’ lands a 7-figure deal

These baby monkeys are first cloned primates created using the Dolly method

Enlarge / Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua (credit: Qiang Sun, Mu-ming Poo, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences) More than 20 years after Dolly comes Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. The twin long-tailed macaque monkeys are the first primates cloned using the same method that created the world’s most famous sheep in 1996—a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. The twins’ genetic blueprints were swiped from fetal cells of another monkey. Researchers then popped the DNA into egg cells that they had also cleared of their DNA-containing nuclei. With a dash of compounds that spur embryo development, the reprogrammed cells developed into healthy baby monkeys in surrogate mother monkeys. The two were born about seven weeks ago in China and are developing normally so far, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Cell . Though the overall SCNT method is the same as what was used for Dolly, researchers struggled for years to tweak it to work in primates. The procedure is delicate and required a lot of optimization—not to mention DNA-swaps. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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These baby monkeys are first cloned primates created using the Dolly method

Unlocked PS4 consoles can now run copies of PS2 games

Video of Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for the PS2 running on an unlocked PlayStation 4. After years of work, hackers have finally managed to unlock the PS4 hardware with an exploit that lets the system run homebrew and pirated PS4 software. In a somewhat more surprising discovery, those hackers have also unlocked the ability to run many PS2 games directly on the console, using the same system-level emulation that powers legitimate PlayStation Classics downloads. While hackers managed to install Linux on the PS4 years ago , the biggest breakthrough in the PS4 hacking scene came late last month, when two different teams of hackers released a WebKit exploit for version 4.05 of the PS4 firmware . That firmware was patched (and automatically updated on many systems) in late 2016, and there’s currently no known way to downgrade an updated system to the older firmware, which limits the range of consoles that can run the exploit. For compatible consoles, though, the kernel-level exploit allows for pretty much full control of the system, including the running of unsigned code. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Unlocked PS4 consoles can now run copies of PS2 games

Coinbase Is Making $2.7 Million a Day

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bitcoin News: In information released to shareholders this week, Coinbase revealed that it recorded turnover of $1 billion last year, which works out at an astonishing $2.74 million a day or $2, 000 a minute. As America’s largest bitcoin broker, Coinbase claims the lion’s share of the money that’s pouring into the crypto space at a dizzying rate. 2017 was a bumper year for all crypto exchanges, which reported record numbers across the board: new signups, new staff hired, new trading pairs, and new revenue. Those revenue streams have turned into a torrent that has caused Coinbase’ coffers to swell. Recode reports that the company’s revenue exceeded $1 billion last year, most of it derived from the trading fees it levies. These vary from between 0.25% and 1%. and quickly add up: in the past 24 hours, 36, 000 BTC were traded on Coinbase, accounting for more than 15% of the total market. Coinbase isn’t the world’s largest exchange (and is technically a broker rather than a conventional exchange — that duty falls to its GDAX subsidiary) but it’s the best known and carries great weight in the cryptocurrency industry. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Coinbase Is Making $2.7 Million a Day

iOS 11.3 will introduce new battery features and AR improvements

Apple is bringing iOS 11.3 to iPhones and iPads this spring, and today the company released a preview of what we can expect from the upgrade. The most notable improvements are the battery health indicator, upgrades to ARKit and the introduction of Health Records. iPhone batteries have been a big subject of discussion lately, with the recent news that Apple has been throttling performance on older phones to balance aging battery life. Now, Apple is replacing batteries on some phones for a low fee. This latest update includes a feature that shows the health of your phone’s battery, as well as if it needs to be serviced. What’s more, users will be able to see if that power management feature is turned on, and toggle it off if they so choose. Additionally, the company introduced improvements to ARKit, its AR SDK for developers. ARKit 1.5 will be able to recognize vertical surfaces such as walls and doors, as well as map objects that are irregular in shape, such as a circular or oval table. The experience will also be clearer, as the real-world view now has 50 percent sharper resolution. Apple also announced Health Records , which allows users to bring all their medical records together within one app. Rather than logging into every single provider separately, Health Records will work with your existing doctors and hospitals to put all your health information into one place. It’s currently available to patients of 12 medical institutions, but more will follow, and all data will be encrypted to ensure privacy. iOS 11.3 has four new Animoji, including a bear, a dragon, a skull and a lion; this brings the total number of Animoji up to 16. Business Chat will also launch within the Messages app as an 11.3 beta feature. This will allow users to communicate directly with businesses such as Hilton, Lowe’s, Discover and Wells Fargo. If you have an Apple developer account, the iOS 11.3 preview is available today; the free public beta preview will follow. The upgrade will be available widely this spring, for the iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Airs and iPad Pros, the iPad fifth generation, iPad Mini 2 and later and the sixth generation of the iPod Touch. Source: Apple (1) , Apple (2)

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iOS 11.3 will introduce new battery features and AR improvements

MilliDelta robot surgeon is the size of a one cent coin

Another tiny robot is gearing up to join the ranks of microsurgeons , but this one is small enough to fit in your coin purse. Inspired by pop-up books and origami, the milliDelta bot measures mere millimetres when unfolded (roughly the size of a one cent coin). But, even at that scale, the miniature helper packs flexible joints and bending, piezoelectric actuators that allow it to work with force, precision, and high speed. Its creators (from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) claim it can perform a range of microsurgery and manufacturing tasks in compact spaces. Unlike existing Delta robots, which scientists have been shrinking down for workspace use for years, the new bot is a swift operator. “Currently available Delta robots are only able to operate at a few hertz, ” said Hayley McClintock, a Harvard researcher who helped design the device. “So for our robot to be able to draw circles at frequencies up to 75 Hz is quite impressive.” Scientists developed the new bot using a technique known as pop-up microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), allowing them to create a complex structure from flat pieces of materials. The same approach was used to create the flying RoboBee . Next up for the milliDelta bot, the researchers plan to refine its specs in order to pin down its final design and add power and control electronics. Source: ScienceRobotics

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MilliDelta robot surgeon is the size of a one cent coin

Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service

Imagine being in the ocean, trapped in a swell some 700 meters from shore. Suddenly a yellow package drops out of the sky as if sent by a god, hits the water next to you and expands into a flotation device. That was the experience of two unlucky, then lucky teenage boys off the coast of Lennox Head in Australia last week. Someone spotted the boys in distress and called it in, but the nearest lifeguard station was a kilometer away. Just that morning, however, Lennox Head had brought their new lifesaving drone into service. In a little over a minute, a lifeguard supervisor had launched the drone, spotted the boys, flew it over to them, and remotely dropped the flotation device. The boys were able to grab it and swim to shore. Here’s the footage: The drone is manufactured by a company called Little Ripper Lifesaver , founded by Kevin Weldon after he witnessed a drone canvassing the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and realized its lifesaving potential. The Marine Pod dropped over Lennox Head contained a water-triggered flotation device, which is repackable and reusable. The company is now testing a saltwater-activated electromagnetic shark repellent device, with plans to include that in future kits. Little Ripper also makes a Land Pod, which contains an automatic defibrillator, a location beacon, a thermal blanket, a radio, a highly-visible rescue banner and a first aid kit. Lastly they make a Snow Pod, which adds skin warmers and energy bars to the Land Pod. Lennox Head received the drone as part of a trial set up by an organization called Surf Life Saving NSW and the New South Wales Government. According to ABC News , Surf Life Saving NSW project manager for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Kelvin Morton, said the project was a world-first. “These UAVs that we’re using to drop these inflatable pods is innovative, and we know that most or all of the lifesaving organisations around the world are stepping back and waiting to see how this goes.” Mr Morton said the drones gave surf lifesavers a new advantage. “It gives them eyes across the water at a height of 60 metres and they can move at 50 kilometres an hour, ” he said.  “They’ve never had that ability before. They can see things in the water that a jet-ski simply cannot.”

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Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service

Linux 4.15 Becomes Slowest Release Since 2011

An anonymous reader shares a report: Linus Torvalds has decided that Linux 4.15 needs a ninth release candidate, making it the first kernel release to need that much work since 2011. Torvalds flagged up the possibility of an extra release candidate last week, with the caveat that “it obviously requires this upcoming week to not come with any huge surprises” after “all the Meltdown and Spectre hoopla” made his job rather more complicated in recent weeks. Fast-forward another week and Torvalds has announced “I really really wanted to just release 4.15 today, but things haven’t calmed down enough for me to feel comfy about it.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux 4.15 Becomes Slowest Release Since 2011