Plex for Kodi is now free for everyone

If you’re all about a customized media center then you’ll be familiar with Plex or Kodi , but getting the best of both services meant having a Plex Plus subscription . Until now, that is, as Plex has quietly made its Kodi add-on free to everyone. Now you can run both media centers simultaneously without losing any customizations, enjoying what Plex calls “settings nirvana”, without paying for the privilege. Some settings remain unavailable, though, such as audio fingerprinting, multiple users and parental controls, but these features are unlikely to be especially important to anyone who just wants an easier way to bring their content together. Interestingly, the add-on has been launched less than a week after it emerged Plex had taken legal action against unofficial versions, so this is the company recognizing demand and getting ahead of a potential issue down the line. A smart move with happy consequences for its users. Via: Windows Central Source: Plex

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Plex for Kodi is now free for everyone

Neanderthals were distilling tar 200 thousand years ago in Europe

Paul Kozowyk Despite many recent discoveries that show Neanderthals were technologically and socially sophisticated, there’s still a popular idea that these heavy-browed, pale-skinned early humans were mentally inferior to modern Homo sapiens . Now we have even more corroboration that they were pretty sharp. A fascinating new study reveals that Neanderthals were distilling tar for tool-making 200 thousand years ago—long before evidence of tar-making among Homo sapiens . And an experimental anthropologist has some good hypotheses for how they did it, too. One of humanity’s earliest technological breakthroughs was learning to distill tar from tree bark. It was key to making compound tools with two or more parts; adhesives could keep a stone blade nicely fitted into a wooden handle for use as a hoe, an axe, or even a spear. Scientists have discovered ancient beads of tar in Italy, Germany, and several other European sites dating back as much as 200 thousand years, which is about 150 thousand years before modern Homo sapiens arrived in Western Europe. That means the people who distilled that tar had to be Neanderthals. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Neanderthals were distilling tar 200 thousand years ago in Europe

Nearly 3,000 Bitcoin Miners Exposed Online Via Telnet Ports, Without Passwords

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: Dutch security researcher Victor Gevers has discovered 2, 893 Bitcoin miners left exposed on the internet with no passwords on their Telnet port. Gevers told Bleeping Computer in a private conversation that all miners process Bitcoin transactions in the same mining pool and appear to belong to the same organization. “The owner of these devices is most likely a state sponsored/controlled organization part of the Chinese government, ” Gevers says, basing his claims on information found on the exposed miners and IP addresses assigned to each device. “At the speed they were taken offline, it means there must be serious money involved, ” Gevers added. “A few miners is not a big deal, but 2, 893 [miners] working in a pool can generate a pretty sum.” According to a Twitter user, the entire network of 2, 893 miners Gevers discovered could generate an income of just over $1 million per day, if mining Litecoin. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nearly 3,000 Bitcoin Miners Exposed Online Via Telnet Ports, Without Passwords

Sharp Announces 8K Consumer TVs Now That We All Have 4K

Thuy Ong reports via The Verge: Now that you’ve upgraded to a shiny new 4K TV, Sharp has revealed its latest screen to stoke your fear of missing out: a 70-inch Aquos 8K TV. That 8K (7, 680 x 4, 320) resolution is 16 times that of your old Full HD (1920 x 1080) TV. Sharp calls it “ultimate reality, with ultra-fine details even the naked eye cannot capture, ” which doesn’t seem like a very good selling point. Keep in mind that having a screen with more pixels doesn’t buy you much after a certain point, because those pixels are invisible from a distance — while an 8K panel would be beneficial as a monitor, where you’re sitting close, it won’t buy you much when leaning back on the couch watching TV. HDR, however, is something else entirely, and fortunately, Sharp’s new 8K set is compatible with Dolby Vision HDR and BDA-HDR (for Blu-ray players). The lack of available 8K HDR content is also a problem. But there is some content floating around. The TV will be rolling out to China and Japan later this year, and then Taiwan in February 2018. Sharp is repurposing its 70-inch 8K TV as an 8K monitor (model LV-70X500E) for Europe, which will be on sale in March. There is no news about a U.S. release. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Sharp Announces 8K Consumer TVs Now That We All Have 4K

60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb

More than 70 years ago the UK’s Royal Air Force dropped an 1, 100-pound bomb on Germany. They just found it. An anonymous reader quotes ABC: Residents in two German cities are evacuating their homes as authorities prepare to dispose of World War II-era bombs found during construction work this week. About 21, 000 people have been ordered to leave their homes and workplaces in the western city of Koblenz as a precaution before specialists attempt to defuse the 500-kilogram bomb on Saturday afternoon (local time). Among those moved to safety are prison inmates and hospital patients. Officials in the financial capital Frankfurt, meanwhile, are carrying out what is described as Germany’s biggest evacuation. Frankfurt city officials have said more than 60, 000 residents will have to leave their homes for at least 12 hours. Failure to defuse the bomb could cause a big enough explosion to flatten a city block, a fire department official said. “This bomb has more than 1.4 tonnes of explosives, ” Frankfurt fire chief Reinhard Ries said. “It’s not just fragments that are the problem, but also the pressure that it creates that would dismantle all the buildings in a 100-metre radius”… Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb. Reuters notes that every year Germany discovers more than 2, 000 tons of live bombs and munitions, adding “In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb

Data leak exposed millions of Time Warner Cable customers

Verizon isn’t the only big US telecom whose corporate ally left customer data out in the open . MacKeeper developer Kromtech has discovered that BroadSoft, a frequent partner to service providers, was storing over 4 million Time Warner Cable customer records on Amazon cloud servers without a password. The records, which stemmed from the MyTWC mobile app, date as far back as November 2010 — years before Charter bought TWC . The information included email addresses, user names, financial transactions (though there’s no indication of credit card data) and billing addresses. There was even closed-circuit camera footage from BroadSoft’s Indian offices, as if to rub salt in the wound. You might not need to panic. BroadSoft tells Gizmodo that it locked down its Amazon data (Charter says it was taken down) and hasn’t seen evidence that intruders accessed the information. Both BroadSoft and Charter say they’re investigating and will take extra steps to address the situation if necessary. To be on the safe side, though, Charter is recommending that MyTWC owners change their user names and passwords. The exposure didn’t include extremely sensitive info like credit card data or social security numbers, so the potential damage is relatively limited. However, it’s not so much the specific threat as that the data was left exposed in the first place. It shows that companies are still making rookie mistakes when handling data, and suggests that they need to implement more stringent (and importantly, continuous) oversight of their partners to keep your data secure. Via: Gizmodo Source: Kromtech

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Data leak exposed millions of Time Warner Cable customers

The Oldest Known Human Remains In the Americas Have Been Found In a Mexican Cave

schwit1 shares a report from Seeker: An ice-free corridor between the Americas and Asia opened up about 12, 500 years ago, allowing humans to cross over the Bering land bridge to settle what is now the United States and places beyond to the south. History books have conveyed that information for years to explain how the Americas were supposedly first settled by people, such as those from the Clovis culture. At least one part of the Americas was already occupied by humans before that time, however, says new research on the skeleton of a male youth found in Chan Hol cave near Tulum, Mexico. Dubbed the Young Man of Chan Hol, the remains date to 13, 000 years ago, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE. How he arrived at the location remains a great mystery given the timing and the fact that Mexico is well over 4, 000 miles away from the Bering land crossing. For the new study, Gonzalez, Stinnesbeck, and their colleagues dated the Young Man of Chan Hol’s remains by analyzing the bones’ uranium, carbon, and oxygen isotopes, which were also found in stalagmite that had grown through the pelvic bone. The scientists believe that the resulting age of 13, 000 years could apply to at least two other skeletons found in caves around Tulum: a teenage female named Naia and a 25-30-year-old female named Eve of Naharon. Gonzalez said that the shape of the skulls suggests that Eve and the others “have more of an affinity with people from Southeast Asia.” He and his team further speculated that the individuals could have originated in Indonesia. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Oldest Known Human Remains In the Americas Have Been Found In a Mexican Cave

Linux Desktop Market Share Crosses 3%

Data for the month of August 2017 from reliable market analytics firm Net Applications is here, and it suggests that Linux has finally surpassed the three percent mark, quite possibly for the first time in recent years. According to Net Applications, the desktop market share of Linux jumped from 2.53 percent in July to 3.37 percent in August. There’s no explanation for what amounted for this growth. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux Desktop Market Share Crosses 3%

XYZPrinting announces a $3,000 full-color 3D printer

 Full-color 3D printing at home has long been a wild-eyed dream of consumers and hobbyists alike. Thus far it’s been fun to print out little trinkets in a single color, but to create something more akin to a painted action figure would be a game-changer. And, thanks to inkject technology, we just might have reached that milestone. XYZprinting, the maker of the popular Da Vinci line of… Read More

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XYZPrinting announces a $3,000 full-color 3D printer

A Canadian University Gave $11 Million To a Scammer

A Canadian university transferred more than $11 million CAD (around $9 million USD) to a scammer that university staff believed to be a vendor in a phishing attack, a university statement published on Thursday states. From a report: Staff at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta became aware of the fraud on Wednesday, August 23, the statement says. According to the university, the attacker sent a series of emails that convinced staff to change payment details for a vendor, and that these changes resulted in the transfer of $11.8 million CAD into bank accounts that the school has traced to Canada and Hong Kong. The school is working with authorities in Edmonton, Montreal, London, and Hong Kong, the statement reads. According to the university, its IT systems were not compromised and no personal or financial information was stolen. A phishing scam is not technically a “hack, ” it should be noted, and only requires the attacker to convince the victim to send money. The school’s preliminary investigation found that “controls around the process of changing vendor banking information were inadequate, and that a number of opportunities to identify the fraud were missed.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A Canadian University Gave $11 Million To a Scammer