In addition to benefiting from excellent feng shui, the family harvests about 15 kilograms of honey each year from their bee housemates , who showed up on the day of a wedding. (more…)
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For twelve years, this family has let bees nest in their living room
If you want a battery that charges in seconds rather than hours, you go for a supercapacitor . There are some catches to that, though: either you give up the long-lasting energy of a chemical battery (like the lithium pack in your phone) or have to resort to exotic storage tech to get a long lifespan. Drexel researchers think they have a better balance. They’ve developed electrodes based on a nanomaterial, MXene, that promise extremely quick charging times for chemical batteries. The near-2D design combines an oxide-metal ‘sandwich’ with hydrogel to create a structure that’s extremely conductive, but still lets ions move freely as the battery builds up a charge. In the lab’s design, you can charge MXene electrodes within “tens of milliseconds” — you could top up a phone in seconds or an electric car in minutes . As is often the case, the big challenge is scaling this up to production-quality energy cells. It could be years before this reaches something you can buy. However, its very focus on supporting chemical batteries makes it more practical. Factories would only have to adapt to the new electrodes, rather than throwing out their existing battery know-how. If nothing else, the existence of the MXene design shows that ultra-fast charging is becoming more realistic. Via: ScienceAlert Source: Drexel University , Nature
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Nanomaterial charges everyday batteries in seconds
sombragris writes: July 17 marked the 24th anniversary of Slackware Linux, the oldest GNU/Linux still in active development, being created in 1993 by Patrick Volkerding, who still serves as its BDFL. Version 14.2 was launched last year, and the development version (Slackware-current) currently offers kernel 4.9.38, gcc 7.1, glibc 2.25, mesa 17.1.5, and KDE and Xfce as official desktops, with many others available as 3rd party packages. Slackware is also among the Linux distributions which have not adopted systemd as its init system; instead, it uses a modified BSD init which is quite simple and effective. Slackware is known to be a solid, stable and fast setup, with easy defaults which is appreciated by many Linux users worldwide. Phoronix has a small writeup noting the anniversary and there’s also a nice reddit thread. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Slackware, Oldest Linux Distro Still In Active Development, Turns 24
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus is an entirely new breed of gaming notebook. It packs in the most powerful laptop graphics hardware on the market, NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 , in a frame that’s almost half the size of similar machines. Mostly, that’s due to being one of the first notebooks to feature NVIDIA’s Max-Q design standard, which is laser-focused on slimming down gaming laptops with beefy GPUs. That does lead to some compromises, especially around battery life, but the Zephyrus is still a wonder to behold. Hardware The Zephyrus, which is part of ASUS’s Republic of Gamers brand, is surprisingly thin at 17.9 mm thick. You won’t mistake it for an ultraportable like the MacBook or ASUS’s Zenbook , but it also doesn’t betray itself as a completely decked out gaming laptop, like Dell’s Alienware lineup. It clocks in at 4.93-pounds, 3 pounds lighter than the Razer Blade Pro , which was considered lightweight for a gaming machine when it came out last year. When it’s closed, the Zephyrus features one of the most subtle and attractive designs we’ve seen from an ASUS gaming laptop. The only elements that really stand out are its polished metal lid and copper vents, but otherwise it doesn’t call attention to itself. It’s slim and unassuming enough to fade into the background, but it packs in a ton of power. Open it up, and the laptop’s gaming DNA becomes clear. The bottom rear of the Zephyrus expands as you lift up the lid, creating a noticeable gap that pushes the screen up at an angle, and allows for better air intake. That open portion of the laptop also rocks red LED lights when you plug it in. (The mantra for most gaming machines: Got some empty space? Put an LED on it.) Cool air comes in from below, while hot air is exhausted through vents on the sides. ASUS also developed thinner and stronger fan blades made out of a new polymer to push air throughout the system. The company worked together with NVIDIA to design its cooling technology, and it shows. There’s clearly more ingenuity involved with removing heat from the system than we’ve typically seen from ASUS. And you can expect future Max-Q laptops to be similarly inventive. The laptop feels sturdy, overall, though I could see potential problems with its expanding bottom half. All it takes is one fall from a desk, or one spilled drink, to throw a wrench into the meticulous cooling design. Thankfully, there’s none of the sloppy build quality we’ve seen from other ASUS laptops, like the Zenbook 3. Port-wise, the Zephyrus is a bounty. It includes four USB 3.1 connections, a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port, a full-sized HDMI connection, and a headphone jack. And since the laptop is too thin for a full-sized Ethernet port (which is mind boggling, to be honest), ASUS includes a USB converter in the box. We don’t normally mention AC adapters in reviews, but in the Zephyrus’s case, it seems necessary: It’s huge! Honestly, it seems more reminiscent of a PC power supply than a laptop’s. That’s probably due to the massive amount of juice the laptop needs when you’re gaming. Keyboard and trackpad Chris Velazco/AOL Unlike most other laptops, ASUS pushed the Zephyrus’s keyboard and trackpad all the way to its front edge. That allowed the company to place all of its high-powered hardware towards the back of the case — in particularly, the CPU and GPU — so it could all be cooled at once. It took me a while to get used to the Zephyrus’s strange keyboard orientation, and even longer to adjust to its trackpad, which sits to the right of the keys instead of below it. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, even though the keys have a very short travel distance. Not surprisingly, it was better suited to gaming than typing. Moving around first person shooters using the WASD keys felt just as responsive as my desktop keyboard. There’s also an array of LEDs behind every key, which you can customize using an app. ASUS bundles a comfortable wrist-rest in the box, which is useful if you’re worried about repetitive stress injuries. While the trackpad placement is a bit strange, we’ve seen similar laptops like the Razer Blade Pro place it on the right side as well. When it comes to games, I actually found it more useful than a typical trackpad, since it almost mimics the feeling of using a mouse. It’s surprisingly smooth and responsive — in many ways it felt more accurate than a standard trackpad. Obviously, it’s not something you’d use for an FPS, but it gives you a way to play slower paced games in areas where you can’t fit a gaming mouse. You can also transform the trackpad into a virtual numberpad by hitting the key right above it, which some gamers might appreciate for hitting hotkeys. It wasn’t as accurate as having a physical numberpad, but it felt more convenient than just relying on the standard top number row. Display and sound The Zephryus’s 15.6-inch, 1080p screen doesn’t seem particularly impressive at first, especially when other gaming laptops include 4K displays these days. But its 120Hz refresh rate and support for NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology should be appealing to gamers, since it allows for smooth play no matter what framerate you’re getting. The screen shined when playing colorful, fast-paced games like Overwatch and Doom . There wasn’t any tearing at all — it’s an experience more reminiscent of a high-end gaming monitor, than a standard laptop screen. It’s clear that ASUS wanted to focus on speed instead of pixel count, but it would have been nice to see a slightly higher resolution to take advantage of the laptop’s bountiful horsepower. 4K would have been nice, especially since the Zephyrus can actually play games at such a high resolution, but even 1, 440p would have been a decent compromise. A 1080p screen feels dated, and it’ll seem even more limiting over the next few years. While the Zephyrus’s display was bright enough for indoor gameplay, it didn’t fair as well outdoors. I appreciated its matte finish, which minimized reflections, but just don’t expect to be fragging your friends while sitting in the park. The laptop’s speakers, which are towards the front near the keyboard, are loud, yet tinny. You wouldn’t want to use them for any serious music or movie sessions. That doesn’t matter much for games, since most people will just plug in an elaborate pair of headphones, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless. Performance and battery life PCMark 7 PCMark 8 (Creative Accelerated) 3DMark 11 3DMark (Sky Diver) ATTO (top reads/writes) ASUS ROG Zephyrus (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 6, 030 7, 137 E20, 000 / P17, 017 / X7, 793 31, 624 3.4 GB/s / 1.64 GB/s Alienware 15 (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1070) 6, 847 7, 100 E17, 041 / P16, 365 20, 812 2.9 GB/s / 0.9 GB/s Alienware 13 (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1060) 4, 692 4, 583 E16, 703 / P12, 776 24, 460 1.78 GB/s / 1.04 GB/s Razer Blade Pro 2016 (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 6, 884 6, 995 E18, 231 / P16, 346 27, 034 2.75 GB/s / 1.1 GB/s ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ , NVIDIA GTX 1070) 5, 132 6, 757 E15, 335 / P13, 985 25, 976 2.14 GB/s / 1.2 GB/s HP Spectre x360 (2016, 2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 515 4, 354 E2, 656 / P1, 720 / X444 3, 743 1.76 GB/s / 579 MB/s Lenovo Yoga 910 (2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, 8GB, Intel HD 620) 5, 822 4, 108 E2, 927 / P1, 651 / X438 3, 869 1.59 GB/s / 313 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 462 3, 889 E3, 022 / P1, 768 4, 008 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) + Razer Core (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 5, 415 4, 335 E11, 513 / P11, 490 16, 763 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s ASUS ZenBook 3 (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 448 3, 911 E2, 791 / P1, 560 3, 013 1.67 GB/s / 1.44 GB/s HP Spectre 13 (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 046 3, 747 E2, 790 / P1, 630 / X375 3, 810 1.61 GB/s / 307 MB/s Razer Blade Stealth (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 131 3, 445 E2, 788 / P1, 599 / X426 3, 442 1.5 GB/s / 307 MB/s Under the hood, our Zephyrus review unit featured an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor running at 2.8GHz, along with 16GB of RAM. But of course, the star of the show is NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 GPU. Just a year ago, the idea of cramming that GPU into a laptop was impressive. Now, we can do it in gaming notebooks that are slimmer than we’ve ever seen before. This isn’t a stripped down version of the GTX 1080 either, it’s still clocked at 1.5-1.7GHz and packs in 8GB of GDDR5X RAM. But instead of focusing on getting as much performance from the video card as possible, NVIDIA’s Max-Q philosophy emphasizes peak efficiency — basically, the point where you can get the most bang for your GPU buck. Our unit also featured a 512GB M.2 SSD, which is significantly faster than the older SATA variety. Your first impressions of the Zephyrus will depend on the type of computer you’re most used to. If you mainly dabble in ultraportables, you’ll likely be intimidated by how large it seems. But if you’re familiar with gaming laptops, it’ll seem remarkably slim. As soon as I was done marveling at what an engineering feat it is, I installed several games to test out its capabilities — and the results were impressive. I saw around 100-110 frames per second in Overwatch with all of the graphics settings at maximum. That was particularly notable since I set the render scale to 140 percent, which made the computer process the game at a higher resolution than 1080p for a sharper image. Doom, meanwhile, hit its 200FPS cap with everything maxed at 1080p, and Hitman’s benchmark achieved a solid 100FPS. Christopher Velazco/AOL Clearly, the Zephyrus’s hardware is overkill for 1080p, but that also makes it ideal for playing games on external monitors and TVs. It hit around 45 FPS on average in Hitman while running on a 4K monitor in high settings. Hooking it up to my 4K TV and receiver over HDMI was also a cinch, and I was able to create a console-like experience with the Witcher 3 by plugging in an Xbox controller and booting up Steam’s big picture mode. And given just how powerful it is, the Zephyrus had no trouble handling VR with the Oculus Rift. Its specs are well above the minimum requirements, so that’s not a huge surprise. Just be prepared to use up almost all of its USB ports. As you can imagine, this laptop gets hot when you’re playing games — especially around where its powerful components sit. But ASUS’s cooling setup does a decent job of keeping things from getting out of hand. While playing Overwatch and Doom , the GPU temperature hovered between 75c and 80c, which is typical for a gaming PC. I never saw any issues due to overheating. You’ll certainly hear the system’s fans, once they get going, but they’re nowhere near as loud as what I’ve heard on other high-powered gaming laptops. ASUS ROG Zephyrus 1:50 Alienware 15 4:31 Surface Book with Performance Base (2016) 16:15 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, no Touch Bar) 11:42 HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2015) 11:34 Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2015) 11:23 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (15-inch) 11:00 HP Spectre x360 15t 10:17 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, Touch Bar) 9:55 ASUS ZenBook 3 9:45 Apple MacBook (2016) 8:45 Samsung Notebook 9 8:16 Alienware 13 7:32 Microsoft Surface Pro 4 7:15 HP Spectre 13 7:07 Razer Blade Stealth (Spring 2016) 5:48 Razer Blade Stealth (Fall 2016) 5:36 Dell XPS 15 (2016) 5:25 (7:40 with the mobile charger) Razer Blade Pro (2016) 3:48 ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS 3:03 The Zephyrus fit well into my daily workflow — I was even able to get some work done while balancing it on my lap. Its biggest downside, unfortunately, is battery life. In our test, which involves looping an HD video, the Zephyrus lasted just 1 hour and 50 minutes. And while gaming, expect between an hour and 90 minutes of play. The terrible battery life is a shame, but it makes sense given how thin and powerful this computer is. You can’t do that without making tradeoffs. You’ll want to keep the Zephyrus plugged in for the best performance, anyway. On battery, Overwatch was locked at around 30 FPS. As soon as I plugged in power, it skyrocketed to 110 FPS. Configuration options and the competition The Zephyrus we tested starts at $2, 699, but there’s also a slightly cheaper model with a GTX 1070 and 256GB SSD for $2, 299. That’s a bit less than the $3000 Acer Predator 700, which also sports a Max Q design and features a GTX 1080. Basically, if you want this combination of portability and power, be prepared to pay dearly. Otherwise, you’ll have to make do with heavier gaming laptops like the Alienware 15 . Razer’s Blade Stealth is another option, since you can add the company’s Core dock to use an external GPU. And of course, if games are your main concern, you can also consider buying or building a small desktop. It won’t be as portable as the Zephyrus, but you’ll save a ton. Wrap-up No matter how you look at it, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus is remarkable. It marks a new era for gaming laptops, one where you can expect a thin, five-pound notebook to pack as much power as an eight-to-ten pound machine from a few years ago. It could conceivably be the answer to all of your gaming needs, even on your television, since it’s easy to move around your house. It’s a shame that the battery life stinks, but that’s a decent compromise for a laptop unlike any other.
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ASUS ROG Zephyrus review: Gaming laptops will never be the same again
Enlarge / Richard D. James, better known as Aphex Twin, is careful about his likeness being photographed, but Warp Records swears that this is him. (credit: Warp Records) Many of the modern era’s greatest electronic musicians also happen to be legitimate computer and technology geeks. Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin, is no exception. The 46-year-old British musician has spent decades making music with an incredible range of analog and digital synthesizers (more details here ), and one of his most impressive albums, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments , was made by programming robots to play live instruments to his exact specifications. I can go on about James’ nerd cred (including his decision to initially announce his 2014 “comeback” record Syro via deep-web links ), but his lengthy, diverse, and weird collection of music does the talking—and now you have an easier way to access it than ever. A month-long countdown at the official Aphex Twin site concluded on Thursday, and with it came a near-complete vault of James’ recording output since 1991 . It includes a full store where fans can buy uncompressed FLAC and compressed MP3 versions of his albums, EPs, and even myriad side projects recorded under weird aliases (AFX, Polygon Window, The Tuss, etc). “CIRKLON3,” a 2016 Aphex Twin single. It’s a good starting point for anybody new to his sound, as it strikes a decent balance between his early ’90s ambient output, his later “dancier” output, and his knack for weirdness. Should you be short on cash, James still lets you use the site’s embedded streaming audio player for unlimited listening to his entire catalog. This is notable for a few reasons, but the biggest is that James’ new shop includes hours of previously unreleased material from pretty much every phase of his career. His breakout 1995 album …I Care Because You Do has been bolstered with a whopping seven new, lengthy tracks (and they’re quite good), while most of his albums, EPs, and singles now include additional demo recordings and isolated-element remixes. (The original template for his single “Windowlicker” is a fascinating newbie, for example, though certainly not as weird as its eventual version—which received a bizarre music video ( probably NSFW ) with James’ face slapped onto bikini-clad, water-soaked models.) Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Electronic music superhero Aphex Twin unearths massive, free music vault
It’s been a few months since Tim Schafer’s classic LucasArts adventure game Full Throttle got an HD remastered release on PS4, PS Vita and PC. Today, it comes out on iOS: For $5, you can take a rowdy ride into gaming history. Just like the last Schafer gem Double Fine restored , players will be able to switch between the original and fully refreshed versions in Full Throttle Remastered . The app version also includes concept art and commentary by the game’s creators. But as Schafer explained to Engadget at this year’s GDC, they didn’t re-record a single line of dialogue. “The original voice actor, Roy Conrad, has passed away since we made this game, ” he said. “He’s irreplaceable, I think, as Ben Throttle. We wanted to just kind of do the Blu-ray version, if you will. The nicest version of his voice.” Source: Full Throttle Remastered (App Store)
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Classic motorcycle adventure game ‘Full Throttle’ hits iOS
An anonymous reader shares a post: Chromium, the open source project behind Google Chrome, Opera and several other browsers, is going to support MP3. This would enable users and websites to play MP3 files in Chromium browser. A Chromium contributor informed about this, “We have approval from legal to go ahead and move MP3 into non-proprietary codecs list.” The MP3 support in Chromium is targeted for version 62. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Chromium To Get Support For MP3
An unnamed North American casino was hacked through an on-site fish tank connected to the Internet, reports CNN. “Someone used the fish tank to get into the network, and once they were in the fish tank, they scanned and found other vulnerabilities and moved laterally to other places in the network,” Justin Feir, director for cyber intelligence and analysis at Darktrace, told CNN Tech . Image: example of a smart fish tank (not the kind the casino had) by Duncan Hull .
Last week, we reported that an international law enforcement operation had shut down AlphaBay , the dark web’s go-to marketplace after the fall of Silk Road. Today, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it has seized AlphaBay and has brought civil charges against operator Alexandre Cazes (who is now deceased) and his wife, with the intention of taking their assets as well. Cazes, a Canadian citizen, was arrested in Thailand on July 5, but he committed suicide while in custody a week later. While the United States is working with international authorities to freeze the assets of AlphaBay, the Justice Department is also specifically interested in Cazes’ and his wife’s personal assets amassed through illegal AlphaBay activities. These including luxury cars, homes and a Thai hotel. Authorities have already seized Cazes’ vast stores of cryptocurrency. AlphaBay earned millions of dollars per week selling drugs, weapons, tools to help commit internet fraud and more. According to the Justice Department’s press release , Silk Road (which was shut down in 2013) had around 14, 000 goods and services listed when it was seized. Comparatively, AlphaBay had “over 250, 000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals on AlphaBay, and over 100, 000 listings for stolen and fraudulent identification documents and access devices, counterfeit goods, malware and other computer hacking tools, firearms and fraudulent services.” Source: U.S. Department of Justice
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US authorities have seized the dark web marketplace AlphaBay
Hell is about to be unleashed for a very affordable price. Bethesda’s “ultimate” edition of Doom rolls out to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 with the new 6.66 update . How’s that for a nice, round, hellish number? The update unlocks all the multiplayer DLC for everyone, offers skill-progression Runes in multiplayer and also comes with a new progression system. Instead of random loot unlocks in multiplayer, you’ll get to work toward specific upgrades. Not only that, but you can grab the whole new edition, including the SnapMap level editor and arcade mode , for $14.99. If you just want to try it out, there will be free weekends on each platform this month, as well. The developer also overhauled “most” of the in-game heads-up display, “including better callouts for challenges, awards and scoring.” The new kill card screen should also make it easier to know more about how and why you died, along with who exactly destroyed you. “Players will also discover numerous improvements throughout the menus and user interface, ” writes the developer in a blog post , “including completely revised post-match summaries as well as updates that better illustrate player status in lobbies, highlight the new progression options and status, and better outline weapon, equipment and demon characteristics.” If the $15 price doesn’t convince you to launch yourself into hell, you can give the title a test run for free at 12pm ET on July 20 for Xbox One, 1pm ET on the same day for PC and then at 12pm ET on July 27th for PlayStation players. Via: Polygon Source: Bethesda
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‘Doom’ 6.66 unloads a host of hellish updates free of charge