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Microsoft Has More Open Source Contributors On GitHub Than Facebook and Google

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Next Web: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has really embraced open source over the past couple of years. GitHub, a site that is home to a number of the web’s biggest collaborative code projects, has counted more than 5.8 million active users on its platform over the past 12 months, and says that Microsoft has the most open source contributors. Microsoft has 16, 419 contributors, beating out Facebook’s 15, 682 contributors, Docker’s 14, 059 contributors, and Google’s 12, 140 contributors. The Next Web reports: “Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. In October 2014, it open sourced its .NET framework, which is the company’s programming infrastructure for building and running apps and services — a major move towards introducing more developers to its server-side stack. Since then, it’s open sourced its Chakra JavaScript engine, Visual Studio’s MSBuild compiling engine, the Computational Networks Toolkit for deep learning applications, its Xamarin tool for building cross-platform apps and most recently, PowerShell. It’s also worth noting that the company’s Visual Studio Code text editor made GitHub’s list of repositories with the most contributors. You can check out these lists, as well as other data from GitHub’s platform on this page.” GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath said in an interview with Fortune, “The big .Net project has more people outside of Microsoft contributing to it than people who work at Microsoft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Has More Open Source Contributors On GitHub Than Facebook and Google

Every PlayStation 4 Gets HDR This Week With System Update 4.00

Sony announced today it is rolling out a new system updated — dubbed Shingen — to all the PlayStation 4 to bring High Dynamic Range (HDR) support. The new update, in addition, also brings Spotify integration, LAN data migration transfer, and tweaks to interface. From a CNET report: Other refinements to the system’s interface include a redesigned content info screen — the thing you see when pressing down after highlighting a game on your home screen. Similarly, the What’s New screen has been updated with a new layout. 4.00 also adds support for HDR to all play PS4s, something Sony announced last week. This will be an option located in the Video Output Settings menu for existing PS4s and the new slim PS4, as well as the PS4 Pro. Those who get a Pro when it launches in November will also find support for several new features added in this update. As we learned recently, the system features 1080p streaming for Share Play and Remote Play (but only to PC/Mac and Xperia devices, not Vita), as well as 1080p/30 FPS streaming to Twitch and 1080p 30/60 FPS streaming to YouTube. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Every PlayStation 4 Gets HDR This Week With System Update 4.00

HP To Buy Samsung’s Printer Business For $1.05 Billion

HP has agreed to a deal with Samsung to acquire their printer business for $1.05 billion, a deal that will be the largest print acquisition in HP’s history. USA Today reports: “The acquisition of Samsung’s printer business allows us to deliver print innovation and create entirely new business opportunities with far better efficiency, security, and economics for customers, ” said HP president and CEO Dion Weisler in a statement. The Samsung deal would give HP access to 6, 500 printing patents as well as 1, 300 researchers and engineers “with advanced expertise in laser printer technology.” While this deal is being negotiated, Samsung’s mobile phone business has been navigating a recall of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones over issues with batteries catching fire and exploding. One of the most recent accidents reported involved a six-year-old boy in New York, who was using the device when it “suddenly burst into flames.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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HP To Buy Samsung’s Printer Business For $1.05 Billion

New Research Reveals Hundreds of Undiscovered Black Holes

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: New research by the University of Surrey published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has shone light on a globular cluster of stars that could host several hundred black holes, a phenomenon that until recently was thought impossible. Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars which orbit around a galactic center such as our Milky-way galaxy. Using advanced computer simulations, the team at the University of Surrey were able to see the un-see-able by mapping a globular cluster known as NGC 6101, from which the existence of black holes within the system was deduced. These black holes are a few times larger than the Sun, and form in the gravitational collapse of massive stars at the end of their lives. It was previously thought that these black holes would almost all be expelled from their parent cluster due to the effects of supernova explosion, during the death of a star. It is only as recently as 2013 that astrophysicists found individual black holes in globular clusters via rare phenomena in which a companion star donates material to the black hole. This work, which was supported by the European Research Council (ERC), has shown that in NGC 6101 there could be several hundred black holes, overturning old theories as to how black holes form. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Research Reveals Hundreds of Undiscovered Black Holes

Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong

MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple’s A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple’s new handset, as usual, Cupertino’s latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple’s SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro — also paired with 3GB of RAM — puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong

Raspberry Pi Passes 10M Sales Mark

An anonymous reader writes: The Raspberry Pi has sold 10 million units — continuing its success as the most popular British computer ever. The computer, about the same size as a credit card, was first released in 2012 and is widely used as an educational tool for programming. However, it can also be used for many practical purposes such as streaming music to several devices in a house. A new starter kit for Raspberry Pi, including a keyboard and mouse, has been released to celebrate the success. The kit also includes an SD storage card, official case, power supply, HDMI cable, mouse, keyboard and guidebook — it costs $130 and will be available in the coming weeks. The Pi, which is manufactured in Wales, has been adopted by pupils, programmers and inventors around the world. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Raspberry Pi Passes 10M Sales Mark

Apple To Unveil ‘AirPods’ That Use Custom Bluetooth Chip

It’s no secret that Apple is planning to remove the headphone jack in its upcoming flagship smartphones. A new report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, which confirms rumors that Apple will indeed remove the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 to improve the device’s water resistance, suggests that Apple is developing earbuds called “AirPods” that will employ its own Bluetooth-like communication chip. Mac Rumors reports: “First and foremost, as has been rumored, Kuo suggests Apple is working on its own Bluetooth-like communication chip and its own Bluetooth headphones. Previous information suggests the Bluetooth chip will improve battery performance for longer battery life. The chip may be included in the wireless earbuds Apple has in development, which are said to be Bragi Dash-style wireless Bluetooth earbuds that are entirely wire free. The earbuds will be called “AirPods, ” based on trademark filings that have been discovered, and the product could be unveiled as early as September 7 alongside the iPhone 7. According to Kuo, Apple will sell its Apple-branded Bluetooth headphones alongside its Beats line of headphones, targeting the high-end market with the “AirPods” and the mid-range market with the Beats headphones. Kuo does not believe the company will package Bluetooth headphones with the iPhone 7. Instead, Apple is likely to ship the iPhone 7 with Lightning-based EarPods that feature a Lightning connector instead of a 3.5mm headphone jack.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple To Unveil ‘AirPods’ That Use Custom Bluetooth Chip

Microsoft Working On Skype Teams, Its Slack Competitor

Earlier this year, we heard rumors that Microsoft was interested in purchasing the popular team-chat app Slack for as much as $8 billion. The deal never happened, so naturally, Microsoft has decided to make a Slack-like app. Microsoft-centric news blog MSPowerUser reports: Meet Skype Teams. Skype Teams is going to be Microsoft’s take on messaging apps for teams. Skype Teams will include a lot of similar features which you’ll find on Slack. For example, Skype Teams will allow you to chat in different groups within a team, also known as “channels”. Additionally, users will be able to talk to each other via Direct Messages on Skype Teams. Skype Teams will also feature Threaded Conversations, which is a major feature that’s lacking on Slack. With Threaded Conversations, you can simply reply to a message on a channel by clicking on the reply button and anyone else can join the thread whenever they want — just like Facebook Comments, or Disqus Comments. Microsoft, of course, isn’t leaving out some of the core features of Skype on Skype Teams. Similar to Skype itself, teams will be able to make video calls in a channel or privately. To take this even further, the company is adding the ability to schedule online meetings, which can be quite useful for large teams. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Working On Skype Teams, Its Slack Competitor

Netflix Finds x265 20% More Efficient Than VP9

Reader StreamingEagle writes (edited): Netflix conducted a large-scale study comparing x264, x265 and libvpx (Google-owned VP9), under real-world conditions, and found that x265 encodes used 35.4% to 53.3% fewer bits than x264, and between 21.8% fewer bits than libvpx, when measured with Netflix’s advanced VMAF assessment tool. This was the first large-scale study to use real-world encoder implementations, and a large sample size of high quality, professional content.A Netflix spokesperson explained why they did the test in the first place; “We wanted to understand the current state of the x265 and libvpx codec implementations when used to generate non-realtime encodes optimized for OTT use case. It was important to see how the codecs performed when testing on a diverse set of premium content from our catalog. This test can help us find areas of improvement for the different codecs.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Netflix Finds x265 20% More Efficient Than VP9

Warner Bros Issues Takedown For Own Website

An anonymous reader writes: In a case of sloppy automation run amok, Warner Bros’ copyright enforcement contractor — Vobile — issued takedown notices for legitimate distributors and Warner Bros’ own website, according to the BBC. It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as Amazon-owned film database IMDB. Fortunately for them, Google chose to cut them a break and ignore those requests. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Warner Bros Issues Takedown For Own Website