Tag: article

Lucasfilm Creates A 4K Ultra-HD Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’

An anonymous reader quotes 4K.com: When the first ever of the Star Wars films, “A New Hope” turns 40 in 2017, millions of dedicated fans of the immensely popular franchise might get a very unique treat in the form of a limited theater screening in beautifully restored form with theatrical 4K resolution of the first movie released in the series. According to recent comments made by Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, a 4K restoration of Star Wars Episode IV “A New Hope” does indeed exist and now the only real question is whether or not the cleaned up and sharpened version of the movie will be hitting the big screen once again. White it’s release status is unknown, the ultra-high definition footage is said to be spectacular. In the interview, Edwards says “You can’t watch it without getting carried away… It just turns you into a child.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lucasfilm Creates A 4K Ultra-HD Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’

Guy Builds Intricate Star Trek Klingon Warship Using 25,000 LEGO Blocks

All photos courtesy Kevin J. Walter It was a project eight years in the making—well, technically nine now. One LEGO fan has built his own Star Trek Klingon Bird of Prey using about 25, 000 blocks, based on a virtual blueprint he started all the way back in 2008. Read more…

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Guy Builds Intricate Star Trek Klingon Warship Using 25,000 LEGO Blocks

Library Creates Fake Patron Records To Avoid Book-Purging

An anonymous reader writes: Chuck Finley checked out 2, 361 books from a Florida library in just nine months, increasing their total circulation by 3.9%. But he doesn’t exist. “The fictional character was concocted by two employees at the library, complete with a false address and driver’s license number, ” according to the Orlando Sentinel. The department overseeing the library acknowledges their general rule is “if something isn’t circulated in one to two years, it’s typically weeded out of circulation.” So the fake patron scheme was concocted by a library assistant working with the library’s branch supervisor, who “said he wanted to avoid having to later repurchase books purged from the shelf.” But according to the newspaper the branch supervisor “said the same thing is being done at other libraries, too.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Library Creates Fake Patron Records To Avoid Book-Purging

Baby’s Skull Rebuilt With Help From A 3D Printer

schwit1 writes: A team at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital was able to use a 3-D printer to produce a replica of baby Vincent’s skull, which, in turn, allowed the medical team to fully rehearse the surgery long before they stepped into the operating room. Through a collaboration with Medical Modeling in Colorado, known now as 3D Systems, Egnor and Duboys were able to virtually plan the entire surgery in advance. Duboys said images from a CT scan of baby Vincent’s head were sent to the company, which then manufactured a model skull using the CT information as a template. The company also created a model of what Vincent’s skull should look like after surgery. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Baby’s Skull Rebuilt With Help From A 3D Printer

Quickly Improve a Smartphone Portrait in Photoshop with a Simple Depth of Field Effect

A portrait is often defined with a little depth of field of effect that makes the person in focus really pop. Most smartphone’s can’t produce this effect, but How-To Geek shows off a way to use a single Photoshop effect to create the same look. Read more…

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Quickly Improve a Smartphone Portrait in Photoshop with a Simple Depth of Field Effect

Bad Year For Piracy: 2016 Was The Year Torrent Giants Fell

From a report on TorrentFreak: 2016 has been a memorable year for torrent users but not in a good way. Over a period of just a few months, several of the largest torrent sites vanished from the scene. From KickassTorrents, through Torrentz to What.cd, several torrent giants have left the scene.Another notable website which vanished is TorrentHound. ThePirateBay is back, but is often facing issues. Not long ago, ExtraTorrent noted that it was on the receiving end of several DDoS attacks. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bad Year For Piracy: 2016 Was The Year Torrent Giants Fell

Watch Rope Get Made From a Tree Using a Thousand-Year-Old Technique

Making rope is hard. Making rope the way the Vikings did it over a thousand years ago is even harder. First, you have to find the right tree. Then, you have to strip the bark of the tree when the sap is rising. And then, you soak the bark you just harvested in the sea for three to four months before you can even think about turning it into rope. Read more…

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Watch Rope Get Made From a Tree Using a Thousand-Year-Old Technique

Windows 10 Getting a Game Mode That Would Improve Game Performance – Report

Microsoft may have plans to improve gaming experience on Windows 10. The speculation comes after long time watcher @h0x0d found a new “gamemode.dll” in the latest Windows 10 developer build, reports GameSpot. The feature appears to allow Windows 10 to adjust CPU and GPU resources when running a game to allocate more power for the game that’s running instead of toward any background apps. From the article: The feature will reportedly launch as part of the Creators update and will be enabled for Windows Insider users soon. What’s unclear is exactly which games this is compatible with. It’s possible it could be limited to only to those downloaded from the Windows Store, or it might be much more far-reaching. We should know more once Windows Insiders testers get their hands on the feature. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Getting a Game Mode That Would Improve Game Performance – Report

Android Ransomware Infects LG Smart TV, Company ‘Refuses’ To Help

Security firms have been warning us for more than a year about the possibility of Android malware jumping from phones and tablets to other Android-powered devices, such smart TVs. The latest incident involving ransomware on a smart TV involves software engineer Darren Cauthon, who revealed that the LG smart TV of one of his family members was infected with ransomware right on Christmas day. What’s worse? He claims LG wouldn’t help him with perform factory reset of the device. From a report: Based on a screenshot Cauthon posted online, the smart TV appears to be infected with a version of the Cyber. Police ransomware, also known as FLocker, Frantic Locker, or Dogspectus. The infected TV is one of the last generations of LG smart TVs that ran Google TV, a smart TV platform developed by Google together with Intel, Sony, and Logitech. Google TV launched in 2010, but Google discontinued the project in June 2014. In the meantime, LG has moved on from Google TV, and the company’s TVs now run WebOS. Cauthon says he tried to reset the TV to factory settings, but the reset procedure available online didn’t work. When the software engineer contacted LG, the company told him to visit one of their service centers, where one of its employees could reset his TV. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Android Ransomware Infects LG Smart TV, Company ‘Refuses’ To Help