An anonymous reader writes Fabrice Bellard (creator of FFMPEG, QEMU, JSLinux…) proposes a new image format that could replace JPEG : BPG. For the same quality, files are about half the size of their JPEG equivalents. He released libbpg (with source) as well as a JS decompressor, and set up a demo including the famous Lena image. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Bellard Creates New Image Format To Replace JPEG
Having a PIN code or pattern to protect your device makes a lot of sense, but it’s also annoying. Thankfully, the new version of Android lets you automatically turn off this security layer when you’re at home or the office or anywhere else you regularly go. Here’s how to set it up. Read more…
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How to Set Up Trusted Locations in Android Lollipop
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that AT&T will pay $105 million for hiding extra charges in cellphone bills. The best part of the news? $80 million of it will go back into the pockets of people bilked by AT&T. Read more…
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AT&T Will Repay $80 Million In Shady Phone Bill Charges
Zothecula writes: With LEDs being the preferred long-lasting, low-energy method for replacing less efficient forms of lighting, their uptake has dramatically increased over the past few years. However, despite their luminous outputs having increased steadily over that time, they still fall behind more conventional forms of lighting in terms of brightness. Researchers at Princeton University claim to have come up with a way to change all that by using nanotechnology to increase the output of organic LEDs by 57 percent. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Breakthrough In LED Construction Increases Efficiency By 57 Percent
Although tequila dates back only a few hundred years, people have long used the heart of the agave plant to make delicious, alcoholic beverages. Read more…
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Who Invented Tequila?
The Hitachi Seaside Park is one of the most beautiful parks in the planet: A place where millions of flowers grow every year in the most amazing displays of colors imaginable. Here you can see about 4.5 million baby-blue nemophilas blossoming in April—but there’s more, much more. Read more…
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A never-ending ocean of 4.5 million flowers in Japan
We know that our Facebook news feeds go through a complicated filtering process, affected both by Facebook’s internal algorithms and our own efforts to hide or show particular friends. However, not all third-party apps are so complex, and Skype will pull in your Facebook news feed pretty much as it’s published. Read more…
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Plug Facebook Into Skype For a News Feed Firehose
Windows: If you’d like the speed of your mechanical hard drive to be closer to SSD speeds, short-stroking your hard drive is your best bet. These steps can get your hard drive up to speed at the cost of some memory. Read more…
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How to Short-Stroke Your Hard Drive for Optimal Speed
I watched The Lego Movie once again. Like the first time, I cried like a little kid. It’s a good movie, but the strong emotional reaction came from deep inside, firing the same childhood memories that The Lego Memory Lane —Leg0 HQ’s underground secret vault with all their sets—did when I visited it in Billund, Denmark. Read more…
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Secret underground vault contains all Lego sets in history
Machines fill the floor of the Exploratorium , San Francisco’s beloved interactive science museum. Over there is a contraption called Bicycle Legs , in which visitors manipulate air pumps to replicate muscles we use when pedaling (it’s trickier than it sounds). A few hundred feet away is a perennial favorite, the Wave Machine , which demonstrates transverse waves with the turn of a crank (even I can manage that one). Read more…
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The Government-Surplus Machines Powering a Cutting-Edge Science Museum