An anonymous reader writes: Bitcoin is getting smashed. The cryptocurrency was down 18% to about $892 per coin as of 8:17 a.m. ET on Thursday. It is the biggest drop in two years. Earlier this week, on its first trading day of the new year, Bitcoin crossed above the $1, 000 mark for the first time since 2013, but it has now tumbled below that level. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read this article:
Bitcoin Is Crashing
It may not cost much to mail a letter in the US, but that price is about to go up a tiny bit. The US Post Office is set to raise the price of its Forever Stamps from $0.47 to $0.49, so it’s a good time to get yours while you can. Read more…
Excerpt from:
Buy Forever Stamps Now Before They Get More Expensive On January 22nd
Slashdot reader rudy_wayne writes: Despite constant claims of losing billions of dollars to “piracy”, the North American box office closed out 2016 with $11.4 billion in ticket sales. That marks a new record for the industry, bypassing the previous record of $11.1 billion that was established in 2015. Disney had four of the top five highest-grossing films, including “Finding Dory, ” the year’s top film with $486.3 million. “When holdovers are taken into account, Disney had six of the year’s ten highest-grossing releases, a group that includes Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which debuted in 2015, ” reports Variety. Other top films include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($408.2 million), Captain America: Civil War ($408.1 million), The Secret Life of Pets ($368.4 million), and The Jungle Book ($364 million). Disney “controlled more than a quarter of the domestic market share despite releasing fewer films than any of the major studios, ” according to the article, which notes that the record was achieved despite the absence of big releases in several major movie franchises partly through higher ticket prices (and possibly also inflation). Read more of this story at Slashdot.
View original post here:
Despite Piracy Claims, North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion In 2016
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.
More:
Lucasfilm Creates A 4K Ultra-HD Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’
We’ve seen plenty of custom controllers over the years , but for those who prefer the tactile feel of a keyboard, Adafruit has put together a guide to make your own little keyboard-gamepad. Read more…
View post:
Make a Custom Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard Gamepad
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…
See the original post:
Guy Builds Intricate Star Trek Klingon Warship Using 25,000 LEGO Blocks
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.
View post:
Library Creates Fake Patron Records To Avoid Book-Purging
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.
Original post:
Baby’s Skull Rebuilt With Help From A 3D Printer
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla engineers have added a mechanism to Firefox 52 that prevents websites from fingerprinting users using system fonts. The user privacy protection system was borrowed from the Tor Browser, where a similar mechanism blocks websites from identifying users based on the fonts installed on their computers, only returning a list of “default fonts” per each OS. While sabotaging system font queries won’t stop user fingerprinting as a whole, this is just one of the latest privacy-related updates Mozilla has added to Firefox, taken from Tor. Back in July 2016, Mozilla engineers started the Tor Uplift project, which aims to improve Firefox’s privacy features with the ones present in the Tor Browser. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read More:
Firefox 52 Borrows One More Privacy Feature From the Tor Browser
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.
Continued here:
Bad Year For Piracy: 2016 Was The Year Torrent Giants Fell