digest-golf – Page 5

AT&T boosts data caps for home Internet and steps up enforcement

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. (credit: AT&T) AT&T today announced that it will increase its data caps—and expand enforcement—on home Internet service. As a result, more customers will have to pay $10 overage charges for each 50GB they use beyond their monthly limit, similar to Comcast’s data cap system. AT&T will also let customers upgrade to unlimited data for an extra $30 a month. This is only necessary for Internet-only customers. People who purchase both AT&T Internet and TV in a bundle will get unlimited home Internet data at no extra charge. That applies to bundles with either DirecTV satellite or AT&T’s wireline U-verse TV system. Previously, AT&T enforced a 150GB monthly cap on its DSL network. On May 23, AT&T will expand enforcement of caps to U-verse Internet service, which brings fiber closer to the home to boost speeds, and to “Gigapower,” its all-fiber service. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T boosts data caps for home Internet and steps up enforcement

Minimalist genome—only 473 genes—synthesized and used to boot up a cell

The bacteria that acted as the raw material for this experiment. Life is a rather difficult thing to define, but there are a few aspects that most biologists would agree on: it has to maintain genetic material and be able to make copies of itself. Both of these require energy, so it also must host some sort of minimal metabolism. In large, complex cells, each of these requirements takes hundreds of genes. Even in the simplified genomes of some bacteria, the numbers are still over a hundred. But does this represent the minimum number of genes that life can get away with? About a decade ago, researchers started to develop the technology to synthesize a genome from scratch and then put it in charge of a living cell. Now, five years after their initial successes, researchers used this model to try to figure out the genetic minimum for life itself. At first, the project seemed to be progressing well. In 2008, the team described the tools it had developed that could build the entire genome of a bacterium. (The team used a parasitic bacteria called Mycoplasma genitalium that started with only 525 genes.) Two years after that, they managed to get a genome synthesized using this method to boot up bacteria , taking the place of the normal genome. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Minimalist genome—only 473 genes—synthesized and used to boot up a cell

Rage-quit: Coder unpublished 17 lines of JavaScript and “broke the Internet”

(credit: Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson) It all started with a request from the developers of a messaging application to an open-source developer to change the name of a library. It ended with JavaScript developers around the world crying out in frustration as hundreds of projects suddenly stopped working—their code failing because of broken dependencies on modules that a developer removed from the repository over a policy dispute. At the center of it all is npm, Inc. , the Oakland startup behind the largest registry and repository of JavaScript tools and modules. Isaac Schlueter, npm’s creator, said that the way the whole thing shook out was a testament to how well open source works—the missing link was replaced by another developer quickly. But many developers are less than elated by the fact that code they’ve become dependent on can be pulled out from under them without any notice. The disruption caused by the wholesale unpublishing of code modules by their author, Azer Koçulu, was repaired in two hours, Schlueter told Ars, as other developers filled in the holes in the repository. The incident is, however, prompting Schlueter and the team at nmp Inc. to take a look at how to prevent one developer from causing so much collateral damage. Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Rage-quit: Coder unpublished 17 lines of JavaScript and “broke the Internet”

9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPhone SE both have 2GB of RAM

Enlarge / The 9.7-inch iPad Pro isn’t quite the equal of the 12.9-inch version. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Apple has started distributing both the iPhone SE and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro to journalists, and one of the first things to come to light has been the amount of RAM in each device. Memory in iDevices has a big impact on performance and general usability, but Apple almost never actually talks about it so we need to have hardware in hand before we can get the full story. The good news is that the iPhone SE has the same 2GB of RAM as the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus despite its smaller size and lower price. The not as good news is that the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has the same 2GB of RAM as the iPad Air 2, not the 4GB of RAM on offer in the 12.7-inch version. RAM doesn’t have quite the same effect in an iOS device as it does in laptops and desktops—iOS was originally designed for low RAM devices and even though current iPhones and iPads have much more RAM than the 128MB in the first iPhone, the OS is still aggressive about ejecting apps from memory. Giving an iPhone or iPad more RAM doesn’t necessarily speed up general performance, but it does mean that apps and browser tabs need to be ejected from memory less often. Today this is particularly beneficial in Safari, which needs to reload tabs when they’re ejected from RAM—at best this process adds a couple extra seconds to what ought to be a simple tab switch, and at worst you don’t have connectivity and so can’t see the tab you’re trying to open. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPhone SE both have 2GB of RAM

10 more OEMs pledge to make auto-braking standard in new cars

(credit: Ford) The number of car makers committed to making automatic emergency braking a standard feature on all new cars has doubled this week. On Thursday the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced that 20 manufacturers are now onboard with the plan, which will see AEB systems installed throughout their model range by 2022. In September of last year, we reported that 10 OEMs had already made the pledge. In the past, government mandates were needed to spread advanced driver safety aids like airbags or electronic stability control systems beyond the luxury cars in which they first appeared. In this case, the auto industry has gotten ahead of possible NHTSA regulation and looks set to implement AEB itself. Speaking at an event last Fall , NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said that NHTSA wanted to see OEMs implement AEB as quickly as possible. “Safety,” he said, “should not be a luxury item. Its an obligation for all of us.” Whether 2022 qualifies as “quickly” may be a matter of opinion, but may be reasonable given the long product development lifecycles of new vehicles. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Intel’s high-end quad-core NUC ships in May for $650

Enlarge / The “Skull Canyon” Core i7 NUC. (credit: Intel) Intel talked a little about its new high-end Core i7 NUC mini PC at CES earlier this year , but today at GDC the company revealed what the final model will look like along with its specs, release date, and cost. The new NUC6i7KYK, codenamed “Skull Canyon,” includes a 2.6GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) 45W quad-core Core i7-6770HQ —not the fastest Skylake laptop chip that Intel can sell you, but definitely one of the fastest. The other main draws are the Iris Pro 580 GPU, which includes 78 of Intel’s graphics execution units and a 128MB eDRAM cache (compared to 48EUs and 64MB of eDRAM in the standard Core i5 NUC we just reviewed ), and the Thunderbolt 3 port which also supports full USB 3.1 gen 2 transfer speeds of 10Mbps. It takes DDR4 memory, M.2 SATA and PCI Express SSDs, and comes with a built-in Intel 8260 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapter, just like the Core i5 NUC. It’s got a good port selection, including a full-size HDMI 2.0 port, a mini DisplayPort 1.2 output, four USB 3.0 ports, a headphone jack, an SD card slot, a gigabit LAN port, and an IR sensor for use with remote controls. The HDMI 2.0 port ought to make some HTPC fans happy, since the standard NUCs are still stuck on version 1.4 and can’t view HDCP 2.2-protected content. And this is all in addition to the aforementioned Thunderbolt 3 port; this will be the first NUC since the original to support Thunderbolt, which opens up possibilities for external graphics cards down the line. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel’s high-end quad-core NUC ships in May for $650

LAX to SFO flights from United Airlines move to biofuel blend

(credit: United) On Friday, United Airlines announced that its flights between Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport will now be partly powered by a biofuel mix supplied by an LA-based company called AltAir Fuels. United runs four or five flights between LAX and SFO every day, and it will fill these planes up with a combination of 30 percent biofuel and 70 percent traditional jet fuel, according to the Washington Post . The biofuel portion of the mix will be made with a range of biological source materials “from used cooking oil to algae,” the Post writes; it was developed with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The airline has agreed to purchase 15 million gallons of the mix over the next three years from AltAir. Still, the Los Angeles Times points out that United burned through 3.2 billion gallons of traditional jet fuel last year, so that 15 million gallons is just a proverbial drop in the jet fuel barrel. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Charter/Time Warner Cable merger nearing FCC approval

Charter’s footprint after the proposed merger. (credit: Charter ) Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is likely to support Charter’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC) and may circulate a proposal to approve the merger with conditions “as soon as this week,” The Wall Street Journal reported last night, citing “people familiar with the matter.” Wheeler would be circulating a draft order to fellow commissioners, a preliminary step to approving the deal. “The order would impose a number of conditions on the transaction, many of them aimed at boosting online video as a competitor to cable,” the Journal reported. “One condition would bar Charter from including clauses in its pay-TV contracts that restrict a content company’s ability to offer its programming online or to new entrants, the people said. FCC officials worry those clauses, which are thought to be widespread in the pay-TV marketplace, could be impeding the growth of online video.” Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

16 years later, Blizzard is still patching Diablo II

No rest for the weary. These days, you’re lucky if some titles from certain big publishers get a year or two of post-launch online support for their games before they’re unceremoniously dropped . And then there’s Diablo II . Blizzard issued a new version 1.14 patch for the nearly 16-year-old game Thursday, five years after the game was last officially updated (not to mention, four years since the game’s sequel launched with its own attendant post-release problems and patches ) The new Diablo II patch doesn’t add any new gameplay features, balance tweaks, or anything like that. Instead, Blizzard has added compatibility with modern operating systems like Windows 10 and OS X. But Blizzard says it’s working on improvements to the game’s “cheat-detection and hack-prevention capabilities” and hints at more improvements to come. “There is still a large Diablo II community around the world, and we thank you for continuing to play and slay with us,” Blizzard writes . “This journey starts by making Diablo II run on modern platforms, but it does not end there. See you in Sanctuary, adventurers.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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16 years later, Blizzard is still patching Diablo II

Man hacks Tesla firmware, finds new model, has car remotely downgraded

The image that hacker Jason Hughes found hidden in Tesla’s latest Model S firmware. (credit: Jason Hughes) It seems Tesla is set to bump the battery capacity of its Model S sedan up to a hefty 100kWh some time in the near future. We know this thanks to the work of a white-hat hacker and Tesla P85D owner named Jason Hughes. Hughes—who previously turned the battery pack from a wrecked Tesla into a storage array for his solar panels—was poking around in the latest firmware of his Model S (version 2.13.77) and discovered an image of the new car’s badge, the P100D. Hughes let the world know via a cryptic tweet: @elonmusk @teslamotors #tesla I know your secret. SHA256 of best part: 5fc38436ec295b0049f186651ebba5fd55e8d7b81eb61cbd00d3f1bf18dd9c81 — Jason Hughes (@wk057) March 4, 2016 That message was soon decrypted by enthusiasts on the Tesla Motors Club forum, at which time Hughes posted a copy of the picture: Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Man hacks Tesla firmware, finds new model, has car remotely downgraded

Ken May

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