Amazon is taking a tough stance against vendors who sell fully-loaded Kodi boxes and other “pirate” media players through its platform. From a report: The store now explicitly bans media players that “promote” or “suggest” the facilitation of piracy. Sellers who violate this policy, of which there are still a few around, risk having their inventory destroyed. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, millions of people use third-party add-ons to turn it into the ultimate pirate machine. In some cases, the pirate add-ons are put onto the devices by vendors, who sell these “fully-loaded” boxes through their own stores or marketplaces such as Amazon. The ecommerce giant appears to be well aware of the controversy, as it recently published an updated policy clarifying that pirate media players are not permitted on the platform. Merely ‘suggesting’ that devices can be used for infringing purposes is enough to have them delisted. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Amazon Bans Sales of Media Player Boxes That Promote Piracy
While Budweiser’s new bowtie-shaped beer can is a couple of weeks away from launch, a series of smaller breweries have already launched another new type of can: One with a ” 360 Lid ” that peels completely away, allowing tipplers to drink brew through a circular, drinking-glass-like aperture. Here at the Core77 offices we rarely drink beer out of cans. (That’s not snobbery; unlike bottles, cans cannot be broken against desks and wielded as weapons during editorial squabbles that devolve into melees.) But the few times we have, we’ve never had a problem getting beer to pour from the tab-sized opening into our gulping mouths. So why the new can? Pennsylvania-based licenser Sly Fox Brewing Company insists a circular opening “allows the full flavor and aroma of the beer to hit the drinker’s senses.” And yes, the drinking rim is rounded over, so you don’t cut your lips with each swig. (more…) 
Materials movement sucks, and it’s our job as designers, engineers or craftspersons to learn tricks to deal with it. You’ll put a slight arc in a plastic surface that’s supposed to be flat, so that after it comes out of the mold and cools the surface doesn’t get all wavy; a furniture builder in Arizona shipping a hardwood table to the Gulf states will use joinery that compensates for the humidity and attendant wood expansion; and similar allowances have to be made when joining steel and aluminum, as they expand at different rates when the temperature changes. On this latter front, Honda’s engineers have made a breakthrough that those who work with fabrics may find interesting: They’ve discovered that by creating a “3D Lock Seam”—essentially a flat-felled seam for you sewists—and using a special adhesive in place of the spot-welding they’d use with steel-on-steel, they can bond steel with aluminum in a way that negates the whole thermal deformation thing. Practically speaking, what this new process enables them to do is create door panels that are steel on the inside and aluminum on the outside. This cuts the weight of the door panels by some 17%, which ought to reduce fuel consumption. (Honda also mentions that “In addition, weight reduction at the outer side of the vehicle body enables [us] to concentrate the point of gravity toward the center of the vehicle, contributing to improved stability in vehicle maneuvering,” but that sounds like spin to us.) Unsurprisingly they’re mum on how they’ve pulled this off or what exactly the adhesive is, but they do mention that “these technologies do not require a dedicated process; as a result, existing production lines can accommodate these new technologies.” The language is kind of vague but it sounds like they’re saying they don’t require massive re-tooling, which is a manufacturing coup. Honda’s U.S. plants are the first to get this manufacturing upgrade, and we’ll be seeing the new doors as soon as next month, on the U.S.-built Acura RLX. (more…) 
hypnosec writes “Korean scientists have developed a ‘fluid-like’ polymer electrolyte used in lithium-ion batteries that would pave way for flexible batteries and flexible smartphones. The discovery was made by a joint team of researchers that was led by Professor Lee Sang-young of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. The new electrolyte, though flexible, is made of solid materials hence making the batteries more stable than the lithium-ion batteries used today.” Paper, but full text is paywalled. Read more of this story at Slashdot.