engadget – Page 5 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Large Hadron Collider crew has to pull 9,000 old cables

Even particle physics researchers have messes to clean up now and then. CERN has revealed to Motherboard that it’s pulling 9, 000 obsolete cables in three of the Large Hadron Collider’s injectors in order to make way for newer cabling. That’s a lot of work by itself (many of the cables are dozens of feet long), but it’s made all the more daunting by the consequences of yanking the wrong line. Since the cables are largely for control and safety systems, one wrong move could prevent the entire particle accelerator from working — try explaining that slip-up to your supervisors. The crew has already disconnected 2, 700 of the cables, and expects to remove all of them in 2017. CERN shouldn’t have any problems with the LHC shutdown scheduled for 2019, in other words. And hopefully, this won’t be necessary again. The gigantic amount of clutter stems from a “not-so-good habit” of leaving old cables around, which suggests that engineers will be much smarter about cleaning up in the future. [Image credit: CERN] Source: Motherboard

Lyft will pay $12.25 million to settle drivers’ lawsuit in CA

One company is done battling a gig economy -related lawsuit, at least in California. Lyft has agreed to grant its drivers more workplace protection and to pay $12.5 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit. The California drivers who filed the lawsuit against the company wanted to be reclassified as employees in order to receive minimum wage and benefits, as well as to get Lyft to pay for their gas and vehicle maintenance. While they’ve unfortunately failed to get their status changed — they’re still considered contractors — drivers in the state will get part of the settlement fund based on the hours they’ve put into working for the company. Lyft also can’t drop drivers whenever it wants. The company can only terminate someone based on a number of predetermined reasons, such as low passenger ratings. Even then, the driver will be given the chance to air their side of the story. Finally, drivers who consistently get high ratings and who passengers pinpoint as their favorites will be rewarded with bonuses. Jackdaw Research chief analyst Jan Dawson told Reuters that while Lyft is losing millions, it still got off “fairly lightly.” Reclassifying drivers as employees, he said, would have cost the company much, much more. Uber wasn’t able to prevent a similar case from becoming a full-fledged class action lawsuit, but this proves it’s possible to settle with the plaintiffs without changing how the company operates. [Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images] Source: Reuters , Bloomberg

Wikipedia fund gives the site a long-term future

Wikipedia just turned 15 years old, but you wouldn’t know it from the nigh-on inescapable donation drives — the crowdsourced encyclopedia often seems as if it’s months away from extinction. The Wikimedia Foundation (its parent organization) may have a way to keep the site around for the long haul, however. It’s launching the Wikimedia Endowment , a “perpetual” support fund for Wikipedia and other Foundation efforts. The goal is to raise $100 million over the next 10 years, or enough to both improve its independence and give it room to grow. The Endowment may well be necessary. Wikipedia revolves around its free, no-ads approach to information, and there’s no guarantee that it’ll find enough people to chip in. This prevents it from having to turn to ads and otherwise compromise its relatively impartial stance. Moreover, the team is eager to add more videos and continue adapting to the mobile world — those expansions will cost money. The organization still has to be frugal (it’s not about to beat YouTube), but it shouldn’t be at risk of falling behind. [Image credit: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images] Via: The Guardian Source: Wikimedia Endowment

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Wikipedia fund gives the site a long-term future

Police claim to have cracked extra-secure BlackBerry phones

BlackBerry smartphones have secure messaging as a matter of course, but for some that isn’t enough: there are custom models that are even more secure thanks to PGP-encrypted mail. However, it seems that these locked down models aren’t quite as safe as you’d think. The Netherlands Forensic Institute has confirmed a recent report that it’s capable of scooping up encrypted data from PGP-equipped BlackBerry devices. It’s not discussing the exact techniques involved, but it’s relying on a tool from CelleBrite to get the job done. One possibility is that investigators are guessing the password based on a memory dump, although that normally requires yanking a memory chip off the phone’s motherboard. If it’s any consolation, police need physical access to crack these BlackBerrys. Their methods also aren’t completely reliable (a small batch couldn’t be cracked), and it’s uncertain that this will work with every single PGP implementation. GhostPGP, for instance, claims that it’s unaffected. All the same, this isn’t very comforting if you bought a customized BlackBerry with the promise of airtight security. And there’s no certainty that only Dutch cops have access — it’s entirely possible that other law enforcement and surveillance agencies know these tricks. [Image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images] Source: Misdaadnieuws (translated) , Motherboard

Samsung’s Ultra HD Blu-ray player is coming soon for $399

There aren’t many Ultra HD Blu-ray players to choose from, but the first one you can buy is this one from Samsung. We’d seen it before at IFA last year, but this week Samsung announced the UBD-K8500 will go on sale in the US this March. Talking to reps from Samsung and the Ultra HD Association, I was told it could start selling as soon as February 22nd, and we expect to see the first Ultra HD discs arrive at the same time. Pre-orders are up on Samsung’s website and Amazon.com now for $399. The player itself is just like any other disc player you’ve seen, with a small arc detail along the bottom edge. In terms of features, it will play everything from 4K streaming apps to Blu-ray 3D discs, and it will even rip CDs for you (to WAV or MP3, which can be stored on a USB drive). As Samsung and Fox are collaborating on the UHD rollout, its booth featured a number of discs from the studio, including The Martian, Wild, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Pan and others planned for early release in the format. I didn’t get a chance to play around with the device, but by all appearances it’s fast and capable. The days of the original Blu-ray players (remember the $1, 000 BD-P1000 and how long it took to load discs?) are well behind us, and if you’ve been waiting to jump into Ultra HD this should be a good entry point.

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Samsung’s Ultra HD Blu-ray player is coming soon for $399

BlackBerry is dumping BB10 for Android in 2016

BlackBerry spent years fine-tuning BB10 , but its homegrown mobile OS will have to take a backseat for now. During an interview at CES in Las Vegas, CEO John Chen has revealed that the company plans to release at least one new Android phone this year. A second one might follow, but it likely depends on how well the first one sells. Chen chose to keep all the details and release dates a secret, but computer renders of what could be the company’s next Android device, code-named ” Vienna , ” were leaked last year. This doesn’t necessarily mean we’re saying goodbye to BB10 forever. Chen is apparently hoping that its first Android phone, the Priv , can bring the brand back into the limelight, make it viable again and enable the company to make another BlackBerry 10 phone. While Chen felt it was too early to talk about his BB10 dreams, he said he’s “confident in [the company’s] profitability this year.” In fact, BlackBerry’s already taking steps to sell more Privs: It will start offering the handset through Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile sometime this year. It’s currently available only as an unlocked device or with a contract through AT&T. Via: Pocket-lint Source: CNET

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BlackBerry is dumping BB10 for Android in 2016

Amazon is selling its own processors now, too

Amazon’s come a long way since its humble beginnings as an online book store. It sells everything from groceries to its own Kindle and tablet hardware , runs streaming services complete with original shows , and has a huge cloud-computing business among other interests . And now Amazon’s started pushing its own line of processors, plunging its finger into yet another pie. You won’t find its ARM-based “Alpine” chips among the T-shirts and homeware on Amazon’s online store, of course. They are being sold directly to manufacturers and service providers through subsidiary Annapurna Labs , a chip designer Amazon acquired early last year. The Alpine chip range is intended for products like WiFi routers, storage devices and connected home products (internet of things things), with companies including ASUS, Netgear and Synology already counted as customers. As Bloomberg notes, the chips are also a good fit for data centers, but are more suited to storage and networking tasks, not high-performance servers where Intel reigns king. Apart from being an interesting milestone in Amazon’s campaign for world domination, it getting into the processor business will resonate little with us everyday consumers. But, when you finally commit to buying a smart home hub after comparing numerous Amazon reviews, that hardware may well turn up with an Amazon brain inside, too. Via: Bloomberg , The Verge Source: Annapurna Labs

Snapchat closes its lens filter store despite decent sales

You probably wouldn’t give up hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue a month, but then you’re not Snapchat . The social app will close down its popular lens store this Friday after opening it just a couple of months ago. As a reminder, with the camera in selfie mode, you can add a variety of free or 99 cent filters that make you a snowball target (above) or let you puke out rainbows, for example. The company will let you keep the lenses you’ve already bought, of course, and will eventually offer many of the paid lenses for free. Snapchat told Business Insider that it shut down the store in order to focus on its advertising business, despite the fact that it was selling tens of thousands of filters per day. However, the company will still sell sponsored lenses to businesses like Beats for hundreds of thousands of dollars, reportedly. Snapchat has been trying to monetize its millions of users of late, but has run into to trouble due to a lack of data on how many people actually interact with the app. We’re sure the $10 billion company will figure it out, but in the meantime, if you want to get some lens filters, grab them by January 8th. Via: Business Insider Source: Snapchat

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Snapchat closes its lens filter store despite decent sales

MSI’s flagship gaming laptop gets an eye-tracking upgrade

If you’re looking for a big, powerful gaming laptop, the MSI’s GT72 Dominator has always been a solid choice — but it’s never been really interesting . The Dominator is known for a strong build, powerful internals, good speakers and a superb keyboard, but it never offered anything unexpected. Now it does. Later this month, MSI will be updating the Dominator with a fancy new gimmick: an integrated eye-tracking camera. Technically, we’ve seen this machine before: MSI showed off a prototype eye-tracking Dominator in Taiwan last year . It… sort of worked. Eye-controlled gaming can be finicky if not implemented correctly. At the time, we had trouble controlling the Assassin’s Creed in-game camera by just looking at the screen, but logging into Windows with the camera was relatively easy. The technology has potential, even if it only has limited support at the moment. Now that it’s officially available, that support could be on its way. MSI says the GT72S Tobii will be available for purchase later this month, and will ship with a Tobii-enabled copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division.

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MSI’s flagship gaming laptop gets an eye-tracking upgrade

PlayStation Now just got 40-plus new PS3 games

Sony announced the addition of more than 40 PS3 games to its Now service, bringing the total number of available PS3 games to 300, 100 of which are PS3 exclusives . Additionally, Sony’s offering a pretty steep discount on the Now service itself for the holidays — $100 for a full year’s subscription . That’s more than half off what they normally charge. The discount offer runs through Monday, January 11th. [Image Credit: Getty]

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PlayStation Now just got 40-plus new PS3 games