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Voyager’s Golden Record For Aliens Now Available On SoundCloud

An anonymous reader writes: For years you’ve been able to listen to the sounds recorded on the golden records carried by the twin Voyager spacecraft online but NASA just made it a bit easier. The orginization just uploaded the recordings to SoundCloud. Now you can listen to a continuous stream of clips instead of clicking back and forth to hear the different tracks. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Voyager’s Golden Record For Aliens Now Available On SoundCloud

LinkedIn (Temporarily) Backs Down After Uproar At Contact Export Removal

Mark Wilson writes: LinkedIn caused a storm a couple of days ago when it removed the option to instantly download contacts. Many users of the professional social network were more than a little irked to discover that while contact exporting was still available, a wait of up to three days had been put in place. Unsurprisingly, users revolted, having been particularly upset by the fact the change was implemented with no warning or announcement. But the company has managed to turn things around by quickly backtracking on its decision after listening to a stream of complaints on Twitter. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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LinkedIn (Temporarily) Backs Down After Uproar At Contact Export Removal

Intel Core I7-5775C Desktop Broadwell With Iris Pro 6200 Graphics Tested

bigwophh writes: 14nm Broadwell processors weren’t originally destined for the channel, but Intel ultimately changed course and launched a handful of 5th Generation Core processors based on the microarchitecture recently, the most powerful of which is the Core i7-5775C. Unlike all of the mobile Broadwell processors that came before it, the Core i7-5775C is a socketed, LGA processor for desktops, just like 4th Generation Core processors based on Haswell. In fact, it’ll work in the very same 9-Series chipset motherboards currently available (after a BIOS update). The Core i7-5775C, however, features a 128MB eDRAM cache and integrated Iris Pro 6200 series graphics, which can boost graphics performance significantly. Testing shows that the Core i7-5775C’s lower CPU core clocks limit its performance versus Haswell, but its Iris Pro graphics engine is clearly more powerful. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel Core I7-5775C Desktop Broadwell With Iris Pro 6200 Graphics Tested

LG bets big on flexible displays for cars and phones

More and more smartphones , TVs and wearables like Apple’s Watch now use OLED displays, but only two companies mass produce them — Samsung and LG. LG is trying to stay on top of demand by building a new 1.05 trillion won ($900 million) flexible OLED plant in Korea. Starting in 2017, the 6th-gen line will spit out four times as many screens as the current-gen plant thanks to a larger “substrate” sheet size. The plastic-based displays are aimed at smaller next-gen devices that can benefit from the bendability like automotive displays, cellphones and wearables. Most of LG and Samsung’s high-end smartphones and smartwatches already use OLED displays (P-OLED and AMOLED, respectively). Some — like LG’s G Flex 2 “banana” phone and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge — specifically take advantage of the flexibility. But, it’s other companies — the Vivo X5 , Oppo R7 and 2nd-gen Motorola Moto X all have OLED-based displays, for instance — that are creating demand for the technology. LG said it will eventually build another plant for larger, TV-sized displays that uses the same 6th-gen tech. Samsung also recently pledged $3.6 billion toward OLED production. Filed under: Displays , LG Comments

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LG bets big on flexible displays for cars and phones

Netflix’s TV apps get their first major update since 2013

While Netflix has focused on rolling out more original content to more countries over the last couple of years, we haven’t seen as many updates to its software as we used to. Last week the streaming video service said it would start optimizing its mobile apps, but first up is a tweak for the TV apps you probably use more often. Netflix says this is the first major change its TV apps have had since the new look rolled out in late 2013 , and it will start or resume video as soon as you select a title, while keeping the info on the screen (check after the break for a GIF showing how it works). An earnings report earlier this year mentioned bringing video “forward” in the TV experience, and this seems to be a part of that plan, delivering what Netflix says is a more cinematic experience. Cinematic or not, when I’ve fallen asleep mid- OITNB binge, a visual hint would make it easier to remember which episode I was on so this should help. When we spoke to Netflix’s Cliff Edwards in January we heard about plans to put its app on the same footing as cable, and creating a way for viewers to passively slip into watching makes that possible. Once you turn on cable TV the video is usually just there, while with streaming you’ve always had to pick something first — this new feature combined with faster loading apps and video makes your Netflix & chill moment more casual . If you’re using an older TV or device you may not see the feature, but it’s rolling out to “eligible devices” ( Netflix Recommended TVs are a good bet ) globally over the next few days. Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD Comments Source: Netflix Blog

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Netflix’s TV apps get their first major update since 2013

No, This Viral Image Does Not Explain the History of Arabic Numerals

Your cousin’s Facebook friends are probably going nuts over this image that claims to show how the early history of Arabic geometric design informs how we write numerals today. “Each figure contains its own number of corners and angles, ” reads the text. That’s half-true of the drawings in the image. The rest is patently false. Read more…

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No, This Viral Image Does Not Explain the History of Arabic Numerals

Nanowires help produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight

You ideally want to produce clean hydrogen fuel using clean sources, and Dutch researchers have taken a big step toward making that a practical reality. They’ve built a solar cell that uses a grid of gallium phosphide nanowires to make hydrogen gas from water. The approach gets a useful yield of about 2.9 percent in lab tests. That may not sound like much, but it’s about 10 times more effective than previous techniques and uses 10, 000 times less exotic material. It’s still going to take more refinements before this kind of technology is practical. Even hooking up silicon cells to a battery nets a 15 percent yield, for example. If scientists improve their methods, though, you could be driving hydrogen cars whose fuel is eco-friendly at every step, not just when it’s in your vehicle. [Image credit: AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi] Filed under: Transportation , Science Comments Source: TUE , Nature

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Nanowires help produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight

AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

An anonymous reader writes: In past years the AMD Catalyst Linux driver has yielded better performance if naming the executable “doom3.x86” or “compiz” (among other choices), but these days this application profile concept is made more absurd with more games coming to Linux but AMD not maintaining well their Linux application profile database. The latest example is by getting ~40% better performance by renaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Linux. If renaming the “csgo_linux” binary to “hl2_linux” for Half-Life 2 within Steam, the frame-rates suddenly increase across the board, this is with the latest Catalyst 15.7 Linux driver while CS:GO has been on Linux for nearly one year. Should driver developers re-evaluate their optimization practices for Linux? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

Spotify just added a load of new features with a recent update and now it’s looking to help you find new music. To do just that, a new tool called Discover Weekly builds a two-hour playlist of suggestions based on your listening habits and those of folks with similar preferences. What’s more, the collection of tunes — basically a mixtape — is refreshed every Monday so that you’re greeted with new material on the regular. In fact, my collection was updated early this morning. Spotify says the more you use it, the better it’ll get, adapting as your musical taste evolves. Soon, Discover Weekly with appear at the top of your saved playlists for easy access. And yes, you can save individual songs you like or share the whole lot with your pals. I’ve had access to the tool for a few days, and based on the first set of tracks Spotify selected, I’m cautiously optimistic. Meek Mill, Run the Jewels, Of Monsters and Men and Miguel are getting the bulk of my attention these days, so the tool built my first playlist of songs from Caribou, Modest Mouse, Action Bronson, Flying Lotus and more. Understandably, this group of initial picks is a bit of a mixed bag — similar to my tastes — but I’m looking forward to seeing how the feature changes during weeks when I lean more towards one genre. In this morning’s update, for example, I received mostly hip-hop picks as my listening last week centered around that genre during workouts. While Apple Music touts its human-curated playlists, Spotify is relying on its software here, and it seems to work just fine. You’ll be able to try it for yourself soon enough, as the curated playlist should appear across all of Spotify’s apps shortly. Filed under: Portable Audio/Video , Internet , Software Comments

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Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

Popular Torrent Site Disappears From Google After Penalty

An anonymous reader writes: Following what appears to be a severe penalty, the popular torrent site KickassTorrents has become pretty much unfindable in Google. Meanwhile, the top search result in many locations points to a scam site that’s serving malware to its visitors. For now, only DuckDuckGo presents the real site as a main result. With millions of visitors per day, KickassTorrents is arguably the most visited torrent site on the Internet, and has gained new users during the moments when the notorious Pirate Bay has been offline. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken May

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