news – Page 47

Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers For Money Laundering

tsu doh nimh writes “State authorities in Florida on Thursday announced criminal charges targeting three men who allegedly ran illegal businesses moving large amounts of cash in and out of the Bitcoin virtual currency. Experts say this is likely the first case in which Bitcoin vendors have been prosecuted under state anti-money laundering laws, and that prosecutions like these could shut down one of the last remaining avenues for purchasing Bitcoins anonymously.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers For Money Laundering

Apple Said To Have Acquired Sapphire Display Manufacturing Components, Diamond Cutting Tools

Apple is preparing for a big push in sapphire crystal display manufacturing, according to some new information unearthed by 9to5Mac and told to TechCrunch via a source familiar with the company’s plans. 9to5Mac, with the help of analyst Matt Margolis, has obtained documents that report Apple placing an order with partner GT Advanced technologies for large quantities of furnaces and chambers used in making sapphire displays. Our source informs us that a large order placed at Meyer Burger for wire-based diamond cutting systems (useful in handling ultra hard material like sapphire) was actually for Apple for delivery in 2014, though they aren’t named as a customer. Regarding the furnaces, Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac reports that GT Advanced has already taken delivery of 518 units, which could allow it to build as many as 116 displays of roughly five inches in size per year, with another 420 machines still on order, for a total potential capacity of around 200 million display panels at a size around one inch larger ( rumors suggest new models will be bigger ) than the current diagonal proportions of the iPhone 5s screen. Apple sold around 150 million iPhones in 2013 to put that in perspective, so doing the math, it could indeed be the case that Apple is putting the pieces together for a production run that spans the entire next generation of iPhone hardware. Gurman’s report adds that GT Advanced has ordered a large quantity of Sirius Sapphire Display Inspection Tool components, which helps manufacturers using sapphire in displays specifically for smartphones and other mobile devices by increasing yield numbers and making sure only high quality sapphire makes it into the production stream. Back when the GT Advanced deal, which saw Apple contribute $578 million to build a manufacturing plant for sapphire crystal in Arizona , our own Matthew Panzarino explained that it made sense for Apple to invest early in the tech should it plan to use it in large volumes later own. At first, it seemed likely that in the short-term, Apple’s focus would be more on small screen production with sapphire (for existing components like the camera lens cover and Touch ID sensor), but Gurman seems to believe iPhone displays are at least as likely. That’s backed up by a tidbit also reported by Matthew around the time of the revelation of the GT Advanced deal: Apple filed a patent recently for manufacturing sapphire laminates , which can help greatly reduce the cost of production for use of the material in touchscreen devices. Now, Apple seems ready to build the infrastructure necessary to turn its R&D into a key component advantage for future iPhone hardware. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these new reports around sapphire component manufacturing, but we have yet to hear back. We’ll update if new information comes to light.

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Apple Said To Have Acquired Sapphire Display Manufacturing Components, Diamond Cutting Tools

HealthCare.gov Can’t Handle Appeals of Errors

PapayaSF writes “The Washington Post reports that roughly 22, 000 people have claimed they were charged too much, steered into the wrong insurance program, or denied coverage, but the HealthCare.gov website cannot handle appeals. They’ve filled out seven-page forms and mailed them to a federal contractor’s office in Kentucky, where they were scanned and entered, but workers at CMS cannot read them because that part of the system has not been built. Other missing aspects are said to have higher priorities: completing the electronic payment system for insurers, the connections with state Medicaid programs, and the ability to adjust coverage to accommodate major changes such as new babies. People with complaints about mistakes have been told to ‘return to the Web site and start over.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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HealthCare.gov Can’t Handle Appeals of Errors

Apple Said To Be Exploring Inductive Charging And Solar Power In iWatch Testing

Apple’s work on an upcoming smartwatch includes explorations of induction charging and solar-powered batteries, according to a new report from the New York Times . As part of a larger piece about battery tech in general, the NYT revealed that Apple has been working on tests involving wireless induction charging for the smartwatch, and methods for incorporating solar panels into the display to draw power from the sun, and potentially ambient light. Both of these are noted as technology in the testing phase for a wrist-mounted Apple wearable, which means they’re not necessarily very far along and likely not on tap for an Apple iWatch should it arrive sometime within the next year. The solar charging in particular, for example, is said to be years away from making its way into shipping product, according to the NYT’s source. It does address a major pain point with current wearable tech, however, which might inform a hypothesis of what Apple is focusing on with any wrist-based smart device it is working on. We’ve heard from 9to5Mac that the iWatch will have a health and fitness focus , working with a new app that will come pre-installed on iOS 8 called “Healthbook.” Hardware details remain thin, but Apple did previously look into motion-based kinetic charging , which also lends credence to rumors that it’s exploring a range of power options. Battery life for wearables is a huge concern, and the reason why is continued adoption: No end user is eager for the chance to have to remember to charge yet another device, of course, and the problem is made worse when, in forgetting to charge a wearable even once, they notice no overall impact to their lives. The double challenge then is to build a smartwatch that becomes integral to a user’s general routine, such that they’ll actively remember to charge it with the same frequency as their phone, and also to make it so that charging is a fairly infrequent requirement. Apple has managed to sell a lot of things to people who neither users nor critics ever would’ve predicted they’d “needed” to begin with, with the iPad being the big shining example. They can probably do the same for the smartwatch, and these reports of their progress in its development signal to me they’re innovating in the right areas. iWatch concept at feature image created by Todd Hamilton .

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Apple Said To Be Exploring Inductive Charging And Solar Power In iWatch Testing

Cheap Laser-Sintering Printers Are Coming Thanks To The Expiration Of A Key Patent

Today is a big day for 3D printing: Patent #US5597589 is set to expire and will open up the possibility for makers to use laser sintering — shooting a laser at a layer of nylon powder — in cheaper devices, essentially opening the technology to the small maker. The patent is fairly clear on what sintering is. It describes an “apparatus for selectively sintering a layer of powder to produce a part made from a plurality of sintered layers and the apparatus includes a computer controlling a laser to direct the laser energy onto the powder to produce a sintered mass.” This means anything that shoots a laser at powder could run afoul of this patent much as Form Labs bumped up against 3D Systems’ stereolithography patent. Most larger “professional-quality” printers use laser sintering and you can create homogenous, solid-looking objects with stable structures using the technique. Does this mean we’ll have sintering printers in our homes next year? Possibly, but given the materials needed and the components involved I could see prices going down but not dropping until there is mass acceptance of 3D printing. FDM printers that deposit layers of plastic is still the cheapest method, but sintered parts are almost seamless, creating a cohesive whole that is very useful in prototyping and engineering. In short, however, it’s a great day for makers. via 3Dprint

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Cheap Laser-Sintering Printers Are Coming Thanks To The Expiration Of A Key Patent

iPhone 5s Owners Gobbling “Unprecedented” Levels Of Data, Study Finds

Users of flagship smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone 5s and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are continuing to suck down more data than their tablet-wielding counterparts, according to a large-scale survey of mobile data consumption in 2013 conducted by JDSU (which last year bought mobile data analytics company Arieso , the company that previously ran the annual survey). Last year’s mobile data consumption survey , which looked at 2012 data, also found flagship smartphone device users outpacing the data consumption rates of tablet users. But the most data thirsty phone users of all have an iPhone 5s burning a hole in their pocket. As with the 2012 study, the 2013 survey examined the data demands of more than one million subscribers using more than 150 different devices over a single, 24-hour weekday in a Tier-1 European market, which had a mixture of urban and suburban morphologies. But for the first time the survey also studied a developing market for comparative purposes — with a further one million+ subscribers studied in this market over the same 24-hour period. To ensure statistical validity the study only looked at the data demands of popular devices — i.e. those represented by at least 1,000 subscribers (conversely, the most popular devices had subscriber rates of well over 10,000 apiece). The results are pretty telling about the habits of flagship smartphone owners, if not entirely surprising. You guys are a data-demanding bunch. Especially if you happen to own the latest iPhone. Continuing the trend of the past three years’ findings, the 2013 study found that mobile subscribers using Apple’s flagship smartphone are the most data-hungry smartphone users of all. And they’re getting hungrier still: users of the new iPhone 5s are even more data-hungry than previous top-of-the-line iPhone owners — with the study describing them as the most voracious smartphone users it’s yet seen, with “unprecedented increases in uplink and downlink data demands”. According to the findings, iPhone 5s users demand 7x as much data as iPhone 3G users in developed markets (the study uses the iPhone 3G as its mid-range benchmark device), and 20x as much data in developing markets. The most data-demanding device in 2013 was the iPhone 5 — but iPhone 5s users are demanding a fifth (20%) more data than iPhone 5 users in developed markets, and 50% more data in developing markets. Owners of Apple’s current flagship phone also have a greater data consumption than the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S4, which had a 5x data generation rate vs the iPhone 3G in developed markets and 11x in developing markets. The SGS4 did rank a lot higher for uplink data generation — coming third in developed markets (vs sixth place for the iPhone 5s). The study goes on to note that the average user of the SGS4 generates almost as much uplink data as eleven iPhone 3G users in the developing market it analysed. T he SGS4′s “prolific” uplink data generation usage is described as “consistent with the improved high-resolution 13-megapixel primary camera and the 2-megapixel front-facing camera”. (The iPhone 5s has an 8MP rear camera.) Both Apple and Samsung are amply represented in the top data gobbling devices across developed and developing markets, as the below tables from the report show: The report also flags up the relatively reduced amount of data consumption by users of the lower cost iPhone 5c compared to previously released iPhones. ”This is consistent with the marketing of the device relative to the new flagship iPhone 5s,” the report notes. Bottom line: even though the iPhone 5c is a shiny new iPhone, it’s not a flagship iPhone so the owners of this device have more modest data consumption habits (on average). On the tablet front, Apple’s fourth-gen iPad has replaced the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 in the top tablet spot in the studied developed market (relative to 2012’s study). No sign of the iPad Air as yet, but it’s a little too early for that device to crop up on the analysed networks (being as it went on sale in November, when the data was being gathered). The study also points out that — as with the don’t-call-it-cheap-but-it’s-not-a-flagship iPhone 5c — Apple’s lower priced tablet, the iPad mini, yields lower data consumption rates than its flagship tablet models. The report notes that iPad mini users consume only 80% of the downlink data consumed by 2nd and 3rd generations of iPads. “Similar to the iPhone 5c, the iPad mini was not intended to be a flagship device and instead has sought to occupy a niche position in the market,” it adds. Another characteristic of mobile data consumption detailed by the study applies to the hungriest 1% of all subscribers. The report notes that these users consume more than half of the downlink data volume — which it describes as “broadly consistent” with the trends reported over the past two years in developed markets. However the device-types these hungriest of data-hungry mobile users are conducting their bandwidth hogging activities on has seen a bit of a shift. The report notes that in the developed market being analysed, smartphones now constitute the majority of “extreme devices”, taking a 63% fraction vs 40% in 2012′s study. While tablet device usage among this group has experienced the largest relative decline, dropping from 6% in 2012 to 2% in 2013. It’s possible this is a consequence of smartphones getting bigger and thus more tablet-esque — aka the rise of the phablet — allowing extreme users to choose a compromise device that’s quasi-pocketable (compared to a full-fat tablet), and thus able to appeal to their desire to remain tethered at all times to the Internets, while still being large enough to eyeball most of the stuff they want to on the go. There’s no doubt phablet usage is on the up — e arlier this week analyst Juniper Research forecast that 120 million palm-stretching phablet units are expected to ship annually by 2018 , up from an estimated 20 million in 2013. A nd with some signs that tablet sales might be softening , it seems logical to connect the swelling waistlines of the average smartphone as a contributory factor in swelling rates of data consumption among phone users. Bigger smartphones, after all, often more screen real-estate for performing data-consuming activities. And, unlike tablets, these gizmos are merely a handy pocket away from users’ fingertips. The report also touches on the role being played by LTE/4G in encouraging data-gobbling — noting that the higher speeds supporting by this next-gen cellular tech are doing the equivalent of pouring lighter fuel on the data consumption bonfire. “The most extreme 0.1% of all users consume nearly half of all downlink LTE data,” the report notes. “Extreme behavior in UMTS required ten times as large a fraction (0.1% -> 1%) to get to half of all downlink data. As such, we can declare that LTE users are ten times more extreme than UMTS users.” In other words, throw LTE into the mix along with powerful, fatty phablets and increasing levels of mobile data gluttony is a given. It’s almost enough to make you pity the poor carriers whose networks have to shoulder the burden of “extreme users” and data-diva flagship owners. *Almost* “The faster the speeds that mobile operators provide, the more consumers swallow it up and demand more,” concludes report author Dr Michael Flanagan. “One would expect a honeymoon period in which early adopters test their toys. But for 4G users to consistently exhibit behaviour 10 times more extreme than 3G users well after launch constitutes a seismic shift in the data landscape.”

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iPhone 5s Owners Gobbling “Unprecedented” Levels Of Data, Study Finds

The 22 Most Misleading Viral Photos (Explained)

By CRACKED Readers Published: January 15th, 2014 Viral photos: We love them, we hate them, and while we’re still hating them we pass on the information we learned. But, in our continuing quest to sift through the bullshit for you, we asked our readers to debunk some of the most famous viral photos

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The 22 Most Misleading Viral Photos (Explained)

SolarCooler Keeps Your Brews Icy With The Power Of The Sun, But It’ll Cost You $1K

Every year at CES, the Eureka Park outpost where they stick the scrappy startups is the best damn part of the whole shindig. This is where all the people with a screw loose or a decided lack of good common sense come to peddle their spaghetti-cooking robot or aroma-powered computer – or, as happened this year, their solar-powered beer cooler . SolarCooler is a “world first,” which is a common epithet at Eureka Park, and it’s currently undergoing crowdfunding on Indiegogo. The startup is looking for $150,000 to make their portable refrigerator (it even makes ice!) a reality, but it’s currently looking like it’ll need a real groundswell of support to get there. Here’s the big issue: the entry-level model costs just under $1,000, and that’s a special backer-only price. Retail for the SolarCooler is $1,200, which is bound to be a bitter pill to swallow even for the most ardent of tailgaters. Still, this is essentially a solar-powered 12V battery backup for everything combined with a cooler that offers true, continuous refrigeration, so that price tag starts to look at lot more reasonable when you consider its other potential uses. It also has a lot of potential to help out in commercial and medical settings as a transport for goods that need to be kept cool when direct power is in scarce supply and loading up a device with a significant number of batteries would make it cumbersome to use. SolarCooler is pursuing a flex funding goal, meaning it walks away with whatever it raises, and the founder seems keen on building it whatever the outcome, but there are still over 40 days left in the campaign, so it could still turn into a Cinderella story. All I know is I like beer, and I like it cold (that ‘best served at room temperature stuff’ is BS) so SolarCooler makes sense to me.

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SolarCooler Keeps Your Brews Icy With The Power Of The Sun, But It’ll Cost You $1K

Kindle for iOS has been updated with a slew of new features, including flashcards, improved in-book

Kindle for iOS has been updated with a slew of new features, including flashcards, improved in-book search, a redesigned dictionary, filters for bookmarks and highlights, and more. Read more about the update here . Read more…

MediaPortal 1.6.0 FINAL released

MediaPortal 1.6.0 Final We are very happy to present you the final version of MediaPortal 1.6.0 today. No new features were added between the Pre Release and the Final Release but a lot of bugs encountered by Team internal testing or because of our community who reported them in our bugforum have been fixed. Enjoy it! Highlights of this release Update to MySQL 5.6 to increase stability Due to performance and stability improvements we decided to switch from MySQL 5.1 to MySQL 5.6 which comes with InnoDB as default database engine. It is more reliable than MyISAM which was the default database engine in MySQL 5.1 and the cause of many TV database crashes. MySQL 5.6 gets only installed if you do a clean installation. If you perform an update, MySQL 5.1 will be kept. This is because users might still want to use MySQL 5.1 for other purposes than just MediaPortal. Enhanced TV experience There were quite some improvements like fix stuttering/dropped frame problems with H.264 video streams which use mixed field/frame (interlaced/progressive) encoding e.g. UK Freeview HDTV channels as well as handle some NZ Freeview channels which were causing problems. Recognition of DolbyDigital+ streams was added and a deadlock was fixed which leads to TV Server crashes or can cause a BSOD quite frequently on some setups. Music improvements A lot of things have been fixed and worked on in the Music section since our last release. Below you find the most important enhancements. Hopefully you will enjoy them! Last.FM rework Because Last.FM changed their API, the Last.fm Radio & scrobbling functions (Last.fm account needed for both!) are rewritten. As a bonus an awesome new AutoDJ function is added, which will attempt to play music forever, and you don’t even need a Last.fm account for it! Music Visualisations Music Visualisations got fixed and are now correctly listening to the beat. Furthermore while on the NowPlaying screen, you can now switch to (fullscreen) visualisations by pressing X on your keyboard. PageUp/PageDown are used to cycle through the available visualisations. To make the visualisations work you need to download and install them first. It is highly recommended to only use the visualisations provided by our visualisation package. Allmusic.com scraper update As you might have noticed, the Album/Artist scraping was broken in MediaPortal 1.5 because allmusic.com changed their layout. For your convenience, this has been fixed now. Gapless playback Gapless playback is working now and can be enabled through MediaPortal configuration. MyVideos scraper rework for better maintainability Not only Album/Artist scraping was broken in MediaPortal 1.5 but also Fanart/Poster scraping in MyVideos because of the TMDB API change . This has been completely fixed and was improved in a way that the MyVideos scraper can now be updated outside the MediaPortal release cycle which means we are more flexible when it comes to fix scraper issues. Other small improvements Besides the switch to .NET4 we also modified our core to support plugins like the amazing Auto3D plugin or the great Atmolight plugin. Furthermore we fixed a DPI scaling issue for Win 8.1 users and RefreshRate changing on multi monitor setups was fixed too. Full list of changes You can review the complete change log for 1.6.0 by using the links below: Changelog: MediaPortal 1.6.0 Final Changelog: MediaPortal 1.6.0 Pre Release Documentation of new features can be found at the following link: What’s new for MediaPortal 1.6.0 Compiled Plugin related changes Community Plugin Developers should have a look at the following page to find out about the changes which will effect their extensions. Some of these changes are mandatory to become 1.6.0 compatible: changes which affect plugins Notes: The WifiRemote plugin can crash MediaPortal 1.6.0 while playing music. FanartHandler scraping does not work in Mediaportal 1.6.0 because plugin changes are needed. Intelligent Frame Correction (I.F.C ) plugin has been updated to work with MediaPortal 1.6.0. You can update via our Extension Manager or download the MPEI package from here ! There were several reports that the old I.F.C version did not work with MP 1.5.0 and MP 1.6.0 and causes LiveTV and Video to freeze. Additional Information: TVE3 Code freeze At the moment we are working hard on releasing a new version of our TVEngine – which is called TVE3.5. Development is still in early stage and some features are missing. To make a release of this happen in the future we have to put our current TVEngine (TVE3) on code freeze. This means only critical issues will get fixed. Everything else will have to wait for a TVE3.5 release. When we think it is ready for public testing you will find a testbuild in our Area51 forum part. Since we have limited resources we are not able to give you a specific release date. It is ready when it is ready! We’ll hope you understand that. Thanks! Installation, Upgrade, Download and Feedback Installation With MediaPortal 1.6.0 we switched to .NET4 so you need to make sure you have .NET4 installed on your computer (not needed if you are on Windows 8 because it comes with .NET4). Otherwise you are not able to install MediaPortal and the installer just quits. Download-Link: Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer) Aside from that when doing a clean installation of 1.6.0 there is nothing else special to worry about. Upgrade Upgrading from 1.2.x, 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final, 1.4.0 or 1.5.0 or 1.6.0 Pre Release to MP 1.6.0 All MediaPortal 1.2.x, 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final, 1.4.0, 1.5.0 and of course 1.6.0 Pre Release installations can be upgraded to 1.6.0 without losing your settings. Plugins: If you are running MediaPortal 1.5.0 or earlier , then it is possible that some of your previously installed plugins will be shown as incompatible after the upgrade to 1.6.0 ! Whether or not a plugin is incompatible depends on the MediaPortal subsystems the plugin uses. Skins: Warning ! Due to the new features and changes introduced in 1.4.0 , none of the 1.3.x skins are compatible with 1.6.0 ! Please contact the author of the skin you use for further information and updates. Upgrading Extensions: The easiest way to upgrade your extensions is by launching the MediaPortal Extension Installer , and let it check for updated versions. However this only works for extensions that use our MPEI system. If the author of the extension releases it as a stand alone installer, you must contact them for an updated version. Upgrading from 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier to 1.6.0 All MediaPortal installations starting with 1.1.0 RC1 can be upgraded to 1.6.0, without losing your settings. If you are running MediaPortal 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier, then none of your extensions (plugins and skins) will work after the upgrade to 1.6.0! You must update your extensions after the upgrade! So, please make sure that 1.6.0 compatible versions of your extensions are available before you start the upgrade! General note about Upgrades Manually stop TV-Service! On some systems our installer is not able to update the TV-Server installation because its files are locked or the service can not be stopped. For upgrades to 1.6.0 we recommend that you manually stop the TV-Service and make sure, via Windows Task Manager (enable the “all users” option), that the TvService.exe process is really gone before starting to upgrade. Custom TV-Service properties If you manually changed the properties of the TV-Service (like restart on error options) , then you must redo these changes after the upgrade. The installer is not able to save and restore your custom service properties when it installs the new version of the TV-Service. Feedback Bugs If you think you found a bug then please post a detailed report in our Bug Reports Forum . Make sure your report includes all the required information . Incomplete reports will be removed to keep the forum clean. Download Finally – the download. We hope that you took the time to read this release news entirely because it includes vital information about the major changes. If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation ! The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release! .::. Download – MediaPortal 1.6.0 Final .::. :: Post a Comment ::

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MediaPortal 1.6.0 FINAL released

Ken May

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