Visualizers were the kind of thing that I kind of assumed had died with Windows Media Player and Winamp. But Google says no. Google says you must have motion with your music. Read more…
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Google Play Music Has A Stunning New Visualizer
Nerval’s Lobster writes With the debut of Android 5.0 (also known as Lollipop, in keeping with Google’s habit of naming each major OS upgrade after a dessert), it’s worth taking a moment to break down how the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system matches up against Apple’s iOS 8. After years of battle, the two are remarkably similar. So while nobody would ever confuse Android and iOS, both Google and Apple seem determined to go “flatter” (and more brightly colored) than ever. Whether or not you agree with their choices, they’re the cutting edge of mobile UX design. The perpetual tit-for-tat over features has reached a climax of sorts with Lollipop and iOS 8: both offer their own version of an NFC-powered e-wallet (Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet), a health app (Apple’s Health app vs. Google Fit), car-dashboard control (Android Auto vs. CarPlay), and home automation. That’s not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they’ll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple’s “walled garden.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever
As scary as Heartbleed was this past Spring, it looks like virtually every Microsoft Windows user is in for a little deja vu. Microsoft just released a critical patch for a huge server vulnerability —one that affects every current version of Windows out there. Read more…
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All Current Versions of Windows Have a Huge Vulnerabilty, Get the Patch Now
An anonymous reader writes with word that the Mozilla project has made two announcements that should make hardcore Firefox users very happy. The first is that multi-process support is landing in Firefox Nightly, and the second is that 64-bit Firefox is finally coming to Windows. The features are a big deal on their own, but together they show Mozilla’s commitment to the desktop version of Firefox as they both improve performance and security. The news is part of a slew of unveilings from the company on the browser’s 10th anniversary — including new Firefox features and the debut of Firefox Developer Edition. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Multi-Process Comes To Firefox Nightly, 64-bit Firefox For Windows ‘Soon’
Last month, the biggest sunspot in 22 years traversed across the Sun. Labelled AR 2192, it was big enough to see without the need for a telescope. This awesome timelapse animation can show you what you missed. Read more…
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This Ultra-HD timelapse shows the biggest sunspot in 22 years
kxra writes With the latest developments, Pitivi is proving to truly be a promising libre video editor for GNU distributions as well as a serious contender for bringing libre video production up to par with its proprietary counterparts. Since launching a beautifully well-organized crowdfunding campaign (as covered here previously), the team has raised over half of their 35, 000 € goal to pay for full-time development and has entered “beta” status for version 1.0. They’ve released two versions, 0.94 (release notes) being the most recent, which have brought full MPEG-TS/AVCHD support, porting to Python 3, lots of UX improvements, and—of course—lots and lots of bug fixes. The next release (0.95) will run on top of Non Linear Engine, a refined and incredibly more robust backend Pitivi developers have produced to replace GNonLin and bring Pitivi closer to the rock-solid stability needed for the final 1.0 release. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Pitivi Video Editor Surpasses 50% Crowdfunding Goal, Releases Version 0.94
An anonymous reader writes: LunarG, on contract with Valve Software, discovered a critical shortcoming with the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver that was handicapping the performance. A special bit wasn’t being set by the Linux driver but was by the Windows driver, which when enabled is increasing the Linux performance in many games by now ~20%+, which should allow for a much more competitive showing between Intel OpenGL performance on Windows vs. Linux. However, the patch setting this bit isn’t public yet as apparently it’s breaking video acceleration in certain cases. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Major Performance Improvement Discovered For Intel’s GPU Linux Driver
Earlier this year Home Depot confirmed that 56 million cards had been compromised in one of the biggest retail security breaches in history. Now we know that much like the Target hack— which was traced to a heating company —Home Depot was infiltrated by custom malware and passwords stolen from a third party vendor. Read more…
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Hackers Ravaged Home Depot With a Password Stolen from a Vendor
An anonymous reader writes: Over the past couple of years, Google has implemented some changes to how Android handles SD cards that aren’t very beneficial to users or developers. After listening to many rounds of complaints, this seems to have changed in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Google’s Jeff Sharkey wrote, “[I]n Lollipop we added the new ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intent. Apps can launch this intent to pick and return a directory from any supported DocumentProvider, including any of the shared storage supported by the device. Apps can then create, update, and delete files and directories anywhere under the picked tree without any additional user interaction. Just like the other document intents, apps can persist this access across reboots.” Android Police adds, “All put together, this should be enough to alleviate most of the stress related to SD cards after the release of KitKat. Power users will no longer have to deal with crippled file managers, media apps will have convenient access to everything they should regardless of storage location, and developers won’t have to rely on messy hacks to work around the restrictions.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Android 5.0 Makes SD Cards Great Again
Welcome to another installment of Reading List where we take a look at some of the the great tech and science reads from around the web. This week we enter the weird world of sweeping, gaze through the lens of ghost cams still haunting the internet, look at why technological limits made Abbey Road Studios so influential, and wonder at how counterfeiter Frank Bourassa was able to make his illegal millions. Take a quick Sunday break, grab all that left over Halloween candy, and read some of the best stories on the internet. Read more…
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How the Most Prolific Counterfeiter in America Made His Millions