Новости за 12.05.2018

North Korea’s official news agency has reported that the country has scheduled the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site ahead of talks with the United States next month.

Maybe it was the smell of oil and machined metal coming from the jetpack on stage, or maybe it was because I was listening to the 10th different speaker in under three hours. But I was a little dizzy by the end of the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Transportation event that took place on Wednesday in Manhattan. When I got back out on the street and cleared my head, though, the first thing I thought to myself was: “wait a minute, did no one really talk about the future of public transportation?”

At some point in your adult life, birthdays become less about cakes and presents, and instead about that time of year when you feel existential dread about getting older. But it’s not often my own birthdays that trigger thoughts about complexities of aging, but the ones that remind me about life itself.

In January, science fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin died at the age of 88, leaving behind an incredible body of work that has inspired generations of writers and readers. Le Guin is the subject of a forthcoming documentary by Arwen Curry, who just released a new trailer for the project.

Last week I finally got around to seeing Last Flag Flying now that it’s streaming on Amazon. It’s Richard Linklater’s latest film, and while I’m a huge fan of his stuff, trailers for Last Flag Flying didn’t exactly make me feel like I had to leave my warm apartment in November to make it out to a movie theater to see it right away.

YouTube Red jumped on the remake bandwagon last fall with a series order for a Karate Kid sequel called Cobra Kai. The 10-episode first season debuted earlier this month on the paid service, and earlier this week, YouTube revealed that it was renewing the show for a second season.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend! Hopefully you got your mom something already, but if you’re still looking for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift, Sony discounted their gorgeous glass speaker for the occasion. It was designed for Sony’s Life Space UX series of products, which focuses on aesthetically pleasing gadgets that blend in with your home decor. The Glass Sound Speaker is very pretty, with a glass cylinder that not only pushes out sound in a more natural-sounding frequency, but also glows like a lantern with a dimmable LED. Читать дальше...

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it would begin to refrain from promoting artists it deemed performing “hate content” or “demonstrate hateful conduct personally” on its company-curated playlists. This includes artist R. Kelly, who has been accused over the years of sexual misconduct. Pandora and Apple Music have now taken similar steps to deemphasize artists.

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it would begin to refrain from promoting artists it deemed performing “hate content” or “demonstrate hateful conduct personally” on its company-curated playlists. This includes artist R. Kelly, who has been accused over the years of sexual misconduct. Pandora and Apple Music have now taken similar steps to deemphasize artists.

As a person who covers day-to-day technology news, I often wonder how my writing might come off to someone in the future — and whether anyone will even be reading it. I can’t answer those questions, but I can do the next best thing: look back at what other people were writing 20 years ago.

A year or so ago, I decided to start using less plastic. I bought an insulated water bottle for my morning coffee, as well as bee’s wax wraps to replace cellophane, and I largely stopped putting my groceries in plastic bags. Instead, I switched to cotton tote bags.

Best Buy’s having a one-day sale today, May 12th, on TCL’s 55-inch P-Series Roku TV, which we deemed “the best budget 4K TV you can get” last year, so maybe consider this deal. It usually costs $599.99, but it’s $100 off today, so you’ll get it for $499.99. It’s available both through BestBuy.com and the company’s retail locations.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was one of the biggest video game Kickstarter success stories of all time, and Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania throwback is set for a release later this year. Before then, though, there’s another Bloodstained coming very soon. A spin-off title called Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was just announced at the BitSummit indie games show in Kyoto, and it’s going to be released in a couple of weeks.

Shortly after a Verge report about deceptive rehab marketing on Google last September, the search giant temporarily banned ads on rehab-related searches in the U.S., which had been netting them an estimated $78 million annually. After a January Sunday Times story exposed similar practices in the U.K., focusing on a referral company called Addiction Helper, Google banned ads on rehab searches there, too.

When NASA launches its next rover to Mars, the vehicle will have a small helicopter along for the ride. NASA announced today that it will be sending a small autonomous flying chopper — aptly named the Mars Helicopter — with the upcoming Mars 2020 rover. The helicopter will attempt to fly through the Martian air to see if vehicles can even levitate on Mars, where the atmosphere is 100 times thinner than that of Earth.

Budget airline Spirit will start offering Wi-Fi on its flights sometime later this year, the company announced today. Access will cost an “average price of $6.50” per flight, depending on bandwidth options and what route you’re flying. Spirit will use Ka-band high-speed satellites which should provide a fast enough connection for streaming. The rollout should be complete by summer 2019.

Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch is about to get a lot bigger with a new update that brings the universal Minecraft Bedrock Engine to Nintendo’s portable console on June 21st, enabling cross-play between the Switch and the PC, Xbox One, and mobile versions of the game.

The mayor of Cape Town, South Africa predicted in October 2017 that the city would run out of water by the following March. Since then, the date for what officials are calling “Day Zero” has shifted from April 21st, to April 12th, and April 16th. Today, May 11th, was another potential Day Zero — but the latest from the city is that the threat has been postponed to sometime in 2019. What gives?