Новости за 16.10.2018

Buzzwords like “deep learning” and “neural networks” are everywhere, but so much of the popular understanding is misguided, says Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Puffs — the popular Off-Broadway play that reimagines the events of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book and film series from the perspective of the often-unsung Hufflepuff house — is about to make history. Representatives for the comedy play have announced that Puffs will debut online on the theatrical streaming service BroadwayHD on October 18th. Per Playbill, an iTunes and Amazon release will follow on November 22nd.

It’s a universal truth that what’s old will eventually become new again, and what’s beloved on Instagram or YouTube can never truly die. And so, adopting teacup pigs, a fad inspired partly by Paris Hilton in 2007 (the same year Hilton’s reality series, The Simple Life, ended) is back.

The family of Surface computers is now large enough to cause a bit of confusion for those who are thinking about buying one.

Alex Stamos, Facebook’s ex-chief security officer, thinks his former home at the heart of Silicon Valley is ill equipped to address the world’s most pressing digital problems, namely security, user privacy, and the protection of democratic institutions. To address this, and perhaps help ease the tensions between Washington and the tech industry while pulling in more academic and research experts, Stamos is launching a new institute he’s calling the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Lexar announced its new JumpDrive Fingerprint F35 USB 3.0 flash drive today, which uses fingerprint authentication to protect your data. It works with speeds up to 150 MB/s, and it can recognize fingerprints in less than a second. You can set it up to recognize up to 10 different people, and it’s protected with 256-bit AES encryption to keep your files safe.

Bill Gates has published his personal reflections on the life of Paul Allen, who died on October 15th of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 65. Gates describes Allen as “one of my oldest friends and the first business partner I ever had.” The two co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and forever changed the world of technology. Allen was also widely praised as a giant of business, sports, and philanthropy in the Pacific Northwest in the decades after departing Microsoft in 1983.

As creators move to the cultural forefront, the question of how much power they wield — if any — is one Hank Green ponders with care. “I think that [creators have a social] responsibility, but I think that the responsibility can be taken differently by each person,” he says. “And I often cannot stand people who not only don’t take the responsibility of their audience seriously, but actively, almost intentionally, have a negative impact.”

When Hurricane Michael crashed into the Florida Panhandle on October 10th, the storm cut power to parts of Florida and Georgia in its path, new NASA images show. The pictures are a stark reminder of our energy infrastructure’s vulnerability to natural disasters.

Amazon announced two new initiatives today that are aimed at reducing its environmental impact. The first is a $10 million investment in the Closed Loop Fund, an effort to pool corporate resources to help the US improve its municipal recycling programs. The other is a solar energy project in the United Kingdom that will see Amazon install 20 megawatts worth of solar panels to help power fulfillment centers across the region. Amazon also signed a deal saying it will purchase enough green energy... Читать дальше...

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who has been hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the past six years, has been given a new set of house rules if he wants to continue his stay. In a memo first published on Ecuadorian website Código Vidrio and obtained by The Guardian, conditions for his stay were contingent on his ability to stay out of activity “considered as political or interfering with the internal affairs of other states.” It also outlines basic housekeeping rules, like... Читать дальше...

Florida-based startup Magic Leap became infamous for hyping itself as a revolutionary company whose vision for augmented and mixed reality would transform the worlds of computing, communication, and entertainment — whenever it finally decided to show its hyper-secretive technology to the public, that is. The company set expectations high, but when it finally shipped its first headset, the Magic Leap One Creator Editor, the consensus was that some of those expectations hadn’t been met. Magic Leap... Читать дальше...

Who you call and what apps you use could determine what ads you see

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Home security system company SimpliSafe launched a new smart standalone doorbell today with heat sensors and motion detectors. It’s the company’s first product that’s technically not inside the home.

Finding a place to quickly top off your electric car’s battery might get a little bit easier: Google announced today that it’s adding support to Google Maps for EV chargers. Both Tesla and Chargepoint’s global network of EV chargers will be added to the iOS and Android versions of the app starting today, with support for the desktop version of Maps coming in a few weeks.

For the first few minutes, the ride to space had been routine. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and his fellow crew mate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were pressed into their seats inside a Russian Soyuz capsule as the vehicle rapidly climbed through the atmosphere. Then then there was a jolt.

When the FCC asked for public comment on its plan to end net neutrality last year, the docket was swarmed with millions of comments from bots. The fake comments used real identities and made it difficult for anyone perusing the system to find legitimate commenters trying to express their views.

JLab’s newest pair of sport headphones come with a unique twist: they’re not earbuds. The Flex Sport are over-ear Bluetooth headphones, and they are designed to be worn during all types of workouts and rigorous physical activity.

Sony hasn’t always had the best track record when it comes to digital rights management, or DRM. (Look no further than its massive 2005 CD copy protection scandal.) But now, the company has announced that it’s working on a new DRM system for protecting digital content based on blockchain technology, via Engadget.

Google is changing the way it licenses its suite of Android apps in Europe, leading the company to charge a licensing fee for the Play Store and other Google apps for the first time.

Little in the way of new features

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The Nokia X7 smartphone just announced in China is part of an expanding line of Nokia-branded phones that have revived the brand name under the wing of HMD Global. The new X7 has near-flagship specs with competitive pricing — as is often the case in the Chinese smartphone market — and is expected to launch outside of China as the Nokia 7.1 Plus. The Nokia 7.1 was launched earlier this month and is coming to the US for $349.

From The Handmaid’s Tale to The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it’s a banner moment in TV for the terrors of womanhood. That trend, it seems — much like the terror of womanhood itself — is just getting started: Deadline reports that FX is developing Her Body and Other Parties, the award-winning debut collection of feminist horror stories from Carmen Maria Machado.

US District Judge Alison Nathan has approved the proposed settlement between Tesla CEO and chairman Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The clock has now officially started on the various terms of the settlement, meaning Musk will soon no longer lead the company’s board of directors for the first time since he took the post in 2004.

For a Welsh-born director, Gareth Evans has an odd claim to fame: through a series of movies made in Indonesia, he brought the martial art pencak silat to Westerners’ attention, made a star out of martial artist Iko Uwais, and built a name for himself through brutal, precise action sequences and a memorable approach to violence. Evans’ movies Merantau, The Raid: Redemption, and The Raid 2 weren’t major action blockbusters, but among martial arts fans and cult-cinema enthusiasts, they enjoy the... Читать дальше...