Новости за 11.04.2017

The Boox 打字机 — Boox Typewriter is how Google translates it from Chinese — is an upcoming laptop from Onyx, a Chinese maker of a myriad of e-book products (via Liliputing). The Boox line of products typically Android, and add interesting touches to the traditional e-book experience, such as pen input or huge screens.

Google’s latest AI toy may be its most clever: an automated drawing bot that analyzes what you’re doodling in real time to suggest a more polished piece of clip art to replace it. Called AutoDraw, the software is another of Google’s ongoing creative machine learning demonstrations that it releases as part of its AI Experiments series. It uses the underlying technology behind the company’s experimental image recognition software to identify potential objects and pairs that with a database of neat and simplistic hand-drawn images. Читать дальше...

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — which famously flew by Pluto in the summer of 2015 — is going to sleep for a little while as it speeds toward its next destination at the edge of the Solar System. On April 7th, the vehicle went into hibernation, a mode in which most of its instruments are powered off. This extended nap, which will last until September 11th, will help keep New Horizons in a safe, stabilized state while reducing the wear and tear on some of the probe’s instruments.

Konami’s infamous cheat code has lived a long life in video games and the internet at large. It first appeared in the 1986 NES game Gradius to help the developers beat their own game; it’s since grown beyond a cheat in later Konami games to a general pop culture joke.

Basing your scam around the government agency meant to protect consumers from getting scammed is not a smart thing to do. This is a lesson that Florida man Daniel Croft is currently learning. Today the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has successfully obtained a preliminary injunction that forbids Croft from telling unsuspecting consumers that the FTC hired him to conduct tech support. He’s been doing so since at least last July.

Blizzard just revealed new details about its latest Overwatch live event called Uprising. The limited time event, which starts today and lasts until May 1st, will pit up to four players against an army of Omnic robots who are ravaging the city of King’s Row. Players can assume the role of heroes Tracer, Torbjörn, Reinhardt, and Mercy to fight off the AI invasion in what looks to be a similar cooperative brawl game mode to Blizzard’s Halloween Terror event last October.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk has 707-horsepower and can go 0–60 in 3.5 seconds — Jeep says this makes it the quickest SUV ever, though we suspect Tesla might disagree since the Model X (which is really sort of a crossover) can make that run in 2.9 seconds.

Televisions with Roku’s software preinstalled can now automatically detect what you’re watching via cable, satellite, or an antenna. The new feature, coming to Roku TVs as part of a the latest operating system update, is called “More Ways to Watch” and is designed to show you whenever a show or movie you’ve got on can also be streamed using popular services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video. This could allow you to watch an in-progress episode from the beginning, find other episodes of a series... Читать дальше...

In 2006, Bill Rosemann made the move to Marvel from rival DC and was immediately tasked with editing the “cosmic” portion of the company’s portfolio. You know, the stories about superpowered alien rings and far-flung wars in distant galaxies. One of his first projects started as a new series starring wisecracking Star-Lord, but it snowballed into something much bigger. Inspired by the “Annihilation” crossover storyline, Rosemann wanted to create an event that pulled in long-forgotten characters from the Marvel mythos... Читать дальше...

Starting in early 2018, the Luxor Hotel will be home to the very first e-sports arena on the Las Vegas Strip. The joint venture between Allied Esports, Esports Arena, and Luxor-owner MGM Resorts International will see an existing 30,000-square-foot nightclub transformed into a multi-level e-sports venue. It will be equipped with all the staples of a standard sports arena plus an LED video wall, professional streaming video production studios, and daily gaming stations for attendees.

Volcanic eruptions have been big penguin killers in the Antarctic over the past several thousand years, according to a new study that used penguin poop to track population booms and busts in the region.

Google is introducing a new feature on its Chrome browser today to prevent articles from skipping back to the top if you’ve scrolled farther down the page. Called Scroll Anchoring, the feature was first available in a developer build last year, but is now rolling out more widely to users on Chrome 56 or later.

The Moto G5 Plus is an excellent, affordable smartphone with the latest Android software. But Lenovo is making an even more aggressive push for customers on a slim budget, according to VentureBeat. The company is planning to release the Moto C and Moto C Plus, two entry-level Android 7.0 Nougat handsets with the specs to match their presumably low prices.

April has become a prodigious month for new smartphone launches around the world, and especially in China, where Xiaomi is preparing to launch its next flagship device. The Xiaomi Mi 6 is now officially scheduled for an April 19th launch, and a premature benchmark run would appear to have provided an early indication of what to expect under its hood. A 5.1-inch 1080p doesn't immediately sound impressive, but the Snapdragon 835, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of built-in storage further down the spec sheet all point in a happy direction. Читать дальше...

Microsoft is bidding farewell to Windows Vista, more than 10 years after it first debuted. Support for Windows Vista ends today, meaning users will have to move to a more recent version of Windows to remain secure. It’s the end of an era for an operating system that arrived late to the market with widespread criticisms.

I laughed at Apple’s wireless AirPods when they were first announced. I sat on Twitter and shared the same jokes as everyone else, and never dreamed they’d be in my ears. “They look stupid,” I thought, and everyone seemed to agree. It’s with much regret that I’m now using AirPods as my headphones every day, but I still think they look stupid. Others do too, apparently, because people keep staring at me as if I’m from outer space.

Indiegogo has a long and unhappy history of being the internet's home for misbegotten and specious health gadgets, and its latest addition is no exception. The TrimX electrical fat stimulator promises to target the most stubborn fat deposits on your body and essentially blast them away with gentle waves of electrical current (and regular exercise). It's just like the litany of ab-firming belts from the likes of Slendertone — which the US FDA clears only for therapeutic use and not weight loss ... Читать дальше...

3D-printing may not be the home phenomenon many hoped for, but the technology continues to find a place in the world of industrial manufacturing. Reuters reports that Boeing will start using 3D-printed titanium parts in the construction of its 787 Dreamliner jet airliner. These are the first 3D-printed structural components to be approved by the Federal Aviation Authority, says manufacturer Norsk Titanium, and could eventually save Boeing up to $3 million in construction costs on each jet built.

Pick-up lines so rarely seem like a good idea, but if you really can't meet new people without sidling up to them at a bar with a pre-packaged line, at least you've got a new excuse if one of them bombs — "a robot wrote it." Research scientist Janelle Shane has trained a neural network framework to generate its own pick-up lines, feeding it a dataset that included existing lines, and training it to look for patterns.

Two things in this world can make life meaningful. 1) Having the strength to forge your own destiny; to live by your own rules, and not be swayed by the whims and wishes of others. And 2) Really sticking it to some stranger on the internet. When Twitch streamer CirclMastr spent two years grinding through Final Fantasy VII to get Cloud and Barrett to level 99 before even facing the first boss, he achieved both.

Fujifilm’s Instax range of instant cameras is hugely popular, but most models only take credit card-sized rectangular photos. If a report from the usually accurate FujiRumors is to be believed, however, next week could see a major shakeup to the line: square photos. That’s right, like Instagram. And, well, Polaroid.

After Apple hit Qualcomm with a barrage of lawsuits earlier this year, the chip maker is countersuing Apple right back. Qualcomm today filed its Answers and Counterclaims to Apple’s January lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of California. The full details of the suit can be read in a 139-page document (PDF) released by Qualcomm, but the company has five key complaints — including the claim that Apple deliberately didn’t use the full potential of Qualcomm chips in iPhone 7 phones so that... Читать дальше...

Google has published a new response to Department of Labor claims that it systematically underpays its female staff members. The statement once again denies that any pay gap exists within the company, explaining the “gender-blind” way the company makes its salary calculations, which it says is based on “role, job level, job location as well as current and recent performance ratings.”

The first trailer for Thor: Ragnarok — Taika Waititi’s next indie film — has been taking the internet by storm this morning, with its neon-soaked color scheme, lighthearted humor, and incredible helmets.

Before every episode of The Vergecast I sit down, read through a bunch of news, and take a bunch of notes. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my week, and I started thinking it might be fun to do every day on the site. So, every chance I can, I’m sitting down and writing some notes on the news as though I’ll be talking about it later. Are you into this? Am I into this? I don’t know. But it’s fun to do! Give me some feedback and we’ll keep mutating this into something good.