Новости за 18.04.2017

President Donald Trump today signed an executive order directing the government to review its polices on the H-1B visa program, as the administration says it looks to cut down on abuse in the system designed for high-skilled workers.

Wet Hot American Summer Fantasy Camp is the first officially licensed game based on the comedy-film-turned-Netflix-series about the kids and councilors at a raunchy summer camp. The tabletop game, which features caricatures of the film’s many stars — including Amy Poehler, Janeane Garofalo, and the unaging Paul Rudd — is a bit more complicated than what you’ll find in your parents’ board game closet.

HBO Go is still one of the best ways to watch HBO content if you (or a family member) happen to have a cable subscription. Unfortunately, it hasn’t ever been the best app to navigate, forcing you to dig through its library just to get to the next episode of Game of Thrones. Thankfully, that’s changing today. With the latest update, the app finally makes it easier to pick up where you last left off or keep watching your favorite show without needing to touch your smartphone.

The Roadie Tuner is one of those feel-good Kickstarter success stories that makes the whole experiment worth it. It's a quirky solution to a common problem, and it actually shipped to its backers! The tuner works by pairing with a smartphone to listen to the string you're plucking, and then robotically rotating your instrument's tuning peg until the string is in tune. It didn't change the world, but it worked well and removed some of the stress of the tuning process.

Last month, The Hollywood Reporter announced a movie deal for a novel called Change Agent, a sci-fi thriller about genetic engineering that was released today. If everything goes right, Change Agent could be a must-see sci-fi blockbuster along the lines of Minority Report, blending clever philosophizing with non-stop action. It's about an Interpol agent who's given the face and body of a wanted criminal, through rogue gene editing that could make the very concept of individual identity obsolete. Читать дальше...

Kong: Skull Island, the second entry in Warner Bros.’ “MonsterVerse,” which also includes 2014’s Godzilla, as well as the upcoming film Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019), and the inevitable Godzilla vs. Kong (2020), hit theaters just over a month ago.

Apple is making its GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) apps totally free for all Mac OS and iOS customers as of today. In late 2013, Apple began offering the software for free to anyone that purchased a new Apple device — either a Mac or iPhone / iPad — on or after September 1st, 2013.

Facebook just announced a bunch of changes to Messenger, with the highlight being new ways for apps to integrate with it. And while it’s not available yet, one of the standout partners announced was Apple Music.

Microsoft Account holders can now use just their smartphone to sign in. Microsoft is enabling a new phone sign in option as part of the company’s iOS and Android Microsoft Authenticator app. While you’ve been able to use the app for two-factor authentication requests previously, the latest update lets you bypass ever having to enter your password at a Microsoft Account login prompt.

Microsoft is planning to throttle the amount of power that background apps can use to improve battery life in Windows 10. The software giant is testing out a new power throttling feature in the latest Windows 10 preview build (16176) which is designed to save as much as 11 percent battery usage. Windows 10 testers can access the new throttling system on Intel 6th generation and above processors, so you’ll need Skylake or Kaby Lake chips to make use of it for now.

Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, takes place this year on April 18th and 19th, 2017, and the company is expected to share its vision on the future of VR, 360-degree imaging, bots on Messenger, and more. Will Facebook continue to copy Snap? Or will it finally carve its own niche among the crowded social space? What's new with Workplace, its enterprise product to take on Slack? Follow along to catch up on the latest updates from our crew in San Jose, California.

Pretty Little Liars, the crown jewel of the Freeform network (previously ABC Family), will drop its final ridiculous surprises soon. The show, improbably sustained for 160 episodes on the basic conceit of “a group of friends is terrorized by text messages from an anonymous villain,” is premiering the second half of its final season tonight. The series finale is coming this summer — timed to coincide with the same dangerous period of adolescent malaise that instigated the violent pilot episode events seven years ago. Читать дальше...

Sony’s revamped, slimmer PlayStation 4 console now comes with more built-in storage for the same price. When introduced alongside the PS4 Pro back in September, the $299.99 PS4 Slim included a 500GB hard drive, but that’s being increased to 1TB starting today. Microsoft’s Xbox One S, which can also be had for $299.99, starts at 500GB of storage but several bundles with a 1TB console are available for $349.99.

Metro Skyway, a subsidiary of the Tel Aviv-based Urban Aeronautics, just introduced its plans to build a four-person, hydrogen-powered “flying car” that it hopes will be buzzing above skyscrapers by 2022.

It’s about that time again: the astronauts on the International Space Station are all set to get a new shipment of cargo from Earth. This time, it’s private spaceflight company Orbital ATK that’s in charge of the resupply run. The company’s Cygnus cargo capsule — filled with more than 7,600 pounds of food, water, tools, and science experiments — is set to launch on top of an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this morning. The flight was supposed to happen at the end of March, but was... Читать дальше...

2017 marks the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, and the rumors are that Apple will be releasing three new models to celebrate: two handsets with incremental improvements, and a third, radically redesigned “premium” iPhone. But although the phones will be unveiled at the same time, customers might have to wait until later in the year to get their hands on the high-end device.

Soon, it may be hard for visa holders to board an international flight without submitting to a facial geometry scan. The TSA began testing facial recognition systems at Dulles Airport in 2015, then expanded the tests to New York’s JFK Airport last year. Face-reading check-in kiosks will be appearing at Ottawa International Airport this spring, and British Airways is rolling out a similar system at London’s Heathrow Airport, comparing faces captured at security screenings with a separate capture at the boarding gate. Читать дальше...

The Samsung Galaxy S8 will arrive in consumers’ hands this week, but one thing that has bothered me since the leaks and rumors began flooding the web is where the fingerprint scanner is placed. And no, it’s not just that it’s right next to the camera. It’s the fact that it’s not centered, making it awkward for left-handers to slide their index finger over without smudging the camera lens when holding the phone in their dominant hand.

Shitty robots, I’m convinced, will one day save us all. In the not-too-distant future, when things look irreversibly bleak, I know some backyard bodger will accidentally come up with a source of infinite, clean energy using nothing more than dodgy soldering, hacked-together code, and a scarred Raspberry Pi. Today, though, is not that today. Today, someone built a robot in a pizza box that uses facial recognition to blind anyone who walks in front of it.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has launched a new project aimed at providing a comprehensive database of government revenue and spending. The website, called USAFacts, brings together a wide range of financial data from various US government sources, compiled by a team of economists, professors, and researchers over the last three years. The site went live on Tuesday.

Facebook’s annual developer conference kicks off today, where we’ll join CEO Mark Zuckerberg for more about where the company is going next with bots, Messenger, VR, and more.

Everyone knows that China has some of the most sophisticated censorship tools in the world, but the details of how they actually work — what they censor and when — are often not fully understood. A new report by Citizen Lab, a research group studying the web, human rights, and global security, sheds some light on one particularly fruitful target for Chinese censorship: mobile messaging.

Just in time for Earth Day, Google has redesigned Google Earth for web and Android. The new version adds new features that let users see 3D maps of specific locations, learn about random places around the world, and take guided tours from their Chrome browser or mobile devices.

Intel is killing off its annual developer event. Hosted in San Francisco, the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) was designed to provide developers with the latest information for Intel’s chipsets and serve as an event to unveil new products. Intel has used IDF to launch processors like Skylake or Kaby Lake, and even some of its networking and storage solutions. Intel was scheduled to hold IDF in August this year, but a note on the company’s site has revealed the conference has been canceled.

As Uber continues to make the headlines for the wrong reasons, it also keeps on losing executives. The latest big name is to quit is Sherif Marakby — its vice president of global vehicle programs, and one of the orchestrators of its self-driving vehicle program.