Новости за 06.07.2017

“Anyone can fly the Skycar,” the headline on the January 1991 cover of Popular Mechanics blared, teasing the possibility of a future where everyone could own their own “flying car.” That dream never came to fruition, but the original Skycar can now be yours to own. Moller International, the company that built the iconic vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, announced today that it is putting the M400 Skycar up for sale on eBay. Just don’t expect to use it for your daily commute.

Today, Vice President Mike Pence gave a lengthy speech about the future of US space policy, in which he provided no concrete details about what the administration’s agenda for space will look like. During a visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Pence made it very clear in his speech that the US would “once again lead in space,” but didn’t say what that actually meant.

Over the past 24 hours, Instagram users have been unable to log in, blaming the service for possibly deleting their accounts without providing any real explanation. Reports of these incidents filled Twitter and Facebook. When Instagram tweeted this today, users flooded the account demanding to hear why their Instagrams were randomly shut down.

Putting all of its other skills and tricks aside, we must never forget that one of Amazon’s primary objectives with the Echo (and Alexa) is to make it dead simple and convenient for you to continually buy more stuff from Amazon. You can place an order in seconds and track it to your doorstep — all just with voice. Echo speakers and the Echo Show can already track incoming deliveries. Just ask “Alexa, where’s my stuff?” And ahead of the company’s made-up holiday shopping extravaganza, Prime Day... Читать дальше...

If you’ve got a 4K Samsung smart TV with access to the Samsung app store, you can now stream Steam games to your TV to play directly on the big screen with the new Steam Link app that’s now out in beta, via Engadget.

France is considering banning the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s environmental minister said Thursday, according to multiple reports. It’s unclear, however, whether this proposal is an official position of French President Emmanuel Macron’s new government, and if so, how it will be implemented. But it’s a sign of France’s desire to be a leader in sustainable energy after the departure of the US from the Paris climate accord.

More than 100 YouTube creators have signed an open letter to the FCC calling on the agency to keep strong net neutrality protections.

Motorola just sent out a mysterious invite with a date, July 25th, and a location, New York City, saying “you won’t want to miss this.”

Ava DuVernay will write and direct an upcoming limited series about the Central Park Five for Netflix, The Hollywood Reporter reports. The series will mark DuVernay’s second project for Netflix, after the 2016 documentary 13th, which earned an Oscar nomination.

Listen to Andreas Koukorinis, founder of UK sports betting company Stratagem, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that soccer games are some of the most predictable events on Earth. “They’re short duration, repeatable, with fixed rules,” Koukorinis tells The Verge. “So if you observe 100,000 games, there are patterns there you can take out.”

Starting today, Uber’s new in-app tipping option is being rolled out in 100 cities in the US and Canada, including major markets like New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. After downloading an updated version of the app, riders will be asked whether they’d like to leave a tip when rating their driver at the end of a trip. Likewise, drivers will be prompted to choose whether they want to accept tips after updating their own apps.

High-end cameramaker RED has just announced a premium smartphone called Hydrogen One, and the headlining feature is something the company is referring to as a “holographic display.” A buzzword-filled press release for Hydrogen One says that the 5.7-inch display somehow uses nanotechnology to “seamlessly [switch] between traditional 2D content, holographic multi-view content, 3D content, and interactive games.”

TV networks have figured out how to game the Nielsen ratings system. It’s as easy as playing dumb, literally. On days when programmers know their viewership will drop, like on holiday weekends or during sporting events, they “accidentally” misspell their show’s name on the nightly Nielsen lineup, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft announced its new 4K-capable Xbox One X console at E3 this year, but Halo wasn’t even mentioned on stage at all. While it was never likely that a full new Halo would be ready in time for the Xbox One X later this year, 343 industries is revealing today that it plans to update Halo 5 with 4K support. The update will be available later this year, and 343 promises “more to share on this front as we get closer to release.”

You know the rules: here on the internet we give every animal in creation at least one shot at being “the best.” So far we’ve tried dogs, cats, pigs, bats, raccoons, foxes, and bears, and I think you’ll agree it’s about time we stopped futzing around with mammals and tried out the most dominant animal on earth: the beetle. Particularly, this very good stag beetle named Spike, who loves to draw and eat jelly.

Microsoft revealed today that it plans to cut up to 3,000 jobs as part of a reorganization process that will see the software giant focus its efforts on the cloud. The layoffs are expected to primarily impact Microsoft’s sales force, and around 10 percent of the company’s total sales staff will be let go. Rumors had suggested these cuts would take place, and it’s traditional for Microsoft to reorganize its businesses at this time of the year, just ahead of its new financial year.

Guitar maker Fender has just debuted Fender Play, a new guitar lessons web platform and iOS app aimed at getting beginners hooked with visual, bite-sized tutorials. New users can sign up for a free, 30-day trial at the Fender Play website. After that trial, you’ll have to pay $19.99 per month to keep learning.

SoundCloud is cutting over 40 percent of its staff, the company announced on its blog. The streaming service will let go 173 of its 420 employees in order to “ensure our path to long-term, independent success,” SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung wrote. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

This week, the CEO of China’s biggest search engine took one of the company’s self-driving cars to a technology conference, all while live-streaming the experience to the people in attendance. Now he’s reportedly under investigation by the local police, because self-driving cars aren’t yet allowed on the public roads he was traveling on.

The TV adaptation of American Gods has an elegant quality to it, despite its sex, gore, and violence. Actors are given the screen time to deliver both excellent performances and lengthy monologues, and episodes travel away from the overarching story of main character Shadow Moon to deliver mystical tales about gods. The show has a visual language that is undeniably eye-catching, but it’s a slow show, one that asks you to admire the scenery while the story plods along.

A year ago today, Pokémon Go began its descent on the world, kicking off an unprecedented summer that saw tens of millions of players explore the world around them through the augmented reality game. Since then, Pokémon Go has changed a lot, with the addition of new pokémon, features like in-game events, and more recently the addition of cooperative raids. But there’s still a lot missing from the game: most notably player-versus-player combat and the ability to trade pokémon, both features developer... Читать дальше...

This past weekend, for the second time in my life, I flew up the famous Goodwood hillclimb in a McLaren supercar. It was the pinnacle of a most excellent weekend spent in the sunny British countryside, surrounded by gorgeous classic cars, roaring engines, and the pervasive smell of petrol. Oh, and almost zero connectivity to speak of. It was heaven.

Dani Clode is a grad student at London’s Royal College of Art (RCA) and her latest creation is something called The Third Thumb: a 3D-printed prosthetic that does exactly what its name suggests. “The origin of the word 'prosthesis' meant 'to add, put on to,’ so not to fix or replace, but to extend,” Clode told Dezeen. “The Third Thumb is inspired by this word origin, exploring human augmentation and aiming to reframe prosthetics as extensions of the body.”

Google was hit with a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine last month by the European Commission for breaking antitrust laws. The EU says Google demoted rivals and unfairly promoted its own services in search results related to shopping. While the fine is the largest antitrust judgement ever, an even bigger fine could be on the way for Google.

HMD Global, the Finnish company that licensed the rights to produce Nokia phones, is now rekindling an old partnership with Zeiss camera lenses. Nokia-built phones used Carl Zeiss optics for years, heralding it as a selling point for the popular N95 smartphone a decade ago. HMD is now bringing back the Zeiss branding on Nokia-branded phones in a move designed to position its devices with yet another logo and push the idea of a superior camera on consumers.