Новости за 09.08.2017

Put on your headphones and get ready to take a 25-minute ride to chill town, because the newest player in the YouTube ASMR genre is here: Ikea.

A leader in this decade’s electric vehicle push, the Nissan Leaf has been left behind by newer models with bigger batteries and more exciting designs. A new version should help keep Nissan in the game, but a low price may help, too.

The Coen brothers are working on their first anthology series for Netflix, the streaming service announced today. In a statement about the new show, which will be set in the “American West,” Joel and Ethan Coen said, “We are streaming motherfuckers!”

Tesla has quietly developed a new hardware suite with more computing power to help achieve its goal of full automation, according to Electrek. The updated onboard computer, dubbed “HW 2.5,” would seem to contradict the previous vow by Tesla CEO Elon Musk that all vehicles released since October 2016 would have the hardware necessary to achieve “full self-driving capabilities.”

A federal class action lawsuit filed last week in California alleges that the Walt Disney Company is violating privacy protection laws by collecting children’s personal information from 42 of its apps and sharing the data with advertisers without parental consent.

T-Mobile's releasing a new budget phone called the Revvl. The phone features some pretty basic specs, including a 5.5-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, a 3,000mAh battery, and a rear fingerprint sensor. It runs Android Nougat and will be available starting tomorrow. It's basically a standard budget Android phone with an added fingerprint sensor. T-Mobile is marketing it as an affordable option because it'll only... Читать дальше...

Late last month, OkCupid announced a fairly fundamental change to its dating service: the company would no longer allow users to see visitors to their profile. And as of today, that change has been implemented across both OkCupid’s website and smartphone apps. The visitor section, which kept track of visitors to your profile and also profiles that you’d recently browsed, is gone.

Teaching computers to play games has always been a useful (if somewhat crude) measure of their intelligence. But as our machines have gotten smarter, we’ve had to find new challenges for them. First it was chess, then Atari, then the board game Go, and now they’re taking on their biggest challenge yet: Starcraft.

Here's the thing: you have to go back to school. Acer made another Chromebook, and so now it's official. The existence of the new rugged Chromebook 11 C771, and its touchscreen variant, the C771T, imply to me that school is good for you and you'll learn things, even if sometimes it’s hard.

You might remember FaceApp — a selfie-editing app that transforms users’ pictures by making them look older, younger, or giving them an artificial smile. Well, earlier this month, the Russian app’s creators updated their software with four new filters: “Asian,” “Black,” “Caucasian,” and “Indian.” First spotted by Mic, users can select these options and the app will alter their appearance, changing the color of their skin and hair.

Bang & Olufsen has a new speaker out today, and if sound quality and tasteful design is of utmost importance to you — and you can afford to drop five figures on a pair of floor speakers — then the BeoLab 50 might be for you.

Ricoh has announced a limited edition version of its Theta SC 360-degree camera to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Japanese vocaloid pop star Hatsune Miku. In her 10 years of existence, Hatsune Miku, a hologram performer that uses a singing voice synthesizer, has released over 100,000 songs, opened for Lady Gaga, released rhythm games with Sony, and partnered with PlayStation VR for the virtual concert experience Hatsune Miku: VR Future Live.

Fresh off its acquisition of auto-visual company Mobileye, Intel announced today that it will build a fleet of Level 4, fully self-driving vehicles for testing in the US, Israel, and Europe. The first vehicles will hit the road later this year, and the fleet will eventually scale to more than 100 automobiles.

On August 21st, a total solar eclipse will travel across the United States from coast to coast — and it’s going to be perhaps the biggest celestial event of the decade. A total solar eclipse, caused by the Moon passing directly between the Sun and the Earth, hasn’t crossed the US like this since 1918. People are flocking to cities along the eclipse’s path, where they’ll be able to see the Moon completely cover up the disc of the Sun. Those in the US who aren’t along the path will still be in for quite a show... Читать дальше...

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a solar eclipse coming! But while eclipses are cool, unless you’re in the path of totality — i.e., the part of the country where the Moon will completely obstruct the Sun — you’ll need to take some safety precautions to safely view the eclipse. (Even then, you’ll still need to wear glasses before and after the moments when it’s totally blocked.) After all, just because part of the Sun is covered doesn’t mean you should look directly at the uncovered part of it. Читать дальше...

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has responded to the Google anti-diversity memo, writing in a column for Fortune that the questioning of women’s abilities is “pervasive” in tech and that the memo is “yet another discouraging signal to young women who aspire to study computer science.” Wojcicki opens by saying her daughter asked her, “is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?” Wojcicki says no, it’s not true, but the question has still plagued her throughout her career. Читать дальше...

If you own an Amazon Echo and want to get Alexa into more rooms of your house, your best bet has long been the tiny, $50 Echo Dot. But now the accessory company Anker taking on Amazon with a similarly tiny smart speaker with built-in Alexa that sells for only $35.

Ring has made a name for itself in the smart home world with its lineup of connected doorbells that can record video. Ring doorbells make it easy to add a security camera to the outside of your home, and its latest model makes it even easier to keep an eye on your visitors.

One year after its tumultuous launch, space exploration sim No Man’s Sky is getting its third major update. Today developer Hello Games announced the “Atlas Rises” update for the game, which includes a pair of welcome enhancements. “It focuses on improving the central story,” the developer says. The update will also add the ability to quick-travel between planetary portals, a feature that’s been rumored for quite some time. As with past major updates — which added new features like land vehicles and base building ... Читать дальше...

The first time I set foot in this crypt, I was terrified. Pursued by an unseen monster, I was restricted to the few areas of light in this underground dungeon. If I stayed in the shadows for too long, the creature would end me. Initially it was frightening, instilling every movement with a sense of tension, forcing me to move purposefully. But after 30 minutes it just became a chore. You can only spend so long looking for a mystical rune in the dark before you get used to the chilling horrors around you. Читать дальше...

We often talk about climate change as a far-off problem that will affect our children and grandchildren, but climate change is already affecting Americans right now, according to a US government report published on Tuesday by The New York Times. In fact, the US is already experiencing rising temperatures, more flooding in coastal zones, and an increase in the number of extreme weather events like heat waves and heavy rain.

Facebook's Group app is almost no more. The company announced yesterday that iOS and Android users will no longer be able to log in after September 1st. Instead, they'll have to use the Groups feature on the Facebook mobile app or in their browser.

Welcome to Home of the Future, a four-part video series co-produced by Curbed and The Verge. Each month, we'll take you inside one innovative home and explore how the technology of today informs the way people will live in the future. To follow along, stay tuned for new video episodes on our Facebook page. The first location? An inhabitable high-rise forest.

The Google engineer fired over writing a 10-page viral memo about diversity has filed a complaint with federal labor officials, reports Business Insider. James Damore filed the complaint against Google on August 7th, and the case page on the National Labor Relations Board website states that law firm Paul Hastings will represent Google. Damore’s name isn’t listed, but it has been confirmed by Business Insider. The only details available so far about the complaint is the allegation’s classification... Читать дальше...

India has blocked internet archival site Wayback Machine, according to India Today. Users trying to access the site have been receiving messages that say the block is “on the directions” of India’s Department of Telecom.