Новости за 17.08.2017

In recent days, web services and platforms have rushed to drop any clients tied to hate groups or other extremists, hoping to cut any apparent links to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Apple Pay and PayPal have changed policies to stop payments to white nationalist groups, Facebook has stepped up anti-violence enforcement, and the notorious neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer has been kicked off the internet entirely, unable to secure a registrar.

It’s easy to be hyperbolic when praising novels: every promising new author’s work is described as a “future classic.” But last week, fantasy author N.K. Jemisin became one of a handful of authors to win the Hugo award for Best Novel two years in a row, first for her 2015 novel The Fifth Season, then for its 2016 sequel The Obelisk Gate. After reading the final book in the trilogy, The Stone Sky, I think it’s likely that she’ll do it again next year. The book is a phenomenal end to one the greatest... Читать дальше...

The total solar eclipse on August 21st is promising to be a life-changing event. For the first time in 99 years, the path of totality will cross the length of the continental US from coast to coast. And what better way to view it than reclining in the leather-draped comfort of your Volvo SUV?

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Obi-Wan Kenobi will be the subject of the next standalone Star Wars film, with The Hours director Stephen Daldry in “early talks” to direct. The movie will follow the lead of last year’s Rogue One and the forthcoming, untitled Han Solo film, rather than the main “Saga” films that include The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

Asus has a new gaming monitor out, the ROG Strix XG27VQ, a name that I’m not even going to bother commenting on. In a world where most of these monitors try to be the biggest and best around, the new Strix XG27VQ takes a bit of a different approach, via AnandTech.

Twitter has partnered with The Weather Channel to live stream next week’s total solar eclipse as the Moon’s shadow travels from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United States. The stream will start at 12PM ET on Monday, August 21st, and it will include live footage from cities in Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming. This is roughly the path of totality, meaning when the Moon will completely block out the Sun.

Sylvain Neuvel imagined piloting a giant robot when he was growing up. And while the dream of stepping into the cockpit of a building-sized mech may still be out of reach, he’s done the next best thing: written a book series about giant, alien robots called The Themis Files, which is set to conclude next year with Only Human.

Tomorrow morning, a NASA communications satellite is scheduled to launch to space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on top of an Atlas V rocket made by the United Launch Alliance. The launch was slated for earlier this month, but was delayed after some equipment on the probe was broken during launch preparations. But now, the satellite, called TDRS-M, is ready to head to orbit, where it will join a fleet of other satellites crucial to NASA’s operations in space.

The Gogoro scooter-sharing service, Coup, has launched today in Paris. Announced back in May, 600 of the Taiwanese company’s slick electric scooters are now available for rent in and around the city’s center. The price has ticked up slightly from the original plan, though — it will cost €4 for the first 30 minutes of riding, and an additional €1 for every 10 minutes of riding after that.

YouTube TV launched only four months ago, and it's rapidly expanding beyond its initial five markets. Today, the company announced that the service will be available in 14 new US markets, which means 50 percent of US households have access. It plans to expand to 17 more markets in the "coming weeks." Here's the complete list of where YouTube TV is expanding now and where it'll be expanding later:

Samsung’s removing a step in between hearing a good song you don’t recognize on TV and pulling out your smartphone to identify it with Shazam, Siri, or Google Assistant. That can take a few seconds — if your phone is even nearby. So to streamline things, the company has added Shazam directly to its Smart Hub on 2017 Samsung TVs.

Instagram is rolling out a new feature today on its iOS and Android apps that'll clear up DM confusion. Users could already reply to photos, videos, and reshared posts sent to their DMs with their own photo or video, but now, a sticker of whatever they're responding to will automatically show up in their reply.

About 45 million people in the US wear contact lenses — and most of them do it wrong, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Social news site Reddit today announced the official launch of its video hosting feature, meaning users of certain pre-approved communities can now upload video directly to the site. The feature is already in place as part of a beta testing phase the company began conducting in late June with around 200 existing subreddits. Reddit says it’s now ready to expand the feature to other communities, and that those interested can work directly with site moderators and the company’s video team to enable the feature. Читать дальше...

This year, students at Arizona State University will have the opportunity to live in college housing with Echo Dots in a program that encourages engineering students to practice voice user interface development skills on consumer hardware.

Marvel’s The Defenders begins streaming tomorrow on Netflix, but a new trailer has just hit the web, showing off plenty of new footage of the team in action, teasing the nature of the threat that they face.

Facebook has announced two new updates that will limit video clickbait posts from appearing in the News Feed. The posts being targeted are those that have fake video play buttons embedded into an image, and videos of a static image.

Sprint is now taking preorders for the Essential Phone, and it’s offering subscribers a pretty good perk to jump on it early: a discount of about $260.

Asus has revealed new phones from its Zenfone 4 line: the ZenFone 4, ZenFone Max, ZenFone 4 Max Pro, ZenFone 4 Selfie, and ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. Whew, that’s a mouthful! The models and specs were leaked last week on the Taiwanese company’s French website. The ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 4 Max feature rear dual cameras (which seem to be all the rage this year), while the Selfie models have front dual cameras, which capture photos with a 120-degree angle.

There I was, sweaty and tired, having just scrambled my way up a dangerously steep rock face. As soon as I reached the top of the cliff I forgot about the trouble it took to get there: because, my god, that view. Lush green forest that seems to extend forever, dotted by crystal clear waterfalls and wondrous ancient ruins. Of course I took out my phone and snapped a picture.

Serious whiskey drinkers insist that it tastes better on the rocks — that is, diluted with a little water — and, with the help of computer simulations, scientists now know why.

Intuitive design is safe design

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Kickstarter is coming to Japan on September 13th. The company confirmed the date in an emailed announcement today and said interested creators should email japan@kickstarter.com. Although people from Japan could always back a project, or launch their own through a partnership with a US-based partner, they can now launch their own using a local Japanese bank account and a local form of identification. Kickstarter will be in Japanese, too.

Newton Mail, a multi-platform email app that’s been available on Mac, iOS, and Android, is finally reaching the last major platform it had yet to be offered on: Windows 10.

Some galaxies wander the cosmos, tentacles extending like hungry jellyfish — and now scientists have found active supermassive black holes at the center of six of them. Those unbelievably huge black holes are gobbling up lots of gas, and what keeps them well fed is the same mechanism that forms the jellyfish galaxies in the first place, according to new research.