Новости за 12.10.2017

Russia’s far-ranging campaign to promote dissension in the United States reportedly included an effort to weaponize Pokémon Go. CNN reported today that in July 2016, a Tumblr page linked to Russia’s now-notorious Internet Research Agency promoted a contest encouraging people sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement to play the game near famous sites of police brutality. Players were told to change their characters’ names to the victims of those incidents — an apparent effort to inflame racial tensions. Читать дальше...

The world of science fiction literature includes some truly out-of-this-world stories, which are often accompanied by astonishing, beautiful, and flat-out bizarre covers. Now, a pair of leading science fiction critics are working to crowdfund a new book that chronicles the fantastic covers that have graced science fiction novels throughout the genre’s history.

Lyft announced today that it will update its app for drivers to replace its old navigation system with Google Maps, in the hopes of saving drivers the hassle of switching back and forth between apps. Drivers who prefer Waze, though, can opt out of the in-app navigation, Lyft says.

On Monday morning, I opened the door to the smell of campfires — the scent of other Californians’ homes going up in smoke. The air stung my eyes and burned my lungs. It felt like I was breathing through a straw. I rounded up my half-empty inhalers, hoping they hadn’t expired. On Tuesday, the sky turned brown and rained ash on me.

For the first time ever, astronomers have pinpointed the location of a luminous light source on the opposite side of the Milky Way Galaxy, far beyond the galactic center. The source — a region of space where massive stars are being born — is located in a distant spiral arm, one of the large tentacles of gas that swirl around the middle of our galaxy. Knowing its location has allowed astronomers to trace the arm as it wraps around the center of the Milky Way, telling us more about the structure of the galaxy we live in. Читать дальше...

Thanks to a NASA satellite that’s been mapping the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in unprecedented detail, scientists are learning much more about how plants work, and how the land and oceans suck up and release CO2. This information could help us figure out how our world will respond to global warming.

Delta just did away with the standard, antiquated flight check-in process that’s plagued modern flyers for years. Now, Delta passengers’ boarding passes will automatically be sent out 24 hours prior to a flight, so long as they use Delta’s mobile app. The change was noted in the iOS version of the Fly Delta app, and it’s sure to be a welcome one to those who hate having to go through the cumbersome online process. The Android app doesn’t yet appear to have the option.

We’re a couple weeks away from Razer unveiling its very first smartphone, but it looks like we may be getting some early details today. Phone Radar spotted a listing on GFXBench for a “Razer Phone” that lists a bunch of high-end but very plausible details on what may be inside the upcoming phone.

The time has come for you to turn your doors, walls, and cabinets into touchscreens. Sony unveiled its Xperia Touch projector at Mobile World Congress back in February, and now, it's bringing the device to the US. It's available through Amazon and costs $1,699.99. It'll also be available in select T-Mobile stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami, as well as in the Sony Square display room in New York City.

The first season of The CW’s Riverdale was like being handed a surprise bowl of that oatmeal that hatches candy dinosaur eggs when you microwave it: disgusting, delightful, and a possibility so bizarre, most people’s brains would never arrive there without help.

Samsung has announced that the Gear Sport and its second-generation Gear IconX earbuds (also known as Gear IconX 2018) will be available for preorder starting October 13th.

As The Verge’s resident headphones obsessive, I hear a few questions quite often: what are the best Bluetooth headphones, where can I find those $1,000 cans for less than $100, and what music do you use for testing in your reviews? The first question will be answered in an upcoming This is my next feature, the second is daft, and the third forms the subject of this article.

We’ve been waiting a long time to see the “world’s first giant robot duel,” and next week we’ll finally get to watch the metal-on-metal action. If you’ve forgotten the background, all the way back in July 2015 a US team of engineers (MegaBots Inc.) challenged their Japanese rivals (Suidobashi Heavy Industry) to a fight, but the difficulty in finding a venue and upgrading the robots has delayed the bout. Well, next Tuesday, October 17th at 7PM PT, the duel will finally be streamed on Twitch for all to see. Читать дальше...

Next year, developers will start playing with Oculus’ next-generation VR headset: a wireless system codenamed Santa Cruz. Facebook VR chief Hugo Barra stresses that Santa Cruz is a prototype, not a commercial product. But he tells The Verge it’s “very representative” of where the company is going, and “realizable” as a consumer headset. So in a few years, Oculus hopes to offer something that delivers a lot of high-end Rift features, but without any of the complicated setup, or the need for a separate PC. Читать дальше...

During an in-depth conversation with Axios co-founder Mike Allen, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg took some responsibility for Facebook’s role in facilitating Russian misinformation, and pledged to include ad targeting information as part of the company’s disclosures on political interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The $1,800 MA770 is modern extravagance

Continue reading…

Hyperloop One just got a major vote of confidence from one of the world’s most recognizable billionaire industrialists not named Elon Musk. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is investing in the super fast transport system and will be joining Hyperloop One’s board of directors, the two companies announced today. As a result, the company is rebranding as “Virgin Hyperloop One.”

Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the follow-up to 2014’s Shadow of Mordor, is in many ways a prototypical video game sequel. Its main goal is simply to give you more. A vastly larger world, a wider range of weapons and abilities, and more ways to interact with the dark realm of Mordor. It’s bigger in just about every sense of the word. At the same time, it retains much of what made the original so good, namely its tight stealth action and unique “nemesis” system, which turns otherwise forgettable orcs into deadly and memorable enemies. Читать дальше...

Next time you need an emergency order of LaCroix, you can just ask a Google Home to order a case from Target. Google announced today that Target will begin supporting its Google Express shopping service in the contiguous US. That also means Target will be supported through the Google Assistant’s voice ordering feature, which is so far only live on the Google Home and Android TV but is coming “soon” to iOS and Android as well.

The compact camera market is essentially dead, as smartphones have supplanted traditional point-and-shoots for most people’s photography needs. Smartphones have also pioneered entirely new forms of photography, like selfies. None of this is news to anyone.

The Sound of Vinyl, a record store and delivery service created by Universal Music Group, is now available in the US. The service, which has been available in the UK and Australia for a couple years, features over 20,000 titles from every major label as well as indies.

I live with a six-month-old cat named Pretzel who likes to sprint from one side of my apartment to the other, and sometimes pounce on me with his claws out along the way. He’s the first pet I’ve ever had, and living with him is mostly a joy. But because he’s my first pet, I’ve often been really uncertain of what to do: am I feeding him too much or too little? Do I actually need to brush his teeth? And what do I need to do to make sure he stays healthy?

Plenty of companies are taking advantage of machine learning to tag and search visual content. Pinterest lets you find visually-similar images in order to track down that recipe or jacket you’re looking for, and Pornhub is using machine learning to automatically identify porn stars in videos. Stock image company Shutterstock, though, has developed one of the more novel implementations of this sort of technology: using machine learning to identify the layout of images.

2017’s entertainment has suggested some marginal progress in diversity, with an increasing trend toward film, TV shows, and anime telling the stories of marginalized groups. There’s growing awareness of how representation affects entertainment, which has lead to, for instance, the whitewashing discussions about Ghost in the Shell and Death Note, or Ed Skrein’s decision to turn down a role in Hellboy, once he learned the character was meant to be of Asian descent. As a celebration of fandom, 2017’s... Читать дальше...

Cars have become expensive rolling gadgets, full of screens, speakers, and sensors — but are they actually good gadgets? In our new series, ScreenDrive, we’ll review cars just like any other device, starting with the basics of what they’re like to use.