Новости за 13.10.2017

I could bore you with loads of pretense about viral internet trends, but I’ve already wasted enough time in this lede sentence without telling you that astronauts aboard the International Space Station just dropped a fidget spinner trick video filmed in zero gravity.

There’s no denying that writer-director Angela Robinson has excellent timing. Her new film, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, about the creation of the Wonder Woman comic book character, has been in the works for years. But it finally came to fruition the same year Warner Brothers’ Wonder Woman climbed the box office charts and made a huge splash for the character. Interest in Wonder Woman and her strange, colorful, bondage-filled history is at an all-time high, and Robinson’s seems poised to fill in the gap. Читать дальше...

It’s a little early to put much credibility in rumors about the next iPhones coming in 2018. But KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has established a strong track record of Apple hardware forecasts, says that the company is likely to completely move away from Touch ID on the successors to this year’s iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X. MacRumors reported on Kuo’s latest note. Hopefully the various components of the tech will be more readily available by then; the Touch ID system is believed to be one... Читать дальше...

Google released a new USB-C to 3.5mm dongle following the reveal earlier this month of the headphone jack-less Pixel 2. Although every new Pixel 2 ships with the dongle in the box, a replacement costs $20. That's appalling. Now, it seems Google has realized its dongle error and is dropping the price down to $9, or the same as Apple's Lighting to headphone jack replacement dongle. All is well again in dongle world, phew.

Qualcomm has launched a new lawsuit against Apple, asking a Chinese court to block the sale and manufacturing of iPhones within the country, according to Bloomberg. This is the latest strike in a legal war between the two companies, which started out in the US and has since expanded worldwide.

Accident-prone desk workers can soon breathe a small sigh of relief, because Silicon Power has announced its first portable SSD: a new puck-shaped hard drive that’s IP68 dust and water resistant. The Bolt B80 drive comes in three storage variants (120GB, 240GB, and 480GB), is made of machined aluminum, and is about the size of a makeup compact.

One of the unexpected delights of Stranger Things’ first season was its soundtrack, provided by Texas-based synth duo S U R V I V E. The band is returning to score the show’s second season, and the soundtrack will be digitally available on October 20th, a week before season 2 starts streaming.

Lenovo teased a bunch of new Moto Mods at Mobile World Congress this year, including one with Amazon's Alexa assistant built in, and another that can instantly print smartphone photos. Yesterday, VentureBeat reporter Evan Blass gave us another look at the Mods, the first since Lenovo's announcements. Notice the slight Polaroid branding on the photo printer.

Earlier this week, Oculus doubled its VR hardware lineup, adding two new headsets alongside the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. The first is a development kit codenamed Santa Cruz, which features full motion tracking in a wireless headset. The second is Oculus Go, a mobile headset with built-in electronics instead of a phone slot. Facebook’s VR chief Hugo Barra says Go and Santa Cruz are supposed to complement the Rift and Gear VR, not replace them. At a time when virtual reality is a niche pursuit... Читать дальше...

Amazon has suspended its studio head, Roy Price, in the wake of harassment allegations from The Man in High Castle executive producer Isa Hackett. "Roy Price is on leave of absence effective immediately,” a spokesperson tells The Verge.

FKA twigs can now add “magazine publisher” to her list of credentials. The musician just released a zine called AVANTgarden that’s only available on Instagram, Pitchfork reports. The zine, which focuses on the work of hairstylist Rio Sreedharan, is the first issue in an apparent series.

Magic mushrooms might help depressed patients by helping them “reset” their brains, according to a new study that uses brain scans to look at the lasting effects of psychedelics.

The Google Assistant has always been able to control Chromecasts from a Google Home, but now that ability is expanding to the Google Assistant on Android phones, too. Android Police spotted the new feature, which seems to still be rolling out. It appears to work for traditional Chromecasts, Chromecast Audios, and devices with Chromecast built in. We were able to get it to play YouTube and turn on and off a TV.

HP is releasing an instant camera called the Sprocket 2-in-1. The new camera takes last year's small Sprocket printer and adds a camera to it, so users don't need a smartphone to use the device. The company's also updating its Sprocket app to include new AR features and is releasing a larger version of its printer for bigger photos.

We’ve got a bloggy Vergecast today. In between review weeks, a few things popped up in the news that Nilay, Dieter, and Paul needed to talk about. Google is integrating video chat into a phone but still not text; you can now watch all the movies you’ve purchased online in one place; Apple is on a “hype cycle” talking about AR; and Windows Phone died again.

Season 2 begins streaming on October 27th

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Scientists flew a small drone over the blowhole of a few humpback whales in the US and Canada to collect the microbes living inside their breath. Sampling the community of microbes and bacteria living inside whales, called the microbiome, can help us better understand what makes a healthy whale, and what happens when a whale gets sick.

Last night, some Twitter users began calling for a 24-hour boycott of the platform to show support for victims of sexual assault. The hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter is trending right now, as the boycott is underway. But with its supporters offline, the hashtag is mostly being used by users who disagree with the boycott as an effective solidarity tactic.

Developers have found a way to pirate cloud storage from Google Photos. Google offers unlimited storage of full-resolution photos and videos for its Pixel users, and now, some developers have found a way to subvert that Pixel device requirement to obtain plentiful Google Photos storage on any Android device running Nougat or higher.

Microsoft has built some tree houses for its employees. One sits in a Pacific Northwest Douglas fir, while another is 12 feet above the ground and features charred-wood walls and a high ceiling complete with a skylight. Microsoft describes it as having a “gingerbread-house” feel, which I’m guessing can only mean good things because it’s Christmas-y and Christmas is warm and fuzzy.

Disney has created the buy once, watch everywhere movie service that consumers have always wanted. The company has managed to rally support from a number of major Hollywood film studios — Paramount and Lionsgate are the major holdouts — and the end result is Movies Anywhere, a new service that promises glorious cross-platform support for (almost) all the digital movies that you’ve ever purchased. You’re no longer stuck watching a movie with just the video app from the company you bought it from.

It’s Friday the 13th, and appropriately, Netflix has released a new — and final — trailer for the second season of Stranger Things.

With mass shootings on the rise, an unexpected group of professionals is trying to make it easier for people to avoid getting killed in the melee: landscape architects. These are the people who place just so many oversized planters on a pedestrian thoroughfare to prevent an attack by car bomb from hitting the crowd or the buildings behind the barricades. And one of their first design challenges is the new Sandy Hook Elementary School, built to replace the site of the infamous 2012 massacre.

Yale has been making smart locks for years now, but this week, it’s finally adding support for Apple’s HomeKit platform. Support starts out with just two locks, but they’re two of Yale’s more modern-looking models. They both unlock via PIN codes, and neither supports a traditional key.

Podcasts have become a new kind of go-to for producers and studios looking for material to adapt for television. The built-in serialized structure of something like Homecoming (soon to be a series from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail) or even StartUp (reimagined as the upcoming ABC sitcom Alex, Inc.) make them perfect vehicles. These shows have already demonstrated an ability to grab an audience and hold onto it, week after week, in the exact same way a successful TV series needs to.