Новости за 23.12.2017

Last month, Facebook announced that it would create a tool for users to see if they follow pages and accounts that were linked to Russian-backed groups. That tool is now live, and you can see for yourself if any of the pages you liked were created by the Internet Research Agency.

Hello! It’s your local friendly science editor, coming up on the end of the year. Typically, I like to think back on the stories that impressed me — and consider how I can learn from what set them apart to create excellent journalism in the following year.

In February, Netflix will begin streaming an ambitious adaptation of Richard K. Morgan’s debut science fiction novel Altered Carbon. The novel is a cyberpunk mystery that delves into issues about wealth and power, and it’s the perfect source material for a prestige television series.

One of the frustrating things about streaming movies is that you can never really be sure that you're getting the proper aspect ratio, not unless you go and look it up later. HBO is particularly bad about this, but I recently watched Gangs of New York on Amazon and discovered that it was streaming in 16:9 instead of the much wider 2.35:1 theatrical format it’s supposed to be in.

It’s almost Christmas and if you’re behind on your shopping, you can still find some great holiday sales on headphones, smart speakers, and more. As we mentioned last week, Sennheiser’s holiday deals are running through December 31st, through which you can save $100 on various best-selling headphones. There’s also still time to save on a few Amazon devices, including the new Echo. Note that the Echo Show and Fire HD deals end tomorrow (Sunday, December 24th), so act fast if you have your eye on these. Читать дальше...

Last night, SpaceX pulled off its final mission of 2017, launching a Falcon 9 rocket out of California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base — and that flight created a spectacular sight in the night sky. The setting sun illuminated the rocket’s expelled gas just right, creating a beautiful white plume above the Earth. But as pretty as the show was, it also led to quite a bit of concern in nearby Los Angeles.

Christmas is almost here, and for many people that means a time of festivity, food and family. And while we may love our families — both biological and chosen — some of us still have to face an unfortunate truth about going home for the holidays: they’re going to make us watch terrible TV. Whether they insist on flipping to The Real Housewives of Whatever City They’re in Now or have a DVR full of Blue Bloods they want to turn on, coming face to face with the questionable taste of your loved ones can be an ordeal. Читать дальше...

We've done it, fam. We've finished season one of the podcast. Because it's also the season of giving, and because we love you all, today's episode is dedicated to you. In today's Holiday Spectacular — I told you it was coming — Kaitlyn and I listen to the audio clips you've sent us over the past few months. We also sit by the fireplace here in our podcast studio to look back at the season. We've learned so much, mainly how tech companies manipulate our minds :)

Earlier this year, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden met with Jacqueline Moudeina, the first female lawyer in Chad and a legendary human rights advocate who has worked tirelessly to bring former dictator Hissène Habré to justice. Habré was convicted of human rights abuses — ordering the killing of 40,000 people, sexual slavery, and rape — by a Senegalese jury in 2016.

Days after deleting an OKCupid profile that included personal information, Reddit user Drinkscocoaandreads logged onto Facebook to find an unpleasant surprise. “I had like three guys find me on Facebook within two days, screaming at me for leaving mid-conversation/not ever acknowledging their initial message,” the Redditor wrote in a thread about OKCupid. “One of them also added a few of my friends before I figured out what was happening and got him blocked.”

Snap publicly launched its Lens Studio this past week, meaning that brands and general people can create their own augmented reality lenses. We figured brands would take advantage of the platform and maybe even pay Snap for promotion of their work. But today, we saw an actually inventive idea for the custom lenses: to preview your food.

The formerly VR-only Star Trek: Bridge Crew will now work on traditional screens. In addition to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR, people can now play it on PlayStation 4 and PC after a free update — instead of hand controls, you can use either a controller or a mouse and keyboard. The cooperative game is still cross-platform, so you can staff a ship with the same people inside or outside VR.