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Submission + - NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Reviewed: Gaming And Possibly The Ultimate 4K Streamer (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: NVIDIA officially launched its SHIELD Android TV set-top device today and it's sort of a "tweener" product, with far more horsepower than something like Roku or Apple TV, but on par with an average game console, and at a more affordable price tag of $199. What's interesting, however, is that it's powered by NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC which features a Maxwell-derived GPU and eight CPU cores; four ARM A57 cores and four A53s. The A57 cores are 64-bit, out-of-order designs, with multi-issue pipelines, while the A53s are simpler, in-order, highly-efficient designs. Which cores are used will depend on the particular workload being executed at the time. Tegra X1 also packs a 256-core Maxwell-derived GPU with the same programming capabilities and API support as NVIDIA's latest desktop GPUs. In standard Android benchmarks, the SHIELD pretty much slays any current high-end tablet or smartphone processor in graphics, but is about on par with the octal-core Samsung Exynos in terms of standard compute workloads but handily beating and octal-core Qualcomm Snapdragon. What's also interesting about the SHIELD Android TV is that it's not only an Android TV-capable device with movie and music streaming services like Netflix etc., but it also plays any game on Google Play and with serious horsepower behind it. The SHIELD Android TV is also the first device certified for Netflix's Ultra HD 4K streaming service.
Security

Why Detecting Drones Is a Tough Gig 227

An anonymous reader writes with a link to some interesting commentary at Help Net Security from Drone Lab CEO Zain Naboulsi about a security issue of a (so far) unusual kind: detecting drones whose masters are bent on malice. That's relevant after the recent drone flight close enough to the White House to spook the Secret Service, and that wasn't the first -- even if no malice was involved. Drones at their most dangerous in that context are small, quiet, and flying through busy, populated spaces, which makes even detecting them tough, never mind defeating them. From the article, which briefly describes pros and cons of various detection methods: Audio detection does NOT work in urban environments - period. Most microphones only listen well at 25 to 50 feet so, because of the ambient noise in the area, any audio detection method would be rendered useless at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is also too simple for an operator to change the sound signature of a drone by buying different propellers or making other modifications. It doesn't take much to defeat the many weaknesses of audio detection.
Communications

Murder Accusations Hang Over Silk Road Boss Ulbricht's Sentencing 82

Patrick O'Neill writes: Ross Ulbricht has never been tried for murder. But tomorrow, when the convicted Silk Road creator is sentenced to prison, murder will be on the mind of the judge. Despite never filing murder-for-hire charges, New York federal prosecutors have repeatedly pushed for harsh sentencing because they say Ulbricht solicited multiple murders. The judge herself recently referred to Ulbricht's "commission of murders-for-hire" in a letter about the sentencing, painting an even grimmer picture of Ulbricht's sentencing prospects.

Comment It is also still what computer music uses (Score 1) 106

If you compose music on a computer, you almost certainly still do it with MIDI. All the new highly advanced synths and samplers still use MIDI as their input for data. Everything from big dollar stuff like Native Instruments Komplete down to freeware. MIDI goes in, sound comes out.

In some ways it surprises me since you'd think they would get around to improving it (there are some things MIDI leaves to be desired) but on the other hand it does work well for nearly everything and there's something to be said about keeping things standard. You can literally take one of those old General MIDI songs and feed the data in to a modern sampler. I do just that all the time to remake old game soundtracks because I enjoy it.

Hardware Hacking

Video Glowforge is a CNC Laser Cutter, not a 3D Printer (Video) 45

Co-Founder and CEO Dan Shapiro says, right at the beginning of the interview, that the Glowforge machine is a CNC laser cutter and engraver, not a 3-D Printer. He says they've "simplified the heck" out of the hardware and software, and are making an easy-to-use, non-costly ($2500 has been bandied about as the unit's likely price) device that can fit on a kitchen table -- or, more likely, a workbench at a maker facility. Although Dan did very well on Kickstarter (and afterwards) with his previous venture, Robot Turtles, this time he seems to have raised his first $9 million in the venture capital market, with participation from several MakerBot executives.

Glowforge is not the only CNC laser cutter/etcher device out there (or about to be). In Australia, Darkly Labs appears to have raised $569,397 (AUD) on Kickstarter to bring their LazerBlade to life, and already makes a small laser device called the Emblaser. There are others, too, including Boxzy, which did the Kickstarter thing and will now sell you a device that "rapidly transforms into 3 kinds of machines: CNC Mill, 3D Printer & Laser Engraver while enhancing precision & power with ballscrews." All this, and their top-of-the-line "does everything" machine sells for a mere $3500. Obviously, devices to give makers and prototypers the ability to make ever more complex and accurate shapes are coming to market like crazy. We'll continue to keep an eye on all this activity, including a second video interview with Glowforge's Dan Shapiro tomorrow.

Submission + - Untried murder accusations weigh on Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road sentencing (dailydot.com)

Patrick O'Neill writes: Ross Ulbricht has never been tried for murder but tomorrow, when the convicted Silk Road creator is sentenced to prison, murder will be on the mind of the judge. Despite never filing murder for hire charges, New York federal prosecutors have repeatedly pushed for harsh sentencing because of, they told the judge, Ulbricht solicited multiple murders. The judge herself recently referred to Ulbricht's "commission of murders-for-hire" in a letter about the sentencing, painting an even grimmer picture of Ulbricht's sentencing prospects.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: UPDATE 1-Google shows off virtual reality collaboration with GoPro - Reuters (google.com)


TIME

UPDATE 1-Google shows off virtual reality collaboration with GoPro
Reuters
(Adds details on GoPro and Google plans for photo app). By Julia Love. SAN FRANCISCO May 28 (Reuters) - Action camera maker GoPro Inc and Google Inc introduced a virtual reality system using 16 cameras and Google software, sending GoPro shares...
YouTube will support virtual reality video this summerWashington Post (blog)
Google Intensifies Focus on Its Cardboard Virtual Reality DeviceNew York Times
Google teams with GoPro in broad virtual reality pushPCWorld
TIME-Mashable-The Verge
all 145 news articles

Submission + - Live anthrax shipped accidentally to S Korea and US labs (bbc.com) 1

hamsterz1 writes: "The US military accidentally sent live anthrax samples to as many as nine labs across the country and to a US military base in South Korea, the Pentagon says." This news story was posted on the BBC web site under News-US and Canada. What is going on here?, your thoughts!.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Google's Chromecast turns your TV into a game board, race track, or dance floor ... - VentureBeat (google.com)


VentureBeat

Google's Chromecast turns your TV into a game board, race track, or dance floor ...
VentureBeat
Above: Chromecast lets you use your Android phone as a controller for games on your TV. Image Credit: Google. May 28, 2015 12:00 PM Dean Takahashi. 3. 0. Google's streaming gadget has a new way to help you play games. The Chromecast has seen...
Google Cast updates make way for faster streaming and new gamesMashable
Chromecast Gets Autoplay, Queuing, Second Screen And Multiplayer Game ... TechCrunch
Google Sells 17 Million Chromecast Devices, Clocks 1.5 Billion CastsVariety
Komando-The Tech Portal-TechnoBuffalo
all 10 news articles

Comment Re:Current? Fat cables? (Score 1) 597

You may be thinking of commercial 3phase wiring where you get 110V phase to neutral and 208v phase to phase. In residential wiring, the final transformer coil is center tapped so you get 110 phase to neutral (center tap) and 220 phase to phase. Note that the two split phases are inverted with respect to each other because the neutral is a center tap.

Android

Android M Arrives In Q3: Native Fingerprint Support, Android Pay, 'Doze' Mode 83

MojoKid writes with yet more news from the ongoing Google IO conference: Google I/O kicked off this afternoon and the first topic of discussion was of course Google's next generation mobile operating system. For those that were hoping for a huge UI overhaul or a ton of whiz-bang features, this is not the Android release for you. Instead, Android M is more of a maintenance released focused mainly on squashing bugs and improving stability/performance across the board. Even though Android M is about making Android a more stable platform, there are a few features that have been improved upon or introduced for this release: App Permissions, Chrome Custom Tabs for apps, App Links (instead of asking you which app to choose when clicking a link, Android M's new Intent System can allow apps to verify that they are rightfully in possession of a link), NFC-based Android Pay, standardized fingerprint scanning support, and a new "doze" mode that supposedly offers 2X longer battery life when idle.

Submission + - Sourceforge staff takes over a user's account and wraps their software installer (arstechnica.com) 11

An anonymous reader writes: Sourceforge staff took over the account of the GIMP-for-Windows maintainer claiming it was abandoned and used this opportunity to wrap the installer in crapware. Quoting Ars:

SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.


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