Miscellaneous Tech News
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Clippy briefly resurrected as Teams add-on, brutally taken down by brand police
Microsoft apparently hates fun.
Clippy is, after all, far more expressive than Cortana. While Clippy and Cortana share a tendency to reshape their basic form to meet the needs of the task at hand—Clippy can distort itself into a question mark or an envelope or whatever, and Cortana can deviate from her usual circular form—Clippy has a killer advantage in that it has eyes, and more particularly, eyebrows, enabling a range of emotions such as incredulity and contemptuous pity that Cortana can only dream of.
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Liveblog: Apple unveils its TV service and more at the March 25 “It’s show time” event
Follow everything Apple announces in an unprecedented event.
At 10am Pacific on Monday, March 25, Apple and its partners will take the stage at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, Calif., to talk about a new TV-streaming platform, a new magazine-subscription service, and possibly much more. We'll be liveblogging the event as it happens, so join us here a few minutes before the show for all the updates.
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Apple News+: a newsstand of 300 glossy magazines for $9.99/month
The service brings content from a wide range of publications under one digital roof.
As expected, Apple has announced a magazine subscription service built on top of its acquisition last year of Texture. Called Apple News+, it will offer fully browsable, digital versions of over 300 print magazines and newspapers like Wired, GQ, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The service also includes a number of digital-only publications.
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Apple finally enters TV streaming space with new Apple TV+ service
It's kind of Netflix, kind of Amazon, and kind of something else.
At the vanguard of Apple TV+ is Apple's own original programming. The company reportedly spent $1 billion developing TV shows and films to include on the service. Upon announcing the streaming service, Apple showed a video featuring the numerous creators it worked with to create original content for the service—filmmakers including Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, as well as actors and actresses including Reese Witherspoon and Octavia Spencer.
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Edge-on-Chromium approaches; build leaks, extensions page already live
Like Google, Microsoft will have three pre-release tracks.
Microsoft's first public release of a Chromium-based version of its Edge browser is fast approaching. Microsoft has published an early version of its extension market for the new browser, and the Windows Store includes a new extension for Edge-on-Chromium. On top of all this, a build of the browser has leaked.
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Apple unveils Apple Arcade subscription service for iOS, Mac, Apple TV games
Coming "this fall," can swap from iOS to Mac and back. Pricing not yet confirmed.
The paid-subscription service will include games "unavailable on any other mobile service," Apple confirmed, and it will launch with "over 100 new and exclusive games." A sizzle reel of flashy games appeared at today's Apple event, and it largely focused on indie games that haven't yet launched on either traditional or mobile platforms yet. One notable exception: there was a brief shot of an apparently unannounced Sonic the Hedgehog game.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Apple News+: a newsstand of 300 glossy magazines for $9.99/month
The service brings content from a wide range of publications under one digital roof.
As expected, Apple has announced a magazine subscription service built on top of its acquisition last year of Texture. Called Apple News+, it will offer fully browsable, digital versions of over 300 print magazines and newspapers like Wired, GQ, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The service also includes a number of digital-only publications.
LOL, my betrothed said this is cool for senior citizens.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/asus-users-targeted-in-large-supply-chain-attack-522918
Kaspersky Lab researchers have uncovered a large-scale attack against ASUS users in which a software update utility was modified and used to distribute malware.
...
Kaspersky said that its investigations so far had found the “same techniques” used against software from three other vendors. -
I was hoping this one wouldn't be allowed through.
"The European parliament has backed controversial copyright laws which critics say could change the nature of the internet."
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@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I was hoping this one wouldn't be allowed through.
"The European parliament has backed controversial copyright laws which critics say could change the nature of the internet."
Article 11 states that search engines and news aggregate platforms should pay to use links from news websites.
Article 13 holds larger technology companies responsible for material posted without a copyright licence.
yeah - if these pass, the EU could be in for a world of hurt from an internet POV. Watch costs skyrocket, and posting will grind to a halt.
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@StuartJordan said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I was hoping this one wouldn't be allowed through.
"The European parliament has backed controversial copyright laws which critics say could change the nature of the internet."
Everyone hoped that.
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New Huawei phone has a 5x optical zoom, thanks to a periscope lens
How do you cram a 5x zoom into the P30 Pro? Just turn the whole assembly sideways!
Huawei officially announced the Huawei P30 Pro smartphone today. While it has a new Huawei-made SoC, an in-screen optical fingerprint reader, and lots of other high-end features, the highlight is definitely the camera's optical zoom, which is up to a whopping 5x. Not digital zoom. Real, optical zoom.
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Microsoft exec bans company from pulling any dumb April Fools’ pranks
Internal memo says that pranks have little upside and can too often backfire.
This was particularly striking in Google's 2016 mic drop feature on Gmail, where clicking the "mic drop" button sent a recipient a gif of a Despicable Me minion—a vile affront to humanity in and of itself—and then muted and archived the conversation, thus hiding any responses to it. Cue widespread complaints from users who clicked the button by accident, denying themselves jobs and offending their bosses.
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Xiaomi’s “100W” quick charging goes from 0 to 100 in 17 minutes
18V/4.5A charging solution smokes the competition (hopefully not literally).
We all know battery density hasn't kept pace with the power demands of smartphones, but would you settle for a smartphone that just charged really, really quickly? Xiaomi is teasing a new high mark for speedy phone charging: a "100W" quick-charge solution. Xiaomi Senior Vice President Xiang Wang shared a video on Facebook of the new charging solution in action, saying that "Xiaomi's engineers have created a 100W fast-charging solution, which can fully charge a large 4000mAh battery in just 17 minutes!"
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Xiaomi’s “100W” quick charging goes from 0 to 100 in 17 minutes
18V/4.5A charging solution smokes the competition (hopefully not literally).
We all know battery density hasn't kept pace with the power demands of smartphones, but would you settle for a smartphone that just charged really, really quickly? Xiaomi is teasing a new high mark for speedy phone charging: a "100W" quick-charge solution. Xiaomi Senior Vice President Xiang Wang shared a video on Facebook of the new charging solution in action, saying that "Xiaomi's engineers have created a 100W fast-charging solution, which can fully charge a large 4000mAh battery in just 17 minutes!"
Wow.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
New Huawei phone has a 5x optical zoom, thanks to a periscope lens
How do you cram a 5x zoom into the P30 Pro? Just turn the whole assembly sideways!
Huawei officially announced the Huawei P30 Pro smartphone today. While it has a new Huawei-made SoC, an in-screen optical fingerprint reader, and lots of other high-end features, the highlight is definitely the camera's optical zoom, which is up to a whopping 5x. Not digital zoom. Real, optical zoom.
That moves Huawei way up on my potential next purchase list. That is super cool.
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BBC News - Internet access in Africa - Are mesh networks the future?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47723967 -
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
BBC News - Internet access in Africa - Are mesh networks the future?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47723967Nice use of Ubiquiti gear in the video.
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‘Long-term security risks’ from Huawei
The Chinese company Huawei has been strongly criticised in a report by the body overseeing the security of its products in UK telecoms.
The report, issued by the National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ, says it can provide "only limited assurance that the long-term security risks can be managed in the Huawei equipment currently deployed in the UK".
The report reflects what are said to be deep frustrations at the failure of the company to address previously identified problems.
