Geek News

When Comcast acquired NBCUniversal back in 2011, the deal came with strings attached: among others, it had to abide by 2010-era net neutrality rules, provide affordable internet to low-income families and avoid discriminating against rivals. Well, all those conditions have lifted... and that's not making some officials happy. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Senator Richard Blumenthal have written an op-ed calling on the government to either extend those conditions or institute new rules relevant to the modern era. The communications giant has discovered ways of using its resources to "harm consumers and competition," the lawmakers argued, and some of those have violated the FCC's terms for the merger. Blumenthal and Clyburn note that the FCC had to crack down on Comcast a mere 17 months after the merger after it didn't offer affordable internet as promised. It has also been busted for discriminating against Bloomberg Television, and just this October fa...

New Jersey has joined Montana and New York in the growing list of states fighting back against the FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality. Governor Phil Murphy has signed an executive order prohibiting ISPs from blocking, throttling or taking payment to prioritize one web content over others if they sell internet service to state agencies. The order (PDF), which is pretty much identical to the ones signed by Montana Governor Steve Bullock and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, doesn't cover ISPs that don't count state agencies among their customers. As Gov. Murphy said, "New Jersey cannot unilaterally regulate net neutrality back into law or cement it as a state regulation" -- the FCC made sure states can't enforce their own broadband laws when it repealed net neutrality. It can, however, "exercise [its] power as a consumer to make [its] preferences known." Although the order can only cover some ISPs, it can also benefit ordinary customers, as ...

Both chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and chairman Christopher Giancarlo of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will warn Congress tomorrow about how risky cryptocurrencies are for investors and the financial system as a whole. According to prepared testimony published today, they will advocate for reviewing the smattering of rules guiding cryptocurrency exchanges, and potentially replacing them with federal regulation. Ultimately, they want to safeguard everyone without stifling innovation. "A key issue before market regulators is whether our historical approach to the regulation of currency transactions is appropriate for the cryptocurrency markets. Check-cashing and money-transmission services that operate in the U.S. are primarily regulated by states. Many of the internet-based cryptocurrency-trading platforms have registered as payment services and are not subject to direct oversight by the SEC or the CFTC. We would support policy effor...

Now that football is done, it's time for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics to take center stage. NBC will make all the programming available for live viewing this year , which should be easy since so much of it will occur during prime time viewing hours. Check out the streaming schedule to find out when your favorite events will be on. For gamers, the big release this week is a throwback as Shadow of the Colossus debuts in rebuilt form on the PS4. On streaming, Netflix caught us all by surprise with The Cloverfield Parado x , but this weekend we'll check out the scheduled season finale of Star Trek: Discovery on CBS All Access. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed). Blu-ray & Games & Streaming A Bad Moms Christmas Homeland (S6) Only the Brave 10 Cloverfield Lane / Cloverfield The Sandlot (25th Anniversary Edition) LBJ Suburbicon Shadow of the Colossus (PS4) Blackhole...

Google hasn't quite licked its problems getting users to adopt the latest version of Android. Its latest Play Store user share stats show that Nougat has become the most-used Android release at 28.5 percent... just over 17 months after its summer 2016 debut. Not exactly a speedy transition, then. That still gives it the edge over the older-still Marshmallow release, mind you, and indicates that a large chunk of the user base is running a modern take on Android. There's a smaller piece of good news, too: Oreo has climbed above 1 percent after sitting below that milestone since its fall premiere. The long interval between Nougat's launch and taking the lead can likely be pinned on the same factors that have dictated Android upgrade cycles for years . Many Android vendors take months to deliver upgrades (due to both their custom software and carrier testing), and stop providing upgrades roughly 2 years after a device launch -- you might not see more than one or two majo...

A man sued T-Mobile on Sunday, claiming that the company’s lack of security allowed hackers to enter his wireless account last fall and steal cryptocoins worth thousands of dollars. Carlos Tapang of Washington state accuses T-Mobile of having “improperly allowed wrongdoers to access” his wireless account on November 7th last year. The hackers then cancelled his number and transferred it to an AT&T account under their control. “T-Mobile was unable to contain this security breach until the next day,” when it finally got the number back from AT&T, Tapang alleges in the suit, first spotted by Law360 . After gaining control of his phone number, the hackers were able to change the password on one of Tapang’s cryptocurrency accounts and steal... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FO2L0K"

Mobile eSports are becoming a big deal. Last year, mobile MOBA Vainglory 's big eSports tournament was backed by Amazon. Supercell put on a Clash Royale $1 million tournament last summer, too. Now China's Tencent Games is getting in on the action with plans for a series of eSport tournaments, beginning with the Arena of Valor World Cup in July of this year. The contest will take place in Los Angeles and offer a prize pool of more than $500,000, according to the press release. Arena of Valor is a 10-player multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) that pits two teams of five against each other across various maps. The title is a big hit for Tencent and just came to the US in mid-January of this year. The gaming company plans to roll out a series of regional and collegiate tournaments across the country, too, the winners of which can participate in the larger competitions. Source: Tencent via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2BYBciO"

“Cheat codes. Find them. Use them,” said Travis Kalanick in April 2016, according to meeting notes dredged up during discovery in Waymo v. Uber . It’s just one of countless embarrassing quotes paraded out today during opening statements. It’s been almost a year since Waymo first filed suit here in San Francisco. The intervening months have been a scorched-earth death match of litigation, with so many lawyers billing countless hours that the courtroom this morning was packed full of them, with hardly any room for the public. Journalists and spectators alike were crowded into an overflow room. Why so much interest in a tech trial? Waymo v. Uber is putatively about LIDAR — a laser-based technology that can be used by self-driving cars to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2BF9zzB"

An affidavit unsealed today shows Apple’s unexpected role in bringing a Russian spam king to justice. Once listed as one of the ten worst spammers in the world, Peter Levashov allegedly ran the Kelihos botnet under the alias “Severa,” renting out access to spammers and other cybercriminals. But despite Levashov’s significant efforts at anonymity, court records show that federal agents had been surveilling his iCloud account since May 20th, 2016, funneling back crucial information that may have led to his arrest. The affidavit (embedded below) lays out Severa’s role in administering the Kelihos spam botnet, and how server records, Jabber messages and online payments led investigators to Levashov. Two Kelihos-linked servers seized in... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2saPMV0"

There's not much reason to shop for CDs when you download or stream all your music, and big-box stores are reacting to that decline. Billboard sources have learned that Best Buy has told suppliers that it will remove music CDs from its stores as of July 1st. The chain was only making $40 million per year from the plastic discs -- a drop in the bucket for a retailer this size. Vinyl aficionados will still find records on sale for the next 2 years, according to the insiders, although they may have to be sold next to the turntables themselves. Target, meanwhile, appears on the cusp of backing out. It reportedly wants to switch from paying for all music CDs and DVDs it receives (and shipping back whatever it doesn't sell) to only paying for those discs that actually sell. Suppliers would have until April 1st or May 1st to make the switch, depending on the company. And they're not necessarily willing to cooperate -- at least one major music label is "leaning no,"...

HTC showcased a phone that’s rumored to be its next flagship, the U12 , during a 5G event in Taiwan last week. While little is known about this mystery phone, the details seem to line up: HTC tends to release its flagships in the spring, so the timing is right, and it has a large, 18:9 screen with thin bezels, like the recent U11 Plus, suggesting it’s a higher-end device. While the HTC phone was shown off at a 5G event, it isn’t strictly using 5G technology. Instead, it’s going to be using gigabit LTE tech that includes something known as Licensed Assisted Access, or LAA. LAA combines LTE with the unlicensed 5GHz Wi-Fi band for additional bandwidth. Right now, Qualcomm supports LAA on its Snapdragon 835 chip, so it’s likely that this... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2BYaN4E"

Space Oh gosh, this is really happening. At 1:30 p.m. eastern time on February 6, tune in to watch the Falcon Heavy fire up its 27 engines. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2EIGkL9"

Tomorrow, SpaceX will attempt to launch its massive Falcon Heavy rocket for the very first time. If successful, it will be the most powerful rocket in operation and opens up the possibility of future crewed missions to the Moon or Mars. Today, Elon Musk gave a few more details about the launch attempt during a press call ahead of tomorrow's main event. Musk detailed the rocket's mission : After launch, it will coast for six hours, straight to geosynchronous Earth orbit, which is an orbit that follows the Earth's rotation so a satellite stays in the same place. This phase of the mission is specifically related to national security missions, to show that the rocket can deliver a payload directly to GEO. After this, the rocket will begin a trans-Mars injection engine burn. The upper stage of the Falcon Heavy will position itself in an elliptical orbit -- one part will be in Earth orbit, and the other will be in Mars. Musk described it as an "Earth-Mars cycler," ...

Android 7.0 Nougat has finally become the most-used version of the mobile operating system, running on 28.5 percent of devices (across both versions 7.0 and 7.1), according to an update on Google’s developer portal today (via 9to5Google ). That number narrowly edges out the second most-used version of Android, 6.0 Marshmallow (released in 2015), which still stands at 28.1 percent. As for Google’s latest 8.0 Oreo update released last fall? Adoption comes in at just 1.1 percent of Android devices, leaving it in a distant sixth place. Still, it’s an improvement over the 0.2 percent of devices that were running Oreo by October 2nd, 2017 . Android devices have always suffered from fragmentation when it comes to software updates. For a lot of... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E75TVa"

Gadgets It doesn't have the same range as pro models, but it's a lot of drone in a very small package. The DJI Mavic Air may be a middle child, but it's fast, compact, and comes with an excellent camera. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2BW8Aa7"

German automotive components producer Continental has partnered with NVIDIA to produce a full-scale self-driving car platform. It will use the GPU maker's autonomous vehicle hardware and software setup, DRIVE, to make a unified platform that prospective automakers and others can build their own self-driving cars upon. NVIDIA will provide the Xavier chips , operating system and software from its DRIVE suite, while Continental will contribute its security certification know-how along with its own radar, LiDar and camera products. Both companies intend for their platform to provide clients with level 2 autonomy (smart cruise control like Tesla's Autopilot feature) to level 5 (full self-driving capability without steering implements). Continental is far from NVIDIA's first autonomous driving partner. Despite losing a deal with Tesla, the company announced agreements throughout 2017 with Audi , Toyota , Volvo , Volkswagen and even Chinese tech giant Baidu to collaborate...

SpaceX will attempt to launch its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time tomorrow. It's no small feat and a lot could go wrong, but SpaceX has a released a video showing how the launch will work if everything goes according to plan. The launch window is open from 1:30 to 4:00 PM Eastern and will take place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You can see in the video that after it's launched, two of Falcon Heavy's three boosters will return to Earth, landing back at Kennedy Space Center . The third will keep traveling a ways further but will also eventually detach and land on one of SpaceX's drone ships. Falcon Heavy's payload -- Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster carrying a space suit-clad dummy -- will then continue on its path to Mars. That is, if everything goes well. Musk has said that there's plenty of room for error. "There's a real good chance that it does not make it to orbit," Musk said at the ISS R&D conference last July....

When Apple temporarily pulled Telegram from the App Store over "inappropriate content," it left many wondering just what that content was. We now know: 9to5Mac has learned that the company removed the app after discovering that people had been distributing child pornography through the app. Apple both contacted Telegram's team and authorities (including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) to both address the specific violation and to ensure that there were "more controls" in place to prevent a repeat. As a rule, internet services use a range of safeguards to prevent the spread of child porn, such as shared hash lists that prevent a file on one site from being posted elsewhere. It's not certain what solutions Telegram implemented, but the relatively short turnaround (its software was back within hours) suggests it didn't require a fundamental change. The nature of the discovery might provide a clue as to how it was distributed....

- Fixed a bug where alt-clicking HP/Mana bars of dead heroes would create a ping - Fixed parties being able to circumvent custom game ban cooldowns - Fixed issue where players would not see pings or map drawing from coaches - Fixed issue where coaches on opposite teams could see each other’s chat via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2EntS5J"

Facebook has been gearing up its Watch platform for months, now. Originally launched last August, it already has tons of shows on tap (for US audiences , at least). The company may even spend $1 billion on original video this year in hopes to catch Netflix and Hulu, and it's been running ads in front of Watch videos for a while. Now, according to a report on CNBC , Facebook is talking to media buyers about expanding the Watch service to more individual creators to rival YouTube's similar business model. According to CNBC 's sources, Facebook wants to create a tiered advertising system that would allow creators to upload their content for free, then earn revenue from ads placed into the videos. That way, says CNBC , Facebook can fill its Watch platform with content it won't have to pay for up front. CNBC 's sources say that Facebook pays some creators for rights to their shows in the range of $10,000 to $500,000 per episode, while other shows are uploaded for ...

Starting a new car company is tough. In fact, it's nearly impossible. Then Tesla pulled it off. As we transition from the internal combustion engine to electrification, startups and even a few established players are taking a chance on EVs. Building a three-wheeled autocycle isn't revolutionary , exactly. But making an EV starting at $10,000 with all the usual amenities makes it a car worth watching. Plus, it looks spectacular. I got a chance to drive the $1 million prototype of this Italian-designed car in Malibu last week. The one-off vehicle isn't street legal or ready for actual roads. It didn't have working seat belts and couldn't reach the speeds the company says the final production model will be capable of. But, once I put it in gear and depress the accelerator, it seemed like, with some fine tuning (not to mention passenger restraints), the car would be at home cruising through a residential neighborhood. Behind the wheel, steering and braking worked as...

The iPhone X knockoffs keep coming. Chinese company Oukitel has unveiled the U18 , which features a similar silhouette to Apple’s newest phone, complete with a notch. The back of the device looks nothing like Apple’s phone, although it does have dual, vertically-stacked cameras. It also includes gesture controls (so congrats to Dan ), and face unlocking. The phone ships with a large 4,000mAh battery, which is Oukitel’s signature spec, as you might remember from last year’s K10000 Pro phone , which shipped with a 10,000mAh battery. Here are some other specs, just for fun: 5.85-inch, 21:9 display with 720P resolution 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage USB-C Android 7.0 A rear fingerprint sensor 16-megapixel / 5-megapixel rear dual-camera system ... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sdxgem"

If you're looking for a way to fine-tune your Spotify experience, you might want to check out Nelson , a web-based playback jukebox of sorts on app-maker website Glitch . You choose as many genres as you like before tweaking some of the Spotify API's various parameters , and Nelson will compile a custom set of songs. You can even have it create a playlist right on Spotify for you. Originally tweeted out by Arielle Vaniderstine , a "developer advocate engineer" at Spotify, Nelson is very much a version one release on Glitch. It's an internal project that feels more like a toy than an exact tool or proper feature. Still, it's a blast to goof around with, and the playlists it creates appear right in your Spotify app, if you choose to do so. I clicked "Ambient," "Disco," "Electronic" and "Happy" and got a playlist that started with Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music." It's a happy disco song, for su...