Geek News

Netflix is determined to cement its place in the talk show landscape . The streaming service has unveiled plans for a weekly late-night show hosted by Michelle Wolf, a contributor to the Daily Show and a veteran comedienne. While the half-hour program doesn't even have a title yet, it won't be limited to politics and will include the risqué humor "we couldn't do on TV," according to Wolf. The series will debut sometime later in 2018. This definitely isn't Netflix's first fling with talk shows -- it launched Chelsea Handler's series in May 2016, and it's hard to escape the marketing blitz for David Letterman's show. However, it illustrates Netflix's desire to compete directly with the conventional talk show circuit by recruiting its stars. It also highlights a potential weak point for TV networks like Comedy Central. While it's nothing new for comedy contributors to jump at chances to host their own shows (see John Oliver and Saman...

Facebook may be downplaying news in your actual News Feed , but its Watch team is headed in the opposite direction. The social network has announced that it's creating a section in Watch that will feature breaking news stories. News partnership lead Campbell Brown didn't say when it would launch or which outlets would show up, but it recently said the News Feed would prioritize local stories . The Watch tab could easily follow suit. There are a few reasons why Facebook might push news videos even as it reduces its emphasis on shared articles. First and foremost, of course, is money. While you may not see many original news pieces on Watch (which would give Facebook a 45 percent cut of ad revenue), this could keep many people on Facebook and thus viewing ads. When Snapchat and YouTube are big news sources for some users, Facebook might not want to risk ceding any ground. There's also a chance that this could filter out some fake news, although bogus videos certainly aren...

LG will unveil a new version of its flagship phone, the V30 , at the annual Mobile World Congress this year -- and as the rumors said , it'll have an AI-powered camera. The Korean company has developed "Vision AI" to make the phone's camera smarter and easier to use. Vision AI can automatically analyze what you're taking a photo of and can recommend the best shooting mode among the eight (portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise and sunset) available. It can take the object's angle and color, any reflection in the surroundings, as well as the lighting and saturation levels into account to conjure up the best image possible. The AI also has a handful of shopping capabilities. It can do an image search or scan QR codes to show you where you can purchase the item you're taking a picture of (along with similar products) for the lowest price. In addition, Vision AI will measure the brightness of the actual image you're capturing with your ph...

Twitter is continuing to act on its promise to fight hate speech , however imperfectly. The site has banned Wisconsin Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen after he posted a racist image that placed the face of Cheddar Man (a dark-skinned British ancestor) over actress and soon-to-be-royal Meghan Markle, who's mixed race. The company said it didn't normally comment on individual accounts, but said the permanent suspension was due to "repeated violations" of its terms of service. Nehlen, who's hoping to unseat Paul Ryan in the 2018 mid-term elections, has a long history of overtly expressing his racist views. Twitter suspended him for a week in January over anti-Semitic comments, and he has regularly promoted white supremacist ideology. In private, he used direct message groups to coordinate harassment campaigns. Breitbart supported Nehlen's ultimately unsuccessful run against Ryan in 2016, but distanced itself from him in December 2017. The candidate hadn...

LG says that it'll be showing off “the first of a suite of AI technologies” on a new version of the V30 at Mobile World Congress this month, seemingly confirming a recent rumor out of Korea. ET News reported last week that a new phone called the V30s is set for an MWC reveal and will feature AI-powered camera features. That is pretty much what LG has announced today. The AI tech is going to feature on “the 2018 version of the LG V30,” and is indeed initially focused on image recognition. LG calls this Vision AI — it involves automatic image analysis for shooting mode recommendations (like Huawei did with its Kirin 970 chip on the Mate 10 ) along with object recognition and shopping suggestions (like Google did with Lens on the Pixel... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sq5AU1"

After introducing Keurig-like pods for brewing beer at home, PicoBrew is back with a more traditional all-grain setup. The new Z Series allows brewers to use their own loose grains and hops instead of the company's own pre-packed ingredients. There are also four models, from 2.5 gallons up to 10 gallons -- each one increases brew capacity by 2.5 gallons. Like the Zymatic these units replace, PicoBrew designed these devices for pros, especially since a 5, 7.5 or 10 gallon batch would be enough to put on tap in a tasting room -- for pilot batches, at least. However, experienced homebrewers can also use their expertise for the Z Series. Like all of PicoBrew's devices, the Z Series centers on a clear drawer that holds all of your grains and hops. Add your ingredients, select the recipe and hit start. The machine does all the heavy lifting with a connected brew keg that acts as both boil kettle and fermentation vessel. As long as you've input your recipe correctly (or select...

A German court ruled that Facebook’s real name policy is illegal and that users must be allowed to sign up for the service under pseudonyms to comply with a decade-old privacy law. The ruling, made last month but only now being announced, comes from the Berlin Regional Court and was detailed today by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (abbreviated from German as VZBV), which filed the lawsuit against Facebook. Facebook says it will appeal the ruling, but also that it will make changes to comply with European Union privacy laws coming into effect in June, according to Reuters . “We are working hard to ensure that our guidelines are clear and easy to understand, and that the services offered by Facebook are in full accordance... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2o059Kk"

Huawei’s new flagship phone, the Mate 10 Pro, is available for pre-order in the US despite not having any deals with US carriers — so to get some attention, it seems the company has stooped to having fake reviews for the new phone planted online, as spotted by 9 to5Google . The fake reviews, which are exclusively on the Best Buy website, are likely the result of a contest Huawei ran on Facebook. On January 31st, the company posted to a Facebook group with over 60,000 members, asking for people to leave comments on the Best Buy pre-sale page in exchange for a chance to beta test a Mate 10 Pro. The original post has been deleted, but 9to5Google obtained a screenshot before it went down. “Tell us how to why (sic) you WANT to own the Mate 10... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2o34BDt"

We hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight. Boston Dynamics has posted a video showing that its SpotMini robot can hold the door open for its fellow automatons. If one bot needs a helping hand, it'll signal to another machine nearby that can pry the door open and let it through. It's very polite... and more than a little unsettling, especially since it's not clear they'll extend the same courtesy to humans. At least the robots will have manners when they take over. If you're a tad more trusting, this is good news. Robots have typically only had limited cooperation with each other, and this hints at more advanced team-ups where robots can supplement each others' abilities and accomplish more than they would by themselves. That could be helpful for search and rescue missions, or any situation where it would be impractical to equip every robot with the same features. It's a positive move -- so long as the robots remain friendly. Source: Bost...

Our current methods of fighting malignant tumors are wildly inadequate. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments, while sometimes successful, come with massive side effects, mainly because every other cell in the body is also getting bombarded with chemicals and radiation even though the main targets are the tumor cells. Finding a way to specifically target tumor cells while leaving healthy cells alone is something that many researchers are working towards and a new study out today demonstrates that nanorobots made out of DNA could be an effective option. The research team took DNA from a virus and turned it into a sort of DNA sheet. That sheet was then loaded with an enzyme called thrombin -- a chemical that can clot blood -- and the sheet was then rolled into a tube, with the thrombin kept protected inside. To the ends of that DNA tube, the researchers attached small bits of DNA that specifically bind to a molecule found in tumor cells, and they served as a kind of guide for the DN...

When you’re slicing your pie charts and adding up your spreadsheets, do you ever take a step back from your standing desk and ask yourself, “Am I getting enough Turbo time?” Vaio knows that feeling. That’s why its new Vaio S spec bump ( as seen on AnandTech ) was designed specifically to maximize how much Turbo you’re getting. The business laptop is mostly unchanged from last year’s model — the VGA port is still hanging on, and USB-C is still absent — but the internals have been bumped up to the latest 8th gen Intel processors. As fun it is to say “Turbo time,” Vaio is actually very serious about this technology, which it dubs “ Vaio TruePerformance .” Basically, it builds on Intel’s Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, which allows for bursts of... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sn328W"

Environment The carnivorous plants mostly feast on ground critters like spiders and ants. Venus Flytraps have a healthy appetite for a medley of insects, and sometimes even slugs—but they don't eat the bugs that help them reproduce. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2Em2fL3"

Technology They felt the need for speed. The key piece of equipment at the San Diego Wind Tunnel is a 20-foot fan, powered by a 2,250 horsepower motor, that accelerates air up to 270 miles per hour. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2EyjsjV"

Almost a year ago, Blumhouse Productions -- the studio that followed the wild success of Paranormal Activity with hits like Insidious , Whiplash , Split and Get Out -- secured the film rights for the video game Five Nights At Freddy's . Today, the company announced who'd be helming the movie adaptation, and it's...Chris Columbus, best known for directing Home Alone , Home Alone 2 , Mrs. Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter films. Five Nights At Freddy's is a horror game franchise following nighttime employees trying to survive Chuck E. Cheese-style enterprises where animatronic robots run amok trying to murder the player. It's a weird fit for Columbus, who's most known for tame films about families and magic. True, Columbus has had a broad career in Hollywood beyond just kid-friendly films: He wrote Gremlins and The Goonies , directed Adventures in Babysitting and the film version of the Broadway hit Rent , and produced The Help and The Witch ...

When you send an emoji to a friend, you want it to convey the same information. For example, if you sent a "rolling eyes" emoji to a buddy using a Samsung phone, they might not pick up what you're laying down. That's because 2017's "rolling eyes" emoji looks more like a happy face with eyebrows and a smirk. Luckily, the new Samsung Experience 9.0 (set to release as part of the Android Oreo update for Galaxy S8 users) has tweaked quite a few emoji, including the eye-rolling one, to bring them all more in line with other platform's representations of the Unicode characters. As noted on the Emojipedia blog, the Face Screaming in Fear will now look more like the painting by Edvard Munch instead of the weird anime-thing that Samsung had last year. In addition, the dancing woman emoji will look more like a woman doing the tango than a kid stomping in her sneakers. The man dancing emoji also loses the sneaker outfit and gains a purple disco-style jum...

Instagram is borrowing another feature from Snapchat , although this is one you'll definitely appreciate if you value your privacy. The social site has confirmed to TechCrunch that it's testing a screenshot warning system for Stories. If you're in, you'll get a notice that Story creators can see the screenshots you take. You won't get an alert with each screenshot when you're the creator, but you will see that people took screenshots when looking at your viewer list. There's no word on whether or not this will be a widely available feature. That likely depends on how the warnings affect habits. It might back away if it notices that many users stop watching, for example. If this does roll out, however, it could encourage Story creation among those who'd otherwise hesitate to hit the record button. Stories on services like Instagram or Snapchat are alluring in part because you can share moments from your day without leaving a permanent public record....

The ZenFone 4 from Asus launched in North America just a few months ago, but the ZenFone 5 sequel is already leaking out. Evan Blass just dropped a few photos and specs of the upcoming ZenFone 5 Lite on Twitter (as spotted by Android Police ). Most notably, the phone has a quad-camera setup: two 20MP sensors in the front, and two 16MP sensors in the back. Dual selfie cameras are crowding into the mid-tier Android phone space. While flagship phones are content with fancy software (Google) and exotic sensors (Apple) to get interesting selfie results, Samsung’s A8 , Oppo’s F3 , Vivo’s X9s , and Huawei’s Honor 9 Lite are all dual selfie camera phones that have been announced in the past year. The big question is if Asus will be able to build... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sx8eHF"

Blizzard has a habit of seasonally opening up its hero shooter Overwatch for everyone to try every couple months, typically just after it announces a new hero , event or map . Fittingly, the publisher announced that new PC, PS4 and Xbox One players can try out the game for free next weekend to get a taste of the just- launched Lunar New Year seasonal event. HEROES WANTED! Play Overwatch FREE Feb 16–19 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. 💻 🎮 https://t.co/Pq264DygsZ pic.twitter.com/dw31d2Z2Do — Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) February 12, 2018 In addition to snagging the event's temporarily-available skins, new players can try out the newly-tweaked Capture The Flag the Thailand-inspired map made for the mode. They'll also get to toy with the still-fresh amusement park-themed Blizzard World. Those who are coming back to Overwatch can scan the game's patch notes to skim hero changes (e.g. Junkrat and Mercy both got slight ability nerfs on January 30th). And fina...

When people speculate about a future in which we all give up on interpersonal relationships to shack up with robots I usually think, “Ah yes, another misanthrope who overestimates the capacity of machines to mimic the depth human feeling.” But today, I read an AI-generated love heart that said, “LOVE 2000 HOGS YEA,” and I’m reconsidering everything I thought I knew about romance. “LOVE 2000 HOGS YEA” is just the start, too. If that doesn’t float your boat, how about the soon-to-be-timeless “HOW U HOT,” or the overwhelming power of “STANK LOVE” (which also happens to be an actual Outkast song with the lyrics “Stank love, stank love, stank love, stank love / Let me show your mind a new freaky side of love”). I mean, whether you prefer the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2G6Nvw6"

DIY Plunge downhill as fast as you can. Everybody, Olympian or not, enjoys sledding. Even if you can't reach a luge athlete's speed, you can follow these tips to fly downhill as quickly as possible. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2EkjvMM"

The most rewarding YouTube upload notification I ever opted into, without exception, is for the Boston Dynamics channel. With each semi-monthly notification ping comes a video of some new way that the SoftBank-owned company’s robots can either terrify or delight the masses. Today’s upload is a mix of both because the adorable version of the SpotMini — the updated dog-like quadruped unveiled in November — is back, and this time around it’s learned how to open (and hold!) doors. We’ve seen Boston Dynamics robots open doors before, but this egress is different. Outfitted with an articulating arm and clamp similar to the one it used to wash dishes in the original video , we see the new SpotMini locate, recognize, and deftly operate a door... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2EznqIW"

Netflix might make headlines for securing its latest show, but its documentaries have been powerhouses in their own right; Last year, The White Helmets won the streaming service its first Academy Award. But the company is just as open to securing non-fiction content from other providers. On March 23rd, Netflix subscribers outside the US and Canada can watch The Defiant Ones , the HBO documentary miniseries chronicling Dr. Dre's and Jimmy Iovine's decades-long partnership. Yes, excluding the US and Canada: Netflix's announcement made it clear that it's launching the miniseries everywhere else next month. The four-episode series originally aired on HBO last July as an epic chronicle of both men's careers and collaboration amid the rise of gangsta rap in the late 80s, the growth of the music industry in the 90s and its fall to Napster-style internet sharing, and finally, Apple's multibillion-dollar acquisition of Beats by Dre in 2014. Whether Netflix will a...

Google’s Pixel Buds were only available in the US and Canada when they first launched last fall, and now they’re making their way to Australia , Germany , and the United Kingdom , via Android Police . As noted in our review, they’re not the best wireless headphones out there , although the Google Assistant integration is still top notch, even if the open-air design and poor fit options aren’t for everyone. The Pixel Buds are available now from the online Google Store in the three new countries. They’ll set you back $249 AUD in Australia, €179 in Germany, or £159 in the UK, all of which work out to be between $195 to $220 after exchange rates, which is far more expensive than the $159 price tag that Google charges in the US. Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2nWeHa3"

Andy Rubin's Essential Phone found its way into our best-of lists this holiday season and had a couple of great price drops , including a $399 Cyber Monday deal. Still, the phone doesn't seem to be doing very well. According to a tweet from IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo, the phone sold less than 90,000 units in the first six months after it launched. . @Arubin 's @essential smartphone is still a long way from becoming a successful venture. In 2017, it shipped less than 90K units (first six months after launch) pic.twitter.com/NHVlA2Gjzr — Francisco Jeronimo (@fjeronimo) February 12, 2018 Even if Essential had sold twice or three times as many phones, it would still be a long way off from disrupting Samsung or Apple dominance in the market, with the latter company selling over 1 million iPhone 8s and Xs per day according to Forbes . Of course, this is a startup and Essential Phone is its first product. No one expects Apple-level shipments right away. St...

Amazon has started designing a custom artificial intelligence chip that would power future Echo devices and improve the quality and response time of its Alexa voice assistant, according to a report today from The Information . The move closely follows rivals Apple and Google, both of which have already developed and deployed custom AI hardware at various scales. AI tasks, because they are so computationally intensive, often need custom-designed chips for the devices themselves and even custom-designed servers for data centers where AI algorithms are often trained, developed, and deployed from the cloud. While Amazon is unlikely to physically produce the chips, given its lack of both fabrication experience and a manufacturing presence in... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2o4yyD8"