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The Academy Awards take place this Sunday and if you're an Oscar fan who can't get enough behind-the-scenes looks, Facebook has you covered. As Variety reports, Facebook will once again be the only social network to live-stream "The Oscars: All Access," which includes red carpet and backstage views as well as interviews with presenters, nominees and performers. The show will begin at 6:30 PM Eastern/3:30 PM Pacific and will stream on the Facebook pages of both ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. You can also catch it on Oscar.com and ABCNews.com. Sofia Carson ( Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists , Descendants ), Wesam Keesh ( For the People , Awkward. ) and commentators Chris Connelly, Ben Lyons and Adnan Virk will host "The Oscars: All Access." You can also check out more coverage over on Instagram where Tom Holland ( Avengers: Infinity War , Spider-Man: Homecoming ) will be taking over Stories on Instagram's official a...

With the advent of more powerful software and controllers , modern DJs really don't need to learn as much about spinning tracks as they used to. Now beginners are treated to automated cues, loops and beat matching software that take some of the art out of DJing. The latest bit of automation comes from Pioneer and its $249 DDJ-SB3 DJ controller. The unit adds a Pad Scratch feature that gives aspiring club monsters the ability to imitate eight different scratch techniques that were recorded by DJ Jazzy Jeff . Whatever track you're playing, the scratch will automatically match up with the right tempo with a simple tap on a performance pad. The DDJ-SB3 is an update to Pioneer's previous DDJ-SB2, a popular portable professional controller. The new interface takes its cues from the higher-end DDJ-S series, like the dedicated play and cue buttons as well as an independent auto loop button. The controller is designed to work with Serato DJ Lite , the free consumer-level versio...

Microsoft today detailed its upcoming Xbox spring update , which is available now for those who are part of the Xbox Insider’s “alpha ring” group. The most notable addition in the update is support for 1440p video output, which is a popular resolution choice for PC gamers who prefer to keep high frame rates instead of prioritizing 4K visuals. With 1440p support on Xbox One S and X, those with compatible monitors should be to make the most out of 2560 x 1440, or “QHD,” displays. Part of the update also includes new interactive features for Microsoft’s Twitch competitor Mixer, which Microsoft relaunched last year after rebranding the service Beam it acquired in 2016. Now, Mixer streamers broadcasting on Xbox One will be able to share their... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FN545z"

In January, Strava came under fire for its activity heat map, which showed the locations of military bases in places like Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. You could even see details like user routes named "Base Perimeter" and "Sniper Alley" near US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Strava did offer the option for its users to opt out of its heat map data collection, many pointed out that doing so required some navigation through the app and was a process that wasn't very straightforward . But Strava recently updated its app and has quietly changed the opt-out process. Strava's app now includes a simple option for opting out of heatmaps. 🤷‍♂️ All your base are no longer belong to Strava. https://t.co/IvlpKnoeCP pic.twitter.com/jzjU3ETlUo — Matt Cagle (@Matt_Cagle) February 28, 2018 Spotted by ACLU attorney Matt Cagle, Strava now includes the option to hide data from its heat map feature on the first page of its privacy settings tab. The change wa...

Technology The FCC voted to repeal net neutrality. This is what that means. The vote to repeal net neutrality is over and the internet lost. What happens now? via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2kuoUYZ"

Earlier this month, a federal judge had dismissed a lawsuit that Playboy brought against Boing Boing , stating that the court is "skeptical that plaintiff has sufficiently alleged facts to support either its inducement or material contribution theories of copyright infringement." Yesterday, Playboy released a statement that it won't refile the case. It all started last November, when Playboy sued Boing Boing after the online outlet published a link to an Imgur gallery entitled "Every Playboy Playmate Centerfold Ever" (The gallery has since been taken down). Boing Boing was not responsible for any of the content; all it did was link to it. But Playboy had sued it anyway, accusing it for profiting from those unauthorized images. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented Boing Boing in this case, said at the time that Boing Boing 's reporting of the Playboy photos is protected by copyright's fair use doctrine. EFF Senior Staff Attorney D...

AT&T changed the cost of its single-line, unlimited data plans today by simultaneously raising and lowering prices, according to Ars Technina . The telecom’s Unlimited Choice plan is going up to $65 from $60, and its Unlimited Plus Enhanced plan is dropping to $80 from $90. Family plan prices went up $5. Both plans have existed for nearly a year now, and the pricing adjustment comes with some changes to service. Ars reports that the cheaper Unlimited Choice Enhanced plan used to limit internet speeds to 3Mbps and video streaming to 1.5Mbps. Now, the 3Mbps limit doesn’t exist, although these customers will get slower speeds if the network is congested. The limit still exists if customers stay on their original Unlimited Choice plan,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2oBF7ye"

A variety of potential actions have been discussed to limit school violence in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL last month, from the uninspired option of raising the minimum age of potential gun-buyers to President Trump's controversial suggestion of arming teachers. But a familiar target for blame appears to be on the mind of the president, as well. In today's White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Saunders said that Trump would soon meet with "members of the video game industry" to see what could be discussed around "protect[ing] schools around the country." NEW: President Trump to meet with video game industry executives next week as part of ongoing debate over school safety. — Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) March 1, 2018 This sounds strangely like the discussion that came up following the Columbine high school shootings in 1999; violent video games and heavy metal music were both seen a...

Amazon has been quietly rolling out a new program over the past few months where delivery people will use photos to confirm your package has been delivered. The photo of exactly where the package has been placed will be included in the notice of delivery so Amazon users know when it arrived and where it is, as first spotted by USA Today . Sometimes an Amazon package can be misplaced or stolen, and Amazon’s refund policy means customers can request a duplicate of the original order. With the new Amazon Logistics Photo On Delivery program, the company would now be able to check if drivers successfully delivered the package and customers would know exactly where to find it. “Amazon Logistics Photo On Delivery provides visual delivery... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2oGWGfq"

Space NASA’s new weather satellite will show us wildfires and storms in insane detail. At 5:02 PM eastern time on March 1, NASA is scheduled to launch the GOES-S satellite, with the capability to monitor the weather of the United States in incredible… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2oA33C8"

If you've been irritated by the increase of commercials into primetime programming, you're not alone. Now, NBCUniversal is doing something about it across its networks. The company is cutting back on primetime advertising during original programming. The number of ads in a commercial break will be reduced by 20 percent, while the amount of ad time in a given show will decrease by 10 percent, according to Variety . This follows from an experiment NBC did with Saturday Night Live starting in 2016, when it cut the show's ad load by 30 percent; while the company didn't make clear exactly why it was cutting advertisements during the show, we speculated that it was to attract millennial viewers who have become accustomed to the Netflix model. It's easy to fire up YouTube the day after SNL to watch the best sketches, after all. What NBC found was that Saturday Night Live 's ratings went up, and as a result the company was able to charge more for fewer ads. Now th...

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here . Tile Sport Bluetooth Tracker 4-pack Street Price: $100; Deal Price: $75 If you're interested in grabbing some Bluetooth trackers at a discount, today is a great day to do so. The Tile Sport (or the internally identical but outwardly white and gold-trimmed Style) is usually around $30 on its own and $100 in a pack of 4. Right now, however, you can get a 4-pack of Tile Sports for $75, a tremendous discount that effectively gets you a price of just under $19 per tracker. Alternatively, if you want a mixed pack of Tile Sports and Styles (2 of each), that's also $75. Both are excellent deals, good this week or while stock lasts. The Tile Sport & Style Bluetooth Trackers are our top pick in our guide to the best Bluetooth tracker ....

Did you like the idea of Facebook splitting your News Feed into two? No? You're not the only one. Facebook has ended its Explore Feed test after user surveys indicated it wasn't popular. Explore was supposed to help you see more of your friends and family by sending Pages (such as companies and celebrities) to a separate feed, but users weren't happy with the results. They weren't as satisfied with the posts they did see, Facebook said, and it didn't actually help them connect with their social circle. It won't surprise you to learn what Facebook is doing instead: the company is counting on its recent refocusing of the News Feed to please those who want to see more from their friends. The company is also planning to refine the tests themselves, doing more to both choose test areas and tell you what's happening with those experiments. Facebook regularly conducts tests like this, and there's never a guarantee that a feature will make the cut. Howeve...

Well-known leaker Evan Blass has given us a look at Huawei's upcoming P20 and P20 Lite smartphones, but now we appear to have access to some of the latter's specs thanks to Vodafone, which accidentally published them in its March catalog. Spotted by our pals over at Engadget Spain , the catalog says the phone will run on Android 8.0 and will have a 5.84-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a 3,000 mAh battery. It will also have a dual rear camera with 16- and 2-megapixel sensors as well as a 16-megapixel front-facing camera, according to Vodafone. The image included with Vodafone's P20 Lite listing doesn't appear to actually be the P20 Lite. But according to images snagged by Evan Blass , it will have a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and a notch in the front to hold the camera system. Vodafone lists black and blue color options and has it priced at €369 (approximately $450). Huawei is holding a P20 launch event on March 27th, so we'll be abl...

Chrome Music Lab has launched a new music creation tool called Song Maker . A browser-based experience, Song Maker is a sequencer that allows you to program loops for two different instruments of your choosing, then save it or send to someone else for collaboration. Google Creative Lab launched Chrome Music Lab in 2016. A series of web-based experiments, each Chrome Music Lab installment let you play around with music and sound in a different way. This includes Oscillators , which has you squish and stretch a cute character to learn about frequency values, and Sound Waves , which shows a visual representation of how sound vibrations travel through the air. Song Maker is a tad more complex, but is still very straightforward and foolproof. It... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2CR0P5P"

Technology Find the best way to use Twitter from your Mac. We try some of the highest-rated methods for using Twitter on a Mac. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2FKq8tq"

7.10: ==== * Enabled Dark Willow in Captain's Mode * Bounty Rune base gold bounty increased from 50 to 60 (affects runes after the first one) * Bounty Rune no longer gives XP. Previously gave 0 at the start and increased by 7 per minute. * Tome of Knowledge XP bonus increased from 500 to 700 * Melee Creeps gold bounty reduced by 1 (reduced from 41 to 40) * Randoming now gives a Faerie Fire instead of a branch * Bonus hero count increased from 10 to 12 * Aeon Disk: Cooldown reduced from 100 to 90 * Boots of Speed: Cost increased from 400 to 500 * Boots of Speed: Movement bonus increased from 40 to 50 * Phase Boots: Movement bonus increased from 45 to 50 * Power Treads: Movement bonus increased from 45 to 50 * Animal Courier: Flying Courier movement speed increased from 450 to 460 * Monkey King Bar: Added a sound effect for successful procs * Soul Ring: Health cost increased from 150 to 170 * Abaddon: Level 15 Talent increased from +50 Mist Coil Heal/...

The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's successor to Hubble, has undergone its share of delays . Now, things are getting even tighter. A report from the US Government Accountability Office finds that because of ongoing technical issues with the telescope, "additional launch delays are likely." What's more, the project is "at risk of breaching its $8 billion cost cap for formulation and development set by Congress in 2011." It's safe to say this isn't good news. Nothing is certain yet, but in September, NASA pushed the launch date of the telescope back to between March and June of 2019. Now, it looks unclear whether that goal can be met. The 31-page long report details myriad technical issues that have put the project behind schedule. The contractor, Northrop Grumman, is trying to catch up but "the contractor has increased its daily work shifts from two to three and is now working 24 hours per day on spacecraft integration, which further limit...

Space It’s time to return to our hellish neighbor. Researchers say studying Venus, which may have once been habitable, could help us understand what makes Earth—and other planets like it—livable. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2ozzL6K"

Come May 25th you'll be able to explore David Cage's vision of the Motor City in Detroit: Become Human . When the game debuted in 2015 , there wasn't even a release window, but with each successive trade show, the game's path toward your home became a little clearer. Last fall , Sony said the game would be out sometime this spring. Well, May is definitely in that window. What isn't? Spider-Man , which now seems likely to be one of Sony's AAA tentpoles for this autumn. If a choose-your-own-adventure tale replete with permadeath and a story about humanity's decline is a bit heady for you this time of year, there's always God of War which will be released on April 20th. Source: PS Blog via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2F8b5bS"

Google Assistant-enabled devices now support August DoorSense, the smart lock company’s smart integrated sensor. Now if a user has DoorSense installed, they can check with Google Assistant whether their door is closed and locked. Users can now use voice commands with the August Smart Lock and Smart Lock Pro through the Google Assistant on select Android devices, the Google Assistant app on iOS, Google Home, and other wearables. To enable it, their August Lock must be connected to Wi-Fi through an August Connect Wi-Fi Bridge or an August Doorbell Camera. Previously, users would have to include “Ask August” in their requests to lock their front door or check if the door was locked — the language has now been simplified to just, “Hey... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2t9wrUs"

GitHub, a web-based code distribution and version control service, survived a massive denial of service attack on Wednesday. According to a report at Wired , a staggering 1.35 terabits per second (Tbps) of traffic hit the site at once. Within 10 minutes the company called for help from a DDoS mitigation service similar to Google's Project Shield , Akamai's Prolexic , which took over to filter and weed out malicious traffic packets. The attack, says Wired , ended after eight minutes. This may have been the largest DDoS attack ever; Wired notes the attack on domain name server Dyn in late 2016 reached 1.2 Tbps of traffic. The attack was apparently conducted via a non-bot technique called an amplification attack. These use memcached database systems, says Wired , that can be queried by anyone. Attackers spoof the IP of their target and send small requests to the memcached databases, which then send a massive amount of traffic to the target system, like GitHub in this case. T...

In January, the popular fitness app Strava ran into controversy over a global activities heat map so detailed it revealed clandestine military bases . To make matters worse, the path to opt out of the feature was not simple and required several clicks within the app. The company has, however, since made a design change to make the opt-out feature more prominent. Rather than requiring multiple clicks, a toggle for the heat map is now visible on the first page of privacy settings. (The change appears to still require an opt-out, rather than an opt-in.) ACLU attorney Matt Cagle noticed the tweak. Strava‘s app now includes a simple option for opting out of heatmaps. ‍♂️ All your base are no longer belong to Strava. https://t.co/IvlpKnoeCP... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2F5NeO5"