Geek News

Blackmagic Design has unveiled a new version of its Pocket Cinema Camera, and this one comes with some major improvements for 4K video. First and foremost, the new Pocket Cinema Camera 4K can actually shoot in 4K, unlike the original version , which was limited to 1080p. Like its predecessor, the new model can capture that footage in 10-bit ProRes or 12-bit RAW; but unlike its predecessor, it can record straight to external drives over USB-C, which is a huge advantage when recording immensely large 4K RAW files. The new version is supposed to launch later this year for $1,295 ($300 more than original). While the camera is small for a cinema camera, it’s not exactly tiny — and it’s definitely larger than the old version. This new model... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H70hyR"

People who fly small drones as a hobby may have increased regulations from the FAA if companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Ford have their way. A loophole that allows some private or occasional users to skirt past some federal restrictions may be closed and put added pressure on those who use drones recreationally. Bloomberg reported last week that the move is backed by the Commercial Drone Alliance, which has members that include Time Warner Inc. Amazon has separately supported such steps that would enforce the regulations on all drone users. Back in December, the FAA got its wish with a law that reinstated small drone registration for devices 0.55 pounds or greater, after a judge had previously struck it down in a case brought to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qh4tSY"

Animals Scientists still aren’t sure why early humans had such weird skulls—or why we don’t. It’s one of the first things you notice when you look at archaic humans in a textbook or museum. Just above the eyes rests an imposing feature, a prominent brow ridge… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2GKgNWe"

Twitter suspended the @Bitcoin Twitter account, which is run by an anonymous user, over the weekend. The account was briefly taken over by a user who claimed to be Turkish, then a user who claimed to be Russian, before apparently being restored to its previous owner Monday afternoon. “We do not comment on individual accounts so nothing to share,” a Twitter spokesperson said when asked about the suspension. “That’s some bullshit if you ask me,” the user behind @Bitcoin tweeted . “I’d like to know why my account was given to someone else, and then when it’s reinstated I’m missing 750,000 of my followers.” The @Bitcoin account had more than 821,000 followers when it was suspended. Those followers disappeared, but it appears that Twitter is s... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2IHAx99"

Ikea is bringing two speakers to the US and UK to keep those anticipating the 2019 Sonos-Ikea partnership sated. These are Ikea’s first attempts at making speakers. The Bluetooth-connected units are called the Eneby , and there are two sizes: a smaller 8 x 8-inch model and a larger 12 x 12-inch version. Customers can choose between black or gray polyester fabric on top of black or white plastic. The smaller speaker is intended to be more portable, as it comes with a handle, and you can choose to add a battery pack for up to 10 hours of battery life. The speakers have an auto-off function to save energy when they’re not in use. You can also connect a 3.5mm auxiliary cable to them if you prefer listening with devices that don’t have... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qiiobg"

In a letter obtained by The New York Times , Mark Zuckerberg responded to a group of Myanmar activists who have criticized Facebook’s handling of material meant to incite violence in the country. But the groups continue to say Facebook isn’t doing enough. Last week, Zuckerberg was interviewed by Vox ’s Ezra Klein . During the interview, Zuckerberg was asked about violence in Myanmar, where investigators say Facebook drives hate speech against the minority Rohingya population . To illustrate Facebook’s work in the country, Zuckerberg described a situation where Facebook “systems” successfully flagged attempts to spread violence. After the interview was published, Myanmar civil society groups released an open letter addressed to Zuckerberg,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qnEngu"

PayPal is looking to expand into something closer to a real bank, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal . It’s beginning to roll out more traditional banking services to customers, including ATM-compatible debit cards, direct depositing paychecks, and FDIC insurance. How PayPal can actually do this is fascinating since it doesn’t actually have a banking license in the US. According to The Wall Street Journal , the company is getting around that by quietly partnering with several small banks that can provide those services. So behind the scenes, it’s not PayPal running these services, but a Delaware bank handles debit cards, a bank in Georgia deposits checks that users take pictures of, and banks in Utah offer loans to customers... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2IHlnkx"

ZTE was probably thinking “two is always better than one” when designing its new concept phone, and deciding to add two notches. The ZTE Iceberg, as it’s referred to, has a notch on the top and bottom, according to renders shared by WinFuture , leaving the rest as an edge-to-edge display. The bottom notch contains the phone’s front-facing speaker, while the top notch contains a selfie camera, a sensor for ambient light, and an earpiece for phone calls. ZTE doesn’t stop the experiment there. Weirdly enough, the Iceberg also has raised edges of glass on each corner that give the phone a more angular look than the typical smartphone. It makes the phone look a little like it belongs in a museum as a futuristic artifact or like it’s encased... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Ho3urB"

A powerful activist investor group called for Mark Zuckerberg to step down in a statement today, citing new admissions of irresponsibility in the CEO’s planned testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee . “Mark Zuckerberg’s prepared testimony highlights a simple fact: He doesn’t understand how a large, global and publicly-held company is run,” Open MIC CEO Michael Connor said in a statement. “He currently has two jobs at Facebook — CEO and Chairman of the Board. It’s time for him to give up at least one, if not both, titles.” “It is long past time for Facebook to separate the roles of company CEO and Chairman,” Connor continued, “and for Mark Zuckerberg to resign or be fired.” While Open MIC does not hold any Facebook shares, it... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2HmjGcN"

Apple announced today that it’s business is now powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources. The news is a major victory the iPhone maker has been working toward for years through the purchase of green energy bonds and other renewable investments in its supply chain and physical infrastructure. The company’s last milestone, announced two years ago , was 93 percent of its worldwide operations running on clean energy. The announcement comes just one week after Google announced that it now purchases enough renewable energy to offset its global energy consumption . That’s a key difference. Apple is saying here that it is not simply offsetting its energy use by purchasing so-called Renewable Energy Certificates , or RECs, like Google does. ... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qiUA6w"

Animals Evolution is too complicated to plot out like a family tree. Gray, blue, big, bigger: baleen whales put the mega in “megafauna.” In a new study, researchers discuss the whole-genome sequencing of several species of baleen whale,… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2GM7ZyU"

Facebook is currently facing hard questions about how it handles user information, but most of the discussion has focused on the social network itself. Facebook owns plenty of other apps and services — including the Oculus virtual reality platform, which (like all VR platforms) collects incredibly detailed information about where users are looking and how they’re moving. VR headsets have a clear potential for surveillance and data harvesting, and Facebook has a bad track record regarding protecting privacy. So what exactly is the link between Oculus and Facebook as far as user privacy is concerned? A VR platform like Oculus offers lots of data points that could be turned into a detailed user profile. Facebook already records a “heatmap”... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Hr6ymR"

Technology Facebook's continuing drama, the fanciest Chromebook around, and more. Be sure to download the latest edition of our podcast! via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2qeHMyU"

Mobile game show HQ Trivia today announced a few new in-app social features designed to make the game more enjoyable with friends. While the app has brought co-workers, family members, and friend groups together in real life, not everyone has a core group to play with at the 3PM and 9PM match times, at least not every day. So HQ is adding a new feature called “Friends on HQ,” launching today in the UK with a US launch soon, to let you connect with friends, see who’s actively playing in any given game, and compare high scores and wins. According to TechCrunch , an HQ spokesperson says “this update forms the basis of a variety of new features that HQ will be rolling out soon, leveraging friends’ connections.” We don’t know what form those... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2ExMg7O"

Zuck gets grilled Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qkXZBN"

After 18 months of cascading scandals, and under mounting pressure to address data privacy in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress for the first time this week. On Tuesday, the Facebook CEO will appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees. The next day, he’ll face the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In prepared testimony , Zuckerberg apologizes for neglecting to address abuses of the platform, including fake news, the 2016 Russian misinformation campaign, hate speech, and data leaks. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” he said in his prepared remarks. “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2uZF0Cn"

Western Digital has made three external SSDs for video creators dealing with large files. Most of these are business-facing video storage drives, given the steep prices and amount of storage. The three new drives all support high transfer speeds and have huge amounts of storage (up to 16TB). The drives are meant to give video producers faster upload speeds of up to 2800MB/s so they can better deal with large 4K and 8K RAW files, which take up a lot of space and are usually slow to upload. The first one, G-Drive Mobile Pro SSD, lets you edit 8K video at high frame rates and in full resolution. Western Digital claims that with the G-Drive, you can “transfer as much as a terabyte of media in seven minutes or less.” It’s also built for... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GOGvZm"

Microsoft has unveiled its latest research project today, Project Zanzibar. It’s a smart mat that’s designed to blend the digital and physical worlds by sensing touch, gestures, and objects. A team of researchers, with a love of toys, created the project at Microsoft’s research labs in the UK. The mat folds and combines sensing, near field communication (NFC), and multi-touch to imagine a future where you could place objects on this smart mat and play games. Microsoft’s video (above) demonstrates a number of different games that track the position, movement, and orientation of objects — all thanks to NFC stickers. The smart mat, that reminds me of the Surface Music Cover , can even detect inputs like button presses, and works with... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2EwC9An"

Mark Zuckerberg’s prepared testimony for Wednesday’s Congressional hearing has been posted online. The seven-page statement starts with an apology from Zuckerberg, who says Facebook failed to take a broad enough view of its responsibilities. “That was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” he says. “I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.” Zuckerberg will be testifying before the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce on Wednesday, after he faces another hearing in the Senate on Tuesday. This testimony covers a lot of familiar ground, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the Russia-linked Internet Research Agency’s misinformation campaign . As Josh Constine at T... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qdXMkD"

Dwayne Johnson will host a game of HQ on Wednesday with a prize pot of $300,000. That’s the largest amount of money the trivia game has offered up yet. The Rock will take on guest hosting duties as he continues the press tour for his upcoming film Rampage , which hits theaters on April 20th. Johnson will be hosting the afternoon game. He’ll be joined by regular host Scott Rogowsky, according to People , so The Rock will have some backup if HQ runs into technical issues from the deluge of players. HQ still attracts millions of players each week, but this is certainly going to be a bit more popular than the typical 3PM game. Rampage is loosely based on the 1980s Midway arcade game — to the extent that you can actually base something off of... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H64McP"

Facebook has started notifying millions of users that were affected by the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. As many as 87 million Facebook users had their information improperly obtained and used , and it has taken Facebook nearly three years to notify its users of the privacy problems that were first uncovered in 2015. Facebook is now displaying a link at the top of the News Feed today, pointing users to remove apps they no longer need. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that “the notification is rolling out over the course of today.” If your data was improperly obtained, Facebook will share a “how you’re affected” link, and explain that a website a Facebook friend may have used was able to steal Facebook information and... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2qiPlnj"

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Technology Toddler smarts will drive AI innovation. Toddler smarts will drive AI innovation. Psychologist Alison Gopnik's work inspires automous carmakers to think young. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2GJfTco"

The Huawei P20 Pro is making its way into the world, which means it’s time for the requisite iFixit teardown so we can see what makes Huawei’s latest flagship tick. While most of it is pretty standard stuff, there are a few surprises, including the fact that the triple-lens camera setup has more optical image stabilization than we originally thought. According to Huawei, only the 8-megapixel telephoto lens officially has hardware OIS, but, as seen in the teardown, all three lenses seem to have the stabilizing hardware on board, which is a nice bonus. It’s a little weird that Huawei — which is touting the camera as one of the major innovations of the P20 Pro — would be underselling its camera here since it seems to have all the hardware... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H8e7kg"

Science Who owns the bones? For too long scientists failed to ask basic ethical questions: Who should control collections of human remains? What are the positive and negative consequences of… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2Ho5j7W"