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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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"

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...

The official emoji catalog accounts for all kinds of relationships, including same-sex couples and families, but it doesn't reflect interracial couples -- isn't that an odd omission in 2018? Tinder thinks so. The dating site has launched a campaign to officially add interracial couple emoji to the Unicode Consorium's character set. Online dating and interracial couples "go hand in hand," it argued, and that makes the company a prime advocate for greater diversity in chat icons. The proposal would include just one basic emoji concept (the couple with a heart between them), but the accommodation of gender and skin variations would lead to 21 combinations. If you're in a relationship, there's a good chance it would be reflected here. Tinder acknowledged that it could be "technically challenging" to include that many takes on the basic theme, but it noted that Apple, Google, Microsoft and others responsible for implementing emoji have "some...

After what seems like an eternity , Jaguar finally has pre-order information for its I-PACE crossover SUV, which looks to take on Elon Musk's Model X. The truck will be available to purchase starting today in a handful of trim options, but a delivery date wasn't available at press time. In the UK, the I-PACE starts at €63,495 or, roughly, $87,216. For context, the Model X we reviewed was priced at $132,000. The luxury automaker boasts the truck will charge from 0 - 80 percent in 85 minutes on public 50kW DC chargers, and that if you're in a hurry a half-hour charge will give you around 80 miles of range, with a total range of 480 kilometers (just over 298 miles). Speaking of charging, there's an eight-year/100,000-mile battery warranty limited to 70 percent battery health. As for the rest of the car, there's a three-year unlimited mileage warranty. The I-PACE will also work with Amazon's Alexa voice platform. You won't be able to summon the SUV with you...

Mercedes isn't new to experimenting with augmented reality , and at MWC 2018 the company showed off its latest creation with that technology. The "Vehicle Lens" app is exactly what it sounds like: It uses a smartphone to give you an AR view of a car or truck, showing vital information as you move around and point the camera at different parts of your ride. If you have it facing the wheels, for example, you see details about tire pressure. That will come in handy before taking a trip. In addition to that, Vehicle Lens can display engine info like mileage and coolant levels, how much fuel there is and personal info about drivers -- including if they've been driving for too long. In this particular case, Mercedes is touting the application as a tool for Semi truck drivers and fleet owners, but there's no reason why it couldn't also work with its consumer vehicles . The other great part about Vehicle Lens is that it uses the data it collects to make driving rec...

We've been dreaming of universal translators throughout the history of science fiction; Star Trek has only popularized the concept. As computing power and AI improves in real life, we're seeing the possibility of an actual real-time translation system become more of a reality. Products like Samsung's Bixby and Google's Pixel Buds and Assistant are early examples of the technology. Now, according to a report at Yahoo Finance , Amazon is looking to turn its ubiquitous Alexa digital assistant into a real-time universal language translator. Alexa already can translate words and short phrases from and into a variety of languages, but Yahoo's sources say that Amazon is pushing for a true multilingual assistant that can perform more complex translations. Such a system would need to be aware of cultural as well as linguistic details, as well, as most language is dependent on contextual and situational cues. Yahoo's sources also note that eventually, Alexa will be...

PicoBrew has made a name for itself with a range of beer-making appliances that promise a "set it and forget it" experience. The company covers the gamut of brewing levels, from the Zymatic (now Z Series ) for pros to the Pico Pro and Pico C for intermediate folks and beginners, respectively. While PicoBrew's entire product line offers WiFi connectivity for remote monitoring of the process, its PicoPaks make the whole process even easier by bundling all the ingredients into a simple, self-contained pod. However, as I found with the $499 Pico C , that simplicity has one big trade-off. If you're not familiar with PicoBrew's gear, every model works more or less the same. The devices are the size of kitchen appliances (think Instant Pot for the smaller C and large convection oven for the Zymatic) and have a clear drawer that holds all the ingredients and works as a mash tun to create your wort. Each connects to a keg that serves as both boil kettle and fermentat...

Today, Netflix announced that Hasan Minhaj, a correspondent with The Daily Show , will host a weekly talk show on the streaming network. The company has already ordered 32 episodes of the new show. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Netflix describes the upcoming series as an "opportunity for the comedian to explore the modern cultural and political landscapes with depth and sincerity." It's not the first The Daily Show correspondent that the streaming service has poached. Just last month, Netflix announced that fellow correspondent Michelle Wolf would be moving to the streaming network. Minhaj has a previous relationship with Netflix; his hourlong comedy special, Homecoming King , debuted on the network. Minhaj will stay with The Daily Show until he starts production on his show this summer. "I've been a big fan of Hasan's for many years," Netflix's VP of Content Bela Bajaria told The Hollywood Reporter . "He's a phenomenal write...

In January, the SEC warned that it was "looking closely" at companies that are involved in cryptocurrency (and using associated terms to boost stock). But now, it appears that the regulatory organization is doing more than just keeping an eye on things. According to The Wall Street Journal , the SEC has issued dozens of subpoenas and requests for information about cryptocurrency activities to both tech companies and their advisers. The concern here is that ICOs (initial coin offerings), or token sales, may actually be in violation of securities laws. The SEC is specifically looking into the sale structure of these offerings, which aren't necessarily subject to the rules surrounding IPOs. It's because of this that there's a history of fraud with token sales -- they often are offered to support startups that have no real products or proven tech. ICOs have already raised $1.6 billion in 2018. That kind of money is bound to bring scrutiny along with it. The SE...