Geek News

Health It's up to us to stay educated and informed on the products that keep us looking good. Cosmetics aren’t really regulated for safety or efficacy—most consumers don’t know that as they slather beauty potions from their scalps down to their toenails. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2pvFtq1"

Samsung’s chameleon TVs, as I’ve started calling them, now have price tags. The 2018 QLED lineup includes the Q9, Q8, Q7, and Q6, each of which will be available in different sizes and in both curved and flat versions. They all also have an “Ambient Mode,” that uses your phone to capture a photo of the environment behind it to then create a matching look on screen. It’s supposed to blend into a room, even when it’s off. You can see some of the full pricing on Samsung’s website . Some models, like the 49-inch Q6 TV aren’t listed yet. The 55-inch QN55Q6F is the cheapest model of the bunch so far at $1,499.99, while the most expensive will be the 82-inch QN82Q6F, which will cost $4,499.99. The rest of the line slots into the price points in... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2IDujYS"

Venezuela’s state-backed cryptocurrency, the petro , is a “half-hidden joint venture” between Venezuelan and Russian officials and businessmen, according to a new report by Time . The petro, which first went on presale on February 20th, is the world’s first state-backed cryptocurrency. Its value is tied to the country’s oil reserves . Sources told Time that the aim of the petro was to erode the power of US sanctions. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has previously referred to the petro as “kryptonite” and the US government as “Superman.” An executive at a Russian state bank told Time that senior advisers in the Kremlin oversaw the development of the petro and that Russian president Vladimir Putin signed off on the project in 2017.... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2puEVAx"

Amnesty International says that Twitter is failing to prevent online abuse and protect women’s rights, following a 16-month research project into women’s experiences on social media platforms . The human rights group says that their findings show Twitter has not taken adequate steps to address and prevent toxic content directed toward women, including death threats, rape threats, and racist, transphobic, and homophobic abuse. In addition, Amnesty says that when Twitter does enforce a response to abuse, it’s inconsistent. Oftentimes, reports aren’t addressed at all, leaving the abusive content on the platform. One UK journalist told Amnesty that out of 100 abusive tweets she reported, Twitter only removed two. Amnesty International has... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2GbzaC0"

When the iPhone X first came out, everyone had fun using the device’s front-facing camera to make Animoji. But it turns out, the device’s facial capture abilities aren’t just good for making cartoon pigs sing. They could also potentially be a powerful and inexpensive tool for game developers. Finnish studio Next Games, which is currently working on a location-based augmented reality game called The Walking Dead: Our World , has built a tool that makes it possible to capture facial data using the iPhone X’s camera, and then use that data to animate a character in a game. During a demo of the technology, I watched Next creative director Mikael Achren use the iPhone X’s depth-sensing front camera to record some facial movements. He then... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2ptZ1fd"

The European Commission has proposed a plan to add a 3 percent tax on the revenues of digital tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon in order to make sure that they pay “their fair share.” The proposal is actually a two-part plan: the revenue tax is intended as an initial measure, with plans for more long-term reforms that would eventually tax digital companies based on where they make sales, not where their physical locations are. The proposal notes that digital companies have become far more important in recent years: nine of the world’s top 20 companies by market cap are now digitally based, versus just one in 20 a decade ago. The proposal also claims that digital-based companies have an average effective tax rate roughly... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2GQ3L67"

DIY Don't break any gadgets. Get your trip off to a good start by making sure that they're all still intact and working when you reach your destination. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2uatt2C"

Environment And the emissions might not come from where you think. Until recently, we had no idea how right or wrong that hypothetical average human’s diet might be. We knew that American diets varied a lot, just not how much or in what… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2GaByJh"

The academic at the heart of the Facebook data scandal has said he is being used as a scapegoat by the US tech giant. Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher at Cambridge University, collected a dataset of some 50 million Facebook users four years ago using a personality quiz app. Kogan later passed this information on to voter-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica, which claimed (but now denies) that it used the data to craft political ads for President Trump’s 2016 election. Kogan’s comments, made to BBC Radio 4’s Today program , describe an environment of permissive data-gathering and lax privacy policies. “We thought we were acting perfectly appropriately. We thought we were doing something that was really normal,” Kogan said. “My view is that... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2u8JgPu"

Qualcomm is launching a development kit based on its Snapdragon 845 VR platform in the second quarter of this year. The self-contained headset and software development kit will showcase key elements of Qualcomm’s mobile chip-based VR system, including full inside-out motion tracking and a partnership with eye-tracking company Tobii. It will also support HTC’s Vive Wave platform, which is designed to let VR developers build and sell software across multiple brands of headsets. Qualcomm has previously touted its plans for six-degree-of-freedom tracking with simultaneous localization and mapping — or more colloquially, “inside-out” tracking that lets people walk around without external markers, using front-facing cameras and internal... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HSXoy6"

YouTube’s new Live streaming feature for Chrome browsers is available now to try for yourself. The feature allows users to easily set up a live stream from their computer without any additional equipment, and the tool is due to roll out to other browsers “soon.” YouTube says it will also allow live streaming directly from the camera app on select devices from Asus, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and more in the coming months. The ability to instantly create live video streams is a feature users of Instagram and Facebook have long enjoyed. To access the new live streaming feature, just go to the YouTube Live dashboard or click on the camera icon in the top header of the site and select “go live.” Before you can use live streaming though,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DJQWqK"

Microsoft first acquired Wunderlist almost three years ago, promising the to-do app would help the company “reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world.” At the time , Wunderlist founder and CEO Christian Reber joined Microsoft to continue leading the app forward. Instead, Microsoft launched its own To-Do app to replace Wunderlist last year, and fans of Wunderlist haven’t been happy it’s going away. At the time of Microsoft’s To-Do launch, the company announced the new app would eventually replace Wunderlist and incorporate most of its best features. That hasn’t really happened yet, and fans of Wunderlist are labelling Microsoft To-Do a “ half-cooked scrap .” Wunderlist found Christian Reber left Microsoft in September just... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2u6VU1l"