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Astronomy Picture of the Day: Charon: Moon of Pluto

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Charon: Moon of Pluto A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution view. The portrait of Charon , Pluto's largest moon, was captured by New Horizons near the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The combined blue, red, and infrared data was processed to enhance colors and follow variations in Charon's surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). A stunning image of Charon's Pluto-facing hemisphere, it also features a clear view of an apparently moon-girdling belt of fractures and canyons that seems to separate smooth southern plains from varied northern terrain. C haron is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across. That's about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself , and makes it the largest satellite relative to its parent b...

'Fortnite' Playground mode has one more week to live

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It's no secret that we love Fortnite's 4-player "Playground" mode. Whether you just need a bit of training or want to experiment with the game's features in creative ways, after a delayed launch it's there for you -- at least for another week. Epic posted on Reddit today that the Limited Time Mode will shut down on July 12th "as we take it back under construction for the next version." So what will be in that next version? Right now they're promising team selection, so you can do damage and edit other player's structures, while playing 1v1 or 2v2. What players are using now, "represents our first step into what a full creative mode looks like in Fortnite ." We'll have to wait to find out exactly what that means, but with skyrocketing popularity and money coming in hand over fist, it appears that esports is...

Facebook reportedly in talks for a Cristiano Ronaldo reality show

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News emerged back in May that global football sensation (and model, and philanthropist, and...) Cristiano Ronaldo was working on a scripted drama for Facebook Watch about an all-girls soccer team in upstate New York. But the social media giant might not be done with the living legend. According to Variety , he's in talks with Facebook for a 13-episode reality show. Not much is known about the docu-series, though the report states Facebook might pay the football phenom $10 million. But Variety's sources differed on how far along the talks had progressed. It will allegedly be produced by Matador Content and the media firm Religion of Sports. While the social media platform's exclusive baseball broadcasts haven't been popular , its other sports programming has enjoyed more success: After three seasons of LaVar Ball's reality show, Facebook Wat...

Microsoft may offer a Movies & TV app on Android and iOS

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If you have a Windows PC and don't have a Windows Mobile handheld -- and who could blame you -- Microsoft has been making sure that core apps like Edge and Launcher would be available on Android and iOS devices so you can continue to use the company's software and services across platforms. Missing from that list, however, is Microsoft's Movies & TV, which so far only works on Windows 10 PCs, Xbox and Windows 10 Mobile. But that could change soon. According to Windows Central , a source within Microsoft says that it's working on bringing that content store over to Android and iOS. The idea here is that if you bought movies or TV shows from the Microsoft store, you would then be able to retrieve those videos and play them on your mobile device, thus freeing you from buying or renting those videos all over again. There's no word on when this ...

When will Nissan EVs drive themselves?

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By John Beltz Snyder Autoblog recently went to Japan to drive cars, ride trains, and talk to carmakers about automotive history and the future of mobility. This video is part of a larger in a series of special reports from Japan. YOKOHAMA, Japan — On our recent trip to Japan, we spent a day driving the new Nissan Leaf through some unfamiliar territory. Despite the challenges of driving in a foreign country on the opposite side of the road, the Leaf proved to be a calm and willing companion thanks to its smooth electric powertrain and ProPilot driver assistance system. Following our drive, we met up with Nissan's EV director, Nicholas Thomas, at the company headquarters to talk a bit about the future of electrification and automated driving, pillars of what the automaker calls "Nissan Intelligent Mobility." You can watch the interview in th...

Arachnids may sense electrical fields to gain a true spidey sense

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Animals Ballooning behavior might not just be about catching the breeze. Spiders: it shouldn’t be surprising that a creature with four times our number of legs and eyes sees the world a little differently. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2lVWXu8"

$3,950 will get you a life-size BB-8 that doesn't move

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If you've been wanting a life-sized replica of Star Wars' BB-8, Sideshow Collectibles will soon have you covered. The company just announced its BB-8 Life-Size Figure, a 37-inch tall replica of the adorable droid that appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens . It's designed to look as similar to the film's version as possible, complete with a paint job that makes it appear as weathered and worn as the one from the big screen. Unlike the Spin Master replica , Sideshow's doesn't roll around, but its head dome can be repositioned and the body can be shifted into different positions as well. A remote control will let you turn on the distinctive sounds emitted by BB-8 in the movie as well as activate lights in both the body and head. However, if the $230 price tag that came with Spin Master's replica seemed a little steep for your very own B...

Weak Admin Password Enabled Gentoo GitHub Breach

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Had the attacker been quieter, breach may not have been discovered immediately maintainers of popular Linux distribution said. via Dark Reading: https://ift.tt/2zaGFah If New feed item from http://www.darkreading.com/rss/all.xml , then send

WhatsApp enlists outside help for its fake news problem

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Over the last two months, misinformation spread through WhatsApp in India has riled up lynch mobs that killed twelve people. After the country's government sternly criticized the messaging service for its role in the violence, WhatsApp is offering researchers up to $50,000 in grants to study fake news on the platform. Per a Facebook Research blog post , the new initiative will consider proposals to study different ways fake news spreads on the service, such as by evaluating election-related information, virality and digital literacy (or lack thereof). But they're also looking for ways to detect problematic or illegal behavior without surveying content -- which is important on a platform like WhatsApp that end-to-end encrypts user communications. While WhatsApp will give guidance, they won't provide any data, according to their terms . All study results...

This amazing new web tool lets you create microsites that exist solely as URLs

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Former Google designer Nicholas Jitkoff, who's now the vice president of design at Dropbox, has created a really nifty new web tool he's calling itty bitty sites, or self-contained microsites that exist solely as URLs. You can create your own by following this URL: itty.bitty.site . From there, you can fill the equivalent of about one printed 8.5 x 11-inch page with any combination of plain text, ASCII characters, or emojis. The actual byte limit depends on where you'd like to share it; Twitter and Slack allow for around 4,000 bytes, while the Mac version of Chrome can accommodate up to 10,000 bytes. The site isn't actually hosted anywhere — the entirety of the webpage exists as a URL compressed using what's known as the L... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2MNJwYH ...

Belkin power bank charges with your iPhone's Lightning cable

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The need to use proprietary Lightning cables with your iPhone creates some complications, including for external batteries -- you'll have to carry a separate cable just to top up your power pack. We can't guarantee that Apple will solve the problem by switching to USB, but you can get the next best thing. Belkin has unveiled the Boost Charge Power Bank 10K, the first Apple-certified external pack that can charge from a Lightning cable. That could save space in a crowded bag, but it's also helpful if you have a load of other Lighting devices -- you can charge the Boost Charge from an iPhone dock if you like. The battery bank also includes two USB-A ports (one of which enables fast iPad and iPhone charging) and, as the name suggests, offers a hefty 10,000mAh that could charge an iPhone X nearly four times over. It's not the most affordable battery at...