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> Its not as bad as you would think and it's designed for those devices and the graphics are way better than you think.

Yes it is. It's far worse. Whales are < 2% of the customers, but make > 95% of the money for game developers.

https://venturebeat.com/2013/0...

5th Planet chief executive Robert Winkler revealed at the Game Developers Conference Online in 2012 that with its game Clash of the Dragons, 40 percent of revenue came from 2 percent of players who spent $1,000 or more. Ninety percent came from those who spent $100 or more, and the top whale had spent $6,700.

As an ex-professional game developer 95+% of mobile games are crap

* Hurry-up-and-wait gaming that constantly nag you
* Exploitative predatory tactics such as gambling (loot boxes), in-app-purchases, and ads.
* Mobile games tend not to respect your time, money, or space.

There ARE games that don't exploit the players:

* Hidden Folks
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Terreria
* The Room (and all its sequels)
* The Witness
*etc.

You have to look, but they are there.

> No one wants to lug around a PC computer to play a multiplayer game.

Uh, that's what mobile gaming is -- by definition.

This is ignoring the fact that some games just DON'T work (well) on a mobile. i.e. Let me know when I can play:

* Starcraft 2
* World of Warcraft

on a phone.

Mouse + Keyboard is vastly superior for some games.

Mobile gaming is here to stay. That's NOT the problem. The problem is the exploitative behavior.

It is bullshit like this is driving the mobile games straight into the ground.

... I guess I only play games in the 5% then, like any other platform (THANKS Steam Greenlight).
Warhammer Quest, Neuroshima Hex, Settlers of Catan, Smash Up, Exploding Kittens, my favorites.

Whales, we care because? Some people buy tons of Steam games on sale and never play them. On $3000 computers, bitching about frame rates until rounds of performance patches and driver updates come out.

Who said phones need to run Starcraft or WoW, you just came out of nowhere with that.

So keep your keyboard and mouse??

This whole post is strangely combative.

Oh and I'm a Linux administrator, so that makes me an expert on stuff.

> Its not as bad as you would think and it's designed for those devices and the graphics are way better than you think.

Yes it is. It's far worse. Whales are < 2% of the customers, but make > 95% of the money for game developers.

https://venturebeat.com/2013/0...

5th Planet chief executive Robert Winkler revealed at the Game Developers Conference Online in 2012 that with its game Clash of the Dragons, 40 percent of revenue came from 2 percent of players who spent $1,000 or more. Ninety percent came from those who spent $100 or more, and the top whale had spent $6,700.

As an ex-professional game developer 95+% of mobile games are crap

* Hurry-up-and-wait gaming that constantly nag you
* Exploitative predatory tactics such as gambling (loot boxes), in-app-purchases, and ads.
* Mobile games tend not to respect your time, money, or space.

There ARE games that don't exploit the players:

* Hidden Folks
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Terreria
* The Room (and all its sequels)
* The Witness
*etc.

You have to look, but they are there.

> No one wants to lug around a PC computer to play a multiplayer game.

Uh, that's what mobile gaming is -- by definition.

This is ignoring the fact that some games just DON'T work (well) on a mobile. i.e. Let me know when I can play:

* Starcraft 2
* World of Warcraft

on a phone.

Mouse + Keyboard is vastly superior for some games.

Mobile gaming is here to stay. That's NOT the problem. The problem is the exploitative behavior.

It is bullshit like this is driving the mobile games straight into the ground.

Design patents are always interesting, though, since Juries decide if it looks close enough to be violating the patent.

TFA's picture comparison is... well, dubious. If you ask me, the Nikola One looks a lot more like the bastard child of a Mistubishi Fuso and a Volvo Semi truck.

Nikola's model definitely looks more like Thor Trucks' model.

Honestly, I think the lawsuit is primarily to get PR. I had no idea they existed until today, so they've succeeded.

As you said they (mining rigs) are USING ASICs - they are NOT ASICs themselves, which is what the sentence said. Not implied - said!

It most certainly did not.

"large mining operations are pulling back on their investment in GPUs in anticipation of dedicated mining rigs (called ASICs) that are due out before the end of the year."

It said the dedicated rigs replacing GPUs are called ASICs.

They are called that, and more to the point your original post asserted that they called ASICs (all ASICs) dedicated mining rigs, when again they said that the non-GPU mining rigs were "ASICs.

No shame here for knowing what sentences are supposed to fucking mean.

Which you obviously don't, because you've gotten it wrong twice now in an attempt to scream "error" where the was not one. "are" != "called. Get that through your skull.

Once it reaches "beta," it will stay there for the next 10 years!

Publicly. The one we don't know about will do far more.

If this exists, it is truly evil and straight out of Cyberpunk Dystopia ... combine this shit with facial recognition, and in theory you could transcribe a room full of people.

This is that full-on box over your face AI tracking and monitoring you see in some movie, and you roll your eyes at and think "as if we have that kind of technology".

If this shit goes out of beta, and even if this specific one doesn't, we're pretty much on the threshold of the complete surveillance state. This is kinda tinfoil hat material from the 90s.

Think I'm joking?

Facial recognition tech picks a suspect out of a crowd of 50,000 in China

Fuck ...

Just run the speed test against another node in another country or state. That would indicate if the ISP is slowing down explicit traffic or not. Even better to run a bandwidth test with a less common service than Speedtest. Like http://www.bredbandskollen.se/ (You can switch from Swedish to English on that page). Just be aware that the further away the server is the more likely you'd get bad figures since you have to share the channel with others.

Also try to locate the speed test servers on the same net as the service you like to access, that can also give you a good indication if it's throttling or just shitty network.

On YouTube you also can right-click on the video and select "Stats for nerds" to see the connection speed as well as dropped frames.

Tools like traceroute (in Windows tracert) and ping are your friends. hrping is an alternative to ping.

Also see more test variants here: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

If you can - also look at if there are ping responses from the net using wireshark. Look for source quench messages. However those are usually presented to the streaming service and not to the client unless you do an upload of data.

Of course it's bad business but they are both guilty of it already. It's not hard to make the leap once you see all the childish crap they've already pulled. I can't watch Prime Video on my Android TV device but the same app works fine on my phone. Amazon has a working Prime Video for Android TV but it checks to make sure it is running on Nvidia Shield hardware or it crashes on purpose! Google checks to see if YouTube is running on an Echo Show and shuts it down.

If I could run Java on it or Android apps, that would be great.

Yes to Android apps. Also, switching between Ubuntu (crouton) and ChromeOS takes less than a second on my chromebook with a simple keyboard shortcut (ctrl+shift+alt+back arrow on top row). I really love that laptop it's been wonderful and the quality of the hardware for the price is kind of mind-blowing.

None of the positive things have something to do with a walled garden. At best the malware thing has to do with an app store.
Walled garden only helps if somehow having e.g. root access makes you unable to resist installing random crap from the internet, but then I would say a better impulse control would on your side would be a worthy thing to strive for instead.
Security and updates you can mostly get from select vendors on Android as well, though admittedly it is a big issue because most smartphone companies are a sad joke when it comes to software competence, and the little they have they decide to spend on useless crap.

"Random crap from the internet"?!? Boy, THAT's rich!!!

HOW many reports of Malware have their been regarding APPROVED Apps from the Google Play Store?!?

https://9to5google.com/2018/01...

https://www.cnet.com/news/goog...

http://www.zdnet.com/article/p...

http://fortune.com/2017/09/14/...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/...

https://www.wired.com/story/go...

Genuinely sorry if there are (likely are) dups in the above list. But you get the picture.

And if you say "Well, but Google REMOVED these Apps, proving the system works!" It begs the question, how many people downloaded and had their information stolen, etc. BEFORE an App was removed?!?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/... Wonder if this is one of the reasons for this patent.

Web users who have never signed up for Facebook, such as myself, still have a shadow profile that Facebook infers from two kinds of data source. One is information that Facebook members provide to Facebook about a non-member, such as contacts on their phones and tags in photos. The other is a click-stream, or the sequence of URLs of documents loaded in a non-member's browser that contain Facebook analytic devices, such as its like button or comments plug-in.

Not a direct answer, but perhaps helpful -- there is some promising work being done with tremor compensation/cancellation technology. Strap on a bracelet with a type of vibrator attached and it can stabilize your hand movements, kind of like camera stabilization does for taking pictures.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/projects-backed-by-google-and-microsoft-are-tackling-parkinsons-disease/

Don't ask for citations if you make uncited claims yourself.

Good point. Here's a couple.

You said "What is coming next: you will only be allowed to connect to the Internet by rented "approved" devices provided by a handful of companies"

Did that happen before Net Neutrality to a greater extent than it does now?

The US does have a problem with competition - but that's because companies like Comcast are given a regional monopoly of high speed internet access. Net Neutrality won't fix that. It won't even stop 'zero rating', which is the thing companies like Google are worried about.

T-Mobile Binge On doesnâ(TM)t violate Net neutrality rules, says FCC chairman

Zero rating is what that Portuguese mobile operator Meo did, and that also didn't violate EU net neutrality laws

https://truthonthemarket.com/2...

This tempest in the teacup is about mobile data plans, specifically the ability of mobile subscribers to supplement their data plan (typically ranging from 200 MB to 3 GB per month) with additional 10 GB data packages containing specific bundles of apps - messaging apps, social apps, video apps, music apps, and email and cloud apps. Each additional 10 GB data package costs EUR 6.99 per month and Meo (the mobile operator) also offers its own zero rated apps. Similar plans have been offered in Portugal since at least 2012.

These data packages are a clear win for mobile subscribers, especially pre-paid subscribers who tend to be at a lower income level than post-paid subscribers. They allow consumers to customize their plan beyond their mobile broadband subscription, enabling them to consume data in ways that are better attuned to their preferences. Without access to these data packages, consuming an additional 10 GB of data would cost each user an additional EUR 26 per month and require her to enter into a two year contract.

Even the reliably left wing Snopes pointed out that comparing Meo's Smart Net to cable where you need to choose a subset of channels is bullshit

https://www.snopes.com/portuga...

Except Portugal does practice net neutrality, and the graphic doesn't accurately depict what Portugal's internet looks like overall.

The European Union's Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) established net neutrality guidelines in 2015. Portugal is a member of the European Union, so its internet providers must comply.

The service promoted in the MEO graphic, "Smart Net," is essentially a menu of add-ons to the company's standard mobile data service plan. Contrary to the way it's been presented, it doesn't limit users' access to particular apps or sites. Rather, it lays out prepackaged options via which MEO customers can add extra gigabytes of data usage to their mobile phone plans (similar to Vodafone's "Passes" offerings).

And of course there are other plans than Smart Net and other telcos than Meo in Portugal, just like when T Mobile launched Binge On, you had other choices of telco. And other plans.

Actually in most places other than the US you've typically got a choice of ISPs for your fixed internet connection. E.g. you can choose between multiple DSL providers in the UK. And, if you live in a city probably cable and fibre ones too.

US regulations stifle competition, and those are the regulations you should worry about. Not that your mobile company offers you a deal where it costs EUR 6.99 to get 10GB to a subset of websites instead of EUR 26 for a neutral 10 GB.

All it means is that if you spend all your time on Facebook and Youtube, you can get 10GB of data to those for EUR 6.99 instead of having to pay EUR 26.

Of course Google and Facebook hate this because they think the ISPs will charge them to be zero rated. But who cares? Google and Facebook suck just as ba

Sooner than you think...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/... https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

found my own answer randomly today: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Real courage at this point would be bucking the trend and selling a phone with all the features people want but which are being removed - removable battery, SD card, headphone jack, fingerprint scanner on the front. And stock Android. Instead it seems like all the manufacturers seem to be competing as to who can remove the most things people want while at the same time introducing things like higher display resolutions when the 1080p on a three year old phone is already fine and more pixels usually means less battery life, thinner handsets, face recognition replacing fingerprints or scanners on the back, Bixby buttons and glass front and back that no one wants.

Meanwhile of course after each release we find that they 'didn't sell as many as they hoped' and that the follow up would be 'radically different'. Which usually means more useful features being lost.

You can see Samsung's sales falling off. E.g.

First month sales for the S4 - 10 million

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

First month sales for the S5 - 11 million

Five million S8 and S8+s in the first month

http://www.zdnet.com/article/s...

I.e. things are not going well for Samsung.

Lawsuit is not over the FRAND cellphone tech patents but on the power management and force touch stuff that Apple uses. Apple wants Qualcomm to license for free, Qualcomm RIGHTLY says otherwise - as it's not part of the basic cellphone FRAND patent package. Apple is 100% in the wrong here, and will probably end up losing, again...

Educate yourself. These are NOT FRAND patents related to cell phone technology, these are for force touch and power management. Nothing about triple-dipping, just asking for actual patent licensing from Apple, and Apple wants Qualcomm to throw them in "for free", claiming they should be part of the FRAND patent group on cell phones (even though they are not).

You need to quit sucking Timmy's cock... These are not FRAND patents that are under question. These are OPTIONAL features (like Force Touch) that Qualcomm has patented and Apple doesn't want to pay for... The Butt Pirate running Apple wants to also fuck Qualcomm in the ass, too...

What content are they losing... practically everything https://www.digitaltrends.com/... Basically 80% of what they are getting, is individual movies much of what they are losing is 4+ seasons of shows. Last batch of removals took out house, which was my wife's favorate (rewatch infinate times to get to sleep) series. Now there's basically nothing left. Admitted it isn't entirely netflix's fault, seems like everyone and their mother thinks they can run their own streaming site. at the rate things are going, it looks like streaming will lead to the al-a-carte that people wanted with cable TV. IE ideally each network will be be 5 a month or so. and you pay for the ones you want.

"allegedly feasible"... https://www.digitaltrends.com/...
Allegedly 7 years ago.

The line cannot be that no accidents can occur -- because self driving cars are already safer than cars driven by puny humans.

This is the point that I hope gets understood sooner rather than later. Accidents happen currently to the tune of ~3000 people dying a month and many times that injured. If self driving cars reduce this then progress has been made. The data I've seen is that self driving / driver assist reduces car accidents by ~20% and injuries by ~25%. That's huge. As long as some jackass lawyer doesn't get to have punitive damages that are in excess of what a regular driver would get then it should be fine. Meaning that if Ford doesn't get fined more than some random human driver then it will be OK since insurance can cover those cases.

Citations:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

I see a lot of folks on here complaining with the general tone of "The author should be as well-adjusted and capable as I am". Well they're not. Big whoop. Let's not whine and actually do something productive here.

1) I think the problem is getting worse. It used to just be email. Now it's email, phone, OS, websites and even my freakin' web browser itself that want to push notifications.
2) Yes, I'm well adjusted and adapted to this environment. I've spent the majority of my life interested in tech. It's no big surprise that other folks who merely use devices (instead of being passionate about devices) might get swamped by this.

Here are some helpful links:
A great guide for turning off different types of iPhone notifications:
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/t...

Another guide for both Android and iOS:
http://www.pcworld.com/article...

A guide for Windows 10:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

And for Chrome (Including turning off sites asking permission, which I hate almost as much as actual notifications)
https://support.google.com/chr...

In tandem with all of this, I also recommend ad-blockers and paying for media services which eliminate advertisements (Pandora, Netflix, etc.). This helps provide a more distraction-free environment and helps maintain a low-distraction life.

nothing stops the user from changing the SSID on their home network or owning their own router.

Other than that if you subscribe to home high-speed Internet in a Comcast territory, and you're not renting Comcast's latest gateway, Comcast will inject pop-up ads for its gateway into randomly chosen HTML responses in cleartext HTTP connections that your PCs, tablets, and smartphones make. (Source; Source; Source) Is this a reason to break down and rent Comcast's gateway? Or to boycott sites not available through HTTPS? Or to ditch Comcast and instead pay nearly 100 times more per GB for satellite or home cellular?

Intel just killed it's IoT platform line, so there are going to be fewer x86 options for SBCs.

Apple promised a refresh of Mac Pros in 2018 and indicated it would be a "modular" system.

This is something I have been hoping for for quite some time! This will lead to incredible resolution for VR headsets and that will make all of the difference in how immersive they are.

A 4K 16:9 aspect ratio screen would suffice for most VR applications since the human eye would be really hard pressed to distinguish the individual pixels especially when the scene you are viewing is in motion. Even 1080p on a small screen is reasonably acceptable although you will always get the purists who want a different aspect ratio and an even higher resolution.

Even TV's which air now coming out at 4K (cheaper models don't support HDR) will be superseded in a few years as 8K starts to become mainstream. If you have the money you can get 8K monitors such as Dell UltraSharp which will set you back about $5000 USD but if you want bragging rights and future proofing that could be money well spent.

Of course, with 8K displays you will need a fairly powerful graphics card or cards if you wish to game on it but personally, I don't mind waiting since IMHO 1080p/1400p at 60fps is fine for most games although that does depend on the screen's refresh rate (in Hz) and how far away you are comfortably viewing it.

Let's have a look at Frontier's Elite Dangerous (*), one of the leading VR games currently available:

The minimum (not recommended) specs demand at least an Intel Core i7-3770K or an AMD FX 4350 and 16GB of RAM. Again though, it’s the GPU recommendation that really makes us quake, as it’s demanding at least a GTX 980 with 4GB of RAM or better.

The lack of an AMD recommendation is bizarre, especially since there was one for the CPU. For comparable 980 performance though, you’re looking at a Fury card from AMD at least (thanks TechReport).

That means that if you don’t have one of these cards already, you’re looking at around a $500 spend on top of the purchase price of the game and any more upgrades you may need to do. They also show the big jump in performance required to run something like Elite Dangerous in VR. By comparison, its non-VR variant (available now, here) requires just a GTX 470 and a quad core CPU of any type to run.

The reason for the big jump in hardware requirements isn’t of course just to do with rendering two versions of the same content, but concerns the frame rate. Commercial VR will require frame rates in excess of 90 FPS at all times.

(Source)

This game is about to be released on PlayStation too, from the FAQ:

Will Elite Dangerous support PlayStation®VR?

Elite Dangerous is a flagship VR game on PC so of course, VR is important to us. It’s definitely something we’re looking into, but we have nothing to announce for launch.

(*) The game that made waiting for Duke Nukem Forever seem like a twinkling: it was announced in 1998 (as Elite 4) and released in December 2014.

How quick people are to forget and forgive these days... remember this?
https://news.vice.com/article/...
https://www.digitaltrends.com/...
https://www.theverge.com/2016/...
http://www.computerworld.com/a...

Yeah. Not a single review or article about this new Blackberry phone ever mentioned the case. This is why we privacy keeps eroding and why security practices went down the gutter. Stop promoting the company.

Move away from Intel products? Move to AMD? News stories:

Researchers bypass Intel's Software Guard Extensions to access RSA keys (Mar 16, 2017)

Intel's Software Guard exploited to hide Malware (Mar 16, 2017)

Boffins exploit Intel CPU weakness to run rings around code defenses (Oct. 20, 2016) Quote: "Branch buffer shortcoming allows hackers to reliably install malware on systems."

Intel x86s hide another CPU that can take over your machine (you can't audit it) (Jun 15, 2016)

Slashdot comments about the above article:
Intel x86s Hide Another CPU That Can Take Over Your Machine -- You Can't Audit it (Jun 15, 2016)

Secret of Intel Management Engine (Mar 12, 2014)

New Intel Chips Contain Back-Door Processor, Hackable Even When Computer is Turned Off (Sept. 19, 2013)

Intel's answer to ARM: Customisable x86 chips with HIDDEN POWERS (May 20, 2013) Quote: "Intel ... is in some cases actually etching different features or instructions onto its silicon for specific customers."

Remember when Twitter shut down access to 3rd party access?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2...
http://news.softpedia.com/news...
http://www.eweek.com/developme...

You should not use autofill for other reasons... Hidden fields can be passed to websites without you knowing it... http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

Linux, as of late.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/h...

"According to an official statement issued by the company today, all Samsung smart TVs will now run on Tizen, an open-source, Linux-based operating system (OS) developed and supported primarily by Samsung and Intel."

Don't they load Beats with weights so they feel heavy and 'substantial'?

Haha yup they do...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/h...
http://gizmodo.com/how-beats-t...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

By 30% of the product, they mean 30% of the value of the components.This is a breakdown of the cost for each component in the IPhone 5. http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...

• Occasionally logs you out. This was happening every 30-60 minutes when I first started the service, but it's only happened once in the last few days so they seem to be getting it under control.
• Yes they have ABC, NBC, and Fox (CBS wants you to pay for their channel to get OTA shows). But only in certain metro areas. And if you move outside of that metro area, the channels stop working. The Android app needs location permission or it refuses to run. I haven't yet traveled to another supported metro area, so dunno if this is just checks for supported locations, or if it's tied to your home address metro area.
• Limited to 2 streams. Not an issue for me, but this will be a deal-breaker for some.
• Most streaming channels don't list DirecTV Now as a service. So even though I can watch the Discovery Channel with DirecTV Now, I can't watch their Roku channel since there's no way for me to activate it. Hopefully this is just due to the services being slow to add DirecTV Now as an enabling subscription service. It does work for HBO, and someone else has said it works for ESPN.
• Swiping up/down on the guide often advances the show listings forward an hour.
• The favorites selection is right next to the channel names. It's easy to accidentally favorite/unfavorite a channel while scrolling through the list, or when selecting a channel to watch.
• Favorites list is slow to sync between devices.
• Only has a single favorites list. I was expecting multiple favorites like with their satellite tuners.
• Guide defaults to all channels every time you open it.
• Starts muted when you first start the Android app. This threw me off for a bit as I tried to troubleshoot it. IMHO it should remember the audio state the last time the app was run. (Just checked and looks like the update they released today adds an option to let you set it to on/off on launch.)
• Easy to change from partial screen (with a list of recent channels you've watched underneath) to full screen. But impossible to switch from full screen to partial screen.
• No configuration options for closed captioning. Text is probably the right size for a phone, but too small for my tablet (2560x1600 screen).
• After living with the Roku for a year, it's really horrifying how much of the show times are taken up by commercials.

I'm gonna keep it for now. HBO alone is normally $15/mo, so it's like I'm getting the other 100+ channels for $25/mo. (The 100 channel promo ended Jan 10. It's now priced at $65/mo. $35/mo now gets you just 60 channels.) Yeah they're having a lot of problems, but it seems to me to be teething problems. And my cable company's basic TV plan was nearly double the price for far fewer channels. Here are comparison of DirecTV vs Sling vs Vue channel lineups and features

"During San Diego Comic-Con, another teaser for the series was released — this one featuring the “test flight” of the U.S.S. Discovery, the space-traveling base of operations for the cast.

http://www.startrek.com/articl...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...

A daesh app? Like twitter?

Yes, like Twitter closing 125,000 Daesh accounts.

You might be interested to read about Atsushi Shimizu's turbine prototype that he claims can withstand typhoon-strength winds up to 80 meters/second (178.955 mph). CNN's article on it mentions that they were only able to achieve 30% efficiency when they last tested it in 2015, but if it can generate electricity at anywhere close to its estimated max speed, that should still come out to a sizable power gain. Of course, they'll need to hit it with a typhoon to find out if it will work as planned, first...

Just because you can't think of other alternatives doesn't mean they don't exist. Possible alternate explanation:
Link 1

In mid-2016, a new theory was put forth by physicist Michael McCulloch, a researcher from Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, which may offer an explanation of the thrust observed in tests. McCulloch’s theory deals with inertia and something called the Unruh effect — a concept predicted by relativity, which makes the universe appear hotter the more you accelerate, with the heat observed relative to the acceleration.

McCulloch’s new theory deals with the unconfirmed concept of Unruh radiation, which infers that particles form out of the vacuum of space as a direct result from the observed heating of the universe due to acceleration. This theoretical concept largely fits into our current understanding of the universe and predicts the results of inertia we currently observe, albeit with one notable exception: small accelerations on the scale of about what has been observed while testing the EM Drive.

This acceleration comes as a result of the Unruh radiation particles, whose wavelengths increase as acceleration decreases. Unruh particles at different wavelengths would have to fit at either end of the EM Drive’s cone, and as they bounce around inside the cone, their inertia would change as well, which would ultimately result in thrust.

Link 2

The new study‘s argument relies on a further idea called Unruh radiation, which refers to the unconfirmed idea that the observation of this heated universe will stimulate the release of real particles — in other words, particles from the pure vacuum of space, not unlike our vacuum polarization particles. In the vast majority of cases, this theory predicts the results we’re used to seeing in the world around us, same as the classical theory of inertia. But its predictions diverge from tradition in one area: extremely small accelerations, or, about the level of acceleration (perhaps) observed in the EM Drive.

NASA ion thruster
Ion thrusters are another low-powered solution, applying weak but constant acceleration

The idea is that, since the wavelength of Unruh radiation would increase as acceleration decreases, for extremely small accelerations a body should be experiencing Unruh radiation with a wavelength longer than the observable universe. With this being the case, inertia may only take on whole-wavelength units over time. Behaving in this way is to become “quantized,” to exist only in some multiple of an indivisible unit of measure (“a quanta”). So, at very low accelerations, inertia jumps from tiny magnitude to slightly less tiny magnitude without going through all the intervening values we would expect.

Evidence for this theory may predate the EM Drive. Scientists have long observed a phenomenon called the Flyby Anomaly, in which spacecraft performing a flyby of Earth will move noticeably and reliably faster than we calculate they ought to. The study’s author claims that this new theory of inertia could explain this effect, and produce more accurate inertial predictions that better reflect our observations.

Maybe so, but is it worth the risk of being massively fined or possibly earn an extended vacation at Club Fed? Between signal triangulation and highway video surveillance, it would probably be trivial for law enforcement to catch someone doing this.

Why is Mediatek installing malware to extract and send the owner's data to China?

I just bought the latest BN Nooks as Christmas gifts. Now I have to tell EVERYONE who receives these gifts to use burner accounts, no credit cards, no sensitive gmail.

None of these companies can be trusted.

Why is Mediatek installing malware to extract and send the owner's data to China?

I just bought the latest BN Nooks as Christmas gifts. Now I have to tell EVERYONE who receives these gifts to use burner accounts, no credit cards, no sensitive gmail.

None of these companies can be trusted.

Maybe that is the case in the US, but elsewhere Uber has lost some major cases, including being kicked out of some countries altogether. I have no sympathy at all for companies whose business model is "illegally profit by avoiding social responsibility" by either tax dodging or in this case avoiding giving their workers due privileges.

FYI if you're really going for it and have $$$ and intend to use VR - which I would definitely want to do, then you should take this into consideration.

>> The problem areas are the flexible lines, fuel pump, and fuel pressure regulator.

Far more than that. Many gaskets and seals, and even the valve seats (ethanol burns differently causing the valves to face more force, and it can also leave an acidic/corrosive residue that can eat metal, especially valve seats).

Even if it was always easy to physically access/replace those parts on every car (which it often isn't), that still has no connection to it being cheap or even possible. You can bet there are cars out there for which they don't even make an ethanol-safe equivalent component (fuel pump or whatever). Then on cars with ECUs you have to get into whether the ECU can even handle the ignition timing differences that Ethanol causes.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

A diamond beta-battery containing 1g of C14 will deliver 15J per day, and will continue to produce this level of output for 5,730 years

So that's 170 microWatts per gram or 6 grams per milliwatt. That's actually a usable level of power even when talking such small power cells. Still not sure what a good application might be for this technology.

"... I hate the syntax of PowerShell."

Agreed. PowerShell is the Zune of syntaxes.

Microsoft needs better managers. Former Microsoft CEO Monkey Boy, was the least respected CEO of a big company. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

This story doesn't even mention the Zune: Microsoft's 10 biggest failures.