Новости за 07.08.2017

Phone hype starts early for every brand, and this post's for you, LG fans. The company employs Joseph Gordon-Levitt to host annual creative competitions that often involve participants filming something with an LG phone. This year, the two entities are collaborating again, and the recent video submissions feature an unreleased device we can only assume is the LG V30, which is likely going to be announced on August 31st. Shout-out to Droid Life for first spotting the phone.

Last week, residents of Arlington, Virginia, were stunned to see an unmarked, gray Ford Transit van tooling around town without a human driver behind the wheel. According to ARLnow, the vehicle was spotted driving through the Courthouse and Clarendon neighborhoods with nary a soul in the driver’s seat. Some speculated the van was part of Virginia Tech’s recently approved autonomous driving tests, and were content to leave it there. But then the story got even weirder.

Audible and Cesar Millan have teamed up to make a free guide to playing audiobooks for your dog. Millan, who has made a famous career of advising people on how to train and care for their dogs, has now turned to using audiobooks as a means of maintaining calm in dogs who are home alone waiting for their owners to return. Some dogs who are home alone tend to experience separation issues and have trouble staying relaxed.

Over the weekend, an anti-diversity manifesto written by a Google employee went viral both within the company and outside of it, drawing harsh criticism from both present and former Googlers. But some agreed with the document, and alongside muted agreement from pockets within the company, the author seems to have found louder supporters in a more familiar place: the online right.

A vast majority of the trusted tips and tricks we employ when crafting a custom password actually make us more vulnerable to hackers, according to the expert who popularized the tips back in 2003. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, former National Institute of Standards and Technology manager Bill Burr admitted that a document he authored on crafting strong passwords was misguided. “Much of what I did I now regret,” says Burr, who is 72 years old and now retired.

Venmo is super useful for sending money to friends, but the toughest part may be actually finding them in the app. I personally have had the frustrating experience of not actually knowing my Venmo username on several occasions. The company is now working to make that process even easier by following in the footsteps of apps like Snapchat by adding custom QR codes that you can use to add a friend, as noted by TechCrunch.

Over the last few months, YouTube has been rolling out a series of new guidelines about which videos are able to make money through advertising. You need to have 10,000 total views on your channel before you can start making money off ads. You can’t make money on YouTube with hateful or incendiary content. And you can’t make a quick buck off the inappropriate use of family-friendly characters. (RIP Spider-Man peeing on Elsa.)

Pilotless flight might be in our future, but according to a new study by Swiss bank UBS, consumers are not quite ready to embrace it.

Aerospace startup Rocket Lab says it knows why the first test launch of its small rocket failed to reach orbit in May. The failure had nothing to do with the rocket itself, but instead the mission was terminated early because of a problem with ground equipment supporting the launch. Now that Rocket Lab knows what happened, the company says there’s an easy fix and will take corrective measures so the failure doesn’t happen again.

Microsoft is testing its first major Xbox dashboard overhaul with the company’s new Fluent Design. Xbox One Insiders on the alpha ring will get access to a new Xbox One dashboard at 6PM PT / 9PM ET today, and it looks like a solid improvement from the existing one. Once again, Microsoft is focusing on speed of navigation and removing the splash screens that occur when you switch from sections like home, social, and my games / apps.

Motorola has a new Moto 360, and it’s not a smartwatch. This time, it’s a Moto Mod that records 360-degree video at 4K resolution using two 12-megapixel cameras and captures 3D audio thanks to its four built-in microphones. The “Moto 360 camera” is, if nothing else, one of the more unique mods that Motorola has released in some time; battery packs represent the bulk of snap-on modular accessories available for the Moto Z family.

Spoilers ahead for season 7, episode 4, “The Spoils of War”

Game of Thrones threw a dragon-shaped curveball at viewers last night as Daenerys took to the battlefield in a big way: dragonback, attacking Jaime Lannister’s forces as they were heading home from their recent victory at Highgarden. With Drogon torching her enemies from the sky, and the Dothraki slaughtering every man in sight on the ground, the Khaleesi cleaned up in a matter of minutes.

Actually shooting the sequence took quite a bit longer. Читать дальше...

Late last week, news broke that the US Army had issued a memo asking units to discontinue the use of DJI drones while the military investigated potential cyber vulnerabilities. There wasn’t much detail on what the exact concerns were or where they stemmed from, but it turns out that another federal agency recently looked into the issue.

Some of the most talented indie game developers around are joining together for an especially retro-flavored release.

You can tell we’re closing in on the announcement of a new Pixel by just how much the leaks have picked up in recent weeks. First, we got a render of a redesigned Pixel XL; last week, we got a first look at the smaller Pixel; and today, we’re getting yet another glimpse at an early model of the smaller smartphone.

YouTube has added a new mobile-only feature that allows you to share a video with friends and chat about it in a private thread — all within the YouTube app. The function works like Android’s default Messages app: when you share a video with a contact (or multiple contacts as a group), you can chat about it without leaving the app, rather than having to start a new email or text message thread. Users can also respond to a video share with, what else, another video by pressing the reel icon and searching for the right comeback. Читать дальше...

The disputes between Airbnb and the hotel industry continue to be an ongoing battle, but things escalated last week when an ad campaign backed by the Hotel Association of New York City suggested that short-term rentals could be used to host terrorists like Salman Abedi, the bomber behind the Manchester attack in May.

Netflix announced today that it’s acquiring Millarworld, Mark Millar’s comic book publishing house, in the company’s first ever acquisition. According to Netflix’s press release, the purchase is part of the company’s efforts to “acquire intellectual property and ownership of stories featuring compelling characters,” for upcoming Netflix Originals, which are increasingly becoming a critical part of the streaming service’s offerings.

Google has added the Home, its voice-controlled speaker, to the company’s Preview Program. The program lets early adopters try upcoming firmware before they’re officially released to the public, as reported by Android Police.

The fourth episode of Game of Thrones’ seventh season finally delivered on one long-awaited promise. Nearly a third of “The Spoils of War” was devoted to a massive face-off between Jaime Lannister and his army, and Daenerys Targaryen, her Dothraki hordes, and one very large dragon. But as memorable as the closing battle was, it was also an episode about people grappling for purpose. Littlefinger is trying to make himself relevant again; Dany is trying to prove she can live up to the name Mother... Читать дальше...

This fall, FX will launch an ad-free subscription service featuring the network’s current original series lineup and a few older shows. The service, FX+, will be available to Comcast Xfinity subscribers for $5.99 a month, The New York Times reports.

Samsung is releasing its Galaxy S8 Active for preorder tomorrow through AT&T. The company says it’s the “toughest Galaxy smartphone yet,” featuring a rugged design and military-grade screen that makes it shock, shatter, water, and dust resistant. The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active will be available on AT&T Next for $28.34 for 30 months, which adds up to around $850.

Earlier this year, Google lost an antitrust case in Russia over the restrictions it places on Android devices. As part of a settlement with the country’s antimonopoly agency FAS, the US tech giant has made changes to its Chrome app, which now prompts users to select a default search engine when it launches for the first time.

No hybrid distractions, just a pure, distilled laptop

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T-Mobile is launching its newest unlimited plan, which might be its best yet, offering two lines of unlimited data for $60 (including taxes, fees, etc.). There’s just one catch: the new T-Mobile One Unlimited 55+ plan is only available for customers aged 55 and up.