Month: March 2016

How a simple SIM card helps farmers navigate changing climates and markets

India’s GreenSIM initiative exposes rural farmers to tech and essential real-time info.

Farmers harvest peanuts in the village of Addakal, India. (credit: ICRISAT)

A handful of years ago, Chandrakala Kongala, a farmer in the rural village of Kommireddipalli in the southern Indian state of Telangana, faced a devastating problem. In one fell swoop, an unanticipated downpour had ravaged her peanut crop.

Farming wasn’t a leisurely pursuit for Kongala; it was her livelihood. Living in a remote area with limited access to transportation, she was ineligible to enter the mainstream job market. If the crops failed, she’d be left with no source of income.

During the following growing seasons, Kongala was flourishing. She was cultivating a variety of crops, at times harvesting earlier than anticipated. Eventually, she came to own a one-acre farm yielding hundreds of pounds of crops per harvest (her rice yield, for example, has jumped from 120 to 165 pounds). By spring of this year, she was earning 20,000 to 30,000 rupees per season ($300 to $450)—a lavish sum in a community of farmers subsisting on one to two dollars a day.

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Domino’s DRU: Neuseeland bekommt einen fahrerlosen Pizzabringservice

In Neuseeland plant die Pizzakette Domino’s, ihre Pizzen künftig mit einem autonomen Fahrzeug liefern zu lassen. Der kleine DRU hat Platz für Pizzen und Getränke und soll nicht nur Straßen nutzen. (Lieferdienst, Auto)

In Neuseeland plant die Pizzakette Domino's, ihre Pizzen künftig mit einem autonomen Fahrzeug liefern zu lassen. Der kleine DRU hat Platz für Pizzen und Getränke und soll nicht nur Straßen nutzen. (Lieferdienst, Auto)

Memories in early Alzheimer’s may not be irretrievable after all

Alzheimer’s mice can store memories; researchers figure out how to retrieve them.

(credit: Getty Images)

Alzheimer’s disease leads to tragic memory deficits, but it's not clear whether those memories are actually lost. It's also not clear whether this is a problem with memory formation and storage or a problem in memory retrieval. This is clinically relevant, since memory retrieval could potentially be restored by targeted brain stimulation.

New work using mouse models of early Alzheimer’s disease just showed that the problem at least starts with memory retrieval. Strikingly, it can also be reversed provided the correct set of neurons is activated. (The results are published in Nature.)

Engrams are the traces of the paths that memories leave as they settle in the brain. They are present both in our psyches and in biochemical alterations present in our neurons. Molecular, genetic, and optogenetic methods have been used to try to identify the population of neurons that hold onto these engrams.

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Fitbit Blaze reviewed: A totally unnecessary tracker with a few cool features

It’s not a bad device, I just don’t know why it exists.

Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

When Fitbit announced the Blaze "smart fitness watch," it did not make the best first impression. Many thought the Blaze was a peculiar answer to its competition, namely the Apple Watch, and the company's stock immediately fell more than 13 percent.

However, the Fitbit Blaze is not a smartwatch in the same way as the Apple Watch or the Android Wear. Fitbit took what it does best—connected fitness—and put it in a device designed to appeal to the ever growing number of people interested in smartwatches. But if the idea of fun applications and sending texts from your wrist intrigues you, the $199 Blaze is not what you want. Instead, the Blaze creates and fills a weird middle-ground space. This is a wearable for the die-hard Fitbit crowd, particularly those on the more active side of the spectrum. The Fitbit Blaze is for those want to wear something that does just slightly more than an average step counter.

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Windows 7 und 8.1: Microsoft verlängert den Skylake-Support

Gerade erst angekündigt und schon wieder ungültig. Microsofts Einschränkung der Betriebssystemunterstützung von Windows 7 und 8.1 für moderne Systeme wird jetzt um ein Jahr hinausgezögert. Selbst danach werden jetzt alle kritischen Updates verteilt – es gab zuviel Kritik. (Business-Notebooks, Microsoft)

Gerade erst angekündigt und schon wieder ungültig. Microsofts Einschränkung der Betriebssystemunterstützung von Windows 7 und 8.1 für moderne Systeme wird jetzt um ein Jahr hinausgezögert. Selbst danach werden jetzt alle kritischen Updates verteilt - es gab zuviel Kritik. (Business-Notebooks, Microsoft)

Downloading MP3s From Spotify is Easy – But Feels Dated

Streaming music is a big deal these days but some users can’t seem to break the habit of hoarding MP3s. So what if it was possible – with a free or premium account – to download MP3s from Spotify to keep forever? Well, with a bit of patience that’s possible right now, but somehow it feels like going back in time.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

spotifyThese days there are essentially two ways to obtain music on-demand. One can buy MP3s from places like iTunes or for those looking to make their pennies stretch further, streaming solutions like Spotify are just what the doctor ordered.

Services that allow users to download MP3s are more expensive than streaming options and no wonder. Offline listening features notwithstanding, streaming is somewhat transient. Like a diamond, an MP3 is forever.

No surprise then that Spotify users squealed with excitement back in March 2013 when a new Chrome extension hit the web. Downloadify by Robin Aldenhoven allowed Spotify users to permanently download MP3s to their devices from the Spotify web interface, a move that sparked a frenzy of people doing just that.

Now, three years on, it appears that downloading MP3s from Spotify is a thing again. This time around it’s not quite as easy as installing a simple extension but for those with a PC and a modicum of patience it shouldn’t prove too much of a problem.

The original code for the aptly named Spotify Playlist Downloader (SPD) was created by Lordmau5 and has been kicking around for a few weeks. Given a few parameters it happily dumps playlists full of 160 kbps MP3s to the host machine in seconds and names them nicely too.

However, SPD requires people to fiddle around using a command line, something the majority simply can’t be bothered with. So, what SPD needed was for someone to come along and augment it with a nice Windows GUI to make the whole thing more user-friendly.

Thanks to dekiller82, Spotify Playlist Downloader now happily runs via a basic GUI, provided people also install NodeJS and Microsoft’s .NET framework up front.


Spotify Playlist Downloader

SPD-1

Admittedly it’s a bit clunky but it definitely works and does so with both premium and even free Spotify accounts. There are reports that free accounts can seize up after vigorous SPD use but eventually they begin to work again although no one seems to know why.

So with tens of millions of tracks now available to anyone with a PC, one might expect there are celebrations to be had. Indeed, in some quarters they’re probably going on right now.

But without the whole Spotify package, complete with recommendations, superb music discovery opportunities and a beautiful interface, the hand stacking, sorting and categorizing of MP3s feels somewhat primitive. Sure, the tracks come at a bargain price, but using them seems like a step back in time.

There’s little doubt that sooner or later Spotify will plug the hole exploited by SPD but in the meantime thousands of people will be greedily filling their hard drives with MP3s. For some it will entail grabbing some treasured classics but for others it will mean revisiting a life filled with soulless Windows Explorer folders that lead first to excitement and then musical dead ends.

Everyone knows that forbidden fruit is alluring but sometimes the realization dawns that while it’s definitely exciting, it’s not necessarily more tasty.

The license-bending, label-annoying Spotify Playlist Downloader project can be found here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

R9-Vulkan-GPUs: AMD macht Vorschautreiber für Linux verfügbar

Wer Ubuntu 14.04.4 einsetzt und einen kompatiblen Grafikchip besitzt, der kann jetzt einen neuen Beta-Treiber von AMD herunterladen. Dieser setzt die Voraussetzungen für das Vulkan-API um. Allerdings mit einigen Einschränkungen. (Vulkan, AMD)

Wer Ubuntu 14.04.4 einsetzt und einen kompatiblen Grafikchip besitzt, der kann jetzt einen neuen Beta-Treiber von AMD herunterladen. Dieser setzt die Voraussetzungen für das Vulkan-API um. Allerdings mit einigen Einschränkungen. (Vulkan, AMD)

Chinese Company’s ‘Fury’ over 4K Piracy Claims, Countersues Warner, Intel

Warner Bros. and Intel’s lawsuit against a Chinese company that makes the HDFury devices has just been turned on its head, with the Chinese firm countersuing.Warner and Intel sued LegendSky for making HDMI and DisplayPort devices that bypass the HDCP c…



Warner Bros. and Intel's lawsuit against a Chinese company that makes the HDFury devices has just been turned on its head, with the Chinese firm countersuing.

Warner and Intel sued LegendSky for making HDMI and DisplayPort devices that bypass the HDCP copy protection present, to allow for video capturing and conversion. While the initial lawsuit seemed fairly straight forward, especially after a spate of 4K rips flooded the torrent scene, rips that were eventually traced back to one of LegendSky's devices.

But LegendSky has hit back, claiming that the assertions made in the original lawsuit are simply not true, and that their devices do not strip HDCP protection at all.

Instead, LegendSky explains via their counterclaim, their HDFury devices merely convert the tough to strip newer HDCP versions to HDCP 1.4, which has been cracked since at least 2010.

LegendSky asserts that this type of conversion is actually allowed under the HDCP licensing agreement. Interestingly, LegendSky also notes that serveral HDCP licensees, including Netflix, Disney, NBC and CBS, have purchased HDFury devices for legitimate purposes.

According to LegendSky, the real reasons for the lawsuit has nothing to do with piracy, and more to do with the bottom line.

"In reality, then, the Complaint is a bludgeon to use against Defendant so as to unlawfully expand the scope of Plaintiffs’ copyright monopolies, and protect Plaintiff DCP’s HDCP monopoly licensing rents in the relevant market," LegendSky writes in their counterclaim.

LegendSky has asked the court to dismiss the original complaint, and has even gone as far as asking for damages and penalties to be awarded against the plaintiffs.