Month: May 2016

Four hundred miles with Tesla’s autopilot forced me to trust the machine

KITT-like auto-cruise and auto-steer are equal parts mesmerizing and disturbing.

Enlarge / Supercharging at my usual stop in Columbus. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

A few weeks ago, I finally tried Tesla Motors' "autopilot" feature. A Tesla rep and I tooled around Houston's I-45 in a Model X crossover SUV for 15 minutes, just long enough to test the vehicle's adaptive cruise/automatic lane-keeping wizardry. Once I toggled on the autopilot, the rep relaxed by checking e-mail on her phone. This sent a clear message: keep an eye on the dumb journalist when he's driving the $140,000 SUV, but once the machine takes over, everything’s fine.

As we pulled back into the showroom (or whatever Texas’ insane dealership protection laws demand Tesla call the places it’s not allowed to sell or service vehicles), I told the rep that I was driving to Austin soon; Autopilot would be just the thing for the long stretches of empty road out on I-10 and TX-71. Without missing a beat, she offered me a loaner Model S.

Ars has officially driven a Model S with autopilot before, but only under controlled circumstances. The Austin trip would let me take the car out for nearly four hundred miles of driving in a big mix of traffic scenarios. Plus, I'd get to log more cockpit time in a Tesla. Of course I said yes. Who wouldn’t?

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Audeme Movi: Gesprochene Sprache erkennen und erzeugen mit dem Arduino

Mit einer Aufsatzplatine verstehen eigene Elektronik-Basteleien gesprochene Sprache und sprechen selbst. Eine Internetverbindung oder ein zusätzlicher Computer sind dafür nicht notwendig. (Arduino, Spracherkennung)

Mit einer Aufsatzplatine verstehen eigene Elektronik-Basteleien gesprochene Sprache und sprechen selbst. Eine Internetverbindung oder ein zusätzlicher Computer sind dafür nicht notwendig. (Arduino, Spracherkennung)

Children with weak future planning are more likely to be involved in crime

Surveillance might be more more effective deterrent than prison, researchers suggest.

If you were asked whether you’d prefer to be given $140 today or $1400 in five years' time, the smart answer is obvious. But immediate cash can be really tempting: perhaps you have expensive car repairs looming or you want to buy a gift for someone—that $140 would do the trick. It can be easy to justify cheating your future self out of $1260 in the face of instant gratification.

The tendency to ignore or discount the value of a future benefit is called "time discounting." Plenty of research suggests that time discounting can be linked to criminal behavior, which is the ultimate example of choosing an immediate reward despite an abstract risk of losses. Although the link is intuitive, it still needs confirmation through empirical research, because so many things that seem intuitive turn out to be wrong.

Investigating this question is a tough gig, though. You could test people’s time discounting behaviors and look at their criminal records, but even if you found a link, you wouldn't know whether the time behaviors led to the crime, or vice versa. Ideally, you need to find a way to test children’s time discount rates, and then wait to see if they get involved in crime as adults (and whether this tendency lasts past the adolescent crime peak).

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Billion-dollar social media inheritance goes bad in Vertigo’s Unfollow

DC/Vertigo comic’s first collection showcases a darkly funny techno-thriller.

As the first collected edition of Unfollow hits comic book stores this week, the high concept behind DC/Vertigo's social media thriller threatens to overshadow the comic itself. A pitch like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets Battle Royale meets social media" sounds cooked up by an overeager marketing consultant as much as it does the recipe for a compelling story.

Yet it works. As proven by this week's 140 Characters printed collection of the first six issues, the comic moves with a speed, subtlety and self-awareness that belies its elevator pitch. The result can stand alongside previous Vertigo hits such as Y: The Last Man, Scalped, and Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. Like those titles, Unfollow is simultaneously of the moment and timeless, making a big point about big subjects while also telling a genre story filled with pulpy thrills in a way that only comics can.

In large part, Unfollow works because writer Rob Williams leans into the sticky parts of the series' DNA (including tongue-in-cheek references to Willy Wonka's golden tickets) while steering the larger tale in another direction. Unfollow begins with Larry Ferrell, bazillionaire founder of social media empire Headspace, choosing 140 users at random to inherit his fortune upon his death. Should one of them die, their share will be split equally between the remaining inheritors. But that's just the MacGuffin.

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When Chromebooks run Android apps, do we still need Android tablets?

When Chromebooks run Android apps, do we still need Android tablets?

After years of hinting that the lines between Android and Chrome OS were getting thinner and blurrier, Google recently announced that Chromebooks would soon be able to run just about any Android app. The Google Play Store will be available for three Chromebooks with touchscreen displays starting in June, and the list of Chrome OS laptops, desktops, and other devices that will gain access to Android apps is pretty long… and expected to get longer.

Continue reading When Chromebooks run Android apps, do we still need Android tablets? at Liliputing.

When Chromebooks run Android apps, do we still need Android tablets?

After years of hinting that the lines between Android and Chrome OS were getting thinner and blurrier, Google recently announced that Chromebooks would soon be able to run just about any Android app. The Google Play Store will be available for three Chromebooks with touchscreen displays starting in June, and the list of Chrome OS laptops, desktops, and other devices that will gain access to Android apps is pretty long… and expected to get longer.

Continue reading When Chromebooks run Android apps, do we still need Android tablets? at Liliputing.

Star-Trek-Fanfilm: Der Kampf um Axanar ist beendet

Die Produzenten des Star-Trek-Fanfilms Axanar können lang und in Frieden leben: Das Filmunternehmen Paramount/CBS lässt die Klage gegen sie fallen. Auslöser war ein ganz besonderer Star-Trek-Fan. (Star Trek, Urheberrecht)

Die Produzenten des Star-Trek-Fanfilms Axanar können lang und in Frieden leben: Das Filmunternehmen Paramount/CBS lässt die Klage gegen sie fallen. Auslöser war ein ganz besonderer Star-Trek-Fan. (Star Trek, Urheberrecht)

New Game of Thrones Episode Leaks Online Early

The latest episode of Game of Thrones has leaked online a day before its official premiere. The leak reportedly comes from HBO Nordic where the show was made available a day early, and since then it’s been widely shared on various pirate sites.

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

got6More than twenty-four hours before its official premiere, the fifth episode of the latest Game of Thrones season is already widely available on torrent and streaming sites.

According reports from several viewers, HBO Nordic accidentally made the episode available on its site a few hours ago.

“It’s online right now, if you want to go and watch it, but they might remove it soon. Someone probably messed up by putting it there,” Reddit user Ozires writes (spoiler warning).

After this it didn’t take long before someone ripped the show, and soon after many links to pirated copies started to appear.

TorrentFreak can confirm that the leak is indeed legitimate. The quality of the pirated copy we’ve seen is rather low, but nonetheless it’s receiving a lot of attention from Game of Thrones fans.

It’s rather ironic that HBO itself appears to be the source for this leak. The company decided to stop releasing promotional screeners this year, fearing that outsiders would leak them. Perhaps the company should take a good look at its internal policies as well.

Episode 5 on HBO Nordic

hbonordicleak

For several years in a row Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show, and this year the interest is once again overwhelming.

While it’s too late to stop today’s leak from getting out, HBO has increased its efforts to combat piracy. In recent weeks thousands of pirates have received warnings in their mailboxes, and the company is also fervently taking down links to pirated copies of the show.

Screencap from the latest episode

gotleak4

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

TorrZan Allows You to Download Torrents Via Telegram

TorrZan is a new service that allows Telegram users to download torrents through their favorite instant messaging application. The Telegram bot can find files on popular torrent sites and downloads them securely through its service. When the transfers are complete, users can download or play the files directly through the instant messaging service.

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

telegramWith 100 million active users, Telegram is one of the most used messaging services, but it’s much more than that.

The application, which is supported by all leading operating systems, also allows developers to create nifty bots. This can come in quite handy.

The new TorrZan bot, for example, can grab torrents directly from the messaging application. With a series of simple commands it’s easy to find or add popular torrents, which can then be downloaded with a simple click.

The torrent files are not shared over the user’s local network, but from TorrZan’s servers. Once a download is complete the files can be downloaded to a local device, or played directly if they are streamable.

We tried the free version, which allows people to test three torrents up to 10GB without speed restrictions. Downloading a copy of the film Sintel took just a few minutes and after it was completed an https link to the mp4 video played seamlessly on both iPhone and PC.

The developers of TorrZan say they created the service to provide an easy and convenient tool for people to download torrents, while keeping user privacy in mind.

“We created this bot only because we believe that it is the most convenient and easiest way to download torrents across all platforms that are supported by Telegram, which includes Android, iOS, Windows Phone, PC, Mac and Linux,” TorrZan’s team informs TorrentFreak.



torrzanex

TorrZan doesn’t record or store any logs of your downloading activity, which is good to know. As an added privacy bonus, it uses external servers to download the torrents so users’ local IP-addresses are not visible to the public.

Besides adding torrents or magnet links manually, users can also use the bot to search for files. This appears to work nicely for well-known titles, and avoids the extra step of having to search for links on third-party sites.

“We integrated a search feature that displays torrents from popular torrent sites right inside our bot. This means that our users don’t have to jump through hoops, they can simply find torrents and download them directly inside the same interface,” the TorrZan team says.

The bot is still in the early stage of development and the team is planning to introduce several new features and updates in the future. Among other things, they want to make it easier to integrate video and audio playback with local devices.

For now, anyone can test the service for free without any restrictions. However, the services uses a freemium model and after three torrents non-paying users are limited to 1 GB of storage and a 50 KB\s download limit.

Those interested in giving it a free spin can visit the official TorrZan site.

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