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Microsoft has rolled out a new build of Windows 10 for members of the Insider Preview program, and it brings improvements to the Sets feature, a notification to remind you when you’re wirelessly projecting your desktop, and improved support for W…
Microsoft has rolled out a new build of Windows 10 for members of the Insider Preview program, and it brings improvements to the Sets feature, a notification to remind you when you’re wirelessly projecting your desktop, and improved support for Web Authentication in the Edge web browser. Windows 10 will also show a new post-upgrade […]
The post Windows to show setup questions after major upgrades (and other Build 17682 changes) appeared first on Liliputing.
Without a music store to go with them, there isn’t a ton of purpose to the apps.
Microsoft is retiring its Groove Music apps for iOS and Android on December 1.
The cross-platform music apps lost a lot of their purpose when Microsoft closed its Groove music store and subscription service last year. They still retained some value, however, as they could play music stored and synchronized on OneDrive. That will end on the retirement date, with Microsoft saying that not only will the application cease to be available to install but also that existing installations will stop working.
When it shut down its store, Microsoft suggested that users turn to Spotify as an alternative. This time around, the company is pointing users at Google Play Music and iTunes Match. The OneDrive app itself also has some limited music playback capabilities of its own. Overall, however, the net effect of this change is that there's now little point in using OneDrive for music storage, as the best playback application for OneDrive-stored music is being discontinued.
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A-10 Advanced Wing Continuation Kit buy will deliver 112 new wing sets, keeping A-10 in air through 2022
Enlarge / KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (May 21, 2018)—Two US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, assigned to the 163rd Fighter Squadron, begin to taxi on the flightline at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, May 21, 2018. Many A-10s are reaching the flight-hour limits of their wings; the Air Force is now launching a procurement program to buy 112 new sets. (US Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Corey Hook) (credit: US Air Force)
The US Air Force has finally issued an official request for proposals for a program to manufacture new wings for its aging A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft. The deadline for proposals from would-be contractors is August 23. But the program will likely not be started before some of the Air Force's older A-10s have to be grounded, as a previous wing-replacement program (awarded to Boeing) has reached its end.
The program, called the A-10 Thunderbolt Advanced Continuation Kit (abbreviated as ATTACK), builds upon the previous Wing Replacement Program, which upgraded 173 A-10 aircraft between 2007 and 2016. ATTACK will deliver a maximum of 112 pairs of wings and associated parts over a five-year ordering period, following an initial delivery of three wing sets to verify quality of work. The Air Force will install the new wings at its A-10 depot at the Ogden Air Logistics Center in Utah.
The statement of work will require whoever wins the contract to develop their own 3D models of the wing sets, flaps and other parts from the Air Force's specifications. This may give Boeing a slight edge, since the company has already done most of this work and has demonstrated an ability to deliver the wings. But it's not clear yet if Boeing will bid on the new program, which is slightly smaller and shorter in duration than the original re-wing program.
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Carbon capture has been decidedly uneconomic, but NET Power wants to change that.
Enlarge (credit: Courtesy of NET Power and McDermott)
A company called NET Power has begun testing a unique demonstration power plant in La Porte, Texas, that burns natural gas but releases no emissions into the atmosphere. How can it do this? The natural gas is burned in pure oxygen rather than ambient air, and the resulting heated carbon dioxide (CO2) is used to power a turbine instead of heating steam or gas.
Although the plant does create CO2 during the course of its operations, the waste CO2 that pumps through the system is already collected and doesn't require an additional process to scrub pollutants from flue gas like more traditional carbon capture technologies do. The mostly pure CO2 can then be sold to oil fields for use in enhanced oil recovery, or it can be used in some other way (although we haven't quite cracked that nut yet, recent research is working on creating byproducts like carbon nanotubes from waste CO2).
If all goes well with the testing phase, it could mean a more efficient and cost-effective solution than anything that could be bolted onto an existing power plant.
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Sprint: Just trust us on this one.
Enlarge / T-Mobile CEO John Legere (left) and then-Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure during an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on April 30, 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)
Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure tweeted this morning that Sprint will build "one of the best networks in the world" even if it isn't allowed to merge with rival T-Mobile USA.
"Merger or no merger, Sprint presses ahead with KC network buildout. Kansas City will have one of the best networks in the world," Claure tweeted.
Merger or no merger, Sprint presses ahead with KC network buildout. Kansas City will have one of the best networks in the world. [Investor info: https://t.co/UEdbA4edyt] https://t.co/OtDBYbWM1W
— MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) May 31, 2018
Claure linked to a Kansas City Business Journal article, which has the headline, "Merger or no merger, Sprint presses ahead with KC network buildout." Claure's tweet used the same phrasing as the Business Journal story while adding his opinion that "Kansas City will have one of the best networks in the world."
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Take a short poll on how you view science and what you’d like to see more of from Ars.
Ars is closing in on 20 years old (or 2.0×10-1 centuries). For about 15 of those years, we've had dedicated science coverage. That started out as a weekly column, shifted to a dedicated section, and grew into the news-focused coverage that you see today. Perhaps the biggest changes have occurred over the last few years, as we expanded the staff and opened the horizons of our coverage to things like energy, medicine, archaeology, and space.
With those changes in the rear-view mirror, we thought this would be a great time to take stock of our readers' feelings about how Ars covers science. To do so, we've put together a short poll. There are only a dozen questions you have to answer to get it done, so it won't soak up much of your time if you don't have it to spare. But we're also giving you the chance to provide free-form thoughts on how we're doing now and what you'd like to see from us in the future.
While the questions are intended to help us do a better job of serving our audience, you'll note that a lot of them aren't specific to our coverage. We're hoping to get a better sense of how people view the place of science in our society and discover which ways they view it as important in their daily lives. Knowing this sort of information won't help us write any particular article, but it will help us better understand what kinds of articles we should be writing.
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Der Grund, warum Vodafone noch wenig über seinen Friendly User Test von Docsis 3.1 in Landshut und Dingolfingen veröffentlicht, scheint darin zu liegen, dass es noch ernsthafte Probleme gibt. Golem.de hat einige Interna erfahren. (Vodafone, Fritzbox)
Plus the “Explorer Edition” has an in-screen fingerprint reader and a transparent back.
Xiaomi has fired up its photocopier and created a shameless iPhone X rip-off called the Xiaomi Mi 8. It has Xiaomi versions of the iPhone X's trademark notch, Face ID, and Animoji, along with basically the same rear camera layout and back design. There's even a cheaper version called the Mi 8 "SE," and some of the press images are even remakes of the iPhone X press images. Classy.
Xiaomi is actually applying some unique Xiaomi goodness to this shameful, shameful design, though. First, the phone starts at $420, and second, if you opt for the high-end model you can get one with an in-screen fingerprint reader and a questionably feasible transparent back.
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From the Fairchild Channel F to the Wii U, it’s pretty much all here.
In this day and age, all but the rarest of rare classic video games are relatively easy to find with a simple eBay search. Still, the massive classic gaming collection being auctioned off in suburban New Jersey today deserves attention for the sheer volume of retro gaming pieces being sold off in one place.
The gargantuan collection, encompassing tens of thousands of items, has been gathered together over decades of work by 45-year-old Bill Loguidice, an author specializing in books about classic games. While there are thousands of boxed and unboxed games—ranging from common to one of a kind—the highlight of the collection is the hundreds of pieces of video game hardware and accessories covering pretty much every major console and gaming computer released since the Fairchild Channel F.
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A study commissioned by Canada’s Innovation, Science and Economic Development department has revealed that three-quarters of the Canadian public consume online content exclusively from legal sources. Perhaps surprisingly, just 5% identify as hardcore pirates. Meanwhile, 10% of the population have received infringement notices, with a quarter throwing them straight in the trash.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Back in January, a coalition of companies and organizations with ties to the entertainment industries called on local telecoms regulator CRTC to implement a national website blocking regime.
Under the banner of Fairplay Canada, members including Bell, Cineplex, Directors Guild of Canada, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Movie Theatre Association of Canada, and Rogers Media, spoke of an industry under threat from marauding pirates. But just how serious is this threat?
The results of a new survey commissioned by Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) in collaboration with the Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) aims to shine light on the problem by revealing the online content consumption habits of citizens in the Great White North.
While there are interesting findings for those on both sides of the site-blocking debate, the situation seems somewhat removed from the Armageddon scenario predicted by the entertainment industries.
Carried out among 3,301 Canadians aged 12 years and over, the Kantar TNS study aims to cover copyright infringement in six key content areas – music, movies, TV shows, video games, computer software, and eBooks. Attitudes and behaviors are also touched upon while measuring the effectiveness of Canada’s copyright measures.
General Digital Content Consumption
In its introduction, the report notes that 28 million Canadians used the Internet in the three-month study period to November 27, 2017. Of those, 22 million (80%) consumed digital content. Around 20 million (73%) streamed or accessed content, 16 million (59%) downloaded content, while 8 million (28%) shared content.
Music, TV shows and movies all battled for first place in the consumption ranks, with 48%, 48%, and 46% respectively.
Copyright Infringement
According to the study, the majority of Canadians do things completely by the book. An impressive 74% of media-consuming respondents said that they’d only accessed material from legal sources in the preceding three months.
The remaining 26% admitted to accessing at least one illegal file in the same period. Of those, just 5% said that all of their consumption was from illegal sources, with movies (36%), software (36%), TV shows (34%) and video games (33%) the most likely content to be consumed illegally.
Interestingly, the study found that few demographic factors – such as gender, region, rural and urban, income, employment status and language – play a role in illegal content consumption.
“We found that only age and income varied significantly between consumers who infringed by downloading or streaming/accessing content online illegally and consumers who did not consume infringing content online,” the report reads.
“More specifically, the profile of consumers who downloaded or streamed/accessed infringing content skewed slightly younger and towards individuals with household incomes of $100K+.”
Licensed services much more popular than pirate haunts
It will come as no surprise that Netflix was the most popular service with consumers, with 64% having used it in the past three months. Sites like YouTube and Facebook were a big hit too, visited by 36% and 28% of content consumers respectively.
Overall, 74% of online content consumers use licensed services for content while 42% use social networks. Under a third (31%) use a combination of peer-to-peer (BitTorrent), cyberlocker platforms, or linking sites. Stream-ripping services are used by 9% of content consumers.
“Consumers who reported downloading or streaming/accessing infringing content only are less likely to use licensed services and more likely to use peer-to-peer/cyberlocker/linking sites than other consumers of online content,” the report notes.
Attitudes towards legal consumption & infringing content
In common with similar surveys over the years, the Kantar research looked at the reasons why people consume content from various sources, both legal and otherwise.
Convenience (48%), speed (36%) and quality (34%) were the most-cited reasons for using legal sources. An interesting 33% of respondents said they use legal sites to avoid using illegal sources.
On the illicit front, 54% of those who obtained unauthorized content in the previous three months said they did so due to it being free, with 40% citing convenience and 34% mentioning speed.
Almost six out of ten (58%) said lower costs would encourage them to switch to official sources, with 47% saying they’d move if legal availability was improved.
Canada’s ‘Notice-and-Notice’ warning system
People in Canada who share content on peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent without permission run the risk of receiving an infringement notice warning them to stop. These are sent by copyright holders via users’ ISPs and the hope is that the shock of receiving a warning will turn consumers back to the straight and narrow.
The study reveals that 10% of online content consumers over the age of 12 have received one of these notices but what kind of effect have they had?
“Respondents reported that receiving such a notice resulted in the following: increased awareness of copyright infringement (38%), taking steps to ensure password protected home networks (27%), a household discussion about copyright infringement (27%), and discontinuing illegal downloading or streaming (24%),” the report notes.
While these are all positives for the entertainment industries, Kantar reports that almost a quarter (24%) of people who receive a notice simply ignore them.
Stream-ripping
Once upon a time, people obtaining music via P2P networks was cited as the music industry’s greatest threat but, with the advent of sites like YouTube, so-called stream-ripping is the latest bogeyman.
According to the study, 11% of Internet users say they’ve used a stream-ripping service. They are most likely to be male (62%) and predominantly 18 to 34 (52%) years of age.
“Among Canadians who have used a service to stream-rip music or entertainment, nearly half (48%) have used stream-ripping sites, one-third have used downloader apps (38%), one-in-seven (14%) have used a stream-ripping plug-in, and one-in-ten (10%) have used stream-ripping software,” the report adds.
Set-Top Boxes and VPNs
Few general piracy studies would be complete in 2018 without touching on set-top devices and Virtual Private Networks and this report doesn’t disappoint.
More than one in five (21%) respondents aged 12+ reported using a VPN, with the main purpose of securing communications and Internet browsing (57%).
A relatively modest 36% said they use a VPN to access free content while 32% said the aim was to access geo-blocked content unavailable in Canada. Just over a quarter (27%) said that accessing content from overseas at a reasonable price was the main motivator.
One in ten (10%) of respondents reported using a set-top box, with 78% stating they use them to access paid-for content. Interestingly, only a small number say they use the devices to infringe.
“A minority use set-top boxes to access other content that is not legal or they are unsure if it is legal (16%), or to access live sports that are not legal or they are unsure if it is legal (11%),” the report notes.
“Individuals who consumed a mix of legal and illegal content online are more likely to use VPN services (42%) or TV set-top boxes (21%) than consumers who only downloaded or streamed/accessed legal content.”
Kantar says that the findings of the report will be used to help policymakers evaluate how Canada’s Copyright Act is coping with a changing market and technological developments.
“This research will provide the necessary information required to further develop copyright policy in Canada, as well as to provide a foundation to assess the effectiveness of the measures to address copyright infringement, should future analysis be undertaken,” it concludes.
The full report can be found here (pdf)
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Der Grund, warum Vodafone noch wenig über seinen Friendly User Test von Docsis 3.1 in Landshut und Dingolfingen veröffentlicht, scheint darin zu liegen, dass es noch ernsthafte Probleme gibt. Golem.de hat einige Interna erfahren. (
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