December 2018 – Page 79 – news.buyenne.com

Messenger-Dienst: Google stellt Allo ein

Google wird Allo einstellen. Der vor zwei Jahren vorgestellte Messenger-Dienst steht nur noch bis März 2019 bereit. Messages und Hangouts sollen ein passender Ersatz werden. (Google, Instant Messenger)

Weniger Aufwand: Elektroautos sollen in Deutschland 114.000 Jobs kosten

Nach einem Bericht des Instituts für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung könnten in Deutschland durch die Elektromobilität bis 2035 rund 114.000 Arbeitsplätze verloren gehen. (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

Meng Wanzhou: USA lassen Huaweis Finanzchefin verhaften

In einer weiteren Eskalation des Handelskriegs mit China hat die US-Regierung die Tochter des Huawei-Gründers und Finanzchefin des Unternehmens in Kanada festnehmen lassen. (Huawei, Handy)

SpaceX: Falcon 9 erleidet Bruchlandung

Mission erfolgreich, Landung gescheitert. Zwar ist die Rückkehr von Raketenstufen inzwischen Routine, doch nach dem Start eines Dragon Frachters ist die erste Raketenstufe einer Falcon 9 ins Trudeln geraten und im Meer gelandet. (Falcon-9, Raumfahrt)

Black Friday: UHD Discounts Help Lift Blu-ray Revenue

Black Friday 2018 has resulted in a small uplift for Blu-ray sales compared to last year’s sales event, and retailers offering heavy discounts for 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray titles may have contributed.Blu-ray sales were up nearly 9 per cent this Black Friday…

Black Friday 2018 has resulted in a small uplift for Blu-ray sales compared to last year's sales event, and retailers offering heavy discounts for 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray titles may have contributed.

Blu-ray sales were up nearly 9 per cent this Black Friday compared to the previous one, according to the latest data released by Media Play News Research.

This represents a rare piece of good news for Blu-ray sales, and physical media sales in general, with the trend showing a steady decline in sales in recent years. The popularity of streaming and digital sell-through is thought to be responsible.

Last year's Black Friday saw Blu-ray sales dip by 8.5% compared to Black Friday 2016.

This year's unexpectedly strong results could be due to the fact that, for the first time, many retailers heavily discounted 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs (4K UHD disc sales are normally counted towards Blu-ray sales).

Amazon, for example, dropped the price selected popular UHD titles, such as 'Deadpool 2', from their usual $25 to only $9. One title, 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle', was discounted to as low as $7.96. The former was actually the top selling Blu-ray title for this Black Friday, with 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle' jumping from the 36th spot in sales to 8th.

Standard Blu-ray titles were still cheaper, but the pricing difference was minute in some cases, and less than $3 for most of the discounted titles. As UHD editions always contain a standard Blu-ray version of the film, it made purchasing the UHD version an easy choice for future proofing, even for some buyers that did not yet have an UHD Blu-ray player.

There is further proof that 4K sales may have driven this Black Friday's bumper Blu-ray results. While Blu-ray unit sales grew by 3.4% compared to results from last Black Friday, revenue grew by a higher 8.9%. This means a higher average unit price for sales this year compared to the last, and this usually either means strong box set sales, or perhaps more likely, strong sales of the higher priced UHD titles.

Total disc sales unfortunately still declined year on year by more than 9%, thanks to a large 20.8% drop in DVD sales. DVD sales have steadily dropped over the years, with Black Friday 2008 recording a high of $386.35 million in sales, down all the way to $116.45 million for this Black Friday.

Goodbye Allo: Google is streamlining its communication app lineup

Google says it’s not so much killing Hangouts as focusing on its enterprise-focused Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet apps… and eventually opening them up to the general public. But the company is outright killing one of its communication apps outright. Following a recent report from 9to5Google, Google that after pausing investment in its Allo chat app […]

The post Goodbye Allo: Google is streamlining its communication app lineup appeared first on Liliputing.

Goodbye Allo: Google is streamlining its communication app lineup

The post Goodbye Allo: Google is streamlining its communication app lineup appeared first on Liliputing.

Bethesda’s attempt to fix a Fallout 76 blunder leaks angry shoppers’ PID

The bug: if you filed a “support ticket,” you saw every shopper’s threads, replies.

Fallout 76 special edition: helmet unboxing and details

Bethesda's latest video game, Fallout 76, launched last month with its share of uneven reviews and responses (including our own), and chief among players' complaints is that the always-online game is quite buggy.

But to borrow a term that Bethesda itself used to describe the game's pre-release beta period, Fallout 76 is facing a new "spectacular issue," albeit one that's technically outside of the game client. Instead, the issue comes from the game's equally troubled $200 Power Armor edition: buyers of the Power Armor edition who went to Bethesda's site to resolve the issue were seeing their personally identifying data (PID) leaked to everybody else who was trying to resolve the issue.

This requires backing up for context. Fallout 76 could be pre-ordered in a pricey Power Armor set, complete with a wearable replica helmet and a tote bag. As I pointed out in a November unboxing article, that bag turned out to be "a cheap, flimsy carrying case," but what I didn't realize at the time was that Bethesda had originally advertised a higher-quality canvas bag as part of the $200 set.

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As US coal use drops to 1979 levels, EPA may ease rules on new coal plants

New plants not expected to be built, but move sends a signal.

The Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears poised to roll back Obama-era rules that effectively prevented new coal plants from opening in the US. The rules required new coal plants to emit no more than 1,400 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt-hour (MWh), a constraint that is nearly impossible for new coal generators to meet without carbon-capture technology.

According to anonymous sources speaking to The New York Times, the EPA will announce a rollback of this rule on Thursday, effectively making it possible for energy companies to build new coal plants that emit up to 1,900 pounds of CO₂ per MWh, which is more in-line with emissions from modern coal plants without carbon capture.

Although the Obama-era regulations didn't prohibit the construction of new coal plants, opponents of the rules said the carbon-emissions caps were an effective prohibition, because carbon-capture projects are few and far between and are quite expensive to implement.

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Apple: MacOS Mojave 10.14.2 und TVOS 12.1.1.1 veröffentlicht

Apple hat mit MacOS Mojave 10.14.2 ein Update seines Desktop-Betriebssystems und mit TVOS 12.1.1.1 eine Aktualisierung für das Apple TV veröffentlicht. Beide sollen Fehler beheben. (Apple, Apple TV)