September 2019 – Page 39 – news.buyenne.com

Ancient slag offers insight into the uneven pace of technological advances

The slag heaps of an ancient kingdom show how upheaval fueled technological progress.

Color photo of archaeologists excavating layers of copper production waste in a deep pit.

Sometimes, clues about ancient technology are hidden in the most mundane things. In this case, Tel-Aviv University archaeologist Erez Ben-Yosef and his colleagues went rummaging through heaps of slag, the glassy waste discarded after smelters separate copper from its ore. Their goal? To hunt for clues about industry and innovation in the ancient Edomite Kingdom.

Less copper mixed with the slag suggests more-efficient smelting, so by tracking changes in the slag, Ben-Yosef and his colleagues could track the progress of a technology that powered the ancient world.

The archaeologists found mostly small, gradual improvements over the course of five centuries, punctuated by a sudden, drastic increase in efficiency around 925 BCE, in the wake of an Egyptian invasion of the area. That suggests that a model for the evolution of new species may also apply to human technology, and that we may need a little instability to break out of equilibrium and trigger bursts of innovation. It also reveals how one society in particular benefitted from the Bronze Age Collapse and later took advantage of the disruption of a foreign invasion to make a leap forward in technology.

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iOS 13 on the iPhone 6S and SE: New software runs fine on a phone that’s still fast

Better battery life might be the most compelling reason to get a new phone.

The iPhone 6S and SE are the new baseline for iOS 13, and everything is still running smooth.

People upgrading to iOS 13 this year may have more of an incentive than usual to keep using their old phones rather than upgrading to new ones. After all, 2016's iPhone SE was the last Apple phone to include a 4-inch screen suitable for smaller hands and pockets, and both the SE and the 6S were Apple’s last phones to include conventional 3.5mm headphone jacks.

But running Apple’s newest software on its oldest supported hardware hasn’t always been a pleasant experience, something we’ve been tracking going all the way back to iOS 6 and the iPhone 3GS in 2012 (see also: iOS 7 and 7.1 on the iPhone 4; iOS 8 and 9 on the iPhone 4S; iOS 10 on the iPhone 5 and 5C; and iOS 11 and 12 on the iPhone 5S). After using iOS 13 on both the 6S and SE recently, I can say that both devices still feel just fine to use—if you’re happy with how iOS 12 runs right now, you’ll be fine with iOS 13, too. They’re both good for hand-me-down devices. But there are still compelling reasons to upgrade if you’re thinking about it, and good reasons not to buy a used or refurbished version of either phone just to get the small screen or the headphone jack.

Apple’s A9 is still pretty good

For this performance test, I did a fresh install of iOS on each device, signed it into a test iCloud account, and let the phones sit for a while to complete any indexing or other behind-the-scenes tasks. I then opened each app three times and averaged the results. In the past, this has been a fairly reliable indicator of how each phone will actually feel in day-to-day use. If opening an app and waiting for it to load on a fresh iOS install feels slow, that usually means that the rest of the phone (including waiting for the keyboard to pop up, waiting for pages to load, and other tasks) will feel slow too, especially as you download more stuff and connect more accounts.

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iOS 13: The Ars Technica review

There’s a lot more to this update than Dark Mode.

Last year, Apple set users’ expectations with iOS 12, saying it would be focused on improving performance and fixing bugs and stability issues instead of adding a bunch of new features. And while there were still plenty of bugs over the course of the iOS 12 cycle, performance was improved—particularly on older devices.

Apple hasn’t tempered expectations for iOS 13 this year, so users might be expecting a big leap forward. iOS 13 does bring a new look to the software that runs on iPhones, overhauls a few oft-criticized first-party applications, and puts additional emphasis on user privacy. Most of all, it adds new, powerful interactions for power users—some of which we thought we'd never see in Apple's mobile software.

iOS 13 is successful at most of what it sets out to do, even though it leaves some things that users have wanted to see overhauled—like the home screen—relatively untouched.

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Peering: Apple sorgt mit Update auf iOS 13 für Weltrekord am DE-CIX

Wieder einmal hat Apple dem DE-CIX zu einem Rekord verholfen. Mit sieben Terabit pro Sekunde könnten stündlich mehr als 2,1 Millionen iPhones auf das neue Betriebssystem aktualisiert werden. (DE-CIX, Apple)

Klimaschutzpaket: Bundesregierung will SUV-Steuer und eine Million Ladepunkte

Die Bundesregierung setzt beim Klimaschutz im Verkehrsbereich vor allem auf die Elektromobilität, sie will die Kaufprämie verlängern und teils erhöhen. Von einer E-Auto-Quote schreckt sie nach wie vor zurück. SUVs sollen aber höher besteuert werden. Ei…

Massive Legal Bills Force TVAddons’ Adam Lackman Towards Bankruptcy

After being targeted by massive legal action in 2017, TVAddons founder Adam Lackman is still hoping to put up a fight against several major Canadian media companies. The huge costs incurred so far are proving crippling and with bankruptcy always just round the corner, defeat by default is rarely far away. It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

TVAddons was once the go-to place for the vast majority of Kodi addons, regardless of who authored them or how they were ultimately used.

Visitors to the platform today, which is still doing relatively well, find a much more sober operation, with listed addons carefully vetted, to weed out any that might help end-users breach copyright law.

This current mode of business is the result of two punishing lawsuits, one filed against founder Adam Lackman in the US by DISH Networks and the other in Canada. While the former was settled in 2018, the latter – filed by media giants Bell Canada, TVA, Videotron, and Rogers – is very much alive.

Progression in the lawsuit appears glacial with an end nowhere in sight. This week Lackman informed TorrentFreak that the companies don’t appear to be in a mood to settle as DISH had done before them. As a result, every legal twist and turn contributes to the mountain of debt Lackman says he’s struggling beneath.

At several points since the case began, Lackman has turned to TVAddons‘ users and other supporters to help raise funds. He believes it’s worth putting up a fight but the Canadian is clearly facing an uphill battle.

Unable to bankroll him any further, his original legal team quit, leaving him with two separate bills of CAD$83,991 and CAD$38,989 to settle before he can move on.

“I was lucky enough to find my original lawyers, however their firms couldn’t handle devoting the time needed unless they were to be paid in full within a timely manner. They couldn’t afford to ignore other business while defending my case on credit,” he explains.

In his latest fundraising effort, launched this week, he’s seeking a total of CAD$171,981 – an amount which includes close to CAD$50,000 to cover some of the plaintiffs’ legal fees, previously awarded to them by the court.

If Lackman raises the full amount anytime soon, he will only break even, leaving him to raise additional funds to continue the fight. Even then, it appears that future battles will have to take place supported by a relatively tight budget.

“As of now I am acting in my own defense, with the help of some legal experts in the background,” he told us recently. “I am looking for new potential representation, but regardless the current debt is not one that I can comfortably carry.

“By defending myself, I hope to avoid incurring too much additional debt. I’m obviously not capable of doing all the paperwork on my own, so I’m getting help with that. I’m hoping that the court recognizes this and protects my right to a fair trial in the process.”

Given the scale of the debt and Lackman’s apparent inability to pay, he says the specter of bankruptcy is never far away. He seems keen to avoid that, not least since his adversaries would achieve an immediate victory.

“I could easily go into bankruptcy right now, but then the plaintiffs would win by default. I feel the fight is too important, and my defense is too strong, to give up now,” he says.

However complicated and expensive the case has become, Lackman believes that he has the law on his side. While TVAddons indexed code that could scrape external sources for content, he insists that the site never hosted or directly linked to any infringing material.

But more importantly, Lackman says, the companies suing him and/or their affiliates never sent the platform a takedown notice before taking action, something he describes as a “prerequisite to their claim being eligible for damages.”

While that assertion may yet prove correct, having that definitively determined by a court of law is proving a supremely costly endeavor. Lackman is working under the assumption that the plaintiffs are trying to break him financially, a theory supported by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

“To this day the copyright cartels are still suing people for anything they dislike,” he wrote on Twitter this week, commenting on the TVAddons case.

“It’s a mob using bullying methods, trying to force people into bankruptcy so they can’t defend themselves and thus the cartel wins on financial walkover.”

Whether that doomsday scenario will play out in Lackman’s case seems wholely dependent on whether people donate to his latest and future fundraisers. At the time of writing, he’s just $2,471 closer to his $171,981 goal.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Cache-Server: Memcached-Inhalte überleben Neustart

Die neue Version 1.5.18 des Cache-Servers Memcached kann Inhalte auch über Neustarts der Software hinweg erhalten. Dabei hilft eine Linux-Kernel-Funktion namens DAX (Direct Access). (Linux-Kernel, Datenbank)

Telekom: “Stadtwerke wollen neue Glasfasermonopole schaffen”

Telekom und Vodafone sind sich einig gegen die Stadtwerke und deren TK-Töchter: Planungen werden häufig von Kommunen, die selbst ausbauen wollen, verschleppt und verzögert. (Buglas, Open Access)

Europa: Google steckt 3 Milliarden Euro in europäische Rechenzentren

Google nimmt für den Standort Europa viel Geld in die Hand. So soll in Finnland ein weiteres Rechenzentrum für 600 Millionen Euro entstehen. Weitere Standorte hat Google in Irland, Belgien, den Niederlanden und auch Deutschland. (Google, Web Service)

35 Jahre Elite: Der Urknall der Open-World-Spiele

Mit Elite war es erstmals möglich, in einem Computerspiel ein ganzes Universum auf eigene Faust zu erkunden. Golem.de blickt anlässlich des 35-jährigen Jubiläums auf den Klassiker und seinen bemerkenswerten Werdegang zurück. Von Benedikt Plass-Fleßenkä…