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Chinas Planungsbehörden gehen schnell und ernsthaft an die Thematik heran. Virtual Reality zählt als Schlüsselindustrie. Das Land hat gute Chancen, die globale XR-(Erweiterte Realität)-Industrie anzuführen.
Ab Februar ist die Ausfuhr von Rohöl untersagt, wenn der Preisdeckel eingehalten wird. Von extremen Maßnahmen sieht Russland vorerst ab. Die Regierung bereitet aber weitere Schritte vor.
It’s fast, energy efficient, environmentally friendly compared to conventional heating
Enlarge / In the future, our kitchen gadgets might include an infrared popcorn popper.
There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2022, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Researchers figured out how to make tasty popcorn with infrared cooking.
Most of us rely on counter-top air poppers or microwaves to whip up a tasty popcorn snack. But infrared cooking offers another viable alternative, according to a September paper published in the journal ACS Food Science and Technology.
Popcorn is the only grain in the corn family that pops in response to the application of heat—specifically, temperatures above 180° C. It has a lot to do with the structure of the kernels. Each has a tough outer shell, called the pericarp, within which lies the germ (seed embryo) and the endosperm. The latter holds trapped water (popcorn kernels need about 14 percent water to pop) and starch granules.
GA107 die has just the right number of CUDA cores for an RTX 3050.
Enlarge (credit: MSI)
Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 is no one's idea of a powerhouse, but it's a decent 1080p GPU and it's still the cheapest way to buy into Nvidia's RTX 3000-series ecosystem if you want DLSS 2.0 support or Nvidia's ray-tracing implementation. MSI has published specs for a revised version of one of its RTX 3050 GPUs (via VideoCardz), advertising the same general features and performance levels but lowering the power consumption estimate by 15 W.
The lower power consumption appears to come from the GPU's use of a smaller graphics die, called GA107. Older RTX 3050s use the same GA106 die as the RTX 3060 series, but with many of that die's 3,840 CUDA cores switched off. This can allow Nvidia to reuse partially defective GA106 dies, but as chip yields improve and the number of defective dies decreases, it either means shipping fewer RTX 3050s or putting perfectly good chips in cheaper GPUs. The GA107 die includes a maximum of 2,560 CUDA cores, and it apparently needs a bit less power than a GA106 die with the exact same number of cores enabled.
The two MSI cards in question otherwise have almost exactly the same specs, power consumption aside: an 1807 MHz boost clock, 14 Gbps of memory bandwidth thanks to GDDR6 on a 128-bit memory interface, and 2,560 CUDA cores. One other change is that the newer revision has two DisplayPorts and two HDMI ports, rather than three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port, a small change that most likely has nothing to do with the GPU change. Another is that the card now requires a 6-pin power plug, rather than an 8-pin plug.
Security issues make the app “high risk,” according to House cybersecurity office.
Enlarge (credit: 5./15 WEST | iStock Unreleased)
TikTok will no longer be allowed on any device managed by the US House of Representatives. On Tuesday, the House's Chief Administrative Office announced the ban of the popular video-sharing app, a move that comes just a week after legislation that would bar TikTok from all federal devices was introduced.
Congresspersons and their staffers will not be able to download the app on managed devices, the CAO's Office of Cybersecurity said in an email seen by Reuters. The mobile app is a "high risk to users due to a number of security risks," the email said.
"If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it," the email continued.
In June 2022, a court in the United States awarded DISH Network, Sling, and NagraStar, more than $100m in damages against pirate IPTV service, Nitro TV. While the plaintiffs are unlikely to recover the full amount, they are determined to get what they can. The U.S. Marshals Service has just announced the upcoming sale of a house worth around a million dollars, just 1% of the overall debt.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Some players in the pirate IPTV market view subscription sales as little more than a side hustle, one that brings in a few dollars here, and a few dollars there. No big deal.
That may well be the case but elsewhere in the chain, people are making serious money. Bill Omar Carrasquillo, aka Omi in a Hellcat, openly admits that he made multiple tens of millions from his service, Gears TV. The operators of Nitro TV didn’t make that much, but the amount still contained one or two digits followed by six zeros.
In common with Carrasquillo, legal problems also engulfed Nitro operator Alex Galindo and several members of his family. After being sued in 2021 by US broadcaster DISH Network, Sling and NagraStar, in June 2022 a court ordered Nitro’s operators to pay more than $100m in damages, a staggering amount that won’t ever be recovered in full.
Recovery in part can’t be ruled out, however.
In July 2022, the plaintiffs stepped on the gas by requesting several writs of garnishment at a Texas district court. Believing that the Galindos had squirreled away several million dollars in various bank accounts, the plaintiffs sought permission to find out exactly how much was involved and where it could be found.
Among those contacted were Wells Fargo Bank, Woodforest National Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, and Capital One (example response below)
All responses received amounted roughly to the same thing – if there was ever any money, it’s all gone now. In October 2022, the plaintiffs updated the court on their findings, noting that more than $10 million had been spent, relocated, or otherwise disappeared.
Referring to Nitro TV defendants Alejandro (Alex), Anna, Martha, and Osvaldo Galindo as “Judgment Debtors”, the plaintiffs reminded the court of ignored pre-lawsuit cease-and-desist correspondence, failure to shut down Nitro TV after the lawsuit was filed, and destruction of evidence while it was underway.
Then came details of the bank accounts;
– $5.8m deposited into Martha and Osvaldo Galindo’s Chase accounts. Balance: $49.22.
– $3.0m deposited into Martha’s Capital One account. Response: No active accounts
– $1.0m deposited into Anna’s Woodforest account. Balance: unspecified negative sum
– $164k deposited into Alex’s Wells Fargo account. Response: No active accounts
“All told, the entirety of the $10 million that Judgment Debtors are known to have received from their sale of Device Codes has been removed from Judgment Debtors’ accounts,” DISH and Nagra informed the court.
“More than $1.5 million of those funds was transferred to a Galindo family member in Mexico and another $181,730.00 was transferred to Alejandro Galindo’s ex-wife, further demonstrating that Judgment Debtors have taken steps to conceal their illicit proceeds and prevent Plaintiffs from enforcing the Judgment.”
Some assets are less easily relocated, however.
While protection varies from state to state, a homestead exemption can limit creditors’ access to equity held in a home. A property identified by the plaintiffs in Friendswood, Texas, does not enjoy any protection, the plaintiffs informed the court.
“The Friendswood Property was purchased using funds that Judgment Debtors wrongfully acquired from their sale of Device Codes [pirate IPTV subscriptions],” the companies said, referencing the property in the video below.
The plaintiffs said that customer IPTV subscription payments totaling $5.5m were paid into a Paymentech account. Around $5.4m was transferred to a Chase account operated by Martha Galindo, with $925,913 ultimately financing the house in Friendswood, under Alex Galindo’s name.
“The Friendswood Property does not qualify for homestead protection under this well-established Texas law because the property was purchased using wrongfully acquired funds that Judgment Debtors received from their infringing Nitro TV service,” the plaintiffs informed the court.
The Galindos could have objected, but did not. On November 30, 2022, the court ordered the United States Marshal Service to levy and sell the property, and apply the proceeds towards satisfaction of the judgment.
The Marshal Service visited the house on December 9, 2022. According to court records, someone inside responded to the official’s knock and ring, but he wasn’t invited into the property. A Notice of Sale was posted on the front door.
A formal notice was later published by The Daily News, the oldest newspaper in Texas. It has since been removed but the key details are as follows:
[The U.S. Marshals Service] will proceed to sell, without appraisement, for cash, to the best and highest bidder, on the first Tuesday in January 2023, that being the 3rd day of January 2023, at Public Auction at the Galveston County Courthouse located at 722 Moody Ave., Galveston, TX 77550 in the commissioner’s court, between the hours of 10a.m. and 4p.m., all the right, title and interest of the defendant(s) in the real property as described below in order to satisfy the judgment issued in the above mentioned action.
At the start of the sale, the Marshal shall set the minimum bid and bid increments, if any. At the conclusion of the sale the winning bidder shall provide the U.S. Marshal with a deposit of ten percent (10%) of the winning bid and the remaining ninety percent (90%) shall be paid within seven (7) days thereafter, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.
While large damages awards are often the outcome of pirate IPTV lawsuits in the United States, their scale can at times render them ridiculous to most ordinary people.
The persistence of DISH, Sling and Nagra, shows that while the amounts can be unbelievable, the consequences live on, long after the headlines have been forgotten.
The potential for the consequences to drag on in this matter seems considerable. Even if the property sells for $1 million, the amount outstanding on the damages award will still exceed $99 million.
Related court documents can be found here (1,2,3, pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
It’s still unclear which Twitter exec was telling the truth.
Ever since The Verge reported that Twitter shut down its communications office, it’s been harder to confirm information about the company, which seems to be the way that CEO Elon Musk likes it. However, increasingly, Twitter trust and safety chief Ella Irwin seems more willing to confirm or deny rumors to media outlets, a move that’s possibly irking Musk. Over the holiday weekend, Musk tweeted to directly contradict a statement Irwin provided to Reuters, causing even more confusion over what’s going on at Twitter—and whether there’s tension brewing between Musk and Irwin.
The timeline of the contradictory statements went like this: On Friday, Dec. 23, Reuters reported that Twitter had seemingly removed the social media platform’s #ThereIsHelp feature, which was designed to share suicide-prevention resources alongside certain content.
Shortly after Reuters’ report went live, Irwin emailed Reuters to confirm that the feature was “temporarily removed.” She said that it would be brought back this week, once Twitter finished “fixing and revamping our prompts.”
The game’s long, convoluted history gets longer and more convoluted.
A screenshot from the playable 2D build of Duke Nukem Forever. [credit: @VinciusMedeiro6 on Twitter ]
Duke Nukem Forever is infamous among PC gamers of a certain age for its long and tortured development cycle. Fifteen years passed between the release of Duke Nukem 3D in 1996 and the eventual release of Forever in 2011, and in that time the game went through many permutations and development teams.
Earlier this year, a 4chan leaker called x0r_jmp leaked a 3D build of the game from circa 2001 (we played it). This week, the same leaker has shared an even older piece of the puzzle: a playable version of a 1996-era 2D iteration of Duke Nukem Forever. Screenshots and gameplay video show a game that looks a lot like the first two 2D Duke Nukem games, but with an updated visual style that tosses pixel art in favor of trendy 3D rendering.
This is the first time that a playable version of this game has been available, but it's not the first time we've seen the 2D version of DNF. Scott Miller, founder of original Duke Nukem developer Apogee Software, ran an interview with developer Darrin Hurd back in August that talked about the origins of the 2D version of Duke Nukem Forever. (This interview, as well as the included screenshots, would seem to confirm this leak's authenticity.)
For the first few years of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there had been a chip shortage due to decreased supply and increased demand. Factories shut down toward the start of the pandemic, but demand for computers and other gadgets went up as people we…
For the first few years of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there had been a chip shortage due to decreased supply and increased demand. Factories shut down toward the start of the pandemic, but demand for computers and other gadgets went up as people were told to stay at home for work and school. Now the […]
The post Lilbits: The chip shortage is over… and now there’s a glut appeared first on Liliputing.
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