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The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending January 14, 2023, are in. A ’90s classic being released on 4K for the first time is the top-selling new release for the week. Find out what movie it was in our weekly DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales stats and analysis feature.
The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending January 14, 2023, are in. A '90s classic being released on 4K for the first time is the top-selling new release for the week. Find out what movie it was in our weekly DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales stats and analysis feature.
Free neural network demo generates dynamic, downloadable handwriting on the fly.
Enlarge / An example of computer-synthesized handwriting generated by Calligrapher.ai. (credit: Ars Technica)
Thanks to a free web app called calligrapher.ai, anyone can simulate handwriting with a neural network that runs in a browser via JavaScript. After typing a sentence, the site renders it as handwriting in nine different styles, each of which is adjustable with properties such as speed, legibility, and stroke width. It also allows downloading the resulting faux handwriting sample in an SVG vector file.
The demo is particularly interesting because it doesn't use a font. Typefaces that look like handwriting have been around for over 80 years, but each letter comes out as a duplicate no matter how many times you use it.
During the past decade, computer scientists have relaxed those restrictions by discovering new ways to simulate the dynamic variety of human handwriting using neural networks.
Phone sales plummeted 18 percent last quarter, 11 percent for the entire year.
With a million layoffs and rising inflation, it turns out consumers also aren't interested in spending a ton on a new smartphone. The International Data Corporation has the latest numbers for worldwide smartphone sales in Q4 2022, and it's a disaster. Shipments declined 18.3 percent year-over-year, making for the largest-ever decline in a single quarter and dragging the year down to an 11.3 percent decline. With overall shipments of 1.21 billion phones for the year, the IDC says this is the lowest annual shipment total since 2013.
In the top five for Q4 2022—in order, they were Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo—Apple was, of course, the least affected, but not by much. Apple saw a year-over-year drop of 14.9 percent for Q4 2022, Samsung was down 15.6 percent, and the big loser, Xiaomi, dropped 26.5 percent. For the year, Samsung still took the No. 1 spot with 21.6 percent market share, Apple was No. 2 with 18.8 percent, and Xiaomi took third place at 12.7 percent.
The Q4 2022 bloodbath. (credit: IDC)
The IDC also notes consumers are keeping smartphones longer than ever now, with "refresh rates" or the time that passes before people buy a new phone 'climb[ing] past 40 months in most major markets.' The report closes saying: "2023 is set up to be a year of caution as vendors will rethink their portfolio of devices while channels will think twice before taking on excess inventory. However, on a positive note, consumers may find even more generous trade-in offers and promotions continuing well into 2023 as the market will think of new methods to drive upgrades and sell more devices, specifically high-end models."
Bacteria evolve drug resistance more readily when antidepressants are around.
Enlarge (credit: Larry Washburn)
Jianhua Guo is a professor at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology. His research focuses on removing contaminants from wastewater and the environmental dimensions of antimicrobial resistance. One of those dimensions is the overuse of antibiotics, which promotes resistance to these drugs.
Guo wondered if the same might hold true for other types of pharmaceuticals as well. His lab found that they definitely do. Specific antidepressants—SSRIs and SNRIs—promote resistance to different classes of antibiotics. This resistance is heritable over 33 bacterial generations, even once the antidepressant is removed.
Antidepressants are among the most prescribed and ingested drugs there are. They account for roughly 5 percent of the pharmaceutical market share—about the same as antibiotics—and four of the top 10 most prescribed psychiatric meds in the US.
This month the tabloids have been spicing up regular Premier League and PPV boxing event articles with exclusive commentary on cutting-edge anti-piracy techniques. The Orwellian revelation that Illegal Streaming Detector Cars are tracking people to their homes warrants specific and immediate action; 1) Wrap Firesticks in Tin Foil. 2) Wrap Head in Tin Foil. 3) BUY LEGAL TV PACKAGES.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Early January, anti-piracy group FACT and West Mercia Police announced they would be visiting addresses in the UK to warn people away from pirate IPTV services.
Police had obtained a customer list from a service they raided last year and, since many people hand over their real details to pirate services, tracking down some subscribers would’ve been trivial. None were ever destined for prosecution but they did have an important purpose.
Those visited are the physical proof that people who simply watch illegal streams risk a visit from the police. That’s a psychological step up, but not quite enough on its own.
People also need to believe that punishments are criminally significant. More fundamentally, millions of people need to be exposed to that message first. Paid advertising is an option, but it can’t compete with free.
After failing to consider the finer details and broader implications of FACT’s carefully written press release, UK tabloid media outlets published sensationalized stories with zero context.
The first claim – police were knocking on the doors of 1,000 suspected pirate IPTV subscribers – was a massive exaggeration. The second – two men had already been sentenced to months in prison for simply watching pirate streams – failed to mention that both ran their own piracy operations and received convictions for fraud. In just one of those cases, the prosecution estimated damages in excess of £10 million.
Due to the footprint of mass media, other publications had little incentive to set the record straight. As a result, a substantially distorted ‘fact’ reached millions in the UK and audiences in dozens of other countries around the world. Comments on a Russian state-owned newspaper article described UK police as “extremists” – let that sink in.
Since a reality check seems to be in order, in an upcoming report we’ll reveal the truth about those convictions for watching illegal streams, and compare them to the risks faced by ordinary consumers. In no small part, the motivation to reveal those details was provided by new and completely unsubstantiated claims published in the media during the last few days.
Over the past few years, a new breed of articles has featured in UK tabloids.
Typically published in advance of a big PPV boxing event, articles appear with three components – sundry news about the fights, “stark warnings” not to pirate the fight (or go to prison), and then details of where the fight can be legally bought.
The same format appears just before the start of a new football season, year after year.
After reading hundreds of similar articles, the intended effect can wear off, but a few days ago something extraordinary appeared in not one, but two UK tabloids under different ownership. Both articles promoted the Chris Eubank Jr vs. Liam Smith PPV boxing event that took place last Saturday night and did so in almost identical ways.
The Mirror ran with the headline, “Boxing fans sent prison warning over illegal Chris Eubank Jr fight stream.” The article itself made no mention of who issued the warning or what was actually said, but did have room for the following sequential paragraphs:
Sky Sports Box Office is showcasing the grudge match, with the price for the first big British boxing card of the year set at £19.95.
And new technology now enables sports’ rightholders and broadcasters to trace the unique IP addresses of users illegally streaming the fight – for up to six months.
Mail Online ran with the headline, “Boxing fans handed PRISON warning ahead of Saturday’s highly-anticipated middleweight clash.” This time the article did cite a source for the warnings: “Police reissued warnings for those intending to illegally stream the fight.”
No specific police unit or officer received credit for the warning, but Mail Online did repeat the same IP address claims published by The Mirror. Unfortunately, neither cited a source or attempted to explain how this “new technology” might work. How sports reporters got the best anti-piracy scoop of the last 20 years also remains a mystery.
If you aren’t wearing a tin foil hat right now, find something with equivalent protection and buckle up. The articles referenced above were written by two different people, and published in two separate publications under different ownership.
Both articles are based on the same exclusive information, have the same structure, and make the same extraordinary claims. Some take scare tactics to a brand-new level.
The Mirror: “Cars driving across the UK have also been fitted with tracking devices as police identity the households illegally streaming such events during the crackdown.”
Mail Online: “It is part of a wider police attempt to decrease illegal streaming, and cars have been fitted with apparatus that will allow them to pick up and track streamers to their homes.”
If this claim had substance – real substance – it would make for an irresistible tabloid headline, not something casually bumped between paragraphs in a boxing article. Then there’s the question of how it came to appear in there at all.
Did two independent journalists simultaneously discover the existence of piracy spy vehicles driving all over the UK? On the balance of probabilities, the theory fails to convince. Equally unlikely is a scenario where one writer spotted the other’s work and thought that the claim was so generic, nobody would notice it being republished in a rival newspaper.
Could it be possible, that by some coincidence, the articles relied on the same source? Without cooperation and full disclosure, that would be hard to prove. But if there was an aim, somewhere along the murky tip supply chain, to deter piracy by revealing the existence of Illegal Streaming Detector Cars, here’s the breaking news: it’s been tried before and it didn’t work.
DeepAI’s rendition of the new detection/tracking technology
The BBC’s ‘TV Detector Vans‘ have been objects of ridicule in the UK for the last 60 to 70 years. The BBC refuses to discuss them in response to FOIA requests and the suspicion here is that ISDCs (all anti-piracy terms MUST have an acronym) will find themselves shrouded in similar mystery.
In the meantime, all “hacked and dodgy Firesticks” should be immediately wrapped in tin foil and buried outside. For extra protection, make a tin foil hat and take two spoons of common sense every four hours.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Angry Miao replaces bulky arrow buttons with a 2×0.5-inch capacitive touchpad.
Enlarge / A recent keyboard announcement explores a space-saving alternative to dedicated arrow buttons. (credit: Scharon Harding)
Which keys are absolutely essential to a keyboard? Many will tell you the entire numpad is, while others demand macro keys. I personally insist on some sort of volume knob for my home office setup. And as someone who has tested 60 percent keyboards, which have no numpad or arrow keys, I'd add that for productiveness and my sanity, arrow keys are also mandatory.
Arrow-less keyboards have their market, but for the vast majority, no arrows on a keyboard is dealbreaker. A mechanical keyboard Angry Miao announced today asks us to consider an alternative, though. Instead of arrow keys or relying on a key combo for arrow input (like most 60 percent keyboard users do), it has a capacitive touch panel on the front edge for inputting arrow and other functions with your thumbs.
Is Angry Miao on to something here?
The NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB module is a little computer that looks like a stick of RAM, but which offers up to 100 TOPS of AI performance for machine learning, computer vision, and other tasks. NVIDIA’s new system-on-a-module is now available…
The NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB module is a little computer that looks like a stick of RAM, but which offers up to 100 TOPS of AI performance for machine learning, computer vision, and other tasks. NVIDIA’s new system-on-a-module is now available for purchase. But with a $699 price tag, it’s clear that the Orin NX 16GB […]
The post NVIIDA Jetson Orin NX 16GB is now available (tiny system-on-a-module up to 100 TOPS AI performance) appeared first on Liliputing.
MSG says policy is legal, while NY AG alleges it may violate civil rights law.
Enlarge / Radio City Music Hall on December 14, 2021, in New York City. (credit: Getty Images | Alexi Rosenfeld )
The operator of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall is being probed by New York's attorney general over the company's use of facial recognition technology to identify and exclude lawyers from events. AG Letitia James' office said the policy may violate civil rights laws.
Because of the policy, lawyers who work for firms involved in litigation against MSG Entertainment Corp. can be denied entry to shows or sporting events, even when they have no direct involvement in any lawsuits against MSG. A lawyer who is subject to MSG's policy may buy a ticket to an event but be unable to get in because the MSG venues use facial recognition to identify them.
In December, attorney Kelly Conlon was denied entry into Radio City Music Hall in New York when she accompanied her daughter's Girl Scout troop to a Rockettes show. Conlon wasn't personally involved in any lawsuits against MSG but is a lawyer for a firm that "has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment," NBC New York reported.
Auch nach der Ausgründung sind die Techies bei Kyndryl nicht vor einem Stellenabbau sicher. IBM macht es wie die übrige Techbranche. (IBM, Red Hat)
Der Hybridzugang, bei dem der Router die Datenrate aus Festnetz und 5G-Mobilfunknetz aggregiert, wurde schon lange erwartet. Jetzt liefert die Telekom. (Speedport, DSL)
Auch nach der Ausgründung sind die Techies bei Kyndryl nicht vor einem Stellenabbau sicher. IBM macht es wie die übrige Techbranche. (
Der Hybridzugang, bei dem der Router die Datenrate aus Festnetz und 5G-Mobilfunknetz aggregiert, wurde schon lange erwartet. Jetzt liefert die Telekom. (
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