Economy passengers may rage after being marched through first class

And first class passengers seem to be enraged by the sight of the lower classes.

Research on inequality usually looks at fairly static social structures like schools, transport, healthcare, or jobs. But sometimes glaring inequality can be quite fleeting, as researchers Katherine DeCelles and Michael Norton argue in a recent PNAS article. Their example? Coming face to face with just how awful airplane economy class is in comparison to first class.

DeCelles and Norton wanted to study whether exposure to this kind of inequality could prompt people to behave badly. They looked at records of “air rage” incidents, where “abusive or unruly” passengers threaten staff or fellow travelers. “Popular explanations for air rage include crowded planes, frustrating delays, and shrinking seats,” they write—but they suspected these explanations are missing something.

They suggest that when people fly in economy class, their position in the social hierarchy becomes glaringly obvious. This is especially so if they have to walk through the first class section of the plane to get to their assigned space in a cramped hell.

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Charter now Comcast’s biggest nationwide rival after TWC approval

FCC gives final signoff, big cable merger could be complete in days.

Charter's new footprint. (The numbers are slightly lower than actual as they're based on year-old data.) (credit: Charter)

The Federal Communications Commission just announced that it approved Charter's acquisitions of Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Bright House Networks, allowing Charter to nearly quadruple in size.

Charter will face conditions designed to boost broadband competition and prevent harms to online video providers that compete against the cable companies' TV services. Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed conditions were approved over opposition from Republican commissioners.

Charter just needs to tie up a few loose ends before completing the deal. The Department of Justice has proposed a settlement that will allow the merger to proceed, and approval from California state regulators could come in a vote on May 12. When announced last year, Charter expected the acquisitions to cost a combined $67.1 billion.

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These rare Indian records survived over a century and are now online

Nearly 1,500 recordings from 1900-1940 are now free through the British Museum.

Over the crackle of an old record, you can hear a woman singing in Urdu. Though listening to her is as easy as clicking a few buttons on the British Library website, her voice comes to you across vast distances in space and time. Sometime in the early 20th century, engineers recorded the voice of a woman called Malkajan for the German company Odeon, which pressed shellac discs for Indian record collectors in the 1910s and 30s. Now her work is part of a series of recordings called The Odeon Collection, digitized by Mumbai record collector Suresh Chandvankar with help from a grant from the British Library. There are over 1400 recordings in the collection, and all are free to the listening public. If you love music and history, it's easy to get lost in the riches of this easily accessible digital archive.

Chandvankar explains the collection:

Odeon label shellac discs were issued in India in two phases: during 1912-16; and during 1932-38. During the first phase, Odeon's first Indian recordings were made in late 1906 on a grand tour that took the engineers from Calcutta to Benares, then on to Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore, Bombay and finally back to Calcutta. In all, they recorded some 700 titles, which were duly shipped back to Berlin for processing and manufacture in what was then the established worldwide pattern. Disc records manufactured and pressed in Germany were shipped back to India by 1908... Because of the diversity of language and cultural taste, Odeon's engineers recorded a great deal of regional music for local consumption.

In the second phase, the Odeon disc manufacturing company operated during 1932-38. Its operations were mainly from Mumbai and Madras and the company produced over 2,000 titles in north and south Indian music. At this time, radio and film songs had just entered the entertainment era. Disc manufacturing and distribution activity continued until the outbreak of World War II. Because of the embargo imposed on German goods, the company had to wind up their business in India, leaving behind hundreds of titles. The musical genre recorded on these discs include drama songs, speeches, folk music, classical music, drama sets, skits and plays, vocal and instrumental music.

What he's describing is a treasure trove of Indian musical culture, from a period when folk songs and traditional music were giving way to the pop music that pervades so many Bollywood movies. Odeon records allowed Indians to enjoy everything from classical music to contemporary comedy from all over the country. And now, over a century after many of these recordings were made, we have a chance to hear what the Indian music industry was like in its infancy.

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Acer Iconia Tab 10 coming soon with full HD screen, Android 6.0

Acer Iconia Tab 10 coming soon with full HD screen, Android 6.0

Acer unveiled a new 10 inch Android tablet on April 21st, the same day when the company introduced its latest notebooks, Chromebook, and a 2-in-1 Windows tablet with liquid cooling. By comparison, the Acer Iconia Tab 10 A3-A40 didn’t look all that exciting… especially since it wasn’t clear at the time whether this tablet would be sold in the United States.

While I still can’t answer that question, it does look like Acer is at least considering offering the Android tablet in the US, because it just showed up at the FCC website.

Continue reading Acer Iconia Tab 10 coming soon with full HD screen, Android 6.0 at Liliputing.

Acer Iconia Tab 10 coming soon with full HD screen, Android 6.0

Acer unveiled a new 10 inch Android tablet on April 21st, the same day when the company introduced its latest notebooks, Chromebook, and a 2-in-1 Windows tablet with liquid cooling. By comparison, the Acer Iconia Tab 10 A3-A40 didn’t look all that exciting… especially since it wasn’t clear at the time whether this tablet would be sold in the United States.

While I still can’t answer that question, it does look like Acer is at least considering offering the Android tablet in the US, because it just showed up at the FCC website.

Continue reading Acer Iconia Tab 10 coming soon with full HD screen, Android 6.0 at Liliputing.

User ratings are unreliable, and we fail to account for that

Amazon user ratings barely match up with Consumer Reports.

User ratings are often a good way to make choices about a purchase, but they come with some inherent weaknesses. For a start, they suffer badly from sampling bias: the kind of person who writes a review isn’t necessarily a good representative of all people who bought the product. Review-writers are likely to be people who have had either a very positive or very negative response to a product. And often, only a few people rate a particular product. Like an experiment with a small sample size, this makes the average rating less reliable.

It turns out people are pretty bad at taking these weaknesses into account when they assess online product ratings, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Consumer Research. The authors found that Amazon ratings might not be the best way to predict the quality of a product, and these reviews often include more subjective judgments that don't get taken into account by potential buyers.

To assess the quality of user ratings, the researchers used ratings from Consumer Reports (CR), a user-supported organization that buys products and tests them rigorously before assigning a score. Generally, CR is considered a reasonable approximation of objective quality within a few different academic fields. To test the reliability, the researchers took CR scores for 1,272 products and compared them to more than 300,000 Amazon ratings for the same items.

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SkinTrack turns your arm into a touchscreen for your smartwatch

SkinTrack turns your arm into a touchscreen for your smartwatch

Smartwatches may let you view information at a glance without taking your phone out of your pocket. But the 1.5 inch screen on most smartwatches doesn’t give you a lot of room for writing, drawing, or even tapping and zooming.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Future Interfaces Group have a solution: extend the touch surface to your arm.

That’s what their SkinTrack system does.

SkinTrack allows you to drag your fingertip across your forearm or hand to send signals to a smartwatch.

Continue reading SkinTrack turns your arm into a touchscreen for your smartwatch at Liliputing.

SkinTrack turns your arm into a touchscreen for your smartwatch

Smartwatches may let you view information at a glance without taking your phone out of your pocket. But the 1.5 inch screen on most smartwatches doesn’t give you a lot of room for writing, drawing, or even tapping and zooming.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Future Interfaces Group have a solution: extend the touch surface to your arm.

That’s what their SkinTrack system does.

SkinTrack allows you to drag your fingertip across your forearm or hand to send signals to a smartwatch.

Continue reading SkinTrack turns your arm into a touchscreen for your smartwatch at Liliputing.

4K Content Protection “Stripper” Beats Warner Bros in Court

LegendSky, a hardware manufacturer that creates devices enabling consumers to bypass 4K copy protection, has survived a crucial lawsuit. LegendSky was sued by Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP), who said the company was breaking the law, but a surprising settlement suggests otherwise.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

hdfurylLate last year the first pirated copies of 4K videos leaked from both Netflix and Amazon. These leaks were unusual as online 4k streams were always well protected against pirates.

Initially it was unclear how the HDCP content protection had been circumvented, but several sources suggested that one of LegendSky’s latest HDFury devices may have been involved.

This suspicion was later corroborated by a well-known Scene group, which openly thanked HDFury in their release notes.

However, not everyone was pleased with the new “pirate tool.” In fact, Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP) sued the HDFury manufacturer over its ability to “strip” the latest HDCP encryption.

The Chinese hardware manufacturer fiercely rejected these piracy claims and countersued Warner and Intel subsidiary for defamation.

In its reply, LegendSky explained that their devices do not “strip” any HDCP copy protection. Instead, the contested HDFury device merely downgrades the higher HDCP protection to a lower version, which is permitted as an exception under the DMCA.

The company further added that several HDCP licensees including Netflix, Disney, NBC and CBS have bought their devices for legitimate purposes.

It’s possible that DCP also appreciated the strength of this argument as this week the company dropped its copyright infringement claims against LegendSky. This means that the 4K integral remains for sale, despite the earlier piracy claims.

Court documents reveal nothing other than a statement signed by both parties, stating that the claims and counterclaims have been dismissed. However, LegendSky did inform its customers a few days ago referring to a settlement being reached.

“We just have been informed by our legal counsel that we must pull all of the below products immediately due to a pending confidential settlement we are reaching,” the email in question reads.

LegendSky’s email

hdfury-pull

Interestingly, the products that were pulled have nothing to do with the 4K splitter that started the lawsuit. Instead, they are digital to analog converters.

In the U.S. these type of products have previously been classed as “infringing” and DCP informed the court about several of these so-called “analog hole” verdicts in an earlier filing. It therefore makes sense that puling these older products is part of the settlement.

This allows Warner Bros. and the Intel daughter company to save face, but it’s only a minor conciliation. With the 4K integral still up for sale, the Chinese hardware manufacturer has without doubt booked a moral victory in this lawsuit.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Evidence of gang ties does not include music on cell phones, court says

Use caution “when drawing conclusions from a defendant’s musical preferences.”

Music from the band Los Tigres Del Norte the authorities found on an assault defendant's mobile phone was wrongly used to prove gang affiliation, Washington state's top court ruled. (credit: Knight Foundation)

Washington state's top court is tossing the assault convictions of three men, in part because prosecutors told jurors that Latin music on one of the defendant's mobile phones highlighted a gang affiliation.

The issue was tangential to why the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Ricardo Juarez DeLeon, brother Anthony DeLeon, and Octavio Robledo. The trio was convicted of first-degree assault in connection to a 2009 non-deadly drive-by shooting in Yakima County. The court demanded a retrial because the men told jail officials they were gang members and could not be placed in a cell with rival gang members. But ultimately the admission was wrongly used against them at trial before the jury, the top court found.

"In this case, the defendants made self-incriminating statements to avoid a credible risk of physical violence," the top court ruled. (PDF) "By their very nature, such statements cannot be considered voluntary, and they should not have been admitted."

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Deals of the Day (5-06-2016)

Deals of the Day (5-06-2016)

Dell’s XPS 13 line of thin and light laptops are notable for their super-slim screen bezels (the 13 inch laptop is closer in size to a typical 11.6 inch model than to most other 13.3 inch laptops). But they’re also notable for a reasonably low starting price of about $800… for a model with a Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, 12GB of storage, and a 1080p non-touch display.

You normally have to pay nearly twice as much if you want a version with a 3200 x 1800 pixel touchscreen display.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-06-2016) at Liliputing.

Deals of the Day (5-06-2016)

Dell’s XPS 13 line of thin and light laptops are notable for their super-slim screen bezels (the 13 inch laptop is closer in size to a typical 11.6 inch model than to most other 13.3 inch laptops). But they’re also notable for a reasonably low starting price of about $800… for a model with a Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, 12GB of storage, and a 1080p non-touch display.

You normally have to pay nearly twice as much if you want a version with a 3200 x 1800 pixel touchscreen display.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-06-2016) at Liliputing.

After Battlefield 4 comes… Battlefield 1?

Leaks suggest this oddly numbered game is set in an “alternate history” World War I.

This leaked retailer art matches with art briefly seen on Xbox Live. (credit: Reddit)

It appears the anticipated sequel to Battlefield 4 will not be Battlefield 5. Instead, EA has apparently thrown traditional counting out the window by preparing Battlefield 1, a new shooter that seems to be set in an alternate history version of World War I.

None of this is official yet; EA is set to actually reveal the next Battlefield title as part of a day-long livestream at 4pm Eastern time today. But the name has been leaked ahead of time by photos from a retail source. The promotional art in those photos matches art that showed up briefly on Xbox Live earlier today and on the livestream itself, depicting a figure with a WWI-era pistol and trench club. There have been previous rumors about the game's setting, too. Back in February, a game called Battlefield 5 was briefly listed as a "WW1 tactical shooter" by a Swiss retailer with an October 26 release date.

Remember that the first Battlefield game (the one people sometimes call "Battlefield One," and which came before Battlefield 2) was actually titled Battlefield 1942.  The name Battlefield 1 remains technically available, we suppose. The series has already jumped around to "1943" and "2143" over the years if you want to get really confusing with the numbering.

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