Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray sales stats for the week ending June 4th 2016

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending June 4th 2016 are in. New release Gods of Egypt took top spot for the week, in another otherwise quiet week. Things will change for sure next week when Z…



The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending June 4th 2016 are in. New release Gods of Egypt took top spot for the week, in another otherwise quiet week. Things will change for sure next week when Zootopia is released.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

Lone wolf claims responsibility for DNC hack, dumps purported Trump smear file

“Guccifer 2.0” publishes hundreds of pages of purported DNC docs.

In an intriguing follow-up to Tuesday's report that Russian hackers gained access to Democratic National Committee servers, an anonymous blogger has claimed he alone was responsible for the breach and backed up the claim by publishing what purport to be authentic DNC documents taken during the online heist.

In a blog post published Wednesday, someone with the handle Guccifer 2.0 published hundreds of pages of documents that the author claimed were taken during a lone-wolf hack of the DNC servers. One 231-page document purports to be opposition research into Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Other files purport to be spreadsheets that included the names and dollar amounts of large DNC donors. Yet another document purportedly came from the computer of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.

"Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by 'sophisticated hacker groups," Wednesday's blog post stated. "I’m very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy."

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A quadruple amputee will be competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend

Thigh paddles and a prosthetic allow him to drive the car, and there’s an ejector seat.

One of the cooler things about the 24 Hours of Le Mans is called Garage 56. The name dates to 2012, when Le Mans only had room for 55 cars in its pitlane, but the ACO (the race organizers) added one extra spot for a car which, according to the ACO's Sporting Director Vincent Beaumesnil, "explores the automobile technology of tomorrow and beyond." In the past, Garage 56 entries have gone to cars that have been pushing the envelope on fuel saving (the Deltawing) or electrification (the ZEOD RC), but this year the focus is rather different.

In 2012, a French businessman called Frédéric Sausset scratched his finger while on vacation in the southwest of France. Tragically, the scratch rapidly led to a life-threatening infection (necrotizing fasciitis) which left Sausset a quadruple amputee. At the point where many of us might just give up and wallow in depression, Sausset instead decided he wasn't going to let the lack of hands or feet get in the way of a life-long ambition—racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And this coming weekend, he's going to do just that.

Sausset's team, SRT41, had a tricky job. A 24-hour race like Le Mans isn't a solo effort—each car has three drivers who split the race between them, swapping in and out during pitstops. The team had to convert its Morgan-Nissan LMP2 car (the slower of the two prototype classes at Le Mans, intended for pro-am teams) so that Sausset could drive it, without compromising the ability of his two able-bodied teammates Jean Bernard Bouvet and Christophe Tinseau from being able to do the same.

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“Spam King,” who defied nearly $1B in default judgments, sentenced to 2.5 years

Sanford Wallace hijacked Facebook accounts to send 27M spam messages.

(credit: Abraham Williams)

A Las Vegas man known as the "Spam King" was sentenced Monday to 2.5 years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty last year to one count of fraud.

The federal judge in San Jose, California also ordered Sanford Wallace to pay over $310,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors wrote that by his own admission, Wallace executed "a scheme from approximately November 2008 through March 2009 to send spam messages to Facebook users that compromised approximately 500,000 legitimate Facebook accounts, and resulted in over 27 million spam messages being sent through Facebook’s servers."

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Asus launches Zenfone Pegaus 3 with 5.2 inch screen

Asus is adding a new model to its Zenfone 3 line of smartphones. Jut a few weeks after introducing the Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Deluxe, and Zenfone 3 Ultra, the company has unveiled a smaller model with a 5.2 inch display, an octa-core processor, and a 4,1…

Asus launches Zenfone Pegaus 3 with 5.2 inch screen

Asus is adding a new model to its Zenfone 3 line of smartphones. Jut a few weeks after introducing the Zenfone 3, Zenfone 3 Deluxe, and Zenfone 3 Ultra, the company has unveiled a smaller model with a 5.2 inch display, an octa-core processor, and a 4,100 mAh battery.

The Asus Zenfone Pegasus 3 is coming to China soon for 1299 Yuan ($197) and up.

The entry-level model feature 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, but Asus will also offer a 1499 Yuan ($228) model with 3GB of RAm and 32GB of storage.

Continue reading Asus launches Zenfone Pegaus 3 with 5.2 inch screen at Liliputing.

E3: Oculus Touch comes out swinging with two stellar motion-controller games

Video: Sam and Kyle get scared by Wilson’s Heart, exchange fireballs in The Unspoken.

(video link)

LOS ANGELES—Oculus may be the best-known name in the virtual reality gaming space, but it's still lacking in one key category: motion controllers. The HTC Vive has proven how fun those devices can be in a VR game or app, and Oculus' answer, the "Touch" set of motion-tracked controllers, still doesn't have a price or a release date.

Thankfully, Oculus Touch is getting closer to a "fall" launch, and at this year's E3, Oculus Studios gave Ars a chance to try two brand-new games in wildly different genres—to prove how serious the company is about hand-tracking gaming.

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Monohm’s Runcible’s round “phone-like” thing hits Indiegogo for $399 and up

Monohm’s Runcible’s round “phone-like” thing hits Indiegogo for $399 and up

These days there are smartphones with big screens and… less big screens. There are models with glass that wraps around the edges, and models that have modular components. But most smartphones look pretty much the same: a rectangle with a glass display.

Monohm’s Runcible breaks the mold. It’s designed to look more like a pocket watch than a smartphone… and in fact, you can’t even hold it to your head to make calls (you’ll need to pair a Bluetooth headset if you want to use the Runcible as a phone).

Continue reading Monohm’s Runcible’s round “phone-like” thing hits Indiegogo for $399 and up at Liliputing.

Monohm’s Runcible’s round “phone-like” thing hits Indiegogo for $399 and up

These days there are smartphones with big screens and… less big screens. There are models with glass that wraps around the edges, and models that have modular components. But most smartphones look pretty much the same: a rectangle with a glass display.

Monohm’s Runcible breaks the mold. It’s designed to look more like a pocket watch than a smartphone… and in fact, you can’t even hold it to your head to make calls (you’ll need to pair a Bluetooth headset if you want to use the Runcible as a phone).

Continue reading Monohm’s Runcible’s round “phone-like” thing hits Indiegogo for $399 and up at Liliputing.

Napster returns! Well, it’s a cat logo on top of Rhapsody, wearing a Napster trench coat

A new home for valuable assets from 17 years ago.

The DJ Cat logo will remain associated with the Napster brand.

Rhapsody announced yesterday that it will be forsaking its given name (well, its second given name, as the music streaming service started as Listen.com back in 2001) in favor of the name "Napster." Yep, Napster is coming back (again), 17 years after it debuted and caused a culture war over peer-to-peer music downloads and file sharing.

It seems that nothing is changing about Rhapsody except the name and the branding—in fact, Rhapsody already sells its streaming service under the Napster name in countries outside the US. But the company may be looking for a new way to compete in a packed music streaming market, and pulling on the heartstrings of millions of now-grownups who gleefully marvelled at the ease with which they were able to download music in the new millennium might be just the ticket.

Of course, Rhapsody-now-Napster will still cost money: $1 for the first three months and then $9.99 every month after that to stream music from the company's library. But then, that's what keeps it "100% legal," as Rhapsody's website proclaims.

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ISIS hacker pleads guilty to giving terrorists US military kill list

Prosecution represents “the nexus of the terror and cyber threats,” feds say.

(credit: YouTube/CNN)

A hacker the US authorities have labeled as the leader of an overseas Internet hacking group—the Kosova Hacker's Security—pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to charges of providing material support to the US enemy. It was the first known prosecution of a hacker joining forces with a terror group in a bid to carry out terrorism, the government said.

The defendant, a Kosovo citizen named Ardit Ferizi, was arrested in Malaysia last year and was accused of stealing data on US military personnel by hacking US corporate computers and then providing that data to the Islamic State terror group.

"Ferizi admitted to stealing the personally identifiable information of over 1,000 U.S. servicemembers and federal employees, and providing it to ISIL with the understanding that they would incite terrorist attacks against those individuals," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin. "The case against Ferizi is the first of its kind, representing the nexus of the terror and cyber threats."

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Android N Developer Preview 4 finalizes APIs, teases “7.0” version number

“Namey McNameface” is apparently the codename for this version of the preview.

The latest version of the Android N Developer Preview is out, and the Developer Preview Program is really starting to wrap things up. Version 4 brings finalized APIs and the final SDK for developers, so the time for serious bug fixing is right now. After this preview, there's just one more version to go until the final release in "Q3 2016."

With the final SDK, the Play Store is also ready to accept apps that are targeting API 24 (the API level of Android N). Devs are encouraged to test backward compatibility on their Alpha or Beta channels and then push full N-ready apps to the Play Store. (Developers, you're totally going to do this, right?)

On the consumer side of things, Google has added a silly joke to the hidden Android N version screen. If you go to the "About Phone" screen and mash on the Android version number section, you'll get the usual "N" logo to pop up. Long press on the "N" logo and instead of an Android version of Flappy Bird, you'll now get an "N" logo with "Namey McNameface" written across it. We're guessing that's not going to be the final "N" name.

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