Innholdsfortegnelse for #281 i Techlife News

The 67-game March Madness basketball tournament begins, with many games taking place during the day when you’re, ahem, supposed to be working. Fortunately for you - but not your bosses - all NCAA Tournament games will be available online. Many of the early round games, though, will require a password through your cable or satellite TV subscription. The television networks no longer offer a stand-alone subscription you can buy without cable. HAPPY STREAMING The best places to watch: http://www.ncaa.com/marchmadness or the NCAA March Madness Live app. All the games will be there, regardless of where they are televised. CBS is televising 24 games, including the national championship and the Final Four. These games won’t require a cable or satellite password through the app or website, but they are viewable only…

Cars with no steering wheel, no pedals and nobody at all inside could be driving themselves on California roads by the end of the year, under proposed state rules that would give a powerful boost to the fast-developing technology. For the past several years, tech companies and automakers have been testing self-driving car prototypes in neighborhoods and on freeways. But regulators insisted those vehicles have steering wheels, pedals and human backup drivers who could take over in an emergency. On Friday, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles proposed regulations that would open the way for truly driverless cars. Under the rules, road-testing of such vehicles could begin by the end of 2017, and a limited number could become available to customers as early as 2018 - provided the federal government…

Matt Garlock has trouble making out what his friends say in loud bars, but when he got a hearing test, the result was normal. Recent research may have found an explanation for problems like his, something called “hidden hearing loss.” Scientists have been finding evidence that loud noise - from rock concerts, leaf blowers, power tools and the like - damages our hearing in a previously unsuspected way. It may not be immediately noticeable, and it does not show up in standard hearing tests. But over time, Harvard researcher M. Charles Liberman says, it can rob our ability to understand conversation in a noisy setting. It may also help explain why people have more trouble doing that as they age. And it may lead to persistent ringing in the ears.…

If the tech industry is drawing one lesson from the latest WikiLeaks disclosures, it’s that data-scrambling encryption works, and the industry should use more of it. Documents purportedly outlining a massive CIA surveillance program suggest that CIA agents must go to great lengths to circumvent encryption they can’t break. In many cases, physical presence is required to carry off these targeted attacks. “We are in a world where if the U.S. government wants to get your data, they can’t hope to break the encryption,” said Nicholas Weaver, who teaches networking and security at the University of California, Berkeley. “They have to resort to targeted attacks, and that is costly, risky and the kind of thing you do only on targets you care about. Seeing the CIA have to do stuff…

Russian hackers working with Russian spies didn’t crack Yahoo security all at once. Instead, according to an account offered by U.S. officials, they methodically made their way deeper into Yahoo’s network over the space of months - maybe years. That allowed them to forge technological skeleton keys that would unlock many Yahoo accounts, steal personal information and then use that data to break into other email services used by their targets, U.S. officials said in announcing charges against four Russians . That Department of Justice indictment fills in some of the blanks surrounding a massive security breach that occurred in 2014, but Yahoo didn’t reveal until six months ago. But it doesn’t answer why it took Yahoo so long to grasp its seriousness or why it waited so long to…

Moana A Walt Disney animation set in ancient Polynesia. When a curse by the ancient Demigod Maui reaches Moana’s island, it is she who must prove herself to fulfil the unfinished quest of her ancestors. Along the way, she encounters enormous sea creatures, underworlds and faces impossible odds all the while coming to terms with her identity. FIVE FACTS: 1. The movie’s composer Lin-Manuel Miranda has stated that the character of Tamatoa the Giant Crab is a tribute to David Bowie. 2. The genie’s lamp from Aladdin can be seen on Tamatoa’s shell. 3. This is the first musical film for Dwayne Johnson, who voices Maui. 4. Moana was featured in Zootopia (2016) as “Meowana.” 5. This is the first Polynesian-themed Disney animated feature film since Lilo & Stitch. Doctor…

So, perhaps you’ve heard: “La La Land” didn’t win best picture at the Oscars. But if every cloud has a silver lining, this one might be called golden: The Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling musical, which did win six Oscars, has been racking up box office numbers remarkable for a musical - nearly $417 million globally so far, according to comScore - and even more for an original one with no previously known songs or story. Damien Chazelle’s eye-popping, toe-tapping creation ranks third in all live-action film musicals, behind the 2008 “Mamma Mia!” and the 2012 “Les Miserables,” neither of them original. “That’s big-time money,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “At times, the musical genre has been marginalized or not taken seriously. But this is serious business.” It’s enough…

“The Big Bang Theory” is getting a spinoff about genius Sheldon’s early years. CBS said Monday that “Young Sheldon” will air this coming season. The comedy is set during the childhood of Jim Parsons’ character on the original series. The precocious 9-year-old Sheldon is living with his family in Texas and attending high school. “Young Sheldon” stars Iain Armitage, who’s appeared on Steve Harvey’s “Big Shots” and in the Nicole Kidman-Reese Witherspoon miniseries “Big Little Lies.” Parsons, as the adult Sheldon, will serve as narrator. Chuck Lorre, co-creator of “The Big Bang Theory,” created “Young Sheldon” with Steven Molaro. Filmmaker Jon Favreau (“The Jungle Book,” Iron Man”) is directing the first episode. An air date for the spinoff was not announced.…

An Australian woman suffered burns to her face after her battery-operated headphones exploded during a flight from Beijing to Melbourne, Australian air safety investigators said Wednesday. The woman, whose name was not released, fell asleep on the plane while wearing the headphones and awoke to a loud explosion about two hours into the flight, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement. The woman said she then felt a burning sensation on her face. “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck,” the woman was quoted as saying in the statement. “I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.” Flight attendants poured a bucket of water…

Germany’s justice minister is proposing fines of up to 50 million euros ($53 million) for social networking sites that fail to swiftly remove illegal content, such as hate speech or defamatory “fake news.” The plan proposed Tuesday marks a further step in Germany’s attempt to impose its strict domestic laws against incitement on the freewheeling world of online chatter. Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party, said social media companies had already taken voluntary steps to crack down on hate crimes that have resulted in improvements. “This isn’t sufficient yet,” Maas said, citing research that he said showed Twitter deletes just 1 percent of illegal content flagged by users, while Facebook deletes 39 percent. The proposal would require companies to provide a round-the-clock service for…

The U.S. Navy is enlisting the help of seals - but not the kind of highly trained special operatives with whom it usually associates. Real seals, specifically their whiskers, may be the key to a new way for ships and underwater vehicles to sense their environment, scientists think. When a fish swims by, a hungry seal senses the wake with its whiskers. It can tell characteristics of the fish, such as shape and size, and track the location even when it’s murky or dark. Despite the adorable possibilities, scientists aren’t looking to outfit ships and vehicles with whiskers. They’re studying how the whiskers function to learn how to reverse-engineer the system. The science could be applied to the development of a future sensor. “If we want to design the best…

Verizon initially thought the biggest data breaches in internet history merited a $925 million discount on its acquisition of Yahoo’s online services, nearly three times more than the two companies finally agreed upon. Yahoo disclosed new details about its negotiations with Verizon in a regulatory filing Monday. The filing doesn’t say why Verizon relented on its original demand, issued on Feb. 1. Verizon ultimately accepted Yahoo’s offer to trim the sale price by $350 million instead. The companies struck a $4.83 billion deal last July, but re-opened talks after Yahoo revealed that personal information had been stolen from more than 1 billion of its users in two separate hacking attacks in 2013 and 2014. The discount reflect concerns that people might decrease their use of Yahoo email and other digital…

Internet radio company Pandora is launching an on-demand music service for $10 a month. Pandora’s existing service works more like radio. People listen to music on customizable stations. The premium service launching this month will let users choose specific songs or albums and will personalize recommendations based on people’s listening habits. There is also an “offline mode.” The new Pandora Premium offering will compete with Apple Music and Spotify, both of which have given the music-streaming pioneer a run for its money. Spotify has 50 million subscribers, while Pandora had about 4.4 million as of the end of 2016. That’s because most people listen to Pandora without paying; the company has 81 million total “active listeners.” Until now, the Pandora subscription mostly stripped out ads - for $5 a month.…

Two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers have been charged in a devastating breach at Yahoo that affected at least a half billion user accounts, the Justice Department said in bringing the first case of its kind against Russian government officials. The hack targeted the email accounts of Russian and U.S. officials, Russian journalists, and employees of financial services and other businesses, officials said. “We will not allow individuals, groups, nation states or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens, the economic interests of our companies, or the security of our country,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord. One of the defendants, Karim Baratov, has been taken into custody in Canada. Another, Alexey Belan, is on the list of the FBI’s most wanted cyber criminals…

Intel will buy Israel’s Mobileye in a deal valued at about $15 billion, instantly propelling the computer chip and technology giant to the forefront of autonomous vehicle technology. The deal announced this week combines Mobileye’s market-leading software that processes information from cameras and other sensors with Intel’s hardware, data centers and its own software, giving automakers a one-stop place to shop for fully autonomous systems. “This acquisition essentially merges the intelligent eyes of the autonomous car with the intelligent brain that actually drives the car,”Intel CEO Brian Krzanich wrote in a note to employees about the acquisition. The combination, expected to close by year’s end, will allow the companies to bring components to market faster at a lower cost, solidifying Mobileye’s leadership position, officials from the companies said. Automakers and…

Heartworms The Shins Heartworms is The Shins’ first record in five years and manages to bridge the electronic textures of Port of Morrow (2012) with the pop melodies of Chutes Too Narrow (2003). In his lyrics, the band’s frontman James Mercer provides an eloquent discussion about how both he and the culture around music have evolved. FIVE FACTS: 1. The Shins frontman James Mercer also plays in a band named Broken Bells alongside producer Danger Mouse. 2. Rolling Stone once credited the band with bringing “the pop traditions of 1960s pop bands — groups like the Beatles, the Zombies, and the Beach Boys — to a new generation of music fans.” 3. The band is based in Portland, Oregon. 4. Their song ‘New Slang’ was once used in a McDonald’s…

Orson Welles’ last film finally has a home. Netflix has acquired the global rights to Welles’ “The Other Side of the Wind” and will finance its completion and restoration. Netflix’s announcement Tuesday brings to a close the decades-long mystery surrounding one cinema’s greatest filmmakers. Welles began shooting the film in 1970 but never completed it. The “Citizen Kane” director died in 1985. “The Other Side of the Wind” is a Hollywood satire about a filmmaker attempting a comeback. Its stars include John Huston, Dennis Hopper and Peter Bogdanovich, who has helped in its editing. Producer Frank Marshall will oversee the film’s completion. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos says he grew up worshipping Welles so releasing Welles’ last film “is a point of pride” for him and for Netflix.…

Facebook is prohibiting developers from using the massive amount of data it collects on users for surveillance. This includes using such data to monitor activists and protesters. The company said that it is making an existing policy “explicit.” Facebook says it has already taken action against developers who created or marketed tools meant to be used for surveillance. Last fall, the American Civil Liberties Union obtained records that Facebook and its Instagram service provided user data access to Geofeedia, which develops a monitoring product marketed to law enforcement. The ACLU said at the time that while both Instagram and Facebook cut off access after finding out about this, Facebook did not have a “public policy specifically prohibiting developers” from taking user data for surveillance.…

This is one cosmically cool sax - and saxophone player. France’s musical astronaut Thomas Pesquet is enjoying a special birthday present delivered to him up at the International Space Station. The saxophone arrived in a SpaceX cargo ship on Feb. 23, and his crewmates kept it hidden until his 39th birthday on Feb. 27. He revealed the birthday surprise this week via Twitter. “Totally pumped to hear @Thom-astro rock his sax on orbit! Happy belated birthday buddy!” future space station crewmate Jack Fischer tweeted Monday. The NASA astronaut is scheduled to blast off next month from Kazakhstan. “You might reconsider when you hear the cacophony. Now ace those final exams and get up here!” Pesquet replied Tuesday. Pesquet has been in orbit since November and has three months remaining in…

China’s industry minister defended a manufacturing development plan and rejected complaints foreign makers of electric cars and other goods might be pressured to hand over technology or forced out of promising markets. Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology, tried to reassure foreign companies that the “Made in China 2025” industry plan treats all companies equally. “The strategy and its related policies are applicable to all businesses in China, be them domestic or foreign,” Miao told a briefing. Miao was responding to a report by the European Union Chamber of Commerce earlier this week that said China is violating its free-trade pledges by inducing foreign firms to give up encryption and other technology to potential Chinese competitors. Technology is a growing flashpoint in trade tensions with Washington and Europe,…

“Saturday Night Live” gets the summer off, but “Weekend Update” will keep the political satire coming in prime time. NBC said Tuesday that four episodes of “Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update” will air at 9 p.m. Thursday starting Aug. 10. Michael Che and Colin Jost, who anchor the segment, will be joined by other “SNL” cast members, the network said. “Weekend Update” has ventured away from its late-night turf into prime time before, but political tumult makes it an especially ripe opportunity for the faux newscast. “SNL” is enjoying a ratings bounce from milking President Donald Trump’s election and the early days of his administration. The season to date is the show’s most-watched in 24 years, with viewership up 26 percent over last year and averaging 11 million weekly, NBC…

A reboot of “The Matrix” is said to be the works, but many fans would rather see Warner Bros. choose a different pill. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Warner Bros. is developing a relaunch of the 1999 film, which spawned two far less beloved sequels. Any new “Matrix” film is in such an early stage that it may - like countless other projects in development - never amount to anything. Warner Bros. declined to share any details on its plans on Wednesday. But the report was enough to stoke a backlash on social media over any tampering with the Wachowskis’ trench-coated, slow-motion bullet-flying science-fiction creation. Reboots, you may have noticed, are a tad common for Hollywood these days. And while repaving old favorites often causes consternation among fans, the possibility…

HOW SECURE IS YOUR SMARTPHONE? Smartphones have transformed our lives, made it easier to communicate, be entertained and informed, and have even helped to provide more than 17 million jobs to the worldwide economy. But as smartphones and operating systems become more complicated, and hackers look for new ways to exploit personal data from their victims, it has never been more important to keep your smartphone and your data secure. Apple designed its iOS operating system with “security at its core”, but has the company done enough to protect its customers against potential hackers and damage? Speaking to the International Business Times website, James Maude, the senior security engineer at security firm Avecto, said that iOS is still a secure smartphone operating system. “Apple maintains tight control over the entire ecosystem, from the hardware and…

U.S. authorities may now be in a better position to figure out if Russian hackers and Russian spies swayed last year’s presidential elections. A scheme uncovered during a federal investigation into a huge Yahoo security breach may have opened a window into other hacks potentially instigated by foreign governments, according to computer security experts. That includes a separate FBI investigation into whether the Russian government hired hackers to interfere with the November election that put President Donald Trump into the Oval Office. “This make you more optimistic that they will get to the bottom of what has been going on,” said Robert Cattanach, a former Department of Justice attorney now in private practice. In the Yahoo case unsealed Wednesday, the Department of Justice alleged that two Russian intelligence agents hired…

Adult., “Detroit House Guests” (Mute Records) Adult. - the husband-and-wife team of Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller - have gained a level of reverence among the notoriously fickle fans within the broad spectrum of electronic music. Their bleak, spare style honed over two decades might be summed up by the titles of two previous releases: “Anxiety Always” and “Let’s Feel Bad Together.” It’s music to dance to while having a nervous breakdown. After receiving a Knight Foundation grant in 2014, Adult. (yes the period belongs there) decided to get out of their comfort zone as a duo and invite some friends for an extended stay at their Michigan headquarters. The result is“Detroit House Guests,”a vigorously unsettling collaborative album that plays to their strengths while meeting new challenges presented by…

It was Wolverine versus King Kong at the box office this weekend, and Kong came out on top. “Kong: Skull Island” opened with $61 million over the weekend, while “Logan,” in its second week, pulled in $38.1 million, according to studio figures. Jordan Peele’s thriller “Get Out,” made for $4.5 million, hung on in the top five, adding $20.7 million to its earnings and bringing its total to $110.7 million in just three weeks. The faith-based film “The Shack” placed fourth with $10 million, and “The Lego Batman Movie” rounded out the top five with $7.6 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release,…

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will celebrate 50 years of Rolling Stone magazine in a new exhibit set to open this spring in Cleveland. The Rock Hall says the exhibit will explore the magazine’s archive of award-winning music and political and cultural reporting. It will open in conjunction with the release of the book, “50 Years of Rolling Stone.” The exhibit will include rarely heard stories, original manuscripts, music reviews and audio interviews that spotlight the artists, writers and others who shared a special partnership with the magazine that debuted in 1967. Highlights of cover images reaching back to rock ‘n’ roll pioneers such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry also will be included in the exhibit that opens May 5. It will close in November 2017.…

Britain’s Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people to prevent women from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases to their children - the first time such approval has been granted. The license was granted Thursday by the country’s fertility regulator, according to the university. In December, British officials approved the “cautious use” of the techniques, which aim to fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cell’s nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure. “Mitochondria diseases can be devastating for families affected and this is a momentous day for patients,” said Doug Turnbull, director of the research at Newcastle University. The university has said it is aiming to treat up to…

A group of Swedish university students that raised 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million) in crowdfunding for their startup to build electric cars has caught the attention of German industrial heavyweight Siemens. The two sides said Wednesday that they were starting a partnership that will see them create 50,000 lightweight city cars annually starting next year. The twin-seat vehicles, called L7e, have 15kW engines with a maximum speed of 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour. They weigh 400 kilograms (880 pounds) each and have a 150 kilometer (93 miles) range. The cars are made from sustainable composite materials and will be unveiled in late 2017, with first deliveries scheduled for early 2019. The first high-end vehicle has a target price of 200,000 kronor ($22,285) - the price for an electric Smart…