Innholdsfortegnelse for #326 i Techlife News

Apple’s next major update of its mobile software will include an option that will enable owners of older iPhones to turn off a feature that slows the device to prevent aging batteries from shutting down. The free upgrade announced Wednesday will be released this spring. The additional controls are meant to appease iPhone owners outraged since Apple acknowledged last month that its recent software updates had been secretly slowing down older iPhones when their batteries weakened. Many people believed Apple was purposefully undermining the performance of older iPhones to drive sales of its newer and more expensive devices. Apple insisted it was simply trying to extend the lives of older iPhones, but issued an apology last month and promised to replace batteries in affected devices at a discounted price of…

Netflix once fought fiercely for net neutrality, fearing that its online video service would suffer if internet providers were free to discriminate against it. But now that it boasts one of television’s largest audiences, Netflix isn’t spending much time worrying about the demise of the government rules that once protected it. With millions of subscribers still flocking to its service, Netflix figures internet providers are unlikely to do anything that might alienate large numbers of their own customers who also turn to Netflix for trendy shows such as “Stranger Things,”“The Crown and “Black Mirror.” “Netflix’s fortress is so strong now that net neutrality has become background noise for them,” says GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives. BIG AND GETTING BIGGER The Trump-era Federal Communications Commission repealed net-neutrality rules in mid-December. Those…

One of the enduring sci-fi moments of the big screen — R2-D2 beaming a 3-D image of Princess Leia into thin air in “Star Wars” — is closer to reality thanks to the smallest of screens: dust-like particles. Scientists have figured out how to manipulate nearly unseen specks in the air and use them to create 3-D images that are more realistic and clearer than holograms, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. The study’s lead author, Daniel Smalley, said the new technology is “printing something in space, just erasing it very quickly.” In this case, scientists created a small butterfly appearing to dance above a finger and an image of a graduate student imitating Leia in the Star Wars scene. Even with all sorts of holograms already in…

No cashiers, no registers and no cash — this is how Amazon sees the future of store shopping. The online retailer opened its Amazon Go concept to the public this week in Seattle, which lets shoppers take milk, potato chips or ready-to-eat salads off its shelves and just walk out. Amazon’s technology charges customers after they leave. “It’s such a weird experience, because you feel like you’re stealing when you go out the door,” said Lisa Doyle, who visited the shop this week. Amazon employees have been testing the store, at the bottom floor of the company’s Seattle headquarters, for about a year. Amazon.com Inc. said it uses computer vision, machine learning algorithms and sensors to figure out what people are grabbing off its store shelves. The store is…

Gov. Mark Dayton named a new top official to take over Minnesota’s information technology agency this week, and she has a clear mandate: fix the state’s new computer system for license plates and tabs after its bungled rollout last summer. Brigadier Gen. Johanna Clyborne, a top leader in Minnesota’s National Guard, will take over as commissioner of Minnesota Information Technology Services on Feb. 2. Her predecessor, Tom Baden, announced his retirement last month, citing health reasons. But Baden’s announcement came amid a controversy surrounding MNLARS, the new system launched in July to replace a 30-year-old platform for processing license plate and tab registrations. Car dealerships and registrars across the state have reported enormous backlogs and long delays in processing basic transactions, triggering cries from top Republicans that Dayton’s administration should…

The Mountain Between Us Kate Winslet and Idris Elba’s characters become stranded on a remote snow-covered mountain following a plane crash. From here on out this suspense drama is a battle for survival as the pair begin their perilous journey home. The strangers are forced to work together, and they discover their own inner strength as they fight for their lives. FIVE FACTS: 1. Much of the film was shot in Canada, on the border of Alberta and British Columbia. 2. Both Michael Fassbender and Margot Robbie dropped out of the movie, followed by Charlie Hunnam and Rosamund Pike. Idris Elba and Kate Winslet were eventually cast in the leading roles. 3. Filming was delayed a few days so Kate Winslet could attend Alan Rickman’s funeral. 4. In an interview,…

“The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson is going from Middle Earth to the Western Front, transforming grainy black-and-white footage of World War I into 3-D color for a new documentary film. Jackson’s movie, announced this week, is among dozens of artworks commissioned by British cultural bodies to commemorate 100 years since the final year of the 1914-18 war. The New Zealand-based director of “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” series has restored film from the Imperial War Museum using cutting-edge digital technology and hand coloring, pairing it with archive audio recollections from veterans of the conflict. He said the aim is to close the 100-year time gap and show “what it was like to fight in the war.” “We all know what First World War footage looks…

SpaceX fired up its newest, biggest rocket in a critical launch pad test Wednesday, advancing toward a long-anticipated test flight possibly in just a week. The Falcon Heavy briefly roared to life for the first time at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. All three boosters — 27 engines in all — were tested. The thunderous booms could be heard at the press site three miles away, as huge white clouds of engine exhaust billowed into a clear blue sky. Everything appeared normal: The 230-foot (70-meter) rocket stood tall and brilliantly white after the test on the historic pad once used by NASA’s Apollo moon rockets and space shuttles. SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said an hour later that the firing was good. “Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a…

Video replays will be used at the World Cup for the first time and talks are underway with potential sponsor branding to appear when the technology is used, a FIFA executive said on Monday. Soccer’s rule-making panel met on Monday to assess recent trials ahead of video assistant referees (VAR) being officially approved by FIFA later this season for use in Russia in June and July. “Definitely, VAR will happen,” FIFA chief commercial officer Philippe Le Floc’h told The Associated Press. “It’s great to have technology in football because this is also a fair(ness) thing.” Referees were assisted for the first time by high-tech aids at a World Cup in 2014 when goal-line technology was used. That system sees a message instantly flash on referees’ watches saying only whether the…

Solar energy is booming in the United States, but companies riding the wave fear that President Donald Trump could undercut them this week if he decides to impose new tariffs on imported solar panels. Businesses that install solar-power systems are benefiting from a glut of cheaper panels made overseas, mostly in Asia. That has made solar power more competitive with electricity generated from coal and natural gas. A green-technology research firm estimates that tariffs could cost up to 88,000 U.S. jobs related to installing solar-power systems. On the other side are two U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies that argue the domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules has been decimated by a flood of imports, mostly from Chinese companies with operations throughout Asia. Imports of silicon photovoltaic cells, the building…

The European Union slapped a $1.23 billion fine on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm for abusing its market dominance in the lucrative sector of components in smartphones and tablets for half a decade. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that San Diego-based Qualcomm “illegally shut out rivals from the market” for more than five years by paying key customer Apple to not use chips made by Qualcomm’s rivals. Vestager said Qualcomm paid “billions of dollars” to Apple and in the process helped establish itself as the dominant force. She said the payments were made in part by reducing prices for Apple to buy Qualcomm components on condition that Apple iPhones and iPads would exclusively use Qualcomm chips. The EU said that the abuse happened between 2011 and 2016 and centered on baseband chipsets…

Montana became the first state to bar telecommunications companies from receiving state contracts if they interfere with internet traffic or favor higher-paying sites or apps, under an order from Gov. Steve Bullock intended to protect so-called net neutrality. The Democratic governor’s order comes after the Federal Communications Commission last month repealed rules enacted in 2015 that had more tightly regulated companies such as AT&T and Verizon. Commission members said the repeal was needed to ensure the government maintains a “light touch” in its oversight of the internet. But critics such as Bullock contend change will hurt consumers and make it harder for startup companies to enter the market. “There has been a lot of talk around the country about how to respond to the recent decision,” Bullock said in announcing…

APPLE’S HOMEPOD IS ON THE HORIZON Apple’s $349 HomePod is now available to preorder and the wireless speaker will be in stores on February 9. The HomePod will be on sale in US, UK and Australia and will rollout to France and Germany in the spring. Apple will finally compete with the likes of Google Home and Amazon’s Echo as they bring out their own smart speaker. Apple is promoting it as a speaker primarily and an assistant second. This is a speaker that could transform how you listen to music at home as it claims to analyze the room to deliver exceptional quality. It will also allow you to make lists, write emails, send messages and ask the weather, but how will it compare with others on the market?…

Google parent Alphabet Inc. outspent all other companies on lobbying Washington bureaucrats and politicians in 2017, a year in which it and other tech giants were hauled before legislators probing Russian influence in the 2016 election. The search giant doled out $13.6 million on lobbying firms like Prime Policy Group and Gephardt Group, edging out the $13.2 million spent by AT&T, which is facing government opposition to its takeover of Time Warner Inc. for $85 billion. The figures were compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Lawyers from Google, Facebook and Twitter were grilled by lawmakers the week of Nov. 1 for not preventing abuse of their platforms by Russian agents masquerading as Americans. Alphabet’s spending actually fell 12 percent compared to 2016, but AT&T also cut back.…

Comcast’s NBC is airing both the Super Bowl and the Olympics in February, a double-whammy sports extravaganza that the company expects to yield $1.4 billion in ad sales, helping it justify the hefty price it’s paying for both events. NBC is banking heavily on these sports events since traditional TV ratings have slumped in recent years. Live sports are marquee TV events that draw most of the largest TV audiences, but even those ratings have declined. More Americans are dumping their cable packages — Comcast lost 33,000 video customers in the fourth quarter and 151,000 for all of 2017 — and advertisers are following consumers to their phones. Spending on U.S. TV ads is expected to grow an anemic 0.4 percent this year, according to eMarketer. In the October-December quarter,…

The Greatest Showman Various Artists The soundtrack from the ultimate feel-good film will have you singing along and grinning from ear to ear throughout. The Greatest Showman is a celebration of the birth of show business, following the true story of a man who challenged social norms to bring the excluded and mocked out from the shadows. The film is a celebration of humanity, and so is the soundtrack that accompanies it. FIVE FACTS: 1. Hugh Jackman’s favorite track is ‘This is Me’, which is all about celebrating our differences and accepting who we are. 2. While the film is set in the 1800s, the decision was taken to make the songs are far more contemporary, evoking pop and hip-hop genres, rather than the more classical music style of the…

For the first time, researchers have used the cloning technique that produced Dolly the sheep to create healthy monkeys, bringing science an important step closer to being able to do the same with humans. Since Dolly’s birth in 1996, scientists have cloned nearly two dozen kinds of mammals, including dogs, cats, pigs, cows and polo ponies, and have also created human embryos with this method. But until now, they have been unable to make babies this way in primates, the category that includes monkeys, apes and people. “The barrier of cloning primate species is now overcome,” declared Muming Poo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. In a paper released Wednesday by the journal Cell, he and his colleagues announced that they successfully created two macaques. The female baby…

Spacewalking astronauts gave a hand to the International Space Station’s big robot arm. As the federal government geared back up 250 miles below, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle successfully installed the new mechanical gripper. Because of the lingering effects of the government shutdown, the spacewalk got started in the morning without coverage on NASA TV. An on-air message simply stated: “We regret the inconvenience.” Nearly an hour into the spacewalk, however, NASA TV came alive and began broadcasting the event with typical blow-by-blow commentary. Space station operations were largely unaffected by the three-day shutdown. Considered essential personnel, Mission Control kept watch as usual at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Vande Hei performed a similar spacewalk last October, when he replaced the first of two original hands on…

Christa McAuliffe’s lost lessons are finally getting taught in space. Thirty-two years after the Challenger disaster, a pair of teachers turned astronauts will pay tribute to McAuliffe by carrying out her science classes on the International Space Station. As NASA’s first designated teacher in space, McAuliffe was going to experiment with fluids and demonstrate Newton’s laws of motion for schoolchildren. She never made it to orbit: She and six crewmates were killed during liftoff of space shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986. Astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold will perform some of McAuliffe’s lessons over the next several months. Acaba shared the news during a TV linkup last week with students at her alma mater, Framingham State University near Boston. “I can’t think of a better time or a better…

British regulators said this week that 21st Century Fox’s takeover of London-based pay TV company Sky is not in the public interest because it would give Rupert Murdoch too much control over the country’s news media. But they offered remedies that may pave the way for the deal go ahead. The regulator’s preliminary finding is the latest hurdle for Fox’s effort to buy the 61 percent of Sky PLC it doesn’t already own for 11.7 billion pounds ($16.3 billion). A previous takeover attempt six years ago was derailed by the phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s British newspapers. The findings of the Competition and Markets Authority will be finalized by May 1, when the regulator will send its report to the government, which will make a final ruling on the Sky deal.…

Elon Musk is known for his bold predictions on electric and self-driving cars. Now his pay could depend on whether those predictions come true. Under a new all-or-nothing pay package, Musk would remain at Tesla Inc. for the next decade and see his compensation tied to ambitious growth targets. The proposal, revealed this week in a regulatory filing, requires that Tesla grow in $50 billion leaps, to a staggering $650 billion market capitalization. The electric car maker, based in Palo Alto, California, is worth less than $60 billion today. Tesla must hit a series of escalating revenue and adjusted profit targets, only after which Musk would vest stock options worth 1 percent of company shares. He would get no other guaranteed compensation. The pay package, developed over the last six…

Seven years ago, a computer beat two human quizmasters on a “Jeopardy” challenge. Ever since, the tech industry has been training its machines even harder to make them better at amassing knowledge and answering questions. And it’s worked, at least up to a point. Just don’t expect artificial intelligence to spit out a literary analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” any time soon. Research teams at Microsoft and Chinese tech company Alibaba reached what they described as a milestone earlier this month when their AI systems outperformed the estimated human score on a reading comprehension test. It was the latest demonstration of rapid advances that have improved search engines and voice assistants and that are finding broader applications in health care and other fields. The answers they got wrong…

For some of the 200-plus cities knocked out of the running for Amazon’s second headquarters, the effort may turn out to be a trial run for other opportunities. But they’re advised to not make the same kind of promises to just anyone. Cities such as Detroit, Memphis, Tennessee; and Gary, Indiana, failed to make Amazon’s first cut as the online giant narrowed its list to 20 prospective sites for the $5 billion project that could employ up to 50,000 people. Looking on the bright side, several leaders whose proposals didn’t make it say the time spent putting together juicy tax incentives, massive chunks of land and infrastructure studies was not wasted. “We used this opportunity to showcase all the options in Delaware not just for Amazon, but for any business…

Facebook is taking another step to try to make itself more socially beneficial, saying it will boost news sources that its users rate as trustworthy in surveys. In a blog post and a Facebook post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company said it is surveying users about their familiarity with and trust in news sources. That data will influence what others see in their news feeds. It’s the second major tweak to Facebook’s algorithm announced this month. The social-media giant, a major source of news for users, has struggled to deal with an uproar over fake news and Russian-linked posts, meant to influence the 2016 U.S. elections, on its platform. The company has slowly acknowledged its role in that foreign interference. Zuckerberg has said his goal for this year is…

Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” is well on its way to becoming one of the fastest selling nonfiction books in recent years. “Fire and Fury” has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the combined formats of hardcover, e-books and audio, publisher Henry Holt & Co. told Media this week. Published less than three weeks ago, Wolff’s tell-all about the Trump administration remains No. 1 on Amazon.com and other lists. NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of sales for physical books, told that its numbers for “Fire and Fury” rose for the third straight week. “Fire and Fury” sold more than 300,000 copies last week, according to BookScan, and more than 500,000 copies overall as retailers are finally catching up with demand. NPD BookScan does not register a sale…

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” notched its third straight weekend on top of the box office, besting a pair of new releases — “12 Strong” and “Den of Thieves” — both of which still managed to slightly outperform expectations. Sony’s “Jumanji” took in $19.5 million in ticket sales in its fifth weekend of releases, according to final box-office figures Monday. The reboot, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, has shown surprisingly strong legs after spending its first two weeks of release in second behind “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Its cumulative total through Sunday is $316.5 million. Warner Bros ‘s “12 Strong,” about U.S. special forces sent to Afghanistan in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, followed with $15.8 million in its debut. STX Entertainment’s crime thriller “Den…

A rocket launched from New Zealand on Sunday successfully reached orbit carrying small commercial satellites. California-based company Rocket Lab said its Electron rocket, which carries only a small payload of about 150 kilograms (331 pounds), successfully deployed an earth imaging and two other satellites for weather and ship tracking after blastoff from the Mahia Peninsula on North Island’s east coast. Company CEO and founder Peter Beck, a New Zealander, said the launch marks the beginning of a new era in commercial access to space. He said that deploying customer payloads on a second test flight “is almost unprecedented.” The company last May reached space with its first test launch, only to abort the mission due to a communication glitch. It has official approval to conduct three test launches and sees…

Scientists have created a hair-thin implant that can drip medications deep into the brain by remote control and with pinpoint precision. Tested only in animals so far, if the device pans out it could mark a new approach to treating brain diseases — potentially reducing side effects by targeting only the hard-to-reach circuits that need care. “You could deliver things right to where you want, no matter the disease,” said Robert Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose biomedical engineering team reported the research Wednesday. Stronger and safer treatments are needed for brain disorders ranging from depression to Parkinson’s. Simply getting medications inside the brain, past what’s called the blood-brain barrier, is a hurdle. It’s even harder to reach its deepest structures. Pills and IV drugs that…

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo now has a 4.5 megawatt solar farm that is expected to generate about 25 percent of the university’s total electrical needs. The installation dedicated Wednesday is Cal Poly’s first major energy project since announcing a goal of climate neutrality and is expected to save $10 million on utility bills over 20 years. The 18.5-acre (7.5-hectare) solar farm has more than 16,000 individual solar panels with tracking technology to follow the sun across the sky. Academic applications include a solar engineering and microgrid laboratory for experiments in solar technology. Cal Poly’s Animal Science program will use the site to research vegetation management practices for utility scale solar farms by grazing the site with its sheep herd.…