Latest news

SpaceX has announced the world's first passenger to fly around the Moon on the upcoming BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), as well as detailing the mission and dating it.

At a conference on Monday evening, SpaceX detailed its first private passenger mission to the Moon. Yusaku Maezawa, a private Japanese citizen and entrepreneur, will be the first person to fly beyond the Moon since the early 1970s. If all goes well, he will be blasted toward the moon on board a giant BFR rocket and space vehicle.

Maezawa has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion since 2017.

"I choose to go to the Moon," Maezawa announced to the press present to applause. He spoke at the SpaceX conference about how he will invite artists from around the world to join him on the BFR mission, as he would rather not go alone. He calls the project #dearMoon. The mission is set for 2023 and between 6-8 additional artists will be flown to the moon as long as they commit to creating something inspired by the mission when they get back.

The crew will spend a week in space in the half million mile round-trip.

Apple's last week's iPhone event held in Cupertino included some highlights worthy of ovations, perhaps even standing ones.

The first ever over-the-counter ECG in form of a new and much improved Apple Watch was definitely one of them, and one could argue Smart HDR on new iPhones seemed like more than a simple evolutionary step in smartphone cameras.

Apart from Smart HDR, however, the new iPhone flagships very largely iterative upgrades over the previous year's iPhone X. And that was to be expected, after all it was the S year this time around.

Thankfully, Apple had "one more iPhone" to unveil.

Tim Cook and his buddies released the iPhone XR, that was expected as well. A middle of the road iPhone with a colorful aluminum design and powerful specs, including the new A12 Bionic chip found in the more expensive new iPhone models.

However, in all the attractive looks and promising tech there's a gaping hole in specs. The new iPhone XR comes with a large, completely 2018-ready 6.1 inch screen, but it is a LCD panel and a lousy one at that.

Netflix has been hit with a lawsuit by a photographer over the alleged unauthorized use of a supercell photograph in Stranger Things and How It Ends.

Sean R. Heavey is a photographer from Montana. In 2010, he tracked a storm for hours as it crossed into Montana, taking four vertical panoramic photos together into one photo. The resulting storm cell image has been used in publications all over the world.

While watching an episode of Netflix' hit show Stranger Things, Heavey noticed something oddly similar about a cloud formation that is shown. Later, in an episode of Beyond Stranger Things, a concept art photo appears to be built from his photo of the storm cell from 2010.

Heavey took to Facebook to show the following comparison and ask if others thought the cloud formation used in Stranger Things is his photograph.

Apple has responded to a tweet by a customer last week lambasting the company after three movies seemingly disappeared from his iTunes library.

In a tweet, Anders Gonçalves da Silva shared a support e-mail he received from Apple after he complained that three films he had previously purchased had disappeared from his iTunes library.

The response seemed to imply that because the films were no longer available in the iTunes store that the customer could no longer download them. Instead, he seemed to have been offered some free rentals.

Here is the original tweet:

Epic Games' smash hit Fortnite is being increasingly cited as a reason for divorce, according to figures from the UK.

Fortnite has become something of a cultural phenomenon for the games business. Fortnite Battle Royale attracted more than 125 million players in a year, and the title is generating hundreds of millions of dollars per month. Players have spoken of how addictive the game can be, and it has even generated compilation videos of "Fortnite Rage" where players lose their minds and smash up their equipment. To be fair, it's not the first title to generate such compilations.

It's not hard to imagine then that Fortnite could be a cause for the breakdown of a relationship. Excessive gaming has long been a factor in the breakdown of relationships between couples. In the UK, there are some figures to show that Fortnite can test the whole "til death do us part" thing.

Divorce-Online has reported that it received 200 divorce petitions that cite addiction to Fortnite, and to other games, as a reason that a divorce is being sought.

"These numbers equate to roughly 5% of the 4,665 petitions we have handled since the beginning of the year and as one of the largest filers of divorce petitions in the UK, is a pretty good indicator," Divorce-Online said on its website.

A man who has admitted to downloading a bootleg copy of Deadpool and then sharing it online could face a prison term.

The Fresno, California resident downloaded a bootleg copy of Deadpool shortly after it debuted in theaters over two years ago and then shared it on Facebook. As a result, the copy of the film was viewed more than 6,386,456 times by Facebook users.

Following his arrested, the individual signed a plea agreement with the government in which he admitted to pirating the popular film and sharing it on the social media platform. He pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor which carried a maximum prison term of a year.

However, the government is recommending a six-month stint.

"[T]he government recommends the high-end sentence of six months' imprisonment, to be followed by a one-year term of supervised release, and a mandatory special assessment of $100," the sentencing position reads.

To justify the request, the government argues that the individual broke the law in a brazen and public manner. It noted, for example, that many users in the comments on Facebook pointed out to him that he was committing a crime, but he scoffed at the warnings.

"Defendant even created a Facebook group for the purpose of illegally sharing movies with others, posting 'EVERYBODY JOIN' in relation to the Facebook group he created called 'BOOTLEG MOVIES'," the government notes.

Another Tesla facility has experienced a fire and this time it is at the firm's ambitious Gigafactory.

Tesla's enormous (and still being constructed) Gigafactory in Nevada is used to make electric motors and battery packs for the company's all-electric Model 3 vehicle. Late on Saturday night, the local fire department responded to a fire at the facility.

Employees were evacuated and production was completely halted across the facility as a precaution. Tesla has said that nobody was injured in the incident, which is good news. Early on Sunday morning, the fire department turned the scene back over to Tesla for cleanup and repairs, and production resumed at the facility.

Last month, a Tesla factory in California also experienced a fire. The fire at the Gigafactory reportedly occurred in the cooling tube coating oven, which is on the third floor of the facility. Sprinklers managed to suppress it and the fire department made the facility safe.

Tesla has been working hard to push up its Model 3 production numbers and expects to produce between 50,000 and 55,000 vehicles in the third quarter. It also expects to turn a profit in the second half of 2018.

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has been on the upswing for their entire five year lifespan. It began as the home of the "flagship killer" that provided very affordable smartphones with killer specs.

Now years later it has proven itself over and over again and gained a larger than its original cult following, especially in European markets. This year, the OnePlus 6T due in one month, OnePlus is bringing their smartphones first time ever to a major U.S. carrier, T-Mobile.

However, the company has even bigger, more radical, plans ahead.

The founder and CEO Pete Lau has posted at thread called "Intelligent Connectivity: Our Next Step Forward" on the official forums talking about a new product, and it's not a smartphone nor a tablet. In fact, it's doesn't seem to be anything mobile at all.

OnePlus' newest smart device will be a TV, they call it, aptly, OnePlus TV.

Unfortunately at this point Lau is not ready to reveal much about the device. Not even is it an actual TV or a media device like Apple TV, but the teaser photo seems to suggest it's the former.

The latest beta of Google Chrome provides access to fingerprint sensing hardware so it can be used by web services.

The Web Authentication API enables fingerprint sensing features for Chrome. This could be used, for example, for two-factor authentication by web services to enhance security.

In addition, the latest beta also adds "shape identification" which relies on multiples APIs to detect faces, barcodes and Latin text in images across the web.

Google has also beefed up its push for HTTPS by displaying a red "not secure" warning when a user enters an e-mail or password into a site without HTTPS enabled. It also will exit full-screen mode when dialog boxes appear. This change is designed to catch the attention of the user to ensure they get the proper context of the decision they are being asked to make.

More info: Chromium Blog

via: Engadget

SpaceX has signed up its first private passenger which it will fly around the Moon using its upcoming BFR rocket.

Previously the rocket-maker had planned to send two private tourists around the Moon this year in a human-rated Dragon capsule using its new Falcon Heavy rocket. However, SpaceX has since dropped plans for crewed missions using the Falcon Heavy as it shifts its focus to the BFR. It can ferry astronauts to the International Space Station using the Falcon 9 Block V which is currently seeking human rating.

On Monday, SpaceX will announce details of the BFR's first private passenger Moon mission and seems set to identify who is flying "and why". It will be the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since the 1970s if the mission goes ahead.

SpaceX' BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket, is am ambitious super-heavy-lift rocket/spaceship system that SpaceX hopes to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with. It can carry payloads large enough to open up Moon missions, and then Mars mission. It is also intended to be fully reusable. At the moment, only the Falcon 9 booster and the Dragon cargo capsule are routinely reused by SpaceX.

According to SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, the spaceship part of BFR could be ready for short hopper flights by next year. Test flights of the system will be a few years off.

Some Kodi users have been infected with a crypto-mining malware due to a malicious dependancy distributed with a popular add-on.

According to ESET, the malicious dependency had been distributed by a recently shut down add-on repository in the Netherlands called XvBMC-NL. However, it is likely that XvBMC-NL was an unwitting participant in its distribution as it seemed to originally show up on a repo for Bubbles, later renamed Gaia.

Specifically, the add-on affected is script.module.simplejson, which is a legitimate add-on that other add-ons depend on to work properly. The latest version of the add-on is v3.4.0, whereas the malicious version is v3.4.1. The malicious version reportedly showed up on the Bubbles repo back in December 2017 and was later removed from the newer Gaia report in April 2018.

The XvBMC-NL repo shut down in Holland was likely still serving the malicious version unwittingly. The problem arises when a user installed the repo and automatic updates installed the seemingly newer version, which was the malicious version.

You can easily check if you have the Add-On on your Kodi if you use the media center. In the Kodi 17 interface, open Add-Ons. Then click the Settings button (cog wheel). Open "Manage Dependencies", and then scroll down to see if SimpleJSON is installed. The version will be shown beside the add-on. If you have v3.4.1, then you have the malicious add-on and should install and run an anti-virus software to find and remove the crypto-miner it installs.

North Korea has responded to charges against a hacker in the secretive country by insisting that the identified man does not exist.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) charged a North Korean man in connection to the hacking of Sony Pictures in late 2014, and also with the spread of WannaCry malware last year. WannaCry affected business and government systems around the world. In the UK, thousands of health appointments had to be canceled as the malware affected computer systems in the National Health Service (NHS)

North Korea is claiming that the identified man doesn't exist at all and warns that the accusations against the country could have a negative effect on relations with the United States.

The man "is a non-existent entity, and furthermore, the act of cyber crimes mentioned by the Justice Department has nothing to do with us," North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement to North Korean news agency KCNA.

Sony Pictures was hacked in 2014 ahead of the planned release of The Interview, a comedy starring Seth Rogan that depicts a U.S. plot to assassinate Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

The YouTube Kids app now provides parents with more control over the content that their children can see.

The most important addition to the YouTube Kids app was initially announced in April. It is parent-approved content, and it allows parents to handpick every video and channel available to their child in the app. It is available today globally on Android and coming soon to iOS.

For parents who want to enable this feature, open settings, go to the child's profile and select "approved content only." Now they're ready to start picking videos for their kids.

If this mode is enabled, then children will be unable to search for content. Parents can still search for content and can choose any video, channel or collection of channels they like by tapping the "+" button.

Another addition is the option to set the app to filter content for Older children, aimed at those aged between 8 and 12. It includes additional new content, like popular music and gaming videos. Parents can change between "Younger," "Older" and parent-approved content at any time.

As always, YouTube encourages parents to block and flag for review any content that they deem to be inappropriate for a child.

The BBC says it has solved a common problem with live sports streaming that caused a lag between broadcast and web streaming.

During the world cup, BBC viewers reported that they often heard neighbors celebrating goals before they saw the goal on their feed. This is fairly common for live streaming of sports and other events. For example, Amazon's broadcast of the US Open recently saw delays of up to 45 seconds.

The issue is difficult to tackle because there are many factors, including the broadband speed of the viewer and the equipment being used to view the content.

According to the BBC, it has found a way to make smaller video segments that can be passed through the system more quickly, resulting in viewers seeing action "at the same time as they would see it if they were watching on TV".

However, the BBC's solution would require the co-operation of the whole broadcasting industry. It is on show at the International Broadcasting Convention in the Netherlands today, and the BBC says it could be ready for prime time for the World Cup in 2022.

Source: BBC News

A Windows 10 Insiders preview is apparently prompting users when they try to install Chrome or Firefox, pushing Microsoft Edge instead.

Those who are testing the Windows 10 builds noted that when they downloaded Google's Chrome browser or Mozilla's Firefox browser, they were prompted with a message when they tried to run the installers.

"You already have Microsoft Edge - the safer, faster browser for Windows 10," the prompt reads. It then provides the options to Open Microsoft Edge (in blue) or to Install anyway (in gray).

Microsoft has irked some Windows users in the past by pushing Edge over competitors in a variety of ways. For example, at one point Microsoft tried to force Windows Mail to open links in Edge.