Engadget Daily: Lisa Kudrow talks ‘The Comeback,’ a pinhole selfie cam and more!

Remember Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay) from Friends? Of course you do! We sat down with her for a chat, but surprise: it wasn’t about Friends at all. Read on for the rest of our news highlights from the last 24 hours, including a hipster selfie cam, Intel’s Black Brook PC and Joystiq’s review of Far Cry 4.

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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AT&T: We’re not tracking subscribers using permanent cookies anymore

In late October, researchers discovered that AT&T and Verizon attach tracking numbers to the web traffic coming from their customers’ phones, in order to keep an eye on their online habits. Now, Ma Bell says it’s stopped doing so — the company claims it has only experimented using those irremovable trackers (or perma-cookies, as the media calls them) for a pilot program, but now its tests are done. Each of these unique trackers is composed of a string of letters and numbers that can follow a user across the internet. Websites and carriers can then make a compilation of those activities to sell or give to marketing and advertising companies.

According to AT&T spokesperson Emily J. Edmonds, the company has already pulled these identifying numbers from their customers’ accounts, though the company might still sell the data it’s collected. If that does happen, Edmonds says AT&T will give its subscribers the choice to opt out. As for Verizon, well, a spokesperson confirms that Big Red is still using perma-cookies. People can choose not to participate in the program (ProPublica discovered last month that Twitter gave its ad clients access to data Verizon collected), but that won’t remove the tracker itself.

[Image credit: JeepersMedia/Flickr]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, AT&T

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Via: ProPublica

Source: AP

US Navy puts its first laser weapon into service

It’s official: the US Navy has entered the future. Vice Admiral John Miller tells Bloomberg that the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport, has been using the Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) in the Persian Gulf since late August. The high-tech arsenal is no threat to larger vessels, but it’s potentially ideal for defending against Iran’s fleet of smaller ships. The Ponce can use non-lethal laser flashes to spook enemies or thwart their sensors, and it can destroy small craft (including airborne drones) if they don’t heed warnings. It’ll take some time before laser weapons are a common sight on the high seas, since the Navy wants to know how it fares in real-world conditions; dust, heat and other Gulf conditions could lead to failures. If it pans out, however, there’s a real chance that the days of conventional small deck guns are numbered.

[Image credit: John F. Williams/US Navy, Flickr]

Filed under: Transportation, Science

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Source: Bloomberg

Sweet dreams, Philae: ESA’s lander goes to sleep in the absence of sunlight

ESA’s comet lander Philae has ran out of batteries and gone to sleep at 7:30PM on November 14th, 2014. It was supposed to harness solar energy to continue its operations, but it unfortunately bounced twice during touchdown and settled in the shade. That doesn’t mean the project failed, though — before the machine’s power source ran out, the ground crew decided to throw caution to the wind and proceed with the more physical parts of material gathering. See, after landing in a less than ideal position, the team thought it best to just collect molecules from the comet’s surface and perform the experiments (about 80 percent of the total number) that didn’t require mechanical movement.

As the batteries got more and more depleted, the team got bolder: they deployed the lander’s MUPUS soil breaker and driller to get under the comet’s surface, right before it lost contact with Rosetta. Fortunately, it managed to transmit the data it gathered from all its tasks that didn’t require mechanical movement to its mothership. Also, the team successfully issued a series of commands that turned Philae’s body and exposed a larger part of its solar panel system to the sun, in an effort to stave off its hibernation. The team will find out if the tactic worked once the next opportunity to communicate with the lander arrives at 5AM Eastern — we’ll update this story when the agency posts an update.

[Image credit: ESA]

Filed under: Science

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Source: ESA, Emily Lakdawalla

Netflix’s public API is dead, but InstantWatcher is not

It’s amazing how quickly five months fly by. Netflix announced in June that its public API would shut off and now we’ve reached the appointed day. As we mentioned then, several of the popular third-party tools built with access to Netflix’s services have been chosen to continue on: InstantWatcher, FeedFliks, Can I Stream It?, NextGuide, Flixster, Fanhattan, Yidio and Instant Watch Browser for Netflix. These services matter — once upon a time Netflix actually promoted them itself — because they can often help you use Netflix in a more convenient way than its own website and apps do, with features like shareable lists, integration with popular ratings services and more. If you’re not already using them, check out our breakdown of how to use Netflix better for more info on what they can add to your streaming experience.

Since that post went up, one of the sites we worried would have to shut down has been spared, as AllFlicks announced in an email that it secured a spot on the approved list. According to its creator, A Better Queue will cease operations as a result, but we haven’t heard an update on the status of one of our other picks Mimmsy. Let us know in the comments if you’ve heard of any other Netflix helpers that did or didn’t make the cut.

bye bye my baby http://t.co/l9q9hc9QYO

– Dave Jachimiak (@davejachimiak) November 14, 2014

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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