Flightsharing website closes due to court ruling
DC’s Court of Appeals has decided to uphold the FAA’s ban on flightsharing websites, forcing Flytenow to shut down indefinitely. If you recall, the FAA announced last year that it’s not cool with services that connect amateur pilots that have no commercial licenses with passengers willing to pay for flights. One of those Uber-in-the-sky services called Flytenow asked the court to overturn the FAA’s ban, but it has obviously failed to sway the judge in its favor.
According to the FAA’s rules, private pilots with no commercial licenses are allowed to take on passengers, but they can only split the costs for a flight. They also can’t advertise for passengers on services like Flytenow — they can only take friends, or maybe spread the news by word-of-mouth and via a more private means online.
In the company’s farewell blog post, it said:
In the Opinion of the Court, Judge Pillard held that pilots sharing expenses on Flytenow were engaged in common carriage, making them the only common carriers (i.e., commercial airliners) in history to not seek a profit.
The current state of the law is extremely deferential to regulatory actions, at the expense of innovation. The Court relied on that regulatory deference, and the result is less choice for consumers, and less innovation in general aviation.
The company says its legal team is looking into introducing a bill in Congress in an effort to change the rules altogether. For now, however, Flytenow remains grounded.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Flytenow
Watch 58 years of space debris appear in 1 minute
You probably know that the proliferation of space junk is a real problem, but we won’t blame you if you have a tough time wrapping your head around the concept. There are roughly 20,000 fragments up there, after all. However, university lecturer Stuart Grey is willing to help. He recently posted a 1-minute video that shows the accumulation of junk from 1957, when Sputnik first flew, through to 2015. As the clip shows, the amount of debris grows in fits and starts. While there were several thousand objects for quite a while, missile tests and satellite collisions added thousands more fragments to the mix.
If you’ve seen Gravity, you’ll know the danger these loose items represent. Typically, those objects are hurtling around Earth at more than 17,000MPH — all it’d take is a miscalculated route to put astronauts and satellites in serious jeopardy. Some of them are large, too. Unless there’s a concerted effort to clean up this mess, spacefarers will have to be increasingly cautious.
Via: Science
Source: Stuart Grey (YouTube)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 will power the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4
Qualcomm just recently made a statement about renaming their 618 and 620 chips to now be called 650 and 652. They said they did this because the chips were much better than the others in the same line and needed greater number names to show that.
At the time of that announcement there were no phones with the new chips inside them. However, we have reason to believe that the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4 will be the first device to feature the new chips. GFXBench testing has revealed the device will have a 5.5-inch 1080 display, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 16MP camera, Adreno 510 GPU, and a Snapdragon 652 octa-core 1.8GHz CPU.
The benchmarks also show that the OneTouch Idol 4 will produce a 5.5 fps frame rate on the Car Chase offline test. This beats many other phones like the HTC One M9, Yu Yutopia, Sony Xperia Z3+, and others. They scored 5.1 fps or lower.
Source: GFXBench
Via: PhoneArena
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LeTV Max Pro might come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition
The LeTV Max Pro is definitely shaping up to be a heavy hitter. With a 5.5-inch QHD display, 4GB of RAM, and 21MP camera it is already pretty good. However, new leaks are suggesting it will also come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition.
No word on exact shipping dates, but the Max Pro is said to have an official announcement at LeTV’s pre-CES press conference. The time is at 11:30AM on January 5th in Las Vegas.
Source: MyDrivers
Via: GSMArena
Come comment on this article: LeTV Max Pro might come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition
The Beatles Are Coming to Apple Music on Christmas Eve
The full music collection of The Beatles will be available on Apple Music and other music streaming services on Christmas Eve, according to a new report from Re/code. The report comes a week after a similar report from Billboard, which said that The Beatles were coming to a streaming service on Christmas Eve but did not specify which one.
The world’s most famous band will finally be available on streaming music services, starting this Thursday, Christmas Eve. And they’ll be available very, very widely: Industry sources say that the Fab Four’s music will be on all of the obvious music services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Tidal, as well as some you might not expect, including Amazon’s Prime Music.
The only music service that won’t have full access to The Beatles’ catalog is Pandora, which doesn’t do direct deals with music owners. However, Pandora does offer some access to select Beatles songs on its web radio service. Additionally, The Beatles’ catalog will also be available on music services’ free tiers, unlike artists like Taylor Swift.
The Beatles’ catalog originally appeared on iTunes back in 2010, giving Apple exclusive rights to the digital distribution of the famous band’s music until 2011. More recently, “The Beatles: +1” collection debuted on iTunes, packaged with remastered versions of hit songs and mini-movies made by the famous quartet.
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NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1 owners can get a free ‘Fallout’ lunchbox
NVIDIA is giving away lunchboxes to owners of the SHIELD Tablet K1 to celebrate the release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow on its flagship tablet.
Fallout Shelter fans & SHIELD tablet K1 owners – free bundle of 5 lunchboxes – Redeem codes: https://t.co/giFBMeltWR https://t.co/k4U43K9KpI
— NVIDIA SHIELD (@nvidiashield) December 22, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
According to the official NVIDIA SHIELD Twitter account, the first 50,000 people to redeem codes available on the company’s site will get a bundle of five lunchboxes, all of which are Fallout Shelter-themed.
Source: NVIDIA
Come comment on this article: NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1 owners can get a free ‘Fallout’ lunchbox
YouTube accuses T-Mobile of throttling video streaming
On Tuesday, YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing service, pointed its finger at T-Mobile to accuse the carrier of throttling video streaming.
YouTube is claiming that T-Mobile is interfering with its video traffic, likely due to the introduction of Binge On. The carrier introduced Binge On in November as an initiative that alleviates customers’ hesitation to stream video and consume the capped amount of 4G LTE data allotted each month. The catch is that streams from partnering services are in a downgraded resolution. YouTube, though, is not an official partner of T-Mobile for Binge On. So it seems that YouTube believes the quality of streaming on T-Mobile’s network is downgraded without permission.
Here’s what a YouTube spokesperson had to say:
“Reducing data charges can be good for users, but it doesn’t justify throttling all video services, especially without explicit user consent.”
T-Mobile is saying that YouTube is not a partner for Binge On due to a technical problem. Apparently, T-Mobile cannot always detect YouTube as a video streaming service; however, the two parties are said to be working together on a solution.
John Legere, T-Mobile’s CEO, has not tweeted about the matter at the time of publishing. Either T-Mobile knows it’s guilty of something or Legere isn’t aware of YouTube’s accusation. But the carrier, despite not directly addressing YouTube’s accusation, told The Wall Street Journal that customers “love having free streaming video that never hits their data bucket.” Seems like T-Mobile is dodging the matter for now.
Things are rather confusing. Let’s wait and see how this one plays out in the coming days and weeks.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Come comment on this article: YouTube accuses T-Mobile of throttling video streaming
[Deal] Get three months of Google Play Music for $1
Just in time for the New Year, and the inevitable awesome party that precedes it, Google has an incredible deal on all the music you could ever need. A three month subscription to Google Play Music is only $1! Don’t worry, it’s not just you, I also thought I read that wrong when I first saw it.
If you are interested, make like me and hit the link below to claim your three months at this incredible rate.
Source: Google Play Music (Twitter)
Come comment on this article: [Deal] Get three months of Google Play Music for $1
Motorola’s Moto X (2016) could have fingerprint scanner… obviously
The next version of Motorola’s Moto X could have a fingerprint scanner, following the current trend in the mobile industry of having a better form of security.
PLACE your FINGER (“cough”) on this #powerful device… #motox #comingsoon 😉 pic.twitter.com/AO3BFTaNLH
— Ricciolo (@Ricciolo1) December 22, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The last Motorola phone to offer a fingerprint scanner was the Atrix 4G from 2011, which was the first smartphone to offer that feature.
The potential fingerprint scanner was not the only detail revealed about the Moto X (2016) on Tuesday. A picture leaked earlier in the day revealed that the new version may incorporate a heat pipe, which could indicate a shift to a metal and glass chassis.
Source: @ricciolo1
Via: Phone Arena
Come comment on this article: Motorola’s Moto X (2016) could have fingerprint scanner… obviously
California approves Flywheel’s attempt at modernizing taxis
Flywheel’s plan to bring taxis into the 21st century just got the all clear. California regulators have approved TaxiOS, the smartphone-based Flywheel platform that lets cabbies ditch their clunky conventional meters in favor of GPS and other modern luxuries. While the company had been limited to trying out its software in just 70 San Francisco cabs, this lets it expand to virtually everywhere in the state. All 200-plus Flywheel-badged San Francisco cabs will be using TaxiOS by February, and it won’t be surprising if its other Californian coverage areas (currently Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego) follow suit.
This is really just a stepping stone, for that matter. Flywheel is aiming for New York City approval in early 2016, and the goal is to spread TaxiOS “across the country.” If it’s successful (it faces stiff competition from rivals like Verifone), it could become the de facto platform for taxi services hoping to fend off ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber. Whether or not it’s victorious, that’s good for everyone — you won’t have to turn to ridesharing just to get the latest creature comforts.
Source: TechCrunch
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