Sky’s ‘Buy & Keep’ store now sells movie and TV box sets

It’s taken a while, but Sky has finally come through on its promise to add TV shows to its “Buy & Keep” service. Just like its film offering, anyone in the UK can pay a single price to get both a physical and digital version of a TV box set. The former is a DVD in the post, while the latter is served through the “digital Box Sets store” available on Sky+HD and Sky Q set-top boxes, as well as the Sky Store mobile app. If you’re not with Sky, you can grab the digital versions through a Now TV, Roku or YouView box instead.

Movie box sets — think the Toy Story trilogy, the Fast & Furious collection and Pitch Perfect one and two — are also being added to the mix. Prices start at £13.99 for a film compilation and £22.99 for a TV box set. That’s a little on the expensive side, although it’s worth stressing that you’re buying both a permanent copy and one stored in the cloud. If you were to buy two versions separately — a physical copy in HMV and a digital one through iTunes, for instance — you would probably pay the same, if not more.

Source: Sky

Samsung posts highest profits in over two years thanks to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

Strong sales of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have led to Samsung posting an operating profit of $7.22 billion (8.14 trillion won) in Q2 2016, up 18% from the same period a year ago. Overall revenue was $45.1 billion (50.94 trillion won), a 5% increase from Q2 2015.

The handset business accounted for half of Samsung’s bottom line, with the division netting $3.83 billion (4.32 trillion won) in profit on a revenue of $23.5 billion (26.56 trillion won). Samsung noted that the larger and more expensive S7 edge model made up over half of the sales of its flagship series, with the Galaxy A series and J series also seeing an uptick in sales in the mid-range and low-end segments.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, Samsung says that the launch of a new large-screen flagship phone (the Galaxy Note 7, if you’re wondering) “will help to maintain solid sales of high-end smartphones led by the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge:”

Samsung will focus on increasing smartphone sales under strong seasonality with the launch of a new model, while expecting marketing expenses to increase QOQ due to seasonality.

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BigScreen adds audio sharing to fulfill its ‘Virtual LAN’ promise

BigScreen launched in beta back in April as a software solution to run conventional apps or films on a “screen” within VR for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets. But one of its coolest features, sharing your digital monitor with friends, was hampered by the program’s inability to send along any accompanying audio. Today, BigScreen is fixing that, adding the ability to hear exactly what your friend is listening to in a setup the team calls “Desktop Audio Streaming.”

Essentially, this lets you share audio exactly as you’re hearing it from every source you have open — except BigScreen itself, which would create a horrific echo loop. Multiple people can tune in to hear the same thing, but only the room’s host can broadcast sound. It’s a minor limitation, but it also prevents random folks from dropping into the room and blasting music. Counter-Strike and Call of Duty players know that pain.

For details on how to set up BigScreen to finally achieve the “VR LAN party” they promised, check out this Reddit post by the company’s CEO. You’ll need to install a separate audio driver, a temporary fix that the team hopes to replace with an internal one in the future while they clean up the other bugs. Sure, the software’s a little rough, but it’s difficult to complain when they’re offering it free on Steam.

Via: Upload VR

Source: BigScreen subreddit

Mercedes unveils world’s first completely electric semi truck

European car companies are starting to invest more heavily in green vehicles. Audi unveiled three more electric cars on Monday and Porsche added 400 jobs to how many it estimates it will create to make its electric Model E come to life. Today, Daimler revealed its milestone that wasn’t in the consumer space: The first non-fossil-fuel big rig, the Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck.

Like most electric vehicles, the eTruck is relatively whisper-quiet, especially compared to a typical diesel truck. With a weight capacity of 29 US tons (26 metric tonnes), it’s the first electric big rig concept to hit the road, beating out the semi Tesla has been working on that it announced last week.

Of course, big rigs move freight across long distances, so the eTruck’s current 124-mile maximum range likely won’t be adequate for long hauls. But the “Urban” prefix denotes its use case: As a clean, quiet load-bearing vehicle ideal for cities. Daimler has already heavily tested the utility of close-range hauling with its Fuso Canter E-Cell pilot program, sending the all-electric 4.8-tonne capacity light trucks around Portugal last fall. The eTruck scales that concept up to the loads and conditions typically endured by semis.

Daimler envisions that its electric truck won’t roll off the assembly lines until early in the next decade, according to their press release. By then, technological improvements will drive battery costs down by a factor of 2.5 and efficiency up by the same metric, the truck company estimates.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: Daimler Trucks press release

Researchers believe Jupiter’s Red Spot is heated by thunder

Despite its distance from the sun, Jupiter is a surprisingly hot planet with temperatures ranging around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle latitudes. According to new findings published today in the journal Nature, temperatures over the planet’s Great Red Spot can range even higher — up to about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,300 degrees Celsius. And the researchers behind the new study believe they may have finally figured what’s feeding the extreme temperatures around the 10,000-mile-wide storm.

The first temperature readings of Jupiter were made by NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft in the seventies, but this latest discovery was made by Boston University researcher James O’Donoghue using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. According to the New York Times, scientists originally suspected Jupiter’s massive polar auroras might have something to do with it. Although the temperatures around the poles are about 1,700 degrees, researchers couldn’t figure out how all that energy was reaching the equator where the Great Red Spot has been churning for hundreds of years.

Now, O’Donoghue’s research suggests that the heat is actually rising up from within the storm itself, rather than from the surrounding atmosphere. To explain this, the researchers suggest the energy is rising up in the form of sound waves emanating from the turbulence below. The waves ripple upwards and then create energy when they crash into the upper atmosphere. According to Science News, a similar effect has been observed on a much smaller scale over the Andes mountains here on Earth. Likewise, smaller ripples like this could be occurring all over Jupiter, which would explain how the planet heats itself.

While plausible, O’Donoghue’s theory is still unconfirmed and, as one NASA scientist who studies planetary atmospheres pointed out, a Methane glow could be interfering with the Infrared Telescope’s readings. Either way, researchers will get a closer look at the Great Red Spot later this year when Juno passes over its western side in November, followed by another pass next August.

Study identifies two new carcinogens in e-cigarette vapor

Most people won’t dispute the claim that e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional smokes, but evidence is rapidly mounting that vaping isn’t exactly good for you, either. Numerous studies have found toxic chemicals and carcinogens in e-cigarette vapor — but a new study shows that the age, type and temperature of the vaporizer can effect just how toxic its emissions are. Researchers have also identified two previously unreported cancer-causing chemicals present in most e-cigarette liquid.

According to researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, most of the toxic chemicals found in vaporizer smoke comes from the thermal decomposition of glycol and glycerin — two food-safe solvents commonly used in e-cigarette liquid. When vaporized, however, researchers found that the liquid emits toxic chemicals. Among them are propylene oxide and glycidol, two probable carcinogens.

That said, not all e-cigarettes are equal: researchers found that when it tested the emissions from a vaporizer with two heating elements, it had a lower concentration of harmful chemicals than the output of a single-coil model. The team also found that vaporizers that ran at a higher voltage tended to make smoke with more toxins, as did units that weren’t cleaned on a regular basis. This doesn’t mean that lower-temperature vaporizers are healthier, though — all e-cigarettes emit toxic chemicals.

The uptick of the research mostly lies with what it means for the future. Understanding where the toxins in e-cigarettes come from will allow regulators and manufacturers to create less harmful vaporizers — and provide a less dangerous alternative to cigarettes. Even so, the study co-author Hugo Destaillats is careful to avoid calling e-cigarettes ‘healthy.’ “Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy,” he says. “E-cigarettes are just unhealthy.”

Via: Verge

Source: Berkeley Labs (1), (2)

iPhone 7 and 7 Plus Pre-Orders Could Start September 9th

Over the weekend well-known mobile phone leaker Evan Blass predicted that the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus would release the week of September 12. A short time later, he predicted that it should launch on Friday, September 16. Today, Blass has followed up and reported that pre-orders would take place on Friday, September 9.

Apple typically announces the newest iPhone a couple days before pre-orders start. With September 5 being Labor Day, it’s likely Tuesday, September 6 would be the day of Apple’s iPhone 7 event. The dates roughly line up with Apple’s usual pattern for iPhone releases. Last year, Apple announced the iPhone on September 9, started pre-orders on September 12 and released it on September 25.

Blass is well known for leaking details and images from Android smartphones well before official confirmations. A couple days before predicting the release week of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, he revealed that the codenames for Apple’s new smartphones are “Sonora” and “Dos Palos.”

Confirmed: Pre-orders start on the 9th. You can extrapolate the launch event date from there. https://t.co/gwoPzIM1dI

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 28, 2016

This year’s iPhone models are not expected to feature significant design changes aside from the loss of the headphone jack. Instead, Apple is said to be introducing major new features for the 10th anniversary iPhone 8. The 4.7-inch iPhone 7 is expected to get an improved camera and optimal image stabilization while the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus may gain a dual-lens camera system and 3 GB of RAM.

Other rumored features for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus include a faster TSMC-made A10 processor, repositioned antenna bands, faster LTE and Wi-Fi, a slightly larger battery, and a minimum 32 GB of base storage.

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