Amazon has discounted the Echo Show down to $200 for the first time

This is the first drop from Amazon on a single unit of the Echo Show!

Is this deal for me?

The Echo Show is down to $199.99 on Amazon right now. That’s $30 off the normal price and the best drop we’ve seen for a single unit. Newegg once discounted it down to $210, and Amazon used to take off $100 for buying two of them. The white Echo Show is also on sale at this price.

The Echo Show was Amazon’s latest, fanciest Echo until it got undercut by baby brother, the Echo Spot. Now the Show is past tense and starting to see its first major price drops.

With the Echo Show, you get the best of Amazon’s Alexa smart capabilities combined with a display, allowing you to do and see more than before. From allowing video calls to being able to view your baby monitor, home security camera, and more, you’ll find a number of ways to integrate this into your daily life.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is the lowest price we’ve ever seen for a single Echo Show. It beats out a previous deal from Newegg that saw it drop to $210, and since most people aren’t buying two of these things it’s better than Amazon’s previous deal that took off $100 for buying more than one.
• Things to know before you buy! – You can pre-order the Echo Spot, which is a smaller, more alarm-clock-esque version of the Echo Show right now. You’ll also need the Echo Connect if you want to connect your device to your landline.

See at Amazon

More from Thrifter

• How to prevent your kids from making purchases with Alexa
• How to get hotel room upgrades for free

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

‘Batman: The Animated Series’ is coming to Blu-ray in 2018

Batman: The Animated Series is finally getting the remaster treatment it deserves. From this weekend’s New York Comic Con Warner Bros. announced that “later in the year” in 2018 it will release the influential animated show to high-def formats. As Polygon notes, the specifics are a bit fuzzy at this point. Will the 85-episode show come out all in one boxed set, or in volumes like the DVDs before? At this point that’s up in the air. However, any package will likely look and sound better than streaming the show on Amazon Prime. Plus, every episode will almost assuredly have the iconic opening credits sequence attached.

This summer Warner released Batman: Mask of the Phantasm on Blu-ray, the PG-rated feature-length movie that takes place in the Animated Series universe. If you want a peek at how gussied up episodes of the old series might look on Blu-ray, that’s probably your best bet.

Walmart’s app makes the return process easier

Walmart is adding another new feature to its app and this one aims to make returning items as painless as possible. Starting soon, when you need to return something, you’ll first start the process on the app. Then head to a store, scan a QR code at the Mobile Express Lane, and hand the item to a Walmart associate. The refund will be back in your account in approximately a day.

Earlier this year, Walmart started to roll out two other app features that streamlined trips to the pharmacy and to its in-store money transfer desks. The company also started making its Walmart credit card available to customers via its Walmart Pay app as soon as they’re approved for one. And Walmart Pay has been doing pretty well. A study from InfoScout showed that, behind Apple Pay, it’s the second most tried and used mobile wallet in the US.

Walmart says that the new return process will be available for Walmart.com purchases beginning next month and in-store purchases in early 2018.

Source: Walmart

Red’s new flagship camera is the $80,000 Monstro 8K VV

RED’s cinema cameras are too expensive for most of us, but they do push the state-of-the-art, making future camera’s you can afford better. A case in point is RED’s latest sensor called the Monstro 8K VV (Vista Vision). The bombastic name aside, it packs impressive specs. The sensor is 40.96 x 21.6 mm, which is slightly wider and slightly shorter than 35mm full-frame, handles 35.4-megapixel stills and 8K, 60 fps video, features 17+ claimed stops of dynamic range, and shoots at higher ISOs with lower noise than the last model.

You can take RED’s dynamic range (DR) claims with a pinch of salt, but even if it’s plus or minus a stop, that would make it one of the best, if not the best, sensors on the market. RED’s current Helium 8K S35 sensor is the current DXOMark champ with a score of 108 (Nikon’s D850 is the best DSLR with a 100 score). DXO measured a dynamic range of 15.2 for the Helium, below RED’s claimed 16.5+ stops, but the Monstro 8K VV should easily best the 108 score.

The sensor launch is good news for RED, but things didn’t exactly go as planned with its large-format 8K sensor. It originally launched the full-frame Dragon VV sensor back in April 2015, but was unable to make very many due to manufacturing yield problems. As a result, many folks that ordered one never received it.

The good news is that RED will now offer those folks the 8K Monstro VV instead, giving them a better sensor for the same money. New orders, meanwhile, will be fulfilled in early 2018, the company says. “Thanks for waiting, and sorry again that it took so long to tame the VV process,” said RED CEO Jarred Land.

The new sensor is the big news, but RED also made a smaller announcement that might be more beneficial for users. It released a “completely overhauled,” less complex image-processing pipeline (IPP2), with improved color management.

Despite the company’s technical prowess, it has struggled to draw many filmmakers who prefer the look and handling of ARRI’s cameras, which dominate film and TV production credits. It no doubt hopes the simpler IPP2 process will sway those folks to its system which is, on paper, technically superior to ARRI’s system, and cheaper to boot.

Via: Red Shark News

Source: RED

Google also found evidence of Russian influence in US election

Et tu, Google? Search and ad giant Google has found evidence that Russian agents purchased ads on YouTube, Google Search, Gmail and the company’s DoubleClick ad network, unnamed sources have told the Washington Post. That means Russian actors have penetrated all the large Silicon Valley ad firms, as Facebook and Twitter recently revealed similar attacks. However, the Google ads were reportedly not purchased by the same Vladimir Putin-affiliated group that bought ads on Facebook, meaning the problem could be more widespread than thought.

While Google didn’t comment on the Post’s story, its sources say that the company is investigating ad buys of less than $100,000 to see whether they came from trolls or Russian state actors. The company previously claimed that Russian election meddling wasn’t a Google problem, telling WaPo that it’s “always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.”

[Google is] always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.

So far, Google has ducked a lot of the criticism that has fallen on Facebook, and to a lesser extent, Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg was forced to apologize for his social network’s part in Russian misinformation that may have affected the presidential election results. “Calling [the idea of disinformation on Facebook] crazy was dismissive and I regret it,” he said late last month.

Zuckerberg’s mea culpa didn’t go nearly far enough, critics say. As more information surfaces, it now appears that Russia cannily sought to exploit US social divisions, dividing voters in crucial swing states. Critics are angry that Facebook won’t reveal the Russian ads to the public, and many diverse voices are calling for tighter government regulations over the company.

Twitter, meanwhile, shut down 201 accounts associated with Internet Research Agency, a firm with reported Russian ties that spent over $274,000 on ads. Google discovered potential Russian ads by linking Russian Twitter accounts to those used to purchase ads on its own services, reportedly without Twitter’s permission.

Google’s investigation is still in the early stages, so the number of accounts and dollar figures aren’t yet known. One research group believes that the election influence of Russian groups on Twitter, Facebook and other networks has actually been massively underreported. Jonathan Albright told the Post that regular posts and not just paid ads were seen hundreds of millions of times, much more often than reported by Facebook.

Source: The Washington Post

Nintendo’s mini SNES quickly cracked to run more games

It appears that Nintendo really doesn’t mind modders cracking open its little retro consoles and using them for more than they were originally intended. Back when the NES Classic Edition was released, it took Russian tinkerer “Cluster” just a few months to figure out how to side-load additional games onto the system. Nintendo doesn’t seem to have made the process any more difficult on new mini SNES, as little more than a week after its release, Cluster has updated his hakchi2 tool to support side-loading extra games onto the latest pint-sized console.

You’ll still need to vaguely know your way around a PC (or at least know where to find guides on YouTube), but according to the hakchi2 release notes and an FAQ on Reddit, you can get pretty much any SNES game running one way or another. The emulator baked into the SNES Classic Edition will even run older NES titles too apparently, giving you a huge back catalog to dive into. Bear in mind that a hard drive full of game ROM files is technically illegal, though, assuming you don’t have the relevant cartridges collecting dust in a forgotten box somewhere.

The ability to add more games to the little console is even more valuable this time around, since the SNES ships with only 21 games pre-installed, down from 30 on the mini NES. Nintendo is known to be aggressive when it comes to anything that whiffs of copyright infringement, but perhaps the company is turning a blind eye to side-loading because it hasn’t given buyers any way to add new titles legitimately. Nintendo even hid a message to modders in the NES Classic Edition’s code, and if you needed any more proof that Nintendo is cool with the community, it tucked another one away in the mini SNES.

SNES Mini contains hidden message from Nintendo/NERD 🙂 pic.twitter.com/ajqYL21zjh

— Cluster (@Cluster_M) September 27, 2017

Via: Nintendo Life

Source: GitHub

WiFi mesh networks can detect your breathing

In the world of indoor security systems, motion detection usually relies on cameras or at least dedicated sensors. Both types of solution add to hardware plus installation costs, not to mention that not everyone is comfortable with having cameras pointing at them all the time. Origin Wireless, on the other hand, found a way to make use of WiFi signals bouncing around a room to detect even the slightest movement — down to something as subtle as a person’s breathing rate. What’s more, this “Time Reversal Machine” technology is essentially just some clever algorithmic work, so it can potentially be added to any existing WiFi mesh routers via a firmware update. In other words, security system vendors should take note.

A “Time Reversal Machine” setup consists of at least two hubs: one router is designated as an “Origin” transmitter, with the remaining routers acting as “Bot” receivers. A 5GHz signal is applied here (so it can be either 802.11a, 802.11n or 802.11ac), and to avoid interference, the signal consists of just CSI (channel state information) which is only used during mesh network configuration.

Due to the reflective nature of electromagnetic waves, a Wi-Fi signal would end up with over 500 multi-paths by the time it hits the “Bot” side, and they would arrive at different times as well. Normally, these multi-paths would be considered as the “enemies” of signal processing, but Origin Wireless took a different perspective and realized how much these signals could tell about the environment — more so than laser-based detectors, according to the company.

In a nutshell, the delay between these multi-paths is the magical property that defines the state of a room: if something moves, the multi-paths will obviously change and so will the delay. Origin Wireless’ software scans for such changes 50 times per second, and with a bit of calculation across delays plus machine learning, it can detect any motion with an impressive accuracy of 1 to 2 cm. Hence the “Time Reversal Machine” name.

Admittedly, I was initially a little skeptical of this technology (I mean, come on, it’s called a “Time Reversal Machine”!), but luckily, Origin Wireless had a live demo at its CEATEC booth. I was invited into a small room where I sat down with the demonstrator and remained still, and after a four-second delay, the lack of motion was reflected on a live monitor in front of us. I was then instructed to breath steadily, and soon after the demonstrator left the room, I could see my breathing rate indicated as a flat line on the live chart (I intentionally kept my breathing as quiet as possible, in case the demo cheated using a microphone).

As creepy as it seemed given the lack of vital sensors, I was left impressed by how much could be achieved by using just WiFi signals. In fact, Origin Wireless believes that its Time Reversal Machine can do much more than just home security and vital monitoring. Consider this: if a person suddenly falls down, the software would detect a rapid change in the room’s state, followed by a long “silence.” This pattern could be configured to trigger a fall detection alert, which is good for elderly care — they wouldn’t need to face intrusive cameras at home, nor would they need to wear sensors. Other potential use cases include more precise intruder detection (by combining motion detection and breathing detection), indoor positioning via handheld WiFi devices, asset tracking, window or door open detection and more.

Of course, I can’t say that I’m totally convinced until I get to try this technology in real-life scenarios, but the fact that Dr. Ray Liu, the founder and CEO of Origin Wireless, is currently a member of the IEEE Board of Director (and was previously the President of IEEE Signal Processing Society) should lend credibility. More importantly, Liu’s startup has already filed over 60 patents, over 10 of which have been granted in the US. If this Time Reversal Machine is as solid as it claims to be, here’s hoping that router manufacturers will start integrating it into upcoming — and hopefully existing — devices in the very near future.

Source: Origin Wireless

HBO Announces iOS App-Based TV Show ‘Mosaic’ With Branching Narrative and Multiple Endings

HBO recently announced a new TV project in the works by director Steven Soderbergh called “Mosaic.” The show will air as a six-part linear narrative in early 2018, but in addition to the traditional distribution, HBO is launching an app where viewers can watch the show, make decisions, and help shape the outcome of certain events (via The Verge).

The Mosaic iOS app will be available to download for free beginning in November, and it will let viewers choose what point of view they want to follow the story, effectively building their own experience from material written and directed by Ed Solomon and Soderbergh, respectively. According to HBO, each choice “builds upon one another,” leading to different versions of the same scene, and different endings.

In January 2018, the linear version of Mosaic will air on HBO and the network said that this will allow viewers to compare their own version of the story with Soderbergh’s narrative.

“MOSAIC is a branching narrative piece. While branching narratives have been around forever, technology now allows, I hope, for a more elegant, intuitive form of engagement than used to be possible. Also, we weren’t reverse engineering the story to fit an existing piece of technology; the story was being created in lockstep with the technical team. The fluidity of that relationship made me feel comfortable because I wanted it to be a simple, intuitive experience. I didn’t want moments where you are making a decision to feel like interruptions.”

In both mediums, the show will star Sharon Stone, Garrett Hedlund, Beau Bridges, Paul Reubens, and others. The iOS app will include character profiles and various pieces of content — like newspaper clippings and voice recordings — that serve to deepen the show’s story. The plot itself is largely being kept under wraps by HBO and Soderbergh, but is expected to have some murder mystery elements.

Tag: HBO
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Tim Cook Visits iPhone X Supplier, Normandy Cemetery, and ‘My Little Paris’ Startup on French Trip

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Paris today ahead of a meeting with the French president Emmanuel Macron at 4:15 CEST. Before that meeting happens, Cook has a full itinerary for his day and the CEO has been documenting parts of his travels on Twitter.

Cook’s first Tweet noted his visitation to Eldim, a company based in Normandy that specializes in creating advanced optical metrology tools. Eldim is a component supplier of the upcoming iPhone X, providing Apple with critical components of the iPhone X’s Face ID biometric security system.

Thanks to my friends at Eldim, a team of talented engineers and craftspeople helping make iPhone possible. Bravo pour votre travail! 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/hEpxD3iBGf

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 9, 2017

Specifically, Eldim is said to be responsible for the eye detection abilities of Face ID — a crucial factor in Apple’s new software, which can detect when a user’s eyes are open (unlocking the iPhone X) or closed (keeping the smartphone locked). Eldim CEO Thierry Leroux called the collaboration with Apple “an incredible adventure.” Leroux further stated that, “for us it was a bit like sending someone to the moon.” Tim Cook was said to have responded with a congratulations and telling the company and its 42 employees, “it’s great what you did for us!” (via Mac Generation and Ouest-France).

While in Normandy, Cook visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, which honors the American lives that were lost in Europe during World War II.

At Normandy, honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice. “Think not only upon their passing. Remember the glory of their spirit.” pic.twitter.com/Unq6NXoe5y

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 9, 2017

Cook also made a surprise visit to a startup called “My Little Paris” where he shared a roast chicken with employees. My Little Paris specializes in recommending sites and attractions to see around the city. Originating as a weekly newsletter created by Fany Péchiodat and sent to her friends and family, the original idea has since evolved into a $42 million startup.

Visite surprise de @tim_cook ! Le CEO d’@Apple a partagé un poulet rôti chez #MyLittleParis pour célébrer ses 11 applications. pic.twitter.com/6Kv1SC7OLk

— MyLittleParis (@My_Little_Paris) October 9, 2017

Next up should be Cook’s meeting with Macron. The topics of discussion for this meeting are being kept secret, but the two men are largely expected to talk about the issue of corporate tax law in France. In August, France and Germany announced preparations to stop tech companies like Apple from exploiting tax loopholes in their respective countries, with Macron leading the crackdown on international tech companies in France.

Cook’s visit to France in 2017 follows a troublesome period of months for Apple back in 2016, when the European Commission ruled that Apple received illegal state aid from Ireland and ordered the company to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes. Apple appealed the decision in December of 2016 by arguing the European Commission made “fundamental errors” in its ruling, but the Cupertino company has noted that it expects the case to continue for several years.

In the wake of these reports, Cook called the tax avoidance claims “total political crap,” writing an open letter that stated Apple has become “the largest taxpayer in the world,” and that the company “follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe.”

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Tim Cook, France
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World View nails longest flight yet with data-gathering Stratollite balloon

Why it matters to you

World View’s balloon-based Stratollite system could transform the way scientists observe, react to, and collect data about our planet.

Elon Musk and his SpaceX team may grab all of the headlines with their rocket-landing feats and talk of going to Mars, but an Arizona-based outfit has been working diligently on its own high-altitude project aimed at drastically reducing the cost of satellite deployment.

World View, which has a number of different sky-based projects on the go, just scored a success with its Stratollite balloon system by completing a five-day flight, its longest yet in the stratosphere.

The Stratollite is an uncrewed and remotely controlled vehicle that’s taken to the edge of space by a system of high-altitude balloons. Offering deployment at low cost and for long durations, the Stratollite harnesses stratospheric winds to move to and from desired locations and, once fully developed should be able to stay floating on the edge of space for up to several months.

“This is our first successful attempt at testing all of the Stratollite’s integrated critical systems over the course of multiple days, and we’re thrilled with how everything worked,” said Jane Poynter, World View founder and CEO. “This is an enormous leap in our development program and we’re certain the Stratollite is going to forge a new path in how we observe, react to, and collect data about our planet.”

Five days may not seem that long considering World View plans months-long flights with its balloon, but this latest mission was a significant improvement on the Stratollite’s previous longest flight of just 27 hours.

The Stratollite is capable of carrying a wide variety of commercial payloads, including sensors, telescopes, and communications arrays, all of which can be brought safely back to terra firma once the mission is over. World View engineers say the system has the potential to help researchers “greatly advance knowledge of planet Earth, improve our ability to identify and track severe weather, and assist first responders during natural disasters.”

Flying at an altitude of between 55,000 and 75,000 feet, the Stratollite’s most recent test flight saw it successfully demonstrate both directional steering and station-keeping trajectories. Its solar-power systems also operated as planned through day and night cycles, the team confirmed. It took to the skies equipped with a Canon EOS 5DS camera, enabling World View to demonstrate the Stratollite as a viable platform for high-altitude Earth observation.

It also carried a communications payload for U.S. Southern Command, which could use World View’s technology in the fight against human and drug trafficking, as well as maritime piracy in sparsely monitored locations.

The company is also trying out a system for near real-time, high-bandwidth data transfer from a high altitude that could be used to deliver real-time data to future commercial customers.

Other World View projects include Voyager, a balloon-based space tourism capsule, which, if it makes it through the testing stage, will cost moneyed tourists $75,000 each for the ride of a lifetime.