Category Archives: Tech
Kickstarter Changes Terms of Service for Failed Projects
After some inexplicably failed and abandoned projects since the crowdfunding’s site’s launch, Kickstarter is changing its terms of service which won’t allow project creators to just take the money and run. Now Kickstarter won’t work as a pledge with no legal obligation to complete the project as promised but now will open up project creators to the possibility of legal action.
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Formula E Beijing ePrix: Debuting with a Bang
The following post was originally written for The Lowdown Blog and was geared towards a motorsport audience. Most of the analysis is gear toward that audience rather than a tech crowd. However, I felt the first race of an all-electric motorsport series was worth posting about here.
The first ever race for the first ever international all-electric motorsports series got off with a bang. I mean that in both a literal and metaphorical sense too. For all the worries about the potential issues with Formula E, they put on a pretty good show despite the pit stop and car change nonsense. However, the race started and ended with literal bangs thanks to a Turn 2 incident on Lap 1 and a final turn incident on the final lap.
The result was that 24 laps and 19 corners of a race lead for Nicolas Prost was thrown away with one dangerous move that took him out of the lead and nearly injured Nick Heidfeld. That let Lucas di Grassi through to ink his name in the record books as the first ever Formula E race winner.
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Apple Unveils Two iPhone 6s and the Apple Watch
In news that should shock absolutely no one (except all the mainstream media who thought this was the most revolutionary announcement ever), Apple announced exactly what was rumoured. The new iPhone 6 was unveiled with two screen sizes that are both bigger than the current iPhone 5-series offerings and a new smart watch. That and a bunch of other new little gadgetry additions were noted for those devices that weren’t really reported on ahead of time.
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MIT Offering Course on Reddit
One of the terrible things about being a business student in university is that it’s apparently such a theory-intensive major that you have no time for electives. Sure, I had a little bit of leeway for picking my Arts & Humanities and Science credits but I never had anything as interesting as MIT had.
Students at the legendary school can now study Reddit in a course that’s appropriately called “Credit For Reddit.”
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YouTube Music Subscription Service Leaks
I’d imagine that the only reason why YouTube isn’t blocked at my day job is because a bunch of people use YouTube to listen to music during the day. Based on the popularity of Psy, Justin Bieber and all those official Vevo channels, I’d hazard that there are millions of people around the world who use YouTube for the same purpose.
A leaked YouTube subscription service appears to be targeting just that group of people. The YouTube Music Key service will give users ad-free playback of YouTube music videos with the ability for offline and audio only playback.
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Twitch Introduces Audio Content Matching System For VODs
The YouTube-ification of Twitch continues this week. With the shut down of Twitch Interactive’s original live-streaming website, Justin.tv, on Tuesday, Twitch made another move that moves it closer to being a live-streaming arm of YouTube. In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitch announced that they were introducing an audio content recognition algorithm to identify and mute copyrighted audio in VODs.
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Twitch Shuts Down Justin.TV
With the sale of Twitch Interactive to YouTube / Google having been recently reported as being virtually a done deal, it was only a matter of time before changes were made at Twitch. The first move of the company under its new ownership was to shut down the original division of Twitch Interactive. Live-streaming website Justin.tv was the first casualty of the new regime with the site closing its doors on Tuesday.
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iPhone 6 Coming with Two Screen Choices that are Bigger than the 5S
If you spent hundreds of dollars on a gold iPhone 5S, I feel bad for you son. I’ve got iPhone problems but a small screen soon won’t be one. The Wall Street Journal is now backing up a months old report by Japanese business publication Nikkei that Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6 won’t just come with a bigger screen but a choice of screen sizes for iPhiles to choose from.
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New York City Wants to Turn Payphones into Free WiFi Hotspots
Since payphone use is so amazingly low now, it surprises me that New York City reports having over 7,300 payphone kiosks in town. However, the city is planning to put them back to use. Rather than keeping them as simple payphones, the City of New York wants to convert payphones into free wifi hotspots.
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Britain Decriminalizes Online Piracy
While American companies are still attempting to charge and sue digital pirates into oblivion, Britain is moving to a more progressive system that’s built on the basis of the old adage that you can attract more flies with honey and vinegar. Starting in 2015, Britain is introducing the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP) that will decriminalize copyright policy.
et geekera 