Day: December 2, 2017

Posted on

Amazon Prime members can stream 15 Sundance Film Festival titles

Today, Amazon announced that 15 Sundance Film Festival titles are now available for Prime members through Amazon Video Direct. The films include Manifesto, starring Cate Blanchett, and festival award winners Marjorie Prime and Free and Easy.

Amazon created Video Direct last year as a way for individuals to post videos and make money off of them. The service allows users to charge for their content via typical routes like rentals or purchases, by including advertisements or by limiting views to just Prime members. But this year, Amazon has been hitting the festival circuit, recruiting filmmakers to the platform and offering double the standard Video Direct royalties and up to $100,000 in bonus cash. It made that offer at the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and SXSW.

"We launched the Film Festival Stars Program at Sundance earlier this year because we heard from our customers that they love watching independent films," Eric Orme, head of Amazon Video Direct, said in a statement. "So far in 2017, FFS has secured the streaming rights to 76 feature films that we’re confident will thrill and delight our customers."

The 15 Sundance films are available now in the US with select titles also available for streaming in Canada or worldwide. You can see the full list here.

Source: Amazon

from Engadget http://ift.tt/2zWhp7q
via IFTTT

Posted on

SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy will carry Musk’s Tesla Roadster to Mars

SpaceX chief Elon Musk has revealed the new schedule for Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight: the company is aiming to send it to the Martian orbit next month from the same launch pad where Apollo 11 took off. The business magnate has also divulged that Falcon 9’s more powerful sibling will carry his personal midnight cherry Tesla Roadster to space. While playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity, of course. Musk expects his Roadster to remain in deep space for a billion year — unless Falcon Heavy blows up on its way to the red planet.

While it would be spectacular to see SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket ferry a Tesla to Mars next month, it may be best to temper your expectations. The company pushed back Heavy’s maiden flight more than once: it was originally gunning for a summer launch but eventually moved it to November (and then again to December). On the last day of November, SpaceX announced that it had to push the launch back yet again to next year.

Company reps previously spoke of how difficult it is to build such a large rocket powered by three Falcon 9 cores. Musk said at a press conference earlier this year that Heavy might not even make it to orbit the first time it leaves the atmosphere. If that’s the case, we’ll bet he’s already made peace with the possibility of his Roadster blowing up into a million pieces.

Source: Elon Musk (Twitter)

from Engadget http://ift.tt/2jCK4n2
via IFTTT

Posted on

Google bans Android developers from adding lock screen ads

Enlarge /

Examples of some lockscreen ads, which totally replace the stock lockscreen.

here

,

here

, and

here

,

Google is cracking down on one of the most annoying ad types on Android. As first spotted by Android Police, the Google Play Developer monetization rules have been updated to ban lock screen ads. Here’s the new section:

Lockscreen Monetization

Unless the exclusive purpose of the app is that of a lockscreen, apps may not introduce ads or features that monetize the locked display of a device.

It’s not really possible to show an ad on the existing lock screen, unless you’re counting a notification (which is pretty easy to block). So what some of the shadier developers on Google Play have been doing is replacing the existing lock screen, without asking, and showing a screen that can have a big ad slapped onto the lower half. This can be very confusing for users since nothing indicates why their lock screen is different, what app made the changes, or how it can be fixed. Do a search and you’ll find tons of help threads of users asking why their lock screen is suddenly different, and others guessing at which app could be the culprit.

Now, developers that continue to do this will be tossed from the Play Store. Of course, this is only a Play Store rule and won’t affect devices that are sold with lock screen ads built-in. Amazon, for instance, sells “Prime Exclusive Phones” with “special offers” built-in. These phones show ads full screen lock screen ads, notification ads, and pack the phone with some non-removable Amazon apps, in exchange for a discount of around $50 to $80.

from Ars Technica http://ift.tt/2kgq8u9
via IFTTT

Posted on

After 37 years, Voyager 1 has fired up its trajectory thrusters

Enlarge /

The Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980. They are located on the back side of the spacecraft in this orientation.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

At present, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is 21 billion kilometers from Earth, or about 141 times the distance between the Earth and Sun. It has, in fact, moved beyond our Solar System into interstellar space. However, we can still communicate with Voyager across that distance.

This week, the scientists and engineers on the Voyager team did something very special. They commanded the spacecraft to fire a set of four trajectory thrusters for the first time in 37 years to determine their ability to orient the spacecraft using 10-millisecond pulses.

from Ars Technica http://ift.tt/2ABaujX
via IFTTT

Posted on

Tesla’s giant battery farm is now live in South Australia

With a little lot of help from Tesla, Australia is now home to the world’s largest lithium-ion battery. Back in March, Elon Musk told Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes that he could create a 100MWh battery storage farm within 100 days — otherwise, his company would do the job for free. The Twitter pledge was in response to ongoing power shortages in South Australia, which were causing blackouts and political uncertainty about the country’s push toward renewable energy sources. The batteries were delivered and installed before the summer — well ahead of Musk’s self-imposed deadline — and Friday, they were switched on for the first time.

Tesla’s Powerpacks are connected to a wind farm in Hornsdale, owned by French renewable energy company Neoen. Jay Weatherill, a politician and current Premier of South Australia, says it’s the first time the state has been able to reliably dispatch wind energy to the grid 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was possible, of course, to capture this energy resource before — the problem has been controlling when, and how much of the resulting electricity is fed back into the grid. With a 100MWV battery farm, the state can now power more than 30,000 homes, regardless of the weather.

“The completion of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in record time shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible,” a Tesla spokesperson said. “We are proud to be part of South Australia’s renewable energy future, and hope this project provides a model for future deployments around the world.” Tesla has built similar battery farms before; a year ago, the company completed a 20 MW system in Ontario, California that can store up to 80 MWh of electricity. It took just 90 days for the company — that hopes to commoditize electric cars, semi-trucks and home energy storage — to install the necessary 396 Powerpacks.

Jay Weatherill

Written by Nick Summers for Engadget.

Related Video:

from Autoblog http://ift.tt/2iBP9jj
via IFTTT