Month: March 2018

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Ajit Pai faces heat over proposal to take away poor people’s broadband plans

Ajit Pai faces heat over proposal to take away poor people’s broadband plans

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Democratic senators yesterday asked Ajit Pai to abandon a proposal that the senators say would take subsidized broadband plans away from “millions of Americans.”

The Federal Communications Commission chairman’s plan for the Lifeline subsidy program would force most users of the program to find new providers. But such users could have trouble finding replacement plans or similar prices because Pai’s proposal would prevent all telecom resellers from offering Lifeline-subsidized service.

“Your proposal impacts over 70 percent of current Lifeline-recipient households by eliminating their wireless providers from the program, leaving less affordable and fewer Lifeline options, while making it more difficult for the companies trying to serve Lifeline customers,” Senate Democrats wrote in the letter to Pai yesterday. “Instead of cutting the program, we should ensure Lifeline reaches more Americans in need of access to communication services.”

The letter was written by Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Pai offered no evidence, Democrats say

Lifeline lets poor people use a $9.25 monthly household subsidy to buy Internet and/or phone service. More than 70 percent of wireless phone users who rely on Lifeline subsidies buy their plans from resellers, i.e. companies that purchase capacity from network operators and then resell it directly to consumers.

Pai’s plan would prevent all resellers from participating in Lifeline, limiting the subsidies to “facilities-based broadband” providers, those that operate their own networks. The proposal has drawn widespread condemnation from both liberals and conservatives, as we previously reported.

Pai claimed that kicking resellers out of the program would spur facilities-based carriers to invest in their broadband networks. But his proposal offered no evidence for this claim, Democrats wrote. They asked him for a response with specific data to back up the assertion:

The December 1, 2017, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) provides no evidence, analysis, or data to support its assumption that the FCC’s proposed changes to Lifeline will spur facilities-based broadband deployment and additional affordable services for low-income families. Provide any specific data, analysis, academic studies, economic reports, etc. that you relied on to support this assumption. Explain why the NPRM included no evidence or data to support this assumption.

Proposed spending cap

Lifeline has more than 12 million subscribers, but only about one-third of eligible households receive the subsidies. Pai’s proposal would also impose an annual cap on Lifeline spending, which could prevent many of the remaining households from getting the broadband or phone subsidies they are eligible for. Lifeline currently has a budget of $2.25 billion, indexed to inflation, but no hard cap on spending.

In addition to the standard $9.25 monthly subsidy for low-income households, tribal residents are eligible for another $25 a month. Pai’s FCC has already banned residents of tribal lands from obtaining the $25 enhanced subsidy from resellers and eliminated the $25 extra subsidy for tribal residents who live in urban rather than rural areas.

Lifeline is essential for low-income Americans “who rely on subsidized internet access to find jobs, schedule doctor’s appointments, complete their school assignments, interface with the government, and remain connected in a digital economy,” Democrats wrote in the letter to Pai.

Lifeline subsidy recipients include a disproportionate number of families with children, veterans, and people of color, they also wrote.

The senators ended their letter to Pai by asking the following questions:

  1. What is the FCC’s plan for the millions of Americans that would lose service due to your actions to cut the Lifeline program?
  2. How many Americans in total, broken down by state, would lose their current service provider under your proposal? How many Americans would be left without any provider offering Lifeline service?
  3. How will you ensure the integrity of the comment record is intact, and that it will be taken into your decision-making process?
  4. How does your proposal help to increase the already terrible connectivity situation in Puerto Rico after its devastation by recent hurricanes?
  5. How does your proposal ensure connectivity/affect availability of Lifeline for the following groups (please provide current Lifeline participation statistics for each, where available):
    1. Tribal members
    2. Rural Americans
    3. Low-income Americans
    4. Veterans
    5. Elderly populations

Pai could still change or drop his plans for banning resellers and capping overall Lifeline spending. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asked the public for comment, and the deadline for submitting feedback passed last week. With the comment period being over, Pai could finalize the proposal at any time and set up a commission vote.

We asked the chairman’s office for a response to the senators’ letter and an update on his Lifeline plans. We’ll update this story if we get an answer.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

March 30, 2018 at 01:50PM

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Smugglers used drones to sneak $80 million worth of phones into China

Smugglers used drones to sneak $80 million worth of phones into China

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China’s Legal Daily reported today that officials in the country just shut down a major smartphone smuggling scheme. A total of 26 suspects were arrested in connection with the plot. The individuals allegedly used drones to string two cables between Shenzhen in southern China and Hong Kong and with the setup, they could reportedly transport as many as 15,000 phones in a single night. Those arrested are accused of smuggling 500 million yuan (approximately $79.5 million) worth of smartphones.

Attempts to smuggle devices from Hong Kong to China are fairly common. A few years ago, one man tried to sneak 94 iPhones into China, all of which were strapped to his body, and in 2011, some smugglers were busted for using a slingshot to set up a zip line in between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, which they were using to transport iPads and iPhones. And in a less-successful scheme, a would-be smuggler tried to hide over 200 iPhones in empty beer bottles that were then sent from Hong Kong to China.

The Legal Daily reports that this is the first known case to have employed drones as part of the smuggling arrangement.

Via: Reuters

Source: Legal Daily

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

March 30, 2018 at 01:09PM

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Open Bionics’ latest 3D-printed arm goes on sale next month

Open Bionics’ latest 3D-printed arm goes on sale next month

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Open Bionics announced today that its 3D-printed Hero Arm prosthetic will be available for purchase in the UK next month. The company’s founders started Open Bionics because they were interested in developing prosthetic limbs that were less expensive than traditional options, which typically cost tens of thousands of dollars. Using 3D-scanning and 3D-printing, they aim to produce more affordable options that can be constructed much more quickly than other prosthetic devices. In the past, they’ve developed Star Wars-, Iron Man– and Frozen-themed prosthetic hands for children as well as a Deus Ex-inspired arm.

The Hero Arm is the company’s latest design. Open Bionics says its three-times more affordable than similar multi-grip bionic arms and each one is custom built for the person using it. It’s available for children as young as eight years old and Open Bionics is touting it as the "world’s first medically approved 3D-printed bionic arm." We’ve reached out to see what exactly they mean by "medically approved."

The device weighs less than a kilogram and can lift up to eight. It also has a long-lasting battery, custom covers that can be switched out and offers multiple types of grips that can be reconfigured depending on the user’s preferences. The Hero Arm has a freeze mode so users can hold a position without added effort, feedback in the form of lights, sounds and vibrations and a posable wrist that can rotate 180 degrees, making it easier to grab things at odd angles.

You can check out more features in the video below. The Hero Arm will be available in the UK starting April 25th.

Source: Open Bionics

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

March 30, 2018 at 10:51AM

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‘Away’ is a full-length CG movie made by one person

‘Away’ is a full-length CG movie made by one person

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A boy dangling from a tree in a barren desert. A forest filled with standing stones that have circular holes punched through them. Turtle-riding cats. Spooky caves. Curious elephants. These are just a few of the shots in the first trailer for Away. The 3D animation is far from perfect, but there’s a clear, distinctive style throughout. The most impressive part, though, is revealed in the video’s description: "Animated feature film by Gints Zilbalodis." Unlike the latest Pixar movies, Away is being made by just one person. It’s a colossal challenge, but one that the 23-year-old animator has been building toward for eight years.

Zilbalodis grew up in the Latvian capital of Riga. His parents met in art school, so it was no surprise that he quickly fell in love with illustration and filmmaking. As a bright-eyed 15-year-old, he made a two-minute short called "Rush," with a "pretty old iMac" and a piece of software called Toon Boom. The hand-drawn tale depicts a boy crossing a busy road and narrowly missing a flurry of cars. As he contemplates his near-death experience, another car honks its horn, causing the youth to twist his head and accidentally walk down a manhole. "I was attempting to make something funny," Zilbalodis said, "but that’s not what I’m good at."

The budding animator enrolled at JRRMV, an art-centric high school in Riga, where he worked on a short called "Aqua" in his spare time. The film revolves around a cat that has to overcome its fear of the ocean. Zilbalodis "isn’t really sure" where the idea came from, but he had a cat — his family’s first — called Josephine at the time.

As the film progresses, the sea-trapped moggie learns to dive into the water, catch fish, and swim back to the surface like a kingfisher. Zilbalodis had followed a classic narrative structure called the hero’s journey (character goes on an adventure, overcomes great odds and comes home changed), but he did so by accident: He only realized it after reading a pile of screenwriting books, including the revered The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler.

The cat was little more than a stick figure, because Zilbalodis "couldn’t draw very well." The short is also stuttery, because he was "lazy" and used "very few frames." Still, it was good. The shots were dynamic, and the music, performed by his childhood friend Bertrams Pauls Purviš?is, was a perfect match. Zilbalodis’ teacher and parents urged him to show the film at a theater owned by his uncle. He eventually caved and invited the entire school to what became an informal premiere. "The only time I could get was in the morning," he said, "while classes were happening at school. So I had to arrange a school trip for everyone."

Zilbalodis posted "Aqua" on Vimeo the same day. He refreshed the page every hour and was taken aback when it was selected as a Staff Pick. "At that time, Staff Picks were worth so many views," he said. The coveted recommendation meant it was quickly seen and covered by animation blogs. Later, he posted the video to YouTube and Newgrounds. The latter, which rose to fame in the early noughties as a place for independent Flash animation, had been a big influence on Zilbalodis as a child. "Aqua" was one of the first videos to be uploaded in HD on the site.

"I invited the entire school to the premiere."

At this point, the Latvian animator realized two things. The first was that he didn’t want to work in a large company. He enjoyed every part of the filmmaking process and hated the idea of specializing. The second was that he wanted to switch to 3D, because the medium would cover his sub-par drawing skills and facilitate more complicated camera moves.

Zilbalodis spent the next 18 months working on a short called "Priorities." The film is about two castaways — a pilot and his dog — who crash in a secluded cove and try to escape on a makeshift raft. Stormy weather, though, knocks the lovable canine into the ocean, and the man is forced to pick between salvation and his best friend. "At the time, my family had its first dog," he explained. "So just like the cat [in "Aqua"], I was inspired by the animal."

Concept art for "Priorities."

The film is nine minutes long and consists of just four shots. Zilbalodis was imitating Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican film director behind Gravity and Children of Men, and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. The pair are known for their prolonged, uninterrupted shots that show more of the world or a string-like connection between characters. Zilbalodis also experimented with handheld camera movements inside his 3D world. The teenager was worried that the film would look like a video game and hoped this imperfect style would give it a more organic feel. "It’s a kind of mixture between a handheld and very digital look," he said.

Zilbalodis used Maya, a popular program for video game and animation modeling, to develop the short. He found the application "very hard," however, and struggled to create complex effects. "But actually, that helped me to find my style," Zilbalodis explained. The young director learned to embrace his shadowless character models and simple facial expressions. "The aesthetic of the film was influenced by the things I couldn’t do and had to think around," he said. "Many of the decisions I made were done to hide my lack of knowledge."

"Priorities" became his graduation movie. He premiered the film at his uncle’s theater and sent copies to a few animation festivals. He also posted it to Vimeo, which was risky, because many festivals refuse films that are already available to the public. The inverse happened, however: The upload was successful and attracted more interest from festival organizers, including some that Zilbalodis hadn’t considered before. "I just thought that I couldn’t or wouldn’t be accepted," he said. The teenager attended a number of festivals that year, including Animafest Zagreb, in Croatia, and one that takes place inside Japan’s New Chitose Airport.

Concept art for "Followers."

Zilbalodis’ next film, "Followers," was funded by the Latvian government. It was a small grant, but enough to sustain the filmmaker while he juggled the occasional freelance project. The short is about a robber who is ditched by his partner and forced to spend time in prison. He escapes and befriends a delinquent boy who becomes an unlikely "follower" — that is, until he recognizes the cycle he’s creating and turns himself over to the police.

The visuals are a huge step up from "Priorities." Zilbalodis is "mostly happy" with the film but thinks some of the themes aren’t particularly clear. "I think I was using just too many things at the same time," he said. "It’s a bit overwhelming to watch." Still, he learned a lot about Maya and complementary software including After Effects and Apple’s Logic Pro X. He also concluded that the higher visual fidelity wasn’t worth the longer rendering times. "It was very stressful, because when I made a mistake I had to re-render everything," Zilbalodis said.

Next, he made "Inaudible," a short about a deaf musician. It came out on June 18th, 2015, just six months after "Followers." The fast turnaround was enabled by Zilbalodis’ new lifestyle, which was free of schoolwork and nonessential freelance projects. But it was also a result of the Latvian government grant system — with only one contest per year, Zilbalodis had to work quickly to be eligible for funding.

"If I had taken a year off, I would have been forced to find another job or start doing freelance work."

"Maybe I should have allowed myself a bit more time," he said. "But if I had taken a year off, I would have been forced to find another job or start doing freelance work. And I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to focus on my own films."

Concept art for "Inaudible."

All of these projects have led to Away, a 70-minute feature set for release next year. At the outset, Zilbalodis split the movie into four chapters, or shorts, to help manage the workload and secure financial support from the Latvian government. He made the first chapter, "Oasis," and sent it to some animation festivals last year. "But it wasn’t very successful there," he said. The animator thinks it struggled because it’s part of a larger story and "doesn’t really have a very good conclusion." At 17 minutes, it’s also pretty long for a traditional short.

Zilbalodis was undeterred, however. He decided to go back and remake "Oasis" before progressing with the final three chapters. The critical reception also made him rethink how he wants to release the feature; now it will be shown in its entirety only at animation festivals. "I think the story works much better when seen in its entirety," he said. "So now I’m focusing on the feature film; however, I will be maintaining the four-chapter structure."

Away will follow a boy as he befriends a small bird and tries to find his way back home. It’s inspired by Future Boy Conan, a post-apocalyptic anime series directed by Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki in the late 1970s. Zilbalodis is also a fan of The Motorcycle Diaries, a 2004 live-action biopic about a young Ernesto Guevara, and cinematic video games, including Journey and The Shadow of the Colossus.

Working on this project is, in many ways, easier for Zilbalodis than his previous shorts. He knows the complete story, which means he doesn’t have to come up with a whole new concept and world for each chapter. "When I finish a chapter, I can jump right into the next one and I already have the characters and designs," he explained. The animator and director still uses the same tools — Maya, After Effects and Logic Pro X — but has switched to the Viewport in Maya for real-time rendering. "So it doesn’t really take time to render," Zilbalodis said. "Once I make something, it’s already rendered and finished."

Ideally, Away will be picked up by a distributor and get a theatrical release. Otherwise, Zilbalodis will consider selling the film through VOD platforms such as iTunes and Vimeo On Demand. And of course, he would like to show the film at his uncle’s theater in Riga.

As a one-man studio, Zilbalodis is unusual. But he doesn’t seem fazed by the scale of the project, which now stands at "about 80 percent done." The animator points to small and single-person studios that have created hit video games such as Stardew Valley, Cave Story and Axiom Verge. "There’s no reason why people couldn’t do that in filmmaking or animation," he said. "I think there will be many people doing this in the future."

Source: Gints Zilbalodis (Vimeo)

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

March 30, 2018 at 12:09PM

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FCC approves SpaceX plan to launch 4,425 broadband satellites

FCC approves SpaceX plan to launch 4,425 broadband satellites

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SpaceX yesterday received US approval to launch 4,425 low-Earth orbit satellites, a key milestone in its plan to offer broadband with high speeds and low latency around the world.

The Federal Communications Commission issued an order approving SpaceX’s application with some conditions. SpaceX intends to start launching operational satellites as early as 2019, with the goal of reaching the full capacity of 4,425 satellites in 2024. The FCC approval just requires SpaceX to launch 50 percent of the satellites by March 2024, and all of them by March 2027.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

March 30, 2018 at 11:06AM

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Mute Every Website Automatically with This Chrome Extension

Mute Every Website Automatically with This Chrome Extension

http://bit.ly/2pPWsU4

Letting you mute entire websites in Chrome may be the best upgrade Google ever made to the browser, but it could still be better. Sure, muting every site with annoying pop-up videos is great, but what if you didn’t have to deal any audio at all? Thanks to AutoMute, you’ll never have to hear another peep out of your browser ever again.

AutoMute is a third-party extension that does exactly what its name suggests. As soon as you install the software, every new tab will come with Google Chrome’s mute icon already in place. If there’s a site you do want to hear audio from (like YouTube, or, maybe, Lifehacker) you can whitelist that entire domain. You can also whitelist a specific page if you want to hear some audio but still don’t trust the rest of the site.

The one problem (and it’s a small one) is that AutoMute doesn’t integrate directly with Chrome’s own mute feature, so you can’t right click on a tab to un-mute it. Instead, you have to click on the AutoMute extension icon, which should show up to the right of your browser’s URL bar once it’s installed. It may take a little time to get used to this one discrepancy, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind that comes from muting the entire internet with a single click.

Tech

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com

March 29, 2018 at 03:34PM

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Trump’s Claim That Amazon Pays ‘Little or No’ State Taxes Is Utter Nonsense

Trump’s Claim That Amazon Pays ‘Little or No’ State Taxes Is Utter Nonsense

http://bit.ly/2J2slS0

President Trump’s obsession with Amazon has reportedly cost the US business $53 billion, but right or wrong on any one point, his stance on Amazon’s penchant for dodging federal taxes reeks of hypocrisy, and his latest accusation about failing to pay state taxes simply wrong.

The president, who repeatedly promised to release his own tax returns only to renege once elected, attacked Amazon again on Thursday morning, tweeting that the company pays “little or no taxes to state & local governments,” while using the US postal service as its “Delivery Boy.”

Defending a multi-billion dollar corporation that, frankly, treats many of its employees like shit, is not the job of any reporter. Notwithstanding, the country’s highest office is spewing misinformation for the apparent purpose of perpetuating a petty personal vendetta. So, here’s what you should know:

Amazon collects and pays a shitload of state taxes. Unless you live in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, or Oregon, you are paying a sales tax whenever you make a purchase on Amazon. Last month, for example, I bought a Epson all-in-one wireless color printer for $59.99 and paid $4.95 in tax—or 8.25 percent, the sales tax in the state of Texas.

While Amazon does not always pay local-level taxes—because many localities are not properly equipped to demand or collect them—nor does it collect state sales tax on items sold through its platform by third-party vendors in most states, it is likely paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes to state and local governments each year. In total, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Amazon paid $412 million in taxes in 2016 and, according to CNBC, has a provisional tax expense of around $200 million last year.

Let’s not forget, Amazon now owns every Whole Foods store in the country, so that’s even more state and local taxes. You could argue that Amazon, which brought in nearly $178 billion in sales last year, should pay more in taxes. But needless to say, it is not paying a “little” amount, nor is it “no” amount whatsoever, as the president claims.

Either the president is lying or he’s totally uninformed about the issue. The former is most likely, however, because, after all, this isn’t the first time Trump has made this claim, nor is it the first time he’s faced criticism for being wrong.

Last summer, Trump criticized Amazon (or, potentially, the Washington Post, which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns) for not paying its “internet taxes,” a stupid remark because, well, that’s not a thing that actually exists.

Recent financial reports have highlighted the fact that Amazon, which raked in more than $5.6 billion in profits last year, paid $0 in federal income taxes. It accomplished this, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, by taking advantage of “various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options,” including a one-time $789 million tax break thanks to the—wait for it—the tax law signed by President Trump last year.

But hypocrisy goes even deeper. If you’ll recall the first presidential debate, Trump boasted that he didn’t pay federal taxes because he was “smart.”

In an interview immediately after the debate, Trump claimed he didn’t say what he had just said in front of millions of people about not paying taxes.

That type of brazen dishonesty may have been alarming in 2016, but after more than a year under the Trump administration, a lie of this magnitude is nothing but another tweet lost in the ether.

Tech

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

March 29, 2018 at 04:00PM