Netflix Is Ready To Bring Its Own Movies To Theaters

Streaming media has changed how people behave in the age of the internet. People have largely given up music piracy because of services like Spotify and same is happening, albeit a little slower, in the movie and TV business thanks to Netflix.

Netflix has been growing very strongly for years, lately especially outside the US, and this means that there is less need for physical copies and moving yourself to another location acquire experiences, be it Blockbuster, Redbox, or movie theaters.

Obviously the Hollywood movie you’ll watch on Netflix comes there after it has done rounds in the theaters and possibly in some physical form or other, but if you are willing to wait, then you get a lot of return for your monthly $10 investment.

Even further, Netflix is investing immense amounts of money in original production that is only seen on its service, and this is increasingly the reason people choose it over cable TV or a ticket in the cinema. However, new report suggests that Netflix might be interested in bringing its own content to movie theaters near you.

Netflix has told the investors during the release quarterly results that it is considering releasing some of its movies in theaters. Fortunately the company says that it is still dedicated to bring the content first on its own platform which begs the question: who would pay more to see a Netflix movie in a theater?

The Pirate Bay Founder Releases A New Anonymous Domain Service

The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 by three Swedes. Later on the trio became famous – or infamous – for their arrests, prison sentences, new business opportunities, and even from denouncing The Pirate Bay. Now arguably the most famous of the three, Peter Sunde, the face of TPB if you like, has released a new service.

The service is meant for people who are worried about their privacy, but what could it be since VPN and the likes have been around for ages. Sunde’s new Njalla service is a domain registeration service which allows the customers to acquire domains fully anonymously.

The name of the service comes from the Sami people who used a njalla, or a hut on top of tree stumps or poles, to secure food away from animals.

Essentially Njalla works as an intermediary for businesses and private people to buy domain names. Njalla will officially be the one that buys the domain and therefore all the public information will point to Sunde’s company but all the control is given to the customer.

Sunde says that there are services already that aim to give more privacy to customers but they mainly work as a redirect service without full anonymity. He acknowledges that customers must trust Njalla wholeheartedly but with that trust comes privacy that others can’t provide. Even though Njalla owns the domains they will sign a contract that will hand over all the usage rights to the customer.

Intel’s Next Generation SSD’s Coming Soon, First Performance Results

Intel and Micron have been promoting their new 3D Xpoint memory technology for a long time. Finally the technology is close to landing in computers and portable devices.

The technology will first be adopted by Intel’s own server and business setups with the new Optane memories. Also the world’s largest PC manufacturer Lenovo has announced previously that it will give some of its laptops a new hybrid drive which will include a small Optane drive.

3D Xpoint is said to be nearly as fast as a DRAM type memory, but the memory density is four times larger. Even if it might be as fast as some RAM memories it is not meant to replace them but instead give a huge speed boost to SSD and hybrid drives that are currently using NAND technology.

As you might imagine all this advancement in SSDs is not going to be cheap. For example, a 375 GB Optane SSD DC P4800X costs over $1500 without sales tax, so you’ll have to wait a little while before mass markets are going to be adopting it.

However, for people that are interested in the performance of the new type of memory, and might even have use for it in servers or other business settings, AnandTech has an in-depth article, albeit crippled by Intel’s policies a bit, about the aforementioned P4800X Optane SSD.

Uber Tracked iPhone Serial Numbers Of Customers

The New York Times has revealed that the ride-hailing service tracked iPhones used by customers in a bid to tackle fraud.

The idea was to identify criminals that install the app on stolen devices, use stolen credit cards to book journeys and then wipe the device and repeat.

“Being able to recognise known bad actors when they try to get back on to our network is an important security measure for both Uber and our users,” Uber commented.

However pure Uber’s intentions may have been, such fingerprinting measures are in violation of Apple’s privacy policies, and Tim Cook himself reportedly ordered Uber to cease the activity or face expulsion from the App Store.

The NYT article also claimed that Uber went as far as to ringfence Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, to avoid detection of the practice by Apple employees.

Facebook Homepage Listed In Takedown Notice Over Football Piracy

In an unfortunate display of how piracy-related censorship activity can identify innocent targets, a recent takedown request listed http://www.facebook.com as an infringing URL.

The takedown notice, spotted by TorrentFreak, was sent to Google by NetResult on behalf of the Premier League. Such notices request that Google remove results from its Search service that offer unlicensed video streams of football matches for free.

In the past, large scale efforts to block access to (or lower the visibility of) websites that engage in copyright infringement have been criticized for catching innocent targets in the web. This little snafu – in which NetResult identified https://www.facebook.com as a link that should be removed from Google’s search results – is a rather dramatic example of an innocent party being identified and targeted.

Fortunately for Facebook, Google decided not to comply with the takedown request and Facebook’s homepage can still be found by the world’s most popular search engine.

PlayStation 5 Could Arrive In 2018?

An analyst is predicting that Sony will speed up its console refresh cycle and release the PlayStation 5 in the second half of 2018.

The gap between the original PlayStation console and the PlayStation 2 console was six years (1994, 2000). Sony then released the PlayStation 3 console six years later, in 2006. Back in late 2013, Sony dropped the PlayStation 4 onto the market, this time the gap between the debut was seven years.

However, Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong is predicting that the next major console release from Sony will be in the second half of 2018, just five years since the original PS4. Thong had accurately predicted the release of the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro.

There are many reasons why Thong could be proven right again. With the release of the PS4, Sony switched to x86 architecture with AMD chips, as did rivals Microsoft with the Xbox One. It is very unlikely that Sony would opt to switch to custom processors with a PS5, and so maintaining backward compatibility with the PS4 titles shouldn’t be a problem.

Market forces also may speed up the refresh cycle for the iconic console. More than ever, games consoles are competing with mobile platforms, low cost devices and increasingly affordable and convenient high-quality PC gaming. In this changing market, a seven year gap between PlayStation releases is probably unlikely.

YouTube Is Revamping Its UI, Adds Dark Mode, And You Can Try It Out Now

YouTube turned 12 this year and to celebrate the last pre-teen year the video platform is updating its look. The new user interface has adopted a design philosophy from the parent company Google.

The new UI takes the Material Design from Google’s Android operating system which makes the website look more simplistic but does not affect the functionality in any meaningful sense. The layout hasn’t been changed which isn’t a susprise, after all people are very familiar with how the platform works, but YouTube hopes the new UI gives a more spacey and less busy feel to the site.

In addition to the new UI there are some new features though. For example, now users can choose to use a Dark Mode theme instead of the normal lighter theme. The Dark Mode is obviously good if you use the website in a dark room.

YouTube has also introduced a slight technical change in the use of JavaScript. They now use Google’s own Polymer JavaScript libraries which should prove to be more efficient and faster.

You can try out the new UI here even though it has not been finished and officially launched yet.

Nintendo Is Not Giving Up On Handheld Consoles, Here’s 2DS XL

One would have thought that the time of handheld consoles would have come to an end, after all many, if not most, of us have a very powerful computer in our pockets already. The two Japanese gaming powerhouses, Nintendo and Sony, have been in the forefront of handheld gaming but have they given up already?

Well, PlayStation Vita, the latest handheld gaming console by Sony was released more than five years ago. Sony has placed its bets on PlayStation 4, and seems to be doing really well. Perhaps it might even release a new PlayStation 5 sooner than you’d think as it is not investing in the development of handheld consoles.

Nintendo on the other hand has been relying on their success with handhelds. Within the past 5 years, after PS Vita was announced, the company has released several upgrades to the DS line. Even its new home gaming console Switch can be used in handheld mode.

This regardless that the company has seen huge traction in smartphone games with Pokémon GO and Super Mario Run. Now the company has announced another DS product.

Nintendo has released a product called 2DS XL which is an updated version of the 2DS console released in late 2013. Unlike the 3DS which is designed for stereoscopic 3D the 2DS XL plays only traditional 2D games.

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