Shameless Plug

Know Your Role is a card game for only the most dedicated actors — and in this case iconic screenwriters.  We quizzed Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens, who cowrote The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit film trilogies, as well as the new Mortal Engines film, to see how much they know about the fictional worlds they have brought to life. Mortal Engines will be hitting cinemas 8th Dec. Read more... More about Mashable Video , Lord Of The Rings , Peter Jackson , Hobbit , and Tolkien from Mashable https://ift.tt/2DVUNVL

George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, Dies At 94 Published on December 01, 2018 at 10:55AM George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, has passed away tonight at the age of 94. As The Washington Post reports, he was "the last veteran of World War II to serve as president, he was a consummate public servant and a statesman who helped guide the nation and the world out of a four-decade Cold War that had carried the threat of nuclear annihilation." From the report: Although Mr. Bush served as president three decades ago, his values and ethic seem centuries removed from today's acrid political culture. His currency of personal connection was the handwritten letter -- not the social media blast. He had a competitive nature and considerable ambition that were not easy to discern under the sheen of his New England politesse and his earnest generosity. He was capable of running hard-edge political campaigns, and took the nation to war. But his pr...

Fox News Breaking News Alert George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States of America, has died at age 94 11/30/18 9:10 PM

DHL To Invest $300 Million To Quadruple Robots In Warehouses In 2019 Published on December 01, 2018 at 10:30AM A logistics division of DHL announced today that it will invest $300 million to modernize 60 percent of its warehouses in North America with more IoT sensors and robots. Robotic process automation and software made to reduce workflow interruptions will also play a role. VentureBeat reports: Such technology is already in operation in 85 DHL facilities, or roughly 20 percent of warehouses across North America. Funding announced today will bring emerging technology to 350 of DHL Supply Chain's 430 operating sites. The company has more than 35,000 employees in North America. Conversations are ongoing with more than 25 robotics and process automation industry leaders, DHL Supply Chain president of retail Jim Gehr said. DHL Supply Chain warehouse robots will work primarily with unit-picking operations and will be able to complete a range of tasks, from collaborative piece pick...

Shocking Maps Show How Humans Have Reshaped Earth Since 1992 Published on December 01, 2018 at 09:00AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: It's no secret that humans -- noisy, messy creatures that we are -- are vastly altering Earth's environments. But it's one thing to know this in the abstract, and another to see global changes laid out in detail, as they are in comprehensive new maps published this month in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Developed by geoscientist Tomasz Stepinski and his team at the University of Cincinnati's Space Informatics Lab (SPI), the intricate visualizations reveal that 22 percent of Earth's total landmass was altered between 1992 and 2015, mostly by humans. The most common change was forest loss due to agricultural development, and the second most common was the reverse -- farms to forests. The swift urbanization of grasslands, forests, and farms was also reflected in the ma...

Turns Out Mitochondria Can Come From Fathers Too Published on December 01, 2018 at 07:50AM schwit1 shares a report from Popular Mechanics: We all know: The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But the mitochondria is much more than a simple power plant. It's also a unique source of DNA that can give us important clues to our species and our history. That's because the DNA in your mitochondria comes only from your mother. At least, that's what we believed. But new research suggests that in some cases, mitochondrial DNA can be inherited from fathers, too. A group of researchers found three unrelated families where individuals had mitochondrial DNA from both parents. A total of 17 people across these three families were affected, suggesting that mitochondria aren't as exclusively maternal as scientists believed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Automakers Give the Chinese Government Access To Location Data of Electric Cars Published on December 01, 2018 at 07:10AM According to a new report from The Associated Press, a number of China's government officials and entities have had access to the location data of "new energy vehicles" from many different manufacturers. "More than 200 manufacturers (both national and foreign) transmit the data to 'government-backed monitoring centers,' according to the report, including one called 'The Shanghai Electric Vehicle Public Data Collecting, Monitoring and Research Center' and another known as the 'National Big Data Alliance of New Energy Vehicles,'" reports The Verge. From the report: Chinese officials told the AP that this data -- which includes the real-time location of cars, plus "dozens of other data points" -- is collected to "improve public safety" and "facilitate industrial development and infrastructure pl...

Airbnb Will Start Designing Houses In 2019 Published on December 01, 2018 at 06:30AM Airbnb is reportedly planning to distribute prototype buildings next year. Yesterday, Samara, a futures division of Airbnb meant to develop new products and services for the company, announced a new initiative called Backyard. The initiative is described in a press release as "an endeavor to design and prototype new ways of building and sharing homes," with the first wave of test units going public in 2019. Fast Company reports: The name "Backyard" might imply that Airbnb just wants to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), those small cottages that sit behind large suburban houses and are often rented on Airbnb. [Airbnb chief product officer and cofounder Joe Gebbia] clarifies that is not the case. "The project was born in a studio near Airbnb headquarters," he says in an interview over email. "We always felt as if we were in Airbnb's backyard -- physically and...

Samsung's Foldable Screen Tech Has Been Stolen, Sold To China Published on December 01, 2018 at 05:50AM Prosecutors in South Korea say that Samsung's latest bendable screen technology has been stolen and sold to two Chinese companies. "The prosecutors allege that a Samsung supplier leaked blueprints of Samsung's 'flexible OLED edge panel 3D lamination' to a company that it had set up," reports CNN. "That company then sold the tech secrets to the Chinese firms for nearly $14 million, according to the prosecutors." CNN reports: The Suwon District Prosecutor's Office charged 11 people on Thursday with stealing tech secrets from Samsung, the office said in a statement. They did not name the people or companies involved in the theft. Samsung Display, a subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate, said in a statement Friday that it was "surprised and appalled at the results of the investigation by prosecutors." Prosecutors said Samsung ...

Photos of the wreckage in Alaska highlight the power of Friday's destructive earthquake. Anchorage and its surrounding areas were shaken by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Friday morning. Gov. Bill Walker issued a disaster declaration, closing schools as roads and bridges collapsed and cracked. The Anchorage Water Waste and Utility Department advised residents to boil their water in case of contamination. SEE ALSO: How a quiet California town protects itself against today's megafires Here's a look at major infrastructure damage shared online in the aftermath: I just got sent home from work after a massive earthquake in Anchorage, #Alaska : pic.twitter.com/gOXsUrzdGT — Ryan Hobbs (@RyanHobbsMMA) November 30, 2018 Read more... More about Photos , Earthquake , Alaska , Science , and Web Culture from Mashable https://ift.tt/2DTpdHX

Ariana Grande has another accomplishment to add to her ever-growing list: breaking YouTube .  The pop singer dropped the much anticipated music video for her hit song " thank you, next " on Nov. 30, and in the process managed to overload the online video platform. Well, her devoted and passionate fanbase did, anyway.  That's right, according to YouTube , the service was unable to handle the barrage of comments on the video after it went live — prompting someone at YouTube to compare "thank you, next" to another famous internet moment .  SEE ALSO: Ariana Grande's 'thank u, next' video is a perfect parody of all your favorite teen movies Read more... More about Youtube , Ariana Grande , Tech , and Big Tech Companies from Mashable https://ift.tt/2AzR2BK

Google Hangouts For Consumers Will Be Shutting Down Sometime In 2020 Published on December 01, 2018 at 05:10AM According to 9to5Google, Google Hangouts for consumers will be shutting down sometime in 2020. The news shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since Google essentially stopped development on the app more than a year ago. Thankfully, there are plenty of other Google messaging apps available, such as Allo, Duo, and Android Messages. From the report: Last spring, Google announced its pivot for the Hangouts brand to enterprise use cases with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, so the writing has been on the wall for quite some time regarding the Hangouts consumer app's demise. Meanwhile, Google has transitioned its consumer-facing messaging efforts to RCS 'Chat' and Android Messages following Allo's misadventures. As mentioned, Hangouts as a brand will live on with G Suite's Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, the former intended to be a team communication ap...

Facebook Discussed Using People's Data As a Bargaining Chip, Emails and Court Filings Suggest Published on December 01, 2018 at 04:28AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile-ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people's data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses. The case was brought by one such company, Six4Three, which claims its business was destroyed in 2015 by Facebook's actions. In one of the exchanges from the filings, Facebook employees discussed shutting down access "in one-go to all apps that don...

Researchers Are Proposing a New Way To Generate Street Addresses by Extracting Roads From Satellite Images Published on December 01, 2018 at 03:45AM An estimated 4 billion people in the world lack a physical address. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab and Facebook are now proposing a new way to address the unaddressed: with machine learning. From a report: The team first trained a deep-learning algorithm to extract the road pixels from satellite images. Another algorithm connected the pixels together into a road network. The system analyzed the density and shape of the roads to segment the network into different communities, and the densest cluster was labeled as the city center. The regions around the city center were divided into north, south, east, and west quadrants, and streets were numbered and lettered according to their orientation and distance from the center. When they compared their final results with a random sample of unmapped regions whose streets had been labeled manuall...

Christmas came early this Friday, when a sculpture of Gritty made out of cheese was unveiled. The Philadelphia Flyers' mascot was crafted by expert food sculptures Jim Victor and Marie Pelton  using three 40-pound bricks cheddar cheese, according to Philly Voice . We assume it had an extra sharp flavor profile — it's what Gritty would want. And, if you're feeling doubtful that any artist could ever truly capture Gritty's chaotic and charismatic essence, just take a look at this glorious tribute: INTRODUCING: Cheese Gritty!! You can snap a selfie with Cheese Gritty on Family Day 12/2 at Lemon Hill Mansion for A Very Philly Christmas! https://t.co/uwaANrnoHf pic.twitter.com/fqnvBm8xhm — Fairmount Park Conservancy (@myphillypark) November 30, 2018 Read more... More about Cheese , Cheddar Cheese , Gritty , Culture , and Food from Mashable https://ift.tt/2E62XeP

The Zenboard is a limited edition board that is promising to deliver the ultimate experience when it comes to electric skateboards. The ride brakes as the user steps off, incorporates a sleek design, and has a top speed of 25 mph.  Read more... More about Mashable Video , Skateboard , Rides , Rideable , and Electric Skateboard from Mashable https://ift.tt/2re2FtX