Category: technology

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Sony Has a New Walkman to Commemorate Its 40th Anniversary

It must’ve been about 1984 when my older brother Rich got a Walkman for Christmas. I was mesmerized by it. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to touch it, but I did admire it from afar until I got my own a few years later and started amassing a killer tape collection featuring hand-me-downs from Rich like AC/DC, The Ramones, and other bands that warped my young mind.

But I digress. We should all be excited that Sony announced it is releasing a Walkman to celebrate the original Walkman’s 40th anniversary. The original Sony TPS-L2 debuted in 1979 and quickly changed the electronics game. It was the first truly portable personal tape player, and it quickly became a staple of music lovers everywhere.

At the IFA electronics trade show in Berlin last week, Sony announced it is releasing a new version of the groundbreaking Walkman. The new Sony NW-A100TPS Walkman looks pretty amazing and is powered by Android.

Sony releases a Walkman for its 40th anniversary.The Sony Walkman is back.The electronics maker will release a new…

Posted by HOT 102 on Tuesday, September 10, 2019

It features a cassette tape interface, and the case has a 40th-anniversary logo on the back. It also has an S-Master HX digital amplifier to give listeners high-res audio, a processor to give compressed audio tracks a higher quality, and a vinyl processor that gives digital tracks a vinyl-like quality.

It also has 26 hours of battery life.

Here’s a video of the new Sony Walkman in action.

I don’t know about you, but my nostalgia just kicked into high gear, and I’m gonna need to get my hands on one of these!

Exciting!

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These Are the Android Apps Infected with New ‘Joker’ Malware That You Should Probably Delete

If you’ve used or are currently using any of the following Android apps, you’ll probably want to get busy erasing them AND you’ll want to check your credit card statement.

Here’s why.

A new malware called “Joker” has made its way into Android apps that ended up in the Google Play store. The malware silently signs users up for subscriptions that might go undetected by people unless they closely look at their monthly credit card statements.

Aleksejs Kuprins, writing at the cybersecurity company CSIS, described how the scam works:

“For example, in Denmark, Joker can silently sign the victim up for a 50 DKK/week service (roughly ~6,71 EUR). This strategy works by automating the necessary interaction with the premium offer’s webpage, entering the operator’s offer code, then waiting for a SMS message with a confirmation code and extracting it using regular expressions. Finally, the Joker submits the extracted code to the offer’s webpage, in order to authorize the premium subscription.”

Google has already removed the bad apps from the Google Play Store, but you should still do a double-check to see if you’ve downloaded or used any of them because they racked up more than 472,000 downloads before they were taken down.

Here’s a list of the infected Android apps (with links).

After you’ve done the deletions (if you needed to), be sure to check your credit card statements back to June of this year to make sure that you don’t have any suspicious charges for subscriptions you didn’t buy.

If you are one of the unlucky ones, the next step is to alert the people in your contact list: the “Joker” malware steals your entire contact list and uploads it to a command and control server, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The post These Are the Android Apps Infected with New ‘Joker’ Malware That You Should Probably Delete appeared first on UberFacts.

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This Is Why You Should Never Buy Batteries from Dollar Stores

There are some things that you should simply never buy at dollar stores — like batteries. Batteries from the dollar store are much lower-quality, according to experts.

Walk into any dollar store, and you’ll likely find a rack of batteries sold in bulk packages for just $1 per package. At such a low price, those batteries are definitely tempting (just like everything else at the dollar store).

But before you throw these $1 packages into your cart, you should know that they may not be worth the savings.

Photo Credit: iStock

Dollar stores typically sell carbon-zinc batteries, whereas most name brand batteries (like Duracell or Energizer) are alkaline batteries. Carbon-zinc batteries carry way less energy and therefore last for less time than alkaline batteries.

For example, a AA battery from Energizer carries 10,798 joules, while a battery from Duracell from 9398 joules. A battery from Dollar General? Only 2983 joules. That’s a huge downgrade.

Dollar store batteries are also more likely to leak. Reader’s Digest reports that battery packages from brands like Sunbeam and Panasonic were stamped with warnings that they should be used only in “low-drain” devices, like clock radios.

Photo Credit: iStock

Frankly, it’s a huge pain when batteries run out over and over. It’s also impractical for emergency scenarios, when you need your battery-operated devices to work.

For those reasons, it’s best to just pay the full price for batteries that will provide more power and last longer.

The post This Is Why You Should Never Buy Batteries from Dollar Stores appeared first on UberFacts.

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This Is Why You Should Never Buy Batteries from Dollar Stores

There are some things that you should simply never buy at dollar stores — like batteries. Batteries from the dollar store are much lower-quality, according to experts.

Walk into any dollar store, and you’ll likely find a rack of batteries sold in bulk packages for just $1 per package. At such a low price, those batteries are definitely tempting (just like everything else at the dollar store).

But before you throw these $1 packages into your cart, you should know that they may not be worth the savings.

Photo Credit: iStock

Dollar stores typically sell carbon-zinc batteries, whereas most name brand batteries (like Duracell or Energizer) are alkaline batteries. Carbon-zinc batteries carry way less energy and therefore last for less time than alkaline batteries.

For example, a AA battery from Energizer carries 10,798 joules, while a battery from Duracell from 9398 joules. A battery from Dollar General? Only 2983 joules. That’s a huge downgrade.

Dollar store batteries are also more likely to leak. Reader’s Digest reports that battery packages from brands like Sunbeam and Panasonic were stamped with warnings that they should be used only in “low-drain” devices, like clock radios.

Photo Credit: iStock

Frankly, it’s a huge pain when batteries run out over and over. It’s also impractical for emergency scenarios, when you need your battery-operated devices to work.

For those reasons, it’s best to just pay the full price for batteries that will provide more power and last longer.

The post This Is Why You Should Never Buy Batteries from Dollar Stores appeared first on UberFacts.

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Zao Is a Deepfake App That Snaps Your Photo and Makes You a Celebrity

Deepfakes are pretty creepy, if we’re being honest. Though they don’t seem to be especially helpful to anyone, deepfakes nonetheless look like they’ll be around for awhile.

Now, it’s easier than ever to produce your own deepfake (yay) with an app called Zao, created by Chinese developer MoMo.

According to Insider, the app topped Chinese iOS download charts after its recent unleashing.

If you didn’t know, deepfakes are bizarrely realistic CGI videos created by an algorithm. Deepfakes can be silly, like putting Nick Offerman’s face on every character in the Full House opening credits. But the scary thing about deepfakes is that they could also be used to falsify the words or deeds of an innocent person.

Now, with the touch of a button.

On your phone…

Indie game developer, Allan Xia, created a video of  a deepfake of himself as Leonardo DiCaprio in some of his movies. He shared the video to Twitter, where it quickly went viral because of how realistic it was. The program read one photo of Xia and paired it with DiCaprio’s facial expressions and mouth movements. Xia noted he only needed one image of himself and about eight seconds to create the deepfake.

Despite Xia’s achievement with the app, he also noted its potential dangers.

Is the intent purely to entertain?

Will it be used to bombard us with images of ourselves for marketing purposes?

Others on Twitter posted deepfakes of themselves as cast members of TV shows and movies.

The app’s developer, MoMo, is also a large social media platform in China. They have already been banned on WeChat due to a line buried in their usage terms that retains “free, irrevocable, permanent, transferable, and relicense-able” access to all content it is used to generate.

So, they can own your face.

China’s expansive surveillance network already uses manipulated images of people, for which it has received criticism from both inside and outside the country.

Thankfully, you must have a Chinese phone number to download Zao, and if you don’t live in China, Zao having ownership of your face is not necessarily going to mean anything practical to you. After all, Facebook can use any of the content you’ve uploaded for whatever they want, too.

Xia has been microblogging about the app and disturbing impacts, both real and imagined on Twitter.

The future, it turns out, is creepy.

The post Zao Is a Deepfake App That Snaps Your Photo and Makes You a Celebrity appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Zao Is a Deepfake App That Snaps Your Photo and Makes You a Celebrity

Deepfakes are pretty creepy, if we’re being honest. Though they don’t seem to be especially helpful to anyone, deepfakes nonetheless look like they’ll be around for awhile.

Now, it’s easier than ever to produce your own deepfake (yay) with an app called Zao, created by Chinese developer MoMo.

According to Insider, the app topped Chinese iOS download charts after its recent unleashing.

If you didn’t know, deepfakes are bizarrely realistic CGI videos created by an algorithm. Deepfakes can be silly, like putting Nick Offerman’s face on every character in the Full House opening credits. But the scary thing about deepfakes is that they could also be used to falsify the words or deeds of an innocent person.

Now, with the touch of a button.

On your phone…

Indie game developer, Allan Xia, created a video of  a deepfake of himself as Leonardo DiCaprio in some of his movies. He shared the video to Twitter, where it quickly went viral because of how realistic it was. The program read one photo of Xia and paired it with DiCaprio’s facial expressions and mouth movements. Xia noted he only needed one image of himself and about eight seconds to create the deepfake.

Despite Xia’s achievement with the app, he also noted its potential dangers.

Is the intent purely to entertain?

Will it be used to bombard us with images of ourselves for marketing purposes?

Others on Twitter posted deepfakes of themselves as cast members of TV shows and movies.

The app’s developer, MoMo, is also a large social media platform in China. They have already been banned on WeChat due to a line buried in their usage terms that retains “free, irrevocable, permanent, transferable, and relicense-able” access to all content it is used to generate.

So, they can own your face.

China’s expansive surveillance network already uses manipulated images of people, for which it has received criticism from both inside and outside the country.

Thankfully, you must have a Chinese phone number to download Zao, and if you don’t live in China, Zao having ownership of your face is not necessarily going to mean anything practical to you. After all, Facebook can use any of the content you’ve uploaded for whatever they want, too.

Xia has been microblogging about the app and disturbing impacts, both real and imagined on Twitter.

The future, it turns out, is creepy.

The post Zao Is a Deepfake App That Snaps Your Photo and Makes You a Celebrity appeared first on UberFacts.

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A Study Says Frequently Attending Concerts Makes You Happier

Nothing brings people together like seeing a live band perform. Singing along with a few thousand of your best friends to a great song makes for a positive outlook and other warm, fuzzy emotions that carry over to the next day and beyond. We’ve all been there.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Research validates those good vibrations.

Psychologists, Melissa K. Weinberg and Dawn Joseph, studied the connection between “music engagement and subjective wellbeing,” or SWB. The study focused solely on the good feelings concert-goers get when they see performances live.

For their study, one thousand random participants were polled via phone. They found that “engaging with music by dancing or attending musical events was associated with higher SWB.” They concluded that people who socialized with others at concerts experienced SWB higher than people who didn’t.

Music bonded people with others in a community-like atmosphere. The good feelings generated by hanging out with others who like the same music and performers appeared to last for some time after the event ended. This was true across all ages.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

But going to concerts is certainly not the only way to boost your mood and get happier. Plenty of other research points to increasing happiness levels by simply listening to music. So, stream that new Taylor Swift album and sing into your hairbrush as loud as you can.

You’ll be happy you did.

The post A Study Says Frequently Attending Concerts Makes You Happier appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

A Study Says Frequently Attending Concerts Makes You Happier

Nothing brings people together like seeing a live band perform. Singing along with a few thousand of your best friends to a great song makes for a positive outlook and other warm, fuzzy emotions that carry over to the next day and beyond. We’ve all been there.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Research validates those good vibrations.

Psychologists, Melissa K. Weinberg and Dawn Joseph, studied the connection between “music engagement and subjective wellbeing,” or SWB. The study focused solely on the good feelings concert-goers get when they see performances live.

For their study, one thousand random participants were polled via phone. They found that “engaging with music by dancing or attending musical events was associated with higher SWB.” They concluded that people who socialized with others at concerts experienced SWB higher than people who didn’t.

Music bonded people with others in a community-like atmosphere. The good feelings generated by hanging out with others who like the same music and performers appeared to last for some time after the event ended. This was true across all ages.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

But going to concerts is certainly not the only way to boost your mood and get happier. Plenty of other research points to increasing happiness levels by simply listening to music. So, stream that new Taylor Swift album and sing into your hairbrush as loud as you can.

You’ll be happy you did.

The post A Study Says Frequently Attending Concerts Makes You Happier appeared first on UberFacts.

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You Can Buy a Tiny House on Amazon for $37,000 That Expands by Remote Control

If you and your family have put in any time house hunting, you know it’s very difficult to find what you’re looking for and not pay a fortune for it. In backlash, the tiny house has arisen.

The tiny house craze doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon, and now there’s a new addition to the market that you can actually buy on Amazon. And why not? You can buy almost every single you’ll ever need in life on Amazon, so might as well throw a house into the mix as well.

This tiny house is designed by a Chinese company called WHZ Group and costs just $36,800, plus $1,000 for shipping. Just FYI, the average home price in the United States right now is $227,700.

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

The house can also be expanded with a hydraulic system by using a remote control. How’s that for 21st-century technology?

The house has wind and solar-power systems, a small living space, kitchenette, and a bathroom with a sink, shower, and toilet. If owners are so inclined, they can also have the house wired for electricity. WHZ Group also sells a slightly different version of the house, also on Amazon.

Here are a few photos of the interior.

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

The house also features a folding deck and a canopy. Take a look at the floor plan:

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

And this is what the floor plan looks like when the house is compactly folded using the remote control.

Photo Credit: Amazon/WZH Group

Are tiny houses the future? Or just a passing fad that is overhyped at the moment?

What do you think of this idea? I say the smaller, the better. Sign me up!

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A Huge Underwater Observatory Mysteriously Vanished from the Ocean Floor

Let’s just dive right in to this story: a large underwater observatory has mysteriously gone missing. It was on the seafloor, and now it’s not. Nobody knows why.

The Boknis Eck Observatory has been on the seafloor off the northern coast of Germany since December 2016. It’s managed by GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel and the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht.

For almost three years, the observatory collected information about water temperature, nutrients, salinity, the speed of water flow, and concentrations of chlorophyll and methane.

But on August 21, transmissions from the observatory suddenly stopped. Divers went down to the site to investigate what went wrong, and they discovered that the entire structure had disappeared except for a shredded transmission cable, Gizmodo reports.

Sure, it could be an accident. But officials think it’s more likely that someone intentionally removed the observatory, because the structure is so large and heavy that natural causes (such as a storm or animals) couldn’t possibly move it.

But who would steal an underwater observatory? And why?! For now, it remains a mystery. German police are now investigating the incident, and the scientists have asked anyone who knows anything to come forward.

“[At] first we thought of a transmission error,” Hermann Bange, project coordinator for the Boknis Eck Observatory, said in a GEOMAR statement. Then the diving mission revealed that the problem was much larger. “The devices were gone, the divers could not find them anymore. When the divers reached the bottom of the sea last week at the observatory’s location, they found only the torn off land cable. It was completely shredded,” Hermann said.

The $330,000 structure weighed about 770 pounds.

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