WMGroomAK

According to the ICE Memo: Again, this is from the ICE memo and not from DJI so not really sure how much is true, but if so, seems like some fairly sensitive data may be getting uploaded to the cloud storage systems...

In a memo from August this year that has been released and is being reported on, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is stating that DJI drones are being used as data collection tools for the Chinese Government. https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/30/homeland-security-claims-dji-drones-spying-china/ ICE Memo: https://info.publicintelligence.net/ICE-DJI-China.pdf The memo itself provides a fairly interesting read although I'm doubtful to the extent that this is being used for data collection and espionage purposes... It is worth contemplating though since DJI has stated (at least according to the memo) that they comply with requests from the Chinese Government to hand over data collected in China. Another section of the memo alleges that purchases of vineyards in an area of California by Chinese companies following a large family-owned wine producer acquiring and using DJI drones was due to the companies being able to use the data collected by DJI for their own benefit. How much of these claims do you all believe and if so, are you going to put up any DJI products that you own? I would be more cautious myself about purchasing a DJI drone, however am unsure how much difference that would truly make... Anybody know a good Canadian or US drone manufacturer so my data is only going to the NSA?

Well, with all the other companies that EA has bought and destroyed over the years, maybe they figured that they should try that tactic on themselves... EA next on the list of companies that EA utterly destroys?

Exactly what I was about to point out... All of the disassembly images that I've seen show a dual SO-DIMM slot setup and the RAM and SSD/HDD upgrade options look fairly simple to make yourself on these machines... If I were to pick up one of these, I would honestly get the lowest tier HDD and 8GB RAM option and then just upgrade it myself.

Yeah, they're not really learning from this if the statements from their CFO reflect the companies direction... https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/ea-on-cosmetic-game-items-you-probably-dont-want-darth-vader-in-pink/ Basically sounds like they are going to continue with the microtransaction route no matter what and since 'cosmetic items' would not be canon for the Star Wars games, that means microtransactions that affect game play. Basically sounds like 'We don't understand why people are mad at us but our next iteration of microtransactions will make you want to spend even more money.' Also love how WCCF quotes him concerning the Pink Vader. Seriously sounds like the only thing he looks at as a 'cosmetic item' is a color palette swap on a character model. https://wccftech.com/ea-microtransactions-star-wars-battlefront-2/

It may be a limited edition piece of hardware, however very little hardware ever actually appreciates in value... More than likely, you would just be paying for a Titan Xp with a special shroud that will depreciate in value over the next 10 years... Might as well use that money to buy a new 1080Ti instead (or save it for the next Titan card to come out if you really need a NVidia Titan card).

Best security around! Who would ever seriously guess that a password was no password at all...

While I appreciate the HDR aspects, this brings to mind one of the things that I absolutely abhor about the modern TV industry, which is the constant push of increasing the resolution for minimal gains... How large of a screen would you seriously need for 10K resolution to make any sort of meaningful difference over 4K? Do you really need to be able to count the facial pores on the weather reporter? I would just prefer if they would focus more on improving HDR and pixel brightness and response...

Well, if they have to rewrite portions of the game to make it acceptable to the Chinese Government as is, they might as well also try to port it over to mobile...

Funny thing is, if we go with the flawed testing methodology, then the R5 2500U with a ~56 Wh battery is getting the same battery life as a i5-8250U w/ a MX150 using a ~51 Wh battery or within 4% of the i5-8250U with integrated graphics. While this would suggest that it may not be quite as power efficient as the Intel counter part, it certainly isn't as horrible as people would make it out to be... I would personally like to see how much of this relates to how the Intel parts divides up it's work between the iGPU and the dGPU vs AMD having to rely on the Vega GPU. One test might be to see how long each system would last on a single charge while playing something like DOTA or Rocket League, which would probably require the Intel systems to always use the MX150. https://hothardware.com/reviews/intel-8th-gen-kaby-lake-refresh-mobile-review?page=5

I think one of my questions concerning the latency issue would be whether it is limited as well due to the DDR4 speeds as that appears to have an impact on the Infinity Fabric performance.

Maybe we read a different review or got different information out of this, but from what I can tell (and from the conclusions of the article), AMD has a fairly competitive product for the mobile segment if it can be priced right (which AMD and it's partners appear to be trying). In most cases, the R5 APU appears to be competitive with an Intel chip with integrated graphics (if not beating it at games). As for the battery life I didn't see that being discussed anywhere in the article besides it being mentioned that the setup they are using has a 55.8 Wh Li-ion battery vs the Intel systems 3220 mAh batteries (which I think would put them around 50 Wh). There was no discussion as to how long each system performed under different loads.

IMO, this is a problem with the provincial government, Foxconn, the school and Apple (and other companies relying on Foxconn), in that order... It sounds like the government issues these kind of decisions to carry favor and keep the Foxconn factories thriving, which then necessitates the schools to follow through with the governments orders, however the government would probably not be quite as strong arm in this if Apple and the other companies that rely on Foxconn products were to be more diligent about ensuring these practices don't happen and swap vendors when they do...

Except when you have students from a school focused on Urban Rail transit who are working in the factory that say: As well as information that the Vocational Schools were ordered by the Provincial Education Minister to send their 'work experience students' to work at the factory. That seems to be a bit more than voluntary work experience... How does working at Foxconn assembling cellphone cameras help someone gain work experience on an Urban Transit system?

Had linked to there from CNBC at: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/apple-iphone-x-reportedly-assembled-by-illegal-student-labor.html FT article has more info though so I tried to provide as much of that as possible...

Saw this article and thought it was interesting as it exposes a side to our modern day electronics manufacturing that most of us probably realize but try to ignore... According to a report from the Financial Times, six high school students are alleging that they are among a group of 3,000 students that would routinely work 11-hour days assembling iPhone Xs at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China, which is in violation of policies that prohibit student interns of working more than 40-hours a week. According to the report, the provincial education minister had issued a notice to all the vocational schools in the province to send their 'work experience students' to work at Foxconn factories. Both Apple and Foxconn say that an audit has turned up these instances of interns working overtime, however the students were compensated and provided benefits and were working voluntarily. Both companies are also looking into remedial actions to correct this. https://www.ft.com/content/7cb56786-cda1-11e7-b781-794ce08b24dc I'm sure that this is not an issue just restrained to Apple and iPhone manufacturing, however it does expose an area where our modern electronic manufacturing could be improved... I'm glad that both Foxconn and Apple admit to this issue but am also leery of whether they will truly implement remedial actions & what those might be as well as to the statement that they are saying the students were working 'voluntarily'. ADDITION: Originally linked to article from CNBC article at: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/apple-iphone-x-reportedly-assembled-by-illegal-student-labor.html in case of paywall crap... Tried to provide as much info from original article as possible though... ADDITIONAL ARTICLE: Here is Ars Techs article concerning this... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/foxconn-and-apple-face-controversy-over-student-worker-overtime-claims/

So I've been thinking about updating the DNS settings in my router and the other day I saw an article on Ars Tech about a new DNS called Quad9 which supposedly helps in blocking websites that are known malicious domains... Was wondering though if anyone on this site has any experience with this yet and if so, how well does it work? Supposedly they are not storing personal information such as IP addresses, but are making anonymized statistics data to share with 'threat intelligence partners'. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/new-quad9-dns-service-blocks-malicious-domains-for-everyone/ https://www.quad9.net/#/

Samsung just can't let Apple have all the fun with having an 'X' phone as there is a report (rumor) that the phone model SM-G888N0 will be titled as the Galaxy X and it is being talked that this will be a limited release device in the Korea market to be released around December or January. This will supposedly be the rumored foldable Galaxy phone that was announced in September. Main Article: https://en.letsgodigital.org/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-x/ Forbes Article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/20/samsung-galaxyx-new-leak-rumor-support-release-date/#5e8c1447fd14 I don't know if any of this has been posted before (tried searching and didn't see anything), however, given the short timeframe, I would definitely see this as a rumor for a device to be soon released. Of course the naming would seem appropriate as Samsung and Apple are rivals and this would be a way for them to extend that rivalry. If this is true, it would be interesting to see this as a product and to see if it eventually expands beyond just Korea.

Klondike Bars! Just look at what people will do for one.

Just to clarify, if it was not using fuel of some sort for combustion, it would not be using a jet engine (such as a modern turbofan) and would instead have to be propeller driven, which adds to weight, maintenance, cost, time/range of flight and decreases the maximum altitude. These are very important factors that are glossed over. This is not to say that airplanes are not making advancements as they are in aerodynamics (winglets) and fuel efficiency as well as fuel mixes (see below). https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/news/gevo-biofuel-flight/ http://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-winglets/ How a Turbofan works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbofan

When I'm working in the office, it's usually 8AM to 4:30PM (with an hour lunch break), but I usually leave home about 7AM to get the pup outside for a walk first. When it comes to having to work in the field, the hours are fairly much from whenever I get up in the morning (6 or 7AM) to whenever I make dinner at night (6 or 7PM) unless I also have to work in the bar of whatever small town I'm in that is close to my field location...

I'm sure that this probably has already been listed here, but with the R5 2500U and R7 2700U laptops just around the corner (hopefully some are being sent to you), I would love to see a teardown of the HP Envy x360 with the 2500U in it as well as to see if you can get it to run with DDR4-3000 SO-DIMMs (assuming the RAM is not soldered) to see if it will even boot and if so, whether you receive a performance boost...

Yet another dead Star Wars game coming soon from EA???

I haven't used the Wireless HDMI that he uses in the video, but I do have an IOGear Wireless 5x2 Matrix setup at home to transmit HDMI to my projector and it appears to work fairly decently... Haven't checked it for latency, but there probably is a bit more than running over a straight cable, just doesn't impact my gameplay.

Just as an update to this, Logitech realized to some extent the error of their ways and has since said that they will replace the Harmony Links with Harmony Hubs for free regardless of warranty status. As for the reason on this, it is due to an encryption certificate that Logitech will not be renewing which would leave vulnerabilities in the Link system. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/after-online-outrage-logitech-will-now-replace-harmony-link-devices-for-free/