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Stephen Shankland
@stshank
CNET, full stack journalist (I'm joking, kind of). Covering green energy, chips, drones, photography, AI, new tech. @stshank@mstdn.social, .bsky.social
Stephen Shankland’s posts
Here comes a new Easter egg in for 10th birthday of Google's browser: a birthday cake & party hat in 404 page-not-found error message dinosaur game. On display in Chrome in September. Try it out by switching off your network and trying to load a site.
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DO NOT WATCH the video of making the Model 3 into a pickup truck, because at 6:50 into the long video she KEYS THE TRUNK with the word "Truckla" and it's pretty devastating.
BREAKING: Apple and Samsung just settled their 7-year patent lawsuit. Apple won the first rounds, Samsung got an important ruling from the Supreme Court, but in the resulting damages trial, ended up paying $140 million more than before. #appsung
Cybertruck will tow 14,000 pounds. Wins the tug-of-war with the Ford F-150. 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds, quarter mile in 10 seconds.
I was expecting good times kayaking in Elkhorn Slough (California coast) because of the ~150 sea otters. But the highlight by far was this black sea hare (Aplysia vaccaria, a kind of slug). Gigantic! Amazing! And yes slimy.
Cybertruck ranges 250 miles, 300 miles, 500 miles.
The and folks are helping the process 5-7 million analog photos from its morgue dating back to the 1870s. The fruits of the labor will be more NYT history pieces. They’re not using image recognition, though, at least yet.
States, , legal action vs DOE to resurrect energy efficiency standards w/ ceiling fans, AC systems:
Is the Pixel 7 Pro as good as a "real" camera? With bragging of its "pro-level zoom" and AI smarts, I wanted to see how close it got to my $10,000 of DSLR gear. Answer: closer than any other phone. Here's my assessment & a thread. 1/ cnet.com/tech/mobile/i-
The search engine just gave browser makers a new privacy tool to stop online tracking: Tracker Rader, a free list of internet sites that track you online.
“The team’s analysis showed that the Hiawatha crater was nearly 1,000 feet deep and 20 miles in diameter, placing it among Earth’s 25 largest impact craters, although much smaller than the 90-mile crater left by the dino-busting Chicxulub impact.”
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“This is the first impact crater found beneath one of our planet’s ice sheets” nyti.ms/2QF3aZ8
Browser maker acquired the Tailcat search engine — totally independent of Google & Bing search technology — and will turn it into Brave Search. Ultimately, the startup hopes to sell search ads and share the resulting revenue with users, CEO
Apple is touting iPad Pro as being faster than Intel Core laptops and Xbox gaming console. Fightin' words! #AppleEvent
Watch Google Assistant on a Pixelbook successfully identify a great egret in my photostream. #madebygoogle
Microsoft CEO : "Today we are making the commitment that by 2030 Microsoft will become carbon negative. By 2050, we will remove from the environment all the carbon we have emitted since our company's founding in 1975." News event now:
Step 1. Install password manager
Step 2. Embrace strings of 32 random alphanumeric characters for good security
Step 3. Oh god I have to type it with TV remote control
If you've accumulated BAT funds in the browser from grants, ads, or your own contributions, you'll be able to cash them out with this week's 0.69 Nightly update:
For Volkswagen, semiconductors used to be just a relatively inexpensive component. Now it's the gating factor that keeps the company from selling cars, says engineering leader Berthold Hellenthal at Semicon West. A Porsche Taycan now has 8000 chips inside. Thread 1/n
The browser is leading a push toward decentralized web technology, which bypasses central points of control. Newest is support for addressing technology with .crypto sites. Brave already supports IPFS tech, too.
Sweden now has a (short 2km prototype) road that charges EVs as they drive along it. Not wireless induction but a metal arm that connects car to a charging track, a la electric trains. theguardian.com/environment/20
$1 million in BAT giveaway from browser today, $5 to 200,000 people. Brave users can send them to fund websites, YouTube publishers, and soon Twitch streamers (but you can't cash in directly).
Would you turn on browser ads if you kept 70 percent of the money they generate? is taking the first steps launching its privacy-protecting ad system today that does just that. Check our exclusive interview with CEO : cnet.co/2FxXvkO
Ad-blocking browser just got a notable partner for its payment system: Dow Jones. New Brave users will get 2-year subscriptions to Barron's & MarketWatch; DJ will experiment with Brave's ad tech.
My personal favorite sign from #marchforscience Silicon Valley: computer programming concurrency joke. Full gallery: cnet.com/pictures/signs
A bobcat mom and two bobkittens came by the house. First time I've ever seen three! Giant paws and tufted ears and stubby tails. Kittens very diligent about washing themselves.
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Decades of Easter Bunny propaganda finally paying dividends.
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What does mean by "come to its senses"? Everybody has nukes? Nobody does? US builds more, thus convincing others to stop?
A new alternative to Google search is now open to the public: Brave Search. Like everything else from , it's designed to put privacy first.
Google's new Supreme Court filing vs Oracle re. Java programming interfaces: "Imagine a world in which every time you went to a different building, you needed a different plug to fit the proprietary socket, and no one was allowed to create adapters."
After 4 years, released version 1.0 of its privacy-first browser. iPhone owners now can tap into the Brave ad system that pays Brave users. cnet.co/2CGvVPL
The browser now can channel user contributions to Twitch videogame streamers, too. Oh, and it's got a third $1 million giveaway to attract people to its technology. cnet.com/news/twitch-vi
Three years after releasing its ad-blocking browser, now shows its own privacy-first ads on personal computers and gives you 70% of the revenue if you sign up. Android iOS ads are coming next. cnet.co/2GtCG9a
A new phase of ad testing means you now can get paid for seeing those ads -- 70% of the revenue. It's only in the developer version of the browser for now. cnet.co/2J0xSg2
And here's the diamond ring, or as close as I got anyway, from #eclipse2017. Taken in Weiser, Idaho.
The overhauled browser gets its Tor-powered privacy-to-the-max tab option back as Brave Core heads from dev version to beta. Release version due in October.
Exclusive: You want privacy on the web? The ad-blocking browser has a major new feature to shield you better: They've built protections into private tabs. will follow suit.
Kid: "If you put on your shirt inside-out, does it actually mean everything in the entire universe except you is wearing your shirt?"
The browser launched 2 challenges to Google: it switched its default search in Germany and France to and lodged a complaint that accuses Google ad technology of violating GDPR privacy law: cnet.com/news/brave-bro
There's no way I'd ever lose one of these AirPod. Nope, no way. #AppleEvent
The snagged free time on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud servers so maintainers can build their code faster.
Compiling Rust's compiler (how meta) goes from ~20 minutes on 4-core laptop to 35 seconds on a 96-core server.
The quince lobby is going to be devastated. The next Android version, previously labeled Android Q, is just going to be called Android 10. The sweets (my first Androids were Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo) were fun but apparently not globally relatable.
Ad-blocking Brave browser has another $1 million crypto-token giveaway — this time to benefit website publishers and YouTube stars who get their audiences to install and use . cnet.com/news/ad-blocki It's based on payments.
After tons of pixel peeping, I say the iPhone 14 Pro is a big step up that serious photographers will appreciate. I love the 48-megapixel sensor for detail & cropping. Image quality like dynamic range is noticeably better. My assessment (and a thread). 1/ cnet.com/tech/mobile/wh
15.4 million monthly users: brave.com/15-million/
700,000 verified creators (YouTubers, website operators, Twitch streamers, etc) who can receive BAT payments through Brave Rewards.
Among those with the ad system enabled (pays users in BAT), people click 9% of ads.
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In the settings general section, uncheck "Ask me to confirm when I leave a meeting."
Attention, tweeters & Redditors: ad-blocking browser plans a tipping system this year so people can pay you for your tweets and posts. This will build on existing, more automatic payments today for YouTubers, Twitchers and websites.
At Q2B conference, Caltech quantum computing giant warns against hype: "There is a line between setting ambitious goals and fanning inflated expectations... For us as a community, we'll be better off if we try to stay on the right side of that line." #QuantumComputing
If you want more privacy than offers, the browser wants you to try its new Brave Talk video chat service. It's free for one-on-one meetings; the $7/mo premium option adds group support and other higher-end videoconferencing options. cnet.co/2ZobMwA
I love dark themes / night modes. I use my computer and phone and tablet in the dark, including conferences, nighttime at home and hotel rooms when the kids are asleep. new-tab page is getting an option to become dark. blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2018/04/11/the
The has pulled in $2,500 in payments & tips from browser users. "unexpected windfall" is "proof that the current web, the one that’s driven by ads that know our every move, doesn’t have to be the web of the future." blog.archive.org/2019/04/15/a-b
Whoa. Once you get to the right place, you *can* take astrophotography photos with Pixel 4. This was in New Mexico, very cold 10°F with clear air, the Orion constellation above juniper trees lit faintly by my sister's bedroom light. 4 minutes of combined exposures.
The browser blocks ads by default, but Android users now can tap into the startup's system for paying publishers with $BAT crypto-tokens. Android ads that pay users (in testing on PCs) will come in coming months, the startup says.
The privacy-respecting ads in the browser could spread to other apps with programming tools arriving later this year, CEO says. Maybe GDPR will give Brave's ad tech a tailwind: cnet.co/2FP9cop
Google is using its own RISC-V processor for its Titan M2 security chip in its new Pixel 6 phones. That's a huge endorsement for this new processor family.
Just rebooted my Pixel Slate (Chromebook from ) for a software update. 19 seconds from clicking "OK" to logging back in. Are you paying attention to this, Windows and MacOS?
Open-source software became so deeply embedded into tech that it's hard to remember how radical was to open the source of 's predecessor 20 years ago. Here's how it all went down and what's happened since. cnet.com/news/mozilla-o
Browser startup now can show ads on its Android browser, too — if you opt in to its ad system and are willing to use its payment system. It's also testing BAT tipping on Twitter and Reddit. cnet.co/2JwE9Ni
Oh, look, there's a 3.5mm audio jack on the #GooglePixel phone. How retro! cnet.com/pictures/pixel #MadeByGoogle
Android 7.1 downloads and installs updates in background. #MadeByGoogle
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@brave August stats:
MAU: 18.3M
DAU: 6.1M (high water mark; 5.8M 28-day mean)
Updated now on brave.com/transparency.
@attentiontoken primary ecosystem top of funnel ~879K creators, half YouTubers, per batgrowth.com & bat.watch.
twitter.com/BrendanEich/st
COVID-19 researchers now can use 16 supercomputers from IBM and others, along the world's biggest cloud computing services from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, to search for drugs to fight the coronavirus. cnet.co/2Ut0v8c
Google is starting to make its Fuchsia operating system project more accessible to the outside world. This is important for an open-source project to succeed beyond its origins. Here's the new getting started site for developers:
Firefox 57, now called Quantum and the culmination of more than a year of work at , has arrived. Here's why you should give it a try even if you switched to Chrome years ago. cnet.com/news/firefox-q
Holy moly, wind turbines are getting enormous. You slot 115m blades into the 3 big holes at the front; they sweep an area of 43,742 square meters and produce up to 15 megawatts of power. prototype installation starts this year. Photo shows blades. vestas.com/en/products/of
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Please meet my new favourite mediaeval windmill, the @Vestas V236-15.0. It may only be able to reach its 60% design capacity factor in great wind locations, but each one of these that gets built anywhere is a chunk less gas and coal that gets burned.
If you like that tweet -- or hope somebody likes yours -- the browser now lets you send tips directly through the Twitter website. It's part of a broader movement to let people directly pay for what they like instead of endure ads.
That overhaul of the ad-blocking browser that we told you about last night is now available. The new Brave Core version now can run Chrome extensions and gets a 3-week update cycle. 4 million people now use Brave monthly. cnet.com/news/brave-ad- tip
A partnership between the browser and the search engine offers to boost your online search privacy — in private tabs at least. Desktop now, mobile in early 2018. cnet.co/2zcGlG6 via
The browser is giving away some of its cryptocurrency so you can pay websites you visit and maybe build a future with privacy-sensitive online ads. cnet.com/news/brave-now
Microsoft President : "Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century and I can say that about me personally. The good news is that, if life is long enough, you can learn … that you need to change."
Remarkable: use of HTTPS (secure web connections) more than doubled in last year. snyk.io/blog/https-bre via of
Another step away from an open web: says isn't supported and I should install Chrome or Safari. (Happened with beta & ).
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Aha, it was you!
Intel CEO just announced Intel is going to become an open foundry for US and European customers. Intel Foundry Services business unit wins support from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Cisco, others. Thread/
Did you read special coverage on the future of ? Then you got rickrolled by designer cnet.com/special-report
The Monitor service just got a new trick: warning you if the website you're visiting suffered a data breach. Also, it works in 26 more languages.
The newest hardware security key — the $70 YubiKey 5Ci — works on iPhones, the first key with Lightning port support. On the other end is a USB-C port for Android phones and laptops.
With Batify extension for , you can get a taste of 's donation system (based on ) that channels your virtual money to website developers, YouTubers, & Twitch streamers.
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With today's update, we've brought Brave Rewards to the Android platform. You can enable it in a few easy steps!
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The browser on iPhones and iPads wants to be your media hub with its new Playlist feature. Oh, also the privacy-centered browser is up to 30 million monthly active users.
I didn't think I was an early adopter by using the word "bokeh" all these years, but look, added it: bit.ly/2lszCyD
OK here's a real shot from my computer of the #eclipse2017 corona. I'm just flabbergasted! From Weiser, Idaho.
Another climate policy proposal is incoming, this time from presidential candidate on Monday.
For those unaware, there is a collegial tradition in the browser world in which rivals send each other cakes for shipment milestones. I've always found it quite heart-warming.
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Thanks for the yummy cake and kind words, @googlechrome! It's great to be a part of the browser cake-giving tradition. 
Looks like we're back to the new logo. Here's the (soon to be outdated) logo (left) and the sequence of amusements.
This is an amazing 9 gigapixel zoomable mosaic of the center of our galaxy. Think of how many stars and planets are on your screen. Dive in, pan around, and get lost in space. eso.org/public/images/
(details: eso.org/public/images/)
The ad-blocking Brave browser has kissed its older, slower version goodbye and sidled up closer to Google's Chromium. The rebuild means extension compatibility and a more Chrome-like look:
I wanted to believe in Apple's Touch Bar revolution, but right now it just slows me down & inflicts serious errors. cnet.com/news/apple-mac
Is that a new Amazon subscription service or something?
The browser maker says it's got a better way to figure out how to spot ads and behavior trackers on the web: AI. Meet AdGraph.
We knew Apple was interested in RISC-V processor technology from previous job ads. Now says Apple is moving some embedded A-series elements from Arm to RISC-V. These elements aren't visible to iOS, so only Apple has to worry about softZware.
Do we now spend more $ emulating analog-era photography flaws (inaccurate color, vignetting) than analog industry spent trying to fix them?
Google WiFi app for new OnHub router lets you pause your kids network access for quality family time, says Mario Quiero at #MadeByGoogle