Over the edge? This May, Opera became the first major browser to ship a dedicated battery saving feature. This feature optimizes our Chromium/Blink based browser engine and user interface in order to give users more time to browse their favorite websites. Our tests showed that the feature increased the battery life by as much as 50% when compared to other browsers, such as Google Chrome. Opera
Embattled retailer G2A speaks out about grey market fraud and theft accusations Over the past few days, the games industry has taken a new stand against grey-market game code reselling. The practice is accused of being linked to credit card theft and excessive chargebacks that can cripple smaller companies. Grey market sales are defined as those that are technically legal, but not a distribution vehicle intended by the original seller. Game Informer
Brexit: UK tech sector reacts to Leave vote Now the UK has decided to leave the European Union, technology firms have been left to wonder what the future holds. As news of Brexit broke, tech firms including BT, TalkTalk and software firm Sage reported share price falls. For years, the UK - and particularly London - has championed the role of tech firms in buoying the economy. Hundreds of start-ups have benefitted from the government's Tech City initiative, for example, and both employees and customers have been plucked from EU member states. BBC
Sony will pay out millions to spurned PS3 Linux users A long-running lawsuit stemming from Sony's claim that its PlayStation 3 consoles would allow for third-party operating systems has finally come to a close. As Ars Technica reports, the class-action lawsuit could end up costing Sony millions of dollars for getting on the bad side of some Linux fans, and if you're one of those Linux fans, you could be in for a $55 check. Engadget
20 Years later, we still game in the shadow of Quake Long time readers know I've been a fan of first shooters since the game genre was invented. No company has had a greater impact on these games than Id Software, and among its many important achievements stands Quake, which was released 20 years ago this week. There's never been a game like Quake. And that's true for both the broader games industry. And, as it turns out, for me personally as well. Thurrott
How the U.S. Patent Office got so screwed up Troy Norred was on his way home for Thanksgiving in 1998 when he had his flash of genius. It was the middle of the night, his wife was driving the family car, and his four children were asleep in the back. He'd just finished his shift at the hospital, where his workweek often exceeded a hundred hours. Two days shy of thirty-one, Norred was a fellow in the cardiology program at the University of Missouri. Popular Mechanics
MSI and Asus send VGA review samples with higher clocks than retail cards MSI and Asus have been sending us review samples for their graphics cards with higher clock speeds out of the box, than what consumers get out of the box. The cards TechPowerUp has been receiving run at a higher software-defined clock speed profile than what consumers get out of the box. Consumers have access to the higher clock speed profile, too, but only if they install a custom app by the companies, and enable that profile. TechPowerUp
How Google is remaking itself as a "machine learning first" company Carson Holgate is training to become a ninja. Not in the martial arts – she's already done that. Holgate, 26, holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. This time it's algorithmic. Holgate is several weeks into a program that will inculcate her in an even more powerful practice than physical combat: machine learning, or ML. A Google engineer in the Android division, Holgate is one of 18 programmers in this year's Machine Learning Ninja Program... Backchannel
Capacitors made easy the Hackaday way If you build electronic circuits on a regular basis the chances are you will have used capacitors many times. They are a standard component along with the resistor whose values are lifted off the shelf without a second thought. We use them for power supply smoothing and decoupling, DC blocking, timing circuits, and many more applications. Hackaday
Rolls Royce reveals remote controlled 'roboships' will take to the sea by 2020: Single operator can oversee ships from a holographic control room It is the future of shipping - and there's not a single sailor on board. Rolls Royce has revealed planed for fleets of 'drone ships' to ferry carry around the world - all controlled from a central 'holodeck'. It believes an entirely unmanned ship could take to the seas by 2020. Daily Mail
3 million strong botnet grows right under Twitter's nose Social media and advertising fraud investigations firm Sadbottrue has discovered a botnet of three million Twitter accounts, along with two smaller botnets of 100,000 bots each, which they suspect to be behind online services that sell or rent Twitter followers. Selling Twitter followers is a lucrative business, even if Twitter forbids it. People crave attention, and companies don't want to embarrass themselves by having only 100 followers. Softpedia
From file-sharing to prison: A Megaupload programmer tells his story Soon after the domain was registered in Hong Kong, the now-defunct Megaupload.com grew into one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites. At its peak, the site engaged nearly 50 million users a day and took up around four percent of the world's Internet traffic. Users uploaded nearly 12 billion files overall. Ars Technica
Trusting robots In the not-so-distant future, we will begin entrusting to robotic systems such vital tasks as driving a car, performing surgery, and choosing when to apply lethal force in a war zone. As we describe in this report, ever more autonomous machines will present challenges spanning technical, regulatory, and even philosophical realms. They will force us to confront deep moral quandaries, and might even tweak our sense of who we are. IEEE Spectrum
How do you teach human interaction to a robot? Lots of TV Remember the Jetsons' robot maid, Rosie? Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers think her future real-life incarnations can learn a thing or two from Steve Carell and other sitcom stars. MIT says a computer that binge-watched YouTube videos and TV shows such as "The Office," ''Big Bang Theory" and "Desperate Housewives" learned how to predict whether the actors were about to hug, kiss, shake hands or slap high fives... AP
Google launches Android programming course for absolute beginners If you have an idea for an app but don't know the first thing about building it, Google has the course for you. Launched on Wednesday, the Google Android Basics Nanodegree offers to teach beginners how to build a simple Android app in Java. There are no prerequisites. Google says the target student is anyone who's used a smartphone to surf the web. ZDNet
U.S. to have 200-petaflop supercomputer by early 2018 The U.S. plans to have a supercomputer by early 2018 with roughly double the performance of China's newest and most powerful system. The Chinese system, Sunway TaihuLight, was announced Monday in the latest release of the Top500, the biannual ranking of publicly known supercomputers. Computerworld