A Chronicles of Amber Adaptation Is Coming to TV, With an Assist From Stephen Colbert

Here’s an example of using your clout and popularity for the benefit of everyone: Stephen Colbert has joined the long-in-the-works campaign to make Roger Zelazny’s best-selling fantasy classic The Chronicles of Amber into a series. Already aboard: The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman, whose Skybound Entertainment has…

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A Chronicles of Amber Adaptation Is Coming to TV, With an Assist From Stephen Colbert

Here’s an example of using your clout and popularity for the benefit of everyone: Stephen Colbert has joined the long-in-the-works campaign to make Roger Zelazny’s best-selling fantasy classic The Chronicles of Amber into a series. Already aboard: The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman, whose Skybound Entertainment has…

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Scientists gave a robot a sense of smell with locust antennae and AI

In 2023, there are cameras and microphones that match and surpass the capabilities of human sight and sound. But for all of our technological advancements, humans haven’t quite managed to build a better nose. After all, evolution has had millions of years to perfect the receptors humans, animals and inspects use to identify odors. But, with the help of nature, scientists may have made a breakthrough on that front.

In a study published Monday in the journal Biosensor and Bioelectronics, a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University (via Neuroscience News) said they recently created a robot that can identify a handful of smells with 10,000 times more sensitivity than some specialized electronics. They describe their robot as a bio-hybrid platform (read: cyborg). It features a set of antennae taken from a desert locust that is connected to an electronic system that measures the amount of electrical signal produced by the antennae when they detect a smell. They paired the robot with an algorithm that learned to characterize the smells by their signal output. In this way, the team created a system that could reliably differentiate between eight “pure” odors, including geranium, lemon and marzipan, and two mixtures of different smells. The scientists say their robot could one day be used to detect drugs and explosives.

A YouTube video from Tel Aviv University claims the robot is a “scientific first,” but last June researchers from Michigan State University published research detailing a system that used surgically-altered locusts to detect cancer cells. Back in 2016, scientists also tried turning locusts into bomb-sniffing cyborgs. What can I say, after millennia of causing crop failures, the pests could finally be useful for something.

Channing Tatum Reflects On Split From Jenna Dewan: It Was ‘Exactly What I Needed’

Tatum admitted that during his marriage to his “Step Up” co-star, he often ignored “how blatantly life was telling us that we were so different.”

Shocking Tesla Engineer Testimony Alleges That Autopilot Video Was Staged

Tesla’s Autopilot troubles are not going away anytime soon, it seems, as testimony has surfaced that claims a promotional video for the tech was staged.

How To Change The Volume On Your TV Using Your Xbox Series X|S

If you want to have your Xbox control your TV’s volume, you can do it using HDMI-CEC and you can pair it with Alexa or Google Assistant. We’ll show you how.

Matt Reeves Teases Cloverfield's Next Monster, Kind Of

Fifteen years ago this week, audiences finally found out what Cloverfield was. After months of speculation, the found footage monster movie from producer J.J. Abrams, writer Drew Goddard, and director Matt Reeves roared into the box office and quickly became a fan favorite. Two tangentially related follow-ups came next

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FEC: No, Gmail Isn't Censoring Spammy Republican Campaign Emails to Benefit Democrats

The Federal Election Commission has decided to throw out a baseless GOP complaint accusing Google of unfairly sending Republican campaign emails to users’ Gmail spam more often than Democratic emails for alleged political gain. It turns out—as anyone with an email can attest—Republican campaign emails actually…

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Twitter admits it’s breaking third-party apps, cites ‘long-standing API rules’

Several days after Twitter abruptly cut a number of third-party apps off from its API, the company has quietly acknowledged the move. “Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules,” the company said in a tweet from its developer account. “That may result in some apps not working.”

However, the company offered no explanation which “long-standing API rules” developers of apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot were violating. It also doesn’t address why some smaller third-party Twitter apps are still up and running. Twitter no longer has a communications team.

The company’s two-sentence acknowledgement that it had cut off access to several longtime developers follows a report in The Information that the moves was an “intentional” one. Some have speculated that Twitter made the decision because third-party clients don’t show ads and may be perceived as siphoning off already declining ad revenue from the company. Twitter, under Elon Musk, likely has less enthusiasm for supporting its developers. As Twitterrific’s team pointed out, many of the company’s employees overseeing the developer platform were cut in mass layoffs last year. 

For now, Twitter developers say they are in the dark about why Twitter has cut them off. “We haven’t heard anything from Twitter,” Twitterrific creator Craig Hockenberry told Engadget. “We have been respectful of their API rules, as published, for the past 16 years. We have no knowledge that these rules have changed recently or what those changes might be.”

Tweetbot maker Tapbots responded similarly. “Tweetbot has been around for over 10 years, we’ve always complied with the Twitter API rules,” the developer said. “If there’s some existing rule that we need to comply with, we’d be happy to do so, if possible. But we do need to know what it is…”

Update 1/17 4:24 PM ET: Added comments from Craig Hockenberry and Tapbots.

Samsung Adds The Galaxy S22 and Two Laptops to Its Self-Repair Program

Samsung today announced its expanded repair program now includes the Galaxy S22 family of Android smartphones and the Windows-based Galaxy Book Pro laptop line.

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