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Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
Time |
Event |
12:30a |
Disney+ Will Slash Your HDTV's Black Bars With IMAX Digital Update An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Disney+'s next major app update, coming to all devices later this week, continues the service's latest efforts to please nitpicky A/V obsessors with a new screen ratio format meant to fill more of your HDTV screen in a way that filmmakers originally intended. "IMAX Digital" is coming to all devices that support Disney+ starting this Friday as part of the service's "Disney+ Day" promotion. This "17.1:9" format will land exclusively on 13 Marvel Studios films to start, and the move coincides with the streaming premiere of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings -- a film that skipped Disney's experiment with simultaneous launches in theaters and on Disney+ earlier this year. When a film switches to an IMAX Digital ratio, the usual black bars that signify a wider-screen 21:9 ratio will be reduced, adding approximately 26 percent more image to your HDTV, all framed as originally intended. The full list of IMAX Digital-compatible films coming to Disney+ later this week include: Ant-Man and the Wasp, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Iron Man, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 1:30a |
Rolls-Royce Gets Funding To Develop Mini Nuclear Reactors PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from the BBC: Rolls-Royce has been backed by a consortium of private investors and the UK government to develop small nuclear reactors to generate cleaner energy. The creation of the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) business was announced following a [195 million pound] cash injection from private firms and a [210 million pound] grant from the government. It is hoped the new company could create up to 40,000 jobs by 2050. However, critics say the focus should be on renewable power, not new nuclear.
Rolls-Royce SMR said one of its power stations would occupy about one tenth of the size of a conventional nuclear plant -- the equivalent footprint of two football pitches -- and power approximately one million homes. The firm said a plant would have the capacity to generate 470MW of power, which it added would be the same produced by more than 150 onshore wind turbines. Warren East, Rolls-Royce chief executive, said the company's SMR technology offered a "clean energy solution" which help tackle climate change.
However, Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group think tank, told the BBC's Today program there was danger that the money spent on nuclear power would hit funding for other power sources. "If nuclear eats all the pies which it is looking to be doing we won't have enough money to do the kind of things we need to do which we know practically and technologically we can do now," he said. Greenpeace's chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said SMRs were still more expensive than renewable technologies and added there was "still no solution to dispose of the radioactive waste they leave behind and no consensus on where they should be located." "What's worse, there's not even a prototype in prospect anytime soon," he added. "The immediate deadline for action is sharp cuts in emissions by 2030, and small reactors will have no role in that."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 3:30a |
A Bitcoin Mine In Navajo Nation Flares Tensions An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Just outside of Shiprock, New Mexico, on land belonging to the Navajo Nation, a Bitcoin mine owned and operated by a Canadian investment company consumes seven megawatts of power each month -- enough to power 19,600 homes. The operation is run by a firm called WestBlock Capital and mines between 23 and 25 bitcoins per month, equivalent to roughly $1.4 to $1.6 million USD, with a majority of its power coming from renewable solar energy. According to a press release from the mine's parent company, Luxxfolio, the mine accesses these resources "at significantly reduced cost in the bottom decile of global power costs."
But all around the mine, Dine -- citizens of the Navajo Nation -- live without electricity or running water in their homes. The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), the nation's non-profit utility enterprise that initially partnered with Calgary, Alberta blockchain company WestBlock on the mine project, is working to connect more homes on the nation to basic utilities. A short documentary detailing the project by Bitcoin mining hosting company Compass was released last week, framing the mine as a means to achieve sovereignty and economic prosperity for the nation. But some Dine are bristling at the idea of a foreign Bitcoin mining company getting access to dirt cheap electricity while residents in Navajo Nation live without basic utilities like power and running water.
Tyler Puente, who commented on a since-deleted Facebook post from Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez's Facebook page about the mine's groundbreaking ceremony that Navajo leadership are allowing outsiders to take advantage of Dine, told Motherboard that he sees the Bitcoin mine as a form of "financial colonialism." "I think Bitcoin companies prey on communities like my own," said Puente. "My perspective is that we're being used." To some Dine, WestBlock project resembles a form of crypto-colonialism, a term that describes the exploitation of lands and resources by cryptocurrency and blockchain interests, often under the guise of progressive or egalitarian rhetorics for the host communities.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
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