The Morning After: Samsung's 108-megapixel smartphone camera sensor
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Earlier this month, arguably the world's biggest game streamer, Ninja, made waves by moving from his audience of millions on Twitch across to Microsoft-owned Mixer. While it's been a success for Mixer, Ninja's dormant channel has got a little messy. We also report on how Google's heavy-handed advertising rules are making it hard to fix your broken phone screen and giant smartphone cameras that are on the horizon.
Ninja calls out Twitch after his dormant channel highlights porn
Over the weekend, Ninja posted a video chastising Twitch for not only using his dormant channel to promote other streamers but also allowing porn to find its way into those recommendations. Worse still, the number one stream on Twitch the morning of August 11th was a bootleg porn broadcast that lasted for more than two hours -- imagine someone looking for Fortnite gameplay only to find X-rated material. The issue wasn't just that Twitch effectively replaced his presence with recommendations, but kids could have seen this material, and Ninja didn't have any control over it. While Ninja apologized, he also stressed that he was trying to get rid of the promotions, if not remove the Twitch channel altogether. Later on, the streaming service reverted Ninja's old page to a regular offline screen, including chat, where people are roasting Twitch -- naturally.
US government quietly kills autonomous vehicle committee
The Department of Transportation's Advisory Committee on Automation in Transportation (ACAT) hasn't been active since it was formed in 2017. And it won't be active anytime in the future because, according to a report from The Verge, the administration has quietly killed it without even telling its members.
Thank Google for making it harder to find a phone-repair service
Imagine you dropped your smartphone and its display shattered -- something that happens around 50 million times in the US each year. You'd probably hit up Google to look for a nearby repair store, but there's a problem. The search engine has blocked paid-for ads below relevant search terms, making it harder to find help.
Why? Maybe it's the first blow in a proxy war over the right to repair, or simply the unintended results of a heavy-handed attempt to tackle fraud. A year after the change was implemented, however, the repair-store community is demanding answers -- something Google promised but has yet to deliver on.
Samsung's 108-megapixel mobile sensor closes in on mirrorless cameras
The future of smartphone cameras is hundreds of megapixels. That's according to Samsung and Xiaomi. The ISOCELL Bright HMX, developed between the two companies, is one of the largest smartphone sensors ever at 1/1.33-inches, about three quarters the size of the 1-inch sensor on Sony's RX100 VII -- a high-end point-and-shoot camera.
Even at that size, a 108-megapixel sensor will have ridiculously small pixels. By default, though, Samsung's Tetracell tech will gather the light from four pixels, transforming it into a 27-megapixel sensor. Don't worry, you'll still be able to snap 108-megapixel photos, but you'll need to make sure your scene is brightly lit to get any decent shots from it.
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