Light Start — Digital vinyl, ZenFone leaks, Facebook’s new toy, and space computers
Brett Venter
The Great 78 Project is digitising old vinyl for the Internet Archive
If you want to up your hipster game then you’re going to have to head on over to the Internet Archive (link below). That’s where you will find the Great 78 project, which has digitised a whole lot of vinyl. Over 50,000 examples of the old format, in fact, including a whole mess of cylinder recordings (which is where the hipster points are being handed out). The recordings date as far back as 1888 (including a little something by Thomas Edison) and are as recent as this year but they all have something in common. They’re a little bit outside the usual realm of recordings you’re used to. Voice recordings and stories are everywhere, with more than a little jazz, blues, and other old-school genres to be had. Check it out — consider it a history lesson.
And the next four Asus ZenFone handsets (according to Asus) are…
Sometimes we are left in doubt when it comes to leaks. After all, you can’t always be sure that that information comes from a trusted source. But when a company like Asus publishes information about upcoming handsets early, we’re pretty sure you can trust that leak. Which is how we know exactly what the ZenFone 4, the ZenFone 4 Selfie, the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro (for pro selfies), and the ZenFone 4 Max will entail — because Asus has basically told the world what’s coming. Before they meant to, that is, thanks to a slipped finger on the part of the company’s French website. Expect a whole lot of mid-range processors but the Selfie handsets…? Yeah, those have dual front cameras at 20MP and 8MP (for the Selfie) and 24MP and 5MP (for the Selfie Pro). Check out the rest of the specs at the link below.
Facebook seems really keen on this video thing, acquires video editing tool outfit Fayteq
Facebook might actually be serious about their whole video service thing, having just acquired a new German company that makes plugins for video editing software. The company, Fayteq, makes software that allows users to add items to or remove items from videos. Details as to the rest of the deal are thin: We don’t know what Facebook paid or why they actually want the company but Fayteq has posted an item on their website saying that their products are no longer for sale. Guess Facebook wants all that sweet, sweet editing capability for itself.
SpaceX sending a supercomputer to the International Space Station — Someone better call it HAL9001
We’re used to SpaceX sending all manner of things into space — it’s kinda their whole job when Elon isn’t plotting to become overlord of Mars. But we wonder if they’ve thought things through — SpaceX is teaming up with HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) to send a supercomputer into space. Not just drifting in the void though, that would be weird. No, the HPE supercomputer is heading for the International Space Station for experiments related to… Mars travel. The 1 teraflop computer will be installed in the ISS where the effects of space will be studied to see how computer systems degrade (in the first year), followed by a series of computing benchmarks to study performance with an eye on improving the power of space-based computers. Because space travel needs a HAL 9000.
