MagicSpan

The Los Angeles Police Department is using “predictive policing” to prevent crime, but this innovative approach has its problems.
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Author: Issie Lapowsky

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Wireless chargers are cheaper than ever, making it easy to put charging pads throughout your house. But what if instead of just putting charging pads everywhere, you built them straight into the wall?

That’s what Legrand envisions with the Radiant charger, which is designed to replace your regular wall outlet with a wall-mounted Qi charger (via 9to5Mac.) It’s an interesting idea with a slick look to it, but it also seems like it’d limited in actual practice.

First off, it assumes that you actually have a wall outlet that’s conveniently located at a height near eye level. (In my apartment, I’d basically be charging my phone by sticking it behind a bookshelf.) Next, if you do happen to have an outlet that’s in a good place, you’ll need to…

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Author: Chaim Gartenberg

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Season 4 of Fortnite: Battle Royale rolls on with a new set of challenges for Battle Pass owners to complete. Week 4’s challenges are now live on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and iOS, and this time around, they’re made up primarily of straightforward tasks, although a few may still pose a bit of trouble. Here’s how to complete all of Week 4’s objectives.

As usual, there are seven new challenges to complete, most of which are fairly self-explanatory. On the easier end of the spectrum, one challenge tasks you with dealing damage with Assault Rifles, which is simply a matter of finding the right weapon and using it to inflict a specific amount of damage to other players.

Some of the other new challenges are a bit more dependent on luck. One tasks you with visiting the center of three Storm Circles in a single match, while another has you searching seven Ammo Boxes in a match. There’s also a challenge that requires you to search seven chests in Wailing Woods, but fortunately, this one doesn’t have to be completed in a single round.

The one that will likely prove to be the trickiest is a Hard-difficulty challenge that cryptically says to search between a bench, Ice Cream Truck, and Helicopter. Both benches and Ice Cream Trucks are fairly common on the map, so your biggest clue is the helicopter. As you can see in our map below, the challenge leads you to the center of Moisty Mire, under a big tree near the area’s movie set. Simply head to that location and you’ll be able to pick up a Battle Star.

The remaining two challenges are likewise labeled Hard. The first tasks you with eliminating one opponent using a Trap, while the second has you eliminating three players in Snobby Shores. Your best bet for completing each is to attempt the challenges in a Solo playlist, where you don’t need to worry about opponents being revived by teammates. The reward for clearing each Hard challenge is 10 Battle Stars.

Completing weekly challenges helps you rank up your Battle Pass, which in turn unlocks new skins and cosmetics. As always, the weekly challenges will be available through the remainder of Season 4, so you have until the season ends to complete them and unlock rewards.

However, since Season 4 kicked off, Epic has offered an incentive to complete each weekly challenge as quickly as you can. Clearing all the challenges within a given week completes a new Blockbuster challenge, which rewards you with a loading screen that points to the location of a free Battle Pass tier. You can get a full rundown on how to complete everything in our Season 4 challenge guide.

Season 4, Week 4 Challenges

• Deal damage with Assault Rifles to opponents (1,000) — 5 Battle Stars
• Search Chests in Wailing Woods (7) — 5 Battle Stars
• Search 7 Ammo Boxes in a single match (7) — 5 Battle Stars
• Visit the center of different Storm Circles in a single match (3) — 5 Battle Stars
• Hard: Search between a Bench, Ice Cream Truck, and a Helicopter — 10 Battle Stars
• Hard: Trap Eliminations (1) — 10 Battle Stars
• Hard: Eliminate opponents in Snobby Shores (3) — 10 Battle Stars

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Author: Kevin Knezevic

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Just days before GDPR goes into effect, the Facebook CEO left European regulators wanting for answers about data protection, hate speech, bullying, and partisan bias.
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Author: Issie Lapowsky

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Humans can be great acrobats, but what about Disney robots? Disney Research has one such human-scale robot — called Stickman, because it’s literally a robotic stick — that is capable of aerial acrobatics, like backflips.

Just as certain human inventions take after nature (like body armor), it seems as if robots can take after humans. During a full backflip maneuver, Stickman swings from a ceiling-mounted wire 19.6 feet (six meters) above ground, tucks into a ball at peak height, and executes the stunt.

Stretched out, Stickman measures seven feet tall or as the Disney Research paper puts it, “to approximate the height of a human stunt performer with arms raised over his or her head” — although, it’s worth noting most gymnasts are…

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Author: Stefan Etienne

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Even though the first season of Krypton hasn’t ended, Syfy has renewed the Superman prequel series. It will return for Season 2, most likely in 2019, to continue to the adventures of Superman’s grandpa, Seg-El.

Its return helps in building out a solid roster of programming for Syfy. In addition to the second season of Krypton, the network has a final season of 12 Monkeys, another year of The Magicians, and new cycles of Happy and the anthology series Channel Zero on the way. In addition to those, adaptations of the comic book series Deadly Class and George R.R. Martin’s novella Nightflyers will be debuting on the network.

One major component missing from Syfy’s upcoming schedule, though, is The Expanse. It has been announced that the current third season will be its last on the network. Not all hope is lost, though. Amazon is currently in talks to revive the series on its Prime Video streaming service.

Krypton is set on Superman’s home planet, two generations before it’s destroyed, sending him to Earth. At the center of the series is Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), Kal-El’s grandfather. Along with Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos), he must decide whether to save his planet or let it die in order to ensure his grandson’s destiny.

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Author: Chris E. Hayner

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Model 3 would be getting an update after Consumer Reports said it found some “big flaws” in the electric car’s braking and “difficult-to-use” touchscreen. In response, the publication released a statement praising Tesla for taking its criticisms seriously.

In its review published on Monday, CR said there was “plenty to like” about the Model 3, but that it ultimately couldn’t recommend the vehicle due to a shockingly long stopping distance during emergency braking tests. “The Tesla’s stopping distance of 152 feet from 60 mph was far worse than any contemporary car we’ve tested and about 7 feet longer than the stopping distance of a Ford F-150 full-sized pickup,” CR wrote.

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Author: Andrew J. Hawkins

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Less than two weeks have passed since Syfy pulled the plug on The Expanse and the series looks to already be rising from the dead–making it the second such canceled series this season. Syfy previously announced that the show’s third season, which is currently airing, would be its last. Now it may be Amazon to the rescue.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon is in talks to bring the series to its Prime Video streaming service. THR notes that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a fan of the books The Expanse is based on and was not happy when the TV adaptation went to Syfy.

Though an agreement to move the show to Amazon Prime Video is not finalized, a Twitter account associated with the show’s writers rooms has confirmed that talks are ongoing. “We’re excited, but the deal’s not closed…we’re not quite through the woods yet,” the account writes in a tweet that has since been deleted. “Keep up the fight Expansers & watch this [week’s] episode LIVE with us on SyFy. [W]e’ll be dancing in the streets right along with you as soon as we get anything official.”

Should it be saved, The Expanse wouldn’t be the only show revived by another entity after cancellation this year. Days after Fox canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine, NBC announced it would revive the series. According to TVLine, Nine-Nine will return in 2019 for a 13-episode Season 6.

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Author: Chris E. Hayner

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Ole Witt’s flash photographs make bureaucracy all too real—particularly India’s, dubbed one of the worst in Asia.
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Author: Laura Mallonee

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What is a meme? If you’re a nerd and you like Richard Dawkins — who, you’ll eventually note to someone who isn’t interested, “coined the term” — you might say a meme is a unit of cultural transmission that moves through a population, much like a gene. If you’ve been online too long, though, you might find the definition more flexible. Remember Ken Bone? (If you’re older, remember Kilroy?) The word “meme” has been diluted enough that it can now reasonably be applied to anything. Even your too-trendy shoes.

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Author: Bijan Stephen

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