"I had to hit the timeout button." Snoop Dogg appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Monday to promote his new gospel album, but the conversation inevitably got around to his weed worship. The rapper and “Joker’s Wild” host said only one person has ever had a greater tolerance than him for smoking marijuana in one sitting. “Willie Nelson is the only person who’s ever out-smoked Snoop Dogg,” Dogg said. “I had to hit the timeout button.” It was a button he said he’d never had to push before. Snoop, whose botanical bromance with Nelson is well known, has praised the “On the Road Again” singer’s greater grass appetite before. But Nelson no doubt will appreciate Snoop’s reefer-al, just the same.

What a ratty thing to do ― blaming mice for 1,000 pounds of missing marijuana. That’s the dubious excuse eight police officers in Pilar, Argentina, gave after a half-ton of pot disappeared from a police warehouse. About 13,000 pounds of bud were supposed to be in storage, but a recent police inspection revealed 1,000 pounds were missing, according to The Guardian. Javer Specia, the city’s former police commissioner, was ordered to explain the shortfall to a judge. He and three subordinates told the skeptical jurist the missing marijuana must have been eaten by mice. Experts, however, sent that theory up in smoke, saying rodents wouldn’t confuse marijuana with food. In the off-chance they did, the mice likely would have died from the dope, and investigators would have found the cannabis-laden corpses, according to USA Today. “Buenos Aires University experts have explained that mice wouldn’t mistake the drug for food, and that if a large group of mice had eaten it, a lot of corpses would have been found in the warehouse,” a spokesperson for the judge said. All eight officers were dismissed from their jobs, and will testify in front of the judge on May 4. The judge will then decide if the drugs are missing due to “expedience or negligence,” according to the BBC.

GALACTIC QUARTET The way invisible dark matter warped the light from distant galaxies, shown here as the swirl of material surrounding four giant galaxies in cluster Abell 3827 (seen in this Hubble Space Telescope photograph), suggested that dark matter can separate from stars when galaxies collide. But new data refute that idea. Dark matter is still the shyest particle in physics. New observations show that dark matter in galaxy cluster Abell 3827 stubbornly ignores all other kinds of matter — including itself, astronomers reported April 6 at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Liverpool, England. The research, also posted online at arXiv.org, negates an earlier finding that stars were separated from their dark matter in Abell 3827, a cluster including four colliding galaxies about 1.3 billion light-years from Earth (SN: 5/16/15, p. 10). At the time, cosmologist Richard Massey and colleagues suggested the dark matter may have lagged behind its galaxy because it was interacting with another clump of dark matter — something dark matter is not supposed to do, according to standard theory. Dark matter, which makes up most of the mass of the universe, is only known to interact with ordinary, visible matter via gravity. But more recent observations made with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile show that the dark matter was actually behaving exactly as expected. “We looked for longer and found the dark matter was hiding just where it ought to be,” says Massey, of Durham University in England. “It’s a sort of eating humble pie on some level.” It’s still possible that other galaxy clusters will reveal lagging clouds of dark matter, Massey says. His team has designed a balloon-borne telescope called SuperBIT, which they hope to use to check hundreds of galaxy clusters for misbehaving dark matter. “We just know embarrassingly little about it,” says Massey. “We keep trying to take a step forward, and find ourselves going back to the beginning.” LOOK AGAIN Observing the same galaxies in longer infrared and millimeter wavelengths with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array observatory revealed that dark matter (highlighted in red contour lines) sticks with stars in a galactic smashup.

Keep your eyes peeled. On Monday, GOG will discount the most wishlisted games on its site, making them "super cheap" for a limited time. It hasn't said just how big the discounts will be, but it's still worth keeping an eye on, and if you want to influence the outcome then start cramming your wishlist full of the games you want. The sales site also said it will give some free games away. It's not clear whether it will simply be giving some of the most wishlisted games away, as it did in February, or gifting some users games that they have on their wishlists. But it's another reason to start clicking on that orange heart. As a perennial wishlister—I import my GOG and Steam lists into IsThereAnyDeal to keep track of prices—I might well jump in to see if there's any games that I've missed. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine the most wishlisted games will echo the best-selling games on the platform, which you can browse here. Expect The Witcher games for cheap.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spoke on the phone following the strikes launched by the US, the UK and France against targets in Syria. Putin reiterated his statement that attacking Syria without a UN Security Council mandate was a violation of international law on the part of the Western powers, a statement on the Russian presidency website says. "The Russian and Turkish sides are assuming that in light of what happened, it is required to boost two-way cooperation, aiming for real advancement of political settlement in Syria," the Kremlin said. Earlier, however, Erdogan praised the Western attack as an "appropriate" message to the Syrian government.

Nobody knows when "The Big One" is going to hit California, but here's how experts think it will play out when it does... California is the land of beaches, mountains, and all the legal marijuana you can stomach. It’s also, inconveniently, a dangerous minefield riddled with nasty fault lines that rupture without much warning, generating massive earthquakes that can level buildings, pulverize roads, and kill lots of people in the span of seconds. The San Andreas is the most notorious of these faults. It runs roughly 800 miles long and produces quakes so catastrophic that there’s a 2015 action movie about it starring The Rock. The southern section of the fault generates earthquakes every 150 years on average, and considering some parts of it haven’t ruptured in more than 200 years, Southern California is overdue for a major shaking, otherwise known as “the Big One.” “There is no fault that is more likely to break [in California] than the San Andreas Fault,” says Jonathan P. Stewart, professor and chair of UCLA’s Civil and Environmental Engineering department and an expert in earthquakes. “Small local earthquakes—the Northridge earthquake, the San Fernando earthquake—they can kill people in the dozens, they can have freeways coming down, they can affect dams, and all of that is bad,” he says. “But it doesn’t really pose an existential threat to our economy, our ability to live here.” A large earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, on the other hand, he says, could create a devastating threat to humanity, infrastructure, and the economy, with implications that extend nationally and even globally. Scientists don’t know exactly where the Big One will hit or how large it will be when it does, but they do have some ideas: One of the most likely scenarios, according to a 2008 federal study, is a 7.8 magnitude earthquake starting at the Salton Sea and running up through Lake Hughes, on a 200 mile long section of the fault that, in parts, hasn’t ruptured since 1680—almost two centuries before California became part of the United States and long before it had any major infrastructure. The largest possible earthquake that can strike throughout most of the San Andreas is an 8.4 magnitude, according to Southern California Earthquake Center spokesperson Mark Benthien, who says the bigger the earthquake, the lower the probability of it striking. While the impact depends on a range of unknowable factors, here’s what experts say might happen in the moments, hours, and days immediately after the big one rattles California. During the Quake Buildings Crumble and People Die All earthquakes produce high frequency motions that have the potential to badly damage nearby structures, but “earthquakes of different magnitudes produce motions that are damaging to different types of structures,” says Stewart. “When we design tall buildings in downtown LA, we’re definitely thinking about the San Andreas fault. But for more typical structures, say a two-story apartment building, a house, the critical earthquake […] is going to be the smaller faults that are nearby.” Unreinforced structures—typically made of bricks, cinderblocks, or adobe—unsurprisingly fare the worst. California banned construction of these buildings in 1933, but plenty of them still exist and would not fare well in a major earthquake. Buildings with wooden frames are a lot better off because the wood can withstand shaking, but not all of them are created equal: Apartments and condos with parking tucked underneath tend to collapse because they don’t have enough structural support. Steel towers, although they’re typically pretty sturdy, aren’t immune to destruction: the federal report predicts that five steel high-rises will collapse and 10 others will be red-tagged, or unsafe to enter, after the big one hits. “Residential structures tend to be better than our business structures,” says Benthien. “A lot of our office buildings were built in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, and are quite vulnerable, much more so than our wood frame residential structures.” For that reason, he says, earthquakes that strike at night tend to have fewer fatalities than those that hit during the day. The death toll probably won’t be as bad as movies like San Andreas—which Benthien calls “Hollywood fantasy”—make it out to be. Scientists predict that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake along the southern San Andreas would likely kill about 2,000 people—or less than .1 percent of Southern California’s population of more than 22 million. Luckily, the San Andreas fault is far enough inland that its rupture wouldn’t disrupt the ocean floor and cause a tsunami, according to Benthien. He says the biggest threat of a tsunami comes from smaller faults off the coast, particularly in far northern California, where the Cascadia subduction zone begins in Cape Mendocino and stretches about 500 miles north to Vancouver. Power Lines Collapse “The first thing [to fail] is usually electricity. It’s usually almost instantaneous,” says Brad Aagaard, a research geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center. It doesn’t take an enormous earthquake for that to happen: A magnitude 6 would do the trick, Aagaard says. The degree of damage depends on how many electric power transmission lines intersect with the part of the fault that ruptures. The southernmost section of the San Andreas fault, for example, crosses more than 140 different transmission lines, according to the 2008 analysis. “There’s a lot of electricity lines crossing. If it’s crossing from one tower to the next tower and the towers don’t collapse, you can have the fault moving underneath and it’s probably alright,” says Stewart. “Of course, if the towers do collapse, then you’re going to have some issues.” Those issues might include wildfires, which could erupt as a result of damage to the power lines. (Because most major transmission towers are in remote areas, they wouldn’t pose a huge risk of harm to people if they fell down, says Stewart.) A suggestion: Stock up on flashlights, keep your phone and laptop charged, and hoard some extra batteries, because you may be forced to reenact pioneer days if the power lines are downed. Stuffing a wad of cash under your mattress could be a good idea, too, since banks, ATMs, and credit cards might not work for a couple of days. Oil and Gas Pipelines Rupture If you think dealing with a dead iPhone and navigating your apartment—which may or may not still be standing—by candlelight is rough, wait until high-pressure gas lines rupture. When they break, they leak gas into the air, which can potentially ignite and cause explosions. The myriad natural gas and petroleum pipelines running through the Cajon Pass, a mountain pass between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, are particularly vulnerable to damage, says Benthien. The area not only lies on top of the San Andreas Fault, but it was actually formed by previous fractures in it. Similar to power lines, the extent of the damage would depend on how many major gas and oil lines cross the fault when it moves. For some perspective: The southernmost section of the San Andreas fault alone intersects with 39 pipelines. One thing you can do to prepare, says Stewart, is to make sure you have access to an automatic shut off valve on the gas line running through your home. If you live in an apartment, ask your landlord if you have access to it. Water and Sewer Pipes Fail The Los Angeles Aqueduct, the Colorado Aqueduct, and the California Aqueduct are just some of the major networks that pump water into Southern California from the northern and eastern parts of the state. They also all cross the San Andreas Fault and could be catastrophically ruptured in a large-scale earthquake. “We would have to make do without all that imported water,” says Stewart. “It would be a race against the clock. Can we get these aqueducts repaired in time before we run out of our local water supply?” Even if the aqueducts don’t break, a major earthquake would probably damage the water pipes, which presents a whole other set of problems: “How do you actually get the water from where it’s stored once it comes out of these aqueducts to people’s houses and businesses?” says Stewart. “This is going to be one of the biggest impacts actually. You’re going to turn on your tap, you’re not going to be able to use it.” Even if the water does come out of the tap, Stewart warns, it could potentially be contaminated from broken sewer lines, so the utility companies would have to issue warnings not to use it. Part of the problem is that “many of the pipelines of Southern California have been in the ground for [up to] 100 years, and so they’re vulnerable, they’re breaking,” says Benthien. “You hear about water main breaks, you see it on the news. Those happen even when there’s not rumbling and shaking.” One piece of expert advice: Keep at least a two-week supply of water in your house so you won’t have to fight your neighbors over bottled water when the shit hits the fan. Immediate Aftermath of the Quake Communication Breaks Down Living without Internet, phone service, and social media sounds anxiety-inducing enough as it is, but it could be a scary reality after the big one hits. “For many people, if they can’t go on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, it may be more troublesome than if they don’t have water,” says Benthien. He’s thinking about instances where people might get trapped under rubble or separated from their friends and family and don’t have phone service or Internet to call for help or ask for resources. It may sound counterintuitive, but if you do have cell service immediately after an earthquake, Benthien warns, don’t use it to make a phone call. He recommends sending a text instead, which uses up a fraction of the bandwidth on the cell network. “The phone system is not designed for everybody to be able to pick up their phone and make calls at the same time,” he says. That can lead to outages. If you really have to make a call, dial someone out of state and let them know you’re okay (or not) so you’re not jamming up the local phone lines. Longterm Effects Businesses Shut Down and the Economy Tanks California boasts one of the largest economies in the world—but that may not be the case after the big one hits. Major transportation networks like railroads and highways could be shut down for days, weeks, or even months. Maybe the most detrimental shutdown would be the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which handle about a quarter of all cargo entering the US. “The whole country is going to be impacted,” says Benthien, who adds that a lot of major retailers stock their stores around the country with inventory that arrives on ships docked at these major West Coast ports. Because most of the inventory is based on demand, if these ports closed, even for a couple of days, plenty of big box stores like Target and Walmart could have empty shelves for a while, even in areas that weren’t hit by an earthquake. (Consider that further motivation to stock up on water and other essentials now.) “If you can’t unload the ships and get the stuff off the ships, then it won’t go through the stores,” says Benthien. Not only that, but plenty of people could be out of work because their companies are forced to shut down, at least temporarily, due to power and water outages or building damage. “All these places that need water to do their business, they can no longer operate, they can no longer pay their employees,” Benthien says. Even someone whose employer isn’t impacted might not be able to get to work anyway: The highway they use to get to work might be fractured, their home could be uninhabitable or need major repairs, or worse, they might need time to search for family members. The estimated total financial cost of the big one in California? About $200 billion. That’s according to researchers who compiled the 2008 federal analysis, so the number is likely even higher now. They took into account potential devastation in four major categories: damage to buildings, non-structural damages, destruction of lifelines and infrastructure, and losses due to fires. The estimated total impact of just building damage is $33 billion, not counting the costs following a potential quake-induced fire. It’s a hefty price tag, especially considering that most Californians don’t have earthquake insurance, which is rarely included in homeowners or renters’ insurance. Just over 14 percent of homeowners and 5 percent of renters with residential insurance have an earthquake policy, which typically covers damage to belongings and personal property like furniture and the cost of relocating to either new or temporary housing, according to 2016 data from the California Earthquake Authority. (The state agency, which supplies most of the state’s earthquake insurance, doesn’t keep statistics on how many Californians don’t have residential insurance.) A California law passed in 1971, a year after the San Fernando Earthquake destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, requires the state to establish earthquake fault zones and distribute maps of all active faults to the cities, counties, and state agencies that control construction projects around them. Those agencies are then required to conduct a geological investigation before approving any new construction; if they find an active fault line, they have to require that developers set buildings at least 50 feet away from it. These rules are obviously intended to prevent construction on active fault lines, but they’re not always enforced: a 2013 LA Timesinvestigation that found that officials in LA approved more than a dozen construction projects on or near fault lines because they said the state hadn’t yet designated the areas as earthquake fault zones. A law passed in Los Angeles in 2015 attempts to remedy some of these oversights by requiring the owners of particularly vulnerable buildings to either prove their properties have been retrofitted or get permits to do so. The city allows property owners to take years, and depending on the building type, decades to complete the retrofitting process, however. The best thing you can do in the meantime is prepare for the worst: Buy a first aid kit, get trained in emergency medical response—FEMA offers a program—and keep tabs on less-able-bodied friends and neighbors who may need your help after the ground stops shaking. “It’s what you do before the earthquake that will determine your quality of life afterwards,” says Benthien. “That’s really what it comes down to.”

While many are asking what particular purpose Trump's Syrian airstrikes served in retaliation to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons, for the Syrian president events of the past week were clearly worth it because moments ago the Syrian Army declared the the rebel enclave of Ghouta - ground zero of last weekend's alleged chemical weapon scandal - has been retaken. In an ironic twist, according to Syrian forces the last group of militants has left their last stronghold - the city of Douma in the Damascus suburbs - less than 24 hours after Western coalition members the US, the UK, and France fired over 100 missiles at targets inside of Syria in a response to an alleged chemical attack in the city. And, according to state media, the Syrian army command has announced that Eastern Ghouta is now free of militants, the AP reports. According to the SANA news agency, the Syrian army is determined to eradicate terrorism in Syria, regardless of what power backs the terrorism, in order to restore security and stability in the country. "All the terrorists have left Douma city, their last bastion in eastern Ghouta," the army statement said. At the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 21,000 people, including militants and their family members, have been evacuated from Eastern Ghouta. Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko, head of Russia's Reconciliation Center for Syria, said that 3,976 militants left Douma by bus on Friday. He added that at least 67,680 have left the embattled Damascus suburb.

On April 13, the Ministry of Defense of Russia released a video showing testimonies of two doctors who were on duty at a Duma hospital when the alleged chemical attack took place in the Syrian town on April 7. In the video, one of the two doctors “Kahlil al-Jaysh” said that the hospital received several civilians who had been injured in an airstrike of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) on Duma in the morning of April 8. Dr. al-Jaysh said that the airstrike had hit the last floor of a building causing fire. This led to the suffocation of some civilians who were trapped in the lower floors of the building. While the doctors were treating the injured civilians, a man shouted in the hospital’s emergency room that the injures were caused by “a chemical attack,” which led to chaos, according to Dr. al-Jaysh. Video on Twitter “While treating the people who were suffocated by smoke and dust, one of the people who was present said that the strike was a chemical attack, which led the people in the area [hospital] to deal with the cases as injuries caused by chemical weapons.” Dr. al-Jaysh said in the video released by the Ministry of Defense of Russia. Moreover, the two doctors stressed in the video that there had been no symptoms proving a chemical weapons use. Both doctors were also able to prove their presence in the emergency room of Duma hospital during the incident via a video published a Syrian opposition news outlet. Several experts suggested before that a carbon monoxide poisoning might be behind the deaths of the Duma attack victims. The Syrian Observatory from Human Rights (SOHR) even reported from day one that carbon monoxide poisoning had been behind the deaths of the civilians who were trapped in a basement from a long time after the airstrike. Syrian pro-government sources noted that both doctors could have left Duma district under the evacuation agreement between the Damascus government and Jaysh al-Islam but they opted to stay. This makes the testimonies of these two doctors more credible.

Independent Swiss Lab Says 'BZ Toxin' Used In Skripal Poisoning; US/UK-Produced, Not Russian Somebody has some explaining to do... or did the Syrian airstrikes just 'distract' the citizenry from the reality surrounding the Skripal poisoning. Remember how we were told my the politicians (not the scientists) that a deadly Novichok nerve agent - produced by Russia - was used in the attempted assassination of the Skripals? Remember the 50 questions (here and here) we had surrounding the 'facts' as Theresa May had laid them out? Ever wonder why, given how utterly deadly we were told this chemical was, the Skripals wondered around for a few hours after being 'infected' and then days later, survived with no chronic damage? Well those doubts may well have just been answered as according to the independent Swiss state Spiez lab, the substance used on Sergei Skripal was an agent called BZ, which was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states. RT reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, citing the results of the examination conducted by a Swiss chemical lab that worked with the samples that London handed over to the Organisation for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons (OPCW), that Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with an incapacitating toxin known as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ. The Swiss center sent the results to the OPCW. However, the UN chemical watchdog limited itself only to confirming the formula of the substance used to poison the Skripals in its final report without mentioning anything about the other facts presented in the Swiss document, the Russian foreign minister added. He went on to say that Moscow would ask the OPCW about its decision to not include any other information provided by the Swiss in its report. On a side note, the Swiss lab is also an internationally recognized center of excellence in the field of the nuclear, biological, and chemical protection and is one of the five centers permanently authorized by the OPCW. The Russian foreign minister said that London refused to answer dozens of “very specific” questions asked by Moscow about the Salisbury case, as well as to provide any substantial evidence that could shed light on the incident. Instead, the UK accused Russia of failing to answer its own questions, he said, adding that, in fact, London did not ask any questions but wanted Moscow to admit that it was responsible for the delivery of the chemical agent to the UK. But hey, who cares about any of that? Diplomats have been sent home, Putin has been anointed Hitler, and besides, what about those missiles in Syria?

As OnePlus continues its teaser campaign for its next smartphone, a case maker has decided to fully reveal the device's design. You can see both the front and the rear of the OnePlus 6 in the renders below, which come from Olixar. All of these cases are already up for pre-order at MobileFun, with prices ranging from $7.49 for the gel cases and all the way up to $35.49 for a combo of the toughest-looking one and a glass screen protector. Img Once again the notch is unsurprisingly present on the front. You have surely also noticed how the company went for a centered vertical design for the dual camera array on the back, in a clear departure from the left-aligned horizontal setup seen on the OnePlus 5T. The LED flash is right underneath the cameras, and below that sits the fingerprint sensor which is on the small side - it reminds us of the size of the scanner on Samsung's Galaxy S9 and S9+. The OnePlus 6 is definitely coming soon, with its announcement probably happening within the next few weeks. It's expected to rock the Snapdragon 845, paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. According to one past leak, it will boast a 6.28-inch AMOLED touchscreen with 2,280x1,080 resolution, a 20 MP f/2.0 selfie cam, and a 3,450 mAh battery. The rear cameras should have 20 MP and 16 MP resolution, both with f/1.7 aperture.

When you think about all of the things you can do with your smartphone, naturally you grasp the importance of internet connectivity. Without this connection, you wouldn't be able to use the browser on your phone, or open up most apps. But believe it or not, there are some consumers (a rather small subset) who want a smartphone, but without the ability to be connected. This leaves the device offering a limited number of capabilities, especially for a phone using the word "Pro" in its name. The Samsung J2 Pro comes with a 5-inch display carrying a 540 x 960 resolution (qHD, not to be confused with QHD). So far, you have the makings of a "mini" handset. The chipset powering the phone carries a quad-core CPU running at a clock speed of 1.4GHz, and 1.5GB of RAM is inside. The amount of native storage is 16GB, and the camera combo weighs in, back to front, at 8MP and 5MP respectively. Keeping the lights on is a 2600mAh battery, and there is a fingerprint scanner. An unknown version of Android is pre-installed. So what can the Samsung J2 Pro do? Well, it can make phone calls. And yes, it can receive phone calls, too. It also will send/receive text messages. Priced at 199,100 Korean won (equivalent to $190 USD at current exchange rates), the J2 Pro would make a great phone to give the kids if you're the type of parent that worries about the little ones going online. You also have to be the kind of parent that doesn't care that their kids will be teased endlessly. Senior citizens, many of whom don't quite grasp how a regular smartphone works, would be another possible target that Sammy can market this device to. Unfortunately, the Samsung J2 Pro will reportedly be offered in Korea only, and that is a terrible shame. Judging from the questions that House and Senate members tossed at Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week, most members of Congress might be best served by a phone that doesn't go online.

If you clicked on the article, you likely already have a good understanding of what this news refers to and its potential implications. On the off change that you don't, the basic concept is this: The Android OS core is a Linux kernel, which is distributed under the General Public License v2 (GPLv2). That allows manufacturers to modify the code, so it can work on their particular hardware platforms (smartphones, tablets, TV boxes, etc.) basically free of charge. The only legal requirement is that the modified code itself must be provided in its entirety, to any third party upon request. The latter part is important for the modding community, since it's the basis on which developers, outside the manufacturer's own team, can build their own experiences, typically based on the AOSP code, also known as Vanilla Android. The timely public release part is what Xiaomi has been neglecting as evident by the huge number of unanswered kernel source requests on the official company github page. The new and rather surprising promise of a tighter release schedule was actually made from a company representative, in response to one of the many inquiries, made by the guys over at XDA-Developers. It reads as follows: "As an Internet company, Xiaomi respects the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is committed to an effective compliance. We are deploying all our resources to achieve a sustainable growth and have been making efforts to speed up our kernel release. We want to make sure that every release is safe and stable. So far, we have published the kernel sources for many devices. Moving forward, we target to release the kernel source of a device within three months after its launch." Now, this isn't exactly a legally binding statement, but if Xiaomi manages to come close to the quoted 3 moth time frame, it would be a huge improvement over the current state of affairs. Not to mention a major catalyst for the growing community of modders and tinkerers, itching to sink their teeth into the company's numerous popular Android devices. If you have further interest in the matter, hit up the source link, where you will find a pretty thorough run-down of the released Xiaomi kernel sources so far and the devices still on the waiting list.

The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are receiving the Android 8.0 Oreo update in China right now. The update brings many bug fixes and optimizations along many new features. Samsung brings the new Samsung Experience 9.0 to the Galaxy S8/S8+ which is noticeably faster than the previous version. New features include Biometrics - it allows biometric (Face, Iris or Fingerprint) log in for apps and websites if you have selected a secure lockscreen type (pattern, PIN or password). There are notification badges on homescreen icons, contextual options when you press and hold on an app icon, the keyboard has been revamped with a new toolbar with quick access, and a GIF, there's a new Bixby panel and more. The update clocks in at 1396.38MB so you'd better have enough battery and time to install it.

According to the latest data from app researchers Sensor Tower, the average U.S. Apple iPhone user spent an estimated $58 on apps last year, up 23% or $11 from the $47 spent back in 2016. The app category that received the most money from stateside iPhone users was mobile games. These apps accounted for 62% of 2017 app purchases made by those sporting Apple's iconic smartphone. The average U.S. iPhone user purchased $36 worth of mobile games from the App Store last year, up from $32 in 2016. Spending on entertainment apps in 2017 surged 57% last year, allowing it to overtook music related apps for second place. Social Networking and Lifestyle were fourth and fifth, respectively. It should be noted that Lifestyle apps were red hot last year as the average U.S. iPhone user spent $2.10 for apps from that section of the App Store. That was more than double the $1.00 shelled out on average in 2016. In 2017, a typical iPhone user in the states installed 45 apps, four more than the 2016 average. Based on the number of apps downloaded and not revenue, the mobile games category was still on top (13.1 games installed per iPhone last year) followed by photo & video (3.6 per iPhone), Entertainment (3.1), Social Networking (2.9) and Utilities (2.4). Of the top five categories, the only one showing a year-over-year decline in downloads was photo & video, which had 10% fewer apps installed last year

Google has officially announced the availability of Android Auto Wireless, a feature which allows your phone to connect to your Android Auto head unit using WiFi. The functionality is currently only available in North America, and the list of supported smartphones currently includes Pixels (both first and second gen), Nexus 5X, and Nexus 6P. "Additional device support will be coming in the future," the company said in the announcement post. For details on what all you need to access this feature, head to the Source 2 link below.

After a few quite extensive leaks, it really did seem like there was little more to learn about Motorola's upcoming Moto G6 family. However, after both the Moto G6 and the Moto G6 Play made their respective pits tops at GeekBench, today the G6 Plus joined their ranks as well, with a slight twist. Img Instead of the Snapdragon 630, it was widely believed to utilize, according toe the benchmark, the tested unit was running a Snapdragon 660, at 2.21 GHz. That being said, the actual test scores themselves don't exactly pan out, since we would expect at least 5000+ multi-core points from said silicon. Still, it could be a case of early and unoptimized software. If the information does check out, it would entail a not entirely insignificant performance boost for the G6 Plus, from what was originally expected. As far as other alleged specs for the handset go, we expect a 5.93-inch, 18:9 screen with Full HD+ resolution, 4GB of RAM, as reported by the test, as well as a 6GB RAM option. Storage tiers should be 32GB and 64GB, respectively. To top things off, prospective buyers can expect a 12MP, plus 5MP dual camera setup, 3,200 mAh battery and a pretty standard connectivity load-out, including optional Dual SIM support. The new Moto G6 line is expected to launch on April 19 in Brazil.

According to XDA, Google Chrome for Android is getting its home button back on the address bar. Most browsers, desktop and mobile, feature the button, which takes the user straight to a webpage selected by him/her as the home page. While Google Chrome for the desktop continued to sport the icon, Google removed it from Chrome for Android in an earlier build. Now, the home button appears to have returned. While earlier reports indicated that the home button was showing up in the latest beta version of Chrome for Android, it turns out that on our stable version of the app, the home button is there (see accompanying image). If you haven't set up a webpage to be your home page, tapping on the home icon will take you to the Google Search page by default. To set up your own home page, click on the overflow menu at the top right of Chrome and click on settings. Tap on Home page and type in the URL of the website you want the home button to quickly take you to. Make sure you leave the toggle switch in the "enabled" position. Check out the slideshow to see how it's done.

Xiaomi’s CEO has been spotted wearing what appears to be the Mi Band 3. The Chinese company only recently announced its newest gaming smartphone, dubbed the Black Shark, at an event in China. Here, the company’s founder Lei Jun was spotted checking the new smartphone out, but it appears he had a little extra hidden up his sleeve, literally. As can be seen in the photos, the CEO’s wrists reveal what appears to be an entirely new wearable, similar in form factor to previous Xiaomi Mi Band devices. The device, which is rumored to be the upcoming Mi Band 3, retains the comfortable rubber band that has been present on previous generations of the wearable. Interestingly, however, the glass surface has been extended significantly, suggesting that a larger OLED display could be present. Also, the glass now bends over at its sides, blending into the curves of the rubber strap. In terms of what the wearable is expected to feature, a heart rate sensor should be included alongside various other additions such as GPS and an accelerometer. Furthermore, Bluetooth 4.2 will likely be supported and IP67 water and dust resistance is also rumored to be present. Lastly, as an added extra, a vibration engine is also expected to be included. Now, it has previously been confirmed that a new generation wearable would be coming sometime this year. Considering Xiaomi’s own CEO appears to already be in possession of the device, however, consumers might not have that much more to wait until the device is made official.

Last month, we told you that the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 might be launched earlier than usual this year, perhaps by July or August. The Note 9 could carry a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, with an aspect ratio of 18.5:9. The Snapdragon 845 mobile platform or the Exynos 9810 chipset should be under the hood, depending on location, and we could see 6GB of RAM inside along with 128GB of native storage. A 4,000mAh battery will keep the lights on, and we just might see the same dual camera setup (12MP +12MP) used on the Samsung Galaxy S9+. And the 8MP front-facing selfie snapper found on the Galaxy S9+ just might be part of the Galaxy Note 9 as well. The latest information about the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 was disseminated by tweet today from star leaker Evan Blass. According to Evan, the codename of the Galaxy Note 9 (wait for it) is Crown. And that is the perfect codename for the phone that will be the King of Samsung's 2018 smartphone lineup. There is still much that we don't know about the Galaxy Note 9. For one thing, we could still see it hit the market with an under-display fingerprint scanner. Over the next few weeks, we should start to see a pick up in leaks about this phone, all of which just might explain why the Crown codename fits this device so well.

France’s President Macron raised the stakes for war in Syria by claiming to have proof chemical weapons were used by the “regime” last weekend. Macron is thus making a joint military strike on Syria with the US more likely. From the outset of the dubious chemical weapons incident on April 7 in the city of Douma, near the Syrian capital Damascus, US President Donald Trump has relied heavily on his French counterpart for guidance on what military action to take. Bloomberg has described Emmanuel Macron as Trump’s “go-to guy in Europe.” The American president is said to trust Macron more than any other European leader. When the news of the alleged chemical weapons incident broke, it was Macron whom Trump phoned first – much to the chagrin of the British and their presumed “special relationship” with Washington. In a series of follow-up calls, the French reportedly exchanged intelligence with the White House to show that chemical munitions had been used against civilians by the Syrian government forces of President Bashar Assad. It seems it was due to the French lead that Trump adopted such a bellicose position, blaming “animal Assad” and Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the “atrocity.” Trump went on to warn Russia to get ready for “new, smart missiles coming.” However, the president then appeared to quickly back down, later intimating that a decision on whether or not to launch military strikes had not yet been taken. Significantly, France’s Macron then weighed in with his categorical claim to “have proof that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regime.” This was while US Defense Secretary James Mattis said that they are still making an assessment about the purported incident. Macron has previously said that not implementing “red lines on chemical weapons” is a sign of “weakness” which he will certainly not balk at. Given his categorical claim about chemical weapons being used by the Assad forces, that can only mean one outcome – military action. So, it seems the French leader is indeed Trump’s “go-to guy” in Europe – for war on Syria. What the precise French intelligence on the Douma incident is based on, and from where it was sourced, is not publicly substantiated. It is unverified – as with so much else Western governments claim these days. We are expected to simply take the word of the French president. Though, that’s entirely questionable. For its part, the Syrian government has unequivocally rejected accusations its forces used chemical munitions in recapturing Douma and its Eastern Ghouta environs. Syria and Russia say the alleged incident was a staged provocation carried out by the Western-backed insurgents. The strategic victory has routed the last-remaining stronghold of the anti-government militants near the capital. As President Assad remarked, the staged provocation was aimed at distracting from the military breakthrough against the Western-backed regime-change proxies. Russian chemical warfare analysts, as well as locally-based Red Crescent medics at Douma City hospital, have also found no traces of chemical weapons, or people showing symptoms of poisoning. A World Health Organization claim that “500 people were injured with chemicals” is not based on its own on-the-ground information-gathering, but rather on the claims of “activists in the area” – which probably means the notorious White Helmets, the so-called rescue group which is embedded with terrorist outfits like Al-Nusra Front and Jaysh al-Islam. Therefore, how can President Macron be so confident to have proof under the circumstances? He cannot possibly have the evidence he claims to have. He is either lying or willfully peddling allegations communicated by the White Helmets and other proxies which have been exposed as on the payroll of the French government, as well as the CIA and Britain’s MI6. In this way, Macron is reprising the role played by former British leader Tony Blair when the latter served as the public relations manager to the George W Bush administration over the Iraq War. Like Blair, Macron lends Trump a certain gravitas upon which to launch a war. If there is one outstanding trait in the 40-year-old French leader, it is his ruthless ambition. The former investment banker has a knack for climbing up greasy poles. He has endeavored to position himself as the pre-eminent European leader, eclipsing Germany’s Angela Merkel or Britain’s Theresa May, as the point man for Washington. Later this month, he will be the first European leader to be given an official state reception in Washington – a gesture from Trump in response to Macron’s guest-of-honor invitation at the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris last year. Macron has deftly set himself up as a “strong man” to Trump over the issue of climate change. Recall his knuckle-crunching handshake with the American during the G20 summit in Berlin last July. Macron has slyly played on anti-Trump sentiments in Europe, re-coining the “Make America Great Again” slogan to “Make the Planet Great Again.” But all the while, Macron has been careful never to rebuke Trump personally. The French leader’s desired portfolio is to promote himself as the interlocutor between Europe and America. His calculations seem to be paying off, too, as can be gleaned from the way Trump is liaising most closely with Macron over what military steps to take on Syria. Macron has other ambitions for revamping the former colonial power as a key player in the Middle East. This week, he wined and dined the young Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The pair shared a two-hour meal at the Louvre Museum and reportedly discussed strengthening the “strategic partnership” between France and Saudi Arabia. Evidently, the president was lavishing the Saudi heir with French culture and arts and playing to the latter’s pretensions for development in these domains. Macron said France would help the Saudi rulers create a national orchestra, theaters and film-making. Macron’s charm offensive earned prospective deals signed this week with Saudi Arabia worth $18 billion. The French are lined up for developing Saudi public infrastructure and utilities, water treatment, solar energy, petrochemicals, agriculture and tourism. To smooth the signing of those deals, Macron provided important public relations for the Saudis this week. In a joint press conference in Paris, the French president defended the multibillion-dollar sales of warplanes to Saudi Arabia as being in the interests of “regional security.” With a straight face, Macron distorted Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen as a necessary “defense” against ballistic missiles being fired by Houthi rebels. Macron also indulged the Saudi obsession that the Middle East’s security is threatened by “Iranian expansionism.” Ingratiating himself with the head-chopping, terrorist-sponsoring Saudi regime was top priority for the ambitious Macron – to the point where he glibly spouted outrageous lies about the abominable war in Yemen. That also explains why Macron is keenly pushing the militarist agenda on Syria. The Saudis have long been soliciting the US and its European allies to launch a full-scale intervention in Syria to get rid of Assad and the Iranian-Hezbollah axis. Macron knows he is banging war drums over Syria to entertain the Saudi despots and loosen their oil coffers for French benefits.

The European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee will ask MEPs to vote for Hungary to be sanctioned over alleged violations of the rule of law, just days after Viktor Orban's decisive re-election. "Time and time again, Viktor Orbán's government has undermined the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press and the fundamental rights of its citizens," said the motion, authored by Dutch Green Party MEP Judith Sargentini, who has led an investigation on whether Budapest is in breach of "EU values." With Orban set for a third consecutive term, after the Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant Fidesz party took the vast majority of parliament seats on April 8, the EU committee proposed invoking Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union. The statute would force Hungarian officials to defend their country before the European Council, and could eventually see Budapest's voting rights in the EU suspended. "This is not something we call for lightly. But the EU has an obligation to protect the rights of every single one of its citizens. With no sign that the Hungarian government will change course, the Council must initiate proceedings now," wrote Sargentini. Approval of the initial stage of Article 7 would require votes from two-thirds of the European Parliament's 750 members. The European People's Party (EPP) – the largest in the EU Parliament – that contains members of Fidesz, says that it will not back any moves to punish Hungary. Article 7 has only been invoked once in EU history, against Poland in 2015, though no significant sanctions have come of it so far. Orban's government, which has been in power since 2010, is being incriminated for restricting the operation of foreign-funded universities and NGOs, which affected the George Soros-backed Central European University in Budapest and his foundations, restricting the rights of migrants, religious and ethnic minorities. The EU is also concerned about "the functioning of the constitutional system," as well as "the independence of the judiciary and of other institutions" and corruption. Fidesz says that the attacks on Hungary are a politically-motivated punishment for refusing to bend to EU rules on accepting migrants. "My problem with this committee, this debate and the rapporteur is that they don't want to accept the unquestionable decision of the Hungarian citizens who overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Hungarians government's path," Kinga Gal, an MEP from Fidesz, told the media in Brussels. "We are being punished because we have stood up against mandatory relocation of migrants into Hungary." Indeed, a lot of the support for Orban's party in the recent election is thought to come from his tough stance against accepting migrants. With Hungary located on the main land route for Middle Eastern refugees into the EU, Orban has made it a point to make sure his country isn't forced to bear the brunt of the migration crisis. Since the start of the massive influx of asylum seekers in 2015, he has built border walls and pushed back against EU-inforced quotas on accepting migrants. Orban's sworn nemesis in this is American-Hungarian billionaire George Soros, who Orban accuses of "organizing illegal immigration" through a network of NGOs. This enmity has given a name to the landmark 'Stop Soros Act,' soon to be introduced by Fidesz, which aims to severely tax the work of foreign-funded NGOs in Hungary.

Poison gas is not only deadly, it often provokes a slow suffocating death. That, perpetrated on innocent children, is particularly cruel. But when such poison gas attacks are mere false flags, or by the new term, “false news”, and are used to provoke war, perhaps an all annihilating war, then humanity has turned to what it never should have become – a lowly-lowly herd of brainless zombies. Is that what we have become – brainless, greedy, selfish beings, no sense of solidarity, no respect for other beings; I am not even talking about humans, but any living being. Poison gas, the weapon of choice for fear. Poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian double-agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting her dad from Moscow. Poisoning with a nerve gas, called Novichok that was allegedly made in Russia. In the meantime, we know that nerve gas made in the former Soviet Union, now non-existent in Russia, was military grade and deadly. The gas used for the alleged attack was not deadly. We also know by now that the UK – all of their highest officials, from PM May down the ladder, lied so miserably that they will have a hard time recovering. It will backfire. Unlike the foreign secretary, Johnson boy pretended their secret bio-gas / bio-weapon laboratory Porton Down, just 13 km down the road from Salisbury, where the pair was allegedly found unconscious on a park bench, assured him the gas was made in Russia. Alas, the laboratories chief chemists testified later to the media that they could not be sure that the substance was made in Russia. No, of course not. In fact, Porton Down, working in close collaboration with the CIA, is a highly sophisticated chemical warfare facility that can easily make the gas themselves – at the grades they please, deadly or not so deadly, if it should serve a “false news” purpose – which this did. Were father and daughter indeed poisoned? – This is a legitimate question. Who has seen them since the alleged poisoning occurred on 28 March? – They disappeared from the public eye. Apparently, they are both recovering, Yulia having been released from hospital a few days ago, but has not been seen by anyone in public, nor been able to talk to the media, lest she could say “something” the public is not allowed to know. Her father is also recovering and may be released soon – released from where? – Is this all a farce? An aunt talked to Yulia from Moscow, where she noticed that Yulia was not free to talk. The aunt wanted to visit her niece in the UK but was obviously denied a visa. Where are father and daughter? – Washington has “offered” them a new home and new identity in the US, to avoid further poisoning attempts… how ridiculous! A blind man or woman must see that this is another farce, or more correctly, an outright abduction. The two won’t have a chance to resist. They are just taken away – not to talk anymore to anyone ever. – That’s the way the story goes. The lies are protected, and the “Russia did it” syndrome will prevail – prevail in the dumb folded public, in the herd of pigs that we all have become, as Goebbels would say. And the saga continues. The saga to drum up war. That’s the purpose of it all. Nothing else – Russia, the evil nation, led by an evil leader, must be subdued and conquered. But the empire needs the public for their support. And the empire is almost there. It disposes of a vicious media corporate army – that lies flagrantly about anything that money can buy. It’s like spitting in the face of the world, and nobody seems to care, or worse, even to notice. * * * On the other side of the Mediterranean is Syria. A vast and noble country, Syria, with a leader who truly loves his people and country, a leader who has despite a foreign induced war – not civil war – a proxy war, instigated and funded by Washington and its vassal allies in Europe and the Middle East; Syria, a highly educated socialist country that has shared the benefit of her resources, free education, free medical services, free basic infrastructure, with her people. This Syria must fall. Such strength cannot be tolerated by the all-dominating west. Like Iraq and Libya, also socialist countries once-upon-a-time, and like Syria, secular Muslim nations, sharing their countries wealth with the people, such countries must fall. According to Pentagon planners and those Zion-neofascist thinktanks that designed the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), as the chief instrument of US foreign policy, we know since Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied commander and Chief of NATO in Europe (1997-2000) talked to Democracy Now in 2007, saying that within 5 years seven countries must fall, one of them is Syria. Since 2011, the Syrian people have been bombarded by US and NATO and Saudi funded terrorists, causing tens of thousands of deaths, and millions of refugees. Now, even more blatantly, US bases are vying to occupying the northern third of Syria, totally illegally, but nobody says beep. Not even the UN. The recent fake gas attack on Douma outside of Damascus, has allegedly killed 80 to 120 people, mostly women and children. Of course, that sells best in the propaganda theatre – women and children. Strangely, like last time the infamous White Helmets discovered the gas victims, including a gas canister-like bomb laying on a bed, having been shot through the roof of a house… a totally and unprofessionally staged event. As Russian military quickly discovered and reported. They called on an independent investigation, one that could not be bought and corrupted by Washington. President Assad invited a team of investigators to inspect the scene. Instead of heeding this invitation, Trump, the bully, calls Mr. Assad an “animal” and a “monster”, twittering his brainless aggressions throughout the world. Tell you what, Mr. Trump, Bashar al-Assad is a far better human being than you are a monster. You and your dark handlers don’t even deserve being called human. Mr. Assad has regard and respect for his people, attempts to protect them and has so far succeeded with the help of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, recovering the last bits of Syrian territory from the terrorist, except of course, the northern part, where the chief terrorist and the world’s only rogue state has itself installed, the US of A. – Why in the world would Mr. Assad choose to gas his own people? Especially, when he is winning the war? – People, ask yourself, cui bono (who benefits?) and the answer is simple: The western aggressors, who seek a reason to mass bomb Syria into even more rubble, causing even more death and destitution. That’s who. While you, Donald, and those monsters that direct you from behind the scenes, have no, but absolutely no respect for your people, for any people on this globe, for that matter, not even for your kind, for your greed-no-end kind of elite, as you bring the world to the brink of an all-destructive, all killing annihilating war. Since the other fake event, 9/11, we are, of course, already in a “soft version” of WWIII, but that’s not enough, the United States needs a hard war, so badly it doesn’t shy away from destroying itself. That’s how blinded your own propaganda has made you Americans, you generals, you corporate “leaders” (sic-sic) – and all you Congress puppets. That is the sheer truth. You better read this and wake up. Otherwise your dead sentence is hastened by your own greed and ignorance. Both Russia and the US drafted a Security Council Resolution – which of course are both not approved, with Nikki Haley lambasting Russia, accusing them of being responsible for the countless deaths in Syria – pointing again to the children and women, making up the majority. Again, it sells best in the world of psychological propaganda, while evil Nikki Haley knows very well who has caused all these deaths by the millions, destitution and refugees by the millions, tens of millions throughout the Middle East and the world – her own country, directly or through NATO, the European puppets allies and proxy wars, paid and funded by Washington and by elbow-twisting her vassals. On 9 April – UNSC – while Nikki Haley, repeats and over-repeats her lies and fake accusations, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Mr. Vassily Nebenzia, listens. And then in a twenty-minute statement of sheer intelligence, he dismantles all the lies, and lays bare the truth, about all the fakeness being played out internationally. The depth with which he addresses the assembly is concise and so brilliant, none of his UK, French and German counterparts could have ever come close to a statement of this magnitude and excellence. Even Ms. Haley can’t help glancing over ever-so often to Vassily Nebenzia, as he speaks. Her eyes reveal some kind of hidden admiration for what he says. – After all, she can’t be as dumb as she is paid for to look and sound. By now anybody who dares not just reading and listening to the mainstream presstitute “fake news”, but has the courage to dig into the truth news, RT, TeleSur, CGTN, PressTV – and a few others, or websites like Global Research, The Saker Blog, ICH, NEO, Greanville Post CounterCurrent, Dissident Voice and many other trustworthy sources – knows about the lies and the only, but the very only purpose these false flags cum false news serve: Provoking a war with Russia, subjugating and dividing Syria, and the Middle East and becoming the hegemonic masters of the universe. For the simple reason, and hardly anybody talks or writes about it – the US economy is based on war, is based on weapon manufacturing and international banking which finances weapon manufacturing and the exploitation of mineral resources coveted by weapon manufacturing. The entire war industry with all its associated civil services and industries, of banking, electronics, aviation, mining…. makes up more than half of the US GDP – but of course, it’s never broken down that way. The chosen people will control the world. Well, they do already – financially at least the western part of our globe. But it’s not enough. They will not stop, before they burry themselves in their own-dug graves, or rather in one massive mass-grave. But, please, do take all your fakeness, from money, to lies, to hypocrisy and more lies and coercion and sanctions and blackmail with you – never to surface again. And give peace a chance – for those who survive your (almost) terminal assault on humanity.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In heated exchanges with his national security team in recent weeks, President Donald Trump repeatedly made clear he saw little incentive for the United States to be involved in Syria’s intractable civil war. Then he pushed the U.S. military back into the quagmire. In doing so, Trump is trying to confront a dilemma that haunted his predecessor, Barack Obama. Syria’s seven-year civil war presents few fast or easy solutions for the U.S., yet the geopolitical rivalries at play, the presence of the Islamic State group and other extremists, and the atrocities perpetrated by the Assad government make the situation impossible to ignore. Thus far, Trump and his top advisers have sent mixed messages about what Friday’s U.S., British and French strikes may mean for his administration’s future commitment in Syria. The strikes themselves were limited — 105 weapons launched against three targets. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described the action as a “one-time shot” in retaliation for the Syrian government’s apparent use of chemical weapons in an April 7 attack that killed more than 40 people. Trump, however, cast the strikes in more sweeping terms, promising he was ready to keep the U.S. military engaged if Syrian President Bashar Assad were to use deadly gases again. “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said in a televised address to the nation from the White House on Friday night. His comments were echoed Saturday by Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who said the president told her the military was “locked and loaded” if Syria launched another chemical weapons attack. The president’s statement was a marked shift from his recent posture on Syria. Earlier this month, he privately told advisers that the U.S. was getting “nothing” out of being involved in Syria and he made clear he wanted the 2,000 American troops currently there fighting ISIS militants out by the fall. That order left many of Trump’s national security advisers on edge, concerned that pulling out even that small U.S. force would result in a power vacuum that Iran could fill. It did win him praise from political supporters who perceive Syria as a costly wasteland and see Trump as a president who promised an “America First” agenda that did not include sustained American military commitments overseas. The importance of that pledge to some Trump backers quickly became apparent, with even the relatively limited American intervention in Syria leaving them deeply frustrated. “This is not why Donald Trump got elected,” said Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host who has been supportive of the president. Ann Coulter, another conservative commentator, spent the weekend highlighting angry messages on Twitter from apparent Trump supporters, including one who wrote that while the “the direct damage was some buildings in Damascus; the collateral damage was Trump’s political support base.” If Trump was bothered by the growing criticism, he didn’t show it. He took to Twitter on Saturday morning and wrote “Mission Accomplished” — adopting a phrase that haunted President George W. Bush during the Iraq war. For some, those two words represent the short-sightedness about how quickly the U.S. can become entangled in a protracted Middle East conflict. Trump’s view of the situation on Syria has shifted repeatedly in recent years. As a private citizen in 2013, he said Obama should “stay the hell out of Syria.” Trump condemned Obama for declaring that Syria’s use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” for the United States and he said it made Obama look weak when he didn’t follow through with a military strike after Assad used deadly gases against civilians. Less than three months after Trump took office, the U.S. assessed that Assad had again used chemical weapons to kill Syrians. Moved by the images of dead children, Trump stunned many of his own supporters by saying that the action had crossed “many, many lines” for him. He ordered a U.S. airstrike on a Syrian air base. Since then, Trump’s views on the situation in Syria have evolved. Earlier this year, he began telling advisers that as soon as the U.S. could declare victory against IS, which has taken hold in Syria amid the chaos of the civil war, he wanted American troops out. At a recent event in Ohio, Trump said of Syria: “Let other people take care of it now.” Just one week later came the attack that drew Trump back in.

Piracy of digital content in Spain fell 6% in 2017, according to an entertainment industry report. The Coalition of Creators and Content Industries says that the figure matches the 6% decrease achieved the previous year. Still, piracy remains at a high level, the coalition insists, noting that consumers believe site-blocking and measures against ISPs to be effective solutions. The Coalition of Creators and Content Industries, which represents Spain’s leading entertainment industry companies, is keeping a close eye on the local piracy landscape. The outfit has just published its latest Piracy Observatory and Digital Content Consumption Habits report, carried out by the independent consultant GFK, and there is good news to report on headline piracy figures. During 2017, the report estimates that people accessed unlicensed digital content just over four billion times, which equates to almost 21.9 billion euros in lost revenues. While this is a significant number, it’s a decrease of 6% compared to 2016 and an accumulated decrease of 9% compared to 2015, the coalition reports. Overall, movies are most popular with pirates, with 34% helping themselves to content without paying. “The volume of films accessed illegally during 2017 was 726 million, with a market value of 5.7 billion euros, compared to 6.9 billion in 2016. 35% of accesses happened while the film was still on screens in cinema theaters, while this percentage was 33% in 2016,” the report notes. TV shows are in a close second position with 30% of users gobbling up 945 million episodes illegally during 2017. A surprisingly high 24% of users went for eBooks, with music relegated to fourth place with ‘just’ 22%, followed by videogames (11%) and football (10%). The reasons given by pirates for their habits are both varied and familiar. 51% said that original content is too expensive while 43% said that taking the illegal route “is fast and easy”. Half of the pirates said that simply paying for an internet connection was justification for getting content for free. A quarter of all pirates believe that they aren’t doing anyone any harm, with the same number saying they get content without paying because there are no consequences for doing so. But it isn’t just pirates themselves in the firing line. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the current climate, the report heavily criticizes search engines for facilitating access to infringing content. “With 75%, search engines are the main method of accessing illegal content and Google is used for nine out of ten accesses to pirate content,” the report reads. “Regarding social networks, Facebook is the most used method of access (83%), followed by Twitter (42%) and Instagram (34%). Therefore it is most valuable that Facebook has reached agreements with different industries to become a legal source and to regulate access to content.” Once on pirate sites, some consumers reported difficulties in determining whether they’re legal or not. Around 15% said that they had “big difficulties” telling whether a site is authorized with 44% saying they had problems “sometimes”. That being said, given the amount of advertising on pirate sites, it’s no surprise that most knew a pirate site when they visited one and, according to the report, advertising placement is only on the up. Just over a quarter of advertising appearing on pirate sites features well-known brands, although this is a reduction from more than 37% in 2016. This needs to be further improved, the coalition says, via collaboration between all parties involved in the industry. A curious claim from the report is that 81% of pirate site users said they were required to register in order to use a platform. This resulted in “transferring personal data” to pirate site operators who gather it in databases that are used for profitable “e-marketing campaigns”. “Pirate sites also get much more valuable data than one could imagine which allow them to get important economic benefits, as for example, Internet surfing habits, other websites visited by consumers, preferences, likes, and purchase habits,” the report states. So what can be done to reduce consumer reliance on pirate sites? The report finds that consumers are largely in line with how the entertainment industries believe piracy should or could be tackled. “The most efficient measures against piracy would be, according to the internet users’ own view, blocking access to the website offering content (78%) and penalizing internet providers (73%),” the report reads. “Following these two, the best measure to reduce infringements would be, according to consumers, to promote social awareness campaigns against piracy (61%). This suggests that increased collaboration between the content sector and the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) could count on consumers’ support and positive assessment.” Finally, consumers in Spain are familiar with the legal options, should they wish to take that route in future. Netflix awareness in the country is at 91%, Spotify at 81%, with Movistar+ and HBO at 80% and 68% respectively. “This invalidates the reasons given by pirate users who said they did so because of the lack of an accessible legal offer at affordable prices,” the report adds. However, those who take the plunge into the legal world don’t always kick the pirate habit, with the paper stating that users of pirates sites tend to carry on pirating, although they do pirate less in some sectors, notably music. The study also departs from findings in other regions that pirates can also be avid consumers of legitimate content. Several reports, from the UK, Sweden, Australia, and even from Hollywood, have clearly indicated that pirates are the entertainment industries’ best customers. In Spain, however, the situation appears to be much more pessimistic, with only 8% of people who access illegal digital content paying for legal content too. That seems low given that Netflix alone had more than a million Spanish subscribers at the end of 2017 and six million Spanish households currently subscribe to other pay TV services. The report is available here (Spanish, pdf) Source: Torrentfreak.com

Piracy was initially a form of sharing ones content with another fellow pirate and wasn’t built for money making purposes. But the platform did show a tremendous opportunity and attracted the likes of different business people. Currently, piracy has forgotten its ‘sharing is caring’ roots and is done with the sole intent of making cash. When piracy took off, it wasn’t built on top of a malicious philosophy. Back then, sharing was the sole purpose of creating peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Let’s say a person had access to one game – X. This person shared the game with all of his/her online friends, and in return, it was taken that the other receivers will also upload and share a game – Y when they have access to it. The content was the currency; a modern barter system of sorts. Now yes, people back then used to enable advertisements on their platforms, e.g., Kazaa, and that did manage to generate revenues. But still, money wasn’t the driving motive. When the P2P networks were in its early stages, even then, developers drew their reward from getting the tracker scripts to work and having people to simply come and share something on their website. This satisfaction was priceless. But, considering our capitalistic nature, the platform started drawing the attention of business-minded individuals. People started to question, ‘how can we make money with this?’, and the answer turned out to be pretty simple. First people targeted the bandwidth – making higher download speed available to only premium members. And so, money came into the picture. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing though. You should consider that running a torrent website requires access to resources as well as time. If the admin has to fund everything, soon the site would become unaffordable and will shut down. So taking donations in exchange for certain perks provided a means for the sustenance of the platform. However, as some websites saw a swarm of overly enthusiastic donors, all the money gathered wasn’t necessary for site maintenance and some went into a savings account, to help during those rainy days. But slowly greed stepped in. And now, considering the current legal issues involving piracy, most people argue that the money they collected are rightfully earned “danger money.” However, some of the admins are running the websites for the sole purposes of making a buck and are totally out of track from the sharing ideology that sprinted this phenomenon. Very rarely (though there are some) do we spot a person who is such a purist that he/she refuses to monetize the platform. But regardless, it seems that this populous is drowning out, and capitalization has again won.