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DudeAsInCool

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Posts posted by DudeAsInCool

  1. A Maryland digital ID.

    Enlarge / A Maryland digital ID. (credit: Google)

    Google Wallet on Android is finally getting ready for your digital driver's license and other US state IDs. Google says the feature is rolling out this month, and it will slowly start bringing states online this year. Of course, your state has to be one of the few that actually supports digital IDs. Google says Maryland residents can use the feature right now and that "in the coming months, residents of Arizona, Colorado and Georgia will join them."

    The road to digital driver's license support has been a long one, with the "Identity Credential API" landing in Android 11 in 2020. Since then, it has technically been possible for states to make their own ID app. Now Google Wallet, Google's re-re-reboot of its payment app, is providing a first-party way to store an ID on your phone. Some parts of the Identity Credential API landed in Google Play Services (Google's version-agnostic brick of APIs), so Wallet supports digital IDs going back to Android 8.0, which covers about 90 percent of Android devices.

    Maryland has supported Digital IDs on iOS for a while, which gives us an idea of how this will work. An NFC transfer is enough to beam your credentials to someone, where you can just tap against a special NFC ID terminal and confirm the transfer with your fingerprint. Wallet has an NFC option, along with a "Show code" option that will show the traditional driver's license barcode.

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  2. Kool-Keith-1685726005.jpeg

    Earlier this year, classic rap weirdo Kool Keith teamed up with Real Bad Man on the collaborative album Serpent. In a couple of weeks, Keith will follow that album with Black Elvis 2, his sequel to his 1999 cult classic. We’ve already posted Keith’s “Black Elvis 2 (Intro),” and now he’s teamed up with underground fixture Marc Live and fellow ’80s titan Ice-T on the new track “The Formula.”

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  3. If you want a portable console that can play old Nintendo Entertainment System games, the easiest option is software emulation, whether you're using Nintendo's official Switch app, a portable PC, or some cheap knockoff emulator handheld. For those who want better accuracy than software emulation can provide, there's always the Analogue Pocket, which can (with current firmware) re-create the NES in hardware using its FPGA chip.

    But some purists are unsatisfied with anything other than original hardware—that's the only possible explanation for projects like the TinyTendo, which goes to extraordinary lengths to squeeze an entire NES into a portable package roughly the size and weight of the old gray monochrome Game Boy. The project is the creation of hardware modder Redherring32, who eventually plans to open-source the project.

    For miniaturization projects like this, you often see chopped-up or fully custom-printed circuit boards used with the original chips to contort the hardware into a new shape. This landscape orientation mod for the original Game Boy or the original Analogue NT are both good examples. But more drastic measures were needed to squeeze an entire NES into a handheld console, most notably the removal of bulky pins and ceramic that the original chips all use.

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  4. Weird-Nightmare-Shes-The-One-1685721633.

    Last year, Alex Edkins, leader of the great Toronto noise-rock power-trio METZ, launched his solo side project Weird Nightmare. With Weird Nightmare, Edkins makes catchy, guitar-driven power-pop that’s really nothing like what he does with METZ. The self-titled Weird Nightmare debut album was impressive but I’ve been even more into the one-off singles that Edkins has released since then: “So Far Gone” and the version of the Troggs’ “Our Love Will Still Be There.” Today, we get a Weird Nightmare version of a Ramones classic.

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  5. a3605551108_10-1685718615.jpeg

    The Italian hardcore band Spirito Di Lupo, SDL for short, has members in Milan and Bologna. They play fast and nasty ’80s-inspired hardcore, the kind of punk rock where passion elevates bashed-out basics to a state of raw transcendence. A new album called Vedo La Tua Faccia Nei Giorni Di PioggiaI See Your Face On Rainy Days — is coming this summer, and they’ve shared a pair of ripping tracks today. Hear “Nebbia” and “Spirito Selvaggio” below.

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  6. Paris-Hilton-Stars-Are-Blind-1685715184.

    If Paris Hilton ever succeeds in making the full transition from cultural irritant to kitsch icon, then her 2006 single “Stars Are Blind” will have a lot to do with it. People were set to hate “Stars Are Blind” back when the song came out, since few of us were into the idea of Hilton, the socialite and reality-TV star, becoming a pop star. But “Stars Are Blind” is an absolutely charming reggae-pop gem, and it utterly disarmed many of us.

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  7. Paint's long-promised dark mode is now available to Windows Insiders.

    Enlarge / Paint's long-promised dark mode is now available to Windows Insiders. (credit: Microsoft)

    In the summer of 2021, Microsoft’s efforts to redesign its software for the Windows 11 era were just kicking into high gear. The company announced an overhaul for the venerable MS Paint that promised, among other things, dark mode support, but the version of the app that appeared along with Windows 11 in October 2021 was missing the feature.

    Now, Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels can finally begin testing a darker version of the Paint app. The update, announced on the Windows Insider blog yesterday, also introduces more granular zoom settings and a zoom slider in the lower-right corner of the app, a new Settings page, new keyboard shortcuts, and “many accessibility and usability improvements to dialogs throughout the app.”

    Features rolled out to the Windows Insider channels don’t always make it into the regular builds of Windows 11 that most people use, but these kinds of app updates generally make it out to everyone within a few weeks or months.

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  8. LJF_0946-1685715181-scaled.jpg

    Colter Wall, the country traditionalist from Battle Creek, Saskatchewan, is rolling out his new album Little Songs right now. We previously heard his cover of Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina,” and today Wall has shared a new original called “Corralling The Blues.” It’s a sad, slow sway full of harmonica and dobro, topped off as always by Wall’s conversational baritone. “It’s a feeling I’ve known since before I was grown,” he sings. “I’m howlin’, corrallin’ the blues.” Listen below.

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  9. unnamed-2023-06-02T095629.291-1685714195

    The Tallest Man On Earth recorded his Spotify Singles in Stockholm rather than New York. Makes sense. Having the corporate offices for the world’s largest streaming behemoth is convenient for Swedes! As per the series ritual, Kristian Matsson performed one original and one cover at Spotify Studio. In addition to “Looking For Love” from his recent album Henry St., Mattson did a rendition of “Say What You Will” from James Blake’s 2021 release Friends That Break Your Heart.

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  10. unnamed-2023-06-02T093538.022-1685712946

    Bloc Party are wasting no time moving on from last year’s Alpha Games, their first album in six years. The band returned in April with the funky dance track “High Life,” and today they’ve got another new song, their first ever collaborative single. “Keep It Rolling” matches the band with Kennyhoopla, the pop-punk upstart and Travis Barker collaborator out of Cleveland. It sounds nothing like “High Life.” It sounds kind of like an old-school Bloc Party song that morphs suddenly into a screamo/post-hardcore track. I like it more than I like most of what Kele Okereke has been releasing lately.

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  11. Close-up detail of the Raspberry Pi Foundation logo on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B single-board computer

    Enlarge / The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B isn't in-stock at any official Pi resellers as of this writing. (credit: Getty Images)

    There will be a 1 million unit stock of Raspberry Pi products available in the month of July and every month onward until consumer backlogs are cleared, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton told hobbyists in a recent community newsletter.

    As reported by Tom's Hardware on Thursday, the newsletter, said to be an "update from Eben" (screenshot via Tom's Hardware here), promises to assuage customer demand after small businesses were favored over individual consumers during the pandemic-fueled silicon shortage.

    Upton's message reportedly reads:

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  12. The inner display of the Oppo Find N2.

    Enlarge / The inner display of the Oppo Find N2. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

    One of the more interesting designs we've seen in the wild world of foldable smartphones comes from the Oppo Find N2. Its unique form factor and construction make it the lightest tablet-style foldable on the market, and it manages to have one of the least-noticeable creases of any foldable device.

    While the phone is not shipping in the US, Oppo's sub-brand OnePlus shares a lot of parts and software with the company, so we may see something similar here someday. But the limited distribution isn't a huge loss, as Android is kind of a disaster on devices of this size. The device clearly needs to show something other than a phone UI on the big interior screen, but Android boots into a phone UI anyway. This means the bigger screen often presents a worse user experience because Android doesn't know what to do with it.

    The phone also reveals Android's dark secret: Even if you dig into the developer settings and force everything to act as a tablet app, those apps don't look good on foldables, either. Google's tablet resurrection plans revolve around ultrawide 16:10 tablets, and those interfaces are cramped on the smaller square displays of foldables. Apps built for tablets are just not good enough for foldables.

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  13. spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-sound

    The rap super-producer Metro Boomin curated a soundtrack for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, the animated feature that hits theaters this weekend. It’s a sequel to the very popular 2018 film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse — that movie also had a star-studded soundtrack, and it resulted in a Billboard #1 hit in Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower.”

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  14. the-weeknd-popular-madonna-playboi-carti

    The first episode of The Idol — the controversial new show co-starring the Weeknd — airs on HBO this Sunday, after getting some very negative reviews when it premiered during the Cannes Film Festival last month. Given the music talent involved — in addition to the Weeknd, it’ll include appearances from Troye Sivan, Moses Sumney, and more — and the show’s music industry setting, it makes sense that it would have an accompanying soundtrack.

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  15. AMENFINAL-1685674529.jpg

    Here’s a fascinating and unexpected collab: Sheffield screamers Bring Me The Horizon have surprise-released a new song, “AmEN!,” and it features Lil Uzi Vert (fresh off of his “Misery Business” duet with Paramore) and Daryl Palumbo of post-hardcore greats Glassjaw. Bring Me The Horizon also gave “AmEN!” its live debut today at their tour opener at Papp László Sportaréna in Budapest.

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