TLDR 2018-11-19

Youtube is now showing about 100 full-length movies for free, including "Legally Blond", "Terminator", and "Rocky". The terms of Youtube's deal with Hollywood studios are undisclosed, but Youtube Director of Product Management Rohit Dhawan says that the selection is expected to expand, and that eventually advertisers could have a way to sponsor individual movies, and even offer complimentary views and exclusive screenings.

The same Russian outlet that leaked the Pixel 3 XL has now leaked photos of what it claims is the Pixel 3 Lite, a smaller, cheaper version of the Pixel 3. It is 5.56 inches just like the Pixel 3, but has an LCD screen instead of OLED. It has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage and a headphone jack on the top. It also has the exact same cameras as the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, which is awesome for a budget phone. The report says that the phone may cost around $400-500. There are photos in the article.

This is a big list of strings that can cause problems when inserted by users. Handy to check against if you're doing any sort of QA on a site that accepts text input from users.

The BJP, one of India's two major political parties currently controls the national parliament and most state assemblies. They have created a $71 million free-phone program in the state of Chhattisgarh that is supposed to bridge the digital divide by bringing basic smartphones and cell service to rural India. However, now the 2.9 million people who received free phones are being targeted by the BJP, who are using this database of phone numbers in a new get-out-the-vote effort. One anonymous BJP worker says "They are misusing state machinery for personal gains. When we are in the government and have done so well, why do we need to do this?" The phones come with a smiling image of Chhattisgarh's BJP state minister Raman Singh as the default background, causing some to nickname the program "Raman mobile".

This is a project that lets you revert back to the old Gmail layout before the recent redesign. The project includes not only the original CSS, but also a handy Chrome extension that will apply the CSS automatically.

Quantum physics has been verified to work on tiny scales but we aren't sure where the cutoff mark is for the microscopic quantum world and the more intuitive macroscopic world. For example we've never seen a quantum entangled planet or living organism. Until now! Scientists have managed to successfully entangle bacteria with photons, they used bacteria that do photosynthesis, and shot light at them in such a way that the bacteria's photosynthetic systems became entangled with the light. Essentially, certain photons were simultaneously hitting and missing photosynthetic molecules within the bacteria. One of the lead researchers wants to push further, saying "The long-term goals are foundational and fundamental. This is about understanding the nature of reality, and whether quantum effects have a utility in biological functions. At the root of things, everything is quantum."

Google has patented the idea to create a pair of shoes that lets you walk forever in place (basically they're like little conveyor belts that always carry you back to wherever you started, so you can "walk" without moving anywhere). The point is to allow for more immersive VR experiences, where you can walk around in virtual worlds without having to randomly walk around in the real world.