Weekend tech reading: Why tech support sucks, how WASD became standard, iOS 10 previewed

Why tech support is (purposely) unbearable You may consider yourself even-keeled, the kind of person who is unflappable when those around you are losing their cool. But all that goes out the window when you call tech support. Then you fume. Your face turns red. You shout things into the phone that would appall your mother. It's called tech support rage. And you are not alone. The NY Times

Inside ULA's plan to have 1,000 people working in space by 2045 A major American launch provider has outlined a plan that the company says will help enable a space economy based on refueling spacecraft in Earth orbit. Dubbed the "Cislunar 1,000 Vision," the initiative foresees a self-sustaining economy that supports 1,000 people living and working in Earth-moon space roughly 30 years from now. Space.com

Installation media and supportability of i386 in 18.04 LTS Re: Ubuntu Desktop on i386 Between now and 2018, it would be logical to limit amount of new installations of i386, because cross-grading between i386->amd64 is not something we can reliably ship. We must continue provide the i386 port, to support multiarch and 3rd party legacy application that are only available as i386 binaries. Building i386 images is not "for free", it comes at the cost of utilizing our build farm, QA and validation time. Ubuntu

MIT's Swarm chip architecture boosts multi-core CPUs For nearly 10 years, computer processors have been getting faster by using multiple cores rather than raising their individual speeds. This measure makes our PCs and smartphones more power-efficient, but also makes it much trickier to write programs that take full advantage of their hardware. Swarm, a new chip design developed at MIT, could now come to the rescue and unleash the full power of parallel processing for up to 75-fold speedups, while requiring programmers to write a fraction of the code. Gizmag

The great tablet gold rush is over Last week, Dell announced it will no longer sell Android tablets and will focus on developing Windows-powered 2-in-1 machines – a category that includes the Microsoft Surface and Lenovo Yoga – instead. "The slate tablet market is over-saturated and is experiencing declining demand from consumers, so we've decided to discontinue the Android-based Venue tablet line," a Dell spokesman told PCWorld. Mashable

Putin signs controversial anti-terror measures into law Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a package of controversial anti-terror amendments dubbed "Big Brother" measures by critics that may cost internet companies billions. The measures, posted online Thursday by the government, boost the surveillance powers for the security services by requiring communication providers to store users' calls, messages, photographs and videos for six months, as well as metadata for up to three years. AFP

How WASD became the standard PC control scheme WASD feels inevitable today. Once mouse look became standard in 3D games, it made little sense (at least for right-handed players) to hold your left arm across your chest to reach the arrow keys. The WASD keys were more comfortable, and offered easy access to Shift and Space. But even though WASD seems like the obvious choice now, far fewer players used it 20 years ago. PC Gamer

Tissue-engineered soft robot swims like a stingray We're about to enter a new age in robotics. Forget the servos, the microcontrollers, the H-bridges and the steppers. Start thinking in terms of optogenetically engineered myocytes, microfabricated gold endoskeletons, and hydrodynamically optimized elastomeric skins, because all of these have now come together in a tissue-engineered swimming robotic stingray that pushes the boundary between machine and life. Hackaday

iOS 10 preview: Apple goes back to ignoring the iPad in a wide-ranging update I've spent most of the last six months buying a house, so you'll need to forgive me if I have houses and house metaphors on the brain. I've found them helpful while trying to nail down iOS 10. Imagine iOS 6 as a fundamentally solid house in need of some major remodeling. iOS 7 was largely a cosmetic update, putting on some new siding (or maybe a nice brick façade) and giving all the rooms a nice paint job. Ars Technica

The evolution of HDDs in the near future: Speaking with Seagate CTO, Mark Re In the recent months, Seagate has made several significant announcements regarding the future of HDD technology and unveiled a number of important products. In particular, late last year the company has said that hard disk drives would continue to evolve in the following 20 years, implying that Seagate is exploring multiple technologies to improve capacities and performance of HDDs. AnandTech

How to survive indiepocalypse in 5 easy steps It's gotten so crowded that some people started thinking that the End has to be nigh for surely God, who sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross to redeem mankind, won't tolerate this hipster plague much longer and will wipe the slate clean sooner or later. So while we're waiting for the Grand Finale, I might as well share my thoughts in hope that some people would find it useful. Iron Tower Studio

Thieves go high-tech to steal cars Police and car insurers say thieves are using laptop computers to hack into late-model cars' electronic ignitions to steal the vehicles, raising alarms about the auto industry's greater use of computer controls. The discovery follows a recent incident in Houston in which a pair of car thieves were caught on camera using a laptop to start a 2010 Jeep Wrangler and steal it from the owner's driveway. The WSJ

Is virtual reality for our own memories really such a great idea? Virtual reality has been the talk of the entertainment industry for the last couple of years, as the TV, film, gaming, and social media worlds all look to immersive experiences as the next advancement in digital experiences. But while big budget productions will rake in millions in the coming years, the on-the-ground presence of virtual reality will be about more than studios... The Daily Beast

The changing face of game demos Over the past three or four console generations, there have been massive developments, both inside the video game industry and outside of it, that change the ways we consume our video games. Vast leaps in internet technology have made many game purchases entirely digital, cutting retailers and physical media out of the picture entirely. Fanpup