When it comes to sorting students into the different houses in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it’s kind of two sides of the same coin in a strange way. Each house has particular characteristics that they value over everything else, but a student can be chosen for that house because they already fulfill those characteristics or they can be chosen because their personality is in direct opposition to those traits and they need an education in that particular house to bring those traits out in them....

Within the wizarding world of Harry Potter, there seem to be some near-universal truths. Voldemort is one of the most powerful but one of the worst wizard who ever lived. Albus Dumbledore is the greatest of all time. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the best magical education in the world. And no one wants to be in house Slytherin unless they’re the bad guys or proud, arrogant purebloods....

For Harry Potter fans, choosing a favorite Weasley could be as difficult as choosing a favorite child… especially if you throw in Weasleys from prequels or sequels, like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, or those who’ve married into the clan, like Fleur Delacour or Hermione Granger. Even sticking to the Weasleys we’ve met in the original Harry Potter works presents a difficult challenge. It’s much easier to rank them in terms of who they are as people, including contributions they’ve made to the wizarding world, their general importance and how they’ve treated everyone from family to friends....

AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson told investors yesterday that with smartphone penetration approaching 90 percent, the existing business model – where carriers sell highly-subsidized smartphones to drive demand – will have to change. Many U.S. iPhone buyers don’t realise the true cost of their handsets, as carrier subsidies mean they typically pay no more than $200. The full retail cost of those handsets, however, ranges from $549 for a 16GB iPhone 5c to $849 for a 64GB iPhone 5s....

Ghost in the Shell struggles to dig below the surface of its thought-provoking concepts and bring real depth to its striking visuals. Following a mysterious incident that leaves her physical body beyond repair, a woman (Scarlett Johansson) awakens to discover that her brain has been transplanted into a state-of-the-art cyborg body, courtesy of one Dr. Ouélet (Juliette Binoche) and Hanka Robotics: a company that specializes in cybernetic and artificial intelligence tech, in a world where most everyone has technological “enhancements” of some kind....

The God of War series is considered to be one of Sony’s flagship video game properties. Kratos has long been battling it out with Nathan Drake over who is going to be the Sony version of Mario. For a while there, it seemed as if Kratos had given up the fight. God of War III was a fitting conclusion to the series and it appeared that Kratos had finally hung up his blades and was ready to retire....

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is making his way around Asia, and he expanded on remarks made yesterday in Tokyo at the Korean launch of the Nexus 7 today. Schmidt said Apple “is actually a very good partner. Our two companies are literally talking all the time about everything.” However, he added, “With respect to Apple patents, the best thing we can tell there are plenty of prior arts and I don’t want to go beyond that…”...

Frankie Bergstein is the hippy-dippy burst of energy that makes Netflix’s Grace and Frankie the success that it is. As the former wife of Sol and best friend to Grace, Frankie is surrounded by people who love and adore her. Even her ex-husband couldn’t escape her charms and called her his soulmate, even though he’s in a new marriage. Frankie has this whimsical way about her that sucks the most none-suspecting of people into her arms, making them never want to leave....

In 2017, a duo of security specialists: Braden Thomas, former Apple security engineer, and Justin Fisher, senior research scientist at Endgame, formed a highly secretive company known as Grayshift. They began selling a box which promised to unlock any password-protected iPhone. At a cool $15,000 to $30,000 a pop, GrayKey boxes were generally exclusively marketed and sold to law enforcement agencies and police departments. These boxes assisted in gathering evidence previously left inaccessible behind the security pillars of Touch ID, Face ID and users’ passcodes....

Grey’s Anatomy is truly great. Aside from being able to convince pretty much every fan that they are now doctors after binge-watching the show, it also blessed us with a plethora of great characters, strong plot lines, and laugh-out-loud moments that are hard to forget. The show is also incredibly tragic, and we dare you to find a single fan out there who hasn’t shed a ton of tears over the course of the last few years....

HTB is an excellent platform that hosts machines belonging to multiple OSes. It also has some other challenges as well. Individuals have to solve the puzzle (simple enumeration plus pentest) in order to log into the platform and download the VPN pack to connect to the machines hosted on the HTB platform. Note: Only write-ups of retired HTB machines are allowed. The machine in this article, named Poison, is retired....

As we noted in a prior post, Apple has updated its Apple TV Remote app to version 1.1. This latest version, which comes on the same day as tvOS 10.2 and iOS 10.3, brings long-awaited iPad support to the table. Along with support for the iPad, the updated Apple TV Remote app features an enhanced Now Playing interface complete with support for lyrics and Up Next playlists for music, along with several other notable features....

Santa Monica Studio has recently released God of War Ragnarök as an action-adventure video game that has been developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment in November 2022. This title has already received plenty of positive reviews among players apart from several bugs or errors that most of the players are encountering on PS4/PS5. Meanwhile, the God of War Ragnarok not downloading issue becomes common. According to several reports by the affected God of War Ragnarok players, whenever they try downloading the title on the PlayStation console, the “Stuck on queued for copying” error appears on the screen....

Google has had a rather busy day so far with releasing new features and testing others before they’re ready for prime time, including updates to Google Calendar, the company’s Voice Search API, and the YouTube app. Material Design UI being test with Google Calendar on Desktop The Google Calendar app on iOS is the best way to access all of your meetings and events tied to your Google account while on the go, but if you want to view or edit events from your Mac, the experience is currently less than enjoyable....

The service should now be available in Greater Toronto, Montréal, Metro Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and other major Canadian cities. The data should be available in both the iPhone browser and the Maps application, starting from today. The company has also made a few tweaks in the overal usability of Street View, including inclusion of a “report a problem” link, through which users can report mistakes and inaccuracies, for example when a building has been knocked down or a name has changed....

Google Pixel 3 sets a high benchmark thanks to its camera prowess thanks to the high-end computational power that the device holds. Lately, iPhone 11 Pro & iPhone 11 Pro Max have scaled up in terms of their camera chops but the title won’t stay too long as Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL are arriving on October 15 at Made by Google event. Apparently, folks at 9to5Google got their hands on some of the promotional camera samples that they would be used to show during the release two weeks later....

Google has just released a HTML 5 optimized Music Beta player for iOS 4, announced via Twitter. Upon first launching the webpage, Google asks for the allowance of 25mb to be stored on your device. After, you are presented with a full run down of all of the artists you uploaded to the service. Once you have selected a preferred song, you are taken to a “Now Playing” page. Yes, if you haven’t realized already it works a lot like the music....

Google has updated its Google Wallet application for the iPhone with a few notable enhancements. First, like it has added to its other apps on iOS as of late, Google now allows single sign-on for Wallet. This means that if you are signed in via Google to YouTube, Gmail, Adsense, or other compatible Google apps, you can be automatically logged in to the Wallet app. More interestingly, you can now use your iPhone’s camera to capture the data from your debit card or credit card to connect it to the app....

Gossip Girl was a teen drama television series that focused on an attractive and affluent group on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. One of these characters was named Blair Waldorf, and she was the Queen B of this main group (or she at least liked to think so). From her signature headbands and preppy looks to her designer gowns and overall princess vibe, Blair certainly had many stylish outfits that stood out within this TV show—and, all these years later, most still do....

In an earlier groovyPost, I touched on the basics of Layers in Adobe Photoshop however there is so much more to talk about I figured I would do a follow-up post reviewing some of the more advanced features. Understanding how Layers work and being able to manipulate them is a key foundation in using Photoshop so if you have any questions or comments, please drop them below in the comments....