Month: June 2016

Catching up with the guy who stole Half-Life 2’s source code, 10 years later

From Death by Video Game: can you love a game so much you must take its sequel?

(credit: Valve)

At 6am on May 7, 2004, Axel Gembe awoke in the small German town of Schönau im Schwarzwald to find his bed surrounded by police officers bearing automatic weapons.

One officer barked: "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard." Gembe knew why they were there. But, bleary-eyed, he asked anyway.

"You are being charged with hacking into Valve Corporation's network, stealing the video game Half-Life 2 , leaking it onto the Internet, and causing damages in excess of $250 million," came the reply. "Get dressed."

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When everything else fails, amateur radio will still be there—and thriving

Ham is now a full-fat fabric that can provide Internet access. Why aren’t you using it?

(credit: Getty Images)

It’s a good time to be technical. Maker communities are thriving around the world, tools and materials to create and adapt are cheaper and more powerful now than ever, and open source hardware, software, and information mean that if you can think it, you can learn how to do it and then make it happen.

For one group of technological explorers, this is more than just a golden age of opportunity: it’s providing the means to save one of the oldest traditions in electronic invention and self-education, one that helped shape the modern world: amateur radio. That matters.

Radio amateurs get a sweet deal, with effectively free access to many gigahertz of the same radio spectrum that companies pay billions for. They’ve earned it. Throughout the history of electronics, they’ve been at the borders of the possible, trying out ideas that commerce or government deem impossible or pointless—and making them work. One example of hundreds: Allied military comms in World War II needed a way to reliably control the radios used by front-line forces, replacing tuning knobs with channel switches. Hams had the answer ready and waiting: quartz crystal oscillators. (That's part of computing history too—you’re probably using about ten of them right now.).

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Webhosting: Deutsche Telekom will Host Europe übernehmen

Die Deutsche Telekom will offenbar den Hosting-Anbieter Host Europe übernehmen. Ein Kaufpreis von 1,7 Milliarden Euro soll im Gespräch sein. Für den deutschen Markt könnte die Übernahme drastische Konsequenzen haben, auch höhere Preise für Kunden. (Telekom, Internet)

Die Deutsche Telekom will offenbar den Hosting-Anbieter Host Europe übernehmen. Ein Kaufpreis von 1,7 Milliarden Euro soll im Gespräch sein. Für den deutschen Markt könnte die Übernahme drastische Konsequenzen haben, auch höhere Preise für Kunden. (Telekom, Internet)

Aston Martin AM-RB 001: Supersportwagen Project Nebula soll nur 99 Mal erscheinen

Der AM-RB 001 soll der schnellste Seriensportwagen der Welt werden. Jetzt sind erste Details zu Project Nebula von Aston Martin aufgetaucht, mit denen der Autobauer den Bugatti Chiron schlagen will. Eventuell wird es ein Hybrid-Fahrzeug mit Technik aus…

Der AM-RB 001 soll der schnellste Seriensportwagen der Welt werden. Jetzt sind erste Details zu Project Nebula von Aston Martin aufgetaucht, mit denen der Autobauer den Bugatti Chiron schlagen will. Eventuell wird es ein Hybrid-Fahrzeug mit Technik aus der Formel 1. (Le Mans, Technologie)

Android auf dem Desktop: Android-x86-Gründer wird Technikchef von Remix OS

Der Gründer von Android-x86 ist der neue Technikchef von Remix OS. Damit wird die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Android-x86-Projekt und Jide weiter intensiviert. Auch soll Android auf dem Desktop vorangetrieben werden. (Remix OS, Android)

Der Gründer von Android-x86 ist der neue Technikchef von Remix OS. Damit wird die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Android-x86-Projekt und Jide weiter intensiviert. Auch soll Android auf dem Desktop vorangetrieben werden. (Remix OS, Android)

High IQ Countries Have Less Software Piracy, Research Finds

Researchers have found that software piracy is directly linked to intelligence on a national scale. Covering more than 100 countries, the study shows that software piracy rates are lower in more intelligent nations. However, that doesn’t mean that ‘dumb’ countries have no option to curb this trend.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

piratesdillemmaThere are hundreds of reasons why people may turn to piracy. A financial motive is often mentioned, as well as lacking legal alternatives.

A new study from a group of researchers now suggests that national intelligence can also be added to the list.

The researchers report their findings in a paper titled “Intelligence and Crime: A novel evidence for software piracy,” which offers some intriguing insights.

In a rather straightforward analysis, the research examines the link between national IQ scores and local software piracy rates, which are reported by the Business Software Alliance. As can be seen below, there’s a trend indicating that countries with a higher IQ have lower software rates.

“We find that intelligence has statistically significant negative impact on piracy rates,” the researchers confirm in their paper, drawing a causal conclusion.

National IQ and Piracy rates

piracyintelligenceiq

There are some notable outliers, such as China, where piracy rates and IQ are both relatively high. On the other end of the spectrum we find South Africa, with a low national IQ as well as low piracy rates.

The general trend, however, shows a direct relation between a country’s average IQ and the local software piracy rates.

“After controlling for the potential effect of outlier nations in the sample, software piracy rate declines by about 5.3 percentage points if national IQ increases by 10 points,” the researchers note.

To rule out the possibility that the link is caused by external factors, the researchers carried out robustness tests with various variables including the strength of IP enforcement, political factors, and economic development. However, even after these controls the link remained intact.

Luckily for copyright holders, ‘dumb’ countries are not ‘doomed’ by definition. If the ruling elite is smart enough, they can still lower piracy rates.

“[The results] should not be taken as universal evidence that society with higher intelligent quotient is a requirement to alleviate software piracy,” the researchers write.

“Our findings indicate that if ruling elite enforces policies to decrease software piracy, intelligence provides a credible proxy of the degree of consent of such policies.”

Interestingly, if these results hold up, with a bit of luck software piracy may solve itself in the long run.

Previous research found that software piracy increases literacy in African countries, which may in turn raise the national IQ, which will then lower piracy rates. Or… will that lower literacy again?

The full paper is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Mali Egil: ARMs Video-Kern unterstützt HDR-Videos auf Smartphones

Decoding und Encoding von HEVC- sowie VP9-codierten Inhalten mit 10 Bit Farbtiefe: ARMs neuer Mali-Videokern Egil unterstützt HDR und 4K-UHD-Videos mit 120 fps, gedacht ist er für Smartphone-Chips. (ARM, Instant Messenger)

Decoding und Encoding von HEVC- sowie VP9-codierten Inhalten mit 10 Bit Farbtiefe: ARMs neuer Mali-Videokern Egil unterstützt HDR und 4K-UHD-Videos mit 120 fps, gedacht ist er für Smartphone-Chips. (ARM, Instant Messenger)

Mobilfunk: Telefónica droht Bußgeld wegen überhöhter Roaming-Gebühren

Manche O2- und Base-Nutzer zahlen zu hohe Roaming-Gebühren. Davon geht die Bundesnetzagentur aus und will dem Mutterkonzern Telefónica Deutschland ein Zwangsgeld verordnen, damit die gesetzlichen Bestimmungen künftig eingehalten werden. (Telefónica, Verbraucherschutz)

Manche O2- und Base-Nutzer zahlen zu hohe Roaming-Gebühren. Davon geht die Bundesnetzagentur aus und will dem Mutterkonzern Telefónica Deutschland ein Zwangsgeld verordnen, damit die gesetzlichen Bestimmungen künftig eingehalten werden. (Telefónica, Verbraucherschutz)

Jeff Bezos finds the perfect Father’s Day gift: A New Shepard launch

Company opens up to let the world watch its experimental launch.

"Hey guys, do you think we can land with just two of those?" (credit: Blue Origin)

On Sunday morning, Blue Origin plans to continue pushing the capabilities of its New Shepard launch system, as well as the boundaries of the company's own transparency.

The company conducted the first two flights of New Shepard, which consists of a propulsion module and a capsule that can make a suborbital flight, in secret, only announcing the results afterward. During the third flight in April, founder Jeff Bezos announced the launch from west Texas in advance and live-tweeted its progress. Now for the vehicle's fourth flight, Blue Origin plans a webcast, set to begin at 9:45am ET, with liftoff planned for 10:15am ET (3:15pm UK time). The webcast will be embedded in this post when it's available.

The rocket company is also continuing to push the fault tolerances of its propulsion module and spacecraft. This time the primary objective is determining whether the crew vehicle can land with one of its three parachutes intentionally failing. "There are three strings of chutes, and two of the three should still deploy nominally and, along with our retrothrust system, safely land the capsule," Bezos explained in an e-mail. "Works on paper, and this test is designed to validate that."

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