Month: December 2015

(credit: HBO)

Game of Thrones was illegally downloaded more than 14 million times in 2015, according to TorrentFreak's annual compilation of the most-pirated television shows.

It's the fourth year in a row that the HBO show has sat atop the most-pirated chart. TorrentFreak estimates that episodes of the show were downloaded 14.4 million times during the year, more than twice as many as the number two contender, AMC's zombie thriller The Walking Dead, which had 6.9 million downloads. In third place is CBS' Big Bang Theory, downloaded 4.4 million times.

The numbers suggest the GoT audience watching via piracy may be substantially larger than the show's US television audience, which is estimated at 8.1 million.

(credit: Sanofi Pasteur/Flickr)

At this point, it’s well documented that affluent, educated white communities are behind the surge in unvaccinated kids—and by extension the increase in vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and whooping cough (pertussis). But there are few studies that dig into the detailed demographics of those unprotected younglings, leaving health experts at a loss for how to target strategies to combat anti-vaccination myths and fears in the specific groups that need it most.

Some help may come in the form of a new analysis of Californian kindergarteners who obtained personal belief exemptions (PBE) from vaccination between 2007 and 2013. Researchers found, as expected, that those kids were most likely to be white, come from high-income homes, and were frequently enrolled in private school. Although kids in this group tend to have parents with lots of schooling, high-education levels among family did not independently track with the rise in vaccine opt-outs.

“Our results call into question the reported link between high-PBE communities and higher average educational attainment,” the study's authors concluded. These findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health, suggest that sharing more scientific data on vaccine safety and the consequences of vaccine-preventable illnesses may not be enough to combat anti-vaccination trends.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, the Dealmaster is back with a bevy of post-Christmas deals.

The top item today is an APC 1000VA uninterruptible power supply. It retails for $119.99, but for you, it's only $94.99. If the weather outside gets a little too frightful this winter, this thing could save your data in the event of a power outage. We've got the UPS and a bunch more deals below. Hopefully you'll be able to stretch those gift cards a little further this year.

• APC BR1000G Back-UPS Pro 1000VA / 600W 8-Outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply for $94.99 (list price $119.99)
• Dell Optiplex 9020 Micro Intel Core i7-4785t Quad-Core Mini Desktop w/ 128GB SSD & 8GB RAM for $781.21 (use codes 100BIZDEAL and SAVE35%DEC - list price $1,356)
• TurboTax 2015 Deluxe + State + eFile Digital Download Tax Prep Software for $39.99 (list price $59.99)
• 75% off any Amazon Instant Video Rental with Code: MOVIE75OFF (to use, click "MORE PURCHASE OPTIONS" and then "Redeem a gift card or promotion code")
• Philip Wake-Up Light w/ Colored Sunrise Simulation for $114.99 (list price $139.99)
• QNAP 4-Bay TS-451 NAS Storage w/ Intel Celeron 2Ghz Quad-core & 2GB RAM for $459 (2-Bay for $339)
• $100 eBay Gift Card for $95 (list price $100)

Laptops & Tablets

TSA screening passengers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (credit: danfinkelstein)

The citizens of several US states may soon find that they can't use their drivers' licenses to get into federal facilities or even board planes.

Enforcement of a 2005 federal law that sets identification standards, known as "Real ID," has been long-delayed. But now Department of Homeland Security officials say enforcement is imminent. The "Real ID" law requires states to implement certain security features before they issue IDs and verify the legal residency of anyone to whom they issue an ID card. The statute is in part a response to the suggestion of the 9/11 Commission, which noted that four of the 19 hijackers used state-issued ID cards to board planes.

Real ID also requires states to share their databases of driver information with other states. The information-sharing provisions are a big reason why some privacy groups opposed the law, saying it would effectively be the equivalent of a national identification card.

Not all that long ago, you used to be able to make a list of the year’s best games, confident that those titles would remain relatively static as time went on. That’s not the case anymore. With downloadable content becoming the norm rather than the exception, some of the best games of 2015 actually came out in previous years and were merely updated with intriguing new content this year.

That being the case, we thought it was worth augmenting our official Game of the Year picks for 2015 with this list of four titles that were much improved by downloadable updates during the last 12 months.

Mario Kart 8: DLC tracks and 200cc mode

In a dream world, Mario Kart’s next incarnation would be its last. We don’t want the series to end, per se; we just want it to relaunch as an endless, game-as-a-service title, with semi-annual tweaks and regular releases of new level and character packs.