March 2016 – Page 117 – news.buyenne.com

The Town of Light review: A grim and unblinking psychological horror

An admirable exploration of mental health issues, just don’t expect much action.

There are times when the horror video game genre still feels like it's in its infancy, a clichéd mix of jump scares, shambling horrors, and gore-soaked scenery that should have long been buried. Sure, we all love the bloody dogs that leapt headfirst through a window in Resident Evil, and how we were forced to dive into a closet to hide from Silent Hill 2's ever-disturbing Pyramid Head, but the world has moved on. People have moved on. Isn't time the horror genre did too?

That's not say there haven't been some horror classics of late—the terrifying P.T. demo and the, uh, "quirky" Deadly Premonition spring to mind—but horror games that continue to disturb once the end credits role are a rarity, not a standard. First-person adventure The Town of Light takes a brave, if under-realised, stab at presenting a fresh examination of what constitutes horror. The demons, zombies, and severed limbs so beloved of horror games—which are so overused as to have lost all impact—are discarded in favour of showing the grisly abuse, torture, and subjugation human beings are capable of inflicting on one another.

After all, we know the likes of brain-dead zombies and demonic horrors aren't real (right?). But human beings? They're something we can all be afraid of.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Unuiga S905 is a mini desktop with Remix OS, ARM CPU (crowdfunding)

Jide’s Remix Mini isn’t the only cheap mini-desktop computer that runs Jide’s Android-based, desktop-style operating system. The Unuiga S905 is a similar device with a 64-bit ARM-based processor, Remix OS 2.0 software, and a starting price of $25… for the first 100 people to back the project’s crowdfunding campaign. There’s on small catch though: shipping costs […]

Unuiga S905 is a mini desktop with Remix OS, ARM CPU (crowdfunding) is a post from: Liliputing

Updated satellite data shows more warming

Data beloved by “skeptics” show February as the warmest month in satellite records.

(credit: NOAA NESDIS Environmental Visualization Laboratory)

As the pace of warming has shot up, politicians have responded in part by casting doubt on the global temperature data. They've argued we should ignore surface datasets and pay attention to satellite measurements of the upper atmosphere, which just happen to show a little less warming in recent years. The work that goes into maintaining all of these datasets is pretty complex—enough so that we recently dedicated about 5,000 words to the subject.

One of the people we talked to for that story was Carl Mears, who helps run one of the major satellite datasets of upper air temperatures. Mears explained the calibrations and corrections that go into that dataset and frankly discussed the uncertainties surrounding it. Overall, he felt that the uncertainties of the satellites' data were greater than those for surface datasets like those run by NASA and the UK Met Office.

Building on analysis of that uncertainty, Mears and his colleague Frank Wentz have published a paper describing an update to their dataset—one that ends up increasing the warming trend significantly.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

“Out poked two antennae”—crafting an insect-based dinner party

It’s an evening of entomology—cooking, eating, and trying to understand an insect diet.

This is the same feeling all those Blue Apron customers get, right?

Update: It's Thanksgiving in the US, meaning most Ars staffers are working on mashed potatoes and only mashed potatoes today. With folks off for the holiday, we're resurfacing this culinary classic from the archives—a look at a true evening of entomological entertaining. This story first ran in May 2016, and it appears unchanged below.

The boxes at my door were plastered with red drawings of bugs and the blunt warning: “Live Insects.” I could hear audible scratching and shuffling—and even what I thought was an errant “chirp”—as I placed them on my kitchen counter.

I slowly opened the first lid. Out poked two antennae, followed by the head of a cricket. I lifted the lid higher and saw dozens of them hopping around. Inside the second box, a thousand mealworms wriggled over an egg crate.

Read 70 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Google extends right-to-be-forgotten rules to all search sites

That includes Google.com for the first time—blocked via geolocation data.

(credit: Shutterstock)

Google has responded to European Union data watchdogs by expanding its right-to-be-forgotten rules to apply to its search websites across the globe.

In 2014, search engines were ordered by Europe's top court to scrub certain listings on their indexes. Google—which commands roughly 90 percent of the search market in the EU—claimed at the time that such measures amounted to censorship of the Internet.

However, the landmark European Court of Justice ruling in fact stated that search engines were required to remove links that are old, out of date or irrelevant, and—most significantly of all—not found to be in the public interest.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Malware: Interne Dokumente geben Aufschluss über Bundestagshack

Das Linux-Magazin und Netzpolitik.org decken Hintergründe zum Bundestagshack im vergangenen Jahr auf. Die deuten nicht unbedingt auf hochkarätige Angreifer, sondern vielmehr auf schwere Versäumnisse hin. (Bundestags-Hack, Server)

Verbraucherzentrale: Telefone aus 80ern immer noch auf Telekom-Rechnungen

Eine Verbraucherzentrale findet noch immer jahrzehntealte Telefone auf Rechnungen der Deutschen Telekom. Mit der Umstellung auf IP-Telefonie sind die Apparate nicht mehr nutzbar. (Telekom, VoIP)

“Disgusted” Member of Parliament Intervenes in Internet Piracy Case

A Member of Parliament has intervened after an 83-year-old grandmother was accused of illegally downloading the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep and hit with a demand for £600. Ian Austin MP has called on the UK Business Secretary to safeguard consumers from copyright trolls and will also raise the matter in Parliament.

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

TCYK LLP is a US-based company set up to turn Internet piracy of the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep into profit by tracking down alleged downloaders of the movie and sending them demands for cash.

After taking their case to the High Court in 2014, TCYK LLP were granted an order which forced ISP Sky to hand over the names and addresses of subscribers alleged to have downloaded and shared the movie without permission.

Last summer the first Sky customers began receiving letters from TCYK, which first laid out the company’s case and then asked for hundreds of pounds to make supposed lawsuits go away.

To those familiar with these cases it will come as no surprise that TCYK eventually screwed up. With nothing but a flimsy IP address and a time stamp for evidence they accused 83-year-old Sky customer Patricia Drew of being an Internet pirate.

“I’m upset to have been accused of something I didn’t do… how many other people has this happened to?” she said last month.

While many thousands of other individuals have been targeted in similar action in the UK, there’s nothing like picking on the elderly to enrage the public. As a result (and thanks to TCYK’s scattergun approach) they’ve now attracted the attention of Ms Drew’s local Member of Parliament.

Ian Austin is the MP for Dudley North and he says he is disgusted that the pensioner is being “bullied and hounded” for compensation.

“This company has made a ludicrous allegation,” Austin told Express and Star.

Ratcheting up the pressure, the MP says that he has written to Business Secretary Sajid Javid calling for action to safeguard consumers like Patricia.

“I am waiting to hear from the Business Secretary to see what action the Government plan to take on this disgraceful behavior.”

Ian Austin says he will also raise the matter in Parliament and if he keeps to his word this will be yet another occasion that so-called “copyright trolls” have attracted the attention of Parliament and indeed the House of Lords.

In 2010, Lord Lucas slammed the activities of now-defunct copyright troll firm ACS:Law as “straightforward legal blackmail” while demanding that something be done to ensure that citizens’ personal details were not given out to similar companies “willy-nilly”.

Nevertheless, five years on and little has changed, except the way these companies operate. Instead of having regulated and accountable law firms front and center, companies like TCYK are now writing to Internet subscribers themselves or via companies operating out of virtual offices. This means that people in Patricia Drew’s position have no Solicitors Regulatory Authority to turn to when things get ugly.

“It is clearly a loophole in the law that allows them to behave like this. The only way this will stop is if our lawmakers step in and take action,” says Dave Drew, Patricia’s son.

“My mother is stunned by what is going on but there is no way we will be paying up.”

Although companies like TCYK threaten legal action for anyone that refuses to pay their ‘fines’, not once has a contested case ever gone to court in the UK. With the heat now being applied to Patricia Drew’s case, there is almost zero change that TCYK will pursue her case further.

The entire business model of these companies centers around quick settlements for relatively large sums of money and thus far Patricia’s case is not only yielding no profit but is likely to result in even fewer people caving in to TCYK’s demands.

It will be very interesting to hear what Ian Austin MP comes back with from Parliament and whether anything can be done to stop the wave of troll-style lawsuits in the UK.

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

Steal This Show S01E07: Did P2P Break the Law?

Today we bring you the seventh episode of the Steal This Show podcast, discussing the latest file-sharing and copyright news. In this episode we talk with the Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Engine’s Evan Engstrom.

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

steal240 This episode we are joined by Mike Masnick – CEO & Editor of Techdirt, and Evan Engstrom, Executive Director of Engine.

This episode we discuss the extraordinary growth of academic filesharing site SciHub, the new Zeronet distributed torrent application Play, and yet another comeback from Popcorn Time.

In addition, we talk about the plague of DMCA takedown notices afflicting YouTube creators and why the law might not survive the acceleration of the digital media landscape… in its present form.

—

Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guess: Mike Masnick and Evan Engstrom.

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Eric Bouthiller
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

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

Cortex Gamecaster: Razer veröffentlicht Let’s-Play-Software

Auch Einsteiger sollen mit der für Gamer und Let’s Player gedachten Livestreaming-Software Cortex Gamecaster klarkommen. Nach längerem Betatest hat Razer nun eine kostenlose und eine Profiversion der Software veröffentlicht. (Streaming, ARM)

Auch Einsteiger sollen mit der für Gamer und Let's Player gedachten Livestreaming-Software Cortex Gamecaster klarkommen. Nach längerem Betatest hat Razer nun eine kostenlose und eine Profiversion der Software veröffentlicht. (Streaming, ARM)