Month: April 2016

HTC lässt bei seinem neuen Smartphone das "One" weg, bei der Hardware wird allerdings nicht gespart - und auch bei der Software versucht der Hersteller, sich abzusetzen. Dass das reicht, um gegen die Konkurrenz zu bestehen, glauben wir nach dem Test aber nicht. (HTC 10, Smartphone)

In 2012, a combined effort by the United States and New Zealand governments brought Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload empire to its knees. Coordinated raids in multiple locations carried out by heavily armed officers ensured that a clear message was sent to copyright infringers.

But despite the overwhelming show of force, Dotcom refused to lie down and just a year later he launched a brand new file-hosting service. Known simply as ‘Mega’, the platform launched to great fanfare in 2013.

Mega quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the hosting market, with Dotcom promoting the platform at every turn. Nevertheless, controversy was never far away.

In September 2014, Mega was branded a “piracy haven” in a Digital Citizens Alliance report into the activities of “shadowy cyberlockers.”

As a direct consequence and under pressure from the U.S. government, in early 2015 PayPal stopped processing payments for Mega. There can be little doubt that hurt the site.

But behind the scenes other matters were becoming a distraction. In May 2015, Mega’s bid for a stock listing fell through and just two months later Dotcom’s earlier praise for the company turned sour.

“Mega has experienced a hostile takeover and is no longer in the control of people who care about Internet Freedom. The New Zealand Government and Hollywood have seized a significant share of the company,” Dotcom told TorrentFreak.

“The combined shares seized by the NZ government and Hollywood were significant enough to stop our listing on the New Zealand stock exchange.”

Dotcom had already resigned as a director of Mega in September 2013 but now he was publicly warning people against using the site.

Today Dotcom repeated those calls, warning users of Mega over what he sees as the precarious position of the company.

“Mega had to survive without a credit card payment processor for almost 2 years now. The air is getting thin. Backup your Mega files,” he told users via Twitter.

But while a lack of payment processing options certainly won’t be helping Mega, Dotcom sees more danger in the reported controller of Mega, Chinese national and New Zealand citizen Bill Liu.

Back in 2009, Liu made headlines when it was revealed that despite being wanted for fraud in China, he was granted citizenship in New Zealand. Now it’s been revealed by kiwi Prime Minister John Key that Liu is ranked number five on China’s “Top 100” extradition list.

“I haven’t seen the list, but there is a list,” Key said.

“They’ve also put out a list worldwide of the Top 100. Bill Liu is number five on it,” he said of the Chinese government.

New Zealand police have already seized millions of dollars of assets that are believed to belong to Liu, including some held in Mega, although Liu denies all wrong doing. Dotcom, however, remains unconvinced.

“The 5th most wanted criminal in China is in control of Mega and he wants to float the business in HK? Good luck,” he said this morning.

As these situations go, the short history of Mega is utterly unique. Never before has a platform in the file-sharing space had two entrepreneurs each worth millions of dollars being pursued for extradition by two of the world’s most powerful governments for entirely different reasons.

It’s currently very late evening in New Zealand so we’re not expecting an immediate response from Mega to our requests for comment. We’ll add them here as soon as they arrive.

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

Wer hat zuerst bei einem Test in Europa mit LTE 1 GBit/s übertragen? Die Swisscom sieht sich vorn, doch die Norweger waren schneller. Jetzt wurden weitere Details bekannt. (Mobilfunk, Ericsson)

Die Autoren dürfen sich freuen, die Verlage werten ein BGH-Urteil als "schweren Schlag". Der Buchhandel befürchtet nun Pleiten von kleinen Verlagen und fordert eine Gesetzesänderung. (Urheberabgabe, Urheberrecht)

Microsoft hat ein neues Insider Build von Windows 10 Mobile veröffentlicht. Damit können Textnachrichten vom Smartphone auf einem PC erscheinen und auch von dort beantwortet werden. Dafür müssen aber die passenden Voraussetzungen erfüllt werden. (Windows 10 Mobile, Smartphone)

Türen, Fenster, Infotainmentsystem: Tesla Motors hat offensichtlich Qualitätsprobleme beim Model X. 2.700 der Elektroautos mussten sogar in die Werkstatt - wegen eines Sicherheitsmangels an den Sitzen. (Tesla Motors, Technologie)

Langsam verschwinden die Spiele für Sonys Spielehandheld Playstation Vita aus dem stationären Handel, in den USA konnten wir schon leere Regale entdecken. Was übrigbleibt, ist der Weg, dem einst die PSP Go folgte und der bei Smartphone-Spielen Standard ist: Downloads. (PS Vita, Sony)

Sony hat einst als einer der ersten Hersteller OLED-Monitore auf den Markt gebracht - und sich dann zurückgezogen. Im Profibereich ist das anders: Das Unternehmen bringt einen 55 Zoll großen 4K-Fernseher mit der Displaytechnik auf den Markt. (Sony, Display)

The producer behind The Expendables franchise has lashed out at President Obama for failing to take on Google and forcing the search engine to do more on piracy, and has asked for "jail" or "penalties" for those not helping Hollywood to fight piracy.

Avi Lerner, who is also the executive producer behind the recently released film 'London Has Fallen', was speaking a gala held in his honor and expressed anger towards the White House and Congress for failing to tackle the piracy problem. Specifically, Lerner accuses the government of being too scared of Google to force the search engine to stop piracy.

Lerner is particularly sensitive to the issue of piracy due to the pre-release piracy of his film, The Expendables 3. Up to 10 million downloads occurred before the film's actual release date, something that Lerner says resulted in $250 million in lost revenue. The previous movie in the franchise, The Expendables 2, made $312 million at the box office, while the third film in the series only made $209 million.

"It's a major problem and it's something that I don't know if anyone can stop, because the government, the president, Congress are all scared of Google," said Lerner, before adding, "They should tell Google to stop piracy. They should make a law that anyone helping piracy — and not helping to stop piracy — should go to jail or get penalised or whatever."

"The government, the president, is such a coward. He's scared of Google so we are losing millions," said Lerner.

Google already removes almost 91 million piracy related results from its database every month, and has been using a new algorithm that demotes piracy sites from the search rankings since 2014.

Die Bürotemperatur messen und ins Internet übertragen - das geht mit ein wenig Code, preiswerten Bauelementen und dem Arduino oder Genuino. Wir zeigen, wie es funktioniert. (Anleitung, Server)