May 2016 – Page 21 – news.buyenne.com

Energous Mini WattUp wireless chargers could launch soon

Energous has big plans for wireless charging, including a system that could let you charge you devices from a charging station up to 15 feet away (or even use the same stations to power small gadgets that don’t even have built-in batteries).

But the company is starting a little smaller. I recently got a chance to check out a demo of the company’s Miniature WattUp transmitter, which is a wireless charging station that can transmit a signal for an inch or two.

Continue reading Energous Mini WattUp wireless chargers could launch soon at Liliputing.

ISPs and pay-TV lowest-rated industries, with Comcast worst in sector

Comcast ranks 289th out of 294 companies—and last in least-liked industry.

An annual customer experience survey of 10,000 US consumers has rated broadband service and pay-TV as the least-liked industries, with Comcast being the lowest-rated company among the Internet and TV providers.

"Of the 20 industries covered in the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, TV service and Internet service providers tied with healthcare providers for the lowest average ratings," the Temkin Group said yesterday. "These industries have been at the bottom of the ratings for the past four years, and their scores hit an all-time low this year. The poster child for poor customer experience in these industries—Comcast—was not only the lowest-scoring TV service and Internet service provider, but was also one of the lowest-scoring companies in the entire Ratings. It ranked 289th overall out of 294 companies for its TV service and ranked 284th overall for its Internet service."

The free report can be downloaded here. The ISP and pay-TV industries ranked just below auto dealers, airlines, major appliance vendors, and rental car agencies.

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MACHOs make a return with gravitational wave discovery

Researchers ask whether LIGO discovered both dark matter and gravitational waves.

An animation of the black hole in action.

Back in February, researchers at LIGO made the historic discovery of gravitational waves, predicted a century earlier. The waves were generated by a pair of black holes in their final in-spiral before an inevitable collision and merger.

Now, a group of researchers is investigating the possibility that the discovery may have been even more historic than we thought. Last week, Physical Review Letters published a paper titled “Did LIGO detect Dark Matter?” It explores the possibility that dark matter could really be black holes, such as the pair seen by LIGO, provided enough are distributed throughout the halos of galaxies. If so, in addition to finally observing the long-sought gravitational waves, we may have simultaneously discovered dark matter.

But we shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet. Black holes aren’t among the leading candidates for dark matter, and there are good reasons for that.

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Sprachassistent: Voßhoff will nicht mit Siri sprechen

Apples Sprachassistent Siri lauscht permanent auf Nutzeraufrufe. Deutschlands oberste Datenschützerin warnt daher vor einer “theoretischen Rund-um-die-Uhr-Überwachung”. (Datenschutz, Apple)

Apples Sprachassistent Siri lauscht permanent auf Nutzeraufrufe. Deutschlands oberste Datenschützerin warnt daher vor einer "theoretischen Rund-um-die-Uhr-Überwachung". (Datenschutz, Apple)

Deals of the Day (5-26-2016)

Looking for a cheap convertible notebook and don’t mind purchasing a model from a brand you’ve never heard from? Walmart has you covered.

The retailer is selling a 13.3 inch laptop called the Ultima 13.3″ convertible for $199. It has a touchscreen display and a 360 degree hinge that lets you fold the screen back fro use in tablet mode.

Sure, the 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage might limit the utility of the laptop, but the Intel Atom x5-Z8300 Cherry Trail processor is a bit better than the Bay Trail chips you’d normally expect to find in this type of device.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-26-2016) at Liliputing.

Looking for a cheap convertible notebook and don’t mind purchasing a model from a brand you’ve never heard from? Walmart has you covered.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-26-2016) at Liliputing.

FBI “In Latter Stages” of Prenda Law Copyright Troll Investigation

For years Prenda Law extracted millions of dollars in cash settlements from alleged BitTorrent pirates, leaving misery in its wake. The company itself is no more but for its former operators the show isn’t over yet. The FBI has already interviewed two Pirate Bay co-founders about an alleged Prenda honeypot and according to expert opinion, the investigation is now in its latter stages.

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

In an effort to turn piracy into profit, more than a decade ago enterprising groups centered around lawfirms decided that file-sharers were ripe for a shakedown. Tracking IP addresses back to their users, companies demanded settlements of hundreds to many thousands of dollars each, to make supposed lawsuits go away.

During the last 10 years many companies have gained infamy with this business model, but few stirred up as much hatred as Prenda Law. Prenda and its principals John Steele, Paul Hansmeier and Paul Duffy grabbed dozens of headlines, mostly surrounding negative court rulings which found the outfit to have engaged in everything from vexatious litigation through to identity theft, misrepresentation and even deception.

Underlying this deviant behavior was the disturbing fact that rather than simply monitoring pirates online, Prenda actually uploaded content itself in order to create pirate honeypots on The Pirate Bay and elsewhere, a practice that pushed the company well over the moral line.

Although now defunct, Prenda is still fresh in the minds of its many victims so news last year that the outfit was under investigation by the FBI was well-received. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Pirate Bay co-founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij confirmed that they had both been interviewed in prison by police acting on behalf of the FBI.

“They wanted to know if I could verify the accuracy of the IP-address logs, how they were stored, and how they could be retrieved,” Neij explained.

But since then another year has passed and memories of Prenda have continued to fade. Will the world’s most hated trolls ever be brought to criminal justice? Well, fresh news from Ken White at Popehat suggests that the FBI still have a keen interest in the case and could be close to their goal.

Operating out of its Minneapolis office, the FBI has continued to seek additional information about Prenda and has reportedly sent out a letter “on a large scale” to attorneys who have represented alleged file-sharers targeted by the law company.

Ken White says he has seen the document and it reveals that the FBI is investigating several entities connected to Prenda including Steele Hansmeier PLLC, LW Systems, Livewire Holdings, AF Holdings, Ingenuity13, and Guava LLC.

“The FBI has devoted substantial resources to soliciting victim impact in a systematic way, and based on its questions about availability to testify is contemplating prosecution,” White explains.

Noting that the letter has gone out in a fairly public fashion, While says he believes that the investigation is probably in its latter stages, with the FBI already in possession of the evidence it needs to prosecute a case of wire and/or mail fraud.

By contacting Prenda’s victims, White believes the FBI is attempting to establish the amount of damages to claim, which could be substantial.

“Bear in mind that under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the more money wrongdoers made, the more time they’re facing. Team Prenda needs federal criminal defense attorneys, and needs them right now,” he concludes.

News that the investigation into Prenda’s activities could be in its final stages will be well received by thousands of victims and the possibility of peering behind the curtain of one of the most hated troll outfits is certainly welcome. The cherry on the top would be a successful prosecution but that could be some time away yet.

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

It’s been over a decade since Valve first promised Half-Life 2: Episode 3

Franchise has now been in limbo longer than entire lives of fourth-graders.

Artist's conception of Valve's Gabe Newell finally putting us out of our misery.

Well what do you know? We were so busy playing and talking about Overwatch this week that we failed to note an important vaporware milestone on Tuesday. Just over ten years ago, on May 24, 2006, Valve first announced it was working on Half-Life 2: Episode 3, the final part "in a trilogy... that will conclude by Christmas 2007."

Back then, Valve even hinted at a standalone Episode 4, developed outside of Valve, which could be ready six to eight months after Episode 3. Pretty ambitious, eh?

Ten years... where does the time go? If you're Valve, it goes into a litany of broken timeline promises and continual stonewalling, as noted in this memorable video of quotes from Valve cofounder and Managing Director Gabe Newell regarding Episode 3 and the mythical Half-Life 3 (which was sort of first announced in 2007 but might as well be considered equally nonexistent at this point).

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Google’s making a list: Android OEMs to be ranked, shamed by update speed

Can Android update woes be solved by publicly calling out slow OEMs?

(credit: Ron Amadeo)

A report from Bloomberg claims that Google is going to take yet another swing at making manufacturers care about Android updates. This time the plan is apparently to "shame" OEMs into updating their devices.

Google has "drawn up lists that rank top phone makers by how up-to-date their handsets are, based on security patches and operating system versions" according to the report. Google has apparently shared this list with OEMs already and has "discussed making it public" in the hopes that OEMs will do better at updating their devices as a result.

This isn't the first time Google has tried to entice OEMs to update their devices. At Google I/O 2011, Google triumphantly announced the "Android Update Alliance," an agreement where Google and OEMs would work to ensure devices got 18 months of updates. A year later everyone promptly forgot about it, and it hasn't been mentioned since.

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Sailfish OS: Jolla bringt exklusives Smartphone nur für Entwickler

Exklusiv für seine Entwickler-Community stellt Jolla ein neues Smartphone mit seinem Betriebssystem Sailfish OS bereit. Das neue Gerät des angeschlagenen Herstellers ist auf 1.000 Stück limitiert und bereits fertiggestellt. (Jolla, 802.11n)

Billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hulk Hogan lawsuit to take down Gawker [Updated]

“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” Thiel says.

Peter Thiel takes Gawker Media down to the mat. (credit: JD Lasica)

UPDATE: Gawker responded Thursday afternoon, saying Silicon Valley needs a watchdog, and Gawker Media was the right outlet for the job.

"The refusal to engage in public relations or access journalism—the refusal to lubricate the flow of venture capital—is usually the mark of an outlet’s credibility. For Thiel and his peers in Silicon Valley, such a refusal amounts to repudiating their way of life," Gawker wrote.

END UPDATE:

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