Month: June 2016

Zwischen Microsoft und Opera ist ein Streit darum entbrannt, welcher Browser die längere Notebook-Akkulaufzeit schafft. Beide Unternehmen haben eigene Tests veröffentlicht, in denen ihre jeweiligen Browser am längsten durchhalten. (Browser, Opera)

In einem breiten Feldtest wurde nachgewiesen, dass bei der Computerreparatur betrogen wird, sobald der Kunde einen Versicherungsschutz besitzt. Die Rechnungen fallen um 80 Prozent höher aus. (Computer, Speichermedien)

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Google Fiber kauft erstmals ein Unternehmen zu. Webpass versorgt Häuserblocks mit Point-to-Point-Wireless-Verbindungen mit einer Datenrate bis zu 1 GBit/s. (Google Fiber, Google)

As a result of its attitudes towards copyright law, The Pirate Bay is without doubt the most blocked ‘pirate’ site in history.

The notorious torrent index is already the subject of blocking orders in many countries worldwide, and others such as Australia are queuing up to add their names to the growing list. But for many citizens of Austria, where the site was blocked last year, the trend has just been reversed.

Following legal action that had dragged on for years, last year the Commercial Court of Vienna finally ordered local ISPs to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.

In addition to TPB, the court order also required the Internet providers to block three other “structurally infringing” sites – Isohunt.to, 1337x.to and the now-defunct h33t.to. Soon after, local music rights group LSG sent its lawyers after several other large ISPs urging them to follow suit, or else.

But now, a year on, the blocks appear to be unraveling after the Vienna Higher Regional Court overruled the decision of the Commercial Court. The ruling, which was handed down May 30 but only just made public, means that the ISPs are free to unblock the previously blocked sites.

Text from the unpublished ruling sent to TorrentFreak by FutureZone.at sees the court reference a case from Germany which concluded that ISP blocks are only warranted if copyright holders have exhausted all their options to take action against those actually carrying out the infringement.

In a press release, Maximilian Schubert, Secretary General of industry group Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), welcomed the decision as “an important milestone” in the fight against entertainment industry blocking demands.

But despite the clearly uncertain legal waters and battles yet to be concluded, rightsholders still aren’t giving up.

ISPA reports that in the days following the judge’s decision yet more blocking requests arrived at several of the country’s ISPs. They contain demands to block streaming platforms movie4k.tv, movie.to, movie2k.pe and kinox.tv.

ISPA is not impressed with these calls and has criticized rightsholders for attempting to force ISPs into the “role of a judge” when deciding whether there’s indeed a sufficient basis for a block.

“A problem in this context is that the offending pages also have legal content and it is no longer possible to access that if barriers are put in place,” Schubert said.

In closing, Schubert also warned that rightsholders are unlikely to accept the decision and will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. Shortly after an appeal from the music industry was confirmed.

“The foundations for site blocking in Austria were clarified legally in a four-year procedure involving the European Court. In the present decision of the Vienna Higher Regional Court, we see the interests of artists and cultural producers ignored,” said IFPI CEO Franz Medwenitsch.

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

Amazon hat eine neue Generation des E-Book-Readers für Einsteiger aus der Kindle-Modellreihe vorgestellt. Das neue Modell hat ein verändertes Gehäuse und mehr Arbeitsspeicher - bei gleichem Preis. Außerdem erscheint der Kindle Paperwhite in einem weißen Gehäuse. (Kindle, E-Book)

Legal content is winning over piracy, at least according to Sandvine's latest Global Internet Phenomena report.

While Netflix continues to dominate both peak upstream and downstream traffic, the fastest growing bandwidth consumer was actually Amazon Video, one of Netflix's biggest rivals.

Moreover, BitTorrent usage continues to decline as a percentage of total web traffic, with legal sources such as Netflix, YouTube and even iTunes all having greater downstream peak traffic than the download method synonymous with piracy. 

Netflix's share of total peak traffic actually declined compared to the same report from 2015, down to 32.72% from 33.81%. This may be due to rivals increasing their market share, or may be due to the new bandwidth saving technologies now employed by Netflix.

Amazon Video's share of total traffic rose from 1.82% in 2015 to 3.96% in 2016, a significant rise for a service that's now available as a standalone product for the first time - it is now the third most popular video platform, behind Netflix and YouTube.

The report noted that as Hulu and HBO have more seasonal content (based on when new seasons of hit shows start and finish), the reported data for these services are subject to these seasonal changes.

Also new to the top 10 in the latest report is 'Xbox One Game Downloads', now the 9th most popular traffic source in peak times, rising above Facebook.

Grimsel sieht aus wie ein zu heiß gewaschenes Formel-1-Fahrzeug: Das gerade einmal 168 kg leichte und kleine Auto hat auf einem Militärflughafen in der Schweiz den Beschleunigungsweltrekord geknackt. In 1,513 Sekunden kam der kleine Elektrorenner aus dem Stand auf 100 km/h. (Elektroauto, GreenIT)

Europcar will neben Mietwagen weitere Mobilitätslösungen anbieten, darunter Carsharing und einen Taxiservice. Die Dienste stehen über die App Ubeeqo zur Verfügung. (Auto, Technologie)

Die große Koalition regelt den Einbau von elektronischen und vernetzten Stromzählern neu. Golem.de beantwortet die wichtigsten Fragen, die Verbraucher und Solaranlagenbetreiber betreffen. (Smart Grid, GreenIT)