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Electric vehicle startup Rivian announced on Thursday that it has settled a lawsuit with some of its investors. The company continues to deny allegations of making “materially untrue” statements during its inial public offering but says it agreed to pay $250 million to clear itself of distractions as it focuses on building its next EV, the mass-market R2, which is due next year.

Rivian was first sued by a shareholder in 2022 over claims that the startup knew it would cost far more for it to build each R1T electric truck and R1S electric SUV than the advertised $67,500 and $70,000 prices, respectively. A big surprise price increase would tarnish the nascent automaker’s reputation, the lawsuit claimed, and could lead to many of the almost 56,000 pre-orders being canceled.

Just a few months after its November 2021 IPO, the company had indeed issued a hefty price hike: $79,500 for the R1T and $84,500 for the R1S SUV. After an outcry, the company said it would honor the original price for its existing preorders. By that point, though, the damage was done, and more than a third of the company’s value was erased within a few days, the lawsuit alleged.

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There are three species of bats that eat birds. We know that because we have found feathers and other avian remains in their feces. What we didn’t know was how exactly they hunt birds, which are quite a bit heavier, faster, and stronger than the insects bats usually dine on.

To find out, Elena Tena, a biologist at Doñana Biological Station in Seville, Spain, and her colleagues attached ultra-light sensors to Nyctalus Iasiopterus, the largest bats in Europe. What they found was jaw-droppingly brutal.

Inconspicuous interceptors

Nyctalus Iasiopterus, otherwise known as greater noctule bats, have a wingspan of about 45 centimeters. They have reddish-brown or chestnut fur with a slightly paler underside, and usually weigh around 40 to 60 grams. Despite that minimal weight, they are the largest of the three bat species known to eat birds, so the key challenge in getting a glimpse into the way they hunt was finding sensors light enough to not impede the bats’ flight.

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Die smarte Govee Deckenleuchte mit 16 Millionen Farben, Alexa-Steuerung und Musikmodus ist auf Amazon zum bisherigen Tiefstpreis verfügbar. (Smart Home, LED)

In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte led a disastrous military campaign into Moscow. The death toll was devastating: Out of some 615,000 men, only about 110,000 survivors returned. (Napoleon abandoned his army in early December to return home on a sled.) Roughly 100,000 of the casualties died in battle, while as many as 300,000 perished from a combination of the bitter cold of Russia’s notoriously harsh winter, starvation, and disease.

Scholars have debated precisely what kinds of diseases ravaged Napoleon’s troops. New DNA analysis of some soldiers’ remains has revealed the presence of two pathogens in particular, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The first is Salmonella enterica, which causes paratyphoid fever; the second is Borrelia recurrentis, which is transmitted by body lice and causes relapsing fever. (A preprint of the paper appeared on bioaRxiv in July.)

“It’s very exciting to use a technology we have today to detect and diagnose something that was buried for 200 years,” said co-author Nicolás Rascovan of the Institut Pasteur. “Accessing the genomic data of the pathogens that circulated in historical populations helps us to understand how infectious diseases evolved, spread, and disappeared over time and to identify the social or environmental contexts that played a part in these developments. This information provides us with valuable insights to better understand and tackle infectious diseases today.”

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European football association UEFA was founded in 1954 to protect the interests of European football, particularly within the global FIFA body.

During the early years its powers were rather limited. UEFA was mostly an administrative union, consisting of three employees who issued non-binding recommendations to member associations.

In 1955, less than a year after UEFA was formed, journalists of the French newspaper L’Équipe proposed the launch of a European club championship. UEFA was initially hesitant to adopt the idea but eventually moved the project ahead.

The resulting European Cup was commercialized as the UEFA Champions League in 1992. This is widely recognized as the most prestigious club prize in football and with billions of euros in annual revenues, it’s also serious business.

UEFA Joins Anti-Piracy Coalition ACE

With this much money on the line, UEFA has a vested interest in protecting the competition from piracy. Many millions of fans who can’t afford paid access or prefer to use the money elsewhere, turn to free streams instead, contributing to what UEFA believes is a significant financial loss.

Over the past several years, UEFA has targeted pirate streams through site-blocking efforts and takedown requests. Yet despite these anti-piracy measures, the piracy problem only appears to have become worse. That’s likely one of the key reasons behind its partnership with anti-piracy coalition ACE announced this week.

UEFA itself is a not-for-profit operation, but UC3, a commercial joint venture with football clubs, exploits the multi-billion-euro broadcast rights contracts. By joining ACE, it can now rely on technological resources and law enforcement contacts around the globe.

The European football association is the first sports exclusive rights holder to join ACE and will play an active role in the ACE “Live Tier”. Other prominent members of the MPA-led alliance include the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and beIN.

“UEFA joining ACE represents a landmark moment in our global content protection strategy,” says UEFA’s Guy-Laurent Epstein, commenting on the new. “This partnership allows us to expand our enforcement capabilities, deepen our existing collaboration with industry leaders and leverage ACE’s proven capabilities to disrupt illegal services.”

Targets: Pirate IPTV and Hydra sites

As the name suggests, ACE’s ‘Live Tier’ focuses on sites and services that offer live streams. Speaking with TorrentFreak, MPA’s Deputy Chief of Content Protection Dani Bacsa notes that priority targets include pirate IPTV services and so-called hydra sites that offer live content.

These targets are typically selected in consultation with members. The potential enforcement actions are similar to those taken against other types of piracy.

“We use the same toolkit we use to tackle other forms of digital piracy, which has been tested and proven. These range from out-of-court settlements and voluntary initiatives to civil litigation and working with law enforcement agencies to dismantle major criminal networks,” Bacsa says.

“One thing that we are well aware of is that live content has a short shelf life, and we need to act expeditiously and time operations when they make the most impact. Any activity carried out by ACE is agreed upon and approved by its members.”

MPA and UEFA have previously filed their blocking requests separately in France, India, and elsewhere. In theory, MPA/ACE could take this up in the future as they do for other members. However, when we asked about this directly, we received a “no comment” instead of a more direct “no”.

Whether more sports leagues and football organizations will join ACE in the future is unknown, but the anti-piracy coalition is certainly open to it. It was always stressed that cooperation is key to defeating piracy, and a broader membership base serves this goal.

“ACE is cooperating and coordinating with multiple non-member partners, including leagues, to various extents and capacities. We would always welcome closer collaboration and partnerships to increase our collective force,” Bacsa tells us.

It’s Not Just Piracy That’s Grown

There is no denying that sports piracy is a serious and growing problem. According to EU data, 12% of EU citizens watch sports content through illegal online sources, which goes up to 27% for people between 15 and 24.

However, this doesn’t mean that the revenues from sports rights are dwindling. On the contrary, it has grown spectacularly over the past decades.

In the first Champions League season, income was a relatively modest €46 million. Roughly half of this flowed back to the clubs. By the end of the decade, as the tournament expanded from 8 to 32 teams, revenues had grown to hundreds of millions.

The 2006/2007 Champions League was a milestone, with revenues exceeding half a billion euros for the first time. For the 2013/2014 season, seven years later, revenues had doubled to a billion euros.

While these are healthy revenue numbers, growth exploded in recent years. UEFA’s men’s club competitions now bring in €4.4 billion, with UEFA already eyeing the €5 billion mark for the near future, with Netflix showing interest in the rights.

UEFA would likely argue that there could be even more potential income if piracy was defeated. However, one can also argue that the surge in revenues contributes to a key motivation to pirate. After all, the billions paid for broadcasting rights are in large part passed on to consumers whose TV subscription costs aren’t getting any cheaper.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Amazon hat ein Ladegerät mit 65 W und drei Ports im Angebot, das mit seinem verspielten Roboterdesign auch optisch etwas hermacht. (Technik/Hardware)

Retro Games hat seinen Nachbau des Amiga 1200 offiziell vorgestellt: Der The A1200 kann bald vorbestellt werden, wird aber erst 2026 ausgeliefert. (Amiga, Retrogaming)

The Universe Browser makes some big promises to its potential users. Its online advertisements claim it’s the “fastest browser,” that people using it will “avoid privacy leaks” and that the software will help “keep you away from danger.” However, everything likely isn’t as it seems.

The browser, which is linked to Chinese online gambling websites and is thought to have been downloaded millions of times, actually routes all Internet traffic through servers in China and “covertly installs several programs that run silently in the background,” according to new findings from network security company Infoblox. The researchers say the “hidden” elements include features similar to malware—including “key logging, surreptitious connections,” and changing a device’s network connections.

Perhaps most significantly, the Infoblox researchers who collaborated with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the work, found links between the browser’s operation and Southeast Asia’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar cybercrime ecosystem, which has connections to money-laundering, illegal online gambling, human trafficking, and scam operations that use forced labor. The browser itself, the researchers says, is directly linked to a network around major online gambling company BBIN, which the researchers have labeled a threat group they call Vault Viper.

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