September 2016 – Page 83 – news.buyenne.com

Chicago bagman who helped DOJ in red light camera case gets 6 months

Redflex contractor Martin O’Malley handed over envelopes of cash to John Bills.

The Chicago man who served as a go-between for a local transportation official and a major red light camera company, Redflex, was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison.

In 2014, Martin O’Malley was the first to plead guilty in the trio of criminal cases involving Redflex. (This Martin O’Malley should not be confused with the former governor of Maryland and Democratic presidential candidate.)

O’Malley was paid $2 million for his services, which was more than anyone on Redflex’s official payroll. But according to prosecutors, much of that money was funneled to John Bills, a former managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation and a longtime friend of O’Malley’s.

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Stream Ripping Problem Worse Than Pirate Sites, IFPI Says

Research commissioned by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has found that half of 16 to 24-year-olds use stream ripping tools to copy music from sites like YouTube. The industry group says that the problem has grown so much that in volume terms it has overtaken downloading from ‘pirate’ sites.

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

One of the recurring themes of recent years has been entertainment industry criticism of Google alongside claims the search giant doesn’t do enough to tackle piracy.

In more recent months, the focus has fallen on YouTube in particular, with the music industry painting the video hosting site as a haven for unlicensed tracks. This, the labels say, allows YouTube to undermine competitors and run a ‘DMCA protection racket‘.

While complaints surrounding the so-called “value gap” continue, the labels are now revisiting another problem that has existed for years.

For the unfamiliar, stream ripping is a mechanism for obtaining music from an online source and storing it on a local storage device in MP3 or similar format. Ripping can be achieved by using dedicated software or via various sites designed for the purpose.

With the largest library online, YouTube is the most popular destination for ‘rippers’. Broadly speaking, the site carries two kinds of music – that for which the site has a license and that uploaded without permission by its users. The labels consider the latter as straightforward piracy but the former is also problematic in a stream-ripping environment. Once a track is downloaded by a user from YouTube, labels aren’t getting paid per play anymore.

According to IFPI, the stream-ripping problem has become huge. A new study by Ipsos commissioned by IFPI has found that 49% of Internet users aged 16 to 24 admitted to stream ripping in the six months ending April. That’s a 41% increase over the same period a year earlier.

When considering all age groups the situation eases somewhat, but not by enough to calm IFPI’s nerves. Ipsos found that 30% of all Internet users had engaged in stream ripping this year, that’s 10% up on a year earlier.

In fact, according to comments made to FT (subscription) by IFPI, the problem has become so large that it is now the most popular form of online piracy, surpassing downloading from all of the world’s ‘pirate’ sites.

Precisely why there has been such a large increase isn’t clear, but it’s likely that the simplicity of sites such as YouTube-MP3 has played a big role. The site is huge by any measurement and has been extremely popular for many years. However, this year has seen a dramatic increase in visits, as shown below.

Equally, with pirate site blockades springing up all over the world, users in affected regions will find YouTube and ripping sites much easier to access. Also, rippers tend to work well on mobile phones, giving young people the portability they desire for their music.

But while YouTube and Google will now find themselves under yet more pressure, the company hasn’t been silent on the issue of stream-ripping. On several occasions, YouTube lawyers have made legal threats against such sites, including YouTube-MP3 in 2012 and more recently against TubeNinja.

“We strive to keep YouTube a safe, responsible community, and to encourage respect for the rights of millions of YouTube creators,” an email from YouTube’s legal team to TubeNinja read.

“This requires compliance with the Terms of Service and API Terms of Service. We hope that you will cooperate with us by ceasing to offer TubeNinja with functionality that is designed to allow users to download content from YouTube within seven days of this letter.”

While it is indeed the biggest platform, the problem isn’t only limited to YouTube. Stream rippers are available for most streaming sites including Vimeo, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Mixcloud, and many dozens of others, with Google itself providing convenient addons for its Chrome browser.

With the major labels now describing stream-ripping as the biggest piracy threat, expect to hear much more on this topic as the year unfolds.

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

Blue Origin: New Glenn – die größere Falcon-9-Rakete

Amazon-Gründer Jeff Bezos veröffentlicht die Pläne für seine neue Rakete, New Glenn, die noch vor 2020 fliegen soll. Die Rakete fast so groß wie die Saturn V des Apollo-Programms und wird mit der Falcon Heavy von SpaceX konkurrieren. (Jeff Bezos, Raumfahrt)

Blizzard: Chris Metzen verlässt Orks für die Familie

Einer der Gründer und Hauptverantwortlichen bei Blizzard, Chris Metzen, geht mit 42 Jahren in den vorzeitigen Ruhestand. Er hat unter anderem Marken wie Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft und Overwatch geprägt. (Blizzard, Diablo)

MacOS Sierra und iOS 10: Apple schmeißt unsichere Krypto raus

In den kommenden Versionen von Apples Betriebssystemen gibt es zahlreiche Veränderungen unter der Oberfläche, mit weitreichenden Konsequenzen für Nutzer und Admins. Die meisten Änderungen betreffen die unterstützten Verschlüsselungsverfahren. (Apple, Mac)

PS4 Pro Releasing Earlier, but Misses out on Ultra HD Blu-ray

Sony’s souped up PS4, now officially known as the PS4 Pro, will not be able to play Ultra HD Blu-ray discs when it launches a year earlier than Microsoft’s similar effort, Project Scorpio.The PS4 Pro (previously known as the PS4 Neo) will feature 4K ga…

Sony's souped up PS4, now officially known as the PS4 Pro, will not be able to play Ultra HD Blu-ray discs when it launches a year earlier than Microsoft's similar effort, Project Scorpio.

The PS4 Pro (previously known as the PS4 Neo) will feature 4K gaming, HDR support, and 4K streaming support, will not incorporate an updated disc drive to read Ultra HD Blu-ray discs - the only piece of hardware update required to enable the playback of these new 4K movie discs.

The decision to leave out the latest-gen disc playback is ironic considering Sony's enthusiastic backing of the original Blu-ray format - a decision that, in hindsight, might have cost the PS3 the success that Sony felt it should have had. The company may now feel the current decision is about learning from past mistakes, to focus more on gaming and not burden the upgraded PS4 with a higher price tag due to the inclusion of an updated disc drive.

But critics have argued that Microsoft has already found money in their hardware budget to include Ultra HD Blu-ray playback in their new, fairly reasonably priced Xbox One S, and has made it one of the cheaper Ultra HD Blu-ray players on the market.

The PS4 Pro will launch in November, well ahead of Project Scorpio's vague launch date of "Late 2017". Given the late release date, Microsoft has been able to promise that Scorpio will become the most powerful console on the market at launch, possibly 40% faster than the PS4 Pro. Both consoles will still struggle to do real 4K gaming without some trickery and graphic shortcuts, but Microsoft's effort will get closer to the goal. Both will allow 1080p gaming at 60fps without frame drops.

Sony also launched a slimmer version of the existing PS4, which hits stores this week. The PS4 Slim will launch with HDR graphics enabled out of the box, but older PS4s will have a firmware upgrade to enable HDR.

For retail pricing, the 500GB PS4 Slim will retail for $300 when it launches September 15th, with the 1TB PS4 Pro available for $399 on November 10th. The XBox One S is already available with the 500GB version (with Ultra HD Blu-ray playback) costing $300. Project Scorpio releases in "late 2017" and currently does not have an indicated pricing.

[Via Sony, The Verge, Forbes, Engadget]

Bobbycar extrem: Gas geben mit der Fahrradbremse

Normalerweise sind sie rot und nerven Eltern mit Parkett- oder Fliesenfußboden wegen ihrer Plastikräder. Doch mit den richtigen Zutaten kann ein Bobbycar-Fahrer auch einen Strafzettel in einer 30er-Zone riskieren. Deswegen haben wir sie uns auf der Rennbahn angeschaut. (DIY – Do it Yourself, Games)

The numbers are in: the Chevrolet Bolt will have a 238 mile range

Cars should arrive in dealerships before the end of the year.

The Chevrolet Bolt is one of the most anticipated cars of 2016. GM's first long-range battery electric vehicle is due to hit dealerships before the end of 2016 and beat Tesla's Model 3 to market as the first mass-market long-range BEV. There's been speculation until now as to the Bolt's actual range; on Tuesday morning, Chevrolet confirmed that you can expect an EPA-estimate of 238 miles on a full battery.

We're still not entirely sure how much the Bolt will cost, but Chevrolet says the MSRP will be under $37,500 before any rebates or tax incentives are taken into account. Since its 60kWh battery qualifies the Bolt for the most generous federal tax credit ($7,500), that means you should be able to pick one up for $30,000—slightly under the average US car price of $33,000.

"While range is important, we knew Bolt EV owners would want more—more space and more power—and the Bolt EV delivers,” said Bolt EV Chief Engineer Josh Tavel. "Our team took special pride in optimizing every aspect of this vehicle, especially its impressive range and ride dynamics."

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Why Bezos’ rocket is unprecedented—and worth taking seriously

Why Blue Origin’s crazy big rocket might fly, and what it means for spaceflight.

We can say this much for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and Blue Origin—he does not lack ambition. First Bezos founded an online bookstore that became the largest retailer in the western world, and now he plans to self-fund a New Glenn rocket that is nearly as tall as the Saturn V launch vehicle and more than half as powerful.

As wild as Bezos' idea sounds, Blue Origin might be able to get the job done. And if Bezos and Blue Origin can fly their massive orbital rocket in the next three to four years, it would be a remarkable, unprecedented achievement in a number of ways that could radically remake spaceflight.

Proof of concept

First, a few words about why this might really be viable. It is true that all Blue Origin has flown so far is a propulsion module, powered by a single BE-3 engine, and a capsule on a suborbital flight. The company's New Shepard spacecraft is designed to carry six passengers on 10- to 15-minute hops up to about 100km before bringing them back down to Earth. This is not dissimilar to the first Mercury flights in the early 1960s, hence the moniker New Shepard, named after pioneering astronaut Alan Shepard.

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Sugar industry bought off scientists, skewed dietary guidelines for decades

Harvard researchers got hefty sums to downplay role of sweets in heart disease.

Back in the 1960s, a sugar industry executive wrote fat checks to a group of Harvard researchers so that they’d downplay the links between sugar and heart disease in a prominent medical journal—and the researchers did it, according to historical documents reported Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

One of those Harvard researchers went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he set the stage for the federal government’s current dietary guidelines. All in all, the corrupted researchers and skewed scientific literature successfully helped draw attention away from the health risks of sweets and shift the blame to solely to fats—for nearly five decades. The low-fat, high-sugar diets that health experts subsequently encouraged are now seen as a main driver of the current obesity epidemic.

The bitter revelations come from archived documents from the Sugar Research Foundation (now the Sugar Association), dug up by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. Their dive into the old, sour affair highlights both the perils of trusting industry-sponsored research to inform policy and the importance of requiring scientists to disclose conflicts of interest—something that didn’t become the norm until years later. Perhaps most strikingly, it spotlights the concerning power of the sugar industry.

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