October 2016 – Page 140 – news.buyenne.com

Terraforming Mars review: Turn the “Red Planet” green and blue with this amazing board game

Though Mars has looked better, it’s never played this well.

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games. Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

Terraforming Mars is a board game inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's hard sci-fi "Mars trilogy." Though not endorsed by the author, Sweden's Jacob Fryxelius has enlisted his family members to produce a science-driven game that is pure homage to Robinson's classic series; even the players in the manual's examples are named "Kim," "Stanley," and "Robinson."

The goal is simple: make Mars habitable. Forget Matt Damon as the primitive first "Martian"; Terraforming Mars takes place much further in the future and unfolds over centuries, ending with a green and blue map of a Red Planet covered with cities, vegetation, and oceans.

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USB group unveils standard for audio over USB Type C (goodbye headphone jack?)

When Apple decided to do away with headphones jacks for its latest iPhones, a lot of people were upset. But some people are annoyed for different reasons than others: some really don’t want smartphone makers to give up on the tried and true 3.5mm jack. Others are fine with leaving it behind… but are disappointed that Apple is using its own proprietary Lightning Port as a solution.

That’s because headphones designed to plug into an iPhone will only work with an iPhone and not with other phones, laptops, tablets, or other devices.

Continue reading USB group unveils standard for audio over USB Type C (goodbye headphone jack?) at Liliputing.

That’s because headphones designed to plug into an iPhone will only work with an iPhone and not with other phones, laptops, tablets, or other devices.

Continue reading USB group unveils standard for audio over USB Type C (goodbye headphone jack?) at Liliputing.

The Martian’s Andy Weir talks to Ars about the science of Musk’s Mars vision

Author and engineer tells us what might work and what might be science fiction.

If Elon Musk has his way, humans will be going to the red planet—and soon. Over the past few days, our senior space-master Eric Berger has analyzed Musk’s Interplanetary Transport System plans in detail, and our chief scientist Dr. John Timmer has examined the science of how to generate resources on Mars. But Musk’s thoughts for getting to and living on Mars—both the nitty-gritty details and also the glossed-over blank bits—still come across to many folks as science fiction. It’s all well and good to talk about building an enormous rocket and a self-sustaining Martian colony, but it’s another thing entirely to do it.

So who better to discuss the differences between science and science fiction than an actual science fiction author—one who studied up for years on the problems of surviving on Mars before crafting a cracking good story about how exactly it might work? And as it happens, we know the perfect such person: author Andy Weir, whose best-selling novel The Martian (and the subsequent Ridley Scott movie) covers much of the same ground Musk wants to cover—though Musk is dreaming on a much larger scale.

Author Andy Weir and hat. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

“In-situ resource generation”

Though Musk and SpaceX envision a long-term plan that involves thousands of launches to Mars, the company wants to bring most of those spacecraft back to Earth—otherwise, as Musk explained, we’d end up with a gigantic “spacecraft graveyard” littering Mars. This leaves us with two options: the Martian spacecraft have to bring their return fuel with them, or they have to generate it somehow on Mars (“in situ,” as the terminology goes). Since every gram of mass going to Mars must be paid for in fuel (including the mass of the fuel itself), generating the fuel on Mars is highly preferable to hauling all that fuel with you and paying the mass penalty for it.

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Project Mortar: Mozilla möchte Chrome-Plugins für Firefox unterstützen

Die NPAPI soll verschwinden, daher plant Mozilla Chrome-Plugins für den Firefox-Browser: Durch das Pepper-API sollen PDFium für Dokumente und Pepper Flash für Flash-Inhalte integriert werden. (Firefox, Browser)

Remedy: Steam-Version von Quantum Break läuft bei Nvidia flotter

Keine Universal Windows Platform mehr notwendig: Microsoft hat Quantum Break auch für Steam veröffentlicht, die Boxed-Version stammt von THQ Nordic. Wer eine Geforce-Karte verwendet, profitiert teils – wer eine Radeon nutzt, sollte bei der UWP bleiben. (Quantum Break, Steam)

Keine Universal Windows Platform mehr notwendig: Microsoft hat Quantum Break auch für Steam veröffentlicht, die Boxed-Version stammt von THQ Nordic. Wer eine Geforce-Karte verwendet, profitiert teils - wer eine Radeon nutzt, sollte bei der UWP bleiben. (Quantum Break, Steam)

Videostreaming: Twitch Premium wird Teil von Amazon Prime

Das kostenpflichtige Angebot Prime von Amazon.de bietet vor allem Computerspielern noch mehr Vorteile: Fans von Computerspielen bekommen ab sofort neue Games etwas günstiger – und eine Mitgliedschaft bei Twitch Premium, von der auch die abonnierten Streamer profitieren. (Twitchcon 2016, Amazon)

Das kostenpflichtige Angebot Prime von Amazon.de bietet vor allem Computerspielern noch mehr Vorteile: Fans von Computerspielen bekommen ab sofort neue Games etwas günstiger - und eine Mitgliedschaft bei Twitch Premium, von der auch die abonnierten Streamer profitieren. (Twitchcon 2016, Amazon)

Watching Pirate Streams Isn’t Illegal, EU Commission Argues

This week the European Court of Justice heard a crucial case that will give more clarity on the infringing nature of unauthorized streaming. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and the Spanish authorities argued that offering or watching pirate streams is a violation of the EU Copyright Directive. However, the European Commission believes that consumers who watch unauthorized streams are not breaking the law.

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

streamingkey Online streaming continues to gain in popularity, both from authorized and pirate sources.

Unlike traditional forms of downloading, however, in many countries the legality of viewing unauthorized streams remains unclear.

In the European Union this may change in the near future. This week the European Court of Justice held a hearing during which it reviewed several questions related to pirate streaming.

The questions were raised in a case between Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and the Filmspeler.nl store, which sells “piracy configured” media players. While these devices don’t ‘host’ any infringing content, they ship with add-ons that make it very easy to watch infringing content.

The Dutch District Court previously referred the case to the EU Court of Justice, where several questions were discussed in a hearing this week. In addition to BREIN and Filmspeler, the European commission and Spain weighed in on the issue as well.

The first main question that the Court will try to answer is rather specific. It asks whether selling pre-programmed media-players with links to pirate sources, through add-ons for example, are permitted.

Not surprisingly, Filmspeler.nl believes that it should be allowed. They argued that there is no communication to the public or a crucial intervention from their side, since these pirate add-ons are already publicly available.

The European Commission doesn’t classify selling pre-loaded boxes as infringing either, and notes that rightholders have other options to go after intermediaries, such as blocking requests.

BREIN, which covered the hearing in detail, countered this argument noting that Filmspeler willingly provides access to illegal content for profit. Spain sided with BREIN and argued that willingly including pirate plugins should not be allowed.

The second question is more crucial for the general public as it asks whether it is illegal for consumers to stream pirated content from websites or services.

“Is it lawful under EU law to temporarily reproduce content through streaming if the content originates from a third-party website where it’s made available without permission?”

Spain argued that streaming pirated content should not be allowed in any way. BREIN agreed with this position and argued that streaming should be on par with unauthorized downloading, which is illegal under EU case law.

Interestingly, the European Commission doesn’t believe that consumers who watch pirate streams are infringing. From the user’s perspective they equate streaming to watching, which is legitimate.

Based on the hearing the Advocate General will issue a recommendation later this year, which will be followed by a final verdict from the EU Court of Justice somewhere early 2017.

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

Dark Souls & Co.: Tausende Tode vor Tausenden von Zuschauern

Streamer werden von den Zuschauern gefeiert wie Popstars? Das stimmt nur bedingt: Auf der Twitchcon 2016 haben fünf eigentlich hartgesottene Let’s Player von ihren Alltagsproblemen und den Problemen mit Fans berichtet – bei Live-Übertragungen von Dark Souls und Bloodbourne. (Twitchcon 2016, Streaming)

Streamer werden von den Zuschauern gefeiert wie Popstars? Das stimmt nur bedingt: Auf der Twitchcon 2016 haben fünf eigentlich hartgesottene Let's Player von ihren Alltagsproblemen und den Problemen mit Fans berichtet - bei Live-Übertragungen von Dark Souls und Bloodbourne. (Twitchcon 2016, Streaming)

Die Woche im Video: Grüne Welle und grüne Männchen

Elon Musk stellt seine Marspläne vor, wir entdecken Sicherheitslücken in Ampeln, und Fernsehen übers Internet wird deutlich bequemer. Sieben Tage und viele Meldungen im Überblick. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Server)

Music Groups Launch Multi-Million Lawsuit Against YouTube Ripper Site

A coalition of music studios and interest groups have joined forces to sue a site that allows users to rip the audio from YouTube music videos.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the British Recorded Music Industry and music labels including Sony, Atlantic and Warner Bros have sued YouTube ripping site YouTube-mp3.org (YTMP3), claiming the site is "raking in millions" by "engaging in and facilitating the unlawful infringement".

YTMP3 allows users to enter the URL of a YouTube video, and the site then extracts, converts and stores the audio track for the user to download. Unlike some stream ripping sites which simply allows the user to download the source video file directly from YouTube (which the user has to perform additional processing on in order to extract just the audio), YTMP3 offers the additional feature of extracting only the audio, and converting it directly to the MP3 format.

It's this conversion process, and the fact that the download takes place on YTMP3's own server, that the music groups have taken offence to and why they are now claiming the maximum $150,000 in damages per infringement allowed by US copyright law. It is estimated that 60 million users use YTMP3 every month - times that by at least $150,000, and this could be, at least on paper, one of the largest copyright lawsuits on record.

The lawsuit names Philip Matesanz, a German citizen, as the operator of the site, and is asking for damages as well as the closure of th