Month: October 2016

Microsoft’s newest Surface device may be a $3000 all-in-one desktop aimed at artists and other creative folks, but the company continues to sell more affordable (and portable) options including the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.

And right now there are a couple of deals that let you save $150 or more on select models of those devices.

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Microsoft Surface

• Microsoft Surface Pro 4 w/Core M3/4GB/128GB for $749 – Microsoft Store
• Microsoft Surface Pro 4 w/Core M3/4GB/128GB + keyboard cover for $850 – Best Buy
• Microsoft Surface Book w/Core i5-6300U/8GB/128GB for $1200 – GravityBuys (via eBay)

Laptops and tablets

• Dell Inspiron 11 convertible w/Core M3-6Y30/4GB/500GB for $300 – Newegg (via eBay)
• Lenovo Yoga 710 11.6″ 2-in-1 w/Core i5/8GB/128GB for $600 – Best Buy
• Acer Aspire S 13 notebooks for $599 and up – Microsoft Store
• Lenovo N22 11.6″ Chromebook w/Celeron N3050/4GB/16GB for $130 – DigJungle (via eBay)
• Refurb HP Stream 7″ Windows tablets for $60 and up – Groupon

Smartphones

• Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus smartphone for Verizon + flip cover & $30 credit for $400 – Newegg
• Unlocked Motorola Moto X Pure w/Snapdragon 808/3GB/32GB for $250 – Best Buy

Other

• Netgear R6300 AC1750 WiFi router for $70 – Amazon
• TP-Link AC750 WiFi router for $28 – NeweggFlash
• Mpow Swift Bluetooth sweatproof earbuds for $12 – Amazon (coupon: 8IUDZM2G)
• Roku Streaming Stick 3600R media streamer for $40 – Amazon

You can find more bargains in our daily deals section.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (10-31-2016) at Liliputing.

Die Bundesnetzagentur hat sich beeilt, alle Hürden zu beseitigen, damit die Telekom ihr Vectoring anschalten kann. Das Layer-2-Bitstrom für Konkurrenten wurde vorläufig in Kraft gesetzt. (Vectoring, DSL)

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Militärsimulationen wie Armored Fist, Comanche oder F-16 waren mal Bestseller. Jetzt hat der österreichische Publisher THQ Nordic alle Rechte des Entwicklerstudios Novalogic gekauft und bietet die Lizenzen jungen Teams an. (Games, Steam)

Not to sound ageist, but generally speaking 86-year-old women are not that interested in zombie games like Metro 2033.

This also applies to Christine McMillan from Ontario, Canada. In fact, she’d never even heard of the game until an anti-piracy group accused her of pirating a copy via BitTorrent.

McMillan is one of the hundreds of thousands of people who’ve been accused of copyright infringement under Canada’s “notice and notice” regime.

Due to a change to Canada’s copyright law early last year, ISPs are now required to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers. As a result, tens of thousands of Internet subscribers have received warnings in their mailboxes, with some asking for cash settlements.

The 86-year-old woman falls in the latter category. In the letter received from anti-piracy group Canipre, she’s threatened with thousands of dollars in damages, if she doesn’t comply.

“They didn’t tell me how much I owed, they only told me that if I didn’t comply, I would be liable for a fine of up to $5,000 and I could pay immediately by entering my credit card number,” McMillan told Go Public.

At first, McMillan thought she was dealing with spammers but Cogeco, her Internet provider, confirmed that the email with the settlement offer was legitimate.

The power of the settlement scheme lies in the uncertainty people face. Most recipients are unaware of the notice-and-notice system and fear that a lawsuit is looming. However, thus far not a single lawsuit has followed in these cases.

They are basically regular takedown notices, bundled with a settlement request, which are common in the U.S. as well. The rightsholders have no idea who the accused are and have no way to contact them directly.

McMillan is obviously not happy with the notice-and-notice legislation which she brands as “foolish.”

“That somebody can threaten you over the internet … that to me is intimidation and I can’t believe the government would support such action,” she says.

Canipre’s owner Barry Logan, however, doesn’t see anything wrong with the practice and says that his company is helping its clients to educate the public on piracy and theft. The threatening language in the letters doesn’t cross any lines, he notes.

For the anti-piracy group the new legislation has been a great success. By sending out tens, or hundreds of thousands of warning letters, they’ve collected about $500,000 in settlements since it was put in place last year.

This also means that Canadian Internet subscribers are half a million lighter as a result.

Interestingly, McMillan is not one of them. While she made herself known by going to the press, she has no intention of paying up for pirating a zombie game she’d never even heard of.

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

Wie arbeitet die NSA? Einige Antworten darauf könnte eine erneute Veröffentlichung der Shadow Brokers geben. Offenbar infiziert die Behörde gezielt Server in den Netzwerken von Universitäten und Unternehmen. (Shadow Broker, Server)

The tablet market is starting to look a lot like the traditional PC market: device makers are seeing declining shipments and some of the best-selling devices are the ones that are dirt cheap, which leaves little room for profits.

That’s the takeaway from a new report from research firm IDC, which says about 43 million tablets were shipped in the third quarter of 2016, representing a 14.7 percent decline from the same period a year earlier.

Continue reading IDC: Cheap 2-in-1 devices doing well in a declining tablet market at Liliputing.

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Baden-Württemberg ist die Erprobung von autonomen Fahrens 2,5 Millionen Euro wert - so viel stellt das Land für ein neues Testfeld in der Nähe von Karlsruhe zur Verfügung. Die Besonderheit: Auch der öffentliche Nahverkehr in der Stadt soll in die Tests mit einbezogen werden. (Autonomes Fahren, Internet)

In einem friesischen Dorf hat die Deutsche Telekom die Datenübertragungsrate von 50 MBit/s auf 16 MBit/s verringert. Angeblich haben deren Kunden darum gebeten. Laut einem dortigen Anwalt stimmt das nicht. Der lokale Betreiber Arche.Net vermutet, dass es sich um einen Fehler beim Vectoring handelt. (Vectoring, DSL)