"Have yout tried turning it off and on again?" Nach einem Kabelbruch haben wir uns von einem Apple-Store-Verkäufer einen Lightning-Audio-Ohrhörer andrehen lassen. Schon bei geringer Staubbelastung zeigte sich, wie unzuverlässig Lightning verglichen mit dem Klinkenstecker ist. (Klinke, Apple) Month: October 2016
Tesla: Desperate Housewives erzeugen Strom mit Solarschindeln
Elon Musk hat am Set der US-Serie Desperate Housewives demonstriert, wie Häuser mit Solardachschindeln ausgerüstet werden können, die von außen nicht als solche erkennbar sind. Die Tesla-Dächer laden einen Akku, der Haus und Auto mit Strom versorgt. (Solarenergie, Technologie)
Elon Musk hat am Set der US-Serie Desperate Housewives demonstriert, wie Häuser mit Solardachschindeln ausgerüstet werden können, die von außen nicht als solche erkennbar sind. Die Tesla-Dächer laden einen Akku, der Haus und Auto mit Strom versorgt. (Solarenergie, Technologie) Macbook Pro: Apple untersagt Spiele mit der Touch Bar
Das neue Macbook Pro hat zwar ein Sekundärdisplay auf Höhe der Funktionstasten. Entwickler sollten es aber nicht für Spielereien nutzen, wenn ihre Anwendungen im Mac App Store gelistet werden sollen. (Comma One: Geohot-Nachrüstsatz für autonomes Fahren kommt nicht
Teslas Autopilot bekommt vorerst keine Konkurrenz: Der Hacker Geohot hat angekündigt, sein System für autonomes Fahren einzustellen. Grund soll ein Schreiben der National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mit kritischen Fragen zur Sicherheit sein. (Autonomes Fahren, Technologie)
Teslas Autopilot bekommt vorerst keine Konkurrenz: Der Hacker Geohot hat angekündigt, sein System für autonomes Fahren einzustellen. Grund soll ein Schreiben der National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mit kritischen Fragen zur Sicherheit sein. (Autonomes Fahren, Technologie) Macbook Pro: Apple verbaut nur 16 GByte zugunsten der Akkulaufzeit
Trotz Startpreisen von 1.600 und 2.700 Euro bietet Apple die beiden Macbook Pro nicht mit 32 GByte Arbeitsspeicher an. Argumentiert wird mit der Effizienz – doch das ist nur die halbe Wahrheit. (Macbook, PC-Hardware)
Trotz Startpreisen von 1.600 und 2.700 Euro bietet Apple die beiden Macbook Pro nicht mit 32 GByte Arbeitsspeicher an. Argumentiert wird mit der Effizienz - doch das ist nur die halbe Wahrheit. (Macbook, PC-Hardware) The man behind the nation’s most litigious patent troll has spoken
“We never seek personal attacks or personal discomfort toward anyone!”
Enlarge / A shoe drawer cabinet inside the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. (credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Since 2006, hundreds of US businesses have received letters informing them that they infringe patents belonging to Martin Kelly Jones, who briefly ran a business called "BusCall" in the early 90s. The Jones patents, owned for many years by a company called ArrivalStar, have been called out repeatedly as one of the most egregious examples of patent abuse.
ArrivalStar sent out hundreds of demand letters, often targeting small companies that couldn't hope to afford a drawn-out defense of a patent infringement suit. It also took the unusual step of suing public transit agencies, saying their bus-tracking systems infringe Jones' patents. The patents were moved into a new entity called Shipping & Transit LLC last year.
Jones and the lawyers who work with him have squeezed royalty payments from over 800 companies over the years, but little has been known about him, outside the short explanation included in the demand letters he sends out. Now, Jones has made what appear to be his only public comments since his inventions launched a decade-long campaign of lawsuits, in statements to The Wall Street Journal.
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Torrent Site 1337x Hopes New Design Will Prevent Search Engine Bans
Torrent site 1337x.to has enjoyed a massive spike in traffic in recent weeks, mainly due to the demise of KickassTorrents. However, due to a Google ban of its homepage the site is not always easy to find. With a new design, 1337x hopes to turn the tide.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
For many veteran BitTorrent users, 1337x is a familiar name. The site has been around for many years and was generally known for its lively community.
While 1337x hasn’t been at the center of attention much, the past year has been quite an eventful one for the torrent index.
After weathering a revolt of its moderators last December, this summer 1337x suddenly had to deal with a massive spike in traffic after KickassTorrents was shut down by the Us.S Government.
Most new visitors came in through Torrentz, and these disappeared just as quickly when the torrent meta-search engine called it quits in August. However, traffic has been steadily increasing since, as the graph below nicely illustrates.
“To be honest, it has been a rollercoaster with traffic,” the site’s operator tells TorrentFreak in a comment
The end result is that 1337x.to now has a steady place among the most-visited torrent sites, currently ranked in the top five. Still, the site is not always easy to find for newcomers as the homepage has been taken out of Google’s search results due to a takedown notice.
Traditionally, the homepage listed a variety of popular torrents, so Google has no other option than to remove the URL when Feelgood Entertainment reported it last year.
To address this issue and prevent similar problems in the future, the site recently released a new design. Aside from various layout changes and using a responsive design, the homepage now only features a search box, no torrents.
“Due to our old index being blocked by search engines, new users were having issues finding the website. We developed a new index page that contains only search, so we don’t get blocked by search engines in the future,” a notice on the site explains.
TorrentFreak spoke to the 1337x operator who doubts that Google will reinstate their homepage right away. However, the new design should prevent similar problems in the future.
The new design has been in the planning for a very long time already and spiraled a bit out of control. Initially, the plan was to only update the homepage, but it didn’t stop there.
“Seeing how cool a responsive layout could look we decided to make a whole new frontend. That literally took months to develop, and we changed backend code as well, which fixed several bugs and issues that were in the old version,” 1337x’s operator tells us.
And the work is not done yet. The next step is to release the new forums which people will be able to use with their existing 1337x account. If there are no major issues, this will go live in a month or so.
In moderator ‘relations’, progress has been made as well. While some have left the site for good, others came back and continue to remove spam and fake torrents with some new and improved tools.
The 1337x.to operator is mostly looking ahead at the moment. Work on the site and moderator features is far from completed, but the team is trying hard to move a few steps closer every week.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
Jeff Bezos dismisses idea of a backup plan, says we must protect Earth
Amazon founder says he’s building rockets so future generations can innovate in space.
Enlarge / A view of the "Great Gallery" during the 2016 Pathfinder Awards banquet. (credit: Seattle Museum of Flight)
During the last year Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has begun to open up about the scale of his ambitions with the rocket company, Blue Origin, explaining that he envisions millions of people living and working in space. Additionally, Bezos has talked about moving heavy industry off of planet Earth to create a garden paradise on our home planet.
In this view Bezos' philosophy differs significantly from the other titan of the new space industry, Elon Musk of SpaceX. Both men agree that reusable spaceflight is essential to lowering the cost of access to space, but they disagree about what to do once we get there. Musk has spoken openly of providing humanity with a "backup plan," and recently revealed his ultra-ambitious plans to colonize Mars with 100 passengers at a time via his Interplanetary Transport System.
Bezos dismissed this approach on Oct. 22, during the Pathfinder Awards at the Seattle Museum of Flight. In remarks first shared by GeekWire, Bezos said Earth should be zoned as a residential area. "I don't like the Plan B idea that we want to go into space so we have a backup planet," he said, noting NASA's efforts to send probes throughout the solar system. "Believe me, this is the best planet. There is no doubt this is the one you want to protect. This is the jewel. We evolved here, we're kind of made for this planet. It's gorgeous, and we can use space to protect it."
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British parliament members urge Obama to halt hacking suspect’s US extradition
31-year-old Lauri Love allegedly carried out SQL injection attacks during #OpLastResort.
Enlarge (credit: The Courage Foundation)
Culture minister Matt Hancock and more than 100 fellow MPs have signed a letter calling on president Barack Obama to block Lauri Love's extradition to the US to face trial over the alleged hacking of the country's missile defence agency, the FBI, and America's central bank.
It comes after Love—an Asperger's syndrome sufferer from Stradishall, Suffolk—was told in September at a Westminster Magistrates' Court hearing that he was fit to be extradited to the US to face trial in the country.
The 31-year-old, who according to his lawyers faces up to 99 years in prison in the US—if convicted—on hacking allegations as part of the Anonymous collective, has said that he fears for his life.
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Swedish File-Sharing in Decline, Anti-Piracy Lawyer Says
Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén says that the trend of huge increases in people file-sharing has come to an end, while piracy complaints to the police more often than not lead to prosecution. Meanwhile, the Swedish government wants to develop a code of conduct to further reduce infringement.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
Like many European countries, Sweden has millions of file-sharers. Many will have been inspired to take up their hobby through the antics of The Pirate Bay, a site that their government tried and failed to contain.
But despite the site managing to regain and maintain its position as the world’s most popular torrent site, it appears that at least to some extent, file-sharing is falling out of fashion in Sweden.
That’s according to Henrik Pontén, a lawyer with infamous anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance (Rättighetsalliansen)
“We see a trend reversal. Until now, we have seen a huge increase in file sharing, but we do not see that anymore,” Pontén told SVT.
Pontén and his colleagues have been waging a war against local pirates for more than a decade and despite the progress, it isn’t one that’s likely to end anytime soon. The legal chief says they’re now filing more complaints with the police, who are becoming used to handling these types of cases.
“We do not say how many referrals we make, but it is becoming more and more. The police are becoming better at investigating these cases and now the majority of complaints lead to a prosecution,” he said.
While Rights Alliance isn’t particularly well-known for going after the very casual file-sharer, it has a track record of aggressively pursuing bigger cases. Pontén warns that a successful prosecution these days is likely to end in big claims from the studios.
“It is always millions per movie. It rests on various things, including what a license to distribute the film legally costs,” he says.
“We could claim damages on many more movies, but we usually run with just one, that’s enough.”
While peer-to-peer file-sharing in Sweden and elsewhere may well be on the decline, other instances of piracy are on the rise. In particular, streaming is proving very popular with consumers and Pontén says that his group is currently focusing on people who operate streaming sites.
But in common with other countries facing a similar climate of illicit consumption, it’s now becoming clear that enforcement is only part of the solution. Alice Bah Kuhnke, Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy, believes that cooperation between stakeholders will play a key role.
“We have collected a number of actors involved in this, and had round tables. There are different players with different interests. A code of conduct is one of the concrete proposals we came up with,” Bah Kuhnke says.
Describing the protection of intellectual property as a central issue for the government, the minister says that developing a voluntary code will assist with that aim.
“The code is also designed to make the Internet a safe and legal place for consumers and businesses. To promote innovation and investment in legal options and limit economic crime based on copyright infringement. I hope that more people want to subscribe to the code to make it a growing platform,” the minister concludes.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
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