Copyright Industries Back Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign

The next President of the United States will help to shape the future of copyright legislation during the years to come. While none of the candidates have tabled a detailed overview of their plans, donation records suggest that the top entertainment industries clearly favor Hillary Clinton.

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

clinton-hillaryThis coming Tuesday the world will find out who is going to be the President of the United States during the years to come.

During the past several months, news coverage have been dominated by mud-slinging from various sides, while surprisingly little has been said about future policy.

That’s odd considering the fact that the next President has an important say in the direction the country will take going forward.

Today we’ll take a look at which candidate is favored by various entertainment industries. This includes the major movie studios, record labels, and TV-production companies.

While most of these organizations haven’t publicly endorsed a candidate for the presidential election, their publicly listed donations paint a clear picture. Pretty much all copyright industries favor Hillary clinton by a landslide.

Counting all donations that were made during the 2016 election cycle, released publicly by the Federal Election Commission, we see a pattern emerging.

Companies and individuals in the copyright-heavy TV, music and movie sector want Hillary for president. Together they donated $6,835,455 to Hillary Clinton compared to only $139,429 for Donald Trump.

TV / Movies / Music donations

topdonations

Looking in more detail at the various subsections, we see that the Motion Picture Production & Distribution industry, with players such as Dreamworks, Sony Corp, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner, also favor the democratic candidate. Together, they have donated $2,634,014 to Clinton, and $33,548 to Trump.

The gap is even greater in the TV production category where companies such as CBS, ABC and Walt Disney donated $634,757 to Clinton, versus a measly $3,455 to Trump.

In the music business the same trend emerges. Hillary Clinton received a healthy $737,955 in donations from companies such as Vivendi, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, while Trump got $17,850.

Overall it’s safe to conclude that these copyright industry related companies favor Hillary in the White House.

This, in contrast to copyright industry adversary Kim Dotcom, who’s one of the main critics of the Democratic candidate.

Over the past weeks Dotcom hasn’t spared Clinton his critique on Twitter, to say the least…

dotclinton

That said, the copyright industries are not alone in their financial support for Hillary, who has raised more than twice as much money than Trump. Clinton is the favorite in most sectors.

Many Internet companies which are often positioned against copyright interests, also favor Clinton over Trump.

Is there no-one favoring Donald then? Well… the building materials & equipment companies in the construction sector favor Trump over Clinton, $270,175 vs. $159,441.

So what does this all mean?

As with pretty much all facts and figures discussed in the election campaigns, it’s a matter of spin. Clinton will be pleased to see that these companies and related individuals have so much trust in her, while Trump will see it as a sign of a corrupt system where industries can buy favors. And so the mud-throwing continues.

In any case, don’t shoot the messenger…

The donation data reported in this article was obtained through the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington D.C. based nonpartisan research group. The industry data includes both donations from the companies directly and related individuals, as explained here.

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

Women who alleged rape and assault by Uber drivers end their lawsuit

Uber tried to distance itself from driver crimes, but to no avail.

Enlarge (credit: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ride-hailing startup Uber has settled a lawsuit that alleged brutal driver sexual assaults on two female passengers.

The terms of the settlement are confidential. By reaching a deal now, Uber avoids a trial, scheduled for March, that could have been incredibly damaging to its image. Uber declined to comment on the case, and the lawyer representing the anonymous plaintiffs didn't respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit (PDF) was originally filed in October of last year, with both plaintiffs listed as Jane Does. The complaint described two assaults. In the first, "Doe 1" said she was assaulted by her driver, Abderrahim Dakiri, after her two other friends were dropped off.

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Zotac Zbox EN1060 review: Better than console gaming in a tiny package

But don’t expect the same performance as a full-size Nvidia GTX 1060.

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton)

Specs at a glance: Zotac Zbox EN1060 (barebones)
CPU Intel Core i5-6400T
GPU Nvidia GTX 1060 (mobile)
Networking Dual gigabit LAN, 802.11ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports Microphone, headphone, 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x USB 3.1, 2x USB 2.0
RAM 2 x DDR4-1866/2133 SODIMM Slots (up to 32GB)
Storage 1x 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gbps HDD/SSD bay, 1x M.2 PCIe x4 slot (22/42,22/60,22/80)
Price £875

Nvidia blurred the line between desktop and laptop graphics earlier this year when it replaced its mobile-centric "M" line with nearly full-blown GTX 1080, GTX 1070, and GTX 1060 GPUs. But impressive thin, light, gaming-ready laptops and wallet-busting desktop replacements aside—I'm looking at you, Razer Blade Pro—there's another small-but-compelling computer that's benefited from all this graphics goodness: the mini PC.

For the first time (Gigabyte's awful Brix Gaming range notwithstanding), you can buy a PC that's smaller than a games console, yet packs in enough processing power to run games at ultra settings and 60FPS.

Enter the Magnus EN1060, the latest model from mini PC champions Zotac. Inside its tiny 20cm-by-20cm footprint sits a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card, giving it enough graphics grunt to power games at the highest settings, even at resolutions above 1080p. It makes for a mean, highly portable, VR-ready PC. Unfortunately, stuffing such powerful components into a chassis barely bigger than a DVD case was always going to result in some compromises—and the EN1060 isn't quite the desktop powerhouse its spec sheet promises.

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Melania Trump picks her cause if she’s First Lady: Cyberbullying

“All I kept thinking was—has she met Donald Trump?”

Enlarge / Melania Trump, wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, speaks to supporters in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. (credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

As US Election Day closes in, the wife of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump made a rare campaign speech in Pennsylvania. At the speech's end, Melania Trump told the crowd what will be her cause should she win the privilege to be First Lady: cyberbullying.

"Technology has changed our universe," said Melania Trump on Thursday. "But like anything that is powerful, it can have a bad side. Children and teenagers can be fragile. They are hurt when they are made fun of or made to feel less in looks or intelligence. This makes their life hard and can force them to hide and retreat... It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied, or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground. And it is absolutely unacceptable when it is done by someone with no name hiding on the internet."

She ended by promising to make cyberbullying one of her "main focuses" in the White House.

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Ultimaker 3: Besser 3D-Drucken mit wasserlöslichem Material

Der 3D-Drucker-Hersteller Ultimaker hat ein neues Modell vorgestellt, das nicht nur zwei Druckköpfe kombiniert, sondern auch ein wasserlösliches Material verarbeiten kann. Damit soll der Druck komplexer Objekte einfacher werden. (3D-Drucker, Foto)

Der 3D-Drucker-Hersteller Ultimaker hat ein neues Modell vorgestellt, das nicht nur zwei Druckköpfe kombiniert, sondern auch ein wasserlösliches Material verarbeiten kann. Damit soll der Druck komplexer Objekte einfacher werden. (3D-Drucker, Foto)

Up Squared: Anschlussfreudiger Bastelrechner nutzt Intel-Prozessor

Per Crowdfunding wird nach Käufern für einen neuen Bastelrechner gesucht. Er fällt nicht nur durch seinen Intel-Prozessor auf, sondern soll auch mit zwei Gigabit-Ethernet-Ports und einem FPGA ausgestattet sein. Der Preis ist in der Basisvariante vergleichsweise günstig. (Raspberry Pi, Intel)

Per Crowdfunding wird nach Käufern für einen neuen Bastelrechner gesucht. Er fällt nicht nur durch seinen Intel-Prozessor auf, sondern soll auch mit zwei Gigabit-Ethernet-Ports und einem FPGA ausgestattet sein. Der Preis ist in der Basisvariante vergleichsweise günstig. (Raspberry Pi, Intel)

Ex-Playmate faces charges for posting secret nude photo of woman on Snapchat

Dani Mathers allegedly wrote: “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either.”

Enlarge / Dani Mathers was the Playboy Playmate of the Year in 2015. (credit: Charley Gallay / Getty Images News)

The top prosecutor in Los Angeles announced Friday that he had filed criminal charges against a former Playboy Playmate who allegedly took disparaging nude photographs of a 70-year-old woman while in the shower room at a local gym earlier this year.

The model, Dani Mathers, is reported to have taken the photo of the woman in July 2016. She then posted it to Snapchat with the caption: “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either.”

Mathers was charged with one count of invasion of privacy and could face up to six months in jail if she is convicted. She did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Saturday.

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Overcomplicated technology and the need for biological thinking

Complex systems like stock trading software need to be studied like an ecosystem.

Enlarge (credit: Carl Drougge)

Sam Arbesman's newest book, Overcomplicated, looks at how many technological systems have grown so complex that they defy easy understanding. In the following lightly edited excerpt, he argues that we need to learn to think more like biologists in order to work with the technology we've created.

Within physics there is a distinct trend toward unifying and simplifying the phenomena observed.  It is embodied by the work of Einstein or Newton or James Clerk Maxwell, who developed a handful of equations to explain the workings of electricity and magnetism. Simplification, even oversimplification, is often revered within the realm of physics.

Biologists, as a rule, have a greater comfort with diversity and bundles of facts, even if they are left unexplained by any single sweeping theory. A smaller, more qualified and modest model is just fine. Of course, this is not always true, as Charles Darwin was clearly a unifying force within biology, and many other types of biologists also tend toward this unifying approach.

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Orange Pi PC 2 is a $20 single-board PC with quad-core, 64-bit processor

Orange Pi PC 2 is a $20 single-board PC with quad-core, 64-bit processor

Hot on the heels of the new Orange Pi Zero, Shenzhen Xunlong has launched the larger (but still small) and more powerful (but still low-power) Orange Pi PC 2.

The computer is a single-board PC and development board that sells for about $20. It’s basically the company’s answer to the Raspberry Pi 3 and an upgrade to last year’s Orange Pi PC.

Like a Raspberry Pi, the Orange Pi PC 2 is basically a credit card-sized computer, measuring 85mm x 55mm (about 3.3″ x 2.2″) and weighing 70 grams (2.5 ounces).

Continue reading Orange Pi PC 2 is a $20 single-board PC with quad-core, 64-bit processor at Liliputing.

Orange Pi PC 2 is a $20 single-board PC with quad-core, 64-bit processor

Hot on the heels of the new Orange Pi Zero, Shenzhen Xunlong has launched the larger (but still small) and more powerful (but still low-power) Orange Pi PC 2.

The computer is a single-board PC and development board that sells for about $20. It’s basically the company’s answer to the Raspberry Pi 3 and an upgrade to last year’s Orange Pi PC.

Like a Raspberry Pi, the Orange Pi PC 2 is basically a credit card-sized computer, measuring 85mm x 55mm (about 3.3″ x 2.2″) and weighing 70 grams (2.5 ounces).

Continue reading Orange Pi PC 2 is a $20 single-board PC with quad-core, 64-bit processor at Liliputing.

What is blockchain, and why is it growing in popularity?

Bitcoin was the start, but as a wise man once said, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Enlarge (credit: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Last year, Ripple Labs, creator of the virtual currency XRP, was fined $0.7 million (~£540,000) by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for violating regulations concerning money laundering.

Some observers cite this as the moment cryptocurrencies shaved off their startup hipster beards, put on a tie, and went mainstream. Being fined by a regulator means that you’re part of the financial services industry at last.

Given that the first and most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was launched back in 2009, it has taken the wider industry a relatively long time to warm to it. But now suddenly everyone is talking about bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology as a disruptor of potentially massive proportions: Sweden is trialling a new land registry that uses blockchain, dozens of startups spanning numerous sectors are poking around at possible uses, and importantly policy makers such as the European Parliament have voted in favour of a more hands-off approach towards blockchain tech regulation.

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