December 2016 – Page 3 – news.buyenne.com

Climate researcher’s defamation suit about insulting columns is on

Can you keep calling someone a fraud after they’ve been cleared multiple times?

Several years back, some conservative columnists wrote pieces that accused a prominent climate researcher of having fraudulently manipulated data, phrasing it in a way that made comparisons with a convicted child molester. The researcher demanded the columns be removed; when the publishers refused, he turned to the courts. His suit, filed in the District of Columbia's Superior Court, has been kicking around ever since, as motions to get it dismissed have ended up languishing amidst more filings and an appeal.

In the mean time, events seem to have overtaken the case. With no facts to back them up and plenty of evidence to the contrary, the columns at issue now seem to fit the definition of what we're now calling "fake news." And, just in time to be relevant, the appeals court has weighed in, ruling that the case should go to trial and indicating that the climate scientist has a good chance of prevailing there.

Climate fight

At issue is the research of Penn State's Mike Mann, who specializes in reconstructing global temperature records from periods before thermometers were available. His initial work showed a long period of relatively mild variations, followed by a sudden, sharp rise in temperature over the last century. The resulting graph picked up the nickname the "hockey stick," and has been the subject of contention since it was released. Mann has become a prominent advocate of action on climate change, writing a regular stream of books and columns meant for popular audiences.

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Drinklip Portable Cup Holder

For you who’ve always hate the scenario where your desk is wet from your cold drinks, you might want to get a gadget like this Drinklip portable cup holder to hold your drink outside of your desk. Thinkgeek recently stocked this Drinklip cup holder for any geeks who love to sip on their favorite beverage […]

Deutsche Telekom: 300.000 Haushalte bekommen VDSL oder Vectoring

Wieder ein Sprung beim FTTC-Ausbau der Deutschen Telekom: Dank des bisher milden Winters konnte noch viel Glasfaser im Tiefbau verlegt werden. (Vectoring, DSL)

E Fun Nextbook Flexx 12 Flip tablet features Kaby Lake CPU, FHD display

Budget tablet maker E Fun’s latest tablet is the least, well, budget-like to date. The E Fun Nextbook Flexx 12 Flip is a Windows 10 tablet that features a 12.2 inch 1920 1 200 pixel IPS touchscreen display, a detachable keyboard cover, an unspecified Intel Kaby Lake processor, and support for up to 256GB of storage.

E Fun will show off the tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show, and it should be available for purchase in the second quarter of 2017.

Continue reading E Fun Nextbook Flexx 12 Flip tablet features Kaby Lake CPU, FHD display at Liliputing.

E Fun will show off the tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show, and it should be available for purchase in the second quarter of 2017.

Continue reading E Fun Nextbook Flexx 12 Flip tablet features Kaby Lake CPU, FHD display at Liliputing.

Nintendo Switch: Drei Stunden Mobilnutzung und 32 GByte interner Speicher

Das Tablet von Switch soll rund drei Stunden Mobilspielen erlauben. Es verfügt nur über WLAN-Netzwerkanbindung, und der Akku ist nicht austauschbar: Insider haben weitere Details über Nintendos Hybridkonsole ausgeplaudert. (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo)

The most dramatic patent and copyright cases of 2016

Google v. Oracle; Prenda lawyers arrested; and much more.

Many of the biggest legal disputes in technology relate to "intellectual property," a broad term used for laws relating to everything from copyrights to patents, trademarks to trade secrets. This year saw significant changes in the copyright and patent landscapes. "Patent trolls" who sue technologists for fun and profit got smacked down by courts more often—and harder—than ever before. At the same time, universities were filing patent lawsuits at an increased rate, and often winning.

In the copyright realm, the Oracle v. Google trial dominated the spring. A jury was left to decide the murky rules about when using an API could be "fair use." That legal uncertainty led to the two tech giants clashing over the ethics of each others' business practices and the history of the smartphone industry.

In two very different cases in 2016, copyright issues led to criminal charges being filed. US authorities are seeking to extradite and put on trial a man named Artem Vaulin, who they say made $16 million annually by running a massive online storehouse of pirated films and songs. And more than three years after they were condemned by a federal judge, lawyers behind a vast array of copyright lawsuits, a firm known as Prenda Law, were arrested and accused of fraud. Here's a look back at 2016's most dramatic IP cases.

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Deutschland: Gastgewerbe schlecht mit Internet versorgt

Hotels, Pensionen und Gasthäuser bekommen keine gute Internetversorgung, weshalb die Gäste unzufrieden sind. Im WLAN sind die Gäste dann zwar verbunden, können es aber kaum nutzen. (Glasfaser, DSL)

Popcorn Time Launches New Torrent Tracker to Fight Copyright Monopolies

The people behind one of the most popular Popcorn Time forks have announced a new contribution to the BitTorrent ecosystem. With beating “content monopolies” a stated aim, the team has launched Popcorn Tracker, a new stand-alone BitTorrent tracker to serve the masses.

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

After bursting onto the file-sharing scene to wave of publicity, Popcorn Time has settled down to become another established way of obtaining and sharing video content.

Often referred to as the Netflix For Pirates, Popcorn Time has seen more than its fair share of controversy, with several forks and developers having been targeted and in some cases shut down by the MPAA. One fork, however, is still going strong.

Popcorn-time.to remains one of, if not the most popular variant of the software. Its tagline from the beginning has been “This Popcorn Time service will never be taken down” and thus far it has lived up to that billing.

With 2016 drawing to a close, TorrentFreak caught up with its developers to listen to their thoughts and plans for 2017. What we didn’t expect was a broadside against what they refer to as the “US Content Monopolies [USCM],” aka the MPAA.

Noting that copyright is a relatively new framework, the team say that fast Internet and digitized media has enabled groups such as the MPAA to “tax end-users” in order to feed their “monstrous appetite.” Content is expensive, they say, and not everyone can afford to buy it.

“It’s obvious that watching one’s favorite TV series chapter as soon as it’s released, or buying a VOD, is cool, extremely convenient and fun. But it costs. US$99 (average) monthly in the US and more in Europe. The average monthly salary in the developed countries is between US$10,000 to US$1,200. In third world countries it’s significantly less,” the team says.

“People who struggle to support their families, cannot afford to pay cable, satellites, and VOD. They do manage to link to the internet. Thus Netflix, where available, P2P, Popcorn Time etc. are their only solution for content consumption. The USCM will never make a nickel from them, because their alternative is not to watch movies, TV shows or listen to music albums.”

The team says that while the MPAA fights people who can’t afford to buy tickets or pay for subscriptions, shutting down services like Popcorn Time or even regular torrents won’t solve that particular problem either. Where there’s no money available, no blood will come from stone, they say.

The team suggests that they’re providing a service to meet this demand, while at the same time providing a counter-balance to what they feel are the unfair business practices of a copyright-protected monopoly with power in high places.

“This brings about the conclusion that it is all about politics and political power and immoral tradeoffs between administrations and huge money interests,” they say.

“There cannot be any other reason for the Polish authorities keeping the Ukrainian citizen Artem Vaulin, the creator of KickAssTorrents, in custody, for almost six months, awaiting a decision to extradite him to the US, as if he was a war criminal.”

In addition to these tough words and the continued running of their own successful Popcorn Time project, the team are also bringing a valuable new addition to the file-sharing landscape in 2017.

Available now, the team has launched Popcorn Tracker, a brand new OpenTracker-powered public tracker, free to the masses.

Popcorn Tracker

potrack

Public trackers are in pretty short supply at the moment so a new one with capacity will be a welcome addition to the landscape. Of course, the platform itself is content-neutral, so anyone wishing to embed a tracker in a torrent of any kind will be able to do so without restrictions.

In closing, the Popcorn Time team see online sharing increasing next year, particularly since the content allowing that to happen is already out there, distributed among the public.

“The files containing content are out there, in huge numbers and throughout disbursed locations of sites, being the sites of sharing, P2P users,” they conclude.

Popcorn Tracker, billed as “A Public and Free BitTorrent Tracker That You Can Trust”, is available here.

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

LG is bringing robots to CES (for home and commercial use)

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is just days away, but LG hasn’t been waiting for CES to unveil some of the products it’ll showcase there. We’ve already learned that the company has a new wearable speaker and wireless headphones, a portable levitating speaker, and some new phones.

Now LG says it’s also bringing robots to the show.

There aren’t a lot of details yet, but LG says it’ll have a whole line of robots, including some for use in and around the home and some for commercial applications.

Continue reading LG is bringing robots to CES (for home and commercial use) at Liliputing.

Now LG says it’s also bringing robots to the show.

There aren’t a lot of details yet, but LG says it’ll have a whole line of robots, including some for use in and around the home and some for commercial applications.

Continue reading LG is bringing robots to CES (for home and commercial use) at Liliputing.

In Utah, an old geothermal plant gets a new life with hydroelectric additions

Analysis shows that the hybrid scheme is working.

Renewable energy can be a tricky business. If you’re not dealing with the intermittency of solar or wind power, you might struggle with some of geothermal’s more complex issues. For example, older geothermal plants rely on steam output that can diminish over time or harm the plant’s turbine components. Or, a geothermal plant can damage the subterranean aquifer that it’s taking hot water (called brine) from. Or, if the geothermal plant is air-cooled, a particularly hot day can reduce the plant’s efficiency.

To combat all of these issues, Italian renewable energy company Enel Green Power has been working to make its geothermal resources in Fallon, Nevada, and Cove Fort, Utah, more efficient by combining them with other renewable power sources. In its most recent endeavor in Cove Fort, Enel cleverly combines hydroelectric power with geothermal power for the first time in North America.

Usually, geothermal plants pump mineral-rich brine up from areas of hot rock beneath the surface of the Earth, convert that heat to energy, and then re-inject that water back into the ground to heat back up again. The re-injection process is usually as simple as it sounds—just put the water back in the ground where you found it once it cools. Instead, Enel is harnessing power from all that falling water. Brian Stankiewicz, Enel’s Senior Operations Manager for geothermal and solar operations, told Ars that the company realized it “had an exponential amount of hydraulic energy that could be harnessed” shortly after it bought the defunct plant in 2007.

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