Month: February 2017

Eine Diskussion zwischen dem umstrittenen Key-Reseller G2A.com und seinen Gegnern und Kunden auf Reddit ist aus dem Ruder gelaufen: Während der Ask-me-Anything-Runde hat ein Spieler offenbar die Verifizierungssysteme überlistet. (Games, Steam)

Es hat eine Weile gedauert: Schon vor einem Jahr hat Nikon seine 360-Grad-Actionkamera angekündigt. Technische Schwierigkeiten verzögerten die Auslieferung. Jetzt ist sie da - und wir haben die Key Mission 360 getestet. Ein Test von Werner Pluta (Nikon, Digitalkamera)

Das Unternehmen Snap plant eine Milliarden-Platzierung. Doch die erstmals veröffentlichten Zahlen offenbaren noch Risiken - Google Cloud kann sich aber auf sichere Umsätze freuen. (Snapchat, Google)

Die Integration von Firefox auf Smart TVs und anderen Connected Devices scheint fehlgeschlagen zu sein: Mozilla will Medienberichten zufolge die entsprechende Entwicklungsabteilung auflösen. Betroffen wären rund 50 Mitarbeiter, die zumindest teilweise im Unternehmen verbleiben können sollen. (Mozilla, Firefox)

Weiß das selbstfahrende Auto nicht mehr weiter, ruft es nach dem Menschen. Doch der reagiert womöglich erheblich langsamer, als Experten erwarten. Das zeigt ein Test. (Autonomes Fahren, Elektroauto)

Google hat ein umfangreiches Update für die Enterprise-Version seiner G-Suite angekündigt: Mit dabei sind verpflichtende Hardwareschlüssel, S/MIME für Gmail und erweiterte Funktionen, um Datenverlust zu verhindern. (Google, Datenschutz)

Despite its proximity to European countries with strong intellectual property laws, Ukraine tends to fall behind when it comes to online piracy.

As a result, the site has played host to a wide range of prominent sites over the years, not least The Pirate Bay and ExtraTorrent.

As a result of its lax approach, Ukraine has been criticized on many occasions by the United States, particularly by the USTR who regularly brands the country as a piracy haven. This week it was the European Commission’s time to chime in.

In an interview with Ukrainian news outlet Unian, Nicholas Burge, head of the trade section of the European Commission’s delegation to Ukraine, expressed his opinions on where the country needs to improve.

“There should be a law that would provide a major responsibility for the contents of pirate sites. We will only believe in Ukraine’s serious intentions to fight pirate sites when there are penalties for those involved in supporting them,” he said.

Given moves underway in both the US and EU that could affect safe harbors for Internet service providers and hosting platforms, it’s no surprise that Burge wants Ukraine to take a firmer line with those present in Ukraine, especially those playing host to pirate sites.

“Internet service providers should also bear some legal responsibility for what they do. Otherwise, putting an end to online piracy will be impossible,” he said.

The EU representative said that this would have been possible under recent draft legislation designed to protect the film industry, but the amendments were vetoed by the President and never put into place.

“We urge Parliament to consider and adopt appropriate amendments to the law as soon as possible,” Burge said.

While Ukraine isn’t known for taking a hard line against pirate sites, it would be wrong to suggest it does nothing at all. Only recently, Ukrainian police acted on a complaint from the MPAA to close down FS.to, one of the country’s largest pirate sites. Sixty servers were seized and 19 people arrested. However, Burge believes more needs to be done.

“One site was closed and another appeared. This is a battle that is constantly going on,” he said.

According to comments made to Unian, Burge said that by neglecting intellectual property rights, Ukraine is not fulfilling its obligations under the Association Agreement with the EU and risks damaging relationships with the economic and political union.

“In case of default, the Agreement provides for appropriate mechanisms to deal with such situations within our relationships,” Burge said.

In addition to new criticism from the EU, Ukraine already faces annual complaints from the United States Trade Representative. In its latest Special 301 Report, the USTR kept Ukraine on its Priority List, meaning the country must make significant improvements if it is to meet US standards for IP protection.

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

The controversial Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), also dubbed the DRM for the web, will cease to be optional in the next version of Chrome.

The latest version of Chrome and all Chrome related products (for example, Chromium), has removed the option to disable plug-ins via the usual chrome://plugins page. This means that the Widevine Content Decryption Module, Chrome's implementation of EME, can no longer be disabled.

The Widevine plug-in already comes pre-installed with every copy of Chrome, and now, users will have no option but to have it activated.

The DRM plug-in has been used for a variety of browser based video distribution services, including Netflix, and this isn't the first time that the controversial plug-in has made the headlines. In June last year, security researchers found a bug in the Widevine implementation, one that has existed for the better of five years, that allowed hackers to gain download access to previously thought protected videos.

The flaw remained undiscovered because existing copyright laws make it illegal to tamper with DRM, thus leaving researchers studying security flaws open to lawsuits and even criminal prosecution.

[via Boing Boing]

Mit der Kaby-Lake-Generation hat Intel bei seinen Pentium-Chips erstmals Hyperthreading zugeschaltet. Dadurch erreichen die günstigen Prozessoren eine hohe Leistung: Der Pentium G4560 kommt teils in Reichweite des populären Core i5-2500K. Ein Test von Marc Sauter (Kaby Lake, Prozessor)

Der Nachtmodus (Night Shift), den Apple mit MacOS Sierra 10.12.4 auch auf den Desktop bringt, läuft nur auf neueren Macs, die auch die 3D-Grafikschnittstelle Metal unterstützen. Ältere Macs können eventuell durch einen Trick freigeschaltet werden. (Apple, Betriebssystem)