Month: July 2017

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Update - July 18: River City Ransom Underground developer Conatus says it will change the soundtrack to the game because, in short, "we can’t spend another minute thinking about the false DMCA complaints filed against us and our YouTube and Twitch community."

Conatus writes in a post on the game's Steam community page today that the company's lawyers have assured them Mauer's DMCA claim has "no legal basis" and that she was fully paid for the rights to her subcontracted music work on the Kickstarter-funded game. But the developers are not eager to face the prospect of proving that in order to fight the game's DMCA takedown request on Steam.

"Being legally right is only half the story," Conatus writes. "As a practical matter, the costs of legal action would put console development plans on hold, perhaps indefinitely. We don't have any interest in spending our time and our energy dealing with this matter further."

Enlarge / Amazon's first public grocery store, now open in the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. But you can't go inside. Pickup only. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

Amazon's grocery ambitions were clear long before the Internet giant bought Whole Foods last month, and the company is moving ahead with those ambitions after purchasing the grocery chain. According to a report from the British publication The Times, Amazon filed a trademark for a meal kit service on July 6 with the tagline "We do the prep. You be the chef." The service covers "prepared food kits... ready for assembly as a meal" and, according to CNBC, will primarily include dishes consisting of grains, pasta, rice, and noodles.

Any Amazon meal kits to come in the future will likely be sold through Amazon Fresh, the company's online grocery ordering and delivery service. Amazon Fresh already sells meal kits from partners including Tyson Foods and Martha Stewart, so any newly branded Amazon meal kits won't be the only prepared ingredient boxes available through the service. While it's unclear if Amazon Fresh will take over Whole Foods' existing grocery delivery service, there's a good chance that any meal kits offered by Amazon could also be prepared and delivered via Whole Foods locations.

It may be some time before we see Amazon-branded meal kits online, but the competition is already feeling the heat. Blue Apron is the largest meal kit provider in the US, followed by HelloFresh, and this is the second hit the company has taken recently. Blue Apron filed its IPO shortly after Amazon bought Whole Foods, and since then its stock has fallen 30 percent month-to-date. Today, Blue Apron stocks hit an intraday low of $6.51 a share, down nearly 10 percent.

The HTC U11 on a beach.

HTC has been promising Amazon Alexa integration for its newest flagship, the U11, since before it hit the market. Two months after release, it has finally arrived. U11 customers can now download the HTC Alexa app to enable the feature.

This isn't the first Android phone with Alexa integration (that honor goes to the Huawei Mate 9), but it's the first smartphone to have always-on, hot-word support for Amazon's digital assistant. This allows you to say "Alexa" at any time and have the phone wake up and respond, basically turning it into a portable Echo. You can also trigger Alexa by mapping it to the U11's pressure sensitive side button or by just tapping the app icon.

The U11 also supports the Google Assistant hot-word, and both can be enabled at the same time, so just shout "OK Google" to get Google, or "Alexa" to get Amazon. The U11 is outfitted with a whopping four microphones, and after the hot-word pickup, the phone will detect where you are relative to the phone and use the microphone that is getting the clearest recording of your voice.

(credit: frankieleon)

The wobbly, squabbling, minority Tory government—propped up by Northern Ireland's DUP—has laid before MPs its first commencement order for the recently passed Digital Economy Act, in which it confirmed that an age checker system for access to porn sites will be brought in next spring.

"We have taken steps to implement the new age verification requirement for online pornography as part of our continuing work to make the Internet safer," said digital minister Matt Hancock. "The new scheme is complex and will not be fully in place until April 2018, but today we are bringing into force powers to designate the regulator and powers to allow guidance to be issued."

When quizzed by Ars, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) declined to reveal more technical details about the system, opting instead to give us some notes it had already spoon fed to the Mail On Sunday. It also refused to comment on which third party will be developing and operating the government's age verification system.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | UniversalImagesGroup)

Sometimes, there’s more to old age than meets the eye—sometimes, it’s 27 contact lenses jammed in there, according to a case study published this month in the British Medical Journal.

A 67-year-old British woman, complaining of eye discomfort and dryness, was scheduled last November to have routine surgery to remove cataracts when doctors discovered a “blueish mass” of 17 disposable contact lenses stuck in one of her eyes. Upon further examination, they fished out 10 more, the case study reveals.

Doctors were startled, according to Rupal Morjaria, a specialist trainee ophthalmologist on the case who spoke with Optometry Today. “None of us have ever seen this before,” she said. “It was such a large mass. All the 17 contact lenses were stuck together. We were really surprised that the patient didn’t notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there.”