Month: July 2017

Over the past two weeks several pirate streaming sites have seen their homepages disappear from Google’s search results.

Earlier this week we reported how GoMovies switched to a new domain name, for this very reason, but on closer inspection it appears that several other sites have suffered the same fate.

While homepages have been removed before, the takedown notices that triggered the recent removals seem to be a systematic effort. They are all sent by the prominent law firm Kilpatrick Townsend, which acts on behalf of a variety of Hollywood movie studios.

The notices, of which the first was sent roughly two weeks ago, all follow a similar pattern. They identify infringing content on pirate streaming sites and list the individual URLs for these movies. In addition, however, many also include the homepage, which often highlights the same movie as a “new” or popular title.

In the case of Gomovies.is, a request was sent on behalf of Warner Bros. to remove Wonder Woman’s streaming page from Google, as well as the homepage where the movie was listed in the popular section.

This worked, not only for the GoMovies domain name but also for dozens of other streaming sites including yesmovies.org, watchfree.ac, xmovies.is, watch29.com, vivo.to, tunemovie.com, putlockervip.com, playmovies.to, moviesub.is and fmovies.ac.

The example above is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past two weeks the law firm has targeted many pirate streaming sites, acting on behalf of Warner Bros, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, NBC Universal and others. This effectively removed dozens of pirate site homepages from search results.

To outsiders, it may seem like a homepage is just another link but for site owners, it’s a crucial matter. Many of these streaming sites rely on their brand name to remain findable in search engines, and when the homepage is removed, it’s nearly impossible to rise to the top of search results.

Although Google removed many of the early requests, it’s not blindly removing all URLs.

In response to several recent notices the search engine decided to take “no action” for the homepages, which is why gomovies.sc, cmovieshd.com, ap551.com, and others remain indexed. It’s possible that the infringing content was no longer linked on these homepages when Google reviewed the DMCA notices in question.

As for GoMovies, they simply decided to move to a new URL and remove any infringing content from the homepage so they don’t face the same problem in the future.

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

One or the nice things about Android smartphones is that if you don’t like the one-time screen keyboard, home screen launcher, or other default apps that come with your device, you can probably replace them. Usually the best be reasons to do that have to do with personal preferences. Maybe you want a different layout, […]

Ads appear in default keyboard app for some HTC phones is a post from: Liliputing

Enlarge (credit: BBC)

Jodie Whittaker, who worked with new Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall on Broadchurch, has been unveiled as the 13th Doctor.

She will be the first female actor to play the Time Lord in the history of Doctor Who.

In a publicity chat with the BBC, Whittaker urged Whovians to be open about the Doctor's gender switcheroo. "I want to tell the fans not to be scared by my gender. Because this is a really exciting time, and Doctor Who represents everything that’s exciting about change. The fans have lived through so many changes, and this is only a new, different one, not a fearful one."

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Enlarge / Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach (right), is one of the top officials on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. (credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Shortly before the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is set to have its first meeting on Wednesday July 19—which will be livestreamed here—the controversial committee published hundreds of pages from concerned citizens about the group’s work. In some cases, the White House released citizens’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses, seemingly without their knowledge.

However, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the group, indicated that releasing such personal information was ok.

"These are public comments, similar to individuals appearing before commission to make comments and providing name before making comments," Marc Lotter, press secretary to the vice president, told Vox on Friday. "The Commission’s Federal Register notice asking for public comments and its website make clear that information ‘including names and contact information’ sent to this email address may be released."

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(credit: Miguel Navarro / Getty Images)

As the world’s great companies pursue autonomous cars, they’re essentially spending billions of dollars to get machines to do what your average two-year-old can do without thinking—identify what they see. Of course, in some regards toddlers still have the advantage. Infamously last year, a driver died while in a Tesla sedan—he wasn't paying attention when the vehicle's camera mistook a nearby truck for the sky.

The degree to which these companies have had success so far is because of a long-dormant form of computation that models certain aspects of the brain. However, this form of computation pushes current hardware to its limits, since modern computers operate very differently from the gray matter in our heads. So, as programmers create “neural network” software to run on regular computer chips, engineers are also designing “neuromorphic” hardware that can imitate the brain more efficiently. Sadly, one type of neural net that has become the standard in image recognition and other tasks, something called a convolutional neural net, or CNN, has resisted replication in neuromorphic hardware.

That is, until recently.

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