Virtual Reality: Sony senkt Preis von Playstation VR

Die Playstation Camera bekommen Käufer von Playstation VR in den USA einfach mit dazu, was den Preis für das Headset unterm Strich um rund 60 US-Dollar senkt. In Deutschland gibt es bislang nur eine inoffizielle Preissenkung – die fällt aber umso drastischer aus. (Playstation VR, Sony)

Die Playstation Camera bekommen Käufer von Playstation VR in den USA einfach mit dazu, was den Preis für das Headset unterm Strich um rund 60 US-Dollar senkt. In Deutschland gibt es bislang nur eine inoffizielle Preissenkung - die fällt aber umso drastischer aus. (Playstation VR, Sony)

Reporter: Google successfully pressured me to take down critical story

Google allegedly told Forbes “the article was problematic and had to come down.”

Google co-founder Larry Page was CEO of Google in 2011. (credit: Getty Images)

The recent furor over a Google-funded think tank firing an anti-Google scholar has inspired Gizmodo journalist Kashmir Hill to tell a story about the time Google used its power to squash a story that was embarrassing to the company.

The incident occurred in 2011. Hill was a cub reporter at Forbes, where she covered technology and privacy. At the time, Google was actively promoting Google Plus and was sending representatives to media organizations to encourage them to add "+1" buttons to their sites. Hill was pulled into one of these meetings, where the Google representative suggested that Forbes would be penalized in Google search results if it didn't add +1 buttons to the site.

Hill thought that seemed like a big story, so she contacted Google's PR shop for confirmation. Google essentially confirmed the story, and so Hill ran with it under the headline: "Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers."

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Epson: Ecotank-Drucker für das Heimbüro druckt in A3

Der ET-16500 bringt wiederbefüllbare Ecotank-Patronen in das heimische Büro. Der Tintenstrahldrucker kann A3-Blätter beidseitig bedrucken und gleichzeitig als Scanner und Faxgerät genutzt werden. (Epson, Drucker)

Der ET-16500 bringt wiederbefüllbare Ecotank-Patronen in das heimische Büro. Der Tintenstrahldrucker kann A3-Blätter beidseitig bedrucken und gleichzeitig als Scanner und Faxgerät genutzt werden. (Epson, Drucker)

Ancient fish skulls shake up the vertebrate evolutionary tree

The largest group of fishes may be 40 million years younger than we thought.

Enlarge / The skull of a 250 million year old fossil fish and a virtual model of its internal skeleton, along with a life reconstruction. (credit: Andrey Atuchin)

Around 400 million years ago, the world was warm. Animals were beginning to emerge from the oceans, and plants began to spread across the Earth. The northern Appalachian mountains were raised as the continents of Euramerica and Gondwana met. And the fish family reached a major splitting point.

One group branched off to become the lobe-finned fishes (like the famous coelacanth), which later spun off a group called the tetrapods. That’s us—we’re tetrapods, along with all other mammals, reptiles, birds, and amphibians. The other group became what we think of as stereotypical fish: the ray-finned fishes. That’s more or less every bone-filled fish you can think of: tuna, eels, goldfish (but not sharks; they’re cartilaginous, not bony).

A paper in Nature this week reports that ray-finned fishes may be a whole 40 million years younger than previously thought—and that a number of fossil species have been placed in the wrong slot on the family tree. The finding points to how crucial this period in evolutionary history is to our understanding of the evolution of modern vertebrates. And in the process, it clarifies the history of a strange fish that still lives in Africa called the bichir.

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Search Engines Will Open Systems to Prove Piracy & VPN Blocking

Leading Russian search engines have met with local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to work out how the services will stop pirate sites, mirrors, VPNs, and other anonymization tools from appearing in search results. Search engines will now receive lists of banned resources automatically and will mesh their IT systems with the government’s so the latter can ascertain compliance.

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

Over the past several years, Russia has become something of a world leader when it comes to website blocking. Tens of thousands of websites are now blocked in the country on copyright infringement and a wide range of other grounds.

With circumvention technologies such as VPNs, however, Russian citizens are able to access blocked sites, a position that has irritated Russian authorities who are determined to control what information citizens are allowed to access.

After working on new legislation for some time, late July President Vladimir Putin signed a new law which requires local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to maintain a list of banned domains while identifying sites, services, and software that provide access to them.

Rozcomnadzor is required to contact the operators of such services with a request for them to block banned resources. If they do not, then they themselves will become blocked. In addition, search engines are also required to remove blocked resources from their search results, in order to discourage people from accessing them.

With compliance now a matter of law, attention has turned to how search engines can implement the required mechanisms. This week Roskomnadzor hosted a meeting with representatives of the largest Russian search engines including Yandex, Sputnik, Search Mail.ru, where this topic was top of the agenda.

Since failure to comply can result in a fine of around $12,000 per breach, search companies have a vested interest in the systems working well against not only pirate sites, but also mirrors and anonymization tools that provide access to them.

“During the meeting, a consolidated position on the implementation of new legislative requirements was developed,” Rozcomnadzor reports.

“It was determined that the list of blocked resources to be removed from search results will be transferred to the operators of search engines in an automated process.”

While sending over lists of domains directly to search engines probably isn’t that groundbreaking, Rozcomnadzor wants to ensure that companies like Yandex are also responding to the removal requests properly.

So, instead of simply carrying out test searches itself, it’s been agreed that the watchdog will gain direct access to the search engines’ systems, so that direct verification can take place.

“In addition, preliminary agreements have been reached that the verification of the enforcement of the law by the search engines will be carried out through the interaction of the information systems of Roskomnadzor and the operators of search engines,” Rozcomnadzor reports.

Time for search engines to come into full compliance is ticking away. The law requiring them to remove listings for ‘pirate’ mirror sites comes into effect October 1. Exactly a month later on November 1, VPNs and anonymization tools will have to be removed too, if they fail to meet the standards required under state regulation.

Part of that regulation requires anonymization services to disclose the identities of their owners to the government.

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

With Indian rocket launch failure, 2017 seeing a higher accident rate

This is the fifth orbital rocket failure of 2017.

Enlarge / The Indian satellite tried to separate from the rocket while inside the payload fairing. (credit: ISRO)

On Thursday the Indian space agency, ISRO, suffered a rare failure when its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle failed to launch a navigation satellite into its proper orbit. It was the first failure of the workhorse launch vehicle, capable of lifting about four tons to low Earth orbit, in two decades.

So far the Indian space agency has yet to say to too much about the cause of the failure. Officials have confirmed that the payload fairing did not detach properly from the rocket after launch. This is the protective shroud around the satellite that protects it during the ride through the atmosphere. During brief moments of the webcast, the satellite could be seen trying to separate inside the fairing.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle flies about half a dozen times a year, and in recent years operators of small satellites have booked flights on the Indian rocket due to its lower cost (approximately $15 million) and reliability. Earlier this year, for example, the Indian rocket launched dozens of small commercial satellites at the same time. The payload lost Thursday was the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System 1H satellite.

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Routerausfall: Telekom-Hacker nach Großbritannien ausgeliefert

Ein 29-jähriger Brite ist in sein Heimatland überstellt worden. Zuvor war der Mann in Deutschland wegen des Angriffs auf Router der Telekom verurteilt worden, in seiner Heimat drohen ihm vermutlich härtere Strafen als in Deutschland. (Telekom, Netzwerk)

Ein 29-jähriger Brite ist in sein Heimatland überstellt worden. Zuvor war der Mann in Deutschland wegen des Angriffs auf Router der Telekom verurteilt worden, in seiner Heimat drohen ihm vermutlich härtere Strafen als in Deutschland. (Telekom, Netzwerk)

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update launches October 17th

Microsoft has announced that the next major update to Windows 10 will be available to the public starting October 17th. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update brings updates to the Photos and Videos apps, the Windows Ink experience for devices with pen input, gaming, and accessibility features, among other things. But one of the more […]

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update launches October 17th is a post from: Liliputing

Microsoft has announced that the next major update to Windows 10 will be available to the public starting October 17th. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update brings updates to the Photos and Videos apps, the Windows Ink experience for devices with pen input, gaming, and accessibility features, among other things. But one of the more […]

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update launches October 17th is a post from: Liliputing

Hyperflight: China plant superschnellen Vactrain

Ein Zug, der in einer Vakuumröhre schwebt? Klingt bekannt. Doch verglichen mit dem Hyperflight, den ein chinesisches Unternehmen anstrebt, soll sich der von Elon Musk erdachte Hyperloop wie ein Bummelzug ausnehmen. (Verkehr, Technologie)

Ein Zug, der in einer Vakuumröhre schwebt? Klingt bekannt. Doch verglichen mit dem Hyperflight, den ein chinesisches Unternehmen anstrebt, soll sich der von Elon Musk erdachte Hyperloop wie ein Bummelzug ausnehmen. (Verkehr, Technologie)

Moto X4 im Hands on: Lenovos Preis-Leistungs-Kracher

Mit dem Moto X4 hat Lenovo eines der interessantesten Smartphones auf der Ifa vorgestellt: Das Gerät kommt mit intelligenter Dual-Kamera, eingebautem Alexa-Sprachassistenten, Wasserschutz und gutem Mittelklasse-SoC. Den Preis von 400 Euro finden wir dafür eher günstig. Ein Hands on von Tobias Költzsch (Ifa 2017, Smartphone)

Mit dem Moto X4 hat Lenovo eines der interessantesten Smartphones auf der Ifa vorgestellt: Das Gerät kommt mit intelligenter Dual-Kamera, eingebautem Alexa-Sprachassistenten, Wasserschutz und gutem Mittelklasse-SoC. Den Preis von 400 Euro finden wir dafür eher günstig. Ein Hands on von Tobias Költzsch (Ifa 2017, Smartphone)