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Computer users of a certain age will remember BIOS as ubiquitous firmware that came loaded on PCs. It was the thing you saw briefly before your operating system loaded, and you could dig into the settings to change your computer’s boot order, ena…
Computer users of a certain age will remember BIOS as ubiquitous firmware that came loaded on PCs. It was the thing you saw briefly before your operating system loaded, and you could dig into the settings to change your computer’s boot order, enable or disable some features, and more. Most modern PCs ship with UEFI […]
Intel plans to end legacy BIOS support by 2020 is a post from: Liliputing
Amazon isn’t waiting for Black Friday to put some of its tablets, eReaders, and other devices on sale. The company’s Fire HD 10 tablet is on sale for $100 starting today, which is $50 off the usual price for this full HD tablet with a quad-…
Amazon isn’t waiting for Black Friday to put some of its tablets, eReaders, and other devices on sale. The company’s Fire HD 10 tablet is on sale for $100 starting today, which is $50 off the usual price for this full HD tablet with a quad-core processor. The Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite are both $30 […]
Amazon’s Kindle and Fire tablet Black Friday prices now live (starting at $50) is a post from: Liliputing
Stoppage to last Sunday and Monday, but its impact seems unlikely to be broadly felt.
Enlarge / Kaitlin Myers, a shopper for Instacart, studies her smartphone as she shopped for a customer at Whole Foods in Denver. Myers received a grocery list for a shopper and then completed the shopping on Tuesday, October 28, 2014. (credit: Denver Post Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon)
OAKLAND, Calif.—Seated at a dimly-lit bar, a gregarious man dressed in a scarf and beanie of his favorite local sports team, explained to Ars last week why he and some of his fellow Instacart shoppers plan on not working this Sunday and Monday.
"We’re going to sign up for shifts and then when it’s time, if I’m working from 10am to 1pm on [November 19], the first order, I’m going to decline it, not accept the batch," he said, using Instacart’s term for multiple pickups at a single retail location. "They’ll kick us off and we’ll continue to do that until they kick us off [for the day]."
The man, who goes by Ike, declined to let Ars use his full name for fear of reprisal—he also doesn’t want unwanted scrutiny from his colleagues at his full-time public sector job.
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Just watching on Twitch isn’t the same as being immersed in the crowd.
Kyle Orland
At this point, I don't have much patience for the argument that eSports fans should stop watching other people play video games and just play those games themselves.
For one, it's an argument that few people make about spectator sports like basketball and football, where the skill difference between a pro and a novice is roughly the same as in eSports. For another, the thrill of watching a competitor at the top of his or her game is entirely distinct (and better in some ways) from competing yourself.
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After crops failed, botanist Kathleen Drew-Baker realized that nori wasn’t what it seemed.
Enlarge / A nori farm off the coast of Japan. (credit: H. Grobe)
The tasty Japanese seaweed nori is ubiquitous today, but that wasn't always true. Nori was once called “lucky grass” because every year's harvest was entirely dependent on luck. Then, during World War II, luck ran out. No nori would grow off the coast of Japan, and farmers were distraught. But a major scientific discovery on the other side of the planet revealed something unexpected about the humble plant and turned an unpredictable crop into a steady and plentiful food source.
Nori is most familiar to us when it's wrapped around sushi. It looks less familiar when floating in the sea, but for centuries, farmers in Japan, China, and Korea knew it by sight. Every year, they would plant bamboo poles strung with nets in the coastal seabed and wait for nori to build up on them.
At first it would look like thin filaments. Then, with luck, it grew into healthy, harvestable plants with long, green leaves. The farmers never saw seeds or seedlings, so no one could cultivate it. The filaments simply appeared every year. That is, they appeared until after World War II, when pollution, industrialization along the coast, and a series of violent typhoons led to a disastrous drop in harvests. By 1951, nori production in Japan had been all but wiped out.
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Huawei hat ungefragt eine Zusatz-App auf eine Reihe von Smartphones installiert. Mit dabei waren verschiedene Huawei-Smartphones, aber auch einige Honor-Modelle. Die App-Installation soll auf einen internen Fehler bei Huawei zurückzuführen sein. (Huawe…
Huawei hat ungefragt eine Zusatz-App auf eine Reihe von Smartphones installiert. Mit dabei waren verschiedene Huawei-Smartphones, aber auch einige Honor-Modelle. Die App-Installation soll auf einen internen Fehler bei Huawei zurückzuführen sein. (Huawei, Smartphone) Danish anti-piracy group RettighedsAlliancen is taking a scattered approach to combat piracy. The piracy ‘disruption machine,’ as they call it, distributes a list of hundreds of pirate sites to ISPs, ad-brokers, search engines, payment processors and other intermediaries, who all expected to take action in response. In the future, this could expand to social media sites and web browsers, the group envisions.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Over the years copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb copyright infringement, with varying levels of success.
By now it’s well known that blocking or even shutting down a pirate site doesn’t help much. As long as there are alternatives, people will simply continue to download or stream elsewhere.
Increasingly, major entertainment industry companies are calling for a broader and more coordinated response. They would like to see ISPs, payment processors, advertisers, search engines, and social media companies assisting in their anti-piracy efforts. Voluntarily, or even with a legal incentive, if required.
In Denmark, local anti-piracy group RettighedsAlliancen has a similar goal and they are starting to make progress. The outfit is actively building a piracy “disruption machine” that tackles the issue from as many sides as it can.
The disruption machine is built around an Infringing Website List (IWL), which is not related to a similarly-named initiative from the UK police. This list is made up of pirate sites that have been found to facilitate copyright infringement by a Danish court.
“The IWL is a part of the disruption machine that RettighedsAlliancen has developed in collaboration with many stakeholders in the online community,” the group’s CEO Maria Fredenslund tells TorrentFreak.
The stakeholders include major ISPs, but also media companies, MasterCard, Google, and Microsoft. With help from the local government they signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Their goal is to make the internet a safe and legitimate platform for consumers and businesses while limiting copyright infringement and associated crime.
There are currently twelve court orders on which the list is based and two more are expected to come in before the end of the year. As a result, approximately 600 pirate sites are on the IWL, making them harder to find.
Every time a new court order is handed down, RettighedsAlliancen distributes an updated list to their the network of stakeholders.
“Currently, all major ISPs in Denmark have agreed to implement the IWL in their systems based on a joint Code of Conduct. This means that all the ISPs jointly will block their customers access to infringing services thus amplifying the impact of a blocking order by magnitudes,” Fredenslund explains.
Thus far ISPs are actively blocking 100 pirate sites, resulting in significant traffic drops. The rest of the list has yet to be implemented.
The IWL is also used in the online advertising industry, where several major advertising brokers have signed a joint agreement not to show advertising on these sites. This shuts off part of the revenue streams to pirate sites which, in theory, should make them less profitable.
A similar approach is being taken by major payment providers, who are preventing known pirate sites from processing transactions through their services. Every company has its own measures, but the overlapping goal is to frustrate pirate sites and reduce copyright infringement.
It’s interesting to see that Google is listed as a partner since they don’t support general website blockades. However, Google said that it would demote sites on the IWL in its search results.
While these are all positive developments, according to the anti-piracy group, it’s just the start. RettighedsAlliancen also believes other tools and services could join in. Browser plugins could use the IWL to identify illegal sites, for example, and the options are endless.
“Likewise, large companies, institutions, and public authorities are also well-suited to implement the IWL in their local networks. For example, to prevent students from accessing illegal content while at school or university,” Fredenslund says.
“Looking further ahead, social media platforms such as Facebook are used to a great extent to consume content online and it is therefore obvious that they should also incorporate the IWL in their systems to prevent their users from harm and preventing copyright infringement.”
This model is not completely unique, of course. We’ve seen several elements being implemented in other countries as well, and copyright holders have been pushing voluntary agreements for quite some time now.
What’s new, however, is that it’s clearly defined as a strategy by the Danish group. And by labeling the strategy as a “disruption machine” it already sounds effective, which is part of the job.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Oneplus hat Android 8.0 alias Oreo für das Three und das 3T veröffentlicht. Damit ist Oneplus ganz vorn mit dabei, wenn es um Updates auf Oreo geht. Weitere Oneplus-Smartphones sollen das Update im nächsten Jahr bekommen. (Android 8.0, Smartphone)
Oneplus hat Android 8.0 alias Oreo für das Three und das 3T veröffentlicht. Damit ist Oneplus ganz vorn mit dabei, wenn es um Updates auf Oreo geht. Weitere Oneplus-Smartphones sollen das Update im nächsten Jahr bekommen. (Android 8.0, Smartphone) Google und Amazon nähern sich weiter an. Die Amazon-Music-App für Android unterstützt offiziell Googles Cast-Technik, um Musik vom Smartphone oder Tablet etwa auf einen Chromecast zu übertragen – allerdings nicht uneingeschränkt. (Amazon Music, Google)…
Google und Amazon nähern sich weiter an. Die Amazon-Music-App für Android unterstützt offiziell Googles Cast-Technik, um Musik vom Smartphone oder Tablet etwa auf einen Chromecast zu übertragen - allerdings nicht uneingeschränkt. (Amazon Music, Google) After serving as the most used torrent meta-search engine for more than a decade, Torrentz shut down last year. The reason behind the sudden shutdown decision remains unclear but it appears that the owner is moving on for good as the site’s domain names are now listed for sale.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Last year, the torrent ecosystem lost two of its biggest sites. First KickassTorrents was taken down following a criminal investigation by the FBI, resulting in indictments against the operators.
A few days later, Torrentz.eu decided to close its doors as well, albeit voluntarily. Without prior warning, all torrent listings were removed from the meta-search engine, which was the third largest torrent site at the time.
The site’s operator kept the website online, but instead of offering links to the usual torrents, its users were left with the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”
Today, more than a year later, not much has changed. Torrentz is still online but the torrent search engine is still not functional. This role was taken over by an unrelated site carrying the name Torrentz2, which has millions of daily visitors itself now.
However, according to a message posted on the original Torrentz site, things may change in the near future. The original Torrentz domain names, including Torrentz.eu, Torrentz.com and Torrentz.in, are for listed sale.
Considering the history of the site and the fact that it still has quite a bit of traffic, this may pique the interest of some online entrepreneurs.
For sentimental Torrentz fans, a sale can go both ways. It could either be used for a new torrent related venture, or someone could scoop it up just to fill it with ads, or even worse.
One thing potential buyers have to be aware of is that the site is still blocked in several countries, including the UK. This, despite the fact that it hasn’t carried any links to infringing content for over a year.
TorrentFreak reached out to the owner of Torrentz to find out why he decided to sell the site now. At the time of writing we haven’t heard back yet, but it’s clear that he’s ready to move on.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
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