Month: November 2017

Jagen wir im Sommer 2018 in unseren Städten nach Dementoren und reisen zu virtuellen Drachenreservaten? Könnte sein: Das Entwicklerstudio hinter Pokémon Go hat offiziell das AR-Mobile-Game namens Harry Potter - Wizards Unite angekündigt. (Harry Potter Wizards Unite, Augmented Reality)

The number of Australians who willingly admit to watching pirated content has dropped again in the last year, according to a new survey.

The survey commissioned by the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association (AHEDA) and conducted by Gfk ConsumerScope found that just 16% of the 3185 individuals surveyed admitted to watching pirated film and television content.

This is down from 21% a year ago, 24% in 2015 and 29% in 2014.

While most commentators put the piracy decline down to the increasing availability of legal options such as Netflix and Australia's own native streaming service, Stan, others argue it's actually recent legal and technical actions that are responsible for the decline.

Australia has recently started to block piracy related websites, with 40 sites already being blocked, while a local film distributor has even threatened to sue individual pirates.

Simon Bush, the chief executive of AHEDA, says that these actions, as well as new high-profile advertising campaigns warning about the dangers of piracy, may have contributed to the piracy decline.

However, the correlation between the introduction of legal streaming and downloading options, such as Netflix and Stan's introduction in 2015, the year that piracy rates started dropping, cannot be ignored. Recent research by pollsters Roy Morgan suggests that Netflix is already in 31.8% of Australian homes.

Digital distribution via per-per-view services has also increased significantly according to data from AHEDA, with the market now worth $206 million compared to the same market being worth only $81.7 million in 2011.

While digital is definitely on the up, physical media sales continue to decline in Australia just like the rest of the developed world. Physical media sales in 2016 was worth $806 million, down from the peak of $1.39 billion in 2009.

[via The Sydney Morning Herald]

The Pirate Bay has been hard to reach for roughly a day now.

For most people, the site currently displays a CloudFlare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider referring to an “unknown error.”

No further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. However, judging from past experience, it’s likely a small technical issue that needs fixing.

Pirate Bay downtime

The Pirate Bay has had quite a few stints of downtime in recent months. The popular torrent site usually returns after several hours, but an outage of more than 24 hours has happened before as well.

TorrentFreak reached out to the TPB team but we have yet to hear more about the issue.

Amid the downtime, there’s still some good news for those who desperately need to access the notorious torrent site. TPB is still available via its .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example. The Tor traffic goes through a separate server and works just fine.

The same is true for The Pirate Bay’s proxy sites, most of which are still working just fine.

The main .org domain will probably be back in action soon enough, but seasoned TPB users will probably know the drill by now…

The Pirate Bay is not the only torrent site facing problems at the moment. 1337x.to is also suffering downtime. A week ago the site’s operator said that the site was under attack, which may still be ongoing. Meanwhile, 1337x’s official proxy is still online.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons

Völlig überraschend haben leitende Entwickler die Absage des Segwit2x-Updates für die Bitcoin-Blockchain abgesagt. Wenige Tage vor der geplanten Umsetzung hat Segwit2x offenbar keine Mehrheit gefunden. (Bitcoin, Studie)

Das Display im Pixel 2 XL ist offenbar in vielerlei Hinsicht der Schwachpunkt bei Googles Oberklasse-Smartphone. Neben einem starken Blaustich und eingebrannten Displays beklagen einige Nutzer auch ein lästiges Flackern des Bildschirms. Betroffene sollen neue Geräte erhalten. (Pixel 2, Smartphone)

Wegen einer hohen Abschreibung auf T-Systems halbierte sich der Gewinn der Telekom. Doch der Umsatz wuchs, viele Neukunden kamen im Festnetz in Deutschland und im US-Mobilfunk hinzu. (Vectoring, DSL)

Sind 64 oder gar 32 GByte für ein iPhone genug? Oder sollte es lieber das Vierfache sein? Seit Apple die Zwischenstufen aus dem Programm genommen hat, wird die Entscheidung schwerer. Von Andreas Sebayang (iPhone, Apple)

Ein erneuter Fehler im Wallet Parity hat dazu geführt, dass bis zu einer halben Million Einheiten der Kryptowährung Ethereum nicht mehr zugänglich sind. Wie die Ether wieder freigegeben werden können, wird derzeit noch diskutiert. (Ethereum, Technologie)

Die neue Version von Workflow für iOS bringt optische Anpassungen für das iPhone X, aber auch Unterstützung von mehreren iOS 11-Neuerungen, eine Drag-and-Drop-Funktion und viele Bugfixes. Apple hat die Workflow-Anwendung Anfang des Jahres erworben. (iOS, Apple)

Es ist bereits abzusehen gewesen: Das Nokia 2 wird nicht mehr dieses Jahr nach Deutschland kommen. Zudem wird der 100-Euro-Preis hierzulande nicht eingehalten. (HMD Global, Smartphone)