Ein neuer Bot von Microsoft kann mit Hilfe künstlicher Intelligenz Dinge zeichnen, die ihm beschrieben werden. Die Bilder werden nicht aus bestehenden zusammenkopiert, sondern Pixel für Pixel neu erschaffen. (KI, Microsoft)
Ein neuer Bot von Microsoft kann mit Hilfe künstlicher Intelligenz Dinge zeichnen, die ihm beschrieben werden. Die Bilder werden nicht aus bestehenden zusammenkopiert, sondern Pixel für Pixel neu erschaffen. (KI, Microsoft)
Ende April 2018 will Epic Games die Server des Actionspiels Paragon vollständig abschalten – wohl auch, um sich stärker auf Fortnite zu konzentrieren. Ungewöhnlich: Spieler sollen alle Käufe auf allen Plattformen erstattet bekommen. (Epic Games, Playst…
Ende April 2018 will Epic Games die Server des Actionspiels Paragon vollständig abschalten - wohl auch, um sich stärker auf Fortnite zu konzentrieren. Ungewöhnlich: Spieler sollen alle Käufe auf allen Plattformen erstattet bekommen. (Epic Games, Playstation 4)
Last weekend, after what appeared to be a pre-order blunder, Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok was leaked online in advance of its official release date. Interestingly, it now transpires that director Taiki Waititi is no stranger to piracy himself, after admitting that his showreel for the movie contained source material he’d “illegally torrented” on the Internet.
It’s not often that movies escape being pirated online but last weekend was a pretty miserable one for the people behind Thor:Ragnarok.
Just four months after the superhero movie’s theatrical debut, the Marvel hit was due to be released on disc February 26th, with digital distribution on iTunes planned for February 19th.
However, due to what appeared to be some kind of pre-order blunder, the $180 million movie was leaked online, resulting in a pirate frenzy that’s still ongoing.
But with the accidental early release of Thor:Ragnarok making waves within the torrent system and beyond, it seems ironic that its talented director actually has another relationship with piracy that most people aren’t aware of.
In an interview for ‘Q’, a show broadcast on Canada’s CBC radio, Taika Waititi noted that Thor: Ragnarok might be a “career ender” for him, something that was previously highlighted in the media.
However, the softly-spoken New Zealander also said some other things that flew completely under the radar but given recent developments, now have new significance.
Speaking with broadcaster Tom Power, Waititi revealed that when putting together his promotional showreel for Thor: Ragnarok, he obtained its source material from illegal sources.
Explaining the process used to acquire clips to create his ‘sizzle reel’ (a short video highlighting a director’s vision and tone for a proposed movie), Waititi revealed his less-than-official approach.
“I cut together little clips and shots – I basically illegally torrented and, erm, you know, ripped clips from the Internet,” Waititi said.
“Of a bunch of different things?” Power asked.
“I don’t mind saying that…erm…on the radio,” Waititi added, unconvincingly.
With Power quickly assuring the director that admitting doing something illegal was OK on air, Waititi perhaps realized it probably wasn’t.
“You can cut that out,” he suggested.
That Waititi took the ‘pirate’ approach to obtaining source material for his ‘sizzle reel’ isn’t really a surprise. Content is freely accessible online, crucially in easier to consume and edit formats than even Waititi has access to on short notice. And, since every film in memory is just a few clicks away, it’d be counter-intuitive not to use the resource in the name of creativity.
Overall then, it’s extremely unlikely that Waititi’s pirate confession will come to much. Two of his previous feature films, ‘Boy’ and ‘Hunt For The Wilderpeople’, held titles for the highest-grossing New Zealand film, the latter achieving the accolade in 2017.
Also in 2017, Waititi was named New Zealander of the Year in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to the well being of the nation.” Praise doesn’t come much higher than that.
How many torrent swarms he helped to keep healthy is destined remain a secret forever though, but as an emerging movie hero in his own right, people will forgive him that.
Wir unterhalten uns ausgiebig mit digitalen Assistenten und die Parteien reden endlich über eine Koalition und entdecken dabei die Digitalisierung. Derweil geht’s in der Raumfahrt so richtig ab. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Internet)
Wir unterhalten uns ausgiebig mit digitalen Assistenten und die Parteien reden endlich über eine Koalition und entdecken dabei die Digitalisierung. Derweil geht's in der Raumfahrt so richtig ab. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Internet)
The Nintendo Switch was the best selling console for December, in the crucial US market.1.5 million Switch consoles were sold in December according to data collected by NPD, which brings the total number of Switch consoles in the US to 4.8 million.Nint…
The Nintendo Switch was the best selling console for December, in the crucial US market.
1.5 million Switch consoles were sold in December according to data collected by NPD, which brings the total number of Switch consoles in the US to 4.8 million.
Nintendo added to their already good results with strong sales for the portable 3DS console, which sold 1.1 million units, the best Christmas the portable console has had since 2014. When added together, Nintendo accounted for over half of all hardware sales in December.
Microsoft's Xbox One console also had a good Christmas by beating longtime rivals PS4 to second place.
While Sony's console had to settle for last place among the home based consoles, it is actually the PS4 that's leading the sales charts, with 74 million consoles sold worldwide already.
Bad mid-January news was followed by insider tips about Paragon‘s dire fate.
Enlarge/ In three months, Epic Games' online "action MOBA" game Paragon will be... para-gone. (credit: Epic Games)
Ten days after eerie-sounding news for the free-to-play online game Paragon, the series' creators at Epic Games confirmed fans' looming suspicions: the game will soon shut down.
Paragon's late-Friday announcement gives the game exactly three more months of life until its servers go dark on April 26. That means the game will have barely passed the two-year mark for its lifespan after a March 2016 "pay for early access" launch. The news comes with a frank admission of the "action MOBA" game's failings and an even more frank apology to its fans.
"After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable," the post, authored by "the Paragon team," says. "We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you—despite the team’s incredibly hard work—and we’re sorry."
And the roadmap for the transition to 10nm remains as murky as ever.
A 3D XPoint wafer. (credit: Intel)
As part of Intel's fourth quarter financials release, CEO Brian Krzanich promised that chips shipping this year would include true hardware fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown attacks.
The promise to ship chips immune to the attack leaves many questions unanswered. It's not clear if the fixes will be revisions of current generation Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and Skylake parts, or if the modifications will be constrained to the Cannon Lake processors that are expected to ship this year. Nor is it clear what form the fix will take: better, higher-performance versions of the microcode and workarounds already being rolled out, or deeper modifications to the processor's speculative execution and branch prediction behavior.
The company's delayed transition to a 10nm manufacturing process also remains murky. At CES, Intel claimed that it had shipped some unspecified chips built on 10nm last year. The first half of this year will see low volume production, ramping to high volume in the second half. But exactly what processors—in what configurations, when, and in what volumes—remains unknown. Both Cannon Lake, built on the 10nm process, and Ice Lake, built on the refined "10nm+" process, are planned, but the company has said little concrete about exact timelines.
It looks like the first Chrome OS tablets without physical keyboards could be on the way soon. But… what’s the point? After all, Google already has an operating system that runs on tablets. It’s called Android. And one of the key feat…
It looks like the first Chrome OS tablets without physical keyboards could be on the way soon. But… what’s the point? After all, Google already has an operating system that runs on tablets. It’s called Android. And one of the key features of a Chromebook is that it’s a desktop-style operating system with support for […]
Coincheck sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience.
Enlarge/ It's where the money is. (credit: iStock/Getty Images)
The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has shut down trading and withdrawals from accounts after a reported theft of more than 500 million XEM—the blockchain-based cryptocurrency created by the NEM Foundation. At the time of the theft, 500 million XEM was worth approximately $400 million US. Police were reportedly at Coincheck’s offices.
Coincheck announced the shutdown of NEM deposits at about noon Japan Standard Time Friday (10:00pm Eastern Time on Thursday). In a follow-up announcement four hours later, a company spokesperson expanded the shutdown to all currencies, and by 6pm JST all payment processing had been suspended. “We sincerely apologize for these inconveniences and will continue to do our best to be back to normal operations as soon as possible,” the spokesperson wrote. At about the same time, police were seen at Coincheck’s offices.
Ars attempted to reach representatives of Coincheck and the NEM Foundation without success. Lon Wong, the president of the NEM Foundation, was quoted by Sead Fadilpašić and Stuart Garlick of Cryptonews.com as saying, “This is the biggest theft in the history of the world.” Wong told Cryptonews that NEM’s technology was not responsible and that Coincheck did not implement NEM’s multi-signature smart contract, “and that's why they could have been hacked. They were very relaxed with their security measures.” It is not clear if there was actually a “hack” at this point.
This week Google started selling audiobooks through the Google Play Store. And after purchasing a book this afternoon, I was getting ready to join Nate from The Digital Reader in declaring that the experience of actually using Google Play for audiobook…
This week Google started selling audiobooks through the Google Play Store. And after purchasing a book this afternoon, I was getting ready to join Nate from The Digital Reader in declaring that the experience of actually using Google Play for audiobooks is frustrating and disappointing. But while I was tinkering with the Google Play Books […]
Ein neuer Bot von Microsoft kann mit Hilfe künstlicher Intelligenz Dinge zeichnen, die ihm beschrieben werden. Die Bilder werden nicht aus bestehenden zusammenkopiert, sondern Pixel für Pixel neu erschaffen. (KI, Microsoft) 
Ende April 2018 will Epic Games die Server des Actionspiels Paragon vollständig abschalten - wohl auch, um sich stärker auf Fortnite zu konzentrieren. Ungewöhnlich: Spieler sollen alle Käufe auf allen Plattformen erstattet bekommen. (
Wir unterhalten uns ausgiebig mit digitalen Assistenten und die Parteien reden endlich über eine Koalition und entdecken dabei die Digitalisierung. Derweil geht's in der Raumfahrt so richtig ab. (
3.21ワンマン (@yagihinata) 
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