Month: May 2018

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Enlarge / The activity of grid cells as rats explore an environment. (credit: NTNU)

DeepMind is an artificial intelligence research company that specializes in deep learning. That's an approach, inspired by neural networks, that passes an input through multiple, sequential layers of analysis (the "deep") to come up with an output. The method seems to be working pretty well for the company; it's the one that made AlphaGo, which it claims is “arguably the strongest Go player in history.”

On the grid

Now that DeepMind has solved Go, the company is applying DeepMind to navigation. Navigation relies on knowing where you are in space relative to your surroundings and continually updating that knowledge as you move. DeepMind scientists trained neural networks to navigate like this in a square arena, mimicking the paths that foraging rats took as they explored the space. The networks got information about the rat’s speed, head direction, distance from the walls, and other details. To researchers' surprise, the networks that learned to successfully navigate this space had developed a layer akin to grid cells. This was surprising because it is the exact same system that mammalian brains use to navigate.

A few different cell populations in our brains help us make our way through space. Place cells are so named because they fire when we pass through a particular place in our environment relative to familiar external objects. They are located in the hippocampus—a brain region responsible for memory formation and storage—and are thus thought to provide a cellular place for our memories. Grid cells got their name because they superimpose a hypothetical hexagonal grid upon our surroundings, as if the whole world were overlaid with vintage tiles from the floor of a New York City bathroom. They fire whenever we pass through a node on that grid.

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Enlarge / The Russian bitcoin fraud suspect Alexander Vinnik escorted to the courthouse of Thessaloniki to examine the Russian request for extradition of the accused in Russia, Thessaloniki, Greece on October 11, 2017. (credit: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Greek law enforcement has disrupted a plan to murder a Russian man arrested in Greece last year, who American authorities believe laundered billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin through BTC-e, a shady Bitcoin exchange that the suspect is also accused of creating.

Sputnik News, a Russian media outlet, quoted an anonymous source "familiar with the situation" that local criminals were plotting to poison the Russian suspect, Alexander Vinnik. He is reportedly now "forbidden" from receiving any items, and cannot even contact other inmates.

Last summer, federal authorities identified Vinnik as a central figure in the massive bitcoin theft that was a major factor in the downfall of Mt. Gox, the Japanese Bitcoin exchange that led the market in Bitcoin's early years. If Vinnik is ultimately determined to be involved in the crash and eventual bankruptcy of Mt. Gox, that revelation would finally solve what has remained one of the Bitcoin commnity’s biggest mysteries.

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There are few things guaranteed in life. Death, taxes, and lawsuits filed regularly by Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

One of its most recent targets was Netherlands-based company Leaper Beheer BV, which also traded under the names Flickstore, Dump Die Deal and Live TV Store. BREIN filed a complaint at the Limburg District Court in Maastricht, claiming that Leaper provides access to unlicensed live TV streams and on-demand movies.

The anti-piracy outfit claimed that around 4,000 live channels were on offer, including Fox Sports, movie channels, commercial and public channels. These could be accessed after the customer made a payment which granted access to a unique activation code which could be entered into a set-top box.

BREIN told the court that the code returned an .M3U playlist, which was effectively a hyperlink to IPTV channels and more than 1,000 movies being made available without permission from their respective copyright holders. As such, this amounted to a communication to the public in contravention of the EU Copyright Directive, BREIN argued.

In its defense, Leaper said that it effectively provided a convenient link-shortening service for content that could already be found online in other ways. The company argued that it is not a distributor of content itself and did not make available anything that wasn’t already public. The company added that it was completely down to the consumer whether illegal content was viewed or not.

The key question for the Court was whether Leaper did indeed make a new “communication to the public” under the EU Copyright Directive, a standard the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) says should be interpreted in a manner that provides a high level of protection for rightsholders.

The Court took a three-point approach in arriving at its decision.

The Court found that Leaper did communicate works to the public and intervened “with full knowledge of the consequences of its conduct” when it gave its customers access to protected works.

“Access to [the content] in a different way would be difficult for those customers, if Leaper were not to provide its services in question,” the Court’s decision reads.

“Leaper reaches an indeterminate number of potential recipients who can take cognizance of the protected works and form a new audience. The purchasers who register with Leaper are to be regarded as recipients who were not taken into account by the rightful claimants when they gave permission for the original communication of their work to the public.”

With that, the Court ordered Leaper to cease-and-desist facilitating access to unlicensed streams within 48 hours of the judgment, with non-compliance penalties of 5,000 euros per IPTV subscription sold, link offered, or days exceeded, to a maximum of one million euros.

But the Court didn’t stop there.

“Leaper must submit a statement audited by an accountant, supported by (clear, readable copies of) all relevant documents, within 12 days of notification of this judgment of all the relevant (contact) details of the (person or legal persons) with whom the company has had contact regarding the provision of IPTV subscriptions and/or the provision of hyperlinks to sources where films and (live) broadcasts are evidently offered without the permission of the entitled parties,” the Court ruled.

Failure to comply with this aspect of the ruling will lead to more penalties of 5,000 euros per day up to a maximum of 250,000 euros. Leaper was also ordered to pay BREIN’s costs of 20,700 euros.

Describing the people behind Leaper as “crooks” who previously sold media boxes with infringing addons (as previously determined to be illegal in the Filmspeler case), BREIN chief Tim Kuik says that a switch of strategy didn’t help them evade the law.

“[Leaper] sold a link to consumers that gave access to unauthorized content, i.e. pay-TV channels as well as video-on-demand films and series,” BREIN chief Tim Kuik informs TorrentFreak.

“They did it for profit and should have checked whether the content was authorized. They did not and in fact were aware the content was unauthorized. Which means they are clearly infringing copyright.

“This is evident from the CJEU case law in GS Media as well as Filmspeler and The Pirate Bay, aka the Dutch trilogy because the three cases came from the Netherlands, but these rulings are applicable throughout the EU.

“They just keep at it knowing they’re cheating and we’ll take them to the cleaners,” Kuik concludes.

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

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending April 7, 2018 are in. A quiet week thanks to a yearly event, and so the 4th film in a horror series was the week's top selling new release. Find out which movie it was in our weekly DVD,Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales stats and analysis feature.