June 2018 – Page 87 – news.buyenne.com

People Use Streaming Devices More Than Smart TVs, New Research

New data released by research firm Parks Associates show that people are more likely to use their streaming media devices than their smart TVs.

This is true despite ownership of smart TVs outnumbering that of streaming devices. Data from Parks show that among households with broadband services, 50% own smart TVs, while 40% own streaming devices. Half of all those that own smart TVs also own a streaming media device.

The same data show that 70% of those that own streaming devices use the device at least once per week, compared to only 59% of smart TV owners who use their TV's smart functions.

44% of streaming device owners use their device daily, compared to 37% smart TV owners.

In terms of streaming media device ownership, Roku still leads all other devices by popularity. It was followed by Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Google Chromecast. Amazon's share has grown in the last year at the expense of Google's, whose ownership share dropped by 4%.

Parks also looked at usability of these streaming media devices and found that users found different things to like about each device.

"In terms of usability, consumers score Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon's Fire TV highly. When ranking these devices, Roku leads in multiple usability categories, while the Apple TV leads in terms of gaming and the ability to purchase content. Amazon’s Fire TV has moved up to second place in the ease-of-setup category and is close to the Apple TV’s score in several more, including ease of finding something to watch and ease of purchasing content, which could account in part for its growing market share," said Kristen Hanich, Research Analyst, Parks Associates.

Parks's research also looked at the ownership of 4K TVs, and between 2015 to 2017, 4K TV purchases went up from 14% to 30% among the surveyed households.

Electronic Arts: Command & Conquer kehrt als Mobile Game zurück

Das nächste Command & Conquer erscheint für mobile Endgeräte. Vom nächsten Star-Wars-Spiel gab es nur den Namen, aber kaum Infos – aber dafür hat EA ein paar Ausblicke auf Fifa 19 und Anthem erlaubt und so etwas wie eine echte Flatrate für PC-Spieler …

Das nächste Command & Conquer erscheint für mobile Endgeräte. Vom nächsten Star-Wars-Spiel gab es nur den Namen, aber kaum Infos - aber dafür hat EA ein paar Ausblicke auf Fifa 19 und Anthem erlaubt und so etwas wie eine echte Flatrate für PC-Spieler angekündigt. (E3 2018, Command & Conquer)

Google Blacklists Millions of Pirate URLs Before They’re Indexed

Google maintains a rapidly growing list of copyright-infringing URLs which they haven’t indexed yet. This blacklist ensures that these links are never added to the search engine. Thanks to a new update in the transparency report, we now know how many non-indexed links every takedown notice includes, which is surprisingly high in some cases.

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

In recent years, Google has had to cope with a continuous increase in takedown requests which target pirate sites in search results.

The total number of ‘removed’ URLs just reached 3.5 billion and millions more are added every day.

While that’s nothing new, Google just started sharing some additional insight into the nature of these requests.

As it turns out, millions, if not hundreds of millions, of the links copyright holders target have never appeared in Google’s search index.

Earlier this year Google copyright counsel Caleb Donaldson revealed that the company had started to block non-indexed links ‘prophylactically.’ In other words, Google blocks URLs before they appear in the search results, as some sort of piracy vaccine.

“Google has critically expanded notice and takedown in another important way: We accept notices for URLs that are not even in our index in the first place. That way, we can collect information even about pages and domains we have not yet crawled,” Donaldson noted.

“We process these URLs as we do the others. Once one of these not-in-index URLs is approved for takedown, we prophylactically block it from appearing in our Search results,” he added.

Unfortunately, Google provided no easy way to see how many links in a request were not indexed, but that has now changed.

Over the past week or so the search engine added a new signal to its DMCA transparency report listing how many of the submitted URLs in a notice are not indexed yet. In some cases, this is the vast majority.

Take the Mexican branch on the anti-piracy group APDIF, for example. This organization is one of the most active DMCA reporters and has asked Google to remove over a million URLs last week alone.

As can be seen below, the majority of the links appear to be non-indexed links. We browsed through dozens of recent listings from APDIF and these reveal a pattern where in most cases over 90% of the submitted URLs are not in Google’s search results.

Google now reporting non-indexed takedown requests

These URLs are obviously not removed since they weren’t listed. According to the company’s earlier statement, they are put on a separate blocklist instead, which prevents them from being added in the future.

APDIF is not the only reporter that does this though. Rivendell, the most active sender of all, also has a high rate of non-indexed links, often well over 50%.

The tactic turns out to be rather common. Well known players such as Fox, Walt Disney, NBC Universal, BPI, and the RIAA, all report non-indexed links as well, to varying degrees.

Not all reporting agencies have such high rates as APDIF. However, it is clear that millions of non-indexed pirate URLs are added to the preemptive blocklist every month.

Technically, the DMCA takedown process is meant for links and content which actually exist on a service, but it appears that Google doesn’t mind going a step further.

TorrentFreak reached out to the search giant several days ago, hoping to find out what percentage of the overall requests are not in Google’s search results, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.

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

EA at E3: BioWare confirms Anthem in Feb 2019, Madden returns to PC

Brief teases of Battlefield V battle royale, Respawn’s Star Wars game.

EA’s E3 press conference on Saturday ended with a big, Anthem-loaded bang. The first entry in BioWare's next game series, an open-world online-shooter that looks like Destiny with jetpacks, was showcased with a alleged real-time gameplay demo and a release date confirmation: February 22, 2019.

The gameplay reveal focused largely on full jetpack control, which allows the game’s heroes (in suits called “Javelins”) to fly up, over, and all around giant worlds and combat arenas, along with bombastic, third-person combat against giant, handsomely rendered beasts. The reveal didn't include hard proof of BioWare's promises about story content in the game, however, particularly BioWare's onstage assurance that Anthem can wholly work as a single-player experience.

Archive of EA Play 2018

A lengthy Game Informer feature story makes the game sound mechanically and structurally quite similar to Destiny and Destiny 2, particularly its calls for co-op requirements to get through higher-level campaign challenges and raid-like "stronghold" battles, along with a greater emphasis on real-time action over RPG-style combat and decision-wheel storytelling. Thus, Anthem is in the precarious position of making promises about an engaging combination of combat, plot, and endgame progression—a juggle that the Destiny series has fumbled time and time again.

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E3 2018: Die Pressekonferenzen im Livestream auf Golem.de

Es werden lange Nächte auf Golem.de: Während der E3 2018 streamen unsere Redakteure Christoph Böschow und Michael Wieczorek die wichtigsten Pressekonferenzen live und diskutieren mit unserer Community über die neuen Spieleankündigungen aus Los Angeles…

The Apple Watch will soon ditch its mechanical buttons, report says

The Watch’s buttons might get the same treatment the iPhone’s home button did.

FastCompany published a report today citing "a source with direct knowledge" of Apple's plans for a future Apple Watch that will feature solid-state, touch-sensitive buttons instead of the clickable ones that are currently part of the device.

This will apply to both the crown and the single traditional button that brings up a view of currently opened apps. But the button configuration—which buttons exist, and where they're located—will not change, the report says. The user will be able to touch each button to register it, but instead of the buttons moving up and down, the device will give the user haptic feedback using Apple's taptic engine.

Apple made a similar change to the home button on the iPhone starting with the iPhone 7. Reactions were mixed, from critics who found it to be just fine to critics who found it to be undesirable. Even before that, the company did the same with MacBook trackpads, though that implementation offered better, localized feedback.

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Anheuser-Busch pulls millions from controversial NIH alcohol study

Questions about the study could “undermine its lasting credibility,” company said.

Beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev is pulling millions of dollars in funding from a controversial study overseen by the National Institutes of Health that aimed to assess the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption, according to a report by The New York Times.

The 10-year, $100 million study had faced mounting criticism and was recently halted over concerns about how large beverage makers, including AB InBev, came to provide such financial support. A series of media investigations suggested that lead researchers and NIH officials had inappropriately wooed drink makers, getting them to pour millions into the work, while strongly hinting that it would end in their favor—i.e., showing that a daily drink is safe and could lower the risk of common diseases.

The large study, which was designed to include 7,800 participants at 16 sites worldwide, would be “necessary if alcohol is to be recommended as part of a healthy diet,” researchers wrote in a slide presentation provided to alcohol makers.

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Homesharing: Airbnb entfernt Zehntausende Angebote in Japan

Pech für viele Japanreisende: Der Vermittlungsdienst Airbnb musste auf Anweisung der japanischen Regierung viele Buchungen stornieren. Grund ist ein neues Gesetz, das aber erst in der kommenden Woche in Kraft tritt. (Airbnb, Politik/Recht)

How did hacker Adrian Lamo die? Medical examiner couldn’t figure it out

Examiners found a sticker on his thigh identifying him with “Project Vigilant.”

Forensic pathologists in Kansas who examined the body of the late Adrian Lamo, the hacker who famously turned in Chelsea Manning to military authorities back in 2010, have been unable to figure out what led to his death.

In 2004, Lamo pleaded guilty to hacking The New York Times, among other entities. He was sentenced to two years probation and six months house arrest.

According to a newly released autopsy report, Lamo’s cause of death was described as "undetermined." The document was obtained and first published Thursday by Matthew Keys, an independent journalist based in California, who shared it with Ars. On Thursday, the Wichita Eagle also described and quoted from the autopsy report.

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Security: Angreifer sichten Pläne von US-U-Boot-Systemen

Pläne für eine Antischiffsrakete, Informationen über ein verschlüsseltes Kommunikationssystem und andere vertrauliche Daten der US-Marine sind von Hackern kopiert worden. Das FBI geht davon aus, dass der Angriff aus China kam. (Spionage, Internet)