Scooter: Yamaha und Gogoro arbeiten an Elektrorollern mit Tauschakkus

Yamaha und Gogoro bündeln ihre Kräfte bei Elektrorollern mit austauschbaren Akkus. Yamaha will einen Roller bauen, der mit der Akkutechnik des taiwanischen Unternehmens ausgerüstet ist. An Wechselstationen können Nutzer dann einen vollen Akku einsetzen…

Yamaha und Gogoro bündeln ihre Kräfte bei Elektrorollern mit austauschbaren Akkus. Yamaha will einen Roller bauen, der mit der Akkutechnik des taiwanischen Unternehmens ausgerüstet ist. An Wechselstationen können Nutzer dann einen vollen Akku einsetzen und weiterfahren. (Elektromobilität, Technologie)

Mypio: Vollwertige Mobilfunknummer ohne Dual-SIM-Technik startet

Der auf der Ifa 2018 vorgestellte Dienst Mypio startet in Deutschland. Damit gibt es ohne VoIP-Einsatz und Dual-SIM-Technik eine weitere Mobilfunknummer samt SMS-Funktion. Smartphone-Nutzer können für wenige Wochen eine zusätzliche Rufnummer buchen und…

Der auf der Ifa 2018 vorgestellte Dienst Mypio startet in Deutschland. Damit gibt es ohne VoIP-Einsatz und Dual-SIM-Technik eine weitere Mobilfunknummer samt SMS-Funktion. Smartphone-Nutzer können für wenige Wochen eine zusätzliche Rufnummer buchen und diese auch wechseln. (Smartphone, VoIP)

Call of Duty battle royale beta: Surprisingly tame, surprisingly solid

A few cool and weird ideas bolted on top of tried-and-true PUBG formula.

News about the latest annual Call of Duty video game has mostly revolved around what's missing: a single-player campaign. Activision is rolling the dice this year on November's CoD: Black Ops 4 by focusing entirely on online multiplayer, and your opinion on that may range from "wtf Activision" to "I only play multiplayer, anyway."

Either way, has this shift unlocked enough major, online-specific benefits? So far, that's unclear. Two of the upcoming game's three modes—co-op "zombies" missions and traditional versus battles—look remarkably similar to what's already come from the zillions of CoD development houses under Activision's purview.

This week's pre-release CoD:BO4 beta test, on the other hand, teases a tidal change for the series: a new "Blackout" mode. As in, CoD's first shot at the 100-player battle royale genre, popularized by the likes of PUBG and Fortnite.

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Facebook punishes liberal news site after fact check by right-wing site

Fact check of article on Brett Kavanaugh’s abortion views hinges on word “said.”

Wooden cubes showing the words,

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Eoneren)

Facebook yesterday gave a "false rating" to an article written by a liberal news site after a conservative publication used by Facebook as a fact checker claimed the article was incorrect.

The article in question, published by ThinkProgress, was titled, "Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed." While Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh didn't literally say that he would vote to overturn the abortion ruling from 1973, ThinkProgress writer Ian Millhiser made a reasonable argument that Judge Kavanaugh's statements show that he believes Roe v. Wade was decided incorrectly.

The right-wing Weekly Standard called ThinkProgress's article false in a fact check, based on the rather obvious fact that Kavanaugh never specifically said he would vote to overturn Roe.

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An EU copyright bill could force YouTube-style filtering across the Web

Wednesday’s vote by the EU parliament has big stakes for the Internet’s future.

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(credit: Tom Redford / Flickr)

The European Parliament will vote on Wednesday on a series of copyright reform proposals that could have far-reaching implications for Internet culture. Two particular provisions have attracted the ire of digital rights groups.

The first reform, known as Article 11, aims to give news publishers a stronger hand in negotiations with Internet platforms like Google and Facebook. Supporters of this change argue that big technology companies have undermined the economic model of traditional news publishers, and so they want to force online platforms to pay licensing fees to news publishers when they aggregate their content.

The second controversial reform, known as Article 13, aims to address a longstanding grievance of big content companies: that the current "notice and takedown" regime for copyright enforcement makes it too difficult for copyright holders to police online piracy. Advocates want to shift liability rules to force technology companies to take a more active role in policing their content—a shift that could force more online providers to adopt filtering systems like YouTube's Content ID.

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Pharma CEO jacks drug price 400%, citing “moral requirement to make money”

He raised price of essential antibiotic from $475 to $2,392, then defended Shkreli.

Hundred dollar bills inside prescription pill bottles

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Bill Diodato)

The chief executive of a small pharmaceutical company defended hiking the price of an essential antibiotic by more than 400 percent and told the Financial Times that he thinks “it is a moral requirement to make money when you can.”

Nirmal Mulye, CEO of the small Missouri-based drug company Nostrum Laboratories, raised the price of bottle of nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 last month. The drug is a decades-old antibiotic used to treat urinary-tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and certain other Gram-negative bacteria. The World Health Organization lists nitrofurantoin as an essential medicine.

In an interview with the FT, Mulye went on to say it was also a “moral requirement” to “sell the product for the highest price,” and he explained that he was in “this business to make money.”

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Apple takes down Trend Micro Mac apps that collected, stored user data

24 hours of users’ browsing data was unknowingly sent to Trend Micro’s servers.

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Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple removed several anti-malware apps from its Mac App Store after the apps were found to export users' browser histories. All of the apps in question are made by the cyber-security company Trend Micro, which initially denied the allegations but has since issued an apology to its users.

"Reports that Trend Micro is 'stealing user data' and sending them to an unidentified server in China are absolutely false," the initial statement says.

The statement also details what Trend Micro found in its investigation: the company claims its some of its apps, including Dr. Cleaner, Dr. Antivirus, and Dr. Unarchiver, uploaded a "small snapshot" of users' browser histories that covered the 24 hours before installation. The company claims this was done for "security purposes," particularly to see if users had recently come into contact with adware or other threats. The collected user data was uploaded to a US-based server hosted by Amazon Web Services and managed by Trend Micro.

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The first “100% uncensored” adult game has been approved for Steam release

With new filters in place, “Adults Only” content can be listed without black bars.

Good-looking anime characters in clothes.

Steam will now allow you to see characters like these with all of their clothes off, no black bars required. (credit: Dharker Studios)

A game that a developer is calling Steam's first "100 percent uncensored" adult game is set to hit the popular PC platform Friday, complete with "sexual interactions and nudity" that were previously blocked by black bars.

Negligee: Love Stories was part of a group of erotic "visual novels" and other games that were removed from the service or held up for approval in recent months amid a crackdown on "sexually explicit" content on the store. Many developers responded to that restriction by adding black "censor" bars to the Steam versions of their games, then directing players to outside sites for downloadable patches to remove those bars.

Now, though, Negligee developer Dharker Studios says an uncensored version of the game "has completed the steam review process" and will be available without any need for patching on Friday, September 14.

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ACE Scores Legal Victory and Wins $25m Piracy Damages From Tickbox

ACE, the coalition of major Hollywood studios plus Amazon and Netflix, scored its first major legal win today. The company behind TickBox TV, a Kodi-powered streaming device, agreed to a stipulated judgment and permanent injunction which requires the company to cease all piracy activities and pay $25 million in damages.

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

Last October, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed a lawsuit against the Georgia-based company Tickbox TV, a seller of Kodi-powered set-top boxes that stream a variety of popular media.

ACE sees these devices as nothing more than pirate tools and earlier this year it found the court on its side.

In January, a California federal court issued a preliminary injunction, ordering Tickbox to keep pirate addons out of its box and halt all piracy-inducing advertisements going forward.

Following this order, both sides got together and today mutually agreed judgment in favor of the Hollywood giants.

The parties just submitted a proposed stipulated judgment and permanent injunction to the court to resolve their dispute. This comes at a significant cost for Tickbox, which also has to comply with several anti-piracy restrictions.

The judgment is entered for contributory copyright infringement as well as inducing copyright infringement. It requires Tickbox and its owner to pay $25 million in damages.

“Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendants TickBox TV, LLC and Jeffrey Goldstein, jointly and severally, in the total amount of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000).”

The proposed judgment

Tickbox and its owner must also comply with the agreed permanent injunction. This stipulates that they remove all tiles, menus and other options which allow users of the company’s boxes to directly or indirectly access third-party cyberlockers or streaming sites associated with piracy.

If ACE or its members notify Tickbox of any infringing links or content, these must be removed from Tickbox devices within 24 hours, weekends excluded.

Both the proposed stipulated judgment (pdf) and permanent injunction (pdf) have yet to be sanctioned by the court. However, since both parties have reached an agreement this is only a formality.

ACE spokesperson Jolyon Kimble notes that the coalition is happy with the outcome, which they say will compel Tickbox to immediately cease all piracy activities.

“TickBox and many other piracy devices and streaming apps are a threat to the millions of creators around the world who make films and television shows,” Kimble says.

“Today’s stipulated judgment and permanent injunction is a significant victory for ACE and the creative community, ensuring TickBox will no longer sell illegal access to pirated movie and television content.”

According to ACE, the stipulated orders set an important legal precedent. However, the legal battles are far from over. The Tickbox case was the coalition’s first and has been resolved, but similar lawsuits against Dragon Box and Set TV remain pending.

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

Windows 10 will use the cloud to free up disk space

The built-in disk cleanup tools are getting smarter.

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(credit: IBM)

The next update to Windows 10, due to be released in October, will be smarter about how it frees up disk space and cleans up temporary files.

Central to this update is OneDrive cloud storage. Since last fall's update, Windows 10 has used a clever system of placeholder files to make OneDrive cloud storage seamless to use. With placeholders, the local OneDrive directory appears to contain the full directory structure and all the files that are found in the cloud. Any attempts to open or modify one of those files causes the data to be seamlessly retrieved from the cloud. There are various manual controls available; for example, files can be marked as always available offline (so they'll never be a placeholder, always a real file), and their local copies can be manually removed (leaving just the placeholder stub behind).

The next update will perform some of this management automatically. As part of its Storage Sense feature, Windows will be able to automatically remove the local copies of OneDrive files (unless they've been set as always available offline). The operating system will determine which files to remove based on when they were opened: files used more recently than a certain number of days will be retained locally, while those that haven't been used will be replaced with placeholders. The system will remove files until the operating system reckons it has enough free space for normal operation.

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