Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.
Who knew that being a snake-oil salesman was so much fun?
Last summer, the board game Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburgwon a major award from the German press, and buzz was big on both sides of the Atlantic. Now out in English as The Quacks of Quedlinburg from North Star Games, we've finally had a chance to put this bag-building, press-your-luck game through its potion-making paces.
It’s the third generation for the distinctive toaster-shaped hatchback-crossover.
Enlarge/ How appropriate that we found an yeti on a day it snowed in Southern California. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
Although we make every effort to cover our own travel costs, in this case Kia flew me to San Diego (where it was very cold and sometimes snowy) to drive the Soul, and provided two nights in a hotel.
When the first Kia Soul arrived in 2005, the boxy hatchback look was definitely a thing. A decade and a half later, neither the Nissan Cube nor Scion xB are around, but the Soul soldiers on as the last toaster on wheels. Except, a toaster wasn't actually the inspiration for the styling. No, it's considerably weirder than that—the car is meant to represent a boar wearing a backpack. (It's OK, I'll just let that one sit with you for a bit.)
I don't ever remember spending time in the first generation Kia Soul, but I have had a more recent one as a rental car on occasion. Whether you want to call it a hatchback or a crossover, it was actually pretty good at being an affordable, utilitarian transport. It could even be pretty fun to drive, provided you concentrated on keeping up your momentum up. So I was looking forward to trying out the new, third-generation Soul, particularly since the route we'd be using involved some rather good roads in eastern San Diego County.
Eine der einflussreichsten Politikerinnen der USA will Amazon, Google und Facebook zerschlagen. Mit dieser Forderung hofft die Senatorin Elizabeth Warren auch Unterstützer für ihre Kandidatur zur US-Präsidentschaft zu gewinnen. (Facebook, Google)
Eine der einflussreichsten Politikerinnen der USA will Amazon, Google und Facebook zerschlagen. Mit dieser Forderung hofft die Senatorin Elizabeth Warren auch Unterstützer für ihre Kandidatur zur US-Präsidentschaft zu gewinnen. (Facebook, Google)
It’s a (mostly) hard-boiled black and white tale, set in the Elite: Dangerous universe.
I've never made any secret about my love for (and occasional frustration with) Frontier Development's space combat/trading/exploration sandbox game Elite: Dangerous. In my 2015 review I called it "the best damn spaceship game I've ever played," and four years later, it's an opinion I still hold. Although it's taken literally years for the developers to flesh out some of the game's mechanics, there's always been something special about Elite, even going all the way back to the beta when it was barely a game at all.
I love it so much, in fact, that a few years ago I started up an Elite: Dangerous Web comic called Fangs (many of the ships in Elite are named after snakes, so the title seemed appropriate). I can't actually, you know, draw anything, but a couple of posts on the official subreddit gave me a neat idea: instead of illustrating panels, I could simply take screenshots directly from within the game and run them through a threshold filter to achieve a very distinctive film noir-esque feeling. Couple that with some clever framing and some snappy dialog, and I was in business.
Fangs originally started out as a series of short self-contained vignettes about various aspects of the Elite universe—I did a comic on exploration, on ship names, on smuggling, and a bunch of others.
Viele Autoren der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia sind gegen Artikel 13. Sie haben in einer Abstimmung beschlossen, dass die Onlineenzyklopädie am 21. März 2019 offline sein wird, um insbesondere gegen Uploadfilter zu protestieren. (Wikipedia, Urheberrecht…
Viele Autoren der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia sind gegen Artikel 13. Sie haben in einer Abstimmung beschlossen, dass die Onlineenzyklopädie am 21. März 2019 offline sein wird, um insbesondere gegen Uploadfilter zu protestieren. (Wikipedia, Urheberrecht)
Das US-Softwareunternehmen Citrix Systems ist ins Visier von Hackern geraten. Die Unbekannten haben sich möglicherweise Zugriff auf Geschäftsdokumente verschafft. (Citrix, Internet)
Das US-Softwareunternehmen Citrix Systems ist ins Visier von Hackern geraten. Die Unbekannten haben sich möglicherweise Zugriff auf Geschäftsdokumente verschafft. (Citrix, Internet)
Die Aktivistin Chelsea Manning ist in den USA wieder in Haft. Sie weigert sich, vor Gericht eine Reihe von Fragen zur Enthüllungsplattform Wikileaks zu beantworten. (Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks)
Die Aktivistin Chelsea Manning ist in den USA wieder in Haft. Sie weigert sich, vor Gericht eine Reihe von Fragen zur Enthüllungsplattform Wikileaks zu beantworten. (Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks)
Wir suchen weiter nach den perfekten kabellosen Hörstöpseln und knipsen tolle Bilder mit einem teuren Smartphone. Ansonsten kommt einiges ins Rollen. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Internet)
Wir suchen weiter nach den perfekten kabellosen Hörstöpseln und knipsen tolle Bilder mit einem teuren Smartphone. Ansonsten kommt einiges ins Rollen. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Internet)
Google is opposing a recommendation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to introduce a mandatory takedown notice scheme. This could lead to automated censorship, the company warns. Various copyright holder groups don’t see the takedown notice proposal as a good solution either, but they are demanding even stricter measures.
Last December the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a preliminary report on its Digital Platform Inquiry.
One of the main recommendations it made was to create a mandatory standard for takedown notices to enable timely and effective removal of infringing content.
To make sure that digital platforms indeed implement this standard, the Commission said that these companies could be subjected to a $250,000 fine for each contravention.
“Making this mandatory code would ensure breaches could attract penalties under the Telecommunications Act,” ACCC wrote in its report.
Following the release of the report, various stakeholders were asked for their input. Over the past several weeks, dozens of responses were filed and it’s clear that a mandatory standard is not widely embraced.
Google, which operates a range of services that are subject to takedown notices, including its search engine and YouTube, warns that a new standard would be at odds with the well-established procedures in place around the world today.
“A Mandatory Standard would represent a significant departure from the globally accepted standard for issuing take-down notices that is relied upon by digital platforms, online service providers and content creators around the world,” Google writes.
The takedown procedures which are currently used in the UK, the EU, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea already require digital platforms to respond “expeditiously” to disable access to infringing content, according to Google.
Creating more strict requirements with the added threat of possible ‘fines’ could lead to censorship and may stifle innovation, the company adds.
“A more rigid standard with high fines for errors could incentivize automatedcensorship on an unacceptable scale and a curtailment of innovation and investment in alternative rights management approaches,” Google notes.
The company further stresses that the comments from various copyright holder groups about the ineffectiveness of the current process are inaccurate. Google says that it presently takes a wide variety of measures to counter piracy, including automated removal of pirated content.
Many of these points were also highlighted in Google’s most recent overview of how it fights piracy. For example, the company stresses that it prevents certain piracy-associated keywords from appearing as autocomplete suggestions.
This is indeed true. Just last year Google added “Kodi” to its lists of banned words, which was quite a controversial move. However, according to some rightsholders, these autocomplete removals are far from perfect.
Village Roadshow CEO Graham Burke, who’s one of the most vocal Google critics, highlights this in his company’s submission to the ACCC. Roadshow believes that companies such as Google should go much further in their anti-piracy efforts.
“For example, Google’s search results could easily remove links to websites blocked by Australian courts as well as clean up autocomplete which is a fast track, easy way to piracy,” Burke writes.
Village Roadshow’s submission comes with various screenshots showing how autocomplete suggestions still link to problematic content. For example, while “Pirate Bay” is banned, Google now suggests “Pirate Bays” related searches as an alternative which can be used to bypass ISP blockades.
Village Roadshow’s example
Village Roadshow’s CEO hopes that the ACCC will come up with additional measures to ensure that infringing content is swiftly removed and to ensure that Google and other platforms take responsibility for keeping illegal content off their services.
“The only winners in the current climate are pirates who are criminals because their business model is totally dependent on scamming and robbing people,” Burke writes.
“They attract people with the promise of free first run movies only then through a multitude of paths to scam and rob them. Whether it by misrepresentation obtaining their contact details or ransomware,” he adds
Google clearly disagrees and it’s not alone in its criticism of the automated takedown standard. Twitter also objects to the proposal and AFR reports that StartupAUS also signals various problems.
“If adopted, [the mandatory standard] would result in a scheme that implemented a take-down mechanism without the accompanying safe harbour that provides the incentive with which to cooperate – essentially, it is all stick and no carrot,” the startups warn.
Interestingly, various copyright holder groups are not happy with it either, albeit for other reasons. Music Rights Australia, for example, recommends removing the proposal for a mandatory takedown standard, noting that a DMCA-style system won’t work
“A one size fits all solution like a US style Notice and Takedown regime will not be effective or efficient. For example, a US style notice and takedown regime would be ineffective to stop an illegal stream of a live concert on a social digital platform.”
Similarly, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) believes that the proposal doesn’t go far enough either.
“MEAA believes that much greater effort is required by digital platforms to act promptly in response to copyright owners’ requests to remove unauthorised content from their sites,” the group writes.
Based on the wide variety of responses it’s clear that there isn’t unanimous support for the proposal from either side. A full overview of the responses is available on the ACCC’s website.
FBI says hackers gained unauthorized access by exploiting weak passwords.
Enlarge/ The query window for username and password on a Web page can be seen on the monitor of a laptop. (credit: Jens Büttner/Getty Images)
Virtualization and software provider Citrix said its internal network was breached by international criminals who most likely exploited weak passwords to gain limited access before working to gain more privileged control.
The notice published Friday morning sent shockwaves through security circles because Citrix’s products and services are used by more than 400,000 organizations around the world, including 98 percent of the Fortune 500. Citrix is also widely used by governments and militaries. An intrusion by overseas hackers carries the risk of exposing technical information that could compromise the networks of customers.
Citrix said it still doesn’t know what specific data was stolen, but an initial investigation appears to show the attackers may have obtained business documents. For now, company officials said, there’s no indication that the security of any Citrix product or service was compromised. The company has commenced a forensic investigation and engaged a security firm to assist. Citrix has also taken unspecified actions to better secure it internal network.
Eine der einflussreichsten Politikerinnen der USA will Amazon, Google und Facebook zerschlagen. Mit dieser Forderung hofft die Senatorin Elizabeth Warren auch Unterstützer für ihre Kandidatur zur US-Präsidentschaft zu gewinnen. (
Viele Autoren der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia sind gegen Artikel 13. Sie haben in einer Abstimmung beschlossen, dass die Onlineenzyklopädie am 21. März 2019 offline sein wird, um insbesondere gegen Uploadfilter zu protestieren. (
Das US-Softwareunternehmen Citrix Systems ist ins Visier von Hackern geraten. Die Unbekannten haben sich möglicherweise Zugriff auf Geschäftsdokumente verschafft. (
Die Aktivistin Chelsea Manning ist in den USA wieder in Haft. Sie weigert sich, vor Gericht eine Reihe von Fragen zur Enthüllungsplattform Wikileaks zu beantworten. (
Wir suchen weiter nach den perfekten kabellosen Hörstöpseln und knipsen tolle Bilder mit einem teuren Smartphone. Ansonsten kommt einiges ins Rollen. (
Last December the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a 
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