This set will certainly pair nicely with the 1,969-piece Saturn V set.
LEGO's new set recreates the Apollo 11 Moon landing. [credit:
LEGO
]
We are now just a matter of weeks away from the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, and the people at LEGO know a good marketing opportunity when they see one.
On June 1, the company will release a new set of 1,087 pieces that recreates the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander that touched down in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. The set includes two astronaut minifigures—presumably Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, although their helmet faceplates are golden.
Ars has not been able to review this set yet, but it is hard to resist building a Lunar Descent Module and an Ascent Module to recreate the Moon magic of 50 years ago. (Especially since most of us missed one of the 20th century's greatest achievements in real time.) However, this bit of nostalgia does not come particularly cheap, as LEGO has set a US price of $99.
In one of the less-detailed announcements of the pre-E3 season, Microsoft this morning officially confirmed it is bringing its "all-you-can-play" Game Pass subscription service to the PC. The new expansion of the Xbox Game Pass (which launched just over two years ago) "will give players unlimited access to a curated library of over 100 high-quality PC games on Windows 10, from well-known PC game developers and publishers such as Bethesda, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, Paradox Interactive, SEGA and more," according to an announcement from Microsoft.
Games from Microsoft's own studios, including recent acquisitions Obsidian and inXile, will be available on Xbox Game Pass for PC on the day they're released, just as they are on Xbox One. Game Pass members will also receive discounts of up to 20% on Windows Store games and up to 10% off of DLC and add-on purchases.
Aside from that, though, Microsoft's announcement leaves a lot of major holes. While the "Xbox Game Pass for PC" shares a name with the company's "original" gaming subscription plan, it's not clear if PC subscriptions will be considered separate, or available as a bundle with the console plan, or included in Microsoft's upcoming "Game Pass Ultimate," or some combination of all of the above. Microsoft also didn't discuss any pricing details, launch timing for the service, any specific included games, or whether or not Game Pass on PC downloads would be limited to Microsoft's own Windows Store. Microsoft has promised to reveal more at its June 9 E3 press conference.
Abonnenten des Xbox Game Pass können jetzt schon einige PC-Spiele verwenden, künftig soll es aber mehr geben – und das ohne den Umweg über die Konsole. Microsoft kündigt außerdem mehr Unterstützung für Steam und weitere Onlineshops an. (Microsoft, Stea…
Abonnenten des Xbox Game Pass können jetzt schon einige PC-Spiele verwenden, künftig soll es aber mehr geben - und das ohne den Umweg über die Konsole. Microsoft kündigt außerdem mehr Unterstützung für Steam und weitere Onlineshops an. (Microsoft, Steam)
Auf Windows 10 Version 1903 kann dank einer neuen Version auch mit eingestecktem Datenträger aktualisiert werden. Trotzdem wird das Betriebssystem weiterhin nur einem eingeschränkten Benutzerkreis angeboten, wie ein kurzer Test bestätigt. (Windows 10, …
Auf Windows 10 Version 1903 kann dank einer neuen Version auch mit eingestecktem Datenträger aktualisiert werden. Trotzdem wird das Betriebssystem weiterhin nur einem eingeschränkten Benutzerkreis angeboten, wie ein kurzer Test bestätigt. (Windows 10, Microsoft)
In Hüffenhardt hat Docmorris einen Automaten aufgestellt, der die Einwohner des kleinen Ortes ohne Apotheke eigentlich komfortabel mit Medikamenten versorgen sollte. Doch der Betrieb ist weiterhin untersagt. Es gibt aber Alternativen. (Politik/Recht)
In Hüffenhardt hat Docmorris einen Automaten aufgestellt, der die Einwohner des kleinen Ortes ohne Apotheke eigentlich komfortabel mit Medikamenten versorgen sollte. Doch der Betrieb ist weiterhin untersagt. Es gibt aber Alternativen. (Politik/Recht)
Microsoft möchte Windows modernisieren. In einem Blog-Eintrag gibt das Unternehmen Hinweise, in welche Richtung dies gehen wird. Manche nervigen Eigenschaften des Betriebssystems dürften irgendwann verschwinden. (Windows 10, Microsoft)
Microsoft möchte Windows modernisieren. In einem Blog-Eintrag gibt das Unternehmen Hinweise, in welche Richtung dies gehen wird. Manche nervigen Eigenschaften des Betriebssystems dürften irgendwann verschwinden. (Windows 10, Microsoft)
Noctua arbeitet an seinem ersten passiven CPU-Kühler, der unter erschwerten Bedingungen über 100 Watt abführen kann. Obendrein entwickeln die Österreicher einen Nachfolger des beliebten Doppelturms NH-D15. (Noctua, Mesh)
Noctua arbeitet an seinem ersten passiven CPU-Kühler, der unter erschwerten Bedingungen über 100 Watt abführen kann. Obendrein entwickeln die Österreicher einen Nachfolger des beliebten Doppelturms NH-D15. (Noctua, Mesh)
Canadian telecoms giant Bell is recommending that the Government should criminalize people who are involved with pirate streaming services, including those who advertise or sell pirate set-top boxes. The proposal is seen as a prime tool to combat online piracy. In the same submission, Bell also revives its call to institutionalize site blocking.
To ensure that the Internet is able to function to the benefit of the broader public, the Government of Canada appointed an external panel to review Canada’s communications legislative framework.
The panel is expected to release its findings next month, which will in part be based on input received from public submissions earlier this year.
Thus far, most submissions have surprisingly been kept from public view. However, University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist filed an Access to Information Act request and will publish the responses he receives. The first one comes from Canadian telco Bell and stretches to 167 pages.
Bell’s submission deals with a wide variety of topics ranging from online video regulations to online privacy requirements. For the purposes of this article, however, we focus on the company’s suggestions when it comes to piracy and copyright infringement.
One of the Government’s prime policy priorities, according to Bell, should be to combat content piracy.
“Canadian creators, the Canadian broadcasting system, and the Canadian telecommunications system do not have effective tools to protect the content that is central to the creative and digital economy against the rampant growth of digital piracy,” Bell writes.
The submission goes on to cite various piracy studies that support this claim. It reports, for example, that 26% of all Canadians admit to having accessed pirated content online. In addition, it mentions that 15.3% of all Canadian households use set-top-boxes with piracy add-ons or access piracy subscription services.
According to Bell, now is the time to address the online piracy issue and it provides two concrete proposals. The first one is aimed at tackling pirate online streaming services, including the previously mentioned streaming sites and set-top boxes.
Bell equates this relatively new type of piracy to the boom in black market satellite piracy roughly three decades ago. At the time, lawmakers responded by updating the Radiocommunication Act to criminalize the decoding of encrypted signals and the possession and sale of devices intended for that purpose.
“This stimulated law enforcement activity in the area of satellite piracy, which contributed to the investigation and shutting down of piracy operations and also had a significant deterrent effect,” Bell notes.
The telco stresses that a similar response is now required to deal with the online streaming epidemic. Most pirate streaming services no longer rely on encryption but are based on rebroadcasting content over the Internet instead.
This type of streaming activity should be criminalized in the Broadcasting Act, Bell recommends. Not just the services and sites that do the ‘broadcasting,’ but also people who advertise or sell related products.
“Accordingly, we recommend that a provision be added to the Broadcasting Act making it a criminal offense for anyone subject to an exemption from the requirement to hold a license to knowingly operate, advertise, supply, or sell or offer to sell access to a distribution undertaking that retransmits broadcasting without lawful authorization from a programming undertaking.”
Criminalize
“Such an approach would concentrate criminal liability on commercially-motivated operators engaged in organized crime and would stimulate additional law enforcement activity to address this pressing threat,” Bell adds.
This measure doesn’t appear to be aimed at end-users but will certainly affect pirate streaming sites, vendors of pirate set-top boxes, as well as those who promote them.
The second anti-piracy proposal put forward by Bell is to make it possible for ISPs to block pirate sites more easily. This is the same plan proposed by Fairplay Canada Coalition last year, but with a twist.
“By far the most important tool that modernized legislation should adopt is the ability for an independent authority to grant orders requiring all Internet service providers (ISPs) to disable access to sites that are blatantly, structurally, or overwhelmingly engaged in piracy,” Bell writes.
This Fairplay blocking proposal was denied by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) last fall, which noted that it lacks jurisdiction. According to Bell, this is something the Government could change through an update of the Telecommunications Act.
Specifically, it wants the Government to amend current legislation to authorize the CRTC to approve and require Internet providers to disable access to sites that are blatantly, overwhelmingly, or structurally engaged in piracy.
That blocking is not a perfect solution, shouldn’t matter. Even a partial reduction in traffic to pirate sites, as has happened in other countries, should already be rather effective, Bell argues.
“A policy that reduces the total level of piracy by up to 40% from the level that would otherwise have prevailed, and that substantially increases the legal consumption of content, can only be considered incredibly effective. The fact that it does not eliminate 100% of piracy is not a justification for inaction,” the telco writes.
Website blocking also finds support in a separate submission from Shaw Communications, another major Canadian telco. Similar to Bell, Shaw believes that an update to the Copyright Act is required to achieve that. The company, however, rejects a proposal to tax ISP subscriptions to support copyright holders.
By criminalizing pirate streaming services and blocking pirate sites, Bell hopes to make a significant dent in Canada’s piracy rates. Whether the government’s expert panel will adopt these recommendations has yet to be seen.
Many copyright holders are likely to side with Bell, but there is plenty of opposition as well. Michael Geist, for example, characterizes Bell’s submission as “self-serving in the extreme,” noting that it poses shocking risks to many stakeholders in Canada’s communication industry.
If you’re seeing more malicious redirects than usual, now you know why.
Enlarge/ A redirection from a site still running a vulnerable version of the plugin.
Hackers have been actively exploiting a recently patched vulnerability in some websites that causes the sites to redirect to malicious sites or display misleading popups, security researchers warned on Wednesday.
The vulnerability was fixed two weeks ago in WP Live Chat Support, a plugin for the WordPress content management system that has 50,000 active installations. The persistent cross-site scripting vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into sites that use the plugin, which provides an interface for visitors to have live chats with site representatives.
Researchers from security firm Zscaler's ThreatLabZ say attackers are exploiting the vulnerability to cause sites using unpatched versions of WP Live Chat Support to redirect to malicious sites or to display unwanted popups. While the attacks aren't widespread, there have been enough of them to raise concern.
Using AR can change where you walk, how well you do on tasks and connect socially.
Enlarge/ An actor portrays a participant in a new study of the impact of augmented reality on social interactions. The area inside the dotted line is the field of view of the augmented reality goggles, which shows digital content such as avatars. (credit: Mark Miller/Stanford Human Interaction Lab)
Neal Stephenson's influential 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash offered a fairly dystopian vision of a future virtual-reality based Internet known as the "Metaverse" and is widely credited with bringing the term “avatar” into mainstream culture. Stephenson called people who remained publicly plugged in around the clock via wearable computer gear "gargoyles," and he derided the adverse impact of that level of immersion on social behavior. "Gargoyles are no fun to talk to," he wrote. "They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world."
We are at the dawn of the 21st century in which the novel is set, and we don't yet have a fully immersive VR Internet. But smartphones are ubiquitous, and augmented reality (AR) is already here, most notably in popular games like Pokémon Go and the Microsoft Hololens AR interactive crime drama Fragments. It seems Stephenson wasn't far off the mark. According to researchers at Stanford University, layering computer-generated content, like someone's avatar, onto a real-world environment will influence people's behavior as if that person were really present. The researchers described the results of three recent experiments on the impact of AR on social interactions in a new paper in PLOS ONE.
Quite a lot of research has studied the psychological impacts of both rudimentary virtual worlds like Second Life and fully immersive VR experiences—a good chunk of it conducted in co-author Jeremy Bailenson'sVirtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. One of the first simulations Bailenson created involved a virtual, gaping pit in the middle of a simulated “room” with a board laid across it. Test subjects, outfitted in full VR gear, were instructed to walk on the board across the pit. Even though they knew consciously that the pit wasn’t real (because they had seen the real-world version) they still reacted as if the pit were really there. Some teetered uncertainly, some fell down, some ran away, some screamed in fear—a testament to the power of digital illusions.
Abonnenten des Xbox Game Pass können jetzt schon einige PC-Spiele verwenden, künftig soll es aber mehr geben - und das ohne den Umweg über die Konsole. Microsoft kündigt außerdem mehr Unterstützung für Steam und weitere Onlineshops an. (
Auf Windows 10 Version 1903 kann dank einer neuen Version auch mit eingestecktem Datenträger aktualisiert werden. Trotzdem wird das Betriebssystem weiterhin nur einem eingeschränkten Benutzerkreis angeboten, wie ein kurzer Test bestätigt. (
In Hüffenhardt hat Docmorris einen Automaten aufgestellt, der die Einwohner des kleinen Ortes ohne Apotheke eigentlich komfortabel mit Medikamenten versorgen sollte. Doch der Betrieb ist weiterhin untersagt. Es gibt aber Alternativen. (
Microsoft möchte Windows modernisieren. In einem Blog-Eintrag gibt das Unternehmen Hinweise, in welche Richtung dies gehen wird. Manche nervigen Eigenschaften des Betriebssystems dürften irgendwann verschwinden. (
Noctua arbeitet an seinem ersten passiven CPU-Kühler, der unter erschwerten Bedingungen über 100 Watt abführen kann. Obendrein entwickeln die Österreicher einen Nachfolger des beliebten Doppelturms NH-D15. (
To ensure that the Internet is able to function to the benefit of the broader public, the Government of Canada appointed an external panel to review Canada’s communications legislative framework. 
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