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The new Twitter Web interface...
In a blog post today, Twitter announced the rollout of a new version of the Twitter.com website that revamps the Web interface to bring it more in line with the design and functionality of the mobile client application. The redesign is focused on unifying Twitter's code base across platforms and simplifying the deployment of new features.
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Director Matthew Vaughan explores early 20th-century origins of fictional spy agency.
Ralph Fiennes plays T.E. Lawrence, who forms a fledgling spy agency in The King's Man, 20th Century Fox's prequel to the popular Kingsman film series.
Lawrence of Arabia is setting up an independent intelligence agency to take down Grigori Rasputin and Mata Hari, among others, in the first trailer for The King's Man. Even though it's Director Matthew Vaughan's prequel to his popular Kingsman franchise, the trailer is conspicuously lacking in the dark humor that made its predecessors so broadly appealing. But there's enough hyper-stylized action sequences to assure us that, stylistically, this will be very much a Kingsman movie.
(Spoilers for first two Kingsman films below.)
The Kingsman franchise is based on the Marvel comic series The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, which spawned two very successful action/comedy spy films. In the first film, Eggsy (Taron Egerton), the young son of a deceased Kingsman agent, is recruited to follow in his father's footsteps by Harry Hart (Colin Firth), aka Galahad. (All the Kingsman agents take on the monikers of the Knights of the Round Table.)
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Back from fighting in Donbass, group hoped to sell Qatari missile to “foreign government.”
Enlarge / Hmm, what's this doing there? (credit: Italian General Investigations and Special Operations Division (DIGOS))
A neo-Nazi group in northern Italy had sent members to fight alongside Russia-backed separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Apparently, the group brought some things back from their adventures—including a French-made air-to-air missile that somehow found its way from Qatar into the home of a neo-fascist extremist.
The missile and an assortment of other weapons were discovered in the latest of a series of raids by Italian federal police from the General Investigations and Special Operations Division (DIGOS). The raids are part of an ongoing investigation into the Forza Nuova political party and Rebel Firm extremist groups that had fought in the Donbass region.
Other raids had turned up pro-Nazi and pro-fascist propaganda and relics alongside caches of knives and other illegal weapons—including brass knuckles, and a baseball bat inscribed with the words "Dux Mussolini" (Leader Mussolini) and a portrait of Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The groups were also being investigated under Italy's anti-fascist laws, following pro-fascist comments by Forza Nuova's leader in Turin, Luigi Cortese. But in a raid today in the province of Pavia, south of Milan, police discovered a collection of modern automatic weapons—including nine assault rifles, a submachine gun, seven pistols, silencers, bayonets, and other military weapons.
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Smartphones with physical keyboards may be an endangered species, but you can still pick up a BlackBerry-branded phone if you really want one. Soon there may be another option. Unihertz plans to launch a crowfunding phone for a BlackBerry clone called …
Smartphones with physical keyboards may be an endangered species, but you can still pick up a BlackBerry-branded phone if you really want one. Soon there may be another option. Unihertz plans to launch a crowfunding phone for a BlackBerry clone called the Unihertz Titan. There’s no word on the release date or retail price, but […]
The post Unihertz Titan will be a crowdfunding BlackBerry clone (for $199 and up) appeared first on Liliputing.
Microsoft’s future in Germany is in question again.
Enlarge / Germany's government continues its history of principled Microsoft opposition. (credit: Flickr user fdecomite)
Last week, the German state of Hesse declared that its schools may not legally use the Office 365 cloud product. Hesse is one of the sixteen federal states of Germany, with a population of roughly six million (of roughly 83 million Germans). Although the press release specifically targets Office 365, it notes that competing Apple and Google cloud suites also do not satisfy German privacy regulations for use in schools.
This isn't the first time part of Germany has publicly broken up with Microsoft Office; some German cities including Munich and Freiburg famously ditched Microsoft Office applications in favor of OpenOffice in the early 2000s. Those open source adoption programs have had a notoriously rough ride, plagued with interoperability issues—just because one town changes its office applications doesn't mean its neighboring towns, parent state, or even its own citizens have. The municipalities have also been targeted heavily with lobbying from Microsoft itself, up to and including Steve Ballmer (then Microsoft's CEO) interrupting a ski vacation to fly to Munich and try to cut a pro-Microsoft deal in person.
However, the early-2000s attempts to break free of Microsoft were a function of choice. This time around, the Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HBDI) isn't just saying that schools would prefer not to use Microsoft, he's stating that their use of Office 365 is outright illegal. In August 2017, the HBDI ruled that Office 365 could legally be used by schools so long as the back end for the school accounts was stored in Microsoft's German-located cloud. A year later, Microsoft closed its German cloud datacenter, and schools migrated their accounts to the European cloud. Now, the HBDI states that the European cloud may offer access to US authorities; with no way for the German government to monitor such access; this makes use of that cloud illegal without specific consent being granted by its individual users.
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Either way, you won’t see cigars dangling from COG mouths any time soon.
Enlarge / Don't expect any more cigar-chomping characters to show up in the Gears games going forward.
The upcoming Gears 5 will not feature any on-screen depictions or references to smoking, according to the developers at The Coalition. But the precise sequence of events leading to that decision is apparently up for some debate.
The smoke-free story gained attention over the weekend with a report in Variety that linked the decision to a pressure campaign from the anti-smoking advocates at the Truth Initiative. According to Variety, The Coalition decided to remove the smoking references after Truth reached out to Turner Broadcasting, which featured Gears 5 as part of an invitational tournament filmed during its ELeague esports over the weekend.
That sequence seems plausible, especially considering that Truth is a presenting sponsor of the tournament, which is officially titled "Eleague Gears Summer Series Invitational powered by Truth." And Truth has a long history of pressuring media companies to remove smoking references from their products, a move that recently led to changes in Netflix's youth-focused programming.
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Earlier this year, author John Van Stry sued Travis McCrea, the former leader of the Pirate Party of Canada, over his eBook download platform, EBook.bike. The US-based author sued McCrea in a Texas court demanding more than $200,000 in damages and costs. In an order handed down Friday, a Judge questions whether the Court has personal jurisdiction over McCrea. Even if it does, the damages immediately available to Van Stry could be a relatively paltry $9,000
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
Back in March, Travis McCrea, the former leader of the Pirate Party of Canada, faced mounting opposition against his eBook platform, Ebook.bike.
Following in the footsteps of his similar creation TUEBL (The Ultimate eBook Library), Ebook.bike allows users to upload and download eBooks, some of which have turned out to be copyright-infringing.
Despite McCrea taking content down following copyright notices, large numbers of authors weren’t impressed, with some urging legal action. McCrea responded by inviting someone to sue.
Author John Van Stry took on the challenge by suing McCrea and alleged business partner Francisco Humberto Dias (doing business as ‘Frantech Solutions’) in a Texas court for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement.
“Mr. McCrea has a long and proud history of pervasive, blatant, and egregious violations of other persons’ intellectual property rights,” the complaint read.
After the complaint was filed on March 27, 2019, the docket reports that McCrea was served on May 20. Eight days later, Van Stry requested the clerk to file an entry for default, which was actioned a day later. In June, Van Stry’s lawyers filed for a default judgment.
Claiming direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement in respect of 12 books written by Van Stry and allegedly distributed on eBook.bike, the author asked for $15,000 in statutory damages for each of the infringed works. He further demanded that McCrea should pay attorneys’ fees and costs.
On Friday, Judge William C. Bryson handed down an order but it wasn’t a straightforward rubber-stamping of the proposed judgment and doesn’t lay the matter to rest. Since McCrea has chosen not to participate in proceedings thus far, the Judge writes that the Court must consider whether a default judgment can be handed down and if so, what form it would take.
To begin, the Court needed to determine whether McCrea has entered an appearance in the case. That standard was apparently met after McCrea reportedly sent a signed email indicating that he was prepared to accept email service in the case. A later email from McCrea reportedly had him threatening a countersuit for libel and proposing an offer to settle.
The Court also needed to determine whether it has subject matter jurisdiction. While that was quickly established, the question of personal jurisdiction over McCrea appears less straightforward, which is a problem because, without that, any judgment would be void.
In his order, the Judge explains that there are two bases for personal jurisdiction – general and specific.
“General personal jurisdiction is available when the defendant’s contacts with the forum State are ‘continuous and systematic’,” the Judge notes, adding that specific personal jurisdiction “must be based on activities that arise out of or relate to the cause of action, and can exist even if the defendant’s contacts are not continuous and systematic.”
In this case, the Court found that it “plainly” does not have general jurisdiction over McCrea as the complaint offered no evidence of that. “The question, therefore, is whether this Court has specific jurisdiction over Mr. McCrea based on particular acts relating to the cause of action having a sufficient relationship with the forum to support a finding of jurisdiction.”
In summary, based on the claims and allegations in the complaint, Judge Bryson says he doesn’t have enough evidence before him to conclude that the Court has personal jurisdiction over McCrea and as such it will not be handing down a default judgment at this time.
Instead, the parties have been told to file simultaneous briefs within 14 days, each detailing whether the Court has personal jurisdiction over McCrea, considering whether the injury to the copyright holder occurred in Texas, whether that injury is sufficient enough to imply a “substantial connection” with the forum/state, and whether McCrea knew that “his acts would be felt” by Van Stry in Texas. The Judge specifically asks both parties to consider McCrea’s residence outside the United States.
All of that said and taking McCrea’s general non-participation in the process into consideration, the Court says that Van Stry’s factual claims are enough for it to find McCrea liable for copyright infringement in the 12 books. If personal jurisdiction can be established to the Court’s satisfaction, that leaves the matter of damages.
While the excerpt from the proposed judgment above shows that Van Stry is demanding $180,000 in damages, the Judge cites $150,000 in his order. However, he also writes that no documentary evidence has been submitted to the Court which would explain why the amount is appropriate.
Furthermore, Van Stry’s demands for a comprehensive injunction cause an additional complication, the Judge notes, since a copyright injunction cannot be served outside the United States and does not apply directly to conduct occurring outside the United States.
“Such an injunction, if issued, would have to be framed so that it is directed only to conduct occurring within this country, which would be narrower than the full scope of the injunctive relief sought in the complaint,” the Judge writes. And that might be tricky since the relief being sought is extensive.
Van Stry’s motion demands that McCrea should refrain from directly, contributorily or indirectly infringing his rights in the future, not only for the 12 books in the complaint but any others written by him.
On top, there’s a request for caching and proxy services, web hosts, email providers, social media platforms and payment processors currently doing business with McCrea in connection with eBook.bike or similar platforms, to stop doing so, if those sites infringe Van Stry’s rights.
A further request would require search engines to “prevent links to the Defendant’s accounts or websites, which distribute or encourage the copying and distribution of Works or other titles by the same author, from displaying in search results, and removing such links from any search index.”
All that considered and if personal jurisdiction can be established, the Court is prepared to award damages, but not immediately to the level demanded by Van Stry.
“[T]he Court would be prepared to hold that the plaintiff is entitled to a statutory award of $750 for each of the 12 works as to which he has alleged copyright infringement, for a total award of $9000, if the plaintiff were to elect to accept the statutory minimum damages award in lieu of a damages award calculated after a hearing,” the order reads.
In the absence of such an agreement, the Judge says that the Court would not be prepared to go any higher without a further hearing to determine the appropriate amount of damages. In an effort to keep costs down for both sides, the Court is prepared to hold that hearing over the phone.
The proposed motion for default judgment is available here, Judge Bryson’s order is available here (both pdf)
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.
The Duffer Brothers raise the bar yet again with deft plotting, strong cast
Enlarge / Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the gang are back to face down yet another supernatural threat to Hawkins, Indiana, in the third season of Stranger Things (credit: YouTube/Netflix)
Warning: This story contains spoilers for episodes 5-8 of Stranger Things' third season, following up on Nathan Matisse's slightly spoiler-y review of episodes 1-4. You can read our non-spoiler preview of the new season here, or catch up on what's come before with past Ars stories on season one and season two.
Everyone's favorite teen sleuthing squad is back, taking on Russian operatives, local corruption, and the latest supernatural evil to emerge from the Upside Down in the third season of Netflix's Stranger Things. Anyone who feared the series might be losing its luster, three years on, should rest easy: season three is just as good as the first—in some respects, even better.
The first season was set in November 1983, when an accident at a secret government lab opened an inter-dimensional portal and unleashed a supernatural threat from a different dimension onto the unsuspecting town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the form of a creature dubbed the Demogorgon. The source of that accident? A young girl with psychokinetic powers, known only as Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown). She escaped the lab and was befriended by a group of preteens whose friend Will (Noah Schnapp) mysteriously disappeared into an alternate dimension dubbed the Upside Down. They teamed up to find Will and defeat the monster that took him.
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Im zweiten Halbjahr sollen erste Smartphones wie das ROG Phone 2 von Asus mit dem Snapdragon 855 Plus erscheinen: Qualcomm verspricht mehr Takt bei den CPU-Kernen und eine schnellere Adreno-Grafikeinheit. (Snapdragon, Smartphone)
Im zweiten Halbjahr sollen erste Smartphones wie das ROG Phone 2 von Asus mit dem Snapdragon 855 Plus erscheinen: Qualcomm verspricht mehr Takt bei den CPU-Kernen und eine schnellere Adreno-Grafikeinheit. (Snapdragon, Smartphone) Verbesserungen beim Offlinemodus, dazu Speicherstände in der Cloud und etwas später Nutzerbewertungen: Epic Games hat die Pläne für seinen Epic Games Store aktualisiert. Und es gibt ein Spiel von einem Entwickler exklusiv, der bis vor kurzem noch vehem…
Verbesserungen beim Offlinemodus, dazu Speicherstände in der Cloud und etwas später Nutzerbewertungen: Epic Games hat die Pläne für seinen Epic Games Store aktualisiert. Und es gibt ein Spiel von einem Entwickler exklusiv, der bis vor kurzem noch vehement gegen solche Deals war. (Epic Games, Steam) 
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