Nintendo Wins Blocking Injunction Against Four Piracy-Enabling Sites

Nintendo has booked a significant win against four websites promoting tools that allow protection built into its Switch console to be circumvented. According to a High Court order, five leading UK ISPs must now begin blocking the domains, including those operated by the infamous Team Xecutor.

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Every manufacturer of mass-market video gaming consoles has faced the possibility of piracy on their platforms.

The tools to prevent piracy usually come as a two-man team of hardware and software trickery (technological protection measures) but these are often defeated, later if not sooner.

Nintendo, in particular, has been struggling with piracy on its Switch console, facilitated by circumvention tools (particularly SX Pro and SX OS) promoted and made available to users via various websites.

In an effort to tame the threat, Nintendo went to the High Court of England and Wales, requesting an injunction that would prevent subscribers of several major ISPs from gaining access to the sites in question.

As is common in such cases, the ISPs themselves – Sky, BT, EE, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media – were the named defendants in the case. Nintendo (NCL) asked the Court to compel them to block team-xecutor.com, sx-xecutor.com (both operated by Team Xecutor) plus sxflashcart.com and xecuteros.com (previously stargate3ds.org).

Most ISP blocking in the UK is the result of copyright infringement proceedings but Nintendo’s opening drive against the above sites is that they use the company’s trademarks without permission.

Justice Arnold said that in his opinion it is “beyond dispute” that the sites use Nintendo’s marks in order to promote circumvention devices. He also agreed that the devices were made available to the public on the basis they would be used to provide access to infringing content, since they all mention piracy in promotional material.

“The injunction sought is necessary to prevent, or at least reduce, substantial damage to NCL. It appears that substantial sales of the circumvention devices have been made in the UK, that substantial quantities of pirated games have been downloaded in the UK and installed on Switches using the circumvention devices and that NCL has sustained significant losses as a result,” Justice Arnold writes.

“No alternative measures are realistically available to NCL since NCL has been unable to identity the operators of the Target Websites, who may well be abroad.”

The Judge further notes that cease and desist notices sent by Nintendo’s lawyers were ignored by the target sites while hosting providers, “to the extent they could be identified”, also took no action.

While noting that blocking can be easily circumvented, the Judge said that blocking can be effective in reducing traffic to the sites in question, acts as a deterrent, won’t be detrimental to the ISPs’ business, and is therefore a proportionate response to infringement.

The order handed down by Justice Arnold on Tuesday can be obtained here

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Apple iPad 2019 hands-on: A 6th-generation iPad in a 2019 iPad Air’s body

An older CPU meets a (sort of) newer design, but it’s still a notable improvement.

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple's iPad lineup has been in considerable flux of late. Just in the past year, Apple totally overhauled both iPad Pro sizes, introduced a new iPad Air based on the chassis of the prior iPad Pro, and relaunched the iPad mini (albeit without much in the way of modern hardware to recommend it).

Today, the company's representatives took the stage to announce new iPhones, but they also revealed a major update to the entry-level iPad.

The biggest news here is that the screen is bigger, at 10.2 inches. That's thanks to a significant bezel reduction, among other tweaks. The other major change is the addition of Smart Keyboard support, using the same Smart Keyboard connector as the 2019 iPad Air. Of course, since this iPad starts at $329 and the Smart Keyboard costs $159, you're looking at spending almost half the cost of your tablet just to get a keyboard for it.

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Apple reveals iOS 13 and iPadOS release dates—but macOS Catalina remains a mystery

watchOS and tvOS updates are also just around the corner.

The just-announced iPhone 11 running iOS 13.

Enlarge / The just-announced iPhone 11 running iOS 13. (credit: Samuel Axon)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple's annual major public releases of iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS will arrive by the end of this month, Apple revealed on its website as it unveiled new hardware products in a live-streamed event today.

iOS 13 will hit iPhones and watchOS 6 will reach Apple Watches on September 19. iPadOS will ship a few days later on September 30. macOS Catalina is still due at an as-yet unspecified date in October.

Since Apple already made its announcement detailing features of the new operating systems at its developer conference back in June, today's event was focused on new hardware like the iPhone. But Apple often launches its major operating system releases alongside new hardware—especially when they involve mobile devices.

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Apple Watch series 5 hands-on: Software is king

New materials and sensors headline this annual update. And we have photos.

CUPERTINO, Calif.—The Apple Watch is the most popular Watch in the world, at this point—and not just among smartwatches. And while it lags behind competitors in terms of some common features, it also offers plenty that other smartwatches don't. Apple is bringing one of the biggest missing features—an always-on display—to the Apple Watch series 5, which the company unveiled at its HQ during an event earlier today.

We spent a few minutes wearing the Watch and trying out its new customization options and features. You can find the photos above and our impressions below.

The real star of the Apple Watch series 5 show is, of course, watchOS 6, which is a notable update that adds on an on-device app store, numerous new watch face customization and functionality options, new apps, and more. We already covered watchOS 6 when it was revealed at Apple's developer conference in June, so I won't spend too much time on it here. We'll dig deep on it when we review the series 5, though.

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iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max: Hands-on with Apple’s new phones

Apple’s new iPhones bring greatly improved cameras and new colors, among other things.

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Today, Apple unveiled its 2019 iPhone lineup, and every new phone is a direct successor to one of last year's handsets. We had a few minutes to go hands-on with the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max to see what's different—how they feel, what they look like, and how the new features work. And of course, we took lots of pictures.

As expected, these are iterative updates over last year's model: the iPhone 11 follows up the iPhone XR (though the XR will still be available to buy from Apple's store, just for a lower price), the iPhone 11 Pro replaces the iPhone XS, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max (now there's a mouthful for you) slots in where the iPhone XS Max did last year.

That means Apple's current iPhone lineup ranges from $449 (iPhone 8) all the way up to a base price of $1,099 for the iPhone 11 Pro Max, or $1,449 for a fully upgraded 11 Pro Max. The iPhone XR and iPhone 11 fall in the mid-range with base prices of $599 and $699, respectively. There's no doubt that the 2019 lineup brings more price-point choices to address a broader audience—a much-needed development, given that Apple has struggled to move phones in China and the developing world as compared to many Android-based competitors.

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80,000-year-old footprints reveal Neanderthal social life

The group included a surprisingly large number of children compared to adults.

Color photo of Neanderthal footprints in sand, along with a single Neanderthal handprint and an animal track.

Enlarge / These prints (except the one identified as an animal track) were made by Neanderthals who lived in western France 80,000 years ago. (credit: Image courtesy of Dominique Cliquet)

A group of footprints left behind in muddy sands 80,000 years ago gives us a better idea of what a Neanderthal social group would have looked like long before Homo sapiens showed up to ruin the neighborhood.

A Stone Age slice of life

A rapidly growing set of archaeological evidence tells us that Neanderthals thought symbolically, made art and jewelry, buried their dead, and probably tended to their sick and wounded. We have direct evidence of what they ate, what kinds of tools they used, and how they made those tools. But when it comes to what kinds of groups they lived in and how those groups were organized, the best anthropologists can do is look at how modern hunter-gatherers live in similar conditions. If Neanderthals lived like hunter-gatherers live today, they probably spent most of their time in groups of between 10 and 30 people, mostly relatives, made up of a mixture of adults and children.

That lines up well with estimates of how many people could have lived in some of the Neanderthal living areas archaeologists have excavated. Those are good ways to develop ideas about Neanderthal social groups, but they're still indirect. On the other hand (ha!), archaeological evidence doesn't get much more direct than footprints.

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Apple continues health push with three new medical studies

Research partners are enthusiastic, but they face hurdles with this kind of data.

Apple announced three new health studies Tuesday that will address issues of hearing, heart health, and women's health as it relates to menstrual cycles and reproduction.

The studies are part of a continued push by the company to make waves in the health and medical realm. In a January interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he expected the company's health-related work to become its lasting legacy and "greatest contribution to mankind."

"Our business has always been about enriching people's lives," he explained.

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Apollo Lake: Intel braucht wegen Atom-Ausfällen neues Stepping

Die Geschichte wiederholt sich: Bereits bei den Atom C2000 gab es Probleme mit einem langsamen Defekt des LPC-Busses, nun trifft es einige Pentium N sowie Celeron J/N. Ein neue CPU-Revision seitens Intel schafft Abhilfe. (Atom, Prozessor)

Die Geschichte wiederholt sich: Bereits bei den Atom C2000 gab es Probleme mit einem langsamen Defekt des LPC-Busses, nun trifft es einige Pentium N sowie Celeron J/N. Ein neue CPU-Revision seitens Intel schafft Abhilfe. (Atom, Prozessor)

The fall of coal and its pollution-linked deaths is boosting the economy

Farming now produces more particulate pollution than electricity generation.

Image of a pig farm.

Enlarge / Livestock production has become one of the United States' largest sources of particulate pollution. (credit: Wikimedia Commons/Jessica Reeder)

Many economic activities create what are called "externalities": costs that aren't accounted for in their products but are paid for by society at large. Pollution is a major source of externalities, as it can lower the value of property, force people to spend money on medical costs, and even lead to early deaths.

Air pollution is estimated to have caused more than 100,000 early deaths in 2016. Most of these have come due to what are called fine particulates, which are small particles that can be readily inhaled and cause issues like stroke, heart disease, and lung ailments. So a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University decided to do an economic analysis of the issue for the United States. The researchers compared the costs of premature deaths from particulate pollution to the value added by the economic activity that produced the pollution to find out which polluting industries might provide a net benefit to the economy.

Their analysis showed that the electricity sector had recently caused more in particulate mortality costs than its direct contributions to the economy. But that has now changed thanks to the drop in coal use, which has left farming as the only major activity that generates more costs than its direct benefits.

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Apple Reveals Colorful iPhone 11 and Beastly iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max

It’s iPhone day, and there’s a lot to unpack! Apple has just finished revealing its fall 2019 models: the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Right off the bat you’ll notice the change in naming. The R model is now simply…

It’s iPhone day, and there’s a lot to unpack! Apple has just finished revealing its fall 2019 models: the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Right off the bat you’ll notice the change in naming. The R model is now simply the base iPhone and higher-end models are now Pro, as […]

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