Plastic invisibility cloak hides you from people with plastic brains

A YouTube video of disappearing body parts is very clever—but it’s not invisibility.

Earlier this week there was suddenly news of an exciting new invisibility cloak. In the end, the story was driven by a blathering press release full of typically questionable science buzzwords. Add science by YouTube video, and yes, this looks like shoddy science at its best.

However, the interminably long “technical” video has some value in that it makes it clear what the material does and does not do. It might be best to think of the inventor as creating a kind of clever adaptive camouflage. I can kind of see how it might be useful to people with guns in some circumstances.

Let’s play with rulers

I think almost everyone has at one point owned a plastic ruler with an animation on it. By tilting the ruler, the images it contains appear to move. This works because the plastic coating consists of a series of stripes, creating what are called lenticular lenses. By changing angles, the focal stripe of the lens shifts left and right. At one angle you see one image and at a different angle you see a second image. If the images are similar enough, changing your perspective creates the illusion of a single item moving.

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Opensignal: Mobilfunkprovider sind langsamer als Direktanbieter

Die Billiganbieter in den Mobilfunknetzen unterliegen weiterhin Begrenzungen bei den Datenraten in den LTE-Netzen der Betreiber. Eine Studie von Opensignal liefert neue Ergennisse. (Long Term Evolution, Studie)

Die Billiganbieter in den Mobilfunknetzen unterliegen weiterhin Begrenzungen bei den Datenraten in den LTE-Netzen der Betreiber. Eine Studie von Opensignal liefert neue Ergennisse. (Long Term Evolution, Studie)

Congress concerned teenagers’ favorite app is national security threat

TikTok is the latest in a line of apps to face concern over Chinese ownership.

Visitors visit the booth of Douyin (TikTok) at the 2019 smart expo in Hangzhou, China, Oct. 18, 2019.

Enlarge / Visitors visit the booth of Douyin (TikTok) at the 2019 smart expo in Hangzhou, China, Oct. 18, 2019. (credit: Costfoto | Barcroft Media | Getty Images)

Two senators are pressing for an investigation into TikTok, a short-form video app that's mostly popular with teenagers, for potential national security concerns.

Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who generally agree about very little, sent a letter yesterday to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire formally requesting an investigation of TikTok "and other China-owned content platforms."

"TikTok's terms of service and privacy policies describe how it collects data from its users and their devices, including user content and communications, IP address, location-related data, device identifiers, cookies, metadata, and other sensitive personal information," the senators wrote. "While the company has stated that TikTok does not operate in China and stores US user data in the US, ByteDance is still required to adhere to the laws of China."

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Bethesda pledges to fix early “Fallout 1st” bugs and complaints

Friends-list privacy hole, item-eating scrap boxes among subscription server issues.

Bethesda's launch this week of the $99/year Fallout 1st "private world" service inside Fallout 76 immediately drew controversy by charging for features that some feel should have been included with the base game. But the service's first few days have also been affected by a number of unexpected or unintended issues that Bethesda now says it's addressing.

Users in the Fallout 76 subreddit have been chronicling a list of issues big and small that they've noticed with their Fallout 1st subscriptions. The most surprising, it seems, is that users can't seem to create a truly "private" world only available to invited guests. Instead, Fallout 1st worlds are currently visible and accessible by anyone on the subscriber's friends list.

That's a particularly big problem for players who maintain massive friends lists for trading purposes but don't necessarily want those trading partners hopping into what's supposed to be a private world. Bethesda now says it realizes this, telling Polygon, "We understand this is not what players expected for their Private Worlds... we are looking to provide an option in an upcoming patch that will allow Fallout 1st members to restrict access to their servers more completely."

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Police Drop Criminal Investigation into Pirate Bay Co-Founder

Nearly five years ago, Swedish police raided a datacenter which was believed to host The Pirate Bay. This marked the start of a new criminal investigation, where Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij was a prime suspect. Neij had always denied any recent involvement with the site and over the past several years the police apparently found no hard evidence to the contrary. As such, the investigation into his involvement has now been dropped.

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

On December 9, 2014, The Pirate Bay went dark after Swedish police raided a nuclear-proof datacenter built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

The hosting facility reportedly offered services to The Pirate Bay, EZTV and several other torrent related sites, which were pulled offline as a result.

The authorities later announced that 50 servers were seized during the raid. And not without success, it seemed. The raid resulted in the longest ever period of continuous downtime for The Pirate Bay, nearly two months.

The raid also triggered a new criminal investigation into the notorious torrent site and its alleged operators. One person with alleged ties to TPB was arrested, but the police eventually dropped this investigation, citing a lack of resources to properly investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij remained a suspect. He had officially cut his ties with the site years earlier, but apparently the authorities were not convinced.

To some, the new investigation into the TPB co-founder came as a surprise, especially since Neij was in prison for his earlier Pirate Bay activities at the time of the raid. However, the enforcement authorities seemed determined and decided to dig in.

Today, nearly five years have passed without any significant progress in the investigation. At least, none that the public is aware of. On the contrary, the entire case appears to have fallen apart.

This week Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, informed TorrentFreak that the investigation into his involvement was dropped on October 18, 2019. The prosecutor and police informed Neij through his attorney, who forwarded the good news. After all these years, Neij is happy that he can finally put the issue to rest.

“It took them long enough to realize that I’m not running The Pirate Bay anymore,” Neij tells us.

Pirate Bay’s co-founder now hopes that he will be properly compensated for the seizure of his possessions, which resulted in no tangible claims.

“Now that the investigation is closed, I’m looking forward to being compensated for them unnecessarily holding all my computer equipment for four years and ten months,” Neij adds.

At this point, it is unclear if there are any remaining suspects in the 2014 raid investigation, or if the case is closed. We reached out to the police and the prosecutor’s office, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.

The information that has been made public thus far suggests that the 2014 raid has yielded no substantial results. For the TPB team, this might not come as a surprise, as someone connected to the site previously said that the police didn’t have much on them.

According to the TPB team, only one of their servers was confiscated in 2014. That server was operated by the moderators and used as a communication channel for TPB matters. The team said the site was pulled offline as a precaution and took longer than expected to return as migrating to a new home proved to be a challenge.

Regardless of the progress in the case, Fredrik Neij is no longer being investigated. He is still listed as the official registrant for the official thepiratebay.org domain, but that is obviously not enough to build a case.

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

Kabelnetz: Rocket Internet kauft sich bei Tele Columbus (Pyur) ein

Rocket Internet kauft große Anteile von Tele Columbus. Zuletzt sicherte sich ein anderer Großaktionär, United Internet, die Kontrolle über den Aufsichtsrat. (Tele Columbus, Börse)

Rocket Internet kauft große Anteile von Tele Columbus. Zuletzt sicherte sich ein anderer Großaktionär, United Internet, die Kontrolle über den Aufsichtsrat. (Tele Columbus, Börse)

Netflix testing option to speed up or slow down playback on Android

Those of you who stream Netflix on an Android device may soon have a bit more control over video playback. According to a few scattered reports, Netflix is currently testing variable playback speed in their Android app. As you can see in the screenshot…

Those of you who stream Netflix on an Android device may soon have a bit more control over video playback. According to a few scattered reports, Netflix is currently testing variable playback speed in their Android app. As you can see in the screenshot shared by Android Police, there are two options to slow playback […]

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Quartalszahlen: Intels dedizierte GPU läuft und 10 nm bekommt zweite Fab

Mit der DG1 hat Intel erstes lauffähiges Silizium seiner dedizierten Grafikchips im Labor, zudem wird die 10-nm-Kapazität aufgestockt. Derweil gehen Umsatz und Gewinn weniger stark zurück als erwartet. (Ice Lake, Prozessor)

Mit der DG1 hat Intel erstes lauffähiges Silizium seiner dedizierten Grafikchips im Labor, zudem wird die 10-nm-Kapazität aufgestockt. Derweil gehen Umsatz und Gewinn weniger stark zurück als erwartet. (Ice Lake, Prozessor)

Espresso Displays makes portable monitors that are just 5mm thick (crowdfunding)

Earlier this year I got an early look at a 12.5″ portable display called the Lapscreen that measured just 3.6mm thick at its thinnest point, but 7.9mm at its thickest. Now an Australian company called Espresso Displays has unveiled a new set of s…

Earlier this year I got an early look at a 12.5″ portable display called the Lapscreen that measured just 3.6mm thick at its thinnest point, but 7.9mm at its thickest. Now an Australian company called Espresso Displays has unveiled a new set of super-slim portable touchscreen monitors that are just 5mm thick when measured at […]

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Umbau: T-Systems-Chef bekommt nur kurze Vertragsverlängerung

Laut einem Bericht wird der Vertrag des Chefs von T-Systems nur für einen kürzeren Zeitraum verlängert. Die Konzernführung der Deutsche Telekom bezweifeln den Erfolg seines Umbaus. (T-Systems, IBM)

Laut einem Bericht wird der Vertrag des Chefs von T-Systems nur für einen kürzeren Zeitraum verlängert. Die Konzernführung der Deutsche Telekom bezweifeln den Erfolg seines Umbaus. (T-Systems, IBM)