March 2020 – Page 68 – news.buyenne.com

The Powerbeats are the latest workout-friendly headphones from Beats (and Apple)

New exercise buds arrive on March 18 after extensive leaks.

The new Beats Powerbeats in-ear headphones. [credit: Beats ]

Beats on Monday announced Powerbeats, its latest Bluetooth earphones. The new model is the successor to Powerbeats3 Wireless, which the Apple subsidiary launched in 2016. Like that pair, the Powerbeats—which are not called “Powerbeats 4”—are primarily aimed at gym goers and active use. They’ll arrive on March 18 for $149.

The reveal should come as no surprise, as the Powerbeats have been leaked extensively over the last two months. One Twitter user even spotted them in stock at a local Walmart in New York over the weekend.

Beats is positioning the Powerbeats as a lower-cost version of the Powerbeats Pro, a pair we’ve recommended in the past. Whereas the Powerbeats Pro are completely devoid of wires, the Powerbeats have a more traditional neckband design with a cable between the earbuds. Still, both pairs feature Apple’s H1 wireless chip, which allows for a more intuitive setup and pairing process with iOS and iCloud devices. This also gives the Powerbeats hands-free Siri support—through the “Hey Siri” command—as well as a Class 1 Bluetooth radio, which should help them maintain a steadier wireless connection with longer range.

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Jugendschutz: NRW droht Pornhub mit Websperren

Für jugendgefährdende Webangebote ist eine Altersüberprüfung zwingend vorgeschrieben. Diese soll nun konsequenter gegen Pornhub und drei weitere Anbieter durchgesetzt werden. (KJM, Wirtschaft)

Office 365: Microsoft Teams zu Arbeitsbeginn ausgefallen

Keine morgendlichen Absprachen per Teams: Manche Mitarbeiter konnten sich nicht anmelden, andere keine Nachrichten schicken. (Office 365, Microsoft)

As Police Investigate Share-Online Operators, Uploaders & Users Could Be Next

In October 2019, Share-Online.biz, Germany’s largest file-hosting site, was shut down following police raids around Europe. As the investigation into the platform’s operators continues, a cybercrime police representative now says that hunting down former content uploaders and regular downloaders at the site remains a “realistic scenario.”

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, over many years Germany became disproportionately linked to many file-hosting, streaming, and other piracy platforms. As a result, anti-piracy investigations have regularly turned into full-blown police operations, often across borders.

Last October, Share-Online.biz, at the time Germany’s largest file-hosting site, found itself in the crosshairs of law enforcement agencies. With up to 10 million users per month and close to three-quarters of visitors hailing from Germany, the site went from thriving to finished after police shut down the site following an investigation by local anti-piracy outfit GVU.

GVU first filed a criminal complaint in 2017 and had to wait more than two years to take down Share-Online but the job isn’t done yet. Authorities seized huge volumes of digital data when the site was taken down last year and it will have to be carefully examined and evaluated as part of the prosecution against the site’s operators.

The state of that analysis became apparent when German publication Tarnkappe spoke with local cybercrime police (ZAC NRW) on Friday. A spokesperson revealed that the investigation is still in progress with charges and/or a trial somewhere off in the distance. The scale of the work ahead appears considerable.

“The evaluation of the seized data is still ongoing and will probably take some time. Data in the three-digit terabyte range was seized. The evaluation is accordingly extremely complex,” the spokesperson said.

That huge volumes of data were scooped up during the raids is hardly a surprise given the size of the platform. The big question is what will be done with the evidence uncovered and who will be targeted as a result.

At the time of the raid, three people were placed under investigation aged 40, 48, and 54. It’s unclear whether these are the suspected operators of Share-Online but according to police, prosecutions could go beyond those at the top.

“Our investigations are currently directed against the operators of the platform,” the spokesperson said.

“If identification is possible, subsequent investigations against the uploaders and possibly also against downloaders are realistic scenarios. For reasons of capacity, we will certainly proceed in a layered manner in the investigations and, in due course, may initially focus on the top uploaders.”

In any anti-piracy investigation, this explanation makes perfect sense. Targeting those at the very top is standard procedure and given that many of the top uploaders are likely to have generated a considerable financial return from the content they provided, they are logical targets.

However, when it comes to regular customers (i.e those who simply downloaded content) the prospect of lots of prosecutions seems slim. Share-Online had millions of users so while the potential to pick out a handful of particularly egregious individuals for further action is possible, one has to conclude that the vast majority will be overlooked, if only due to a lack of resources.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

Coronavirus: Bayerische Online-Lernzentrale lahmgelegt

Ab heute können Schüler in Bayern Lernmaterialien online abrufen – zumindest in der Theorie: Die Server sind wegen einer DDoS-Attacke überlastet. (Coronavirus, Server)

Ab heute können Schüler in Bayern Lernmaterialien online abrufen - zumindest in der Theorie: Die Server sind wegen einer DDoS-Attacke überlastet. (Coronavirus, Server)

Star Trek Voyager: Starke Frauen und schwache Gegner

Eine Serie, die die Fans polarisierte. Eine Show, die einerseits feministisch, andererseits sexistisch war. Ein Raumschiff, auf dem es vor Konflikten hätte brodeln sollen, was aber nicht geschah. Das war Star Trek: Voyager. Was ist davon nach einem Vie…

What a WoW virtual outbreak taught us about how humans behave in epidemics

Revisiting a seminal 2007 paper modeling WoW‘s Corrupted Blood incident.

Hakkar the Soulflayer was the primary source of infection for the "Corrupted Blood" outbreak in <em>World of Warcraft</em>.

When it comes to a global pandemic, human beings are the ultimate wild card. That makes it challenging to build accurate mathematical models to predict how the progress of the disease will play out. We've certainly seen plenty of all-too-human responses to coronavirus over the last two weeks, with some people panicking and hoarding food, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer. Others cling to denial, and still others are defying calls for "social distancing" by continuing to go to restaurants, bars, concerts, and so forth. Our epidemiological models are a bit better able to account for that unpredictability thanks in part to a virtual outbreak in World of Warcraft nearly fifteen years ago, known as the "Corrupted Blood incident."

The Corrupted Blood outbreak was not intentional. In 2005, Blizzard Entertainment added a new dungeon called Zul'Burub into World of Warcraft for highly advanced players, controlled by an "end boss" named Hakkar. Hakkar was a blood god known as the Soulflayer, who had, among his arsenal of weapons, a "debuff" spell called "Corrupted Blood." Infected players would suffer damage at regular repeating intervals, draining away their "hit points" until their avatars exploded in a cloud of blood. The only cure was to kill Hakkar.

Blizzard thought this would ensure the infection wouldn't spread beyond that space. They were wrong. Rather than standing their ground, many infected players panicked, teleporting out of the dungeon before dying or killing Hakkar, and taking the disease with them. And lower ranking players, with fewer hit points, would "die" very quickly upon exposure.

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