Lenovo introduces ThinkPad P14s and P15s laptops with up to a Core i7-10810U

A day after Intel launched a whole bunch of 10th-gen Core chips with Intel vPro features, Lenovo is introducing several desktop and notebook computers that will be powered by those processors. That includes a few previously announced laptops, plus two …

A day after Intel launched a whole bunch of 10th-gen Core chips with Intel vPro features, Lenovo is introducing several desktop and notebook computers that will be powered by those processors. That includes a few previously announced laptops, plus two brand new laptops — the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s and ThinkPad P15s with support for up to an […]

MPA/ACE Wants Cloudflare to Identify Operators of Nites Pirate Streaming Site

Pirate streaming site Nites.tv went offline in April after its domain was taken over by the MPA and the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment. This week the site was resurrected under a new domain name, Nites.is. Via an application for a DMCA subpoena filed at California court Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association is now demanding that Cloudflare hands over the identities of its operators.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

There are many strategies for disrupting the activities of pirate sites and services. Blocking, for example, leaves sites intact but aims to prevent users from visiting platforms so easily.

This presents a window of opportunity for pirates who through VPNs, proxies and mirror platforms, can still access the sites in question. A much more permanent option is shutting services down completely, a tactic currently being deployed by the Motion Picture Association and global anti-piracy coalition ACE, the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment.

While details are hammered out behind the scenes, ACE – which is headed up by the studios of the MPA plus Netflix and Amazon – reaches agreements with site operators to shut down their operations. This can sometimes involve a cash settlement (such as in the Openload case) but the most visible sign is the handing over of domain names to the MPA, to prevent any resurrection.

This appears to have been the plan behind the recent closure of Nites.tv, a polished streaming and torrent platform that rapidly grew in popularity over the past several months. In April, following an announcement that it was shutting down to protect copyrights, Nites.tv disappeared and its domain was eventually taken over by the MPA. However, that wasn’t the end of the matter.

This week, an almost perfect clone of Nites.tv reappeared under a new domain, Nites.is. It has all of the features of the old site with identical functionality, suggesting that the ACE action to shutter the original site had been seriously undermined. Who is behind this reincarnation isn’t known but several major Hollywood studios are now trying to find out.

In an application for a DMCA subpoena filed at a California court this week, Jan Van Voorn, the Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA, explained that Nites.is infringing on the rights of Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal City Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Amazon Content Services and Netflix Studios.

“The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identities of the individuals assigned to these websites who have exploited ACE Members’ exclusive rights in their copyrighted motion pictures without their authorization,” the application reads.

“This information will only be used for the purposes of protecting the rights granted to ACE Members, the motion picture copyright owners, under Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

The companies, all members of ACE and represented by the MPA, request an order that would compel Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of the entities behind Nites.is. That information, according to the MPA, should include names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories.

What happens next is dependent on a few factors, starting with the information held by Cloudflare. Presuming the subpoena is granted, the big question is whether the CDN company has any useful information to hand over to the MPA. If it doesn’t, the trail could go cold, at least for now. If Cloudflare does have pertinent details, however, then the people behind Nites.is can expect a follow-up from the MPA.

The big question is whether those people, whoever they might be, are the same people as those behind Nites.tv. If they are (and presuming a settlement agreement was signed with the MPA/ACE to shut down permanently), then it will be a question of whether MPA/ACE are open to another settlement or in light of any breach, feel inclined to take the matter further.

ACE does not respond to requests to comment on any ongoing cases so at least for now, it will be a waiting game to see how this plays out.

The DMCA subpoena application documents can be found here (1,2,3)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

Apple acquired NextVR, suggesting it still harbors VR ambitions

It’s not yet clear what Apple has in mind for the sports-focused VR startup.

A virtual reality headset has been photographed on a white bedsheet.

Enlarge / The HTC Vive Pro, a headset Apple supported with recent macOS releases. (credit: Kyle Orland)

Apple confirmed to Bloomberg that it has acquired NextVR, a company that primarily makes sports-related content and experiences for virtual reality. Southern California-based NextVR also holds dozens of patents that might be useful to Apple.

The acquisition was first rumored last month, but today marks the confirmation that it has taken place. A price was not disclosed, but reports last month claimed the acquisition was expected to come in at around $100 million. NextVR stopped operating as its own entity last week, today's Bloomberg report says, and the NextVR website is now just a simple landing page indicating that new things are coming at a later date.

NextVR has enjoyed content deals with sports leagues like the NBA and media outlets like Fox Sports for some time. It's possible that Apple acquired NextVR to produce similar content, but it might be just as likely that one or more of NextVR's patents are what interests Cupertino. For example, 9to5Mac noted last month that NextVR holds patents for upscaling video streams, presumably in ways that suit mixed reality.

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Updated ChromiumOS builds turn GPD Pocket and Pocket 2 into tiny Chromebooks

Last year Keith Myers ported the open source version of Google’s Chrome OS so that it could run on the GPD Pocket and GPD Pocket 2 mini-laptops. But the software was a bit buggy at the time, with issues affecting audio, screen rotation, and other…

Last year Keith Myers ported the open source version of Google’s Chrome OS so that it could run on the GPD Pocket and GPD Pocket 2 mini-laptops. But the software was a bit buggy at the time, with issues affecting audio, screen rotation, and other hardware. Now Myers is back with a new Chromium OS […]

How a rejected My Little Pony game helped save a historic tournament

Fan passion and some unexpected help make for a happy ending.

These aren't exactly ponies, but we'll get to that.

Enlarge / These aren't exactly ponies, but we'll get to that. (credit: Mane6)

This is a coronavirus story with a happy ending. We could all use a happy ending right now—remember those? It all starts over seven years ago, long before "pandemic" was a word you had to hear every day, with a group of fans of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic TV series.

Back in this more innocent time, you might have hopped on the Internet, not to read the latest virus news, but instead to find an article earnestly explaining to you about bronies and how young adults were really connecting with this cartoon about ponies and friendship. You might have rolled your eyes a bit, but don't judge!

(Full disclosure, my youngest daughter is a super fan, and I've probably seen just about every episode in bits and pieces by now. It's the polar opposite of the Hasbro toy commercials masquerading as shows from my childhood; well-written, thoughtful, and nuanced, with themes that don't insult your intelligence. I can understand how anyone would want to connect with a world like that. The cartoons I watched frankly suck in comparison.)

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Chrome will soon block resource-draining ads. Here’s how to turn it on now

Fed up with cryptojacking ads? Google developers have you covered.

Stylized, composite image of bitcoins against motherboards.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Chrome browser users take heart: Google developers are rolling out a feature that neuters abusive ads that covertly leach your CPU resources, bandwidth, and electricity.

The move comes in response to a swarm of sites and ads first noticed in 2017 that surreptitiously use visitors’ computers to mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As the sites or ads display content, embedded code performs the resource-intensive calculations and deposits the mined currency in a developer-designated wallet. To conceal the scam, the code is often heavily obfuscated. The only signs something is amiss are whirring fans, drained batteries, and for those who pay close attention, increased consumption of network resources.

In a post published on Thursday, Chrome Project Manager Marshall Vale said that while the percentage of abusive ads is extremely low—somewhere around 0.3 percent—they account for 28 percent of CPU usage and 27 percent of network data.

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TikTok accused of breaching US child privacy regulations

Advocacy groups claim viral video app breached terms of settlement with FTC, too.

TikTok accused of breaching US child privacy regulations

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Twenty advocacy groups have accused TikTok of violating child privacy regulations in the US and breaching a settlement that the viral video app agreed with the Federal Trade Commission last year over a previous privacy complaint.

The groups—which include the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center—have filed a complaint with the US watchdog saying they believe that the social media platform is “in contempt” of the terms of the 2019 settlement, as well as children’s privacy regulations.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech group ByteDance, was fined $5.7 million in February last year for illegally collecting children’s data, as it began to rise in popularity among teens in the west.

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“Fired for being right”: Trump admin whistleblower testifies to Congress

Democrats praise whistleblower while Republicans complain about hearing.

Rick Bright walks out of a hearing room, wearing a face mask and gloves.

Enlarge / Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, steps out of the hearing room before testifying about the government response to the novel coronavirus pandemic to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill May 14, 2020 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and other Democratic lawmakers today blasted the Trump administration for demoting Rick Bright, the whistleblower who says his early warnings about the COVID-19 pandemic and supply shortages were ignored.

"Dr. Bright has filed one of the most specific and troubling whistleblower complaints I have ever seen," Eshoo said today. "He was the right person with the right judgment at the right time. He was not only ignored, he was fired for being right. We can't have a system where the government fires those who get it right and reward those who get it completely wrong."

Eshoo's comments came in her opening statement during a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health, which Eshoo chairs. Eshoo criticized the Trump administration for "incompetence, denial, delay, and a disorganized response."

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Nintendo’s first rumored Mario game for 2020 has come true: Paper Mario in July

The Origami King: new battle system, open-world sections, paper-airplane warfare.

After a Mario-filled game-rumor bonanza earlier this year, Nintendo appears to be paying those rumors forward with its first Mario game announcement of 2020. Thursday morning saw Nintendo issue a YouTube announcement—without its usual 48-hour tip-off to fans—for its first Paper Mario game in four years.

Paper Mario: The Origami King is slated to launch on July 17 for Nintendo Switch consoles, and it sees the series wildly expand upon its action-RPG roots—as opposed to the more straightforward 2016 Wii U game Paper Mario: Color Splash.

Unlike a "mainline" Super Mario action game, Paper Mario games stand out with an emphasis on plot, dialogue, and family-friendly humor, and today's Origami King reveal sees the series continue that streak. One minute, a "flat," sticker-shaped Mario is leaping and flying over an overwhelmed Mushroom Kingdom castle, which is being attacked by an origami warlord set on "folding the world," along with Bowser as an unlikely ally (apparently already origami-folded to assumedly tamp down his evil abilities). The next moment, Mario is chilling on a train while a classic Bob-Omb sits near him as a passenger, dryly remarking, "Yeah, I'm a Bob-Omb."

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