Bruchlinien im Vereinigten Königreich

Reise in ernster Mission: Premierminister Johnson durch schottische Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen aufgeschreckt

Reise in ernster Mission: Premierminister Johnson durch schottische Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen aufgeschreckt

Google Play bans open-source Matrix client Element, citing “abusive content”

Banning a Matrix client for content is really no different from banning a web browser.

Google Play bans open-source Matrix client Element, citing “abusive content”

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The latest app to catch an illogical ban from the Google Play Store is Element, an open-source, end-to-end encrypted messaging client for the federated Matrix chat protocol. Google banned Element late Friday night, a ban which Element said "is due to abusive content somewhere on Matrix." Matrix has millions of users, and as a federated chat protocol, Element does not control the content on Matrix, so this is a bit like banning a web browser for displaying web content. Element says it is working with Google to "explain how Element works and get the situation resolved."

Google has been cracking down on apps that display hateful content, but Element says that it shouldn't be part of the crackdown. "We have also explained that the Matrix servers that we do run as Element (including the default Matrix.org homeserver, which we run on behalf of The Matrix.org Foundation) have strict Terms of Use which we actively enforce," Element said. "We abhor abuse, and Element is not an app that caters to abusive content."

Element says it has a full-time team dedicated to handling abuse reports

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DMCA Takedowns Remove Perfectly Legal Plex Pages From Google

Millions of people use Plex as a platform to curate, organize, and watch video content. The service also allows users to create a watchlist of movies and TV-shows that are available through other platforms. This appears to confuse copyright holders and some have convinced Google to remove several Plex URLs from its search engine.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

plex logoPlex is a multifunctional media software and service that allows users to easily access all their entertainment in one place.

Whether it’s movies, music, TV-shows, or photos, Plex can organize and index, making the content ready to stream on a wide variety of supported devices.

Like many other technologies Plex can be used for good and bad. There have been reports of people sharing vast libraries of the pirated content via Plex-powered servers, for example. But at the same time Plex is a gateway to legal streaming content including movies and series on its own Mediaverse platform.

The Mediaverse part of the Plex site appears to cause some confusion. While it offers content that can be legally streamed for free, it also lists many other titles, such as The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones, Wonder Woman 1984, and Tenet.

mandalorian plex page

These other titles are not freely available for streaming, of course. Plex merely added an informational page to its library so people can put these titles on their watchlist. However, not all copyright holders appear to get this distinction.

Over the past month alone more than a handful of DMCA takedown requests were sent to Google, asking the search engine to remove these “copyright-infringing” pages. The takedowns suggest that Plex offers access to the full videos and list its URLs together with those of notorious pirate sites.

For example, ‘CTW Anti-Piracy’ sent a DMCA takedown request to Google on behalf of Vertigo Releasing Limited, asking the search engine to remove the Plex information page for the film “Becky“. The Plex page is highlighted below among more traditional pirate sites.

plex google remove

Similarly, ‘Shoot-Down’ sent a takedown notice on behalf of DDI Double Dutch Inc for Plex’s “Elliot the Littlest Reindeer” page, while Groupe V Media hired ‘Police Du Net’ to remove the page of “Cardinal” season four. None of these pages link to pirated videos, obviously.

We assume that these requests, and many others, were all sent by mistake but that doesn’t mean that they are harmless. While Google is generally quite good at spotting errors, it missed these ones. That means that the Plex pages have actually been wiped from Google’s search results.

Instead of getting the Plex page, people will now see the following notice at the bottom of their search results.

google plex removed

After browsing through several Plex takedown notices in Google’s transparency report we also spotted one for which the search giant took “no action“. However, that isn’t because it is deemed to be an erroneous takedown, but because the URL wasn’t indexed to begin with.

We reached out to Plex to inform the company about the takedowns and requested a comment. The company informed us that they are aware of these notices and will try to work things out with the copyright holders individually.

That’s probably wise because too many notices put sites at risk of being demoted, which can seriously hurt search traffic.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

A new $110 light gun for old Duck Hunts: Ars tests an HDTV-friendly option

It’s far from “plug-and-play,” but awesome for devoted retro gamers.

Close-up photo of hand holding plastic light gun,

Enlarge / Duck Hunt without a CRT? It's finally doable, thanks to the Sinden Lightgun. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

Over the past decade, we've seen nearly every classic gaming console receive a cute, miniaturized re-release—and the variety has been staggering, from titans like the NES to arcade niche favorites like Neo Geo and Sega Astro City.

Yet somehow, one massive retro-gaming category has been left unmined for a nostalgic buck: the light gun genre. Nintendo never packed shooting-gallery classics like Duck Hunt into a plug-and-play Zapper, while companies like Sega and Namco have never released their legendary arcade gun games as convenient, shoot-at-the-TV collector's editions.

Until recently, the wisdom preventing such a launch has been limitations with modern HDTVs; light gun games were largely coded for older screen technologies. But one enterprising Indiegogo project from 2019, the Sinden Lightgun, set its sights on solving the problem in a roundabout, DIY way: with a new plastic gun, starting at $110, that combines an RGB sensor with incredibly low-latency response times. After wondering how such a system works in practice (and increasingly wanting a retro-arcade experience in my locked-down home), I finally got my hands on the Sinden this week, provided by its namesake creator, British engineer Andy Sinden.

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Asus Chromebook CM3000 is a 10.5 inch 2-in-1 tablet

The Asus Chromebook family includes a range of laptops featuring different screen sizes, processors, and price points. Some are convertibles with touchscreen displays and 360-degree hinges, while others are clamshell-style notebooks. But it’s be…

The Asus Chromebook family includes a range of laptops featuring different screen sizes, processors, and price points. Some are convertibles with touchscreen displays and 360-degree hinges, while others are clamshell-style notebooks. But it’s been a few years since Asus offered a straight-up Chrome OS tablet designed to be used with or without a keyboard. Now […]

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