February 2021 – Page 91 – news.buyenne.com

Using whale songs to image beneath the ocean’s floor

Seismic data generated by whale songs helps build a picture of the ocean’s base.

People tend to think of seismic waves as little more than signals of tectonic events, like an earthquake or lava shifting under a volcano. But these vibrations are also our best way of getting a clear picture of our planet's internal structure. By watching how the vibrations' paths shift as they encounter different materials, we can get a picture of where different rock layers meet, where rock becomes molten, and more.

In some cases, we get this picture by waiting for a natural event to produce the seismic waves. In others, we get impatient and set off explosive charges or use a powerful sound-making device. Today, Václav Kuna and John Nábėlek of Oregon State University are describing yet another option: waiting for a whale to float by. Using the songs of passing fin whales, the researchers were able to reconstruct the upper layers of the seafloor off the coast of Oregon.

Quite a song

The song of a fin whale is not exactly the sort of thing you'd typically describe as musical. It's generally in the area of 20Hz, which sounds more like a series of clicks than a continual sound, and the whales produce it in second-long bursts separated by dozens of seconds. But they are loud. A guidance on hearing risks places danger at any level above 80 decibels and the loudest concerts as hitting roughly 120 decibels. A fin whale's song can be in the neighborhood of 190 decibels, and it typically goes on for hours.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Search Engine Ordered To Pay Copyright Damages For Embedding Sports Clips

A court has ordered leading Russian search engine Yandex to pay damages to sports rightsholder TeleSport for copyright infringement. According to TeleSport, Yandex embedded clips from Italian soccer matches in its own pages and monetized them with advertising, rather than sending visitors to the source sites where the content was licensed for distribution.

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

Once seen as pure indexers of content, the role of search engines has expanded in recent years. In some circumstances, content is now presented in a manner that can reduce the need to visit external sites, much to the irritation of rightsholders.

As the leading Russian search engine, Yandex has been criticized for utilizing other people’s content, something which led to the company being sued by sports rightsholder TeleSport Group.

TeleSport Argued That Yandex Infringed Its Rights

TeleSport owns the exclusive rights to distribute several types of sports content in Russia, including a deal that allows it to broadcast highlights from top-tier Italian football matches. These video clips are posted to platforms including vKontakte (Russia’s answer to Facebook) and Odnoklassniki, a social network for classmates and old friends.

The problem for TeleSport is that when its videos appeared within Yandex’s video search site (which has the appearance of YouTube), clicking on links didn’t automatically send the visitor to the source platform. Instead, Yandex embedded the video and placed its own advertising around the content, something that TeleSport believes is an infringement of its rights.

TeleSport Wins Round One of Copyright Infringement Battle

In its fight against Yandex, TeleSport has filed several claims at the Moscow City Court and one of those has now come to fruition. The Court found that Yandex did indeed infringe TeleSports rights due to embedding and ordered the search engine to pay 3.68 million rubles (US$50,000) in damages.

Importantly, this represents just one of TeleSports’ claims, with another for 2.95 billion rubles (US$40 million) still pending. This is a good start for TeleSports and sets the groundwork for things to come, the company says.

“This is a very important precedent for the industry and a significant amount of fines per violation. Our material requirements were fully met and this confirms the correctness of our position,” commented TeleSport chief Petr Makarenko.

“It is important to understand that if we close our eyes to the implementation of such ‘gray’ schemes of content monetization by search engines, then in the future Russian viewers will be cut off from world sports – it will become economically unprofitable for copyright holders to acquire and sell rights to broadcast sports events.”

Copyright Law Requires Search Engines to Act Responsibly

According to Igor Savochkin, head of legal affairs at TeleSport, Russia’s copyright laws require search engines to send users directly to the site that carries the information requested, in this case sporting clips licensed for use on those platforms.

“In this case, the search engine acted as an advertising agent, placing ads for content to which Yandex did not have rights. The illegality of the actions was also confirmed by an independent expert proposed by the defendant himself. The decision of the court undoubtedly sets an important precedent for the industry,” Savochkin said.

Yandex Allegedly Continues to Infringe, Will Appeal

According to TeleSport and despite the lawsuits already filed, Yandex continues to infringe the company’s rights. TeleSport says that it intends to file claims in the future for each and every violation, in addition to coming out victorious in the large pending case which deals with 590 allegedly violations.

Yandex, of course, sees things rather differently. It believes it did nothing wrong and has already indicated that the company will file an appeal.

“We consider the claims of the plaintiff illegal and unreasonable,” a statement from Yandex reads.

“TeleSport independently posted its videos on the Internet, including in its official groups on social networks. At the same time, TeleSport had the opportunity to close its content from indexing. TeleSport did this, but after filing a claim.”

In comments to TASS, Yandex insisted that search engines should not be held liable for content posted on third-party websites, “..especially in cases where an unscrupulous copyright holder is trying to make money on content twice.”

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

Recht auf schnelles Internet: Bundesregierung verhält “sich wie ein bockiges Kind”

Bei der Umsetzung des Rechts auf schnelles Internet wolle die Bundesregierung die niedrigste Datenrate anbieten, die möglich sei, kritisieren die Grünen. (Breko, Internet)

Why didn’t GameStop sell some of its inflated stock during the bubble?

The retailer could still possibly arrange a stock-for-cash infusion in the future

Hi, yeah, how much can I get by trading in this slighty used share of GameStop stock?

At the beginning of the year, the stock market as a whole valued video game retailer GameStop at roughly $1.15 billion. By the close of trading on January 27, at the height of the speculative mania surrounding the stock, that total value had surged to about $22.6 billion. Today, GameStop's market cap has sunk back down to a more reasonable $3.34 billion.

You'd think GameStop would have tried to take advantage of this brief market mania, cashing in on its suddenly hot brand by trading inflated stock for real money that could help its struggling brick-and-mortar business. But a new Reuters report cites "three people familiar with the US video game retailer’s internal deliberations" in detailing the logistical and regulatory hurdles that prevented that from happening.

Insider red tape

The core of GameStop's quick cash-in problem was the SEC's insider trading rules, which define a specific "trading window" schedule outlining when company insiders can and can't trade on quarterly earnings results that haven't yet been made public.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Instagram bans top anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over COVID falsehoods

Kennedy has a long history of spreading dangerous misinformation on social media.

Robert Kennedy Jr. heads up to a meeting at Trump Tower on January 10, 2017 in New York City.

Instagram has permanently banned the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an infamous and prolific peddler of dangerous anti-vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation.

The move will likely be cheered by public health advocates who have struggled to combat such harmful bunkum online during the devastating pandemic. However, Kennedy's account on Facebook—which owns Instagram—remained active Thursday and lists over 300,000 followers.

In an email to Ars, a Facebook spokesperson said Kennedy’s Instagram account was removed “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.” The account had over 800,000 followers prior to its removal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Microsoft Surface Duo launches internationally next month (where it will cost way more than in the US)

The Microsoft Surface Duo is one of the most unusual smartphones released in 2020. It’s a Microsoft smartphone that runs Google’s Android operating system with some custom Microsoft apps pre-installed. It’s a foldable, but rather than a single foldable display it has two screens connected by a hinge. And it had specs that were already […]

The post Microsoft Surface Duo launches internationally next month (where it will cost way more than in the US) appeared first on Liliputing.

Why are General Motors and Will Ferrell trolling Norway?

54 percent of new cars in Norway are EVs, but it’s a hard model to replicate.

GM and Will Ferrell took a Cadillac Lyriq EV to Sweden to highlight the fact that Norway buys more electric vehicles per capita than the US.

Although a bunch of automakers chose to sit out 2021, General Motors still saw value in advertising during this year's Super Bowl. The automaker used the event to promote its electric vehicle aspirations, which include plans to have an all-electric lineup by 2035.

This project will be propelled by a new platform called Ultium and will start with next year's Cadillac Lyriq and GMC Hummer EV. But you wouldn't know that from the ad campaign—at least not at first. Instead, we learn that Will Ferrell is really angry with Norway, and he wants to prank the nation of more than five million by sending them all anchovy pizzas.

The cause of this rage? Norway is doing better at EV adoption than the US. Much better, in fact, as 54 percent of all new vehicles sold in the Scandinavian country in 2020 were electric. Here in the US, plug-in vehicles accounted for a mere 2.2 percent of the 14.6 million new cars and trucks sold last year (although in absolute numbers, the US still bought about three times as many EVs as Norway).

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Moto E6i is a budget Android Go phone with a Unisoc processor

Most recent Android smartphones ship with processors from Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung, or Huawei. But over the past few years we’ve seen chips from a new player called Unisoc show up in a handful of smartphones from Hisense, HMD, and other compan…

The post Moto E6i is a budget Android Go phone with a Unisoc processor appeared first on Liliputing.

Slack, Chrome, The Last of Us: Sonst noch was?

Was am 11. Februar 2021 neben den großen Meldungen sonst noch passiert ist, in aller Kürze. (Kurznews, Browser)

Fauci: Vaccines for first-graders could be authorized by September

Trials need to prove the vaccine is safe and effective in children.

Students wait to have their portraits taken for school picture day on Sept. 23, 2020, in Stamford, Connecticut.

Children as young as first graders may be able to get the coronavirus vaccine by the time school starts in September, presuming trials are successful in those age groups, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with ProPublica.

“We’re in the process of starting clinical trials in what we call age de-escalation, where you do a clinical trial with people 16 to 12, then 12 to 9, then 9 to 6,” Fauci said. When asked what was the youngest age group that might be authorized for the vaccine by September, he said, “I would think by the time we get to school opening, we likely will be able to get people who come into the first grade.”

As optimistic as Fauci is, several pediatricians and infectious disease experts said they wish the pediatric trials would move more quickly. In addition to restoring stability to the education system and parents’ work schedules and keeping kids and those around them safe, vaccinating children is essential to helping the country, as a whole, reach herd immunity and decrease the threat of new variants.

Read 31 remaining paragraphs | Comments