Month: March 2021

Do people still want “small” smartphones? (Apple may have overestimated demand for the iPhone 12 mini)

Smartphone screens have gotten larger and larger in recent years, but there are still some folks who prefer a model with a smaller display that’s easier to operate with one hand. So when Apple launched the iPhone 12 series last fall, the company…

iphone 12 and iphone 12 mini

iphone 12 and iphone 12 miniSmartphone screens have gotten larger and larger in recent years, but there are still some folks who prefer a model with a smaller display that’s easier to operate with one hand. So when Apple launched the iPhone 12 series last fall, the company included an iPhone 12 Mini with a relatively small (by recent standards) […]

The post Do people still want “small” smartphones? (Apple may have overestimated demand for the iPhone 12 mini) appeared first on Liliputing.

Microsoft Edge is dead—long live Microsoft Edge

To the four of you who were using legacy Edge, we extend our condolences.

There can be only one.

Enlarge / There can be only one. (credit: Jim Salter)

Microsoft officially ended support for the legacy (non-Chromium-derived) Edge browser this week. The death of legacy Edge was first announced in August 2020, with the end-of-life date set to March 9, 2021—this Tuesday.

The deprecated version of Edge, originally named Project Spartan, was developed and shipped as Windows 10's default browser in 2015. Unlike the current, Chromium-based Edge, it had no upstream project—the entire browser, up to and including the rendering engine, was a Microsoft design.

Despite being Windows 10's default browser, Spartan never achieved significant marketshare, let alone the crushing dominance once enjoyed by Internet Explorer. According to GlobalStats, legacy Edge peaked at well below 2.5 percent marketshare—less than, for example, Opera. By contrast, and despite its relative newborn status, Chromium-based Edge has already hit 3.4 percent—closing in on Firefox's much-diminished 3.8 percent, as of February 2021.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Oppo Find X3 Pro smartphone doesn’t hide its unusual camera system

For a few years phone makers had been doing their best to hide their camera bumps and offer phones with a back surface that was as smooth as their front. The Oppo Find X3 Pro doesn’t do that. The phone has a gigantic camera bump on its back cove…

For a few years phone makers had been doing their best to hide their camera bumps and offer phones with a back surface that was as smooth as their front. The Oppo Find X3 Pro doesn’t do that. The phone has a gigantic camera bump on its back covered in a single sheet of glass. But […]

The post Oppo Find X3 Pro smartphone doesn’t hide its unusual camera system appeared first on Liliputing.

A Russian ISP confirms Roskomnadzor’s Twitter-blocking blooper

Our source demonstrated heavy throttling of microsoft.com, not just t.co.

  • This is https://speed.gulag.link/, a speedtest application that demonstrates Roskomnadzor throttling to Russian users it impacts. [credit: Jim Salter ]

Last night, a confidential source at a Russian ISP contacted Ars with confirmation of the titanic mistake Roskomnadzor—Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media—made when attempting to punitively throttle Twitter's link-shortening service t.co.

Our source tells us that Roskomnadzor distributes to all Russian ISPs a hardware package that must be connected just behind that ISP's BGP core router. At their small ISP, Roskomnadzor's package includes an EcoFilter 4080 deep package inspection system, a pair of Russian-made 10Gbps aggregation switches, and two Huawei servers. According to our source, this hardware is "massive overkill" for its necessary function and their experienced traffic level—possibly because "at some point in time, government planned to capture all the traffic there is."

Currently, the Roskomnadzor package does basic filtration for the list of banned resources—and, as of this week, has begun on-the-fly modifications of DNS requests as well. The DNS mangling also caused problems when first enabled—according to our source, YouTube DNS requests were broken for most of a day. Roskomnadzor eventually plans to require all Russian ISPs to replace the real root DNS servers with its own, but that project has met with resistance and difficulties.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

ISPs and Rightsholders Unite to Block Pirate Sites in Germany

Several of the largest Internet providers and copyright holders in Germany have joined forces to tackle online piracy. With the new “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet,” they have agreed to block structurally infringing sites without going to court. The first target is streaming portal S.to and other prominent sites including Kinox and The Pirate Bay are being considered.

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

CUII logoISP blocking has become a prime measure for the entertainment industries to limit the availability of pirate sites on the Internet.

In recent years thousands of domain names have been blocked throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America, and even Down Under.

In most countries, these blockades are handed down by courts. However, extrajudicial schemes and voluntary agreements between Internet providers and copyright holders are no exception. This is also true for Germany, where a new plan was unveiled today.

Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet

A coalition of the country’s largest ISPs and copyright holder groups launched the “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” (CUII) which aims to block the most blatant pirate sites.

While CUII doesn’t rely on court judgments, there is some form of oversight. When copyright holders report a pirate site, a review committee first checks whether the domain is indeed linked to a website that structurally infringes copyrights.

The review committee consists of retired judges who are familiar with copyright matters. If they conclude that a domain is structurally infringing, the matter is referred to the German government’s Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) to confirm that a blockade will not violate net neutrality.

If there are no problematic issues detected, ISPs will have the green light to implement a DNS blockade.

Structurally Infringing Sites

The definition of a structurally infringing website can be open to interpretation but only the most blatant pirate sites will be targeted. As concrete examples, CUII mentions thepiratebay.org, kinox.to and goldesel.to.

“The offerings of these platforms are specifically targeted at the infringement of copyrighted works. If there is legal content on the platform, its size is not significant in the overall ratio of legal to illegal content,” CUII writes.

While the referenced sites are likely candidates to be blocked, the first domain name on the list is the streaming portal S.to, according to a press release from BNetzA. This site is already blocked by Vodafone.

ISPs and Rightsholders Are Pleased

Both copyright holders and Internet providers are happy with the landmark code of conduct, which is the result of a lengthy negotiation process.

The ISP’s are pleased with the oversight from BNetzA, which ensures that net neutrality isn’t violated. At the same time, they are happy to draw a line under a decade of court battles.

“With the establishment of the Clearing Body, we have jointly found a way to obtain independent, and, at the same time, extremely high-quality decisions on how to deal with copyright blocking claims against Internet access providers,” says Judith Steinbrecher, who assisted ISPs in the negotiations.

No Silver Bullet

The establishment of the CUII means that it will become more difficult for German Internet users to access pirate sites. However, it won’t solve the piracy problem completely.

As noted by the German news site Tarnkappe, DNS blockades can be easily circumvented by switching to Google or Cloudflare’s DNS server, or people may simply use a VPN.

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