Month: April 2021

Waymo CEO John Krafcik steps down

Waymo ordered “up to” 82,000 vehicles in 2018. Today it has “well over 600.”

A middle-aged man sits on a stage during a presentation.

Enlarge / Waymo CEO John Krafcik in 2017. (credit: Misha Friedman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

John Krafcik, the former auto industry exec who took over Google's self-driving car project in 2015, is stepping down as CEO of Waymo. Waymo, which spun off as a separate Alphabet subsidiary in 2016, accomplished a lot during Krafcik's five-and-a-half-year tenure. Still, Krafcik failed to meet the lofty expectations he faced when he took the helm.

Until 2015, the Google self-driving car project was led by engineer Chris Urmson. At that point, Google CEO Larry Page believed the technology was nearly ready for commercialization, so he hired a car guy—Krafcik—to manage the practicalities of turning the technology into a shipping product.

Krafcik spent his first few years negotiating partnerships with automakers. Talks over a potential partnership with Ford fell apart in early 2016. Krafcik then inked a smaller deal with Fiat Chrysler to buy 100 hybrid Pacifica Minivans—a deal that was later expanded to 500 minivans.

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Nur "German Angst" vor der Inflation?

Wieder einmal warnt Bundesbank-Präsident Weidmann vor Inflationsgefahren, die angesichts von immer stärker gefluteten Geldmärkten aber tatsächlich größer werden

Wieder einmal warnt Bundesbank-Präsident Weidmann vor Inflationsgefahren, die angesichts von immer stärker gefluteten Geldmärkten aber tatsächlich größer werden

The forgotten director who gave us The Force, inspired 2001, and changed film

You may not know this Canadian documentarian, but Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas sure did.

Lonely Boy, by Roman Kroitor

Girls chant “We want Paul!”—but it’s not McCartney they’re swooning over. This is the summer of 1961, and the Beatles are still more than a year away from recording Love Me Do. Instead, the heart throb du jour is a 19-year-old kid from Canada named Paul Anka. At the Atlantic City boardwalk, the ladies line up to get autographs; some of them also give, or receive, a kiss. The camera follows the young star backstage and into the dressing room. The concert is about to start, so Anka dresses hurriedly. We see him in his underwear. Later, he speaks candidly of being “a heavy kid” in school and of his determination to become what entertainers were expected to be. He lost 35 pounds.

“You’ve got to have appeal,” he says, looking almost directly into the camera. “You’ve got to look like you’re in show business—if you don’t, you’re not going to make it.”

This intimate documentary, named for one of Anka’s biggest hits, is called Lonely Boy, and it was produced and co-directed by a Canadian filmmaker who ought to be much better known: Roman Kroitor.

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US sanctions are squeezing Huawei, but for how long?

Huawei’s growth slowed in 2020, as it had trouble securing the state-of-the-art chips.

US sanctions are squeezing Huawei, but for how long?

Enlarge (credit: Barcroft Media | Getty Images)

Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s tech industry, is reeling from a financial one-two punch delivered by US chip sanctions and a campaign aimed at cutting international markets.

But with Huawei rapidly expanding into new markets and the Chinese government investing heavily to gain technological independence from the West, that leverage may not last for long.

The US government has targeted Huawei over alleged espionage and ties to the state, claiming that the company’s 5G wireless equipment poses a security risk. The rise of Chinese companies is viewed by many in the West as linked to the Chinese government’s power and its brand of techno-authoritarianism.

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Softwareentwicklung: Wann Feature Flags sinnvoll sind – und wann nicht

Feature Flags schalten bestimmte Code-Teile nach Bedarf ein und aus. Das klingt erstmal nützlich, kann aber auch gefährlich sein. Von Rajiv Prabhakar (Softwareentwicklung, Applikationen)

Feature Flags schalten bestimmte Code-Teile nach Bedarf ein und aus. Das klingt erstmal nützlich, kann aber auch gefährlich sein. Von Rajiv Prabhakar (Softwareentwicklung, Applikationen)

Pirate Bay: Law Firm Wins Prestigious Industry Award For Dynamic Blocking Injunction

In the summer of 2020, a long-running case filed by several movie companies against Swedish ISP Telia was concluded in favor of the rights holders. The result was Sweden’s first ‘dynamic’ blocking injunction against The Pirate Bay and several other platforms. The law firm responsible for that victory has now been handed a prestigious industry award for its efforts.

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

The Pirate BayHaving largely given up on tackling individual file-sharers with direct legal action, the mainstream movie, TV, and music companies have been taking a different approach.

The theory is that if pirates can’t easily reach torrent and streaming platforms using their regular Internet connections, then that will eventually result in more sales from legal platforms. Rightsholders try to achieve this goal by taking internet service providers to court and attempting to convince a judge that they should block access to infringing sites to avoid liability.

The practice is underway in several regions, including in Europe, where thousands of sites are blocked by ISPs. In Sweden, the first big win came in 2017 when the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and the Swedish film industry, ordering local ISP Bredbandsbolaget to block access to The Pirate Bay.

But of course, this was just the beginning.

Legal Action To Force Telia To Block The Pirate Bay

In 2018, following legal action by the Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox, ISP Telia was ordered to block subscriber access to several ‘pirate’ sites – The Pirate Bay and streaming platforms Fmovies, Dreamfilm and NyaFilmer. The case was struck down on appeal but the matter was far from over.

Following a second bite at the cherry, the Patent and Market Court ordered Telia to block access to the four pirate sites. Perhaps more importantly, however, the Court also responded favorably to a call to issue a flexible or ‘dynamic’ injunction. Instead of chasing pirate sites to new domains, proxies, mirrors, and IP addresses, new locations could be added to otherwise static injunctions, without the need for a new process.

Telia didn’t like the outcome of that case and filed an appeal, arguing that website blockades are easy to circumvent and therefore ineffective. However, in the summer of 2020 the Court found that blocking efforts are effective enough to deter some people from piracy and any risk of over-blocking (i.e blocking non-infringing sites) is minimal. At that point, Sweden was given it very first dynamic blocking injunction.

Law Firm Behind The Win Handed Prestigious Industry Award

Earlier this week, Synch – the law firm that fought the case against Telia on behalf of more than a dozen film companies – was recognized by its industry peers for its achievements in Sweden. During a virtual ceremony in London for the Managing IP Awards 2021, the company was handed the Impact Case Award for the most significant case of the year.

“In the case, Synch successfully represented a total of 16 Nordic and American film companies/studios against Telia where the court judged that the internet provider has participated in copyright infringement by providing internet connection to its subscribers who gained access to films and TV series that were illegally made available to the public by The Pirate Bay and three other services,” a statement from Synch reads.

Synch notes that the Patent and Market Court of Appeal had to weigh the film companies’ interests in preventing copyright infringement against the costs of blocking for Telia, and the freedom of Internet users to freely impart and access information. Ultimately, the Court found that the rights of the film companies come first, partly because of the illegal nature of The Pirate Bay and the named streaming sites.

“It’s fun and honoring that Synch won this prestigious award last night,” said lawyer Sara Sparring who together with lawyer My Byström and lawyer Jim Runsten ran the case at Synch. “The case has received a lot of attention because it is the first time in Sweden a court has issued a dynamic injunction.”

The rest of this year’s award winners can be found here.

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