July 2021 – Page 111 – news.buyenne.com

Daily Deals (7-09-2021)

The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro is an 11.5 inch Android tablet with a 2560 x 1600 pixel OLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor, quad speakers and support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Audio. When it launched in December, the tablet sold for $500 and u…

The post Daily Deals (7-09-2021) appeared first on Liliputing.

Amid firestorm of criticism, FDA narrows use of $56,000 Alzheimer’s drug

FDA now says drug should only go to those with mild disease—the only patients tested.

Words and symbols adorn a large outdoor sign.

Less than five weeks after granting a highly controversial approval for the Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm, the Food and Drug Administration has updated its recommendation for who should receive the drug. The update narrows the recommended patient pool from all those with Alzheimer's disease to only those with mild forms of the disease.

The FDA's initial sweeping recommendation was a highly contentious aspect of the drug's approval, because it wasn't backed by any data. Aduhelm's developer, Biogen, had only included people with mild disease in its clinical trials. The numerous critics of the approval raised immediate questions as to why the drug would be open to all.

But those critics—including researchers and industry experts—aimed most of their ire at the approval itself, given that Biogen's clinical trials failed to convincingly show that the drug works at treating mild Alzheimer's. In fact, Biogen had halted two identically designed Phase III trials in 2019 after Aduhelm flunked a "futility analysis."

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

“Bad mergers” and noncompete clauses targeted in Biden executive order

Sweeping order tries to counter rising corporate consolidation.

President Joe Biden speaking into a microphone and gesturing with his hands.

President Joe Biden announced his anticipated executive order today, and it’s a sweeping document that seeks to counter rising corporate consolidation and foster greater competition in everything from labor markets to mergers, banking, healthcare, device repairs, transportation, broadband, and more.

“For decades, corporate consolidation has been accelerating,” the White House said in a statement. “In over 75 percent of US industries, a smaller number of large companies now control more of the business than they did twenty years ago. This is true across healthcare, financial services, agriculture and more.” (We published a separate article today that dives into the broadband portions of the executive order.)

With the order, Biden appears to be positioning himself as an antitrust champion, name-checking famed trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt. That’s no surprise—his appointment of Lena Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission telegraphed that he would be taking an aggressive approach to consolidation and anticompetitive practices.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Reisen Sie nicht nach Spanien – oder doch, wenn Sie wollen …

Robert-Koch-Institut stuft Spanien als Risikogebiet ein. Noch am Montag hatte Außenminister Maas die Lage als “nicht besorgniserregend” bezeichnet

Robert-Koch-Institut stuft Spanien als Risikogebiet ein. Noch am Montag hatte Außenminister Maas die Lage als "nicht besorgniserregend" bezeichnet

Using a Game Boy Camera in 2021: Transfer crappy photos to your phone, use it as a webcam

The Game Boy Camera is a digital camera released in 1998 as an accessory for Nintendo Game Boy handheld game consoles. It allowed users to snap low-resolution, pixelated black and white images. You can save up to 30 images at a time, but the only way …

The post Using a Game Boy Camera in 2021: Transfer crappy photos to your phone, use it as a webcam appeared first on Liliputing.

Google is making it easier to turn any laptop into a Chromebook with Chromium OS

Chromebooks come with Google’s Chrome OS software pre-installed. But Google also maintains an open source version called Chromium OS that can theoretically be installed on just about any PC or Mac. The only catch is that it historically hasn&#82…

The post Google is making it easier to turn any laptop into a Chromebook with Chromium OS appeared first on Liliputing.

Media Giants Request Dynamic Order to Block Pirated NHL Streams in Canada

Several of the largest Canadian media companies, including Bell and Rogers, are asking the Federal Court for a new and broader piracy blocking order. To prevent multi-million dollar losses, the media giants want Internet providers to dynamically block IP-addresses that provide access to pirated NHL streams.

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

Two months ago, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal upheld the first pirate site blocking order in the country.

Following a complaint from major media companies Rogers, Bell and TVA, the Court confirmed that major ISPs must block access to domains and IP addresses of pirate IPTV service GoldTV.

There was little opposition from Internet providers, except for TekSavvy, which argued that the injunction threatens the open Internet. In addition, the company warned that it could open the floodgates to many other blocking requests.

TekSavvy’s hunch may not be far off. This week, Rogers, Bell and TVA are back in Canada’s Federal Court, requesting a new and much more advanced piracy blocking order.

Dynamic NHL Piracy Blocking Order

The new request isn’t targeted at a specific site or service. Instead, it aims to shut down any pirated live streams of National Hockey League (NHL) games. This is similar to existing dynamic football blockades, which are commonplace in the UK and other European countries.

The media companies, which include Bell’s CTV Television and The Sports Network, note that technology is rapidly evolving. Pirates constantly change the way they offer content which makes ‘static’ site-blocking orders useless in some cases.

This is particularly true for live streaming. The ‘pirates’ who offer these streams anticipate countermeasures and rotate between IP addresses and servers, sometimes even during live broadcasts.

Thousands of Streams

The rightsholders cite data from anti-piracy partner ‘Friend MTS,’ which found that pirates offered 53,443 illegal live streams in a four-month period earlier this year, with a mean of 822 distinct IP addresses per week.

“Some of these servers are only active and can only be identified during the live broadcast of a popular event and pirates are even able to adjust their infrastructures during the broadcast to attempt to circumvent enforcement measures,” the media companies write.

“The Plaintiffs are thus asking this Court to also adapt existing remedies and grant the only effective remedy available in these circumstances to stop such blatant and widespread infringement”

Rolling Updates During Games

Through the Court, the companies request an injunction that requires Canadian ISPs including TekSavvy, Cogeco, Distributel, and Eastlink, to block a constantly updated list of IP addresses. This dynamic blockade should remain active during the live broadcast of NHL games.

The legal paperwork provides several examples for streaming servers located around the world. These are offered through a variety of websites and services, including usagoals.video and livetotal.tv.

The media companies stress that they have already tried other options to address live streaming piracy. For example, Rogers sent notices to hosting providers, and payment providers and advertisers have been alerted to the infringing activities as well.

These anti-piracy measures had some effect, but these efforts didn’t stop pirated live streams from being offered.

“Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing access to high quality streams of NHL Live Games in Canada are still widespread and can be accessed easily by consumers with a simple search on a search engine, and in many cases for free,” the rightsholders add.

Bell, Rogers and Groupe TV say they invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year to acquire the rights to broadcast NHL live games. But due to online piracy, between 583,000 and 974,000 subscribers have been lost.

With a dynamic blocking order, the rightsholders hope to tackle this live-streaming problem more effectively and they hope the Court will agree.

Not All ISPs Are Eager to Block

Needless to say, not all ISPs are eager to implement even broader blocking mechanisms. Aside from the costs of maintaining this system, there are concerns that they go far beyond what the law envisioned.

TekSavvy’s vice-president of regulatory affairs Andy Kaplan-Myrth tells TorrentFreak that the company is very concerned about this motion.

“Without any policy oversight by the government, these media incumbents are attempting to springboard from targeted site blocking to active internet filtering,” Kaplan-Myrth says.

—

Hat tip to The Wire, for putting this case on our radar. A copy of the written representations in support of the dynamic blocking order is available here (pdf)