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The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro is a 4.6 pound notebook with a 16 inch touchreen display (with optional support for a 120 Hz display panel) and support for up to a 45 watt AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics. Set to go on sale …
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro is a 4.6 pound notebook with a 16 inch touchreen display (with optional support for a 120 Hz display panel) and support for up to a 45 watt AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics. Set to go on sale in October for $1449 and up, the […]
The post Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro is a 16 inch laptop with up to Ryzen 5800H and NVIDIA RTX 3050 appeared first on Liliputing.
“Crisis standards of care is a last resort. It means we have exhausted our resources.”
Enlarge / Coronavirus preparedness tent set up outside hospital emergency room entrance at Gritman Medical Center in the northern Idaho city of Moscow in March 2020. (credit: Getty | Education Images)
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare on Monday activated its "crisis standards of care" in 10 northern hospitals hard-hit by staff shortages, hospital bed shortages, and a "massive increase in patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization," the department announced Tuesday.
The crisis standards mean that the quality of care in those hospitals will be reduced for all patients. Resources will be rationed, and patients with the best chances of survival may be prioritized.
In practice, that could mean that: emergency medical services may prioritize which 9-1-1 calls they respond to; some people who would normally be admitted to the hospital will instead be turned away; some admitted patients may be sent home earlier than typical or may find their hospital bed in a repurposed area of the hospital, like a conference room; and, in the worst cases, hospital staff might not be able to provide an intensive care unit bed or a ventilator to a patient that has a relatively low chance of survival.
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Nur noch richtige Kriege mit klaren Zielen auf Basis nationaler Interessen – statt Humanitätsgedusel im Schlepptau der Supermacht
Based in Roswell, Georgia, Tripwire Interactive is responsible for many violent games.
Enlarge / Killing Floor 2. (credit: Tripwire Interactive)
Over Labor Day weekend, a social media firestorm began when Tripwire CEO John Gibson tweeted his endorsement of a recent Texas anti-abortion law that prohibits abortions at six weeks. The controversy ended with Gibson's swift departure from his company, following disavowals from multiple associated studios.
Tripwire Interactive, the Georgia-based studio and publisher responsible for games like Maneater, Chivalry 2, and the Killing Floor series, confirmed Monday that CEO John Gibson has been replaced by Vice President Alan Wilson, who will lead the company as it searches for a new head executive.
"The comments given by John Gibson are of his own opinion and do not reflect those of Tripwire Interactive as a company," the developer said in a statement. "His comments disregarded the values of our whole team, our partners, and much of our broader community. Our leadership team at Tripwire are deeply sorry and are unified in our commitment to take swift action and to foster a more positive environment."
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Swiss courts compelled it to log and disclose a user’s IP and browser fingerprint.
Enlarge / ProtonMail offers end-to-end encryption and a stated focus on privacy for its email service—which offers a user interface quite similar to those of more mainstream services such as Gmail. (credit: Jim Salter)
This weekend, news broke that security/privacy-focused anonymous email service ProtonMail turned over a French climate activist's IP address and browser fingerprint to Swiss authorities. This move seemingly ran counter to the well-known service's policies, which as recently as last week stated that "by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account."
After providing the activist's metadata to Swiss authorities, ProtonMail removed the section that had promised no IP logs, replacing it with one saying, "ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first."
The phrase "by default" did a lot of heavy lifting in ProtonMail's old front page. [credit: Jim Salter ]
As usual, the devil is in the details—ProtonMail's original policy simply said that the service does not keep IP logs "by default." However, as a Swiss company itself, ProtonMail was obliged to comply with a Swiss court's injunction demanding that it begin logging IP address and browser fingerprint information for a particular ProtonMail account.
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“At first I thought, ‘It’s a hoax, it can’t be true.’ But it turned out to be true.”
Enlarge / Male musk duck (Biziura lobata) captured in camera chillaxing in the wild in Sandford, Tasmania, Australia. Not the same duck recorded 30 years ago saying "You bloody fool!" (credit: JJ Harrison /CC BY 3.0)
Back in 1987, a researcher in Australia recorded a male musk duck named Ripper producing a vocalization that sounded very much like "You bloody fool," along with sounds resembling a slamming door and a soft mumbling. A second duck in the region was recorded in 2000 imitating a Pacific black duck's call. Both recordings survived, but they were never analyzed in any detail, and most of the accompanying records were destroyed in a wildfire that swept through the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in 2003.
Now retired, that original researcher (Peter J. Fullagar) has teamed up with Carel ten Cate, a biologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, to perform the first in-depth analysis of those recordings. That analysis confirmed that Ripper's distinctive vocalizations are indeed a form of mimicry—likely the first comprehensively documented example of musk ducks being able to mimic sounds. The researchers described their findings in a new paper published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, part of a special issue on vocal learning in animals and humans.
Definitions of what constitutes so-called vocal-production learning can vary, but if an animal reared in isolation produces vocalizations that deviate sharply from what is typical of the species or is able to imitate the sounds of other species, those are deemed evidence for the phenomenon. Vocal-production learning is critical to human speech and language development, but there have only been a handful of confirmed reports of this in animal species: most notably, whales, dolphins, bats, elephants, songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds.
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Apple has scheduled an event for next week, where the company is expected to unveil the iPhone 13. It’s likely that a next-gen Apple Watch with a larger screen will also be revealed, and we may see new AirPods as well. Next-gen MacBook Pro lapto…
Apple has scheduled an event for next week, where the company is expected to unveil the iPhone 13. It’s likely that a next-gen Apple Watch with a larger screen will also be revealed, and we may see new AirPods as well. Next-gen MacBook Pro laptops with Apple Silicon are also expected this year, but they […]
The post Lilbits: iPhone 13, Microsoft Start, and hacking the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 cover display appeared first on Liliputing.
In May, Triller sued the popular H3 Podcast for $50m claiming that the people behind it had pirated the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren fight and displayed it on YouTube. In a scathing motion to dismiss, the defendants describe Triller’s complaint as “fatally flawed” and a “mangled and mangy mess”, noting that they are fully protected under the doctrine of fair use.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
As part of Triller’s legal campaign targeting people and entities that allegedly pirated the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren fight earlier this year, the company sued the popular H3 Podcast.
Filed in May, the complaint alleged two types of copyright infringement, violations of the Federal Communications Act (FCA), conversion, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Triller said that the operators of the H3 Podcast “unlawfully uploaded, distributed, and publicly displayed” the fight in breach of its rights, causing damages in excess of $50,000,000 after the “unauthorized broadcast” was viewed a reported 1,000,000 times.
Later that same month, Triller filed its first amended complaint naming Ted Entertainment Inc. (TEI) and the operators of the H3 Podcast, Ethan and Hila Klein, as defendants. H3 Podcast was removed but the claim for $50m in damages remained. In July, Triller filed its second amended complaint which added Teddy Fresh Inc. and 10 ‘Doe’ defendants. It also cut the allegations of wrongdoing by half, leaving the defendants to answer claims of copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement and violations of the FCA.
In a scathing motion to dismiss filed with the court yesterday, the defendants pull no punches in their response to Triller. Describing Triller’s complaint as “fatally defective”, they explain that despite being given numerous opportunities, the company consistently files complaints that are “a mangled and mangy mess that are devoid of any merit.”
According to the motion, Triller’s complaint centers around TEI’s use of an excerpt of the ‘broadcast’ for the purposes of commentary and criticism in a video entitled ‘Jake Paul Fight Was a Disaster’. TEI employees reportedly uploaded the excerpt (the ‘reference video’) onto YouTube as an unlisted video and the defendants say that Triller’s lawsuit amounts to retaliation for their broad criticism.
“Anyone who watches the 4/22/21 Podcast can instantly recognize the true purpose of Triller’s [second amended complaint]: retaliation against the 4/22/21 Podcast because it excoriated the Broadcast and its main event – the boxing match between Jake Paul and Ben Askren (the ‘Fight’). In other words, Triller’s SAC is a brazen and unabashed attempt to intimidate, punish and silence lawful and protected criticism,” the motion reads.
Triller says that the defendants watched a pirated or bootleg version of the broadcast, uploaded it to YouTube, and showed an excerpt and its URL in the 4/22/21 podcast. However, the defendants say that the screenshot provided by Triller failed to show the URL and Triller could not provide it. It was possible to see the URL in the video with some work but ultimately the video received just 65 views.
Triller says the defendants profited from their conduct because the H3 Podcast is part of the YouTube partner program, contains sponsorships, and sells merchandise. However, the channel the ‘reference video’ was uploaded to has none of these qualities, the defendants say.
From here, things start to get more interesting. While Triller’s complaints have all centered on the fight itself, that famously lasted for under two minutes. The entire broadcast, to which Triller owns the copyright, lasted much longer – four hours in fact – meaning that any use of the Jake Paul fight by the defendants in their two-hour podcast was necessarily small.
According to the motion to dismiss, the H3 Podcast spent 12 minutes of the podcast critiquing the broadcast and in the middle of that showed 42 seconds of the ‘reference video’, which included five seconds exclusively of audio, nine seconds of both audio and video, and 28 seconds exclusively of video.
Late June, Ethan and Hila wrote to Triller demonstrating how each claim in the first amended complaint failed. Triller then submitted its second amended complaint (SAC), dropping three claims. In July the parties had a telephone conference but Triller remained “unpersuaded” that its SAC contained “fatal defects”.
Triller responded by filing a new action against the defendants in the Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that comments made in H3 Podcasts about the fight lawsuit amounted to tortious interference.
The defendants believe that Triller’s first copyright infringement claim is based on an Ethan Klein statement that he watched a pirated version of the broadcast. According to them, that’s not infringement.
“Viewing a transmission – whether it be Triller’s April 17, 2021 transmission of the Broadcast, the Reference Video or the 4/22/21 Podcast – does not constitute copyright infringement. Viewing a transmission is not a public display, public performance, public distribution or derivative work of the original copyrighted work,” the motion to dismiss reads.
Triller’s vicarious copyright infringement claim appears to rely on the allegation that third parties watched the ‘reference’ video and the podcast but in common with the first infringement claim, that also fails under the doctrine of fair use, the motion adds.
According to the motion, Triller is seeking to separate the ‘reference’ video and Klein’s viewing of the broadcast from the use of the broadcast in the podcast. This, the defendants say, is something explicitly rejected under the doctrine of “intermediate use”, meaning that copying as a preliminary step in the creation of a fair use work also qualifies as fair use.
“As such, Triller’s attempt to view Defendants’ alleged acts of infringement in isolation from the 4/22/21 Podcast is precluded as a matter of law.”
Weighing in on the first fair use factor, the defendants say that their use was highly transformative and contained significant commentary and criticism, including that relating to the overall quality of the show and the physical appearance of Ben Askren. The podcast also critiqued the referee, pondered whether the fight had been staged, and questioned the amount of revenue the event might make.
In respect of whether the use was commercial, the defendants argue that since the use was highly transformative, this factor is much less important. They also believe that any unauthorized access to the broadcast (“bad faith”) should not affect a finding in favor of fair use.
“[T]riller’s argument that access to an authorized copy is a precondition for Defendants to invoke the fair use is, itself, a bad faith argument,” the motion adds.
The second factor in a determination of fair use is the nature of the work being copied, such as whether it was for factual/informational or entertainment purposes. The defendants only used a section from the broadcast that showed the men fighting so on that basis they argue their use was primarily factual.
On the third factor of fair use, which questions whether “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole are reasonable in relation to the purpose of the copying”, the defendants believe the law is on their side.
“The Broadcast was essentially four hours long…In other words, the 4/22/21 Podcast used less than .3% of the Broadcast,” an amount that under the circumstances was “very reasonable in relation to the 4/22/21 Podcast’s transformative purpose of commentary and criticism of the Broadcast and Fight.”
In addressing the fourth factor (whether the copying affects the market value of the copyrighted work), the motion notes that the court must distinguish between “biting criticism that merely suppresses demand and copyright infringement which usurps it.”
They also point out that they catered to a different audience than Triller. While the latter’s wanted to sit back and enjoy the event, H3 Podcast’s viewers wanted to hear why the whole thing was a disaster.
To prove a vicarious copyright infringement claim, the defendants say that Triller must show that the defendants had a direct financial interest in the alleged infringing activity by showing a causal relationship. They counter by noting that the ‘reference’ video had no sponsorships and was not monetized on YouTube so Triller’s claim fails.
On the allegations relating to the violations of the Federal Communications Act, the defendants say that since Triller acknowledges that the videos were shown on YouTube after the original transmission (i.e they did not extend the point of distribution of the actual broadcast signal), that claim fails too.
“Triller’s abuse of the judicial process to punish and silence lawful speech can no longer be countenanced. Triller’s lawsuit is retribution for the 4/22/21 Podcast lambasting the Broadcast as a ‘disaster’,” the motion adds.
“[T]riller persists in filing “disastrous” and fatally defective complaints – and the SAC is no exception. Since Triller consistently refuses to cease its abuse of the judicial process and Defendants, it is up to this Court to make Triller stop.”
The motion to dismiss and associated memorandum can be found here and here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
“We are a nation of laws and as such we want to follow the law.”
Enlarge / Former Florida Senator Bill Nelson was confirmed as NASA administrator earlier this year. (credit: NASA)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he is not upset with Blue Origin for pursuing all legal avenues after losing a space agency contract for a lunar lander.
"We are a nation of laws and as such we want to follow the law," Nelson said in response to a question from Ars. "They have a right of appeal, and they have chosen to exercise that right. They have every right under the law to do that, and there will be a determination. And then we will move on."
Nearly five months have passed since NASA selected SpaceX to build a Human Landing System for its lunar program, named Artemis. After the decision both Blue Origin and another bidder, Dynetics, protested the award to the US Government Accountability Office, and in late July the protest was rejected.
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Apple is expected to announce new iPhones next week.
Enlarge / The splash image and header copy on the event invitation Apple emailed to press. (credit: Apple)
Apple will stream a new product-unveiling event this coming Tuesday, September 14, at 10 am PDT, the company announced today. Invitations went out to press this morning, and marketing SVP Greg Joswiak tweeted a short video teasing the event as well.
You can see the image and copy that accompanied the invitation above. As usual, it doesn't reveal much about what to expect. The invitation does note that it will be an online video stream, though, not an in-person event.
That said, we do know more or less what to expect. Apple has held an event like this during the same week every year for a while now, and it has always focused primarily on two products: the iPhone and the Apple Watch. This year, rumors abound of an updated version of Apple's AirPods wireless earbuds, too.
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