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Mit der Pandemie haben Sanktionen, Verbote und Zensurmaßnahmen zugenommen. Sie werden nicht politisch begründet, sondern geradezu götzenhaft medizinisch
M1 Max Macs und mehr Pixel: die Woche im Video. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Macbook)
Nicht nur Christian Lindner, auch Robert Habeck hat deutlich gemacht, dass sich einkommensarmen Menschen unter einer Ampel-Koalition wenig Hoffnung machen dürfen
Two new papers highlight promising methods for making shapeshifting structures.
Enlarge / Harvard scientists built "Totimorphic" structural materials that can adopt and maintain any possible shape. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University and Tufts University are exploring shapeshifting liquid crystals. (credit: Aurich Lawson/Harvard/Case Western Reserve)
Luxo, Jr., Pixar's trademark animated Luxo balanced-arm lamp, is based on a classic design known as the anglepoise lamp, invented by British designer George Carwardine in 1932. Almost ninety years later, the anglepoise lamp has helped inspire a novel approach to building multifunctional shapeshifting materials for robotics, biotechnology, and architectural applications, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Meanwhile, physicists at Case Western Reserve University and Tufts University have stumbled on another promising approach to creating novel shapeshifting materials. The researchers remotely manipulated the ordinarily flat surface of a liquid crystal without any kind of external stimulus (such as pressure or heat), changing its physical appearance merely with the nearby presence of a bumpy surface. It's early days, but the researchers suggest their approach could someday enable materials that can shapeshift with the ease of The X-Men's Mystique. They described their work in a new paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Developing novel shapeshifting materials is a very active area of research because there are so many promising applications, such as building artificial muscles—manmade materials, actuators, or similar devices that mimic the contraction, expansion, and rotation (torque) characteristics of the movement of natural muscle. For instance, in 2019, a team of Japanese researchers spiked a crystalline organic material with a polymer to make it more flexible, demonstrating their proof of concept by using their material to make an aluminum foil paper doll do sit-ups. Most artificial muscles are designed to respond to electric fields (such as electroactive polymers), changes in temperature (such as shape-memory alloys and fishing line), and changes in air pressure via pneumatics.
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Die Pandemie hat bislang einen Machtgewinn für die ohnehin Mächtigen gebracht. Doch auch Gegenkonzepte werden diskutiert
Scientists ask the public for help in figuring out which signals are real.
Enlarge / The telescope array of the Next Generation Transit Survey. (credit: NGTS)
If you've ever wanted to search for distant worlds, your time has come. The team behind a planet-hunting telescope array called the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is looking for help with the large volume of data the instrument has produced. The NGTS scans large areas of the sky with a collection of small, robotic telescopes to detect dips in stars' light that are caused by a planet passing between the stars and Earth.
The team now has a lot of data, which it has sifted through using computers. But computers have difficulty distinguishing a likely planet from various sources of noise, so the researchers are asking the public to double-check the computers and provide a final call on what a signal is.
One of the most successful means of searching for exoplanets has been the transit method, in which a telescope repeatedly observes the amount of light originating from a star. If a planet wanders in front of that star, the amount of light will dip slightly. These dips have a very stereotypical shape if you plot them over time in what's called a light curve, with a fairly steep drop as the planet swings in front of the star, followed by a long, flat reduction.
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Internet provider RCN has asked a New Jersey federal court to dismiss the piracy liability lawsuit several filmmakers filed a few weeks ago. According to the ISP, the movie companies are part of a well-known web of copyright trolls, which failed to plead proper copyright infringement claims.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Under US copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”
In the past such drastic action was rare but with the backing of legal pressure, ISPs are increasingly being held to this standard.
Initially, these lawsuits were mostly initiated by music companies, backed by the RIAA. However, in recent months a group of independent filmmakers joined in. These plaintiffs include the makers of films such as The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.
One of the targeted ISPs is RCN, which was previously targeted in a similar lawsuit by the RIAA. According to the filmmakers, the ISP failed to terminate subscribers who repeatedly infringe copyrights. This allegedly violates the DMCA and RCN should therefore be held liable.
This week the Internet provider responded to the allegations with a motion to dismiss. In addition to rebutting the legal claims, RCN starts off by providing context and highlighting previous legal efforts from the filmmakers and their anti-piracy tracking firm Maverickeye.
Some of the companies involved have previously gone after individual pirates from which they obtained settlements, and the ISP puts them in the “copyright troll” corner, a label the filmmakers have previously rejected.
“Plaintiffs and Maverickeye are part of a well-known web of copyright trolls. Until now, Plaintiffs’ modus operandi has been to file John Doe lawsuits in the hope of securing quick settlements and to dismiss them at the slightest resistance. Plaintiffs are rarely successful in contested cases,” RCN writes.
“Additionally, courts and litigants in these cases have persuasively accused Maverickeye of serious wrongdoing, such as submitting fraudulent ‘expert’ declarations from fictitious persons, violating state law by engaging in unlicensed surveillance, and even conspiring with copyright owners to offer copyrighted content over BitTorrent and then sue anyone who tries to download it.”
These counter-allegations don’t plead RCN free. However, the ISP continues by setting out why the filmmakers’ piracy liability claims fail. In large part, this focuses on the piracy evidence provided by Maverickeye.
The ISP notes that it’s not clear how the German company detects copyright infringements. Neither are there any details of forensic evidence that prove any actual infringing activity.
RCN argues that, without evidence of such direct infringements, the filmmakers can’t hold the company responsible for contributory infringement. After all, it’s hard to hold someone liable when the underlying piracy activity isn’t backed up with proper evidence.
Maverickeye allegedly tracked the IP addresses of alleged pirates. However, an IP address is not sufficient to prove that subscribers downloaded any infringing material, the ISP claims, pointing to the ‘Cobbler’ case.
“Like in Cobbler, Plaintiffs have failed to allege ‘something more’ beyond identifying an IP address to create a reasonable inference that a particular RCN subscriber is also the alleged direct infringer.
“And without a reasonable inference that an RCN subscriber directly infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights, Plaintiffs’ secondary copyright infringement claims against RCN cannot survive a motion to dismiss,” RCN adds.
RCN continues with various other arguments explaining why the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims fail.
For example, a plausible vicarious copyright infringement claim requires the plaintiffs to show that there’s a ‘financial benefit.’ According to RCN, that’s not the case here.
“The only financial benefit that Plaintiffs allege is the receipt of flat fees for internet service, which remains the same whether RCN’s subscribers infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights or not,” RCN writes.
Many of these arguments are similar to the ones we’ve seen in similar cases. We expect that the filmmakers will disagree with the ISP and file their rebuttal in the weeks to come.
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A copy of RCN’s memorandum in support of its motion to dismiss the filmmakers’ complaint is available here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Supply challenges related to the screen may have delayed the launch.
iFixit's full Apple Watch Series 7 teardown. [credit: iFixit ]
As has become something of a ritual, tools-seller and repair-advocacy group iFixit has published a detailed teardown of the latest Apple product. This time, we get a look at the innards of the Apple Watch Series 7.
This Watch model was announced in September—but without a release date. The eventual ship date for the first orders was Friday, October 15.
iFixit's teardown lends credence to one of the prevailing theories about why there was a delay. The Apple Watch Series 7 appears to use an on-cell touch OLED panel, the same type seen in the iPhone 13 line. Consulting with a former Apple engineer, iFixit suggests that supply challenges related to this display tech are likely the reason the Apple Watch launched a bit late this year and why the device didn't get a release date in last month's keynote announcing it.
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The upcoming GPD Pocket 3 is one of the most unusual handheld computers I’ve seen in a while. Not only is it a mini-laptop with a convertible tablet-style design, a touchpad above the keyboard, and pen support. It also has a modular port feature that lets you swap out a USB-A port for an RS-232 […]
The post Lilbits: GPD Pocket 3, Windows Subsystem for Android, and an Amlogic A311D2 single-board PC appeared first on Liliputing.
The upcoming GPD Pocket 3 is one of the most unusual handheld computers I’ve seen in a while. Not only is it a mini-laptop with a convertible tablet-style design, a touchpad above the keyboard, and pen support. It also has a modular port feature that lets you swap out a USB-A port for an RS-232 port or a KVM port that allows you to use the computer as a sort of dumb terminal for a connecter server, PC, or other hardware.
GPD hasn’t announced how much the Pocket 3 will cost, but after dropping a few details at a time over the last month or so, the company has now posted a preview page for an upcoming Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign which suggests that the wait is almost over.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
GPD has launched a preview page for the upcoming crowdfunding campaign for the GPD Pocket 3, a convertible tablet-style mini-laptop with an 8 inch display, QWERTY keyboard, pen support, Pentium and Core i7 CPU options, and a modular port design.
Running a stable build of Windows 11 and don’t want to switch to a Windows Insider Preview to try out Android apps? You can install the Windows Subsystem for Android manually (but it’s not quite as simple as installing a typical Windows app). Once you’ve done that, you might also want to follow our guide for sideloading Android apps that may not be available in the Amazon Appstore and Microsoft Store.
Want to try the Windows Subsystem for Android to run Android apps on Windows 11, but live outside the US? There’s a region-block on the Amazon Appstore… but it’s easy to bypass by sideloading the store instead of getting it from the Microsoft Store.
Khadas VIM4 is an upcoming single-board computer with an Amlogic A311D2 processor, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, 32GB eMMC storage, WiFi 6, and a micro HDMI 2.1 port with support for 4K@60 output, plus a PCIe 2.0 M.2 socket.
Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook and follow @LinuxSmartphone on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on open source mobile phones.
The post Lilbits: GPD Pocket 3, Windows Subsystem for Android, and an Amlogic A311D2 single-board PC appeared first on Liliputing.
The veteran of 420 F1 races tells us about his job.
Enlarge / Bernd Mayländer stands next to the Formula 1 safety car, a Mercedes-AMG GT R. The station wagon in the background is the F1 medical car. (credit: Mercedes-AMG)
Despite having followed Formula 1 closely for several decades, I still don't feel comfortable making predictions about the races. Take the recent Turkish Grand Prix, for example. Held in treacherous and changeable weather, were I a betting person I'd have said there were pretty good odds that the race would be interrupted with at least one safety car period, perhaps more. Instead, safety car driver Bernd Mayländer and his co-driver got to watch the entire race from the comfort of their car without being called upon by race control.
The use of a pace car was well established in the US, but for much of F1's existence, the sport just relied on trackside marshals with flags to control or neutralize a race in the event of a crash. That changed in 1993, when F1 got over its case of "not invented here" and adopted the practice, calling on the safety car's services for the first time at that year's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Mayländer and his co-driver sit on alert, waiting to be called into action by race control. (credit: Jiri Krenek/Mercedes-AMG)
On that occasion, the car in question was a rather mundane Fiat Tempra sedan, with other races seeing the job performed by a Ford Escort Cosworth RS, Honda Prelude, and even a Lamborghini Diablo, depending on what each race promoter organized. But from 1996 the sport entered into a partnership with Mercedes-Benz, which has supplied the vehicles ever since. (This year, it has been joined by Aston Martin—which now uses Mercedes engines—with the two companies splitting the races between them.)
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