Month: February 2022

The best Presidents Day deals we’re seeing right now [Updated]

Dealmaster has discounts on new MacBook Pros, Bose headphones, microSD cards, and more.

A collage of electronic consumer goods against a white background.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Update (2/21/22 9:40 am EST): We've updated our deals roundup to ensure all prices and links are up to date for Presidents Day itself. We've also added a few new offers, including an Apple Gift Card promotion at Target and a good price on a Eufy indoor security camera we like. Our original post is below.

Original post (2/19/2022 11:56 am EST): While Presidents Day weekend isn't known as an especially bountiful time for tech deals, the Dealmaster has dug up a few actually good discounts on worthwhile gadgets, gear, and games all the same.

Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes the best price we've tracked on Bose's QuietComfort 45. The noise-canceling headphones are down to $279, which matches the price we saw on Black Friday and marks a $50 drop from Bose's MSRP. While not our top pick among wireless noise cancelers (that honor goes to Sony's WH-1000XM4), the QuietComfort 45 are an alternative pair we recommend to those who are willing to trade some battery life and extra features for a lighter and more comfortable design. Bose also addressed one of the headphones' shortcomings this past week by adding a customizable EQ feature, which lets users adjust the QuietComfort 45's sound profile more to their liking.

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Nepal: Ein Jahr zum Vergessen

Politisch gesehen war 2021 im Himalaya-Staat reine Zeitverschwendung. Wie die politische Klasse sich erneuern soll, wird immer ungewisser

Politisch gesehen war 2021 im Himalaya-Staat reine Zeitverschwendung. Wie die politische Klasse sich erneuern soll, wird immer ungewisser

Preemptive Blocking Orders Help Greece Tackle Sports Streaming Piracy

A new amendment to Greece’s copyright law makes it possible to block domain names and IP addresses of pirate live-streaming sources 24 hours before an event starts. The legislation mostly benefits sports rightsholders. Thus far, at least 362 domain names and 185 IP addresses have been blocked, stopping over 100,000 people from watching pirated streams.

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

greece flagPirate site blocking was a novelty ten years ago, but today it’s common practice in many countries. This is also true for Greece, where the first domains were targeted in 2018.

These blocking requests are managed by the EDPPI, a special commission at the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports that acts following complaints from rightsholders.

The Greek system is different from that of many other countries because it doesn’t involve court oversight. It’s an administrative procedure that allows copyright holders to swiftly request pirate site blockades, without the need for lengthy and costly legal proceedings.

Since the start of the program, copyright holders have submitted 46 blocking requests, targeting hundreds of domain names. This includes local pirate portals but also mainstream sites such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YTS.

New Preemptive Blockades

As part of the regular procedure, a total of 485 domain names have been blocked so far. However, with help from an amendment to Greece’s copyright law, it is now possible to request blocking of “live” pirate streams as well.

The amendment grants EDPPI the power to issue preemptive live blocking orders against domain names and IP addresses that provide access to live broadcasts, such as sporting events.

These orders are sent to local ISPs at least 24 hours before the start of a live broadcast. These providers are then required to take swift action and risk a fine for each day they fail to comply.

This new amendment was passed a few months ago and has already resulted in a variety of complaints. Rightsholders of prominent sporting events such as the Champions League, Premier League, MotoGP, Formula 1, ATP, and the NBA.

In total, EDDPI has issued 21 live blocking decisions, ordering Greek ISPs to block at least 362 domain names and 185 IP addresses. These are mostly linked to streaming portals or unauthorized IPTV services.

Legal Options

Visitors who try to access one of the blocked domain names are now redirected to a custom landing page informing them that they’ve been blocked by EDDPI. At the same time, visitors are encouraged to look for legal alternatives.

Blocking Message (auto-translated)

greece blocked

The legal options are available on the “Enjoy Legal” website. This is part of the EU Intellectual Property Office’s Agorateka initiative which keeps track of all the authorized digital entertainment options in Europe.

These and other anti-piracy efforts were also shared with the U.S. Trade Representative this week. According to the Hellenic Copyright Organization, the landing page has been viewed more than 300,000 times since it launched on December 13, 2021.

“Since then, and until February 11, 2022, it has been displayed more than 330,000 times, reaching nearly 100,000 users. It is notable that the actual numbers of blockings are far greater, since the blocking page is not displayed in all instances,” the Copyright Organization writes.

Whether the preemptive blocking efforts will be effective in restricting live streaming piracy in the long term has yet to be seen but, thus far, rightsholders and the Greek authorities are pleased with the progress being made.

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

A little bit of everything: The Short Story of Science

A beautiful volume that gives you a brief taste of most of science’s key advances.

A little bit of everything: The Short Story of Science

Enlarge (credit: TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

Laurence King Publishing, based in London, is “one of the world’s leading publishers of books and gifts on the creative arts.” They have a series called “The Short Story of X”; so far it includes the Short Story of Art, of Modern Art, of Photography, Film, Architecture, Women Artists, and the Novel. The latest title is The Short Story of Science, which will be available in March.

A thing of beauty

First off, the book is beautiful, as befits its imprint. Each glossy page has a photo of scientists at work, or their apparatus, or a depiction of their discoveries; for everything before the 20th century there is a photo of an artwork, so a drawing, painting, or sculpture of the scientists being described. It has the overall feel of those DK Eyewitness travel guides, except instead of using it to plan your next trip you can use it to get a tour of “the breakthroughs that underpin our current understanding of the Universe.”

Like the other volumes, this one is organized into four sections. The art books are divided into Movements, Works, Themes, and Techniques. There are corresponding sections in this one. Histories starts with ancient astronomers circa 30,000 BCE and runs through String Theory. Experiments is pretty obvious. Theories are there as “we can only unlock hidden truths once we have imagined them.” Finally, there’s Methods and Equipment, since the materials available define and constrain the technologies we can make. 

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The BlackBerry 5G phone is dead: OnwardMobility confirms its shutting down

A few years after OnwardMobility announced plans to bring a BlackBerry-branded smartphone with a physical keyboard and 5G support to market, it looks like that plan is dead… along with OnwardMobility itself. The news doesn’t come as a huge surprise. CrackBerry and Android Police both reported earlier this month that OnwardMobility had lost the license […]

The post The BlackBerry 5G phone is dead: OnwardMobility confirms its shutting down appeared first on Liliputing.

A few years after OnwardMobility announced plans to bring a BlackBerry-branded smartphone with a physical keyboard and 5G support to market, it looks like that plan is dead… along with OnwardMobility itself.

The news doesn’t come as a huge surprise. CrackBerry and Android Police both reported earlier this month that OnwardMobility had lost the license to use the BlackBerry name on the phone and had therefore decided not to move forward. But now the company has confirmed those reports with an announcement on its website.

BlackBerry KeyOne (2017)

BlackBerry was an early leader in the smartphone space thanks to several innovations including the company’s smartphones with keyboards and key services like BlackBerry Messenger. But the company lost significant market share to iPhone and Android devices and eventually stopped developing its own operating system altogether and instead shifted to Android.

But BlackBerry only shipped a single Android-powered phone of its own before beginning to license its name and software to third-party companies including TCL, which produced a few more BlackBerry-branded devices before largely giving up on the idea of phones with keyboards.

This year BlackBerry pulled the plug on legacy services for older phones running BlackBerry OS software and this summer BlackBerry’s Android apps will no longer be supported either.

All of which is to say that the company has largely exited the smartphone space altogether, so it’s not surprising that the company decided to pull the plug on what appears to have been one of its last licensing deals. But it is a bit sad nonetheless.

Since OnwardMobility has a habit of posting messages on its home page and then replacing them, here’s the company’s farewell note, for posterity’s sake:

To all of our valued followers, supporters and partners:

We want to thank you all for the tremendous amount of support that you have given us since we first launched OnwardMobility. However, it is with great sadness that we announce that OnwardMobility will be shutting down, and we will no longer be proceeding with the development of an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard.

Please know that this was not a decision that we made lightly or in haste. We share your disappointment in this news and assure you this is not the outcome we worked and hoped for.

We are incredibly grateful to the team of seasoned professionals who worked tirelessly on this project and to each and every one of our loyal fans and partners who have supported us throughout this journey. It has been a pleasure to work with all of you and hear your comments and feedback.

Thank you for all your support and we wish you all the best!

The OnwardMobility Team

via CrackBerry

The post The BlackBerry 5G phone is dead: OnwardMobility confirms its shutting down appeared first on Liliputing.

Is Firefox OK?

Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining but still crucial to future of the web.

The Mozilla building, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, in San Francisco, California, Mozilla is the maker of the web browser Firefox. (Photo by Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Enlarge / The Mozilla building, Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, in San Francisco, California, Mozilla is the maker of the web browser Firefox. (Photo by Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) (credit: San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images)

At the end of 2008, Firefox was flying high. Twenty percent of the 1.5 billion people online were using Mozilla’s browser to navigate the web. In Indonesia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, more than half of everyone going online was using Firefox. “Our market share in the regions above has been growing like crazy,” Ken Kovash, Mozilla’s president at the time, wrote in a blog post. Almost 15 years later, things aren’t so rosy.

Across all devices, the browser has slid to less than 4 percent of the market—on mobile it’s a measly half a percent. “Looking back five years and looking at our market share and our own numbers that we publish, there's no denying the decline,” says Selena Deckelmann, senior vice president of Firefox. Mozilla’s own statistics show a drop of around 30 million monthly active users from the start of 2019 to the start of 2022. “In the last couple years, what we've seen is actually a pretty substantial flattening,” Deckelmann adds.

In the two decades since Firefox launched from the shadows of Netscape, it has been key to shaping the web’s privacy and security, with staff pushing for more openness online and better standards. But its market share decline was accompanied by two rounds of layoffs at Mozilla during 2020. Next year, its lucrative search deal with Google—responsible for the vast majority of its revenue—is set to expire. A spate of privacy-focused browsers now competes on its turf, while new-feature misfires have threatened to alienate its base. All of that has left industry analysts and former employees concerned about Firefox’s future.

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Felicity Ace: Transportschiff mit E-Autos oder Hybriden in Brand geraten

Die Felicity Ace ist mit Tausenden Autos an Bord vor den Azoren in Brand geraten. Ob Lithium-Ionen-Akkus die Ursache waren oder Feuer fingen, ist unklar. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

Die Felicity Ace ist mit Tausenden Autos an Bord vor den Azoren in Brand geraten. Ob Lithium-Ionen-Akkus die Ursache waren oder Feuer fingen, ist unklar. (Elektroauto, Technologie)