Long-suspected breakup between EA Sports, FIFA appears to be a done deal

Leaked name from Oct ’21 appears to be confirmed: “I’ve asked around. That’s the name.”

Ars Technica's MS Paint interpretation of what appears to be a finalized divorce between EA Sports and FIFA.

Enlarge / Ars Technica's MS Paint interpretation of what appears to be a finalized divorce between EA Sports and FIFA. (credit: EA Sports / Sam Machkovech)

Hidden amidst the usual "coming this fall" slate of video game announcements is one big change: the extrication of "FIFA" from all future EA Sports products.

On Thursday, Giant Bomb reporter and host Jeff Grubb followed up on an October 2021 report about the trademarked term "EA Sports Football Club," possibly shortened to "EA Sports FC." Grubb wondered exactly what the EAFC might refer to. EA Sports games come packed with a variety of single-player and online modes that range from cinematic story sequences to card-collecting, microtransaction-fueled frenzies, so the trademark could have referred to any kind of in-game mode—or the term could have been snapped up for non-public-facing reasons.

Around the same time, EA Sports stoked questions on the topic by publicly suggesting on its official blog that the game maker may "rename our global EA Sports [soccer] games," all while retaining its licensing arrangements with various soccer leagues and clubs. This public suggestion could have been done for any number of reasons—perhaps to put pressure on FIFA itself to relent in aggressive, high-dollar licensing requests, lest EA Sports take both its literal and figurative ball and go home. Privately, EA executives told staffers that its arrangement with FIFA was far from fruitful, in terms of holding back possible development and design directions for future games.

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This is why boa constrictors can breathe while squeezing the life out of prey

Snakes activate different sections of the rib cage, using far end of lungs as a bellows

Brown University biologists x-rayed boa constrictors to determine how they manage to breathe while squeezing prey to death.

Enlarge / Brown University biologists x-rayed boa constrictors to determine how they manage to breathe while squeezing prey to death. (credit: John Capano)

Watching a boa constrictor capture and consume its prey is quite something. First, the snake strikes and latches onto the prey with its teeth, then it coils its body tightly around the poor creature and slowly squeezes the life from it. The constrictor cuts off blood flow to the heart and brain. Then the boa unhinges its jaw and swallows the prey whole. The boa uses its muscles to move its prey down the length of its body to the stomach, where the unlucky varmint is digested over the next four to six days.

Boa constrictors mostly consume various medium-sized rodents, lizards, and birds. They have also been known to chow down on even larger prey, including monkeys, wild pigs, and ocelots. Regardless of what's on the menu, how do the snakes still manage to breathe as they crush an animal to death, since that constriction also uncomfortably squeezes the boas' own ribs? Unlike mammals (including humans), boa constrictors don’t have a separate diaphragm. They rely entirely on the motion of their ribs to breathe.

Biologists at Brown University and Dickinson College conducted a series of experiments to find out more, and they described their results in a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Boa constrictors, they discovered, have a remarkable ability to selectively use different sections of their rib cage for breathing during constriction. The reptiles essentially using the far end of the lungs as a bellows to pull in air whenever ribs closer to the head are obstructed. Whenever the ribs closest to the head are obstructed, the lungs essentially serve as a bellows to pull in air so the snake can still breathe.

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Paltrow’s ex-CCO calls Goop wellness culture “toxic” while touting new cleanse

Former CCO says she refuses to punish herself, despite 5-day broth and smoothie cleanse.

Screenshot from Netflix series the goop lab with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Enlarge / Paltrow and Loehnen sit in Goop's headquarters for an interview. (credit: Netflix)

A former high-profile executive at Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle and wellness brand, Goop, has publicly denounced the brand's "wellness culture" as "toxic"—but only for the purpose of promoting a different wellness brands' products.

In an Instagram post Tuesday, Goop's former chief content officer, Elise Loehnen, said that when she left the company in October of 2020 she vowed to never again do another cleanse. "I needed to break a tendency to be critical and punishing. To chastise myself. All of it. I stopped weighing myself completely," she wrote alongside a brief video.

Generally, cleanses are gimmicky, short-term diets that require adherents to follow restrictive regimens in a misguided effort to "reset" their body and/or clear out toxic material that has allegedly accumulated in the recesses of their innards somehow. All of this is necessary, of course, to rectify a person's current diet and lifestyle choices, which are most certainly noxious and deplorable.

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North Korean hackers unleashed Chrome 0-day exploit on hundreds of US targets

Critical vulnerability exploited by 2 groups both working for North Korean government.

North Korean hackers unleashed Chrome 0-day exploit on hundreds of US targets

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Hackers backed by North Korea's government exploited a critical Chrome zeroday in an attempt to infect the computers of hundreds of people working in a wide range of industries, including the news media, IT, cryptocurrency, and financial services, Google said Thursday.

The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-0609, was exploited by two separate North Korean hacking groups. Both groups deployed the same exploit kit on websites that either belonged to legitimate organizations and were hacked or were set up for the express purpose of serving attack code on unsuspecting visitors. One group was dubbed Operation Dream Job, and it targeted more than 250 people working for 10 different companies. The other group, known as AppleJeus, targeted 85 users.

Dream jobs and cryptocurrency riches

"We suspect that these groups work for the same entity with a shared supply chain, hence the use of the same exploit kit, but each operate with a different mission set and deploy different techniques," Adam Weidemann, a researcher on Google's threat analysis group, wrote in a post. "It is possible that other North Korean government-backed attackers have access to the same exploit kit."

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Omicron is trouncing the argument for “natural immunity” to COVID

Bad news if you’re unvaccinated and think you have strong protection after omicron.

A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021.

Enlarge / A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. (credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO )

So-called "natural immunity" against COVID-19 has always been a dodgy argument for avoiding vaccination during the pandemic. But amid omicron, natural immunity is clearly rubbish.

Unvaccinated people who have recovered from an infection with the omicron coronavirus variant are left with paltry levels of neutralizing antibodies against omicron and almost no neutralizing antibodies against any of five other coronavirus variants, including delta. People who were vaccinated before getting an omicron infection, on the other hand, have strong protection against all five variants, and they are among the highest levels of neutralizing antibodies seen against omicron.

That's all according to a new study surveying neutralizing antibody profiles in people who have all recovered from an omicron infection, with or without pre-existing immunity. The study was published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine by a team of Austrian researchers. The researchers were led by virologist Janine Kimpel of the Medical University of Innsbruck.

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Apple could soon turn the iPhone into a recurring subscription service

The subscription could launch as soon as this year.

A blue smartphone with two cameras.

Enlarge / The back of the iPhone 13. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple is working on a way for users to acquire iPhones as part of a subscrption service, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The service could launch as soon as this year, but it could also arrive in early 2023.

The new offering would fit neatly into Apple's ongoing efforts to emphasize recurring subscription revenue. That model has worked well for big tech companies like Microsoft, which earn most of their revenue from subscriptions, albeit mostly not hardware ones.

Microsoft does offer a hardware subscription for the Xbox Series S console, though, and that subscription might be similar to what we would see from Apple with the iPhone. Users pay for an Xbox in installments with a flat monthly fee that also includes online and software subscription services like Xbox Game Pass.

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Lilbits: Would you pay a subscription to always have the latest iPhone?

Over the past few years we’ve seen a growing number of companies move to subscription models for things you used to be able to pay just once for. Want to use Adobe Audition or Premiere? You need a subscription and if you stop paying, you lose access. QuickBooks recently went the same way. And Microsoft […]

The post Lilbits: Would you pay a subscription to always have the latest iPhone? appeared first on Liliputing.

Over the past few years we’ve seen a growing number of companies move to subscription models for things you used to be able to pay just once for. Want to use Adobe Audition or Premiere? You need a subscription and if you stop paying, you lose access. QuickBooks recently went the same way. And Microsoft would really like you to pay for Microsoft 365 rather than buying Office outright, although at least that’s still an option (for now).

Now rumor has it that Apple could take the same approach with hardware: Bloomberg reports that the company is developing a hardware subscription plan that would let you pay a monthly fee for devices like iPhones.

There are a few advantages to this idea. Rather than spending close to a thousand dollars on the latest iPhone, you could spend a lot less up front and just keep paying over time to continue using your phone. That could be a good option for folks who don’t have $1,000 to spare at the moment, but who can afford monthly payments.

Like software subscriptions, this sort of service could also have another advantage: you’d get to keep your gear up to date, swapping out devices like iPhones, iPads, or Apple Watches when new models arrive. It’s unclear if that means you’d be able to upgrade annually (Apple releases new versions of most of those items every year), or if Apple would take a page out of the wireless carrier playbook and offer device upgrades every 2-3 years.

Apple is also said to be considering adding hardware options to its existing Apple One bundles, which currently allow you to combine existing subscriptions for music and/or video streaming, gaming, news, online storage, or fitness.

Anyway, I have a feeling the idea’s not going to be popular with folks who prefer to own the products they pay for rather than renting them, and those who feel like they’re already being asked to pay for too many other subscriptions. But maybe I’m wrong, so let’s have a poll:

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web:

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: Would you pay a subscription to always have the latest iPhone? appeared first on Liliputing.

Google Removes Popular File-Sharing App from Play Store Over Piracy Concerns

Czech file-sharing and hosting platform Ulož.to has millions of users. In addition to the site, some people use the official app on Android devices. However, following an allegation of widespread piracy, Google has decided to remove the application from the Play Store. Ulož believes the complaint is ungrounded and filed a counternotice to get the app restored.

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

ulozTo the global audience, Ulož.to may not be a household name, but in the Czech Republic it is huge.

The file-sharing and hosting service is listed among the 35 most-visited websites in the country, while its mobile apps are frequently used as well.

Like many other file storage platforms, Ulož can be used to share a wide variety of files but according to copyright holders, many people abuse the platform to share pirated music, movies, and TV shows.

Repeated Complaints

This criticism isn’t new. Over the years, Ulož has been reported to the US Trade Representative as a notorious pirate site several times. In addition, the platform was taken to court by the Czech movie distributor CinemArt, which demanded the implementation of an upload filter.

Ulož won its ‘filter’ battle with the movie company on appeal but that certainly didn’t end the piracy complaints. Every day, new takedown notices are coming in. While the file-sharing platform removes these infringing files, copyright holders want it to do more.

Czech anti-piracy company Weemazz is one of the outfits that has complained repeatedly. Working on behalf of clients such as HBO Europe, Czech Television, and TV Nova, it has sent hundreds of thousands of takedown notices to the platform. While Ulož responds to these requests, infringing content continues to be uploaded.

Google Takes Action

This prompted Weemazz to report the file-sharing platform to Google, asking the company to remove the app from the Play Store. After an independent investigation, this is precisely what Google did.

“Google has complied with our request to delete the Uloz.to application, Weemazz boss Radim Horák says. “Based on its own inspection, Google confirmed our findings and removed the application from the Google Store.“

Since last week, the Ulož app is no longer available in the Play Store. Interestingly, Apple users can still find it in the App Store. In addition, the site remains available through regular web browsers as well.

The Ulož Android app can also be installed through another route. Right around the time that the app was removed from Google’s Play Store, the service sent out a tweet, pointing to a page where users can find the APK, to install it directly on their Android devices.

The Tweet (translated)

uloz tweet

Uloz.to Filed a Counternotice

Speaking with TorrentFreak, an Uloz.to spokesperson said that the company doesn’t agree with the complaints. It filed a counternotice with Google, hoping to have the app restored in the near future.

“We are still in the middle of the counternotice process. We believe that the app will become available again because the claims of rightsholder representatives are more FUD than solid legal argumentation,” Uloz.to informed us.

“But it is hard to guess how Google decides in the end because there are no fixed rules. We all can only hope that new regulations will enforce some transparency on gatekeeper platforms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and so on.”

There are indeed new regulations being discussed in the EU and the US that challenge the power of major tech platforms. On the other side, however, there are “upload filter” proposals and regulations planned as well, which could negatively impact Ulož.

In addition to disagreeing with the app’s removal, the filesharing platform is also disappointed in the local Czech media. According to Ulož, these only repeated what copyright holders and their representatives wrote in a press release.

“All news articles are based on one press release sent by rightsholder representatives. Nobody contacted us for comments and clarification,” Ulož tells us

Rightsholders are Happy for Now

The counternotice could change things but, for now, Weemazz and its clients are pleased to see that Google has removed the app. The anti-piracy company says that it sends out thousands of takedown notices per day without seeing any improvement, so something had to be done.

“In January alone, we had illegally shared content on more than 100,000 links removed from Uloz.to. Nevertheless, Uloz.to has not yet taken any measures to prevent illegal sharing in any way or at least better inform its users about the illegality of their activities,” the company says.

Ideally, rightsholders would like to see some kind of advanced upload filtering on the file-sharing platform. However, as the legal battle with CinemArt has shown, Ulož opposes such strict measures.

According to Weemazz, this leaves rightsholders with no other option than to find alternative means to address the piracy problem. In addition to going after the app, this includes going after Uloz.to users directly, demanding that they pay millions of Czech crowns in damages.

TorrentFreak reached out to Weemazz to hear more about these reported actions against users, but the company didn’t immediately reply.

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