Month: April 2022

Lilbits: The latest Unihertz BlackBerry clone, why Pebble failed, and a dip in PC shipments

Unihertz plans to launch a Kicsktarter crowdfunding campaign soon for a modern phone with some retro-inspired features including a BlackBerry-style physical keyboard. The upcoming Unihertz Titan Slim will be the latest in a line of unusual phones from Unihertz, which has made a habit of releasing niche smartphones aimed at fans of old-school features like small […]

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Unihertz plans to launch a Kicsktarter crowdfunding campaign soon for a modern phone with some retro-inspired features including a BlackBerry-style physical keyboard. The upcoming Unihertz Titan Slim will be the latest in a line of unusual phones from Unihertz, which has made a habit of releasing niche smartphones aimed at fans of old-school features like small screens and QWERTY keyboards.

In other recent tech news, the Google Pixel 6a seems to have passed through the FCC recently, suggesting an official launch could be near. After two years of strong growth, PC shipments declined a bit in the first quarter of 2022. Microsoft appears to be readying a new version of its entry-level Surface Laptop Go with a newer processor but the same $549 starting price. And the founder of Pebble explains why the smartwatch company failed five years after kicking off the smartwatch market with a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign. (Some die-hard fans are still using their Pebble watches even today thanks to third-party services like rebble.io).

Here’s a roundup of recent 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.

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ACE Targets Flixtor ‘News’ Domain With a DMCA Subpoena

The Allliance for Creativity and Entertainment is trying to find out who’s operating the popular pirate streaming site Flixtor. After earlier attempts seemingly failed to provide any useful information, the group is now targeting the Flixtor.org domain. This is an interesting move, as the domain describes itself as an unaffiliated news outlet that doesn’t carry hyperlinks to infringing content.

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

flixtorBy offering access to high quality movies and TV-shows, streaming site Flixtor.to has become the go-to destination for many pirates.

The site is particularly popular in the United States and Canada, which together are good for roughly half of the site’s 26 million monthly visits estimated by SimilarWeb.

This traffic hasn’t gone unnoticed by Hollywood and other major content creators. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which counts Apple, Disney, HBO, Netflix and Sony among its members, has been trying hard to track down the site’s operators.

Multiple DMCA Subpoenas

In the summer of 2020, ACE obtained a subpoena that compelled Cloudflare to hand over information on the customer maintaining the Flixtor.to domain. A few months later, the Tonic domain name registry was required to do the same.

Neither of these efforts appears to have yielded the expected result as ACE obtained another DMCA subpoena last December, asking Cloudflare for information on the same Flixtor.to domain.

By now it’s clear that the Flixtor site is a high-profile target but, despite the legal efforts, it remains up and running today. This suggests that the requested information hasn’t proven useful but ACE is not giving up yet.

Flixtor.org

A few days ago the anti-piracy group obtained yet another DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare. While Flixtor is once again at the center, the targeted domain is different this time.

“We have determined that users of your system or network have infringed certain ACE Members’ Copyrighted Works through operating flixtor.org,” MPA’s content protection chief Jan van Voorn informs Cloudflare, on behalf of ACE.

Initially, we assumed that ACE was targeting one of the site’s many backup domains but that is not the case here. The .org domain doesn’t have any hyperlinks to infringing content. It simply documents all the streaming platform’s official domains.

‘First Amendment’

Flixtor.org clarifies that it’s simply making a news statement protected under the First Amendment. In addition, it says that it is not affiliated with the other Flixtor domains. This is also corroborated by Flixtor.to, which informed us that they are not operating the .org site.

flixtor.org

ACE clearly sees things differently. Through the MPA it requested a DMCA subpoena which was granted by a court clerk last week.

“Enclosed is a subpoena compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The subpoena requires that you provide information concerning the individuals offering the flixtor.org website, which links to websites containing the infringing material…,” Van Voorn informs Cloudflare.

The statement above is technically correct. The Flixtor.org domain has ‘links’ to the Flixtor sites which in turn link to copyright-infringing material. However, these same non-hyperlinked domain names are also in ACE’s own subpoena request.

subpoena

While Flixtor.org doesn’t hyperlink to the other Flixtor sites, there are clickable links in the other direction. All official Flixtor domains have a hyperlink to the .org site, presumably to help people keep track of future changes.

This isn’t the first time that ACE has targeted a “news” domain; it previously did the same with primewirestatus.org and onionplay.network.

As we highlighted in our previous coverage, it can be debated whether a domain that doesn’t contain any hyperlinks to infringing material is actually breaking the law. However, DMCA subpoenas are issued without oversight from a judge, so that wasn’t reviewed in detail here.

—

Copies of the subpoena and the associated declarations are available here (1, 2)

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

US seizes RaidForums, the “go-to” site for hackers selling stolen login details

RaidForums was one of the top sites to “buy and sell hacked or stolen databases.”

Person wearing a hoodie whose face is not visible sitting in front of a laptop in a dark room.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | seksan Mongkhonkhamsao)

The US has seized the domain of what it calls "one of the world's largest hacker forums" and indicted its founder, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. A notice on RaidForums.com says the domain was seized by the FBI, Secret Service, and Department of Justice. Europol and law enforcement agencies from Sweden, Romania, Portugal, Germany, and the UK were also involved.

RaidForums founder and chief administrator, Diogo Santos Coelho, a 21-year-old from Portugal, was arrested in the UK on January 31 and is in custody pending the outcome of extradition proceedings. The case in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was unsealed Monday. Two accomplices were also arrested, according to Europol.

Founded in 2015, "RaidForums served as a major online marketplace for individuals to buy and sell hacked or stolen databases containing the sensitive personal and financial information of victims in the United States and elsewhere, including stolen bank routing and account numbers, credit card information, login credentials and social security numbers," the DOJ said. As a Vice article noted, the seizure announcement "caps off weeks of speculation of what may have happened to the site, which mysteriously became unresponsive around the end of February."

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ASRock 4X4 BOX-5000 mini PCs support up to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor

The new ASRock 4X4 BOX-5000 line of computers are compact desktops with support for up to 64GB of RAM, up to two storage devices, the ability to drive four displays, and support for up to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor. Measuring just about 4.6″ x 4.3″ x 1.9″, the little computer could easily mount […]

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The new ASRock 4X4 BOX-5000 line of computers are compact desktops with support for up to 64GB of RAM, up to two storage devices, the ability to drive four displays, and support for up to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor.

Measuring just about 4.6″ x 4.3″ x 1.9″, the little computer could easily mount to the back of a display for use as a general-purpose computer, or it could be used as a solution for digital signage, kiosks, or video conferencing, among other things.

The design appears to be nearly identical to the 4X4 BOX-4000 that launched a few years ago, as well as newer ASRock computers like the Intel-powered NUC 1100 BOX and NUC 1200 BOX.

What’s different is that the BOX-5000 is available with a choice of AMD Ryzen 3 5400U, Ryzen 5 5600U, or Ryzen 7 5800U processors featuring Zen 3 CPU cores and Radeon Vega integrated graphics.

Other features include an M.2 2280 slot for PCIe x4 solid state storage, a 2.5 inch bay for a SATA 3 hard drive or SSD, two SODIMM slots for DDR4-3200 dual-channel memory, and a set of ports that includes:

  • 1 x HDMI 2.0a
  • 1 x DisplayPort 1.2a
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
  • 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
  • 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A
  • 1 x 2.5 Gbps Ethernet
  • 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
  • 1 x 3.5mm audio

The computer has a wireless card that supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 and comes with a 19V/90W power adapter. Thanks to a TPM 2.0 module, the 4X4 BOX-5000 should support Windows 11, as well as Windows 10 or other operating systems.

press release

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Developer discovers new Mac mini model in Studio Display firmware file

“Macmini10,1” model identifier references a new Mac, but not much other info.

The top of the Mac mini on a table

Enlarge / The 2020, M1-equipped Apple Mac mini. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple's Mac Studio just came out, but there's some good news for anyone waiting on a refresh to Apple's cheapest Mac desktop. Developer Steve Troughton-Smith uncovered a reference to an as-yet-unannounced "Macmini10,1" model identifier in a firmware file for the Studio Display, implying that Apple is testing a new Mac mini internally and that it could be released sooner rather than later.

The presence of an unreleased Mac mini model identifier in a firmware file tells us little about the machine, beyond the fact that the hardware physically exists somewhere inside Apple. But we can say with some confidence that it's meant to be a new generation of Mac mini, rather than a revision of the current design—Apple uses "Macmini9,1" for the current mini, and "Macmini8,1" for the final Intel model from 2018.

Apple is expected to refresh the MacBook Air, Mac mini, and 13-inch MacBook Pro with a next-generation Apple M2 processor sometime this year. The M1 and all its variants use the CPU architecture from 2020’s A14, codenamed “Firestorm” for the performance cores and “Icestorm” for the efficiency cores. The M2 will likely update that architecture and could possibly add more GPU cores as well. 

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Vivo X Fold turns up the heat on Samsung’s foldables line

BBK is pumping out phones with Samsung’s foldable displays and ultra-thin glass.

Vivo X Fold turns up the heat on Samsung’s foldables line

Enlarge (credit: Vivo)

The latest foldable smartphone hitting China is the Vivo X Fold. This is the first foldable you could call a 2022 flagship, with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. The phone retails in China for 8,999 yen, or about $1,400.

This device looks as good as a Galaxy Z Fold 3, with an 8-inch, 120 Hz, 2160×1916 OLED as the main interior display and a 6.53-inch, 120 Hz, 2520×1080 OLED display on the outside. Besides the new Qualcomm chip, it has 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, an Android 12 build, and a 4,600 mAh battery.

For most of our non-Chinese readers, the most interesting thing about Vivo making a foldable is that it's a BBK Electronics company, along with Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, and iQoo. BBK companies all share the same parts and engineering, so the hope is that OnePlus will someday pick through the BBK parts bin and bring a foldable to a wider audience. Oppo already took a swing at the foldables market with the Find N in December, and both that phone and the Vivo X Fold show how close China is to catching up with Samsung's foldable lead.

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DuckDuckGo releases private web browser for Mac, Windows version coming soon

DuckDuckGo is best known for its privacy-focused search engine that doesn’t track user data. But DuckDuckGo also offers privacy-focused web browsers for Android and iOS as well as extensions for desktop browsers. Now DuckDuckGo has released its first full-fledged desktop web browser. DuckDuckGo for Mac is now available in beta, and the company says a […]

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DuckDuckGo is best known for its privacy-focused search engine that doesn’t track user data. But DuckDuckGo also offers privacy-focused web browsers for Android and iOS as well as extensions for desktop browsers.

Now DuckDuckGo has released its first full-fledged desktop web browser. DuckDuckGo for Mac is now available in beta, and the company says a Windows version will be available soon.

The company first announced it was working on desktop browsers late last year and, as expected, DuckDuckGo for Mac puts privacy features front and center. Among other things, it includes:

  • Integration with DuckDuckGo’s search engine
  • Tracker blocking
  • Cookie pop-up protection
  • One-click clearing of data for specific websites with a Fire Button
  • Preference for HTTPS versions of websites when available
  • History, bookmarks, and passwords are stored locally and not shared with DuckDuckGo

While DuckDuckGo designed the browser in-house rather than forking an open source browser like Google’s Chromium or Mozilla’s Firefox, the browser doesn’t have its own rendering engine. Instead it uses the rendering engine built into your computer’s operating system. So on Macs, that means the DuckDuckGo Browser is using the same WebKit rendering engine as Safari. On Windows, it will most likely use the same rendering engine as Microsoft Edge (which, in turn, is based on Google’s Chromium).

There are currently no plans to release a DuckDuckGo Browser for Linux, but the company hasn’t ruled out doing so in the future.

At this point the software is still in beta and you’ll need to add your name to a private waitlist to get access. You can find instructions for doing that in the launch announcement (basically you need to install the mobile app and then sift through some settings until you find the option).

Some features on the roadmap also aren’t available yet. There’s no support for third-party browser extensions yet, for example. But, as DuckDuckGo notes, many of the most popular extensions are ad and tracker blockers and password managers… both of which are built into the company’s new browser.

While you cannot sync passwords from the DuckDuckGo Browser beta for Mac with other devices yet, you can import passwords from third-party password managers including LastPass, 1Password, and other browsers.

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Daily Deals (4-12-2022)

It’s a weird time to be in the market for a new laptop. Intel’s 12th-gen Core mobile processors and AMD’s Ryzen 6000 series chips are both expected to bring significant performance improvements, but only a handful of laptops powered by those chips are available right now, with more expected to hit the streets in the […]

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It’s a weird time to be in the market for a new laptop. Intel’s 12th-gen Core mobile processors and AMD’s Ryzen 6000 series chips are both expected to bring significant performance improvements, but only a handful of laptops powered by those chips are available right now, with more expected to hit the streets in the coming months.

But the good news is that this means you can often score a pretty good deal on a laptops with previous-gen processors that may be just a year or two old. And with that in mind, HP is offering some pretty nice deals on Envy x360 13″ convertibles today. You can pick up an Acer Swift 3 notebook with an Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake processor for just $550. And some Lenovo laptops that had sky-high prices at launch are no available for somewhat more reasonable prices.

HP Envy x360 13″ convertible w/Core i7-1165G7/16GB/512GB for $850

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Laptops

Tablets

Other

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EVE Online’s success shows why gaming doesn’t need NFTs

Developer CCP says it has no blockchain plans “for the foreseeable future.”

In-game ships and structures like these have real value to <em>EVE Online</em> players even without NFTs.

Enlarge / In-game ships and structures like these have real value to EVE Online players even without NFTs.

Nearly 19 years after its launch, EVE Online still has one of gaming's most robust virtual economies, as the game's detailed monthly economic reports attest. So when developer CCP says it has "no plans to add blockchain technology into EVE Online... for the foreseeable future," it should probably cause proponents of crypto gaming to wonder why.

In a Monday blog post, CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson wrote that the company is always "exploring new technologies and new possibilities" to help fulfill its mission to have "the EVE Universe outlive us all: EVE Forever." But while he said that blockchain tech has "a lot of untapped potential," he noted that there is "a lot of work needed before [blockchain is] ready for EVE-scale games."

Pétursson leaves CCP a bit of wiggle room, though, by clarifying that non-fungible tokens will be absent from Tranquility, the main server cluster that serves as the home for the game's global player base. So CCP may still experiment with blockchain technologies on production-testing servers like Singularity and Serenity, which have their own completely separate economies and player bases.

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Porsche’s $1,800 PC monitor is actually cheap for what you get

Mini LED drives the monitor into standout territory.

Porsche Design | AOC Agon Pro PD32M.

Enlarge / Two headset hooks stick out of the Porsche Design | AOC Agon Pro PD32M. (credit: Porsche Design)

Porsche Design's new $1,800 PC monitor is certainly more expensive than the typical 4K, 32-inch display, but the luxurious panel is actually relatively inexpensive for the technology it uses.

As spotted by DisplaySpecifications this week, Porsche Design has listed its latest monitor, and like its previous product, it's a collaboration with AOC, which makes many types of monitors, including high-resolution productivity panels, gaming monitors, and portable options, as well as other PC peripherals like keyboards and headsets.

Porsche Design, a sub-brand of the German company known for fancy sports cars, was founded in 1974. Its electronics lineup currently includes only a $99 Bluetooth mouse made with Acer, but the company also makes a variety of luxury-focused everyday items, from $225 lighters to $1,800 sunglasses.

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