Big Pharma hiked the price of 775 drugs this year so far: Report

Meanwhile, Senate to consider subpoenas to force pharma CEOs testify on prices.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Enlarge / Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). (credit: Getty | Chip Somodevilla /)

Pharmaceutical companies have raised the list prices of 775 brand-name drugs so far this year, with a median increase of 4.5 percent, exceeding the rate of inflation, according to an analysis conducted for the Wall Street Journal.

Drugmakers typically raise prices at the start of the year, and Ars reported on January 2 that companies had plans to raise the list prices of more than 500 prescription medications. The updated analysis, carried out by 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit drug-pricing analytics group, gives a clearer picture of pharmaceutical companies' activities this month.

High-profile drugs Ozempic (made by Novo Nordisk) and Mounjaro (Eli Lilly), both used for Type II diabetes and weight loss, were among those that saw price increases. Ozempic's list price went up 3.5 percent to nearly $970 for a month’s supply, while Mounjaro went up 4.5 percent to almost $1,070 a month. The annual inflation rate in the US was 3.4 percent for 2023.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Everything we learned today about Vision Pro configurations, specs, and accessories

It’ll cost you $200 to double the storage of the base configuration.

Apple's Vision Pro headset.

Enlarge / Apple's Vision Pro headset. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple's Vision Pro went up for preorder this morning at 8 am ET. As expected, shipment dates for preorders quickly backed up to March as initial supply was accounted for. Regardless of whether you're in for the start or taking a wait-and-see approach with Apple's ultra-pricey new device, though, we have access to a little more information about the device than we did before thanks to updates to the Apple Store website.

The product page for Vision Pro reveals configurations and pricing, and a new specs page clarifies answers to some questions we've had for a while now.

You'll find all the relevant new information below. We've also updated our "What to expect from Apple Vision Pro" roundup with new information from the specs page.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Everything we learned today about Vision Pro configurations, specs, and accessories

It’ll cost you $200 to double the storage of the base configuration.

Apple's Vision Pro headset.

Enlarge / Apple's Vision Pro headset. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple's Vision Pro went up for preorder this morning at 8 am ET. As expected, shipment dates for preorders quickly backed up to March as initial supply was accounted for. Regardless of whether you're in for the start or taking a wait-and-see approach with Apple's ultra-pricey new device, though, we have access to a little more information about the device than we did before thanks to updates to the Apple Store website.

The product page for Vision Pro reveals configurations and pricing, and a new specs page clarifies answers to some questions we've had for a while now.

You'll find all the relevant new information below. We've also updated our "What to expect from Apple Vision Pro" roundup with new information from the specs page.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Convicted murderer, filesystem creator writes of regrets to Linux list

“The man I am now would do things very differently,” Reiser says in long letter.

Hans Reiser letter to Fredrick Brennan

Enlarge / A portion of the cover letter attached to Hans Reiser's response to Fredrick Brennan's prompt about his filesystem's obsolescence. (credit: Fredrick Brennan)

With the ReiserFS recently considered obsolete and slated for removal from the Linux kernel entirely, Fredrick R. Brennan, font designer and (now regretful) founder of 8chan, wrote to the filesystem's creator, Hans Reiser, asking if he wanted to reply to the discussion on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML).

Reiser, 59, serving a potential life sentence in a California prison for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, wrote back with more than 6,500 words, which Brennan then forwarded to the LKML. It's not often you see somebody apologize for killing their wife, explain their coding decisions around balanced trees versus extensible hashing, and suggest that elementary schools offer the same kinds of emotional intelligence curriculum that they've worked through in prison, in a software mailing list. It's quite a document.

What follows is a relative summary of Reiser's letter, dated November 26, 2023, which we first saw on the Phoronix blog, and which, by all appearances, is authentic (or would otherwise be an epic bit of minutely detailed fraud for no particular reason). It covers, broadly, why Reiser believes his system failed to gain mindshare among Linux users, beyond the most obvious reason. This leads Reiser to detail the technical possibilities, his interpersonal and leadership failings and development, some lingering regrets about dealings with SUSE and Oracle and the Linux community at large, and other topics, including modern Russian geopolitics.

Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Convicted murderer, filesystem creator writes of regrets to Linux list

“The man I am now would do things very differently,” Reiser says in long letter.

Hans Reiser letter to Fredrick Brennan

Enlarge / A portion of the cover letter attached to Hans Reiser's response to Fredrick Brennan's prompt about his filesystem's obsolescence. (credit: Fredrick Brennan)

With the ReiserFS recently considered obsolete and slated for removal from the Linux kernel entirely, Fredrick R. Brennan, font designer and (now regretful) founder of 8chan, wrote to the filesystem's creator, Hans Reiser, asking if he wanted to reply to the discussion on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML).

Reiser, 59, serving a potential life sentence in a California prison for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, wrote back with more than 6,500 words, which Brennan then forwarded to the LKML. It's not often you see somebody apologize for killing their wife, explain their coding decisions around balanced trees versus extensible hashing, and suggest that elementary schools offer the same kinds of emotional intelligence curriculum that they've worked through in prison, in a software mailing list. It's quite a document.

What follows is a relative summary of Reiser's letter, dated November 26, 2023, which we first saw on the Phoronix blog, and which, by all appearances, is authentic (or would otherwise be an epic bit of minutely detailed fraud for no particular reason). It covers, broadly, why Reiser believes his system failed to gain mindshare among Linux users, beyond the most obvious reason. This leads Reiser to detail the technical possibilities, his interpersonal and leadership failings and development, some lingering regrets about dealings with SUSE and Oracle and the Linux community at large, and other topics, including modern Russian geopolitics.

Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Study finds bigfoot sightings correlate with black bear populations

The big conclusion: “If bigfoot is there, it could be a bear.”

A black bear standing on its hind paws surrounded by greenery in a forest with a blurry background

Enlarge / Black bears will frequently stand on their hind legs, which may increase their misidentification. (credit: Wirestock)

The idea that North America is home to a completely unknown primate species just doesn't seem to go away. Years after everyone started walking around with high-quality cameras in their phones, there still haven't been any clear images of a bigfoot. But that hasn't stopped a steady flow of purported sightings.

Now, someone named Floe Foxon has followed up on an earlier analysis and checked for factors that could influence the frequency of bigfoot sightings throughout North America. The results suggest that there's a strong correlation between sightings and the local black bear population—for every 1,000 bears, the frequency of bigfoot sightings goes up by about 4 percent.

Big (foot) data

It's easy to see how black bears and bigfoot could be mistaken for each other. Despite their name, the bears come in a wide range of colors, from a golden brown through to a deep reddish one, as well as their namesake black. They're also large animals and will frequently stand on their hind legs to get a better view of their surroundings. They also frequent the forested areas that are supposedly bigfoot's favored terrain. Foxon even quotes a reported bigfoot sighting as saying that pictures were obtained but, "One of the pictures looks like a bear."

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85

Dave Mills created NTP, the protocol that holds the temporal Internet together, in 1985.

A photo of David L. Mills taken by David Woolley on April 27, 2005.

Enlarge / A photo of David L. Mills taken by David Woolley on April 27, 2005. (credit: David Woolley / Benj Edwards / Getty Images)

On Thursday, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf announced that Dr. David L. Mills, the inventor of Network Time Protocol (NTP), died peacefully at age 85 on January 17, 2024. The announcement came in a post on the Internet Society mailing list after Cerf was informed of David's death by Mills' daughter, Leigh.

"He was such an iconic element of the early Internet," wrote Cerf.

Dr. Mills created the Network Time Protocol (NTP) in 1985 to address a crucial challenge in the online world: the synchronization of time across different computer systems and networks. In a digital environment where computers and servers are located all over the world, each with its own internal clock, there's a significant need for a standardized and accurate timekeeping system.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Daily Deals (1-19-2024)

Best Buy is running a 3-day sale with discounts on TVs, PCs, smartphones, and appliances, and more. A few highlights? You can pick up a Lenovo 14 inch laptop for $120. It’s not a very good laptop, but at that price if the only thing you use it f…

Best Buy is running a 3-day sale with discounts on TVs, PCs, smartphones, and appliances, and more. A few highlights? You can pick up a Lenovo 14 inch laptop for $120. It’s not a very good laptop, but at that price if the only thing you use it for is watching movies and typing documents, it’s […]

The post Daily Deals (1-19-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.

Amazon’s purchase of Roomba-maker iRobot likely to be blocked by EU

Amazon was told at meeting that deal is likely to be rejected, WSJ reports.

A store shelf holds several boxes that contain Roomba vacuum cleaners.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images)

European Union regulators intend to block Amazon's attempt to purchase Roomba-maker iRobot, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

European Commission competition officials "met Thursday with representatives from Amazon to discuss the deal," the Journal wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. "Amazon was told during the meeting that the deal was likely to be rejected," according to one of the Journal's sources.

Amazon announced the $1.7 billion deal in August 2022. The EC has a February 14 deadline to reach a decision. European officials have said that Amazon could restrict the availability of Roomba rivals on the Amazon online retail store.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

ACE Shuts Down Popular Pirate Sites, 27+ ‘Instant Pirate Sites’ Fall Over

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, in partnership with TrueVisions, Thailand’s leading pay-tv provider, announced the shutdown of all domains associated with two popular pirate sites. ACE has labeled one of the targets a Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform, which enabled anyone to become an instant owner and operator of a pirate site. In this case, ‘anyone’ only applies to people with $225 to spend.

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

ace-film-sIn the final days of 2023 as people were preparing to welcome in the new year, yet more pirate domains were being redirected or transferred into the hands of the MPA, presumably as part of a settlement agreement.

Among them were uhuseries.com, owlserieshd.com, and ahaseries.com, relatively popular streaming platforms targeting the Thai market. We gave the news a brief mention at the time but since MPA/ACE have certain procedures to follow, the official announcement was published yesterday.

It reveals that in addition to the above, several other domains were also rendered inoperable including Iamtheme.com, nunghub.com and aplayer.xyz, described by ACE as a back-end domain that hosted a “vast collection of U.S. and international TV shows and movies” estimated to contain around 78,000 titles.

ACE Partners With TrueVisions

According to ACE, the Uhuseries.com network of sites had been running since 2019, attracting an average of 1.3 million visitors per month, with most traffic originating in Thailand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Another successful ACE and TrueVisions collaboration has resulted in the shutdown of two of Thailand’s most notorious illegal streaming services,” said ACE anti-piracy chief, Jan van Voorn.

Sompan Charumilinda, Executive Vice Chairman of TrueVisions, expressed gratitude for the invaluable support of Thai law enforcement.

“We would like to thank the Economic Crime Suppression Division of the Royal Thai Police for their steadfast commitment to protecting intellectual property rights. Thailand can produce and distribute world-class local content, but we must protect content rights if the benefits are to be realized by the creative economy and the country as a whole,” Charumilinda added.

Don’t Forget to Mention Malware

In the current environment, no anti-piracy press release can be considered complete without an obligatory malware warning and, thankfully, this one didn’t buck the trend.

“Piracy sites such as Uhuseries.com and Iamtheme.com put consumers at risk of malware, undermine investment in the Thai content industry, and reduce tax contributions to the local government,” van Voorn added, describing the closures as a “win-win for all.”

Despite being all-inclusive, it’s difficult to disagree with that statement.

Instant Pirate Site Service

ACE says that 27 pirate sites that relied on Iamtheme.com for content and infrastructure are now offline. Given there’s little to suggest that security of operators or users was considered a priority, that might be a good thing.

Through ads on various online discussion platforms, people with little relevant experience were encouraged to buy a website template for the equivalent of $225. Once installed, the script would make them a pirate site owner/operator almost instantly.

viet-template

As the image shows, TrueVisions content was available via an API which according to the ads, could be purchased on a subscription basis. The headline price of $225 is therefor less of a bargain than it first appears. However, the most concerning aspect (copyright infringement aside) is the promotion of these scripts to people with little to no relevant experience.

A key website selling the scripts offers to install the software on a server for people who don’t know how, but insists that if any changes are made to the script whatsoever, all customer support ends there and then. For someone with no technical skills, that’s a pretty clear invitation to leave everything well alone, including any attempt to apply any security fixes, in the unlikely event any are issued at all.

Advertising Eyesore

Assuming new pirate site owners aren’t concerned that a third party probably has root access to their server even after installation, it’s time to get the site ready for visitors. The first couple of lines in ads promoting these scripts link two key features; 1) Online movie-watching website script. 2) Responsive Design with VIP membership system.

There’s also a section on how to set up advertising to generate more revenue: “Can manage and edit website page details like advertising contact information, member payment notifications, advertising space rates, website information through the web page. There is no need to have knowledge of programming.”

Indeed, attempting to change any code means the end of customer support, so having no knowledge is presumably a big plus. However, if all goes to plan with the installation, script buyers could end up with a website looking like the one on the left below.

just add ads

With a more-is-always-better approach towards intrusive, suspect advertising, the finished product on the right shows what can be achieved if site owners are prepared to put in the time and effort.

While anything that limits exposure to insecure platforms run by novices should be considered a plus, Thai internet users still appear to have options if they want to launch an insecure template site of their own.

Meanwhile, site users in search of the latest movies and TV shows are probably oblivious or at least indifferent to the security situation, despite epilepsy-inducing gambling advertising on the front page telling them everything they need to know.

instant pirate1

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