Month: November 2024

Last week, actor and director Ben Affleck shared his views on AI's role in filmmaking during the 2024 CNBC Delivering Alpha investor summit, arguing that AI models will transform visual effects but won't replace creative filmmaking anytime soon. A video clip of Affleck's opinion began circulating widely on social media not long after.

"Didn’t expect Ben Affleck to have the most articulate and realistic explanation where video models and Hollywood is going," wrote one X user.

In the clip, Affleck spoke of current AI models' abilities as imitators and conceptual translators—mimics that are typically better at translating one style into another instead of originating deeply creative material.

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Last year PC case and peripheral maker Silverstone posted a picture of a retro-inspired computer chassis with a 1980s-inspired beige design, space for two 5.25 inch floppy drives, and a few modern touches like USB Type-C ports. At the time, it was an April Fools’ Day joke. But after that image  went viral, the company apparently […]

The post Silverstone FLP01 is a modern PC case with a retro design ripped from the 1980s appeared first on Liliputing.

Officials from NASA and Russia’s space agency don’t see eye to eye on the causes and risks of small but persistent air leaks on the International Space Station.

That was the word from the new chair of NASA's International Space Station Advisory Committee last week. The air leaks are located in the transfer tunnel of the space station's Russian Zvezda service module, one of the oldest elements of the complex.

US and Russian officials "don't have a common understanding of what the likely root cause is, or the severity of the consequences of these leaks," said Bob Cabana, a retired NASA astronaut who took the helm of the advisory committee earlier this year. Cabana replaced former Apollo astronaut Tom Stafford, who chaired the committee before he died in March.

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Scientists could win back trust lost during the COVID-19 pandemic if they just showed a little intellectual humility, according to a study published Monday in Nature Human Behavior.

It's no secret that scientists—and the science generally—took a hit during the health crisis. Public confidence in scientists fell from 87 percent in April 2000 to a low of 73 percent in October 2023, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center. And the latest Pew data released last week suggests it will be an uphill battle to regain what was lost, with confidence in scientists only rebounding three percentage points, to 76 percent in a poll from October.

Building trust

The new study in Nature Human Behavior may guide the way forward, though. The study encompasses five smaller studies probing the perceptions of scientists' trustworthiness, which previous research has linked to willingness to follow research-based recommendations.

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In September, Apple removed the popular music streaming app Musi from its App Store. The delisting is significant, as the app has millions of users.

Apple’s action didn’t come as a complete surprise. Music industry groups had been trying to take Musi down for months, branding it a ‘parasitic’ app that skirts the rules.

Music group IFPI took the lead, calling on other music industry players and YouTube to complain to Apple as well. This mounting pressure eventually paid off.

The delisting puts the future of Musi directly at risk. The company initially hoped to resolve the matter with Apple behind closed doors. The tech giant was unwilling to reverse its decision, however, so the streaming app took the matter to court.

Musi Sues Apple over ‘YouTube-Triggered’ Removal

In a complaint filed at a California federal court last month, Musi sued Apple for breach of contract, as well as a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The music app believes that the delisting was unjustified and wants Apple to reinstate it immediately.

“Apple removed the Musi app based upon unsupported accusations from a third party who has failed to respond to Musi’s communications. Worse, Apple was fully aware that the third party had failed to substantiate its claims to Musi,” said the company behind the app.

The third-party in question is YouTube. According to Musi, Apple acted based on a five-word complaint from ‘YouTube Legal’ that was sent late July. Attempts by Musi to discuss the matter with YouTube remained unanswered, but Apple removed the app nonetheless.

Preliminary Injunction

For Musi, the matter amounts to an existential threat. The music app built its entire business on the iOS platform and without it being available in the App Store, the service will ultimately perish.

Faced with this conundrum, Musi requested a preliminary injunction to have the app reinstated as soon as possible. The removal has already caused irreparable harm, it argued, but a swift injunction can stop the bleeding.

“By removing the Musi app from its only viable distribution platform, Apple has exiled Musi from its customer base—thereby threatening the company’s survival,” Musi wrote.

“Musi is therefore entitled to a preliminary injunction to stop Apple from continuing to breach the Developer Agreement by refusing to list or otherwise making unavailable the Musi app.”

Apple Opposes Injunction

Apple responded in court last Friday, opposing Musi’s request for a preliminary injunction. The company argues that the terms of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement (DLPA) allow the company to delist apps “at any time, with or without cause.”

Aside from this contractual freedom, Apple also counters Musi’s allegation that it took action based on little more than a five word complaint from YouTube.

“That is false, and Musi knows that it is false,” Apple writes, mentioning a variety of other complaints, including those submitted by music group IFPI and the music publishers’ association NMPA.

The NMPA letter, for example, went beyond a simple complaint and detailed how Musi allegedly uses multiple free YouTube API-tokens to avoid paying licensing fees, while inserting its own ads.

From NMPA’s complaint

Apple says it doesn’t take a position in the legal dispute between Musi, YouTube, and many of the other third parties that complained. However, the provided context suggests that the delisting isn’t the result of just one brief removal request.

‘Existential Exaggeration’

The opposition brief repeatedly stresses that Apple has the right to delist apps based on its own contracts. Even if that’s in doubt, there’s no need for a preliminary injunction.

Apple says that while new users can no longer download the app, existing Musi users are still able to use the installed app. This means that Musi can continue to generate revenue.

The app reportedly generated millions of dollars in advertising revenue per month in the past and there is no evidence that it is in financial trouble now, Apple argues.

“Musi provides no evidence relating to its financial condition and no evidence that it is unable to survive until a decision on the merits in this case,” Apple notes.

“In fact, public reporting suggests that Musi earned more than $100 million in advertising revenue between January 2023 and spring 2024 and employs ten people at most. If true […], Musi is not at imminent risk of extinction.”

From Apple’s Opposition

All in all, Apple sees no reason for the court to grant the injunction. In addition to violating Apple’s rights, the proposed injunction also goes against the interests of all parties who complained that their rights are being infringed, the company notes.

Musi has yet to respond to Apple’s opposition. It is clear, however, that the app is fighting a legal battle that will be closely watched by rightsholders, YouTube, and many independent iOS developers.

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A copy of Apple’s opposition to Musi’s motion for a preliminary injunction, filed as the California federal court, is available here (pdf)

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

After Ars spent Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary week looking back at the game's history and impact, Valve marked the occasion with a meaty two-hour YouTube documentary featuring insider memories from the team behind the game itself. Near the end of that documentary, longtime Valve watchers also get a chance to see footage of the long-promised but never-delivered Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and hear more about what led the project to be abandoned.

The Episode 3 footage included in the documentary focuses heavily on a new ice gun that would have served as the episode's main new feature. Players would have been able to use that gun to freeze enemies, set up ice walls as makeshift cover, or construct icy ledges to make their way down sheer cliff faces. The developers also describe a so-called "Silver Surfer mode" that would have let players extrude a line of ice in their path then slide along it at slippery speeds.

The Episode 3 developers were also working on a new, blob-like enemy that could absorb other blobs to grow or split into segments to get around small barriers or pass through grates.

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Google has been maintaining two different operating systems for consumer devices since introducing the Chromebook platform in 2011. Originally they were pretty clearly delineated: ChromeOS was for laptops and desktops, while Android was for smartphones. But over time things got blurry: Android now runs on watches and wearables. And both operating systems run on tablets. […]

The post Report: Google could phase our ChromeOS in favor of Android for laptops and tablets appeared first on Liliputing.

Twelve-thousand years ago, people in a coastal village in the Levant used stone weights on their spindles to spin thread faster and more evenly—and, some archeologists are arguing, in the process they pioneered the basic mechanics that eventually made cart wheels possible.

Archaeologists found hundreds of perforated, roundish, flattish pebbles in the 12,000-year-old village of Nahal Ein-Gev II, all with neat holes drilled in their centers. Based on their uneven appearance and their varied sizes, it seemed that these weren’t beads, but spindle whorls: a flywheel-like piece that makes a drop spindle spin faster and more steadily. The find is the oldest known evidence of a newfangled textile production technology called the drop spindle. But it may also have been a distant precursor to the wheel. According to archaeologists Talia Yashuv and Leore Grosman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, drop spindles work on the same mechanical principle as the earliest wheels, which show up on carts around 6,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.

“Circular objects with a hollowed center connected to a bar make one of the most important inventions of all time,” write Yashuv and Grosman in their recent paper. “At the core of it all, the importance of the wheel and axle lies in a relatively simple rotational mechanism capable of transforming linear to rotary motion and vice versa.”

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Few people are fond of earwigs, with their menacing abdominal pincers—whether they’re skittering across your floor, getting comfy in the folds of your camping tent, or minding their own business.

Scientists, too, have given them short shrift compared with the seemingly endless attention they have lavished on social insects like ants and bees.

Yet, there are a handful of exceptions. Some researchers have made conscious career decisions to dig into the hidden, underground world where earwigs reside, and have found the creatures to be surprisingly interesting and social, if still not exactly endearing.

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Die Stiftung Warentest ermuntert dazu, nach dem Facebook-Leak Schadensersatz zu fordern. Die Ansprüche verjähren in Kürze. (Facebook, Soziales Netz)