Month: November 2024

Sowohl Rot-Grün als auch die FDP wollen noch Digitalgesetze verabschieden. Der SPD-Abgeordnete Zimmermann will aber auch mit anderen Fraktionen sprechen. Ein Bericht von Friedhelm Greis (Netzpolitik, Politik)

Der Discounter vermarktet ab Mitte November 2024 wieder seine Jahrespakete. Die neuen Tarife bieten bis zu 50 GByte mehr an Inklusivvolumen. (Mobilfunktarif, Telekommunikation)

Die Führungsetage des VW-Konzerns intensiviert ihre Bemühungen um weitreichende Kostensenkungen. Das gefällt den Gewerkschaften nicht. (VW, Elektroauto)

Mit Dart und Flutter lassen sich innovative und benutzerfreundliche mobile Anwendungen erstellen. Zwei umfassende Kurse vermitteln sowohl grundlegende als auch fortgeschrittene Techniken zur Optimierung der App-Entwicklung. (Golem Karrierewelt, Programmiersprachen)

In a long-sought move, the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday formally began the process of abandoning oral doses of a common over-the-counter decongestant, which the agency concluded last year is not effective at relieving stuffy noses.

Specifically, the FDA issued a proposed order to remove oral phenylephrine from the list of drugs that drugmakers can include in over-the-counter products—also known as the OTC monograph. Once removed, drug makers will no longer be able to include phenylephrine in products for the temporary relief nasal congestion.

"It is the FDA’s role to ensure that drugs are safe and effective," Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. "Based on our review of available data and consistent with the advice of the advisory committee, we are taking this next step in the process to propose removing oral phenylephrine because it is not effective as a nasal decongestant."

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An international coalition of police agencies has taken a major whack at criminals accused of running a host of online scams, including phishing, the stealing of account credentials and other sensitive data, and the spreading of ransomware, Interpol said recently.

The operation, which ran from the beginning of April through the end of August, resulted in the arrest of 41 people and the takedown of 1,037 servers and other infrastructure running on 22,000 IP addresses. Synergia II, as the operation was named, was the work of multiple law enforcement agencies across the world, as well as three cybersecurity organizations.

A global response

“The global nature of cybercrime requires a global response which is evident by the support member countries provided to Operation Synergia II,” Neal Jetton, director of the Cybercrime Directorate at INTERPOL, said. “Together, we’ve not only dismantled malicious infrastructure but also prevented hundreds of thousands of potential victims from falling prey to cybercrime. INTERPOL is proud to bring together a diverse team of member countries to fight this ever-evolving threat and make our world a safer place.”

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Confirming previous rumors, Variety reports that Amazon will be moving ahead with producing a TV series based on the popular Mass Effect video game franchise. The writing and production staff involved might not inspire confidence from fans, though.

The series' writer and executive producer is slated to be Daniel Casey, who until now was best known as the primary screenwriter on F9: The Fast Saga, one of the late sequels in the Fast and the Furious franchise. He was also part of a team of writers behind the relatively little-known 2018 science fiction film Kin.

Karim Zreik will also produce, and his background is a little more encouraging; his main claim to fame is in the short-lived Marvel Television unit, which produced relatively well-received series like Daredevil and Jessica Jones for Netflix before Disney+ launched with its Marvel Cinematic Universe shows.

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The ONEXFLY F1 Pro is a handheld gaming PC with a 7 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel OLED display featuring a 144 HZ refresh rate and up to 800 nits brightness. While that alone would be enough to make this little computer unusual, it’s also the first handheld available for pre-order to feature an AMD Strix Point […]

The post First handheld gaming PC with AMD Strix Point and a 144 Hz OLED display goes up for pre-order appeared first on Liliputing.

Subscribing to the Max streaming service is expected to become more costly in 2025. That could mean indirectly, like through another streaming password crackdown, or directly, like through increases to monthly and/or annual subscription prices.

Password crackdowns as a “form of price rises”

During the earnings call for parent company Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) for its fiscal Q3 2024, which ended on September 30, WBD signaled that it's gearing up to roll out its next strategy for growing streaming revenue—charging subscribers extra for sharing passwords—over the next few months. This will start with "very soft messaging" toward Max users before the crackdown intensifies in 2025 and 2026, WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said.

Wiedenfels admitted that on their own, password crackdowns are “a form of price rises.” Netflix kicked off this form of price hike in the US in May 2023, and other streaming services have followed. That means Max is behind some rivals when it comes to implementing this restriction. Further, Max has been discussing its password crackdown since March, so subscribers could take some comfort in not seeing the restrictions launch sooner.

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The Republican who is likely to lead the Federal Communications Commission under President-elect Donald Trump detailed how he would run the agency when he wrote a chapter for the conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. Carr, a longtime opponent of net neutrality rules and other broadband regulations, has also made his views clear numerous times when opposing rulemakings initiated by the current Democratic majority.

If Trump makes Carr the next FCC chairman after his inauguration, the FCC is likely to ditch consumer protection initiatives, like a recently announced inquiry into data caps, and attempt to regulate Big Tech companies while reducing regulation of Internet service providers. That could include forcing Big Tech companies to pay into a fund that subsidizes ISPs' broadband network construction.

A Carr-led FCC could also try to punish news organizations that are perceived to be anti-Trump. Just before the election, Carr alleged that NBC putting Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live was "a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC's Equal Time rule," and that the FCC should consider issuing penalties. Despite Carr's claim, NBC did provide equal time to the Trump campaign.

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