Month: January 2025

When we first tested Super Cruise in 2018, the partially automated driver's assist impressed us enough that we wanted to see it rolled out across as much of General Motors' lineup as possible. Seven years later, our attitude toward such driver assists is a little more sober. Drivers are often more confident about such systems than they ought to be, and that's when they even care about such features in the first place.

That said, Super Cruise remains one of the better implementations of what the industry has inelegantly labeled "level 2+" driver assists: in plain English, a system that lets the driver go hands-free for long stretches, as long as they're paying attention to the road. Which, in Super Cruise's case, is achieved via an infrared camera that faces the driver and follows their gaze, even if they're wearing sunglasses.

Better yet, it's also tightly geofenced, as it's only meant to be used on restricted access, divided-lane highways.

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The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups.

A US appeals court upheld the law in April 2024, reversing the ruling of a district judge who blocked it in 2021. The Supreme Court last month decided not to hear the broadband industry's challenge, leaving the appeals court ruling in place. The state law requires Internet providers to offer $15- or $20-per-month service to people with low incomes.

As we've written, the battle between New York and ISPs was an important test case for how states can regulate broadband providers when the Federal Communications Commission isn't doing so. The Biden-era FCC's attempt to reinstate net neutrality rules and regulate broadband providers as common carriers was blocked in court, but ISPs lost the fight against the New York affordability law and an earlier fight against California's net neutrality law.

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Scientists have demonstrated that an ancient human skull excavated from a tomb at Ephesos was not that of Arsinoë IV, half-sister to Cleopatra VII. Rather, it's the skull of a young male between the ages of 11 and 14 from Italy or Sardinia, who may have suffered from one or more developmental disorders, according to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. Arsinoë IV's remains are thus still missing.

Arsinoë IV led quite an adventurous short life. She was either the third or fourth daughter of Ptolemy XII, who left the throne to Cleopatra and his son, Ptolemy XIII, to rule together. Ptolemy XIII didn't care for this decision and dethroned Cleopatra in a civil war—until Julius Caesar intervened to enforce their father's original plan of co-rulership. As for Arsinoë, Caesar returned Cyprus to Egyptian rule and named her and her youngest brother (Ptolemy XIV) co-rulers. This time, it was Arsinoë who rebelled, taking command of the Egyptian army and declaring herself queen.

She was fairly successful at first in battling the Romans, conducting a siege against Alexandria and Cleopatra, until her disillusioned officers decided they'd had enough and secretly negotiated with Caesar to turn her over to him. Caesar agreed, and after a bit of public humiliation, he granted Arsinoë sanctuary in the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. She lived in relative peace for a few years, until Cleopatra and Mark Antony ordered her execution on the steps of the temple—a scandalous violation of the temple as a place of sanctuary. Historians disagree about Arsinoë's age when she died: Estimates range from 22 to 27.

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Nintendo may be getting ready to make its Switch 2 console official. According to "industry whispers" collected by Eurogamer, as well as reporting from The Verge's Tom Warren, the Switch 2 could be formally announced sometime this week. Eurogamer suggests the reveal is scheduled for this Thursday, January 16.

The reporting also suggests that the reveal will focus mostly on the console's hardware design, with another game-centered announcement coming later. Eurogamer reports that the console won't be ready to launch until April; this would be similar to Nintendo's strategy for the original Switch, which was announced in mid-January 2017 but not launched until March.

Many things about the Switch 2's physical hardware design have been thoroughly leaked at this point, thanks mostly to accessory makers who have been showing off their upcoming cases. Accessory maker Genki was at CES last week with a 3D-printed replica of the console based on the real thing, suggesting a much larger but still familiar-looking console with a design and button layout similar to the current Switch.

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So-called ‘three strikes’ anti-piracy schemes were once considered a cutting-edge response to P2P piracy.

Also known as ‘graduated response’, a typical scenario would see rightsholders monitor BitTorrent swarms to capture participants’ IP addresses sharing their content illegally. Those IP addresses would then be reported to a friendly (or coerced) ISP for matching against subscriber records, as a prelude to ISP customer outreach.

An initial letter sent to a subscriber would typically advise that piracy is illegal, so stop it. A second more strongly worded letter would follow in case of continued infringement, with a third letter heralding termination of the subscriber’s account.

Eircom (Now Eir) Resisted, Then Got on Board

Following legal action by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), representing EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, Irish ISP Eircom reached a settlement with the labels in 2009, leading to the introduction of a similar program, albeit to a background of legal complications.

As the labels attempted to force other ISPs to comply, ‘three strikes’ was taken off the table, then put back on. By then, however, sharing music via BitTorrent had almost completely collapsed, with most pirates preferring YouTube and the free-tier of Spotify.

Piracy at 3 Little Piggies

With the majority of music piracy now taking place on sites ripping music from YouTube, it’s remarkable that a three-strikes scheme dating back 15+ years is still operational at Eir. Proof of that arrives courtesy of Paul Walsh, owner of the 3 Little Piggies cafe on Union Quay in Cork, who recently received a warning letter from Eir confirming his first-ever piracy ‘strike’.

No Love?

Walsh seemed genuinely surprised by the letter. Speaking with Corkbeo, he said he’d never seen anything like this before.

“I’ve never seen a notification like this. It’s kind of worrying that they’re saying the onus is on you,” Walsh said.

The letter contains a warning about the consequences of future infringement, including termination of Walsh’s internet connection should infringement continue. In common with all similar communications, the person paying the bill faces allegations; in this case, regardless of the fact that Walsh is a business customer of Eir, operating a free Wi-Fi service for the benefit of customers.

“What alarms me about this is that it’s the first time we’ve seen this and they’re saying I’m the one liable. If you want to get more serious, what if someone downloads something they shouldn’t be downloading? That’s opening up a can of worms,” he said.

Eir Apologizes, Warning Letter Sent in Error

Receiving an apology from an ISP is extremely rare in these cases, but Walsh received one nonetheless. In a statement, Eir encouraged all users “to be aware of copyright laws in both residential and business settings” while acknowledging that the ‘three strikes’ program only applies to its residential customers. Those with a business account are exempt, so the warning letter shouldn’t have been sent in the first place.

This effectively removes the ‘strike’ and eliminates the threat of future disconnection. Good news for a business owner and customers alike, even though one of them appears to have triggered this chain of events by downloading and sharing an album. Or did they?

Information and Notification

A document leaked in 2009 claimed to detail the draft protocol for administering the ‘three strikes’ program. One section detailed the minimum information that must appear in a notification for Eir (then Eircom) to consider a notification valid.

Minimum Information Requirement

Without losing sight of the age of the scheme, in terms of evidence the minimum requirement detailed above is fundamentally sound. What is evident, however, is that the level of detail in the notice received by Paul Walsh is well below that previously considered the minimum.

Below Minimum Evidence

Despite the major record labels driving this entire program, the requirement to identify the copyright holder making the allegation appears to be missing at the point of delivery. But more interesting than that is the requirement to provide a “time stamp of when the investigation was initiated” and the “time stamp of when the investigation was completed.”

The warning letter clearly states that the ‘investigation’ began at 16:45 on the day in question, and ended at 16:45 on the very same day. That’s not an investigation, it’s a passing glimpse; and indeed, a glimpse of what exactly?

The requirement to provide a hash for the copyright material detected also appears to be absent from subscriber warning letters. Eircom requested these values “to verify that the copyright work identified by the record companies is in fact owned by them.”

For the same reasons, those receiving a warning letter would also find the information useful. For business subscribers exempt from notification it’s mostly irrelevant, but for residential bill payers – who may also share their connections with many other people who pay nothing – liability very often appears to be taken for granted. And without sufficient information to fight back, the chances of winning are extremely slim.

There are claims that mistakes simply aren’t made; 3 Little Piggies receiving this letter in the first place clearly shows otherwise.

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

Die Jobplattform Stepstone hat die durchschnittlichen Bruttogehälter in der IT-Branche zusammengetragen - vom IT-Systemadministrator bis zum Software-Entwickler. (Gehalt, Studien)

Die Jobplattform Stepstone hat die durchschnittlichen Bruttogehälter in der IT-Branche zusammengetragen - vom IT-Systemadministrator bis zum Software-Entwickler. (Gehalt, Studien)

Intel’s new “Twin Lake” processors are low-cost, low-power chips designed for entry-level computers. The first PCs powered by the chips started to arrive late last year, including systems made for use as firewalls, routers, or other networking appliances. Up until recently most of those systems were powered by a 6-watt, quad-core Intel N150 processor. Now […]

The post “Micro firewall” mini PCs now available with up to Intel Core 3 N355 Twin Lake chips appeared first on Liliputing.

After an app update rollout that can best be described as disastrous, Sonos is seeking a new CEO. The company announced today that Patrick Spence, who had been CEO for eight years, is stepping down.

In its announcement, Sonos said its board of directors and Spence "agreed" on the decision while saying it was unrelated to the company's fiscal Q1 2025 earnings, which it will report next month.

Spence joined Sonos as chief commercial officer in 2012 after leaving Blackberry. Under his tenure, Sonos branched into new categories, including portable speakers and spatial audio. But in May, Sonos issued an app update that broke basic and critical features. Sonos employees said the update was built on outdated code and infrastructure, impacting users' ability to do things like access and manage local libraries, set sleep timers, and edit song queues and playlists.

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Der Nintendo Switch geht der Speicherplatz aus? Amazon bietet eine MicroSD-Karte von SanDisk mit 1 TByte und Relaxo-Design zum Sparpreis. (Speichermedien, Amazon)