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Report: Sluggish wearables market leading Fitbit to cut 10% of workforce

The company is turning to software and may be developing its own app store.

Fitbit may be delivering some bad news along with its fourth quarter earnings today. According to a report from The Information, the fitness wearable company may be cutting five to 10 percent of its workforce, with the cuts coming from multiple departments. The exact reason for the cuts are unknown, but Fitbit is reportedly undergoing reorganization to focus on not just hardware in the coming year but software changes as well. This reorganization and the job cuts are said to reduce the company's costs by $200 million.

The company is expected to announce lower-than-expected earnings for Q4, with the blame falling on the sluggish wearable market. In light of that news, the cuts are not a total surprise, but we also knew changes were coming to Fitbit since the company bought Pebble last December. According to a source in The Information's report, Fitbit wants to develop an app store filled with third-party apps for its devices. Pebble already had this when it was making smartwatches, so Fitbit is likely tapping into Pebble's software developers for the initiative.

Over the past few years, Fitbit's app has been left on the back burner while the company introduced ever more new hardware into the market. One of the best features of the Fitbit app is that is can receive and share fitness data with numerous third-party apps, and for a while it seemed the company relied on that compatibility to boost the usefulness of its own app. However, at CES in January, we saw the beginnings of the changing Fitbit app, which focuses on making the experience more social with a new Community section, the ability to find Fitbit users in your area that you don't already know, and group capabilities that connect you with other users that have the same fitness interests. Rather than being the bridge between different fitness social networks, Fitbit is now trying to be the place for users of all fitness levels to socialize.

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The world’s biggest telescope needs half a billion dollars more

The Giant Magellan Telescope amps up fundraising as construction moves forward.

GMTO

It has been a long road for planners of the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will become the world's largest telescope—if it's completed on schedule. Casting of the first of seven mirrors, each formed from about 20 tons of borosilicate glass made from Florida sand, began way back in 2005. The project seems to finally be closing in on first light as the team amps up fundraising and construction efforts.

The organizers of the telescope are gearing up for fundraising needed to bring the project to completion and have hired a new president with significant executive experience: Robert N. Shelton, a former president of the University of Arizona and provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Anyone who has been a president and a provost understands the importance of fundraising," Shelton told Ars in an interview.

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Plugin-Seite entfernt: Chrome verhindert Abschalten von Web-DRM

Kommende Versionen des Chrome-Browsers verzichten auf die Möglichkeit, Plugins leicht zu deaktivieren, immerhin sei das sogenannte Web-DRM oder auch der Native Client integraler Bestandteil des Browsers. Auch der Flash Player lässt sich nicht mehr einfach deaktivieren. (Chrome, Google)

USB-C power meter could save your devices from dodgy cables and chargers

Plus, check the true mAh capacity of your smartphone, laptop, or portable battery.

There will be many obstacles on the way to the promised single cable type USB-C utopia: new standards that aren't backwards compatible; USB-C sockets that outwardly look the same, but aren't functionally the same; and, of course, dodgy USB-C cables that can fry your exceedingly expensive Chromebook Pixel or MacBook laptop. In the mean time, might I recommend a healthy dose of vigilance, some branded USB-C cables and chargers, and if you're feeling fancy, perhaps a USB-C power meter?

Satechi, which makes a range of reasonably well-reviewed USB cables, hubs, and peripherals, has just released a USB-C power meter ($30, or about £35 delivered to the UK). There are lots of good USB power meters on the market for older USB sockets and standards, but this appears to be the first true USB-C meter (earlier meters aren't rated to the full 5A/20V requirements of USB Power Delivery 2.0).

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Namco founder and “Father of Pac-Man” has died

Masaya Nakamura was instrumental in kickstarting the video game revolution of the 1980s.

Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Japanese video game company Namco, has died at age 91. Nakamura is widely known as the "Father of Pac-Man" for his role in bringing the arcade classic—created by designer Toru Iwatani in 1980—to Japan, and to the US via a licensing deal with Midway.

Nakamura originally founded the company as Nakamura Manufacturing, selling coin-operated children's rides to a department store in Yokohama, Japan. He later changed the name of the company to Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company (NAMMCo!), and began producing electromechanical arcade machines like 1976's Namco F-1.

Namco hit the big time when Nakamura shrewdly purchased the struggling Atari Japan from owner Nolan Bushnell for $500,000—far higher than the $80,000 offered by Sega. The deal granted Namco an exclusive license to distribute Atari's games in Japan for ten years, and led to the development and release of original games such as Gee Bee and Galaxian.

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Verschlüsselung: Überwachungskameras in Washington mit Ransomware lahmgelegt

Nach Krankenhäusern, Stadtverwaltungen und der Metro von San Francisco hat es nun die Überwachungskameras der US-Hauptstadt getroffen. 70 Prozent der Geräte waren wegen einer Ransomware für mehrere Tage nicht nutzbar. (Ransomware, Virus)

Denuvo Piracy Crisis as Resident Evil 7 Gets Cracked in Record Time

After just five days on the market, the Denuvo-protected PC version of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has already appeared on pirate sites. Denuvo usually offers months of protection, so this is not only a record defeat but a landmark moment for the world’s most famous anti-piracy technology.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Death. Taxes. Immediate PC games piracy. That was pretty much the state of play before anti-piracy technology company Denuvo Software Solutions came along a few years back.

With its anti-tamper system of the same name, Denuvo took the inevitability of day-of-release PC games piracy and pushed back the boundaries in a way never seen before. Indeed, some older Denuvo-protected games are still piracy free to this day.

In recent times, however, the company has found itself under increasing pressure. In August 2016, cracking group CONSPIR4CY (CPY) dumped a Denuvo-removed version of Rise of the Tomb Raider on torrent sites, some five months after its release. Despite the long delay, it was a landmark moment. Denuvo had been defeated.

Just days later, CPY doubled down by giving puzzle-platformer ‘Inside‘ the same treatment, but in a record time of just six weeks from launch. What followed was a cascade of cracked games, including Doom, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Watch Dogs 2, to name just a few. Now, however, Denuvo is facing its biggest threat yet.

Yesterday, just five days after its January 24th retail date, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was cracked by CPY. The self-proclaimed Italian group placed RE7 on a so-called top site, with the ‘piracy pyramid‘ doing the rest of the work by cascading it to torrent sites in a matter of minutes. Currently, tens of thousands of pirates are grabbing the 23GB download.

In its defense, Denuvo has never marketed its product as an uncrackable system. The plan, the company insists, is to give games producers a piracy-free window of opportunity, from the day of launch to some undefined point in the future. Protecting those lucrative early months from pirates is the aim.

In some respects, Denuvo is still doing its job, with AAA titles such as Just Cause 3 still protected from piracy months after launch. No one but groups like CPY know why JC3 has avoided the same fate as the other titles. It could just be that they can’t be bothered to crack it. Clearly, the same cannot be said about Resident Evil 7.

Denuvo is obviously a tough system to crack but less than a week’s protection is only marginally better than having no protection at all. Pirates are notoriously impatient but a sizeable majority can probably wait a handful of days for a free game, if they believe CPY can keep pulling this off. That in itself is a problem for Denuvo and the games publishers it’s attempting to protect.

In December, Denuvo refuted claims that it gives publishers refunds if the protection it offers subsequently gets removed.

“We can’t comment on our deals with specific customers, but we do not have any deals in place that offer refunds if a game is cracked within a specific time frame,” Denuvo co-founder Robert Hernandez said.

That being said, publishers must be paying something to have Denuvo protect their titles so it’s reasonable to assume that a year’s protection must be worth more than a month. But when we get down to five days? That surely must involve some kind of discount to deter a debate over whether the protection is worth having at all.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Nakamura Masaya: Gründer von Namco und Pac-Man-Erfinder ist tot

Von zwei elektrischen Pferden über Pac-Man zu Tekken und Ridge Racer: Der Gründer des japanischen Spieleunternehmens Namco, Nakamura Masaya, ist mit 91 Jahren gestorben. In seiner langen Amtszeit führte er das Unternehmen durch verschiedene Phasen der Spieleindustrie. (Namco Bandai, Games)

PGP im Browser: Mailverschlüsselung per Plugin oder in der Cloud

Zwei Anbieter wollen den komplizierten Umgang mit PGP vereinfachen. Ox Guard bietet PGP auf dem Server des Mailanbieters an, Mailvelope über ein Browser-Plugin. Wir haben uns beide Alternativen angeschaut. Von Hauke Gierow (PGP, Yahoo Mail)

Iarpa: US-Geheimdienste sollen Universalübersetzer bekommen

Schneller als Google Translate und Microsoft Translator und mindestens genauso gut: Die Forschung lässt ein System entwickeln, das es ermöglicht, ohne Fremdsprachenkenntnisse ausländische Dokumente zu durchsuchen und zu analysieren. (Wissenschaft, Technologie)