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Samsung

Three months after its largest-ever recall, Samsung has finally completed its investigation of the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. The high-profile flagship phone was recalled (twice) and cancelled after reports of explosions and fires, and now Samsung thinks it has finally nailed down the issue.

Samsung's verdict: two separate battery construction issues were to blame. Samsung Electronics used two separate suppliers for the Galaxy Note 7—Samsung SDI, a sister company in Samsung Group, and Amperex Technology Ltd (ATL)—and it turns out both manufacturers had their own issues. Given that Samsung's first recall and attempted fix didn't work, it's no surprise that the problem behind the Galaxy Note 7 is a complicated one.

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Samsung has announced the results of its investigation into the cause of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire and, as expected, the problem has to do with two battery flaws. The company used batteries from two suppliers, and in one case the batteries were too small to safely fit all the components, which led to short circuits, and others had a different manufacturing defect.

When early reports for phones catching fire came in, Samsung thought it had identified and fixed the problem, but the replacement devices were still defecting, prompting the company to halt production, cancel the Note 7 altogether, and start a massive recall campaign.

Continue reading Samsung says battery issues caused Galaxy Note 7 fires, 96 percent of phones returned at Liliputing.

The cartoon versions of PAX co-founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins argue over D&D. (credit: Penny Arcade)

The Penny Arcade webcomic team has operated PAX (formerly Penny Arcade Expo) since 2004, and Ars Technica covers its various events every year for a reason—they're fun. More than that, PAX offers whatever fun you're looking for (at least, in the games-related space). Penny Arcade writer and PAX co-founder Jerry Holkins tells Ars Technica that the expos are like a nerd "mitochondria," with gaming subgenres (fighting, puzzles, FPSes, handheld, board gaming, and so on) existing as "organelles" that fans can flock to while attending.

PAX Unplugged, then, is the expo series' first major mitosis.

The brand-new show will debut on November 17 and will operate for three days at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. Tickets are not yet on sale. (Penny Arcade typically announces sale dates and times a few days in advance at PAX's home page and this Twitter feed.) As PAX has already accommodated a major board-, card-, and tabletop-gaming audience in the past, Holkins says much of the template of what to expect has already been built by fans at more traditional PAX events. ("I've looked down from [PAX East]'s skybridges and seen what would be an entire convention right there, just of tabletop games!")

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While Emmy-award winning director Casey Tebo is no stranger to movies, he’s only ever uploaded one video to YouTube. Unusually, it featured him committing a crime.

After discovering that pirate copies of his movie Happy Birthday (starring Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler) were being given away in a local store, Tebo decided to turn the tables.

Camera in hand, he documented himself stealing clam chowder ingredients from the same store. If they can steal from his industry, he can steal from them, he argued.

What most people didn’t know at the time is that the video was mostly a bit of fun. Many commenters on the YouTube video certainly didn’t notice, attacking Tebo with the kind of venom only YouTubers can.

“You look like a fucking asshole, you fucking asshole,” said one.

“That’s obvious. Never denied that!” Tebo responded.

Throughout Thursday, Tebo fended off much of the same from several directions, even posting on Twitter that he’d received death threats.

But despite the negative comments, not once did Tebo bite. In fact, one person who decided to provoke the director by posting links to downloads of his movie was won over by his charm and voluntarily took them down. They now follow each other on Twitter. Might he actually be this friendly in real life?

“One thing we could use in this modern day is people being nicer! I honestly don’t understand some of the hate and insults on the web, holy shit, my god people!!!” Tebo told TF.

Noting that he’d been called a ‘Rob Zombie Wanna Be’ and even a ‘Duck Dynasty Asshole’ this week, Tebo says he’s always wanted to make movies since he was really small.

“I took that same path, making movies with my video camera etc. Then worked my way up doing small music videos, then bigger music videos, then live events, then live tv. Then a short film (one that all the people on YouTube cursing me out now seem to love?) and eventually my first feature, Happy Birthday.”

So how does Tebo, who has directed for Aerosmith, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest and Run DMC, end up in a grocery store on a piracy protest? Has he been that badly affected by the phenomenon?

“I honestly can’t say it has affected me, a lot, yet. But I like to take risks, and I was quite angry at the time when I found out that a guy I knew was getting pirated copies of movies at work, that’s all. Adam [Tebo’s friend] came up with the idea and it was funny to me,” he said.

“There are arguments for and against piracy, and I can totally see both sides, I really can, but it seems to be a generational split. My kids will NEVER know what it’s like to pay for music – but I will never let them download movies, we buy everything. It goes into the work and money spent making movies.”

While not endorsing piracy in any way, Tebo seems to draw a somewhat wavy line between the effect piracy has on big movies versus the effect on smaller independent productions. Nevertheless, not even he’s 100% sure.

“I think if a hundred million people go see Avengers, then does [piracy] hurt? No. Because those people pay for tickets. But a movie like mine, it’s $500,000 – we sold it for less than that. It doesn’t mean go and steal Avengers, or does it? I’m not sure.”

Casey is in his forties now, so probably quite a bit older than the average YouTube comment assassin. As a result, he can still remember the days when cassette tapes ruled the waves and, more recently, when the CD was king. These days, the former is all but dead and the latter is about to join it. Does holding something physical give content more value?

“I really think it’s a generational thing. We LOVED tapes and CDs. We loved the art, the liner notes, the photos. Kids today will NEVER know that. They just play it on YouTube, and the quality is terrible, so to them, they’re doing nothing wrong,” he explains.

“If you went to a town beach for your whole childhood, then suddenly some asshole bought it and wanted to charge, you’d be like ‘Fuck this guy!’ – and so would I. Trust me, I get it. I really do.

“I guess my argument is, mine was a small film, and if the investors on an indie film lose money, guys who did it strictly for the passion, that kind of sucks for everyone involved. Once you see Transformers 5 make $400 million, if you’re okay with it, download it.”

The whole grocery store stunt began because people downloaded Tebo’s movie Happy Birthday for free. It’s available in a number of places, such as iTunes and Amazon, but there are issues.

When TF tried to buy a copy on Amazon, the US version of the site wouldn’t allow an overseas purchase. Equally, when we asked the US movie industry’s WhereToWatch site for advice, we got nothing. Same result for the UK industry’s FindAnyFilm site. Nothing on Netflix either, which is a shame since Tebo sees services like that as part of the solution.

“I think subscription-based is the way of the future. If Netflix has the best selection, why would you download stuff? Although, people probably like being a little naughty, you know? Like smoking a joint or doing a line of cocaine. This doesn’t mean you’re going to become Escobar – but, hey, have a little fun,” he says.

Grocery video aside, what pushed us to speak with Tebo was the way he handled his critics this week. Is he really this calm in real life when the haters let loose?

“There are homeless people, vets with missing limbs, Donald Trump is going to be our president when you post this. People have family members with cancer, etc. Life is fucking hard, it’s stressful – I honestly don’t understand that kind of hate, I really don’t,” he says.

“People calling me an asshole, haha, okay. I worked my ass off for five years getting coffee and stuff in the music industry, and in 2015 I won an Emmy Award, call me an asshole all you want. I read bed time stories to my kids, I hold the door for people.

“What I’ve experienced in real life, is that you think you hate someone, then you have a few drinks and dinner, and you’re laughing about how much you thought you hated them. Everyone has something negative to say. Take all that time, and go down to the homeless shelter and help out, put some things in perspective. The world is scary, but it’s amazing as well.”

And that was the end of our interview – or so we thought.

On Friday, after carrying out our interview and writing all of the above, we contacted Tebo again, with a request for some photographs for the piece, which he sent through. However, he also had a confession to make.

“I have to be completely honest about something as it kept me up last night – as you guys are so nice. The whole video was a prank. The ‘manager’ was an actor friend – and I would never ever steal anything. Who makes a point on stealing by stealing??!?!?” he said.

“My intention was always and only to get both sides of the piracy argument talking and it worked! For better or worse. And to get people talking about my movie. Whatever indie filmmakers can do to promote their movies. With piracy there are great arguments on both sides. And maybe I can help both sides better understand each other.”

From here, we understand that Tebo has another video up his sleeve that will appear in the coming days. While the route was unconventional, his opinions are still valid, and he’s certainly got people talking about piracy. And that can’t be a bad thing.

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

Enlarge / The landed Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Iridium satellites on Jan. 14, 2017. (credit: SpaceX)

After successfully returning to flight on Jan. 14th, SpaceX will make its next launch from Cape Canaveral no earlier than Jan. 30th. With this mission from a new pad at Launch Complex 39A, SpaceX will loft the EchoStar 23 communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit.

This is a heavy satellite, weighing 5.5 metric tons, and getting it out to about 40,000km from the surface of the Earth will require pretty much all of the lift capacity of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. This would leave almost no propellant for the Falcon 9 rocket to fire its engines to slow down, make a controlled descent through the Earth's atmosphere, and attempt a difficult landing on a drone ship.

On Saturday, in response to a question on Twitter, SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk confirmed that the upcoming EchoStar launch will therefore indeed be expendable. "Future flights will go on Falcon Heavy or the upgraded Falcon 9," he added.

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Enlarge (credit: Jeremy Reimer)

More than 30-plus years after it debuted, the Amiga continues to fascinate all sorts of computer lovers. For years our Jeremy Reimer has been thoroughly documenting its unique journey in his reoccurring series, and this is his latest entry. If new to the saga, start with part one (on the machine's genesis) and make sure to read the latest entry (part nine on the Video Toaster) before digging in.

As the 1990s began, Commodore should have been flying high. The long-awaited new Amiga models with better graphics, the A1200 and A4000, were finally released in 1992. Sales responded by increasing 17 percent over the previous year. The Video Toaster had established a niche in desktop video editing that no other computer platform could match, and the new Toaster 4000 promised to be even better than before. After a rocky start, the Amiga seemed to be hitting its stride.

Unfortunately, this success wouldn’t last. In 1993, sales fell by 20 percent, and Commodore lost $366 million. In the first quarter of 1994, the company announced a loss of $8.2 million—much better than the previous four quarters, but still not enough to turn a profit. Commodore had run into financial difficulties before, particularly in the mid-'80s, but this time the wounds were too deep. Sales of the venerable Commodore 64 had finally collapsed, and the Amiga wasn’t able to fill the gap quickly enough. The company issued a statement warning investors of its problems, and the stock plunged. On April 29, 1994, Commodore International Limited announced that it was starting the initial phase of voluntary liquidation of all of its assets and filing for bankruptcy protection. Commodore, once the savior of the Amiga, had failed to save itself.

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Every now and then it can be quite amusing to look back at some of the anti-piracy campaigns deployed by rightholders in the past. Especially, when contrasted with newer initiatives.

Last week we reported on a new UK campaign where suspected pirates will get an “educational alert” in the mail if they are ‘caught’ sharing infringing content using BitTorrent.

The initiative breaks with the more aggressive traditions of scaring pirates with high fines, and rewarding snitches who tell on them, although there are still some remnants of this around.

How different was this in the early ’90s when the (now defunct) European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) ran a controversial series of ads, warning pirates of potential jail time.

In an attempt to connect with a predominantly young audience, ELSPA also promoted a series of cartoon PSAs in UK computer magazines.

These ads informed readers that “piracy is theft” and encouraged them to report suspicious behavior to the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST). In return, the informants could look forward to a £1,000 reward.

The cartoons showed teens how they could report suspicious software sellers at a local market, or even teachers who dare to allow students to make copies.

Or what about friends, who ‘gang up’ on people so they can score a sizable reward? It was all possible, if the cartoons were to believed.

If ELSPA’s goal was to be noticed, the ads were definitely successful. Soon after the first ones were placed, angry parents started writing letters to computer magazines, including this one Commodore Format received in the early ’90s.

“I would like to strongly object to the advert which appeared in your magazine,” a concerned parent wrote.

“It encourages young, vulnerable children to think that a phone call will lead to £1,000 very easily. It has caused a lot of ill feeling where I live between boys who were friends and then fell out, and thought this was a way to get back at one boy causing unnecessary upset to the families.”

ELSPA responded in the magazine and argued that these types of ads were needed to counter the growing threat of piracy. While the organization suggested that the cartoons were instrumental in lowering piracy rates, we now know that it certainly didn’t stop the copying.

Not even SIIA’s Don’t Copy that Floppy!, one of the all-time anti-piracy classics that turns 25 this year, could manage that.

In the years that followed many similar campaigns were launched, some more aggressive than others. And while the “piracy is theft” mantra is still in circulation, the general sense is that a ‘scare approach’ is not all that productive.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the latest UK anti-piracy effort relies more on carrots than sticks. Whether that will be successful has yet to be seen, but it’s certainly less “amusing.”

You know who…

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The advertising images published here were sourced from WoS, where you can find some more examples. The Commodore Format scan is courtesy of the CF Archive.

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