Grammy Winner Launches Scathing Attack on Google over Piracy

Multi Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider has called out Google for profiting from music piracy, in a submission to the US Copyright Office for changes to the existing DMCA regime.Schneider, who most recently won three Grammys for her album ‘Winter Mor…



Multi Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider has called out Google for profiting from music piracy, in a submission to the US Copyright Office for changes to the existing DMCA regime.

Schneider, who most recently won three Grammys for her album 'Winter Morning Walks', not only feels that Google hasn't done enough to prevent piracy, a view shared by many in the music industry, but also believes that Google is actively and purposefully profiting from piracy. 

In her submission, Schneider states that "YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering", and that the company is abusing the "outdated" DMCA for their own gains.

"YouTube has thoroughly twisted, contorted, and abused the original meaning of the outdated DMCA ‘safe harbor’ to create a massive income redistribution scheme, where income is continually transferred from the pockets of musicians and creators of all types, and siphoned directly into their own pockets," Schneider writes in heropen letter.

Using strongly loaded language, Schneider continues to state reasons why she thinks YouTube is deliberately profiting from piracy. Most of Schneider's argument relates to YouTube's upload system and the company's fair use and take-down policy, which Schneider believes is biased towards uploaders, not rights-holders. Schneider is also concerned about the entry requirements into YouTube's anti-piracy Content ID system, as not everyone can be accepted into the program.

And Schneider says none of these actions by YouTube and its parent company Google/Alphabet, is accidental, but rather a "scheme" to siphon revenue from rights-holders into their own pockets, and actually encourages users to behave badly to further their aim.

"The sweeping influence of their scam has succeeded in dismantling copyright from the inside, like a flesh-eating virus, influencing citizens to destroy themselves. Any company influencing behavior like this, especially for the purposes of eroding Constitutional rights, should lose their safe harbor," she adds.

As for a solution, Schneider shares the same talking point that have increasingly been heard from the copyright lobby, that is for Google to implement a "take down, stay down" regime, as well as actively checking and preventing uploads of copyright content, disregarding fair use if necessary.

Schneider also believes rights-holder's identities should remain private when they submit a take-down requests, even if said request is invalid to prevent "intimidation" from the general Internet public.

Purism introduces privacy-focused, Linux tablets for $599 and up

Purism introduces privacy-focused, Linux tablets for $599 and up

Purism is expanding its line of Linux-based computers with an emphasis on security, privacy, and open source software. The company’s new Librem 10 is a Linux-based tablet with a 10 inch display and a starting price of $599, while the Librem 11 is a higher-powered model with a bigger screen and a starting price of $999 for early backers of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

Both tablets are expected to ship starting in September.

Continue reading Purism introduces privacy-focused, Linux tablets for $599 and up at Liliputing.

Purism introduces privacy-focused, Linux tablets for $599 and up

Purism is expanding its line of Linux-based computers with an emphasis on security, privacy, and open source software. The company’s new Librem 10 is a Linux-based tablet with a 10 inch display and a starting price of $599, while the Librem 11 is a higher-powered model with a bigger screen and a starting price of $999 for early backers of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

Both tablets are expected to ship starting in September.

Continue reading Purism introduces privacy-focused, Linux tablets for $599 and up at Liliputing.

GM says it misstated fuel economy, Opel denies emissions cheating allegations

In the US, GM customers will be compensated. In Germany, Opel is obstinate.

(credit: valérie kuki)

This week brought confusion for General Motors and its German subsidiary Opel.

US-based General Motors told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it had misstated the fuel economy on some 130,000 Chevy Traverses, GMC Acadias, and Buick Enclaves from 2016, overestimating the cars' mileage by 1-2 miles per gallon. GM has said it will compensate customers for the miles per gallon they thought they were getting, possibly with gift cards. The automaker also halted the sales of another 60,000 affected vehicles.

GM said that the misstated mileage came from incorrect calculations made by the company when it was updating numbers for their 2016 models. The company said that new “emissions-related” hardware had changed the cars' miles per gallon, and GM failed to take that change into account. GM noted that its engineers discovered the error as they were working on the 2017 models.

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Lenovo unveils N23 Windows convertible, N42 Chromebook for education

Lenovo is adding two new laptops to its line of education-oriented computers. Both the Lenovo N23 and N42 are designed for use in the classroom and feature spill-proof keyboards, anti-peel keys, strong hinges, an reinforced hinges.
But one is a Windows…

Lenovo unveils N23 Windows convertible, N42 Chromebook for education

Lenovo is adding two new laptops to its line of education-oriented computers. Both the Lenovo N23 and N42 are designed for use in the classroom and feature spill-proof keyboards, anti-peel keys, strong hinges, an reinforced hinges.

But one is a Windows 10 notebook with a convertible design that lets you use it like a tablet, while the other is a Chromebook.

The Lenovo N42 Chromebook features a 14 inch display, up to 4GB of RAM, and up to 32GB of storage.

Continue reading Lenovo unveils N23 Windows convertible, N42 Chromebook for education at Liliputing.

Gran Turismo Sport coming to the PS4 in November

Photo mode looks stunning, but the racing footage shows off some flaws.

Gran Turismo Sport breaks cover.

Get ready, PS4 racers, because the world's best-selling racing game franchise is finally ready to return to our consoles. At a Thursday evening event in London, Polyphony Digital and Sony announced that Gran Turismo Sport will arrive on the PS4 on November 15th. And the companies released some footage of the new game to whet our appetites.

The game has been a long time coming, what with Gran Turismo 6 being released for the PS3 way back in December 2013. But Gran Turismo fans are probably used to long waits by now given the six long years between GT4 and the lackluster GT5.

The gameplay footage reveals quite a bit about the new game, which has been built to support PlayStation VR from the ground up. There are a ton of new photo locations, and you can stage multiple cars in those settings. There's a livery editor, so complex custom paint schemes are now possible.

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Dronebuster will let you point and shoot command hacks at pesky drones

Not exactly a jammer, the “gun” exploits library of drone control protocols.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland—Anti-drone technology has been high on the shopping list of public safety and military organizations at least since a drunken federal employee crashed a drone onto the White House lawn. Two companies on hand at the Navy League Sea Air Space Exposition here this week had two slightly different approaches to the problem. One anti-drone device has already been deployed in the hands of federal law enforcement and the military, and a "street legal" version may be coming soon.

The drone "killer" getting the most attention at Sea Air Space was the DroneDefender, a system developed by researchers at the nonprofit research and development organization Battelle. DroneDefender is a two-pronged drone jammer—it can disrupt command-and-control signals from a remote operator or disrupt automatic GPS or GLONASS guidance, depending on which of the devices' two triggers is pulled.

Powered by a small backpack, DroneDefender looks like some futuristic over-under, radio-frequency shotgun-grenade launcher. Targeted through a simple optical sight, the device has a range of about 400 meters. Battelle calls it a "directed RF energy weapon"—it sends out a jamming signal in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands or global positioning bands in a 30-degree cone around the point of aim.

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Verizon’s corrupt data to blame for weeks-long outages, Frontier says

Seven weeks after taking over Verizon network, Frontier says it has a solution.

It's been seven weeks since Frontier completed a purchase of Verizon's fiber and copper networks in California, Florida, and Texas, and the company is finally explaining why so many former Verizon customers have been hit by service outages.

Bad data from Verizon is the culprit, Frontier West Region President Melinda White told lawmakers in California yesterday during a nearly-two-hour hearing held by the State Assembly's Utilities & Commerce Committee. Corrupted data prevented Frontier's network from communicating properly with equipment at customers' homes, making it impossible to provision service to everyone, she said.

Frontier is providing bill credits to customers who lost service.

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Windows 95 on Xbox One: One of the sillier things that apps will enable

Dosbox runs on Xbox. So why not run Windows 95 on Dosbox on Xbox?

Windows 95 running on Dosbox as a UWP on Xbox One.

As part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer, the Xbox One is being upgraded to support application development. In preparation for this change, Xbox One consoles enrolled in the preview program can be flipped into developer mode to allow development and experimentation to commence.

Whenever a system is newly opened up to developers, it's inevitable that it will soon be used to run either Windows 95 or Doom, and it appears that the Xbox One is no exception to this rule. The Dosbox emulator has been ported to the Universal Windows Platform, and that emulator has been used to boot and run Windows 95. Disappointingly, no Doom was attempted, but the shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D and the ZSNES emulator were both also demonstrated running.

The emulator is very slow, as it's using Dosbox's interpreted mode, wherein the processor is fully emulated in software. Dosbox has a faster dynamic mode that uses the host processor to execute as much code as possible, but the person who made the port, YouTube user vcfan, writes that this feature is currently suffering from some crashes in 64-bit mode. When enabled, vcfan says that the system "flies."

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Android Auto gets Waze, a standalone app, hotword support, and Wi-Fi projection

Android Auto gets a slew of user-requested upgrades.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA—Google is showing off a major Android Auto upgrade at Google I/O, and many of the features address long-standing user requests.

First up is the standalone Android Auto app. You can now get most of the Android Auto experience without needing a brand new car or going through the complicated process of ripping out your car stereo. The app can launch a revised version of the Android Auto interface right on your phone.

The phone version loads up big, chunky buttons with a simpler UI that should be easier to use while driving. On the Android Auto home screen, the navigation bar changes to an Android Auto-style app switcher with Maps, Music, and Phone icons. When you're not on the home screen, the navigation bar changes to show Back and Home icons. Notifications appear as huge, full-screen pop-ups with large, simple text strings.

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Oracle v. Google draws to a close, jury sent home until next week

Was Android built the right way? The decision will soon be up to a jury.

Larry Ellison, then-CEO of Oracle Corp., leaves federal court in San Francisco after testifying during the 2012 trial. Ellison only appeared by video in the most recent legal clash with Google. (credit: Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO—Presentation of evidence in the Oracle v. Google trial ended today, and US District Judge William Alsup has sent the jury home for a long weekend. On Monday, the jury members will come back to hear closing arguments and begin their deliberations.

The lawsuit began when Oracle sued Google in 2010 over its use of 37 Java APIs, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. Now, unless a jury finds that Google's use of APIs was "fair use," Oracle could ask for as much as $9 billion in damages.

The final hours of court time today were filled with a short Google rebuttal case, in which the company called two witnesses.

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