See a horrible accident? Bill would bar you from posting about it for an hour

People need to be “more respectful” about online postings, says lawmaker.

(credit: frankieleon)

A new bill pending in the Kentucky state legislature would impose a ban of "at least one hour" on the online publication of "any information identifying the potential victims" of serious physical injury.

The legislation, which was proposed by State Rep. John "Bam" Carney (R) earlier this month, would impose a fine of $20 to $100 for such publication. The text of the bill includes exemptions for "the injured individual," journalists, and emergency responders.

"It’s purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful about what they put on social media," Carney told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We’ve had some incidents, including one in my community, and I’d hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."

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Chevrolet Bolt EV: GM fährt wieder voll-elektrisch

Das erste rein elektrische Auto nach fast 20 Jahren: Der US-Hersteller General Motors hat auf der Automesse in Detroit ein Elektroauto vorgestellt. Es soll noch in diesem Jahr auf den Markt kommen. (General Motors, Technologie)

Das erste rein elektrische Auto nach fast 20 Jahren: Der US-Hersteller General Motors hat auf der Automesse in Detroit ein Elektroauto vorgestellt. Es soll noch in diesem Jahr auf den Markt kommen. (General Motors, Technologie)

Oculus founder: “Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to [VR] adoption”

Luckey says demand will force down the costs for VR’s underlying hardware.

For most of the mainstream market, the entry-level cost to get into PC-based virtual reality goes well beyond the $599 Oculus is charging for its first consumer Rift headset. Factor in the cost of a high-end gaming PC needed to power the Rift, and the "all-in" price for most consumers soars to at least $1,500.

But Oculus founder Palmer Luckey says he sees VR headsets like the Rift driving demand for that kind of high-end PC hardware, driving down overall costs in the process. "Most people have not had a reason to own a high-end PC for a long time," Luckey said in a wide-ranging AMA" conversation with the "Glorious PC Master Race" subreddit yesterday. "Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to adoption [for high-end VR]..."

That won't be true for long, according to Luckey, as demand for VR drives adoption of high-end graphics hardware "much like video-related stuff drove high-end CPU adoption." In the near future, that demand will push PC technology to the point where even that "crappy PC" that most people have will be able to power a convincing virtual reality experience, Luckey said. "If 'normal' PCs get good enough to run VR, then the majority of people will be able to buy a relatively cheap headset and just use whatever computer they already own to drive it."

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Turing’s Martin Shkreli is worth at least $45 million

Court records reveal E-trade account that disgraced CEO used for $5 million bond.

(credit: Getty Images)

To bail himself out of the slammer after being arrested on charges of securities fraud on December 17, Martin Shkreli put up an E-Trade brokerage account to secure his $5 million bond, court documents revealed. As of January 6, that account had $45 million in assets. Under terms of his current bond, Shkreli cannot sell or trade any of the assets in his E-trade brokerage account.

The revelation is the first glimpse of how much wealth the beleaguered former-CEO has amassed in his short-but-infamous career.

Shkreli, 32, first gained notoriety last fall for ruthlessly hiking the price of a life-saving drug—often used to treat AIDS patients and babies—by more than 5,000 percent. Interest in his assets spiked last month after he was arrested on charges alleging that he orchestrated a Ponzi-like scheme, defrauding hedge fund investors and swindling his former pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, out of millions.

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Accused ‘Pirates’ Win Class-Action Settlement From Rightscorp and Warner Bros

Piracy monetization firm Rightscorp and several copyright holders, including Hollywood studio Warner Bros, have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over intimidating robo-calls. The defendants will set aside $450,000 to cover the costs and more than 2,000 accused pirates are eligible for a $100 settlement each.

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

piratekayPiracy monetization firm Rightscorp has often been criticized for its aggressive attempts to obtain settlements from allegedly pirating Internet users.

Little over a year ago, these claims were accumulated in a class-action lawsuit filed in California, where the company was accused of breaking several laws in their attempt to extract settlements on behalf of Warner Bros, BMG and other copyright holders.

One of the main accusations was the repeated use of robo-calls to alleged infringers. This bombardment of harassing robo-calls is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the complaint alleged.

Over the past few months there haven’t been any significant updates in the case but behind the scenes the parties have been working hard to reach an agreement. This week they announced to the court that a settlement had been reached (pdf).

Although Rightscorp, Warner Bros. and the other defendants don’t admit to any wrongdoing, they agreed to take a loss and reserve a substantial amount of money to compensate hundreds of thousands of accused pirates.

This week both parties submitted the proposed settlement to the California federal court, asking for approval. According to the paperwork Rightscorp, Warner Bros and the other defendants will set aside $450,000 to resolve the matter.

“The settlement provides for a substantial benefit to the Settlement Class Members and makes available $450,000, minus Settlement Costs, to the estimated 2,059 Settlement Class Members established through pre-mediation discovery, as well as a valuable release of alleged claims Defendants have of copyright infringement for each individual class member,” the filing reads.

As part of the settlement all members of the class are entitled to $100 in compensation.

“Under the proposed settlement agreement, Defendants will contribute $450,000.00 to the Settlement Fund, and each Qualified Class Member who submits a claim and executes an Affidavit of Non-Infringement will receive approximately $100.00.”

The funds also have to cover other costs such as administration and attorney fees, so the actual compensation may have to be reduced depending on how many accused pirates claim their share.

As part of the settlement all accused pirates have to declare that they didn’t infringe any of the copyrighted works. Warner Bros and the other rightsholders will subsequently drop all copyright claims against them.

The $100 is substantially less than the damages that are generally awarded for a violation of the TCPA, which range between $500 and $1,500.

However, the paperwork points out that the accused pirates benefit from the fact that they are now off the hook for any potential copyright counter-claims, which could run into the billions for the entire class.

“Rightscorp identified 126,409 separate acts of alleged infringement, which implicate a theoretical range of $94.8 million to $19 billion in statutory damages,” the paperwork reads.

In addition to compensating the alleged pirates, Rightscorp also promises to prevent similar calls in the future without the recipient’s prior consent. This may make it harder for Rightscorp to extract settlements, which is another win for the class action members.

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

Terrorgefahr: CDU will Vorratsdaten dem Verfassungsschutz geben

Kaum ist das Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung beschlossen, entstehen neue Begehrlichkeiten für die Nutzung der Daten. Zudem fordert die CDU den Einsatz von Quellen-TKÜ und Online-Durchsuchung. (Provider, Vorratsdatenspeicherung)

Kaum ist das Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung beschlossen, entstehen neue Begehrlichkeiten für die Nutzung der Daten. Zudem fordert die CDU den Einsatz von Quellen-TKÜ und Online-Durchsuchung. (Provider, Vorratsdatenspeicherung)

John Legere apologizes to EFF for mocking group in throttling debate

“I am a vocal, animated, and sometimes foul-mouthed CEO,” T-Mobile boss says.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere. (credit: T-Mobile)

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere apologized to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for mocking its concerns about the wireless carrier's "Binge On" program that throttles online video.

In an "Open Letter to Consumers About Binge On," Legere said T-Mobile plans to meet with the EFF, which argues that T-Mobile is violating net neutrality rules. Legere was less gracious to the EFF last week when he answered their concerns by saying "Who the fuck are you, anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and who pays you?"

In his open letter yesterday, Legere wrote:

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Razer Blade Stealth gaming ultrabook now available for purchase

Razer Blade Stealth gaming ultrabook now available for purchase

Just days after unveiling the Razer Blade Stealth at CES, Razer is now taking orders for its thin and light gaming laptop. The Razer Blade Stealth measures about 0.5 inches thick, weighs about 2.75 pounds, and has a 12.5 inch touchscreen display. Under the hood it’s powered by an Intel Core i7-6500U Skylake processor and 8GB […]

Razer Blade Stealth gaming ultrabook now available for purchase is a post from: Liliputing

Razer Blade Stealth gaming ultrabook now available for purchase

Just days after unveiling the Razer Blade Stealth at CES, Razer is now taking orders for its thin and light gaming laptop. The Razer Blade Stealth measures about 0.5 inches thick, weighs about 2.75 pounds, and has a 12.5 inch touchscreen display. Under the hood it’s powered by an Intel Core i7-6500U Skylake processor and 8GB […]

Razer Blade Stealth gaming ultrabook now available for purchase is a post from: Liliputing

Remix OS—a multitasking, windowed Android OS—can now run on your PC

An “alpha” build of the OS for a generic PC is available for download.

Jide's Remix OS—a... well, remixed version of Android that is more suitable for a PC's mouse and keyboard—is now available for download. The OS turns Android into a windowed desktop environment with the ability to multitask, just like Windows, Mac OS, and desktop Linux.

The OS is available today as a 700MB "alpha" version, which you should be able to run on your own hardware. The project's webpage says it is compatible with "most computers in the world powered by x86 chipsets," and it seems to require a 64-bit CPU. Remix OS is based on the long-running Android-x86 project, which has a crowdsourced hardware support list here, but the bottom line seems to be "try it and see what happens." You'll need at least an 8GB USB 3.0 flash drive with a recommended write speed of 20MB/s along with a PC with a "USB legacy" boot option.

We tried Remix OS at the end of a recent article that looked at Android on the desktop. The OS definitely proved nicer than vanilla Android with a mouse and keyboard, but just like with Android tablets, the biggest software weakness is app support for the new environment. Remix actually comes out a little better here, since if you get stuck with a phone app, you can usually just shrink it down to a phone-sized window. The other big weakness in our test setup was the hardware: Jide's own "Remix Mini" was woefully underpowered for serious multitasking, but with Remix now available for lots of hardware, you can fix that problem yourself.

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Multimediaplayer: VLC für das neue Apple TV verfügbar

Der VLC-Player steht mit seiner gewohnten Funktionsvielfalt nun auch für das aktuelle Apple TV bereit. Die Anwendung erkennt Medien im Heimnetzwerk und kann auch über den Browser Streams und Dateien zum Abspielen erhalten. (VLC, Server)

Der VLC-Player steht mit seiner gewohnten Funktionsvielfalt nun auch für das aktuelle Apple TV bereit. Die Anwendung erkennt Medien im Heimnetzwerk und kann auch über den Browser Streams und Dateien zum Abspielen erhalten. (VLC, Server)