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Wochenrückblick: Vegas again, Baby!

Wir waren auf der CES: die Woche im Video. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Theranos)

Mit Omikron aus der Pandemie?

Das Gewähren und Verweigern von einst selbstverständlichen Rechten mit Verweis auf Corona könnte für Regierende zur Gewohnheit werden. Derweil gibt es Hinweise auf mildere Verläufe bei der neuen Virusvariante

Alan Tudyk’s awkward alien is humanity’s only hope in Resident Alien S2 trailer

Humanity is probably screwed.

Alan Tudyk is back as an alien who crash-lands on Earth in the second season of SYFY's Resident Alien.

An alien (Alan Tudyk) disguised as a small-town doctor must figure out how to rescue his new human friends from an invading army of his fellow aliens in the trailer for the second season of Resident Alien, SYFY's critically acclaimed dramedy based on the Dark Horse comics created by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. This gem of series easily made our list of the best TV shows of 2021.

(Some spoilers for S1 below.)

As I've written previously, Tudyk's alien (with an unpronounceable name) takes on the identity (and form) of small-town doctor Harry Vanderspiegle, and promptly gets roped into investigating a local murder. Harry's mission is to wipe out the human race for the good of the planet, but he finds himself wavering in his resolve the more time he spends in the small town of Patience, Colorado.

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Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

Ongoing mining craze is actually affecting how some products are designed.

AMD will begin selling its latest budget GPU, the Radeon RX 6500 XT, on January 19th. Its retail price is $199. But the ongoing GPU shortage, caused in part by cryptocurrency miners and scalpers who are snapping up every card they can get, has made it mostly impossible to get any graphics card at its list price over the past year.

Whether the 6500 XT will be any different depends partly on supply, but AMD has also apparently designed the card to make it deliberately less appealing to miners while retaining its usefulness as an entry-level graphics card. Speaking to journalists in a press roundtable earlier this week, AMD Radeon VP Laura Smith talked about how the 6500 XT had been “optimized” for games (a transcript from a now-apparently-deleted PCWorld article is preserved here).

"We have really optimized this one to be gaming-first at that target market," Smith said. "And you can see that with the way that we configured the part. Even with the four gigs of frame buffer. That’s a really nice frame buffer size for the majority of AAA games, but it’s not particularly attractive if you’re doing blockchain-type activities or mining activities.”

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Inflation auch im Euroraum auf Rekordkurs

Inzwischen ist die offizielle Teuerungsrate auf den Rekordwert von 5,0 Prozent gestiegen, dem höchsten Wert seit der Euro-Einführung, in Deutschland bereits auf 5,7 Prozent

CDC head talks screwups, 4th doses, omicron’s wave in long-awaited briefing

The wide-ranging briefing gave a better view of how the CDC sees omicron playing out.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters stands in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, March 14, 2020.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday held its first COVID-19 press briefing in over a year. The briefing covered a wide range of pandemic-related topics, from the rise in pediatric COVID-19 cases to the trajectory of the omicron wave and the agency's own missteps in communicating with the public.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky fielded most of the questions herself during the roughly 35-minute phone conference, as reporter after reporter expressed the need for more briefings and thanked her for being available today. Walensky noted that she had been in over 80 COVID-19 briefings held by the White House. However, the CDC had not given its own briefing on its pandemic-related work since January 6, 2021.

In the intervening year, the CDC has experienced periodic missteps and has taken heavy criticism for muddled messaging around ever-evolving pandemic guidance. The latest such episode unfolded last week after the agency said that certain individuals infected with COVID-19 could leave isolation periods early without having to test negative. The agency has stood by the decision, despite science-based criticisms and concerns that the CDC's decision was influenced by political interests, namely avoiding the problem of test shortages.

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Lilbits: More Intel NUC systems coming in 2022… and a new BlackBerry phone too?

This week the world mourned the death of classic BlackBerry phones… after first realizing that they weren’t already (entirely) dead. BlackBerry stopped making phones running BlackBerry OS software years ago, and has been phasing out support for the devices ever since. But the company announced it was pulling the plug on legacy services used by […]

The post Lilbits: More Intel NUC systems coming in 2022… and a new BlackBerry phone too? appeared first on Liliputing.

It turns out that the shutdown didn’t have an immediate impact. Folks who are still using older BlackBerry phones haven’t seen any real difference in service yet. But now it may just be a matter of time. But what about newer BlackBerry phones that ship with Android? Those should continue working indefinitely. And it’s possible that a new model could be coming this year.

BlackBerry Key2 (Android phone made by TCL, launched in 2018)

While BlackBerry doesn’t make its own phones anymore, the company has partnered with third-party companies to sell BlackBerry-branded phones running Android software and using BlackBerry services. We haven’t seen any companies launch one in a few years… but maybe that’ll change in 2022. Maybe?

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.

OnwardMobility Declares Itself Not Dead [CrackBerry]

A year and a half ago OnwardMobility announced plans to launch a BlackBerry-branded smartphone with a physical keyboard and Android software in 2021. That didn’t happen. After a long silence, they now say it’s still in the works though.

Until then, the closest thing you can probably get would be a phone like the Unihertz Titan, which clones the BlackBerry design and keyboard, but which lacks the BlackBerry name and software.

Intel Alder County high-end reference laptop with Intel CPU & GPU & Serpent Canyon NUC 12 Enthusiast coming this year [VideoCardz]

Intel confirms that “Serpent Canyon” and “Alder County” NUC systems are on the way. The former is expected to become the NUC 12 Enthusiast mini desktop with Arc graphics, while the latter is a laptop reference kit with 12th-gen chips.

Honor Magic V Full Specs and Renders Leaked: To Feature Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, 12GB RAM, [MySmartPrice]

Honor Magic V foldable phone design and specs leaked ahead of Jan 10 launch. Expect 7.9 inch interior display, 6.45 inch cover display, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, 12GB RAM, up to 512GB storage, and 3 x 50MP rear cameras.

Your Google home speakers are about to get slightly worse because Sonos sued and won [The Verge]

Sonos has won a patent infringement suit against Google for its implementation of speaker groups. And that means if you’re using multiple Google speakers you’ll need to adjust the volume on each individually. The good news, I guess, is that Nest speakers are on sale for $75 right now, which is $25 off the list price. Maybe that’s a concession? Maybe it’s just a regularly-scheduled sale.

Tablo announces its first ATSC 3.0 OTA DVR with support for 4K and HDR video [AFTVNews]

The new Tablo ATSC 3.0 Quad HDMI OTA DVR can record up to four over-the-air 4K HDR video streams at once, but it’s not a networked device like Tablo’s earlier products, which means the $300 DVR is designed for use with one TV at a time.

Sytem76 Kudu Linux Laptop [System76]

System76 Kudu is a new 15.6 inch Linux laptop with Ryzen 9 5900HX, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of storage. Coming soon for $1899.

Asus’s New Space-Inspired ZenBook Is Beyond Excessive [Gizmodo]

The Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition has a custom graphic on the lid plus a 3.5 inch, 256 x 64 pixel OLED display on the lid for displaying custom graphics or messages.

Better together with Android and beyond [Google]

Google is bringing Fast Pair support to Chromebooks, Google TV, and Android TV making it easier to set up headphones or even to set up a Chromebook using an Android phone. Fast Pair is also coming to some Windows PCs later this year.

Skyline Nintendo Switch Emulator gets initial support for graphics rendering [@MishaalRahman]

Skyline is an open source Nintendo Switch emulator for Android devices with ARMv8 processors. It’s still very early in the development process, but it’s now rendering graphics for its first game, Sonic Mania.

An incredible milestone has been reached in the Skyline project. Skyline is an open source Nintendo Switch emulator for ARMv8 Android devices that recently successfully rendered graphics for its first game (Sonic Mania). pic.twitter.com/bQkeIabhQP

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) January 7, 2022

Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 Release [UBports]

This update brings support for more phones and tablets, an updated look for the Greeter that displays before you unlock the screen, an overhauled storage statistics setting, and support for a Tamil language font. Work is ongoing to bring support for adding support for phones that shipped with Android 10 and for updating Ubuntu Touch so that it’s based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS rather than Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – this release is still based on the older version of Ubuntu first released in 2016.

Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook and follow @LinuxSmartphone on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on open source mobile phones.

The post Lilbits: More Intel NUC systems coming in 2022… and a new BlackBerry phone too? appeared first on Liliputing.

Verizon’s 5G upgrade imposes new hotspot data limits on older phone plans

Verizon will make 5G more useful with C-Band but remove unlimited hotspot data.

Verizon says the January 19 launch of 5G on its C-Band spectrum will bring fast wireless speeds to 100 million people in the US—far outstripping the limited geographic reach of its millimeter-wave spectrum that provides even faster 5G speeds. But there is a drawback for people who currently have unlimited 5G hotspot data on the millimeter-wave network: a monthly data cap on hotspot usage.

For the "Beyond Unlimited" Verizon smartphone plan that has existed for a few years, customers currently have 15GB of hotspot data at 4G LTE speeds and unlimited "5G Ultra Wideband" hotspot data. Going forward, the C-Band and millimeter-wave spectrum will both be included in what Verizon calls Ultra Wideband, and Verizon will no longer provide unlimited Ultra Wideband hotspot data to those who currently have it. Beyond Unlimited plan subscribers will instead get a total of 15GB of high-speed hotspot data regardless of which network slice they're using and will face hotspot data slowdowns after using that up.

Practically speaking, this may not be a big change for many people because Verizon's millimeter-wave 5G spectrum has such limited geographic availability to begin with, and the unlimited hotspot data only applies to the use of that spectrum. But it's always good to be aware of changes, given how convoluted Verizon's service plans tend to be, and it might make sense for some people to switch to newer plans with hotspot limits of either 25GB or 50GB.

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Sega cites fan backlash in surprisingly cautious take on gaming NFTs

“If it is perceived as simple money-making,” Sega would “like… not to proceed.”

Enlarge / Sega is thinking long and hard about whether it wants NFTs to become part of its brand image.

Non-fungible tokens have become the buzziest of concepts among big-budget game publishers these days. While Ubisoft is the only big-name publisher to actually roll out in-game NFT items thus far, everyone from Square Enix to EA and Take-Two has expressed varying levels of enthusiasm for the idea. Even aging gaming brands like Konami and Atari have used NFTs as a way to quickly cash in via artificially rare digital collectibles.

So it was somewhat notable when Sega used a recent management Q&A to take a much more skeptical position on the industry's NFT mania.

To be clear, Sega isn't completely rebuking the idea of NFTs in its games. The company said it "would like to try out various experiments, and we have already started many different studies and considerations" in the space, including so-called "play-to-earn" games.

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Anti-Piracy Outfit Rightscorp’s Corporate Status is Void Due to Unpaid Tax Bills

Rightscorp is a key evidence provider in several multi-million dollar piracy lawsuits and a trusted anti-piracy partner of the RIAA. The evidence provided by Rightscorp is not without controversy, however. The company itself has issues too, as the state of Delaware has voided its corporate status after it failed to pay more than $450,000 in taxes.

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

Backed by the RIAA, several major music industry companies have taken some of the largest U.S. Internet providers to court.

The music companies accuse these providers of failing to terminate the accounts of the most egregious pirates by ignoring millions of copyright infringement notices. To make them whole, the labels demand hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

This has already resulted in a massive windfall in the case against Cox, where a jury awarded a billion dollars in damages. The same music companies now hope to get the same outcome against and RCN, Charter, Bright House, and Grande Communications.

Rightscorp Evidence

Many of these lawsuits are centered around evidence from the anti-piracy outfit Rightscorp. The Delaware company collected settlements from U.S. Internet subscribers for several years but struggled to make a profit.

Going after alleged pirates directly wasn’t a great business model, so Rightscorp started to focus on ISPs. They encouraged the RIAA to take legal action against ISPs and offered its data as evidence, in return for a significant cash injection.

Thus far the RIAA and Rightscorp have booked quite a few successes already but there’s been plenty of pushback as well. Several Internet providers are doubting the accuracy of Rightscorp’s evidence. This includes RCN, which once again articulated its criticism in court a few days ago.

“RCN contends that Plaintiffs and Rightscorp engaged in unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices by flooding RCN with illegitimate copyright complaints and destroying the evidence on which those complaints were ostensibly based,” RCN wrote.

RCN Wants Access to Rightscorp’s Database

These claims are part of RCN’s defense, which has been ongoing for a while. To back up these allegations the ISP requested access to Rightscorp’s evidence databases. This should reveal whether the evidence is reliable and accurate enough.

This request for access was submitted months ago but little progress has been made so far. After several back and forths, Rightscorp’s counsel notified the ISP in September that it won’t allow full access to the evidence database. Instead, it offered to allow access to a more limited database.

“Rightscorp refused to provide access to its databases and instead offered to create a new database, solely for purposes of this litigation and only containing data that Rightscorp deems relevant to RCN,” the ISP informed the court.

The quote above is from a recent court filing where RNC requests an order to compel Rightscorp to open up its database for inspection. This is a reasonable request, the ISP argues, especially since the RIAA is using this evidence to demand over $200 million in damages.

The court filing also questions Rightscorp’s reputation. RCN notes that in a related lawsuit, a federal court ruled that the company had intentionally destroyed the source code of its piracy tracking system.

Corporate Status Voided in Delaware

It’s not clear why Rightscorp doesn’t want to open up its database for inspection. RCN says that it has no clue either but the ISP openly speculates that there may be some internal issues.

As it turns out, the State of Delaware, where Rightscorp is incorporated, has voided the corporate status of the firm after it failed to its pay taxes.

“It may be connected to the fact that Rightscorp appears to lack any corporate powers because its corporate status is void in Delaware for failure to pay over $450,000 in franchise taxes,” RCN writes.

This is a serious issue, as it would be a criminal offense for Rightscorp to exercise its corporate powers before the issues are resolved. In addition, another company can now scoop up the Rightscorp name, if it wanted to.

License Revoked in California

The trouble is not limited to Delaware either. Rightscorp also failed to file its annual statements in California, the state where it’s operating from. As a result, its license to conduct business has been revoked.

These issues could eventually be resolved in the future but it certainly doesn’t instill confidence. The same is true for the non-www version of Rightscorp’s website, which is still broken after several months.

Whatever the reasons may be, RCN is asking the court to issue an order that will allow the ISP to take an uncensored look at the evidence database, requesting an oral hearing on the matter.

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A copy of RCN’s request, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, is rightscorp-corporate-status

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