Japan: Panasonic bringt Bürowabe fürs Homeoffice

Viele Japaner möchten auch nach dem Ende der Corona-Maßnahmen von zu Hause arbeiten – Panasonic präsentiert eine ungewöhnliche Lösung für sie. (Coronavirus, Panasonic)

Viele Japaner möchten auch nach dem Ende der Corona-Maßnahmen von zu Hause arbeiten - Panasonic präsentiert eine ungewöhnliche Lösung für sie. (Coronavirus, Panasonic)

What the advent of 5G—mmWave and otherwise—will mean for online gaming

If you game on your portable devices, 5G could bring more consistent pings.

Artist's impression of gaming with 5G.

Enlarge / Artist's impression of gaming with 5G. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

There's been a lot of buzz about 5G over the last year—much of it, sadly, none too coherent. Today, we're going to take a detailed, realistic look at how we can expect 5G to improve cellular broadband, with a focus on the impact we might be able to expect on gaming. Surprise: the news is actually not bad!

What is 5G?

Before we can talk about what to expect from 5G, we need to talk about what 5G actually is—and isn't. 5G, short for "fifth generation," is the next cellular communications protocol. 5G is not, specifically, any given frequency or band. There are two major bands 5G can operate on—millimeter wave, and sub-6GHz. Exactly which frequencies within those bands your devices will use varies from carrier to carrier, and country to country.

Up close with a cellular transmission tower.

Up close with a cellular transmission tower. (credit: George Frey / AFP / Getty Images)

The sub-6GHz band isn't new territory; the frequencies in use there are the same ones carriers already use for 4G / LTE service. Sub-6Ghz can further be divided into low-band—under 1GHz—and mid-band, at 2.5GHz-3.5GHz. Low-band offers greater range from the tower, but at lower speeds; the mid-band offers greater speed, but lower range. It's worth noting that "lower range" isn't necessarily a curse—the greater the range from the tower, the more users you have sharing the same finite amount of airtime, and the lower the speeds and less predictable the latency you'll see.

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“Protest app” Bridgefy is full of flaws that threaten users everywhere

Researchers notified the company in April of serious flaws that have yet to be fixed.

Demonstrations in Belarus over the reelection of Alexander Lukashenko are just one of the mass protests where Bridgefy is being promoted.

Enlarge / Demonstrations in Belarus over the reelection of Alexander Lukashenko are just one of the mass protests where Bridgefy is being promoted. (credit: SERGEI GAPON/AFP via Getty Images)

The rise of mass protests over the past year—in Hong Kong, India, Iran, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and the US—has presented activists with a major challenge. How do you communicate with one another when Internet connections are severely congested or completely shut down and at the same time keep your identity and conversations private?

One heavily promoted solution has been Bridgefy, a messaging app that has the financial and marketing backing of Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and boasts having more than 1.7 million installations. By using Bluetooth and mesh network routing, Bridgefy lets users within a few hundred meters—and much further as long as there are intermediary nodes—to send and receive both direct and group texts with no reliance on the Internet at all.

Bridgefy cofounder and CEO Jorge Ríos has said he originally envisioned the app as a way for people to communicate in rural areas or other places where Internet connections were scarce. And with the past year’s upswell of large protests around the world—often in places with hostile or authoritarian governments—company representatives began telling journalists that the app’s use of end-to-end encryption (reiterated here, here, and here) protected activists against governments and counter protesters trying to intercept texts or shut down communications.

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Nintendo Copyright Infringement Threats Shut Down Switch Payload Injector

Nintendo has targeted the developer of an open-source Switch payload injector with a cease and desist notice. Faced with copyright infringement threats, the DragonInjector developer decided to shut the project down. While he doesn’t agree with the allegations, an expensive legal battle is not an option.

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

dragoninjectorNintendo is doing everything in its power to stop the public from playing pirated games on the Switch console.

Earlier this year, the game company launched several lawsuits against websites that sell Team-Xecuter products. These cases are ongoing.

In the meantime, Nintendo has identified other “payload injector” threats as well. This includes the open-source project Dragoninjector, which was developed and sold by MatinatorX.

DragonInjector is a small piece of hardware that fits in the Switch game card slot. It allows users to install and load custom firmware on their console. While it’s not advertised as a pirate tool, with third-party code it can be used to play pirated games on older Switch models.

Nintendo’s Cease and Desist Notice

A few days ago, DragonInjector’s developer formally announced the end of the project. In a message on Discord, a Nintendo cease-and-desist order is cited as the main reason. MatinatorX doesn’t agree with the gaming company’s copyright infringement claims but he doesn’t want to fight them either.

“While I don’t believe the project was or is unlawful in any way, I do not have the resources to go to court to prove that for a hobby, especially considering the project netted a loss of a few thousand dollars overall,” he writes.

The cease-and-desist notice was sent by Nintendo’s Canadian lawyers a few weeks ago. It accuses the developer of copyright infringement by advertising and selling the DragonInjector. According to the notice, this breaks the Switch’s technical protection measures.

“Your unlawful manufacture, advertisement, distribution, offering for sale and sale of the DragonInjector via the Dragon Injector Website infringes our client’s rights,” the lawyers write.

“More specifically, your activities amount to copyright infringement, secondary infringement, and the circumvention of technological protection measures in violation of sections 3, 27, and 41.1 of the Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c. C-42,” they add, referring to Canadian copyright law.

“$12 million CAD in Damages”

The developer was urged to immediately stop any infringing activities. If not, Nintendo reserves the right to take further action, the notice warns, adding that the company previously won $12 million CAD in damages in a ‘similar’ case.

nintendo dragoninjector cease

The threat comes with a list of additional requests. Among other things, MatinatorX must hand over all related accounting, including the number of devices sold as well as any profits that were made.

Down but Not Out

After receiving the cease-and-desist, the developer immediately halted DragonInjector’s sales. In addition, he reached out to Nintendo through his lawyer to settle the matter. That request has not been answered yet, but it’s clear that the DragonInjector project is done.

MatinatorX is aware of the legal uncertainties but says he’s not looking for legal advice from outsiders. He has discussed and explored all options already over the past weeks and shutting things down came out as the best solution.

“I know it sucks, I really do – I’ve poured the better part of two years of my free time into this project – but that’s just how it is. I could let myself be depressed, or I could dive into my other projects and ideas. I’m choosing the latter,” he writes.

The old Dragoninjector.com site is now gone. Instead, the developer registered Draconicmods.com where he will continue to do business. He has set up a legitimate company and is moving forward with DragonMMC, which is a custom Switch kickstand.

Needless to say, DragonMMC won’t have the payload injection capability that was initially planned, but MatinatorX says he can make it something worthwhile nonetheless. And there’s another project in the pipeline as well; DragonDSI, a micro-HDMI port for the Switch Lite.

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A copy of the full cease and desist letter, sent by Nintendo’s Canadian lawyers, is available here (pdf)

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