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Indien: Herdenimmunität in Delhi in Sicht

In der Hauptstadt Indiens wurden bei 23 Prozent der Getesteten Antikörper des Corona-Virus gefunden

Aus der Ausländer-Maut soll die EU-Maut werden

Verkehrsminister Scheuer hat das Projekt der CSU noch nicht abgeschrieben, sondern weiter ausgebaut

Tesla makes a profit of $104 million in Q2 2020

The world’s most valuable automaker says it hopes to deliver 500,000 cars in 2020.

On Tuesday afternoon, Tesla announced that it ended the second quarter of 2020 with a GAAP profit of $104 million. That is now the fourth profitable quarter in a row for the US automaker, which may help the company move to the S&P 500 index. It took home $143 million in 19Q3, $105 million in 19Q4, and $16 million in 20Q1. However, the past 12 months' profits still don't offset the company's $408 million loss in 19Q2.

Tesla ends 20Q2 with a positive free cash flow of $418 million and $8.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Tesla says in its presentation to investors that lower operating costs and greater income from regulatory credits, plus recognizing $48 million in payments for its "Full Self Driving" feature, were big helps to the balance sheet. These contrast the costs it bore for having to shut down the factory due to a raging pandemic, as well as having to pay CEO Elon Musk $101 million for one of his compensation milestones.

The automaker had already released data on its 20Q2 deliveries earlier in July, but to reiterate, it built 6,326 Models S and X, delivering 10,614 of the same. Model 3 and Y production clocked in at 75,946; in total, it delivered 80,277 of these vehicles for the three months in question. Impressively, total deliveries are actually up 3 percent quarter-on-quarter and only down 5 percent year-on-year—not bad for the middle of a global pandemic that has cratered new vehicle sales across the globe. In total, the company's automotive business brought in $3.9 billion for the quarter.

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Lilbits: Windows Terminal, Android Go, and RISC-V

Microsoft has released a new preview version of its Windows Terminal app, which is shaping up to be a pretty powerful, customizable tool for all of the different command line interfaces available in Windows 10. That includes the basic command prompt, …

The post Lilbits: Windows Terminal, Android Go, and RISC-V appeared first on Liliputing.

Microsoft is back up to antitrust mischief after 20 years, Slack claims

Remember when Netscape said Internet Explorer was a problem?

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Slack—the now-nearly ubiquitous, purple work-chatting platform—has filed a formal complaint alleging that tech titan Microsoft is unlawfully abusing its power to squeeze newer rivals out of the market—almost the exact same accusations Microsoft infamously faced 20 years ago.

San Francisco-based Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission detailing "Microsoft's illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law," the company said today.

The complaint centers on Microsoft Teams, the company's chat and video-conference platform. Teams is a competitor product not only to Slack but also to popular conference service Zoom, Google's Meet and chat services, and other video services. Slack alleges that the way Microsoft bundles Teams into its distribution of Office—widely used enterprise software such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel—gives Microsoft an unfair advantage against the competition.

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Quartalsbericht: Microsofts Wachstum bei Azure wird schwächer

Microsoft kann in der Krise das hohe Wachstumstempo nicht mehr aufrechterhalten. Trotzdem werden die Analystenschätzungen übertroffen. (Quartalsbericht, Microsoft)

104 Millionen US-Dollar: Tesla macht in der Krise überraschend Gewinn

Tesla hat im zweiten Quartal 2020 einen Gewinn von 104 Millionen US-Dollar erzielt. Auch der Umsatz lag über den Erwartungen. (Tesla, Elektroauto)

US spends $2 billion to secure COVID-19 vaccine

BioNTech, Pfizer announce deal for 100 million doses of coronavirus inoculation candidate.

The Trump administration has committed to spend $1.95 billion on 100 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Germany’s BioNTech and US pharma giant Pfizer, which will be distributed free of charge to American citizens.

BioNTech announced on Wednesday that the supply agreement signed by the White House also includes the option for the US government to purchase a further 500 million doses, subject to the vaccine being granted regulatory approval.

Several governments have signed agreements with some of the 24 groups currently testing a coronavirus vaccine on humans, including a promising candidate developed by Oxford university and AstraZeneca, but most other purchasers have refused to reveal the price paid per dose.

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CBS says a “fully functional” Tricorder is coming in 2021

Next year marks the 55th anniversary of the first episode of Star Trek, and CBS is apparently celebrating by bringing a piece of sci-fi tech to the real world. Sort of. The network has partnered with The Wand Company to produce a replica of a Tricorde…

The post CBS says a “fully functional” Tricorder is coming in 2021 appeared first on Liliputing.

‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer Wants to Restart Pirate Honeypot From Prison

Paul Hansmeier, one of the convicted attorneys behind the controversial Prenda Law firm, has plans to sue alleged pirates from prison. Hansmeier is sitting out a 14-year sentence but has informed the court that he now has the rights to a short adult film. In a separate case, he unveils his plans to, once again, make copyrighted works available on known pirate sites.

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

copyright troll Last summer, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.

Hansmeier was a key player in the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent.

While suing alleged pirates is not illegal, Prenda Law went much further. Over the years the firm faced negative court rulings over identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception.

The Original Prenda Honeypot

Most controversial were the shocking revelations that Prenda itself produced adult videos and uploaded their own torrents to The Pirate Bay. In doing so, they created a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirate downloads.

The allegations were serious enough to land on the radar of US law enforcement agencies which launched a criminal investigation, culminating in prison sentences for the two key players.

Today, Paul Hansmeier and his former colleague John Steele are both in prison. While the latter received a reduced sentence for his cooperative stance, Hansmeier continues to appeal his sentence to this day.

From prison, he also continues to wage legal battles. Earlier this year Hansmeier requested a temporary release from prison, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, and he has been active on other fronts as well.

Hansmeier’s New Adult Movie Copyright

This week, another handwritten letter from Hansmeier arrived at the court. This time it doesn’t contain any legal requests. Instead, it’s a straightforward declaration about a change in economic circumstances. This could be just a formality as part of bankruptcy proceedings but in this case, it points to something bigger.

“Defendant Paul Hansmeier, acting out of an abundance of caution, respectfully notifies the relevant parties that he now owns the right to a short adult movie,” the letter reads.

There are no further details available in the letter but a search through court records possibly provides more insight. In a separate case, Hansmeier reveals that he would like to sue alleged pirates again, from prison.

This scheme is detailed in a complaint Hansmeier filed at a federal court in Columbia late May, targeting U.S. Attorney General William Barr.

Hansmeier Wants to Sue Pirates, Again

The convicted attorney explains that he would like to “enforce copyrights” via the Olan Mills method. In doing so, he plans to “retain an investigator to make his copyrighted works available to suspected infringers via notorious digital piracy sites.”

Alleged pirates who fall for this scheme will then be sued and can expect a settlement offer to resolve the case. This is more or less the same model as the original Prenda honeypot scheme but this time it would be out in the open.

Hansmeier asks the federal court for a declaration that U.S. Attorney General William Barr will not go after him for fraud or extortion. According to the convicted attorney, the US Constitution prohibits the Attorney General from doing so. If there are any objections, the US should intervene in the yet-to-be-filed piracy cases instead.

US District Judge James Boasberg reviewed the request but decided to dismiss the complaint last week, noting that “the Attorney General has absolute discretion in deciding whether to investigate claims for possible criminal or civil prosecution.”

As mentioned earlier, soon after, Hansmeier informed another court about the rights he now has to a short adult movie, so it may very well be that he will go ahead nonetheless.

An ‘Open’ Honeypot

There will be one key difference between the older honeypot scheme and the new one. In the past, Hansmeier and his colleagues concealed their involvement in the cases, using alter egos such as “Ingenuity 13.” According to the news plans, everything will be in the open.

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of a draft complaint Hansmeier plans to send to alleged pirates. This will clearly state his name, his current circumstances, as well as a detailed description of the honeypot scheme.

“Plaintiff Paul Hansmeier is a natural person and is an inmate at Sandstone Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota,” the draft complaint targeting a hypothetical pirate reads.

“Plaintiff’s investigator posted a torrent file to a notorious digital piracy website. Defendant downloaded the torrent file and opened it in specialized software, which resulted in Defendant accessing Plaintiff’s computer systems, which Plaintiff leases from a third-party, and copying the video,” it adds.

The proposed openness and transparency will come after people are caught, of course. We doubt that any of the future honeypot torrents will carry this information.

It’s quite bizarre to learn that a convicted attorney wants to restart his copyright-trolling venture from prison. While this may lead some to believe that Hansmeier has lost it, there might also be some method to the madness.

We are no experts on criminal law, but Hansmeier has proven to be rather determined in the battle against his criminal conviction. Keeping this in mind, the plan to restart his business in the open may in some way be a ploy to aid his defense.

If that is the case, and whether that will have any effect has yet to be seen. However, we’ll certainly keep a close eye on any new “Hansmeier-related” torrents and lawsuits that pop up.

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A copy of Hansmeier’s complaint targeting U.S. Attorney General William Barr, detailing his plans, is available here (pdf)

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