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Online pirates are increasingly turning to streaming sites to watch the latest TV-shows and blockbusters.

Aside from going to these sites directly, there are also dedicated communities where people help each other to find high-quality copies of recent releases.

The popular social networking service Reddit is one of these places. The site has various “subreddits” dedicated to streaming the latest entertainment, often from unauthorized sources.

Hollywood is not happy with this type of sharing and this week Warner Bros took action against BestOfStreamingVideo, a popular subreddit with 45,838 readers who are interested in “free” entertainment.

In a DMCA takedown notice the movie studio accuses the subreddit of infringing the copyrights of the popular 2015 movie Interstellar. A link to a pirated copy on videorev.cc was added two days ago, and Warner Bros now wants it to disappear.

The notice in question was not sent to Reddit, but Google, who was asked to remove the main subreddit page from its search results. Google, however, decided not to comply with the request which means that the page remains present in its search results.

One of the reasons for Google’s refusal may be that the request is too broad, as it doesn’t list the main URL of the Reddit submission. Alternatively, the company may have decided that Reddit is better off handling takedown requests for their own platform.

In any case, the moderators of BestOfStreamingVideo are happy with the result. Moderator xosfear tells us that they simply offer a platform for users to share links, and that they don’t control what’s added.

“The sub was made as a way for our users to share streaming video, and as Reddit is a platform for free speech it is out of our control as to what our users post,” xosfear tells us.

Instead of sending takedown requests, the moderator believes Warner Bros would be better off focusing its efforts on building a centralized platform where movie fans can watch all of its movies for a fair price.

“In my opinion, if Warner Brothers spent all the time and money they spent on trying to control piracy on building a centralized platform for users to own their own movie library for a cost-effective price, they would make millions,” xosfear says.

“Look at what Steam has done for Valve and video game piracy. Of course, that would mean co-operating with other movie studios, and I doubt they would put aside their greed to do that.”

It’s unclear whether Warner Bros has also asked Reddit itself to take down the subreddit. For now, the subreddit remains online, including the link to the pirated copy of Interstellar.

Interestingly this is not the first time that the BestOfStreamingVideo has been targeted. In 2014 movie studio LionsGate sent a similar takedown request, also without result.

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

The opening screen. It's real. (credit: Hello Games)

Some people cannot wait another minute to play No Man's Sky, the upcoming PS4/PC space-exploration game whose gargantuan, open-ended galaxy contains 18 quintillion planets. (That's 18 followed by 18 zeros.) One lucky man managed to get his hands on a copy on Friday, a week and a half ahead of its official August 9 launch. Whether his brag about paying $1,300 for an advance copy on eBay is true, his stream of the game's opening sequence, which has since been taken offline, is wholly legitimate.

Reddit user "Daymeeuhn" posted videos to DailyMotion on Friday containing the PS4 version's opening sequence and a full 24 minutes of first-planet gameplay. If you're the kind of No Man's Sky enthusiast who wants zero spoilers, you should tune out right now.

Spoilers ahead

"Sean Murray, if you're watching, I'm an asshole, I'm sorry," Daymeeuhn says as he begins his stream of the full, retail game. After a brief star-screensaver visual sequence, overlaid with the No Man's Sky text logo, the player wakes on a planet named "Fljodal Nientv." This isn't the game's "default" planet; instead, every player's game starts on a unique rock in Sky's massive galaxy, and it's highly likely no other player on Earth will ever discover Fljodal Nientv. No opening sequence or explainer plays out, beyond a robotic voice alerting players that they have crash landed.

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Enlarge (credit: Apple)

The final version of Swift 3.0 will be released alongside iOS 10 and macOS Sierra in the fall, but the fact that Apple develops Swift out in the open now means that we know more about its progress than we do about Apple's operating systems. Chris Lattner, a senior director of the Developer Tools Department at Apple, today posted a lengthy note to the Swift mailing list that looks back at the development of Swift 3.0 and sets some expectations for Swift 4.0 next year.

The note is worth reading in its entirety for those interested in programming in Swift and in contributing to the language itself—the Swift 3.0 retrospective focuses mostly on the benefits and drawbacks to going open source. Lattner describes the "vibrant community" as "fantastic," though he does note that open-source development "is slower and less predictable than 'closed design.'" Lattner says "the end result is significantly better, and therefore the tradeoff is worth it," even if "it is impossible to make everyone happy." The latter sentiment should ring true to anyone who has ever worked on any open source project.

Apple plans to release two major Swift updates between now and fall of 2017—Swift 3.1 in the spring and Swift 4.0 in the fall, along with whatever other minor bugfix releases are necessary. For Swift 4.0, Apple would like to focus on source and ABI stability first, and move on to other features once work on those two things is complete. After that, Lattner outlines a number of goals that the team would like to accomplish if time permits:

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Earlier this month the second season of Mr. Robot premiered.

The TV-show, which portrays and appeals to a subculture of nerds, hacktivists, hackers and technology insiders, has become an instant cult hit.

Aside from classic hacker groups, the makers of the show were inspired by The Pirate Bay founders. Last year Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail admitted that the main character Elliot is in part modeled after the illustrious trio.

In addition, Mr. Robot also includes various nods and easter eggs for the technology inclined. For example, the first episode of the second season included an online trail for people to follow in the real world.

In the most recent episode, pirates were saluted during a short scene. Without giving away any spoilers, the main character Elliot was shown playing a pirated movie via his PLEX media server.

The movie in question, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, is “fake” but that’s not true for the other pirate references displayed.

As the screenshot above shows, Elliot uses a recent version of the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent, showing a house ad for an upgrade to uTorrent Plus.

In the “movies” folder, which is also shown, we can see various other movies complete with release group tags such as YIFY, PRiSTiNE, DiPSHiT, RARBG and CRiTERiON.

It is safe to say that these were not included by accident but as a nod towards the pirates in the audience. The same can be said for the iconic FBI warning that’s shown when the movie starts playing.

The mention didn’t go unnoticed by the pirate groups in question. We reached out to YIFY, who quit after running into legal trouble last year, and he appreciates the mention.

“Makes me feel like a little bit of a ‘bad ass’, even though it’s a pretty minor thing in the show still a cheeky smile came about,” YIFY told TF.

“I do like the fact that the producers of Mr Robot specifically do try to get an accurate reflection of today’s real world online.”

While the names of the pirate groups are indeed accurate, there may be room for improvement. A member of another release group pictured in the episode, who commented on condition of anonymity, questioned Elliot’s BitTorrent client preference.

“I find it hard to believe that the main character in the show – a pro hacker – is using a non-open source software to download or stream his torrents,” the group member said.

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

It’s been just over a week since Andromium launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of raising $50,000 to produce a device that lets you use an Android smartphone like a laptop.

With 21 days left to go in the Superbook campaign, the project has received over $1.1 million in pledges, which means that it’s hit a few key stretch goals. The team is adding an extra USB port and a bigger battery. And backers willing to pay $30 extra for the option can now get a higher-quality, higher-resolution display.

Continue reading Superbook gets 1080p display option (crowdfunding laptop dock for Android phones) at Liliputing.

(credit: Kurtis Garbutt)

Facebook has formally informed its investors that it could be on the hook for billions more in back taxes if the Internal Revenue Service’s legal efforts are successful.

This notice comes weeks after federal investigators asked a judge in California to force Facebook to open up its financial and business records for 2010—the year that the social networking giant established a subsidiary in Ireland largely for tax reasons.

Facebook and many other tech firms have recently come under increased scrutiny for using this method to drastically—and legally—reduce tax burdens. The "Double Irish" technique was phased out in early 2015, but companies already using it have until 2020 to transition to something else.

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This November Nintendo will ship the $60 NES Classic Edition. It’s a tiny replica of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System game console that comes with 30 games pre-loaded… and no way to add or remove any of those games.

Meanwhile, folks have been building their own NES Classic-style devices for years by putting a Raspberry Pi or similar mini PC into an NES-style case and installing RetroPie or other emulation software.

But daftmike’s NES Classic is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.

Continue reading This DIY mini NES is way cooler than Nintendo’s (but a lot harder to set up) at Liliputing.

A cave in Iraq where the bones of ancient human farmers were found. Their DNA was sequenced to unlock the mystery of who the earliest farmers were in the region. (credit: FEREIDOUN BIGLARI)

The greatest technological revolution in human history arguably happened about 12,000 years ago, when humans first stopped living as hunter gatherers and became farmers. This so-called Neolithic Revolution transformed human culture, our genomes, and our ecosystems. But the origins of farming have remained a mystery. Was there one eureka moment, when an early Neolithic person realized the seeds they scattered in fall had sprouted into grains two seasons later? Or, more intriguingly, did several groups of people start farming independently?

Two new studies published this month in Science and Nature magazines use DNA analysis of ancient human bones to conclude that farming arose in multiple regions simultaneously. The Science study focused on four farmers who lived between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago in the mountainous Zagros region of Iran. The Nature study analyzed 44 individuals (farmers as well as hunter-gatherers) from Armenia, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Iran who lived between 14,000 and 3,500 years ago. By sequencing parts of these ancient people's DNA, researchers could determine their likely ancestry as well as what populations are descended from them today. The researchers conclude that there are at least two groups of ancient humans who discovered farming separately in the Middle East and then exported the Neolithic revolution across large parts of the continent.

The secrets of ancient DNA

Over the past decade, modern DNA sequencing techniques have allowed scientists to recover strands of genetic material from decayed bones that have been infused with microbes over thousands of years. Now, those techniques are widely accessible and highly refined. It starts with how researchers pick their bones. If possible, they'll extract DNA from the petrous bone in the inner ear, a goldmine for genetic material that can yield roughly 100 times more ancient DNA than other parts of the skeleton. Then researchers use a process called in-solution hybridization, which uses special probes made from DNA or RNA that attach to the desired ancient human DNA, fishing it out of a soup of other genetic material from other organisms that accumulated in the decomposing bone. Techniques like these are making it easier than ever for us to sequence ancient DNA and reconstruct the human past.

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