From a popular Blu-ray release to a not so popular game console, read the news roundup for the week ending 27 March 2016
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From a popular Blu-ray release to a not so popular game console, read the news roundup for the week ending 27 March 2016
We talk to the car’s creator, Porsche’s Andreas Preuninger.
The 911R is a response to customer feedback about the most recent motorsports-infused 911 GT3 RS. Until now, Preuninger told us, previous generations of GT3 RS had satisfied both the track addict and those drivers looking for out-and-out road-driving enjoyment. But the current generation GT3 RS (known as the 991) is so capable—and has so much grip—that to all intents and purposes its limit is out of reach on the street.
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Nissan’s better, faster, more comfortable supercar slayer
Jonathan Gitlin
The 2017 Nissan GT-R: faster and more refined.
4 more images in gallery
Everyone from car enthusiasts to gamers to RC joystick jockeys knows the Nissan GT-R, but it wasn't always thus. For most of its life, the car that many now call "Godzilla" toiled away in relative obscurity, at least in the West. Yet its performance cred has never been questioned. To emphasize the GT-R's distinguished lineage, Nissan surrounded the 2017 model at the New York International Auto Show with an inspired display of its fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.
The new GT-R boasts better-quality interior materials, additional sound deadening, revised rear bodywork, and a "V Motion" grille in matte chrome. With its hand-built 3.8L twin-turbo engine, it also cranks out 20hp (15kW) more than last year's model, for a total of 565hp (421kW). Nissan declares that the 2017 GT-R has the most standard horsepower among all of its competitors, though no performance figures are cited. (The previous GT-R does 0-60 mph in just 2.7 seconds, however.)
For the New York Auto Show, Nissan had four of its five master craftsmen, or Takumi, demonstrate engine building for the gathered press. Even with all that, the new car had to compete for attention with the classic Skyline GT-Rs parked next to it.
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When studios send out DVDs of the latest movies for the consideration of awards voters, that content is supposed to be on lockdown. Instead, copies of virtually all movies leak to the Internet and are downloaded by millions. Later, adding insult to injury, these DVDs appear in dozens of eBay listings, on sale for a few bucks.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
During the latter part of every year, pressure builds as Internet pirates prepare for the inevitable.
Having been sent out to industry professionals “For Their Consideration”, so-called DVD Screener copies of the latest movies begin to hit the Internet.
Last year was a pretty memorable one with some massive titles hitting the web. Both The Revenant and The Hateful Eight were furiously downloaded on BitTorrent before their theatrical debuts, causing shockwaves and controversy as anti-piracy advocates took the opportunity to bemoan droves of “Internet thieves”.
But of course, these leaks have to originate somewhere and as revealed in February with a high-profile arrest, movie insiders are often to blame for content being made available online.
While Kyle Moriarty from Lancaster admitted to copying screeners of The Revenant and The Peanuts Movie while working on a movie studio lot, other DVD screeners do make it to their intended recipients. However, even though these people are supposed to guard the discs with their lives, some don’t appear to do so and are happy to let their friends view them in advance of their theatrical release.
This kind of reckless behavior is welcomed by pirates and almost guarantees a flood of titles hitting BitTorrent around the same time every year. At this point Internet pirates get all the blame yet it’s pretty clear that although the industry doesn’t really want to talk about it, those closer to home are main source of the problem
To see the scale of the issue one only has to turn to the world’s favorite online auction house. Known as a source for just about anything, it turns out that eBay is also a great place to buy DVD screeners, presumably being offloaded directly or indirectly by those who were expected to review them.
For example, for just US$16.53 one can currently buy a lovely Emmy ‘boxed set’ of TV show screeners including episodes of Bates Motel, The Returned, Intervention, Wahlburgers and Married at First Sight.
For those more interested in movies, eBay has plenty of treasures available. Around December 17 last year a DVD screener copy of Straight Outta Compton leaked onto the Internet. Just a handful of months later and it appears that screener recipients are looking to convert those discs into cash via the popular site.
And the more one digs, the more titles appear. A copy of Tom Hardy’s Kray’s movie Legend, for example, along with a vintage copy of Inglourious Basterds, and many, many more besides. Shame the Walking Dead screeners aren’t more recent.
Finally, if binge-watching is more your thing, Netflix screeners are also catered for on eBay. Apparently the company sends out huge box-sets for recipients’ binge-worthy consideration.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
“Without the video I would be in prison. There is no doubt about that.”
The Texas man, Lawrence Faulkenberry, shown being leg whipped and thrown down, was accused of assaulting a police officer. When prosecutors saw the video, they declined to press charges.
That's the conversation 47-year-old Larry Faulkenberry had with an officer of the Caldwell County Sheriff's Department after being leg-whipped to the ground and roughed up by three deputies in January 2015. He was tossed in jail for 10 days and held on $807,000 bail, and was staring down years in prison for three felonies: assaulting a cop, resisting arrest, and other charges.
That's the story Faulkenberry told Ars in a recent telephone interview. The incident took place in a rural county of 40,000 just east of Austin, at the five-acre property where Faulkenberry runs a motorcycle parts shop.
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Terrific fun… for the first two hours.
Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage right here—and let us know what you think.
Looking at the box for Star Wars: Rebellion, the massive new two-to-four-player galactic board game from Fantasy Flight, I had only one thought: "Look at the size of that thing!"
Loosely based on the 1998 video game of the same name, the board game version of Rebellion is ludicrously outsized. The galaxy, too large to fit on a single game board, here sprawls across two. Rebel and Imperial forces aren't represented by cardboard but by 153 plastic miniatures—including three Death Stars and two Super Star Destroyers.
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Annual GDC tradition includes Atari legal smack-talk, Battle.net’s humblest days.
SAN FRANCISCO—Development woes, legal battles, and little-known hacks: these are the cornerstones of the classic gaming post-mortem. Of the many traditions found at the annual Game Developers Conference, none compare to its video game post-mortem panels, which combine beloved games, legendary developers, and previously-unheard anecdotes in a delicious swirl of nostalgic catnip.
This year's installments lived up to expectations by giving up the goods on nearly opposite ends of the classic-gaming divide: action-RPG pioneer Diablo, which turns 20 this year, and the arcade phenomenon that is Ms. Pac-Man.
Many of Pac-Man's historical tidbits came to light five years ago when series creator Toru Iwatani spoke at the original game's 2011 post-mortem panel. (I had the honor of asking Iwatini about the game's name-change from the original Puck-Man, to which he laughed and said, "Don't you already have your answer?") But Ms. Pac-Man's genesis story is quite possibly more interesting—most notably because it wasn't created by Namco's Japanese staff.
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If only we could still play scratch our vinyl records while speeding down country lanes.
What’s the connection between the Beatles’ George Harrison, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, and Chrysler cars? The Highway Hi-Fi: a vinyl record player that just happened to be the world’s first in-car music system. It appeared 60 years ago this spring, in 1956, and should have been a smash hit. It was innovatory, a major talking point, arrived as the car market was booming as never before, and it came with much press hype. It also had the backing of a leading motor manufacturer. What could possibly go wrong?
Unlike car radios—which had already been around for more than a decade—the Highway Hi-Fi actually gave you a choice. The records you wanted to play were picked by you rather than by a DJ in a radio station miles away, and those discs could hold some 90 minutes of music. This playing time was twice what you could get from a normal vinyl record of the mid-1950s—a trick accomplished by dragging the Highway Hi-Fi’s playing speed down to a mere 16.66 RPM, half that of a normal vinyl album. In technological terms, this was seen as a minor miracle.
The Highway Hi-Fi, in action.
And yet, within a year of launch, sales were plummeting, and 12 months after that the Highway Hi-Fi was being withdrawn—also soon to be the fate of the companies that were to "copy" the format.
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Megaupload’s legal team was back in court this week in an effort to reclaim an estimated $67 million in assets previously seized by the U.S. Government. Megaupload’s appellate counsel refuted the claim that Kim Dotcom and his former colleagues are fugitives, noting that the District Court ruling violates due process.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
Following the 2012 raid on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, U.S. and New Zealand authorities seized millions of dollars in cash and other property.
Claiming the assets were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes, the U.S. government launched a separate civil action in which it asked the court to forfeit the bank accounts, cars and other seized possessions of the Megaupload defendants.
The U.S. branded Dotcom and his colleagues as “fugitives” and won their case last summer. However, Megaupload’s legal team soon appealed the verdict and defended its position in the Fourth Circuit appeals court this week.
During the hearing Megaupload Appellate Counsel Michael Elkin pointed out that it was wrong to rely on the ‘fugitive disentitlement‘ doctrine, as Dotcom and his former colleagues were merely exercising their legal right to defend themselves.
Ira Rothken, Kim Dotcom’s Lead Global Counsel, informs TorrentFreak that the District Court’s decision denied defendants’ basic rights and violated due process.
“We asked the Fourth Circuit to rule in favor of fairness, natural justice, and due process by stopping US efforts to take Kim Dotcom’s global assets for doing nothing more than lawfully opposing extradition to the United States—a country he has never been to,” Rothken says.
Rothken believes that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) wrongfully labeled the Megaupload defendants as fugitives and hopes the appeals court will undo the verdict.
“The DOJ in our view is trying to abuse the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine by modifying it into an offensive weapon of asset forfeiture to punish those who fight extradition under lawful treaties, and a provocation for international discord.”
“Today we asked the Court of Appeals for justice,” Rothken adds.
Megaupload’s defense is not alone in this assessment having previously received support from a group of prominent legal experts.
The Cato Institute, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Institute for Justice previously submitted an independent brief in support of Megaupload, describing the assets grab as a dangerous violation of due process rights
“Stripping the claimants of their due process rights isn’t just unconstitutional, it’s dangerous. There’s a growing literature on the abuse of civil forfeiture and those abuses are directly tied to the protections given to the claimants here, as well as the ability of government officials to directly benefit from forfeitures,” they wrote.
The crux of the appeal is whether or not the District Court’s order to forfeit an estimated $67 million in assets was right. According to the Government it was, as the defendants’ due process rights were not violated.
During this week’s hearing Assistant U.S. attorney Jay Prabhu denied any wrongdoing. According to the Government, Kim Dotcom and his colleagues were properly labeled as fugitives. The U.S. feared that Dotcom would get his money back if no action was taken and filed the civil case “as a last resort“.
The case now lies in the hands of the Fourth Circuit appeals court. Their decision will be crucial for the criminal trial, but the Hong Kong and New Zealand courts also have to weigh in on the verdict, as many of the contested assets are located there.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
Der erste Linux-Grafiktreiber für die Polaris-Generation zeigt, dass die Chips ein 128- und ein 256-Bit-Interface und GDDR5(X)-Videospeicher nutzen. Über die Shader-Anzahl verrät der AMDGPU aber nichts. (