The Beta channel of Chrome for Windows, Mac and Linux has just been updated to include a refreshed style of account switcher and a brand new Guest Mode. Chrome Beta 38 refreshes the look entirely of switching users, making it easier to share a computer using Chrome. You'll now get a quick drop-down menu from the system bar that lets you see who's signed in, quickly switch users or open an incognito window.
Al Billings writes, "Jacob Appelbaum discusses the fallacy of Americans thinking that they won't be targeted, passive and active surveillance methods, AI and human analyst systems working together, satellite networks, deep packet inspection & injection, military contractors getting special access to surveillance programs, proprietary vs open source software, OTR messaging, hoarding exploits for self-gain." Read the rest
Making plans with friends can be like herding cats. Finding out who’s available when and trying to get everyone to agree on a place to meet at a certain time is one of the most problematic issues facing this current generation. Unfortunately, most of today’s messaging and calendaring options are insufficiently prepared to deal with this problem. But CalPal is. Read More
Jack Conte is a busy guy. He and his partner, Nataly Dawn, are on tour with Pomplamoose, a band that rivals only OK Go in their dedication to weird and wacky video production and Conte is also co-founder of Patreon, a way to pay artists for their work. This interview, part of our back to school series, is aimed at getting to the bottom of what it means to be a musician in the Internet age and… Read More
Netflix adding a TV show to its streaming library isn't usually a big deal, but things are a little different when that show is one of a major network's biggest new titles. Deadline reports that Netflix is picking up streaming right for NBC's The Blacklist, which became a breakout success last year and reportedly saw around 12 million viewers on each episode. Its first season will reportedly begin streaming next weekend on Netflix, which is the only place that it'll be found online for a while. The series, which follows a fugitive who partners with the FBI to track down other criminals, will begin its second season on NBC in late September.
Netflix is said to be paying handsomely for exclusive initial streaming rights, handing over $2...
Website blocking has become one of the favorite anti-piracy tools of the entertainment industries in recent years.
The UK is a leader on this front, with the High Court ordering local ISPs to block access to dozens of popular file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents.
Not everyone is equally excited about these measures and researchers have called their effectiveness into question. This prompted a Dutch court to lift The Pirate Bay blockade a few months ago. The MPAA, however, hopes to change the tide and prove these researchers wrong.
Earlier today Hollywood’s anti-piracy wish list was revealed through a leaked draft various copyright groups plan to submit to the Australian Government. Buried deep in the report is a rather intriguing statement that refers to internal MPAA research regarding website blockades.
“Recent research of the effectiveness of site blocking orders in the UK found that visits to infringing sites blocked declined by more than 90% in total during the measurement period or by 74.5% when proxy sites are included,” it reads.
MPAA internal research
In other words, MPAA’s own data shows that website blockades do help to deter piracy. Without further details on the methodology it’s hard to evaluate the findings, other than to say that they conflict with previous results.
But there is perhaps an even more interesting angle to the passage than the results themselves.
Why would the MPAA take an interest in the UK blockades when Hollywood has its own anti-piracy outfit (FACT) there? Could it be that the MPAA is planning to push for website blockades in the United States?
This is not the first sign to point in that direction. Two months ago MPAA boss Chris Dodd said that ISP blockades are one of the most effective anti-tools available.
Combine the above with the fact that the United States is by far the biggest traffic source for The Pirate Bay, and slowly the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place.
It seems only a matter of time before the MPAA makes a move towards website blocking in the United States. Whether that’s through a voluntary agreement or via the courts, something is bound to happen.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.
To help shield you from sabotaging your budget, we're exposing eight common overspending triggers—along with smart strategies for how to hit the spending brakes before it's too late.
This post originally appeared at LearnVest.
Finding that covet-worthy pair of jeans at a drastic markdown may just be one of life's greatest rushes. No, wait—it's when you finally redeem the $5 rewards coupon you've been working toward at the drugstore.
Alright, it feels good to get pretty much any kind of deal.
But Reef Karim, D.O., a psychiatrist and director of a California addiction treatment facility, cautions against falling down this bargain-obsessed rabbit hole. "For certain people, when they feel like they're getting a deal, they're more likely to spend—and keep spending—because they're getting this euphoric response from it," Karim says.
Retailers are well aware of this response—and use it to hook shoppers. According to a Fox Business report, stores will often make it appear as if everything is on sale to appeal to frugal shoppers. They may also raise prices, just so they'll have the opportunity to mark them down.
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: Shoppers can—and should—take advantage of legitimately good bargains that can save them money. Just keep this rule in mind: "A deal is never a deal if you have to finance the item on your credit card," says consumer savings maven Regina Novickis. "Accruing interest instantly negates it."
Also, make sure to really evaluate the sale before taking the plunge—especially if you're addicted to sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, which incentivize spending.
So ask yourself: Is the deal really that sweet if it's for an item you don't need? Sure, getting a $300 designer lamp at 50% off might be a steal—if you're in the market for one and budgeted for it. Otherwise, you just dropped $150 for no good reason.
The overwhelming desire to make over your digs—also known as new home syndrome—brings out the spender in the best of us. Window coverings, fancy appliances and "essential" furniture purchases can quickly add up.
Need proof? A 2013 survey between American Express and Echo Research found that nearly three quarters of homeowners planned to spend roughly $4,000 to revamp their digs—and more than $300 of it was allocated for accessories.
However, there's a difference between essential buys and an outright splurge. Do you really need that flat-screen TV or do you just want it because you're in a new home?
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: Before packing up your boxes, identify your must-haves for the new place—then create a realistic spending plan to purchase them. "The key is to realize that you can't do it all at once, so set a budget for things that are essential post-move and those that can wait," says Laura Scharr-Bykowsky, a Certified Financial Planner™ based in Columbia, S.C.
Banking some unexpected cash—by way of a tax refund, work bonus or inheritance—provides a great opportunity for responsible savers to up their savings account balances. But coming into money can also rev up our spending engines.
According to Novickis, it's due to the fact that windfalls can feel disconnected from your everyday budget.
"It's called mental accounting," she says, "which basically means that you treat your 'winnings' less cautiously than you would your regular earnings."
Case in point? Lottery winners who go broke.
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge "If there is no upfront plan [for the windfall], the money starts to burn a hole in people's pockets," says Scharr-Bykowsky, who recently met potential clients who purchased two new cars, a Caribbean vacation and more—all within the first month of receiving an inheritance.
A better approach? Make a plan for your cash before dipping into it.
If you don't have six months' worth of emergency money on hand, Scharr-Bykowsky suggests making that savings goal your first priority. Once you've checked that money to-do off your list, then apply a chunk of the cash toward your retirement.
After that, it's perfectly reasonable to spend some of the money on fun stuff. "Just make sure it's not the entire amount—and that you're still contributing to your overall financial goals," Novickis says. A good rule of thumb: Splurge with 10% of the funds, and budget the rest accordingly for big-picture financial goals.
You already knew it was important to dress the part when meeting a prospective employer for an interview, but here's research that proves it: According to a 2011 study, it only takes someone a quarter of a second to judge your competence and trustworthiness, based on—you guessed it—your appearance.
There's just one problem: A polished, professional look doesn't come cheap. For a basic suit, men can expect to pay anywhere from $300 to $599, while women may fork over roughly $300 for an interview-appropriate ensemble.
And that's not all job-seekers may be tempted to shell out for—eager job hunters often opt for things like a premium LinkedIn membership, which allows users to garner more information about who's been viewing their profiles. The price: as much as $119.95 a month!
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: If you can make it work within your budget, investing in one high-quality outfit, like a stellar interviewing suit, can be well worth your cash—as long as you take care of it and make it last.
Another thing to keep in mind: "Sometimes job-search-related expenses can be tax-deductible," Scharr-Bykowsky says, so talk to your accountant—and keep track of your receipts if you anticipate itemizing your deductions.
And when it comes to those oh-so-tempting LinkedIn upgrades, opt for the basic, free subscription if the expense is out of your budget. With a little elbow grease, you're likely to have just as much luck reaching out to friends and acquaintances, and utilizing social media, to establish valuable contacts. According to a recent Forbes report, 65% of recruiters use Facebook and 55% use Twitter to seek out candidates.
We all have them: high-rolling pals who have no problem throwing money around. And since nobody likes to feel like the cheapskate in the group, meeting up with these types of friends usually leads to a spending hangover the next morning.
"Our identities are often tied to our purchasing habits, especially in public," Karim says. "So when we're out with friends, and we want to make a statement or fit in, our purchasing habits can define us."
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: If possible, try to seek out ways to spend time with your friends without shelling out quite so much, like meeting up for coffee or going on a hike.
But if you've committed to a social situation where you can't avoid going out on the town, Scharr-Bykowsky suggests buddying up with someone who's also looking to curb the overspending urge.
"Pick a friend who'll be your savings buddy, just like the people who team up for accountability when they want to lose weight," she says. "If you have a friend who counteracts the high-spending ones, it will help." With a buddy backing you up, you might be able to convince the group to start the night at a cheaper restaurant.
And according to research out of Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University, there's another upshot: Friends who jointly battled urges to overspend felt more connected to each other.
Excursions, spa treatments and $20 bottles of sunscreen from the resort gift shop often go hand in hand with a relaxing getaway—but they also come at a cost.
According to a 2013 American Express study, the average American spends about $1,145 on summer travel alone. And a chunk of that cash, according to Scharr-Bykowsky, is likely due to lack of proper planning.
"The problem people come into is that they'll budget for just the airfare and the hotel, but they forget about the extras and end up going way over budget," she says.
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: Plotting out your vacation spending money is all about making trade-offs, says Scharr-Bykowsky. If you want to splurge on a higher-end hotel, then plan to cut back on the number of fancy restaurant dinners you'll indulge in.
As for a way to keep those fun vacay "extras" in check, start thinking about the activities you might want to do long before you board that plane. If you do your homework ahead of time and pre-book excursions, you won't be as tempted to pull the trigger on last-minute—and often costly—vacation adventures.
And Novickis has a bonus tip:
Calling the hotel concierge in advance is a good way to find out if they recommend any local providers and what their rates will be. At a minimum, you'll know the costs in advance.
Weddings, baby showers, job promotions, birthdays. The reasons to splurge in the name of celebration are endless. But whether you're spending money on someone else or to treat yourself, the harsh reality is that all that celebrating adds up—fast.
According to Karim, several factors play into why people feel compelled to overspend on loved ones. "Their feelings of affection and connection trump practical needs to watch their spending," he says. In other words, feelings take priority over practicality.
Another factor can be traced back to our relationship with money. Karim says that many of us use money as a way of winning someone over or developing an emotional connection. Other times, we use spending to show how much we care.
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: If you know you have a special occasion coming up, like a birthday or anniversary, start putting money aside well in advance so you're not financially slammed when the event finally rolls around. Even just $20 a week can add up to hundreds if you've got a few months to plan.
But if you're blindsided by a gift-giving occasion—or haven't had time to stash away quite enough cash—Scharr-Bykowsky says it's time to start thinking outside the box.
Instead of dropping a lot of money on a bouquet of roses to accompany the new necklace you've purchased for your significant other, opt for a handwritten love letter. In addition to costing you no additional money, your partner will likely be more touched by the sentiment.
Another smart tact? Offer your time by volunteering to address your best friend's wedding invitations, help make DIY favors for your cousin's baby shower, or whip up your father-in-law's favorite lunch to celebrate his retirement.
Whether it's to shake off a crummy day or toast to a good one, many of us turn to spending as a means of treating ourselves. "I deserve it!" we say as we clock out and head to the manicurist or our favorite restaurant.
The danger with this mindset, according to Karim, is that it directly links your mood to your spending habits—which is a slippery slope.
"When you have a general lack of feeling good, you do things to try and compensate for those feelings," Karim says. "For some people, it's spending and buying things."
How to Overcome the Overspending Urge: As always, reasonable splurges are OK—as long as they comfortably fit into your budget.
But if they don't, or are becoming a little too frequent to justify, Scharr-Bykowsky recommends treating yourself to non-financial rewards that can be just as satisfying, like setting aside time to watch your favorite movie or indulging in a bowl of ice cream. The point is simple: Money isn't the only way to pay yourself.
Photos by Andy Dean Photography (Shutterstock), Jeremy Levine, bpsusf, Gareth Williams, Kenny Louie and Steven Depolo.
Two Cents is a new blog from Lifehacker all about personal finance. Follow us on Twitter here.
Around a year ago, Apple announced the iPhone 5S, the first and so far only phone to run on a 64-bit processor. Now, as noted by AnandTech, HTC has announced the first Android phone to make use of the same ARMv8 technology that Apple's A7 chip employs. Unlike the iPhone 5S, though, HTC's Desire 510 is a pretty budget-conscious affair; aside from the 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with LTE, it features a 4.7-inch 854 x 480 screen, a five-megapixel camera, and 1GB of RAM.
The primary advantage of 64-bit processing is the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM, so the Desire 510 isn't going to set any power records. Android itself doesn't even support 64-bit yet, so unless this phone gets updated from 4.4 KitKat to the...
No more teasers. This is the LG G Watch R — the South Korean manufacturer's second Android Wear smartwatch. It's also the second round entry we've seen this year, the Moto 360 being the other. And it looks like folks are going to have some hard choices to make later this year.
Yes, we said later this year. (Which means we fibbed just a bit when we said "no more teasers.") The LG G Watch R won't be available until October at the earliest — fourth-quarter 2014 is all we've got at this point, and it wouldn't surprise us in the least to see it launch alongside the L version of Android — and we don't yet know the price.
That said, the LG G Watch R is a looker for a number of reasons.
Samsung has released yet another smartwatch, the Gear S, in its lineup of various different sizes, shapes and functionalities. The stars of the show here are the big 2-inch curved AMOLED display and standalone 3G connectivity on the Gear S, but we also have the full internal specs for you to check out.
The Mozilla Foundation -- who make Firefox -- have been doing some really cool things with Firefox's "start page" (the blank screen you get when you open a new browser tab or window), but this is the coolest: an interactive doodle that invites you to learn to code in the simplest, least-intimidating, most fun way possible.
Read the rest
Some of the best sci-fi isn't clean lines and futuristic tech—sometimes it's the run-down, fantastical ruins at the end of the world. Decorate your desktop with them in this week's Wallpaper Wednesday.
Remember, we're now requesting your participation in the Wallpaper Wednesday series! You'll find a selection here, but post your favorites for this week's topic in the discussions below. Stick to our format as best you can, including a title, the image, resolution, and a link. Happy wallpapering!
Download This Wallpaper (1920x1200) | Garcya.us
Download This Wallpaper (1920x1200) | HQ Screen
Download This Wallpaper (1920x1080) | Wallpaper Vortex
Download This Wallpaper (2240x1488) | No. 1 HD Wallpapers
Download This Wallpaper (2000x1250) | Wallpaper Abyss
Download This Wallpaper (2560x1600) | HD Wallpaper Corner
Download This Wallpaper (2000x1351) | DeviantART
Download This Wallpaper (1920x1200) | Wallpapersct
Your childhood has been torn asunder by the Gods that once gifted you. In preparing a Hello Kitty retrospective for the Japanese American National Museum, University of Hawaii Anthropologist Christine R. Yano was given one major correction by Hello Kitty owners Sanrio (via LA Times):
"Hello Kitty is not a cat. She's a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it's called Charmmy Kitty."
Indeed, after rigorously applying a variation of the "Duck test," it all became clear: she only kind of looks like a cat, she doesn't walk like a cat, and she doesn't talk like a cat...
Cats love to jump up on to things. If you're having trouble keeping your cats off certain places, you have to train them by positively reinforcing a "yes" areas for every "no" area.
Emma Christensen at The Kitchn spoke with the cat whisperer Jackson Galaxy—host of Animal Planet's My Cat From Hell—about a common problem many cat owners encounter. Cats always seem to want to be up on the kitchen counter. Galaxy explains why they want to be up there and what you can do:
...cats see our countertops as socially significant places. You're there, you're doing interesting things, and cats want to know what's going on. Plus, of course, that's where their food comes from!
...For every "no," you also need a "yes." If you say "no" to your cat being on the counter while you're making dinner (or any time!), you need to make sure to also give them a safe "yes" place... designate a specific spot in your kitchen, like a nearby chair or a cat tree, where it's ok for your cat to be. Give them treats when they are there so there's positive reinforcement for the new behavior.
For some negative reinforcement, you can try double-sided sticky tape on the counter spots they jump up to most, or—my personal favorite for handling my own cats—a spray bottle filled with a cat's arch nemesis: water. Remember, it's incredibly important that everyone in the household is on board with what areas are "yes" and what areas are "no." Otherwise your cats will find a way to just do it when you're not around. Over time, if you're consistent, your furry friends will understand the rules.
Cat Whisperer Jackson Galaxy's Advice for Keeping Your Cats Off The Counter | The Kitchn
The vast number of mid-range Android devices on the market means there's no shortage of choice for those wanting a smaller, less expensive handset. This year, both HTC and Samsung have fielded "mini" versions of their popular high-end offerings in this form factor, both with 4.5-inch displays and similar hardware loadouts.
As is the case at the high end, HTC and Samsung's mid-level offerings reflect the differences in the two companies' approaches to smartphone design. HTC leads with a flashy metallic chassis and carefully considered software; Samsung is all about expandability and features — what the phone can do more than how it looks.
So it's time to pit these mid-range "minis" against each other. Joins us after the break to see how the Galaxy S5 Mini and HTC One Mini 2 compare.
Earlier this month we reported how media conglomerate ABS-CBN is going after several website owners who link to pirated streams of its programming.
The Philippines-based company filed a lawsuit at a federal court in Oregon looking for millions of dollars in damages from two local residents. The court case has barely started but that didn’t prevent ABS-CBN from using its journalistic outlet to taint public opinion.
In a news report released by its American branch, the company slams the defendants who they align with hardcore criminals.
The coverage is presented as news but offers no balance. Instead it frames online piracy as a threat to everyone, with billions of dollars in losses that negatively impact America’s education and health care budgets.
But it gets even worse. It’s not just public services that are threatened by online piracy according to the news outlet, national security is at stake as well.
“Piracy actually aids and abets organized crime. Gangs and even terrorist groups have reportedly entered the piracy market because the penalties are much lighter than traditional crimes such as drug dealing – and the profit could be much higher,” ABS-CBN’s senior reporter Henni Espinosa notes.
It’s not the first time that we have heard these far-fetched allegations. However, for a news organization to present them without context to further its own cause is a line that not even the MPAA and RIAA would dare to cross today.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, on the other hand, has also noticed the link with organized crime and terrorism.
“[Piracy is] supporting their ability to buy drugs and guns and engage in violence. And then, the support of global terrorism, which is a threat to everybody,” LA County Assistant Sheriff Todd Rogers tells the new outlet.
Los Angeles County police say that piracy is one of their top priorities. They hope to make the local neighborhoods a little safer by tracking down these pirates and potential terrorists.
“To identify bad guys that we need to take out of the community so the rest of the folks can enjoy their neighborhood and their families,” Rogers concludes.
Since the above might have to sink in for a moment, we turn to the two Oregon citizens who ABS-CBN based the report on. Are Jeff Ashby and his Filipina wife Lenie Ashby really hardcore criminals?
Based on public statistics the five sites they operated barely had any visitors. According to Jeff he created them for his wife so she could enjoy entertainment from her home country. He actually didn’t make any copies of the media but merely provided links to other websites.
‘I created these websites for my wife who is from the Philippines, so she and others who are far from the Philippines could enjoy materials from their culture that are otherwise unavailable to them, Jeff Ashby wrote to the court.
“Since these materials were already on the web, we did not think there would-be a problem to simply link to them. No content was ever hosted on our server,” he adds.
The websites were all closed as soon as the Oregon couple were informed about the lawsuit. They regret their mistake and say they didn’t know that it could get them into trouble, certainly not $10 million worth of it.
So are these really the evil drug lords or terrorists the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and ABS-CBN are referring to?
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.
The classic Oreo cookie is a wonderful thing. (By classic, I mean the Double Stuf, let’s be real here.) It’s the right combination of crunchy and soft, sweet and, well, more sweet. It’s the best cookie ever and I won’t hear any arguments.
But that hasn’t stopped Nabisco from messing with the formula. The company has released dozens of variations on the idea: different cookie flavors, different filling, different experiences. Some have been a great success, others never should have left the...
YouTube has videos. Google+ has videos. In fact, Google+ uses the YouTube backend and interface for its videos. So it makes sense that you can seamlessly move uploaded videos between the two. Except that you can't, or at least you couldn't before the latest update to the web versions of both services. You'll need to "merge" your personal YouTube channel with Google+ to take advantage, which might be a sticking point for all those YouTube users that cried foul about the whole username thing a while back.
Google+ Users Can Now Import Videos Straight Into YouTube was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
In addition to today's announcement of new Android phones and tablets and new Windows Phones from Archos, the company is expanding their connected home line with a new home weather station. The spherical pair of devices, due to be announced at IFA 2014 is designed to work with both Android and iOS devices.
The weather station monitors the conditions both inside and outside, and will have available plant sensors as well for keeping tabs on your orchids and whatnot. They'll be tracking temperature, humidity, air quality, atmospheric pressure, and noise levels. The Archos Weather Station system is expected to be available in September for $149.
But new phones, tablets, and weather stations aren't the only thing that Archos has in store for you. There's also a pair of new music devices on tap. The Archos Music Light is a combination LED bulb and Bluetooth speaker that screws into an standard Edison socket for both illumination and tunes for $49. Alas, there doesn't seem to be any controlling of the light remotely, just the music.
But the one we really love is the Archos Music Beany. We'll just let Archos do the describing here:
A plush beany that combines the benefits of a headphone with the style and comfort of a traditional beany."
The Music Beany connects via Bluetooth to your music source, and will retail for $39.
Sure, the tune-pumping lightbulb and beanie might be on the silly side, but the weather station could be interesting. What do you think?
The built-in Google News and Weather app on stock Android devices hasn't been given much attention since back in the Android 2.3 days. That changes today, however, with a major update to the app now hitting the Google Play Store. Google News & Weather version 2.0 is now landing on the Play Store for just about all Android devices, and it's available as an app update for anyone running the old version.
iOS: Time lapse videos are great, but they can be hard to make. Not only are they time consuming, but you need to stabilize your camera and stitch photos into a video. Hyperlapse simplifies the whole process.
This app (from the Instagram team) lets users tap a single button to start recording. Hyperlapse includes digital stabilization, so even if you're holding your phone in your hand, it will attempt to smooth the motion. It's not gonna do professional work for you, but as a consumer-level product, it looks pretty neat. No word on an Android version yet.
Hyperlapse | iTunes App Store via Instagram
With so many GPS pet trackers out there, is there room for yet more? The pet products industry is estimated to be worth $58.5 billion and there are more than 170 million pet dogs and cats in the U.S. alone, and as long as pets keep getting lost, companies will keep figuring out ways to help frantic owners find them. One of them is Pawtrack, which makes a GPS collar specifically for cats. Read More
Several years ago when suing BitTorrent users was gaining in popularity, lawyers on both sides of the copyright fence saw there was good money to be made by getting involved.
On the one hand some lawyers teamed up with piracy monitoring firms to track and then file lawsuits against file-sharers in the hope of grabbing some quick and easy settlement cash. On the other were the “good guys”, lawyers who helped Joe Public defend against the corporate might of those who by now were being openly described as “trolls”.
One such “good guy” was Mike Meier, a DC attorney who previously placed on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s list of file-sharing defense lawyers.
“In my opinion, [settlement outfits] are bill collectors for the movie industry,” Meier said at the time. “They’re basically extorting money”.
Then in November 2011, SJD over at the FightCopyrightTrolls website noticed something interesting. A redesign of Meier’s website revealed that the lawyer had switched sides. No longer was he championing those wrongly accused by “trolls”, but instead the site was acting as an information portal for people Meier himself had sued.
The FightCopyrightTrolls (FCT) article on the topic has remained intact for almost three years but last Friday Meier tried to have it taken down. He went about that in a quite unusual way too, by bypassing the FCT website operators, bypassing their webhost, and going straight for their domain registrar.
Writing directly to registrar Internet.bs, Meier said that various pages on FCT were not only defamatory and libelous, but also infringed upon his copyrights.
“You are hosting a website with information that infringes on my copyrights and defames me. I am requesting that you take that information down immediately,” his letter to Internet.bs reads.
While Meier’s other allegations are focused here, his copyright complaint appears to be directed at screenshots of his website posted by FCT which provide commentary and criticism of Meier’s transformation from one side of the settlement fence to the other.
In his communication with Internet.bs, Meier goes on to warn the registrar that as a service provider the law requires it “to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving this notice” or risk losing its immunity from having a lawsuit brought against itself.
Despite Internet.bs not “hosting a website” as Meier claims, it didn’t stop him from doubling up on his takedown efforts. The domain registrar of another site, ExtortionLetterInfo.com, also received a DMCA notice from Meier after it partially reproduced the article originally published by FCT in 2011 and commented on the same.
To date Meier’s actions appear to have had very little effect, the effect he was hoping for at least. Neither FightCopyrightTrolls nor ExtortionLetter have been taken down in whole or in part by their domain registrars, and the articles in question have now become renewed topics of discussion after being forgotten for several years.
Add to that the method of complaint – what appear to be a pair of flawed DMCA notices sent by an apparent copyright expert – and the information that Meier hoped to suppress will now be more visible than ever before.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.
Today came the surprising news, first reported by The Information and then confirmed by The Wall Street Journal, that Amazon had outbid Google's $1 billion offer for Twitch. At first glance this marriage doesn't make a lot of sense. Amazon isn't well known as a gaming service and its video offerings are principally from film and television studios, not user-generated content. But when you look at where these two companies are trying to go, not where they currently sit, the combination of Amazon and Twitch could be genius.
Those public USB charging points are tempting, but could be used to propagate all kind of grotesque malware (imagine what happens when your phone's camera, mic, storage, keyboard and GPS start leaking your data to voyeurs and identity thieves) -- sure, you can always buy a charge-only cable, but these crowdfunded adapters turn any cable into a power-only source.
Read the rest
When Robin Shimmin (CEO), Nicholas Dart (CTO) and Devran Karaca (COO) quit their well-paid day jobs — at Lotus F1, Deutsche Bank and Ernst & Young, respectively — to found Dojo, they had one thing on their mind: to solve the problem of finding something to do in London, a city all three had moved to after graduating together from Bristol University. Read More
Sony may have indadvertedly leaked their own unannounced smaller tablet and a new smartwatch in a promo for the unrelated Sony SmartBand. The fitness band takes the lead in all the rest of the blocks of the Facebook promo page, but in one instead you can find a small unannounced tablet and an unannounced smartwatch. Could it be the rumored Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and an Android Wear-powered smartwatch. We'll find out more at IFA 2014 in just over a week.
The smartwatch, interestingly, doesn't take many design cues from the previous two generations of the Sony Smartwatch series. The Sony Smartwatch 2 has distinctly body and band divisions, while this teased/leaked smartwatch looks to be something more along the lines of the original Samsung Galaxy Gear and its integrated wrist band.
The tablet displayed looks to be in the 7- to 8-inch range, with a thin and rounded form factor. And, of course, being Sony, the user is watching the latest Spiderman flick by the poolside instead of enjoying being in the actual pool. Sony's products, including the Xperia Z2 Tablet from earlier this year have a tendency to be waterproof, so the poolside setting makes sense.
What do you think, are a smaller Sony tablet and a new Sony smartwatch what you need in your life?
Source: Sony (Facebook); Via: Xperia Blog
Decipher Culver City's parking puzzle, avoid a $73 fine! Photo: CBS Los Angeles. [via]
