News of the Week; October 4, 2017

By Jon Festinger on October 10, 2017

GAMES

  1. Nintendo Creators Program cuts off livestreamers: YouTube Live broadcasts no longer allowed under revenue share initiative
  2. Nintendo no longer welcoming YouTube livestreams of its games: Live gameplay no longer allowed for channels in Nintendo’s revenue sharing program.
  3. Nintendo Bars Its YouTube Partners From Monetizing Their Live Streams
  4. Community registered designs & the CJEU – Nintendo v Big Ben
  5. Another classic Nintendo console, another insane dump of instruction manuals: One year later, and now you’re playing with super instruction manuals.
  6. Nintendo closing Wii Shop Channel: Wii and Wii U users will lose access to online storefront in 2019, sale of Wii Points currency to stop in March
  7. Parents Sue “Subway Surfers” Game for Privacy Violations (or Why Gamedevs Need a COPPA Compliant Privacy Policy)
  8. Netflix hints at move into publishing with Stranger Things: The Game
  9. Netflix Gets Into Game Development With A Mobile Tie-In For ‘Stranger Things’
  10. Unity reacts to Switch development woes: “More than 30% of games on Switch are made with Unity”
  11. Settling the debate: What makes a “core” Mario game? – And what does the argument say about how we define and value games in general?
  12. Sonic 3D Blast’s secret level select was actually a certification-passing trick
  13. ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’s Live-Action Movie Speeds Forward With ‘Deadpool’ Director Tim Miller
  14. Sonic the Hedgehog movie lands at Paramount: Producer behind Fast and the Furious franchise and Blue Streak teams up with Blur Studio co-founder for live-action/CG movie
  15. Chinese dev sues Fox over allegedly bungled Planet of the Apes tie-in game
  16. Dev calls it quits after losing entire game catalog in Valve’s ‘fake games’ purge
  17. Silicon Echo’s reputation is “destroyed beyond repair” after Steam’s fake game crackdown: Studio “forced to give up game development” after its entire catalogue was removed from leading PC marketplace
  18. Valve Collaborates with Fans Through New Shapeways 3D Printing Licensing Agreement
  19. Idea v. Expression: Game Studio Bluehole Gets Its Fur Up Over Epic Games Putting 100 Vs. 100 Player Battle Royale Into Game
  20. Can Cloned Video Games Survive the Battle Royale? 
  21. Loot boxes have reached a new low with Forza 7’s “pay to earn” option – Rant: The scourge must be stopped.
  22. New casino game lets you bet real money on Pac-Man: Pac-Man Battle Casino part of a trend towards skill-based casino gambling.
  23. Overwatch director gets candid about the ‘scary’ side of game dev
  24. Overwatch director says it’s “scary” to be open with players: Amid threats and attacks, “It often feels like there is no winning.”
  25. Jeff Kaplan: ”It often feels like there is no winning” against toxic Overwatch users – Game director says forums don’t feel like a safe environment for his team
  26. Riot dev out after taking shots at oft-banned player: League of Legends studio apologizes to Tyler1 after lead experience designer speculates on his demise
  27. How to fight online hate in a GamerGate world, according to Zoe Quinn – Molly Sauter: Crash Override succeeds in conveying what it is like to be the target of a sustained, misogynistic harassment campaign
  28. Inbetween Games’ debut is a tribute to Berlin’s diversity: With All Walls Must Fall, a team of ex-Yager devs have captured the energy and inclusivity of the German capital
  29. Denuvo Game Cracked In Mere Hours
  30. FIFA 18 takes No.1, three out of five copies sold on PS4
  31. Why one Japanese entrepreneur is using an RPG to help fight depression
  32. PlayStation introduces credit card: The card promises rewards such as games, DLC, electronics and more
  33. Sony releasing updated PlayStation VR in Japan this month: Western release to follow, introduces stereo headphone cable support and new Processor Unit with HDR pass through
  34. Steam, Samsung and Halo all coming to Windows Mixed Reality: SteamVR preview now available to developers, Samsung Odyssey headset announced, and Halo Recruit VR experience will launch on October 17
  35. Microsoft acquires social VR platform AltspaceVR
  36. AltspaceVR is now part of Microsoft: Social VR company saved from going out of business by acquisition deal
  37. The inside story of the Xbox One X: Microsoft has created the world’s most powerful console. Could this next-generation machine lead to the rise of games as high art?
  38. World’s Largest Cinema Chain, AMC, Leads $30M Investment to Bring VR to Movie Theaters: Partnering with Dreamscape Immersive
  39. 35% of UK adults have heard of eSports, but only 7% are tuning in
  40. 35% of UK adults aware of esports – but only 7% watch it: YouGov study puts Britain at the bottom of the table when compared to China, the US, Germany and more
  41. Esports Leagues Set To Level Up With Permanent Franchises
  42. Immortals split threatens Counter-Strike team: Five-man squad sees one player fired, two more indefinitely suspended after missing tournament matches, making Twitter death threat
  43. Champions of the Shengha introduces moneyback guarantee: BfB Labs offers full refund after ten days for £40 heart-tracking mobile game
  44. Alibaba establishes games division to create titles in-house
  45. Alibaba planning to establish dedicated games business unit: Chinese e-commerce giant acquires online games firm EJoy, aims to “pursue excellence” in the industry
  46. The Strong’s latest windfall: Artifacts from the first coin-op game maker
  47. Ubisoft using machine learning to translate hieroglyphics: The Assassin’s Creed developer has put out a call for historians and researchers to aid in the project
  48. Can developers control streamers?: Reed Smith partner Carolyn Pepper walks through the options available if studios wish to stop influencers covering their games
  49. Bungie goes indie, BioWare gets bought – 10 Years Ago This Month: Halo studio gets its freedom from Microsoft as Electronic Arts acquires Mass Effect maker and Pandemic
  50. Microsoft alters Forza Motorsport 7 VIP pass store language following backlash
  51. Brain in a Jar 1: Two Systems
  52. How hitting a game cartridge unlocks gaming’s weirdest Easter egg: Sonic 3D Blast trick started as way to hide game-breaking bugs.
  53. Connecting educators with the unique teaching ability of games

DIGITAL

  1. Bad Info Follows Every Tragedy. Don’t Fall For It
  2. Google’s Top Stories Promoted Misinformation About the Las Vegas Shooting From 4Chan 
  3. Google admits citing 4chan to spread fake Vegas shooter news: 4chan was, for some reason, counted among Google News’ “authoritative” sources.
  4. The Death Loop
  5. This “Ghost Gun” Machine Now Makes Untraceable Metal Handguns
  6. Myanmar’s Internet Disrupted Society—And Fueled Extremists
  7. As US launches DDoS attacks, N. Korea gets more bandwidth—from Russia: Fast pipe from Vladivostok gives N. Korea more Internet in face of US cyber operations.
  8. Sirius XM Uses DMCA To Memory Hole Archive Of Howard Stern’s Interviews With Donald Trump
  9. Years of Howard Stern’s interviews with Trump now gone after DMCA takedown: “This is the only public version of a massive quarter century trove of interviews.”
  10. Former Revenge Porn Site Operator Readies For Senate Run By Issuing Bogus Takedown Requests To YouTube
  11. Copyright Troll Carl Crowell Ups The Ante: Now Demands Accused Pirates Hand Over Their Hard Drives
  12. Shouldn’t Federal Judges Understand That Congress Did Not Pass SOPA?
  13. ‘Six Strikes’ May Be Dead, But ISPs Keep Threatening To Disconnect Accused Pirates Anyway
  14. Supreme Court Won’t Review US Government Getting To Steal All Of Kim Dotcom’s Stuff
  15. Supreme Court won’t hear Kim Dotcom’s civil forfeiture case – Dotcom’s lawyer: “It is a bad day for due process and international treaties.”
  16. Supreme Court says live streaming would “adversely affect” oral arguments: Court wants transparency “while preserving the integrity of its proceedings.”
  17. Federal Court Rejects Absurd Attempt to Sue #BlackLivesMatter, the Hashtag
  18. Coffee Subscription Lawsuit Involving Negative Option Contracts a Wake-up Call for Online Sellers 
  19. Female ex-Oracle engineers sue for gender discrimination: Oracle, like Google, stands accused of paying women less than male equivalents.
  20. Why Tech Leadership Has A Bigger Race Than Gender Problem
  21. Oracle Tells The White House: Stop Hiring Silicon Valley People & Ditch Open Source
  22. Elsevier’s Latest Brilliant Idea: Adding Geoblocking To Open Access
  23. As ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Shows, The Streaming Exclusivity Wars Risk Driving Users Back To Piracy
  24. That Flag-Burning NFL Photo Isn’t Fake News. It’s A Meme
  25. Amazon’s First NFL Stream Posts Solid Numbers Despite Glitches, Paywall
  26. With 372,000 Average Viewers, Amazon Tops Twitter In First Stream Of NFL’s ‘Thursday Night Football’
  27. Amazon’s Attribution Approach To Streaming NFL Games
  28. Couple Grifts Amazon Out of $1.2 Million in Electronics
  29. Facebook: Ten million people exposed to Russia-linked ads
  30. Why Trump Hate and Russian Ads Are Good for Facebook
  31. Russia’s Facebook Ads Will Remain Secret, For Now
  32. Russian Facebook ads featured anti-immigrant messages, puppies, women with rifles: See some of the ads used “to sow discord and chaos, and divide us from one another.”
  33. Facebook loses attention as publishers shift focus to other platforms
  34. Who Will Take Responsibility For Facebook?
  35. Google and Facebook Failed Us: The world’s most powerful information gatekeepers neglected their duties in Las Vegas. Again.
  36. Does Even Mark Zuckerberg Know What Facebook Is?: The same company that gives you birthday reminders also helped ensure the integrity of the German elections.
  37. The U.S. Election System Remains Deeply Vulnerable, But States Would Rather Celebrate Fake Success
  38. Silicon Valley isn’t just disrupting democracy—it’s replacing it
  39. Trustworthy Networking
  40. How Vice reassures brand-safety conscious advertisers
  41. Uber Knew Its Self-Driving Guru Had Taken Google’s Trade Secrets, Report Says
  42. Waymo vs. Uber: unsealed court documents reveal damning evidence – Reports show lies, visits to shredder, and evasive texts 
  43. Google May Not Need A Smoking Gun To Win Its Case Against Uber
  44. Here’s the “due diligence” report Waymo hopes will win its case against Uber – Otto’s head of HR: “I’m gonna go get your stuff destroyed this afternoon btw.”
  45. Uber Charges Passenger Clueless About Surge Pricing $925 For Ride
  46. Uber expands board to 17 members, reduces Kalanick’s power: A month into new job, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is making his mark at Uber.
  47. Uber investors to former CEO: We’ll sue you if you don’t vote how we want: “Our clients have authorized us to pursue any and all legal recourse… ”
  48. Section 230’s Applicability to ‘Inconsistent’ State Laws 
  49. How Europe is going after big tech when no one else is
  50. Never Enough: EU Demands Social Media Companies Do The Impossible Even Faster
  51. Inmates Need Social Media. Take It From A Former Prisoner
  52. The Hardest Medium to Troll
  53. Microsoft Discontinues Groove Music, Partners With Spotify Instead
  54. Microsoft getting out of the music biz, moving Groove subs to Spotify: The app will stick around for local playback, but streaming is gone.
  55. Beauty for girls, pranks for boys – it’s the same old gender stereotypes for YouTube stars
  56. YouTube Adds iMessage Support To Make Sharing Videos Even Easier
  57. YouTube Restricts Externally-Linking End Cards (Include Those To Patreon) To Members Of Its Partner Program
  58. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Launches New Channel With Influencer-Packed Intro Video
  59. YouTube TV To Serve As Presenting Sponsor Of The 2017 World Series
  60. YouTube Grows Up: Inside the Plan to Take on Netflix and Hulu
  61. Stupid Patent Of The Month: Will Patents Slow Artificial Intelligence?
  62. EFF: Stupid patents are dragging down AI and machine learning – “The patent reads like the table of contents of an intro to AI textbook.”
  63. Sex Trafficking Experts Say SESTA Is the Wrong Solution
  64. Artificial Intelligence Is Our Future. But Will It Save Or Destroy Humanity?
  65. DeepMind wants to answer the big ethical questions posed by AI
  66. How To Build A Self-Conscious Machine
  67. The Myth Of A Superhuman AI
  68. In AI We Trust? (Urs Gasser)
  69. Mr. Know-It-All: Is It Ok For Me To Ask Customer Service Reps If They’re Robots?
  70. Google’s DeepMind Launches Ethics Group to Steer AI
  71. Google’s AI Still Isn’t Smarter Than a First Grader
  72. What Happened When I Wore Google And Levi’s “Smart” Jacket For A Night
  73. Google’s Gadget Vision: Same Stuff, Different Screens
  74. Google unveils a $249 smart camera that decides what’s worth photographing: You can leave it lying around or wear it.
  75. Google Pixel Buds are wireless earbuds that translate conversations in real time: Google Translate in your ears for $159.
  76. Chinese High-Tech Startups: Now More Copied Than Copying
  77. Showtime Won’t Explain Why Its Website Was Hijacking User Browsers To Covertly Mine Cryptocurrency
  78. South Korea joins China in banning coin offerings: Money has flooded in an “unproductive and speculative direction,” official says.
  79. Looking Through an IP Lens at Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
  80. Cryptocurrencies: securities law implications
  81. Cryptocurrency: A ‘Snap’ on Developments
  82. LG is releasing a mosquito-repellent phone, but it probably won’t work: It claims to repel mosquitoes with ultrasonic waves, but scientists are skeptical.
  83. How VR Saves Lives In The OR
  84. The 3 Biggest Challenges Facing Augmented Reality Today
  85. Where Are The Drones That Could Be Saving Puerto Rico?
  86. Stop The Endless Scroll. Delete Social Media From Your Phone
  87. The War on General-Purpose Computing Turns on the Streaming Media Box Community
  88. Spurs Pitched Austin As Tech Hub To Lure Iguodala From Warriors
  89. App Listening For Audio Beacons May Be Illegal Wiretapping–Rackemann v. Colts (Eric Goldman)

CREATIVITY

  1.  How The Supreme Court’s Continued Misunderstanding Of Copyright Ruined Halloween
  2. Crown copyright alive and well in new decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal (Teresa Scassa)
  3. The Eggshell Attorney General: Jeff Sessions wants a First Amendment that celebrates robust criticism of everyone but himself. 
  4. New York voters have no 1st Amendment right to snap ballot-booth selfies: “The State’s interest in the integrity of its elections is paramount,” court says.
  5. Kmart faces copyright lawsuit for selling the wrong banana costume: Copyright law has gone bananas after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
  6. King’s College Football Coach Sued For Copyright Infringement For Retweeting A Book Page 2 Years Ago
  7. The Long Read: Confessions Of An English Music-Pirate
  8. Politics in the Workplace: Do NFL Players Have Freedom of Speech to Protest at Games?
  9. Police Chief Takes To Facebook To Complain About A Journalist Committing Journalism
  10. Judge: Barrett Brown donors can sue government over subpoenaed records – San Francisco activist led campaign to raise money for jailed journalist.
  11. The Trump Administration is Investigating the “Theft of IP” by China: What You Need to Know About Trademarks in China
  12. ASA cracking down on gender stereotypes in advertisements
  13. Unbalancing Act: How Conferences Perpetuate The Music Industry’s Gender Parity Crisis – Conferences have the opportunity to improve on reality’s mistakes. Unfortunately, the data shows otherwise.
  14. Lynda Carter to James Cameron: ‘Stop Dissing Wonder Woman, You Poor Soul’
  15. Remembering Tom Petty, Unlikely Video Pioneer

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Globe editorial: A bad idea for ‘fixing’ Canada’s internet rules
  2. Joly’s Digital Cancon Plan: Netflix May Be The Star, But No New Regulations, Taxes or Bailouts is the Story (Michael Geist)
  3. Cancon 2.0 and the Netflix deal: The 10 key takeaways – On Thursday, the Heritage Minister unveiled ‘Creative Canada,’ the first major overhaul of the cultural funding regime in more than 25 years. Here’s what you need to know
  4. Five reasons to like Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s Netflix deal
  5. Netflix commits to a $400 million investment in Canadian film and TV: It’s the company’s first permanent production outside the US
  6. Netflix Canada and the Misleading Claims About “Level Playing Fields” (Michael Geist)
  7. The Launch of ‘Creative Canada’: Some Brief Thoughts Following the Minister’s Speech
  8. Canada’s Cultural Funding Regime Receives Overhaul
    ‘Creative Canada’ – More Musings
  9. Fake Data on Fakes: Digging Into Bell’s Dubious Canadian Piracy Claims (Michael Geist)
  10. Bell MTS hikes most of its rates
  11. Secretary of State refers Fox/Sky merger to the CMA on public interest grounds
  12. FCC chair accused of ignoring investment data in push to end net neutrality: Pai ignores cyclical nature of wireless network investment, critics say.
  13. ISPs want Supreme Court to kill Title II net neutrality rules now and forever: FCC may soon revoke net neutrality rules, but ISPs want immunity from regulation.
  14. Hoping The Third Time’s The Charm, ISPs Urge Supreme Court To Kill Net Neutrality
  15. Net neutrality debate ‘controlled by bots’
  16. Trump’s FCC Boss Blasts Apple For Refusing To ‘Turn On’ FM iPhone Chipsets That Don’t Actually Exist
  17. FCC chief Ajit Pai wants Apple to stop disabling FM radio chips in iPhones: Pai cites public safety concerns; Apple says new iPhones have no FM chip at all.
  18. Ajit Pai gets new term on FCC despite protest of anti-net neutrality plan: Democrats objected to Pai’s re-nomination, but Republicans had his back.
  19. Why some Senate Democrats voted to give Ajit Pai another term on FCC: Pai’s support mostly came from GOP senators, but four Democrats broke ranks
  20. Broadband Lobbyists Gush Over Re-Appointment Of Trump’s FCC Boss
  21. AT&T’s wireless home Internet, with 160GB cap, is now in 18 states: AT&T got nearly $3 billion federal subsidy to connect 1.1 million rural customers.
  22. As Broadband Usage Caps Expand, Nobody Is Checking Whether Usage Meters Are Reliable
  23. T-Mobile agrees to stop claiming its network is faster than Verizon’s: Verizon wins ruling as T-Mobile’s use of crowdsourced speed tests is criticized.
  24. What’s Going on With the Rumored, Not Good T-Mobile and Sprint Merger

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. So, Uh, That Billion-Account Yahoo Breach Was Actually 3 Billion
  2. Every Yahoo account that existed—all 3 billion—was compromised in 2013 hack: It’s official. If you had a Yahoo account in 2013, it was compromised.
  3. Hacks Are Always Worse Than Reported: All Of Yahoo Email Was Hacked In 2013. All. Of. It.
  4. NSA warned White House against using personal email: In briefings to incoming Trump aides, security officials highlighted the dangers of unsecured email and phones.
  5. NSA Warned Trump Staffers Against Personal Email/Device Use; Were Ignored
  6. The NSA Warned Jared Kushner Not to Do the Dumb Email Thing That He Then Did
  7. After Kushner’s private e-mail became known, it moved to Trump Org servers: In late September, it changed from outlook.com to mailhost01.trumporg.com.
  8. Well-Known Email Prankster Ends Up With Sensitive Document From Jared Kushner’s Lawyer
  9. Congressman demands to know if DHS will collect his social media history, too – Rep. Ted Lieu, naturalized American: “Does your proposed rule apply to me?”
  10. Use of Search Warrants to Create Trump Enemies List Continues
  11. Justice Department Demands Names of Thousands Who Liked Anti-Trump Facebook Page
  12. DOJ’s Facebook Warrants Target Thousands Of Users For Protesting Inauguration
  13. FOIA’ed Documents Show NSA Abuse Of Pen Register Statutes To Collect Content
  14. FBI may keep secret the name of vendor that cracked terrorist’s iPhone: Judge agrees with FBI that national security trumps the public’s right to know.
  15. SEC hack came as internal security team begged for funding: Forensic investigative unit was forced to use equipment tagged for scrap.
  16. The new surveillance state
  17. Sounding the privacy alarm
  18. As Expected, EU Court Of Justice To Review If Internet Company’s Privacy Practices Are Acceptible
  19. An alarming number of patched Macs remain vulnerable to stealthy firmware hacks: At-risk EFI versions likely put Windows and Linux PCs at risk, too.
  20. New Equifax CEO offers “sincere and total apology” to consumers: Embattled company vows to give consumers more control over their credit data.
  21. Equifax, Which Said Executives Did Not Know of Hack Before Trades, Has Launched a ‘Thorough Review’
  22. Equifax Was Warned About Vulnerability But Failed To Patch It
  23. Can Equifax’s Offerings Actually Protect Your Identity?
  24. A series of delays and major errors led to massive Equifax breach: Former CEO’s testimony to Congress reveals a shocking lack of security rigor.
  25. 6 Fresh Horrors From The Equifax CEO’s Congressional Hearing
  26. IRS awards Equifax no-bid, $7.25 million contract after hack: “This is considered a critical service that cannot lapse.”
  27. Into the Breach: How Canada’s Security Breach Disclosure Regulations Fall Short (Michael Geist)
  28. Auto Location Tracking Company Leaves Customer Data Exposed Online
  29. “NSFW” doesn’t begin to describe Bluetooth security in sex toys: Poor security lets connected “wearables” be hijacked by attackers.
  30. Can Pseudonyms Make Better Online Citizens?

Jon

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