GAMES
- ZeniMax pressures Prey for the Gods devs to make a name change
- Prey developer: Go ahead, use Steam refunds to demo our game – Colantonio – “Steam players can just return the game” before playing for two hours.
- Nintendo issues unsurprising take down notice for fan-made Zelda: “Breath of the NES” developer publishes email from NoA attorney
- Nintendo comes out on top in Mii patent infringement case
- Copyright claim yanks fan-made Breath of the Wild 2D adaptation: Creator vows it will be back ‘bigger and better than ever.’
- Nintendo sold 2.3 million NES Classic Editions
- Nintendo Switch sold 2.74 million units in March alone: Profits up 5x in the last fiscal year, with Nintendo expecting a further 10 million Switch sales in the year ahead
- Switch shipments selling out same day – GameStop: Specialty retailer can’t keep console stocked nearly two months after launch
- Switch boasts 2:1 software tie ratio: Sales not limited to Zelda, as Nintendo touts figures for 1-2 Switch, Super Bomberman R, and Snipperclips
- Nintendo president: Switch can approach ‘relative parity’ with Wii
- Super Mario Run nearing 150m downloads: Nintendo’s mobile platformer has been installed on nearly 72m devices since January
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe becomes fastest-selling title in franchise history
- Nintendo now believes Switch can reach Wii sales levels: “We have greatly increased the quantity we can produce in a single month,” says Tatsumi Kimishima
- 4 interesting comments from Nintendo’s Q&A session
- Epic, near-EVE-worthy troll sabotages Elite: Dangerous community event – “Smiling Dog Crew” shows how you should never let a wolf guard your chickens.
- Sarkeesian finishes Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Feminist Frequency founder reflects on five years of harassment and progress as she brings video series to a “bittersweet” close
- Breathing In: The Industry in Consolidation – Vivendi, Tencent, Softbank, Activision; the list of companies with billion-dollar shopping lists continues to grow. Is Disney next?
- 20 million PlayStation 4 consoles were sold in just the last year
- Profits up in Sony’s games division as PS4 sales near 60M
- Hearthstone gains 20M players in a year, surpassing 70M to date
- Some advice for modders from the creator of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
- Game Maker Sues Milwaukee Over Permit Requirement To Make Augmented Reality Games
- VR exclusivity should be a last resort – Owlchemy: Job Simulator studio boss Alex Schwartz talks about his approach to the VR market, where it’s headed and why AR is much further away
- You Can Catch A Real Ball While Immersed In Virtual Reality, So What Comes Next?
- Unity CEO: VR Will Get Huge, But Devs Need to Survive and Avoid Hype Until it Does
- VR/AR to “rival the internet” – Riccitiello: Unity boss kicks off the Vision Summit, noting the success and opportunity in the burgeoning VR/AR market
- Oculus VR is the latest company to forgo paying for a booth at E3
- The Story of NESticle, the Ambitious Emulator That Redefined Retro Gaming: The product of a talented programmer who designed a hit shareware game while he was still in high school, NESticle was so good that everyone looked past the fact its name was basically a dick joke.
- Online games in China are now required to disclose random loot box odds
- Was Uber’s CEO really the second-best Wii Sports tennis player? – Short answer: “Yes, with an if…” Long answer: “No, with a but…
- NBA COO Mark Tatum Reaffirms Global Vision For New NBA 2K Esports League
- eSports investments need a 10-year view – Hi-Rez: Smite and Paladins studio co-founder says competitive gaming is more about community than revenue, takes stock of console platforms’ changing attitudes on free-to-play
- “2022 Asian Games is another step towards mainstream acceptance of esports”: Pro-gaming leaders discuss the recent introduction of esports in the Asian games
- The Rock Hilariously Reveals Rampage Movie’s Plot: “And when I find them, I will not lick them.”
- Mental Models: The reality that we sense in front of us is a fiction created by our brains. A host of modules process information in various ways and the end result is a mental model of the outside world. Knowing how this works is crucial to game development as the shape of these mental simulations has a huge effect on how a game feels and plays.
- The AI revolution is making game characters move more realistically: Neural network makes for smarter-looking avatars, not just smarter enemies
- Video Games Are Better Without Stories: Film, television, and literature all tell them better. So why are games still obsessed with narrative? (Ian Bogost)
- A Dream of Embodied Experience: On Ian Bogost, Epistemological Gatekeeping, and the Holodeck (Bianca Batti & Alisha Karabinus)
DIGITAL
- Report: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel “worthless”: Leaked 2017 document reveals FB Australia’s intent to exploit teens’ words, images.
- Facebook Told Advertisers How It Could Target Vulnerable Teens: “Anxious” and “overwhelmed” Australians as young as 14 were swept up by algorithm, though Facebook said it was never used to target ads
- Facebook: leaking info about gender bias damages our ‘recruiting brand’ – Tech company is disputing analysis that female engineers have code rejected 35% more than male engineers and said such leaks make it harder to hire women
- Facebook To Target Fake News “Information Operations”: The social media giant is getting serious about its role in global civics
- Facebook enters war against “information operations,” acknowledges election hijinx: Facebook no longer wants to be a tool for enlisting “useful idiots.”
- Facebook will hire 3,000 more moderators to keep deaths and crimes from being streamed
- Response To Facebook Video Of Murder Is The Call For An Actual ‘Godwin’s Law’
- Mounting Privacy Problems In Europe For Facebook’s Acquisition Of WhatsApp
- The Age of Misinformation: Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft must recognize a special responsibility for the parts of their services that host or inform public discourse. (Jonathan Zittrain)
- A Look at Government Censorship in the Age of Facebook
- The Terrible History Of Using Biased Technology To Lock People Up: Courts are relying on racist algorithms in judicial decisions — apparently we’ve learned nothing from the rise and fall of the polygraph
- More penalties for digital “drip pricing”
- New Tools Allow Voice Patterns To Be Cloned To Produce Realistic But Fake Sounds Of Anyone Saying Anything
- Zillow Sued By Homeowner Because Its Estimate Is Lower Than The Seller Wants To Sell The House For
- New Private Right of Action in Canada for False or Misleading Electronic Advertising
- Companies Don’t Really Want You to Read Their Terms of Service: As the uproar over Unroll.me shows, being opaque is part of their business model.
- Brands and Influencers Continue to Flout Disclosure Rules Despite FTC Warning
- Your Newest Instagram Follower, the FTC: Agency Reminds Endorsers and Marketers to #Disclose with Over 90 Warning Letters
- Website/App Provider in Hot Water for Ambiguous Privacy Policy
- Neo-Nazi website unleashed Internet trolls against a Jewish woman, lawsuit says
- Suing the trolls: A woman’s lawsuit against a neo-Nazi’s “troll storm” could change how to fight back against online harassment
- White Supremacists, Brought To You By Squarespace: Website building service Squarespace’s acceptable use policy bans bigotry. So why does it allow prominent white nationalists to use it to create their websites?
- ‘Troll Army’ Raises $24K In One Day For Neo-Nazi Leader’s Legal Fund: Andrew Anglin’s trolls are emptying their pockets to preserve his neo-Nazi blog
- 20,000 Chinese writers will create their own Wikipedia competitor
- Prior Exposure Increases Perceived Accuracy of Fake News (Gordon Pennycock, Tyrone Cannon, David Rand)
- Combating Fake News: An Agenda for Research and Action
- Copyright Troll Sends DMCA Notices Targeting Anti-Troll Websites & Lawyers
- DMCA and monitoring – damned if you do, damned if you don’t?
- Kodi: The copyright cops want to lock up this free and legal TV app – Fully loaded Kodi boxes, the future of home entertainment, are a thorn in the side of Big Content
- Italian court finds Google and YouTube liable for failing to remove unlicensed content (but confirms eligibility for safe harbour protection)
- When a ‘Remix’ Is Plain Ole Plagiarism: Digital technologies make it easier for people to copy the work of other artists—yet the same tools make it more likely for them to get caught.
- Lawyering at the Edge of Innovation: A Conversation with Kent Walker, Google’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President
- Filmspeler, the right of communication to the public, and unlawful streams: a landmark decision
- You Can’t Be Fired For a Facebook Post Calling Your Boss a “LOSER”–NLRB v. Pier Sixty
- Google rater fired after speaking to Ars about work conditions: After public revelations, workers report chaos, layoffs, and at least one firing.
- Internal Uber e-mail reveals Levandowski stepping down from self-driving car job: “I will be recused from all LiDAR-related work and management at Uber.”
- Sent to Prison by a Software Program’s Secret Algorithms
- Washington State Enacts Law Defining Licensing Requirements for Transmitters of Money and Virtual Currency
- The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics: Technology is evolving faster than the legal and moral frameworks needed to manage it.
- Catching Up On Some Recent Click Fraud Rulings (Eric Goldman)
- Will Technology Destroy Our Democracy–or Save It? A Series of Papers at The Atlantic (Eric Goldman)
- European Court Of Justice Tightens Screws On “Streaming”
- Twitter Goes Bigger On Video With 16 New Streaming Partnerships
- Twitter Announces New Sports Live Streaming Initiatives With 24-Hour Sports Channel, NFL, WNBA, PGA TOUR
- Hulu’s Live TV Service Launches To Save You From Your Cable Bill
- Hulu debuts $40-per-month live TV streaming service with over 50 channels: And it includes Hulu’s regular subscription content, too.
- Yik Yak is finally relegated to the dustbin of Internet history: Founders not totally closing up shop, will “start tinkering around” for a while.
- Why is Microsoft trying to turn its Surface business into the next Nokia?: Microsoft is developing a worrying habit of neglecting its hardware products.
- Samsung could displace Intel as the world’s biggest chip company in 2017
- Dating App Lets You Flirt With Coworkers On Slack: Feeld introduces a Slack bot to encourage workplace romances
- DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills
- The Google Assistant SDK will let you run the Assistant on anything: Build your own Google Home out of whatever you want.
- YouTube Says Its Six-Second Ads Result In “Significant” Lift In 70% Of Cases
- Apple Music To Supply Songs For Musical.ly As Part Of Larger Partnership
- This Week In Creative Commons History
CREATIVITY
- French Court Finds Jeff Koons Appropriated Copyrighted Photograph That “Saved Him Creative Work”
- Khloé Kardashian sued by paparazzi agency for copyright infringement
- Kardashian #copyright saga
- Andy Warhol Foundation Asks SDNY to Declare Prince Series Not Infringing
- The Michelle Obama Mural Controversy, Explained
- Myth: Fair use decimated educational publishing in Canada
- Can You Copyright Infringe Anonymously?
- This Is The Story About Robert Kraft’s Casino Holdings That Rupert Murdoch’s Paper Never Ran
- Game of Thrones-inspired SodaStream advert banned for being offensive
- Without Volitional Conduct, Establishing Direct Copyright Infringement Gets Hairy
- Australia’s Copyright Agency Keeps $11 Million Meant For Authors, Uses It To Fight Introduction Of Fair Use
- Hacker leaks Orange is the New Black new season after ransom demands ignored: Breach of post-production company poses potential threat to many networks’ shows.
- That Orange Is the New Black Leak Was Never Going to Pay Off
- Hacker Extortion Attempt Falls Flat Because Netflix Actually Competes With Piracy
- The Company Behind “The National Enquirer” Just Bought “Us Weekly” — Here’s Why That Matters: American Media — the company behind the National Enquirer, Radar Online, and a handful of others — recently acquired Us Weekly. Its editorial director, Dylan Howard, has an old-fashioned newfangled vision for the future of the tabloid in the era of Trump.
- Is ‘Wonder Woman’ receiving the same advertising treatment as her Justice League peers?
- Parody Protection For Fair Use Is Important: Taiwanese Man Faces Jail Time Over Parody Videos Of Movies
- Exclusive: The Leaked Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Is Beyond Parody – But it’s also the latest chapter in the battle between consumers and advertisers in the digital age.
- ‘Hot Girls Wanted’ Producers Deny Outing Sex Workers: They also mock their accusers and allege that sex workers were pressured into making claims against the Netflix series
- Mac DeMarco Tells Concert Goers To Go Pirate His Music
- The Reports Of The Record Industry’s Rebirth Are Greatly Exaggerated
- New York City’s Museum of Trash Rescued by a Sanitation Worker: Tucked away on the second floor of an East Harlem garage, the Treasures in the Trash Museum features items saved from the landfill over three decades by Nelson Molina.
- Could libel laws change under Trump?
- No, President Trump Isn’t Ditching The First Amendment, But He Is Undermining Free Speech
- Is It Time To Examine The Concept Of Originality In Musical Works? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Is Trademark Dilution a Unicorn? An Experimental Investigation (Barton Beebe, Roy Germano, Christopher Jon Sprigman & Joel Steckel)
- What does a counterfeit look like? (Rebecca Tushnet)
- US companies can be enjoined from false advertising in China (Rebecca Tushnet)
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Ex-CRTC commissioner claims victory following Federal Court ruling
- Why Canada’s Net Neutrality Commitment Places Consumers in Control (Michael Geist)
- Too little, too late? FCC wins net neutrality court case: Wheeler’s court win over ISPs reaffirmed, but Pai plans to overturn the rules.
- ISPs Lose En Banc Appeal, Current Net Neutrality Rules Remain Intact…For Now
- GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority: ISPs would gain the freedom to block and throttle websites and applications.
- Don’t Get Fooled: The Plan Is To Kill Net Neutrality While Pretending It’s Being Protected
- F.C.C. Invokes Internet Freedom While Trying to Kill It
- Verizon and AT&T both launched misleading services this week — and it points to a larger problem
- Verizon’s bizarre claim that the FCC isn’t killing net neutrality rules: Verizon says it supports open Internet rules despite its role in ending them.
- New Verizon Video Blatantly Lies About What’s Happening To Net Neutrality
- Net neutrality rules took away your Internet freedom, FCC chair claims: It’s not clear exactly which “freedoms” ordinary consumers lost.
- Soundboard Technology Calls Qualify as Robocalls Under TCPA
- Google Fiber building in Louisville despite lawsuit from AT&T and Charter: Google Fiber filing permit to begin construction in Louisville.
- ESPN Axes Long-Standing Reporters, But Not The Execs That Failed To See Cord Cutting Coming
- How ESPN Became A Conservative Cause: Conservative media has seen ESPN’s business problems through the prism of politics. But the network’s struggles are much more straightforward.
- Choosing which cable channels to provide is speech, but offering Internet access is not
- Broadband Internet Service Providers In Regulatory Limbo After Repeal of FCC Privacy and Data Security Rules
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Public Safety Committee Recommends Against Lawful Access Reforms (Michael Geist)
- MPs calling on federal government to boost protection of Canadian civil liberties: Liberals on the Commons public safety committee have made 41 recommendations designed to increase oversight.
- A Feast of Commons Reports: National Security Studies by ETHI and SECU Released (Craig Forcese)
- VPPA Still Doesn’t Protect App Downloaders–Perry v. CNN
- Russian-controlled telecom hijacks financial services’ Internet traffic: Visa, MasterCard, and Symantec among dozens affected by “suspicious” BGP mishap.
- Russia Tries To Deliver The Killing Blow To VPN Use
- Personal Security Takes A Hit With Public Release Of NSA’s Hacking Toolkit
- Facebook Reports More Than Half Of Gov’t Demands For Content And Data Come With Gag Orders Attached
- US Intelligence “transparency report” reveals breadth of surveillance by NSA, others: Over 151 million call records collected to track 42 targets under new “limited” access arrangement.
- The Email Collection The NSA Shut Down Has Been Abused For Years
- Surprise: NSA Stops Collecting Americans’ Emails ‘About’ Foreign Targets
- The NSA’s 702 Shutdown Is Good News, But There Are A Whole Lot Of Caveats
- NSA ends spying on messages Americans send about foreign surveillance targets: FISA court narrows what NSA can collect, because NSA can’t stop “incidental” collection.
- Sextortion suspect must unlock her seized iPhone, judge rules: “For me, this is like turning over a key to a safety deposit box.”
- Sketchy Bogus Crowdfunding Campaigns To ‘Buy’ Congress’s Private Web Browsing… Only Now Realize That’s Impossible
- Punching holes in nomx, the world’s “most secure” communications protocol: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and nomx implodes under scrutiny.
- Miami sextortion case asks if a suspect can be forced to decrypt an iPhone: Does the Fifth Amendment mean you don’t have to hand over your password?
- A False Facial Recognition Match Cost This Man Everything: Denver resident Steve Talley files $10 million lawsuit after face-matching technology ruined his life
- All your Googles are belong to us: Look out for the Google Docs phishing worm: An e-mail disguised as a Google Docs share is ingenious bit of malicious phishing.
- Don’t trust OAuth: Why the “Google Docs” worm was so convincing – You really think someone would just go on the Internet and tell lies?
- The spammer who logged into my PC and installed Microsoft Office: Spam text made a tempting offer—so I let the spammer take control of my PC.
- A Cloud Over the Microsoft Warrant Case
- Babies and Baby-making, or Not… Privacy and Security Lessons for the Internet of Things
Jon