News of the Week; May 8, 2019
GAMES
- Riot Games employees organize walkout over forced arbitration
- Riot Games employees hold walkout over forced arbitration: In one of the first games industry walkouts, League of Legends studio employees protest studio policy in light of gender discrimination lawsuits
- Riot Games walkout sees 150 developers protest forced arbitration
- Riot Games will drop mandatory arbitration following walkout threats: Staff at League of Legends developer will no longer be blocked from filing lawsuits over sexual harassment or assault
- Riot agrees to scrap mandatory arbitration, but only for new employees
- Study sees link between loot boxes and gambling: Most gamers surveyed believe loot boxes are a form of gambling, more than a quarter have sold loot box items
- US Senator introducing legislation banning loot boxes in games aimed at minors
- U.S. Senator Introduces Bill To Ban Loot Boxes And Pay-To-Win Microtransactions
- Senator Wants to Ban Loot Boxes and Pay-to-Win Aimed at Kids
- Senator Hawley announces bill banning loot boxes, pay-to-win mechanics: “Game developers shouldn’t be allowed to monetize addiction,” Mo. Republican says.
- Proposed legislation aims to ban loot boxes in the United States
- Senator Hawley To Introduce Legislation Banning Manipulative Video Game Features Aimed At Children
- Blog: Complying with China’s new loot box rules
- Don’t Miss: Pay-To-Flay: Examining microtransactions inMortal Kombat X
- Bethesda’s latest Elder Scrolls adventure taken down amid cries of plagiarism
- Don’t Miss: How a ragtag band of modders restored Star Wars KOTOR II
- Game Devs Trolling Pirates Goes All The Way Back To At Least The Playstation Days With Spyro 2
- Video: Legal experts discuss the law’s impact on game dev in 2019
- Tencent shuts down PUBG Mobile in China following approval struggles
- China Replaces PUBG With Bizarre, Propaganda-Filled Clone
- Tencent pulls blockbuster game PUBG in China, launches patriotic alternative
- Tencent gives up on monetising PUBG in China: Long wait for approval prompts Chinese publisher to migrate users to new battle royale title, Game for Peace
- China remains a massive PC game market despite regulation hiccups
- Niko Partners: China online PC gaming revenue saw slight decline in 2018 – Domestic revenue dropped by approximately $300m from 2017 in the face of game license freeze
- Niko Partners: Chinese mobile gaming revenue up 29% last year despite license freeze
- Germany considers new youth protection guidelines for mobile monetisation: Deliberately broad draft guidelines leave questions hanging around enforcement
- Pitchford promises no “free-to-play junk” for Borderlands 3
- WHO gaming disorder could cost South Korean economy over $9bn: Korean culture ministry writes to World Health Organisation protesting ICD-11 draft
- GWU calls for testimonies against reported sexual predators at Quantic Dream – Update: French developer claims no knowledge of any incidents and urges victims to, “contact the relevant authorities”
- Claptrap voice actor accuses Gearbox CEO of assault, underpayment
- Claptrap voice actor accuses Randy Pitchford of assault amid pay dispute: Gearbox takes Eddings’ allegations “very seriously” but declines to comment due to it being “a personal matter”
- Star Citizen development reportedly troubled by mishandled money, micromanagement: Cloud Imperium Games has raised $288 million so far over a nearly eight-year development, but the end still isn’t in sight
- Starbreeze seeks funding to avoid imminent “liquidity shortfall”: Swedish company’s Q1 report suggests it won’t last 12 months without a new source of funds
- Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series has crossed 20 million lifetime sales
- World War Z has topped 320,000 sales on the Epic Games Store
- World War Z sold 320k on Epic Games Store: Saber Interactive’s hit game skipped Steam, but PC still accounted for 25% of its week one sales
- Watch Close To The Sun’s developers talk launching on the Epic Game Store
- Risk of Rain 2 crosses 1 million sales in first month
- Mordhau sells 500,000 copies in one week
- Live service roster helps Zynga deliver record mobile revenue and bookings
- Apple’s first new game in 10 years is Warren Buffett’s Paper Wizard
- Xbox’s new Code of Conduct: yes to “get wrecked,” “potato aim,” no to hate
- Gameloft to bring Xbox Live features to 3 mobile games
- Xbox Live coming to select Gameloft mobile titles: Asphalt 9: Legends, Asphalt 8: Airborne, and Dragon Mania Legends among the first mobile games to use recently-announced mobile SDK from Microsoft
- Anthem fell short of EA’s sales expectations
- Revenue drops at Electronic Arts despite strong digital bookings
- EA Access is launching on PlayStation 4
- EA Access is launching on PlayStation 4 in July: Almost five years after its Xbox and PC debut, EA’s subscription service is finally available on Sony’s console
- Apex Legends, Anthem can’t save EA’s fourth quarter: Revenue and net income down double-digits as company falls off last year’s pace, but publisher forecasts a record-setting rebound ahead
- EA in ‘advanced negotiations’ to bring Apex Legends to China and mobile
- EA’s plan for a record year revolves around ongoing games: Apex Legends hopes are high as it heads to mobile and China, while the publisher projects unit sales of up to 8m for single-player Jedi Fallen Order
- GTA V becomes third most-watched game on Twitch thanks to role playing server: Live viewership hours increases nearly sixfold in space of single month
- Key franchises help Capcom to record profits for second consecutive year
- Capcom’s full-year results boosted by software strength: Devil May Cry, Resident Evil and Monster Hunter drive profit to record levels
- Supercell invests $3.8 million into Swedish studio Luau Games
- Activision Blizzard quarterly revenues take a dip
- Activision Blizzard sees predicted Q1 start to “transition year”: Revenue down largely due to 16% drop in Blizzard earnings as the segment begins a year with “no major frontline release”
- The Call of Duty series has sold over 300 million games
- Activision Blizzard looks to esports, mobile, free-to-play during company transition: Call of Duty’s city-based league sells first five franchise teams; company staffs up for numerous mobile initiatives
- Danish government launches esport strategy to foster growth and tackle toxicity: Dedicated esports panel aims to build a “sustainable structure for the entire food chain”
- Creators Going Pro: ‘Fortnite’ Creative Expert Swiftor Doesn’t Just Make Content For His 3 Million Subscribers — He Makes Content With Them
- Former Fortnite UX lead digs into ethical game design
- Global console content, services spend reaches record high in 2018 – IHS Markit: 2019 expected to see continued market growth largely thanks to the Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo: “The reality is that the Chinese market is almost all mobile and PC games” – Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa cools enthusiasm around the Chinese launch of the Switch
- Nintendo says 3DS demand ‘stable’ despite notable declines
- Pokémon characters have their own pea-sized region in brain, study finds
- United devs stand, divided they crunch | Opinion: Management doesn’t need to mandate excessive overtime when it has developers policing each other
- CEO and co-founder Emily Greer departs Kongregate
- Former temps claim NetherRealm has long history of exploitation and abuse
- NetherRealm’s self-sustaining culture of crunch: Current and former employees describe pressures at Mortal Kombat studio placed on them from management and peers alike
- NetherRealms Studios investigating crunch and toxicity allegations: Following multiple exposés on self-sustaining culture of crunch, Mortal Kombat developer vows to “improve our company environment”
- Mortal Kombat 11 review: Great gameplay, excessively packaged
- Path of Exile devs “sometimes feel we are being asked to crunch” by fan demands: Grinding Gear Games asks fans for patience as it works on improvements for Path of Exile
- The pressure to constantly update games is pushing the industry to a breaking point: Live service games have trained players to expect a constant stream of new content, and only constant work can deliver it.
- What responsibility do leaders have to their developers?
- Microsoft files patent for controller accessory with Braille input and output: Gamepad would allow users to read and input Braille text, as well as convert speech commands to input
- Kerbal Space Program’s Breaking Ground DLC adds robotics and more experiments
- After 32-bit purge, GameClub raises $2.5M to bring back classic iOS games
- GameClub raises $2.5m for premium mobile game development: Studio is currently working to revitalize and update over 50 classic titles
- Phoenix Games has acquired UK studio Well Played Games
- Phoenix Games’ first acquisition is UK developer Well Played Games
- Echo developer Ultra Ultra closes down
- Google Stadia caused investors to walk away from Slightly Mad’s console: Future of the “Mad Box” is in question following the emergence of Google’s streaming service
- Google’s current VR plan is more about services than new hardware
- Google pivots away from VR hardware to focus on software: Company says it is in ‘deep R&D’ on new headsets, and is focused on games and apps for now
- Location-based VR Attraction ‘Hologate’ Celebrates 2 Million Player Milestone
- Microsoft announces HoloLens 2 Development Edition
- HoloLens 2 dev kits: $3,500, or $99/month, with Azure credits, Unity trials
- Developer’s edition of HoloLens 2 launches today at $3,500: Alternatively, studios can pay $99 per month for access to the kit
- ‘High Fidelity’ Refocuses on Enterprise Market, Lays off 25% of Staff
- The Terrawurm experiment: Can indies work together on multiple games?
- Developing out loud for Amazon Alexa: Amazon head of voice design education Paul Cutsinger talks about how independent developers are rising to the unique challenges of making games for voice
- Remedy: “Single-player games are stronger than they have ever been” – At Reboot Develop, CEO Tero Virtala examined the new opportunities streaming services will create for independent AAA developers
- Ubisoft and Genba aim to thwart key resellers with silent key activation
- Ubisoft and Genba to “kill the grey market” with silent key activation: Genba’s Matt Murphy reveals how the two companies are clamping down on key reselling
- Sindiecate founders go AWOL, owing staff and contractors over €30,000: Spanish indie publisher collapses without answers after founders cultivate toxic work environment
- How Denuvo is tackling cheaters who think outside the box: Publishers face an uphill battle as cheats get more sophisticated and harder to detect
- BlizzCon 2019 tickets revolve around invasive, poorly reviewed smartphone app: And, lo, did fans sarcastically reply, “You guys all have phones, right?”
- After trailer outcry, Sonic the Hedgehog director tells fans to expect “changes”
- Sonic The Hedgehog film character design will change, says director: Jeff Fowler promises to overhaul Sonic’s look following the negative response to the film’s trailer
- Blog: What is ‘live support’ and how does it fit into the games industry?
- Blog: Transitioning from desktop to mobile game development
- Blog: Tips for finding and working with a publisher
- Blog: Creating music and SFX for games
- Blog: A mini-postmortem of the hero theme
- Don’t Miss: Analyzing how friendly AI ‘cheats’ in Ghost Recon Wildlands
- U.S. Patent No. 8,814,677: Using real-time constructive solid geometry to provide painting and thinning game mechanics
- Evil Video Games Great At Detecting Early Dementia In People
- Brexit and its impact on the gaming sector | Opinion: Wright Hassall solicitor Patrick McCallum offers an update on the potential impact of the UK’s departure from the EU
- Nordic Game Discovery Contest reveals 15 finalists for 2019: Finalists were picked during heats at 15 global games events
- Marvel Strike Force and Shadowgun Legends honored at 2019 Google Play Awards
- Windows Solitaire inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame
- Mortal Kombat, Microsoft Solitaire, and more join World Video Game Hall of Fame
- Microsoft Solitaire, three others join World Video Game Hall of Fame: Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, Colossal Cave Adventure also among Strong Museum’s 2019 inductees
- Take a look at some of the earliest designs for Plants vs. Zombies
DIGITAL
- Feds take down dark web index and news site Deep Dot Web
- How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.’s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks
- A mysterious hacker gang is on a supply-chain hacking spree: Group of likely Chinese hackers has poisoned software of at least six companies.
- China Stole NSA Cyberweapons And Used Them Against Us Allies
- Putin signs “Internet sovereignty” bill that expands censorship
- Canadian Billionaire Sues Twitter For Nasty Things Twitter Users Said About Him
- Why a Republican senator wants the FTC to throw the book at Facebook
- FBI And Half The World Bust Operators Of A Site That Made The Dark Web Searchable
- Mark Zuckerberg has to go. Here are 25 reasons why
- Alex Jones was banned from Facebook, but an hour later he was back on Facebook livestreaming
- Facebook And Instagram Permaban Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer For Posting Hate Content
- Instagram and Facebook Ban Far-Right Extremists: Alex Jones, Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan have all been removed from the platforms.
- Facebook Rolls Out Broad Changes To How Its Algorithm Will Rank Videos
- Facebook will change video ranking to prioritize original content: It will prioritize videos that holds viewers’ attention.
- Report: Facebook looking to disrupt credit cards with cryptocurrency
- Facebook’s cryptocurrency might work like loyalty points
- Bitcoin is worth $6,000 for the first time this year: Bitcoin’s price has been rising in recent weeks and it’s not clear why.
- Amazon discriminates against pregnant women, seven lawsuits have said
- Amazon’s “Zero” Tolerance for Counterfeiting
- Wisconsin Supreme Court Fixes a Bad Section 230 Opinion—Daniel v. Armslist (Eric Goldman)
- New Essay: The Complicated Story of FOSTA and Section 230 (Eric Goldman)
- It’s One Thing For Trolls And Grandstanding Politicians To Get CDA 230 Wrong, But The Press Shouldn’t Help Them
- The Ninth Circuit Broke The Internet. So We Asked Them To Unbreak It.
- Twenty-one States Inadvertently Tell The DC Circuit That The Plaintiffs Challenging FOSTA Have A Case
- The Human Cost Of FOSTA
- Content Moderation is Broken. Let Us Count the Ways.
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Facebook Still Can’t Figure Out How To Deal With Naked Breasts
- Global regulation threatens to take a bite out of the FAANGs
- Instagram Planning AI-Powered Pop-Ups To Ratchet Down Anti-Vaccination Content
- The Legislation That Targets the Racist Impacts of Tech: A proposed law would make big companies determine whether their algorithms discriminate
- Your phone isn’t spying on you – it’s listening to your ‘voodoo doll’: An ex-Google employee has described what’s going on when you think your phone has been listening to you
- Google unveils auto-delete for location, Web activity, and app usage data
- Apple to be formally investigated over Spotify’s antitrust complaint, says report: EU investigation will launch ‘in the next few weeks,’ according to the FT
- FBI Reports An Increasing Rate Of Internet-Facilitated Crime
- Fourth Circuit Rejects “Good Faith” as Defense to Copyright Infringement
- “Please don’t stop the music”: Peloton Files Counterclaims Against Music Publishers in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
- #1 app YOLO Q&A is the Snapchat platform’s 1st hit
- Disney could take full control of Hulu, but that doesn’t mean subscribers’ favorite shows disappear: Disney CEO Bob Iger comments on Hulu’s future
- Disney Writes Off Its Vice Stake in Latest Sign of Trouble
- Disney+ will not be a “Netflix killer” because at this point, nothing can kill Netflix: Redef CEO Jason Hirschhorn watches a lot of TV and he says Netflix has sucked him into watching less of everything else.
- Netflix Has Propelled The ‘Fab 5’ From ‘Queer Eye’ Into Bonafide Social Media Stars
- Open Source Makes Kodi Add-ons Proliferate — And Hard To Eradicate
- YouTube Now Has 2 Billion Monthly Users, Who Watch 250 Million Hours on TV Screens Daily
- More Than 250 Million Hours Of YouTube Content Are Watched On TV Screens Every Single Day
- More Than 500 Hours Of Content Are Now Being Uploaded To YouTube Every Minute
- YouTube Copyright Filters Suck: The ‘Beat Saber’ And ‘Jimmy Fallon’ Edition
- Ex-YouTube engineer reveals how video site worked to kill off Internet Explorer 6
- YouTube’s Always Wanted TV Ad Dollars. But At This Year’s Brandcast, Execs Upped The Intensity Of The Pitch.
- YouTuber Austin Jones Sentenced To 10 Years Behind Bars For Child Pornography
- Pornhub wants to buy Tumblr and restore site to former porn-filled glory
- Justin Bieber Pacts With YouTube for Project Premiering in 2020
- YouTube Renews Kevin Hart Comedy Series, Sets Maluma and Paris Hilton Documentaries, Lollapalooza Live-Streaming Deal
- Kris Jenner, Gary Vaynerchuk Talk Life And Business With 120 YouTubers At The Site’s ‘Top Creator Summit’
- YouTube Plays A Major Role In Google’s Plans To Revamp Ecommerce Arm
- Bad Influence: Complying with FTC’s Endorsement Guide
- FTC Warns Ukraine Company: You Can’t Let Kids Use Your Dating Apps
- Dating Apps Warned of Potential COPPA and FTC Act Violations Removed from App Stores
- Liza Koshy, James Charles, And Lilly Singh Got Coveted Invites To The Met Gala
- Police Investigating Alleged Drugging Of Guest At Jake Paul-Hosted House Party
- After Streamlining Web Presence, Vice Reportedly Raises $250 Million In Debt Funding
- Vice Media Gets $250 Million in Debt Funding From George Soros, Other Investors
- ‘Game Of Thrones’ Videos Are Collecting Nearly 100 Million Views A Day
- CatCon Partners With Cats Of Instagram To Celebrate The Internet’s Greatest Cat Videos
- Sock Startup Bombas Says YouTube Yields More First-Time Orders Than Any Other Ad Platform
- Instagram’s In-App Shopping Feature ‘Checkout’ Helped Boost Adidas’ Online Sales By 40%
- Instagram Planning AI-Powered Pop-Ups To Ratchet Down Anti-Vaccination Content
- The Comedian Is In The Machine. AI Is Now Learning Puns
- Can AI Fairness Be Regulated?
- How to prepare students for the rise of artificial intelligence in the workforce
- The impact of intellectual property on artificial intelligence
- Blockchain, zero-code machine learning coming to Azure
- Blockchain Technology Embraced by Maryland Legislature
- Binance exchange hackers steal bitcoins worth $41m
- 3D-printing and IP rights
- Microsoft joins Climate Leadership Council: Company becomes first tech organization to join controversial group pursuing carbon fees, legal immunity for oil giants
- This Year’s Biggest NewFronts Buzzwords Were “Audio” And “Brand Safety”, Says Mindshare’s Christine Peterson
- Man Wins Legal Battle Over Traffic Ticket By Convincing Court A Hash Brown Is Not A Phone
COMMUNICATIONS
- CRTC Issues Its First Penalty Against a CEO for Violating Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
- CRTC ups the CASL liability ante for directors and officers
- More Than 100 CNN Staffers Take Buyouts as AT&T Pares Debt
- CMS Finalizes Rule Requiring Disclosure of Drug Prices in TV Ads
- Verizon Media Said to Be Looking for Tumblr Buyer
- US Bandwidth Consumption Surges As Usage Caps Pose A Looming Threat
- Charter squeezes more money out of Internet users with new cancellation policy
- Megamergers Can’t Help Charter Spectrum As Cord Cutting Exodus Continues
- FCC Fixes Giant Error Over-Stating Broadband Availability… Then Doubles Down On Bogus Claims
- Ajit Pai refuses to investigate Frontier’s horrible telecom service
- The Super ‘Transparent’ Pai FCC Is Still Trying To Hide Details On Those Fake Net Neutrality Comments
- The FCC Hasn’t Done A Damn Thing To Seriously Police Wireless Location Data Scandals
PRIVACY
- Student Files $1 Billion Lawsuit Against Apple Over Supposedly Faulty Facial Recognition Tech That Falsely Accused Him Of Theft
- Refunds for 300 million phone users sought in lawsuits over location-data sales
- Does Canadian Privacy Law Matter if it Can’t be Enforced? (Michael Geist)
- How Mass Surveillance Works in Xinjiang, China: ‘Reverse Engineering’ Police App Reveals Profiling and Monitoring Strategies
- Chinese Spies Intercepted NSA Malware Attack, Weaponized It Against Targets Around The World
- “RobbinHood” ransomware takes down Baltimore City government networks
- Smart Lock Vendors Under Fire For Collecting Too Much Private Data
- Massachusetts Judge Says ATF Can Apply A Suspect’s Fingerprints To Unlock An IPhone
- Latest ODNI Transparency Report Shows Steep Spike In Unmasking Requests For US Person Caught In NSA Collections
- Unless you want your payment card data skimmed, avoid these commerce sites
- Google Is Finally Copying Apple’s Approach to Privacy: New features will help keep your data on your device
- Google’s Sundar Pichai snipes at Apple with privacy defense: ‘Privacy cannot be a luxury good’
- Facebook’s contract workers are looking at your private posts to train AI: Human workers have to categorize posts to create training data for AI systems
- Canada Border Services seizes lawyer’s phone, laptop for not sharing passwords
- $3 Million Settlement for Exposure of and Latent Response to Exposure of 300,000 Patients’ Protected Health Information
- Accused CIA Leaker Files Complaint Against The Government Seeking $50 Billion In Damages
- Governments are deploying spyware on killers, drug lords – and journalists
- Schools Are Safer Than Ever, But That’s Not Stopping Schools From Buying Social Media Monitoring Software
- First GDPR fine issued!
- GDPR, ePrivacy and cookies: an update
- GDPR Penalties Prove Why Compliance Isn’t Enough—And Why Companies Need Clarity
- Senator Markey Announces ‘Privacy Bill of Rights’
- The Lure Of Learning Analytics: Researchers now have access to a flood of educational data on students that they hope will offer insights on how to improve the learning experience. Will it work?
- Spot the not-Fed: A day at AvengerCon, the Army’s answer to hacker conferences
CREATIVITY
- Infringement Plagues Pharaoh’s Fortune
- Artist’s trash is treasure
- Saatchi Gallery decides to cover up artworks dubbed “blasphemous”
- The male torso: Is it distinctive?
- UMG Fails To Get Trademark For ‘As Heard On TV’ In A Remarkably Sane Ruling From The TTAB
- Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Inc. Keeps Telling Licensees Its Trademarks Are Valid While Courts Keep Insisting They Are Not
- The Russo Brothers Break Down the Biggest Marvel Moments
- Unsurprisingly, Larry Klayman’s Veiled Threats And Insulting Of Judges Isn’t Helping Roy Moore’s $95 Million Defamation Lawsuit
- Why we are addicted to conspiracy theories: Outsiders and the disenfranchised have always embraced the existence of wild plots and cover-ups. But now the biggest conspiracy-mongers are in charge.
- Just Because The Rest Of The World Doesn’t Have A 1st Amendment, Doesn’t Mean It Can Trample Online Speech
- Federal Judge Says Flashing Headlights To Warn Drivers Of Hidden Cops MIGHT Be Protected Speech
Jon
News of the Week; May 1, 2019
GAMES
- Report: Talks of developer walkouts prompt conversation inside Riot Games
- Citing arbitration clauses, Riot Games moves to block employee lawsuits
- Riot Files Motions To Block Current Employees From Taking Legal Action
- Riot employees threaten walkout over forced arbitration: League of Legends developer’s attempt to keep workers’ gender discrimination claims out of court draws backlash
- Riot says women waived right to sue when they were hired: League of Legends maker wants to enforce private arbitration clauses for gender discrimination claims
- The heavy toll of making games in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Swery’s White Owls is building a better work culture for Japan: Hidetaka Suehiro says his new studio’s treatment of employees is, “inspired by foreign game companies”
- New York Saxophonist Latest To Sue Fortnite Developers For Supposedly Ripping Off His… ‘Likeness’
- Musician Leo Pellegrino sues Epic Games over alleged misappropriation of his identity: Pellegrino’s “trademark moves have become inseparable from his persona and his life story” argues filing
- Epic Games acquires Rocket League dev Psyonix
- Epic acquires Rocket League studio, bringing game to Epic’s store this year: Steam sales will continue for now; Steam “support” will continue indefinitely.
- If Epic Vs Steam Is To Be A PR War, Epic’s Boss Just Issued A Brilliant Retaliatory Strike
- Steam crosses 1 billion registered accounts
- NCSoft Has A Great Opportunity To Be Awesome And Human To ‘City Of Heroes’ Enthusiasts
- The streaming service that wants to save the retro gaming biz from piracy
- Cox Internet now charges $15 extra for faster access to online game servers
- Google removes Do Global Games from Play Store: Developer with over 100 apps and 600m installs banned following reports of concealing ownership info, ad fraud
- Google CEO: Publishers “want to see our commitment” to Stadia – But Sundar Pichai says giving games execs hands on time with streaming service “completely wins people over”
- Publishers see Stadia as an ‘opportunity for a shift,’ says Google CEO
- Google Stadia will support “a variety of business models”
- Coming Facebook Gaming features focus on discovery and engagement
- Banned Republican politician restored to EVE Online council following investigation: “We made a mistake here and we offer our formal apologies,” says CCP Games
- EA lays out Apex Legends community tournament guidelines: This is what you need to know if you want to hold a local tournament without fear of EA’s legal department.
- Apex Legends updates less to maintain dev quality of life: Respawn’s Vince Zampella says studio is wary of overworking the team and reducing quality of work in the process
- BioWare delays multiple Anthem features: “There is a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be,” says BioWare
- Epic Removed A Popular Fortnite Mechanic Because It Made People Play Less
- Epic Games Boss Says They’ll Stop Doing Exclusives If Steam Gives Developers More Money
- Tim Sweeney: Epic would stop pursuing exclusives if Steam improved its revenue share – Epic CEO says Steam committing to permanent 88% revenue share would be “a glorious moment in the history of PC gaming”
- Phoenix Labs’ undaunted quest for cross-platform play: Founder Jesse Houston on choosing the Epic Games store over Steam, and how that choice is helping to realise its cross-platform vision for Dauntless
- Epic Games acquires Psyonix: Epic seems to leave door open for game to continue to be sold on Steam after Epic Games store release
- Snap’s big plan to turn Snapchat into a gaming platform
- Watch the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal streams and you might win in-game loot: A new Echocast plugin will also enable viewers to look at streamers’ loadouts, inventories, and skill trees.
- Borderlands 3 is about more bullets, not new bullet points: Gearbox developers say the latest entry was about broadening the familiar, share thoughts on collaboration, crassness, and crunch
- Adult gaming portal Nutaku launches Android storefront: Restrictions on Google Play and App Store demanded new measures to “improve accessibility” for mobile users
- In-depth: Portfolio-scale machine learning at Zynga
- Zynga’s Q1 revenues, losses top expectations: Publisher credits “outstanding performances” from Empires & Puzzles and Merge Dragons for helping top line and hurting bottom line
- Record-breaking year for Jagex with revenues of £92.8m: Launch of Old School RuneScape on mobile drives fourth consecutive year of growth
- Original Earthworm Jim team reunites for new, Intellivision Amico-exclusive entry: Ten of the game’s original developers participating in creation of new title for upcoming, exclusive-heavy console
- There’s a 1 percent chance Valve announces a Half-Life VR game this week
- Valve Index is a 120Hz-plus ‘fidelity first’ VR headset, and it isn’t cheap
- Valve Index VR headset ships June 28 for $499-$999
- Hands-on: Valve’s Index Headset Sets an Impressive New Bar for VR Fidelity
- Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest launch May 21 for $399 each
- Oculus Quest Review – The First Great Standalone VR Headset
- A VR game is helping researchers learn about and potentially detect Alzheimer’s
- Japanese mobile operator Docomo sinks $280 million into Magic Leap
- Magic Leap gets $280m investment from Docomo: Japanese telecomms deal pushes lifetime funding above $2.6 billion
- ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ & ‘Zelda Breath of the Wild’ Updated with Switch VR Support
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate driving new Switch sales for Nintendo
- Nintendo Slays The Threat From Modded Nintendo Games For The Commodore 64
- Over 9.8 million people are using Nintendo’s premium Switch Online service
- Nintendo saw over $1 billion in digital sales this year, a company first
- Game with hidden Ruby interpreter pulled from Nintendo Switch eShop
- Nintendo’s VR Upgrade for Zelda Messed Me Up
- The Switch is closing in on 35 million lifetime sales
- Software driving growth at Nintendo as Switch falls just short of sales goal
- Nintendo remains the industry’s best long-term bet | Opinion: With Switch soaring and clear space ahead as competitors prepare next-gen offerings, Nintendo is back on top – and the long-term outlook is even more rosy
- Nintendo Switch had 23 million-selling games in the last fiscal year: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says there will be no new hardware announcement at E3 this year
- Nintendo Switch Online reaches 9.8m subscribers in six months: Just under one third of Switch owners are paid members of the online service
- Nintendo pulls A Dark Room from eShop over secret code editor
- Nintendo shares drop 5% after conservative Switch forecasts: But platform holder’s share price has still risen 29% since the start of the year
- A Dark Room pulled from Switch eShop for including code editor: Developer added Ruby editor at the “last second” without publisher’s knowledge
- Mario Kart Tour steps closer to launch with closed beta test: Nintendo’s upcoming mobile game was delayed from March 2019 launch due to concerns over its quality
- Xbox should absolutely team up with Nintendo at E3 | Opinion: This could be the quietest E3 yet, making it the ideal time for Microsoft and Nintendo to call a truce
- Microsoft is using the Xbox Adaptive Controller to support U.S. veterans
- Sega keen to improve profitability of digital titles after disappointing year
- Don’t Miss: A postmortem of the original Sonic the Hedgehog
- Mojang has released the ‘biggest Minecraft update yet’
- Microsoft continues to distance itself from Minecraft creator: Citing “his comments and opinions,” Mojang parent explains why Marcus “Notch” Persson won’t be involved in anniversary event
- Minecraft creator Notch unwelcome at 10th anniversary due to online conduct: Transphobia, homophobia, and racism aren’t Microsoft’s core values.
- Mojang donates $100k to water charity after Minecraftplayers rally to the cause
- PlayStation Now has 700,000 subscribers
- PlayStation Now downloads get double the play time of streamed games: Sony’s on-demand service has 700k subscribers, and many of them are choosing downloads over streams
- Rising PS4 game sales drive Sony to $78.1bn full-year revenues: Game segment’s operating income to take a $278.3 million hit as investment increases in PlayStation 5
- PS4 software sales up at Sony as hardware decline continues
- UK Charts: Days Gone defeats Mortal Kombat 11 to claim No.1 – PS4 exclusive scores decent debut in UK Top 40
- Slightly Mad Studios withdraws trademark for Mad Box console: Withdrawal follows opposition from French casual games firm called Madbox
- Project Cars dev fails to secure ‘Mad Box’ trademark for new console
- St. Jude’s PLAY LIVE Gamer Fundraising Summit Kicks Off In Memphis With Tons Of Twitch Stars
- Fans Can Now Buy Their Own Ninja Headbands For $22, Exclusively At Walmart
- Capcom restructures esports and media licensing business units: Company forms Capcom Media Ventures to manage global esports projects
- Denmark creates ‘national esports strategy’ to nurture competitive gaming
- Fnatic Secures $19m Funding, Announces Management Changes
- YouTube Millionaires: ProPepper’s YouTube Channel Is All ‘Fortnite,’ All The Time — And That’s What Drives His 10+ Million Monthly Views
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: The slow journey to killing crunch
- Ex-NetherRealm devs: crunch and exploiting contractors was the studio norm
- Codemasters moves F1 team into new Birmingham studio: Studio head Ian Flatt says new premises allows developer to “recruit even further to expand the franchise”
- Starbreeze sells 10 Crowns publishing rights back to developer Mohawk Games
- Starbreeze sells publishing rights for 10 Crowns back to developer: Marks third such deal in just over a year, but still holds on to Psychonauts 2
- Snapchat is launching an SDK to let devs use Bitmoji avatars in their own games
- Four years after launch, Angry Birds 2 is still Rovio’s top-earning game
- Dino Patti: “If you get what you expected, it always gets boring”
- Blog: Approaching player choice in video games
- Blizzard will skip Gamescom this year to ‘focus on development’
- Bloodborne board game adaptation raises $1.6m in two days: Tabletop adaptation of FromSoftware’s nightmarish monster-fest breaks funding goal in 17 minutes
- AbleGamers reveals plan to get accessibility experts into AAA studios: “We’ve found that once we embed champions within the studio space, accessibility becomes a really cheap thing to add,” says CEO
- This Video Game Detects Alzheimer’s Earlier Than Lab Tests
- Ubisoft is rewarding players for reporting reproducible bugs in Rainbow Six Siege
- Mobile VR game Sea Hero Quest generates 1,700 hours of research into Alzheimer’s: Researchers claim every two minutes of gameplay is equal to five hours of lab-based studies
- Valve Index reveal: The best of VR’s first generation—but is it worth $999?
- Valve has a ‘flagship’ game headed to SteamVR headsets
- Oculus Quest review: 2019’s best new gaming system is wireless, affordable VR
- UK government awards £12m funding for innovation projects based on homegrown IP: Augmented and virtual reality games in development for Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit, and BAFTA-winning Peaky Blinders
- Mass Effect-inspired porn game is now one of the biggest gaming Kickstarters of all time: Subverse, a “kinky sci-fi RPG,” will likely break $2 million, putting it in an exclusive crowdfunding club.
- The Indie Guide To Marketing: Freelance marketer Bee Wakefield offers devs advice on how to promote their game – and why it takes more than just social media
- Understanding Inkle’s approach to making unique game settings
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Vault: How Inkle designed its first 3D game
- A brief history of 3D texturing in video games
- Don’t Miss: The making of the N64 classic, GoldenEye 007
- Deux Ex: The game you can’t win – Why I Love – Bow to Blood developer Matthew Hoesterey says the immersive sim was everything he hoped for, but not what he expected
- Did a vigilante ROM leaker go too far to “preserve” a lost Atari ROM?
- Don’t Miss: How the developer of Dig Dog learned to make games without using his hands
- Coding without a keystroke: The hands-free creation of a full video game
DIGITAL
- Can we ever regulate online spaces? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Inside the Team at Facebook That Dealt with the Christchurch Shooting
- PewDiePie Addresses Christchurch Massacre, Urges Fans To Stop Using “Subscribe To PewDiePie”
- Facebook Files Questionable Lawsuit Over Fake Followers And Likes
- Austrian Government Wants To Outlaw Online Anonymity
- Smoking, depression apps sell your data to Google and Facebook, study finds
- How a Google Street View image of your house predicts your risk of a car accident
- Behind The Scenes Look At How Facebook Dealt With Christchurch Shooting Demonstrates The Impossible Task Of Content Moderation
- Regulating Facebook will be one of the greatest challenges in human history
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg announces privacy overhaul: ‘We don’t have the strongest reputation’
- Insights: Will We Still Like Instagram If We Don’t Know Who Likes What?
- Instagram Enlists Kim Kardashian, Kathleen Lights, And More To Roll Out Shoppable Posts
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Some Republican Politicians Are Indistinguishable From Neo Nazis
- Impossible Content Moderation Dilemmas: Talking About Racism Blocked As Hate Speech
- Samsung Made A Vertical TV To Display Instagram Stories, TikToks, And Snapchats
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets Section 230 Right
- Ninth Circuit Chunks Another Section 230 Ruling – HomeAway v. Santa Monica
- Supreme Court Asks White House To Weigh In On Copyrightability Of APIs
- As Brand Safety Concerns Mount, Vice Denounces Keyword Blacklists For Restricting Diversity
- Vodafone Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment
- Bloomberg alleges Huawei routers and network gear are backdoored
- Bloomberg Appears To Flub Another China Story, Insists Telnet Is A Nefarious Huawei Backdoor
- Silicon Valley is awash in Chinese and Saudi cash — and no one is paying attention (except Trump): A tough, new enforcement regime is becoming a geopolitical minefield for venture capitalists and startups.
- Judge blasts Assange for jumping bail, sentences him to almost one year
- Putin signs law to create an independent Russian internet
- Why Won’t Twitter Treat White Supremacy Like ISIS? Because It Would Mean Banning Some Republican Politicians Too.: A proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republican politicians.
- How The Alt-Right Infiltrated Architecture Twitter – And Turned Notre-Dame Into A Political Lightning Rod: Why are online white nationalists obsessed with modern architecture? It’s all a cover to push a racist agenda
- After White House stop, Twitter CEO calls congresswoman about death threats
- Texas Senator Pushing A Bill That Would Allow The State To Sue Twitter For Banning Conservatives
- Why Your Holiday Photos And Videos Of The Restored Notre Dame Cathedral Could Be Blocked By The EU’s Upload Filters
- Elon Musk reaches settlement in SEC tweet battle
- Disinformation Threatens 2020 Election
- Was Russia’s 2016 intervention for Trump a strategic failure?: Putin won the political battle, but the war’s outcome is still uncertain.
- HootSuite cuts jobs in reorganization at social media management business
- At NewFronts, Twitter Pitches Programming Pacts With Wall Street Journal, Live Nation, Univision
- Twitter Expands Live-Streaming Video Lineup, Sets Content Deals With Viacom, ESPN, Live Nation, Univision, and More
- YouTube Is Communicating Directly With Creators And Viewers More Than Ever – Through Its Twitter Account
- YouTube CEO addresses top creator issues including copyright claims and trending section
- YouTube Swings For The Fences In First-Ever Exclusive Deal With Major League Baseball
- YouTube Scores MLB 13-Game Package With Exclusive Rights in U.S., Canada
- Following Shane Dawson Summit, YouTube’s Tweaking Its ‘Trending’ Tab To Be 50% Native Creators
- Taylor Swift’s “Me!” Shatters YouTube Record For Most-Viewed Solo Female Debut
- Microsoft is now a $1 trillion company: Strong earnings push Microsoft toward a new milestone
- Microsoft market cap reaches $1 trillion: Company value edges over milestone this morning for the first time, making it most valuable US publicly traded company
- Apple sets sights on services as iPhone revenue continues to fall
- iPad and services on the rise at Apple as iPhone sales continue to fall
- Robotics company Anki lays off entire workforce ahead of closure
- Security Experts Unite Over the Right to Repair
- Minnesota May Be First State To Pass A Right To Repair Law
- SiriusXM financials reveal continued decline in Pandora users
- Post-Ticketfly, Pandora Integrates Ticketmaster Shows Into Its Artist Streams
- The Next Step In The Podcast Wars: Two Companies Looking To Be The Netflix Of Podcasts Start Fighting
- Despite Spielberg’s ‘Get Off My Lawn’ Moment, The Oscars Won’t Ban Netflix
- Now more expensive to sue multiple online infringers
- Don’t let industry write the rules for AI: Technology companies are running a campaign to bend research and regulation for their benefit; society must fight back (Yochai Benkler)
- World Economic Forum’s AI head on how to protect human rights without stifling innovation
- Is Artificial Intelligence Good for Our Health?
- Can algorithms themselves be biased?
- Google’s poetry algorithm automates teen angst: Give it a word and it’ll give you a masterpiece (of sorts).
- Why Congress Needs The Office Of Technology Assessment More Than Ever
- Google’s VP Of Agency And Brand Solutions Wants Facebook Watch To Get Bigger
- GroupM’s Global Head Of Social Says Marketers Must Practice Non-Linear Storytelling
- The Age Of The Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For The Slacker To Rise Again
- Amazon Posts Record Profit in Q1 of $3.6 Billion, Plans to Upgrade Prime to Free One-Day Shipping
- How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for ‘productivity’: Documents show how the company tracks and terminates workers
- A doorbell company owned by Amazon wants to start producing “crime news”
- Amazon Spent $1.7 Billion on Content in Q1, but Original Video Investments Still Unknown
- Amazon plans to make Prime shipping one-day by default
- Amazon Takes Direct Aim At Jay-Z’s Tidal
- BBC Expanding News Coverage With Interactive Video, Audio Articles, And New Verticals
- Hulu Greenlights Two New Marvel Series, Inks Two-Year Programming Pact With Chrissy Teigen
- Hulu tops 28 million customers, unveils new shows and a ‘binge watch’ ad experience
- Vudu Announces ‘Blue’s Clues’ Remake, Studio71 Film ‘Adventure Force 5’
- Technological Warnings from the Inside
- MIT finally gives a name to the sum of all AI fears
- The AI Group Elon Musk Quit Just Released An Amazing Music AI
- Spotify Now Has Over 100 Million Subscribers, Narrows Q1 Losses
- Layer and Nio’s intelligent Pal scooter learns your favourite routes
- The Vast Majority of All Futures Trading Is Now Automated
- Amazing AI Generates Entire Bodies of People Who Don’t Exist: The algorithm whips up photorealistic models and outfits from scratch.
- The Role of Professional Norms in AI Governance: Some Observations and Outline of a Framework (Urs Gasser)
- Beyond Bias: Re-imagining the Terms of “Ethical AI” in Criminal Law (Chelsea Barabas)
- Do You Know the Origin of your Website Content? . . . and Why You Should.
- Condé Nast Entertainment Says It Has 100 Pilots In The Works
- Condé Nast Taps Joe Sugg For New YouTube Series, To Launch Sports-Themed ‘GQ’ Channel
- Vice to Relaunch Main Site, Bring Noisey Under Flagship Umbrella: Exclusive
- Viacom’s Kelly Day Wants To ‘Build Digital Worlds’ Around Its Biggest TV Hits
- Viacom is launching Pluto TV channels for Comedy Central, MTV and more
- Viacom Taps Eva Gutowski, Tana Mongeau, And Jason Nash For Latest YouTube Series Slate
- Billboard Music Awards Pacts With Nascent Stories-Editing App ‘Unfold’
- Slack plans to go public after hitting 10 million daily users
- Shoddy Software Is Eating The World, And People Are Dying As A Result
- In Its Race to Be First, Samsung Screwed Itself
- Samsung puts the screws to iFixit, makes it remove the Galaxy Fold teardown
- UWinnipeg receives $2.4 million to grow digital agriculture
- The leading “stablecoin” is no longer backed by $1 for every coin
COMMUNICATIONS
- SCC decision could focus on CRTC’s reach
- Anti-spam laws are overreaching, say lawyers
- Of Course Wireless Carriers Are Fighting a Bill That Stops Them From Throttling Firefighters’ Data
- Verizon Media Unveils Augmented Reality News Partner Program, 5G Tech At NewFronts
- AT&T Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Fake 5G,’ Won’t Change A Thing
- Ajit Pai-proposed upgrade to 25Mbps starts paying off for rural ISPs
- Ajit Pai says he’s fixed giant FCC error that exaggerated broadband growth
- Comcast usage soars 34% to 200GB a month, pushing users closer to data cap
- Charter Spectrum Won’t Get Kicked Out Of New York State After ISP Promises To Suck Less
- Charter data use “rising rapidly” as cord cutters average 400GB a month
PRIVACY
- Canada Says Facebook Broke Privacy Laws With ‘Superficial’ Safeguards
- Facebook data leak: Province-by-province breakdown of affected Canadians
- Zero-day attackers deliver a double dose of ransomware – no clicking required: High-severity hole in Oracle WebLogic under active exploit for 9 days.
- At Long Last, NSA Finally Recommends Its Bulk Phone Collection Program Be Put Out Of Its Misery
- Vulture with GPS tracker held in Yemen on suspicion it was used for spying
- Probable Russian Navy covert camera whale discovered by Norwegians
- Massachusetts’ Top Court Says Warrants Are Needed For Real-Time Cell Site Location Info
- Coercive and Non-Coercive Surveillance Authorities
- Fear the Man in the Middle? This company wants to sell quantum key distribution
- Appeals Court: Chalking Tires For Parking Enforcement Violates The Fourth Amendment
CREATIVITY
- Myths and Reality About Canadian Copyright Law, Fair Dealing and Educational Copying (Michael Geist)
- The Copyright Board’s “New Leaf”? Not So Much and Not at All (Howard Knopf)
- The Toronto Real Estate Board is Back in the Copyright News (Howard Knopf)
- Can the taste of a cheese be copyrighted? (Eleonora Rosati)
- Today In Bananas Copyright Law: Court Urged To Rule That A Banana Costume Is Not Infringing
- Second Circuit Judges Brawl Over the Meaning of “Volition” in Copyright Cases–BWP v. Polyvore
- Announcing: The Public Domain Song Anthology
- Watch: The Latest Avengers Movie Is Already On Torrent Sites, But That Won’t Stop A Torrent Of Sold Theater Tickets
- Picture this: no direct infringement but no fair use either
- FanX, Previously Salt Lake Comic Con, Ordered To Pay $4 Million For San Diego’s Con’s Attorney’s Fees, Barred From Calling Itself A Comic-Con
- How Queer Is Star Trek?
- First teaser for Veronica Mars revival is everything we loved about the series
- Encyclopedia Brown And The Case Of The Mysterious Author: Donald J. Sobol created a mystery icon and sold millions of books. But who was he?
- Oxford Professor Argues Invisible Aliens Are Interbreeding With Humans
- The world is sadder and angrier than ever, major study finds
- A theory of style: We can analyse how fashion works by breaking it down into networks of style elements. What role, then, for human creativity?
Jon
News of the Week; April 24, 2019
GAMES
- Iraq bans PUBG, Fortnite: Country joins Nepal and some parts of India in forbidding Bluehole’s shooter, citing impact on youth and addictive qualities
- Nepal lifts short-lived ban on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Fortnite and PUBG are now banned in Iraq: The Iraqi government is concerned about the negative effect the games have on youth.
- Iraq parliament votes to ban Fortnite and Battlegrounds
- Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can mess with developers
- Nintendo issues DMCA takedown for Super Mario Bros.Commodore 64 port
- Super Mario Bros. Commodore 64 fan port hit with DMCA takedowns
- Nepal Supreme Court suspends ban on PUBG: Government ordered to show cause for its prohibition on popular survival shooter
- Over 200 Fortnite World Cup prize winners caught cheating: Over 1,200 total cheaters caught in first week of competition, most for circumventing region locks
- Supercell partners with Internet Matters to improve child safety online
- Constant development means a perpetual push to crunch at Epic, say Fortnite devs
- Epic devs speak out on Fortnite crunch: “I was working at least 12-hour days, seven days a week, for at least four or five months” after survival shooter became a mainstream phenomenon
- Apex Legends is on the decline with streamers after a record-setting month
- Overwatch lets players create custom modes with in-game scripting tools
- Respawn CEO: Sticking to seasonal updates better for Apex Legends devs
- 996.ICU accuses NetEase, Tencent and Chinese devs of overworking staff: Chinese tech workers use GitHub to highlight intensive overtime schedules, Microsoft employees petition to keep list uncensored
- China’s game approval rules will soon apply to HTML5 and WeChat mini-games
- China’s new gaming rules to ban poker, blood and imperial schemes
- China introduces new game approval process, limiting total approvals per year: HTML5 games now require approval, anti-addiction system policy expanded to mobile titles
- Tencent raises minimum age for “digital lock” to 16: New measure will be trialled in upcoming game, limiting gamers aged 15 and under to two hours a day
- Chinese streaming platform DouYu files for $500m IPO: Tencent-backed Twitch rival could be one of the largest Chinese floatations in the US so far this year
- Amnesia dev makes the case for why lying to players is sometimes good game design
- Nintendo and Tencent gain approval to bring the Switch to China
- Tencent cleared to distribute Nintendo Switch in China: Government of Guangdong province offers provisional go ahead for sale of the Switch in China
- Report: Cheaper Switch model will focus on portability
- Google coy with new Stadia details, pushes the promise of discoverability
- PUBG Corp sees $920 million in 2018 revenue: PC accounted for $790 million of total revenue; over half of total earnings came from Asia
- South Korean FTC to review in-game purchase policies
- South Korean FTC examining consumer regulations surrounding in-game purchases: Government body currently investigating issues surrounding minors making purchases and “unfair” limitations on refunds
- Assassin’s Creed Unity hit by review bombers intent on spreading positivity
- Burnout Paradise’s online servers are shutting down after 11 years
- Disney reportedly offered controlling stake in Nexon: Search for a buyer continues as Korean publisher’s founder meets with high-ranking Disney exec
- Welcome to The New Era of High Fashion and Video Game Collaborations: Inside Moschino and The Sims Partnership
- Mortal Kombat 11: Critical Consensus – Reviewers applaud the meat and bones of NetherRealm’s latest, but question the method for unlocking skins
- World War Z has surpassed 1 million sales in first week
- Frostpunk has surpassed 1.4 million sales in first year
- Persona 5 has sold over 2.7 million copies worldwide
- Nintendo stock leaps following Switch approval in China: 17% rise on Tokyo exchange is company’s largest percentage gain since Pokemon Go’s summer of 2016
- More powerful Nintendo Switch reportedly still in experimental stages: Other, smaller Switch version also rumored may be dockable after all, could launch this fall
- NPD: Nintendo Switch continues strong sales in quarter of hardware declines
- Report: Cheaper “Switch Lite” will be dockable, come in the fall
- Report: Cheaper Switch coming by June
- Happy 30th B-Day, Game Boy: Here are six reasons why you’re #1
- GB Studio offers a free Game Boy-inspired way to create 2D games
- Video: The making of the Xbox Adaptive Controller
- Sagging Xbox hardware sales offset by software, services growth: Microsoft says gaming revenues were up 5% in its third quarter thanks to third-party games’ monetization and subscription growth
- Xbox revenue held up by software and services as hardware sales fall
- GAME and GameStop shrug off Xbox One S All-Digital Edition threat: GaneStop survey finds around half of consumers are less likely to purchase console without disc drive
- Game Informer Australia closed down in wake of GameStop cuts
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: PlayStation 5 vs disc-less Xbox: Will the future of consoles be defined by Sony’s SSD, Microsoft’s digital focus, or Capcom’s corporate branded arcade panel?
- Contributing devs up in arms over Capcom’s use of the FB Alpha emulator
- Sony promises “appealing” price for new PlayStation console: Wired releases more interview material after hardware’s high-spec prompts speculation over price
- Sony Brings Social VR Theater App to PSVR Users in Japan
- Linden Lab CEO: ‘We’re Pitching ‘Sansar’ Less as a VR Platform Now’
- Oculus Explains Why It Doesn’t Think the Time is Right for ‘Rift 2’ or ‘Rift Pro’
- The Simple Guide to Four Major VR Headsets Launching This Spring
- Iron Man VR preview makes me want to put on nerdy headgear again
- Nintendo’s past VR research laid the foundation for Labo VR
- Epic Games Store exclusivity helps Phoenix Point achieve 191% return: “Cash advance” from engine provider will be shared with Fig backers as part of game’s revenue
- Here’s why the Epic Games Store takes a 12 percent revenue cut from devs
- Gearbox CEO: Both devs and players benefit from Epic and Steam competition
- Gearbox’s Pitchford: Steam may be “a dying store” in 5 to 10 years
- Diverging paths: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s radically different visions | Opinion: After decades of platform holders releasing similar hardware, we should celebrate their new, wildly different visions of gaming’s future
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s new Stage Builder mode is recommending inappropriate content: Stages with inappropriate images, names are being listed as “Recommended” and do not disappear
- Spectator Throws Dead Crab At Super Smash Bros. Tournament Winner
- European Esports Federation to be formed with 12 countries: Organization to serve as a “moderating partner” rather than a governing body for the industry
- Player Safeguarding, Welfare and Education in Esports – A Pragmatic Approach for Tournament Organizers
- Actor Will Smith joins $46m investment into esports organisation Gen.G: Smith joined by investment partner and Japanese soccer star Keisuke Honda
- Branded for success | Opinion: Game Dragons’ Philip Oliver offers advice on how to licence IP, and how to identify IP that is now in the public domain
- AbleGamers launches new accessibility website: Accessible.Games provides means to connect developers and players with disability to help design more accessible games
- Kitfox: People are more important than projects – Co-founder Tanya X. Short says she’s reconsidering putting gameplay and quality on equal footing with respect and personal development
- Amy Hennig: Streaming must be more than “just an invisible console” – Real-time streaming will start a revolution in storytelling, Hennig said at Reboot Develop – but new kinds of content will be required
- Neo Cab: Staying human in a world where an algorithm is your boss – “We’re building these systems without thinking about the human costs… we only do it as numbers and aggregate”
- Warren Spector: “If immersive sims disappear, I disappear” – System Shock developer explains why the struggles of Dishonored and Deus Ex won’t deter him from his chosen genre
- Frostpunk sells 1.4m units in first year: Publishing director Paweł Feldman unpacks some of the lessons learned in building 11 Bit Studios’ latest hit
- SuperData: Sekiro sells 1.4m digital units in March, beating Dark Souls III launch – Battle royales continue to drive growth alongside console games as premium PC digital sales decline
- World War Z sells 1m copies in first week: Co-op zombie shooter saw 70k concurrent players during launch
- CCP Games: EVE Online’s tech is “absolutely at its breaking edge” – At Reboot Develop, Hilmar Petursson detailed CCP’s plans to keep pace with the huge battles staged by EVE’s remarkable community
- Life after EVE Online: From intergalactic warfare to “elegant, cosy” card games: CCP Games co-founder Ívar Kristjánsson talks starting a new studio with his brother to fill a niche in the digital card game market
- Blog: What makes a game prologue gripping?
- Blog: Three lessons for narrative game design students
- Blog: Referencing objects—Names vs GUIDs
- Blog: Discussing the ins and outs of composing for games at the Library of Congress
- Blog: What happens when game artists design a mural
- Blog: Evolving difficulty modes in survival horror – Resident Evil 2
- Blog: 10 important Kickstarter hacks from an expert
- Street Fighter II designer walks through the creation of the game’s stranger fighters
- Don’t Miss: Making debugging into a mechanic inBeglitched
- Video: Why you should put your name on your indie game
- Boldly she rode: How Heaven’s Vault reinvents adventure games
- Mojang sets March 2022 date for Minecraft movie premiere: Long in development project has a new director, and plenty of time to get ready for release
- Eight ways the UK games industry can work better with education
- Finnish games industry employed over 3,000, brought in over $2b in 2018
- Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Old Video Games Look Like New: Modders are taking advantage of AI tools to update old graphics
- Code to Inspire is creating “Afghan Hero Girls” through education
- The ethics of smurfing: Why players smurf, and what developers are doing about it.
- Keywords nabs Japanese HTML5 developer Wizcorp for $1.1 million
- A Kickstarter for a game that’s basically hentai Mass Effect has raised over a million dollars
- GTA 6 showed up on a Rockstar artist’s resume: With Red Dead Redemption 2 out presumably Grand Theft Auto 6 will follow, but is this confirmation?
- Don’t Miss: Devs reflect on the impact and legacy ofBurnout Paradise
- Spider-Man Developer Reveals Undiscovered Easter Egg That Only Happens On Saturdays
- Video: Procedurally creating Manhattan for Marvel’s Spider-Man
- The imperfect science of Falcon Age’s baby bird-based social media marketing
- You can now download the source code for all Infocom text adventure classics
- Reverse review bomb? AC: Unity draws praise for Notre Dame preservation: Average Steam user score shifts from “Mixed” to “Very Positive” in recent days.
- Top 10 Best-Selling Video Games Of All Time: Minecraft and GTA V have dominated the last decade, but where do they rank among the all-time bestsellers?
DIGITAL
- Twitter shuts down 5,000 pro-Trump bots retweeting anti-Mueller report invective: Bots were tied to account formerly used for pro-Saudi messaging.
- In meeting with Twitter chief, Trump complains about lost followers
- Eleventh Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Palmucci v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- How Twitter Has to Change
- Twitter Is Not America: A new Pew study finds a gulf between the general population and Twitter users.
- Sixth Circuit Court Dumps Lawsuit Seeking To Hold Twitter Responsible For The Pulse Nightclub Shooting
- Another Attempt To Tie Twitter To Terrorist Acts And Another Dismissal With Prejudice
- Twitter Permanently Suspends (Then Unsuspends) Lawyer For Telling NRA Supporters To ‘F— Off’ And ‘Own The Death’
- Sri Lanka Temporarily Bans Social Media Following Terror Attacks: The government hopes to stem the spread of fake news about the bombings.
- Sri Lanka’s social media ban enters its second day
- When a Country Bans Social Media – Sri Lanka’s ban on social media forces a question nobody wants to ask: What if a global media network is impossible?
- Sri Lanka attacks: government’s social media ban is an assault on free speech and ethnic harmony
- Sri Lanka Shut Down Social Media. My First Thought Was ‘Good.’
- Like Clockwork After A Big Tragedy, People Rush In To Blame… Social Media
- Facebook fights to “shield Zuckerberg” from punishment in US privacy probe
- In new gaffe, Facebook improperly collects email contacts for 1.5 million
- Facebook Expects Record Fine Up to $5 Billion From FTC for Privacy Violations
- Facebook while black: Users call it getting ‘Zucked,’ say talking about racism is censored as hate speech
- Facebook’s privacy issues could impact usage of its forthcoming voice assistant
- Facebook’s flood of languages leave it struggling to monitor content
- Facebook’s auto-captions for a recent launch video are hilariously bad
- Facebook is working on an AI voice assistant similar to Alexa, Google Assistant
- China Bans the Word ‘Leica’ on Social Media
- China censors ban Leica name over Tiananmen Square video
- NIH, FBI accuse scientists in US of sending IP to China, running shadow labs
- Russian court fines Internet user hundreds of dollars for calling Vladimir Putin an ‘unbelievable f—wit’
- Russians Will Soon Lose Uncensored Access to the Internet: A new law allows the Kremlin to spy on, filter, and control the country’s online activity, alarming human-rights watchdogs.
- A mystery agent is doxing Iran’s hackers and dumping their code
- Disinformation Is Drowning Democracy: In the new age of lies, law, not tech, is the answer.
- How Cambridge Analytica breached all the privacy laws
- My TED talk: how I took on the tech titans in their lair
- Photographer Sues for Failure to Provide Creative Commons-Required Attribution–Philpot v. WOS (Eric Goldman)
- New Paper: Why Section 230 Is Better Than The First Amendment
- New Paper: “Why Section 230 Is Better Than the First Amendment” (Eric Goldman)
- Forming an Online Contract May Be Harder Than Tough Mudder’s Salmon Ladder (Eric Goldman)
- Universal And Warner Block Time Live Streaming Its Time 100 Event Because Copyright Censors
- Platforms Want Centralized Censorship. That Should Scare You
- Scribd taking down the Mueller Report is the future the EU has voted for
- Scribd’s Takedown Of The Public Domain Mueller Report Is A Preview Of The EU’s Future Under The Copyright Directive
- Another Week, Another Hollywood Company Files A Takedown Against TorrentFreak
- Don’t Regulate The Internet Like Every Company Is The Same
- The UK’s Dubious Plan For Age-Based Porn Filters Begins On July 15
- Digitas Creative Chief Scott Donaton Says Brands Must Redress Broken Trust Across Digital
- Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation
- Google, YouTube and Alphabet Shake Off COPPA-Related Complaint
- YouTube Rolls Out Tools To Curb Misinformation Ahead Of EU Elections
- YouTube will label videos to help European users avoid fake news: The aim is to limit misinformation during the EU elections.
- Google, Verizon Pact To Bring YouTube TV To More Mobile Users
- Amazon and Google settle feud, bring YouTube back to Fire TV devices
- YouTube Returning To Fire TV After Amazon And Google Find Friendly Ground
- Here Are the Winners of the 2019 YouTube Works Awards
- Malala Yousafzai’s Nonprofit Debuts YouTube Series ‘Roll Call’ Spotlighting Girls Around The World
- YouTube Spotlights Eco-Minded Creators Krystn Keller, Justine LeConte, Others On Earth Day
- LeBlanc Family Cookoff Series ‘Annie Vs. Hayley’ Debuts On Nickelodeon’s YouTube Channel
- Susan Wojcicki Has “Tea Sessions” With Shane Dawson And James Charles To Discuss Creator Concerns
- Viewership On Twitch And YouTube Live Was Booming In Record-Breaking First Quarter
- Vimeo Bows ‘Showcase’ Toolkit To Help Creators Make Custom Websites, Smart TV Channels
- E*Trade Sued for Creating ‘Clone’ of Instagram Influencer
- Tag Two Friends but Please Don’t Sue – A Guide to Instagram Contest Rules
- Allegedly Defamatory Tweet About Non-Resident Insufficient to Confer Jurisdiction (Eric Goldman)
- HBO Objects to the President’s “Game of Thrones”-Themed Tweet
- Willful Copyright Infringement Requires Proof of Intent in the Ninth Circuit
- Snapchat Gains 4 Million Users in Q1 as Snap Beats Earnings Estimates
- How publishers are using Snapchat’s curated stories tool for breaking news and more
- How to Avoid Copyright Infringement of Online Image
- Emilio Estevez Uses Some Public Domain Footage In Film, So Universal Studios Forces Original Public Domain Footage Offline
- Amazon will no longer sell Chinese goods in China
- Amazon demands selfies from delivery drivers to combat fraud
- If You Care About Privacy, Throw Your Amazon Alexa Devices Into the Sea
- Insights: What Netflix Says You’re Watching When You’re Not Watching Netflix, And Why It Matters
- Netflix To Grow New York City Footprint With Production Hub, Expanded Corporate HQ
- Netflix Further Experimenting With Episode Order In Test Randomizing ‘The Office,’ Our Planet,’ More
- Beyoncé Inks Three-Project Deal With Netflix Worth A Reported $60 Million
- Netflix offers $2 billion more in debt to fund its content spending
- All Your Favorite Shows Are Probably Leaving Netflix
- The Oscars decides Netflix is OK after all, following DOJ warning
- The Netflix-Twitter Complex
- Jumprope Is A New Social Network Where Users Create How-To Videos — And Then Post Them Everywhere
- Pinterest Shares Up 26% on IPO Day
- New Developments in Ongoing Website Accessibility Litigation
- The Worst Thing About Instagram Might Be Going Away
- The Second-Most Instagrammed Car in the World Is the Honda Civic
- The CIA is joining Instagram: ‘Our team worked with the CIA, as they do with many partners,’ says Instagram
- ‘It’s not play if you’re making money’: how Instagram and YouTube disrupted child labor laws – ‘Kidfluencers’ are earning millions on social media, but who owns that money?
- NFL Taps Instagram to Feature Photos of 2019 Draftees and Let Fans Shop for Their Draft Hats
- The Criterion Channel Should Be My Favorite Streaming Platform
- The future of high-speed computing may be larger CPUs with optics
- Elon Musk: Brain-Computer Interface Update “Coming Soon”
- AI Could Predict Death. But What If the Algorithm Is Biased?
- Applying for Your Next Job May Be an Automated Nightmare
- Artificial Intelligence Can Detect PTSD in Your Voice: Speech analysis software could revolutionize how we diagnose mental disorders
- Speech‐based markers for posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans
- Some AI just shouldn’t exist: Attempts to “fix” biased AI can actually harm black, gay, and transgender people.
- This YouTube Channel Streams AI-Generated Death Metal 24/7: Dadabots was developed by two music technologists who wanted to prove that a neural network was capable of capturing subtle stylistic differences
- Streamlabs: Twitch is still streaming king, though YouTube is gaining ground – YouTube reaches 24% of Twitch’s total streaming viewership
- The Gentle Side of Twitch
- TV Ratings Are Down For NBA Playoffs, But the League’s Worldwide Social Numbers Are Up
- Disney+ Is Betting On Quality Over Quantity With One Of Streaming Space’s Smallest Libraries
- Airbnb Delves Further Into Content Business With First Feature Film
- Facebook Watch Breakout ‘Red Table Talk’ Returns For New Batch Of Episodes May 6
- Foxconn’s Wisconsin Facility is a Ghost Town Where Workers Are Just ‘Moving Dirt Around’
- Foxconn: So, About That Factory in Wisconsin You Offered Us $4 Billion in Incentives to Build
- Samsung Galaxy Fold: Everything you need to know –
- Breaking news – Samsung responds to reported Galaxy Fold display issues
- After the Galaxy Fold breaks in the hands of reviewers, Samsung delays launch [Updated]
- Samsung Confirms It Will Delay Galaxy Fold Launch Following Early Disasters [Updated]
- The Samsung Galaxy Fold Is a Flawed Start to Something Amazing
- iFixit’s Samsung Galaxy Fold teardown reveals how the phone is dying
- Microsoft 3Q19 revenue up 14% on the back of strong cloud and, uh, Windows?: The PC market declined, but the Windows market did not.
- Microsoft engineer complains that company is biased against white men
- Thriller in Manhattan – NY Regulator and Declined BitLicense Applicant Engage in Extraordinary Public Brawl in Media Blog
- The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona: In the tourist-clogged city, some locals see the service as a pestilence.
- Why are Canadian universities so slow to adopt digital learning?: Online courses are popular with students who juggle tough workloads. But only one in five institutions has a significant number of ‘blended’ options.
- New Paper: “Why Section 230 Is Better Than the First Amendment” (Eric Goldman)
- Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice (Rashida Richardson, Jason M. Schultz & Kate Crawford)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
- The DOJ Isn’t Buying T-Mobile’s Nonsensical Merger Benefit Claims
- AT&T’s fake 5G icons aren’t going away despite settlement with Sprint
- AT&T says 5G will be priced like home Internet—pay more for faster speeds
- Exit of AT&T’s WarnerMedia could spell trouble for OpenAP
- AT&T Misses Q1 Revenue Target as Premium TV, DirecTV Now Lose Subscribers
- White House Won’t Share Data On Whether It Interfered In AT&T Merger Review
- Disney Makes Big Play to Stay in NFL’s TV-Football Game
- FCC Under Fire For Putting ALEC Rep On ‘Consumer’ Advisory Board
- Ajit Pai proposes blocking China-owned telecom from US phone market
PRIVACY
- How one country blocks the world on data privacy: The GDPR is the world’s toughest standard for data privacy. But its chief enforcer has yet to take a single action against major tech firms like Facebook and Google.
- Facebook’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Privacy Week
- No expectation of privacy in child-luring cases on the Internet, SCC rules
- Japanese Taxis Are Using Facial Recognition to Target Ads to Riders: Cameras in the back seat guess your age and gender – and then use them to serve you with ads.
- A Seamless Journey Awaits You On The Outbound Flights: All You Have To Give Up Is Your Face
- John McAfee Vows to Reveal Bitcoin’s Creator
- Shocker: John Mcafee Suspends Plan To Unmask Bitcoin’s Creator
- Marcus Hutchins, slayer of WannaCry worm, pleads guilty to malware charges
- Marcus Hutchins — The Guy Who Stopped Wannacry — Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy Charges
- The US wants to scan the faces of all air passengers leaving the country
- When License-Plate Surveillance Goes Horribly Wrong: The pitfalls of automated policing, where one piece of bad information can lead to a guns-drawn confrontation.
- State Investigator Granted Immunity For Hours-Long Detention Of Doctor At Gunpoint During A Search For Medical Records
- Marcus Hutchins, Security Researcher Who Stopped WannaCry, Pleads Guilty to Malware Charges
- Court Rules Chelsea Manning Must Stay in Jail for Refusing to Provide Testimony in WikiLeaks Case
- Cybercrime for dummies: cracking internet passwords is as easy as 123456 – GCHQ survey finds millions using most obvious passwords – including ‘password’, ‘qwerty’ and superhero names
- How Social Media, Technology and Privacy Laws Are Changing the E-Discovery Landscape
- Moving the Goalposts for Canadian Data: Federal Privacy Commissioner Changes Position on Cross-Border Transfers
- Guidelines to protect client information on phones, laptops released: Tips on what to do when border officers request your password
- Bug in French government’s WhatsApp replacement let anyone join Élysée chats
- The French Govt’s Hand-Rolled Encrypted Messaging Service (Briefly) Allowed Anyone To Pretend They Were A Government Official
CREATIVITY
- Esplanade Productions, Inc. v. The Walt Disney Company: 9th Cir. dismisses copyright claim alleging Disney film Zootopia infringed materials for contemplated “Zootopia” franchise.
- Batiste v. Lewis: In copyright infringement lawsuit against Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, court finds no probative evidence that defendants copied any of Plaintiffs musical compositions or sound recordings.
- Copyright Lawsuits Over Product Shots Are Stupid–eTrailer v. Automatic Equipment (Eric Goldman)
- Mercedes Goes To Court To Get Background Use Of Public Murals In Promotional Pics Deemed Fair Use
- Werner Herzog Joins Plenty Of Other Artists In Recognizing Piracy Isn’t The Problem
- McQueen Estate Wants to Unravel a Tom Ford Sweater
- Dallas Mavericks Fail To Get Trademark For Its Star Player’s Nickname
- Why celebrities try to trademark their catchphrases and baby names: Taylor Swift wanted to own “This sick beat.” Kylie Jenner wants the name of her 1-year-old’s birthday party. Tim Tebow does own his prayer pose.
- The 50 Best Music Documentaries of All Time
Jon
News of the Week; April 17, 2019
GAMES
- ISFE calls on European gambling authorities to tackle online skin betting: Comments come following move by Danish Gambling Authority to block 15 skin betting websites
- Rocket League halts loot box use in Belgium and the Netherlands
- The Native American Quinault Nation has filed a lawsuit against Valve over gambling
- Native American nation files lawsuit against Valve over skins gambling: “Valve has profited handsomely for years from illegal online gambling, and has made only token efforts to stop it,” says Quinault Nation
- Game Exclusivity Wars Are Upon Us And Valve’s Anti-Review-Bombing Process Is Without A Rip-Cord
- The legal dispute between Take-Two, Rockstar, and Pinkerton has ended
- Take-Two, Rockstar complaint against Pinkerton dismissed: Suit dropped as defendant withdraws cease and desist claim against Red Dead Redemption 2 publisher and developer
- Take-Two Dismisses Its Lawsuit Against Pinkerton Agency As The Latter Runs From Its Own Cease And Desist
- Nepal bans PUBG over addiction concerns in children
- Nepal bans PUBG: Battle royale shooter prohibited over concerns about violence, addiction, and distraction from school work
- AbleGamers opens Accessible.Games, a dev portal for accessibility info
- Sony Reveals PlayStation 5 Details
- Sony teases next-gen PlayStation specs in new interview
- Sony Teases the World With First Details About the PS5, and The Wait Is Going to Be Excruciating
- Sony’s PS4 successor sports 3D audio tech, faster SSD storage
- Exclusive: What To Expect From Sony’s Next-Gen PlayStation
- Sony Reveals First PlayStation 5 Details
- Next PlayStation will have discs, backward compatibility: System won’t launch until 2020 at the earliest, will feature a solid-state hard drive, PSVR compatibility, 8K support
- PS5 Price Will Be ‘Appealing To Gamers In Light Of Its Advanced Feature Set’: A little hint, but not much more.
- Sony will start replacing offensive PSN IDs with temporary placeholders
- Sony is now auto-changing offensive PlayStation Network IDs: User IDs found to be offensive will be switched to a placeholder
- Sony has internal policies in place to reduce sexual content in PS4 games
- A now-fixed Origin vulnerability potentially opened the client to hackers
- The Sims 4 is getting mouse and keyboard support on consoles
- Capcom debuts its own classic system, a $260 plug-n-play home arcade
- Capcom rolling out its own retro system: Capcom Home Arcade dual joystick set-up launches in October with 16 built-in games, €230 price tag
- Report: Apple willing to spend over $500 million bringing games to Arcade
- Apple invested a reported $500 million in Arcade partnerships: Financial Times’ sources reveal the high price of Apple Arcade subscription service
- Becoming part of the furniture: eSports in the mainstream
- Football clubs and eSports: A natural pairing?
- Esports teams and players to get revenue from new Rocket League Esports Shop
- OpenAI’s machine learning bots defeat Dota 2 champion team
- Machine learning bots beat DOTA 2 world champions in best-of-three: After millions of learning matches, OpenAI Five readily best world champs
- OpenAI bot crushes Dota 2 champions, and now anyone can play against it
- Ninja named to Time 100: Popular streamer represents gaming on magazine’s annual list of influential people
- Epic can’t stop pissing off Fortnite pros
- In lieu of Store-hosted forums, Epic wants devs to link to external communities
- Hajime Tabata’s first post-Square Enix project is a licensed Paralympics game
- Hajime Tabata to lead development of first ever Paralympics game: Final Fantasy XV director’s new studio will help to build a young audience for the 2020 Paralympic Games
- Red Dead Redemption 2 named Game of the Year at Italian Video Game Awards
- Ubisoft pledges over $500,000 to Notre-Dame restoration efforts
- Ubisoft donates €500K to help restore Notre-Dame, gives away Assassin’s Creed Unity for free
- Ubisoft Pledges More Than $500,000 To The Notre-Dame Cathedral Restoration Effort
- Video: Creating a living open world for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Ubisoft patches art containing homophobic slur out of The Division 2
- Ubisoft removes slur from The Division 2: Publisher apologizes for in-game street art image depicting police officer with a slur in ‘leetspeak’
- YouTube, Facebook put up ad roadblocks for Weedcraft, Inc.business sim
- Weedcraft Inc meets advertising, video blocks: Tycoon game about growing and selling marijuana has Facebook page restricted, YouTube videos demonetized
- Devolver: Publishing Weedcraft Inc “has been a nightmare” – Co-founder Mike Wilson says US marijuana tycoon title has been the hardest to bring to market due to industry resistance
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sold 2 million copies in under 2 weeks
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sells 2m in less than ten days
- “Accessibility” and “difficulty” aren’t the same thing | Opinion: The debate about Sekiro rapidly descended into straw-man bashing over “easy modes” – differently abled gamers’ needs are being lost in this mess
- Don’t Miss: Totally Accurate Battle Simulator and finding the fun in physics engines
- Google opens its Indie Games Accelerator to mobile devs across 37 countries
- Amy Hennig thinks game streaming could spark a creative revolution
- Xbox exec: Game streaming competitors like Stadia lack content
- Xbox: Stadia has the infrastructure, but doesn’t have the content – Platform holder suggests recently announced streaming service will struggle without more leading developers and publishers on board
- Aiming for affordability, Xbox announces the Xbox One S All Digital Edition
- Report: Fresh disc-less Xbox One S leaks suggests pricing shake up
- Student sues CEO of Minecraft Education Edition’s Chinese publisher: Minneapolis woman claims Richard Liu forced himself on a woman at her apartment following a company-funded networking event
- Xbox merges Live Gold and Game Pass under Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
- How a mobile game is reopening a hidden chapter in Taiwan’s history
- Disc-less Xbox One leaks ahead of expected reveal
- Digital-only console will be priced at €229.99, comes bundled with Minecraft, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3
- Xbox One S All-Digital Edition Console Reveal Trailer
- Report: “All Digital” Xbox One coming May 7, for €229 in Europe
- Why $249 is an unsustainable price for the first all-digital Xbox [Updated]
- Everything we know about the first discless Xbox One, coming May 7 for $249
- Forza goes free-to-play with Forza Street: Microsoft rebrands and reboots Miami Street, out now for Windows with mobile versions to follow
- The Nintendo Switch’s Labo VR Kit Is Cheap VR That Doesn’t Suck
- Nintendo Labo VR Kit Review: Well, would you look at that.
- Nintendo Labo VR review: There’s no “Nintendo magic” inside these lenses
- HD emulation mod makes “Mode 7” SNES games look like new
- Clash of Clans season pass drives 145% revenue spike
- What the Breakout Success of ‘Apex Legends’ Could Mean for Respawn’s Upcoming VR Game
- Apex Legends patch nerfs Wingman, gives Gibraltar and Caustic damage reduction: Gibraltar and Caustic are too easy to hit, so Respawn is making them a little tougher instead.
- Dark Slope thinking bigger with warehouse-scale VR
- Superhot VR has out-earned the original Superhot
- Superhot VR sells 800k: Superhot Team’s FPS has now made more in revenue across VR releases than it has in non-VR
- Telltale’s The Walking Dead “made Skybound what it is”: Skybound Stories CEO Dan Murray says episodic game had more impact on the company than the TV show
- How Clone Wars and Rebels influenced Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
- Animoca Brands acquires majority stake in Trilliona dev Skytree for $850k
- Revealed: The most successful UK game developers
- Here is every boxed game to sell over 1m copies in the UK
- UK Charts: The Division 2 holds No. 1 in another week without big releases – Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, God of War, Spider-Man see increases due to spring, Easter sales
- CCP: China will be EVE Online’s biggest market in two years – At Reboot Develop, CCP’s Hilmar Petursson discussed the importance of China and Korea to the future of EVE Online
- Twitch launches first game, Twitch Sings: Free karaoke game developed in conjunction with Harmonix, designed for streaming
- Gayming Magazine to launch in June: New online gaming magazine to present LGBTQ+-focused news, reviews, features
- The Witcher Netflix series is coming in late 2019
- Halo Tv Series Casts Pablo Schreiber As Master Chief
- Activision Blizzard pays employees for health tracking
- NetEase investment is bringing indies East
- Kickstarter’s games category surpasses $1 billion in pledges
- Miyazaki vs Ueda: The path to compelling fantasy – Renowned Japanese developers discussed their differences at Reboot Develop, including opposing philosophies on animation and setting
- Amy Hennig: AAA industry is at “an interesting crossroads” with storytelling – At Reboot Develop, the revered creator confessed to feeling “overwhelmed” by the scale of AAA games, which are now too big for their own stories
- How Inkle developed its own ancient language forHeaven’s Vault
- Don’t Miss: Alien: Isolation and the evolution of horror sims
- Blog: How punishment systems can hurt gameplay
- Blog: Motivating players for better engagement and retention
- Blog: Some thoughts on difficulty in games
- Blog: Turning your community into an extension of your team
- Video: Steps for building a game’s community from scratch
- Blog: Orchestrating game worlds using Event SuperVision
- Blog: Exploring the ‘what’ of bittersweet game design
- The source code for Infocom’s classic text adventures is now on Github
- “The bankers are actually much more metal than publishers”: Headbang Club’s David Elahee talks about Double Kick Heroes’ path from Ludum Dare prototype to multiplatform launch
- Trion Worlds is shutting down Atlas Reactor this summer
- Gamigo shuts down Atlas Reactor: Trion Worlds’ F2P tactics title closes after two years, “can no longer sustain itself”
- Even Konami Code Couldn’t Rescue Its Slot-machine Game-related Patents from being Invalidated under Alice
- U.S. Patent No. 9,687,733: Game apparatus, storage medium, game controlling method and game system
- Managing your game dev career, from early to late stages
- Video: Practical advice for saving video game history before it’s too late
- The new grammar of television (and games): Lessons from an avocado
DIGITAL
- Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threat to democracy
- Mark Zuckerberg leveraged Facebook user data to fight rivals and help friends, leaked documents show: Facebook’s leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data – and privacy was an afterthought.
- 15 Months Of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook
- Facebook v. Sullivan: Building Constitutional Law for Online Speech (Thomas Kadri & Kate Klonick)
- TED offers Mark Zuckerberg a stage to explain himself once and for all
- British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr sticks it to the gods of Silicon Valley in Vancouver TED talk
- Carole Cadwalladr blasts tech titans at TED: Your technology is “a crime scene”
- Ethics Alone Can’t Fix Big Tech
- Grandstanding GOP Senators Continue To Mislead About Social Media Bias, Demand A ‘Fairness Doctrine’ For The Internet
- No, Section 230 Does Not Require Platforms to Be “Neutral”
- Platform Liability Doesn’t — And Shouldn’t — Depend On Content Moderation Practices
- Nancy Pelosi Joins Ted Cruz And Louis Gohmert In Attacking CDA 230
- Section 230 Applies to ADA Closed Captioning Claims–National Federation of the Deaf v. Harvard (Eric Goldman)
- Stop Saying That Section 230 Was A ‘Gift To Internet Companies’
- Wherein The Copia Institute Updates The Copyright Office On The First Amendment Problems With The DMCA
- Apple and Qualcomm settle patent fight after one day in court
- Intel quits 5G modem business hours after Apple settles with Qualcomm
- New laws to block election meddling miss the mark, claims journalist who uncovered Facebook’s role in Brexit
- Another Government Impermissibly Censors Constituents on Facebook–Robinson v. Hunt County
- Facebook’s reckoning? The global battle to regulate social media: After fake news scandals, suicides and the Christchurch massacre, internet groups face a profound change in mood
- No, YouTube Cannot Reasonably Moderate All Content On Its Platform
- AI Won’t Save Us From Fake News: YouTube’s Fact Checking Tool Thinks Notre Dame Fire Is About 9/11
- Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp back up after widespread outages
- A cognitive scientist explains why humans are so susceptible to fake news and misinformation: “We might like to think of our memory as an archivist that carefully preserves events, but sometimes it’s more like a storyteller.”
- EU Tells Internet Archive That Much Of Its Site Is ‘Terrorist Content’
- EU Parliament Takes Up Its Next Attempt To Wipe Out An Open Internet: Terrorist Content Regulation Vote On Wednesday
- EU Parliament Votes To Require Internet Sites To Delete ‘Terrorist Content’ In One Hour (By 3 Votes)
- What Will Happen When Governments Disagree Over Who Is A Terrorist Organization… And Who Needs To Be Blocked Online?
- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings To Leave Facebook Board In May
- DOJ to academy: don’t cancel Netflix
- Netflix’s Next Bid To Charm Awards Voters Is Its Own Magazine, Coming In June
- Netflix Is Close To Buying Hollywood’s Historic Egyptian Theatre — But Won’t Use It To Lure Film Awards
- Foxconn’s Wisconsin ‘Factory’ Is An Even Bigger Joke Than Everybody Thought
- Film, TV studios filing lawsuits against Canadian BitTorrent users
- T-Series Court Order Sees “Abusive, Vulgar, Racist” PewDiePie Diss Tracks Blocked In India
- Porn sites must age-verify British users starting July 15: Sites that don’t verify age could get blocked by British ISPs.
- Online harms white paper misses the mark (Andres Guadamuz)
- UK: online harms white paper – potential new regulatory framework for social media
- UK Seeks to Establish Internet Watchdog
- An Internet Regulator For The UK: 10 Things You Need To Know
- The future of free speech: The panic button and social media regulation – The special internet standard and its independent arbitration system
- German competition authority pushes the boundaries of abuse of dominance with infringement finding on online data collection
- EU Council Officially Approves European Copyright Law Reforms: A New Digital Age Is Born
- European Parliament Approves Controversial EU Copyright Directive
- The EU Copyright Directive – Filtering the Internet
- As Expected, EU Nations Rubber Stamp EU Copyright Directive
- As the EU Copyright Directive was approved, Germany admitted it requires copyright filters, putting it on a collision course with the EU-Canada trade deal
- DSM Directive Series #4: Article 17 obligations … in a chart (Eleonora Rosati)
- The Phantom Menace: Office Depot Settles with FTC Over Fake Virus Scans
- COPPA Safe Harbor Hit by Storm
- N.D. California Straightens Out Competitor’s Use of Infringing Hashtags: #newdevelopments in Using Trademarks as Hashtags
- An Email Inbox Isn’t a “Place” for Purposes of Florida Privacy Law–Hall v. Sargeant (Eric Goldman)
- Ian McEwan: ‘Who’s going to write the algorithm for the little white lie?’
- AI Robot paints its own moonscapes in traditional Chinese style
- AKQA says it used AI to invent a new sport called Speedgate
- Notes on AI Bias
- AI’s white guy problem isn’t going away: A new report says current initiatives to fix the field’s diversity crisis are too narrow and shallow to be effective.
- We’ve Been Warned About AI And Music For Over 50 Years, But No One’s Prepared
- People Are Horrified When They Have to Torture a Virtual Person: Even in a VR simulation, the Milgram Shock Experiment continues to traumatize.
- Participant concerns for the Learner in a Virtual Reality replication of the Milgram obedience study (Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Mel Slater, Megan E. Birney, David Swapp, S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen D. Reicher)
- Microsoft overhauling HR complaint process: After employees trade harassment stories, CEO Satya Nadella promises consistent, transparent enforcement of company policy
- HQ Trivia replaces Quiz Daddy Scott Rogowsky
- Longtime HQ Trivia Host Scott Rogowsky Exits Company
- Over half of HQ Trivia staff tried to oust CEO: Co-founder Rus Yusupov survived demands for his removal, but the search for a replacement chief has begun
- Another Appellate Court Rejects “Material Support for Terrorist” Claims Against Social Media Platforms–Crosby v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Marvel Set to Launch Live-Streaming Twitter Fan Show, Hosted by ‘Agent M’ and Angélique Roché
- Twitter Doesn’t Want You Sharing This Link About TV Piracy
- Twitter blocks EFF tweet that criticized bogus takedown of a previous tweet
- How Jack Dorsey plans to change Twitter
- A healthier Twitter: Progress and more to do
- Nichification
- AMC Networks boss Josh Sapan wants the people who make TV to look at the data – but not too much: There’s no algorithm for creativity yet, Sapan says on the latest Recode Media.
- Vimeo Breaks Into Shortform Space With Acquisition Of Video Creation Service Magisto
- Girls Who Code Helps Draft ‘Landmark’ Legislation Aimed at Closing the Gender Gap
- Google+ is back! Meet the enterprise-focused “Google Currents”
- Susan Wojcicki On YouTube’s Fight Against Grotesque Content: “I Own This Problem, And I’m Going To Fix It”
- YouTube tries a new metric to answer critics: Responsibility
- YouTube Is Plotting A New Metric That Would Reward ‘Quality Watch Time’
- YouTube Axes Four More Series As It Overhauls Original Programming Strategy
- YouTube Millionaires: Top ‘Madden NFL’ Gamer YoBoy Pizza Takes On Real-Life NFL Stars In New YouTube Series
- YouTube Teams Up With Enterprise For ‘Cobra Kai’ Campaign
- Horror Vloggers Sam And Colby Sign With CAA Amid YouTube Hiatus Announcement
- Korean Boy Band BTS Annihilates Record For Biggest 24-Hour YouTube Debut
- Clevver News, Style Channels Return To YouTube With Original Hosts After Defy’s Collapse
- YouTube Names New Head Of Unscripted; Says Upcoming Originals Slate Will Center On Music, Education, And Creators
- YouTube TV adds channels and raises price—you can’t opt out of either change
- Awesomeness Co-Heads Elucidate Vision For Gen Z Purveyor After Viacom Acquisition
- Top Scandinavian MCN ‘United Screens’, Which RTL Bought For $15 Million, Names New CEO
- Logan Paul’s Latest Podcast Guest Is Banned Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones
- Here’s Why Simply Nailogical, With 7 Million Subscribers, Still Maintains Day Job At Canadian Government
- Gaining Followers: Use of social media by Canadian public companies while navigating Canadian securities laws
- Viceland To End Nightly Series ‘Vice Live’ Weeks After Show’s Premiere
- Creator Of Silk Road 2.0 Did Double The Business, Sentenced To Only Five Years In Prison
- Bendgate 2.0: Samsung’s $2,000 foldable phone is already breaking [Update]
- AT&T is selling its stake in Hulu
- AT&T Sells Back Its 10% Stake In Hulu, Valuing Streamer At $15 Billion
- Hulu, Netflix May Face Subpoena Over Fyre Documentaries
- Starz Really, Really Doesn’t Want You To Know That TorrentFreak Wrote About Leaked Shows, Or That Anyone Tweeted About It
- Starz Issues Laughably Unbelievable Excuse And Apology For Taking Down Tweets
- Legacy Music Industry Shouldn’t Get To Watch Over The Royalties Of Independent Songwriters
- Insights: As Video Streamers Turn Over Some Cards, Can They Avoid The Real Flop?
- Apple News+ Is a Total Mess
- Here’s the Weirdest Apple Bug I’ve Ever Heard Of
- The Incredible Old-School iTunes Feature I Hope Apple Doesn’t Kill
- Amazon reportedly set to launch a free music streaming tier: It could be available as soon as this week
- Another Federal Court Ruling Strengthens Brands’ Approach to Reduce Gray Market Sales on Amazon
- TikTok Hiring “Talent Ambassadors” At 17 Colleges To Help Rake In Older Users
- Insights: Snap Reaction To New Initiatives Is Great, But Can Spiegel Sustain This Win Streak?
- Peyton Manning Hosting NFL History Docu-Series for ESPN+ Streaming Service
- Conde Nast now has 28 shows on Snapchat, with plans for more
- Instagram Launches Moody Camera Effects For Coachella, Billie Eilish
- Disney Streaming Service To Launch In November At $6.99 Per Month
- Disney+ launches on November 12 for $6.99/mo, plus new Marvel, Star Wars series
- Disney confirms it will ‘likely’ bundle Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu for one price
- How Vevo Is Boosting Views by Optimizing Video Thumbnails
- DVD and Blu-ray sales nearly halved over five years, MPAA report says
- Leaked Avengers: Endgame Footage Has Hit the Internet
- In A First, VidCon Will Host Panels, Meet-And-Greets With Internet-Famous Pets
- New York State Department of Financial Services Revokes Crypto Exchange’s Safe Harbor to Operate Without BitLicense
- How Far We Haven’t Come: SEC Resistance to Blockchain Securities Continues?
- Keeping it real: Implications of blockchain technology on privacy obligations
- Strong corporate desktop sales limit the decline of the PC market
- Fortunately, There Are Incredible 3D Scans of Notre Dame – The good news: we have a highly-detailed digital template for how to rebuild.
- The Images That Could Help Rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral: And the young, brilliant professor who made them before he died
COMMUNICATIONS
- Wind, Sleet, and Dead Zones: My Quest to Map Chicago’s Spotty 5G
- What will journalism do with 5G’s speed and capacity? Here are some ideas, from ‘The New York Times’ and elsewhere
- T-Mobile/Sprint merger is in danger of being rejected by DOJ
- T-Mobile’s ‘Revolutionary’ New TV Service Looks Like The Same Old Crap
- FCC Seeks Comments on Proposal to Allow All-Digital AM Radio Transmission
- FCC Releases Notices on Radio License Renewal Process – New Form, New Database and More Scrutiny of the Public File
- FCC “consumer advisory” panel includes ALEC, big foe of municipal broadband
- Very Little In Trump’s ‘Bold’ New Rural Broadband Plan Is Actually New
- FCC Warns Marketers of Video Streaming Devices to Comply with Device Authorization Rules
- Telecoms: clarification on neighbouring landowners’ rights to require removal of apparatus
- Landlord owners vs telecoms operators – The cat has got the cream
- Google Fiber exits Louisville, pays city $3.8M to clean up the mess it left
- Google Pays $3.8 Million To Clean Up Its Fiber Mess In Louisville
- House Passes Net Neutrality Bill, McConnell Promises It Won’t Survive Senate
- Investor Lawsuit Accuses AT&T Of Downplaying Streaming Video Losses
PRIVACY
- Julian Assange arrested, charged with conspiracy to hack US computers
- Julian Assange Arrested On Behalf Of The US, For Trying To Help Manning Crack CIA Password
- There Are Many Reasons To Be Concerned About The Impact On Press Freedoms In The Assange Indictment
- Federal Privacy Commissioner Proposes A Complete Reversal Of Its Longstanding Approach To Data Transfers, Including Cross-Border Transfers
- Rewriting Canadian Privacy Law: Commissioner Signals Major Change on Cross-Border Data Transfers (Michael Geist)
- UK Government Issues Report on Huawei Vulnerabilities
- An Email Inbox Isn’t a “Place” for Purposes of Florida Privacy Law–Hall v. Sargeant (Eric Goldman)
- The FBI Wanted A Backdoor To The iPhone. Tim Cook Said No
- Motel 6 To Pay Out Another $12 Million For Handing Guest Info To ICE
- Court Says Headphone App Not Eavesdropping, But May Be Deceptive
- Why the US still won’t require SS7 fixes that could secure your phone
- Illinois bill banning eavesdropping by IoT devices defanged by tech lobby
- 5 Times Jeff Bezos Tried to Warn Us Amazon Is Listening
- Virtual Cupids Hit With $3 Million CAN SPAM Judgment
- The many lessons of the Equifax data breach
- The California Consumer Privacy Act
- The ePrivacy Regulation: The Next European Initiative in Data Protection
- Cops Are Trying to Stop San Francisco From Banning Face Recognition Surveillance
- FBI Cyber Crimes Division Not So Great About Passing Info To Victims Of Cyberattacks
- Why You Can No Longer Get Lost in the Crowd: Once, it was easy to be obscure. Technology has ended that. (Woodrow Hartzog & Evan Selinger)
- A security researcher with a grudge is dropping Web 0days on innocent users
- Hackers could read non-corporate Outlook.com, Hotmail for six months
- The wave of domain hijackings besetting the Internet is worse than we thought
- An Oxford philosopher who’s inspired Elon Musk thinks mass surveillance might be the only way to save humanity from doom
- The Vulnerable World Hypothesis (Nick Bostrom)
CREATIVITY
- My ADA Keynote: What the Canadian Experience Teaches About the Future of Copyright Reform (Michael Geist)
- Access Copyright Proposed Tariffs: Is the Copyright Board Turning Over New Leaves? (Howard Knopf)
- Trump Campaign Uses ‘Dark Knight’ Music In Campaign Ad, Warner Bros. Says It’s Looking At Legal Options
- Devin Nunes Admits That His Bogus Defamation Lawsuits Are Really About Phishing For Journalists’ Sources
- U.S. copyright: numerous works enter public domain for First Time in over two decades
- Changing the Cycle: Peloton Removes Songs at Heart of Copyright Infringement Suit
- Conan O’Brien joke-theft trial begins next month with testimony from Patton Oswalt
- How Private Equity Ate Hollywood – and Why Writers Are Fighting Back: Now largely owned by private equity firms, the big talent agencies have turned to producing films and shows—both representing and employing writers. That, say the writers, doesn’t work.
- The End Of The Absurdity: Iceland, The Country, Successfully Invalidates The Trademark Of Iceland Foods, The Grocerer
- AB/InBev, Jealous Protectors Of Trademark, Pretty Blatantly Committing Trademark Infringement
- Pepsi Moves for Summary Judgement in 2016 Super Bowl Ad Suit
- F.A. Panel Says Wayne Hennessey Is Too Stupid To Have Done Nazi Salute
- False Advertising: The Theory of Necessary Implication and the Presumption that Runs with It
- How Kevin Feige Super-Charged Marvel Studios Into Hollywood’s Biggest Hit Machine
- In China, tattoos border on illegal – and they’re his life’s work
- Parody and abuse
Jon
News of the Week; April 10, 2019
GAMES
- MIT Prof: It’s More Likely We’re Living In A Simulation Than Not
- Are we living in a computer simulation? I don’t know. Probably.: Why this computer scientist thinks reality might be a video game.
- Are we living in a simulation? This MIT scientist says it’s more likely than not
- Google Could Learn a Lot About You From Its New Gaming Platform: Stadia sounds great, but don’t forget that Google is a research company
- Google Play hosting inappropriate games with kid-friendly ratings: Free-to-play games featuring violent content and gambling routinely hit the platform thanks to reliance on developers to rate their own titles
- Snap Inc announces Snap Games, launching with six titles
- Snapchat Unveils Gaming Platform, New User Features, 10 Upcoming Originals At First Partner Summit
- Snapchat’s new Snap Games platform includes games from Zynga, Spry Fox
- Snapchat Unveils Gaming Platform, New User Features, 10 Upcoming Originals At First Partner Summit
- EU Commission accuses six game companies of illegal geo-blocking
- EU investigating Valve and 5 major publishers for illegal geo-blocking
- Valve argues it should be excluded from EU geo-blocking accusations
- PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch online services face UK investigation
- Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo under investigation for consumer rights violation
- PSN name change feature goes into effect today
- PSN name changes launch today
- Starting Today, You Can Finally Change Your PSN Name
- PlayStation launches PSN ID change option, though not all games are supported
- You Can Now Change Your PSN Online ID—But There Are a Few Things You Need to Know
- BioWare Boss Addresses Studio Issues, Vows To ‘Continue Working To Solve Them’
- Charting the missteps that led to the decline of Telltale Games
- IGDA executive director Jen MacLean has stepped down
- FTC Loot Box Workshop Announced
- FTC to Hold Public Workshop on Video Game Loot Boxes
- The FTC is holding a public workshop in August to discuss loot boxes
- What’s In the Box? FTC Solicits Public Comments Regarding Video Game Loot Boxes Amidst Uncertainty
- FTC sets date for loot box workshop: Date set for August 7 on gathering of stakeholders, industry representatives, consumer advocates, and others to discuss consumer concerns
- The failure of the Russian global license proposal and the future of alternative remuneration systems (Gaetano Dimita & Ruslan Nurullaev)
- Fallout 76 Repair Kits raise new “pay-to-win” concerns
- How Fallout almost didn’t ship with its key SPECIAL system
- The complicated process of making licensed video games
- Pre-order refunds could force publishers to shift priorities | Opinion
- Survey: More teenagers are getting into video games because of Fortnite
- Prince Harry Wants ‘Fortnite’ Banned
- Prince Harry Says Fortnite “Shouldn’t Be Allowed,” Calls Social Media “More Addictive Than Alcohol”
- Fortnite un-features community build containing inappropriate imagery
- Google Play is still struggling with inappropriate children’s games
- Why Valve actually gets less than 30 percent of Steam game sales
- Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney addresses Chinese spyware rumor
- Epic to continue signing exclusivity deals regardless of Steam plans
- Valve silences Borderlands review bombers with ‘off-topic’ fix
- Borderlands review bomb triggers Steam’s “off topic” fix [Updated]
- Steam users review bomb Borderlands in response to Epic exclusivity deal
- Valve finally tackles review bombing as Borderlands 2 attacked over Epic exclusivity: Last week’s work of user scores discounted under Steam’s new ‘off-topic review activity’ system
- A deep dive into Steam’s discovery queue
- Sold Out and Epic offering up to $500,000 in The Unreal Box Offer: UK publisher seeking games that “feel fresh in a genre that isn’t overcrowded” as it teams up with engine provider
- Retro streaming platform picks up Arc System Works, SNK, others
- Tencent launches early access WeGame X storefront internationally
- Tencent stealth launches international version of WeGame storefront: WeGame X platform is available but still in “testing” phase, the Chinese publisher confirmed
- Tencent raises nearly $6bn in bond sale: Funds marked for general corporate use despite having $20 billion cash on hand
- Weaker currency could encourage foreign investment post-Brexit: Tencent Europe’s senior manager Li Ma also says Brexit will be damaging, but Britain will bounce back
- Microsoft increases Xbox Live Gold price in the UK: 12-month subscription goes from £39.99 to £49.99 to “address changing market conditions”
- Game Pass “Ultimate” and Game Pass for PC rumored to be coming soon
- The difficulties of researching gaming disorder and addiction: Dr Pete Etchells says there is an endemic problem with psychological research, as confirmation bias shapes the literature
- Battlefield V: Firestorm Review – A solid battle royale that doesn’t pack quite enough punch to get to the final circle.
- Gender pay gap widens in UK games industry: Women increase their representation throughout gaming, but median wages losing ground
- Meet 100 of the most influential women working in the UK games industry
- Brenda Romero’s guide to becoming a game designer
- Gaming is not a meritocracy: Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail pokes holes in the notion of cream rising to the top, explains why devs and platforms may believe in it anyway
- John Romero: “There are always people who question games that push the boundaries”
- “Games that have succeeded in Turkey are all localised — that’s hands down”: Vardiya co-founder Meriç Eryürek on the untapped opportunity in Turkey’s population of 30 million gamers
- Black Desert franchise tops $1 billion in revenues: Pearl Abyss says multiplatform MMORPG franchise has reached milestone in less than four years
- The second launch of Sea of Thieves: Rare on sustainable working ahead of its biggest game update so far
- Breach developer QC Games has shut down
- Daybreak Game Company back in control of H1Z1 battle royale spin-off
- How When Ski Lifts Go Wrong hits the right mix of blood and physics puzzles
- Buy-one-get-one-free sale helps Risk of Rain 2 attract 650,000 players in first week
- What makes a good Kickstarter campaign?: Anya Combs talks about ideal video length, the right number of .gifs, and one mistake that will keep any project from being featured
- 60% of Greater Southeast Asia gamers are “strongly drawn to esports”: New Niko Partners report finds 42% of players from the region prefer competitive arena titles, spend the most on games
- The concept of eDoping in eSports – cyber security as a safety measure, enforcement and sanctions in case of non-compliance
- Loaded, A Talent Firm For Top Gaming Stars, Signs Dakotaz, Skadoodle, and Sjokz
- Sonic The Hedgehog Footage Reveals Plot Details, Setting And Jim Carrey’s Robotnik: The adaptation of the Sega game is (largely) set in our world.
- How Lockwood pulled off giving 4.5 million festive gifts to over a million players: Sponsored article: Lockwood Leamington’s Studio Director Oliver Clarke on the seasonal gifting feature created for virtual world Avakin Life
- Ubisoft ends production of Starlink toys following poor sales
- Ubisoft cancels Starlink physical toys following game’s under performance: Development team plans to “do right by our passionate fans” with biggest update so far
- Ubisoft CEO: Live games give devs a chance to refine rather than start from scratch
- BioWare GM (internally) addresses complaints fromAnthem devs
- BioWare admits workplace, production issues: “These problems are real and it’s our top priority to continue working to solve them,” says general manager Casey Hudson
- Super Meat Boy Forever delayed, will miss April launch
- Team Meat delays Super Meat Boy Forever to maintain “healthy and sustainable pace”: Studio opts not to “run ourselves into the ground” to finish game by previously announced April release
- Nintendo adding VR modes to Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey
- VR modes coming to Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wildon Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit Trailer
- Black Desert franchise has crossed $1 billion in gross sales
- Roblox now has over 90 million monthly active users
- Moonlighter sells 500,000 copies in less than a year
- Good Shepherd picks up majority stake in new studio, Artificer
- Disruptor Beam plans to offer a mobile live ops platform to other devs
- European gamers shows progressive streak on diversity: Ipsos MORI survey shows there is growing demand for a wider array of characters in games, although industry still faces apathy
- Future recognizes staff union: Publisher voluntarily recognizes organized employees of PC Gamer, GamesRadar and nine other publications
- How to effectively use procedural generation in games
- Don’t Miss: How devs deal with making enemies that feel ‘okay’ to kill
- Don’t Miss: A 2008 analysis of branching dialogue, fromMass Effect to Facade and beyond
- How playgrounds can inform multiplayer level design in video games
- Avalanche: “The industry is going to calm down on tech and focus on creativity”
- CVG team reunite for new games media website: Video Games Chronicle launches this month
- Video blog: Historians discuss Return of the Obra Dinn
- Watch Falcon Age’s lead dev dive into the making of this bird-tastic tale
- God of War wins big at BAFTA Game Awards 2019
- God of War takes home five BAFTAs
- God of War director: accessibility isn’t at odds with creative vision
- “Accessibility has never and will never be a compromise to my vision”: God of War director Cory Barlog’s statement becomes a rallying cry for developers in support of more accessibility options in games
DIGITAL
- The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet
- The UK Has Released Its Plan for Cracking Down on Social Media Content
- UK government proposes sweeping new regulations of online content
- Online Harms
- UK Now Proposes Ridiculous Plan To Fine Internet Companies For Vaguely Defined ‘Harmful Content’
- Aussie Senate Rushes Thru Bill That Would Fine Social Media Companies For Not Taking Down ‘Abhorrent’ Content Fast Enough
- European Parliament Adopts the Copyright Directive
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 207: MEP Julia Reda Explains What’s Next With The EU Copyright Directive
- Canadian ISPs Call For Standardization And Fines For Copyright Trolls Ignoring Changes To Copyright Law
- Copyright Enforcement Service Claims $600 Billion-Worth Of Images Are ‘Stolen’ Every Day
- Include a ‘Creative Commons’ Argument in Your IP Defense
- The death of Section 230
- Singapore Government Pushes Fake News Law Which Will Give It More Options To Shut Down Critics
- German Publishing Giant Claims Blocking Ads Is Copyright Infringement, In Yet Another Lawsuit Against The Industry Leader
- German Government’s Bullying Of FOI Group Provides A Warning Of How EU’s New Upload Filters Will Be Used For Censorship
- UK Government Misses Another Ship Date On Its Porn Filter
- Be Cautious About Big Internet Platforms Bearing Plans For Global Censorship
- Devin Nunes Has Filed A Second B.S. Defamation Lawsuit Telling You All About A News Article He Doesn’t Want You To Read
- It’s Fun To Laugh About Congressional Reps Suing A Satirical Internet Cow, But It’s A Real Attack On Free Speech
- Email chain prompts Microsoft to investigate reports of sexual harassment ignored by HR
- Leaked Microsoft Email Chain Reportedly Describes Hellish Workplace for Women
- Microsoft investigating more sexual harassment claims
- Microsoft responds to sexual harassment allegations within company
- Microsoft’s eBook store: When this closes, your books disappear too
- Amazon will launch thousands of satellites to provide internet around the world: 3,236 satellites will provide internet from low Earth orbit
- Amazon plans satellite broadband for “tens of millions” of people
- Amazon admits that employees review “small sample” of Alexa audio
- Yahoo tries to settle 3-billion-account data breach with $118 million payout
- Researchers unearth 74 Facebook cybercrime groups with 385,000 members
- Facebook Will Stop Suggesting You Invite Dead People to Events
- I Can’t Believe This Dopey, Busted-Ass Website Is What Messed Up Our Lives
- Where to Find Evidence on Facebook
- Facebook Issues Additional Transparency Rules for Political Advertising
- Facebook’s AI Helps Block Or Remove 1 Million Accounts Each Day
- China is reportedly trialing attention-detecting bands in schools
- Chinese government proposes ban on bitcoin mining
- Teens ‘not damaged by screen time’, study finds
- Canada may regulate social media companies to avoid election meddling: Firms are not doing enough to combat potential interference, minister said after report found foreign meddling is ‘very likely’
- DOJ Warns Academy That Being An Anti-Streaming Luddite Could Violate Antitrust
- Marketers see progress in Twitter’s efforts to stamp out hate
- Twitter blocks Trump 2020 video over Dark Knight Risesmusic
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Twitter Temporarily Bans ‘Get Out The Vote’ Ads To Comply With ‘Fake News’ Law
- Children’s Advertising Review Unit Findings Should Not Be Ignored by App Developers
- The rise of the killer robots – and the two women fighting back
- You call that EDM? Moritz Simon Geist’s robots make the most technical techno
- The basics of modern AI—how does it work and will it destroy society this year?
- AI pioneer: ‘The dangers of abuse are very real’ – Yoshua Bengio, winner of the prestigious Turing award for his work on deep learning, is establishing international guidelines for the ethical use of AI.
- Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI (European Commission)
- Google Gives Up on AI Ethics (Board)
- Exclusive: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry – The controversial panel lasted just a little over a week.
- Hey Google, sorry you lost your ethics council, so we made one for you
- Watch Google’s AI Make Trump Sing Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”
- Android TV update puts home-screen ads on multi-thousand-dollar Sony Smart TVs [Update]
- Netflix: Coming Up Next… Emerging competitors and legal implications of the changing TV and film industry
- Netflix ends AirPlay support on iOS in an ongoing souring of its Apple relationship
- Ironically, Too Many Video Streaming Choices May Drive Users Back To Piracy
- YouTube to develop interactive content like Netflix’s Bandersnatch
- YouTube wants to make choose-your-own-adventure shows
- YouTube creating interactive narratives: Video service establishes new unit to produce original Bandersnatch-style content
- YouTube is planning its own interactive Choose Your Own Adventure-style content: It’s looking to compete with Netflix
- YouTube Exec Ben Relles Named Head Of Innovation, Will Lead Platform’s Push Into Interactive Content
- YouTube Forced To Disable Comments On Livestreams Of White Nationalism Hearing In Congress
- YouTube TV Hikes Monthly Price To $50 As It Strikes Carriage Deal With Discovery
- YouTube Millionaires: Danielle Cohn Got Her Start On Musical.ly — Now, Her YouTube Music Videos Are Viewed By Millions
- Jennifer Lopez Revamps Her YouTube Channel To Give Viewers More Personal Content
- YouTuber Charlie Ross Arrested For Impersonating Police Officer In April Fools’ Prank
- K-Pop Phenoms Blackpink Snatch Biggest YouTube Music Video Premiere Of All Time
- YouTube Will Livestream Blackpink’s Coachella Performance In Times Square
- YouTube Photographer Peter McKinnon Gets Photo Minted On Canadian Currency
- PewDiePie Signs Deal To Livestream Exclusively On Blockchain-Based Platform DLive
- Brittany Furlan Launches ‘Worst Firsts’ Podcast With Studio71
- The LaBrants Apologize For Prank On 6-Year-Old Daughter: “We Think We’re Awesome Parents”
- Disclosing Endorsements on Social Media: General Considerations for FTC Compliance by Brands and Influencers
- Why influencers need to use the right #hashtag
- Jeffree Star Says “Major Player” Was Arrested After $2.5 Million Makeup Burglary
- Cyber Group, YoBoHo team up on co-pro deal
- FTC Emphasizes that Providing Free Products Can Bias Reviews
- Shiseido is increasing its influencer marketing spending by 50% in 2019
- Here’s How The Warp Zone Survived Defy Media’s Collapse — And Regained Control Of Its Content
- Snacks for Props: FTC Says No
- Fullscreen Signs 10 Clients to Talent Management Roster, Including Mikaela Hoover
- Fullscreen’s Talent Unit Signs 10 Creators, Including Sierra Schultzzie, Josh Ovalle
- Digital Vets Launch ‘UNCMMN’ Talent Management Upstart, Repping Jay Versace, Jc Caylen
- Someone Hacks Defy Media’s Twitter Account, Promptly Uses It To Troll Everyone (Including Defy)
- Research analyst predicts Snapchat’s user base in the US will decrease in 2019
- Snapchat Announces 10 New Originals From BuzzFeed, New Form and Others
- Beyoncé Is Dropping A Netflix Documentary Next Week (Trailer)
- Netflix in Italy: Emerging competitors and legal implications of the changing TV and film industry
- Netflix’s DVD Rental Service Brought In $212 Million Last Year From 2.7 Million Subscribers
- Movie Theaters Don’t Like Netflix. Netflix’s Solution: Buy Its Own Movie Theater Chain.
- ‘Netflix Is a Joke’ Comedy Channel Sets SiriusXM Launch
- MicTurn takes the idea of open-mic concerts online
- More people pay for Apple Music than Spotify in the US now
- Will Apple Just Kill iTunes Already?
- Why Would Anyone Buy an iPad Mini in 2019?
- Apple slashes HomePod price and introduces Powerbeats Pro
- 3-year-old locks parents out of iPad for 25,536,442 minutes
- Hello world: Shining a light onto the culture of computer programmers
- Shani Hilton Departs BuzzFeed To Take Over As The Los Angeles Times’ Deputy Managing Editor Of News
- I Was Ready to Dunk on the Bose Frames… But I Actually Like Them?
- How Have Section 512(f) Cases Fared Since 2017? (Spoiler: Not Well) (Eric Goldman)
- Online Marketplace Defeats Trademark Suit Because It’s Not the “Seller”–OSU v. Redbubble (Eric Goldman)
- Somebody forgot to upgrade: Flights delayed, cancelled by GPS rollover
- Area Man Takes Over the Onion and Gizmodo Group in Private Equity Deal
- Is It Time for a Blockchain Brexit?
- New Quantum Device Can “Generate All Possible Futures”
- Interfering trajectories in experimental quantum-enhanced stochastic simulation (Farzad Ghafari, Nora Tischler, Carlo Di Franco, Jayne Thompson, Mile Gu & Geoff J. Pryde)
- When Twitter Fingers Turn to Trigger Fingers: A Qualitative Study of Social Media-Related Gang Violence (Desmond U. Patton, David Pryooz, Scott Decker, William R. Frey & Patrick Leonard)
CREATIVITY
- A Thousand Words: Getty Images Trigger Class Action
- Former Intelligence Officials Sue The Government Over Its Unconstitutional Pre-Publication Review Process
- Horse Race Announcer Sues Over Bill Murray Film That Included His Trademarked Tagline
- Kobe Bryant Every Bit As Useless As His Lawyers Predicted In Trademark Opposition
- Tennessee Senate Unanimously Passes Actual Anti-SLAPP Bill
- Battle of the Beers—Can Anheuser’s Bud Light Ads Be Literally True but Legally False?
- Are Vulgar Trademarks Protected Free Speech? Recent First Amendment Cases are Changing the Contours of Trademark Law
- The Emmys Are Still Going After A Pet Products Company Despite All The Concessions They’ve Been Given
- Legislator Irritated By A Journalist Decides State’s Government Should Start Regulating Journalism
- News organizations have all but abandoned their archives
- Alex Jones switches up defense in Sandy hook case
- When Asked About Marvel LGBTQ Heroes, Kevin Feige Says He Wants All Fans to ‘See Themselves Reflected’
- Viacom Prepares for Content Arms Race: ‘We’re Looking Beyond Our Own Networks’
- 20 years on, The Matrix remains influential
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Supporting a More Competitive Canadian Wireless Market: Speak Out on Navdeep Bains’ Proposed CRTC Policy Direction (Michael Geist)
- FCC Proposes Protections for 5G Infrastructure Hub and Relay Antennas to Spur Deployment
- In Verizon 5G launch city, reviewers have trouble even finding a signal
- Verizon’s ‘World First’ 5G Launch Was A Bit of a Dud
- New FCC Commissioner: Hey, Maybe Somebody In Government Could Address These Wireless Location Data Scandals?
- Just $6,790 Of $208 Million In Robocall Fines Have Been Collected By The FCC
- Not All Customers Are the Same: Top Court Rules Business Customers Cannot Join Consumer Class Action
- House Democrats Pass Bill to Restore Net Neutrality
- House Democrats refuse to weaken net neutrality bill, defeat GOP amendments
- House votes to restore net neutrality as White House threatens Trump veto
- Colorado Net Neutrality Bill Heads To Governor’s Desk For Signing
- Telecom Lobbyists Crushed San Francisco’s Quest For Better Broadband
- Pai FCC Tours The Country Promising Better Rural Broadband, But His Policies Routinely Undermine That Goal
- Lawsuit: AT&T’s DirecTV Now is a flop and AT&T lied to investors about it
- The robocall crisis will never totally be fixed
- More jails replace in-person visits with awful video chat products
- Rupert Murdoch, the NFL, and the Negotiation That Remade TV
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Canadian Privacy Commissioner Signals Major Shift in Approach on Cross-Border Data Transfers (Michael Geist)
- Court Says Government Can Continue To Withhold Six ‘Significant’ FISA Court Opinions In Their Entirety
- Polish Supervisory Authority issues GDPR fine for data scraping without informing individuals
- Samsung Galaxy S10 fingerprint sensor defeated by a $450 3D printer
- Ongoing DNS hijackings target Gmail, PayPal, Netflix, banks and more [Updated]
- ACLU Asks CBP Why It’s Threatening US Citizens With Arrest For Refusing Invasive Device Searches
- Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa: A global team reviews audio clips in an effort to help the voice-activated assistant respond to commands.
- Oversight Report Says DEA Ran Multiple Bulk Data Collection Programs With Zero Legal Clearance
- Chicago’s Ankle Monitors Can Call and Record Kids Without Their Consent
- Well-funded surveillance operation infected both iOS and Android devices
- Counting the Countless: Why data science is a profound threat for queer people
- Yahoo tries to settle 3-billion-account data breach with $118 million payout
- Thumb drive carried by Mar-a-Lago intruder immediately installed files on a PC
- USB Drive Found on Jailed Mar-a-Lago Party-Crasher Contained Self-Executing Code
- Chapter 19: Glossary – Unlocking the EU General Data Protection Regulation
- Court Says California’s Anti-Spam Statute Doesn’t Regulate Affiliate Networks–Bank v. Hydra
- Airbnb guest found hidden surveillance camera by scanning Wi-Fi network
- Court Says Virginia PD’s Use Of Automatic Plate Readers Violates State’s Data Privacy Law
- New variants of Mirai botnet detected, targeting more IoT devices
- Mysterious safety-tampering malware infects a second critical infrastructure site
- DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted in 2016
Jon
News of the Week; April 3, 2019
GAMES
- Oxford Researcher Blames ESA Reaction for Prolonged Gaming Addiction Crisis
- Screens, Teens, and Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From Three Time-Use-Diary Studies (Amy Orben & Andrew K. Przybylski)
- MIT Prof: If We Live In A Simulation, Are We Players Or NPCs?
- Google: We’re “committed to protecting and respecting privacy” with Stadia – Harrison assures streaming service’s users will be able to create an online persona “distinct and different” from their Google one
- Deep Silver deactivates stolen Metro Exodus Steam keys
- Sony is shutting down all Driveclub online servers
- Sony will switch off the DriveClub servers in March 2020
- Man gets 20 years for deadly “swatting” hoax
- Man responsible for fatal swatting call sentenced to 20 years
- Call Of Duty Gamer Behind Nation’s First “Swatting” Fatality Sentenced To 20 Years
- Security researcher pleads guilty to hacking into Nintendo and Microsoft
- Hacker sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for accessing Microsoft, Nintendo servers
- China’s frozen game approval process continues long thaw
- Latest batch of Chinese game approvals includes 30 foreign titles: Nearly 1,000 games have been approved since freeze was lifted in December
- Don’t Miss: A different approach to difficulty
- Event feedback leads Falcon Age devs to make combat optional
- No fooling: Reddit’s r/games goes silent for one day to call out hate, bigotry
- Ten tips for pitching from the head of ID@Xbox: Chris Charla gives developers a crash course on the dos and don’ts of selling potential partners on game ideas
- Inside look at BioWare explains exactly how fake E3 2017’s Anthem demo was
- Devs recall moments of instability, indecision, and crunch on Anthem
- How BioWare’s Anthem Went Wrong
- Blog: A short analysis of monetization in Apex Legends
- Drake invests in esports betting startup Players’ Lounge
- Video games are now a legitimate high school sport
- Players’ Lounge raises $3M for a wager-based, competitive video game platform
- Players’ Lounge raises $3m for buy-in gaming competitions: Drake, Take-Two CEO, Comcast, and former Yahoo CEO all invest in low-stakes tournament platform
- Durham College opens first-of-its-kind Esports Gaming Arena
- Blockchain: the real fuel for eSports
- F1 To Release Official Blockchain Game
- Brendan Greene: “I’m done with battle royale” – PUBG designer discusses his move to the new Special Projects team, and the privilege of now working without a deadline
- This War of Mine has topped 4.5 million sales and raised over $500k for charity
- At Ubisoft you always have a second chance”
- Apple’s Arcade can succeed – if it aims at families | Opinion: New service can avoid joining a decade of “noble failures” trying to create alternatives to F2P by focusing on children and parents
- Borderlands 3 trailer shows some of its “over one billion guns”
- Borderlands 3 Is A Six-Month Epic Store Exclusive On PC
- Borderlands 3 will be a six-month Epic Games Store exclusive on PC
- Borderlands 3 is the next big Epic Games Store exclusive
- Borderlands 3 joins list of Epic Games store PC exclusives: 2K says its goal is “to embrace new distribution platforms that will contribute to our effort to grow the audience” for Gearbox’s shooter
- Epic wants to leave the Epic Games Store exclusivity decision up to devs
- Epic: “It’s never our intent to keep people away from playing a game” – David Stelzer and Sergey Galyonkin discuss Epic Games store exclusivity backlash and attracting devs
- Romero Games partners with Paradox Interactive for upcoming project
- Video: Sean Murray reflects on No Man’s Sky and grit in game dev
- UK video game spending rose to record $7.43 billion in 2018
- What Astroneer’s devs learned while leaving Early Access
- Kenichiro Takaki departs Marvelous for Cygames: Senran Kagura producer resigns to work on new project following frustrations with restrictions on sexual content
- Today, WarCraft 1 & 2 get their first-ever digital launch—and it’s on GOG
- Is it all over for pre-owned video games?: Second-hand game sales remain significant, but the recent decline is by no means temporary
- GameStop posts massive loss as pre-owned game sales plummet
- GameStop posts $673m full-year loss: Specialty retailer acknowledges “the challenges facing our pre-owned video game business” and a need to change its business model
- GameStop: Sony pulling game cards won’t “have a material impact” on sales: Executive chairman Daniel DeMatteo believes PS4 owners will still fund digital purchases by buying currency in-store
- GameStop’s fortunes fall amid declining sales of games and consoles
- Sony updates policy to allow refunds on pre-orders: Refunds also allowed up to 14 days past purchase date if game has not yet been downloaded
- Sony tweaks PlayStation Store refund and cancelation policy in the U.S.
- Bethesda reveals “buddy pass” for Wolfenstein: Youngblood – Deluxe edition allows owner to share game with as many friends as they like for co-op play
- Microsoft scrubs Notch references from Minecraft: Platform holder distances itself from controversial creator
- Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson eradicated from splash text
- Minecraft update removes mentions of creator Notch from splash screens
- Minecraft: Java Edition surpasses 30 million lifetime sales
- Minecraft on PC surpasses 30m sales: In total, all editions of the game combined have sold over 150m
- Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft staffing up for Zeldaproject
- The case for a smaller, more portable Nintendo Switch | Opinion – Portables were said to be dead — so why would Nintendo consider releasing a smaller Switch?
- Twitch Prime users are being gifted a free year of Nintendo Switch Online
- Civilization VI update brings cross-platform cloud saves to Steam and Switch
- How Mario Kart Tour could bring Mario Kart up to speed | Opinion
- Sega Will Release The Genesis Mini On September 19
- Sega joins the mini-console revolution with Genesis Mini
- Sega Mega Drive Mini will launch September 19: Sonic, Ecco and ToeJam & Earl will be among 40 games built into the $80 retro console
- The Analogue Mega Sg answers why anyone would pay $190 for a new Sega Genesis
- Tencent opens new cloud streaming platform ‘Start’ for public testing
- Cloud streaming startup Polystream nets $12 million in funding
- CD Projekt plans to create 250 new jobs despite last year’s profit and revenue decline: Company still posts a healthy profit of €25.6 million as research and development spending hits €56.4 million
- Matchington Mansion surpasses $100m as competition sees downloads rise: Homescapes, Gardenscapes experience surge in installs despite no recent updates to either
- gamigo AG: acquisition of the game publisher WildTangent Inc. in the form of an asset deal leads to further profitable growth
- Rovio invests $3m in Play Ventures gaming fund: Fund has reached goal of $30m intended for investment in 20-25 companies
- FoxNext VP on turning Marvel: Strike Force into the Starbucks of mobile games
- Why 11 Bit Studios endeavors to put emotion and meaning first in game dev
- Designing for deck-building in video games
- Xsolla introduces new funding opportunity for indie developers
- Video: How devs can maintain their sanity for crunch and beyond
- Humble Bundle cofounders step down because ‘we’re more startup kinda guys’
- Humble Bundle co-founders stepping down after best year ever: New vice president and general manager Alan Patmore pledges to grow company as “a force for good in this industry”
- Flaregames founder launches Phoenix Games to give smaller devs a leg up
- Gameloft partners with CARE for Dragon Mania Legends charity event
- Digital Minister Margot James: “This government is committed to helping games companies” – Writing for GamesIndustry.biz, the UK Minister details how the government is supporting British games developers and more
- Record year for UK games market as spending nears £6bn: Software alone accounted for £4 billion in revenue for the first time, records broken in hardware and digital spending
- Valve teases its own VR headset, the Valve Index, for May reveal
- Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in May
- Valve Index to launch June 15: VR headset to be sold separately from optional base station and motion controllers
- Space Channel 5 VR hands-on: Ulala’s back, and I met her
- Social VR Hits ‘Rec Room’ and ‘VRChat’ Coming to Oculus Quest
- Virtual & Augmented Reality Through the Legal Lens
- Abrams Artists Signs 5 Gaming Creators Including Meg Turney, Matt Cobuzio
- Hyper Light Drifter dev confirms TV series is in the works
- Adi Shankar producing Hyper Light Drifter TV series: Netflix’s Castlevania producer teams up with developer Alex Preston for animated adaptation
- Into the Pixel exhibit calls for submissions of game art
- Don’t Miss: Streamlining how players deal with death in games
- Blog: A different take on Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
- Why HandCircus rebuilt the early iOS game Rolando for modern devices
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset takes home GLAAD award for outstanding video game
- The Elder Scrolls Online honored with inaugural GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Video Game
- Making piracy and pre-owned games problems of the past – 10 Years Ago This Month: Gaming execs kill two birds with one server-based stone, while Konami insists Six Days in Fallujah has no message
- Blog: 20 Years of retention in EverQuest
- Gratitude for the Miracle Man: Why I Love: Pumped BMX developer Adam Hunt pays heartfelt homage to a magazine disc demo of Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX
- This Ebook Company Is Trying to Make Reading More Like Videogames
- Blockchain Games and Collectibles – Patents and Other Legal Issues
- U.S. Patent No. 9,511,292: Video game competition notifications
- Mayor Sadiq Khan opens London Games Festival 2019: Praised industry’s contributions to city’s economy and the diverse talent it is attracting
- These are Gamasutra’s favorite slides from GDC 2019
- Video: Laralyn McWilliams on staying optimistic and creative in game dev
DIGITAL
- 540 Million Facebook User Records Exposed Online, Plus Passwords, Comments, and More
- Facebook asked some users for their email passwords, because why not: And two third-party developers left the data from millions of Facebook users exposed in S3 bucket.
- Facebook’s Ad Algorithm Is A Race And Gender Stereotyping Machine, New Study Suggests
- Facebook’s Efforts ‘Not Nearly Sufficient’ in Genocide-Torn Myanmar, UN Investigator Says
- Mark Zuckerberg calls for more regulation of the internet
- Mark Zuckerberg To Congress: Okay, Fine, Please Regulate Me And Lock In My Dominant Market Position
- Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let’s start in these four areas.
- Mark Zuckerberg Is Developing The Facebook Watch Of News — With Monetization For Publications
- HUD Charges Facebook With Enabling Housing Discrimination
- Facebook Cracks Down On White Supremacist Hate Content After Christchurch Massacre
- Complete Overreaction: Professor Calls For Shutting Down Facebook Live, Post-Christchurch
- Three Lessons In Content Moderation From New Zealand And Other High-Profile Tragedies
- The Bundeskartellamt’s Facebook Decision and the intersection of competition law and data protection
- EFF Fights For Redditor Targeted By Religious Organization For Forum Posts About Its Data Collection Policies
- Elizabeth Warren Wants to Break Up Big Data – Could She Do It?
- Countries Want to Ban ‘Weaponized’ Social Media. What Would That Look Like?
- What If Google And Facebook Admitted That All This Ad Targeting Really Doesn’t Work That Well?
- Russia Expands Site Blocking To VPNs
- Government’s “porn block” roll out delayed
- Blogger’s Screenshot of a Newspaper Page Qualifies as Fair Use–Clark v. TransAlt (Eric Goldman)
- Data dividend? California governor proposes plan to have companies pay consumers for using their info
- YouTube Won’t Ban Far-Right Activist Tommy Robinson — Here’s What It’s Doing Instead
- YouTube Terminated Yeah1’s MCN Status, But Now It Looks Like They’re Working Out A Deal
- YouTube Once Proposed Overhauling Its Entire Business Model, Paying Creators Based On Video Engagement (Report)
- YouTube TV Is Now Available In Every U.S. Market
- Popular YouTube Stuntsman Was Behind The Mysterious Spacefaring Big Mac Found On A U.K. Soccer Field
- YouTube Facing Criticism After Promoting Zac Efron’s New Channel Instead Of Resident Creators
- PewDiePie concedes to T-Series in battle for YouTube’s biggest channel
- YouTube Video Essayist Lindsay Ellis Has Been Nominated For A Hugo Award
- Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” Sees Massive YouTube Spike Each April Fools’ Day
- AI Ethics: Seven Traps
- As AI Spreads, Tech Needs ‘Chief Bias Officers’
- God in the image of white men: Creation myths, power asymmetries and AI
- The Boundaries of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
- How Algorithms Can Learn to Discredit the Media: Defamation is efficient, and AIs may have already figured it out
- Why Community and Collaboration is the Key for Building Ethical AI
- Can AI be a fair judge in court? Estonia thinks so
- Researchers trick Tesla Autopilot into steering into oncoming traffic
- Google Employees Call on Company to Kick Heritage Foundation Ghoul Off AI Ethics Board
- Inside the Google employee backlash against the Heritage Foundation: ‘They think that some of our colleagues either do not or should not exist’
- Google Employees Step Up to Demand Fair Treatment for Contractors
- Here lies Google Inbox, a radical rethink of how email should work
- Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand
- Google Duplex arrives on iPhones, most Android devices
- Southern District of Indiana Rules that Property Manager is Subject to Personal Jurisdiction Based on Text Messages Sent to the Forum State
- Insights: Apple Echoes Amazon In A Rebuke Of Everything Google And Facebook Do
- Apple apologizes for failing MacBook keyboards yet again
- iFixit teardown: Apple’s AirPods are “disappointingly disposable”
- The New AirPods Are Fine
- Apple just confirmed once and for all that AirPower will never come out
- Latest iPhone Rumors: Apple Adding the Stuff Samsung Already Has
- EU Approves Controversial New Copyright Rules
- The EU’s Catastrophic Copyright Directive Can Still Be Stopped, If Governments Of Sweden And Germany Do The Right Thing
- Much ado about “Article 13” (or is it 17?)
- After Insisting That EU Copyright Directive Didn’t Require Filters, France Immediately Starts Promoting Filters
- EU Commissioner Gunther Oettinger Admits: Sites Need Filters To Comply With Article 13
- “Very Short” and Incredibly Loud: New EU Copyright Directive a Shot in the FANGs
- Here Comes The Splinternet: How The EU Is Helping Break Apart The Internet
- Free Software Foundation Comes To Its Senses After Calling For EU To Fund Open Source Upload Filters
- EU’s Never Ending Quest To Rip The Internet And Free Expression To Shreds Continues With The Terrorist Content Regulation
- Cole And Savannah LaBrant Under Fire After “Prank” Convincing Daughter They Were Giving Her Dog Away
- DSM Directive Series #1: Do Member States have to transpose the value gap provision and does the YouTube referral matter?
- DSM Directive Series #2: Is the press publishers’ right waivable? (Eleonora Rosati)
- UK cyber security officials report Huawei’s security practices are a mess
- Salesforce Sued For Sex Trafficking… Because Backpage Used Salesforce’s CRM
- 9th Circuit’s Bad AirBnB Decision Threatens Basic Internet Business Models
- The Marriage of Silicon Valley and the Pentagon Is Happening Whether You Like It or Not
- Twitter now lets users appeal violations within its app
- Think before you tweet – the perils of social media for the accountancy profession
- What’s Gimlet’s Problem?
- Office Depot rigged PC malware scans to sell unneeded $300 tech support
- Office Depot And Partner Ordered To Pay $35 Million For Tricking Consumers Into Thinking They Had Malware
- Legal experts weigh in on controversial European copyright directive: Legislation shifts responsibility onto platform holders, but won’t necessarily affect content creators
- Section 230 Holds On As Grindr Gets To Use It As A Defense
- Important Section 230 Ruling from the Second Circuit–Herrick v. Grindr (Eric Goldman)
- Welcome To The Prude Internet: No More Sex Talk Allowed
- Senator Keeps Attacking a Law Crucial to Internet Speech—Only He Can’t Seem to Read It
- Cardi B, Juice WRLD, More Inducted Into Spotify’s RapCaviar ‘Pantheon’
- Department Of Justice Warns Academy That Banning Netflix From Oscars Could Violate Antitrust Laws
- Netflix Ranked as No. 1 Fastest-Growing U.S. Brand in 2019
- Netflix’s Biggest Price Hike Is Now Rolling Out To Existing Subscribers
- iHeartMedia Files for Potential IPO
- Streaming drove 9.7% rise in global recorded-music revenues in 2018
- Nickelodeon Buys Learning App ‘Sparkler’ To Bolster Its Preschooler Streaming Service
- After 21st Century Fox Purchase, Disney Bows Out Of This Year’s NewFronts
- Hulu Is Exploring New Ad Experiences For Binge Watching: Advertisers could sponsor shows when the audience is clearly in it for the long haul
- Spielberg proposal to ban streaming from Oscars may be illegal, DOJ warns
- Sony Sells Majority Stake In Its Crackle Streaming Service To Chicken Soup For The Soul
- Sony Sells Stake in Crackle, Launches Joint Venture With Chicken Soup for the Soul
- Sony veteran Kaz Hirai has left the company after 35 years
- Kaz Hirai retires as chairman of Sony Corporation: Former CEO departs company after 35 years
- Microsoft kills off the book store you probably didn’t know it had
- Viacom Will Tout New Suite of Advertising Options as TV’s Sales Season Draws Near
- Hiring Influencers: Are You Playing With Fyre?
- Creators for Good: Karlie Kloss Inspires Young Girls in STEM
- Teacher Says She Was Fired for Not Being a ‘Role Model’ After Topless Selfie Leaks
- TikTok To Join Instagram, Snapchat In The Realm Of Geolocation Filters Following GeoGif Acquisition
- Not Quite So Sweet: POPSUGAR’s Removal of Instagram Sidebar Leads to a Loss on All Fronts
- Instagram Considers Ad Products To Compensate Stars On IGTV: Creators and publishers could share in riches from new ad opportunities on fledgling video service
- Mercedes-Benz sued four artists whose murals appeared in its Instagram posts.
- Instagram’s big bet on shopping could be worth $10 billion in 2021
- Rounding Up Three Recent Keyword Advertising Cases–Comphy v. Amazon & More (Eric Goldman)
- Google and Walmart team up to let users buy groceries with voice commands
- The First Smartwatch to Read Your Blood Pressure Is an Ugly Marvel
- The future of conveyancing – A new digital age?
- Russia’s Shotgun-Wielding Drone Is the Flying Nightmare You Didn’t Know You Had
- Bitcoin Surges 15% Overnight Because Nobody Learned Their Lesson After the Last Crash
- As new prepaid rule takes effect, virtual currency wallet providers need to take notice
- How Automation Turns Us Into Trump Voters
- On the Early Web, People With Disabilities Found Community and Autonomy
- Taxing the sharing economy
- The Online Icons That Didn’t Survive the Web’s First 30 Years
- Old, Online, And Fed On Lies: How An Aging Population Will Reshape The Internet
- Copyright Registration, Publication on the Internet, and the Revolving “Back Door to Berne” (Eric Goldman)
- Rounding Up Three Recent Keyword Advertising Cases–Comphy v. Amazon & More (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- Alabama Court Decides Publicity Rights Trump First Amendment In S-Town Lawsuit
- Getty Images Sued Yet Again For Trying To License Public Domain Images
- Ariana Grande Demands All Photographers At Her Concerts Transfer Copyright To Her, NPPA Revolts
- Can an artist deem his own art worthy of protection?
- Ed Sheeran’s copyright woes continue
- Texas A&M Wants out of the “12th Man” Copyright Suit
- Copyright’s Memory Hole (Eric Goldman & Jessica Silbey)
- Federal Court Says Teen’s ‘F— Cheer’ Is Protected Speech
- FTC hits predatory scientific publisher with a $50 million fine
- Infringers walk the plank as the Premier League’s anti-piracy campaign scores big success
- Australian Prosecutors Trying To Throw Reporters In Jail For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal George Pell’s Conviction
- Journalist Maria Ressa Arrested Yet Again As Philippines Keeps Finding Bogus Reasons To Arrest Vocal Critic
- The Moment The Matrix Changed Everything
- At Last! Mystery of Garfield Phone Beach Solved After 35 Years
- EU to introduce anti-money laundering legislation for the art industry
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- A Netflix Crisis?: Foreign Funding Now By Far the Largest Source of Financing for Canadian Fictional English Language TV Production (Michael Geist)
- Company Ordered to Pay Woman $459K After Spamming Her With More Than 300 Robocalls
- FCC “fined” robocallers $208 million since 2015 but collected only $6,790
- FTC Shuts Down Companies Responsible for Over One Billion Robocalls
- District Court: “Ringless” voicemail is a “call” under the TCPA
- Second District Court in the Nation Holds That a Ringless Voicemail is a “Call” Under the TCPA
- The FTC Says It’s Totally Cool With Anti-Competitive Internet Fast Lanes
- Ajit Pai wants to cap spending on broadband for poor people and rural areas
- FCC Plans to Eliminate Rural “Rate Floor,” Heading Off Potential Price Hikes
- April Fool’s Day is Monday – Don’t Let the Joke Be on You by Forgetting the FCC’s Hoax Rule
- Cohen Payment Kerfuffle Forces AT&T To Be Slightly More Transparent About Lobbying
- Verizon’s Spam-Blocking Call Filter Is Now Free
- Verizon refuses to admit that its “first to 5G” commercials are misleading
- Watch a Verizon 5G phone hit speeds faster than your home Internet
- UK ISPs now automatically refund customers £8 a day for Internet outages
- Telecom Lobby Suddenly Pretends To Care About Accurate Broadband Maps
- FTC gives ISPs green light to block applications as long as they disclose it
- FTC reaches settlements with multiple operations alleged to be responsible for placing billions of robocalls
- FTC Launches Probe Into Telecom Privacy Issues. But Whether They’ll Act Is Another Matter Entirely
- FTC investigates whether ISPs sell your browsing history and location data
- The Electronic Communications Code – First Tribunal Decision on Consideration and Compensation payable by Operators
- Have You Been Sued by Manuel Hiraldo?
- Court Grants Primary Jurisdiction Stay in TCPA Case Pending FCC Clarification of ATDS
- New year, new rights for telecoms providers
- Wall Street Thinks The Cable TV Sector Could Easily ‘Unravel.’ That’s Probably A Good Thing.
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Court Documents Show Canadian Law Enforcement Operated Stingrays Indiscriminately, Sweeping Up Thousands Of Innocent Phone Owners
- Bezos rep says Saudis stole racy texts, leaked them to the Enquirer
- 7th Circuit Punts On Border Smartphone Searches; Says Riley Decision Doesn’t Affect Anything
- Seventh Circuit Wades into Big Data Case Law
- YouTube Defeats Lawsuit Over Children’s Privacy
- FTC imposes unprecedented fine for violations of children’s online privacy rules
- Ancestry-Testing Company: It’s Our ‘Moral Responsibility’ to Give The FBI Access to Your DNA
- FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
- Riding the waves of U.S. data privacy legislation
- Utah – The First State to Require a Warrant for Third-Party Data
- Woman from China, with malware in tow, illegally entered Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
- LAPD Watchdog Says Department’s Data-Based Policing Is Producing Nothing But Wasted Time And Rights Violations
- Kaspersky Lab Will Now Alert Users to ‘Stalkerware’ Used In Domestic Abuse
- Facial Recognition Tech Now Capable Of Getting You Kicked Out Of The Mall
- Facial recognition can drive business goals, but where do we draw the line?
- HTTPS Isn’t Always As Secure As It Seems
- FTC Seeks Information from ISPs on Privacy Procedures
- Washington State Pushes Forward With Comprehensive Privacy Legislation
- Will Washington Be the Next California?
- Thoughts on personal data vs non-personal data
- To catch a drug thief, hospital secretly recorded births, women’s surgeries
- Clinic Files Amicus Brief Arguing for Broader Access to Government Databases Through FOIA
- Machines Shouldn’t Have To Spy On Us To Learn (Zeynep Tufekci)
Jon
News of the Week; March 27, 2019
GAMES
- Blog: How games software and hardware could top $200 billion by 2023
- Opinion: After Christchurch – What we owe our game communities
- “If we make room for them, then there is no room for anyone else”: IGF Award host Meg Jayanth calls for devs to reject fascists, demand better treatment for themselves and their colleagues
- #1ReasonToBe: “Inclusivity is a battle we can win”: Rami Ismail’s final stint hosting the panel shares the stories of a refugee turns games developer, an Egyptian woman who refused to let a visa rejection silence her, and more
- Overwatch saw 40% less disruptive behavior with the endorsement system
- PUBG Corp and NetEase settle Battlegrounds lawsuit
- PUBG Corp, NetEase settle copyright lawsuit: After suit alleging Knives Out, Rules of Survival copied PUBG and countersuit against “shameless attempt” at genre monopoly, companies now dismissing cases
- Madden Litigation Sputters Out With Settlement
- EA Lays Off 350 People In Marketing, Publishing, And More
- EA lays off 350 staff in marketing, publishing, and operations
- EA closes Japan and Russia offices amid mass layoffs
- EA lays off 350 amid major organizational changes: Company reorganizing marketing, publishing, operations teams, decreases presence in Japan and Russia
- Electronic Arts closes Japan office as part of mass layoffs: Russian division also appears to be shuttering with operations moving to larger, regional office
- EA signs publishing deal with Vicarious Visions founders
- Sega removing actor from Western version of Judgmentafter drug scandal
- Judgment has sold through 97% of stock following controversy
- “Hard Rock” Hamilton Says Microsoft Can’t Leave Gears of War Lawsuit
- Judgement sales surge following voice actor drug charge controversy: There was “no correct way to deal with the situation,” says Sega chief creative officer
- Labor organizers share insight and tips on unionizing the game industry
- Roblox on creating kinder communities
- Game source code is a teaching tool, not a trade secret, argues VGHF founder
- Apple Finally Jumps Into Games with Subscription Service Featuring 100+ Exclusives
- Apple announces its own game subscription service, Apple Arcade
- Apple unveils Apple Arcade subscription service for iOS, Mac, Apple TV games
- Apple Arcade Games Subscription Service Announced
- Apple reveals game subscription service Apple Arcade: Program to launch this fall with focus on new, premium titles
- KO_OP, ustwo games announce Apple Arcade exclusives
- Opinion: A closer look at the strategy behind Apple Arcade
- Google Stadia Streaming Platform Launch, Game, And Feature Details Revealed
- Google Exec On Stadia’s Internet Speed Requirements
- Hands-On With Google Stadia
- Google Claims Stadia Is More Powerful Than PS4 And Xbox One Combined – GDC 2019
- Google’s Stadia Could Take Video Games Out of Your Hands: The new streaming service could make owning a video game a thing of the past
- In Wake Of Google Stadia, Reports Suggest Walmart Is Exploring A Game Streaming Service
- Report: Walmart is looking to enter the game streaming business
- Walmart exploring its own game streaming service – Report: Retail giant began talking to developers and publishers about its plans earlier this year
- Phil Spencer Reportedly Says Stadia Announcement Had ‘No Big Surprises’, Says Xbox Will ‘Go Big’ At E3
- Xbox will reportedly “go big” on streaming at E3 2019: Internal email from Phil Spencer says Google Stadia is a “validation” and notes “no big surprises” in Google reveal
- Report: Microsoft’s disc-less Xbox One S gets name and launch date
- Microsoft unveils new indie game showcase calledID@Xbox Game Pass
- Another World designer Eric Chahi sets up indie studio Pixel Reef
- Blog: My full time indie developer life – Year 2
- Blog: The colonial, non-colonial, and decolonial in video games
- All the Game Streaming Services Google Stadia Is Up Against
- Would a Google Stadia subscription service be bad news for the industry?: Analysts discuss Stadia’s potential to drive “a major downward trend” on prices, and what subscriptions mean for developers and diversity of games
- Google Stadia will support the Xbox Adaptive Controller: Microsoft’s accessible device included among third-party controllers Google’s platform will support
- Google tries to reassure gamers about Stadia speed and latency concerns
- How id Software went from skeptical to excited about Google Stadia streaming
- Slow Broadband, Usage Caps Could Mar Google Stadia’s Game Streaming Ambitions
- Google Stadia can succeed if it follows Fortnite’s footsteps | Opinion
- Nav promoted his new album in Fortnite stream with Ninja
- In-venue streaming and broadcasting of live sporting events – key legal issues for sports clubs and leagues
- Valve stays the course despite intensifying competition
- Valve Software dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in-game rewards: “We can figure out what kinds of rewards you like, and the kinds you don’t.”
- Valve is pushing new social features for Steam later this year
- Standalone Vive Focus Plus will cost $799 when it arrives in April
- Valve Psychologist: Brain-computer Interfaces Are Coming & Could Be Built into VR Headsets
- PlayStation VR headset sales have topped 4.2 million
- ‘No Man’s Sky’ is Getting Full VR Support for PSVR, Rift, and Vive
- Sony Announces 4.2 Million PlayStation VR Units Sold
- Putting Sony’s 4.2 million PSVR sales in context
- Sony is pulling digital PS4 games from sale at GameStop, other retailers
- Sony stops selling digital game codes at physical retailers
- Sony pulls full game download codes from all stores: PlayStation confirms to GamesIndustry.biz new strategy starts April 1, cards for DLC and virtual currency will still be available
- Devil May Cry 5 shipped 2m units in two weeks
- Devil May Cry 5 has sold 2 million copies in first two weeks
- 6 years in, Warframe nears 50 million lifetime players
- Fallout 76 and a handful of upcoming Bethesda titles now headed for Steam
- Metro Exodus on Epic Store outsells its predecessor on Steam — but what does that tell us?: “It’s about the game, and not the store you sell on,” suggests Epic
- Observation will be an Epic Games Store exclusive, Steam page pulled
- Epic offers support for third-party key sales — but not for exclusives
- Sweeney commits to human moderators & quality filters for Epic’s Games Store
- Epic Games Store is making the industry better but “gamers don’t see that”: CEO Tim Sweeney addresses backlash against exclusivity deals, promises human curation to block “shock controversy games” like Rape Day
- Report: Nintendo Is Releasing Two New Switch Models
- Report: Nintendo planning two new Switch models
- Nintendo Allegedly Set To Release Two New Switch Models
- Report: Nintendo to release two new Switch models in 2019
- Stardew Valley is the best-selling indie game on Nintendo Switch
- Dead Cells has passed 1 million sales, and Switch leads the way on consoles
- Nintendo’s Labo VR Kit Is Its Wildest Cardboard Adventure Yet
- This Might Be the Least Fun Switch Accessory
- Oculus Founder: Rift S Suitable for Only About 70% of Population Due to IPD
- eSports and Copyright between choreographies and UGC
- GameStop moving into esports with new events venue
- GameStop partners with three esports organisations: Games retailer signs deals with Houston Outlaws, Envy Gaming, and OpTic Gaming
- Comcast plans to build a $50 million esports arena in Philadelphia
- SuperData: Apex Legends’ $92m launch month the best ever for a free-to-play game
- Mobile strength pushed Tencent past $19bn games revenue in 2018
- WarDucks raises $3.8 million to expand studio and create location-based AR game
- WarDucks raises €3.3 million for location-based AR mobile game
- I played 11 Assassin’s Creed games in 11 years, and Odyssey made them all worth it
- UK Charts: Sekiro Shadows Die Twice is the seventh new No.1 of the year – Activision and From Software title narrowly beats The Division 2
- Kabam acquires Montreal-based mobile studio Riposte Games & Co
- GAME revenue dips but profits jump on ‘relentless’ cost savings
- Indies clean up at GDC Awards 2019: God of War takes home yet another Game of the Year gong, and Return of the Obra Dinn wins $33,000 in IGF prizes
- GDC 2019 attendance sets new record at 29,000
- GDC celebrates record-breaking attendance and locks in 2020 dates!
- Blog: The best slides I saw at GDC 2019
- GDC 2019, as told through livetweets
- Video Game Deep Cuts: The Game Developers Conference Aftermath
- A dev trained robots to generate “garbage” slot machine games—and made $50K
- Intel and Spirit AI are working on machine learning-powered voice chat moderation
- Video: Systemic AI design in Just Cause 3
- Get a job: DeepMind is hiring a Games Designer
- Deep Dive: Flexiscope, the play-time aware dungeon generator in Book of Demons
- Don’t Miss: Devs weigh in on the best ways to write and design characters
- Relinquishing Control: Remedy’s paradigm shift – Game director on leaving behind the tightly controlled experiences of Alan Wake and Quantum Break for, “a world that can support many stories, not just one story”
- Daedalic: “If we do this right, no one else will be able to make a Gollum game” – CEO discusses plans for the iconic character, who will star in the first of many Lord of the Rings games
- Critical Consensus: Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – Critics lament the lack of political heft in its story, but The Division 2 gets much right that BioWare’s Anthem got wrong
- ‘Buddy pass’ will let Wolfenstein: Youngblood players share with friends
- Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt spent heavily on R&D in 2018
- Boyfriend Dungeon dev examines why game fashion sucks, and what to do about it
- First-person digger: Stanley Black & Decker’s game controller for excavators
- The next generation starts with you | Opinion: Game Dragons’ Philip Oliver offers advice on how to better work with academia to improve the quality of graduates
- Twitch Launches ‘Squad Stream’ Feature, Enabling Four-Person Multiplay
- Ninja Is Getting His Face On A Red Bull Can
- Building a ‘homebrew’ video game console
- Niantic announces second Pokémon GO Earth Day event
- Obituary: Take-Two founder Ryan Brant has passed away
- Take-Two founder Ryan Brant dies: Publisher expresses condolences, gratitude to Brant for his vision and contributions
DIGITAL
- Muslim Advocacy Group Files Suit Against YouTube, Facebook For Hosting Christchurch Shooting Videos
- Microsoft calls for ‘industrywide’ moderation plan after New Zealand shooting: The company’s president calls for more coordination
- New Zealand Censors Declare Christchurch Shooting Footage Illegal; Start Rounding Up Violators
- Brutal Startup Is Using Eye Tracking to Force You to Watch Ads: It’s basically like “A Clockwork Orange.”
- Social media platforms under increasing pressure to protect users from harm
- Facebook and Instagram Finally Ban White Nationalism and White Separatism
- Facebook’s new rules come down against white nationalism, separatism
- Will Facebook’s New Ban On White Nationalist Content Work?
- Facebook Settles Claims Alleging Discriminatory Ad Targeting
- Vice Media to Pay $1.9 Million to Settle Pay Discrimination Case
- Music labels sue Charter, complain that high Internet speeds fuel piracy
- RIAA Continues Its Legal War To Turn ISPs Into The Copyright Police: Sues Charter Communications
- The Latest Pro-PewDiePie Hackers Locked Users’ Files Until They Subscribed
- New Virus Steals Your Files Until PewDiePie Gets 100M Subscribers: Another ransomware variant encrypts your files unless you subscribe to PewDiePie – but even if you do, it deletes them anyway.
- PewDiePie fans keep making junk ransomware: Please, YouTube! Just hide PewDiePie and T-Series’ followers count and put this competition to bed.
- How Microsoft found a Huawei driver that opened systems to attack
- New Huawei phone has a 5x optical zoom, thanks to a periscope lens
- US Is Forcing A Chinese Firm To Sell Gay Dating App Grindr
- HMD admits the Nokia 7 Plus was sending personal data to China
- How Internet Mercenaries Do Battle for Authoritarian Governments
- HTML email reborn, as Google brings AMP to your inbox
- Google regrets ‘minor glitch’ that sent Ghanaian currency plummeting
- U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Search Google Settlement Agreement for Fairness
- SCOTUS Remands Google Case to the Ninth Circuit for Spokeo Standing Analysis
- Tenth Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Sinclair v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- The echo of American Fair Use and of its boundaries, in the EU and Italian System. A comparative analysis in the wake of the Fox News victory over TVEyes
- Nevada Judge Says Online News Publications Aren’t Protected By The State’s Journalist Shield Law
- Talking Cat App Should Keep Quiet on Advertising, CARU Recommends
- A ‘Dark Day’: Copyright Law That Threatens the Internet as We Know It Passes Final EU Vote
- EU parliament passes controversial copyright overhaul [Updated]
- EU Puts An End To The Open Internet: Link Taxes And Filters Approved By Just 5 Votes
- The European Parliament has voted in favour of Article 13: Critics argued that Article 13, and related legislation passed today by MEPs, risked infringing on freedom of speech
- Article 13 – MEME Law is coming…
- “Memes banned” – the European Parliament votes in the EU Copyright Directive including controversial Articles 11 and 13
- EU Parliament Passes Controversial “Meme Ban”: It’s a “dark day for internet freedom.”
- Swedish MEPs Announce Support For Article 13, Demonstrate Near Total Ignorance Of What It Actually Entails
- New Report: Germany Caved To France On Copyright In A Deal For Russian Gas
- Enough MEPs Say They Mistakenly Voted For Articles 11 & 13 That The Vote Should Have Flipped; EU Parliament Says Too Bad
- Tell The EU Not To Wreck The Internet
- A Century Ago We Killed The Radio Commons; Don’t Let The EU Do That To The Internet
- EU Commission Refuses To Explain Why It Published Medium Article Mocking The Public’s Concerns Over Article 13
- EU Internet Companies Warn EU Parliament Not To Vote For Articles 11 & 13; Say They’ll Hand The Internet To Google
- MEPs Realizing How Bad Article 13 Could Be, Begin To Back Away From EU Copyright Directive
- Independent Musician Dan Bull’s New Song, Robocopyright, Warns Of The Dangers Of Article 13
- Sites Warn EU Users Of Just How Bad Article 13 Will Be
- Huge Protests Across Europe Protest Article 13; Politician Lies And Claims They Were Paid To Be There
- Supporters Of Article 13, After Denying It’s About Filters, Now Say It’s About Regulating Filters Which They Admit Don’t Work
- After EU Copyright Reform Passes, Susan Wojcicki Says “This Is The Beginning” Of YouTube’s Fight
- Most Advertisers Have Returned To YouTube After Comments Scandal, Google Exec Says
- YouTube Usage Comprises 37% Of All Mobile Web Traffic, Study Finds
- YouTube Facing Lawsuit That Alleges Toy Unboxing Videos Are “Abusive Advertising Practices” Aimed At Children
- YouTube Disabled Comments On Thousands Of Creators’ Channels To Prevent Child Predation. Tech Startup Respondology Thinks It Has A Solution.
- YouTube Shutters ‘Fantastic Adventures’ Channel After Proprietor’s Arrest For Child Abuse
- YouTube Millionaires: AR12Gaming Started Sharing His Love For Racecar Games On YouTube In 2012. Now, His Company Sponsors Real-Life Racers.
- How YouTube is changing toys
- YouTube cancels two original series but denies moving away from original content
- YouTube Content Head Susanne Daniels Denies Eyeing Exit Amid High-End Series Cancellations
- Kim Kardashian’s Daughter North West Entering YouTube Fray In Collab With JoJo Siwa
- Influencers Allegedly Run Roughshod Over FTC Warnings
- Influencer Law 101: influencer exclusivity
- Law School Exam Part 5: Am I An Influencer?
- #InfluencerMarketing: What advertisers need to know about disclosure
- Lil Miquela, Shudu, Bermuda and Sophia The Robot: CGI and Robot IT Girls Who Will Become the Influencers of the Future
- Studio71 Launches Weekly Reaction Series With Tal Fishman, Caylus Cunningham On ‘Caffeine’
- Ryan ToysReview’s Nickelodeon Series To Premiere On April 19
- YouTube’s FaZe Clan Inks Sponsorship, Content Pact With Automaker Nissan
- Liza Koshy Will Return To Her YouTube Channel After Yearlong Absence
- Liza Koshy Returns To YouTube With A Glitzy Musical For Her Dollar Store Shenanigans
- Creators Going Pro: Elle Mills’ YouTube Channel Is Becoming A Diary About The Raw, Vulnerable Parts Of Her Life
- Priyanka Chopra Launches YouTube-Funded Inspirational Special ‘If I Could Tell You Just One Thing’
- Admitted Meme Thief F-Jerry Sued for Allegedly Stealing a Meme
- Popular Meme Account Sued For Copyright Infringement and Other Claims
- Expansion of the Madrid System
- Ruling in Emoji Beach Ball IP Case Left Me Confused: Kangaroo v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- March Madness! Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Massive Cyberattack After Basketball Game Loss–Higgins v. Kentucky Sports Radio (Eric Goldman)
- Amazon Will Soon Launch Mobile Ads In Search Results
- To rival Amazon, UPS enters healthcare—with doorstep nurse delivery
- StyleHaul Notifies Employees Of Layoffs, Shutdown Of U.S. Operations (Exclusive)
- Here’s Why Netflix Launched ‘Love, Death & Robots’ With A Different Episode Order For Certain Users
- Netflix Reaches Tipping Point As Originals Now Outpace Acquired Titles – Study
- Netflix Asks Court To Dismiss Chooseco’s Lawsuit For All The Obvious Reasons
- Here’s How Apple’s Spending Its Massive $1 Billion Original Content Budget Ahead Of Streaming Service Launch
- Here’s the Full Rundown on Apple TV and the New Apple TV+
- Apple finally enters TV streaming space with new Apple TV+ service
- Here’s all the TV+ shows Apple flew out celebrities for
- Apple’s New Genre Shows Are Still Mysterious, But Here’s What We Learned Today
- Apple’s Streaming Service Apple TV+ To Launch This Fall, Will Have Zero Third-Party Content — But Plenty Of Add-Ons
- Liveblog: Apple unveils its TV service and more at the March 25 “It’s show time” event
- Apple promises its new credit card is a privacy-protecting beast
- Apple debuts its own credit card with a physical version to complement the app
- The Apple Card Is Great at Privacy but Mediocre Overall
- Everything that’s happening with Apple’s News+ subscription service
- Apple News+: A newsstand of 300 glossy magazines for $9.99/month
- Apple Used Its Oprah Moment to Pull One Over on Us
- Apple Designates Amazon As an Authorized Reseller of Apple – Highlighting the Importance of Online Sales Control for Even the World’s Most Powerful Brand
- Clippy briefly resurrected as Teams add-on, brutally taken down by brand police
- Microsoft ships antivirus for macOS as Windows Defender becomes Microsoft Defender
- Microsoft exec bans company from pulling any dumb April Fools’ pranks
- Streaming Powers U.S. Latin Music Market to 18% Growth
- eMarketer claims Spotify US will overtake Pandora by 2021
- AI-music startup Endel to release albums through Warner Music
- A Survey Of The EU’s AI Ecosystem
- Expert views on the frontiers of AI and conflict
- How to develop a successful IP strategy for AI
- Can AI Be A Fair Judge In Court? Estonia Thinks So
- How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science
- Artificial Intelligence: A Potential Cybersecurity Safeguard or Viable Threat to the Healthcare Industry?
- Algorithmic Accountability: A Primer
- Inside Google’s Rebooted Robotics Program
- Study shows complexity and uncertainty of IoT regulation in Europe
- New York City Apartment Residents Sue Landlord Over New Smart Locks [Updated]
- US computer science grads outperforming those in other key nations
- Rethinking the rights of children for the internet age
- Disruptive Developments @20EssexStreet: What is the difference between a cryptocurrency trading platform and a kitchen blender?
- What’s in a (User)Name?
- Freetown Man Arrested for Keeping Flat-Screen TV Delivered to Him by Accident With Amazon Order
- This Truck Spilled 40,000 Pounds of Printer Ink In a Crash That Probably Cost a Gazillion Dollars
- Man Steals $122 Million From Google And Facebook By Just Asking Them For Money
- Digital Business in Canada
- Internet Platform Governance, Part 1: What’s the Problem?
- Cloud computing in the United States
- Federal Prosecutors Recommend Paul Hansmeier Spend The Next 12 Years In Prison
CREATIVITY
- Photographer loses lawsuit over use of her photo in political mailer
- $35 billion in research funding “now at stake” after Trump executive order
- New waves in the battle against piracy of sports rights
- Copyright Ownership DJ Claim Must Plead Disputed Ownership
- What do Bruce Springsteen and Venus and Serena Williams all have in common?
- Counterfeiting and the importance of brand protection in beauty
- Fashion and cultural expressions
- Dutch Golden Age painting returned to heirs of Nazi Spoliation victims
- Intellectual Property Law Year in Review – March 2019
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Cable Industry Embarrassed By The Word ‘Cable,’ Stops Using It
- FCC has to pay journalist $43,000 after hiding net neutrality records
- FCC (Read: Taxpayers) Forced To Pay Journalist’s Legal Bills After Tap Dancing Around FOIA Requests
- T-Mobile’s $50 home Internet service has no data cap, but plenty of limits
- AT&T’s “5G E” is actually slower than Verizon and T-Mobile 4G, study finds
- Another Study Finds Verizon’s 5G Is Barely Available, Not Scaleable
- Current Telecom Developments
- Bill To Restore Net Neutrality Moves Forward, And The Public Is Still Angry
- The regulators are coming: New EU online Platforms Regulation
- Five Minutes On… The EU Electronic Communications Code
- Comcast’s New Rented Streaming Box Is A Flimsy Attempt To Remain Relevant
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Facebook apps logged users’ passwords in plaintext, because why not
- Facebook stored hundreds of millions of passwords in plain text
- Facebook Screws Up Again
- Vigilant And Its Customers Are Lying About ICE’s Access To Plate Records
- Thomas Goolnik Again Convinces Google To Forget Our Story About Thomas Goolnik Getting Google To Forget Our Story About Thomas Goolnik
- Illinois Appeals Court Says Fifth Amendment Protections Apply To Cellphone Passwords
- California and European Privacy FAQs: Does the GDPR require that a company obtain consent from a website user before placing cookies on its browser?
- The privacy risks of unchecked facial-recognition technology
- The Government Is Using the Most Vulnerable People to Test Facial Recognition Software
- Having Privacy in Public: Limits to Unwanted Surveillance in Public Spaces
- Hijacked ASUS software updates installed backdoor on at least 0.5 million PCs
- Asus Goes Mute As Hackers Covertly Install Backdoors Using Company Software Update
- Reckless VII: Wife of Journalist Slain in Cartel-Linked Killing Targeted with NSO Group’s Spyware
- Critical flaw lets hackers control lifesaving devices implanted inside patients
- A rogue’s gallery of bad actors is exploiting that critical WinRAR flaw
- Telegram Goes Nuclear With New Message Deletion Feature
- Preparing for Compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act
- Casino Screwup Royale: A tale of “ethical hacking” gone awry
Jon
News of the Week; March 20, 2019
GAMES
- Community management post-Christchurch massacre | Opinion: Veteran product manager James Kozanecki says the industry can no longer dismiss toxic behavior as harmless trolling
- The Culling: Origins’ servers are being switched off in May
- ‘No console required’: Google unveils streaming game platform, ‘Stadia’
- Google jumps into gaming with Google Stadia streaming service, coming “in 2019”
- Google Reveals Stadia Streaming Console
- Google unveils first details of Stadia streaming service
- Google’s new Stadia streaming service will let you play video games without downloading them
- Hands on with Google Stadia: It works, but is that enough?: Playing Assassin’s Creed on a Chromebook is neat but only part of the story.
- Google Stadia supports the Xbox Adaptive Controller
- Google Is Better Positioned For Cloud Streaming Than Anyone, But Don’t Expect The World Just Yet: Google isn’t afraid to shut down projects when they don’t work.
- ‘Care more about your streamers’ advises Magic: The Gathering Arena dev
- Google Made Chromecast Cool Again
- Google’s New Cloud Gaming Platform ‘Stadia’ Comes With Major Features Built Specifically For YouTubers
- Google Stadia has promise, but GDC failed to address its biggest obstacles | Opinion: The GI team weighs in on bandwidth, business models, and the potential link between accessibility and diversity
- Stadia’s biz dev director talks challenges, opportunities in new age of cloud games
- Phil Harrison: Stadia starts an “inevitable and one-way shift” away from consoles: Google VP also addresses concerns about bandwidth caps and those cryptic game teases shown before the keynote
- Opinion: Chez Stadia – Google’s new cloud platform
- Snapchat Said to Launch Gaming Inside Its App
- Snapchat Will Reportedly Launch An In-App Gaming Platform Next Month
- Snapchat to unveil gaming platform next month – Report
- Report: Snapchat’s rumored game platform to be announced in April
- Axiom Verge getting its physical Wii U release after ongoing legal battle
- The high cost of a Wii U retail release: Limited Run Games and BadLand Publishing give their sides of the falling out over a Wii U physical version of Axiom Verge, and why it’s finally launching
- Axiom Verge producer files suit against BadLand Publishing for $200k: Dan Adelman alleges publisher hasn’t paid share of European distribution earnings, flaked on promise of healthcare fund for developer’s ill son
- Four Indian cities ban PUBG Mobile: Battle royale game suspected of triggering violent behaviour, police have already arrested players
- Mukti: Acknowledging the grim reality of human trafficking in India – UnderDogs founder and CEO Vaibhav Chavan discusses his hope to raise awareness of a growing problem
- Loot boxes aren’t the problem but how we use them is, says legal expert: “The key is how we use these mechanics, not whether we use them,” says Will Bucher
- Epic says its Game Store is not spying on you
- Epic’s Tim Sweeney addressees privacy concerns for the Epic Games Store
- Julian Gollop defends Epic Games Store exclusivity for Phoenix Point: Developer assures that refunds will be offered to those who don’t want to use Epic, or Steam keys if they wait a year
- Epic Games Store roadmap outlines cloud saves, achievements, user reviews
- Epic responds to accusations of Steam data mining: Sweeney says issue stems from “our rush to implement social features in the early days of Fortnite”
- Epic offers support for third-party key sales — but not for exclusives: Tim Sweeney reveals Epic Game Store roadmap, but concedes it will have to compete on games to compensate for lack of features
- Devs can now sell Epic Game Store keys on the Humble Store
- Epic Games announces $100m MegaGrants program, launches free Online Services tools
- Epic expands its dev grants program with $100M in Epic MegaGrants
- Quantic Dream, Ubisoft lead next wave of Epic Games Store exclusives
- Remedy, Quantic Dream, and other devs sign on for Epic Games Store exclusives
- Google unveils first-party game studio led by Jade Raymond
- Epic CEO: “You’re going to see lower prices” on Epic Games Store
- “Energizing Times”: Microsoft to “go big” at E3 in response to Google Stadia
- Games for Change debuts new accelerator program for ‘social impact’ games
- Carlos Santana Smashed A TV With A Bat Because The Phillies Were Playing Fortnite During Games
- Kicking off the streaming wars | Opinion: GDC 2019: Industry giants have decided that the medium’s future lies in streaming – but success is far from assured even for enormous players like Google and Amazon
- Steam Link Anywhere beta drops Steam Link’s local-wifi-only restriction
- Any Steam game can now use Valve’s low-latency, DoS-proofed networking
- Steam Link Anywhere lets you take your PC gaming with you
- Steam devs can now use the networking APIs created forCS:GO and Dota 2
- Steam removes “off-topic review bombs” from overall game review scores
- Steam user reviews will no longer count ‘off-topic review bombs’
- Microsoft is bringing Xbox Live to iOS and Android
- Xbox Live is coming to iOS and Android, but not Switch (yet) – GDC 2019: Microsoft reveals new cloud services and packages for games studios
- Cuphead is heading to the Nintendo Switch with Xbox Live support
- Cuphead will bring Xbox Live to Switch: Microsoft plans to add features from its online service to Nintendo’s platform with a post-launch update to StudioMDHR game
- Minecraft is joining Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass lineup
- Pokemon Go’s PvP was designed to appeal to players new and old–and it worked
- Facebook launching new Gaming Tab: Update will make all gaming content accessible from main navigation, serve as new hub for streaming
- Nvidia moves toward global rollout for GeForce Now cloud platform
- Unity unveils new ties to Nvidia RTX pipeline, takes shots at Unreal
- Epic lays plans for Unreal Engine ray tracing and physics revamps
- Unity and Nvidia partner to launch real-time raytracing tech
- Unity partners with Havok to roll out new physics systems
- Unity partners with Tencent for China, cloud gaming services
- Unity partnering with Tencent to help its devs make waves in China
- Tencent shares reach six month high after difficult 2018
- Tencent Music financials reveal revenues grew by 72.9% in 2018
- Devs share an inside look at Armello’s games-as-a-service success
- How indie devs can form their own worker cooperative
- 3 indie leaders share tips on keeping your small studio afloat without a hit
- Call of Duty Mobile announced for iOS, Android, made by China’s Tencent
- Call of Duty: Mobile will launch outside of China: Activision and Tencent unveil free-to-play title, confirm launch in North America, South America and Europe
- The next Zelda game on Switch is an indie mash-up with Crypt of the Necrodancer
- Suda51: Grasshopper team “stronger” for Travis Strikes Again experience – Grasshopper’s CEO may use the experience for a full sequel to the divisive Switch spin-off
- Unknown Nintendo Game Gets Digitized With Museum’s Help, Showing The Importance Of Copyright Exceptions
- UK Charts: Slow start for The Division 2: However, Ubisoft’s new action game makes No.1
- Atari VCS console delayed following spec boost: Console will now be cooler and quieter, the manufacturer states
- Discord evolves verified servers with new community tools
- When and what to culturalize?: Netmarble US president Simon Sim lays out the Marvel Future Fight company’s approach to adapting games and monetization for new markets
- Update: Lucasfilm Games job postings apparently not linked to studio revival
- Chet Faliszek and Kimberly Voll form co-op game studio Stray Bombay
- Chet Faliszek and Kimberly Voll form Stray Bombay Company: Former Valve writer and Riot Games designer launch their own co-op focused development studio
- Former Valve designer, writer dishes on his new “co-op” game studio – Joined by ex-Riot dev: “Chet said one sentence. I said, ‘Oh my god. That’s the game.'”
- Left 4 Dead’s developers are Back 4 Blood with new spiritual successor
- Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery grosses $110m in first year: Mobile RPG becomes most successful game from Jam City
- Netflix Getting Its First Capcom Anime Series
- Wargaming announces new IP in built with Amazon game tech: World of Tanks developers partners with Frag Lab on “next generation” free-to-play shooter
- Mega Crit’s Slay the Spire has sold 1.5m copies
- A Letter To The Apex Legends Player I Probably Disappointed
- EA opens ‘multi-million dollar’ esports broadcast studio
- EA builds its own esports broadcast studio: New facility “signals EA’s commitment to competitive gaming for years to come,” will host tournaments, esports-focused shows
- NPD: Anthem was the best-selling game in February
- EA: People want inclusive games with friendlier communities
- Team spaces in Call of Duty esports league reportedly cost $25m each: Preparations begin for franchised, city-based competition around Activision’s flagship shooter
- The Simpsons Producers Worked With Riot Games On An Upcoming Esports Episode
- 5th Planet closes Nottingham studio: CEO says “now is the time to take the consequences” for underperforming games as it lays off 14 people
- Doodle Jump Space Chase dev’s closure was third wave of layoffs since November: 5th Planet Games repeatedly slashed headcount at its Nottingham studio before shutting it down outright
- “We need to move away from short-form VR experiences”: NDreams’ VP of development Tom Gillo discusses the company’s plans to become a AAA VR developer
- ‘Beat Saber’ Sells Over One Million Copies
- Beat Saber has crossed 1 million sales in under a year
- Beat Saber sells over 1m copies: Milestone was reached in February across PSVR, Steam, and Oculus Home
- Oculus Quest’s powerful, portable VR, as proven by the fun of Beat Saber
- The Oculus Rift S is a new PC VR headset with built-in tracking
- Hands-on with the new $399 Oculus Rift S: More pixels, zero webcams, better fit
- Rohrer: Make fewer consumable games, more ‘unique situation generators’
- The U.S. Army is building a giant VR battlefield to train soldiers virtually
- Corporations, not consumers, drive demand for HP’s new VR headset
- God of War leads BAFTA Games Award nominations
- God of War leads BAFTA nominations: Sony’s epic in the running for 10 prizes, while Red Dead Redemption 2, Florence and Return of the Obra Dinn are up for six
- Blind Squirrel lands $5M in funding to self-publish its first game, Drifters
- Shadow Warrior developer Flying Wild Hog acquired by Supernova
- Bomber Crew dev Runner Deck acquired by Catalis
- Double Eleven acquires VooFoo Studios: UK developer and publisher adds Mantis Burn Racing studio for undisclosed fee
- Turtle Beach acquires PC peripherals company Roccat
- Asteri acquires Prima Games: Strategy guide brand leaves behind physical releases, looks to help developers gather player feedback on unfinished titles
- UK games retail: Prices continue to rise as supermarket power wanes
- Blog: Engaging players through ritual
- Wargroove dev demystifies game development by involving its community
- Video: Unpopular opinion: All narrative is linear
- How Neopets has influenced a generation of game developers
- Games for Change Accelerator to offer funding and support for social impact games
- Blockchain Games and Collectibles – Patents and Other Legal Issues
- U.S. Patent No. 7,628,688: Game apparatus, game control method, recording medium and program
- Former EA and THQ exec Danny Bilson to helm USC Games program
- Return of the Obra Dinn takes Grand Prize at the 21st IGF Awards!
- God of War wins Game of the Year at the 2019 Game Developers Choice Awards
DIGITAL
- Supreme Court rules key part of law against child-luring via internet is unconstitutional
- Canada Supreme Court Rules That Privacy is Not An “All-or-Nothing Concept”
- R. v. Morrison (2019 SCC 15)
- 49 Dead and Dozens Wounded in New Zealand Terror Attacks That Were Livestreamed on Facebook
- Facebook: No one reported NZ shooting video during 17-minute livestream
- The New Zealand Massacre Was Made to Go Viral: The attack marks a grim new age of social media-fueled terrorism.
- Social media sites struggle to contain video of New Zealand shooting
- One Video Of The Christchurch Massacre Was Uploaded To YouTube Every Second
- New Zealand ISPs Say They’re Blocking Sites That Fail to Remove Christchurch Shooting Video
- NZ declares massacre video “objectionable,” arrests people who shared it
- 4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hosting shooting video
- If You Think Big Internet Companies Are Somehow To Blame For The New Zealand Massacre, You’re Wrong
- Americans Built Tech for China’s Sinister “Re-Education Camps”: MIT and Yale – and possibly Microsoft – are helping build China’s surveillance state.
- Vladimir Putin signs sweeping Internet-censorship bills: Publishing “unreliable socially significant information” can lead to big fines.
- Terrified Of The Internet, Putin Signs Laws Making It Illegal To Criticize Government Leaders Online
- Court Dismissed Lawsuit Brought Against Social Media Companies Alleging An Anti-Conservative Conspiracy
- People Call On YouTube, Facebook, Twitter To More Stringently Monitor Hate Content Following Christchurch Shooting
- Using Networks To Govern Network Problems
- FTC Takes Hard Line On Fake Paid Reviews
- YouTube Creators Are Trying To Move On From ‘Subscribe To Pewdiepie’
- Arizona Woman Who Ran Popular Kids’ YouTube Channel Arrested On 7 Counts Of Child Abuse
- YouTuber Adam22 Held At Gunpoint While Livestreaming, Suspect In Custody
- YouTube Tattooist Romeo Lacoste On Inappropriate Messages To Young Fans: “Some Are Real, And Some Are Fabricated”
- After YouTube Disables Comments On ‘Special Books By Special Kids’ Organization’s Channel, Founders Say It’s Discrimination
- YouTube Will Require Content Owners To Give Timestamps When They Copyright Claim A Video
- Blackpink are first K-Pop artist with 20m YouTube subscribers
- YouTube creators are using a hilarious tactic to combat copyright policies
- Axel Voss Says Maybe YouTube Shouldn’t Exist
- Sephora Severs Product Partnership With YouTuber Olivia Jade In Wake Of College Bribery Scandal
- Lilly Singh Lands Late-Night TV Slot On NBC, Will Host ‘A Little Late With Lilly Singh’
- Disney now owns 21st Century Fox, X-Men, and most of Hulu
- LSO bencher candidates leverage Twitter to promote platform, engage readers
- Devin Nunes’ ludicrous $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, explained
- “He’s literally suing an imaginary cow”: Late-night hosts mock Nunes
- Rep. Devin Nunes Sues Internet Cow For Saying Mean Things About Him Online
- @DevinCow Now Has More Twitter Followers Than Devin Nunes
- US Huawei Blackballing Efforts Stall Due To Lack Of ‘Actual Facts’
- Court Tosses Antitrust Claims That Internet Giants Are Biased Against Conservatives–Freedom Watch v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Thai Government Uses Fake News Law To Lock Up Opposing Party Leaders
- Political agreement reached on Online Platform Regulation
- Google Hit With $1.7 Billion Fine in Europe for Abusing Advertising Dominance
- The EU fines Google $1.69 billion for bundling search and advertising: Showing Google Ads above Custom Search results lands the company in hot water.
- How Google influences the conversation in Washington
- Social Video App ‘Firework’ Emerges From Beta, Enabling Creators To Film Horizontal And Vertical Clips Simultaneously
- Spotify vs. Apple: the latest updates
- Spotify’s EU antitrust complaint could be a serious threat to Apple
- Ahead of Streaming Launch, Apple’s Iron-Clad Secrecy Is Reportedly Stressing Out Hollywood
- Apple Objects To Norway Political Party’s Logo Claiming Potential Customer Confusion Over Trademark
- Apple Watch accurately spotted heart condition 34% of the time in study
- How Canadian Copyright Reform Could Support the Government’s Supercluster Investment (Michael Geist)
- News Organization Like Reuters Supporting The EU Copyright Directive Is A Shameful Support For Censorship
- The 2012 Web Blackout Helped Stop SOPA/PIPA And Then ACTA; Here Comes The 2019 Version To Stop Article 13
- Proposed EU Copyright Directive shifts balance of responsibilities between rights holders and platforms
- As Recording Industry Announces Massive Growth, Why Do We Need Article 13 Again?
- Internet Blackout Coming To Show The EU Parliament It’s Not Just ‘Bots’ Concerned About Article 13
- Silicon Valley’s Fingerprints Are All Over the College Bribery Scandal
- Ethics before algorithms: Technology needs to be used ethically and sometimes not at all
- Europe’s silver bullet in global AI battle: Ethics – EU experts hope ‘trust’ will prove to be the bloc’s competitive edge.
- Bill Gates Compares Artificial Intelligence to Nuclear Weapons
- There’s a Power Struggle Inside Google to Control Superhuman AI: If DeepMind builds a superhuman AI, who will control it?
- A Quarter of Europeans Trust AI More Than Politicians: They’d rather ditch human politicians and put robots in charge, according to new research.
- Washington Prison Management Software Setting People Free Too Early, Keeping Other People Locked Up Too Long
- New Google App Describes Objects To Blind People
- When Google Fiber Abandons Your City as a Failed Experiment
- Supreme Court Reverses Google Settlement But Ducks Ruling on Its Fairness
- Facebook Had A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
- Mark Zuckerberg discovers privacy
- Facebook Blames Protracted Outage on a ‘Server Configuration Change’
- Insights: Has All Of “Social Media,” Not Just Facebook, Reached A Pivot Point?
- Online ‘Reputation Management’ Company Brags About Abusing Copyright Law To Take Down Bad Reviews
- Bogus DMCA Takedown Targeting Indian Copyright Blog Demonstrates The Problems Of Notice And Takedown
- Japanese Government Puts Restrictive Copyright Amendments On Hold Over ‘Internet Atrophy’ Worries
- $900 Robot Commits Adorable Seppuku, Showing Again How In The Modern Era You Don’t Own What You Buy
- Ninth Circuit Tells Online Services: Section 230 Isn’t For You
- It’s time to start caring about “VR cinema,” and SXSW’s stunners are proof
- Oculus grabs Beat Saber as an Oculus Quest launch title
- Oculus “phasing out” Rift, launching $399 Rift S this spring
- Oculus: “It’s no longer a burden to get into virtual reality”
- Do Adjacent Organic Search Results Constitute Trademark Infringement? Of Course Not…But…–America CAN! v. CDF (Eric Goldman)
- Viacom’s Awesomeness Inks Deals To Distribute 18 Flagship Series, Films Internationally
- Netflix Won’t Be Integrated Into Apple’s Forthcoming Video Service, CEO Says
- ‘Subscription Fatigue’: Nearly Half of U.S. Consumers Frustrated by Streaming Explosion, Study Finds
- Two Examples of How Courts Interpret Emojis (Eric Gold
- More Kardashian Drama: A Legal Fight Over Ownership of the Kimoji Emoji Set–Liebensohn v. Kardashian
- Insider is finding new revenue on Snapchat from old Facebook news-feed videos
- Facebook’s ‘Red Table Talk’ Garners Daytime Emmy Nomination
- Myspace apparently lost 12 years’ worth of music, and almost no one noticed
- Snapchat ramps up UK pitch, but ad buyers remain unconvinced
- Instagram just took advantage of Amazon’s biggest weakness: Amazon’s failure in “discovery shopping” is Instagram’s opportunity, as its users can now shop inside the app.
- Art Law & More Instagram
- Republican Devin Nunes sues Twitter, users over attacks
- No, Twitter Is Not Completely Removing Likes And Retweets — But Here’s Why It’s Hiding Them
- Twitter wants workforce to be at least 5% black, 5% Latinx by the end of this year
- When online harassment doesn’t follow the rules
- Security Researcher Discovers Flaws In Yelp-For-MAGAs App, Developer Threatens To Report Him To The Deep State
- Patreon Launches Tiered Pricing for Creators, Introduces Rates for Micropayments
- Patreon Launches 3 New Creator Plans — ‘Lite’, ‘Pro’, And ‘Premium’ — That Vary By Features And Fees
- Kickstarter employees launch unionization effort
- Building an inclusive studio culture begins with retention
- Tech support: law firms lining up to take advantage of tech boom
- Plenty of likes for defamation reform in a digital world
- Can I Use This Song In My Podcast? It Depends.
- D-Wave 2000Q hands-on: Steep learning curve for quantum computing: Reconceptualizing a problem is the hard part, but the end is rewarding.
- California Becomes 20th State To Push ‘Right to Repair’ Legislation
CREATIVITY
- NMPA Publishers File $150M Lawsuit Against Peloton Over Unlicensed Music by Drake, Ariana Grande & More
- Peloton is being sued for using music without permission in its video fitness classes
- Competition Bureau Releases Updated Enforcement Guidelines on Abuse of Dominance and Intellectual Property
- So you think you can dance? Copyright protection of dance moves
- Protected or Unprotected: The Supreme Court Hears Iancu v. Brunetti
- Supreme Court Clarifies the Rules for Enforcing Copyrights
- NYC’s New Tourist Trap Claims the Rights to Every Photo You Take Inside of It
- Miss Vanjie! Miss Vanjie!: What RuPaul’s Drag Race Can Teach Us About Fair Use Under Copyright
- Florida College Asked Local Sheriff To Declare Faculty Member’s Artwork Obscene
- Monster Energy Loses Trademark Opposition As UK IPO Mentions That The Letter ‘M’ Isn’t Distinctive
- Captain Marvel Presents Complicated Political Messages Worth Examining
- Report: James Gunn has been un-fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- Holy Rocket Raccoon! James Gunn Is Back onGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 [Updated]
- James Gunn Is Doing Both Guardians 3 and Suicide Squad 2
- Adnan Virk Agrees Not To Sue ESPN After He Gets New Job
- Report: In Bollywood, Movie Piracy Is Largely Carried Out By Rival Publishing Houses
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Cable lobby seeks better reputation by dropping “cable” from its name: American Cable Association is now “America’s Communications Association.”
- Verizon Confirms That Yes, 5G Will Cost You Extra
- NBA commissioner ‘surprised’ by changes after AT&T, Time Warner merger: “They are going to have to retool their packages so they are able to connect directly with that younger fan base,” said the head of the NBA.
- ISPs strike deal with Vermont to suspend state net neutrality law
- Hearing On New Net Neutrality Law Once Again Conjures Up A Greatest Hits Of Nonsense
- Ajit Pai’s plan for phone location data never mentions the word “privacy”
- AT&T and Comcast claim “anti-robocalling milestone” with new Caller ID tech
- Why, Exactly, Do We Still Trust Telecom Megamerger ‘Synergy’ Promises?
- It Ends Today: FCC’s Disastrous Solicited Fax TCPA Rules Now Officially Withdrawn
- Smartphone Stops Arrow When Absurdly Lucky Man Tries to Photograph Attacker
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Appeals Court: Stored Communications Act Privacy Protections Cover Opened And Read Emails
- Federal Court Blocks Washington State’s Unconstitutional Cyberstalking Law
- Sharing Computers and Sharing Space: Privacy interests persist
- United States Federal Trade Commission strikes one for children’s privacy
- Burn After Reading? – DOJ Loosens Previous Ban on Secretive Messaging Apps
- How hackers pulled off a $20 million bank heist
- “Severe” ransomware attack cripples big aluminum producer
- Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on GDPR and CCPA
- A new rash of highly covert card-skimming malware infects ecommerce sites
- Nasty WinRAR bug is being actively exploited to install hard-to-detect malware
- Travelers Beware – Compelled to Open Your Phone?
- Urgent Message: Privacy Shield Notices Need Updating Before No-Deal Brexit Withdrawal Date
Jon
News of the Week; March 13, 2019
GAMES
- Take-Two settles copyright case with another GTA V cheat creator: Defendant Erik Cameron acknowledges violations, pays undisclosed settlement
- Take-Two Interactive shares jump after Sony acquisition rumors
- About those rumors Sony is buying Take-Two…: How “purely unconfirmed market speculation” turns into headlines around the industry
- Sega pulls Judgment from sale in Japan following drug arrest
- Sega pulls Judgment from sale in Japan after actor arrested for alleged cocaine use: Publisher is considering next move after Pierre Taki admits to violating nation’s drug laws
- Anita Sarkeesian talks about exposing gaming’s most toxic trends with sheer data
- Inclusion in games a pressing concern for players, according to survey
- Spyro Reignited Trilogy now features subtitles in cutscenes
- Activision adds classic Spyro subtitles months after fan outcry [Updated]
- War Child UK’s Armistice fundraiser raised $380k in 2018
- The ‘equal pay and equal say’ structure of the game dev studio KO_OP
- Don’t Miss: Dealing with the scourge of burnout in game dev
- EA says it failed in response to Sims influencer’s alleged sexual harassment
- EA apologises for delay in dealing with Sims community sexual predator: “We are disappointed in how events have unfolded and we own our responsibility to that,” says The Sims general manager
- Respawn has banned 355,000 in ‘ongoing war’ againstApex Legends cheaters
- Respawn has banned over 355,000 Apex Legends cheaters since launch: “We take cheating very seriously and care deeply about the health of Apex Legends for all players,” says developer
- MrBeast Drops Video Of Real Life, EA-Sponsored ‘Apex Legends’ Battle Starring 39 YouTubers Competing For $200,000
- App Annie: Tencent retains spot as top revenue-earning publisher for third year – NetEase takes second once more, Activision Blizzard rises to No. 3
- NetEase and Tencent included in latest round of China game approvals
- Ninja reportedly earned $1m for promotion of Apex Legends: Top streamer Tyler Blevins one of the few paid for promotion of EA and Respawn’s surprise release battle royale
- Celebrities drop Fortnite dance lawsuits, but only temporarily
- Fortnite adjusts cross-platform play to separate out Switch and mobile users: Xbox One and PS4 players will be together by default with Switch and mobile in their own pool
- ‘The Carlton’ Dances Its Way Out of Copyright Protection
- 2 Milly, Alfonso Ribeiro, others drop lawsuits against Epic Games over dances: Supreme Court ruling on copyright law forces plaintiffs to wait for dances to be granted copyright registration
- Valve removes rape fantasy game from Steam: “We think ‘Rape Day’ poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam”
- With Rape Day ban, Steam shows it’s not as “hands off” as it claims
- UK politician calls for review of Steam, sexually violent content
- Rape Day prompts call for UK government review: British MP questions how Valve is “able to get away with this kind of stupidity”
- When good monetization meets bad ethics: Riot Games’ Leanne Loombe says the industry needs to be driven by more than revenue to avoid regulation
- Building a better world through games: Riot’s Soha El-Sabaawi, Microsoft’s Gabi Michel, Tru Luv’s Brie Code, and Ubisoft’s Kaitlin Tremblay discuss challenges and strategies for making the industry and the world beyond it a better place
- New Microsoft app lets users stream PC games to an Xbox One
- PS4 Remote Play is now possible on iPhones and iPads
- Newest PS4 Update Lets You Stream Your PS4 Screen To iOS Devices
- You can now play PlayStation 4 games on your iPhone
- Sony launches PS4 Remote Play for iOS: App allows users to play PS4 games on mobile device, but sans DualShock 4 controllers
- PlayStation Now launches in 7 more countries
- Google patent application describes notification system for multi-device controller: Filing unearthed ahead of big GDC reveal next week
- Jade Raymond appointed new VP at Google: EA Motive founder joins company just ahead of teased GDC reveal
- Game industry vet Jade Raymond signs on as a Google VP
- Jade Raymond Named Vice President of Google
- All signs point to a Google game console announcement at GDC
- Google Play apps with 150 million installs contain aggressive adware
- Hennig: “Things are clearly not working the way they used to” – Uncharted creative director says mass layoffs a red flag that AAA development must change, shift to outsourcing “feels inevitable”
- 209 were laid off from Blizzard as part of earlier Activision Blizzard cuts
- Blizzard cuts more than 200 US jobs as part of Activision restructure: IT and marketing sees most layoffs, Overwatch firm’s cuts account for more than a quarter of planned 800 redundancies
- Blizzard brings original Diablo to GOG: Game is available now DRM-free, Warcraft and Warcraft II planned as well
- Devil May Cry 5 is Capcom’s second UK No.1 of 2019
- Anthem tumbles to No.4
- Brawl Stars made $150m in its first three months: Supercell’s newest game has also passed 75 million installs, biggest audience is US
- Marvel Strike Force first-year revenue topped $150 million
- Octopath Traveler shipped 1.5 million copies, has a mobile prequel on the way
- The Division 2 won’t be sold on digital third-party stores following its launch
- EA isn’t hosting a press conference at E3 2019
- EA foregoes EA Play press conference for E3: EA Play will begin the Friday before E3 and focus on hands-on demos, livestreams
- Anthem’s launch and the power of the sunk-cost fallacy | Opinion: Bioware’s latest is one of the most egregiously unfinished and broken launches in many years, but these games often get free pass – for now
- Halo: Master Chief Collection is finally confirmed for PC, will include Reach
- Game studio funding: The right investor at the right stage
- “Our whole world fell apart”: The fall of Splendy Games – Simon Sparks offers a cautionary tale of how an ambitious indie collapsed, and the toll it took on his mental health
- Don’t let your first game be your last | Opinion: Game Dragons’ Philip Oliver advises indies on how to select a project that will set up the future of their studio
- Evolving the way we think about community | Opinion: Abusive influencers show companies need to reconsider who they lend their legitimacy to, and how
- SpatialOS dev Improbable is setting up its own game development studios
- Improbable opens first development studios in London and Edmonton: Former BioWare GM Aaryn Flyn to lead Canadian team, while UK will be headed by former DICE producer John Wasilczyk
- Tim Sweeney: Storefront battle will be won with developer support – Epic Games CEO says PC digital storefronts are “nearly perfect” for consumers already
- Epic plans to add an undo button to Fortnite’s in-game store
- Phoenix Point will be an Epic Games Store exclusive for a year
- Konami building esports centre to help Japan catch up with Western ‘pioneers’
- Konami building esports centre in downtown Tokyo: 12-storey building will open doors this November, will offers classes to help grow Japan’s esports scene
- How do you spell e-Stadium?
- Gaming Luminaries Ninja, DrLupo, And CouRage Sign With Talent Management Firm ‘Loaded’
- Valve laid off 13 staff and terminated ‘a portion’ of contracted devs last month
- Valve lays off 13, some involved with VR: Company says layoffs “do not represent any major changes”
- Valve Laid Off Contractors and 13 Employees, Some Working on VR
- Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield is no longer working on Valve’s Artifact
- Valve terminates contract with Artifact designer: “We weren’t surprised by the layoff considering how rocky the launch was,” says Richard Garfield
- GameByte: Parents’ increase game spending for their kids by 34% in 2018 – Nintendo Switch is the console children request to spend money on the most
- Nintendo reportedly asks mobile partners to stop players from spending so much: Company concerned with being perceived as greedy, requests third party developers adjust microtransactions
- Nintendo introduces Nintendo Labo VR Kit: Fourth Labo series kit includes six creations, including VR goggles for “shareable, simple VR gaming experiences”
- Brand new Nintendo Labo kits will turn your Switch into a VR headset
- Nintendo veterans reflect on the risks and rewards of hardware development
- Nintendo Jumps into VR (Again) With Switch VR ‘Labo’ Kit Coming in April
- How VR brought me inside a scary-real radioactive Fukushima reactor: Here’s what it’s like inside the melted down reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
- CAA Continues Foray Into Gaming Creator Space With ‘Criken’, Elspeth Eastman (Exclusive)
- Cloud games tech firm Hadean raises £7m
- Black jackets, sunglasses, and radical accountability as a worker co-op: Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry explain why and how The Glory Society follows a “no bosses needed” model
- U.S. Patent No. 6,231,444: Operating device for game machine
- Don’t Miss: A water interaction model for great video game boat physics
- Video: Creating the unique visuals of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
- Video: Recreating a classic era in automotive history inMafia III
- Netflix is turning Dragon’s Dogma into an anime series
- Dwarf Fortress is headed to Steam and itch.io, 17 years into its development
- Unknown NES wrestling game discovered, beaten 30 years later
- The death of Flash is exaggerated, argues one Flash developer
- The eyes have it: Creating believable digital humans
- Blog: The psychology of matchmaking
- Blog: The two philosophies of gameplay
- Blog: How music enhances virtual presence
DIGITAL
- Elizabeth Warren Proposes Plan to Break Up Big Tech
- Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up Amazon, Google, and Facebook
- Here’s how we can break up Big Tech
- How To Actually Break Up Big Tech
- SXSWarren: A day later, Elizabeth Warren defends her Big Tech breakup proposal
- Elizabeth Warren Wants To Break Up Amazon, Google And Facebook; But Does Her Plan Make Any Sense?
- Everyone’s Overreacting To The Wrong Thing About Facebook (Briefly) Blocking Elizabeth Warren’s Ads
- It Sure Sounds Like Elizabeth Warren Wants To Bring The EU Copyright Directive Stateside
- House of Lords calls for new Digital Authority to regulate tech giants: New authority would oversee regulation to “facilitate the urgent change that is needed”
- Seeking the “right regulation” of digital services: Lords’ Communications Committee articulates its vision
- UK lords call for central ‘Digital Authority’ to help regulate internet: They want government to take a more aggressive approach.
- Regulating in a digital world (House of Lords)
- FTC Launches a New Task Force Dedicated to Monitoring the Tech Industry for Anti-Competitive Practices
- Tim Berners-Lee on 30 years of the world wide web: ‘We can get the web we want’
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says democracy ‘has a Facebook problem’: The comments came after the platform took down ads criticizing its power
- Facebook and Google to be fined for harmful content, Margot James says
- As anti-vax movement gets weirder—and dumber—Facebook announces crackdown
- Anti-vaxx ‘mobs’: doctors face harassment campaigns on Facebook
- Zuckerberg: Facebook will shift focus to private networks instead of open ones
- Why Facebook’s pivot to privacy could backfire: If all this is a PR stunt, it would be a very bad bargain
- Facebook Watch Sets New 24-Hour Viewing Record With Jada Pinkett Smith’s ‘Red Table Talk’
- Facebook Watch’s New Video Incubator To Act As Matchmaker For Publishers, Influencers
- Zuckerberg: Facebook is Building a Machine to Read Your Thoughts
- Facebook’s Privacy Cake
- A Trip Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Sprawling, Embattled Compound in Hawaii
- Yes, Actually, There Is A Lot Of Good News In Zuckerberg’s New Plans For Facebook
- Facebook is testing ‘Watch Party’ features on Instagram, too
- Facebook Watch’s New Video Incubator To Act As Matchmaker For Publishers, Influencers
- When Facebook Goes Down, Don’t Blame Hackers
- Instagram founders on Snapchat and breaking up Facebook
- Do People Want A Better Facebook, Or A Dead Facebook?
- How Two Years Of Instagram Stories Has Altered The Way We Love, Act And Play
- Dangerous Speech and Misinformation Fans India – Pakistan War
- GOP funds messaging sites that look remarkably like trusted local news
- The Company That Owns MrBeast And Jake Paul’s YouTube MCN Just Lost Its Network Status For “Egregious and Repeated” Policy Violations
- YouTube Terminated Yeah1’s MCN Status, So It’s Selling ScaleLab Back To Original Owners For $12 Million
- YouTube Terminates All ‘SevenAwesomeKids’ Channels After Owner Ian Rylett Pleads Guilty To Child Abuse
- YouTube Star Olivia Jade Emerges As Beneficiary In College Bribery Scandal
- YouTube Continues Conspiracy Crackdown With Fact-Checking Cards On Search Results
- Here’s How YouTube Fought ‘Captain Marvel’ Trolls
- YouTube fought Brie Larson trolls by changing its search algorithm
- Father Of Alison Parker Accuses YouTube Of Promoting Conspiracy Theories About His Daughter’s Murder
- Youtube’s Family Vloggers Worry About Their Future Amid Comment Section Crackdown: Without comments, YouTube is just ‘short films’
- YouTube, Louis Vuitton Host Emma Chamberlain At Paris Fashion Week
- Disaster In The Making: Article 13 Puts User Rights At A Disadvantage To Corporate Greed
- Major Labels Split On Support For Article 13; As Music Publishers Whine That They Can’t Make Money From Parodies
- UN Human Rights Expert Warns EU Not To Pass Article 13
- German Government Confirms That Article 13 Does Mean Upload Filters, Destroying Claims To The Contrary Once And For All
- 170 Years Of German Publishers Demanding Special Copyrights For The Press Because Of New Technology
- YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Roll Out To Critical Indian Market
- Logan Paul Investigates One Of YouTube’s Top Conspiracies In ‘Flat Earth: To The Edge And Back’
- Man Arrested After Driving Across U.S. To Confront Google Employees He Suspected Shut Down His YouTube Channel
- Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products
- Identifying and acting on fake advertorial content
- Court Ruling Provides Help to Brands Struggling with Grey Market Sales on Online Marketplaces
- Elon Musk’s late-night announcement to raise prices and reopen some stores
- Musk lawyers accuse SEC of “unconstitutional power grab”
- EU Parliament Paid News Publisher AFP To Create Bogus Propaganda Video In Favor Of EU Copyright Directive
- Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion
- Netflix “Doubling Down” On Interactive Content After Success Of ‘Bandersnatch’
- Bandersnatch was a hit, so Netflix plans to make more interactive shows like it
- Netflix wants to make more interactive shows after the success of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch: Wacky comedies or romantic Choose Your Own Adventure-style stories are possibilities
- Netflix And ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Producer Team On Scripted Thai Cave Rescue Series
- Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive finds pressure at the core of F1
- Disney to close “vault” for good as it moves film library to streaming service
- With Fox, Disney will have an even bigger footprint in Hollywood
- Amazon to close all its pop-up shops: Company said Wednesday it will focus on opening more bookstores instead
- Sorry Amazon: Philadelphia bans cashless stores
- Hearst Opens L.A. Production Studio Ahead Of Clevver Relaunch In Coming Weeks
- BuzzFeed CEO Says Company Is Generating Over $200: Million Annually From Businesses That Didn’t Exist Two Years Ago
- Microsoft proves the critics right: We’re heading toward a Chrome-only Web
- Nvidia to acquire high performance computing company Mellanox for $6.9 billion
- Allo Could Have Been Great. Google Blew It.
- Do You Really Need Disclosures in Google Ads?
- Google to Ban Political Ads in Canadian Election
- Boeing Promises Software Update For Plane That Crashed
- eCommerce Executive Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing on Online Marketplace
- N.Y. Court of Appeals: No Difference Between “Private” and “Public” Posts in Discovery
- Windows 10 passes 800 million devices
- Why I Regret Upgrading to an iPhone XS
- A “serious” Windows 0-day is being actively exploited in the wild
- Competition Bureau chief expected to continue focus on Big Data
- Artificial Intelligence: Canadian and International Trends
- AI & Global Governance: The Advantages of Applying the International Human Rights Framework to Artificial Intelligence (Centre for Policy Research at United Nations University)
- Laws should monitor bias in AI, experts say
- U.S. Army Assures Public That Robot Tank System Adheres to AI Murder Policy
- Could On-Demand Artificial Intelligence-based Authentication End The Fake News Menace?
- Why Inclusion Matters for the Future of Artificial Intelligence
- “What can artificial intelligence teach us about fairness?”
- Patch is using AI to write 3,000 articles a week
- Degenerate Feedback Loops in Recommender Systems (Ray Jiang, Silvia Chiappa, Tor Lattimore, Andras Agyorgy, Pushmeet Kohli)
- This Site Detects Whether Text Was Written by a Bot
- Tech That Can “Detect Emotion” Could Keep You From Getting A Job
- See The Robot Head That Might Interview You For Your Next Job
- You’re Hired! This Site Generates Random Neural Network Résumés: These gibberish résumés show that HR might still require a human touch.
- Facial recognition’s ‘dirty little secret’: Millions of online photos scraped without consent – People’s faces are being used without their permission, in order to power technology that could eventually be used to surveil them, legal experts say.
- Using Creative Commons images to train artificial intelligence (Andres Guadamuz)
- Why IBM Thinks Quantum Computers Will Boost Machine Learning
- Data mining, AI and Media: A brave new world?
- Why Self-Checkout Is and Has Always Been the Worst
- Failure to Launch – OSC Director Determines That Bitcoin Fund is Not Ready for the Retail Spotlight
- The ability to say NO on the Internet
- Reclaiming the Data Commons
- Twitter Defeats Yet Another Lawsuit from a Suspended User–Cox v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Preempts Unfair Competition Law Claim–Taylor v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal Of Defamation Lawsuit Against Actor James Woods
- Tweet Containing Question Mark Isn’t Defamatory–Boulger v. Woods
- “We’re killing our capacity for creativity”: Twitter VP Bruce Daisley explains why checking emails outside of work and the misuse of open plan offices is creating so much stress
- Twitter Debuts An In-App Camera Function
- Twitter Launches Improved In-App Camera With 280-Second Video Limit
- Filtering Software Defeats Another Lawsuit–PC Drivers v. Malwarebytes (Eric Goldman)
- Vice May Be Looking to Raise Another $200 Million (Report)
- After Laying Off 250 Staffers, Vice Is Now Looking To Raise $200 Million (Report)
- Copyright in the Digital Single Market – Link Tax
- Empowering the Marginalized: Tales of the Digital Good Life
- You are seeing this because you are…: Targeted advertisements are getting so specific they’ll choose the color of your next panties before you even knew you wanted them.
- Design Justice, A.I., and Escape from the Design Justice, A.I., and Escape from the Matrix of Domination
- Calling Doctor Google? Technology Adoption and Health Information Seeking among Low-income African-American Older Adults (Hyunjin Seo, Joseph Erba, Mugur Geana, Crystal Lumpkins)
- Cookie Policy
- Website Law Alert – A Website’s Non-Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Copyright Act Can be Expensive
- Is It Actually Okay To Touch Your Computer Screen?
- Who are the next billion users and what do they want?
- A Book Review Of Code And Other Laws Of Cyberspace
- Thoughtful design as the gateway to ethical data processing
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- The Web’s Dad Isn’t Angry, Just Disappointed
- German Football League To Try Novel Antipiracy Strategy Of Actually Having Legal Alternatives For Its Content
- The Trouble With Emojis
- ‘Sealioning’ Is A Common Trolling Tactic On Social Media–What Is It?
- Even the Queen Needs a Social Media Policy
- Delete Never: The Digital Hoarders Who Collect Tumblrs, Medieval Manuscripts, and Terabytes of Text Files
CREATIVITY
- Supreme Court Says Of Course You Need To Register Your Copyright Before You Can Sue; Copyright Trolls & Hollywood Freak Out
- SCOTUS issues ruling in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC
- Supreme Court Requires Completed Copyright Registration Before Filing Suit–Fourth Estate Public Benefit v. Wall-Street
- Application Rejected: Supreme Court Requires Registration to Commence Copyright Infringement Suit
- More Copyright Policy Should Be As Boring As This Supreme Court Decision
- Banksy wins pivotal case against museum for trademark infringement
- Court Rules “Transformed” Photo of Candidate is Fair Use, Not Infringement
- Big Fair Use Win For Mashups: ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go!’ Deemed To Be Fair Use
- NYTimes Reporter Gets Bogus Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed As Judge Philosophizes About SLAPP Suits
- Adverts must avoid harmful gender stereotypes
- Race and Resistance Amid Feminism, Priming, and Capitalism: The (surprisingly-globalized) Visual of an Asian American Woman Activist
- Captain Marvel review: The hero we, and Marvel Studios, need right now
- Captain Marvel is kicking the box office’s ass
- Captain Marvel’s Box Office Success Defies Trolls: In spite of the haters and the controversy, Captain Marvel prevailed at the box office this weekend.
- Why It’s Actually Great That ‘Captain Marvel’ Is Just Fine
- Captain Marvel’s Directors Discuss the Importance of the Women in Carol Danvers’ Life
- calc.exe is now open source; there’s surprising depth in its ancient code
- 5 Reasons You Really Need To Go See ‘Captain Marvel’
- Stan Lee’s Captain Marvel cameo raises a lot of questions
- Man angry his photo was used to prove all hipsters look alike — then learns it wasn’t him
- Supreme Court Issues Two Important Decisions Tackling Copyright Registration and Litigation Costs
- DuBay v. King
- Denver Club “Stripped” Carmen Electra and Others of Compensation, Suit Says
- How generational attitudes towards IP are impacting the law
- Was La Toya Jackson Right About Her Family All Along?
- Music Writer From 1999 Predicts What Bands Will Still Be Around in 2019
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- I feel cheated’: Big telcos hike prices for $60 plans with 10 GB, sparking complaints
- The Federal Government Signals a New Policy Approach for the CRTC in the Telecom Sector (Stephen Zolf)
- Net Neutrality Update: House Hearing and Proposed Legislation
- New Bill Would Enshrine The FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules Into Standalone Federal Law
- John Oliver Robocalls Ajit Pai For Not Doing More To Thwart Robocalls
- John Oliver fights robocalls… by robocalling Ajit Pai and the FCC
- Combatting Illegal Robocalls: FCC’s “Top Consumer Protection Priority”
- T-Mobile Still Pretending That Staying At Trump’s DC Hotel Isn’t An Obvious Ploy To Gain Merger Approval
- Report Claims Trump Pushed For AT&T Time Warner DOJ Lawsuit To Hurt CNN, Help Rupert Murdoch
- AT&T CFO Says Growing WarnerMedia, Reducing Debt Are Key Priorities
- AT&T raises DirecTV Now price—again—after promising lower post-merger bills
- Sprint steps up fight against AT&T’s “fake 5G” with full-page Sunday NYT ad
- Yes, 5G will cost you more—Verizon plans $10 add-on charge for 5G access
- Russian Telecom Giant Agrees to Pay $850 Million in Penalties to Resolve Alleged Involvement in FCPA Bribery Scheme
- Tucker Carlson’s war on the ruling class is a master class of misdirection
- DramaFever’s Former Finance VP Sues Warner Bros., Alleging Anti-Asian Bias
- Do TV Program Ratings Do a Good Job Telling Families Which Programs are Appropriate for Kids to Watch? Congress Wants to Know, So the FCC is Asking
- Cable and satellite TV sinks again as online streaming soars
- Ajit Pai’s rosy broadband deployment claim may be based on gigantic error
- Much Of The Broadband Growth Ajit Pai Credits To Killing Net Neutrality Was Actually Due To A Clerical Error
- New York hasn’t followed through on order to kick Charter out of state
- Portland Lawmakers Want to Block 5G Rollout, Citing Shaky Health Risks
- A Call to Regulate E-Cig Advertising – What is the FCC’s Role in Regulating Advertising For the Vices?
- Researchers Tune In To Smallest Radio Frequency In Quantum Mechanics
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Redefining our privacy expectations: The SCC’s recent Jarvis ruling will have broad effects, particularly in the grey areas, on the use of surveillance technology.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: ‘Privacy Protection’ Now Used As An Excuse To Cut Off Investigative Journalists From Key Database
- New Florida Bill Seeks To Bury Recordings Of Mass Shootings
- A world of hurt after GoDaddy, Apple, and Google misissue >1 million certificates
- Appeals Court Doesn’t Buy Government’s National Security Assertions; Says Lawsuit Against FBI Can Continue
- OSFI Provides New Guidance on Technology and Cybersecurity
- United States Federal Trade Commission strikes one for children’s privacy
- FTC Not Kidding Around with TikTok’s Record-Setting COPPA Fine – Five Steps to Reduce Your Risk Now
- Data Privacy Alert: TikTok to Pay $5.7 Million for Violating COPPA
- FTC Enters Consent Decree with TikTok and Issues Largest-Ever Fine Under COPPA
- JavaScript infinite alert prank lands 13-year-old Japanese girl in hot water
- Citrix says its network was breached by international criminals
- Three men cop to $21 million vishing and smishing scheme: Phone-based scam may be low-tech, but it netted big bucks, prosecutors say.
- An email marketing company left 809 million records exposed online
- A brief history of Wi-Fi security protocols from “oh my, that’s bad” to WPA3
- CBP Put A Bunch Of Journalists, Immigration Lawyers, And Activists On A Secret Watchlist
- Clapper Continues To Pretend He Didn’t Lie To Congress About Domestic Surveillance Programs
- Owner of MAGA-Friendly Yelp Knockoff Threatens to Call FBI After Researcher Exposes Security Holes
- “Yelp, but for MAGA” turns red over security disclosure, threatens researcher
- Major Data Privacy Changes at Tech Companies Are a Sign of the Times
- The Galaxy S10’s face unlock fooled by pictures, siblings
- Why people think their phones are listening to them
- It’s Apparently Easy To Pretend To Be A Cop, Grab Location Data From Cellular Carriers
- FOIA Documents Detail DHS/CBP’s Rules-Free Rollout Of Biometric Scanning Program
- Thailand Decides To Make Its Terrible Cybersecurity Law Even Worse
Jon
News of the Week; March 6, 2019
GAMES
- Epic Games is now being sued over loot boxes in Fortnite: Save the World
- Epic Games sued over ‘predatory’ Llama loot boxes: Even though randomized llama loot boxes aren’t a thing anymore
- California man sues Epic Games over “predatory” loot boxes: Complaint alleges Save the World’s loot llamas were “like playing a slot machine”
- Shakedown: Hawaii coming first to the Epic Games Store
- Kartridge is the latest PC storefront using exclusive games to entice players
- Unpacking Recent Loot Box Updates
- Anthem: Bioware Addresses Fan Concerns With Loot Update, Here’s What It Changes
- Anthem is crashing entire PlayStation 4 systems, say players
- EA soliciting help from Anthem players to figure out PS4 crashing issues
- Sony begins refunding Anthem purchases in light of “full power down” reports
- How games whitewash Nazism, and the responsibility developers have to history: Through the Darkest of Times devs explore the industry’s dangerous failure when it comes to depicting fascism
- One week later, THQ Nordic disavows 8chan AMA
- THQ Nordic group CEO apologizes for perturbing 8chan AMA
- THQ Nordic parent company apologizes for 8chan AMA: Co-founder and CEO Lars Wingefors “condemns all unethical content this website stands for”, regrets implicit endorsement
- Valve bans sexual violence game from Steam, but stops short of condemning it
- Steam is in the rape fantasy business | Opinion – Upcoming visual novel highlights the problems with Valve’s refusal to apply content standards to its storefront
- Developers are manipulating Steam’s Popular Upcoming list
- Academics call for industry co-operation on gaming disorder: “We are scrabbling around in the dark here, lighting little matches and seeing tiny bits of the pictures around us,” says Dr David Zendle.
- Nintendo to smartphone game makers: You can only gouge our players so much
- Report: Nintendo is telling mobile development partners to stop players overspending
- Average Nintendo Japan employee earns $80,000, works less than 8 hours per day: Platform holder’s recruitment page also reveals average worker spends 13.5 years at the company
- Nintendo’s first VR product in 24 years is coming to Nintendo Switch
- Newzoo: Games are the third most-popular mobile app category – Half of mobile app users at least check into gaming apps, social media and shopping remain more popular
- Fortnite teams with Weezer in attempt to become the next Second Life: Follows record-breaking stream of DJ Marshmello concert inside its battlegrounds.
- Vivendi has sold off its final Ubisoft shares
- Vivendi sells remaining Ubisoft shares: Media conglomerate ultimately gained €1.2 billion from failed attempt to acquire publisher
- There’s confusion around an unofficial adaptation of One Hour One Life, says dev
- One Hour One Life dev struggles with unofficial port: Jason Rohrer stands by decision to release game into the public domain despite problems with customer confusion around mobile adaptation
- Multiplayer Skyrim mod criticized for lifting code from another mod
- Devil May Cry 5 deluxe edition will let players experience the game like a low-budget movie
- How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize The Way Video Games Are Developed And Played: The advances of modern AI research could bring unprecedented benefits to game development
- Duplication or innovation? How games become genres: Earthbound Games’ Colin Anderson reflects on the rise of the FPS, the sandbox RPG and more
- A new triple-A Star Wars game will be announced at Celebration Chicago in April
- What Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is and how it could change EA
- Apex Legends attracts 50 million players in first month
- Apex Legends hits 50 million players: Respawn’s free-to-play battle royale game passes milestone in its first month of release
- Is Red Dead Redemption Online tanking Take-Two’s share price? | Opinion: Despite fantastic sales, Take-Two can’t catch a break – perhaps because investors expected RDR2 to be something it simply isn’t
- Activision Blizzard: 800 job cuts could “negatively impact” our business: Call of Duty publisher has set aside $150 million to compensate affected staff
- Activision recognises $164m revenues from giving up Destiny rights: Publisher reiterates it “no longer has any material rights or obligations” to Bungie’s franchise
- New ToeJam & Earl game, 8Bitdo controller get Genesis nostalgia right: Sega wasn’t involved with game or controller, but its Sega Ages line gets a shout, too.
- One of Pokémon’s New Starters, in the Style ofDetective Pikachu
- Why arcade Pac-Man players literally grabbed onto the game
- Don’t Miss: Between a rock and a ‘Harada’ place: The massive Tekken interview
- Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links hits 90 million downloads
- Cloud gaming will determine the new lord of digital distribution
- Tencent set to unveil new cloud gaming service: Tencent Instant Play to bring cloud gaming to PC and Android, overview with Intel planned for GDC
- Nexon shortlists five bidders including Kakao and Tencent
- Tencent among shortlisted bidders for Nexon: Netmarble not invited but forms consortium with MBK partners, main bidding to begin in early April
- Electronic Arts, Amazon, and Comcast make bids to buy Nexon
- Horizon Zero Dawn sold over 10 million copies in 2 years
- PlayStation’s upcoming Chinese conference aims to boost locally-made games
- Sony PlayLink developer Wish Studios has shut down
- PlayStation Japan signals imminent end to PS Vita shipments
- Sony ends PlayStation Vita production in Japan
- Blog: Move or Die and its four year journey to the PS4
- Here are the most popular PlayStation games, based on public trophy data
- Wish Studios closing down: Brighton-based indie developer shutters, leading to 13 redundancies
- Dev shares real talk about the personal costs of living in fear of layoffs
- Discless Xbox “Maverick” could arrive as soon as May
- Disc-less Xbox arriving in May, report suggests: Latest information appears to confirm several rumours from last year
- Phil Spencer claims Xbox’s multi-device future will benefit everyone
- From “schokly” licensed games to a critically acclaimed indie: Oxenfree co-director Sean Krankel on the collapse of shovelware and how it helped shape Night School Studio
- Dear Villagers: “We’re trying to find the best indie games that could be AA” – Head of publishing Guillaume Jamet talks us through the ambition behind Playdius’ rebrand
- Playdius rebrands as Dear Villagers, plans to focus on PC and console titles
- Dying Light dev TechLand to close Polish publishing department
- Techland planning to shut down Polish publishing division by the end of the year: 13 employees expected to be laid off by end of 2019, global publishing business to remain intact
- Merch maker Numskull Designs is getting into game publishing
- Merchandise firm Numskull forms games publishing division with Rising Star vets
- Dropbox’s Angela Roseboro is Riot Games’ first chief diversity officer: “I was so taken by the heart and soul of this company and – in spite of setbacks or hurdles – I’m excited to be part of this journey”
- POC in Play formed to promote racial diversity, equity in UK gaming industry: Founders include multiple industry veterans, with UsTwo Games offering support
- BrightLocker dissolved as devs claim unpaid debts: Holding company takes over community-building platform as developers say they haven’t been paid money owed
- Roblox boasts over 1 billion hours of engagement per month
- In Less Than A Day, ‘Critical Role’ Fans Pledge $3.3+ Million To Bring Animated ‘Vox Machina’ Special To Life
- Update: Critical Role Animated Special Kickstarter Hits $4 Million
- eSports – Advergaming and the new frontier of advertising law and image rights
- Nintendo announces Tetris 99 Maximus Cup tournament
- ESL & Oculus Announce Esport’s VR League Season 3, Biggest Prize Pool Yet
- Warriors Gaming Squad drafts NBA 2K League’s first woman player – Chiquita Evans: “Barriers are made to be broken… I’m just the beginning”
- VR and cloud gaming frenzy seizes MWC as 5G hype builds
- Hipfire Games raises additional $205k for VR gameFailspace
- VR and mobile developer Hipfire Games raises over $200,000: Financial investment to boost debut game Fail Space
- Crowdfunding platform BrightLocker shuts down
- Why HTC targeted Vive Pro at gamers, and why Pro Eye won’t replace it
- Magic Leap Announces First Round of Independent Creator Program Grant Recipients
- Oculus planning a stricter, ‘quality-first’ approach for Quest app submissions
- Oculus Quest targets “quality-first” approach with more stringent store curation: Developers must have concept document approved before submitting games to Quest store
- Blog: Designing a planet-scale real-world AR platform
- Blog: Remembering Advance Wars
- Road to the IGF: Seemingly Pointless’ eCheese Zone
- YouTube Premium’s Woman-Led Video Game Dramedy ‘It’s A Man’s World’ Sets Core Cast
- The Influencer is dead. Long live the influencer: Latest analysis shows Top 10 influencers account for 84% of yearly view growth – but a spot in that list is not secure year-on-year
- U.S. Patent No. 4,445,187: Video games with voice dialog
- Blog: Historians discuss Far Cry 2
DIGITAL
- To Fight Pedophiles, YouTube Disables Comments On Videos Featuring Kids
- YouTube will disable comments on most videos of kids because of pedophiles
- YouTube Disables Comments On Tens Of Millions Of Videos Featuring Kids In Effort To Prevent Adpocalypse 2.0
- YouTube Bans Comments on Videos With Minors
- YouTube is demonetizing all videos about Momo
- Susan Wojcicki Says YouTube’s Mass Disabling Of Comments On Videos Of Kids Is “A Trade-Off” For Young Creators
- YouTube CEO Defends Its Efforts To Reduce Violent Content
- YouTube Is Demonetizing Every Video About The ‘Momo Challenge,’ Which Isn’t Actually A Thing
- That Creepy Momo Sculpture Has Been Destroyed
- YouTube TV Crosses 1 Million Subscriber Mark, Hulu With Live TV Nears 2 Million
- Michael Jackson Estate Turns To YouTube To Shift Focus From HBO’s ‘Leaving Neverland’
- Marzia Bisgonin Says She “Feels Good” About Quitting YouTube, After Adjustment Period
- YouTube May Never Be 100% Safe For Advertisers, Says Company’s U.K. Marketing Director
- YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Agrees To “Tea Session” With Shane Dawson Over ‘Trending’ Tab Concerns
- Comedy Central Launches YouTube Channel To Host Slate Of Original Digital Programming
- EU Set to Make Sweeping Copyright Changes
- The politics behind the proposed copyright directive (Andres Guadamuz)
- Supporters Of Article 13 Briefly Tried To Move Parliament Vote Up Before Scheduled Protests; Now Deny Plan That They Clearly Had
- Why Does MEP Axel Voss Keep Lying About Article 13?
- Article 13 Supporters Find Smoking Gun That Isn’t: Majority Of Tweets Criticizing Copyright Directive Are Not Coming From DC
- Clash Of EU’s Poorly Thought Out Laws: German Data Protection Commissioner Warns That Article 13 Might Violate GDPR
- EU officials say Facebook, Twitter, Google failing in “fake news” battle
- The Equustek Effect: How One Case Has Sparked Canada’s Aggressive Approach Over Internet Jurisdiction (Michael Geist)
- Twitter’s Shift Away From GPS-Tagged Tweets Suggests It Will Be Harder To Fight ‘Deep Fakes’
- Twitter Unveils ‘Timing Is Everything’ Tool To Help Creators Maximize Video Viewership
- BlackBerry Continues Its Shameful Descent Into Patent Trolling By Suing Twitter
- Data Exploiting as an Abuse of Dominance: The German Facebook Decision
- Facebook faces complaints from more former content moderators in lawsuit: The contract workers say repeated exposure to violent images caused significant psychological harm.
- Facebook Finally Shuts Down Its Snooping, B.S. ‘VPN’ After A Full Year Of Complaints
- In Wake Of Data Scandals, Mark Zuckerberg Lays Out Plan To Transform Facebook Into A “Privacy-Focused Communications Platform”
- Mark Zuckerberg On Facebook’s Future And What Scares Him Most
- Mark Zuckerberg pivots to privacy
- Facebook’s Pivot To Privacy Is Missing Something Crucial
- Instagram Fashionista’s Suit Survives Clever Challenges
- Instagram is Working on a New Ad Unit for Sponsored Posts
- Model Misbehavior? Gigi Hadid Faces Copyright Suit Over Instagram Post
- Willie’s Creative Commons lesson: The essential attribution requirement
- Supreme Court Holds Copyright Owners Must Wait to Commence an Infringement Suit Until After the Copyright Office Acts
- Swiss Supreme Court Refuses To Order ISPs To Block ‘Pirate’ Sites
- Oracle Shoots for “Full Moon” and Loses: Supreme Court Says Copyright Award of “Full Costs” Limited to Statutorily Enumerated Costs
- A Big Copyright Mess: Miel Bredouw, Barstool Sports, Slob On My Carol Of The Bells And The DMCA
- The rise of tech-worker activism
- Closing the gender gap in the tech industry: Despite efforts from companies and universities, the number of women majoring in computer science is declining. A non-profit is trying to change that by offering coding lessons to girls as early as kindergarten
- Get ready for a Facebook-sponsored cryptocurrency
- After buying firm run by HackingTeam vets, Coinbase CEO has some regrets
- ‘The Washington Post’ Streamed Michael Cohen’s Testimony On Twitch — With Emojis And Memes Aplenty
- Twitch To Launch ‘Stream Star’ Singing Competition Series With $20,000 Prize
- Legendary Shutters ‘Alpha’ Streaming Service From Nerdist And Geek & Sundry, Moves Programming To Twitch
- The TikTok Takeover: How Gen Z’s New Favorite App Is Turning Memes Into Hits
- TikTok, the Party has Stopped: FTC Levies Record COPPA Fine
- FTC Issues Largest Fine Ever Under COPPA
- FTC Slams TikTok With Record Fine For Spying on Pre-Teens: “This record penalty should be a reminder to all online services and websites that target children.”
- FTC Issues Record $5.7 Million COPPA Penalty Against Music.ly
- Musical.ly’s COPPA Failure Falls Flat at the FTC; Will Pay Note-Worthy Fine
- The FTC Probably Doesn’t Need A New ‘Big Tech’ Task Force. It Just Needs To Do Its Job
- Can a Hashtag Make a False Claim? #Yes
- The Deep Vault of Millennial Fintech Apps: Savings, investment, and credit card debt services are increasingly marketing to younger users. But they might be useless—or even predatory.
- The Impossibility Of Content Moderation Extends To The People Tasked With Doing Content Moderation
- Google pay equity analysis leads to raises for thousands of men
- What Did Google Actually Find Out About How It Pays Women and Men?
- Google to ban political ads ahead of federal election, citing new transparency rules
- Google decision to ban political ads could leave election war rooms struggling to get message to voters
- The Volvo Polestar 2 is the first Google Android car
- Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website: Retailer also introduces serial numbers and automatic detection to curb frauds sales
- Amazon’s latest program to curb emissions? One delivery day per house, per week
- Amazon to open all-new grocery stores separate from Whole Foods
- Amazon Becomes Latest Video Platform To Pull Anti-Vaccination Content
- NZ Study Yet Again Concludes That Piracy Is A Function Of Price And Ease Of Access
- Insights: Sports Programming Is Digital Media Investors’ Hot New Game
- Can the media business be saved? A “Spotify for news” is not the answer: Chavern’s organization advocates on behalf of 2,000 print and online media outlets.
- Insights: Here’s Why Netflix’s ‘Roma’ Near Miss Still Means It Won Oscar Season
- Steven Spielberg is gunning to make sure Netflix never has another Oscars contender like Roma
- After Roma swept the Oscars, Steven Spielberg seeks to block streaming films
- Steven Spielberg Wants To Bar Netflix From The Academy Awards
- Roma wasn’t built in a day; how Netflix conquered the Oscars
- Netflix is testing even more expensive subscription prices
- Inside the secretly effective–and underrated–way Netflix keeps its shows and movies at the forefront of pop culture
- Netflix Heads to Court: How Fox’s Poaching Trial Could Reshape Hollywood
- With Big Stars and Paid Subscriptions, Luminary Aims to Be the Netflix of Podcasts
- Until the Disney-Fox Deal Closes, Networks Find Themselves in Limbo: Upfronts are looming, but post-acquisition plans can’t be put into action yet
- How Fox Employees Are Bracing for Life Under Disney
- Disney Is Reportedly In Active Discussions To Purchase AT&T’s 10% Stake In Hulu
- Why Is Disney Releasing ‘Avengers,’ ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Frozen’ And ‘Maleficent’ Sequels In The Same Year?
- AT&T Plans to Revamp CNN’s Digital Arm: Telecom giant sees opportunity to reach larger audience; intends to focus on product development and analytics
- Medium lowers its paywall for Twitter users
- Once Again, Sharing Streaming Passwords Is Not ‘Piracy’ Or ‘Freeloading’
- Elon Musk said he doesn’t respect the SEC—he might come to regret it
- Thunderbolt 3 becomes USB4, as Intel’s interconnect goes royalty-free
- Chromium-based Edge screenshots might as well be Chrome
- Microsoft’s latest security service uses human intelligence, not artificial
- Microsoft is first major cloud provider to open African data centers
- Behind the Hype of Apple’s Plan to End Mining
- ‘The risk paid off’: How Apple prevailed in the U.S.-China trade war – But Apple could face future threats if the latest trade talks fail.
- Yes, Apple. Siri Is Extremely Terrible
- Apple no longer refuses to fix iPhones with third-party batteries
- After the Galaxy Fold, Samsung has two more foldable smartphones coming
- Y Combinator CEO: AI Will Replace Jobs, But Life Will Be Awesome
- Are robots competing for your job? Probably, but don’t count yourself out.
- Your March Horoscope Is Here, And Our AI Astrologer Is Getting Smarter
- Making artificial intelligence socially just: why the current focus on ethics is not enough
- Robo ART! – Copyright originality
- Why vinyl records survive in the digital age
- Theranos: How a broken patent system sustained its decade-long deception
- Toughest Work in Technology Transactions: Due Diligence Turnaround
- Emerging Digital Technology and the “Law of the Horse” (Alicia Solow-Niederman)
- Blockchain-based Digital Assets and the Case for Revisiting Copyright’s First Sale Doctrine (Phillip Shaverdian)
- Blockchain Technology and the Government: Dealing With the Threat of Data Manipulation and Increasing Records Longevity (Alexander Fung)
- Injustice Ex Machina: Predictive Algorithms in Criminal Sentencing (Andrew Lee Park)
- Destination Unknown: The Perilous Future of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Technologies Under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (Chris Ott)
- Weirdly interconnected qubits give D-Wave a big jump in performance
CREATIVITY
- Australia Threatening Over 100 Journalists For Accurately Reporting On Cardinal Pell’s Sex Abuse Trial
- How to protect journalism in the digital age? The Cairncross Review reports
- The Making of the Fox News White House: Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?
- How David Pecker Built His Tabloid Empire AMI on Fear
- Source: Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database – The documents detail an intelligence-gathering effort by the United States and Mexican authorities, targeting more than 50 people
- Meet J2’s Vivek Shah, the CEO quietly presiding over a $4 billion media business: J2 Global owns a portfolio of media and internet service companies that includes PCMag, Mashable, and Speedtest by Ookla.
- The Tyranny Of Copyright: How A Once-Humble Legal Issue Has Tormented A Generation Of Speech
- Big Win For Open Access, As University Of California Cancels All Elsevier Subscriptions, Worth $11 Million A Year
- Access Copyright v. York U – the Federal Court of Appeal Hearing is March 5 and 6, 2019
- Big Win For Open Access, As University Of California Cancels All Elsevier Subscriptions, Worth $11 Million A Year
- Milan court partly sides with Banksy in interim proceedings for trade mark and copyright infringement
- Judge Refuses To Hand The Government Biker Gang’s Trademark
- Hollywood Accounting Rears Its Ugly Head Again: Fox’s ‘False Testimony’ And ‘Aversion For The Truth’ Leads To $179M Fine
- Don’t Celebrate Copyright Being Used For Political Censorship Just Because You Don’t Like The President
- Producer Scott Rudin Going Around Killing Off Licensed Community Theater Shows Of To Kill A Mockingbird
- U.S. Supreme Court Decides Two Copyright Cases and Impacts Registration Strategy for Copyright Owners
- Registrations, not Applications: Supreme Court Says Copyright Owners Must Wait to Sue
- Supreme Court’s Strict Construction of Copyright Act Pre-Suit Requirements Likely to Up the Ante on “Preregistration”
- Supreme Court Defines “Full Costs” with Respect to the Copyright Act
- Copyright Lawsuits: Harder to Bring, Harder to Collect
- E.D. Pa. Court Dismisses Case, Finding That Fax Was Not An Advertisement
- Captain Marvel Review: Carol Danvers’ debut puts a fresh spin on Marvel’s Phase One origin story formula.
- It’s Been 20 Years Since “Cruel Intentions,” And There’s Never Been Another Movie Quite Like It
- There’s Only One Surviving Blockbuster Left on Planet Earth
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Democrats’ net neutrality bill would fully restore Obama-era FCC rules
- AT&T Begins Trying To Screw Up HBO In Earnest
- HBO CEO Richard Plepler, Who Forever Shifted TV Landscape, Abruptly Steps Down
- HBO boss quits as owner AT&T seeks more shows and more profit
- “The AT&T Guys, At The End Of The Day, Are Bean Counters”: With Plepler Out Of HBO, Wall Street Scrutinizes The Logic Of AT&T’s Monster Reorg
- As HBO and Turner bosses quit, AT&T announces big Time Warner reorganization
- TV’s brand illusion: It’s no longer about the network. And it probably never was.
- Trump to staff on AT&T/Time Warner merger: “I want that deal blocked!”
- T-Mobile has spent $195,000 at Trump hotel while lobbying for Sprint merger
- US Telcos Teeter Toward Bankruptcy As Comcast’s Broadband Monopoly Grows
- Comcast set mobile pins to “0000,” helping attackers steal phone numbers
- Class Damages Models After Comcast: Rigorous Proof or Expert’s Promise?
- Democrats’ Net Neutrality Bill Would Force Ajit Pai to Actually Do His Job
- The future of cable may be no TV at all, as one small company from Arizona shows
- Broadcasting and Brexit: 10 Things You Need to Know Today
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- China’s “democracy” includes mandatory apps, mass chat surveillance: Researcher discovers servers in China collecting data on 364 million social media profiles daily.
- The Democratization of Surveillance
- Report: The NSA’s Domestic Metadata Collection System Is Not Being Used and May Be Discontinued
- Telephony Metadata: Is the Contact-Chaining Program Unsalvageable?
- The NSA Appears To Have Shut Down Its Bulk Collection Of Phone Records
- House aide: NSA has shut down phone call record surveillance
- Google temporarily shuts down Android TV photo sharing after privacy bug
- Post-Charlottesville Doxxing and Misidentification Creates Legal Risks–Vangheluwe v. GotNews
- Seventh Circuit Ignores Two Supreme Court Decisions To Hand Out Bad Precedent On Cell Site Location Info
- Two Months Later, News Orgs Are Finally ‘Allowed’ To Report On Top Vatican Official’s Child Molestation Conviction
- Mozilla Says Australia’s Compelled Access Law Could Turn Staff There Into ‘Insider Threats’
- Do professionals have the “right to be forgotten”?
- Deception & Trust: A Deep Look At Deep Fakes
- Stupid Patent Of The Month: Veripath Patents Following Privacy Laws
- Why ‘ji32k7au4a83’ Is a Remarkably Common Password
- The Digital Revolution Takes on New Meaning: Among Calls for Heightened U.S. Data Privacy Measures, California is King
- California and European Privacy FAQs: Do all companies have to post their privacy notices online?
- Congress Holds Hearings on Privacy and Data Protection
- Chicago Tried To Justify Not Informing ACLU Of Social Media Monitoring Partner By Saying ACLU Is Really Mean
- The Importance of Privacy by Design in Mobile Apps (Debunking the Aphorism that any Publicity is Good Publicity)
- Company’s Facebook Snooping Didn’t Prevent Critical Trade Secrets Injunction
Jon
News of the Week; February 27, 2019
GAMES
- THQ Nordic inexplicably hosts AMA in a notorious internet cesspool
- Three hours after allying with 8chan, THQ Nordic goes into full apology mode
- FTC to begin loot box investigation with public workshop
- FTC to hold a public workshop on loot box concerns this year: It will bring industry groups and advocates together
- FTC plans to examine loot boxes with public workshop later this year
- ZeniMax hit with trademark dispute over its application for ‘Redfall’
- The duo behind the Running Man challenge are suing Epic over a Fortnite dance
- Epic Games accused of exploiting African American talent in latest dance move lawsuit: Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley file for $20 million in damages over Running Man emote, despite questionable ownership of dance
- Epic pulls YouTube ads after predatory videos discovered: Fortnite pre-roll ads removed as YouTube continues to struggle with recommendation algorithm
- Fortnite’s Marshmello concert beats game’s concurrent player record: 10.6 million players showed up to event, breaking past record by around 2.5 million
- Fortnite Players Sue for Alleged Exposure of Payment Information for Vbucks
- PUBG’s dev team has turned to machine learning to fight off cheaters
- EA and Activision Blizzard CEOs featured in ‘The 100 Most Overpaid CEOs’ report
- Activision’s Bobby Kotick and EA’s Andrew Wilson among most overpaid CEOs in US: Latest study shows the two chief execs earn more than 300 times the average wage of their employees
- ESA’s acting CEO stays neutral on unionization, opposes ‘gaming disorder’
- A New Player Joins the Battle – The AFL-CIO Throws Its Support Behind Game Development Employees And Urges Them To Form A Union
- Devs pull Devotion from Steam following review bombing spree
- Taiwanese developer under fire for mocking Chinese president: Red Candle Games’ Devotion removed from Steam for QA check after in-game art calls Xi Jinping “Winnie the Pooh moron”
- Starbreeze applies for extended reconstruction period as it looks to regroup
- Starbreeze applies for extension on reconstruction period: Troubled publisher wants until June to “focus on its core business of internal game development and publishing”
- Report: Amazon, Comcast, and EA now among potential Nexon buyers
- EA, Amazon, Comcast reportedly bidding for Nexon: Companies join Netmarble, Kakao in pursuing founder’s controlling stake
- Report: EA makes layoffs at Australian mobile studio FireMonkeys
- Massive layoffs at EA’s Australian studio: FireMonkeys will refocus on live services as up to 50 staff prepare for redundancy
- Anthem: Critical Consensus – Exhilarating flight and stylish combat dazzle the critics, but they can’t hide a lack of substance in BioWare’s latest title
- Wave of layoffs expected at Guild Wars 2 dev ArenaNet
- ArenaNet bracing for layoffs: Owner NCSoft CEO says current situation not sustainable, plans for cuts across the board and merging of publishing divisions
- Overkill’s The Walking Dead postponed, not cancelled on console: 505 Games confirms this is the same delay announced last month, despite confusion over PS4 pre-order refunds
- Capcom COO calls out the growing value of PC as a platform
- The Future of Gaming Is Subscription
- Psychonauts and surviving the publisher shuffle: Tim Schafer says the studio’s experiences with partners aren’t that unusual, addresses struggles of Psychonauts 2 publisher Starbreeze
- Superdata: Digital revenue down in January as major console franchises underperform – Premium PC games see largest decline, leaving Fortnite near the top on both console and PC
- Rising development costs forced Square Enix to find its soul | Opinion: When Final Fantasy was no longer enough, the venerable publisher dug deeper
- Brexit has fostered a culture of fear among British game devs
- No Deal Brexit will mean “dark, dystopian UK” | Opinion: Andy Payne discusses the potential impact of a No Deal Brexit on the UK games industry
- Twitch’s fight against EU copyright laws continues with MEPs playing Mario Kart: Two members of the European Parliament will discuss how to combat the divisive Article 13 on Twitch’s official channel
- Nintendo of America head Reggie Fils-Aime retires, Bowser taking over
- How Reggie Fils-Aime Became A Nintendo Legend
- Nintendo Announces Pokémon Sword And ShieldFor Switch
- Pokémon Sword and Shield will hit Switch in “late 2019”
- $100K Mario seller: “It’s probably the wrong move, long term, to sell”
- Mattel’s video game division eyes original IP: The joint venture between Mattel and NetEase plots three to four new games a year
- Report: Microsoft plans to announce two next-gen Xbox consoles at E3
- Microsoft to reveal new Xbox hardware at E3 2019 – Report: Code-named Lockhart and Anaconda to be shown, but not available until fall of 2020
- Microsoft takes a big step towards putting Xbox games on Windows
- Report: Xbox Game Pass headed to the Nintendo Switch
- Game Pass, Xbox-exclusive games reportedly heading to Switch: Ori and the Blind Forest, others may be streamable to Nintendo’s console sometime this year
- Why putting Xbox games on Switch isn’t as ridiculous as it might sound
- Crackdown 3 shows a vision of the future | Opinion: The new Xbox title points toward the radical changes that Game Pass will bring to the industry’s commercial and cultural landscape
- Fallout: Wasteland Warfare: A “rad” miniatures game full of Nuka-Cola flavor
- Halo Infinite now linked to next Xbox’s launch, rumor suggests RPG elements
- Report: Microsoft plans to announce two next-gen Xbox consoles at E3
- Microsoft puts mixed reality, high-speed 3D rendering, and Kinect vision into cloud
- Microsoft unveils HoloLens 2, promises greater mixed reality immersion
- Microsoft unveils HoloLens 2: twice the field of view, eye tracking
- Microsoft adds eye-tracking, doubles field of view for HoloLens 2: Will launch later this year for $3,500, Unreal Engine support on the way
- Microsoft Significantly Misrepresented HoloLens 2’s Field of View at Reveal
- Employees demand Microsoft cancels $479m HoloLens military contract: Engineers on the project believed it would “push the boundaries of gaming”, not “turn warfare into a simulated video game
- Razer lays off 30 from shut down projects: Organization’s “realignment” plans result in cut of 2% of workforce
- GOG lays off a dozen employees over reported financial strain
- Funcom enters partnership with Legendary to create Dune games
- Skybound cuts ties with Overkill’s The Walking Dead devs mid-release
- GOG lays off “around a dozen,” reportedly due to financial trouble: Estimated 10% of total staff may have been affected due to revenue share competition from other storefronts
- GOG drops Fair Price Package program, blames rising dev revenue shares
- Ebba Ljungerud’s grand strategy: A chat with Paradox’s CEO
- THQ Nordic issues new shares to raise $225 million for future acquisitions
- THQ Nordic raises $225m for further acquisitions: “Substantially oversubscribed” share issue brings on a range of new investors for growing publisher
- Media Molecule to launch Dreams in paid Early Access this spring: Long-awaited game is among the first to introduce Early Access concept to PlayStation 4
- NetEase maintains revenue growth despite Chinese approvals freeze: Online games revenue was up 11% in 2018, with ten new games still waiting for approval in China
- Tencent and NetEase’s combined non-China mobile revenues leap 505% to $472m: IHS Markit says Chinese publishers’s efforts overseas helped weather game freeze, let by NetEase’s battle royale Knives Out
- Tencent partners with Intel on its streaming service, Instant Play
- Snail Games launches indie publishing label: Chinese outfit establishes Wandering Wizard to bring Western indie titles to the market, starting with Virtual Basement’s Outlaws of the Old West
- Paratopic haunts the walking sim with verbs and violence
- Blog: Why 2018 was a landmark year for accessibility
- Kabam founder forms blockchain gaming startup Forte: Kevin Chou hopes to encourage adoption of blockchain in the gaming industry by building, supporting new projects
- Embark Studios grows to over 50 people, working on first title: Patrick Söderlund’s new studio larger than anticipated as it starts work on co-op, free-to-play action game
- Technical deep dive: The wild and windy aerodynamics ofJust Cause 4
- FIFA announces eNations Cup tournament: Latest series is one of three officially hosted by the football association in partnership with EA Sports
- Overwatch League Boston Uprising, New England Patriots owner charged with soliciting prostitution: Robert Kraft, 24 others charged after eight-month-long investigation in southern Florida
- “China is saying is that esports is cool, and more healthy than gaming itself”: What role can “offline” esports events like summer camps play in repairing the industry’s relationship with the Chinese government?
- Female viewership of esports increasing: Interpret finds girls and women account for 30% of esports watchers, up more than 6% in just two years
- Hi-Rez Studios: Turning battle royale into an entertaining esport – Esports BAR Cannes speaker Alex Grimonpont explains why “we still haven’t seen a significant success” from battle royale in terms entertaining spectators
- Use of excerpts of videogames and eSports competitions without the right holder’s consent: is it fair use (or the Princess is in another castle)?
- HTC is launching the Vive Focus Plus this year, complete with 6DoF controllers
- US Future staff to unionize with Writers Guild of America: PC Gamer, GamesRadar, others join growing industry push for unionization
- U.S. Patent No. 9,138,648: System and method for dynamically loading game software for smooth game play
- U.S. Patent No. 9,266,022: System to pause a game console whenever an object enters an exclusion zone
- U.S. Patent No. 8,882,594: Control scheme for real time strategy game
- 5 Ways Black Panther’s Success Could Inspire Video Games
- How Black Women Made The Sims 4 Their Own
- 5 Awesome Black Video Game Characters: In honor of Black History Month, we celebrate some of the best black characters in video games.
- Jerry Lawson: The Black Man Who Revolutionized Gaming As We Know It – Meet Gerald “Jerry” Lawson, the man who pioneered the video game cartridge.
- Games Developed By Black Developers You Should Look Out For: In celebration of Black History Month, here are some indie games that should be on your radar.
- No Doubt v. Activision Publishing, Inc.
- Resident Evil 2 Remake: The Tofu Survivor Challenge- Hot Keys
- Resident Evil 2 remake ships 4 million copies in first month
- The Interactivity of Reading
- Amy Hennig calls single-player games ‘just a harder and harder proposition’
- Opinion: Civilization VI’s (Green) New Deal
- Blog: A student game postmortem (or how not to make a game)
DIGITAL
- Digital rights are *all* human rights, not just civil and political: The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights consults with the field
- Report: US Cyber Command took Russian trolls offline during midterms
- Does Twitter Have An Anti-Conservative Bias, Or Just An Anti-Nazi Bias?
- Latest Garbage Twitter/Terrorism Lawsuit Is The Stupidest Twitter/Terrorism Lawsuit
- Twitter co-founder Ev Williams has stepped down from the $24 billion company’s board
- Facebook Reportedly Let Marketers Advertise to Nazis: Advertisers can pay to make sure their messages reach neo-Nazis.
- Facebook decided which users are interested in Nazis – and let advertisers target them directly
- These Apps Reportedly Shared Sensitive Personal Information With Facebook
- Facebook Ups Surveillance Of Users To Keep Tabs On People Who Don’t Like Facebook
- Facebook VPN that snoops on users is pulled from Android store
- Facebook pulls the plug on its data snooping Onavo VPN service: Its research programs will also gain more clarity
- The Trauma Floor: The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America
- Facebook’s promised Clear History privacy tool to launch later this year following delay
- Facebook Orders Animated Comedy Series Starring Anna Kendrick and Zac Efron, Sets ‘Real World’ Reboot Fan Voting
- Beware The Rise Of Censorship Under The Guise Of Stopping Fake News: UK Regulators Push For Dangerous Plan
- Open Letter From New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon
- How a coat on Amazon took over a neighborhood – and then the internet: A case study of a trend that maybe wasn’t one.
- Amazon Is Now Ditching on Seattle Plans, Too
- When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online
- YouTube loses advertisers over “wormhole into pedophilia ring”
- After Child Video Scandal, YouTube Says Ad-Friendly Videos Can Be Demonetized For Inappropriate Comments
- YouTube And Demonetization: The Hammer And Nail Of Content Moderation
- YouTube recommendations for ‘alt-right’ videos have dropped dramatically, study shows: But YouTube denies demoting content based on “specific political perspectives”.
- When the Alt-right Loves Your App
- Suicide instructions spliced into kids’ cartoons on YouTube and YouTube Kids
- YouTube Demonetizes Anti-Vaccination Channels Following Advertiser Outcry
- YouTube Music Launches New Mini-Series Format, Beginning With Billie Eilish
- Michelle Obama Joins YouTube’s Book Panel Discussion Special
- T-Series Surpassed PewDiePie For 10 Minutes Following Routine YouTube Audit
- “Despacito” Becomes First Video In YouTube History To Pass 6 Billion Views
- Legal Update: Influencing The Influencers
- Lilly Singh Comes Out As Bisexual, Urging Fans To Embrace Their Differences As “Superpowers”
- Crunchyroll, Portal A To Shine Light On Diverse Anime Fandom In New Docuseries
- Amid 1 Billion Downloads, TikTok Launches Video Series To Protect Its Young Users
- Police: Uber Data Helped Prove Jussie Smollett Faked Hate Crime
- Apple closes two Dallas stores in apparent bid to ward off patent trolls
- Apple Shutting Down Stores In East Texas To Avoid Patent Trolling Cases In The Troll’s Favorite Docket
- Report: Apple is working on a new SDK for painless porting from iOS to Mac
- Apple Car: Apple’s vehicle project, focused on building an autonomous driving system.
- How Apple and app developers will try to entice you to subscribe, not just pay once
- Investigating the Higbee & Associates Copyright Trolling Operation
- One Person’s Unsettling Experience With A $20k Higbee Copyright Troll Demand Letter
- Teen Musician Turns Down $3 Million Record Deal: No Need For A Label Thanks To The Internet
- European governments approve controversial new copyright law
- European Journalists Point Out That Article 11 Will Enrich Publishers At The Expense Of Journalists
- New EU Directive threatens the Internet as we know it (Andres Guadamuz)
- Europe Against the Net
- Who Needs Article 13: Italian Court Finds Facebook Liable For Hosting Links
- Japanese Academics Issue The Tamest ‘Emergency’ Statement Over Proposed Copyright Amendment
- Inside the Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme: Multiple misleading identities, more than 100 host accounts and 18 corporations were created to run an illegal hotel business in Manhattan, according to a lawsuit filed by the city.
- After Child Video Scandal, YouTube Says Ad-Friendly Videos Can Be Demonetized For Inappropriate Comments
- YouTube’s Commenter Controversy Is Putting Creators in a Tricky Position
- Major Companies Are Pulling Ads From YouTube Over Pedophile Concerns
- One Month After Returning To YouTube, AT&T Once Again Yanks Ad Spending Following Discovery Of Pedophilic Comments
- Disney reportedly in talks to buy AT&T’s stake in Hulu
- Disney Pulls YouTube Ads Amid Child Video Scandal, As Platform Disables Comments On Tens Of Millions Of Videos
- Anti-Vaccination Videos May Be YouTube’s Latest Front In Battle Against Conspiracies
- YouTube Says No Ads on Anti-Vaccine Videos
- Influencing the Influencer – how to be #CMAcompliant
- Who Won The PewDiePie And T-Series YouTube Subscriber Battle? The Two Canadian Teens Behind FlareTV.
- Jimmy Fallon Becomes First Late-Night Host To Hit 20 Million YouTube Subscribers
- Netflix Is the Most Intoxicating Portal to Planet Earth: Instead of trying to sell American ideas to a foreign audience, it’s aiming to sell international ideas to a global audience.
- Netflix Spent As Much As $60 Million Trying (And Failing) To Win ‘Roma’ The Best Picture Oscar
- Netflix and the Economics of Bundling
- ‘Bon Appétit’ Launches Free OTT Channel With Slate Of 3 New Series
- Older Adults Are Especially Prone to Social Media Bubbles
- Insights: Doing A Better Job Counting What Counts In Social Media
- Surprise: Uganda’s New Social Media Tax Seems To Have Led To Fewer People Using The Internet, And Total Value Of Mobile Transactions To Drop
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Demanding Platforms Delete Disinformation May Make It Harder To Understand What Happened
- Court Refuses To Allow Defendant In Copyright Trolling Case To Proceed, But Hints At Reform
- DoorDash Is a Bunch of Snakes
- Beyond HoloLens: Microsoft expands its augmented-reality vision with iOS, Android apps
- Hands-on: HoloLens 2 is a More Than Just a Larger Field of View
- Microsoft Significantly Misrepresented HoloLens 2’s Field of View at Reveal
- Employees urge Microsoft to pull HoloLens military contract
- Microsoft CEO defends ‘principled and democratic’ HoloLens military contract
- Nadella: Microsoft will sell war tech to democracies to “protect freedoms”
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defends HoloLens military contract: “We’re not going to withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy”
- Why IBM’s “Dear Tech” Ad Is So Enraging
- A New AI Draws Cats, and They’re Utterly Grotesque: No cats were harmed in the making of this creepy website.
- AI Writes Article About AI: Does The Newspaper Hold The Copyright?
- An NYU professor explains why it’s so dangerous that Silicon Valley is building AI to make decisions without human values
- Humanity + AI: Better Together
- When Algorithms Think You Want To Die
- Twenty minutes into the future with OpenAI’s Deep Fake Text AI
- How Google, Microsoft, and Big Tech Are Automating the Climate Crisis
- Google ends forced arbitration for all employees
- Google Fesses Up To Hidden Microphone In Nest Home Security Platform
- Samsung Galaxy S10, S10+, and S10e hands-on: Samsung is slowly getting better
- Guidemaster: The least-awful Android phones
- Oppo’s foldable smartphone is another futuristic wraparound display device
- LG’s V50 answers the foldable phone craze with a detachable second screen
- Forget Face ID, the LG G8 comes with palm-reading “Hand ID” biometrics
- USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse: People already get the names wrong, so the USB group has doubled down on bad naming.
- Nike’s self-lacing sneakers turn into bricks after faulty firmware update
- Blockchain based smart contracts equal to written documents in Italy
- Surge In Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacking Activity
- Perhaps the QuadragaCX Story Will Have a Happy Ending
- Upcoming Tech IPOs Will Mint Hundreds of Overnight Millionaires and Silicon Valley Vultures Are Licking Their Chops
- Why Big Cap Tech is So Big
- New FTC task force will take on tech monopolies: And they’re going to look at previous mergers
- The FTC Probably Doesn’t Need A New ‘Big Tech’ Task Force. It Just Needs To Do Its Job
- FTC’s first case over fake paid Amazon reviews targets dodgy diet pills
- FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Independent Retail Website
- FTC Announces Settlement Involving Fake Amazon Reviews
- For the First Time, FTC Fines Company for Fake Amazon Reviews: “When a company buys fake reviews to inflate its Amazon ratings, it hurts both shoppers and companies that play by the rules.”
- String of ions may out-compute best quantum computers
- Ariana Grande Becomes Most-Followed Female Creator On Instagram
- Canada’s Internet Music Success Story: SOCAN’s Canadian Internet Streaming Revenues Surpass Radio Royalties (Michael Geist)
- Here’s why we’re entering the Golden Age of Podcasts, in 10 graphs
- Why Musicians Are Starting Their Own Podcasts – and Why the Podcast Industry Should Pay Attention: In sidestepping media middlemen, artists are creating their own DIY music-media economy
- Spotify launches in India amidst legal battle with Warner
- Why Did Music Visualizers Disappear?
- Providing Software Source Code Key to Powering Future Software Development (UNESCO)
- Back to the Stratosphere: How the Rarest Music in the World Comes Back – Duster was a small, largely forgotten band from the late ’90s. Then their legend began to grow on sites like Discogs. Now, they’re the subject of a major reissue.
- Unmasking the internet’s favourite novelist: Todd Noy was said to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a towering figure in the online fan-fiction community. His books were delivered around the world. But he may have never existed.
- Kickstarter to Remove That Rat From the End of The Departed Whacked By DMCA Takedown
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 7: Content Moderation, Section 230, & More (Eric Goldman)
- Top Internet Law Developments of 2018 (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- China Extends Its Censorship To Australian Books, Written By Australian Authors For Australian Readers
- Clarence Thomas Has a Point About Free-Speech Law: The constitutional foundations of New York Times v. Sullivan are not looking all that firm.
- Catholic School Teen’s Lawyers File $250M Defamation Suit Against The Washington Post; Fail To List Any Actual Defamation
- Be warned – you can be held liable for the defamatory comments of another!
- ASA publishes new guidance to protect children from irresponsible gambling ads
- Wherein The Copia Institute, Engine, And Reddit Tell The DC Circuit That FOSTA Is Unconstitutional
- No Apologies: Nirvana v. Marc Jacobs
- The company that commissioned “Fearless Girl” is suing its creator.
- Ad Standards Announces New Dispute Procedure
- EU, Chile, Singapore and Spain IP offices named most innovative in the world
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Enough is Enough: Bains Proposes CRTC Policy Direction Grounded in Competition, Affordability, and Consumer Interests (Michael Geist)
- Proposed Order Issuing a Direction to the CRTC on Implementing the Canadian Telecommunications Policy Objectives to Promote Competition, Affordability, Consumer Interests and Innovation
- The CRTC Opens a Penske File: Chair Ian Scott Commits to Little Action Despite Finding Misleading Telecom Sales Tactics (Michael Geist)
- A CRTC More Interested in Protecting Incumbent Companies Than Consumers: My Appearance on the Broadcast Dialogue Podcast (Michael Geist)
- Appeals court rejects government bid to reverse AT&T/Time Warner deal
- Judge Ruling In AT&T Merger Again Highlights Broken Antitrust Enforcement, Court Myopia
- AT&T Throwing FundRaiser For Senate Chair Ahead Of Privacy Hearings
- FCC Uses Cherry-Picked Stats To Justify Giving Consumers A Giant Middle Finger
- Super Bowl Commercial for “Us” Generates FCC Complaints
- Frontier demands $4,300 cancellation fee despite horribly slow Internet
- Trump Administration’s ‘National Broadband Plan’ Comically Refuses To Acknowledge A Lack Of Competition
- Trump Calls For “6G,” Which Doesn’t Exist: Let’s focus on actually setting up 5G first.
- Trump demands quick rollout of “6G” wireless tech, which doesn’t exist
- Is 5G Being Weaponized?
- 5G Is Going to Be an Incredibly Tough Sell in 2019
- HTC Did the Unthinkable and Made a Hotspot That’s Cool
- There’s No End in Sight to Our Robocall Hell
- Industry Claims That Cord Cutting Would Be A Fad Aren’t Looking So Hot
- Investigators, Reporters Close In On The Origins Of Those Fake Net Neutrality Comments
- Verizon says phone-sale fraud is up, wants to lock new phones to fight it
- Windstream, ISP with 1 million customers, files for bankruptcy
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- ICO prosecutes Cambridge Analytica parent company
- 9 Years After: From Operation Aurora to Zero Trust – How the first documented nation-state cyberattack is changing security today.
- Piracy v. Privacy – The Federal Court Significantly Restores the Balance in Canadian Mass Copyright Litigation by Insisting on “Best Available Evidence”
- Consent: Is It Meaningful?
- Yahoo! Data Breach Settlement Increases Risk for Companies’ Directors and Officers
- Plain wrong: Millions of utility customers’ passwords stored in plain text – “It’s ridiculous vendors are replying to researchers via general counsel, not bug bounty.”
- Court Says DOJ’s Attempt To Force Facebook To Break Encryption Can Remain Under Seal
- Amazon Echo and Google Home should be able to snitch on owners, says professor: Marija Slavkovik at the University of Bergen, Norway wonders whether your digital assistant needs a moral, ethical dimension. But of course.
- EU Law Enforcement Preps To Start Sharing Sensitive Data With A Number Of Human Rights Abusers
- 8 GDPR compliance tips explained by Queen songs
- How criminals are using the low-interest credit card scam to steal your identity
- Many websites threatened by highly critical code-execution bug in Drupal
- Google: Software is never going to be able to fix Spectre-type bugs
- Love (or hate) Data?
- Five UK Privacy and Data Protection Predictions for 2019
Jon
News of the Week; February 20, 2019
GAMES
- Oxford study finds no link between violent video games and teen aggression
- No link between violent video games and increased aggression in teens, study finds: Oxford University describes study as “one of the most definitive to date”
- Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents’ aggressive behaviour: evidence from a registered report (Andrew Przybylski & Netta Weinstein)
- Niantic poised to settle Pokémon Go trespassing complaints
- Pokémon GO Lawsuit Settlement Might Lead To Some Pokéstops And Gyms Being Removed
- The mythos and meaning behind Pokémon’s most famous glitch
- Epic Games pulls Fortnite YouTube ads over child predator concerns
- Organizers of unsanctioned Fortnite festival facing lawsuit from Epic Games
- Epic Games files legal claim against Fortnite Live event organizers: Organizer Exciting Events forced to stop trading to limit losses
- Fortnite dance off: Fresh Prince star refused copyright on ‘Carlton Dance’
- One Of The People Suing Fortnite Over ‘Stolen’ Dance Steps Gets His Dance Rejected By The US Copyright Office
- Alfonso Ribeiro denied copyright to Carlton dance, damaging Fortnite lawsuit: US Copyright Office says routine is too simple to be protected by law
- ‘Fortnite’ Publisher Pauses YouTube Ads After They Ran On Videos Where Commenters Fetishized Children
- Respawn has already banned over 16,000 cheaters fromApex Legends
- Ninja Wins Twitch’s First ‘Apex Legends’ Tournament By One Point
- Apex Legends already beat Fortnite’s single-day viewership record on Twitch
- Apex Legends beats Fortnite record for single-day Twitch viewing: Respawn’s Twitch Rivals event racked up 8.4 million hours viewed, streaming platform’s fourth highest in five years
- ‘Fortnite’s’ Massively Attended Virtual Concert is a Potent Glimpse of VR’s Future
- Wrestler Booker T Sues Activision For Copyright Infringement Over Fairly Generic Character Depiction
- US labor organization AFL-CIO urges game developers to unionize in open letter
- How did Yoshi’s Island music end up in an official US gov’t Web game?
- Revenue and profit up as Paradox experiences best year to date
- Paradox Interactive breaks new ground for modding on consoles: Independent Paradox Mods platform will provide a direct channel to console audiences “without pre-moderation”
- Paradox and Microsoft have created an open modding platform for Paradox titles
- Microsoft, Paradox allow open game modding on Xbox One for the first time
- Devs accuse Sony of “playing favorites” with PS4’s cross-platform support
- Stubbornness over cross-play reminds us of bad old Sony | Opinion
- Sony: We Are Totally Open For Crossplay, Game Developers: No, You Totally Are Not
- Sony is readying to shut down PlayStation Vita production in Japan
- PS4-exclusive Dreams is launching into early access this spring
- Employees at Blizzard’s France location unsure if their jobs are safe
- 134 jobs in danger at Blizzard’s French office
- Rewarding profit and nothing else | Opinion : Activision Blizzard’s mass layoffs amid record profits fits the company’s disregard for optics, but it may be self-defeating in the long run
- Nitro Games begins layoff talks, could cut workforce in half
- Mobile dev Next Games lays off 26 staff
- Q&A: Non-profit Take This addresses mental health challenges among gaming community and creators
- Ubisoft holds steady in Q3 despite competitive holiday
- Ubisoft isn’t worried about an influx of new games stealingRainbow Six Siege’s thunder
- Why Ubisoft moved The Division 2 to the Epic Games store: CEO Yves Guillemot praises Epic’s terms, but says move was to “increase player exposure to our own store”
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider ships 4.12 million: Lara Croft’s latest adventure “got off to a weak start” for Square Enix alongside Just Cause 4
- Square Enix consolidating its business divisions: Company plans to reorganize from 11 to four units, won’t involve workforce reduction
- Overkill’s The Walking Dead earned $3.7m from sales in Q4: Starbreeze full-year financial report underlines commercial performance of key title
- Report: China freezes new game approvals as regulators tackle backlog
- Chinese government halts new game approvals to work through backlog: State Administration of Press and Publications to clear backlog before approving new submissions
- Tencent introduces streaming rules to stay on the up-and-up with Chinese law
- Report: Tencent wants to distribute Apex Legends in China
- Tencent in talks to bring Apex Legends to China – Report
- Tencent joins Netmarble consortium in Nexon bid
- Report: Netmarble and Tencent could buy Nexon as part of consortium
- Kingdom Hearts III, Resident Evil 2 can’t stop January US sales dip: NPD Group finds gaming revenues down 19% year-over-year to $893 million; growth of Switch sales offset by declines in all other platforms
- Revenue down by 5.4% at Rovio, but games segment holds firm
- Com2uS acquires majority stake in visual novel developer Day 7
- That’s a wrap: Valve is axing Steam’s video section
- Valve retires non-gaming content from video on-demand service: Blockbuster movies fail to find traction on Steam
- Razer Game Store shutting down after 10 months
- Live support for Heroes of Newerth scaled back to essentials only: Former League of Legends rival to receive one last major update after ten years of live service
- eSports: a new frontier for the advertising law and image rights?
- EA opts Origin users out of “real-name sharing” after complaints
- Don’t Miss: Common problems when translating games into Japanese
- Anthem review: BioWare’s sky-high gaming ambition crashes back to Earth
- ‘Human Eye Resolution’ VR Is a Treat If You Know Where to Look
- Retina resolution headset puts the “reality” into “virtual reality”
- After Machinima Shutdown, Rooster Teeth Revives ‘Inside Gaming’ and Rescues Other Machinima Shows
- Nintendo’s greatest strength this generation is self-acceptance | Opinion: The platform holder has returned to its roots, and it is stronger and more well-rounded as a result
- Dealmaster: As Switch sales slow, Nintendo launches a new bundle
- Porn Star Comes To The Nintendo Switch
- Report: Early adopters of the Nintendo Switch weren’t in target demographic
- Tetris 99 isn’t just a great twist on a classic—it’s a gameplay revolution
- Breaking down categories of action in strategy games
- Insights: How Marshmello, MassMutual and Microsoft Are Remaking Content Marketing
- BOY, God of War won big at the DICE Awards
- God of War sweeps 2019 DICE Awards: Meanwhile, Halo boss Bonnie Ross welcomed into Hall of Fame and Celeste wins two categories
- Getting to the heart of art in the delightfully strange Art Sqool
- Enjoy a ’93 video tour of id Software while Doom was being made
- Blog: What is a meta-game?
- Blog: Examining the issues with battle royale game design
DIGITAL
- The U.S. is About to Hit Facebook With a Multi-Billion Dollar Fine: It could be the largest tech fine in history.
- Facebook may face multi-billion dollar fine for Cambridge Analytica scandal
- Facebook is a law-breaking “digital gangster,” UK government report says
- It’s time for a “radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the people,” the British parliament says: Facebook acts like “digital gangsters,” “Mark Zuckerberg has shown contempt” toward governments
- Facebook, Google, CDC under pressure to stop anti-vax garbage from spreading
- Behold, the Facebook phishing scam that could dupe even vigilant users
- Leaked Zuckerberg Email Reveals Facebook’s XR Strategy, ‘Our goal is not only to win, but to accelerate its arrival’
- The Hatebook: Inside Facebook’s thriving subculture of racism
- Facebook Blames Users for Its Latest Privacy Scandal as Lawmakers Ask to Chat
- Roger McNamee: ‘It’s bigger than Facebook. This is a problem with the entire industry’
- Zuckerberg defends big tech, says Facebook should remain free
- Mark Zuckerberg is ‘potentially interested’ in putting Facebook login on the blockchain: ‘There’s a lot of things I think would be quite attractive about that’
- Zuckerberg, forgetting about Facebook’s Portal: ‘We definitely don’t want a society where there’s a camera in everyone’s living room’
- ‘They have no clue about network security’: China data leak exposes mass surveillance across Muslim Xinjiang
- When surveillance meets incompetence: Evil, and poorly done at that
- A Court Just Sent a Man to Prison For 3D Printing a Gun
- Someone Impersonated New Jersey’s Attorney General To Demand Cloudflare Takedown 3d Printed Gun Instructions
- Florida inmate says prison sold him $569 of music, then took it away
- Hollywood tries to cripple several alleged pirate TV services in one lawsuit
- Study Reinforces How Much The Internet Has Enabled Content Creators To Make Money
- Sony Using Copyright To Take Down Its Own Anti-Piracy Propaganda
- HuffPost Fires Social Media Editor For Being Incredibly Racist On Social Media
- Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report published
- This Site Uses Deep Learning to Generate Fake Airbnb Listings: The future of the internet is lots and lots of fake stuff.
- Twitter CEO Says Users Could Get a Feature to ‘Clarify’ Their Bad Tweets
- Another Politician Probably Violated the First Amendment By Blocking a Constituent on Twitter–Campbell v. Reisch (Eric Goldman)
- Indian Lawmakers Considering TikTok Ban, Calling App “Inimical To Law And Order”
- European Parliament Approves Controversial “Meme Ban”
- The EU’s Digital Copyright Directive – where are we now?
- EU Moves Forward With Agreement To Fundamentally Change The Internet From Open To Closed
- The Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive: text agreed in trialogue discussions
- EU Commission Decides To Mock The Public; Insists Fears About EU Copyright Directive Are All Myths
- As EU Politicians Insist That It’s All Just ‘Bots’ And ‘Astroturf’ Tons Of People Showing Up In Real Life To Protest
- Beijing’s denial of Huawei control bucks expert analysis
- Can Russia Actually ‘Unplug’ From The Internet?
- Nestle and others have suspended YouTube ads over news of a pedophile network on the site
- Disney Reportedly Pulls YouTube Ads Over Child-Exploitation Controversy
- Disney reportedly pulls ads from YouTube following child exploitation controversy: Following Nestlé and Epic Games
- The YouTube Pedophile Commenting Scandal, Explained: The predator problem has been public knowledge since at least 2017. But the online video giant has been done nothing meaningfully to fix it.
- How YouTube reactionaries are breaking the news media
- Texas Study Finds Majority Of ‘Flat Earthers’ Are Indoctrinated On YouTube
- Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers: Conspiracy theories shown on video-sharing site persuade people to doubt Earth is round
- YouTube revamps community guidelines strike system: In an effort to make policies clearer and consistent
- YouTube Is Changing Its Community Guidelines Strike System For The First Time In A Decade
- How Kids YouTube Star Blippi Used Copyright Law to Hide His Harlem Shake Poop Video: Someone claiming to represent Blippi filed DMCA copyright takedown requests to Google in order to get an embarrassing viral video hidden.
- German Politician Thinks Gmail Constituent Messages Are All Faked By Google
- Jimmy Fallon Becomes First Late-Night Host To Hit 20 Million YouTube Subscribers
- Vox lawyers briefly censored YouTubers who mocked The Verge’s bad PC build advice
- Users alarmed by undisclosed microphone in Nest Security System
- Google Says Unlisted, Built-In Microphone on Nest Devices Wasn’t Supposed to Be ‘Secret’
- Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder
- Google partially backtracks on Chrome changes that would break ad blockers
- Google Play apps with >10 million installs drain batteries, jack up data charges
- YouTuber Matt Watson Uncovers “Wormhole” Of Fetishizing Comments On Videos Of Young Children
- Fitness Influencer ‘Scammer’ Brittany Dawn Is “Getting This Business In Order,” Though Some Fans Are Unconvinced
- 7-Year-Old YouTube Megastar Ryan ToysReview Is Getting His Own Nickelodeon Series
- Victoria Beckham Launching YouTube Fashion Channel
- Matthew Patrick Slams Defy Media’s Bank For Comparing Itself To YouTubers Who Lost Money
- The latest Instagram influencer frontier? Medical promotions.: Big pharma is partnering with influencers to sell new drugs and medical devices.
- The Latest In Trademark Abuse Is Registering Marks To Obtain Ownership Of Instagram Accounts
- Meet The Beauty Influencer Who Isn’t Afraid To Say What She Thinks: Jackie Aina has been unapologetic about holding the makeup industry accountable to the black women who buy its products.
- Elon Musk Says He Filmed PewDiePie Collab As T-Series Subscriber Race Heats Up
- Rooster Teeth Resurrects Select Machinima Series, Including ‘Inside Gaming’, In Wake Of Shutdown
- Hulu Acquires Award-Winning Documentary About 16-Year-Old Influencer
- Hulu Ad Campaign Spells Out That Its Influencers Get Paid
- Hulu’s New ‘Sellouts’ Ad Campaign Tells Viewers It Pays Influencers To Endorse It
- Snapchat Expands NHL Pact to Add Hockey Highlights, Curated Stories
- The New York Times quietly paused its Snapchat channel
- New Algorithm Detects Fake Online Dating Profiles
- Netflix Unveils Canadian Production Hub To Accommodate Projects From Guillermo Del Toro, John Green
- Claiming for Unlawful Prophets – $50 Million Satanic Netflix Suit Settled
- Netflix’s The Punisher and Jessica Jones Are Officially Cancelled
- Netflix makes it official, canceling Punisher and Jessica Jones
- How Dark Horse is building its own movie and TV empire out of comic books, from Netflix to a ‘Hellboy’ reboot
- Netflix isn’t talking about itself like a tech company anymore
- “Hollywood is now irrelevant,” says IAC Chairman Barry Diller
- Feeling unwelcome, Amazon ditches plans for New York hub
- Facing opposition, Amazon scraps New York HQ2 plans
- Amazon Abandons HQ2 Campus in New York
- Bill de Blasio Does Not Appear to Be Taking the Amazon HQ2 Breakup Well
- Amazon’s grave HQ2 mistake: The political landscape changed but the company’s playbook didn’t
- Amazon Launches Social Media Strategy For Massive ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Prequel
- Amazon Alexa And The Search For The One Perfect Answer
- Amazon caught selling counterfeits of publisher’s computer books—again
- India is turning its back on Silicon Valley
- The Big Data Revolution Will Be Sampled: How ‘Big Data’ Has Come To Mean ‘Small Sampled Data’
- Are the algorithms that power dating apps racially biased?: If the algorithms powering these match-making systems contain pre-existing biases, is the onus on dating apps to counteract them?
- Two Pricing AIs Went Rogue and Formed a Cartel to Gouge Humans: Capitalism is just another game that the AI intends to win.
- AI Executive Order – What’s Next?
- Elon Musk-backed AI Company Claims It Made a Text Generator That’s Too Dangerous to Release
- The AI Text Generator That’s Too Dangerous To Make Public
- OpenAI built a text generator so good, it’s considered too dangerous to release
- Researchers, scared by their own work, hold back “deepfakes for text” AI
- Robots Are Already Driving and Painting, Now They’re Directing Films Too: A new documentary lets robots interview and film humans.
- India’s first RoboCop: Kerala Police inducts robot, gives it SI rank: Chief Minister Vijayan welcomed the Sub Inspector (SI) ranked robot into the service with an honorary salute and the ‘RoboCop’ responded with a perfect salute. It has been named KP-Bot.
- Gambling Commission announces new rules for online gambling
- New WIPO study on A.I. inventions and EDPB opinion on clinical trials
- This is why AI has yet to reshape most businesses
- We should treat algorithms like prescription drugs
- Ocasio-Cortez is right, algorithms are biased – but we can make them fairer
- On WhatsApp, Rumours, and Lynchings
- Did an employer breach its duty of care to an employee when it changed the passwords on his personal internet accounts on his company-provided mobile?
- What happens when you create a fake music record label and upload bad music to Spotify: A scholarly experiment to figure out how Spotify works (and how to trick it)
- Spotify Paid Nearly $340 Million to Buy Podcast Startups Gimlet and Anchor
- SoundCloud Launches Tool to Distribute Music to Other Streaming Services
- DJ Deadmau5 Quits Twitch After Platform Suspends Him For Homophobic Remarks
- The Record Label of The Future is No Label At All: Spotify’s acquisitions of Gimlet and Anchor signal ambitious plans to disintermediate the music industry.
- It Sounds Like It Could Be a While Until We Actually Get Apple’s Streaming Service
- Apple Taps Reese Witherspoon, J.J. Abrams, More For Video Service Launch Event On March 25
- Gambling, porn, and piracy on iOS: Apple’s enterprise certificate woes continue
- Apple reportedly planning to combine iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps by 2021
- Samsung’s foldable phone is finally official—meet the Galaxy Fold
- Microsoft culls secret Flash whitelist after Google points out its insecurity
- Florida Court Finds Virtual Currency Subject to Money Service Businesses Law
- Trouble in Paradise: Florida Court Rules that Selling Bitcoin is Money Transmission
- JPMorgan is creating a cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar
- Inside the London tech scene’s frantic plan to stop Brexit: Britain’s techies still want to bring Brexit crashing down – and they’re scrambling to build the tools to do so
- The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source Developers. Is That Sustainable?: A look at the complicated business of funding open source software development.
- GoFundMe: Hope, but no solution, for the needy
- Judges Are Struggling To Interpret Emoji In Court Cases
- How Would You Feel Having Your Emoji Messages Read Out in Court?
- Queensland drivers set to get emoji number plates: Apparently there’s no stopping the spread of emoji – and road users are about to start seeing more of the little characters.
- Ong’s Hat: The Early Internet Conspiracy Game That Got Too Real
- Welcome to the cyber world: The real-world tech behind Alita: Battle Angel
CREATIVITY
- Alec Baldwin Wants to Know if Donald Trump Is Threatening Him
- Fox News Bans Ad For Documentary About American Nazi Rally in 1939
- Justice Thomas Is Apparently Serious About Completely Upturning Over 50 Years Of 1st Amendment Law
- Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, threatens to sue Mail on Sunday: Paper published letter from royal saying father Thomas Markle had ‘broken her heart’
- Copyright May Protect a Car Wash’s Liability Disclaimer–Rassamni v. Fresno Auto Spa (Eric Goldman)
- Red Sole Diaries: another chapter
- How sexist will the media’s treatment of female candidates be? Rule out ‘not at all.’
- One of Anime’s Biggest Voices Accused of Sexual Harassment
- We get the journalism we deserve
- Dentist’s failed suit demonstrates a copyright’s bite needs more than teeth
- The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures
- This Video Explores Starship Troopers’ Messy Satirical Relationship With Fascism
- Smoke and mirrors? Big Tobacco slip(stream)s back into Formula One sponsorship deals
- If you call this firm a “patent troll,” it might sue for defamation
- Appeals Court Takes No Time At All In Rejecting Patent Troll’s Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Cloudflare
- Calling Out Copyright Troll Mathew Higbee
- When does an Oscar speech become defamatory?
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Canada’s telecom industry uses misleading and unacceptable sales practices, CRTC report confirms: CRTC report says aggressive practices harm vulnerable consumers, such as seniors, and exist across all sales channels
- FTC Opts Out of Updating Anti-Spam Rule
- Ajit Pai orders phone companies to adopt new anti-robocall tech in 2019
- Ajit Pai says broadband access is soaring—and that he’s the one to thank
- Sprint, T-Mobile Execs Continue To Hallucinate Competitors In Their Post-Merger Dreamscape
- FCC Issues Staff Report on “Robocalling”
- How an Investigation of Fake FCC Comments Snared a Prominent D.C. Media Firm
- In Wake Of Verizon Flub, New Law Would Ban Wireless Throttling Of First Responders
- 5G Has Become The Magic Pixie Dust Of Tech Policy Conversations
- Why the future of satellite internet might be decided in rural Alaska
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Actually, Secretly Filming Students’ Cleavage Is Illegal, Canada’s Supreme Court Rules
- The Supreme Court’s Jarvis ruling delivers a win for privacy, but it’s a missed opportunity for equality
- Right to privacy not an all-or-nothing concept, says SCC in voyeurism case
- “Privacy is Not an All-or-Nothing Concept”: The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v. Jarvis
- R. v. Jarvis (2019 SCC 10)
- Canadian Privacy Commissioners jointly issue guidelines to organizations for obtaining meaningful consent
- When a privacy policy is not enough: Canadian Privacy Commissioners issue new guidance on obtaining meaningful consent
- Yet Another Breach
- The Lucrative Government Spyware Industry Has a New ‘One-Stop-Shop’ for Hacking Everything
- Deputies Sued After False ALPR Hit Leads To Guns-Out Traffic Stop Of California Privacy Activist
- With elections weeks away, someone “sophisticated” hacked Australia’s politicians
- Inside the DNSpionage hacks that hijack domains at an unprecedented scale
- Automakers Could Give Police Control Over Your Self-Driving Car
- Hard-to-detect credential-theft malware has infected 1,200 and is still going
- Nasty code-execution bug in WinRAR threatened millions of users for 14 years
Jon
News of the Week; February 13, 2019
GAMES
- Judge orders $150,000 in damages in GTA Online cheating case
- Federal court orders Grand Theft Auto V cheat creator to pay $150,000
- Gaming disorder diagnosis puts industry at risk – ESA: Acting president Stanley Pierre-Louis discusses World Health Organization’s gaming addiction concern, loot boxes, unions, and more
- Konami ends sale of in-game currency for PES 2019 in Belgium
- Konami halts sales of PES 2019 currency in Belgium over loot box ruling: “We fully respect the BGC’s interpretation of relevant laws,” says publisher
- Activision offers to refund some Guitar Hero Live players following GHTV shutdown
- Following lawsuit, Activision starts refund program for Guitar Hero Live
- Report: Activision Blizzard to make significant layoffs this week 8
- Activision Blizzard share price slumps to two-year low: Reports of layoffs and expected earnings decline lead to further pessimism over publisher’s fortunes
- Activision-Blizzard Employees Brace For Massive Layoffs
- Activision Blizzard sees “record year,” plans to lay off hundreds: Company prepares for “transition year” as it refocuses on development of core franchises, cuts back on admin and under-performing initiatives
- Activision Blizzard reports historic financial gains amid major layoffs
- Significant layoffs hit Activision Blizzard
- Amid layoffs, Blizzard won’t release a “major” new game in 2019
- Activision Blizzard reportedly shutters King’s Seattle studio: King communication manager confirms that Seattle and San Francisco studios have closed
- Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy has sold over 10m units: Remake of classics reaches milestone less than two years after launch
- Activision-Blizzard lays off 775 people after “record results in 2018”
- Activision Blizzard Lays Off 800 Employees, Expects Revenue Drop And Few New Games In 2019
- Activision Blizzard staff cuts largely hurt support teams, IT, QA, and publishing: Blizzard especially affected as company restructures gearing toward more new game releases over less time
- The Fallout Of Activision Blizzard’s Massive Layoffs
- Game Workers Unite sparks campaign to fire Activision Blizzard CEO following mass layoffs: “We, the workers of Activision and their friends, have had enough. Join us in saying that it’s time to #FireBobbyKotick,” says advocacy group
- Activision split with Bungie because Destiny “was not meeting financial expectations”: COO Coddy Johnson reiterates that decision to part was mutual, is “right for both parties”
- For Activision, giving up Destiny 2 was the result of ‘missed financial expectations’
- Following Activision Blizzard layoffs, King shuts down mobile studio Z2Live
- King’s San Francisco studio closed in wake of Activision Blizzard layoffs
- Swedish Tax Agency targets King with $389m fine: Skatteverket claims Candy Crush firm has disposed immaterial rights out of its home nation
- King signs Tech Talent Charter to drive diversity: Candy Crush Saga developer is first UK games company to pledge to the initiative
- Blog: Being gay in the games industry – Research from the field
- American Sign Language emotes added to Star Citizen
- Don’t Miss: How devs design the Lego games to appeal to all ages
- Video: How Overwatch’s gameplay architecture creates variety
- Mobile games continue to drive App Store spending in the U.S.
- Hardsuit shutting down Blacklight: Retribution to focus on new projects
- Putting Red Dead Redemption 2’s 23 million shipments in context
- Shares slump for big four publishers after latest financials: Take-Two and Electronic Arts suffer the most but analyst maintains games industry still “in rude health”
- Fortnite alone can’t explain tumbling game stocks: The industry’s biggest firms have lost around 13% of their value in the past week, and many are down a third in recent months
- Fortnite iOS revenue estimated at $500 million: Sensor Tower’s data shows Epic’s game reaching that milestone faster than Clash Royale and Honor of Kings
- Fortnite Sparks a Battle Royale Over the Right to Use Dance Moves
- Epic claims it’s not really copying rapper 2 Milly’s dance in Fortnite
- Epic critical of Fortnite dance lawsuit, urges court to dismiss case
- Epic Games files for dismissal of 2 Milly’s Fortnite dance lawsuit: Developer insists dance routines are an “unprotectable idea” and claims rapper’s complain is “at odds with free speech”
- PUBG takes home Steam Awards 2018 Game of the Year
- Zynga’s mobile games generated a record $228 million revenue last quarter
- Zynga CEO: It’s “too early to tell” if more will follow Epic’s anti-App Store stance – Frank Gibeau says casual games firm has a “great partnership” with both Apple and Google
- Zynga “turnaround now complete” as dev posts record mobile performance for 2018: Company reports second profitable year in a row after a lengthy period of recovery
- Zynga’s turnaround: How once-beleaguered game company plans for 2019 growth
- WWE Hall of Famer sues Activision for character copyright infringement: Booker T Huffman claims Black Ops 4 character too similar to his own comic book hero
- EEDAR: Nintendo Switch attracting more women, wider age ranges over time – System on track to follow certain demographic trends of Nintendo predecessors rather than those of console competition
- Switch missed hardware target because Nintendo didn’t ‘convey appeal’ of the system
- Mario Maker 2 and a Link’s Awakening remake drive today’s Nintendo Direct
- Nintendo plans to “boost” Switch Online after surge in short subscription plans: Proportion of single month subs is rising, Nintendo president expresses “critical” need to increase value of the service
- Quality over quantity is Nintendo’s first-party focus as the Switch nears year 3
- Nintendo: 3DS sales falling “faster than anticipated”
- 3DS sales have slowed, but Nintendo still sees a market for its long-running handheld
- Gaming business bolsters Bandai Namco’s Q3 profits: Soulcalibur publisher increases full-year guidance following solid holiday sales in network entertainment segment
- THQ Nordic net sales rose 713% to $447.6m in 2018: Publisher now has 77 games in development, including 48 unannounced projects
- THQ Nordic to acquire Kingdom Come: Deliverance dev for $37.5 million
- Australian publishing partner 18Point2 acquired by THQ Nordic
- THQ Nordic acquires Warhorse Studios in a €33.2m cash deal: Kingdom Come Deliverance has sold 2m units one year on from its release
- Apex Legends Review
- Apex Legends: Critical Consensus – Respawn’s surprise release praised for its polish and innovative mechanics, hailed as the future of battle royale
- Apex Legends crossed 1 million concurrent players in under 72 hours
- Apex Legends reaches 25m players, 2m concurrent: Respawn’s battle royale reaches milestone in first week, after reaching 1m concurrent in first 72 hours
- Respawn played with muted mics to get Apex Legends’ smart comms system just right
- Video Game Deep Cuts: The Apex Of Legends, Observing The Sunless Skies
- After glitch grants access, Bethesda says locked Fallout 76vault will open
- EA pays respects to Emiliano Sala, removes him from FIFA: FC Nantes player also pulled from Ultimate Team packs, card prices fixed
- EA CEO claims poor marketing, delays, and battle royale woes hurt Battlefield V
- Bigben acquires publishing rights for two Cyanide titles: Following last year’s acquisition, publisher adds Tour de France and Pro Cycling Manager to portfolio
- Behind The AI of Horizon Zero Dawn (Part 1)
- Behind The AI of Horizon Zero Dawn (Part 2)
- Global esports revenues to top $1 billion in 2019: report
- Newzoo: Global esports market will exceed $1 billion in 2019 – North America, China to continue to represent majority of esports revenue, though global awareness remains on the rise
- Esports now officially a profession in China: ‘Esports operator’ and ‘esports professional’ formally recognized by Chinese government
- Riot, Sega, four more join ESA: League of Legends studio, Intellivision, and Wizards of the Coast sign up as Sonic publisher, Natsume, and THQ Nordic return to the US trade group’s ranks
- Russ Pitts steps down from Take This, on leave from Escapist: Charity co-founder, site editor-in-chief takes hiatus after “diminishing” experience of Gamergate abuse survivor in Twitter fight
- Riot Games: “Before we take on football, we have to be humble”: League of Legends European Championship makes less revenue than a German second division football team, Riot’s Alban Dechelotte said at Esports BAR Cannes yesterday
- AppLovin: Mobile users play games 3-4 times per week on average, but are reluctant to identify as gamers – US, UK mobile users most commonly play games to pass the time, relax, and relieve stress
- Bill imposing new excise tax on video games with “mature” or “adults-only” ratings introduced in Pennsylvania Legislature
- Nexon celebrates record year for revenue and income: 2018 full-year financials show highest full-year PC and mobile results so far
- New releases can’t stop sales and profits falling at Square Enix
- Supercell revenue down second year in a row as titles reach revenue milestones: CEO Ilkka Paananen remains optimistic, outlines plan for studio to become carbon-neutral in 2019
- Starbreeze sells back publishing rights to System Shock 3
- Starbreeze sells System Shock 3 publishing rights: Troubled publisher and OtherSide Entertainment “mutally agreed” rights should return to the latter
- Report: Unity is looking to go public in 2020
- Unity reportedly considering IPO for 2020: But engine provider will only float if market conditions are favourable, sources claim
- Sony ‘open for business’ on cross-play, but Wargroove dev claims otherwise
- Devs refute Sony claims that it’s “open for business” with cross-platform play: “We were told in no uncertain terms that it was not going to happen,” says Chucklefish CEO
- Layden recalls PS3 ‘Icarus moment,’ looks ahead to expanding PlayStation’s audience
- PS3 was “a stark moment of hubris” – Layden: Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios chairman reflects on last generation’s missteps and how the company changed course for PS4
- Sony’s Shawn Layden on making fewer PlayStation games: ‘We’re spending more energy on them’
- E3 has lost its impact in a changing industry, says Sony’s Shawn Layden
- Monster Hunter: World nears 12 million sales – Sales stood at 11.9m at the end of December, 60% more than any game in Capcom’s history
- 20th Century Fox announces indie games fund: Etherborn becomes first title to take advantage of fund aimed at developers “taking creative risks”
- Marvel Strike Force dev FoxNext Games opens up indie dev fund
- League of Geeks: “We are a response to what was before” – Blake Mizzi and Trent Kusters on using the mistakes of Australia’s past to build a better studio, and moving on from its hit digital board game Armello
- Tearing down the lone developer myth: Iconoclasts creator Joakim Sandberg says developers should learn from his mistakes rather than follow his example
- New conference hopes to improve UK games skills crisis: The Games Education Summit 2019 will unite educators and developers under one roof this April
- Ubisoft aims to help machine learning find a place in every stage of game dev
- Ubisoft partners with Mozilla on AI coding assistant Clever-Commit
- Ubisoft partners with Mozilla on AI coding assistant: Clever-Commit promises to quickly identify and fix bugs from code changes
- Mozilla to use machine learning to find code bugs before they ship
- Learn how machine learning can help you make better games at GDC 2019
- “They’re more attractive than real boyfriends.” Inside the weird world of Chinese romance video games: In China, love and romance designed by women for women could be the next video game trend
- Steam Responds To Epic’s Competition By Weaponizing The Steam Community
- Turning painting into a game mechanic in the gorgeousEastshade 2
- Valve has some new thoughts on what’s “humanly possible” in SteamVR
- Microsoft teases next-gen HoloLens ahead of February 24 reveal
- Video: Designing games to better support player expression
- Video: To make 1997’s Blade Runner, Westwood first had to create the universe
- Video: How to invite player creativity through game mechanics
- Amy Hennig sees a social future for storytelling games
- Video: Injecting originality into the music of Fallout
- Blog: Getting your big break as a game composer
- Blog: How does the future of the streamer-developer relationship look?
- Obituary: Renowned Atari ST programmer Steve Bak has passed away
DIGITAL
- Just when an end seemed near, two 3D-printed gun-file legal battles get new life
- Change how Facebook uses our data: Scandals underscore the need to regulate use of customers’ information
- Our Thoughts on Facebook’s Oversight Board for Content Decisions
- How Facebook Screwed Us All: It’s not just spreading phony stories everywhere – it’s killing real news.
- I Was A Facebook Fact-Checker. It Was Like Playing A Doomed Game Of Whack-A-Mole.
- Facebook Wants You To Know Jay Shetty Made $1 Million In Ad Revenue As It Tries To Appeal To More Creators
- Facebook Orders Stephen Curry Docu-Series, Sets BuzzFeed News’ Live Trivia Game Launch
- Court upholds conviction of girl who urged suicide with texts and calls
- Lessons from Estonia on digital government: What Canada can learn from a tiny country that devised a coordinated, efficient system to serve its citizens using what’s called platform government
- ESPN+ Debuts ‘The Boardroom’ Talk Show From NBA Star Kevin Durant
- I Cut the ‘Big Five’ Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell
- Canada needs to commercialize AI, not just do research, industry leaders say – Fewer than half of 100 machine-learning patents developed in Canada remain here: CIGI study
- A Bill of Rights for the Age of Artificial Intelligence: We should be concerned about the rights of all sentients as an unprecedented diversity of minds emerges
- When Are Advertisers Responsible For Unsupported Claims Made By Consumers on Third Party Sites? NAD Weighs In.
- Reddit Raises $300 Million at $3 Billion Valuation
- Lack Of Internet Access Threatens 2020 Census Success And The Future Latino Voting Power
- As Trump Prepares Ban On Huawei, Few Notice The Major Holes In The Underlying Logic
- Tech Genius Donald Trump to Sign Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence Today
- White House Touts Artificial Intelligence (as FTC’s Chopra Flags AI Concerns)
- Microsoft Is Worried Its AI Will Go Rogue And Hurt Its Reputation
- Windows 7 Extended Security Updates will double in price each year
- Microsoft: Yeah, we make Office 2019 and Internet Explorer, but don’t use ‘em
- Hackers keep trying to get malicious Windows file onto MacOS
- Messy office owners, rejoice: Skype now blurs the background to your video
- A Human Debater Just Roasted IBM’s “Intelligent Debate” AI Onstage: Project Debater can formulate arguments, but can’t quite refute opponents.
- Artificial Intelligence: The New Driving Force Behind Sports Performance and Entertainment
- Mysterious Site Uses AI to Create Realistic Yet Horrifying Faces
- R.I.P., Opportunity Rover: The Hardest-Working Robot In The Solar System
- Tesla Driver Claims Autopilot Wouldn’t Let Him Prevent Crash
- Driverless delivery startup Nuro raises almost $1 billion
- Sex robots are here, but laws aren’t keeping up with the ethical and privacy issues they raise
- Will Tech Workers Rise Up Around Automation, Too?
- Bots and Sockpuppets and Scammers, Oh My!
- Bot or Not: California Mandates Disclosure of Online Accounts Used by Bots
- Fake news threatens our businesses, not just our politics
- Dirty Data, Bad Predictions: How Civil Rights Violations Impact Police Data, Predictive Policing Systems, and Justice (Kate Crawford, Rashida Richardson, Jason Schultz)
- Insights: In The Battle Of Data Versus Privacy, Whose Team Are You On?
- Copyright Holders Still Don’t Support EU’s Already Awful Upload Filter Proposal; Demand It Be Made Worse
- EU countries agree on copyright reforms, deal in sight next week
- The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has just been finalised
- Article 13 Was Purposefully Designed To Be Awful For The Internet; EU Moves Forward With It Anyway
- EU’s New ‘Open By Default’ Rules For Data Generated By Public Funding Subverted At The Last Minute
- Bandersnatch, the case for Trade Mark Infringement: Whose right was it to let you choose your own adventure?
- Netflix records all of your Bandersnatch choices, GDPR request reveals: Frosties or Sugar Puffs? Netflix knows your preference
- AR Will Spark The Next Big Tech Platform – Call It Mirrorworld
- Expert: AR Will Let Hackers Steal “Deep Psychological Data”
- Most Online ‘Terms of Service’ Are Incomprehensible to Adults, Study Finds: Reading the terms and conditions of online consumer contracts requires, on average, more than 14 years of education.
- Augmented Reality, Advertising, and Practical Legal Considerations
- Apple to developers: disclose screen recording or get booted from App Store
- Apple worked on biometric unlock for cars: One day you could unlock your car just by looking at it.
- Apple Patented Facial Recognition to Unlock Your Car
- The logic behind Apple’s give-us-half-your-revenue pitch to news publishers
- The Cost of Apple News
- Apple in talks to create “Netflix for news” subscription service
- Apple pushes fix for “FacePalm,” possibly its creepiest vulnerability ever
- Apple Is Compensating the Kid Who Figured Out Its Sketchy Eavesdropping FaceTime Bug
- Apple, Google Both Hosting Saudi Government App That Lets Men Track Women, Restrict Their Travel
- Google, Apple Called Out For Hosting Saudi Government App That Allows Men To Track Their Spouses’ Movements
- Apple’s insider-trading policy enforcer accused of insider trading
- Google Caves On Russian Censorship
- NYPD Demands That Google Stop Flagging DWI Checkpoints on Waze
- Google Chrome Extension That Optimized YouTube Videos Pulled After Spamming Millions Of Users
- Google wants a VP of Wearables, might finally take smartwatches seriously
- Augmented Reality Google Maps is coming, starts testing in private
- Former Algorithm Engineer Guillaume Chaslot Calls YouTube’s Decision To Stop Recommending Conspiracy Videos “A Historic Victory”
- Here’s How A Scammer Abused YouTube’s Copyright Infringement System In An Attempt To Extort Money From Users
- NFL Star Quarterback Cam Newton Launches YouTube Channel
- The Taxonomy Of YouTube Videos (And How You Can Develop Original Content That Works)
- Ariana Grande Becomes Most-Subscribed Female Artist On All Of YouTube
- The dodgy, vulnerable fame of YouTube’s child ASMR stars: Right now, children are filming themselves chewing, whispering and tapping to give their adult audience an ASMR buzz. The Chinese government banned them, and PayPal blocked their payments, yet some
- YouTube Reverses Course, Deletes Austin Jones’ YouTube Channel
- Kids’ Content Upstart Moonbug Acquires 2 More YouTube Heavyweights
- Influencers under fyre: celebrities commit to be more transparent regarding product endorsements
- Influencers Tagged in Fyre Festival Subpoena
- ‘Roblox’ Bans PewDiePie For “Continued Inappropriate Behavior”
- Chuck E. Cheese’s Refutes Shane Dawson Conspiracy That It Recycles Uneaten Pizza
- Jake Paul To Discontinue ‘Uncut’ Docuseries Because It “Became Too Real”
- Gigi Hadid Photo Provokes Copyright Lawsuit
- Movie Torrents Shown To Actually Boost Box Office Sales For Post-Release Movies
- Philip DeFranco Launches Hair Care Line ‘Beautiful Bastard,’ Is On Track To Sell Out Today
- How TikTok Gets Rich While Paying Artists Pennies: The company behind lip-sync app TikTok is reportedly worth three times as much as Spotify, but the artists whose music powers the platform are seeing very little of that money.
- Does The Spotify Gimlet Purchase Signal The End Of The Open World Of Podcasting?
- Jeff Bezos goes public with alleged AMI blackmail over nudes
- Report: Bezos-hired sleuth suspects sexts stolen by “government entity”
- Woody Allen Sues Amazon for Cancelling Multi-Film Contract
- Woody Allen Files $68 Million Lawsuit Against Amazon Studios For Backing Out Of Four Film Deals
- Why an Amazon Router Freaks Me Out
- Amazon Calls for Regulation of Its Own Facial Recognition Tech: The company may be hoping to pen some of the government’s ethical standards.
- Amazon is Right: Thresholds and Legislation Matter, So Does Truth
- Amazon and Hulu’s algorithms are recommending conspiracy theory films, and the consequences could be more serious than you might think
- Amazon acquires Eero, maker of mesh Wi-Fi routers
- ChooseCo Inks Lucrative Deal With Amazon, Possibly Thanks To Netflix’s ‘Bandersnatch’
- Instagram Integrates IGTV Previews Into Main Feed To Bolster Fledgling Video Hub
- Instagram Tries to Boost IGTV Views With Previews in Users’ Feeds
- Instagram Looking Into Issue That Caused Users’ Follower Counts To Drop
- Instagram Bug Causes Katy Perry And Kylie Jenner To Lose Millions Of Followers Temporarily
- 4-Year-Old Instagram Phenoms Mila And Emma Stauffer To Launch Clothing Line At Target
- Bhad Bhabie’s Original Snapchat Series Banks 10 Million Viewers In 24 Hours
- Snapchat Posts Better-Than-Expected Revenues, As Q4 User Growth Remains Flat
- Twitter keeps losing monthly users, so it’s going to stop sharing how many
- UK Cop Calls Up 74-Year-Old Woman To Ask Her To Stop Tweeting Mean Things
- Disney+ will be a true Netflix competitor, with non-Disney shows streaming, too
- After Netflix Breakup, Disney Courts Hulu With 4-Show Marvel Deal, Potential For Hulu To Revive Cancelled Netflix Series
- ‘Howard the Duck’ Among Four Marvel Animated Shows Ordered at Hulu
- BuzzFeed Employees Vote to Unionize After Major Layoffs
- The business of Patreon: Building a new economy for creators requires a focused business strategy
- The Internet Civil War
- Tech’s Long Hours Are Discriminatory and Counterproductive
- Revolt of the gig workers: How delivery rage reached a tipping point
- Can Big Tech be fixed? Center for Democracy and Technology CEO Nuala O’Connor is “long-term optimistic.”
- The Secret History of Women in Coding: Computer programming once had much better gender balance than it does today. What went wrong?
- Tech debate hits bencher election
- Password to $200m digital currency account lost on death
- Google Play caught hosting an app that steals users’ cryptocurrency
- Cryptocurrencies – A quandary for Quadriga
- Virtual Currency Regulation in Canada: A Changing Landscape Comes Into Focus
- IRS Makes Cryptocurrency a Compliance Priority
- Emoji 12.0 brings us waffles, more diversity, suggestive “finger pinch” glyph
- What’s New With Emoji Law? An Interview (Eric Goldman)
- Captain Marvel’s Official Website Is Basically a Geocities Fansite
CREATIVITY
- Infowars’ Alex Jones ordered to undergo sworn deposition in case involving Sandy Hook parents
- Gender-swapped and race-flipped remakes aren’t living up to their potential: Films like What Men Want and 2016’s Ghostbusters could be doing so much more with their rebooted premises
- How Hollywood Lets Real Fascists Off The Hook: Far from helping us fight fascism, Nazis on film may do the opposite.
- Obsolete Hot News Doctrine Back In The News As Bloomberg Is Sued For Reporting Too Quickly
- Japanese brand Loft pulls down Valentines Day ad after sexism controversy
- How TV Pirates Accidentally Pushed a 25-Year-Old Indie Song to the Top of the Charts in Japan
- Reporter Maria Ressa Arrested Over Bogus Charges For Her Critical Reporting
- Danish haunted-house studies seek to reveal the seductive appeal of horror
- U.S. Music Modernization Act: Copyright law changes its tune
- A Storm Is Coming to the Global Music Industry – and More than $100 Billion Is at Stake: Up to half of Universal Music Group is for sale – and all indications are it’s going to bank an astronomical sum of money. This could spell amazing news for the other
- Journalism Isn’t Dying. It’s Returning To Its Roots
- Inside an indie: Making a film from scratch without a Hollywood budget
- More on Models’ Lanham Act claims
- Can you sell an Oscar?
- Monster Energy Loses Appeal On Monsta Pizza Trademark Ruling
- Owner Of Harry Caray’s Restaurants Finds You Can’t Just Trademark A Widely Used Hashtag
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Flawed Arguments and Inappropriate Analogies: Why Netflix Taxes and Cancon Requirements Should be Rejected (Michael Geist)
- Blacklock’s, Spam, CRTC, and ATIP
- CRTC on OpenMedia’s Site Blocking Campaign: “Contributed to a Better Understanding of the Issues” (Michael Geist)
- Selling 911 location data is illegal – US carriers reportedly did it anyway: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint sale of GPS data called “unquestionably illegal.”
- Wireless Carriers Busted Sharing User 911 Location Data
- Texas lawmaker wants to ban mobile throttling in disaster areas
- Study Details How Phone Companies Prey on Families of Inmates in Local Jails
- Cable lobby asks for net neutrality law allowing paid prioritization
- Zero Rating Actually Costs Broadband Customers More, EU Study Finds
- SpaceX seeks FCC OK for 1 million satellite broadband Earth stations
- FEC Seeks Comment on Proposal for Change in TV Political Disclosures
- AT&T sued by Sprint, must defend decision to tell users that 4G is “5G E”
- Sprint Sues AT&T Over Its Fake 5G, Says AT&T’s Tricking Consumers
- A Deeper Look At Verizon’s Early 5G ‘Launch’ Finds It’s Barely Available
- Charter raises sneaky “broadcast TV” fee for second time in four months
- Lawsuit: Verizon tempted customers with free Amazon Echos, failed to deliver
- Google Fiber’s biggest failure: ISP will turn service off in Louisville
- Google Fiber Leaves Louisville As Alphabet Retreats From Telecom
- SS7 Cellular Network Flaw Nobody Wants To Fix Now Being Exploited To Drain Bank Accounts
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- SB-327: Why Your Next Refrigerator Might Have a Password Longer than Your Email’s
- Why Humanitarians Are Worried About Palantir’s New Partnership With the U.N.: The infamous data-analytics firm is now working with one of the planet’s largest aid organizations. What could go wrong?
- “Catastrophic” hack on email provider destroys almost two decades of data
- Indecent disclosure: Gay dating app left “private” images, data exposed to Web (Updated)
- Cisco, like Apple and other tech giants, now wants new federal privacy law
- Ex-director of FBI, CIA takes on a phone scammer – and wins: Scammer took hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 30 victims.
- MalwareTech loses bid to suppress damning statements made after days of partying
- Australian Government Agencies Already Flexing Their New Encryption-Breaking Powers
- NYPD Sends Letter To Google Demanding It Remove Cop Checkpoint Notifications From Google Maps
- Minnesota Judges Spent Only Minutes Approving Warrants Sweeping Up Thousands Of Cellphone Users
- German Data Protection Authority Says GDPR Requires Email To Use At Least Transport Layer Encryption
Jon
News of the Week; February 6, 2019
GAMES
- Senator Pushes FTC Head for Loot Box Investigation Timeline
- Lootboxes and Skin Gambling in Swiss Gambling Law
- Second YouTuber complains of DMCA abuse from Escape From Tarkov developer: Battlestate Games accused of misusing copyright takedown notices to silence “negative hype”
- Ubisoft apologizes for The Division 2 email promising ‘a real government shutdown’
- Twitch Streamer And Game Studio Employee Arrested In Child Sex Sting
- Parents increasingly worried about kids spending in games – Study: UK regulator finds 39% of parents with 5-15-year-olds concerned about pressure to purchase, 17% of kids 12-15 have accidentally spent money online
- Pennsylvania legislators want to slap a tax on mature games
- Failure to Launch: Not Identifying the Proper Parties Can Prematurely End an Video Game IPR Challenge
- CD Projekt agreed to pay The Witcher author additional royalties
- Take-Two hires games veteran Michael Condrey to form new, diverse studio: Dead Space and Call of Duty leader plans to open new outfit in Silicon Valley
- Take-Two raises fiscal outlook as recurrent spending experiences record growth
- The history of how Pac-Man encouraged women to pursue game dev
- Fair Play Alliance expands Fair Play Summit for GDC 2019
- “Isolation for all of us is corrosive” – The power of addressing social issues in games: Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor on making games about people rather than policy
- Blog: How player choice can backfire
- What drives retention?: A look at the mechanics that keep players playing
- GDC Speaker Q&A: Cherry Thompson explores disabled representation in games
- Monster Hunter helps Capcom to record third quarter profits
- Capcom posts record profits in latest financials: Success driven by strong performance of core titles like Monster Hunter: World which broke 11 million sales
- Capcom tops Metacritic publisher rankings for 2018: Activision Blizzard highest-rated “mid-sized” publisher, followed by Paradox and 505 Games
- 4A Games embroiled in controversy over Metro Exodus’ Epic Games Store exclusivity: Koch Media/Deep Silver once again stresses it is responsible for the decision after studio employee threatens no future PC games
- Epic vs Steam: Exclusives raise the stakes | Opinion – Epic is Steam’s first real competitor in years – with console-war style exclusive tactics being a controversial, but fair, escalation of the struggle
- Blog: How are the Steam algorithm changes affecting indies?
- Achievements and support are opt-in features on the Epic Games Store
- Opt-in review system in the works for Epic Games Store: Developers will be able to decide whether they want to allow consumers to leave reviews on their games
- Early teens gaming online more – Study: 75% of gamers aged 5-15 have played online, up from 66% last year; girls play online less than boys, particularly as they get older
- What drives retention?: A look at the mechanics that keep players playing
- Gaming innovators must ensure their intellectual property is protected
- Kingdom Hearts III conquers UK charts with impressive debut week: Resident Evil 2 slips to No.2
- Kingdom Hearts III sells more than 600,000 copies in Japan at launch: Square Enix’s RPG Disney mash-up more than doubled debut sales of Resident Evil 2 remake
- Disney says its future video game efforts lie in licensing, not publishing
- Kingdom Hearts 3 ships 5 million copies a week after launch
- Kingdom Hearts III: Critical Consensus – Reviewers praise the scope and magic of this long-awaited entry, but warn it’s no picnic for newcomers
- Nintendo lowers full-year hardware forecast for Switch
- Nintendo trims Switch target as net sales near $10 billion for fiscal year: Platform holder celebrates record-breaking success of Smash Bros and Pokémon, delays Mario Kart Tour
- Lifetime Switch sales have surpassed 32 million units
- Putting Switch’s 32 million shipments in context
- Report: Nintendo eyeing a smaller, more portable Switch for release this year
- Nintendo’s next Switch model will reportedly shrink the size, cost, features
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold over 12 million copies in December
- Smash Bros Ultimate is the fastest selling console game in Nintendo’s history: In Japan, the new Smash Bros outpaced the lifetime sales of any previous title in four weeks
- Mobile game based on Dr. Mario due to launch this summer: Dr. Mario World will be co-developed with LINE, Mario Kart Tour delayed to improve quality
- Nintendo will bring Dr. Mario to smartphones this summer
- Nintendo bringing Dr. Mario to iOS, Android this summer
- Nintendo delays Mario Kart Tour mobile game to ramp up quality
- The 3DS Is Even Dying Better Than The Vita
- Nintendo to open first official retail store in Japan: Located in Shibuya, Nintendo Tokyo is the first store to be managed by Nintendo of Japan
- EA turns in bummer fiscal report: “We’re disappointed in our underperformance”
- Did EA beat Nintendo at its own game?: 10 Years Ago This Month: A closer look at John Riccitiello’s bold claim that EA would rival Nintendo’s quality of software on the Wii, and a breakdown of a post-layoff pep talk
- EA has a subscription service for ‘another major platform’ in the works
- Packaged sales continue to rise at Sega, but profits are in decline
- Sega Sammy revenue and profit down in latest financials: Japanese firm posts $24.5 million loss from digital games
- Microsoft reports “largest gaming revenue quarter ever”: Software and services drove Xbox to $4.23 billion revenue despite declining hardware sales
- Microsoft’s Xbox Live is coming to Switch, iOS, Android
- Microsoft Expanding Xbox Live To Nintendo Switch And Mobile
- Microsoft bringing Xbox Live to Switch and mobile: GDC session report reveals company’s cross-platform plans
- Microsoft Studios renamed Xbox Game Studios in bid for better branding
- Software driving sales in Sony’s games division as hardware stutters
- Sony reports slowdown in PS4 sales: Growth in software offsets expected hardware dip as system begins sixth year on shelves; PS Plus subscribers up 15% to 36.3 million
- Cloud gaming isn’t an immediate threat to consoles, says Sony CFO
- What can this Japanese patent tell us about PS5 backward compatibility?
- Nearly Half of the Videogame Industry Wants to Form A Union – Can Game Development Companies Avoid This Boss Fight?
- Failbetter’s final push to ensure Sunless Skies flies at launch: One year on from disappointing Early Access sales, the Fallen London studio is gearing up for a confident launch
- Netmarble readying bid for Nexon: South Korean games firm reportedly forming consortium to go up against Kakao and Tencent
- Machinima closes down with more than 80 jobs lost: The YouTube gaming network is no more
- Machinima Ceases All Consumer-Facing Operations, Lays Off Most Of Staff
- Konami enjoys a profitable 9 months thanks to strong sports game sales
- Mobile and esports drive Konami revenues to $1.75 billion: Nine-month financials show steady growth in games for Pro Evolution Soccer publisher
- McLaren’s drive to turn gamers into Formula 1 racers: Director of esports Ben Payne discusses the firm’s five-year plan for Shadow Project and sourcing new champions
- Peter Moore quit video games, but the Liverpool FC chief still fears Fortnite
- Twitch streamers racked up 9.36 billion hours viewed in 2018: Over one billion of those were dedicated to Fortnite, but battle royale title’s viewship is on the decline
- This Year’s Overwatch League Pass Lets Twitch Viewers Experience Matches From Players’ Perspectives
- The sloth behind the scenes of 2019’s biggest Twitch stream
- Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins Lands Starring Spot In Super Bowl Commercial
- The long decline of the “narrative paramedic” in games writing
- Apex Legends attracts 1 million unique players in under 8 hours
- Apex Legends Drew In 2.5 Million Players In 24 Hours: The latest free-to-play battle royale title is off to a strong start.
- Titanfall Dev’s Battle Royale Apex Legends Officially Revealed
- Respawn wanted to let Apex Legends ‘speak for itself’
- How Apex Legends Monetization Works: We sat down with the developers of Apex Legends to talk about their monetization systems. Apex Legends is a completely free to play game but will allow you to earn and purchase cosmetic items.
- EA didn’t pre-announce Apex Legends because it was scared to | Opinion – And it may well have been a really smart decision
- Apex Legends, Anthem, and EA’s (possible) February disaster
- EA will lean harder on Anthem and Apex Legends after a ‘difficult quarter’
- ‘Fortnite’ Had 10 Million Concurrent Players In The Marshmello Concert Event
- More Than 10 Million People Attended Marshmello’s Live Virtual Concert In ‘Fortnite,’ DJ Says
- More than 10 million ‘Fortnite’ players logged on to watch a 10-minute concert over the weekend, proving there’s more to the craze than just playing the game
- Full Marshmello Fortnite Concert Event!!: Marshmello and Fortnite teamed up to deliver an amazing in-game concert. Check out the entire event with this video!
- Fortnite Is the Future, but Probably Not for the Reasons You Think: Much has been said about Fortnite’s revenue, users, business model, origin and availability. But these narratives are overhyped.
- Newly Discovered Spiked Dinosaurs From South America Look Like Creatures From ‘No Man’s Sky’
- ‘Angry Birds VR’ Now Available on Rift & Vive, More VR Platforms Coming Soon
- 26 years later, Groundhog Day gets revived as… a VR game?
- Blog: How AR and VR investment stabilized in Q4 2018
- Rise to Ruins dev wraps up Patreon and donates double pledges back to supporters
- Rise to Ruins developer promises to repay Patreon pledges back double: SixtyGig Games closes Patreon, offers double refunds on lifetime pledge amounts as studio thrives
- Human: Fall Flat sells 5 million units: Solo indie project continues to see sales uptick following console releases
- Hypnospace Outlaw weaving a tangled Web: Jay Tholen talks about making a ’90s internet simulator that works by modern standards
- Insurgency developer New World Interactive opens Canadian studio: New World North follows sustained growth
DIGITAL
- The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz: Facebook is irrelevant to Gen-Z
- Sheryl Sandberg: The Teens ‘Consented’ to Putting Facebook Spyware on Their Phones
- Facebook Bans Armed Rebel Groups in Myanmar
- Facebook nukes hundreds of “inauthentic” accounts “tied to Iran”
- Mark Zuckerberg still thinks Facebook has made the world better
- The Tortured Case for Deleting Instagram
- NY AG Finds Use of Bots, Sock-Puppets Illegal
- Former FCC Official Attempts To Create An Aereo That The Supreme Court Won’t Kill
- The Great Huawei Disconnect
- Ambassador McCallum’s Controversial Comments on the Huawei Extradition Case Resulted in His Termination. But Was He Right?
- Charges Against Chinese Hackers Are Now Common. Why Don’t They Deter Cyberattacks?
- A Bold Proposal for Fighting Censorship: Increase the Collateral Damage
- Firefox taking a hard line against noisy video, banning it from autoplaying
- Italy Tells Rest Of EU To Drop Articles 11 And 13 From The Copyright Directive
- Article 13 Is Back On: Germany Caves To France As EU Pushes Forward On Ruining The Internet
- EU Copyright Directive Has Been Made Even More Stupid, And Some Are Still Trying To Make It Even Worse
- US Newspapers Now Salivating Over Bringing A Google Snippet Tax Stateside
- Authors Guild Attacks Libraries For Lending Digital Books
- After Plan S, Here’s Plan U: Funders Should Require All Research To Be Posted First As A Preprint
- Google releases Chrome extension that alerts users of breached passwords
- With experimental “Never slow mode,” Chrome tries to stop Web devs making it slow
- Google Play apps with >4.3 million downloads stole pics and pushed porn ads
- Harassment, Transphobia, and Racism: A Look Inside Blind’s Anonymous Chatting Forum for Google Employees
- Amazon’s Next Targets Are Now Clear: Google and Facebook
- Google has quietly dropped ban on personally identifiable web tracking
- Google+ shuts down April 2, all consumer data will be deleted
- Impact of New Massachusetts Noncompete Law on Emerging Tech Companies
- Lawyer punished for student’s social media use
- Surprise, the social media agency behind Fyre Festival chronically steals other people’s work
- Key Considerations for Social Influencer Agreements
- Social media companies to owe duty of care to users?
- Inquests, social media and families searching for answers
- Leaked nudes and talent morality clauses – A lesson for the digital age
- This Viral Photo of a Homeless Person Freezing on the Street Is Actually From 2013… in Canada
- Tech Companies Expand to Canada
- Shane Dawson Likely Lost Thousands In Ad Revenue After His Latest Video Was Mistakenly Demonetized
- Vice To Cut 10% Of Workforce, Becoming Latest Digital Giant Hit By Layoffs
- The forthcoming WarnerMedia streaming service will be partially supported by ads
- Phil DeFranco Is Getting Into Hair Care Business With Launch Of ‘Beautiful Bastard’ Men’s Grooming Brand
- Ryan ToysReview Vastly Expands Licensing Empire With 40 Global Deals
- YouTube is changing how its priciest ad format is bought to work more like TV — and it could start a bidding war among brands
- YouTube is trying to prevent angry mobs from abusing “dislike” button
- YouTube Is Brainstorming New Ways To Combat ‘Dislike Mobs’
- YouTube Nears Major Milestone Amid Emphasis on Subscriptions
- YouTube Hits 2 Billion Monthly Users, As Number Of Channels With 1 Million Subscribers Doubled Last Year
- YouTuber Austin Jones Pleads Guilty To Persuading Underage Fans To Send Him Graphic Videos
- YouTube Will Not Terminate Convicted Sex Offender Austin Jones’ Channel
- YouTube Rolls Out ‘Explore’ Feature To More Users, More Devices, And Promotes Smaller Creators
- YouTube Millionaires: NFL Hopeful Donald De La Haye Was Forced To Choose Between YouTube And Football — But Now He Aims For Both
- ‘Simpsons’ Producer David Mirkin Developing Live Action Sci-Fi Series For YouTube Premium
- From YouTube To Cannes To A Theater Near You: Joe Penna on ‘Arctic’
- YouTube’s ContentID System Is Being Repurposed By Blackmailers Due To Its Failings
- Disney+ Will Offer Non-Disney Content At Launch
- Disney’s ESPN+ Streaming Service Nabs 2 Million Subscribers In Less Than A Year
- Hulu Renews AwesomenessTV, Wattpad Thriller ‘Light As A Feather’
- Criterion Collection To Launch Classic Film Streaming Service In April
- Samsung tries to turn your refrigerator into Tinder: The Refrigerdating app aims to help you find a date based on what’s in your fridge.
- Samsung cancels partnership with counterfeit Supreme brand
- World Record Egg Teams With Hulu On Super Bowl Ad, As Stunt’s Founder Is Unmasked
- Hulu Will Roll Out ‘Pause-vertising’ This Spring With Still, Silent Ads
- Vice Media is laying off hundreds in an effort to reduce costs
- Amazon and Walmart hit hard after new e-commerce rules in India restrict sales: The two companies have pulled thousands of products off virtual shelves
- Many popular iPhone apps secretly record your screen without asking: And there’s no way a user would know
- FaceTime bug lets callers hear you before you answer (really)
- A Teenager Tried To Warn Apple About It’s Facetime Security Flaw, But Appears To Have Been Ignored
- I Cut Apple Out of My Life. It Was Devastating
- FBI catches another man allegedly stealing Apple self-driving car secrets
- Apple pays France €500 million to cover a decade of back taxes
- Apple revokes Google’s enterprise iOS certificate, shuts down internal apps
- Apple restores Google’s own internal iPhone apps after privacy brouhaha
- Apple, Facebook spat is over, for now—iOS certificate access restored
- Angela Ahrendts, leader of Apple’s retail efforts, will depart the company in April
- The 3rd Party Doctrine: Or Why Lawyers May Not Ethically Be Able To Use Whatsapp
- Wisconsin’s Overhyped Foxconn Deal Keeps Getting Lamer By The Week
- I Cut Microsoft Out of My Life—or So I Thought
- Microsoft blames chip supply issues for drop in Windows revenue
- Windows setup error messages will soon be much less useless
- Spotify reportedly in “advanced stages” of acquiring podcast company for $230M
- Spotify Is Looking to Acquire Podcast Startup Gimlet Media
- Spotify Acquires Gimlet Media, Anchor Amid $500 Million Bet On Podcast Industry
- Sirius XM Completes Acquisition of Pandora
- The Case for an Automation-Powered 4-Day Work Week
- AI are learning common sense through Pictionary
- Scientists Are Using Pictionary to Teach “Common Sense” to AI
- Template License and Collaboration Agreements for AI Art
- Robo ART! – The human ‘hand’ and levels of AI
- DeepMind releases an AI learning environment for the card game Hanabi
- Protecting Creativity by Artificial Intelligence
- Bless the overclockers: In the data center world, liquid cooling is becoming king
- Digital exchange loses $137 million as founder takes passwords to the grave
- Crypto Exchange Says It Can’t Repay $190 Million to Clients After Founder Dies With Only Password
- Did A Crypto CEO Fake His Own Death? The Great Quadriga Conspiracy, Day 6
- Cryptocurrency investors locked out of $190m after exchange founder dies: QuadrigaCX, Canada’s largest exchange, was unable to access password or recovery key after Gerald Cotten died last December
- Digital Currency App’s Electronic User Agreement Held Enforceable
- eSignature and ePayment News and Trends
- Man who stole $5M in cryptocurrency via SIM swap pleads guilty
- Prosecutors: Two men used SIM swapping to extort cryptocurrency
- Fire (and lots of it): Berkeley researcher on the only way to fix cryptocurrency
- Digital trends 2019: Every single stat you need to know about the internet
- The culture of self-similarity: A fractal philosophy for a better internet
- Tech Companies Expand to Canada
- Philosopher Hadn’t Seen “The Matrix” Before Publishing Simulation Hypothesis: Nick Bostrom doesn’t think you should try to break free from the Matrix.
- Emoji Law 2018 Year-in-Review (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- Leafs in dispute with Snoop Dogg over cannabis trademark
- The Perils of Comparative Advertising – A lesson from Super Bowl 53
- Securing Necessary Copyright And Trademark Rights For Broadcasts And Promotions Related To The NFL Championship Games And Super Bowl 53
- The Greatest Trick The NFL Ever Pulled Is Convincing The World It Holds Trademark Rights That Don’t Exist
- Initial Fallout From McDonald’s Losing Its EU ‘Big Mac’ Trademark Is Mockery From Burger King
- Las Vegas-based artist claims that Ariana Grande plagiarised his work: Vladimir Kush is suing the 7 Rings singer for copyright infringement
- Money is on the Line in Billions Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
- U.S. Supreme Court’s Denial of Actress’s Petition Highlights First Amendment Protection of Docudramas
- Life + 70 Years: Copyrighted Works That Have Entered into the Public Domain in 2019 – a European Perspective
- Photo-Trolls Still Target Broadcasters
- Gavin McInnes Files Laughably Silly Defamation Lawsuit Against Southern Poverty Law Center
- The Lawyer For Rapper 21 Savage, Who Was Detained By ICE, Says It’s Not His Fault He Was In The US Illegally
- Good Girl Gone Mad
- Bellino v. Judge
- Copyright in a Taste – A “Work” in Progress
- Ad Standards Overhauls Dispute Procedure
- CAP censors political free speech
- Knight Commission On Trust, Media And Democracy
- Stupid Patent Of The Month: IBM’s Software Patent On Texting And Driving
- Basquiat used invisible ink to make secret drawings in his paintings
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Canada’s Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations
- The Real Over-the-Top: CBC President Likens Netflix to Cultural Imperialism Such As the British in India or French in Africa (Michael Geist)
- Hidden in Plain Sight?: The Search For Canadian Content on Netflix (Michael Geist)
- Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Gets With Netflix For Wellness Docuseries
- Gwyneth Paltrow and Netflix Seal Deal as Goop Expands Original Content
- Netflix buys into Goop hooey with deal to make a wellness docuseries
- Netflix Debuts New Logo For Originals To Make Viewers Feel Like They’re In A Movie Theater
- Canadians will be able to watch U.S. Super Bowl commercials — for now
- Here’s a Roundup of All the Super Bowl Ads About Robots and AI: Tech was the star of Super Bowl LIII – during the commercials, anyways.
- How to Watch the Super Bowl in VR With Friends for Free
- FCC struggles to convince judge that broadband isn’t “telecommunications”: Skeptical judges question FCC’s justification of net neutrality repeal.
- Net neutrality court case preview: Did FCC mess up by redefining broadband?
- Ajit Pai loses in court—judges overturn gutting of tribal broadband program
- Court Tells FCC Its Attack On Tribal Broadband Subsidies Wasn’t Based On The Facts
- House Democrats tell Ajit Pai: Stop screwing over the public
- Russian Site-Blocking Leads To An Explosion In ‘Pirate’ Sites, Tiny Dip In Piracy
- Bogus Net Neutrality Comments Linked To Trumpland
- Fake FCC Comments Linked to Ex-Trump Campaign Director’s Org, Boosted By Roger Stone
- FCC Seeks Comments on Video Description Marketplace for Report to Congress
- Citing a Desire to Promote Spam-Protection Measures, FCC Classifies Wireless Messaging as an Information Service
- Public Knowledge Petitions FCC to Reverse Decision Classifying Text Messages as “Information Services”
- AT&T’s misleading “5G E” indicator comes to 4G iPhones in iOS 12.2 beta
- FCC Accused Of Colluding With Big Carriers On 5G Policy
- Time Warner Cable Seeks to Defeat Class Certification in TCPA Wrong Number Case
- Charter will spend less on cable network in 2019 but charge customers more
- The Revolving Door Spins Hard: FCC’s Clyburn Now Lobbying For T-Mobile
- T-Mobile Tries To Save Its Unpopular Merger With A Few Concessions, But Nobody’s Buying
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- New York Attorney General Enters Into Groundbreaking Settlement With Seller of Fake Followers and “Likes”
- DNA-Matching Company Decides To Open Its Doors To The FBI Without Bothering To Inform Its Users
- New Japanese Law Lets Government Hack IOT Devices, Warn Owners They’re Vulnerable
- GDPR – Impact on Canadian Business Obligations, Liability and Contract Terms
- The rise of the GDPR in media law
- Defense of Amazon’s Face Recognition Tool Undermined by Its Only Known Police Client
- U.S. Prisons Are Covertly Gathering Inmates’ Biometric Voice Data
- Privacy Primer: The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
- Hyper-Personalisation: the brands who want to know your name
- To protect users’ privacy, iOS 12.2 will limit Web apps’ access to iPhone’s sensors
- Revolving Doors And Regulatory Capture Are Ensuring E-Voting Remains An Insecure Mess
- UK Forum Hands Out Public Records Request-Dodging Guidance To Over 100 Government Agencies
Jon
News of the Week; January 30, 2019
GAMES
- EA backs down over loot boxes in Belgium: “While we are taking this action, we do not agree with Belgian authorities’ interpretation of the law,” says publisher
- EA amends FIFA loot boxes in Belgium after regulators increase pressure
- Anthem gameplay premiere: Pretty jetpack combat, too much Bio-wear and tear
- EA BioWare refutes lack of planning for troubled Anthem demo: BioWare defends against accusation of “under-planned” VIP weekend, highlights “Fortnite-type” numbers on Twitch
- Sensor Tower: EA Sports free-to-play mobile games generate $1bn lifetime revenue – US consumers account for 62% of revenue, with Madden NFL grossing $490 million to date
- Loot Unboxing (Fortnite)
- Fortnite puts an end to random loot box purchases
- DOJ Reverses Wire Act Opinion as It Applies to Non-Sports Gambling
- Gaming mirrors Facebook’s crisis of credibility: On addiction and loot boxes, the industry’s lack of transparency will prevent it from getting the benefit of the doubt
- Facebook shot down safeguards to keep kids from overspending in Facebook Games
- Facebook ignored solution to children overspending in games: Unsealed documents reveal social network instead wanted to “maximise revenues”
- Disney Goes All Disney On The Kingdom Hearts 3 Title Screen Over Streaming
- A modder has spent three years recreating The Legend of Zelda in Doom
- Model accuses Tencent of using her likeness without permission in Ring of Elysium: “I feel like, in a way, people have been deceived, and that’s really, really not okay,” says Mei Yan
- Tencent uses model’s likeness for Ring of Elysium without permission
- 95 more games approved in China, including some from Tencent and NetEase
- China finally greenlights new Tencent, NetEase games – but Fortnite and PUBG still left waiting: Nation’s leading publishers included in latest batch of approvals
- NetEase to introduce mobile game curfew in China
- NetEase to impose restrictions on young gamers in China: Anti-addiction measures include an 11-hour curfew and a limit of one hour a weekday for people age 12 and under
- NetEase acquires minority stake in Quantic Dream
- NetEase grabs stake in Quantic Dream as studio prepares for multi-platform future
- February marks the final round of PlayStation Plus games for Vita and PS3
- Beyond PlayStation 5: Quantic Dream’s next-gen, multi-platform vision – NetEase investment will allow Detroit: Become Human studio to target new fans in China and “compete with the best AAA studios”
- Star Control: Origins restored to GOG after DMCA block – Publisher thanks Valve and GOG for their “timely review of the situation”
- Developer DMCAs Steam For Hosting Its Own Game To Wrest Control Back From Rogue Publisher
- Blog: Why did we DMCA our own game a few weeks after launch?
- Halo and Call of Duty co-developer Certain Affinity expanding into Canada
- Certain Affinity sets up Toronto studio: Trump’s America, non-stop flights, and distressed students helped decide where the Halo co-developer opened its new office.
- A ‘major reorganization’ could see RuneScape dev Jagex put up for sale
- Jagex up for sale as Chinese owner seeks to restructure: Fukong Interactive announces intention to seek buyer for all or part of its stake in the Runescape developer
- Game on in trademark dispute
- Westworld Mobile shutting down following lawsuit settlement: Behaviour Interactive says removal from App Store and Google Play was not connected to “amicable resolution” of copyright dispute
- PUBG esports introducing profit-sharing for its teams
- How FIA Esports interest could change motorsport: The FIA’s desire to follow Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship into Esports is not an attempt to jump on the bandwagon – instead it could inform the future of motorsport
- Why a Farming Simulator esports league isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds: Giants Software CEO Christian Ammann on the world of competitive farming
- FanAI acquires esports data firm Waypoint Media: Sports monetisation platform unites with technology and data specialist
- Playtika opens $6m R&D centre in Bucharest: New Romanian outfit will provide QA and testing for mobile company’s games
- Epic acquires SkookumScript creator Agog Labs
- Deep Silver pulls Metro Exodus from Steam in favor of Epic Store
- Epic Games Store snags Metro Exodus away from Steam [Updated]
- Deep Silver owner THQ Nordic distances itself from Metro Exodus exclusivity deal
- So you want to compete with Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache
- THQ Nordic CEO ‘fully supports’ Metro Exodus exclusivity deal
- THQ Nordic “fully supports” Metro Exodus exclusivity: Parent company clarifies comment distancing itself from decision to pull PC version from Steam in favor of Epic Games store, says it will change name to avoid future confusion
- Report: Apple is eyeing its own game subscription service
- Apple hopes to offer a Netflix-like subscription service for games, report claims
- Ubisoft will modify Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC following feedback
- Ubisoft will change divisive Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC: Enforced heterosexual relationship in Shadow Heritage DLC will be altered by an upcoming patch
- Opinion: The latest Assassin’s Creed Odyssey controversy was easily avoidable 3
- Nintendo restarting Metroid Prime 4 development with series originator Retro Studios
- Metroid Prime 4 Development Restarting With Retro Studios
- Nintendo throws out Metroid Prime 4 work, restarts with Retro Studios
- Development restarts on Metroid Prime 4, Retro Studios back in the fold: Nintendo says it was not satisfied with the quality, warns of “extensive” delay
- Nintendo’s Honesty Around Metroid Prime 4 Sets An Important Standard: Nintendo has set a good precedent for publisher transparency moving forward.
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe tops EMEAA charts: Just Cause 3, Mortal Combat XL, and Need for Speed – Payback pushed into top ten thanks to digital discounts
- Nintendo isn’t considering a Switch price cut or successor quite yet
- Nintendo president: No price cut needed to meet Switch sales goal: Shuntaro Furukawa says the platfrom holder is “not considering” a discount – or even new hardware – at this time
- 12 years in, Nintendo is closing down the Wii Shop Channel
- GDC State of the Industry: Nearly half of devs say they’re most interested in the Switch
- Nintendo’s former ‘indie advocate’ Damon Baker joins up with Xbox
- Games and services fuel rising Xbox earnings as console sales falter
- NPD crowns Call of Duty the top-selling console game franchise in U.S. for 10th year in a row
- Resident Evil 2 remake has shipped 3 million copies in four days
- Capcom shipped 3 million units of Resident Evil 2: Sales expectations are in line with Resident Evil 7, which has now sold 6 million units
- Blog: $5.7 billion games investment in 2018 doubles previous record
- Breaking down nearly 50 years of video game revenue
- Games investments raised $5.7 billion in 2018: Amount of fundraising was more than double that of 2017, led by Epic Games’ $1.25 billion round
- GameStop is looking at other options after plans to sell the company fall through
- Game retailer GameStop says it can’t sell itself, sees stock dive 27%
- GameStop gives up on selling the company: Stock tumbles 25% as retailer terminates search due to lack of acceptable financing terms for potential buyers
- Meet The Fan Who Can Beat Mario Games Without Moving Right
- DICE throws future of Battlefield custom rental servers into doubt
- Report: Netflix will continue streak of video game series with Resident Evil
- Resident Evil 2 debuts at No.1 in UK charts (again): Strong first week for remake, more than 20 years since the original
- Just 6% of devs say Steam earns its 30% cut – Survey: GDC poll shows which storefronts developers are depending on and which platforms they’re working on
- GDC 2019 State of the Industry: Nearly 50% of devs support unionization
- Only 16% of devs anti-union – Survey: GDC Survey finds 47% of respondents think the industry should unionize, another 26% say maybe
- The crazy and costly world of First 4 Figures: How one Facebook group is transforming the fortunes of the company making $600 video game statues
- Fable Studio Pivoting to “Virtual Beings,” Building Stories Around Persistent AI-powered Characters
- DeepMind AI faces off against (and defeats) StarCraft IIpro players
- Introducing Gamedev.world, the first global game developer conference: Rami Ismail talks us through his ambitious plans for a free online conference translated into eight languages
- In response to visa woes, indie game devs create their own virtual gaming expo
- Fellow Traveller: “Indie publishers need to stand for something” – Chris Wright on recovering from the collapse of the Australian games industry to found an indie publisher with a distinct voice
- Unity targets kids, educators with Unity Playground: New tool offers introduction to creating 2D games, simplified version of Unity interface
- Unity acquires voice and text-based chat tools maker Vivox
- Unity acquires Vivox: Engine maker picks up voice-and-text service, well have it continue operating independently
- Sea of Thieves experiencing second wind thanks to Twitch
- Talking up the positives about gaming | Opinion: Hbomberguy’s wonderful charity Twitch marathon has made headlines — let’s boost these stories, instead of letting trolls and misanthropes define our medium
- Twitch no longer advertising big streamer events on smaller channels
- Blog: Making game music with external collaborators
- Blog: Game accessibility quotes of 2018
- How do you rejuvenate the skateboarding genre? Put a bird on it!
- GLAAD Media Awards list nominees for video games with outstanding LGBTQ themes
- GLAAD announces nominees for first ever Outstanding Video Game category: Assassins Creed, Guild Wars, The Elder Scrolls Online, Pillars of Eternity, and The Sims Mobile all up for award from LGBTQ advocacy group
- Unearthing the Pokemon-inspired Diablo game that never was
- Magic Leap’s AI ‘Mica’ Won’t Turn Off Your Lights, Play Your Music, or Give Directions
- VR Cameras Now on International Space Station to Capture Space Walks & Missions
- VR’s Most Bizarre Game ‘Mosh Pit Simulator’ to Launch into Early Access Tomorrow
- See what ray tracing can do to a game like Quake 2
DIGITAL
- Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election (Nir Grinberg, Kenneth Joseph, Lisa Friedland, Briony Swire-Thompson, David Lazer)
- Older, right-leaning Twitter users spread the most fake news in 2016, study finds
- Emma Best’s New Transparency Project Targets Russian Leaks She Says Wikileaks Refuses To Touch
- Chinese Court Creates App To Alert Citizens Of Deadbeat Debtors In Their Area
- Cameroon Military Arresting, Trying, And Jailing Journalists On ‘Fake News’ Charges
- U.S. Charges Huawei with Theft of Trade Secrets; Risks for Carriers Using Huawei Equipment Increase
- Bell and Telus have been using Huawei equipment to deploy fibre-optic networks for years
- Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them
- Facebook pays teens to install an app that could collect all kinds of data
- Facebook Got Busted Paying Teenagers $20 A Month For Private Data
- Why Facebook’s Banned ‘Research’ App Was So Invasive
- Facebook Let Kids Rack Up Charges on Parents’ Credit Cards and Did Nothing to Stop It
- Facebook Hires Up Three Of Its Biggest Privacy Critics
- The rise of the Facebook divorce
- I Cut Facebook Out of My Life. Surprisingly, I Missed It
- Tuning out: What happens when you drop Facebook?
- Facebook’s Privacy Problems Are Piling Up Too Quickly To Chronicle
- Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Fix That Op-Ed You Wrote: I can tell the people what it is you’re really trying to say.
- State-aligned trolling in Iran and the double-edged affordances of Instagram
- Inside The UAE’s Secret Hacking Team of American Mercenaries: Ex-NSA operatives reveal how they helped spy on targets for the Arab monarchy – dissidents, rival leaders and journalists
- Brands Crack Down On Instagram’s Content Moderation After Ads Run Alongside Posts About Self-Harm, Suicide
- John Mayer’s Instagram Talk Show Returns
- Notice of Terms via Buried Link within a Post-Sale Email Unenforceable
- The Copyright “Meme” Game: Can an Internet Meme Containing a Copyrighted Work Be Considered Infringing?
- Vine Successor ‘Byte’ Won’t Showcase Follower Counts On Users’ Profiles, Founder Says
- The Egg Is Now Trying to Sell Us Hulu
- CE Family Announces YouTube Hiatus, Comeback Docuseries In Wake Of Phallic Lollipop Incident
- In Bizarre Tweet, Pope Francis Calls Virgin Mary “The First Influencer”
- As U.K. cracks down on social media endorsements, where does Canada stand?
- The CMA clamps down on social media endorsements
- Facebook to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger
- Can the internet be made safe for children? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality
- A Nesting Doll Of Stupidity: Rudy Giuliani’s Twitter Typo Leads To Bogus Trademark Threat Letter
- The Roger Stone indictment shows a conspiratorial comedy of Opsec errors
- Arizona The Latest To Explore Dumb Porn Filter Law, This Time To Help Fund Trump’s Fence
- Apple News is officially launching in Canada next week
- Apple News Launches in Canada with iOS 12.2 Beta, Supports English and French
- Apple says iPhones were down 15% last quarter, but everything else was up 19%
- Apple Expects to Benefit From Climate Change: The company says that severe weather will increase “customer loyalty or brand value.”
- Apple cuts 200 people from its autonomous vehicle team
- Apple Is Blowing It
- Apple Will Finally Launch Its Streaming Service In April (Report)
- Samsung Pursued by Pixel Plaintiffs
- Microsoft Office is now available in the Mac App Store
- Amazon plans to launch a new Middle East marketplace, two years after buying Souq for $580 million
- Sundance: Amazon Scores Comedy ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ for $14 Million
- Tubular Labs, VICE, BuzzFeed, and Group Nine Media Launch Global Video Measurement Alliance
- BuzzFeed To Cut 15% Of Workforce As It Wrestles With Profitability
- BuzzFeed Layoffs Gut National News Desk, National Security Team
- Human Rights Groups Plead With The EU Not To Pass Its Awful ‘Terrorist Content’ Regulation
- Author Ken MacLeod: Please Don’t Pass The EU Copyright Directive In My Name
- Google doesn’t want employees to use work email to organize, per report
- Google Threatens To Shut Down Google News In Europe Over Article 11 As Publishers Whine About ‘Publicity Stunt’
- Google Asks Supreme Court To Overturn Crazy Ruling About Copyright In APIs
- I Cut Google Out Of My Life. It Screwed Up Everything
- Google Fiber outage leaves KC customers offline two weeks after storm
- Crashing the Internet: Cars, CarGurus and Copyright in the Digital Age
- Independent Musician Explains Why Article 13 Will Be An Utter Disaster For Independent Artists
- Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike
- Who Benefited from FOSTA? (Spoiler: Probably No One) (Eric Goldman)
- RackaRacka Claims YouTube Is Breaking Its Own Content Policies And Community Guidelines With New Original ‘Wayne’
- YouTube Is Going to Bury ‘Borderline’ Content. It Won’t Tell Us What That Means
- Matthew Patrick Claims Defy Media Stole $1.7 Million In YouTube AdSense From 50 Channels
- These YouTubers are owed $1.7 million, and they’re probably never going to get it: Ally Bank responds to concerns from creators
- YouTube says it will recommend fewer videos about conspiracy theories: Taking steps to reduce the spread of misinformation
- YouTube’s Latest Attempt To Cut Off Conspiracy Content Is A New Algorithm
- YouTube Suspends Advertising on Tommy Robinson’s Channel
- Scammers On YouTube Impersonate Philip DeFranco, Jeffree Star, Send Fake Private Messages To Subscribers
- YouTube is working to prevent impersonation after top creators hit by major scam: Philip DeFranco, James Charles, and others affected
- Amanda Steele Becomes Latest YouTube Star To Launch Her Own Fashion Label
- YouTube Vets Shane Dawson, KSI Both Surpass 20 Million Subscribers
- Guy Who Forged A Court Order To Delist Content Issues More Bogus Takedown Notices To Remove Posts Discussing His Forgery
- Study Again Finds That Most VPNs Are Shady As Hell
- ‘Baby Shark’ Videos Have Amassed 5 Billion Views, Becoming No. 1 Education Trend In YouTube History
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 1/27/2019
- Android TV Is Good Now
- Roku Adds First Paid Channels, Including Starz, Showtime, Tastemade
- Fyre Festival Documentaries Dissect Attendees’ – And Your – Fomo
- Dumpster Fyre of Advertising Issues
- Diary Of A Web Series: Crowdfunding — Expectations vs. Reality
- Spotify data shows how music preferences change with latitude: The farther from the equator, the greater the seasonal swings.
- Foreign Stream-Ripping Site Wins Against Music Labels Based On Jurisdiction
- The Dolan Twins Forced To Ask Fans Not To Attend Their Late Father’s Funeral
- Social-media influencers are pretty; their meltdowns are anything but
- Alisha Marie And Remi Cruz To Take Their Popular Podcast On Tour
- Snapchat Solicits Bhad Bhabie To Garner Buzz For Original Content Slate
- Snapchat Considering Longer Lifetime For Users’ Public Content (Report)
- Verizon Lays Off 800 Employees Within ‘Media Group’, Comprising Yahoo, Tumblr, More
- Verizon cuts 7 percent of staff in failing Yahoo/AOL division
- Judge rejects proposed settlement to Yahoo data breach lawsuit
- WarnerMedia shuts investment arm that backed Mic, Mashable and other digital media startups
- Lawyer Steps Up To File Doomed Lawsuits On Behalf Of Catholic School Teens Called Racists On Social Media
- Yes, “algorithms” can be biased. Here’s why
- Compassion through Computation: Fighting Algorithmic Bias
- On Human Predictions with Explanations and Predictions of Machine Learning Models: A Case Study on Deception Detection (Vivian Lai, Chenhao Tan)
- We analyzed 16,625 papers to figure out where AI is headed next: Our study of 25 years of artificial-intelligence research suggests the era of deep learning may come to an end.
- “Disruptive” Bezos healthcare venture accused of copying competitor
- Robots Will Take Jobs From Men, The Young, And Minorities
- This Automation Platform Helped Eliminate 40,000 Jobs, and Now It’s Available to Companies Everywhere
- A New Algorithm Trains AI to Erase its Biases: It’s like sensitivity training for algorithms.
- Deep Fakes: Let’s Not Go Off The Deep End
- Nvidia and AMD’s Nerdiest Fight Is the One That Matters Most
- Nvidia CEO warns of “extraordinary, unusually turbulent, disappointing” Q4
- Nvidia shares tank 15% following Q4 revenue adjustment
- Nvidia trims quarterly revenue forecast as its RTX cards undersell
- Why Choosing Between Windows and macOS Still Matters
- Modern slavery in the tech sector: Ethical supply chains
- Undersea cable damage wipes out most Internet access in Tonga islands
- Open innovation: A shift to new intellectual property models?
- Fair Use in Flux: Second Circuit TVEyes Ruling May Have a Lasting Effect on Fair Use Analysis
- Another Nail In The Coffin For Fair Use: TVEyes Agrees Not To Carry Fox News
- Neuroscientists Translate Brain Waves Into Recognizable Speech
- Listen To A Gadget That Translates Thoughts Into Speech
- Columbia Engineers Translate Brain Signals Directly into Speech: Advance marks critical step toward brain-computer interfaces that hold immense promise for those with limited or no ability to speak.
- Towards reconstructing intelligible speech from the human auditory cortex
- Update Regarding Website Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act: Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC
- Ninth Circuit reversal delivers blow to defense of website accessibility class actions
- Tolerating Piracy Can Benefit Consumers, Creators and Retailers, Research Finds
CREATIVITY
- Olivia de Havilland’s Right-to-Publicity Suit Is Gone With the Wind
- Michael Jackson Documentary Leaving Neverland Is ‘Shocking, Sad, Disturbing, Devastating’
- Well, this is brutal: Father of a murdered child has his own Parkland-based “stand-up set” for Louis CK
- NY Governor Offers Journalists A Gift No Journalist Would Be Interested In Receiving
- Trademark’s reputation must be based on Canadian not foreign use, says FCA
- Copyright Office identifies visual arts copyright problems, solutions
- One bad lawyer: Kurt Dahl is a lawyer by day, rock star by night and an advocate for artists throughout
- Humorless Pittsburgh News Station Fires Employee For Graphic Calling Tom Brady A “Known Cheater”
- As Super Bowl Approaches, Advertisers Should Be Aware of The NFL’s Efforts to Protect Its Golden Goose – 2019 Update on Super Bowl Advertising and Promotions
- Kimberly-Clark Unable to Flush Wet Wipes Case
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Canadians Pay The Highest Rates For Wireless Data, And The US Is About To Follow Suit
- ACTRA Wants Government To Penalize Search Engines that Refuse to Promote Canadian Content in Search Results (Michael Geist)
- Building a Digital Wall: What Lies Behind The Emerging Battle Over New Taxes to Support Canadian Content (Michael Geist)
- Netflix: competition, not regulation, is the way to stimulate Canadian content
- “Immediate War Footing”: Phil Lind Recounts the Big Three Battle Against Wireless Competition in Canada (Michael Geist)
- Bell Urged Canadian Government To Ban Some VPN Services in NAFTA Submission (Michael Geist)
- Comcast Network Investment Drops Despite Repeated Claims Killing Net Neutrality Would Trigger Investment Wave
- Ajit Pai and Republicans in Congress Helped Enable ‘Bounty Hunters’ to Track Your Phone
- These Wireless Location Data Scandals Are Going To Be A Very Big Problem For Ajit Pai
- Verizon caves, won’t charge “spam” fee for texts from teachers to students
- T-Mobile/Sprint merger turns two disruptors into one “mega company,” Dems warn
- Anna Eshoo, Other Lawmakers Offer Gushing, Facts-Optional Support For T-Mobile Sprint Merger
- Robocalls Really Were Worse Than Ever Last Year, Report Finds
- Dozens Of Privacy Experts Tell The California Legislature That Its New Privacy Law Is Badly Undercooked
- California and European Privacy FAQs: Can a business share its marketing list with social media platforms in order to target advertising messages to specific social media users?
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- FamilyTreeDNA Hands the FBI Access to Its Database
- Secret UAE Spy Team Used “Cyber Super-Weapon” To Hack Any iPhone
- Northern District of Georgia Rules in Equifax Data Breach Cases
- Apple Disables Group Facetime to Prevent Remote Spying
- Bizarre Apple Bug Let Facetime Callers Spy On Each Other
- Disable FaceTime Right Now [Updated]
- What’s the Latest on Apple’s Catastrophic FaceTime Bug?
- More Than Two Years After It Took Them, The FBI Still Won’t Return Family Videos Seized During A Raid Of A Security Researcher’s Home
- Google Defeats Alleged BIPA Violations for Retention and Collection of Face-geometry Scans via Google Photos
- San Francisco lawmaker: Our cops should be banned from using facial recognition
- French Defense Secretary Says Country Is Willing To Fire First In Cyber Wars
- Amazon and Chase Will Not Give Me a Straight Answer About What They Do With My Credit Card Data
- The FBI Says It Can Neither Confirm Or Deny Social Media Monitoring Programs It Publicly Secured Contracts For
- Malvertisers target Mac users with steganographic code stashed in images
- Hackers Are Passing Around A Megaleak Of 2.2 Billion Records
- DHS: Multiple US gov domains hit in serious DNS hijacking wave
- Internet watchdog Citizen Lab targeted in comically inept undercover sting
- Privacy In The Iot Age
- The Top 10 Privacy Changes in 2018 and What’s on the Horizon for 2019
- One Incident, Potentially Multiple Breach Reporting Requirements – OSFI Introduces Cyber Breach Notification Guidelines for Financial Institutions
Jon
News of the Week; January 23, 2019
GAMES
- Westworld Mobile shuts down following Bethesda lawsuit
- Bethesda bans Fallout 76 players who accessed secret developer room
- Bethesda confirms bans for visiting hidden Fallout 76“developer room”
- Star Control: Origins restored to Steam amid legal battle with series’ creators
- Eximius developer uses DMCA to reclaim Steam page from publisher: Ammobox claims publisher TheGameWall Studios “disappeared completely,” after launch, and lost revenue worth six months of operating expenses
- Emulator project aims to resurrect classic Mac apps and games without the OS
- How machine learning is helping fans remaster retro classics
- Ubisoft issues apology for controversial Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC
- Ubisoft Apologizes To Players For Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC Controversy
- Ubisoft apologises for forcing heterosexual romance in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC: Publisher explains story-based decision behind relationship but admits it was “poorly executed”
- Challenging the inevitability of online harassment | Opinion: Tackling harassment will be a long and bitter march, but understanding it is the first step
- Tencent still absent from third round of Chinese game approvals
- Tencent and NetEase absent from third wave of Chinese game approvals: No games from China’s two key publishers have been included in the 257 cleared so far
- My Time at Portia devs compensate voice actors for unpaid wages
- Atlas Player Gets Into Admin’s Account, Summons Swarm Of Whales And Other Mayhem
- Former Heroes of the Storm team files suit against ex-owner for unpaid wages
- Square Enix has trademarked the name of Octopath Traveler’s art style
- Square Enix trademarks terms for Octopath Traveler’s visual style: The publisher now has trademarks for “HD2D” and “HD-2D” in Europe
- Unity CEO clarifies Improbable violations, future plans in AMA: John Riccitiello emphasizes platform’s “developer-first” focus as driving TOS changes
- NBA extends partnership with NBA 2K publisher 2K
- Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can affect developers
- Netflix: “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO” – TV and film streaming service points to Epic’s battle royale title as a major competitor
- Netflix thinks ‘Fortnite’ is a bigger threat than HBO
- Netflix claims Fortnite is now a bigger competitor than HBO
- Insights: The Real Competition for Netflix Is…A Single Videogame? Yup.
- Cybersecurity firm exposes Fortnite vulnerability: If exploited, hackers could have viewed personal information, purchased items, and overheard chat through affected accounts
- Fortnite Dances Its Way Into More Lawsuits
- Blog: Why the Epic Games Store could be huge for influencers
- Epic Games acquires digital character specialist 3Lateral
- Analyst: PUBG out-earned every other premium PC and console game in 2018
- Digital Extremes and PUBG company Krafton looking for developers at PAX East
- UK Charts: Ace Combat 7 breaks franchise records, but Mario holds No.1: Bandai Namco’s flight game debuts at No.2
- Microsoft says its game streaming service has an advantage thanks to Xbox
- Microsoft CEO states “Netflix for games” ambitions: Satya Nadella points to game catalogue and PC business as key advantages over competitors
- As Twitch Subscriber Race Heats Up, Ninja Is Annoyed That “Everyone’s Just Out To Look For The Next Guy”
- U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Helps Twitch Streamer ‘Hbomberguy’ Raise $340,000+ For Transgender Nonprofit
- Streamer raises $340,000 for trans charity by playingDonkey Kong 64
- Games industry names help YouTuber raise $340,000 for trans charity in Donkey Kong 64 marathon: Grant Kirkhope, Jon Romero and Jim Sterling join the challenge
- Machinima has been wiped clean: The end of an era
- Otter Media blocks all Machinima content on YouTube: Parent company says new Machinima content will be “distributed on new channels” to be announced later this year
- Changing industry economics let Bungie forge a new destiny | Opinion – The idea of a developer operating an expensive online game would once have seemed ludicrous – Bungie’s new independence shows how much has changed
- Capcom Really Loves Remaking Resident Evil 2
- Resident Evil 2 Review
- Resident Evil 2 remake review: Beautiful, terrifying, and annoying
- Resident Evil 2’s time-restricted demo has been downloaded over 3 million times
- Blog: Overcoming genre in Ni No Kuni 2
- Starbreeze delays console release of Overkill’s The Walking Dead
- Starbreeze delays Overkill’s The Walking Dead on console: Troubled publisher pushes game beyond its planned February release, more information “at a later date”
- How to build a Bandersnatch: Developers shares advice on how to create interactive movie games that can stand toe-to-toe with Black Mirror’s latest
- The Bandersnatch effect: Netflix’s Black Mirror outing has everyone talking about interactive fiction — but what does this mean for the game developers who got there first?
- Blog: How to make the marriage between cinema and games last
- Get a job: Crystal Dynamics is hiring a Camera Designer
- Hothead Games opens new publishing division
- Metro Exodus publisher confident over showdown with Crackdown and Far Cry: Deep Silver on how it has readied a marketing assault ahead of crowded February 15 launch
- Switch dominates a great year for game consoles in 2018
- NPD: The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console of 2018 in the U.S.
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 5 million globally in first week: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says Nintendo Switch seeing fastest software sales in Nintendo history
- Media Create: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe sells through over half of first-week shipment
- Don’t Miss: The secret history of Donkey Kong 9
- Former PlayStation, Take-Two, Nintendo execs launch blockchain publisher: Planet Digital Partners will use $38m blockchain token sale to secure investment for up to ten new games
- Blog: Games and crowdfunding in 2018
- Nexon reportedly up for sale: Tencent, EA, Activision, and Disney listed as interested parties in Korean publisher of MapleStory
- Layoffs hit NCSoft’s Iron Tiger Studios: Publisher confirms an undisclosed number of layoffs at San Mateo developer
- Supergiant’s fourth outing Hades introduces a more mature, organized dev process
- Splash Damage has released the full game design document for Dirty Bomb
- Cloud Imperium Games spent $4M a month in 2017 developing Star Citizen
- Blog: The mysteries of studying game design
- Blog: Why nobody cares about your indie game
- CI Games establishes United Label, a new publishing label dedicated to indies
- IndieDB, ModDB founder launches mod-focused publishing arm: Modularity to use mod.io to offer a “fully cross-platform and store-agnostic modding solution”
- With CryEngine’s SpatialOS GDK in the works, Crytek reaffirms open-platform goals
- US, Canada mobile gaming brought in $9.37 billion in 2018: Candy Crush games topped revenue charts for the year as puzzle, strategy, and casino genres dominated
- Chad Wild Clay, Vy Qwaint Launch Mobile Game Inspired By Their Kids’ YouTube Spy Series
- FIFA 19 trumped Red Dead and COD as Europe’s highest selling game in 2018: Gfk Entertainment data shows EA Sports’ football title as the most popular across 15 countries
- Sony is rolling out PlayStation Now to new European territories
- Fast Travel Games sold more on PSVR than Steam, Oculus and Viveport combined: PSVR accounts for 58% of Apex Construct sales, said CEO Oskar Burman, and Sony’s lead is getting wider
- ‘Apex Construct’ Studio: Big Boost in PSVR Installs Thanks to Recent Increase in Headset Sales
- VR headsets, augmented windshields, and multiscreen infotainment at CES
- VR Train Simulator ‘Derail Valley’ to Launch into Early Access This Week
- The Digital Revolution: Fundamentals of virtual, mixed and augmented reality
- Mortal Kombat 11 gameplay as seen by a ‘90s arcade rat
- How European expansion bolstered Bulkhead against Brexit: Setting up a German subsidiary enabled recruitment of new talent amid political turmoil in the UK, says Bulkhead Interactive CEO Joe Brammer
- New esports league crops up around Farming Simulator 19
- GAME’s shares improve following “solid” Christmas results: UK dips offset by Spanish growth over festive period
- Kingdom Hearts III Is An Unreviewable Video Game
- 9 Video Game Secrets That Took Years to Find: In the olden days, programmers could hide something in the code of a video game and be confident that it would never be revealed.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, video games, and the new online town square
- Video: How I got my mom to play through Plants vs. Zombies
DIGITAL
- China creates app to tell you if you are near someone in debt and encourages you to report them: The app will allow the public shaming of “deadbeat debtors”
- Russia tries to force Facebook and Twitter to relocate servers to Russia
- Pay for Trump’s border wall with $20 online porn fee, Ariz. lawmaker says
- Herrick V. Grindr – The Section 230 Case That’s Not What You’ve Heard
- Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case That Threatened CDA 230
- There Was Heavy Tech Lobbying On Article 13… From The Company Hoping To Sell Everyone The Filters
- Disney is already losing over $1 billion in streaming, and its Netflix competitor has yet to launch
- Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music
- Facebook may be hit with “record-setting fine” by FTC, report says
- Facebook Just Removed Hundreds of Pages Linked to Russia
- President Trump Posts Altered Photos to Facebook and Instagram That Make Him Look Thinner
- Viral Is Still Copyrighted, Even to Learn Where Trump Is
- Parody Washington Post Leads To Bogus Legal Threat, And A Reminder Of An Old Internet Lawsuit
- Judge unseals trove of internal Facebook documents following our legal action
- Google, Facebook, and Amazon Spent Record Cash Lobbying Washington in 2018
- Google’s lobbying spending set new records in 2018
- Blocking Constituents from Facebook Page Violates First Amendment–Davison v. Randall
- Why Silicon Valley’s “growth at any cost” is the new “unsafe at any speed”: For years, Ashkan Soltani has warned of Facebook’s privacy-eroding tendencies.
- Fourth Amendment Limits NYC’s Demands for Airbnb Customer Records
- Pie Company Has A Rogue Twitter Impostor, But Decides To Be Totally Cool With It
- Lawmakers seek harsh penalties against ZTE and Huawei
- US asks Canada to turn over Huawei’s CFO on alleged sanctions violations
- Will Social Media Websites Become State Actors?
- Researchers discover state actor’s mobile malware efforts because of YOLO OPSEC
- BuzzFeed Set to Lay Off 15% of Its Employees
- Why Do People Fall for Fake News?
- Deepfakes and the New Disinformation War: The Coming Age of Post-Truth Geopolitics
- Social media can predict what you’ll say, even if you don’t participate
- “The Linux of social media”—How LiveJournal pioneered (then lost) blogging
- Not all Opinions are Fit for Sharing
- Risky Business Just Got Riskier – DOJ Changes Stance on Internet Gambling
- DOJ Opinion Leaves Industry Hanging: If UIGEA Exclusions Don’t Modify the Wire Act What Does That Mean for Intrastate Gambling Transactions?
- Hulu Drops Price Of Ad-Supported Subscription Plan, Increases Price For Hulu With Live TV
- Hulu will make its basic plan cheaper as Netflix gets pricier
- US Media Companies Engaging In Proactive Censorship Of Content Ahead Of India’s New Hate Speech Laws
- Netflix Signs Indian Content Code Banning Offensive Material, Agrees To Self-Regulate
- Netflix Spent $12 Billion on Content in 2018. Analysts Expect That to Grow to $15 Billion This Year
- Netflix Joins the Motion Picture Association of America
- Why Does Everyone Else Want To Stop Netflix Password Sharing, When Netflix Is Fine With It?
- Netflix on streaming rivals: ‘We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO’
- The whirlwind success of Netflix’s ‘You’ and ‘Bird Box’ shows it’s become a well-oiled FOMO machine
- The Great Google Hangouts Shutdown begins October 2019
- YouTube TV Expanding to Cover Entire U.S., No International Launch Plans Right Now
- YouTube TV Rolls Out To Remaining U.S. Markets Ahead Of Super Bowl
- Netflix Says Viewership, Subscriptions Spiked During Brief YouTube Outage In October
- 2 Years After ‘Adpocalypse’, AT&T — The World’s Second Largest Advertiser — Returns To YouTube
- AT&T returns as a YouTube advertiser marking the end of the “adpocalypse”: January might be a slow month, but big ad spending is on the horizon
- YouTube Demonetizes Channel Belonging To Anti-Islam Political Advisor Tommy Robinson
- YouTube Cover Singer Lands Starring Role In Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ Remake
- YouTube Trick Shot Stars ‘Dude Perfect’ Announce First Live Tour And Memberships, Ask Fans To Help Them Tie PewDiePie’s Subscriber Count
- After Stunning Australian Open Win, Stefanos Tsitsipas Urges Stadium to Subscribe To His YouTube Channel
- Vice Media, Hulu Japan Ink Original Content and Licensing Deal
- Vice Media sets up experience division: Ten-strong team will create experiences for youth media company’s own brands as well as for partners.
- Viacom Purchases Free Streaming Platform Pluto TV For $340 Million
- Font expert exposes phony trust documents
- Online Publishers Beware: An iPhone Snap May Go Viral, but Unauthorized Commercial Use is Still Not Fair Use
- NSA Puts Phone Charging Station at Hacker Conference in Plot to Go Viral
- Instagram Influencers Are Seeking The Services Of Ethical Hackers To Reclaim Their Stolen Accounts
- “A never-ending war”: top influencer on what brands should know about fakes in China
- Analysts Project Instagram Will Rake In $14 Billion In Revenues In 2019
- Patreon Gained 1 Million New Patrons In 2018, Will Pay Out Its Billionth Dollar This Year
- Blockchain justice: Crypto-currency and blockchain will increasingly be the subjects of litigation in Canada
- I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible.
- Amazon begins testing deliveries with sidewalk drones
- The Prime Challenges For Amazon’s New Delivery Robot
- Microsoft: Switch to iOS or Android because Windows 10 Mobile is ending
- Google buys $40 million worth of smartwatch tech from Fossil Group
- Even with the Google/Fossil deal, Wear OS is doomed
- Google Play malware used phones’ motion sensors to conceal itself
- Google planning changes to Chrome that could break ad blockers
- Jake Paul Dropped By Legal Firm In Case Involving Prank That Damaged Man’s Hearing
- The 8 Signs That Machine Learning Will Automate Some or All of Your Job
- Globally, Most Workers Think Robots Couldn’t Handle Their Jobs
- Robots on the rise
- Sony Invests in Geolocation Startup Used to Shoot ‘Ready Player One’
- For teens, digital technology is good. Or bad. Or maybe neutral?
- Instagram Helped Me Bond With My Dentist Dad by Recommending I Watch Gross Teeth Videos
- How running websites has changed in the last two decades (for an Ars IT guru)
- Now That’s What I Call Ars Technica, Volume 1: Favorite stories from Ars’ 20 years
- Twenty legal battles that stand out across Ars’ 20 years of covering them
- Technology with limits: How can we tame technology to do what we need and then let it go so that we can be more connected to each other in real life?
- Deregulation is the New Buzz Word in Washington – Except in the Tech Industry
- Can a Server Be a Regular and Established Place of Business? Examining the SEVEN Networks Decision
CREATIVITY
- It’s Finally Happening – Major New Trademark Law Takes Effect in Canada on June 17, 2019
- Toronto DJ wins trademark registration despite association with Drake: Application was challenged by October’s Very Own
- McDonald’s loses Big Mac trademark after legal battle with Irish chain: Supermac strips US food giant of trademark across Europe after landmark EU ruling
- UK fashion label says it owns trademark on “collusion,” EFF says no way: Last year, a man bought Collusion.so, pointed it to Lawfare. ASOS didn’t like that.
- UK clothing company: Oops, our trademark doesn’t cover collusion.so
- Oh Na Na What’s My Name?: Rihanna Sues Father for Trademark Misuse of “Fenty” Surname
- Proposed Update To Singapore’s Copyright Laws Surprisingly Sensible
- The Updated Canada Food Guide: New Advice, Old Restrictive Copyright Rules
- Port Talbot Banksy sells for six-figure sum
- The King of Wakanda Holds the Oscars’ First Best Picture Nod for a Superhero Film
- Viceland Will Relaunch Primetime With Nightly Live Two-Hour Variety Show
- Leslie Jones Is No Fan of the New GhostbustersMovie
- Key IP Takeaways from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
- Copyright Act amendments to unveil our hidden history
- An Analysis of Title I and Title III of The Music Modernization Act, Part 1 of 2 (Tyler Ochoa)
- An Analysis of Title I and Title III of The Music Modernization Act, Part 1 of 2 (Tyler Ochoa)
- Duty of loyalty: A limit to freedom of expression
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- The Canadian Wireless Story: Comparative Data Shows World’s Highest Carrier Revenues Per SIM
- Sunlight on the Submissions: Why the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel Should Reverse Its Secretive Approach (Michael Geist)
- Woman sues T-Mobile after employees allegedly snoop on racy private video
- Verizon blames school text provider in dispute over “spam” fee
- Verizon offers free robocall blocking, two years after AT&T and T-Mobile
- Trump Hotel Fracas Highlights How T-Mobile’s Consumer-Friendly Brand Schtick Is Wearing A Little Thin
- Sorry, Ajit: Comcast lowered cable investment despite net neutrality repeal
- Remember When Ajit Pai Said Killing Net Neutrality Would Boost Network Investment? About That…
- Terabyte-using cable customers double, increasing risk of data cap fees
- Government Shutdown May Cause FCC to Cancel January 30 Public Meeting
- FCC Wants Delay In Net Neutrality Trial Due To Government Shutdown, But Isn’t Likely To Get It
- Statements by third parties – What are the liabilities of publishers and broadcasters?
- Brexit and broadcasting: Luxembourg as the ideal gateway to provide audiovisual media services throughout the EU (without a major impact on operations in the UK!)
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Max Schrems Files New Privacy Complaints That Seem To Show The Impossibility Of Complying With The GDPR
- How The GDPR Is Still Ruining Christmas
- GDPR Enforcement Actions, Fines Pile Up
- Google must pay €50 million for GDPR violations, France says
- Attorney General Nominee Seems Willing To Let The DOJ Jail Journalists Over Published Leaks
- YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Spotify, And More Accused Of Violating E.U. Data Privacy Legislation Per Article 15
- Yahoo! Derivative Data Breach Suit Yields Unprecedented $29 Million Settlement
- Mother of All Breaches Exposes 773 Million Emails, 21 Million Passwords
- Monster 773 million-record breach list contains plaintext passwords
- How to Stop Worrying About Every ‘Mega’ Password Breach That Comes Along
- GoDaddy weakness let bomb threat scammers hijack thousands of big-name domains
- Hackers Hijacked A Family’s Smart Home, Spammed Nuclear Missile Alerts
- Exploring the EU’s new rules for the free flow of non-personal data
- Seattle Newspaper Wins Federal Court Case, Opens Up Reporting On Secret Law Enforcement Surveillance
- NY Court Tells NYPD It Can’t Hide Surveillance Of Protesters Behind A Glomar Response
- The creepy rule
- 41 California Privacy Experts Urge Major Changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act (Eric Goldman)
- Fourth Amendment Limits NYC’s Demands for Airbnb Customer Records (Eric Goldman)
- Privacy and Data Security 2018 Year in Review
- 2018 Privacy Year in Review
- ‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism
- 41 California Privacy Experts Urge Major Changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act
- Is Privacy a Right? (Doc Searls)
Jon
News of the Week; January 16, 2019
GAMES
- Red Dead Redemption 2’s Pinkerton agents are at the center of a lawsuit
- The Pinkertons Are Still Around, Suing Over Red Dead Redemption 2
- Rockstar threatened with legal action over Red Dead 2’s Pinkerton agents: Take-Two and Rockstar say use of Pinkerton and trademarks is protected under the First Amendment
- Infamous Pinkerton Detectives Claim Red Dead Redemption’s Use Of Historically Accurate Pinkertons Is Trademark Infringement
- Red Dead 2 sparks legal tussle between Take-Two and the real-world Pinkertons
- Gearbox CEO accused by former studio lawyer of taking $12M bonus
- Former Gearbox lawyer reportedly filed discrimination claim ahead of November lawsuit: 10 days before Gearbox sued Wade Callender, he filed a discrimination claim against CEO Randy Pitchford alleging religious harassment
- Randy Pitchford and ex-Gearbox lawyer engaged in ugly legal fight over alleged $12 million ‘secret bonus,’ unpaid loans, camgirl porn: Pitchford and former Gearbox general counsel Wade Callendar have filed lawsuits accusing each other
- Amidst legal battle, Gearbox CEO says he left USB stick of porn at Medieval Times: Alleges Pitchford received $12M bonus, hid from Gearbox staffers, siphoned elsewhere.
- Gearbox CEO allegedly mocked ex-lawyer’s Christianity with slurs, “ridiculing” gifts
- Forza Horizon 4 patches out Floss and Carlton dance emotes
- Forza Horizon 4 removes dance moves following Fortnite lawsuits: The Carlton and the Floss removed from game as creators pursue Epic Games for damages
- Microsoft removes Forza dances amid Fortnite lawsuits
- ‘Fresh Prince’ actor, rapper and dancer sue makers of video game over popular dance moves
- Fortnite dance lawsuits continue with “Orange Justice”: Mother of Orange Shirt Kid sues Epic Games for copyright infringement following campaign that saw dance included in-game
- Epic fixes Fortnite security flaw which left all 200M+ players vulnerable
- Settlement reached in long-running 38 Studios lawsuit
- Riot Games updates company values following “bro culture” toxicity claims: Developer says new values are a “guide for who we want to be”
- Law firm investigating Activision-Blizzard on behalf of investors: Pomerantz LLP looking into claims that company leadership engaged in securities fraud, other unlawful practice
- Bungie takes Destiny 2 publishing rights back from Activision
- Bungie Splits With Activision, Maintains Destiny Rights
- Bungie breaks from Activision to publish Destiny on its own: Activision to “increase focus on own IP projects” as Bungie transitions to self-publishing
- Bungie splits with Activision, keeps control of Destiny
- Activision will cut ties with Bungie, give up publishing control of Destiny
- The Game Industry Reacts To The Bungie-Activision Breakup: General consensus: people are happy for Bungie.
- Destiny: We React to the Activision Bungie Split
- Destiny 2’s Impossible Puzzle Might Have Been Broken All Along
- Take-Two and NBA extend partnership in $1.1bn deal: Multi-year licensing agreement enables 2K to continue making its best-selling basketball game
- Rocket League finally gets cross-platform play on PS4: The popular Psyonix title is the latest to benefit from Sony’s cross-platform u-turn
- Rocket League now allows cross-play for all platforms, including PS4
- Pioneer, Ubisoft’s sci-fi game teased in Watch Dogs 2, reportedly cancelled
- Call of Duty has made more money than the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars: Activision release about presidential appointments reveals best-selling shooter franchise trumps box office takings of Hollywood hits
- EA Cancels Open-World Star Wars Game [UPDATE]
- EA has reportedly canceled Vancouver studio’s Star Wars title: Unseen project was supposedly an open-world reset of closed Visceral Games’ Star Wars title
- Report: EA’s beleaguered open-world Star Wars game is no more [Updated]
- Update: EA Responds To Reports Of Alleged Star Wars Game Cancellation
- EA Vancouver’s open-world Star Wars game has been canceled
- Chinese government approves another 84 games for release: Total since end of the approval freeze is now 164 games, but Tencent and NetEase are still absent
- Tencent picks up 36% ownership of Warhammer: Vermintide 2 dev Fatshark
- Blizzard and NetEase extend China publishing deal until 2023
- Blizzard states importance of ‘inclusive’ workplace after discrimination allegations
- Meet MASHBot, the touchscreen-tapping, Nintendo DS-playing robot
- Nintendo of Europe issues formal warning to Russia boss after investigation: But platform holder says accusations of harassment by general manager Yasha Haddaji remain unsubstantiated
- Hackers find Super NES games mentioned in Switch’s emulated NES files
- Travis Strikes Again review: Switch may already have its weirdest game of 2019
- ESA and World Health Organization discuss ‘gaming disorder’ classification
- World Health Organization and ESA meet to discuss gaming disorder diagnosis: UKIE and ISFE also urged WHO to “reconsider the mounting evidence” during formal dialogue last month
- PEGI announces new content descriptor for in-game purchases on physical products: An “important first step” to helping making parents make informed purchasing decisions, says PEGI managing director
- Roblox launches Digital Civility Initiative: Online safety and education will be the focus of the program, led by new hire Laura Higgins
- Unity changes terms of service to block SpatialOS projects
- Improbable calls for Unity to clarify TOS in wake of SpatialOS dev concerns
- GDC 2019 will host a Classic Game Postmortem ofPaperboy!
- Unity updates terms of service (again) in response to Improbable dispute
- SpatialOS games under threat as Unity revokes Improbable’s license – Update: Spilt Milk Studios brings Lazarus back at least temporarily, while Bossa’s Worlds Adrift is “operating as normal”
- Changes to Unity terms of service are “insanity” says Improbable CEO: Devs share concerns with GamesIndustry.biz about how changes could spell the end for their in-development projects
- Cloud gaming firm: Unity must clarify its terms, reinstate our license
- Unity explains Improbable license revocation, says SpatialOS creator’s claims “incorrect”: SpatialOS devs are safe, Improbable calls for “code of conduct” in development ecosystem
- Unity clarifies ToS changes, welcomes back “unsupported” SpatialOS
- Video: How Life is Strange brought a new era for narrative games
- Epic, Improbable start fund to lure devs away from Unity amid engine kerfuffle
- Epic, Improbable team up for $25 million fund to bring SpatialOS developers to “more open engines”: Saga of Unity, Improbable, and SpatialOS continues as Epic opens door to developers “left in limbo” by terms of service changes
- Unity changes course following dispute with Improbable: John Riccitiello and Joachim Ante to host Reddit AMA today
- Epic Games store planned for launch on Android this year: Company looks toward iOS launch also, despite “apparent conflict” with Apple policy
- Epic Games Store alters refund policy to match Steam
- Epic Games Store now offers a refund policy similar to Steam’s: Within a Fortnite of purchase.
- Sergey Galyonkin clarifies how the Epic Games Store targets influencers
- Sergey Galyonkin: Epic Games store courting a younger, Steam-less audience – Epic Games’ director of publishing strategy offers glimpse of what the storefront plans to offer both consumers and influencers in the coming months and year
- Sergey Galyonkin clarifies how the Epic Games Store targets influencers
- Verizon is testing its own cloud-based game streaming service
- Valve wants to overhaul discoverability on Steam with machine learning this year
- Valve working on new algorithmic recommendation tools for Steam, curating features: Other 2019 plans include PC Cafe Program, Trusted Matchmaking across all games, and Steam China
- Video: How reward systems can guide player experience inWorld of Warcraft
- ‘We have a big hit because we have a healthy work/life balance’, says Slime Rancher director
- Dusk sells 69,420 copies a month after launch
- Jurassic World Evolution and Planet Coaster have crossed 2 million sales
- There are now over 30,000 games on Steam
- NPD: US, Canada saw more mobile gamers in 2018 – Number of mobile gamers increased 5% year-over-year; Android remains most popular smartphone option
- Tabletop games continue to succeed on Kickstarter as video games fall behind
- Analyst: 2018 was an unimpressive (but stable) year for video game crowdfunding
- Ico Partners: Video games see fewer crowdfunded projects, steady amount funded in 2018 – Trends indicates Kickstarter is stabilizing, with a higher percentage of quality projects as platform matures
- Report: Amazon is developing its own game streaming service
- Amazon reportedly developing its own game streaming service: Company already in talks with publishers, but service wouldn’t be ready until 2020 at the earliest
- Amazon may be going after cloud gaming, but Microsoft has a big head start
- Gamestop Buyout Expected To Be Finalized Next Month
- From forum post to feature update: Supercell’s community connection: How the Brawl Stars studio hopes to continue its “two-way street” partnership with content creators and game communities
- IGDC: Solving the monetisation problem in India – The Indian market is brimming with potential, but it’s far from straightforward
- Fallout 76 players find human NPC and unreleased items in secret ‘dev room’: Like Fallout 4, Fallout 76 has a room containing every item in the game – and some players have apparently found a way inside.
- Fortnite tops SuperData’s 2018 chart with $2.4 billion digital revenue: Epic’s game toppled Honor of Kings in the free-to-play chart, PUBG was the highest earning premium title
- Streamlabs: Twitch growth slows as streamers turn to YouTube and Facebook – Meanwhile, Fortnite sees first decline in hours streamed since launching battle royale mode
- Niantic closes funding round with $245 million raised
- Niantic raises $245 million in Series C funding: Funding round led by IVP brings company valuation to nearly $4 billion
- Hitman developer IO Interactive has opened a new studio in Malmo
- IO Interactive opens new studio in Malmö: Second studio will support Hitman series and enables IOI to develop “new universes, new franchises”
- Examining the relationship between a studio’s survival and success
- Weavr Consortium receives £4m grant to develop esports viewing tech: UK government’s Industry Strategy Challenge Fund selects esports group for two-year Sports and Entertainment grant
- ESForce sells majority stake in SK Gaming: Esports holdings company to sell 67% share to Daimler AG, FC Koeln
- THQ Nordic has acquired the rights to Outcast
- Founded by CERN Engineers, CREAL3D’s Light-field Display is the Real Deal
- MetaAR Shuts Down Amidst Patent Infringement Lawsuit & Asset Liquidation
- Sony Shows More ‘Ace Combat 7’ VR Gameplay Ahead of Jan. 18 Launch
- Jam City secures $145 million to support global growth and acquisition plans
- Jam City announces $145m in strategic finance just weeks after layoffs: Investment comes on the heels of a “large numbers” of redundancies and a multi-year development deal with Disney
- What’s the one game you think people pretend to like the most?
- The UK Games Industry in 2018: Winners and Losers – Nintendo and Sony shine as EA falters
- UK industry braces for no-deal Brexit: How developers, publishers and more are preparing for the worst following next week’s vote
- Games4EU outlines the good and (mostly) bad of potential Brexit deal
- From Uncharted to Obra Dinn: Lucas Pope dishes on his illustrious game-dev career
- Success and sustainability at Supercell DLC: The Finnish studio’s developers discuss how they keep games thriving for years, and CEO Ilkka Paananen shares his philosophy on crunch
- Was classic JRPG grind that bad?: An in-depth analysis
- God of War nominated for 12 awards at 2019 DICE Awards
- God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man lead nominations for 22nd annual DICE Awards: Red Dead Redemption 2, Return of the Obra Dinn also see numerous mentions
- These were the most downloaded games on the PlayStation Store in 2018
- Writers Guild crowns Reigns: Her Majesty for best writing in a video game
- Awesome Games Done Quick 2019 raises $2.39M for Prevent Cancer Foundation
DIGITAL
- Appeals Court: First Amendment Violation To Ban Members Of The Public From Gov’t Officials’ Facebook Pages
- Facebook page is a government forum
- Blocking Constituents from Facebook Page Violates First Amendment–Davison v. Randall
- Pakistan Demands Google Take Down Petition For Academic Freedom… Saying It Represents Hate Speech
- Apple loses patent case appeal, owes VirnetX $440M in FaceTime dispute
- The Duty to Read the Unreadable (Uri Benoliel & Shmuel Becher)
- Twitter’s TOS Upheld Despite Unilateral Amendment Clause – Brittain v. Twitter
- Court To Revenge Porn Bro Suing Twitter: You Agreed To Twitter Picking The Courtroom Every Time You Created A New Alt Account
- “This isn’t like shipping wine”—Defense Distributed v. Grewalhas its day in court
- Amazon Dash Buttons Ruled Illegal In Germany For… Making It Too Easy To Buy Stuff
- Here’s How Much Money Creators Can Make Via Amazon’s Influencer Program (Report)
- President Trump Mocks Amazon’s ‘Jeff Bozo’ During Unhinged Twitter Rant
- Microsoft signs a huge deal with Walgreens, as Amazon’s growing interest in health care looms large
- Microsoft’s fonts catch out another fraudster—this time in Canada
- How Tracking And Selling Our Data Became A Business Model
- Night Club Accused of TCPA Text Messaging Violations
- 3rd Circuit: Enrollment packet e-signature requires student to arbitrate claims
- EU Parliament Puts Out Utter Nonsense Defending Copyright Directive
- Hollywood Asks EU To Drop Article 13 Entirely, Because It Might Possibly Have A Tiny Compromise For The Internet
- Google Shows What Google News Looks Like If Article 11 Passes In The EU Copyright Directive
- EU Court Adviser Says Google Shouldn’t Have To Enforce A French RTBF Request Anywhere But In Europe
- Google kills the Chromecast Audio
- Alphabet board sued over massive payout to Android creator, among others
- Music Groups Waste No Time Using Australia’s New Copyright Law To Shut Down Stream Ripping Sites
- Federal Appellate Courts Ring In the New Year by Taking Up Website and Mobile Application Accessibility
- Carriers Swore They’d Stop Selling Location Data. Will They Ever?
- LinkedIn Is Helping The Chinese Government Silence Critics
- Internet Censorship and the Intraregional Geopolitical Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (Helmi Noman)
- Kylie Jenner Dethroned By An Egg For Most-Liked Instagram Post Of All Time
- Instagram’s Most-Liked Egg Now Trying To Be Twitter’s Most-Retweeted Egg
- Report: DOJ pursuing criminal charges against Huawei for theft of tech
- Huawei employee arrested, accused of “high-level espionage” for China: Polish authorities arrest a Huawei employee and former government security expert.
- Chinese Police Now Performing Door-To-Door Twitter Censorship
- Roku Reverses Course, Bans Alex Jones Channel After Outcry
- Suppressing Customer Reviews Leads to $25 Million Judgment
- Few people shared fake news in 2016 election, but seniors shared the most
- And Now Professional Sports Teams Are Cutting The Cable Cord, Too
- Netflix sued for trademark infringement by ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ publishers
- Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Leads to “Choose Your Own Adventure” Trademark Lawsuit
- Netflix Is About to Cost You More Money
- Netflix Announces Biggest Subscription Price Hike To Date
- Millions of customers will now pay more for Netflix—here’s how much
- Netflix reveals Space Force comedy series before Trump gets real thing approved
- Hulu Stealth Drops Fyre Fest Documentary Featuring Interview With Founder Billy McFarland
- Gillette’s New Ad Addressing Toxic Masculinity Met With 400,000 Dislikes, Vitriol From YouTube Users
- Massively-Viewed K-Pop Videos Temporarily Pulled From YouTube After False Copyright Claims
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 1/13/2019
- YouTube will “ramp up” enforcement of its policies against dangerous challenges and pranks
- YouTube updates policies to explicitly ban dangerous pranks, challenges
- YouTube Bans Stunts Like Particularly Risky ‘Bird Box,’ Tide Pod Challenges In Updated Guidelines
- Jake Paul’s ‘Bird Box Challenge’ Video Yanked From YouTube Following Backlash
- Logan Paul Half-Apologizes For Saying He Wanted To Try Being Gay For 1 Month
- The First Dumb Meme Accident of 2019 Is Here
- “Ghost guns,” underage sex, and the First Amendment: Defense Distributed’s legal saga: Legal turmoil for company rolls on as Cody Wilson faces felony charges for sex with a minor.
- Family-Friendly YouTube Stars ‘ACE Family’ Under Fire After Father Shown Buying Child A Phallic Lollipop
- YouTube Clarifies Policies On How Profanity Impacts Monetization
- YouTube Allows Disney Nerds to Relive Extinct Theme Park Attractions
- YouTube Boomers Show #Vanlife Isn’t Just For Millennials
- “Baby Shark” Enters Billboard Hot 100 Largely Thanks To Viral YouTube Views
- YouTube Axes Ability To Automatically Share Video Uploads, ‘Likes’ On Twitter
- YouTube Piloting Blue Tags Under Videos That Help Filter Recommendations
- YouTube Officially Rolls Out Swipe-To-Advance Navigation On iOS App
- NBCUniversal set to launch standalone streaming service in 2020
- NBCUniversal Announces Streaming Service To Launch 2020, Puts Exec Bonnie Hammer In Charge Of Development
- NBCU Crafts Bluprint For A New Kind Of Influencer
- Social Influencers are not immune from advertising codes and laws – Ads must be identified as Ads
- Twitch Suspends Smash Bros. Streamer For Drunkenly Passing Out On Camera
- Nike To Unveil Latest Shoe Launch On Twitch
- CAA Signs Twitch Streamer Dr DisRespect As It Builds Out Gaming Roster
- Studio71 launches talent management company
- Machinima Creators Just Got A Letter Telling Them That They’re Now Part Of Fullscreen
- ‘DaddyOFive’ Parents’ Sentences Reduced Despite Allegations They Broke Court Order, Continued To Vlog Children
- Bird Scooter tried to censor my Boing Boing post with a legal threat that’s so stupid, it’s a whole new kind of wrong
- Bird tries to forcibly remove Boing Boing’s story detailing how to hack and keep its scooters
- Bird Issues ‘Chilling’ Legal Threat After Boing Boing Publishes Blog on E-Scooter Hack
- Scooter Company Bird Sends Absolutely B.S. Copyright Threat Letter To Cory Doctorow For Reporting On Modifying Scooters
- EFF flips Bird the bird, says Boing Boing post doesn’t violate copyright law – EFF: Bird’s legal demand to take down recent Cory Doctorow post is “meritless.”
- Scooter startup Bird tried to silence a journalist. It did not go well.
- Bird to Boing Boing: We’re sorry about sending you a legal-demand letter
- The Internet is Facing a Catastrophe For Free Expression and Competition
- Hulu Is Rolling Out Performance-Based Measurement for Brands: The streaming service is working with ‘several’ partners on the offering
- UX rant: The nightmare horrorshow that is the Apple TV remote
- Vietnamese Government Whines Facebook Isn’t Helping It Censor Critics Quickly Enough
- Facebook-executive swatting sends significant police response to his home
- Facebook brings stricter ads rules to countries with big 2019 votes
- Barstool Sports Shuts Down Comment Section, Silencing Its Most Loyal Racists
- The best PCs, gadgets, and future tech of CES 2019
- Man says CES lidar’s laser was so powerful it wrecked his $1,998 camera
- Remember when Bill Gates challenged Slash to Guitar Hero? 13 years of Ars at CES
- This Sad Booth Is a Metaphor for CES This Year
- The Totally Unofficial CES 2019 Meta Awards
- IBM’s New AI System Can Compose Logical Arguments: Next thing we know, it’ll be arguing in the comment section.
- AI can diagnose some genetic disorders using photos of faces
- Artificial Intelligence, collaboration with online platforms and tackling the ‘Wild West’: How the ASA plans to make its impact online over the next 5 years
- Litigating intellectual property issues: The impact of AI and machine learning
- New Robot Dogs Can Deliver Your Lunch Right to Your Desk
- Blythe Masters and the End of a Blockchain Era
- Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Real Implications of Blockchain in the Legal Industry (Justin Evans)
- Okay, This Argument for 8K TVs Is Kinda Convincing
- Etch a Sketch lives on in browser-based Chrome Labs project
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 6 (IP, E-Commerce, Censorship, & More) (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- Jury Orders Mongols Biker Club to Forfeit Its Logo, the ‘Holy of Holies’
- The Rock says that “generation snowflake” interview was “100 percent fabricated,” totally fake
- UQAM co-op excludes white comedian from shows because of his dreadlocks: Zach Poitras was barred from performing at the Snowflake Comedy Club and the Soirée d’humour engagée.
- Must Universities Shut Down Constitutionally Protected Speech Forums That Also Enable Student Harassment? (Eric Goldman)
- Federal Court Says Iowa’s Ag Gag Law Is Unconstitutional
- Turkish Court Jails Journalist For Telling The Truth About A Politician’s Offshore Tax Shelter
- Immoral and Scandalous Trademarks: If They Can Be Registered, What Does It Mean For Other Prohibitions on Registration?
- Software patents poised to make a comeback under new patent office rules
- ASA ruling on Coral national press ad
- ASA announces that from June harmful gender stereotyping in adverts will be banned
- Aloha, Copyright Infringement
- The Crown Jewels: How to Protect Your Jewelry Designs
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Why So Secret?: Government’s Communications Law Panel Plans to Keep Public Submissions Under Wraps for Months (Michael Geist)
- All About the Internet: My Submission to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel on the Future of Canadian Communications Law (Michael Geist)
- Ajit Pai gives carriers free pass on privacy violations during FCC shutdown
- Ajit Pai Refuses To Brief Congress On What He Plans To Do About Wireless Location Data Scandals
- T-Mobile CEO, execs stay at Trump hotel while lobbying Trump administration
- AT&T’s Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors
- AT&T defends misleading “5G” network icons on 4G phones
- AT&T Execs Think It’s Really Funny They Misled Consumers About 5G Availability
- Verizon Promises Not To Over-Hype 5G, Immediately Proceeds To Over-Hype 5G
- Verizon charges new “spam” fee for texts sent from teachers to students
- Frontier Hammered By Minnesota AG For Its Refusal To Repair Its Broadband Network
- FCC asks court for delay in case that could restore net neutrality rules
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Vizio Admits Modern TV Sets Are Cheaper Because They’re Spying On You
- Employee Falls for Fake Job Interview Over Skype, Gives North Korean Hackers Access to Chile’s ATM Network: Report
- Feds forcing mass fingerprint unlocks is an “abuse of power,” judge rules
- Federal Judge Says Compelling People To Unlock Phones With Their Fingerprints/Faces Violates The 5th Amendment
- Five Companies Settle Privacy Case With NY AG Over Apps
- Nine defendants charged in SEC hacking scheme that netted $4.1 million
- California Regulates Internet of Things
- An Ounce of Prevention: Responding to California’s New Privacy Law
- Government Shutdown Means Government Website Security Certs Aren’t Being Renewed
- FBI Officially Has A Leak Investigation Unit
- DOJ Indictment Alleges Theft of Hundreds of Gigabytes of Corporate and Government Data in Attacks Targeting Managed Service Providers
- Directors and Officers Settle Over Yahoo Hack: A New Chapter in Derivative Litigation?
- Hack Brief: An Astonishing 773 Million Records Exposed In Monster Breach
- Google Play starts manually whitelisting SMS and phone apps
- Artificial Intelligence vs. the Hackers: Machine-learning algorithms watch hackers’ behavior and adapt to their evolving tactics.
- The U.S. Government Has Amassed Terabytes of Internal WikiLeaks Data
- New ransomware rakes in $4 million by adopting a “big game hunting” strategy
- A DNS hijacking wave is targeting companies at an almost unprecedented scale
- 2019: The Push For Bad Faith, Loophole-Filled Privacy Legislation Begins
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 5 (Privacy, Advertising, Consumer Reviews) (Eric Goldman)
Jon
News of the Week; January 9, 2019
GAMES
- Bethesda resolves copyright lawsuit against Westworlddevs
- Bethesda, Behaviour Interactive resolve copyright infringement dispute: Lawsuit over similarities between Fallout Shelter and Westworld game settled “amicably”
- Challenges in Filing Successful IPR Petitions for Video Game Patents
- Supercell Oy v. Gree, Inc. (December 17, 2018 Patent Trial and Appeal Board, USPTO)
- A Patent on Games? No Dice.
- In Re: Marco Guldenaar Holding B.V. (December 28, 2018, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit)
- Japan has made reselling digital game keys illegal without creator’s permission
- Reselling game keys now illegal in Japan: Updated law also forbids save modding, punishment ranges from ¥5 million fine to five years in jail
- “Not enough evidence” that screen time is harmful to children: UK’s first screen time guidance report recommends parents manage gaming and TV sessions based on kids’ individual needs
- Splash Damage is cutting monetization from its free-to-play game Dirty Bomb
- Gris trailer rejected from Facebook for being ‘sexually suggestive’
- Facebook rejects Gris ad for “sexually suggestive” content: “First of all, she’s a statue and second, absolutely no nudity is shown in that photo,” says Devolver Digital
- Facebook Rejects GRIS Launch Trailer For Being Sexually Suggestive When It Clearly Is Not
- Star Control makers defend DMCA takedown against Star Control: Origins
- Star Control creators defend DMCA takedown notice against Stardock: Creators claim Star Control: Origins is “substantially similar to and/or derivative of” their copyrighted work
- Who Owns That Dance Move?
- Eugen Systems says devs were fired for ‘misuse of tools,’ not strike participation
- Eugen responds to accusation of retaliatory firings: Steel Division developer says dismissals unrelated to last year’s strike, were due to use of “a professional tool for an inappropriate purpose”
- Twitch Re-Bans Creator Who Briefly Returned To Platform After Alleged Mid-Stream Assault
- Games now account for over half of entire UK entertainment market
- Bonnie Ross: “Diversity attracts diversity” – 343 Industries boss on the need to present technology as a creative field to more young women and minorities
- CVAA accessibility rules come into effect for games as FCC waiver expires
- New games must comply to accessibility guidelines after FCC waivers expire: Requirements affect in-game communications and related UI
- Tattoos, avatars and copyrights – a whole new world
- Sony just acquired the gaming industry’s biggest audio toolset
- Sony Interactive Entertainment to acquire Wwise owner Audiokinetic
- A New Game Console Is On The Way To Compete With PlayStation And Xbox: Exact specs haven’t been confirmed yet.
- Slightly Mad developing standalone, VR-supportive console: Project Cars 2 studio says The Mad Box will ship in about three years, won’t court exclusives
- Slightly Mad CEO shows off Mad Box concept designs: Ian Bell asserts studio isn’t making a “stinking black slider” as he touts colorful designs, handles, and light weight
- What happens when you turn a studio upside down?: How everyone at Supercell, from new developers to CEO Ilkka Paananen, ensures the “creative people are running the show” at the studio behind Brawl Stars
- Enduring and recovering from the long development of At the Gates
- Don’t Miss: Bury Me, My Love and the emotional rollercoaster of making a video game
- Rooster Teeth Announces First Original IP Video Game, ‘Vicious Circle’
- “TV doesn’t trust games enough”: Go 8 Bit creator Steve McNeil discusses why broadcasters still struggle to embrace the power of video games
- Ubisoft goes Steam-less, embraces Epic Games Store for The Division 2
- The Division 2 is skipping Steam in favor of the Epic Games Store
- Moving platforms forward in an Epic Games world: Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch explains the NBA Playgrounds studio’s decision to go in early on Epic’s new store
- Steam data shows VR ownership doubled in 2018 — to 0.8% of users
- Valve data shows PC VR ownership rose steadily in 2018
- Number of Steam users with VR headsets almost doubled in 2018: But still only represents 0.8% of leading marketplace’s total audience
- Steam now supports social media links on Store pages
- Valve dished out a record 600k VAC bans after CS:GO went free-to-play
- Half-Life and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw returns to Valve: Wolpaw is back at the developer after departing less than two years ago
- Blog: Side hustling advice from full time game devs
- NVIDIA Claims 4 Million PC VR Headsets Sold
- The Vive Pro Eye Is the Next Big Step for VR
- HTC unveils two new standalone VR headsets
- One of the Biggest Names in Home Fitness is Making a VR Exercise Bike
- UK video games market is now 80% digital: However, 75% of AAA game sales are physical
- Let people know what they’re buying – A New Year’s resolution for gaming: For 2019, companies should commit to giving customers what they need to make an informed purchasing decision
- All 14 Days of Fortnite challenges return following end date mix-up: Partial progress has been reset, though.
- Fortnite sees best month on iOS yet in December: Final month of 2019 saw 83% month-over-month revenue increase to nearly $69 million
- The British Army needs “binge gamers”, “snow flakes” and “me me me millennials”
- Nintendo Officially Shoots Down Bowsette
- Nintendo open to moving away from home consoles, says company president
- Super Smash Bros and PlayStation gift cards dominate Amazon 2018 chart: Switch and PS4 come out top at US retailer
- PlayStation 4 sales have exceeded 91.6 million units worldwide
- PS4 sales reach 91.6 million worldwide: Spider-Man sales pass nine million
- Marvel’s Spider-Man has sold over 9 million copies worldwide
- God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man among Writers Guild award nominees
- Cory Barlog on rebooting God of War: ‘We don’t just want to erase the past’
- Hobbyists resurrect Kojima’s “lost” game P.T. as a free PC download
- Report: Nexon founder looking to sell controlling stake for $8.9 billion
- Nexon founder reportedly preparing to sell controlling share in company: Kim Jung-ju’s 98.64% stake, worth an estimated $9 billion, may soon be on the table for companies such as Tencent or Netmarble
- Square Enix president promises year of “aggressive expansion” overseas: Publisher will relaunch dormant Indian subsidiary and look to work with Chinese developers and publishers
- Robot Entertainment closing servers for Orcs Must Die! Unchained and Hero Academy games
- Robot Entertainment to shut down Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy games: Studio says it was running games “at a financial loss” for months, will focus on future titles
- Update: Fired Activision Blizzard CFO Joins Netflix
- Activision Blizzard appoints company veterans as new divisional presidents
- Pokemon Go dev Niantic secures $190 million investment
- Niantic closes out $190m investment round: Follows on from year which saw Pokémon Go grow 35% and generate nearly $800 million revenue
- Second Dinner grabs Marvel partnership and $30M investment for inaugural game
- Second Dinner raises $30 million for upcoming Marvel game: NetEase partnership helps fund licensed IP as team moves into Irvine office space
- Conan Exiles dev Funcom acquires majority stake in Zona Paradoxal
- Paradox acquires Prison Architect franchise from Introversion
- Old School Runescape mobile downloads hit 5m: Long-standing MMO makes strong start on iOS and Android
- Video: Making games better with psychology, theUncharted way
- Video: How to encourage cooperative behavior during co-op play
- Unity opens $25k contest for in-dev games with meaningful impact
- Super League Gaming proposes IPO: Amateur esports platform prepares to raise up to $25 million to fund its aspirations
- Overwatch Team Says Player Questioned About Identity Was Impostor After All
- Overwatch Fan’s Letter To Jeff Kaplan About Black Women Gets Heartfelt Response
- Tales of an aging gamer: Why don’t I pick up a controller as often as I used to?: We keep getting older, the games stay the same (and science backs that up).
- Blog: Four ways my video game habits changed in 2018
- Opinion: Here’s what 2019 will be like for the game biz
- 10 Big Video Game Rumors Going Into 2019
- The Sims is integrating with Amazon Alexa devices
- Red Dead Redemption 2 leads list of GDC 2019 Choice Awards nominees!
- Black Mirror’s ‘Bandersnatch’ was loosely inspired by a cancelled game
- Video: A classic postmortem of Bejeweled
- Berlin museum opens exhibition exploring the queer history of games
DIGITAL
- Court: Politicians who block citizens on social media violate 1st Amendment
- Please don’t repeat these things WikiLeaks says you can’t say about Assange [Updated]
- Irony Alert: Wikileaks Sends Reporters A List Of 140 Things Not To Say About Julian Assange; Tells Them Not To Publish
- Copyright, Culture, Sharing, Remix… And A Congresswoman Dancing As A College Student
- Lawsuit Accuses Weather Channel App of Misleading Users and Profiting From Their Location Data
- Lawsuit: Weather Channel illegally shared user location data with advertisers
- T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T still selling your location data, report says
- City Attorney of Los Angeles Sues Popular Weather App Claiming Deceptive Collection and Sharing of Geolocation Data
- Another Day, Another Massive Cellular Location Data Privacy Scandal We’ll Probably Do Nothing About
- Fifth Circuit Says Apple Can’t Be Held Liable For A Car Crash Caused By Someone Reading Text Messages
- Court of Appeal invalidates Uber’s arbitration clause
- New App Allows Users to Create “Binding Video Contracts”
- IP and social media — a guide for content creators and meme sharers
- Apple Stock Price Plunges After Earnings Warning
- Apple stock plummets 8% on news of grim Q1 2019 outlook
- The $450 billion wipeout: Apple’s value has fallen by more than Facebook’s entire worth in 3 short months
- What Happened the Last Time Apple Had a Panic This Bad
- Tim Cook points at new services and health-tech propelling Apple’s future
- Apple Admits The Obvious: User Repairs Harm The Bottom Line
- Apple’s Snuck Its Way Into LG’s 2019 Televisions
- Qualcomm forces Apple to stop selling iPhone 7 and 8 in Germany
- Report: Huawei punishes employees behind embarrassing iPhone tweet
- Controversial Mystery Box Website Responds To Criticism From The YouTube Community
- Brands warned over legal issues on alleged “scam” gambling platform MysteryBrand
- Despite Losing Its Copyright Case, The State Of Georgia Still Trying To Stop Carl Malamud From Posting Its Laws
- Amazon is the most valuable public company in the world after passing Microsoft
- Microsoft is helping America’s largest grocery chain fight off Amazon: Microsoft and Kroger unite to ‘redefine grocery retail’
- Microsoft, Kroger team up to fight Amazon with high-tech grocery stores
- NFL launches voice-powered football guide for Amazon Alexa
- Amazon’s latest advertising play involves free samples delivered right to your door
- Google boasts 1 billion Assistant devices—10x Amazon Alexa’s install base
- Amazon attempts less-creepy delivery by placing packages in your garage
- Instagram now lets you post to multiple accounts at the same time
- TCL to Launch First Roku 8K TVs This Year
- I Was Over 8K TVs Before They Even Happened
- UK Court: Guy Who Didn’t Write Defamatory Tweet Needs To Pay $50,000 In Damages Because The Guy Who Did Doesn’t Have Any Money
- Texas indicts Cody Wilson on multiple counts of sexual assault of a minor: Advocate of 3D printed guns faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
- Almost $500,000 in Ethereum Classic coin stolen by forking its blockchain
- EU’s First Attempt At Building A List Of Evil Pirate Sites… Lists Non-Infringing Sites
- Netflix Stock Rises After Five Golden Globes Wins, Upbeat Analyst Subscriber Estimates
- Netflix Cautions Viewers Against Participating In Blindfolded ‘Bird Box’ Challenge
- Netflix And Amazon Have Another Good Golden Globes Year, Winning With Roma, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
- Bandersnatch: The spoiler-filled, choose-your-own-opinion review
- Blog: What Bandersnatch teaches about the illusion of choice
- Hulu Tops 25 Million Subscribers, Claims Nearly $1.5 Billion in 2018 Ad Revenue
- Hulu Hits 25 Million Total Subscribers, $1.5 Billion In Ad Revenues In 2018
- FouseyTube Updates Fans After Manic Episode Triggered Months-Long Social Media Absence
- RTL Group to acquire Yospace in €29m deal
- Machine learning can offer new tools, fresh insights for the humanities: From the French Revolution to the history of the novel, Big Data makes its mark.
- Insights: Six Marketing Trends Facing Influencers In 2019
- KSI And Logan Paul Want To Cut Down On Pirated Views Ahead Of Their Boxing Rematch
- YouTube Age-Restricts, Demonetizes Jake Paul’s ‘Bird Box’ Challenge Video That Sees Him Driving Blindfolded
- YouTube Expands Coachella Partnership, Will Exclusively Live-Stream Both Weekends of Music Fest
- Publishers are mostly recycling YouTube videos for IGTV
- YouTube Has Repaired Bug Causing Algorithm To Recommend Unrelated Videos
- Fla. App. Court (3rd DCA) Holds Monthly Text Messages with Link to Terms of Service Sufficient to Compel Arbitration
- HQ Trivia Has Clocked $10 Million In Ad Revenues To Date
- Twitter Renews BuzzFeed’s ‘AM To DM’ Morning News Stream Through 2019
- Twitter to Live-Stream NBA Games — Featuring a Camera Feed of a Single, Fan-Voted Player
- Twitter Inks Deal To Offer Single-Camera, Single-Player Livestreaming Of NBA Matches
- The Laws of AI and Machine Learning
- Coding, algorithms, and common law
- Artificial Intelligence, Affordances and Fundamental Rights (Christoph Graber)
- Our obsession with taking photos is changing how we remember the past
- Can America Really Have High Speed Internet for All?
- Early Predictions of the Internet Date Back to 19th Century Sci-Fi
- An Overview of the United States’ Section 230 Internet Immunity (Eric Goldman)
- Three Painful Truths About Social Media (Ronald Deibert)
- 404 Page Not Found: The internet feeds on its own dying dreams
CREATIVITY
- New York Times Moves To Dismiss Joe Arpaio’s Defamation Lawsuit By Pointing Out It’s Impossible To Defame Him
- Beach bodies, adverts and gender stereotypes: CAP to ban harmful gender stereotyping in advertising
- January 1, 2019: If you have not thought about the copyright public domain for a while, maybe this is a good time to do so
- The Enrichment of the Public Domain
- Public Domain Day Grants A *Very* Happy New Year for Bookworms
- Copyrighted Works Added to the Public Domain for the First Time This Millennium
- Top 3 Predictions for Copyright in 2019
- Counterpoint: Maybe Athletes Should Rush To The Trademark Office… If They Play For Teams Like The Dallas Mavericks
- Pooey Puitton Proactively Sues The S— Out Of Louis Vuitton
- Deal or no deal – what happens to my intellectual property rights after Brexit?
- The Refreshing Earnestness of Last December’s Blockbuster Genre Movies
- Everybody Loses After Metal Band And Photographer Get Pissy Over Photographer’s Copyright Threat
- Photographer Licenses Photo To Shutterstock, Is Shocked When It Plays Out Exactly How Everyone Would Imagine
- 2019 Is the Year of the Pop Culture Finale
- They’re dead to us: The Ars Technica 2019 Deathwatch
- Patently False: The Delaware Chancery Court Dissolves Limited Liability Company Founded on False Claims of Patent Ownership
- E-signatures: is the law catching up with technology?
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright) (Eric Goldman)
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks) (Eric Goldman)
- 2H 2018 Quick Links, Part 3 (Keyword Advertising) (Eric Goldman)
- Jamie Lee Curtis Agrees: The Golden Globes Viral Fiji Water Girl Was ‘Blatant Promotion’
- We Need to Keep Laughing: There has never been a more darkly comic person to occupy the White House.
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- More Steps Needed: Government Commissioned Report Shows Canadian Wireless Pricing Remains Among Highest in the Developed World (Michael Geist)
- Celebrating High Wireless Prices: Telus-Backed Report Claims Comparing Consumer Costs for Wireless Services is “Meaningless” (Michael Geist)
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation – 2018 Year in Review
- The lies Comcast allegedly told customers to hide full cost of service
- Towns And Cities Keep Ditching Comcast To Build Their Own Broadband Networks
- Report: AT&T plans layoffs despite claiming tax cut would create 7,000 jobs
- AT&T decides 4G is now “5G,” starts issuing icon-changing software updates
- Verizon’s 5G promise: It won’t falsely claim 4G phones are really 5G
- Envious of 5G hype, cable cos. unveil potentially confusing “10G” trademark
- Cable Industry Hypes Phony ’10G’ When 5G Isn’t Even Available Yet
- Cable’s Response To Surging Streaming Competition? More Price Hikes
- Frontier letting its phone network fall apart, state investigation finds
- The Ajit Pai FCC Often Battles FOIA Requests For No Reason, Showcasing Its Hostility To Transparency
- Ajit Pai Gloats As House Fails To Restore Net Neutrality
- FCC Shuttered, Ajit Pai Forced To Cancel CES Trip Because The US Government Is a Hot Mess
- 2019 Brings Another Wave Of Cable Programming Blackout Feuds Nobody Wants To Address
- No, BitTorrent’s Plan for Cryptocurrency-Fueled Speed Boosts Doesn’t Violate ‘Net Neutrality’
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone: T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track
- Student Confesses to Dumping the Data of Hundreds of German Politicians
- Kaspersky blew whistle on NSA hacking tool hoarder
- China Starts Using Facial Recognition-Enabled ‘Smart’ Locks In Its Public Housing
- The EU sheds light on the impact of the GDPR on Non-EU entities
- The Internet Giant’s Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People’s Private Lives… Not So Much
- Multistate Settles with Neiman Marcus Over 2013 Data Breach
- Americans Support Facial Recognition Tech – When It Works: The problem is it quite often doesn’t.
- This Facial Recognition App Remembers Names so You Don’t Have To: But experts are concerned about the privacy implications.
- Hot new trading site leaked oodles of user data, including login tokens
- Two More Cyber Attacks Reported – Ransomware Suspected at Several Major News Organizations and Hackers Threaten to Release 9/11 Insurance and Litigation Files
- A Closer Look at California’s New Privacy Regime: Two Critical Definitions
- Advocate General’s Opinion in Case C-507/17 Google v CNIL: Advocate General Szpunar proposes that the Court should limit the scope of the dereferencing that search engine operators are required to carry out to the EU (Court of Justice of the European Union)
- Privacy rights and ‘citizen journalists’
- If Your Privacy Is in the Hands of Others Alone, You Don’t Have Any (Doc Searls)
- 2018 the year in privacy
- Privacy and Cybersecurity Issues to Watch in 2019
Jon
News of the Week; January 2, 2019
GAMES
- Star Control: Origins pulled from sale following DMCA takedown notice
- Star Control creators block Origins release: Stardock denied injunction against Ford and Reiche’s DMCA notice, title removed from GOG and Steam
- Original Star Control creators deploy nuclear option against Stardock [Updated]
- China issues 80 new game licenses, Tencent not included
- China lifts a freeze on new video games but excludes its biggest player: It allows 80 new titles to be released but none from Tencent
- Tencent and Netease absent in first wave of China game approvals: 80 titles given the green light in December, but none from nation’s market leaders
- Creators Of Dance Moves Suing Creators Of Fortnite Over Copyright Infringement That Can’t Possibly Have Happened
- Moments of 2018: When Fortnite stopped everything for a butterfly
- Fortnite Dance, Potato Roll Recipe Clip Are BuzzFeed’s Most Viral Videos Of 2018
- BioWare co-founders inducted into the Order of Canada
- Rebellion’s Chris Kingsley receives OBE
- Rebellion co-founder Chris Kingsley to receive OBE
- Game Workers Unite working with devs from a dozen studios towards unionization
- Steel Division dev Eugen Systems fires six employees involved in pay dispute
- CIS region game devs hit with 7.4% decline in median salary last year: Women lost 10% of their salary as gender pay gap increased to $6,000
- Blizzard hopes linked Battle.net accounts will solve toxic Twitch chats
- Fired Activision Blizzard CFO picked up by Netflix as chief financial officer
- Activision Blizzard terminates CFO Spencer Neumann: Previous CFO Denis Durkin returns to position effective immediately
- Killing in the name of: The US Army and video games
- Video: Astronaut Scott Kelly teaches orbital mechanics with Kerbal Space Program
- Caltech scientists use DNA tiles to play tic-tac-toe at the nanoscale
- A bewildered, far-from-conclusive look at the state of public gaming in Tokyo
- Twitch Star DrLupo Raised $1.3 Million For St. Jude Children’s Hospital This Year
- PlayStation Classic Gets Huge Price Cut, Which Says A Lot
- Sony: Home of the Whopper – 10 Years Ago This Month – Kaz Hirai discovers heretofore unexplored levels of spin in promoting the PS3 as the global economic meltdown ripples through the industry
- Gumi Inc. acquires stake in blockchain game developer Double Jump.Tokyo: Investment follows launch of publisher’s $30 million blockchain fund in May last year
- Rami Ismail launches game-a-day collection Meditations: Free downloadable launcher will offer a different five-minute experience every day
- A game studio with zero hardware experience is building a VR-ready console
- Project Cars dev Slightly Mad Studios is working on a VR-friendly game console
- Valve Reveals Top Selling VR Games on Steam in 2018
- Valve shares data on Steam’s most popular game/controller pairings
- Steam rounds up 2018’s best sellers, top new releases, and more
- Ninja To Stream ‘Fortnite’ For 12 Hours On New Year’s Eve In Times Square
- Twitch Viewers Watched 226.85 Million Hours’ Worth Of Ninja’s Content This Year
- Pro-PewDiePie Printer Hacker Returns, Making 5,500+ Smart TVs, Google Devices Urge Users To Subscribe
- UK boxed software sales slip in 2018, but hardware is up: PS4 dominates the market, as Switch rises sharply
- Best of 2018: How Baldi’s Basics taps into the real horror of ’90s edutainment
- Best of 2018: The Heartbeat Symposium – Exploring love, sex, and intimacy in games
- Eurogamer’s game of the year 2018 is Tetris Effect
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2018: The top 10 game developers of the year
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2018: The top 10 games of the year
- Best of 2018: Gamasutra’s top games, devs, events and trends
- What is the industry looking forward to in 2019?: Most anticipated games, sporting victories, disruption, innovation and more on leaders’ wishlists
- What lies ahead? Analysts make 2019 predictions: Industry watchers assess the likelihood of new console hardware, the growth potential of streaming, AR or esports breakthroughs, and more
DIGITAL
- Ninth Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Clayborn v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Jake Paul, RiceGum Called Out For Promoting Mystery Box ‘Gambling’ Site To Kids
- Antipiracy Outfits Routinely Claim Copyright Infringement Against Sites That Simply Report When Torrents Are Released
- Jack Black’s YouTube Channel Nabs 2.5 Million Subscribers In Less Than Two Weeks
- Jack Black Launches YouTube Channel, Nabbing 600,000 Subscribers In 5 Days
- Pentatonix, Mariah Carey, ‘Frozen’ Top YouTube’s Top 10 Christmas Songs Of 2018
- Famebit, YouTube’s Influencer Marketing Platform, Says It Can Measure Organic Views Like They’re Ads
- MrBeast Has Given Away $1 Million On His Ascent To Digital Stardom: “YouTube Pays Better Than You Think”
- YouTube Science Star Mark Rober Apologizes After Unwittingly Including Fake Footage In Viral Glitter Bomb Video
- YouTube Apologizes For Repurposing Creator’s Video Without Credit In Corporate Tweet
- Facebook’s worst year ever is now over. Here’s how its scandals affected the stock: After a year of scandals, Facebook’s stock ended the year lower than the previous one for the first time since its debut on the public market in 2012 – The stock tanked 25
- Trump may ban U.S. companies from buying Huawei tech: report
- UK defense minister admits ‘grave concerns’ over Huawei 5G equipment
- China releases Canadian teacher but others still held in Huawei row
- An App That Does Your Homework For You Is Now Worth $3 Billion
- Disney World Fans Demand Justice for Animatronic Robot Robbed of His Hands and Clothes
- LinkedIn Co-Founder Apologizes for the Mess He’s Made
- Big Tech’s net loss: How governments can turn anger into action (Taylor Owen)
- UK Cops Have Decided Impolite Online Speech Is Worth A Visit From An Officer
- It Is Both Ridiculous And Dangerous To Make Domain Registrars Liable For Content On Domains
- Iranian Government To Ban Instagram, Citing National Security Concerns
- Oh God What Did They Just Do to Instagram [Updated]
- Instagram Swipes Back On Horizontal Test After It Deploys To More Users Than Expected
- Instagram Network Doing Things Acquires Three New Accounts, Boosting Follower Base To 33 Million
- FTC Warns of Sketchy Netflix Phishing Scam Asking for Payment Details
- Netflix Pulls American TV Episode in Saudi Arabia That Criticizes Khashoggi Murder and Silicon Valley Investment
- Saudi Arabia Discovers The Streisand Effect; Gets Netflix To Take Down Hasan Minhaj’s Show About MBS’s Atrocities
- Black Mirror creators broke Netflix’s script writing tool with Bandersnatch
- Netflix’s Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Film ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Has More Than 1 Trillion Potential Story Arrangements
- Netflix’s Bandersnatch Teases The Future Of Entertainment
- The Hidden Beauty of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’s Best Ending
- That New Black Mirror Interactive Film From Netflix Doesn’t Work on Apple TV
- Netflix is curbing a $256 million revenue stream for Apple by circumventing iTunes billing
- Netflix delivers a blow to Apple’s services story by ending in-app subscriptions
- Apple Reveals It Underestimated Challenges in China, Revises Guidance for Holiday Quarter
- The Silver Lining In Apple’s Very Bad iPhone News
- Apple’s Stock Decline Is Bringing Out All of the Opinions
- Judge Approves $20.4 Million Attorneys’ Fee Award in Continuing Dish Network Saga
- Millions Upon Millions Of ‘Takedown’ Notices To Google… For Links That Aren’t Even In Google
- Google is Reportedly Rolling Out a Feature to Fight Spam in Your Texts
- Microsoft closes out 2018 as the top public company
- Why Copyright Will Be The Biggest Issue For Youtube In 2019
- How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually.
- There’s Something Sinister Afoot In Macaulay Culkin’s Yule Log Video
- The Unlikely Origins of the First Quantum Computer
- The hype around driverless cars came crashing down in 2018
- How Chip Makers Are Circumventing Moore’s Law to Build Super-Fast CPUs of Tomorrow
- The Ongoing Saga of the Florida Bar’s Angst About Competitive Keyword Advertising (Eric Goldman)
- CanLII Top Ten Accessed Cases from 2018
- Looking Back at 2018: My Top Ten Posts (Michael Geist)
- 35 years ago, Isaac Asimov was asked by the Star to predict the world of 2019. Here is what he wrote
- Technology, Ranked
CREATIVITY
- Mickey Mouse will be public domain soon—here’s what that means
- Announcing The Public Domain Game Jam: Gaming Like It’s 1923
- ‘Fake News’ Results In Real Jail Time For Ohio Woman
- Why does flat Earth belief still exist?: Our latest video looks at what can motivate people to believe the impossible.
- People adopt made-up social rules to be part of a group: It happens when the rule is useless and nobody will ever meet anyone affected by it.
- When a $1M+ Publicity Rights Damages Award Isn’t a Win–Olive v. GNC
- Students Make A Video Depicting A School Shooting; Sheriff Decides Everyone Needs To Have Their Rights Violated
- Thanks to higher resolution image, American Airlines has eventually managed to register its logo with the US Copyright Office
- 100 Year Old Trademarks In 2019
- Hopepunk, the latest storytelling trend, is all about weaponized optimism: In the era of Trump and apocalyptic change, Hopepunk is a storytelling template for #resistance – and hanging onto your humanity at all costs.
MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- CRTC Issues Guidance for Avoiding Indirect Liability for CASL Violations
- Minnesota AG Just The Latest To Ding Comcast For Shady Fees
- Ajit Pai thanks Congress for helping him kill net neutrality rules
- The FCC Is Closing, So Hold Your Cell Phone Service Gripes
- CBS Eyes Ditching Nielsen As Streaming, Cord Cutting Change The Game
- AT&T Attempts A Head Fake With ‘Fake 5G’
- Who is leading the 5G patent race?
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Google Photos Defeats Privacy Lawsuit Over Face Scans–Rivera v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Foreign Cyberattack Cripples Major U.S. Newspapers
- EFF Wins FOIA Lawsuit Against DEA, Forces The Release Of More Info About Its Hemisphere Program
- Personal Data of Nearly 1,000 North Korean Defectors Reportedly Stolen in Hack
- Indian Government Wants Tech Companies To Give Law Enforcement 24-Hour Access To User Data And Broken Encryption
- Once Again, GDPR Is A Potential Privacy Nightmare: Amazon Sends 1,700 Voice Recordings To The Wrong User In GDPR Request
Jon
gameindustry.biz 2018 Year in Numbers
Fantastic piece from gameindustry.biz on 2018 statistics for video-games. Article (with embedded link) and infographic below….
Jon
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