Tag Archives: Motherboard

Museums Can Now Legally Jailbreak Game Consoles, But Gamers Aren’t Allowed

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photo: Motherboard

If a publisher no longer supports a game, sometime the only way to keep it running is by bypassing its digital rights management (DRM), or hacking a game console, which was illegal until today. The law in video game historians’ way here was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) Section 1201, which makes circumventing technological protection measures (TPMs) illegal. The United States Copyright Office considers new exemptions from 1201 every three years as part of the DMCA rulemaking process, and on Tuesday it accepted many exemptions the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) asked for, including an exemption that now makes it legal to circumvent DRM for video games, with some important caveats. – Emanuel Maiberg, MOTHERBOARD

Legal Streaming Is Growing Faster than Torrenting Around the World

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For years, torrenting was the one of the few ways to easily and affordably get desirable content online, but no longer. Netflix has already overtaken BitTorrent in the US; as of last year, torrenting made up just five percent of all network traffic. Netflix took up more than 30 percent. The pattern appears to be repeating itself in Europe and Asia. – Jordan Pearson, MOTHERBOARD

Streaming Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Debut ‘Live’ Wasn’t Actually Live

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[I]f we’re going to switch to an a-la carte, streaming system for our television, as many people want to, it’s a point worth making. My MLB.tv package streams Orioles games slower than they actually happen—dozens of times this year, an excited or dejected text message, tweet, or Facebook post has ruined the thrill of “live” sports as some well-meaning friend or beat reporter had just told me the very near future. Differing internet speeds, web browsers, and plugin versions add to the streaming experience’s fickleness. – Jason Koebler, MOTHERBOARD

Teens to Netflix: We Already Like You, Stop Trying So Hard

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Logo: logos.wikia.com

Logo: logos.wikia.com

Netflix has long been tightlipped about its user demographics and has made no exceptions this week, but previous surveys have found teens and tweens watch less television overall, and tend to prefer short clips on YouTube, Vine, or streaming services to traditional TV. It can make them a tricky group to target given all of the other outlets competing for their attention, but [Erin Dwyer,Netflix] said Netflix doesn’t necessarily view these other platforms as competition. – Kaleigh Rogers, MOTHERBOARD

Will 5G Kill Free WiFi?

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By 2020, [Aicha Evans,Intel] declared, some 50 billion “things” will become connected: self-driving cars, traffic lights, smart-city sensor networks, personal drones, appliances, etc. “If it computes, it must connect,” she said. “Otherwise it might as well be a brick.” […] So, with networks all smeared together into one great big not-free network, what happens to the networks that are currently free? The question answers itself. Freeness will be consumed along with the networks themselves. “5G-for-all presents the opportunity to kill free WiFi and instead charge users for every data packet they send or receive, no matter which of the integrated communications technologies is used,” [R. Colin Johnson,EE Times] argues. – Michael Byrne, MOTHERBOARD

Facebook, Twitter, and Google Ask Hollywood to Stop Trying to Revive SOPA

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logo: MPAA

logo: MPAA

A recent effort to crack down on pirating sites that bears a striking resemblance to SOPA, a controversial anti piracy bill shot down in 2012, has drawn backlash from major tech companies Facebook, Google, Twitter, Tumblr, and Yahoo.

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a collective of six major Hollywood studios, previously filed an injunction that would require hosting sites to stop links to MovieTube, an online streaming site, and affiliated sites. – Kari Paul, MOTHERBOARD

(Full Story:http://ift.tt/1TqmEKU)

Watch Stephen Harper Convince Millennials He Is Not a Netflix-Hating Robot

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“I love movies and TV shows,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says flatly in a campaign video posted to Twitter last night, […] The prime minister’s facehole then creaks into a smile, assuring millennials around the country that his machine brain contains the empathy unit necessary for appreciating some good-ass digital content. And, of course, he staunchly opposes a “Netflix tax” that none of his opponents in the current election race have actually proposed. – Jordan Pearson, MOTHERBOARD

Connect Anonymously To Wi-Fi 2.5 Miles Away With This Device

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Proxyham is made of a Raspberry Pi computer with a Wi-Fi card, connected to three antennas, a Wi-Fi one that connects to the internet at a public space (think Starbucks or a public library) and a dual antenna that transmits at 900MHz, this is used to communicate and beam data back and forth with the user, who can be as far as 2.5 miles from the device, according to [Benjamin Caudill, Rhino Security Labs] – Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, MOTHERBOARD

uTorrent Is Installing a Program Could Blow Up Your Computer

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Packaged with the latest version of µTorrent is a program called Epic Scale, a surreptitious digital currency miner that secretly uses your computer’s processing power in order to make money for µTorrent and Epic Scale. There is a clause in Epic Scale’s policy that says its software might literally destroy your computer. […] An administrator for µTorrent confirmed that the program was, in fact, being installed on Windows machines, where it was generating Litecoin (which is similar to Bitcoin) and sending them back to µTorrent and Epic Scale. The program could be uninstalled, but only if you actually realized it existed in the first place. – Jason Koebler, MOTHERBOARD
(Full Story: http://ift.tt/1H8lsXM )

Comcast May Be Infringing Net Neutrality With Shady HBO Go Deals

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HBO Go just made its way to Playstation 4—except Comcast subscribers can’t get it. Customers have been complaining that they can’t watch HBO on their PS4, even though they pay for it—and there’s been no explanation from Comcast. […] This sort of blocking isn’t new. For Comcast subscribers, HBO doesn’t work on Playstation 3 and it also doesn’t work on the Amazon Fire streaming box. It didn’t work on Roku, an internet-connected streaming box, until December, after Roku filed a complaint with the FCC about it. For customers who use other service providers, such as Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T, HBO Go works fine on Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Roku, and every other streaming device. – Jason Koebler, MOTHERBOARD
(Full Story: http://ift.tt/1B8v2cx )
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