News of the Week; July 4, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Comments about Indigenous Women Breached Broadcast Codes, Says Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
  2. Talk Show’s Sexual Discussions Not Too Explicit, Says Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
  3. The Consequences of High Wireless Costs: OECD Data Confirms Canadians Lag Behind in Data Usage (Michael Geist)
  4. Effort To Save Net Neutrality Via Congressional Review Act Appears Stuck In Neutral
  5. Verizon Finally Puts Its Sad, Unloved Streaming TV Service to Rest
  6. Verizon To Shut Down Mobile-Friendly Video Platform Go90
  7. Verizon is shutting down its original video app Go90: Go90 died so Oath can live
  8. How Verizon Could Fix Its Streaming Video Strategy After Shutting Down Go90
  9. Comcast starts throttling mobile video, will charge extra for HD streams
  10. Fresh Off Its Merger, AT&T Jacks Up Price Of Streaming Video Service
  11. AT&T Begins Testing Its Power In The Wake Of Merger Mania & The Death Of Net Neutrality
  12. AT&T’s low-cost TV streaming service WatchTV goes live
  13. AT&T promised lower prices after Time Warner merger—it’s raising them instead 
  14. Internet TV packages are getting pricier — including AT&T’s
  15. How AT&T could use Time Warner shows and movies to compete with Disney and Netflix
  16. AT&T removed HBO from an unlimited data plan after buying Time Warner: AT&T alters unlimited plans and makes the cheapest one $5 more expensive. 

DIGITAL

  1. “Dancing Baby” lawsuit finally settles, baby is now a middle-school student: Universal says it now has a “fair and tempered process for… potential takedowns.”
  2. The Monkey Selfie Case Continues, But The Dancing Baby One Does Not
  3. California Court Not Yet Ready To Undermine The Entire Internet; Rules Yelp Can’t Be Forced To Delete A Review
  4. EFF Launches Lawsuit To Stop FOSTA/SESTA
  5. EFF sues to kill FOSTA, calling it “unconstitutional Internet censorship law”
  6. The “CREEPER Act” Would Be Yet Another Unconstitutional Law from Congress
  7. Facebook reveals it gave 61 companies access to widely blocked user data: Company tells Congress it provided Nike, Spotify, a dating app and other services with special rights to information
  8. Facebook Stock Drops on Report of Wider U.S. Probe of Cambridge Analytica Scandal
  9. How Facebook Punked and then Gut Punched the News Biz
  10. Facebook patent would turn your mic on to analyze how you watch ads: Application hints to proximity to a “broadcasting device” before your mic turns on.
  11. You Can Now See All The Ads Facebook Is Running Globally
  12. Facebook Creates a Process of Review for Previously-Banned Cryptocurrency Ads
  13. Facebook Will Once Again Allow Ads Promoting Cryptocurrencies
  14. Fig: Digital currency won’t be what makes blockchain go mainstream – Crowdfunding site’s head of blockchain strategy discusses the pitfalls and potential of decentralisation
  15. Digital token ruled a security under the Howey Test, for now
  16. Really dumb malware targets cryptocurrency fans using Macs
  17. The California Supreme Court Didn’t Ruin Section 230 (Today)–Hassell v. Bird (Eric Goldman)
  18. First Amendment Doesn’t Prevent Probationer Condition Restricting the Display of Illegal Activity on Social Media–In re Jawan S. (Eric Goldman)
  19. The Digest: Uganda Is Now Forcing Citizens to Pay a Tax to Use Social Media
  20. Copyright Industries Reveal Their Ultimate Goal: An Internet Where Everything Online Requires A License From Them
  21. Snapchat Partners With Kylie Jenner To Launch Ecommerce Capabilities For Influencers
  22. Snapchat Launches Augmented Reality Experiences in Disneyland, Universal Studios
  23. The Rise of CGI Influencers
  24. Instagram Stories Hits 400 Million Daily Users — More Than Twice As Many As Snapchat
  25. Instagram is reportedly testing a ‘questions’ feature for Stories
  26. Netflix Is No. 1 Choice for TV Viewing, Beating Broadcast, Cable and YouTube (Study)
  27. Sony tries to upload movie trailer to YouTube, posts entire movie instead
  28. Goofballs at Sony Accidentally Upload Entire Film to YouTube Instead of the Trailer
  29. Creators are making longer videos to cater to the YouTube algorithm
  30. Studio71 Brings YouTube Creators Into Podcasting World
  31. Michelle Phan’s Latest Startup Helps Creators Find Free Music For Their YouTube Videos
  32. YouTube Is Conducting ‘A Small Experiment’ With Auto-Generated Thumbnails, And Creators Aren’t Happy
  33. YouTube thumbnail experiment may impact millions of users, frustrating creators
  34. You Can Watch The Last 2018 World Cup Games On YouTube, Hulu, DirecTV
  35. YouTube Apologizes To LGBTQ+ Creators On Last Day Of Pride Month
  36. Google Is Investing in the Not-Quite-So-Smart Smartphone Market
  37. Defamation Update: Google under fire again
  38. Google researchers created an amazing scene-rendering AI: A neural network from Google’s DeepMind has impressive spatial reasoning skills.
  39. Google reveals how DeepMind AI learned to play Quake III Arena like a pro
  40. StyleHaul CEO Stephanie Horbaczewski Exits RTL-Owned Company: CFO Jeremiah Bates also leaving the fashion, beauty and lifestyle digital media company
  41. StyleHaul’s CEO Stephanie Horbaczewski And CFO Jeremiah Bates Have Left The Company
  42. Dwayne Johnson Teams With Fine Brothers Entertainment To Show Off His Action Movie Knowledge
  43. Social media follies: watch your step 
  44. Philo, A Skinny Bundle For Non-Sports Viewers, Raises $40 Million From AMC, Discovery, Viacom
  45. A Twitter Leak Scuttled An NBA Draft Day Trade This Year
  46. Twitter gets a re-org and new product head
  47. Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend
  48. Amazon Needs More Delivery Companies and Wants You to Start Them
  49. Amazon Makes $1 Billion Splash in Health Care, Buying PillPack
  50. Amazon buying online pharmacy with nationwide reach; drug store stocks dive
  51. IPG Confirms $2.3 Billion Deal to Acquire Data Marketing Company Acxiom
  52. The New DC Universe Streaming Service Will Bundle Superhero Comics and TV Shows All in One Place
  53. Why Adult Content Creators Are Mad at Patreon
  54. How The Startup Mentality Failed Kids In San Francisco: Huge contributions from tech titans, a STEM-packed curriculum, gadgets everywhere: Willie Brown Middle School was supposed to set the bar. Then it opened.
  55. The Delicate Art Of Creating New Emoji
  56. Hey New York Times, Welcome to Writing About Pop Culture on the Internet
  57. It Just Wasn’t Meant to Be, Batman
  58. New York Times Writer Regrets Spoiling Batman’s Wedding in Headline
  59. A Vows Feature Spoiled a Comic Book Ending, and You Weren’t Happy
  60. Mandatory Internet filtering and The War on Memes (Andres Guadamuz)
  61. EU Copyright Proposal That Would Destroy Internet Memes Being Protested With Internet Memes
  62. EU Parliament’s Legislative Affairs Committee Is Now Misleading Members Of Parliament In Effort To Fundamentally Alter The Internet
  63. Would you pay $700, plus a monthly fee, for a digital license plate?
  64. “Inventor of email” appeals ruling that tossed his libel suit against Techdirt
  65. 1990, meet 2018: How far does 20MHz of Macintosh IIsi power go today? 

CREATIVITY

  1. USPS Ordered to Pay $3.5 Million After Putting Artist’s Weird ‘Sexier’ Lady Liberty on Stamps
  2. Appeals Court Says You Can Copyright A Collection Of Facts… If You Leave Out A Few
  3. Owner of “Let’s Get It On” Copyright Sues Ed Sheeran for $100 Million
  4. DJ Khaled Files Suit to Protect Son’s Name
  5. Judge Dismisses Plagiarism Lawsuit Against The Girls Author Emma Cline
  6. Music Industry’s Nonsense ‘Myth Busting’ About EU’s Censorship Machines Is Basically Saying ‘Nuh-uh’ Repeatedly
  7. Latest Text Of EU Copyright Directive Shows It’s Even Worse Than Expected: Must Be Stopped
  8. NY Times, Winner Of A Key 1st Amendment Case, Suddenly Seems Upset That 1st Amendment Protects Conservatives Too
  9. Modernizing Canada’s Industrial Design Regime: Top 10 Changes
  10. Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 1: Trademarks and Other IP (Eric Goldman)
  11. Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 2: Copyright (Eric Goldman) 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Facebook patents ’emotion detecting’ selfie filters
  2. Facial recognition found Capital Gazette suspect among 10M photos
  3. Facial Recognition Company Says It Won’t Sell To Law Enforcement, Knowing It’ll Be Abused
  4. Judge slams Tacoma for not releasing stingray records
  5. NSA Extends Its Streak Of Surveillance Violations To Fourteen Years With Its Latest Announcement
  6. NSA: Sorry, Sorry, Trying to Delete
  7. California approves privacy rules opposed by ISPs and tech companies: Law will give people some control over collection and sale of private data.
  8. California Enacts Sweeping Consumer Privacy Law
  9. California Enacts Sweeping Privacy Law; Will Other States Follow?
  10. The Digest: California Cracks Down on the Companies Harvesting Your Data
  11. California Consumer Privacy Act Of 2018 –  GDPR Lite?
  12. Over 60 Organizations Want Sanctions For EU Nations’ Failure To Repeal ‘Invalid’ Data Retention Laws 
  13. A Bug in Samsung’s Default Texting App Is Sending Random Pics to Other People
  14. LTE wireless connections used by billions aren’t as secure as we thought

GAMES

  1. Bethesda Suing Warner Bros. For ‘Blatant Rip-Off’ Of Fallout Shelter
  2. Warner Bros. calls Bethesda lawsuit against Westworld game ‘baseless’
  3. Warner Bros is READY TO FIGHT over “Baseless Accusations”
  4. Warner Bros surprised by Bethesda’s “baseless accusation” in Westworld lawsuit: Publisher claims developer Behaviour Interactive has confirmed allegations are untrue
  5. Blog: The Westworld fallout – A discussion on work-for-hire
  6. In Contrast To PUBG’s Silliness, Bethesda’s Copyright Suit Against Warner Bros. Is All About Copyrightable Source Code
  7. We Hardly Knew Ye: PUBG Drops Lawsuit Against Epic Over Fortnite Similarities
  8. Ex-hatemonger confirms white supremacists recruit in Minecraft, Fortnite
  9. After initial refusal, We Happy Few granted R 18+ rating in Australia
  10. We Happy Few wins appeal for reclassification in Australia: After initial denial, game will see Australian release with a rating of R18+
  11. Roblox bans players who ‘gang raped’ a seven-year-old’s avatar: Developer stresses it has a “zero tolerance” policy for this behaviour as US mother complains about in-game assault
  12. Judge halves ZeniMax’s $500M Oculus payout, declines to block Rift sales
  13. Penalty in ZeniMax v. Oculus Reduced to $250M, Motion to Halt Headset Sales Rejected
  14. US Judge halves ZeniMax’s $500m win in Facebook Oculus legal battle: Also denies Bethesda parent’s request for sales ban on Rift headsets
  15. Bethesda implies Sony is preventing cross-play in Fallout 76
  16. Bethesda: “Sony is not as helpful as everyone would like” on cross-play – There will be no cross-play in Fallout 76, Todd Howard says – and Microsoft is not the problem
  17. EA Sports VP Daryl Holt on loot boxes: “Our model is sustainable” – Publisher’s sports division reacts to loot box controversy with disclosure of pack odds in FIFA Ultimate Team
  18. Amy Hennig, who was hired to make an EA Star Wars game, has left EA: Timeline of Hennig’s departure, full Star Wars game pivot is fleshed out in interview.
  19. French gambling regulator criticizes loot boxes, stops short of regulation: ARJEL refrains from fully defining loot boxes as gambling but will continue to investigate effect on consumers
  20. Leaks, riots, and monocles: How a $60 in-game item almost destroyed EVE Online
  21. International Olympic Committee to host esports forum: Representatives from the worlds of esports, gaming, and the Olympic movement will meet to discuss future collaboration
  22. Kotaku Compete shuts down: Esports coverage hub closes due to Univision budget cuts
  23. OpenAI teaching neural networks to compete with Dota 2 professionals: Team of five neural networks has already beaten multiple amateur human teams
  24. AI achieves “human-level performance” in Quake III Arena: Google’s DeepMind teaches AI to play competitively both with and against human players
  25. OpenAI to level up Dota 2 neural networks with live Twitch demo
  26. Twitch Prime’s “free game every day” for half of July adds up to a ton
  27. Forza Horizon 4’s stream-to-earn function is Microsoft’s latest attempt to push Mixer: Players will earn in-game currency purely by streaming their gameplay session to platform holder’s Twitch rival
  28. Microsoft is working on AI-driven, platform-level Xbox Live cheat detection
  29. Google reportedly planning streaming platform, gaming hardware: Rumored gaming initiatives could include developer partnerships or outright acquisitions
  30. Report: Google courting developers for coming game-streaming service – “Project Yeti” would also include game-focused hardware component.
  31. Blog: Changes to the Google Play Store are putting thousands of indie devs at risk
  32. Vlambeer’s Ismail sees promise in the hybrid of triple-A and indie dev
  33. Failbetter Games spearheads ‘Love Indies Week’ for elevating devs and communities
  34. 15 indie games highlighted in Smithsonian SAAM Arcade event
  35. Blog: 10 lessons from making 100 games in five years
  36. French startup Oh BiBi nets $21M to build out mobile shooter
  37. Fortnite mobile has half the downloads of PUBG, but five times the revenue: PUBG gains ground but can’t compete with Fortnite’s $92 million gross lifetime revenue
  38. Rash of Fortnite cheaters infected by malware that breaks HTTPS encryption
  39. Streaming platform devs take down Fortnite adware, chide Epic for not doing it itself
  40. Clash of Clans iOS players have spent over $4 billion: Popular mobile strategy game is the highest grossing iOS title over last nine years
  41. Our Uncertain Streaming Future: The idea of streaming games from the cloud was a hot topic again at E3 – but no matter how close to that ideal the tech is coming, the business case remains a mess
  42. 2K Games banks on Carnival Games to recreate Wii success on Switch: Multi-million selling mini-game franchise returns as efforts to attract a mainstream audience to Nintendo’s new console continue
  43. Super Mario Run surpasses $60m revenue after two years: Remains the lowest-earning Nintendo mobile game by a considerable margin
  44. Hollow Knight has sold over 250,000 copies on Switch
  45. Hollow Knight sold 250,000 in two weeks on Nintendo Switch: Lifetime sales of Team Cherry’s game now far exceed 750,000
  46. Switch version of Fox N Forests outsells PlayStation 4 by 4:1 – Director Rupert Ochsner – “[The] Switch is our best platform to date”
  47. Nintendo says the Switch is played as much docked as it is portably 
  48. Nintendo: Docked and undocked play time for Switch is “about even” – Online telemetry data varies heavily by individual game and player, though.
  49. Switch pirates don’t want you to pirate their piracy-enabling firmware: But anti-piracy hackers are hacking the piracy hack for themselves.
  50. Reggie Fils-Aime: ‘Vibrant’ 3DS remains a key part of Nintendo armory
  51. Reggie Fils-Aimé: The 3DS “continues to be a vibrant system” – Handheld console “absolutely” remains a focus of Nintendo, serving as a “gateway” to the Switch
  52. Shuntaro Furukawa has been officially appointed Nintendo president
  53. New Intellivision console will have all new games, all exclusives, disc controller: Company president Tommy Tallarico says console will cost “way under $200,” but release date is still far off
  54. Take-Two: “We don’t believe in Red Dead Redemption 2 success until we deliver it” – CEO Strauss Zelnick discusses expectations for Rockstar’s next epic and the publisher’s muted E3 presence
  55. NeverEnding Story: Ubisoft keen to move away from ‘finite’ experiences
  56. Ubisoft VP says company moving away from “finite experiences”: For games like Assassin’s Creed, line between content updates and sequels grows “fuzzier and fuzzier”
  57. Frontier: “We want to become a third-party publisher” –  CEO David Braben and CCO Jonny Watts on publishing, Tencent and the return of the British games industry
  58. Incoming Paradox CEO wants more acquisitions and mobile expansion
  59. Paradox turns its eye to M&A and mobile development: Incoming chief executive Ebba Ljungerud wants ten per cent of game sales to come form mobile by 2020
  60. Valve is working on its own ‘more accurate and more useful’ Steam Spy-like tools
  61. Valve working on “more accurate” replacement for Steam Spy’s sales data
  62. Steam Direct sees 180 game releases per week, over twice as many as Greenlight did
  63. Blog: The surprising effect of Steam Sales on non-discounted games
  64. Blog: Using achievement stats to estimate sales on Steam
  65. Amy Hennig: Atomised development, not crunch, will lead to games industry unions – The outspoken critic of crunch culture says it’s driven by passion, and it’s up the management to protect developers
  66. The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: Fighting Ageism, with Kate Edwards – Ex-IGDA director discusses how the industry is neglecting experienced professionals and ignoring new perspectives
  67. Pokemon Quest nets $3M in revenue during first week on mobile
  68. Pokémon Quest generates $3m in first week on mobile: Becomes No. 1 most downloaded free game on Japanese App Store
  69. Niantic acquires machine learning company Matrix Mill
  70. Niantic acquires Matrix Mill: Pokemon Go creator picks up computer vision start-up building neural networks to infer 3D models of surroundings from cameras
  71. Niantic previews AR tech designed to create ‘meaningful’ interactions
  72. Niantic Offers Tantalizing Peek at Upcoming AR Tech, Announces New Platform for Third-party Devs
  73. ISS Astronaut Uses Oculus Rift in Experiment to Understand How Space Effects Hand-eye Coordination
  74. Snapchat Is Reportedly Planning to Follow WeChat by Launching an In-App Gaming Platform
  75. Snapchat reportedly launching a gaming platform: Photo messaging app may already have one game publisher on board
  76. Second Life creator’s VR platform High Fidelity secures $35M investment
  77. High Fidelity Raises $35M Series D Financing to Further Develop Social Platform & Blockchain Tech
  78. Jonathan Blow: “C++ is a weird mess” – The Witness developer on his new programming language that could increase productivity by 50 to 80 per cent
  79. Will Wright’s Proxi Art Challenge Winners
  80. Breadcrumbs Interactive embraced Slavic folklore to find Yaga’s unique voice: The Romanian studio drew from the country’s culture for its debut, and won the Nordic Discovery Contest in the process
  81. Summer Games Done Quick raises record-breaking $2.1M for charity
  82. For The First Time, The Video Game Speedrunners Of Summer Games Done Quick Raise Over $2 Million
  83. Summer Games Done Quick raises $2.1m for Doctors Without Borders: Week-long charity speedrunning marathon brings organisation’s cumulative fundraising to over $16 million
  84. Making the most of voice talent: Voice actors talk about the challenges of working in games and share tips for getting the best possible performances out of them
  85. E3 2018 has GameStop “looking forward to an incredible Q4”: Leading retailer shares pre-order reactions to the biggest announcements, and how publishers will benefit from a wider spread of releases
  86. Resident Evil 2 Remake wins Best of Show at the E3 2018 Game Critic Awards: BioWare and Insomniac receive two awards apiece for Anthem and Spider-Man
  87. Remake of Resident Evil 2 wins ‘Best of E3’ from Game Critics Awards 
  88. Life is Strange: Before The Storm wins big at Games for Change Awards
  89. The best, craziest speedruns from this year’s Summer Games Done Quick
  90. Blog: A brief history of murder in Ultima Online
  91. 343 and Showtime team up to produce 10-episode Halo TV series
  92. Halo TV show going into production in early 2019: There were plans to make a Halo TV show as long ago as 2013.
  93. Halo TV series gets green light at Showtime: Cable network orders 10 episodes for series; Mind Games creator Kyle Killen named showrunner
  94. Immersion cited as top motivator for playing games

Jon

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