MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Consumer Groups Say FCC Deregulatory Fever Harming Hurricane Michael Recovery
- Ajit Pai killed rules that could have helped Florida recover from hurricane
- Ajit Pai, Telecom Lobbyists Are Now Coordinating Their Lies In Perfect Symmetry
- Entire broadband industry sues Vermont to stop state net neutrality law
- 3 states try to help the FCC kill net neutrality and preempt state laws
- Broadband Industry Sues Vermont For Daring To Protect Consumers, Net Neutrality
- CP24 re a news report about 4-20 and a panel discussion about the Ontario provincial election (CBSC Decision 17/18-1438)
- Turner Axes Super Deluxe Following AT&T’s Time Warner Acquisition
- T-Mobile CEO Insists New Merger Will Create Jobs, Competition. Wall Street, History Disagree.
- Big Bird Goes Digital: The FCC Undertakes to Modernize Children’s Television
- New Law Sets Up Federal-State Showdown Over Net Neutrality
- NY’s AG Is Trying To Tie Major ISPs To Those Bogus Net Neutrality Comments
DIGITAL
- This Week’s Bomb Scares Are A Perfect Misinformation Storm
- Twitter takes down more accounts affiliated with Alex Jones’s Infowars
- Twitter plays whac-a-mole with Alex Jones, suspends 18 linked accounts
- Bleacher Report’s House of Highlights Sets Twitter Live Talk Show Debut
- Uber vice president resigns after sexual misconduct allegations
- Microsoft making more of the Windows 10 built-in apps removable
- Microsoft’s problem isn’t how often it updates Windows—it’s how it develops it
- Microsoft posts a record $29.1 billion Q1. Same old, same old
- eBay is going to war with Amazon over an alleged scheme to steal business that is ‘startling in breadth’
- Why Netflix Features Black Actors In Promos To Black Users
- Rideshare and Chill? Lyft Introducing a Spotify/Netflix-Inspired Subscription Service
- Establishing an AI code of ethics will be harder than people think: Ethics are too subjective to guide the use of AI, argue some legal scholars.
- Novelists Have A Boring New Gimmick: Writing Dull Books With AI
- This Startup Is Paying Strangers To Train AI’s
- The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All
- Want to Keep Canadian AI Thriving?: Create a Copyright Exception for Informational Analysis (Michael Geist)
- New Roundup Ranks The World’s Robots By Creepiness
- An agnostic observation on machine-originated works and copyright
- How Alibaba Used Big Data To Dream Up A Peppercorn Snickers Bar
- The HTC Exodus Blockchain Phone Comes Into Focus
- Two Cryptocurrency Heavyweights Partner On A Dollar-Backed Stablecoin
- FinCEN warns of Iran using virtual currencies to bypass sanctions
- It’s Blockchain your Honour
- Why A Blockchain-based DRM Has Always Been A Terrible Idea
- Inside Facebook’s election war room: In a Menlo Park conference room, a global effort to fight misinformation comes together
- Facebook’s War Room Is Definitely Managing at Least One Crisis
- Facebook is using new software to identify and remove child nudity photos uploaded to the site
- Facebook May Buy A Cybersecurity Company To Prevent Another Major Hack
- SoundCloud now lets you share songs to Instagram Stories
- Hundreds of health crowdfunding campaigns are for sham treatments
- Instagram just surpassed Snapchat as the most used app among American teens, according to a new Wall Street survey
- Snapchat helped over 400,000 users register to vote: To combat historically low voter turnout
- Report: Amazon Tried To Sell Facial Recognition Tech To Ice
- Microsoft making more of the Windows 10 built-in apps removable
- Axios Ridiculously Calls For Newsrooms To Ban Journalists From Having Opinions Online
- Trump Wants to Borrow Tech Workers From Amazon, Google, and Microsoft: Report
- Google to charge Android OEMs as much as $40 per phone in EU
- Just As Expected: GDPR Has Made Google Even More Dominant In Europe
- Google to Remove Deceptive Travel Ads
- CEO Gets Nine Months In Prison For Forging Court Documents Ordering Google To Delist Negative Reviews
- YouTube CEO Calls on Creators to Rally Against EU Copyright Legislation
- GroupM: YouTube’s better at brand safety, but still has a ways to go
- YouTube partners with Eventbrite to sell concert tickets below music videos
- YouTube is investing $20M in educational content, creators: Including partnering with third-party studios and networks
- YouTube Invests $20 Million In Its ‘YouTube Learning’ Initiative To Support Creators, Launches Channel To Curate Educational Content
- Susan Wojcicki Says YouTube Update This Quarter Improved Monetization Icon Accuracy By 10%
- Susan Wojcicki Warns Article 13 Could Result In Shutdown Of Millions Of YouTube Channels In The EU
- Rihanna Tries Her Hand At Being A Beauty Vlogger In New YouTube Series
- David Dobrik, Casey Neistat, ‘Escape The Night’ Lead 2018 Streamys Nominees; Awards To Air Oct. 22 On YouTube
- YouTube Revamps Look Of Video Embeds, Adds New Shortcuts To Boost Channel Growth
- PewDiePie Decries YouTube’s Release Of Logan Paul Movie While His Series Remains Shelved
- 2018 Streamy Awards: Complete Winners List
- Todd The Hero Dog Named First-Ever ‘Dog Of The Year’ At 8th Annual Streamys
- Influencer Marketing – Three Golden Rules
- Warner Bros. Promptly Shutters K-Drama Streaming Destination DramaFever
- Intel’s 5GHz i9 Processor Is Incredible for Hype and Pretty Good for Computing, Too
- IBM: Quantum Computers Could Be Useful, But We Don’t Know Exactly How
- The Incredible Evolution of the Smartphone Notch: From Bezels to All Screen
- This Gorgeous All-Screen Phone Shows How the Notch Dies
- Streaming Exclusives Will Drive Users Back To Piracy And The Industry Is Largely Oblivious
- Bad Newspaper Photoshop: Manny Machado Apparently Needs Emergency Shoulder Surgery, Probably Not Worth $300M
- Another Report Shows That FOSTA Increased (Not Decreased) Sex Trafficking; Where Is The Outrage?
- As Predicted, Australian Government Looks To Creep Site Censorship Into Search Censorship
- UK Refreshes Stupid Porn Filter Law, Making It Fresher But No Less Stupid
- Interpol Alert Issued By Turkey For Exiled Journalists President Erdogan Wants To Toss In Jail
- Vietnam Expands Decades Long Effort To Crack Down On Any Dissent Online By Demanding Data Be Kept In The Country
- Mexico Reverses Ban On Selling Roku Hardware After Absurd Piracy Ruling
- 100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
- Section 230 Applies to Defend Trade Secret Act Claims–Craft Beer Stellar v. Glassdoor (Eric Goldman)
- Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 1: Digital Sales Taxes (Michael Geist)
CREATIVITY
- USMCA versus NAFTA: what’s changed and what it means for intellectual property in Canada
- U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement: Business Insights on Intellectual Property Issues
- Ninth Circuit Finds Bus Ads Protected by First Amendment
- Photographers’ Claims Against the NFL Score a Touchdown
- Appeals Court Says Of Course Georgia’s Laws (Including Annotations) Are Not Protected By Copyright And Free To Share
- No Substantial Similarity Between TV Shows Empire and Cream
- Supreme Court to Address Meaning of “Full Costs” as Used in Copyright Act
- Too hyperbolic to be believed: How social media is transforming libel law
- Disney Wouldn’t Let Wreck-It Ralph 2 Joke About Kylo Ren
- Internet Memes Are Making UK Children Fat, Say Researchers Who Don’t Understand Memes
- Fake Products From Movies Become Awesome Pop Culture Posters
- “Bank For Your Buck” – The Legal Implications of Banksy’s Destruction of “Girl with Balloon”
- Block Party? UK Government Considers New Ways of Clamping Down on Illegal Streaming
- Intellectual Property and the implications of a “No Deal” Brexit
- It’s Blockchain your Honour
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- NYT: Chinese and Russian spies routinely eavesdrop on Trump’s iPhone calls
- How Russia’s “influence operations” targeted the midterms (and how they still do)
- Russia was likely behind dangerous critical infrastructure attack, report says
- Russian trolls get DM from US Cyber Command: We know who you are. Stop it
- Voltage Pictures and the Massive Mass Litigation Mess in Canada (Howard Knopf)
- High Court blocks data privacy opt out group action against Google
- Hack on 8 adult websites exposes oodles of intimate user data
- Amazon, Super Micro Join Apple in Demanding Retraction of Bloomberg Story on Hacked Server Boards
- Apple CEO Tim Cook calls on Bloomberg to retract its Chinese spy story
- Apple Demands Retraction Of Bloomberg’s Big ‘Chip Infiltration’ Story; Bloomberg Has Some Explaining To Do
- Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls for Tougher Privacy Laws
- Tim Cook calls for strong US privacy law, rips “data-industrial complex”
- Apple’s TV subscription service starts in 2019 to compete with Netflix, Amazon
- Amazon pitched its facial recognition to ICE, released emails show [Updated]
- This business card-sized Japanese phone bucks the giant-phone trend
- Big Tech Splits Over Privacy Issues, at Least on the Surface: Big tech companies are paying lip service to online privacy, but their efforts are paper-thin.
- Two new supply-chain attacks come to light in less than a week
- California Passes First-Of-Its-Kind Law Focused on Internet of Things Cybersecurity
- Firefox 63 blocks tracking cookies, offers a VPN when you need one
- Judge Says FOIA Isn’t Battleship; Requesters Don’t Need To Score Direct Hits To Obtain Documents
GAMES
- Zombie Orpheus cancels contract with GOG over transphobia: JourneyQuest producers pull content, saying “We cannot do business with a company that doesn’t take human rights seriously”
- Rockstar Games defends itself over working conditions claims
- Rockstar allows employees to speak out on 100-hour week controversy: Tools programmer Vivianne Langdon kicks things off with assurances she’s never worked more than 50 hours a week, with paid overtime
- Red Dead Redemption 2 Developers Speak Out After Rockstar Lifts Social Media Ban
- The Red Dead Redemption 2 companion app can completely replace its HUD
- Rockstar says average work week under 46 hours: “We will not stop working to improve in this area,” says co-head of Red Dead Redemption 2 developer
- Independent game stores may get Red Dead Redemption 2 late: A number of smaller US stores have reported they may not have copies until 5-10 days after release
- Rockstar developers speak out about “100-hour weeks” comment
- Rockstar states overtime is ‘optional’ for studio that sometimes pulled 50-hour weeks
- Rockstar Lincoln QA tester: “Overtime is NOT optional, it is expected” – Current employee describes “standard” crunch hours v. “true” crunch hours, new policy change making overtime optional
- Rockstar Games clocks the average employee’s workweek at 42-45 hours
- Rockstar devs detail the company’s long and troubled relationship with crunch
- Rockstar QA Studio Told That Overtime Is Now Optional After Workers Said It Felt Mandatory
- Rockstar employees past and present offer mixed takes on company’s work culture: Extensive report shows uneven experiences across Rockstar studios and departments, including year-long crunch
- Rockstar devs comment on work culture after 100-hours backlash
- 100-hour weeks mean bad management, not passion: Rockstar may not be the hell it’s been portrayed as – but we need to stop lionising long overtime and start seeing it as a shameful sign of failure
- Grand Theft Auto V hack exposed single-player games to malicious trolls
- Six Foot lays off nearly one third of dev team followingDreadnought Steam launch
- How Riot has been removing cheaters from League of Legends
- Games as a service drives huge market value spike for EA, Activision
- EA Origin Access includes more indie games in its repertoire
- Xbox sees earnings rise on the strength of third-party game sales
- Fan Translator Likely Finds His Work In Official Game Release And Is Totally Cool With It
- Bethesda softens ground for “spectacular issues” with Fallout 76 launch
- “Don’t give into fear and keep adding more features” – How not to overwork your employees: EA’s Criterion, one of the UK’s best places to work, on how it avoids crunching
- How to avoid video game development crunch: “Teams who are having fun make better games and making games should be fun – otherwise, what’s the point?”
- “I’ve seen sleep disorders, chronic stress fatigue, dissolved relationships, broken marriages…”: At Game Connect Asia Pacific, Keith Fuller detailed the fallout from crunch, and Kate Edwards said “we need to find our rage” in order to fight it
- A post-mortem of Telltale Games: Speaking at Sweden Game Conference 2018, former Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck says it’s time for a “really serious conversation about potentially starting a union”
- Skybound “fully expect” third episode of The Walking Dead’s final season to launch this year: CEO Ian Howe said reuniting the Telltale team is difficult due to people moving on, and others not wanting to come back
- Skybound CEO aims to finish out The Walking Dead with ‘100%’ former Telltalers
- Six Foot lays off one third of development staff: Flagship game Dreadnought hampered by delays, slow sales, and mixed reviews
- ‘Fortnite’ Developer Sues Two YouTubers For Using, Selling Cheat Codes
- Epic Games to establish new office in Australia and New Zealand
- Some Best Buy copies of Starlink are missing the game itself: Several people report receiving starter packs with all pieces except the game
- Dota 2 now dynamically discloses loot box odds in-game
- Valve publishes loot box odds for Dota 2: Chances of receiving a rare item from a bundle now disclosed in game, with escalating odds calculated
- Discord updates terms of service to force arbitration over lawsuits
- NPD: Marvel’s Spider-Man was the biggest PlayStation exclusive launch ever – The web-slinger’s latest outperformed the combined launch sales of all his previous adventures since 1995
- A Nintendo-backed initiative aims to work Labo into classrooms
- Nintendo Labo heads to schools: Institute of Play program will bring the kits to 100 classrooms to integrate into curriculum
- Common problems when translating games into Japanese
- Steam reaches 90m monthly active users: Halt on new-game licenses in China buoy Steam’s market presence as Tencent continues to suffer
- Steam surpasses 30 million domestic users in China
- Steam’s Chinese audience grows to more than 30 million users: Dota 2 credited with driving Valve’s marketplace in the region as firm prepares for China-only version
- China ends ‘green channel’ game approvals amid ongoing licensing freeze
- China closes last remaining official game licensing process: ‘Green channel’ process reportedly shuttered while companies continue to wait for licensing to re-open
- “More people have played Florence in Mandarin than in English”: At Game Connect Asia Pacific, Mountains founder Ken Wong emphasised the importance of Asian markets – for studios of all sizes
- Call of Duty brings in $500 million in three days: Black Ops 4 sees launch weekend revenue in line with last year’s WWII, not quite up to Black Ops III’s $550 million
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review: War games, now with battle royale!
- Call of Duty Black Ops 4: Critical Consensus: Activision’s annual shooter ditches the campaign but critics say a standout battle royale mode is a fine reward
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduces special in-game items to support veterans
- With Black Ops 4, Call Of Duty Takes Aim At A Fortnite World
- Gamigo confirms acquisition of Trion Worlds
- Significant layoffs at Trion Worlds following acquisition by Gamigo
- Jade Raymond departs EA
- EA Motive founder Jade Raymond departs EA
- EA and Activision’s $79bn games-as-a-service growth: DFC reports shows both publishers’ values have surged since 2012 as they increase focus on live titles
- Games as a service drives huge market value spike for EA, Activision
- All eyes on Red Dead as UK games retail falters: LEGO, SoulCalibur and Starlink fail to lift physical sales in poor start to Q4
- Splash Damage ends live development on Dirty Bomb two months after launch: Servers will remain up “as long as there are a meaningful number of players”
- The average Football Manager 2018 player has over 285 hours of playtime: Nearly half of the game’s owners were still playing in September – almost a year after release
- Unity dabbles in development with FPS Sample Game: VP of engineering Brett Bibby says undertaking will demonstrate the “best way to build a specific type of game”
- Drake And Scooter Braun Join Nadeshot’s ‘100 Thieves’ Esports Startup, Which Has Raised $25 Million To Date
- Abrams Artists Agency Onboards New Esports And Digital Branding Agents
- Betting platform nabs license for cryptocurrency gambling on eSports
- Green Man Gaming delays float due to ‘horrendous’ equity markets
- Arena of Valor brings in $15 million lifetime player spending: International version of Honor of Kings sees strong September led by US spending
- CCP CEO: “You can’t build a business” on current VR – Hilmar Veigar Pétursson says virtual reality has fallen far short of the Eve developer’s expectations
- CCP Games CEO: “We expected VR to be two to three times as big”
- SuperData: Mobile AR to generate more revenue than VR by 2021
- VR and AR dev Resolution Games secures $7.5 million in funding
- After five years of waiting, Sixense will refund its VR controller Kickstarter backers
- A postmortem of Boyfriend Dungeon’s $272K Kickstarter
- Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves Facebook
- Oculus Co-founder Departs Facebook Amidst Rumor of Rift 2 Cancellation
- Facebook exodus continues as Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves
- Oculus Shut Down Movie Purchases & Rentals on Rift Toda
- PSVR’s Weirdest Game ‘Accounting+’ Now Available on Vive & Rift with New Levels
- UK magazines GamesTM and GamesMaster to close: Multiformat magazines axed
- Phoenix Labs on walking the line between Dauntless and reckless: In the wake of its latest funding round, co-founder Jesse Houston talks about growing the studio and the game at a deliberate pace
- What does it take to reach No.1 on mobile?: AppLovin’s Lion Studios shares its secrets of success as it pushes indie title Flip Trickster to the top of the charts
- If less than 30% of players come back to your game on Day 2, fix it or kill it: But GameAnalytics’ mobile benchmarking reports shows that 40% retention rates for Day 1 mean a game is doing well
- “Designing with marketing in mind” in Move or Die: At the Dev Play conference, Nicolae Berbece described taking Move or Die from a humble Flash game to an audience of over 500,000 people
- Diddy Kong was my Dark Souls: Sumo Digital’s Jamie Smith says Rare’s N64 kart racer left the competition in the dust
- Those painted sculptures in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey are true to history
- Listen to history experts discuss Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Intellivision joins the retro console space with new hardware coming in 2020: Formerly defunct console brand is re-imaged as Intellivision Amico
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