The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Vancouver campus
Communications Law at Allard Hall
  • Home
  • Issues/Your Take
  • 2023 Current Syllabus
    • 2022 Syllabus
    • 2021 Syllabus
    • 2020 Syllabus
    • 2019 Syllabus
    • 2018 Syllabus
    • 2017 Syllabus
  • Slides & Materials
  • Group Presentations
  • Socrates
  • Statutes & Regulations
  • About
    • Thanks
    • Jon’s Bio
  • The Cloud

    The “cloud” has come to mean the storing and accessing of data (including programs) over the internet rather than on on our device (computer, phone or otherwise). The official definition of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of […] Read More

CEO of Firm that modified Blackberry, Samsung phones to ‘knowingly’ help drug cartels evade police is indicted

Two recent news stories regarding cellphone technology relate to personal privacy rights.

First, Phantom Secure is a company that sells modified BlackBerry and Samsung phones, has been accused of “knowingly” selling products to drug gangs in order to help them evade law enforcement. Vincent Ramos, CEO of the company along with four associates have been indicted. This is the first time the US government has targeted a firm on such charges.

Fully-encrypted devices has been a contentious topic, as state legislators in California and New York have proposed bans (objected to by US congressmen). Consider the difference between a state ban vs. a national ban: under a state ban, ordinary law-abiding citizens may be subject to greater privacy loss than those motivated criminals who may cross a border to secure an encrypted phone.

What amount of privacy can we expect when using our phones? For US citizens, it may be a bit more alarming, after FBI Director Chris Wray stated, without evidence, that it wasn’t impossible to create weakened encryption that isn’t weakened (see third link). By weakening everyone’s encryption, criminals accessing our phones (with their own secure phones) can evade detection. It’s making the public less safe, simply to provide the FBI the access they want.

 

Second, a mysterious ‘Graykey’ service promises to unlock iPhone X for the Feds. In recent weeks, its marketing materials have been disseminated around private online police and forensics groups, offering a $15,000 iPhone unlock tool named GrayKey, which permits 300 uses. That’s for the online mode that requires constant connectivity at the customer end, whilst an offline version costs $30,000. The latter comes with unlimited uses.

According to public records, Indiana State Police have ordered the $15,000 device.

An interesting tidbit: “[Graykey’s] founding came in the wake of the battle between Apple and the FBI in San Bernardino, where the feds ordered the Cupertino giant to unlock the iPhone of terrorist shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, a request the iDevice manufacturer vehemently protested. The FBI eventually paid an unknown contractor in the region of $1 million to hack into the device.”

Articles:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43425333

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/proposed-state-bans-on-phone-encryption-make-zero-sense/

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180308/08504239390/fbi-director-says-not-impossible-to-create-compromised-encryption-thats-still-secure.shtml

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/03/05/apple-iphone-x-graykey-hack/#6171b6f12950

Read More | No Comments

Weaponizing the Web

We’ve spent a lot of our class time discussing the impact of fake news and deregulation on the internet. We regularly ask “To regulate or not to regulate.”

This article and video from the Guardian featuring a whistleblower from Cambridge Analytica may create a greater impetus to regulate. It shows the vast and terrific powers beholden to those with access to big data. The former employee enumerates a list of disturbing practices from harvesting the data of non-app users via friends, the creation of targeted political content, and the inundation of material meant to influence users. He calls the process which deeply affected the past American election as a “grossly unethical experiment.” And called the company a full service propaganda machine.

Have “data scientists” gone too far? What do we a society do with people and corporations who seem bent on tearing down society to reform it in their image via digital media and psychological manipulation?

About a week ago Tim Berners-Lee celebrated the 29th birthday of his invention, the web, by calling for the regulation of social media platforms. He cites the concentration of power they’ve acquired, and their for-profit business model as being aspects contributing to the weaponization of the internet. This recent revelation may renew calls for stricter regulation. What should those regulations look like? And what should the associated remedies include to be meaningful?

Read More | 1 Comment

Class 10 Slides

Here they are…

Jon

Read More | No Comments

Today Presentation: 3-years-old Syrian Cartoon

I’m keep thinking about the cartoon of the 3-years-old Syrian who died. And how my reaction was different. I automatically saw a parody of the racist attitude during the immigrant crisis in Europe that was occurring at that time. A political claim directed to the Europe to do better.  Which I would not have seen if I have stopped to the words used (don’t get me wrong: taken literally, I find it inadmissible). Satire or racist? I said satire*, others said racist. Had the magazine gone too far? We saw in class how difficult it was to answer that question. If it was a written editorial, it would have been easier to judge.  We analyze an image with our personal and cultural bias which makes it subjective. We have to find the objective “real true” message. I don’t know what the true intention of Riss’ artwork from Charlie Hebdo was. I know Riss wrote editorial on the immigrant crisis, but I did not find it. But we have to recognize that even though it was deliberately provocative, it created a greater public interest around immigrant crisis and open a discourse on the issue in 2015. And personally, I think is good as long the initial intention was a satire and view as reasonable person standard.

*I read few articles on that particular drawing and publication of Charlie Hebdo at the same period, I feel relieved that I was not the only one who saw a critic/mockery of the Europe’s response.

Read More | No Comments

Question of the Week (Classes 10 & 11): Should Canadian ownership of telecommunications companies continue to be required?

This week the United States blocked the takeover of Qualcom, a U.S. company by Broadcom, a Singaporean company, ostensibly on national security grounds.

Canada has had Canadian ownership rules in both broadcasting and telecom in place for a very, very long time.

For years it appeared that the Canadian government was planning to allow non-Canadians to control licensed Canadian Telecom companies (but not broadcasters). However when trial balloons were floated Canadians tended to react negatively. The advantage in theory would be lower prices…

So what do you think, do the advantage of foreign ownership relaxation outweigh the concerns?

Jon

Read More | No Comments

News of the Week; March 7, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1.  The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 12: Increasing Privacy Risks for Canadians (Michael Geist)
  2. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 13: It is Inconsistent With the CRTC Policy Direction (Michael Geist)
  3. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 14: Failure To Further the Telecommunications Act Policy Objectives (Michael Geist)
  4. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 15: It Undermines the Telecommunications Act Policy Objectives (Michael Geist) 
  5. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 16: The CRTC as the Internet Content Regulatory Authority (Michael Geist)
  6. Comcast Protected Browsing Blocks TorrentFreak, Showing Why Site-Blocking Sucks Out Loud Always
  7. Washington State Passes Law Protecting Net Neutrality
  8. Washington State Enacts Net Neutrality Law, In Clash With FCC
  9. Washington state passes net neutrality: Governor signs bipartisan legislation seeking to restore measures recently scrapped by FCC decision
  10. Washington State Laughs In The Face Of FCC Attempts To Ban States From Protecting Net Neutrality
  11. Middle Schoolers Cheer As Oregon Passes A Net Neutrality Law
  12. $20 porn-unblocking fee could hit Internet users if state bill becomes law: The opposite of net neutrality: R.I. bill requires ISPs to block sexual content.
  13. GOP tries to block state net neutrality laws and allow paid prioritization: GOP bill would outlaw blocking and throttling but give major concession to ISPs.
  14. The Wired Guide To Net Neutrality: Everything you need to know about the struggle to treat information on the internet the same – ISPs shouldn’t be able to block some sorts of data and prioritize others.
  15. AT&T has good and bad news for users of its limit-ridden unlimited plans: AT&T ends one speed limit but introduces a new one; some prices are going up.
  16. Charter appeals court loss, still claims it can’t be punished for slow speeds: New York AG alleges that Charter promised speeds it knew it couldn’t deliver. 
  17. Oregon Winds Up Giving Comcast A Huge Tax Break For Doing Nothing Differently
  18. Sprint’s CEO Thinks This Whole Killing Net Neutrality Thing Is Pretty Nifty
  19. Telecom Sector Can’t Stop Falsely Claiming That Net Neutrality Will Harm The Sick, Derail Smart Cars
  20. Ajit Pai won’t get his gun – FCC chair rejects NRA award after ethics review: NRA honored Pai for killing net neutrality, tried to give him handmade long gun.
  21. After Chat With Ethics Lawyers, FCC Boss Declines NRA Gun Award For Killing Net Neutrality 
  22. Ajit Pai’s supporters say he’s gone too far with plan that hurts poor people: Pai takes heat from all sides over plan to evict resellers from Lifeline program.
  23. Nobody (Even His Industry BFFs) Likes Ajit Pai’s Latest Attack On Low Income Broadband Programs
  24. “Dig Once” rule requiring fiber deployment is finally set to become US law: Dig Once mandates fiber conduit installation in government-funded road projects.

DIGITAL

  1. In US v. Microsoft, A Decades-Old Law Leaves Few Good Options
  2. Is Trump’s Twitter behavior constitutional? A court will decide.
  3. Clarifying Outer Bounds of Copyright Fair Use, Second Circuit Finds Video Monitoring Service Infringing
  4. Do Memes Infringe Copyright? (Andres Guadamuz) 
  5. Protecting human rights online: new guidelines on internet intermediaries (Council of Europe)
  6. China Briefly Bans The Letter ‘N’ On Social Media After Anger Over Plans To Make Xi Jinping ‘Dictator For Life’
  7. African Union Bugged by China: Cyber Espionage as Evidence of Strategic Shifts
  8. Singer/Professor Tries To Sue Student For Bad Internet Ratings, Fails, Appeals, Fails Again
  9. EU Commission Says Social Media Companies Must Take Down ‘Terrorist Content’ Within One Hour
  10. News in a disintegrating reality: Tow’s Jonathan Albright on what to do as things crash around us: “The kinds of things that I often see could literally be stopped by one person. I mean: 4chan trending on Google during the Las Vegas shooting? How that eve
  11. New Foils for the Right: Google and Facebook
  12. Wall Street Journal Explains Why SESTA Is A Terrible Idea And Is Unnecessary
  13. Can Someone Explain How SESTA Will Stop Sex Trafficking?
  14. Blame the Computer: The fake science that keeps threatening to kill us
  15. The Podcasting Juggernaut Has (Finally) Arrived: How publishers are racing to own the money-printing machine that is the daily news podcast.
  16. Publishers Could Get A New Weapon Against Facebook And Google
  17. Could Soap-Cutting Videos Be The Successor To YouTube’s Massive Slime Craze?
  18. YouTube Doesn’t Know Where Its Own Line Is
  19. YouTube Says New Human Moderators Mistakenly Punished Some Far Right And Pro-Gun Creators
  20. YouTube Stars Chomp On Some Lemons To Promote Bone Marrow Donations For Leukemia Patients
  21. YouTube’s Next Music Service Looks As If It Will Debut Later Than First Anticipated
  22. Insights: Stuck Between YouTube And A Hard Place, Being An Influencer Is Tougher Than Ever
  23. As Advertisers Flee, Alex Jones Claims His YouTube Ban Will Come Today
  24. InfoWars’ conspiracy theories have advertisers ditching YouTube channels: Even YouTube’s existing advertiser tools didn’t prevent this from happening.
  25. Angry Pick-Up Artist Says He Won’t Issue Bogus YouTube Claim On Critic’s Video; Issues Bogus Claim On Critic’s Video
  26. Top Marketers Nike, Paramount, More Pull Ads From InfoWars YouTube Channel
  27. Platform Changes Cause Influencer Anxiety
  28. Project Gutenberg Blocks Access In Germany To All Its Public Domain Books Because Of Local Copyright Claim On 18 Of Them
  29. Unprompted, creepy laughter from Alexa is freaking out Echo users: Amazon knows about the bug and is working to fix it.
  30. Amazon and Google Are Back to Feuding, This Time Over Smart Homes and Nest
  31. Google ends major OS support for Nexus phones and Pixel tablet: The two years of major OS updates is over for the Nexus 6P, 5X, and Pixel C.
  32. Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage – employees “outraged”: “Project Maven” applies Google’s image recognition tech to drone footage.
  33. Female Google engineer says she faced “frequent sexual harassment”: Woman charges “Google was fully aware” of sexist behavior but didn’t stop it.
  34. New Lawsuit Exposes Google’s Desperation To Improve Diversity
  35. Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts – Google vows to defend lawsuit, says it hires “candidates based on their merit.”
  36. Why Are There Few Women In Tech? Watch A Recruiting Session
  37. Facebook’s Equal Time Quandary: The social media giant could even the playing field for political ads. But is that what candidates really want? 
  38. Censoring a Facebook Post Showing a Naked Statuette? 
  39. Facebook survey: Should we let men ask 14-year-old girls for sexual pictures? – “This content should be allowed on Facebook” was an option for something beyond illegal. 
  40. BlackBerry weaponizes instant messaging patents, sues Facebook: BlackBerry continues shift to patent litigation with Facebook lawsuit.
  41. Twitter CEO wants to study platform’s “health,” but is he ignoring the cancer?: Anecdotal data makes us wonder when a terrifying Twitter botnet will take over.
  42. What Would A ‘Healthy’ Twitter Even Look Like?
  43. Famous Racist Sues Twitter Claiming It Violates His Civil Rights As A Racist To Be Kicked Off The Platform
  44. Netflix To Display MPAA Ratings As Part Of Plan To Enhance Parental Controls
  45. Snap Layoffs: Snapchat Parent Said to Be Axing 100 Engineering Employees
  46. The Limits Of Explainability: Academics, economists, and AI researchers often undervalue the role of intuition in science. Here’s why they’re wrong.
  47. Algorithms Are Creating A “Digital Poorhouse” That Makes Inequality Worse
  48. Robot smashes Rubik’s Cube record with 0.38-second solve: “The machine can definitely go faster,” inventor says.
  49. The Subtle Nudges That Could Unhook Us From Our Phones
  50. After Just 6 Months, the Phone Notch Is Already Deeply Uncool
  51. Got Crypto? Be Careful How You File Your Taxes
  52. At This Crypto Event, The Attendees Really Were High 
  53. Hackers exploiting rTorrent to install Unix coin miner have netted $4k so far: Ongoing attacks give complete control and require no user interaction.
  54. Angry Coinbase users sue over claimed security failings, insider trading
  55. Bitcoin falls 10 percent after SEC warns about unregulated exchanges: Bitcoin falls 10 percent after regulators signal crackdown on exchanges.
  56. Lamar Smith says Russian bots are trying to cripple US energy production: Russian bots stirred pipeline trouble. Was it sowing divisions or targeting energy?
  57. Mind Games: The Tortured Lives Of ‘Targeted Individuals’ – Thousands of people think that the government is using implanted chips and electronic beams to control their minds. They are desperate to prove they aren’t delusional.
  58. Wireless Carriers, Hardware Companies Use Flimsy IOT Security To Justify Attacks On Right To Repair Laws
  59. 911 recordings reveal Apple’s problem of employees walking into walls: Apple was warned by a city official about the danger of employees walking into walls.
  60. Here Are 911 Transcripts of Some of the Times Apple Employees Walked Directly Into Glass Walls
  61. Youth Gun Violence Prevention in a Digital Age (Desmond Upton Patton, Kyle McGregor, & Gary Slutkin)
  62. Your Data Is Crucial to a Robotic Age. Shouldn’t You Be Paid for It?
  63. EU Adopts Ban on Unjustified Geo-Blocking: The new EU geo-blocking regulation prohibits unjustified geo-blocking.

CREATIVITY

  1.  And the Oscar goes to… Freedom of Contract! March 2018: Morality clauses are back in the spotlight after a spate of high-profile scandals in Hollywood.
  2. Pepe the Frog Artist Suing InfoWars for Copyright Infringement
  3. Pepe’s creator sues Infowars, claiming new poster infringes copyright: Infowars founder Alex Jones maintains that the poster is protected under fair use.
  4. Thelonious Monk Estate Hornin’ In on Right of Publicity Trial: Jazz great’s heir sues craft brewery for using dad’s likeness on merchandise
  5. TVEyes Inc. Crosses the Boundary of Fair Use Defense in Copyright Infringement Case Against Fox News Network, LLC
  6. All Eyes on Fair Use: The Second Circuit Delivers a Victory for Copyright Owners 
  7. Fox News Network, LLC v. TVEyes, Inc.: Second Circuit reverses district court’s finding of fair use, holding that while TVEyes’ “Watch” function is transformative, it is not fair use in that it provides virtually all of Fox’s content to subscribers.
  8. The 2nd Circuit Contributes To Fair Use Week With An Odd And Problematic Ruling On TVEyes
  9. California Court Dismisses Copyright Suit Against BBC Over Cosby Documentary Over Lack Of Jurisdiction
  10. MPAA Opposes Several Filmmaker Associations Request For Expanded Circumvention Exemptions
  11. Fair Dealing Support for News Reporting and Public Debate: The Case of Warman and National Post v. Fournier (Michael Geist)
  12. Fair Dealing and the Right to Read: The Case of Blacklock’s Reporter v. Canada (Attorney General) (Michael Geist)
  13. Update: Ontario Court Upholds That Professional Hockey Player Did Not Breach Morals Clause in Endorsement Contract
  14. French Government Wants To Toss Far-Right Political Leader In Jail For Posting Images Of Terrorist Atrocities
  15. Why the roots of patent trolling may be in the patent office: Trolls love patents from examiners who are “lenient” about patent vetting.
  16. ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. No Longer Fit for Purpose: Why Canadian Privacy Law Needs an Update (Michael Geist)
  2. Proposed changes to Canadian privacy laws influenced by changes coming from EU
  3. Facebook Loses Second Attempt to Dismiss Biometric Data Class Action 
  4. Government Says FISA Court Should Stop Wasting Time Considering The ACLU’s Request For Greater Transparency
  5. Best Buy defends practice of informing FBI about child porn it finds: New documents produced as a result of FOIA lawsuit brought by EFF.
  6. Uber ‘Surprised’ By Totally Unsurprising Pennsylvania Data Breach Lawsuit
  7. US service provider survives the biggest recorded DDoS in history: Nearly 100,000 memcached servers are imperiling the stability of the Internet.
  8. Github Survived The Biggest DDOS Attack Ever Recorded
  9. It just got much easier to wage record-breaking DDoSes: Exploits that abuse memcached servers threaten the stability of the Internet.
  10. 23,000 HTTPS certificates axed after CEO emails private keys: Flap that goes public renews troubling questions about issuance of certificates.
  11. Trustico website goes dark after someone drops critical flaw on Twitter: Outage comes a day after CEO admitted emailing private keys for 23k HTTPS certs.
  12. FBI again calls for magical solution to break into encrypted phones – FBI chief: “I don’t buy the claim that it’s impossible” to solve “Going Dark.”
  13. Spoof, Jam, Destroy: Why We Need A Backup For GPS
  14. Uh Oh: Blockchain May Not Be as Secure as We Thought
  15. Customer information compromised following NIS America storefront breach: “We have identified the issue, removed it from our website, and taken steps to prevent this issue from recurring,” says NIS America
  16. The Leaked NSA Spy Tool That Hacked The World
  17. Spy v. Spy: An NSA Leak Reveals The Agency’s List Of Enemy Hackers

GAMES

  1. Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion: “It’s as if someone walked into my home with a knife and asked me for $35,000.”
  2. Teen Who Made A Dumb School Shooting Joke On Snapchat Ordered By Judge To Not Play Violent Video Games
  3. Judge bars student from violent games after alleged shooting threat: “You can play all the Mario Kart you want,” judge says.
  4. Judge bans 16-year-old from violent video games over school shooting threat: Teen had no access to weapons but ‘joke’ Snapchat threat led to criminal charges
  5. Trump to meet with game industry Thursday over gun violence: ESA says it will go to the White House later this week.
  6. Trump Announces One-Sided Plan To Meet With Video Game Makers Over Gun Violence
  7. Opinion: Trump’s alleged video game summit? It’s a trap!
  8. Trump’s meeting with the game industry over gun violence may be a debate
  9. Trump says violent games are OK for his young son, maybe not for yours: “I look at some of the things he’s watching and I say, ‘How is that possible?'”
  10. Rhode Island Legislator Proposes A Tax On Video Games Based On Existing Entirely Voluntary Ratings System
  11. Rhode Island Law Would Mandate Porn Filters, Charge You $20 Per Device To Bypass Them
  12. Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can mess with developers
  13. Don’t Miss: Video games and gun violence, a year after Sandy Hook
  14. Five Years After His Arrest, Prosecutors Try To Push Back Justin Carter’s ‘Terroristic Threat’ Trial
  15. Trump to meet with gaming execs – report: White House describes the meeting as part of “an ongoing discussion”, but the ESA and its members haven’t received a formal invitation
  16. Trump plans to meet with game industry over violent video games 
  17. Rainbow Six Siege to ban players who use toxic language 
  18. Rainbow Six Siege breaks its Steam concurrent player record two years after launch
  19. New report questions World Heath Organisation’s proposed ‘gaming disorder’ classification: Meanwhile, the global games industry’s rejection of the WHO proposal intensifies
  20. Researchers push back against WHO’s planned ‘gaming disorder’
  21. Tencent plans to introduce in-game contracts between parents and kids
  22. Blog: Game level generation using neural networks
  23. Clicker Heroes dev speaks out over patent troll threats
  24. Playsaurus targeted by “patent trolls” over Clicker Heroes virtual currency: “We absolutely refuse to negotiate license fees with patent holders who make bogus claims,” says Playsaurus CEO
  25. Metal Gear Survive: Critical Consensus – Tepid responses to Metal Gear’s first post-Kojima release paint it as a frustrating and tedious affair with occasional flashes of brilliance
  26. Can Metal Gear survive?: With weak sales, bad word of mouth and almost zero marketing support, Konami’s first attempt at a post-Kojima Metal Gear suggests a tough road ahead for the franchise
  27. Rovio closes London studio after one year
  28. Unhappy Rovio says 2017 was its ‘best ever year’: Revenue and Profit rise sharply, but miss analyst expectations
  29. Rovio shutters London studio and lays off entire team
  30. Rovio’s head of games Wilhelm Taht has left the company
  31. Ubisoft acquires Brawlhalla dev Blue Mammoth Games
  32. Amazon acquires backend cloud-based game dev platform GameSparks
  33. Pokémon toys and trading card sales spike in Europe: €100 million spent on trading cards in 2017 in Europe
  34. The Most Shameless Pokemon Go Rip Offs So Far
  35. UK enjoys record-breaking year with £5.11bn spent on video games in 2017: Valuation by trade body UKIE shows digital games market exceeded £1.5bn for the first time ever
  36. Online retail now accounts for over 40% of UK boxed game sales: Supermarket market share continues to tumble in 2017
  37. Mobile interactive story games generated $14m last month: Apps like Choices, Episode and What’s Your Story have generated $52.5m since November
  38. UK Charts: No new games as FIFA 18 takes No.1 yet again – Mario Kart leaps up four places
  39. UK Data: Over 20% of Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Battlefront II sales were digital – FIFA 18 was 19.9%, while online games like Destiny 2 posts even stronger digital sales
  40. Monster Hunter: World ships 7.5M units in under two months
  41. Monster Hunter: World is the best-selling game in Capcom’s history – Breakout hit’s 7.5 million shipped units is the highest ever for the Japanese publisher
  42. Final Fantasy XV for Windows should have been a mess, but it’s the opposite: Square Enix mostly delivers the scalable, tweakable performance that PC gamers crave.
  43. Modders try to fix what Square Enix broke with PC Chrono Trigger port: Removing ugly HD filtering and other unneeded tinkering is an uphill battle.
  44. Video: How Gone Home was localized by fans
  45. Celeste devs release player movement code for the tough-as-pitons platformer
  46. Check out the now open-source code powering UI layout inHeaven’s Vault
  47. New indie publisher Graffiti Games announces three titles for 2018: Vancouver-based publisher unveils its first-year plans
  48. Nintendo expected to overtake Microsoft in 2018: IHS Markit’s 2017 full-year figures also show console market enjoyed biggest growth in six years
  49. No Switch hardware revision this year – Report: Wall Street Journal says company will focus on peripherals to drive sales for hybrid system’s second year
  50. Boutique publishers are the future of the indie games market: Devolver, Double Fine, Raw Fury and Buried Signal’s Jason Roberts on how publisher identity can help indie games to rise above the noise
  51. The quiet need for Chinese indie games: Spotlightor Interactive founder Gao Ming on the fight for originality within a developing games scene
  52. Report: Gameloft has shut down Gameloft Madrid
  53. Gameloft closes Madrid studio: Closure marks seventh significant cut to a Gameloft studio in less than three years
  54. Largest charity tournament in mobile esports history kicks off on March 3: Mobile esports platform Skillz sets itself $100,000 target
  55. Esports Held Its Own Upfront In New York City, As Brands Like L’Oreal Carefully Plan Their Entry
  56. Florence Is A Mobile Game That Captures The Power Of Touch
  57. Optimism at Atari?: 10 Years Ago This Month – With a high-profile hire, a new vision, and an anticipated Alone in the Dark reboot, gaming’s original titan was poised for a comeback
  58. Review: Sony Playstation 4 Pro – A year after its release, one question remains – Is it finally time to go Pro?
  59. Space Ape teams with London universities on free games masterclasses: Six-session course will cover game design, community engagement and more, classes will also be livestreamed
  60. Video games graduates have more than doubled in five years: “We need to continue to increase the supply of highly skilled games graduates,” says TIGA CEO
  61. Bandai Namco’s VR Zone Arcade Lowers Age Restriction to 7 Years Old
  62. Kongregate to launch dev-friendly digital games platform, Kartridge
  63. Kongregate launching new download games store Kartridge this summer: Publisher readies its own Steam rival with no upload fees and support for pay-what-you-want games
  64. Oculus Rifts stop working
  65. Software error causes mass Oculus Rift outage
  66. A rift in VR: Critical error shuts down Oculus headsets worldwide – A small software update may be required to address the issue.
  67. For the first time, the Oculus Rift is the leading VR headset on Steam
  68. Oculus Rift becomes leading VR headset on Steam: Latest hardware and software survey puts Oculus Rift two points ahead of HTC Vive
  69. Oculus Rift is now the most popular VR headset on Steam: But PC gaming’s most popular platform still has a relatively tiny VR userbase.
  70. Nicolas Cage’s ‘The Humanity Bureau’ VR Experience is Another Strike Against VR Film Promos
  71. Virtual reality is coming to a courtroom near you: ABA Techshow panel explores use of VR in law
  72. Magic Leap raises $461 million in funding from Saudi Arabian investment arm
  73. HQ Trivia app secures $15 million in funding 
  74. How an injured dev learned to make games without using his hands
  75. Blog: Learning more about your audience
  76. Blog: Dealing with love and hate from your fans 
  77. Devs reflect on the impact and legacy of Burnout Paradise
  78. Cataloguing soda machines in games throughout the ages 

Jon

Read More | No Comments

‘Black Tech’ facial recognition glasses

Hi everyone,

I came across more AI news ! A local checkpoint in Beijing has just started using new technology , smart glasses that can pick up facial features and car registration plates, and match them in real-time with a database of suspects. The glasses are AI powered and if the glasses pick up anyone on the system’s blacklist they start communicating the message through light up warnings.

This is an example of a country using technology to booster security while severely infringing citizen privacy rights. However the AI company that created the glasses state that people should not be worried about privacy rights because the glasses are being used for noble causes.

Other technologies China has employed include  police robots for crowd control, drones to monitor border areas, and artificially intelligent systems to track and censor behavior online. There are also scanners to forcibly read mobile phone data and even police dogs with virtual reality cameras.

If its being done in China – how long do you think it will take for it to reach here? Would Canadians be willing to compensate privacy rights for the ” greater good” and fighting crime?

Article: https://globalnews.ca/news/4079525/black-tech-facial-recognition-glasses-worn-by-chinese-police-raise-privacy-concerns/

 

Read More | No Comments

News of the Week; February 28, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 8: The Ineffectiveness of Website Blocking (Michael Geist)
  2. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 9: Why it Violates Canadian Net Neutrality Rules (Michael Geist)
  3. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 10: Why It May Violate Human Rights Norms (Michael Geist)
  4. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 11: Higher Internet Access Costs for All (Michael Geist)
  5. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan: Canadians Take a Stand Against Site Blocking (Michael Geist)
  6. NRA gives Ajit Pai “courage award” and gun for “saving the Internet”: Killing net neutrality helps Pai win award for “standing up under pressure.”
  7. NRA Gives FCC Boss An Award For ‘Courageously’ Killing Net Neutrality, May Have Violated Ethics Rules
  8. FCC Republican faces ethics complaint after calling for Trump’s re-election: Pai and O’Rielly both face ethics questions after appearances at CPAC.
  9. Vimeo, In Ongoing Battle For Net Neutrality, Refiles Lawsuit Against FCC
  10. AT&T loses years-long quest to cripple FTC authority over telecoms: Unlimited data throttling case is back on after FTC wins major ruling.
  11. AT&T describes post-net neutrality plans for paid prioritization: “AT&T is not interested in creating fast lanes and slow lanes,” ISP claims. 
  12. Democrats submit plan to save net neutrality, still one vote short in Senate: Democrats still trying to convince Republicans to keep net neutrality rules.
  13. The Final Countdown to Net Neutrality’s Death Begins Today
  14. The Death Of Net Neutrality Will Be Official In April (Cue The Lawsuits)
  15. As Protection Ends, Here’s One Way To Test For Net Neutrality
  16. Life in the Fast Lane: FCC Releases Final Rule Repealing Net Neutrality 
  17. Defying Pai’s FCC, Washington state passes law protecting net neutrality: Washington may be the first state to impose net neutrality rules on all ISPs.
  18. The FCC’s ‘New’ Broadband Availability Map Hallucinates Broadband Competition
  19. Why states might win the net neutrality war against the FCC: FCC might have doomed its preemption case by renouncing authority over broadband.
  20. Verizon and a company it bought just paid $614M in biggest FCC fine ever: Straight Path failed to use spectrum, resulting in $614M fine and sale to Verizon.
  21. Charter Spectrum Fails To Wiggle Out From Under State Lawsuit For Crappy Service 
  22. The Moon Will Soon Have Its Own Mobile Network
  23. A Parliamentary Committee Makes Recommendations Regarding Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation 

DIGITAL

  1. How a fight over Star Wars download codes could reshape copyright law: Legal scholar says Redbox’s win over Disney is an “atomic bomb of a finding.”
  2. Disney Enterprises, Inc.; Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc.; Lucasfilm Ltd., LLC, MVl Film Finance LLC, Plaintiff, v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC
  3. Disney’s Stupid Lawsuit Against Redbox Results In Judge Saying Disney Is Engaged In Copyright Misuse
  4. Court Finds That Embedded Twitter Photo on Website May Subject Website Owner to Copyright Liability – Be Careful What You Post  
  5. U.S. Federal Court rules embedding a Tweet could be copyright infringement
  6. Embedding a Third Party Tweet Constitutes Copyright Infringement
  7. District judge in the SDNY: Embedding links to third-party web content is copyright infringement 
  8. ‘Repeat infringers’ under Digital Millennium Copyright Act not repeat infringers as adjudged by court
  9. Second Circuit Rejects TVEyes’s Fair Use Defense For Online Service Allowing Users To Watch Fox News Content
  10. Federal Court of Appeal approves website seizure and Anton Piller order against online copyright piracy platform
  11. Loss In 9th Circuit Appeals Court Isn’t Slowing 1-800-LAWFIRM’s Lawsuit Crusade Against Social Media Companies
  12. DOJ Tells Congress SESTA/FOSTA Will Make It MORE DIFFICULT To Catch Traffickers; House Votes For It Anyway 
  13. House Prepared To Rush Vote On Terrible Frankenstein SESTA, Which Will Harm Trafficking Victims & The Internet
  14. Now It’s The Turn Of Mercedes-Benz To Grovel Before China, Over An Instagram Post Quoting The Dalai Lama
  15. Apple Agrees To Store Chinese iCloud Data In China, Making It Much Easier For The Chinese Gov’t To Access It
  16. Apple to suspend iTunes Store support for “obsolete” first-gen Apple TV: Security changes will also affect Windows XP and Vista machines running iTunes.
  17. Mistakes And Strategic Failures: The Killing Of The Open Internet
  18. Russian Hacker False Flags Work—Even After They’re Exposed
  19. How Manafort’s inability to convert a PDF file to Word helped prosecutors: Former Trump campaign manager allegedly emailed doctored docs to his assistant. 
  20. FTC Refunds Victims of Tech Support Scam 
  21. AT&T Fails In Bid To Kill FTC Authority Over Broadband Monopolies
  22. COPPA, FTC Act Violations for Talent Agency
  23. Connected Toys, COPPA, and What’s Next 
  24. Google starts a push for cross-platform app development with Flutter SDK: As Flutter hits beta 1, Google revs up promotion efforts for a new way to make apps.
  25. Google Must Be Stopped Before It Becomes An AI Monopoly: We should start thinking now about how to build an antitrust regime that will preserve several companies’ robust AI assistants. 
  26. Artificial Intelligence & Inclusion 
  27. New Report on Emerging AI Risks Paints a Grim Future
  28. The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation
  29. How AI-Driven Insurance Could Reduce Gun Violence: Exploring a market-based, technologically-enabled compromise to preventing gun violence.
  30. The Verdict Is In: AI Outperforms Human Lawyers in Reviewing Legal Documents
  31. Self-Driving Cars Are Smart, But Car Washes Stump Them
  32. Inside The Alexa Prize: Amazon is in a pitched battle with its rivals to bring truly conversational AI into our homes. So the company is staging a contest—a mad dash toward an outlandish goal: Cook up a bot capable of small talk.
  33. Amazon Made $5.6 Billion in Profits Last Year and Reportedly Paid Zero American Dollars in Federal Taxes
  34. Amazon Pays $1 Billion For Video Doorbell Startup Ring After Shark Tank Passed On It
  35. Why Amazon is sending you pictures of your front porch
  36. Amazon splurges on Ring, hopes smart doorbells bolster in-home deliveries: The company’s new acquisition brings video doorbells into its smart home family.
  37. Insights: Can Twitter, Facebook and Google Evolve Fast Enough to Extract Us from The Mess They’ve Made? 
  38. Fake Social Followers Yield Real Legal Concerns
  39. Kylie Jenner Said She Doesn’t Use Snapchat Anymore And Its Stock Fell 3% In A Half-Hour
  40. ‘We’re watching a company explode’: is Snapchat becoming irrelevant?
  41. Sexting is on the rise among teens: ~27% get nudes, other racy messages: But researchers found no gender differences in sending and receiving rates.
  42. Vogue, Vice put editorial collaboration on hold
  43. BuzzFeed’s AM To DM Brings In One Million Views Per Episode By Incorporating “Twitter’s DNA”
  44. YouTube Strikes InfoWars Channel Amid Attempt To Crack Down On Conspiratorial Content
  45. YouTube Won’t Ban Neo-Nazi Group Chanting ‘Gas the ******, Race War Now’: Atomwaffen calls for genocide and has been linked to several murders, but the company site says a warning label is sufficient.
  46. After Some Pushback, YouTube Finally Bans Neo-Nazi Group
  47. YouTube’s Monetization Model, Algorithm Provide Unique Haven For Conspiracy Theorists (Study)
  48. Digital Networks Differ On Responses To YouTube’s New Partner Program Requirements
  49. California Court Holds That YouTube’s Removal Notice Is Not Defamatory 
  50. Manchester United, YouTube’s most viewed English club, finally launch official channel 
  51. Move Over, TV: Students Now Distract Themselves From Homework With YouTube, Study Finds 
  52. Top 3% Of YouTube Creators Received 90% Of Sitewide Views In 2016
  53. YouTube To Keep Original Productions Budget Flat Over Next Two Years (Report)
  54. YouTube TV Partners With Seattle Sounders To Stream All 2018 Matches 
  55. YouTube TV, In Search Of Sports Fans, Gets Rights To Stream Seattle Sounders Soccer Matches
  56. Drug Addiction Educator Says He’s Leaving YouTube After Erratic Content Strikes
  57. YouTube Restores Ads On Logan Paul’s YouTube Channel After 18-Day Suspension
  58. YouTube brings ads back to Logan Paul’s channel, but he’s on a 90-day probation: He’s still not eligible for YouTube’s Google Preferred ad program
  59. Logan Paul And KSI Are Probably Going To Box And It’s Going To Be The Biggest Thing Ever On YouTube
  60. Jake Paul Breaks Daily Vlogging Streak To “Help Some People That Are In A Lot Of Need” 
  61. Alphabet Will Not Share YouTube’s Revenue With The SEC 
  62. Poland’s Central Bank Paid Popular YouTubers To Create Anti-Cryptocurrency Videos
  63. Coinbase: We will send data on 13,000 users to IRS – Bitcoin startup says if concerned, “seek legal advice from an attorney promptly.”
  64. Self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator accused of $5 billion crypto heist: Craig Wright accused of “perpetrating a scheme” to con Dave Kleiman and his estate.
  65. The Problem With Cryptojacking 
  66. Venezuela says its cryptocurrency raised $735 million – but it’s a farce: Venezuela says its presale raised $735 million in 24 hours. Don’t believe it.
  67. Bill Gates says cryptocurrencies have “caused deaths in a fairly direct way”: Gates says cryptocurrencies’ main feature is anonymity.
  68. Bill Gates Thinks Cryptocurrency Is Killing People ‘In a Fairly Direct Way’
  69. Here’s How Blockchain Could Be Used for Gun Control
  70. Managing Copyrights on a Blockchain: How Close Are We and What Does It Mean?
  71. New York’s Top Court Rules 7-0: “Private” Facebook Posts Subject to Disclosure
  72. Section 230 Isn’t About Facebook, It’s About You
  73. Facebook’s Mandatory Malware Scan Is An Intrusive Mess
  74. Facebook Live Usage Among Previously-Paid Publishers Declined By More Than 50% In 2017
  75. What Facebook Isn’t Saying About Trump And Clinton’s Campaign Ads 
  76. Facebook apologizes over “Bullet Train” VR demo at right-wing conference: Facebook exec says demo scuttled “out of respect” for recent shooting victims.
  77. Netflix CFO: We’re Going To Have 700 Original Programs On Our Platform In 2018 
  78. Instagram image of Lego assault rifle, threat lead to 14-year-old’s arrest: San Diego County teen wrote Tuesday evening – “Don’t come to school tomorrow.”
  79. NIST Releases Draft Report on IoT Cybersecurity Standards; Comments Due April 18 
  80. Vox Lays Off 50 Staffers, Mostly Across Social Video Teams
  81. Wow, Who Could Have Predicted 59 Percent of 2017’s ICOs Are Already Dead or Doomed
  82. Peter Thiel Is A Flawed Messenger With A Crucial Message For Tech
  83. Tinder Wants To Make Emoji For Interracial Couples
  84. Feedless Takes The News Feed Out Of Social Media
  85. When a robot writes your news, what happens to democracy? 
  86. From fake news to fabricated video, can we preserve our shared reality?: The advent of inexpensive and readily accessible fabricated video production brings new meaning to the phrase ‘seeing is believing.’
  87. There’s something strange going on amid the satellite Internet rush: Greg Wyler, the founder of OneWeb, starts a second company to compete with himself. 
  88. How Bittorrent Spurred The Streaming Revolution
  89. My Dreams of Owning The Matrix Phone Can Finally Be Fulfilled
  90. A Short History Of Technology Worship: It’s possible that neither intelligence nor beauty is what makes converts. It’s technology itself. 
  91. Silicon Valley pub that helped birth PC industry to close because of high rent: The Oasis Beer Garden will serve its final pizza and pour its last pint on March 7.

CREATIVITY

  1. Insurer Settles $10M Coverage Dispute With Kanye West Touring Company 
  2. Coal CEO’s defamation lawsuit against John Oliver is dismissed: Murray Energy says it will appeal the decision.
  3. Stanford Professor Drops Stupid SLAPP Suit Against Critics; Still Mad Online
  4. Appeals Court Affirms Dismissal Of Frank Sivero’s Publicity Rights Suit Against ‘The Simpsons’ 
  5. Court Destroys Future Public Art Installations By Holding Building Owner Liable For Destroying This One
  6. Dark Day For Hollywood – Law Prohibiting Online Publication Of Actors’ Ages Is Unconstitutional! 
  7. Federal Court Shuts Down IMDb-Targeting ‘Anti-Ageism’ Law Permanently
  8. Fair Dealing Fake News: When Seeking a Refund Arising From Copyright Over-Payments Becomes a “Legal Attack on Writers” (Michael Geist)
  9. Why Fair Dealing Benefits Creators: The Case of a Room Full of Spoons (Michael Geist)
  10. Why Fair Dealing Safeguards Freedom of Expression: The Case of the Vancouver Aquarium (Michael Geist)
  11. Judge Saris Opines on Copyright Infringement in 3-D Greeting Card Case 
  12. Black Panther Surpasses Wonder Woman, Toy Story 3 At Domestic Box Office: Third highest-grossing MCU movie domestically.
  13. Mark Millar Has an Interesting Theory About Why Marvel Movies Work and DC Movies Don’t
  14. Disney Donates $1 Million To Open Stem Centers In Honor Of Black Panther Success: The money will go towards building new Centers of Innovation for kids interested in STEM. 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. US Officials Say Russia Hacked Pyeongchang Olympics, Tried to Pin It on North Korea
  2. Russia accused of “false flag” attack on Olympic opening: Routing hacks, bits of code used to throw off attribution trail.
  3. America’s Voting Systems Are Highly Vulnerable to Hackers: And we’re doing nothing to protect them.
  4. Feds have spent 13 years failing to verify whether passport data is legit: Data is read off e-passports, but CBP lacks software to verify digital signatures.
  5. US Border Officials Have Never Verified Chipped Passports, Despite Demanding Their Usage
  6. Us Border Patrol Hasn’t Validated E-Passport Data For Years: US Customs and Border Patrol hasn’t been verifying the cryptographic signatures on e-Passports – because they never installed the right software.
  7. YouTube Removes Some Demographics Data From Creator Analytics To Protect Viewer Privacy
  8. Microsoft’s Supreme Court Case Has Big Implications For Data
  9. Microsoft doesn’t want to turn over foreign server data, SCOTUS to weigh in: Silicon Valley fears that if US wins, its data held abroad will be vulnerable.
  10. Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments In Microsoft Email Case
  11. SEC Issues Interpretive Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures: Greater Engagement Required of Officers and Directors
  12. Car companies are preparing to sell driver data to the highest bidder: Connected cars are going to monetize data, but most drivers don’t know that.
  13. Covert ‘Replay Sessions’ Have Been Harvesting Passwords By Mistake
  14. How To Turn Off Facebook’s Face Recognition Features
  15. Man removes feds’ spy cam, they demand it back, he refuses and sues
  16. Cellebrite can unlock any iPhone (for some values of “any”): Forensics contractor’s “Advanced Unlocking Service” still has to brute-force passcodes
  17. Developer gets prison after admitting backdoor was made for malice: Full-featured trojan catered to password thieves, Peeping Toms, and ransomware scammers.

GAMES

  1. Star Control devs file counterclaim against Stardock over IP ownership
  2. Star Control countersuit aims to invalidate Stardock’s trademarks: Stardock claims Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III didn’t even create the classic games.
  3. Twitch Interactive, Inc. v. Justin Johnston, Et Al.
  4. Trump decries violent games after school shooting: US president raises concerns about the internet, games, and movies during a meeting on school safety
  5. Trump Blames School Shootings On Violent Video Games, Movies; Suggests We Need Some Sort Of Rating System For Them
  6. President Trump: “We have to do something” about violent video games, movies: Parkland student who plays Call of Duty responds: “That’s just a really pathetic excuse.”
  7. Right On Time: Kentucky Governor Lays The Blame For Florida School Shooting At The Feet Of Video Games
  8. Rhode Island might tax violent games to fund mental health programs
  9. Rhode Island politician proposes violent game tax: 10% sales tax on M-rated games would pay for mental health and counselling resources in schools
  10. Game Studio Threatens Employees’ Jobs If They Don’t Write Positive Reviews Of Own Game, Then Steam Pulls Game Entirely
  11. ESRB defends “fun” loot boxes as it starts labeling all “in-game purchases”: New label doesn’t specifically call out loot boxes to avoid “overwhelming” parents.
  12. ESRB to add ‘In-Game Purchase’ label to games featuring loot boxes
  13. ESRB responds to loot box controversy with in-game purchase label: Rating board to add new indicator on physical games when players can spend money from within the game
  14. Riot reveals the odds and rules that power League of Legends loot boxes
  15. Hooked on loot boxes: The industry’s push for engagement at all costs is ready to backfire as it misunderstands the concern over a controversial mechanic
  16. League of Legends dev Riot Games details how it ensures fairer loot box odds: Leading MOBA studio is the latest to share drop rates as scrutiny over monetisation continues
  17. Nintendo’s eShop refund policy found to violate European consumer rights: Norwegian Consumer Council asks Nintendo to bring its policy in line with European law
  18. Game Studio Found To Install Malware DRM On Customers’ Machines, Defends Itself, Then Apologizes
  19. ESA Comes Out Against Allowing Museums To Curate Online Video Games For Posterity
  20. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild big winner at DICE Awards
  21. Zelda and Nintendo clean up at the DICE Awards
  22. Breath of the Wild wins four including GOTY, while Nintendo was involved with a further seven winners
  23. In the age of the Switch, the Nintendo 3DS refuses to die: Despite Switch success, older portable is still popular, especially in the US.
  24. Nintendo: letting our fans review video games might not be a good idea – Change comes only five days after Nintendo caught up with rivals’ review systems.
  25. Nintendo Pulls Switch Game User Reviews
  26. Nintendo Adds User Reviews, Immediately Pulls Them
  27. Nintendo is letting players review Switch games on its official website
  28. Nintendo’s disappointing year on mobile: Smartphone games are proving to be a challenge for Nintendo – and the problems are more basic than a failure to embrace F2P
  29. Sega’s Yakuza 6 demo accidentally included the full game: Lucky downloaders got the entire game well ahead of April 17 release.
  30. The state of iOS game development, according to the creators of Alto’s Odyssey: From Metal to Android, Ryan Cash, Jason Medeiros, and Eli Cymet talk shop.
  31. Star Control creators file counterclaim against Stardock: Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III seek an injunction, but Stardock CEO responds that its ownership position is “incontestable”
  32. Rebellion trademark clash compels Ballistic Interactive to change game name: Upcoming RPG Hellhunter will now be released as HellSign, Sherdians lawyer warns indies to check trademarks
  33. Double Fine’s indie publishing biz aims to grow and help devs ‘rise above the noise’
  34. Blog: Random advice on how to survive as an indie studio
  35. “There’s no excuse for unequal pay”: Leading UK games organisations discuss the importance of ensuring employees of any gender are paid fairly as claims against major non-games firms rise
  36. Former EA devs reflect on work culture 14 years after EA Spouse 
  37. Facebook launches Women in Gaming site to share stories, research, and tools
  38. Facebook launches #SheTalksGames initiative to promote women in video games: Women In Gaming Stories is designed to encourage more women into the games business, and into leadership roles
  39. Twitch Partners With Non-Profit On ‘BroadcastHER’ Grants To Support Female Gamers
  40. 1,000 Dreams in partnership with Twitch to support female streamers: Plans to raise money for BroadcastHER Grant through Women’s History Month streaming event
  41. PAX producer ReedPOP acquires Gamer Network
  42. Over half of games journalists see a future co-existing with influencers: 15% view influencers as a “significant threat” to games journalism
  43. NPD: US games business had its best January since 2011- Monster Hunter World was the best-selling game in a month where dollar spend reached $1.1 billion
  44. NPD Group: U.S. video game hardware sales topped 1M in January
  45. PlayStation Plus will stop offering PS3 and Vita games in 2019 
  46. Almost $9bn spent on digital games in January – Superdata: Research firm also reports PUBG and Fortnite generated $200m in revenue last month
  47. Australians spent AU$3.23bn on video games in 2017: IGEA data shows AU$1bn on physical hardware and software, console sales up 36% year-on-year
  48. Metacritic ranks Bethesda as top-rated big publisher of 2017: Nicalis takes top-spot for best mid-sized publisher while EA comes in at fifth place after it “fell precipitously” last year
  49. Are video games immune to cryptocurrency failure?: 46% of 2017 ICOs have already failed, but most games-based projects seem to be ongoing
  50. UK Charts: Metal Gear Survive debuts at No.6 – £25 spin-off game fails to have a big impact on the charts
  51. Horizon Zero Dawn has sold over 7.6M copies worldwide
  52. Metal Gear Survive is The Rebirth And Death Of Metal Gear
  53. Warcraft III receives major patch ahead of first ever Invitational
  54. Critical Force: “Mobile will become more and more important to esports” – CEO Veli-Pekka Piirainen on how patient community building and emerging markets helped Critical Ops to reach one million daily players
  55. Newzoo lays down ten key factors that will determine the growth of esports: “Crunch time for esports as it enters adolescence,” says market intelligence firm
  56. Esports Monetization Platform FanAI Has Cleveland Cavaliers’ Backing
  57. Discord expands verified server program to eSports teams
  58. Vision Esports secures $38M to ramp up investment efforts
  59. Vision Esports raises $38 million in funding: Round led by Evolution Media featured contributions from numerous star professional athletes
  60. GamersOrigin, LDLC Event et l’Olympique lyonnais: les trois premières sociétés agréées pour l’emploi de joueurs professionnels de jeux vidéo compétitifs
  61. Overwatch: Building an esport from the ground up
  62. H1Z1 player base declines by 91% months before launch of pro league: Concurrent players down to 9,000 from peak of 150,000
  63. Smite esports leagues will be exclusive to Microsoft’s Mixer: Xbox streaming service to showcase both the Pro and Console series for Hi-Rez’s fantasy MOBA
  64. Augmented and mixed reality revenue to overtake VR by 2021: AR/MR revenue expected to double to $3.2 billion this year
  65. Facebook pulls VR shooting demo from display at CPAC: “We regret that we failed to do so in the first place,” says Facebook VP of VR
  66. Augmented and mixed reality revenue to surpass VR by 2021
  67. Google opens up ARCore access as SDK exits preview
  68. Rovio’s value halves following investor exodus: Angry Birds developer cites spiralling user acquisition cost for profit forecast shortfall
  69. Wooga makes layoffs as it pivots towards story-driven games
  70. Trion Worlds remastering Defiance without TV show: MMO publisher will bring free-to-play shooter to PC and current gen consoles despite lack of key selling point
  71. Pokemon Day 2018 Celebrations Include Snapchat Lenses, New Pikachu In Pokemon Go: Plus a new Pikachu Talk app for Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
  72. Blizzard Let Zenyatta Walk And It Was A Mistake
  73. Why release a new N64 game in 2018?: How a forgotten PS1 game has become a Kickstarter hit
  74. Metal Gear Survive Dev Appears To Call Out Konami In Hidden Message
  75. WWE Items Coming To Rocket League
  76. Ex-Quantic Dream dev launches video game storytelling course: Interior Night’s Caroline Marchal teams up with author and TV producer John Yorke for seven-week program
  77. Weza Interactive’s mission to become Africa’s success story: Kenyan developer George Ahere on how local culture inspired debut title Mzito and his plans to raise the continent’s profile in the global games market
  78. Ubisoft’s “Minority Report of programming”: La Forge claims its Commit Assistant AI for detecting bugs as they’re introduced can cut programming time by 20 per cent
  79. Obscure 1984 Donkey Kong game released online
  80. Europe finally gets a video game chart with digital data
  81. Can gaming’s own “academy awards” become a cultural event?: Academy president says attracting the “wider gamer audience” isn’t a priority.
  82. Obituary: Former President and CEO of Atari Ray Kassar 

Jon

Read More | No Comments

News of the Week; February 21, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 4: Absence of Court Orders Would Put Canada At Odds With Almost Everyone (Michael Geist)
  2. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 5: The Inevitable Expansion of the Block List Standard for “Piracy” Sites (Michael Geist)
  3. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 6: Over-Blocking of Legitimate Websites (Michael Geist)
  4. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 7: The Likely Expansion of the Block List to Non-IP Issues (Michael Geist)
  5. Bell to Employees: Click Here To Support Our Website Blocking Proposal at the CRTC (Michael Geist) 
  6. Congress Pressures FCC Boss Over His Total Failure To Police Net Neutrality Comment Fraud
  7. AT&T’s attempt to buy Time Warner suffers a blow in court: AT&T loses bid for evidence; Trump’s hatred of CNN won’t play big role in case. 
  8. AT&T tries to prove Trump meddled in merger review because he hates CNN
  9. FCC Boss Being Investigated By His Own Agency For Being Too Cozy With The Industry He Regulates 
  10. Ajit Pai Is Reportedly Being Investigated by the FCC’s Inspector General 
  11. Ajit Pai faces investigation into moves that benefit Sinclair Broadcasting: IG examines whether Pai “improperly coordinated with Sinclair” on rule changes.
  12. Ajit Pai’s Plan Will Take Broadband Away From Poor People
  13. FCC Broadband Availability Data Derided As Inaccurate, ‘Shameful’ 
  14. To kill net neutrality, FCC might have to fight more than half of US states: Bucking FCC and Ajit Pai, lawmakers across US have proposed net neutrality laws.
  15. More Than Half Of U.S. States Now Pushing Their Own Net Neutrality Rules
  16. Charter fails to defeat lawsuit alleging false Internet speed promises: Net neutrality repeal can’t save Charter from lawsuit, NY Supreme Court says.
  17. Starting Small on Media Regulation Modernization – Rule Requiring Hard Copy of FCC Rules Repealed 

DIGITAL

  1. Instagram, YouTube Face Full Block In Russia After Billionaire Wins A Privacy Lawsuit Over Pictures With An Alleged Escort
  2. OCA upholds $700,000 award in internet defamation case
  3. Playboy says linking to Playmate archive violates copyright; judge says no way: Boing Boing linked to an Imgur-hosted archive that has since been taken down. 
  4. Scraping Is OK, Copying Proprietary Software Is Not 
  5. Terrible Copyright Ruling Over An Embedded Tweet Undermines Key Concept Of How The Internet Works
  6. A Ruling Over Embedded Tweets Could Change Online Publishing
  7. Are news publishers directly liable for embedding tweets that contain images not created by that tweeter?
  8. Disney Enterprises, Inc. v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC 
  9. 32 lawsuits filed against Intel over Spectre and Meltdown flaws
  10. Court Realizes It Totally Screwed Up An Injunction Against Zazzle For Copyright Infringement 
  11. John Perry Barlow and the Foundational Values of the Net
  12. Twitter “bot” purge causes outcry from trollerati as follower counts fall: Right-wing tweeters see thousands of followers purged for “suspicious account behavior.”
  13. Even If The Russian Troll Factory Abused Our Openness Against Us, That Doesn’t Mean We Should Close Up
  14. NRA Goes Quiet on Twitter, Just Like After Previous Mass Shootings
  15. Parkland Conspiracies Overwhelm The Internet’s Broken Trending Tools
  16. Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting
  17. Special Counsel indicts 13 people, Russian troll farm on conspiracy charges: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says Russians conducted “information warfare.”
  18. How the Internet Companies That Sold Ads to Russian Trolls Can Fix the Problem: Mueller’s indictments describe a sprawling Russian scheme to sow discord in our elections using social media. The platforms now have a duty to protect our democracy 
  19. DOJ Russia Indictment Again Highlights Why Internet Companies Can’t Just Wave A Magic Wand To Make Bad Stuff Go Away
  20. TWiT takes on Twitter in trademark dispute
  21. Conservative Twitter Users Lose Thousands of Followers, Mass Purge of Bots Suspected
  22. A Blockbuster Indictment Details Russia’s Attack On US Democracy
  23. The Toolset Of An Elite North Korean Hacker Group On The Rise
  24. U.N. chief urges global rules for cyber warfare
  25. YouTube’s Top Trending Video This Morning Promoted Conspiracy Theory About Florida Shooting Survivor
  26. YouTube Outlines New Official Punishments For ‘Egregious Cases’
  27. As “Demonetization Day” Arrives On YouTube, Small Creators Offer Advice To One Another
  28. Why Artificial Intelligence Researchers Should Be More Paranoid
  29. Algorithmic Impact Assessments: Toward Accountable Automation in Public Agencies 
  30. Big Data Suggests Big Potential For Urban Farming
  31. Canadian Competition Policy Focuses in on “Big Data”
  32. Toward ethical, transparent and fair AI/ML: a critical reading list
  33. A Biohacker Regrets Publicly Injecting Himself With CRISPR: “There’s no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to end up hurt eventually.”
  34. Internet rages after Google removes “view image” button, bowing to Getty: Getty drops lawsuit against Google in exchange for controversial image search changes.
  35. Google’s New Ad Blocker Changed The Web Before It Even Switched On
  36. A Lack of Emotional Intelligence is Fueling Misogyny and Racism at Google — and Across Silicon Valley
  37. Misogyny Online: Death by a Thousand Cuts
  38. Google Fired and Disciplined Employees for Speaking Out About Diversity
  39. Ex-Google Employee Claims Wrongful Firing For Criticizing James Damore’s Memo
  40. Ex-Google engineer: I was fired for being too liberal – Tim Chevalier sues Google, claims only employees “who represent the majority” speak.
  41. Infamous Google memo author shot down by federal labor board: Damore’s gender-focused memo was “discriminatory, constituted sexual harassment.”
  42. Good news: Chrome debuts automatic blocking of annoying ads – Starting this week, Chrome took aim at some of the Internet’s most intrusive ads.
  43. Glitch on Bitcoin Exchange Drops Prices to Zero Dollars, User Tries to Make Off With Trillions 
  44. Taxation of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies
  45. NSA Exploit Now Powering Cryptocurrency Mining Malware
  46. Tesla cloud resources are hacked to run cryptocurrency-mining malware
  47. Cryptocurrency-mining criminals that netted $3 million gear up for more: Attackers who mined 10,829 Monero coins over 18 months target a new server platform
  48. Cryptocurrency Mining Company Coinhive Shocked To Learn Its Product Is Being Abused
  49. Blockchain Just Isn’t As Radical As You Want It To Be
  50. Instagram’s Latest Direct Messaging Feature Challenges Snapchat Again
  51. One Down: Instagram Caves To Russian Censorship As All Eyes Turn To YouTube
  52. Facebook’s secret weapon in the fight against foreign meddling? Postcards 
  53. Copycat: How Facebook Tried To Squash Snapchat
  54. Facebook Notification Spam Has Crossed The Line
  55. Facebook ‘Security’: A New VPN That’s Spyware And Two-Factor Authentication That Spams You 
  56. Wired’s Big Cover Story On Facebook Gets Key Legal Point Totally Backwards, Demonstrating Why CDA 230 Is Actually Important
  57. NFL Thursday Night Digital Rights: Amazon, YouTube, Twitter, Verizon Again at Bidding Table
  58. YouTube, Amazon, Twitter May Bid Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars For NFL Rights
  59. Amazon To Bring Ad-Supported Options To Its Channels Program 
  60. Amazon uses cash back benefits to entice Prime members to Whole Foods
  61. UberEats Driver Kills Customer During Delivery in Atlanta 
  62. Why are we still struggling with hyper-linking and copyright law? (Andres Guadamuz)
  63. Could 5G Break Facebook And Google’s Grip On Online Content, Cut ALL Cords?
  64. Iran’s National Information Network: Faster Speeds, but at What Cost?
  65. Apple’s Excellence in Design Leads to Employees Smacking Into Glass Walls
  66. NBA’s Adam Silver Focused On Tech That Creates Magical Experiences
  67. Kudos To The Crock-Pot People For Handling The Online Fallout From ‘This Is Us’ So Well
  68. Everyone Creates: New Empirical Data Shows Just How Much The Internet Has Enabled A New Creative Economy 

CREATIVITY

  1. Court Shakes Off Dumb Copyright Lawsuit Against Taylor Swift 
  2. US Judge dismisses Taylor Swift ‘Shake it Off’ lyric as too ‘banal’ to copyright: Nick McDonald comments
  3. Judge Dismisses Taylor Swift Lawsuit While Pouring the Burn Sauce
  4. John Wiley & Sons Inc. v. DRK Photo: Second Circuit holds that stock photograph company aggregating claims for copyright infringement against third-party licensees for exceeding usage limits of licenses does not have standing  
  5. Rearden LLC v. Walt Disney Company: District court dismisses copyright and direct patent infringement claims against various film studios arising out of allegedly unauthorized use of plaintiff’s MOVA computer-graphics motion capture technology
  6. Jerry Seinfeld is being sued for allegedly stealing the idea for Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee
  7. How a Polish Holocaust Story Became the Basis of a Controversial Copyright Case in Canada’s Federal Court
  8. Germany’s Speech Laws Continue To Be A Raging Dumpster Fire Of Censorial Stupidity
  9. The Lynyrd Skynyrd Texting Case: Spoliation and Non-Party Texts 
  10. Scholastic Wants To Help Young Creators Showcase Their Works By Stripping Them Of Their IP Rights
  11. What Black Panther’s Success Means For The Future Of Movies 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. German Court Says Facebook’s Real Names Policy Violates Users’ Privacy
  2. Facebook has been sharing our data for months to help study income inequality: In the US, just 1 percent of the population holds 40 percent of the wealth.
  3. Mountain of sensitive FedEx customer data exposed, possibly for years: Company stored customer passports, driver licenses, and more in public Amazon bucket.
  4. In terse statement, White House blames Russia for NotPetya worm
  5. Mozilla’s Open Letter To Expert Committee Drafting India’s First Data Protection Law Slams Aadhaar Biometric Identity System
  6. Internal Versus External Tracking Is Next Frontier Of Data Privacy

GAMES

  1. Gameloft facing lawsuit from outsourcing firm over copyright infringement
  2. Outsourcer suing Gameloft over Asphalt assets and trade secrets: Vietnamese studio Glass Egg claims employees created assets without company’s knowledge
  3. Despite increased downloads, Gameloft sees drop in daily and monthly average users
  4. European regulator: Nintendo’s strict eShop refund policy is unlawful
  5. After 600 days of being banned, former CS:GO streamer sues Twitch
  6. Ubisoft Perma-Bans Creator Of Cool, Non-Cheating Tool For ‘The Division’ Because It Was Made With Cheating Software
  7. Add-on dev Flight Sim Labs under fire for using malware as DRM
  8. Flight-sim devs say hidden password-dump tool was used to fight pirates: Developer says tool was intended to target one specific cracker.
  9. Streamer Sues Twitch Over Suspension: James ‘PhantomL0rd’ Varga says he was a “scapegoat”.
  10. Banned Twitch streamer files lawsuit against platform for loss of earnings and “reputational harm”: James “Phantoml0rd” Varga argues he was never given adequate explanation for the ban
  11. Twitch delays enforcement of new community guidelines over clarity concerns: Video platform criticised for new guidelines being vague
  12. Twitch Just Launched Chat Rooms And It’s The 90s All Over Again
  13. EVE Online to permanently ban repeat offenders using bots
  14. Eugen Systems devs on strike after claiming violation of rights 
  15. Video games, not guns, to blame for school shooting, says Kentucky gov.: “It’s the same as pornography…. we are reaping what we’ve sown here.”
  16. Game industry pushes back against efforts to restore gameplay servers: DMCA exemption fight shows mistrust over limited “preservation” claims.
  17. ESA argues against DMCA exemption for abandoned online games
  18. ESA opposes potential DMCA rule change aimed at preserving abandoned online games: “Preservation of online video games is now critical,” says Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment
  19. Hawaii proposes landmark legislation against loot boxes: State representative who previously declared legislation a “slippery slope” affirms support for efforts toward regulating loot boxes; expects more states to follow Hawaii’s lead
  20. U.S. Senator calls on ESRB and FTC to review loot box practices 
  21. Blog: Much ado about loot boxes
  22. Report: 69% of consumers find cosmetic microtransactions acceptable: Only 6% of consumers never spend money on microtransactions
  23. 27% of Brits have purchased 18-rated games while still underage: While still underage, 65% of millennials have played an 18-rated video game and 35% bought one
  24. Microsoft: “Representation isn’t just good common sense, it’s good business sense” – At the DICE Summit today, Phil Spencer urged the industry to pursue diversity and inclusivity or risk missing out on the growth opportunities to come
  25. Learning from scantily clad dancer scandal, Xbox exec calls for inclusivity: Phil Spencer sees “opportunity and responsibility to make gaming for everyone.”
  26. For Xbox boss Spencer, inclusivity is key for successful company culture 
  27. Rovio partners with GSN Games for cash-wagering Angry Birds game
  28. Nightdive puts crowdfunded System Shock reboot on hiatus: The project lost focus after raising more than $1.3 million from Kickstarter backers
  29. Atari launching two cryptocurrencies: Shares spike 52% after company unveils Atari Token and Pong, announces plans to allow cryptocurrencies in its gambling business
  30. Atari stock jumps 52% on plans for nostalgia-backed cryptocurrencies: “Atari Token” and “Pong Token” continue long trend of zombie corporate licensing.
  31. Doom on Switch may have changed everything with new motion controls: Nintendo teased this brilliant idea in Splatoon. Will other shooters follow?
  32. UK Charts: Nintendo Switch push sends FIFA back to No.1: Kingdom Come –  Deliverence makes No.2, Bayonetta 2 back at No.5
  33. Super Rare Games bringing limited edition indie games to Nintendo Switch
  34. How Nintendo Labo is using the Switch’s IR Camera and HD Rumble features
  35. How Switch’s success is impacting devs in the game porting biz
  36. Nintendo To Expel Members From ‘Creators Program’ In Accordance With New YouTube Policy
  37. Starbreeze banking on The Walking Dead after posting pre-tax loss of $22.2M
  38. Ubisoft Berlin’s growth ambitions will need government support: “We intend to grow to a considerable size,” says studio director Istvan Tajnay, “but we could grow to a huge size if parameters were right”
  39. How Augmented Reality Is Shaping The Future Of Play
  40. Gree VR Fund invests $18.3m into 17 augmented and virtual reality startups: San Francisco-based venture capital fund re-brands to reflect commitment beyond just virtual reality
  41. The Difference Between Smartglasses & AR Glasses, and Why Everyone is Confused
  42. Could Esports Become Part Of Olympics By 2024?
  43. Daytona 500 Race Week Features Esports Tournament On Mobile Stage
  44. How Major League Baseball Is Approaching Future Entry Into Esports
  45. Blizzard using in-game rewards to promote OverwatchLeague streams on Twitch
  46. The CEO of esports team Splyce explains the human side of professional play
  47. Learning to love older games: The recent boom in remastered games isn’t just business as usual; it signifies an underlying shift in how consumers value older games
  48. Meet the brewery making its own video game: Tiny Rebel Games teams up with its sister company to create Beer Money
  49. A Videogame Developer Who Finds Power In Pathos
  50. Nightdive Studios puts System Shock remake on hold 
  51. Blog: Building my courtroom drama game, Twelve Absent Men
  52. How multimedia trade marks could kill cloned games: Harbottle & Lewis’ Kostya Lobov believes a new form of IP protection will greatly benefit developers – as shown by Rebellion’s Sniper Elite 4
  53. Bandai Namco opens two virtual reality arcades in south England: Plans to further expand the operation across the UK throughout 2018
  54. Blog: Flash games aren’t dead, they’re just in a coma
  55. Blog: How marketing drives engagement in free to play games
  56. Opinion: Why there’s no such thing as ‘the game industry’
  57. “History is our playground”: Bringing Assassin’s Creed into the classroom – We speak to Maxime Durand, franchise historian behind the publisher’s flagship series, about its new violence-free Discovery Mode
  58. Blog: Listen to a Harvard Egyptologist discuss Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Jon

Read More | No Comments

Question of the Week (Classes 8 + 9) Poll

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Read More | No Comments

  • Previous
  • 1
  • …
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • …
  • 63
  • Next

Communications Law


RSS

Login with your CWL





Creative Commons License

Peter A. Allard School of Law
Vancouver Campus
Allard Hall
1822 East Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility