Innholdsfortegnelse for #240 i Techlife News

In 2011, a respected anti-counterfeiting coalition in Washington escalated its fight against the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, saying its websites served as a 24-hour market “for counterfeiters and pirates” and should be blacklisted. Fast forward to 2016. The same lobbying group, the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, reversed its position. Alibaba had become “one of our strongest partners.”The group welcomed Alibaba as a member and invited its celebrated founder, Jack Ma, to be the keynote speaker at its spring conference in Orlando, Florida. This is the tale of how one of China’s corporate giants won - and ultimately lost - a friend in Washington, using legal methods long deployed by corporate America: money and influence. But those time-honored tools weren’t enough to defuse the deep loathing that has greeted one of communist…

Google’s Android software just dodged a $9 billion bullet. A federal jury found Thursday that Google didn’t need permission to use a rival’s programming tools as it built Android - now the world’s leading smartphone operating software and a key part of Google’s multi-billion dollar Internet business. Software competitor Oracle claimed Google had stolen its intellectual property and reaped huge profits by copying pieces of an Oracle programming language called Java. But the jury in U.S. District Court found that Google made “fair use,” under copyright law, of Java elements that help different software programs work together. Oracle, which had sought $9 billion in damages, immediately said it would appeal. The verdict was closely watched in Silicon Valley, in part because many popular features of today’s smartphones only work because…

The Warriors’ Game 7 win to complete a comeback from down 3-1 in the Western Conference finals drew the largest TV audience for an NBA game on cable. The defending champs’ 96-88 come-from-behind victory over the Thunder on Monday night on TNT averaged 15.9 million viewers - more than several NBA Finals games in recent years. It’s the most-watched telecast of any kind in TNT’s 28-year history, the network said Tuesday. It was the largest audience for any pre-NBA Finals game since Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Trail Blazers. The Oklahoma City-Golden State series was already a major attraction after the Thunder upset the San Antonio Spurs in the conference semifinals. Then Oklahoma City left the Warriors on the brink of elimination with…

Striking Verizon employees may be back to work next week after the company and its unions reached an agreement in principle for a four-year contract. About 39,000 landline and cable employees in nine Eastern states and Washington, D.C., have been on strike since mid-April, one of the largest strikes in the U.S. in recent years. Verizon had trained other workers to step in but there were still delays in installations for Fios customers. Verizon said that it had high health care costs for its unionized workers, which have shrunk as it sold off large chunks of its wireline unit and focused on its mobile business, which was not unionized. It also wanted the union workers, just over one-fifth of its U.S. workforce, to agree to move around to different regions…

These days, when people over 80 in Beijing take a bus, see a doctor or spend money, their activities are digitally tracked by the government, as part of an effort to improve services for the country’s rapidly growing elderly population. The data amassed with each swipe of the multipurpose “Beijing Connect” old person’s card goes into a massive database of the elderly in the capital. City authorities hope the information will enable them to better cope with their burgeoning population of over-60s, which already stands at 3 million. Though geared toward the elderly, the program demonstrates how China more broadly is using big data to better direct the use of government resources for the country’s 1.4 billion people. Beijing’s strategy is to use new technology and its heavily censored Internet…

Skin Flume This second effort from the Australian electronic music producer is a must for any fans of modern dance music, and features contributions from Beck, Little Dragon and Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon. FIVE FACTS: 1. Flume began creating music at about the age of 13, with a basic production disc that was packaged in a box of cereal. 2. His self-titled debut album reached number one on the Australian charts and has since gone two-times platinum. 3. He has remixed songs by other notable artists including Arcade Fire, Radiohead and Disclosure. 4. The lead single from Skin, “Never Be Like You”, reached number one in Australia, making it Flume’s first chart-topping song. 5. Flume is signed to the Future Classic record label, which also features other Australian artists including…

The truck-size metal container sitting in a downtown park here isn’t meant to raise awareness about the global shipping industry, though it may nudge some people’s curiosity in that direction. Step into the carpeted interior, and it’s something completely different: a combination of an art installation and social science research project that lets people converse with others in far-flung regions of the world, on a life-size screen. The gold-painted shipping container in Newark’s revived Military Park is the hub of a 10-week pilot program sponsored by Shared Studios, an arts and technology collective, in collaboration with local arts group Gateway Project Spaces and researchers at Rutgers-Newark and Yale University. The program has two basic components. Participants can connect to similar portals set up by Shared Studios in cities including Havana;…

Splitting the bill for those pizzas you shared with your buddies or that utility bill that is suddenly due is going to get easier and faster even if you don’t all use the same bank. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other big banks are upgrading their online payment services to let customers make instant transfers of money to others who bank elsewhere, often at no cost. The move comes as traditional banks face pressure from payment companies like Venmo and Square Cash that offer ways to split the bill. Banks developed online services that allow their customers to send money to anyone with a phone number or email address several years ago. But the services were considered overly complicated. Until last year, bank customers could only send money to another…

Finland says it will apply for EU help to deal with recent redundancies, particularly among workers at Microsoft and Nokia. Justice and Employment Minister Jari Lindstrom says the Nordic country has previously had a “good experience” of EU support - financial and otherwise - for large numbers of laid off personnel in the technology sector, which has been hurt by competition from Apple, Samsung and others. Last week, Microsoft announced 1,350 job cuts, while Nokia earlier said it’s shedding 1,050. Nokia sold its troubled devices unit to Microsoft in a $7.5 billion deal in 2014, causing thousands of layoffs, but Microsoft also was unable to turn round the business as consumers didn’t warm to the Windows version of Lumia phones originally launched by the Finnish firm.…

Students from an all-female arts college in Philadelphia attended a conference for video game developers last year and, without even trying, they stood out. “We were basically the only girls in the room,” recalled Lindsey O’Brien, 21, a rising senior at Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art & Design. The male-dominated video game industry is changing as more women develop games, play games and take jobs reviewing games. While the ongoing cyber harassment of female gamers known as “Gamergate” indicates a reluctance by some to accept the growing number of women in the industry, mainstream institutions are welcoming all to the console. Moore’s animation and gaming arts program will see its first class of game developers graduate next year. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology created its Game Lab in 2012. New…

Artificial reality startup Magic Leap is accusing two Silicon Valley employees of stealing the closely guarded secrets behind its technological tricks. The allegations of betrayal and skullduggery surfaced in a lawsuit that Magic Leap filed late Thursday in federal court after the two workers, Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler, sued the company for wrongful termination earlier this week. An attorney for Bradski and Kaehler denied the company’s allegations. The legal tussle over intellectual property and stock options highlights the rising stakes in artificial reality as more technology companies bet it will produce the industry’s next big breakthroughs. Since its inception six years ago, Magic Leap has emerged as one of artificial reality’s most intriguing startups while raising $1.4 billion from a list of investors that include Google and China’s Alibaba…

NASA successfully inflated a new experimental room at the International Space Station on Saturday, producing the world’s first pump-it-up compartment for astronauts. The operation took much longer than expected, stretching over three days in all. But victory, when it came, was sweet. “A significant milestone has been accomplished,” Bigelow Aerospace, the inflatable chamber’s creator, cheered via Twitter. Astronaut Jeffrey Williams spent seven hours Saturday opening and closing an air valve to expand the compartment. Enough air finally seeped inside so that the puffy white pod could stretch to its full 13 feet in length and 10 ½ feet in diameter - the volume equivalent to a small bedroom. Internal air tanks provided the final pressurization to complete the job. Williams and his five crewmates will have to wait a week…

Cybersecurity researchers say North Korea might be connected to a recent attack that resulted in the theft of over $100 million from the Bangladeshi central bank and the attempted thefts of millions more from other Asian banks. If the finding holds up, the attacks would amount to a new strategy for the rogue nation, whose state-sponsored efforts have been have long been motivated by politics, not money. Security researchers at Symantec say that the malware used in February to steal $101 million from the Bangladeshi bank’s account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is similar to that used in the past by a group known as “Lazarus.” That group has been linked to a string of hackings largely focused on U.S. and South Korean targets dating back to…

Don’t look now, but hoverboards are angling for a comeback. Months ago, the powered scooters - which balance themselves but don’t actually “hover” - largely vanished from the U.S. market after they exhibited a distressing tendency to burst into flame. Now, though, Segway and other manufacturers want consumers to give hoverboards a second chance. On Wednesday, Segway - which also makes the eponymous upright scooter beloved by mall cops and airport security - will begin taking Amazon pre-orders for a new hoverboard, the MiniPro. Although the boards won’t actually ship until July, it’s a significant step, given that Amazon, Walmart and other retailers dumped the products months ago after videos of burning hoverboards went viral. The MiniPro and other new scooters have passed new safety standards designed to prevent fires.…

About $13 million in bitcoins will be auctioned in Sydney in June after Australian police confiscated the digital currency as proceeds of crime, an official said Tuesday. Ernst & Young was running the process, which is only the second such bitcoin auction in the world after the U.S. Marshals Service sold 144,000 bitcoins over a two-year period that had been confiscated from Ross Ulbricht, who founded the online drug bazaar Silk Road, the accountancy firm’s transaction partner Adam Nikitins said. Bidders can register until June 7 for the 24,518 bitcoins on offer. The 48-hour sealed auction will take place from June 20. Based on Tuesday’s bitcoin price of $533.80, the cryptocurrency is valued at almost $13.1 million. Nikitins expects strong interest in the auction since the bitcoin price has become…

Memorial Day weekend, long a flagship launching pad in Hollywood’s summer, went bust at the box office, as a pair of poorly reviewed sequels disappointed. “X-Men: Apocalypse,” from 20th Century Fox, took in $79.8 million over the four-day weekend, according to finalfigures Tuesday. While a sizable sum, the debut was the sixth best of the eight “X-Men” movies, accounting for inflation. The film, directed by Bryan Singer, seeks to introduce a number of new cast members to the franchise. “Alice Through the Looking Glass” flopped altogether. The Walt Disney Co. release cost $170 million to make, but it grossed just $33.5 million over the holiday weekend, including Monday. The performance, well shy of the $60 million-plus the industry expected, came on the heels of domestic violence accusations against the film’s…

Race This biographical sports drama movie follows the story of infamous African-American athlete Jesse Owens, who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. FIVE FACTS: 1. The movie coincides with the 80th anniversary of the 1936 Summer Olympics. 2. It is Jason Sudeikis’ first dramatic role. 3. Director Stephen Hopkins has also worked on Predator 2, 24 and one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. 4. Jesse Owens was born James Cleveland Owens. The name Jesse comes from his first two initials. 5. John Boyega was originally attached to play Jesse Owens, but dropped out to star in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi Plot Summary: This movie – based on both the real-life…

Scientists have found further evidence supporting the theory that some of the building blocks for life may have come to Earth from outer space. Using instruments aboard the European space probe Rosetta, researchers detected glycine and phosphorus in the dusty halo around a comet. Glycine is an amino acid, one of the molecules needed to make proteins, while phosphorus is essential for DNA and cells. Their presence in the coma enveloping comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko “supports the idea that comets delivered key molecules for prebiotic chemistry throughout the solar system and, in particular, to the early Earth,” according to the study published online Friday by the journal Science Advances. Scientists say adding a high concentration of those molecules to a body of water could have produced the “primordial soup” that gave birth…

A new federal study of the potential dangers of cellphone radiation, conducted in rats, found a slight increase in brain tumors in males and raised long-dormant concerns about the safety of spending so much time with cellphones glued to our ears. But the study had enough strange findings that it has caused other federal scientists to highlight flaws in the research, and experts said these findings and those from other studies continue to suggest the potential risk from cellphone radiation is very small. The National Institutes of Health study bombarded rats with cellphone radiation from the womb through the first two years of life for nine hours a day. It found tumors in 2 to 3 percent of male rats, which the study’s authors called low. But females weren’t affected…

Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison. As the Kremlin claims unequivocal support among Russians for its policies both at home and abroad, a crackdown is underway against ordinary social media users who post things that run against the official narrative. Here the Kremlin’s interests coincide with those of investigators, who are anxious to report high conviction rates for extremism. The Kremlin didn’t immediately comment on the issue. At least 54 people were sent to prison for hate speech last year, most of them for sharing and posting…

The European Union reached an agreement Tuesday with some of the world’s biggest social media firms, including Facebook and Twitter, on ways to combat the spread of hate speech online. Under the terms of a code of conduct, the firms, which also include YouTube and Microsoft, have committed to “quickly and efficiently” tackle illegal hate speech directed against anyone over issues of race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. The sites have often been used by terrorist organizations to relay messages and entice hatred against certain individuals or groups. Among the measures agreed with the EU’s executive arm, the firms have said they will establish internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that a majority of illegal content is assessed and, where necessary, removed within 24 hours. They…