Google says it’s struggling to cope after being asked to censor 250,000 EU webpages
Google’s top lawyer has spoken out to try to explain the mess that happened last week, when the search giant censored, and then partially reinstated, links to a number of important news articles. Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond now admits that some of the initial censorship decisions were “incorrect,” specifically in the case of some Guardian newspaper articles that were delisted for a short time. But, as you’d probably expect, he also gives Google’s side of the story.
“We’ve had over 70,000 take-down requests covering 250,000 webpages since May.”
Drummond says that Europe’s recent “Right To Be Forgotten” (RTBF) ruling, which allows a member of the public to request the removal of search results containing their name, is so “vague and subjective” that it’s hard to enforce consistently. He adds that Google has received so many requests — 70,000 so far, concerning 250,000 different web pages, all of which must be assessed individually — that the company has been struggling to cope. He says the process is still very much a “work in progress” that will lead to “difficult and debatable judgments,” as well as to errors.
Unfortunately, Drummond fails to address one of the most controversial de-listings of last week. This concerned a BBC blog post about the former Merrill Lynch CEO, Stan O’Neal, and his involvement in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. At the time, the BBC was left in the dark about who had ordered the takedown and why — and O’Neal has since denied it was him. This led others to argue that Google had deliberately approved a weak takedown request (possibly from someone who had merely commented on the original post) in order to make the RTBF ruling appear worse for the public interest than it really is. Judging from Drummond’s general defence, he’d likely argue that it’s extremely difficult to decide whether a specific request is spurious or legitimate when you’re being swamped by so many.
Via: GigaOm
Source: The Guardian
OnePlus teases wood covers announcement on July 22nd
Owning a smartphone is a very personal thing and many people choose to customize theirs with covers or skins. Recently, phones have become a lot more customizable, particularly the Motorola Moto X, for which you can choose colours for your back cover, or even to choose to have it made of wood. It looks like another phone manufacturer is about to head that route as well as OnePlus teases wood covers on their Google+ with a simple picture that says “Knock On Wood” and the date, July 22nd.
Whether this means OnePlus goes with the full-blown Moto Maker-type arrangement, or just offers variants made of wood remains to be seen, but barring a rip off of LG’s Knock On code, OnePlus looks poised to introduce wood covers for their sole smartphone, the OnePlus One, on July 22nd. As we found out though, having a wood case isn’t always the best thing, particularly if you drop your phone into a fire, but with the size of the 5.5-inch OnePlus One, chances are the fire would go out instead.
Are you interested in getting a wood back cover for your OnePlus One? Is wood something you need on your smartphone? Let us know your opinion.
Source: Google+ via TalkAndroid
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So this happened: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood to rack up $200 million in IAPs in 2014
The free-to-play mobile game market is proving itself to be profitable, fast growing, but overall, extremely contentious. Sometimes, though, it’s so very hard to argue with results, and one of the results that has been brought to our attention is the fact that one free-to-play game is predicted to rake in up to $200 million in in-app purchases just this year. That game is Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a game published by GluMobile, and lets players assume the role of a socialite in Hollywood, not unlike Kim Kardashian herself, and try and make it as a number of A-list professions including actor, designer, or model.
The game obviously isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, however analyst Douglas Creutz thinks its success is down to the fact that “Kim Kardashian’s brand has driven people to download the game.” And if you want to put that $200 million figure in perspective, popular mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out garnered $100 million in a whole year, whereas Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is expected to make the $200 million mark 6 months after its June release. That’s a pretty staggering statistic and it really makes you wonder how much branding makes a difference in the mobile gaming industry. If you’re interested in checking out what all the fuss is about, we’ve got the download links to Kim Kardashian: Hollywood down below.
What do you think about this kind of success for a free-to-play game like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? Let us know your thoughts.
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Bloomberg: SoundCloud nearing licensing deals with record labels
Since SoundCloud’s one of the biggest places to share mixes, recordings and podcasts, it obviously has to grapple with a lot of copyright issues. That’s the reason why it reportedly approached record labels to cut licensing deals months ago — deals, which are now real close to going through, at least according to Bloomberg. The publication says SoundCloud’s offering Universal, Sony and Warner Music a 3 to 5 percent stake each, so long as they agree not to sue the company. According to earlier reports, the deal could lead to a more robust library for SoundCloud users, while giving recording companies the right to pull down uploads containing tracks not licensed for use on the service.
The companies haven’t officially announced anything yet, but it’s worth noting that SoundCloud gave Universal carte blanche to delete a mix uploaded to the service earlier this month. So, we have to ask: if you’re among SoundCloud’s 250 million users, would you like to see these deals go through, or would music companies coming into the picture ruin the platform for you?
Source: Bloomberg
GameStop promises it won’t interfere with game development
It’s understandable if the news of retail giant GameStop getting in on game development made you nervous. The potential of a store with vested interest in exclusive content dictating what goes into a game from its inception is more than a little frightening. It turns out those fears, however, may have been unfounded. Company CEO Paul Raines recently told Time that we won’t see the outfit involved with the creative process, nor essentially mandating parts of a main game be blocked off for those who only buy it through his store. “We love to play games, and unlike our competitors all we do is gaming. But we will not be involved in the artistic or creative process. That’s not really our domain.”
Rather, he says that this would be an extension of what it’s doing already: offering superficial exclusive things like liveries or powered-up weapons for games should you be part of its loyalty program, and pre-order a title. “I think the day you see us in the creative side is when you can tell me we’ve officially lost our minds,” Raines says.
The entire interview is pretty interesting even in addition to that. Raines waxes nostalgic about the company’s genesis, its Kongregate platform and even goes deep on how the outfit’s physical goods focus is shifting to accept the digital future we’re inching closer to every day; make sure to check it out.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Via: Joystiq
Source: Time
Apple Seeds New Versions of Safari for Mavericks and Mountain Lion to Developers [Mac Blog]
Apple today seeded developers with new versions of Safari for OS X Mavericks (Safari 7.1) and OS X Mountain Lion (Safari 6.2) to parallel continued work on OS X Yosemite. In particular, Apple is asking developers to test general website and extension compatibility for several reasons.
Please test general website compatibility.
– Subpixel rendering is now on by default for all web content. Web sites or in-app web views with extremely tight design constraints may render differently.
– CSS object model getters will return fractional double values based on subpixel layout and rendering metrics instead of rounded integral values.Please test extension compatibility.
Apple also documents several new WebKit features included in the new versions of Safari including support for WebGL, which allows users to view 3D content without plug-ins. WebGL has been present in Safari for OS X for several years, but is disabled by default. It’s clear, however, that Apple is looking to take WebGL mainstream, pushing development on OS X Safari and bringing it to Safari for iOS later this year with iOS 8.
Google sets aside $100 million for promising European startups
Genius can flower anywhere, you know, that’s why Google wants to give promising startups outside Silicon Valley a chance to explore their ideas. Mountain Valley’s particularly eyeing up-and-coming companies from Europe at the moment, so it launched a $100 million venture fund in the region. In an official blog post, Google Ventures Managing Partner Bill Maris says the company believes Europe’s startup scene has huge potential. After all, that’s where SoundCloud, Spotify and Supercell came from, and these three are now successful tech properties valuing billions of dollars, according to The New York Times. “Our goal is simple,” the blog post reads, “we want to invest in the best ideas from the best European entrepreneurs, and help them bring those ideas to life. “
$100 million, however, is small in the grand scheme of things, as tech deals reach tens of billions of dollars in total per year. Still, that’s just the initial amount Google plans to spend funding startups in the continent. And, hey, if the company’s establishing an HQ in London, there’s a chance that it won’t be the last hundred million Google’s earmarking for plucky European entrepreneurs.
Via: The New York Times
Source: Google
Apple Forcing Users to Upgrade to Latest Adobe Flash Plug-In Due to Security Issues [Mac Blog]
Apple today posted an updated support document noting that it is now blocking older version of the Adobe’s Flash Player plug-in due to a major security issue present in older versions.
In a posting to its security mailing list, Apple notes that users must upgrade to the latest 14.0.0.145 version of Flash Player if possible. For those users running systems incompatible with Flash Player 14, Adobe has made available a 13.0.0.231 update that addresses the security issues.
APPLE-SA-2014-07-10-1 OS X: Flash Player plug-in blocked
Due to security issues in older versions, Apple has updated the web plug-in blocking mechanism to disable all versions prior to Flash Player 14.0.0.145 and 13.0.0.231.
The high-priority update was released by Adobe on Tuesday to fix an issue disclosed in a proof-of-concept exploit by Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo. A number of major sites including Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr were vulnerable to the issue, although they quickly addressed the issue on their ends. With Adobe’s update to Flash Player itself, users will no longer be vulnerable as long as they update their plug-ins, a move Apple is now strongly encouraging by blocking all older versions of the plug-in.
Kids with disabilities can teach this robot how to play ‘Angry Birds’
As a way to help children dealing with cognitive and motor-skill disabilities, researchers from Georgia Tech have developed a rehabilitation tool that pairs a robot and an Android tablet. To demonstrate this system in action, the research team used Angry Birds to let kids teach the humanoid how to play Rovio’s popular game. Essentially, the robot is smart enough to learn by simply watching each move the child makes while flinging those birds toward the iconic green pigs. “The robot is able to learn by watching because it knows how interaction with a tablet app is supposed to work,” writes project leader Ayanna Howard, a professor at Georgia Tech. “It recognizes that a person touched here and ended there, then deciphers the information that is important and relevant to its progress.”
Still, as great as seeing a robot play Angry Birds may be, Georgia Tech researchers are looking at the big picture. Since the robot is designed to be capable of learning other tasks, it could be very useful during a child’s rehabilitation process. As Howard puts it, “Imagine that a child’s rehab requires a hundred arm movements to improve precise hand-coordination movements … if a robotic friend needs help with the game, the child is more likely to take the time to teach it, even if it requires repeating the same instructions over and over again.” In other words, it is likelier for a child to want to interact with the robot to complete an exercise, rather than taking on the task alone. Perhaps more importantly, it lets them learn and have fun while doing so.
Filed under: Misc, Robots, Science, Alt
Source: Georgia Tech
Verizon insists streaming slowdowns are on Netflix
Netflix and Verizon have been playing the blame game for months, and despite an April agreement to alleviate the situation customers are still seeing low-res streams and buffering screens (the FCC says it’s investigating). Today, Verizon published its own blog post to “dispel the Congestion Myth” with some data that showing why Netflix is responsible for the hangups. Comcast also put the blame on Netflix a few months ago, but Verizon has an infographic. Basically, it says that while the connections Netflix is using are overloaded there are other ways to access its network that are wide open, but Netflix just isn’t choosing to take advantage of them. Netflix pointed the finger right back in a statement to Engadget (included in full after the break), citing Verizon’s failure to upgrade the connections so users can take advantage of the bandwidth they’re paying for.
Anne Marie Squeo, Netflix:
We’d like to thank Verizon for laying out the issue so nicely. Congestion at the interconnection point is controlled by ISPs like Verizon. When Verizon fails to upgrade those interconnections, consumers get a lousy experience despite paying for more than enough bandwidth to enjoy high-quality Netflix video. That’s why Netflix is calling for strong net neutrality that covers the interconnection needed for consumers to get the quality of INTER-net they pay for.
Of course, one way to guarantee a smooth path would be to pay to connect directly, which ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T have been pushing Netflix to do. Reed Hastings and the rest of the folks at the streaming outfit have bent in some situations, but are still fighting to get “ISP tolls” banned under net neutrality. For now, Verizon says it’s “working aggressively” with Netflix to get those direct connections up and running, but it still hasn’t laid out an exact timetable for when things will get better.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Verizon
Source: Verizon Public Policy Blog
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