Paramount says ‘Star Trek’ fan film’s Klingon violates copyright

Ever since CBS and Paramount Pictures sued the makers of the Star Trek fan film Axanar, fans have been wondering: what alleged copyright violations were so onerous that lawyers had to get involved? Unfortunately, the studios are more than happy to explain. They’ve filed a modified complaint that details what they believe the crowdfunded project is doing to run afoul of copyright law… and some of the claims aren’t going to rub enthusiasts the right way. For one thing, it believes that speaking Klingon is a violation — yes, just shouting “qapla’” could get you in trouble. There have been concerns that Paramount might crack down on Klingon use before, but this is the first time it’s taking action.

Other concerns include familiar-looking uniforms, the use of Stardates to mark time and Vulcans’ pointy ears. In other words, just about anything you vaguely associate with Star Trek is a problem. While the Axanar team knew it was testing the limits of copyright, it might not have expected so many issues.

If the lawsuit succeeds, it could have wide-reaching ramifications for the many fan films (regardless of franchise) that you see online. It could discourage creators from launching crowdfunding efforts to get their projects off the ground, even if they don’t intend to make a profit after release. It might also deter filmmakers who’d rather not risk releasing a project only to watch the source material’s copyright holders take it down over minor similarities. This dispute isn’t over, but it’s definitely taking an ugly turn.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

What’s on your HDTV: ‘Daredevil,’ ‘Pee-Wee’ and March Madness

This week the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament begins, so it’s time to prepare your bracket. Still, before the games get fully under way this weekend, Netflix has a loaded lineup with season two of its Daredevil Marvel series, Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday and even season two of Happy Valley. Game of Thrones fans can pick up season five or Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine on Blu-ray, while gamers can look forward to UFC 2 or Pokken Tournament. I tried the former over the last week and still couldn’t quite grasp the controls, but maybe you’ll have an easier time. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• Game of Thrones (S5)
• The Big Short
• Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine
• Swing Vote
• Sisters
• Brooklyn
• Carol
• Mulan
• Love (3D)
• The Manchurian Candidate (Criterion)
• My Boyfriend’s Back
• Lilies of the Field
• UFC 2 (PS4, Xbox One)
• Sheltered (PS4, PC, Xbox One)
• Nanobots (PC)
• Samurai Warriors 4 Empires (PS3, PS4)
• Just Cause 3: Sky Fortress Pack (DLC) (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Salt and Sanctuary (PS4)
• Dungeon of the Endless (Xbox One)
• Overpower (PC – early Access)
• Pokken Tournament (Wii U)

Monday

• 11.22.63, Hulu, 3AM
• 2016 BET Honors, BET, 8PM
• The Voice, NBC, 8PM
• Gotham, Fox, 8PM
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW, 8PM
• The Fosters, Freeform, 8PM
• WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
• American Dad, TBS, 8:30PM
• And Then There Were None (Part 2 of 2), Lifetime, 9PM
• Bates Motel, A&E, 9PM
• Ebola: The Doctor’s Story, HBO, 9PM
• Major Crimes (season finale), TNT, 9PM
• Lucifer, Fox, 9PM
• The Magicians, Syfy, 9PM
• James May’s Build a Car in 24 Hours, BBC America, 9PM
• Damien, A&E, 10PM
• Blindspot, NBC, 10PM
• Better Call Saul, AMC, 10PM
• Billion Dollar Wreck, History, 10PM
• Lost Girl, Syfy, 10PM
• Talking Saul, AMC, 11PM
• Bitten, Syfy, 11PM
• True Life: I’m on Smart Drugs, MTV, 11PM

Tuesday

• New Girl, Fox, 8PM
• Pretty Little Liars (season finale), Freeform, 8PM
• Fresh Off the Boat, ABC, 8PM
• NCIS, CBS, 8PM
• Real O’Neals, ABC, 8:30PM
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., ABC, 9PM
• Rizzoli & Isles (season finale), TNT, 9PM
• The Outsiders, WGN, 9PM
• Brooklyn Nine-nine, Fox, 9PM
• Shadowhunters, Freeform, 9PM
• Chicago Med, NBC, 9PM
• Moonshiners, Discovery, 9PM
• NCIS: New Orleans, CBS, 9PM
• The Grinder, Fox, 9:30PM
• Awkward (spring premiere), MTV, 10PM
• Crowded (series premiere), NBC, 10PM
• Limiless, CBS, 10PM
• Gonzaga: The March to Madness (season finale), HBO, 10PM
• Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
• American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, FX, 10PM
• Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
• Faking It (season premiere), MTV, 10:30PM

Wednesday

• Happy Valley (S2), Netflix, 3AM
• The Middle, ABC, 8PM
• Unsung Hollywood, TV One, 8PM
• Survivor, CBS, 8PM
• Rosewood, Fox, 8PM
• Young & Hungry, Freeform, 8PM
• The Goldbergs, ABC, 8:30PM
• Baby Daddy, Freeform, 8:30PM
• MTV Woodies, MTV 9PM
• Criminal Minds, CBS, 9PM
• Dual Survival (season finale), Discovery, 9PM
• Face Off, Syfy, 9PM
• The Americans (season premiere), FX, 10PM
• Internet Ruined My Life, Syfy, 10PM
• The Carmichael Show, NBC, 10PM
• Hap & Leonard, Sundance, 10PM
• Catfish, MTV, 10PM
• Broad City, Comedy Central, 10PM
• CSI: Cyber, CBS, 10PM
• Teachers (season finale), TV Land, 10:30PM
• MTV Suspect, 11PM

Thursday

• NCAA Basketball Championship (Rd1), CBS, 8PM
• You, Me, and the Apocalypse, NBC, 8PM
• Grey’s Anatomy, ABC, 8PM
• American Idol, Fox, 8PM
• WWE SmackDown, USA, 8PM
• Scandal, ABC, 9PM
• How to Get Away with Murder (season finale), ABC, 10PM
• Prey, BBC America, 9PM
• The Real World: The Big Leap (season premiere), MTV, 10PM
• Baskets, FX, 10PM
• Portlandia, IFC, 10PM
• Workaholics (season finale), Comedy Central, 10PM
• Shades of Blue, NBC, 10PM
• Colony (season finale), USA, 10PM
• Shades of Blue, NBC, 10PM
• Nightwatch, A&E, 10PM
• Idiotsitter, (season finale) Comedy Central, 10:30PM
• Adam Devine’s House Party, Comedy Central, 12:30AM

Friday

• Marvel’s Daredevil (S2), Netflix, 3AM
• Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday, Netflix, 3AM
• The New Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show (S2), Netflix, 3AM
• Jimmy Carr: Funny Business, Netflix, 3AM
• My Beautiful Broken Brain, Netflix, 3AM
• NCAA Basketball Championship (Rd1), CBS, 8PM
• Sleepy Hollow, Fox, 8PM
• Last Man Standing, ABC, 8PM
• Dr. Ken, ABC, 8:30PM
• Grimm, NBC, 9PM
• Hawaii Five-0, CBS, 9PM
• Second Chance, Fox, 9PM
• Shark Tank, ABC, 9PM
• Blue Bloods, CBS, 10PM
• Vice, HBO, 11PM
• Animals, HBO, 11:30PM

Saturday

• F1 Australian GP, NBC Sports Network, 1AM
• NCAA Basketball Championship (Rd2), CBS, 8PM
• NBA: Warriors/Spurs, ABC, 8:30PM
• Mommy’s Little Girl, Lifetime 8PM
• Black Sails, Starz, 9PM
• Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, HBO, 9PM
• Party Over Here, Fox, 10PM

Sunday

• 60 Minutes, CBS, 7PM
• The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth (season finale), Showtime 8PM
• The Passion, Fox, 8PM
• Madam Secretary, CBS, 8PM
• Once Upon A Time, ABC, 8PM
• Little Big Shots, NBC, 8PM
• The Carmichael Show, NBC, 9PM
• Vinyl, HBO, 9PM
• The Walking Dead, AMC, 9PM
• Elementary, CBS, 10PM
• Girls, HBO, 10PM
• Talking Dead, AMC, 10PM
• Quantico ABC, 10PM
• Togetherness, HBO, 10:30PM
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
• Robot Chicken, Cartoon Network, 11:30PM

(All times listed are ET)

J.J. Abrams talks to SXSW about how technology democratized filmmaking

After President Obama’s keynote, a SXSW session featuring J.J. Abrams alongside his friend Andrew Jarecki (writer and director HBO miniseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst) was probably the hottest panel of the conference. Around 2,000 attendees showed up to get a tease of West World, the new HBO series that Abrams is executive producing, and hear a conversation between Abrams and Jarecki about how technology has changed filmmaking for the better.

“The challenge with what we all, do using whatever technology is that we use, is to hide it in a way,” Abrams said. “The machinery — whether it’s the technology of what a story is, the map of a story, whether it’s the technology you’re using to code something, you’re trying to make that invisible so that the audience or the user is having as effortless an experience as possible and they’re as engaged as possible.”

It was an apt comparison to make at a conference where so many attendees are writing code rather than movie scripts, and it also speaks to the way Abrams approached his work on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He’s talked about it a lot before, but Abrams again reinforced the way he thought about using technology in the film and making sure it stayed out of the way of the story. “The idea was, in the case of Star Wars, to both create a sense of analog authenticity visually, and most importantly to make sure the humanity of the characters wasn’t getting lost wherever possible,” he said. “That was our ambition, it’s up to every viewer to decide whether that worked — but that was the idea, to try and make sure the movie felt as human and as emotional as possible.”

Abrams and Jarecki both also talked about how technology has democratized the creative process, whether you’re a major filmmaker or just someone with an iPhone. One of the things that stuck Jarecki in particular is how miniaturization has change the game. “As things become miniaturized, you have the opportunity to be everywhere with a camera,” he said — an important trait for someone with a documentary filmmaking background.

Abrams has found now that there’s a lot more work that he can do in-house at Bad Robot, noting that he shot almost 10 minutes of The Force Awakens at Bad Robot’s facilities. “We used to need the giant stages, the giant lights, the giant cameras… you used to need all this equipment and get permission to use it and it cost an arm and a leg,” Abrams recalled. But now, it’s a lot easier to shoot things that are worthy of being in huge-budget pictures like Star Wars.

To that end, Jarecki showed off an iPhone app he developed and launched earlier this year called KnowMe, which is meant to sit in between the dead simplicity of something like Snapchat and more complex movie-editing tools like iMovie. He did a live demo, stringing together some video clips he shot of him talking to the camera with photos he shot around Austin to show off the SXSW experience. The message was to get people to use the tools they have to start telling more stories, and to that end he and Abrams are having a little KnowMe content where whoever makes the best SXSW video will win a “Bad Robot” of their own.

As with so much of SXSW, the message from both Abrams and Jalecki was to get the community out there and contributing to creative endeavours rather than just sitting on the sidelines. “Everyone in this room has in their pockets a movie studio and a distribution studio,” Abrams said. “There’s no excuse to not tell the story we want to tell, and that’s unbelievable.”

Apple News Gains ‘Native Banner’ Ad Format for Sponsored Posts

Apple recently added a new ad format designed to allow publishers to share sponsored posts alongside regular news content in Apple News, according to developer specification document [PDF] that was shared by Business Insider.

The document features all of the different ad types available within Apple News, including a new “Native Banners” feature. With Native Banners, which are meant to blend in with standard content, ads can be displayed right in the news feed with regular Apple News articles.

Native ads display directly in the content feeds, inline with News articles, and are intended to blend in with their surrounding. They will be set in the default font used in News.

According to Apple, these native ads include a title, text excerpt, and a small image, and in an example image provided, the format looks quite similar to the standard article list format in the Apple News app. Sponsored posts will, however, be denoted by text that lets readers know the content is sponsored.

Each ad includes a title, text excerpt and a small image, and is distinguished by a ‘Sponsored’ callout. The sponsored advertiser name is optional. If an advertiser name is not provided, the reader will see ‘Sponsored’ in the banner.

As Business Insider points out, publishers can share sponsored news posts on Apple News at the current time as long as content is marked as sponsored in metadata, but this new ad format will give publishers a clear way to monetize sponsored content and it adds tools for explicitly branding sponsored content.

Apple is also rumored to be adding support for subscription content from publishers with paywalls to the Apple News app in the future.

Tag: Apple News
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House of Marley Chant Sport speaker review

House of Marley isn’t your typical audio manufacturer. Yes, it focuses on high quality sound like others do, but that isn’t the only thing. Equally as important to the company is

Last Survivor; but wait, where do these packages come from? [Review]

Overview – Last Survivor is an action-packed, top down shooter with a single goal; don’t die. Developer: Kakoide Studios Price: Free (ad-supported) Highlights: Free, ads run at each level Good

Fujifilm X70 review – CNET

The Good Great photo quality for the money and a manual-friendly design are the Fujifilm X70’s high points.

The Bad It has slow autofocus and some annoying controls.

The Bottom Line It’s not for everyone. But if you’re a manual-control freak who views the world at a wide angle and won’t miss a viewfinder, the Fujifilm X70 is a great camera.

Are you a manual-focus-first street photographer who views the world in wide angle and doesn’t care about a viewfinder? Then you’ll love the Fujifilm X70. This enthusiast compact, which incorporates a large-for-its-class APS-C sensor, runs $700 (£550, AU$1,050) and delivers the best photo quality I’ve seen for the price.

But it’s not all lollipops and rainbows. Slow performance and some annoyingly designed controls may mar the shooting experience for some folks.

Image quality

The camera’s native sensitivity range runs between ISO 200 and ISO 6400, with expanded to ISO 100 and ISO 51200; you can only shoot JPEG in the expanded ranges. JPEGs in the entire native range — up through ISO 6400 — look clean. While there are still a lot of reasons to shoot raw instead of JPEG, for the X70 cleaning up noise or improving on the noise-reduction in the JPEGs aren’t two of them.

Fujifilm X70 full-resolution photo samples
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Its raw files generally don’t have a ton of color noise, and even brightening up underexposed ISO 1600 shots by 3 stops yielded decent results. As with most cameras in this class, there’s a reasonable amount of detail preserved in the shadows, but not much reclaimable in blown-out highlights or overexposed shots.

Colors in the default film simulation setting look bright and saturated but still render very neutral. In overexposed shots the sky pushes to a flat cyan, but reducing the exposure corrects it. I do think the setting crushes the shadows a little too much, at least for my taste.

The lens is sharp all the way through the aperture range, from f2.8 to f16, though with the softening around the edges that you typically get from wide-angle lens distortion. The X-Trans sensor, which doesn’t use an antialiasing filter to blur fine edges, contributes to that sharpness. In fact, the photos are so sharp I only half-jokingly recommend that you avoid selfies, unless you have perfect skin.

However, the lack of an AA filter means there’s a lot of moire and edge jitter on fine lines in the video, which can get quite distracting. Highlights tend to blow out as well with the defaults, so some experimentation with settings is necessary. Otherwise, it’s typical HD video.

Analysis samples

At ISO 3200, you can see JPEGs losing just a hair of sharpness if you look really hard.

Lori Grunin/CNET

At the top of its native range, ISO 6400, JPEGs are still very sharp and relatively noiseless. You can see a significant increase in softness in the expanded range.

Lori Grunin/CNET

There isn’t a lot of detail to recover in blown-out areas, but that’s pretty typical.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The X70 renders saturated but accurate colors.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Keeping in mind that the Four Thirds-sensor LX100 was tested at 50mm equivalent vs. the X70’s fixed 28mm, which affects everything from depth of field to distortion, you can see how the X70 preserves a lot more detail at ISO 3200 than the LX100.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The rounded aperture blades produce very nice out-of-focus highlight areas and smooth transitions.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Performance

Despite the incorporation of the same autofocus system as the fast X-T1, the X70 has some of the slowest-performing focus I’ve encountered recently. In center-point focus it iterates back and forth, but in the slightly faster multipoint autofocus it uses a wider area that, like most multipoint systems, doesn’t always choose to focus on what you want and the point selections change with every prefocus shutter half-press. In continuous AF, it forces a refocus even if the subject hasn’t moved.

Time to power on and focus and shoot isn’t bad; because the camera has a fixed focal-length lens, it doesn’t have to extend the lens as part of the startup sequence. But 1.4 seconds still isn’t great.

The camera has an optional High Performance mode which ostensibly boosts startup and focus speed at the expense of battery life. I didn’t formally test with it on, but startup seemed a tiny bit faster and the lens seemed to drive a bit better, but still took a long time iterating back and forth for focus. It also has an eye-detection autofocus mode which lets you choose right eye or left eye priority. (It falls back to face detection if it can’t find eyes, but I find the thought that it can find a face that has no eyes a bit scary).

Focusing and shooting in good light takes 0.7 second — that’s what it should be for bad light, at worst. Instead, in dim light it rises to 1.1 seconds. Two sequential shots for either JPEG or raw also runs 0.7 second, significantly slower than competitors, and slow enough that I tended to miss shots with moving subjects. And with flash enabled that rises to 2.2 seconds.

Shooting in a typical street-photography configuration — f5.6 or smaller, fixed shutter speed and the lens set on manual focus for a fixed distance — is much faster. So if that’s your technique then you don’t need to worry about the X70’s performance. The small files don’t require much processing, so there’s little overhead there.

Onkyo TX-NR656 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Onkyo

Onkyo produced one of our favorite AV receivers from 2015 in the TX-NR646 and the company has now announced its replacement, unsurprisingly called the TX-NR656.

The receiver joins the company’s 2016 lineup, which features only a couple of minor tweaks, one of which is multiroom capability, building on existing features such as Dolby Atmos and 4K compatibility.

The $699 TX-NR656 puts 170W into each of its seven channels (plus two subwoofer outputs) and also boasts compatibility with DTS: X and Dolby Atmos (with front heights being the main option). The receiver also includes a powered Zone 2 output.

Other receivers in the range includes two more Dolby Atmos receivers — the 140W x 7 TX-NR555 ($599) and the 180 x 7 TX-NR757 ($799) — in addition to the entry-level TX-SR353 ($399), which lacks Internet connectivity and Atmos surround.

Onkyo is one of the last companies to announce a multiroom music system, and this year the company will introduce BlackFire, a system that is also used by Harman Kardon in its Omni speakers. Is it too late to introduce yet another proprietary multiroom product to the market? The answer is almost certainly yes, because once Google enables Chromecast Audio and Google Cast devices (like the new Onkyo range) to operate fully together, you won’t need to worry about learning a new app to control music in every room, you’ll just continue using your favorite.

As a Wi-Fi-connected receiver, the TX-NR656 also offers Google Cast and Apple AirPlay in addition to Bluetooth streaming.

The Onkyo TX-NR656 features seven HDMI inputs.

Onkyo

Like the 646, the 656 offers seven HDMI inputs and two outputs supporting HDCP 2.2 and 60Hz/4K/HDP signals.

One of the receiver’s newest features is the company’s VLSC technology, which it describes as “high-frequency pulse-noise removal technology.” We don’t have any more information at this stage but it sounds similar to Meridian’s MQA system which removes pre- and post-ringing from digital files. We’re imagining that it’s a mode that you can toggle on or off.

The TX-NR656, TX-NR555 and TX-SR353 will be available in the US in mid-April, while the TX-NR757 drops in May.

Microsoft will continue to support Bitcoin in the Windows Store

Over the weekend, people noticed that Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store FAQ had been updated, and claimed Bitcoin is no longer a supported payment method. Now, the company tells Softpedia that this update was “inaccurate information” and that users can still use it to add money to their Microsoft account, and then purchase content in the Windows and Xbox stores. All’s well that ends well, right?

Via: Coindesk

Source: Softpedia

Get to know the Galaxy S7’s Always-On Display – CNET

Enlarge Image

Jason Cipriani/CNET

According to Samsung, the average smartphone owner checks his or her device nearly 150 times a day: A quick press of the power button to view the time here, and double tap not the screen to view notifications there, apparently adds up fast.

Samsung’s solution for this obsessive checking and waking our smartphones is through a feature it calls Always-On Display.

As the name implies, Samsung’s latest Galaxy devices are equipped with the fancy new feature.

After locking your device, the screen will remain dimly lit. The default setting is to display the current time, with the information moving around on the screen every few seconds. Alerts for missed calls and text messages are also placed on the screen, with a few caveats (more on that in a minute).

The basics

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

The easiest way to familiarize yourself with the feature is to dive into its settings. On your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, open the Settings app, tap on Display and Wallpaper followed by Always On Display.

At the top of the settings screen, you’ll find the option to disable the feature altogether.

Select the Content to show from the list, to display a drop-down menu with three options: Clock, Calendar and Image.

Enlarge Image

Examples of Clock, Calendar and Image options for Samsung’s Always-On Display.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

If you opted for a clock or calendar, you can then further change the look by tapping on the respective clock or calendar style button. There are a total of eight different clocks, ranging from basic digital and analog clocks to a dual-clock view. Additionally, clock users can set a background image for the clock on the display.

There are two different calendar options, both of which include a digital clock.

Selecting Image turns the feature into a screensaver-like feature you would expect on a computer and not a smartphone. Currently there are three different images included on the S7.

Play around with the various items and background images to find something that works best for you.

Further customization is possible

Samsung’s theme store for the Galaxy S7 offers themes that include a custom Always On Display image. Currently, when you open the theme store (Settings > Themes on your S7) the first category are “AOD” themes, which is the acronym for Always-On Demand.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that you can download just the AOD portion of a theme. Instead, you’ll need to download and apply the entire theme. Adding to the disappointment is that you can’t set an AOD image or clock from one theme while using a different theme.

Notifications

Right now, the only notifications that will appear on the screen seem to be from Samsung’s own apps. Missed calls, messages and calendar notifications in particular. Meaning, don’t expect to see Gmail or Facebook notifications out of the box, hopefully that’s a feature added in a future update.

LG’s G5 also offers an always-on display, and it supports all alerts, so one has to think Samsung could as well.

What about battery life?

Part of the magic that makes this feature possible is the type of screen used in the Galaxy S7 (AMOLED) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor. The combination of the two work in tandem to minimize battery usage when the feature is enabled, and should have a minimal impact on overall daily battery life.