The former chief executive officer of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network was arrested following a probe into the company's collapse, Bloomberg reported Thursday. From the report: The arrest took place Thursday morning, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the criminal case isn't public. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a lawsuit against Mashinsky and the company Thursday, according to court records. Celsius was one of several high-profile crypto firms that imploded last year. The company gained popularity paying high interest rates on digital-asset deposits. But following the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin and a downturn in the digital-asset markets the company was left with a giant hole in its balance sheet and unable to meet an influx of customer withdrawals.

Disney, Netflix, and other media and entertainment giants are pushing back against the FTC's "click to cancel" proposal (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) that would make it easier for people to cancel streaming, gaming, and other services. Insider reports: Companies of all stripes have angered consumers by making services all too easy to sign up for but often confoundingly difficult to cancel, with gyms and news outlets considered among the worst offenders. The FTC has gone after individual companies; it recently sued Amazon, alleging the etailer "tricked" people into signing up for Amazon Prime. That followed the FTC's proposal in March for a regulation that's intended "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up." The policy would cover providers of both digital and physical subscriptions, from streamers and gym memberships to phone companies and cable TV distributors. The new rule would require companies to offer a simple mechanism for users to cancel subscriptions the same way they signed up. For example, you wouldn't have to cancel a service in person or over the phone if you signed up for it online. "I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to cancel subscriptions I never wanted, let alone the cost!" one person wrote in a comment to the FTC.

The Internet & Television Association, which counts Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery as members, said in its public comment that the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused." The reg would even infringe on its members' freedom of speech, the association argued. "The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment," the association wrote. Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement -- that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers -- would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with. The Entertainment Software Association, the video gaming trade organization, noted that the FTC's proposed disclosure requirements "would interfere with game play and customer enjoyment." The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace" and that letting customers cancel immediately would prevent member companies from offering them alternative plans or discounts. The ESA was joined in its comments by the Digital Media Association and Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. The FTC will examine the feedback it's received through public comment before considering a final rule.

The crypto-mining company formerly known as Hive Blockchain Technologies is pivoting to artificial intelligence and web3, and has changed its name accordingly. From a report: The Vancouver-based miner has dropped the "blockchain" marker and said that its new branding as Hive Digital Technologies is intended to reflect "its mission to drive advancements" in AI applications like ChatGPT, and to "support the new web3 ecosystem."

Hive intends to use its existing fleet of Nvidia graphics processing units "for computational tasks on a massive scale," according to a July 12 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The vast majority of crypto-mining companies are focused on Bitcoin and use specialized chips that are different from so-called GPUs. Hive is among a handful of companies that deploy GPUs at scale to mine Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market value. A recent set of changes on the Ethereum blockchain has meant that these GPUs are no longer necessary, which is a problem for the Ether miners who hold large stocks of them.

Google Play announced a major shift in policy today, allowing developers to incorporate digital assets such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into their apps and games in the store. From a report: Companies that decide to offer the ability to buy, sell or earn tokenized assets will be required to make it clear in the Play Console that there are blockchain-based elements in the app. In a blog post shared with CoinDesk, Joseph Mills, Google Play's Group Product Manager, wrote that this will allow partners to reimagine "traditional games with user-owned content" and boost "user loyalty through unique NFT rewards."

Reddit, which has seen enormous success with its Avatar NFTs, was one of the partners working with Google on the new policy. Matt Williamson, Reddit's senior engineering manager, was quoted in the post as saying that the updated guidelines are "aimed at creating a level playing field that promotes user trust, and responsible usage of blockchain technology." The post by Mills stressed the importance of user trust, noting "while tokenized assets are meant to build more enriched, immersive experiences, as an added user protection, developers may not promote or glamorize any potential earning from playing or trading activities."

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is taking on the world's biggest technology companies -- and losing. From a report: Khan failed Tuesday in her latest effort to block a big-tech deal when a federal judge denied her agency's bid to block Microsoft from closing its purchase of videogame publisher Activision Blizzard. The FTC suffered a similar setback earlier this year when it tried to thwart Meta Platforms' purchase of a virtual-reality gaming company. Khan, who gained prominence as a critic of Amazon, entered office in 2021 vowing to stiffen antitrust enforcement. Past enforcers were too cautious about bringing tough cases, she has said, and failed to confront the rise of companies such as Facebook owner Meta that gained monopoly-like power in digital industries, she said.

"I'm certainly not someone who thinks success is marked by a 100% court record," Khan said last year in remarks at the University of Chicago. "If you just never bring those hard cases, I think there is severe cost to that, that can lead to stagnation and stasis." Under the Biden administration, antitrust agencies have challenged more mergers than in previous years, including some that historically the government wouldn't have tried to block. Microsoft and Activision aren't head-to-head competitors, making the case against the deal less straightforward and more dependent on the FTC's prediction that the combined company would abuse its power to hurt competition in the future.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon doesn't want to comply with Europe's Digital Services Act, and to avoid the rules the company is arguing that it doesn't meet the definition of a Very Large Online Platform under EU law. Amazon filed an appeal at the EU General Court to challenge the European Commission decision that Amazon meets the criteria and must comply with the new regulations. "We agree with the EC's objective and are committed to protecting customers from illegal products and content, but Amazon doesn't fit this description of a 'Very Large Online Platform' (VLOP) under the DSA and therefore should not be designated as such," Amazon said in a statement provided to Ars today.

The Digital Services Act includes content moderation requirements, transparency rules, and protections for minors. Targeted advertising based on profiling toward children will no longer be permitted, for example. Amazon argued that the new law is supposed to "address systemic risks posed by very large companies with advertising as their primary revenue and that distribute speech and information," and not businesses that are primarily retail-based. "The vast majority of our revenue comes from our retail business," Amazon said. Amazon also claims it's unfair that some retailers with larger businesses in individual countries weren't on the list of 19 companies that must comply with the Digital Services Act. The rules only designate platforms with over 45 million active users in the EU as of February 17.

Amazon said it is "not the largest retailer in any of the EU countries where we operate, and none of these largest retailers in each European country has been designated as a VLOP. If the VLOP designation were to be applied to Amazon and not to other large retailers across the EU, Amazon would be unfairly singled out and forced to meet onerous administrative obligations that don't benefit EU consumers." Those other companies Amazon referred to include Poland's Allegro or the Dutch Bol.com, according to a Bloomberg report. Neither of those platforms appears to have at least 45 million active users. A summary of the appeal provided by Amazon claimed the designation "is based on a discriminatory criterion and disproportionately violates the principle of equal treatment and the applicant's fundamental rights." In response, the EC said that "it would defend its position in court and added that Amazon still must comply with the rules by end of August, regardless of the appeal," Bloomberg wrote.

"The scope of the DSA is very clear and is defined to cover all platforms that expose their users to content, including the sale of products or services, which can be illegal," the commission said in statement reported by Bloomberg. "For marketplaces as for social networks, very wide user reach increases the risks and the platforms' responsibilities to address them."

"CNN reports on a wide-ranging class action lawsuit claiming Google scraped and misused data to train its AI systems," writes long-time Slashdot reader david.emery. "This goes to the heart of what can be done with information that is available over the internet." From the report: The complaint alleges that Google "has been secretly stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans" and using this data to train its AI products, such as its chatbot Bard. The complaint also claims Google has taken "virtually the entirety of our digital footprint," including "creative and copywritten works" to build its AI products. The complaint points to a recent update to Google's privacy policy that explicitly states the company may use publicly accessible information to train its AI models and tools such as Bard.

In response to an earlier Verge report on the update, the company said its policy "has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate. This latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included." [...] The suit is seeking injunctive relief in the form of a temporary freeze on commercial access to and commercial development of Google's generative AI tools like Bard. It is also seeking unspecified damages and payments as financial compensation to people whose data was allegedly misappropriated by Google. The firm says it has lined up eight plaintiffs, including a minor. "Google needs to understand that 'publicly available' has never meant free to use for any purpose," Tim Giordano, one of the attorneys at Clarkson bringing the suit against Google, told CNN in an interview. "Our personal information and our data is our property, and it's valuable, and nobody has the right to just take it and use it for any purpose."

The plaintiffs, the Clarkson Law Firm, previously filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI last month.

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, the majority of Americans (59%) say TikTok is a threat to the national security of the United States. Variety reports: The findings from Pew Research Center's survey of U.S. adults come as TikTok, the popular short-form video app owned by Chinese internet conglomerate ByteDance, continues to be targeted by American lawmakers wary over its ties to China and how TikTok handles user data. Just 17% of Americans say the platform is not a threat to national security, while 23% say they are unsure, per the Pew survey.

Opinions about the national security threat posed by TikTok differ by political affiliation and age. Roughly 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say TikTok is either a minor or major threat to national security in the U.S., compared with 53% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. The perception of TikTok as a threat also varies by age: Just 13% of adults 18-29 say TikTok is a "major" threat; that rises to 24% among those 30-49, 35% among those 50-64; and 46% among Americans 65 and older.

Not surprisingly, adults who do not use TikTok are more likely than those who do to consider it a national security risk. Among non-users, 65% say the app is a security threat, including 36% who view it as a major threat. Among TikTok users, just 9% see it as a major threat and about one-third say it's a minor threat. The Pew survey was conducted May 15-21, 2023. [...] A survey Pew Research Center conducted in March found that 50% of Americans support a U.S. government ban on TikTok, while 22% were opposed and 28% were unsure.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: If you're printing something on actual paper, there's a good chance it's important, like a tax form or a job contract. But popular printing products and services won't promise not to read it. In fact, they won't even promise not to share it with outside marketing firms. The spread of digital file-sharing -- along with obnoxious business practices by printing manufacturers -- has pushed many U.S. households to give up at-home printers and rely on nearby printing services instead. At the same time, major printer manufacturers have adopted mobile apps and cloud-based storage, creating new opportunities to collect personal data from customers. Whether you're walking to the corner store or sending your files to the cloud, it's tough to figure out whether you're printing in private.

Ideally, printing services should avoid storing the content of your files, or at least delete daily. Print services should also communicate clearly upfront what information they're collecting and why. Some services, like the New York Public Library and PrintWithMe, do both. Others dodged our questions about what data they collect, how long they store it and whom they share it with. Some -- including Canon, FedEx and Staples -- declined to answer basic questions about their privacy practices. Wondering whether your printer app or printing service stores the content of your documents? Here's The Washington Post Help Desk's at-a-glance guide to printer privacy. Here's a summary of each company's privacy policy as it pertains to storing the content of your files:

HP: HP's privacy policy states that it does not store the content of files when using their printers or HP Smart app, providing reassurance that they do not invade privacy by snooping into print jobs.
Canon: Canon's privacy policy indicates that it can collect personal data, including files and content, which may be used for marketing purposes. However, Canon did not disclose whether they store, use, or share the content of printed documents.
FedEx: FedEx's privacy policy states that it collects user-uploaded information, including the contents of documents uploaded for printing services, leaving room for potential advertising or sharing with third parties. Although FedEx prioritizes customer privacy, it did not specify the extent of encryption or whether document content is included.
UPS: While the UPS Store, a subsidiary of UPS, can store the contents of printed documents, it does not use this information for marketing or advertising without user consent. The storage duration is undisclosed, but UPS honors customer requests for data deletion.
Staples: According to Staples' privacy policy, the company can store personal data such as copy/print materials, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, and mail contents. They may also use copy/print materials for advertising. The duration of data storage is not disclosed.
PrintWithMe: PrintWithMe, a company placing printers in shared spaces, temporarily stores printed documents with a third-party cloud provider for 24 hours. CEO Jonathan Treble assures that the data is never used for advertising.
Your local library: The New York Public Library, one of the largest library systems, does not store the contents of printed documents. Their computers only retain file names and delete them at the end of the day. However, privacy policies may vary among different libraries, so it is advisable to inquire beforehand.

Massachusetts lawmakers are weighing a near total ban on buying and selling of location data drawn from consumers' mobile devices in the state, in what would be a first-in-the-nation effort to rein in a billion-dollar industry. From a report: The legislature held a hearing last month on a bill called the Location Shield Act, a sweeping proposal that would sharply curtail the practice of collecting and selling location data drawn from mobile phones in Massachusetts. The proposal would also institute a warrant requirement for law-enforcement access to location data, banning data brokers from providing location information about state residents without court authorization in most circumstances.

Location data is typically collected through mobile apps and other digital services and doesn't include information such as a name or a phone number. But often, a device's movement patterns are enough to derive a possible identity of its owner. For example, where a phone spends its evening and overnight hours is usually the owner's home address and can be cross-checked against other databases for additional insight. The Massachusetts proposal is part of a flurry of state-level activity to better protect the digital privacy of residents in the absence of a comprehensive national law. Ten states have enacted privacy laws in recent years under both Republican and Democratic-controlled legislatures. Several bipartisan proposals are under consideration in Congress but have failed to gain traction.

Some two dozen central banks across emerging and advanced economies are expected to have digital currencies in circulation by the end of the decade, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found in a survey published on Monday. From a report: Central banks around the globe have been studying and working on digital versions of their currencies for retail use to avoid leaving digital payments to the private sector amid an accelerating decline of cash. Some are also looking at wholesale versions for transactions between financial institutions.

Most of the new Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) will emerge in the retail space, where eleven central banks could join peers in the Bahamas, the Eastern Caribbean, Jamaica and Nigeria which already run live digital retail currencies, the BIS found in its survey of 86 central banks conducted late 2022. On the wholesale side, which in future could allow financial institutions to access new functionalities thanks to tokenisation, nine central banks could launch CBDCs, the BIS said. "Enhancing cross-border payments is among the key drivers of central banks' work on wholesale CBDCs," the authors of the report wrote.

As an "ambassador" for FTX, football quarterback Tom Brady appeared at the company's conference in the Bahamas, and in TV commercials promoting the exchange as "the most trusted" institution in crypto, remembers the New York Times. And it was all about to go very bad...

"His money was also at stake. As part of an endorsement agreement Brady signed in 2021, FTX had paid him $30 million, a deal that consisted almost entirely of FTX stock, three people with knowledge of the contract said. Brady's wife at the time, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, was paid $18 million in FTX stock, one of the people said." Now FTX is bankrupt, and Bankman-Fried is facing criminal fraud charges. Brady, 45, and Bündchen, 42, have been sued by a group of FTX customers seeking compensation from the celebrities who endorsed the exchange. On top of it all, the terms of the deal would have required the former couple, who divorced last year, to pay taxes on at least some of their now worthless FTX stock, two people familiar with the endorsement deal said. Their situation is the highest-profile example of a humiliating reckoning facing the actors, athletes, and other celebrities who rushed to embrace the easy money and online hype of cryptocurrencies...

But last year's crash ended the celebrity crypto bonanza. In October, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered Kim Kardashian to pay $1.26 million for failing to make adequate disclosures when she endorsed the EthereumMax crypto token. In December, a lawyer in California sued two crypto companies, MoonPay and Yuga Labs, accusing them of using a "vast network of A-list musicians, athletes and celebrity clients" to mislead investors about digital assets. In March, the S.E.C. charged the actress Lindsay Lohan, the online influencer Jake Paul and musicians including Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty with illegally promoting crypto assets. And in late May, after months of failed attempts, a process server delivered court papers to Shaquille O'Neal, the retired basketball star, who was sued for promoting FTX, according to legal filings. Mr. O'Neal was served while broadcasting from a National Basketball Association playoff game...

Brady has also faced legal trouble. In December, Adam Moskowitz and the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner filed a lawsuit in federal court in Florida accusing him and Bündchen of misleading investors. Among the other defendants are comedian Larry David, NBA star Steph Curry and tennis player Naomi Osaka, all of whom endorsed FTX. "None of these defendants performed any due diligence prior to marketing these FTX products to the public," the lawsuit said.

G/O Media is the owner of top sites like Gizmodo, Kotaku, Quartz, and the Onion. Last month they announced "modest tests" of AI-generated content on their sites — and it didn't go over well within the company, reports the Washington Post.

Soon the Deputy Editor of Gizmodo's science fiction section io9 was flagging 18 "concerns, corrections and comments" about an AI-generated story by "Gizmodo Bot" on the chronological order of Star Wars movies and TV shows. "I have never had to deal with this basic level of incompetence with any of the colleagues that I have ever worked with," James Whitbrook told the Post in an interview. "If these AI [chatbots] can't even do something as basic as put a Star Wars movie in order one after the other, I don't think you can trust it to [report] any kind of accurate information." The irony that the turmoil was happening at Gizmodo, a publication dedicated to covering technology, was undeniable... Merrill Brown, the editorial director of G/O Media, wrote that because G/O Media owns several sites that cover technology, it has a responsibility to "do all we can to develop AI initiatives relatively early in the evolution of the technology." "These features aren't replacing work currently being done by writers and editors," Brown said in announcing to staffers that the company would roll out a trial to test "our editorial and technological thinking about use of AI."

"There will be errors, and they'll be corrected as swiftly as possible," he promised... In a Slack message reviewed by The Post, Brown told disgruntled employees Thursday that the company is "eager to thoughtfully gather and act on feedback..." The note drew 16 thumbs down emoji, 11 wastebasket emoji, six clown emoji, two face palm emoji and two poop emoji, according to screenshots of the Slack conversation...

Earlier this week, Lea Goldman, the deputy editorial director at G/O Media, notified employees on Slack that the company had "commenced limited testing" of AI-generated stories on four of its sites, including A.V. Club, Deadspin, Gizmodo and The Takeout, according to messages The Post viewed... Employees quickly messaged back with concern and skepticism. "None of our job descriptions include editing or reviewing AI-produced content," one employee said. "If you wanted an article on the order of the Star Wars movies you ... could've just asked," said another. "AI is a solution looking for a problem," a worker said. "We have talented writers who know what we're doing. So effectively all you're doing is wasting everyone's time."
The Post spotted four AI-generated stories on the company's sites, including io9, Deadspin, and its food site The Takeout.

At least two of those four stories had to be corrected after publication.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Recalling a past Computer History Museum look at the evolution of programming languages, Doug Meil ponders the age-old question of Why Are There So Many Programming Languages? in a new Communications of the ACM blog post.

"It's worth noting and admiring the audacity of PL/I (1964)," Meil writes, "which was aiming to be that 'one good programming language.' The name says it all: Programming Language 1. There should be no need for 2, 3, or 4. [Meil expands on this thought in Lessons from PL/I: A Most Ambitious Programming Language.] Though PL/I's plans of becoming the Highlander of computer programming didn't play out like the designers intended, they were still pulling on a key thread in software: why so many languages? That question was already being asked as far back as the early 1960's."

One of PL/I's biggest fans was Digital Research Inc. (DRI) founder Gary Kildall, who crafted the PL/I-inspired PL/M (Programming Language for Microcomputers) in 1973 for Intel. But IBM priced PL/I higher than the languages it sought to replace, contributing to PL/I's failure to gain traction. (Along the lines of how IBM's deal with Microsoft gave rise to a price disparity that was the undoing of Kildall's CP/M OS, bundled with every PC in a 'non-royalty' deal. Windows was priced at $40 while CP/M was offered 'a la carte' at $240.) As a comp.lang.pl1 poster explained in 2006, "The truth of the matter is that Gresham's Law: 'Bad money drives out good' or Ruskin's principle: 'The hoi polloi always prefer an inferior, cheap product over a superior, more expensive one' are what govern here."

Slashdot reader j3x0n shared this report from California newspaper the Sacramento Bee: In 2015, Democratic Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper voted for Senate Bill 34, which restricted law enforcement from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities. In 2023, now-Sacramento County Sheriff Cooper appears to be doing just that. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a digital rights group, has sent Cooper a letter requesting that the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office cease sharing ALPR data with out-of-state agencies that could use it to prosecute someone for seeking an abortion.

According to documents that the Sheriff's Office provided EFF through a public records request, it has shared license plate reader data with law enforcement agencies in states that have passed laws banning abortion, including Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas. Adam Schwartz, EFF senior staff attorney, called automated license plate readers "a growing threat to everyone's privacy ... that are out there by the thousands in California..." Schwartz said that a sheriff in Texas, Idaho or any other state with an abortion ban on the books could use that data to track people's movements around California, knowing where they live, where they work and where they seek reproductive medical care, including abortions.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office isn't the only one sharing that data; in May, EFF released a report showing that 71 law enforcement agencies in 22 California counties — including Sacramento County — were sharing such data... [Schwartz] said that he was not aware of any cases where ALPR data was used to prosecute someone for getting an abortion, but added, "We think we shouldn't have to wait until the inevitable happens."
In May the EFF noted that the state of Idaho "has enacted a law that makes helping a pregnant minor get an abortion in another state punishable by two to five years in prison."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NewScientist: Netflix researchers have created a new type of AI-powered green-screen technology that can produce realistic visual effects for film and television in real time. Green-screen technology is routinely used to capture footage of actors that can then be inserted in the foreground of virtual or prerecorded scenes. To do this, actors are filmed against a bright green background, which is easily isolated and removed digitally. This process can be done automatically with reasonable accuracy, such as in television weather forecasts, but it can be thrown by items of green clothing or by transparent or fine objects, like wisps of hair. When greater accuracy is needed in films or television series, specialist operators tweak settings manually, sometimes requiring hours to perfect a shot.

In a bid to create a technique that is both fast and accurate, Netflix has come up with a method it calls Magenta Green Screen (MGS). Actors are filmed against a background of bright green LEDs while being lit from the front with red and blue ones, which together create a magenta glow (see video, [here]). Because digital cameras work by taking an individual red, green and blue value for each pixel, this technique has the effect of creating a green channel that records only the background, with the foreground appearing black, and red and blue channels that record only the foreground, leaving the background looking black. Together these create the magenta and green look. Film editors can replace the green channel in real time, realistically and instantly placing the actors in the foreground of another scene, with even potentially tricky areas, such as transparent bottles or the area around strands of hair, working without problems.

But there is a problem with the method. Because the foreground is only recorded in blue and red, it leaves the actors looking magenta-tinted. To solve this, Netflix uses artificial intelligence to put the full range of color back into the foreground, using a photograph of the actors lit normally as a reference to create a realistic-looking green channel. This AI works quickly, but not yet in real time, although fast techniques such as averaging the red and blue channels to create an approximation of a green channel work effectively enough for the director to monitor while filming.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Simply mentioning the name "Denuvo" among some gamers is pretty much guaranteed to get you an instant, strong reaction. Just look at the comment threads underneath any Ars article covering Denuvo and you'll see plenty of complaints about the DRM-enhancing anti-piracy technology. Irdeto, the company that acquired Denuvo in a 2018 purchase, doesn't generally make a habit of commenting at length on this reputation (or its secretive DRM schemes) in the public press. So when Irdeto Chief Operating Officer of Video Games Steeve Huin agreed to defend his company publicly in an exclusive interview with Ars Technica, I jumped at the chance to talk to him.

Huin stressed to Ars that he sees Denuvo as a positive force for the gaming community as a whole. "Anti-piracy technologies is to the benefit of the game publishers, [but also] is of benefit to the players in that it protects the [publisher's] investment and it means the publishers can then invest in the next game," he said. "But people typically don't think enough of that." "Whether people want to believe it or not, we are all gamers, we love gaming, we love being part of it," he continued. "We develop technologies with the intent to make the industry better and stronger."

[...] While the Denuvo name has become practically synonymous with its "anti-tamper" DRM technology, the company now hopes it can be just as well-known for its recent anti-cheating efforts. Denuvo's anti-cheat technology works on "some of the same principles" as its anti-tamper DRM, Huin said, but is aimed at maintaining code integrity at runtime rather than just when a game is loaded. "The core is the same, but the function of what they do is different," he said. Because of this difference, Huin allowed that, unlike Denuvo's anti-tamper DRM, the anti-cheat product could have "a very low impact" on a game's performance. "Less than one percent is the metric we use for validating," he said.

The public cloud services market jumped in value by nearly 23pc last year, reaching $545.8bn in global revenue. SiliconRepublic: A new report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) claims that all sections in this market saw growth last year, with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications retaining the top spot and representing more than 45pc of total revenue last year.

The report found that revenue for foundational cloud services "that support digital-first strategies" grew by nearly of 29pc. The IDC said this increased growth highlights an increasing reliance of enterprises on cloud platforms built around "widely deployed compute services, data/AI services and app framework services." Dave McCarthy, vice president in IDC's worldwide infrastructure practice, said cloud providers are making "significant investments" in high-performance infrastructure, which can help create the "foundation for new AI software that can be quickly deployed at scale." This verdict was shared by Rick Villars, group VP of ICD worldwide research, who said the use of AI is starting to "dominate the long-term investment agendas of businesses and cloud providers."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Amidst ongoing protests in France, the country has just passed a new bill that will allow police to remotely access suspects' cameras, microphones, and GPS on cell phones and other devices. As reported by Le Monde, the bill has been criticized by the French people as a "snoopers" charter that allows police unfettered access to the location of its citizens. Moreover, police can activate cameras and microphones to take video and audio recordings of suspects. The bill will reportedly only apply to suspects in crimes that are punishable by a minimum of five years in jail and Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti claimed that the new provision would only affect a few dozen cases per year. During a debate over the bill yesterday, French politicians added an amendment that orders judge approval for any surveillance conducted under the scope of the bill and limits the duration of surveillance to six months, according to Le Monde.

"For organized crime, the police can have access to the sound and image of a device. This concerns any connected device: telephone, speaker microphone, computer camera, computer system of a car... all without the knowledge of the persons concerned," French advocacy group La Quadrature du Net said in a statement on Twitter last month, machine translated by Gizmodo. "In view of the growing place of digital tools in our lives, accepting the very principle that they are transformed into police auxiliaries without our being aware of it poses a serious problem in our societies." In 2021, France passed a bill that would expand the French police force's ability to monitor civilians using drones -- all in an effort to protect officers from increasingly violent protestors, according to French President Emmanuel Macron.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Globe and Mail: A Saskatchewan judge says an emoji can amount to a contractual agreement and ordered a farmer to pay more than $82,000 for not delivering product to a grain buyer after responding to a text message with a thumbs-up image. The Court of King's Bench decision said a grain buyer with South West Terminal sent a text to farmers in March 2021 saying that the company was looking to buy 86 tons of flax for $17 per bushel to be delivered in the fall. The buyer, Kent Mickleborough, later spoke with Swift Current farmer Chris Achter on the phone and texted a picture of a contract to deliver the flax in November, adding "please confirm flax contract." Achter texted back a thumbs-up emoji. But when November came around, the flax was not delivered and prices for the crop had increased.

Mickleborough said the emoji amounted to an agreement because he had texted numerous contracts to Achter, who previously confirmed through text message and always fulfilled the order. But the farmer argued that the emoji indicated only that he'd received the contract in the text message. "I deny that he accepted the thumbs-up emoji as a digital signature of the incomplete contract," Achter said in an affidavit to court. "I did not have time to review the Flax Contract and merely wanted to indicate that I did receive his text message."

Justice Timothy Keene said in his June decision that the thumbs-up emoji did meet signature requirements and therefore the farmer breached his contract. The judge pointed to a Dictionary.com definition of the thumbs-up emoji, which said it is used to express assent, approval or encouragement in digital communications. "This court readily acknowledges that a (thumbs-up) emoji is a non-traditional means to `sign' a document but nevertheless under these circumstances this was a valid way to convey the two purposes of a `signature,"' Keene wrote in his decision. Keene's decision noted the case is novel, but the judge said emojis are now commonly used.