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Submission + - Activision Buys Candy Crush Developer For $5.9bn (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: Activision Blizzard picked up Candy Crush Saga developer King Interactive Entertainment tonight for a cool $5.9 billion USD; about 20% above market value. The move likely leaves them owning the top five grossing games of 2015 in America and makes them the most successful game publisher in the world.

Submission + - Pixels DMCA Takedown Even Worse Than We Thought (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: So we all know about the Pixels takedown on Vimeo, and that it was pretty bad in a lot of ways.

But did you know that they took down the short film that inspired the movie?

Turns out, the 2010 Pixels, which was taken off Vimeo due to copyright notice, was responsible for inspiring the entire Adam Sandler flick. Unlike Sandler's film, it's critically-acclaimed and has won awards.

Talk about kicking someone when they're already down. First Patrick Jean gets to watch them violate his work and now they're claiming that his work violates theirs.

Submission + - Faster, More-Secure Tor Paper Released (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: Researchers from several universities have published a paper detailing how to put together an Onion browser that is far faster (93 gb/s) and far more secure. Dubbed HORNET, expect browsers to start emerging soon as the paper is available to the public.

Submission + - WikiLeaks' Anonymous Leak Submission System Is Back After Nearly Five Years (wired.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: On Friday, WikiLeaks announced that it has finally relaunched a beta version of its leak submission system after a 4.5 year hiatus. That file-upload site, which once served as a central tool in WIkiLeaks' leak-collecting mission, runs on the anonymity software Tor to allow uploaders to share documents and tips while protecting their identity from any network eavesdropper, and even from WikiLeaks itself. In 2010 the original submission system went down amid infighting between WikiLeaks’ leaders and several of its disenchanted staffers, including several who left to create their own soon-to-fail project called OpenLeaks.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says that the new system, which was delayed by his legal troubles and the banking industry blockade against the group, is the final result of “four competing research projects" WikiLeaks launched in recent years. He adds that it has several less-visible submission systems in addition to the one it's now revealed. “Currently, we have one public-facing and several private-facing submission systems in operation, cryptographically, operationally and legally secured with national security sourcing in mind,” Assange writes.

Submission + - Student Arrested in US for Posting on Anonymous Site

Submitted by ememisya
ememisya writes: I wonder if I posted, "There will be another 12/7 tomorrow, just a warning." around December, would people associate it to Pearl Harbor and I would find myself arrested, or has enough time passed for people to not look at the numbers 12 and 7 and take a knee jerk reaction? A student was arrested for Harassment by Computer (A class 1 misdemeanor in the state of Virginia) due to his post on an "anonymous" website. Although the post in and of itself doesn't mean anything to most people in the nation, it managed to scare enough people locally for law enforcement agencies to warrant for his arrest.

Moon, a 21-year-old senior majoring in business information technology, is being charged with Harassment by Computer, which is a class one misdemeanor. Tuesday night, April 28, a threat to the Virginia Tech community was posted on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak. Around 11:15 p.m., an unknown user posted “Another 4.16 moment is going to happen tomorrow. Just a warning (sic).” The Virginia Tech Police Department released a crime alert statement Wednesday morning via email informing students that VTPD was conducting an investigation throughout the night in conjunction with the Blacksburg Police Department. “Both departments are pursuing several active leads this morning,” the statement read. “At this time, the VTPD has not obtained any additional information that would suggest this is a credible threat.”

Submission + - Microsoft's AI Insults People By Telling Them How Old They Are (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: A Microsoft Research project that lets users upload photos and estimates their age and gender has attracted more attention than expected — not all of it complimentary.
The How-Old.net site demonstrates of some of the capabilities of the Face API included in Microsoft's Project Oxford that was announced at Build.
It may have been expected to be a source of amusement but instead it backfired when people started to upload their own photos and discovered just how wrong its estimates could be. It demonstrates not only that machine learning has a long way to go before it's good at estimating age, but also that machine learning may not be the most politically correct way to go about answering the question "How Old Do I look". It might be better to employ and algorithm that built in all the rules of how to make a polite answer to that request — such as always knock a decade off the age of anyone over 28.
Perhaps this particular neural network needs to learn some social skills before pronouncing how old people look.
However it is capable of telling some truths — a photo of Barak Obama in 2005 gives an estimated age of 46, close to his real age of 44, but just 9 years later in 2014 the age guessing robot places him at 65. It seems that Mr President aged 20 years in less than 10 years of office.
Any one want to be President?

Submission + - League of Legends Dev Makes #13 on Fortune 100 (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: League of Legends developer Riot Games debuted on the Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For list at #13, and it seems they've been taking some lessons from Google.

The secret? Food. Seriously.

Both companies feed their employees profusely to help them develop strong relationships with their coworkers, and the results speak for themselves.

Submission + - U.S. Postal Service photographs all mail .. (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.

“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green.

Submission + - Malware Uses Fake Jay-Z App to Highlight NSA Spying on Independence Day (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Jay-Z, the NSA, Android, Samsung, Independence Day.....Sounds like an SEO-baiting headline right? Well in actual fact all these terms have come together in a fake Android app which is looking to take advantage of the new album from Jay-Z. Hacktivists are using its popularity to highlight the recent NSA hacking with malware which is set to be triggered on 4 July.

Submission + - The Roundup Controversy: You're Being Fed A Load (allvoices.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: It seems to be impossible to find an unbiased, mainstream article on the subject, but on Tuesday, July 2 the EPA ruled to increase allowable concentrations of glyphosate (Monsanto's Roundup) in certain agricultural products.

The lack of unbiased coverage has caused some upset and critical examination of existing coverage, the same articles that are currently going viral on social sites.

Submission + - The Problem With The Anti-GMO Movement (allvoices.com)

Submitted by ForgedArtificer
ForgedArtificer writes: The Anti-GMO trend just keeps growing and it seems like nothing is going to stop it. And while very few people would argue that something needs to be done to curb industry giants like Monsanto, many are concerned with the deeper issues and misunderstandings surrounding genetically modified organisms.

With the politics in Washington and around the world, how can we reverse this trend, educate people and prevent disaster?

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