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AWS adds Global Tables feature to share data across multiple geographies

11/29/2017

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AWS adds Global Tables feature to share data across multiple geographies

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Customers using AWS’ Amazon DynamoDB to store data have two new services to help make their applications work better and more quickly in more regions around the world.

The first is a Global Tables feature that allows AWS customers to automatically replicate tables across different AWS regions. Tech companies are now, already, global businesses, but sometimes their data isn’t as distributed as their customer base.

The Global Tables feature solves that problem so that data doesn’t have to be replicated in the Eurozone which was initially generated in the U.S.

To access the global tables feature, customers don’t need to change any code. They simply send write requests (and eventually consistent read requests) to a DynamoDB endpoint in any specified region. DynamoDB will initiate multi-master writes and ensure the last write to an item is the one that takes precedence.

The other new feature related to Amazon DynamoDB is a one-click full backup capability. Any application will remain online and available at full speed, according to the company. The backups met long-term retention and archival regulatory requirements.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:47AM

Fashionably late the 2019 BMW i8 Roadster strolls into the Los Angeles show

11/29/2017

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Fashionably late, the 2019 BMW i8 Roadster strolls into the Los Angeles show

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It’s been in the works for years. So long in fact, that we thought it might never happen. BMW has finally introduced the topless variant of its plug-in hybrid i8 sports car at the annual Los Angeles Auto Show.

Designers preserved the i8’s striking silhouette while chopping off part of the roof. The newly acquired power-operated soft top opens or closes in 16 seconds, even at speeds of up to 31 mph. It folds vertically in a Z shape (the letter, not the car) to take up as little space as possible under a tonneau cover accented with model-specific “Roadster” emblems, lest you forget you’re driving a convertible. The Roadster looks just as futuristic as the coupe, which remains one of the most eye-catching models on the market even three years after its debut.

The i8 offers 3.5 cubic feet of trunk space between the front seats and the rear firewall and 4.7 cubes out back. Those numbers probably sound dismal, but 8.2 cubic feet of storage is a surprisingly high figure for a car like the i8. The trade-off is that the Roaster only offers space for two passengers. In comparison, the coupe adopts a more spacious 2+2 layout, though the rear seats are nearly useless unless you lug around small children on a regular basis. The rest of the cabin remains unchanged.

Weight is the main enemy of every convertible regardless of what form it takes. BMW did its best to keep it in check by manufacturing the elements that connect the roof mechanism to the body out of aluminum using a novel 3D-printing process. The frameless doors are made out of carbon fiber with an aluminum outer shell, and the windshield frame is made exclusively with carbon fiber. The i8 Roadster consequently tips the scale at 3,513 pounds, a figure which makes it 132 pounds heavier than its fixed-roof counterpart.

The i8 Roadster ushers in an updated version of the coupe’s plug-in hybrid powertrain. Its nerve center is a turbocharged, 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine that sends 228 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels. It’s an evolution of the three-pot that powers the base Mini Hardtop and the entry-level 3 Series in Europe, among other models, and it shifts through a six-speed automatic transmission. On its own, it’s hardly impressive in a car with the i8’s pretensions. But BMW has a high-voltage trick up its sleeve.

An electric motor linked to an 11.6-kilowatt battery pack zaps the front axle into motion, bumping the i8’s total output to 369 hp — 12 more than last year, if you’re keeping track. The battery stores enough electricity to power the i8 on its own for up to 18 miles at no more than 75 mph when the driver engages eDrive mode. When the mid-mounted gasoline engine turns on, the Roadster becomes all-wheel drive and performs the benchmark zero-to-60-mph sprint in 4.4 seconds before going on to a top speed that’s electronically limited to 155 mph. BMW predicts its newest drop-top will return 70MPGe, though official figures aren’t available because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hasn’t tested the car yet.

The coupe — which receives the same updated powertrain — and Roadster variants of the 2019 BMW i8 will begin arriving in showrooms in the spring of next year. Look for a pricing announcement before then.

Digital Trends

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November 29, 2017 at 11:46AM

All the Hints and Details Hidden in Avengers: Infinity War's Cosmically Gigantic Trailer

11/29/2017

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All the Hints and Details Hidden in Avengers: Infinity War's Cosmically Gigantic Trailer

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A decade of movies has brought us to the end of a long road in the form of Avengers: Infinity War, an epic undertaking we finally got ourfirst, glorious look at today. The trailer paints a grim future for our heroes as Thanos makes his long-awaited move, but it’s also jam-packed with hints at the war to come.

The trailer opens with a nostalgic, yet ominous recollection of how the Avengers Initiative first began. “There was an idea,” Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) intones, as we fade in from an alien world—it’s definitely not Earth, given the binary star system—to a distraught Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) Given the background, it’s reasonable to assume that Tony is on this alien world, and it’s this planet we see the Avengers fighting on later in the trailer.

“To bring together a group of remarkable people...” Tony continues, as Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his fellow mystic Wong (Benedict Wong) find an interloper in the Sanctum Sanctorum: Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who’s come in via the roof.

“To see if we could become something more” comes with the first real surprise of the trailer, in the form of android Avenger the Vision (Paul Bettany). Except, we don’t just see any other synthezoid superhero here: We see Vision in human form, embracing the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). In the comics, Vision has used a human form as a disguise, with the alias Victor Shade, to better blend in with humanity, but presumably the reason here is an attempt to hide the Mind Stone implanted in his head from detection by Thanos.

“So when they needed us, we could fight the battles...” is given to Thor (Chris Hemsworth), staring out of the portholes of a spaceship. This doesn’t appear to the ship we last left the Odinson on at the end of Ragnarok with his fellow Asgardian refugees. The decor implies it’s the Guardians’ ship, which we see him on at the end of the trailer.

The statement ends with a “...that they never could” from the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). This shot is huge for a number of reasons. Not only do we get to see Natasha’s platinum blonde hairdo, first debuted in Infinity War’s gorgeous Comic-Con poster earlier this year, but this appears to be the first time Bruce and Natasha have encountered each other since he ran off in a quinjet during the climax of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The background looks Wakandan, and Bruce is standing next to the severed arm of Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor.

Back in Bleeker Street, where Bruce, Strange, and Wong are all joined by Tony Stark. The damage in the stairs means this is after Bruce’s arrival, but given we know he heads to Wakanda at some point, it’s likely this is before that. All four are pretty perturbed by the sounds of chaos outside the Sanctum Santorum’s doorstep...

As is Peter Parker, a.k.a. the spectacular Spider-Man (Tom Holland). He didn’t get to show it off in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but Pete’s spider-sense is on full display here, as Peter turns around to see a giant ring-structure in the skies above New York City. Now it’s Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) turn to talk: “In time, you will know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail, all the same.” All right, Mad Titan, no need to rub it in.

The ring structure is presumably some kind of portal for Thanos and his cronies to appear in and out of, but its technology is very reminiscent of the silver sheen and neon red lights of Ultron, even if it’s probably not related.

But the giant space-ring floating above New York isn’t the most interesting shot here—it’s our heroes looking up at it, because we clearly see Tony’s got an arc reactor in his chest again, something first spotted in set pictures a while ago. Removing the reactor and the shrapnel around his heart it was protecting was a big part of Iron Man 3, and he continued to not have a reactor in his Homecoming appearance. So what’s caused Tony to re-install it?

Loki (Tom Hiddelston) walks over the corpses of what appear to be Asgardians to offer the Tesseract to someone off-screen. This is presumably a continuation ofThor: Rangarok’s post-credits scene, and it looks like things don’t go too well for the ship holding what remains of Asgard. This is cut with a shot of Thanos arriving through a portal, making it appear like Loki’s offering it directly to him, but it’s clearly not the same location—the blue sky in the background makes it hard to tell where exactly, but it’s definitely not the Asgardian ship. It’s probably that alien planet we see so much of in this trailer.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man dons his shiny new tech-suit from the end of Homecoming to swing up to the giant ring-ship above New York. We knew a Strange/Spidey team-up was on the cards, but this is likely when and where, considering we saw Strange and Wong fighting below the structure earlier.

Back in space for a bit as Thor struggles at the heart of a different giant ring machine (they’re big on rings in this trailer). It’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on here. Is this in the Asgardian refugee ship, and something’s gone horribly wrong? Or is it something else?

We’ve known for a while that Thanos wouldn’t be alone in Infinity War, but bring with him his team of arch-henchmen from the comics, the Black Order. They’re barely in this trailer, but we do get a blink-and-you’ll-miss it glimpse of the female member of the Order, Proxima Midnight, hurling the spear we saw her with at D23 at a shadowed figure that is very obviously Captain America (Chris Evans). Over this, we hear T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) rallying the defense of Wakanda, before demanding that someone “get that man a shield.”

Back to the Proxima fight, we finally get to see that man, Captain America, step out of the shadows, and his beard is still as glorious as the day we first saw it. The reaction shot of Scarlet Witch seems to imply she’s also in this fight, and the location definitely matches. This probably isn’t Wakanda, though, despite Black Panther’s dialogue. It appears to be wherever Team Cap (or is it Team Nomad, now?) is keeping Vision secreted away.

After the tease we saw earlier, the Hulkbuster lands in all its glory in Wakanda. Intriguingly, recent information about tie-in Lego sets for Infinity War thathit the web indicated that Bruce Banner is inside the giant suit here. That’d make sense, given we saw him tinkering with the arm earlier. But why Hulkbuster instead of, well... Hulk?

In quick succession, we get Black Widow lunging with a spear at an unseen foe (maybe Proxima), Doctor Strange battling in New York, and huge alien spires crashing into Wakanda, all as Captain America and the Black Panther go into battle with an army of four-armed aliens. We don’t get an explanation as to why Wakanda is under attack, but it’s long been assumed that the isolationist utopia is home to the final Infinity Stone we’ve yet to see in the films, the orange-hued Soul stone.

Spider-Man, meanwhile, gets slammed by Thanos. The red-orange lighting seems to indicate once again that this is the alien world from the opening of the trailer, which means SPIDER-MAN IN SPAAAACE is a thing that will happen at some point in this movie.

“Fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe,” Thanos purrs. You know what really doesn’t look fun? Vision, back in his syntehzoid form, getting the Mind Stone pried out of his head by an unknown assailant. The weapon looks vaguely like Loki’s old staff from Avengers, but is more likely the glaive of, well, Corvus Glaive (Terry Notary), the main warrior of Thanos’ Black Order. We saw the weapon back at D23.

“But this... this does put a smile on my face,” Thanos continues, as he attaches a second Infinity Stone to his gauntlet and proceeds to smack the shit out of Iron Man. The stones, purple and blue, are the Power and Space Stones respectively. We saw Loki offering the Tesseract/Space Stone willingly earlier, but the Power Stone was being safely stored on Xandar by the Nova Corps the last time we saw it, at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy.

The three suns of Xandar as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy.

So presumably the Corps will continue its long comic book tradition of having its ass handed to itself in the movie universe, too. But it raises another interesting question: What if this ravaged alien world we’re seeing Thanos fight the Avengers on is actually Xandar? I mean, Thanos has got to get that stone somehow. And Guardians of the Galaxy showed us that Xandar is in a trinary Star system, so it’s a possibility.

Back on Earth, the army of Wakanda prepares to hold off an invasion. Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is dethawed and ready to help out, but if you look to the left in T’Challa’s line up, you can also briefly see M’Baku (Winston Duke), who’ll be in Black Panther this February.

Falcon (Anthony Mackie) swoops over the battlefield as we see the Hulkbuster tanking waves of aliens below. This battle looks simply ginormous.

Squad goals? Squad goals. Interesting to note here is the arrival of War Machine (Don Cheadle) in Wakanda, and the fact that Bruce is all Hulked out. If those rumors about Bruce being in the Hulkbuster are true, maybe he starts out in it, the suit gets damaged/destroyed, and that’s when he rages out?

The final shot of the trailer—after one last triumphant blare of the Avengers theme—is one we’d previously read about as being shown at the D23 Expo earlier this year, which sees Thor’s body violently bump into a passing space ship. A battered and bruised Thor (now free to show the eyepatch he earned during the climax of Thor: Ragnarok) wakes up inside, finding himself surrounded by some strange new allies...

The Guardians of the Goddamn Galaxy. Everyone, say hi to the God of Thunder.

Our first look at Avengers: Infinity War is jam-packed with a spectacle that’s a decade in the making, but it’s surprisingly light on giving us any pertinent information beyond what we already know: Thanos is coming, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s heroes are not prepared to stop him. While we know there’ll be teams of heroes across the word—and in the stars—spread across the movie, it’s going to take all of them coming together to pose a real threat to the Mad Titan. We’ll see more of that, presumably, before Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters in May 2018.

Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:36AM

AWS makes it easier and faster to query data stored in its S3 and Glacier storage services

11/29/2017

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AWS makes it easier and faster to query data stored in its S3 and Glacier storage services

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At its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, AWS today announced a small but significant update to its S3 cloud storage and Glacier cold storage service — and how developers can access data in them.

As AWS CEO Andy Jassy noted in his keynote, the company’s customers tend to store much of their data in its S3 storage service, despite the fact that AWS also offers plenty of database and data lake services.They essentially use S3 as their data lake.

Often, though, when its customers want to only needs parts of the data in an object that sits in an S3 bucket. Say you want data about one of your retail stores but that sits in one large object. With this new service, these developers can now use standard SQL expressions to query this data within objects stored in S3 and Glacier.

Jassy noted that on S3, this new service, dubbed S3 Select (and Glacier Select on the cold storage side), can improve data access performance by up to 400% because you don’t have to pull the complete object out of storage and then run your queries after that.

This feature is now live for both S3 and Glacier users.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:32AM

The Disturbing Video Retweeted by President Trump Is Not What It Seems

11/29/2017

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The Disturbing Video Retweeted by President Trump Is Not What It Seems

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In his time as president, we’ve come to expect the daily parade of horrors Donald Trump spews into the world through Twitter. And yet he still managed to shock the nation this morning by spreading a disturbing video that depicts teenagers being thrown from a roof and beaten, one of three clips to appear on his account today which seem designed to foment anti-Muslim sentiment.

We know, of course, that “VIDEO: Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” and the two other clips retweeted by Trump came from the Twitter account of Jayda Fransen, Deputy Leader of Britain First, a small, ultranationalist party that makes UKIP look like the Green Party. Primarily concerned with ending multiculturalism (and particularly the perceived threat of Islam), Britain First has become known for its hateful “Christian patrols” which they use to harass and intimidate Muslims.

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The other two videos—“VIDEO: Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches”— were also posted by Fransen to Twitter within the past 24 hours. Based on the content and watermark of the latter video, it appears to be a clip from the Dutch video sharing platform Dumpert that led to an arrest earlier this year. According to the Dutch news site that owns Dumpert, however, the religion and citizenship status Fransen attributed to the attacker were entirely fictional. He was, in the outlet’s words, “simply a Dutchman.”

But how did Fransen come to find the deadly roof video? When and where did this incident take place? This particular clip originates from a now-defunct site called No More Cocktails (a reference to the revolting literature of Andrew Breitbart). The far-right blog posted the footage back in July of 2013.

The boy in question, Hamada Badr, was one of four young men surrounded by Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood on that roof, three of whom were thrown off. While his friends managed to survive, unfortunately Hamada later died from internal bleeding.

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Wouldn’t the senseless and brutal murder of a teenager by extremists seem to support Trump and Fransen’s vision of Islam as a force of uncivilized violence encroaching the West? If one were looking for excuses to hate Muslims, sure. But this incident followed shortly after a month of protests in Egypt where dissatisfied citizens pushed back against President Mohamed Morsi—a leader many felt had become too authoritarian and fundamentalist. Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood supporters were arrested not long after, including some of those responsible for Hamada’s death.

For those on the far-right, rather than a terrible crime during a complicated and turbulent moment of political upheaval, this video reads only as evidence that Muslims represent an encroaching malevolent force for which blind hatred is the only viable foreign policy. Stripped of all context as it traveled through anti-Islam web circles, Hamada’s death became simply a datapoint proving the inherent violence of Islam, interchangeable with a falsely labeled clip of a “Muslim migrant” attacking a boy on crutches.

In spreading this propaganda, Trump hopes to convince a few more gullible souls to believe it. And even if he doesn’t, he’s given attention and a hint of legitimacy to a group so reviled in its home country that most in the US had never heard of them until today.

Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:30AM

Former Warriors basketball player David Lee is reportedly in talks to join VC firm Social Capital

11/29/2017

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Former Warriors basketball player David Lee is reportedly in talks to join VC firm Social Capital

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David Lee, who retired from the world of basketball just last week, is in talks to join venture firm Social Capital, Axios reports. Social Capital, founded by minority Warriors owner Chamath Palihapitiya, has backed companies like Box, Slack, Treehouse and others.

Lee, who most recently played for the Golden State Warriors, would join the likes of Andre Iguodala, Steph Curry, Magic Johnson and Carmelo Anthony — current and former basketball players who have joined the world of venture capital.

Social Capital declined to comment for this story.

Featured Image: Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images/Getty Images

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:28AM

The Supreme Court Case That Could Decide the Future of Privacy Is Happening Right Now

11/29/2017

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The Supreme Court Case That Could Decide the Future of Privacy Is Happening Right Now

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Photo: Getty

On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court began hearings on a case that has the potential to be the most important privacy decision in recent memory. At its heart, it’s about the government’s right to use cellphone data to track a person’s past locations without a warrant. More broadly, it’s about updating the way we think about privacy in the digital age.

Carpenter v. United States comes to the Supreme Court by way of the ACLU. The civil rights organization believes this case is an opportunity to sort out some of the major legal issues involving metadata being used by law enforcement to obtain convictions. Metadata is data about data, for example: data that describes the location of a nearby cellphone tower. “This case promises to be a landmark case about keeping our privacy rights relevant and vital in the digital age,” Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney for the ACLU told Gizmodo.

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In April of 2011, police arrested Timothy Ivory Carpenter in connection with a string of coordinated robberies. A group of men had entered numerous Radio Shacks in Michigan and Ohio at various times, held customers and employees at gunpoint, and filled laundry bags with new smartphones before making a getaway. Several suspects identified Carpenter as one of the orchestrators of the crimes. There were eyewitnesses and video evidence that connected Carpenter to the crimes, but the police also obtained 186 pages of documents from his cellphone carrier that outlined his call history and location data over the course of a 127-day period. Carpenter’s trial lawyer, Harold Gurewitz, told NPR that this is “the kind of evidence that, in the end, is the most difficult to argue to a jury that they shouldn’t credit, because the records are what they are.”

So Carpenter and his attorney appealed his conviction, arguing that his reasonable expectation of privacy had been violated.

The Sixth Court of Appeals ultimately rejected Carpenter’s case based on a precedent set in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Third Party Doctrine, which established that citizens give up their expectation of privacy when they share information with a third party. In this case, Carpenter had shared his locations with his cellular service just by having a phone on him. The Stored Communications Act of 1986, an amendment to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, outlined what kind of information that’s stored online can be considered content or non-content. Content can require a warrant that would need law enforcement to demonstrate probable cause. Non-content only requires a subpoena or court order for law enforcement to demand that an ISP turn it over. Today, metadata is considered non-content and is treated with the lower standard that only requires authorities to demonstrate reasonably articulable facts that this data could be related to a crime.

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The ACLU has picked up Carpenter’s case because it feels these legal standards can’t possibly apply today when electronic communications can vacuum up every bit of information about your private life, movements, relationships, and activities. “What we’re asking for, in this case, is just that police have to go to a judge, demonstrate probable cause, and get a warrant,” Wessler told us. “And what we’re asking the court to do is to explain to police and the public that a warrant is required for at least a request for longer durations of records. We think anything more than a day.”

Timeframes are essential in this case. Edward J. McAndrew, leader of the National Cyber Incident Response Team at Ballard Spahr and previous federal cybercrime prosecutor at the Department of Justice, told Gizmodo he believes the lower court’s decision was correct based on existing statutes. But only the Supreme Court can decide whether or not metadata in today’s world should qualify as content. The issue we’re facing is that on a long enough timeline, metadata becomes content. He explains:

Even though the data itself is not content, it reveals something that really is, at its base, much like content. It reveals your location over an extended period of time. In fact, what the government does with this data at trial, is it plots it out on a map. So, it actually does turn it into content for purposes of trial. And if it looks like content, and it sounds like content, maybe it is content enough for purposes of a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the requirement of a search warrant.

The court also needs to weigh-in on what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy today. When the Third Party Doctrine was adopted, there was only so much information that a person could give up by making a call to someone on a landline telephone. Now, we live in a time when smartphones and internet connections are essential to practically every facet of our lives.

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“The court four decades ago could not possibly have imagined the world we live in today, where it’s really impossible to go through our daily lives without records of our most private activities being saved on the servers of companies we have relationships with,” Wessler told us. The fact that we have no choice in giving up this data to third parties, if we want to use their services, could cause the court to reevaluate how it considers our expectations of privacy.

“The choice the government says we have is that we can either opt-out of modern society and not use technology, and protect our privacy,” Wessler said. “Or, we can ‘choose’ to use cellphones and other technologies and therefore sacrifice our privacy. That just can’t be the rule.”

This conundrum goes beyond the way the law carries out procedures. It hits on something almost existential. Society has become accustomed to clicking past the Terms of Service for a tech company without reading it, and we all just accept that we have to give up our privacy to get by in the world. While Mark Zuckerberg famously claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm,” it’s less a case that people don’t expect privacy, and more that a new social norm has been foisted on us. So, we have to ask if the government will protect our expectation of privacy even though it’s being pried from our hands one click at a time.

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Wessler says the ACLU is asking the court not to overrule the previous cases that used the statutes that are under debate, but “to reject the government’s invitation to radically extend this to this very new digital world we’re in.” Above all, the group just wants to see the more rigorous standards of requesting a warrant to be applied in these situations. “Now, the court is very unlikely to answer the question of what the rule should be for all the other kinds of sensitive digital data stored somewhere in the cloud,” Wessler told us. But by redefining how location data is treated, the Supreme Court’s decision and reasoning could create a domino effect in lower courts, state legislatures, and Congress to address other types of data.

No one we spoke with for this story felt like the case will split along partisan lines in a 5-4 decision. In Riley v. California, the court decided that police need a warrant to search a cellphone, as Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, wrote:

The storage capacity of cell phones has several interrelated consequences for privacy. First, a cell phone collects in one place many distinct types of information—an address, a note, a prescription, a bank statement, a video— that reveal much more in combination than any isolated record. Second, a cell phone’s capacity allows even just one type of information to convey far more than previously possible. The sum of an individual’s private life can be reconstructed through a thousand photographs labeled with dates, locations, and descriptions; the same cannot be said of a photograph or two of loved ones tucked into a wallet. Third, the data on a phone can date back to the purchase of the phone, or even earlier. A person might carry in his pocket a slip of paper reminding him to call Mr. Jones; he would not carry a record of all his communications with Mr. Jones for the past several months, as would routinely be kept on a phone.

In United States v. Jones, the court decided that sticking a GPS-tracker on a suspect’s car without a warrant constituted trespass. The decision avoided making a determination about whether a person’s location in public was something that they could reasonably expect to be private, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor did write that the Third Party Doctrine is, “ill-suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks.”

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The court isn’t expected to make a decision until at least June of next year, but McAndrew told us that if you want to get a feeling for which way the justices are leaning, pay attention to whether or not they’re asking questions in personal terms. “When they tend to say things in personal terms, which a lot of judges do when talking about technological issues, it’s because they’re literally thinking about their own privacy,” he says.

Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

November 29, 2017 at 11:18AM

Facebook and Twitter back ENOUGH a new bipartisan revenge porn bill

11/29/2017

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Facebook and Twitter back ‘ENOUGH,’ a new bipartisan revenge porn bill

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Facebook and Twitter back ‘ENOUGH,’ a new bipartisan revenge porn bill

There’s little reaching across the aisle in today’s political climate, but one movement appears to have united not only lawmakers, but the public and private spheres as well. On Tuesday, November 28, three U.S. senators and one congresswoman introduced a bill that would address revenge porn. Titled the Ending Nonconsensual Online User Graphic Harassment (ENOUGH) Act of 2017, the aptly named piece of legislation seeks to end the dissemination of explicit images without consent.

With ENOUGH, the Department of Justice would be guaranteed the necessary tools to address revenge porn. Moreover, the bill would create federal criminal repercussions for those who spread revenge porn. “A prosecution would also have to prove that no reasonable person would consider the shared image to touch on a matter of public concern,” the release concerning the bill stated.

A number of internet companies have already expressed their support for the bill, including social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, these two networks are often used to spread such graphic content, and the companies have pursued their own efforts to crack down on these images. Just last month, Twitter updated its acceptable use policy to explicitly state that “intimate photos or videos” cannot be shared without a user’s consent. And earlier this month, Facebook began testing ways to tag photos as non-consensual explicit media.

“For victims of nonconsensual pornography, technology today makes it possible to destroy a person’s life with the click of a button or a tap on a cell phone,” Congressperson Jackie Speier said in a statement. “The damage caused by these attacks can crush careers, tear apart families, and, in the worst cases, has led to suicide. What makes these acts even more despicable is that many predators have gleefully acknowledged that the vast majority of their victims have no way to fight back. Even in states that have laws on the books, the average person can’t afford to take on these predators in civil courts. Worse are the numerous victims who have mustered the courage and strength to pursue criminal charges, only to learn there is no law that protects them. The ENOUGH Act will fix this gaping hole in our legal system.”

Digital Trends

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November 29, 2017 at 11:18AM

Hunt for treasure when Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs launches December 7

11/29/2017

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Hunt for treasure when ‘Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs’ launches December 7

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There are dozens of great games to play this holiday season, but if you’re a fan of Blizzard’s Hearthstone, you’ll be too busy to play any of them in just a few days. Brush up on your Murloc scream, ready your treasure-hunting gear, and prepare for adventure, because the Kobolds & Catacombs expansion is out in December.

“Azeroth’s rat-like, candle-loving cave folk — the kobolds — have been digging deep beneath the surface for millennia,” Blizzard community manager Nik Gianozakos said in the announcement. “Their catacombs stretch on for miles, wending through forbidden toms and breaking through the walls of long-forgotten treasure vaults. A hoard of glorious loot is there for the taking — if you can survive the dangers that lurk in those uncharted tunnels!”

Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs will feature new weapons for every class, as well as the new “recruit” attribute, which allows extra minions to enter play without needing to draw them from your deck. “Spell stone” cards grow in power when specific conditions are met, while “unidentified” cards gain extra abilities when they’re drawn from the deck. All three seem like they will add an extra layer of unpredictability to a game typically rooted in strategy.

The real draw in the expansion is “Battle in the Catacombs,” which appears to be Blizzard’s take on a boss rush mode. You must defeat eight different enemies, each more difficult than the last, from a pool of 40, with your own deck and hero also gaining power along the way. You’ll have the opportunity to get new powerful cards along the way, and at the end of each fight, you’ll also be able to choose from a few different types of loot to best match your own playstyle.

To celebrate the release of the expansion, the Hearthstone community will be hosting a number of special “fireside gathering” events in December. A number of events are likely to already be planned for your area, but if you can’t find any, you can host your own using the resources available on Blizzard’s website.

Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs will be available on December 7. You can prepurchase 135 cards right now for $50.

Digital Trends

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November 29, 2017 at 11:18AM

2019 Lincoln Nautilus charts a new course for Fords luxury brand

11/29/2017

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2019 Lincoln Nautilus charts a new course for Ford’s luxury brand

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Ford’s Lincoln luxury brand tends to be pretty conservative these days, but it just made a fairly bold move. For the past couple of decades, it’s been fashionable for luxury brands to follow the German example of using alphanumeric codes instead of real names. Lincoln is done with that.

The 2019 Lincoln Nautilus is the replacement for the Lincoln MKX (itself a derivative of the Ford Edge). Debuting at the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show, the new crossover marks Lincoln’s shift away from an alphanumeric naming strategy. The automaker currently uses the Continental and Navigator names for tradition’s sake, but everything else in its lineup has a rather anonymous designation consisting of “MK” and a letter.

Along with the new name comes new exterior styling. The biggest change from the old MKX is a new front fascia that follows the lead of the Continental stylistically. The rectangular grille and headlights aren’t the most distinctive styling elements, but at least they look better here than on the recently face-lifted 2019 Lincoln MKC.

It may share a name with the world’s first nuclear submarine, but the Nautilus has a far more conventional propulsion system. A 2.7-liter twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6 with 335 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque carries over from the MKX. The 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine used in the MKC replaces the old 3.7-liter V6 in base models. With 245 hp and 275 lb-ft, it’s less powerful than the old engine, but will probably be more fuel efficient. The Nautilus gets an eight-speed automatic transmission, with standard front-wheel drive or optional all-wheel drive.

The interior is still recognizable as a face-lifted version of the MKX cabin, but buyers at least get a decent array of toys. A 19-speaker Revel audio system and 22-way power front seats are on the options list, and the Nautilus features a 12.3-inch reconfigurable instrument cluster display. Like other Lincoln models, the Nautilus uses parent Ford’s Sync 3 infotainment system, which includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. The interior can also be dressed up with different “Black Label” design packages, including one inspired by the haute couture New York’s Met Gala.

Alongside the launch of the Nautilus, Lincoln is launching and expanding different services for customers. Beginning in January, new Lincoln owners will get a six-month complimentary membership for themselves and a second person in CLEAR, which lets members get through security faster at participating airports and arenas. Customers who join Lincoln’s Black Label program get yearlong memberships.

Lincoln is also expanding a pilot program that allows customers to book a professional driver to chauffeur them around in their own cars. It launched earlier this year in Miami and San Diego as Lincoln Chauffeur, but will be renamed Lincoln Personal Driver ahead of an expansion to Dallas.

Finally, Lincoln is launching a pilot car subscription service. Beginning next year, drivers in certain parts of California will be able to pay a monthly fee and get access to a car whenever they need one, without actually making the commitment of buying or leasing. Lincoln parent Ford already operates a similar service called Canvas, and Cadillac and Porsche have their own subscription services as well.

Digital Trends

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November 29, 2017 at 11:18AM