Tag: german

German Police Allowed To Use Its Own "Federal Trojan"

An anonymous reader writes: The German Interior Ministry has approved for investigative use a spying Trojan developed by the German Federal Criminal Police (a so-called “federal Trojan”). In fact, it could end up being used as early as this week. The police will have to get a court order to use the spyware, and prove that the suspect is involved in a crime threatening citizens’ “life, limb or liberty”. The malware has been developed in-house, and has been available since autumn 2015. It is supposed to be used only for so-called telecommunication surveillance at the source, i.e. to read emails, chats and wiretap phone calls made by the target via his or her computer or smartphone, and not to access files, steal passwords, or set up video or audio surveillance via the device. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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German Police Allowed To Use Its Own "Federal Trojan"

Lawsuit demands the right to resell Steam games

One of the biggest gripes about downloadable games ( unless you’re a developer ) is that you can’t typically resell them — that title is yours forever, even if you’ll never play it again. French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir is doing something about it, though. It’s suing Valve to demand resales for Steam games. Its policy violates the European Union’s right to resell legally purchased software, according to the group. As proof, it points to a 2012 Oracle case where a judge ruled that there was no difference between reselling disc-based copies and their downloaded equivalents. The outfit also blasts Valve’s self-given right to reuse user-made Steam content, and argues that it should refund any leftover credit if you close your Steam account. Whether or not Que Choisir wins the day is far from clear. A German group didn’t have any success trying a similar feat. And even if the French lawsuit leads to an EU-wide resale policy, you shouldn’t expect it to spread to the US. Downloads are typically considered licenses in the country, not sales, and wouldn’t be subject to the same scrutiny. Even so, this is a step forward for anyone hoping to thin down a massive Steam library… and make some spare cash in the process. Via: Ars Technica Source: UFC-Que Choisir (translated)

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Lawsuit demands the right to resell Steam games

AT&T Says Malware Secretly Unlocked Hundreds of Thousands of Phones

alphadogg writes: AT&T said three of its employees secretly installed software on its network so a cellphone unlocking service could surreptitiously funnel hundreds of thousands of requests to its servers to remove software locks on phones. The locks prevent phones from being used on competing networks and have been an important tool used by cellular carriers to prevent customers from jumping ship. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AT&T Says Malware Secretly Unlocked Hundreds of Thousands of Phones

Algorithm turns any picture into the work of a famous artist

A group of German researchers have created an algorithm that basically amounts to the most amazing Instagram filter ever conceived: a convolutional neural network that can convert any photograph into a work of fine art. The process takes an hour (sorry, it’s not actually coming to a smartphone near you), and the math behind it is horrendously complicated, but the results speak for themselves. The algorithm leverages how complex neural networks process object recognition to help it rebuild photographs in the style of specific artists. On a very basic level, the network treats the art style of a source image as a “texture, ” and filters the target image through several layers of computational units to create a representation of it that agrees with the features of the original art. It’s a pretty neat trick, but not the actual point of the group’s research — the art project is simply an example that shows that convolutional neural networks are now capable of separating the content and style of an image. That said, researchers admit that content and style have to be careful balanced if the output image is to make any sense — too much focus on style, and the output image won’t look anything like the original photograph. The group plans to publish an additional paper on the algorithm in Nature later this year — but you can read the original report at the source link below. Filed under: Science Comments Via: Washington Post Source: Corell University Tags: art, imagerecognition, NeuralNetwork, picasso, vangogh

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Algorithm turns any picture into the work of a famous artist

Berlin Spends $16 Million a Month To Maintain This Never-Opened Airport

As the EU’s self-appointed morality police, Germany publicly spanked Greece earlier this month for being so financially frivolous. Well, Germany has its own money troubles! Namely, a catastrophe-riddled $6 billion airport that the country continues to pour money into—with no opening date in sight. Scheiße! Read more…

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Berlin Spends $16 Million a Month To Maintain This Never-Opened Airport

How a Failed Super-Blimp Project Led to an Indoor Tropical Island Paradise in the Middle of Germany

The sky was the limit for Cargolifter AG, the German company that designed a gigantic heavy lift airship in the 1990s called the CL 160 . The super-blimp was meant to carry 160 metric tons over a distance of up to 10, 000 kilometers, all without the need for airports; in a natural disaster, it could carry enough food to feed over 25, 000 people for two weeks, and could drop it off in an area inaccessible by conventional vehicles. To build something that big—the CL 160 would displace over half a million cubic meters—required a big-ass hangar. So in 2000, flush with dot-com cash from an IPO, Cargolifter built a gi-normous hangar nearly a quarter of a mile in length. It’s as tall as a football field is long. It’s so large that if the Eiffel Tower fell over, you could drag it completely inside the hangar and not bang into anything; there are no support pillars holding up the roof, as it’s a completely self-supporting dome. But within a couple of years, the technically-complicated CL 160 project went bust, having burned through all of the cash before it could produce the blimp. The company was out of money by 2002, and in 2003 they were forced to sell the hangar—which they’d spent €78 million to build—at an eye-watering 80% discount. A Malaysian company snapped it up, and started doing something pretty bizarre: They spent nine months building a magnificent artificial lagoon and white-sand beach inside. They trucked in palm trees and flew a small army of Balinese craftsmen in to build a Southeast Asian village. By 2004 Tropical Islands was open for business, giving visitors access to a climate half a world away. For the past ten years they’ve continued building inside the dome, which now houses the world’s largest indoor rainforest. There’s a huge sauna/spa complex, a network of water slides, restaurants, shopping, guest lodges and tents you can rent for overnight stays. You can even go freaking BASE jumping inside the thing.  Look at the scale of this place (and if you’re at work, turn your speakers up to annoy your co-workers with the catchy theme song): The blimp that was meant to be built inside the structure never came to be, but in a supreme bit of irony, there are a couple of airships inside: Visitors can ride a tethered hot-air balloon up to the ceiling, or cruise around inside the dome in a free-floating hot-air balloon. Here’s YouTuber Tom Scott taking in the majesty:

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How a Failed Super-Blimp Project Led to an Indoor Tropical Island Paradise in the Middle of Germany

Skype’s real-time translator now understands French and German—along with the existing English, Ital

Skype’s real-time translator now understands French and German —along with the existing English, Italian, Mandarin and Spanish. Read more…

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Skype’s real-time translator now understands French and German—along with the existing English, Ital

The CD Factory Worker Who Broke the Music Industry 

Welcome to Reading List , a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week explores the early days of online music piracy, the implications of America’s military drone base in Germany, the potential pitfalls of artificial intelligence, and more! Enjoy. Read more…

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The CD Factory Worker Who Broke the Music Industry 

California Has Become the First State To Get Over 5% of Its Power From Solar

Lucas123 writes: While the rest of the nation’s solar power generation hovers around 1%, California clocked in with a record 5% of power coming from utility-grade (1MW or more) solar power sources, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group and the Energy Information Administration. That’s three times the next closest state, Arizona. At the same time, 22 states have yet to deploy even one utility-grade solar power plant, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. Meanwhile, the rest of the world saw a 14% uptick in solar power installations in 2014 for a total of 54.5GW of capacity, and that figure is expected to grow even faster in 2015. While China still leads the world in new solar capacity, Japan and the U.S. come in as a close second and third, respectively. In the U.S. distributed solar and utility-grade solar installations are soaring as the solar investment tax credit (ITC) is set to expire next year. The U.S. is expected to deploy 8.5GW of new solar capacity in 2015, according to Mercom Capital Group. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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California Has Become the First State To Get Over 5% of Its Power From Solar