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

Tesla Model S Owners Now Get Free In-Car Spotify

Looking for some way to justify that $70, 000 Tesla Model S? Well, how about this: starting today, Model S owners in some countries will have free in-car access to Spotify Premium. At $10 saved per month, that’s only 583 years until you break even! Read more…

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Tesla Model S Owners Now Get Free In-Car Spotify

Juniper’s Backdoor Password Disclosed, Likely Added In Late 2013

itwbennett writes: In a blog post on Rapid7’s community portal Sunday, HD Moore posted some notes on the Juniper ScreenOS incident, notably that his team discovered the backdoor password that enables the Telnet and SSH bypass. Quoting: “Although most folks are more familiar with x86 than ARM, the ARM binaries are significantly easier to compare due to minimal changes in the compiler output. … Once the binary is loaded, it helps to identify and tag common functions. Searching for the text “strcmp” finds a static string that is referenced in the sub_ED7D94 function. Looking at the strings output, we can see some interesting string references, including auth_admin_ssh_special and auth_admin_internal. … The argument to the strcmp call is

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Juniper’s Backdoor Password Disclosed, Likely Added In Late 2013

The Force Awakens Has Obliterated Box Office Records In Its First Weekend 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was always destined for a huge box office debut. The question has been how much of a huge opening would it have? The answer came this weekend: A staggering $238 million in North America and $517 million globally. Read more…

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The Force Awakens Has Obliterated Box Office Records In Its First Weekend 

Facebook Replaces Flash With HTML5 For Videos

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook announced that it officially replaced Flash with HTML5 for its video player. They made the change because of security reasons, but developers also found it easier to work with — it led to quicker turnarounds for site-wide changes, and had better integration with code testing platforms. Facebook reports that user engagement has gone up since the switch was made. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Replaces Flash With HTML5 For Videos

Here’s the cool thing that happens when you pour molten aluminum inside polymer water balls

The Backyard Scientist filled a tank to the brim with water balls, which are little polymer beads that expand to slimy squishy balls when soaked in water, and then poured in molten aluminum to create some wild designs. It’s cool because with all the different ways the molten aluminum can move within a vat filled with balls, each pour results in a totally different design. Read more…

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Here’s the cool thing that happens when you pour molten aluminum inside polymer water balls

You Can Break Into a Linux System by Pressing Backspace 28 Times. Here’s How to Fix It

Hitting a key over and over again actually works for once. Two security researchers in Spain recently uncovered a strange bug that will let you into most Linux machines just by hitting the backspace key 28 times. Here’s how to fix it and keep your data protected. Read more…

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You Can Break Into a Linux System by Pressing Backspace 28 Times. Here’s How to Fix It

Clear Ceramic Makes This Filter 10x Tougher Than Your Usual Lens Protector

This protective lens filter might look like any other, but it’s got an invisible secret. Making use of a new kind of clear ceramic, it’s ten times tougher than most conventional protective filters, so is virtually guaranteed to keep yours lens perfectly safe. Read more…

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Clear Ceramic Makes This Filter 10x Tougher Than Your Usual Lens Protector

Shelfie Lets You Download Ebooks and Audiobooks by Snapping Photos of Your Physical Copies

Shelfie, formerly known as BitLit , already lets you take a photo of the physical books you own and get matching ebook copies. Now they’re throwing audiobooks into the mix, so you can listen to the books on your bookshelf too. Read more…

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Shelfie Lets You Download Ebooks and Audiobooks by Snapping Photos of Your Physical Copies

Backblaze B2 Offers Dirt-Cheap Cloud Storage for Half a Penny Per GB a Month

There isn’t much you can buy for less than one cent these days, but you can store a whole lot of files in the “cloud” for $0.005 a month with Backblaze’s new B2 storage service. It’ll even give you 10GB for free. Read more…

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Backblaze B2 Offers Dirt-Cheap Cloud Storage for Half a Penny Per GB a Month