DIGITAL
- Can we ever regulate online spaces? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Inside the Team at Facebook That Dealt with the Christchurch Shooting
- PewDiePie Addresses Christchurch Massacre, Urges Fans To Stop Using “Subscribe To PewDiePie”
- Facebook Files Questionable Lawsuit Over Fake Followers And Likes
- Austrian Government Wants To Outlaw Online Anonymity
- Smoking, depression apps sell your data to Google and Facebook, study finds
- How a Google Street View image of your house predicts your risk of a car accident
- Behind The Scenes Look At How Facebook Dealt With Christchurch Shooting Demonstrates The Impossible Task Of Content Moderation
- Regulating Facebook will be one of the greatest challenges in human history
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg announces privacy overhaul: ‘We don’t have the strongest reputation’
- Insights: Will We Still Like Instagram If We Don’t Know Who Likes What?
- Instagram Enlists Kim Kardashian, Kathleen Lights, And More To Roll Out Shoppable Posts
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Some Republican Politicians Are Indistinguishable From Neo Nazis
- Impossible Content Moderation Dilemmas: Talking About Racism Blocked As Hate Speech
- Samsung Made A Vertical TV To Display Instagram Stories, TikToks, And Snapchats
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets Section 230 Right
- Ninth Circuit Chunks Another Section 230 Ruling – HomeAway v. Santa Monica
- Supreme Court Asks White House To Weigh In On Copyrightability Of APIs
- As Brand Safety Concerns Mount, Vice Denounces Keyword Blacklists For Restricting Diversity
- Vodafone Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment
- Bloomberg alleges Huawei routers and network gear are backdoored
- Bloomberg Appears To Flub Another China Story, Insists Telnet Is A Nefarious Huawei Backdoor
- Silicon Valley is awash in Chinese and Saudi cash — and no one is paying attention (except Trump): A tough, new enforcement regime is becoming a geopolitical minefield for venture capitalists and startups.
- Judge blasts Assange for jumping bail, sentences him to almost one year
- Putin signs law to create an independent Russian internet
- Why Won’t Twitter Treat White Supremacy Like ISIS? Because It Would Mean Banning Some Republican Politicians Too.: A proactive, algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republican politicians.
- How The Alt-Right Infiltrated Architecture Twitter – And Turned Notre-Dame Into A Political Lightning Rod: Why are online white nationalists obsessed with modern architecture? It’s all a cover to push a racist agenda
- After White House stop, Twitter CEO calls congresswoman about death threats
- Texas Senator Pushing A Bill That Would Allow The State To Sue Twitter For Banning Conservatives
- Why Your Holiday Photos And Videos Of The Restored Notre Dame Cathedral Could Be Blocked By The EU’s Upload Filters
- Elon Musk reaches settlement in SEC tweet battle
- Disinformation Threatens 2020 Election
- Was Russia’s 2016 intervention for Trump a strategic failure?: Putin won the political battle, but the war’s outcome is still uncertain.
- HootSuite cuts jobs in reorganization at social media management business
- At NewFronts, Twitter Pitches Programming Pacts With Wall Street Journal, Live Nation, Univision
- Twitter Expands Live-Streaming Video Lineup, Sets Content Deals With Viacom, ESPN, Live Nation, Univision, and More
- YouTube Is Communicating Directly With Creators And Viewers More Than Ever – Through Its Twitter Account
- YouTube CEO addresses top creator issues including copyright claims and trending section
- YouTube Swings For The Fences In First-Ever Exclusive Deal With Major League Baseball
- YouTube Scores MLB 13-Game Package With Exclusive Rights in U.S., Canada
- Following Shane Dawson Summit, YouTube’s Tweaking Its ‘Trending’ Tab To Be 50% Native Creators
- Taylor Swift’s “Me!” Shatters YouTube Record For Most-Viewed Solo Female Debut
- Microsoft is now a $1 trillion company: Strong earnings push Microsoft toward a new milestone
- Microsoft market cap reaches $1 trillion: Company value edges over milestone this morning for the first time, making it most valuable US publicly traded company
- Apple sets sights on services as iPhone revenue continues to fall
- iPad and services on the rise at Apple as iPhone sales continue to fall
- Robotics company Anki lays off entire workforce ahead of closure
- Security Experts Unite Over the Right to Repair
- Minnesota May Be First State To Pass A Right To Repair Law
- SiriusXM financials reveal continued decline in Pandora users
- Post-Ticketfly, Pandora Integrates Ticketmaster Shows Into Its Artist Streams
- The Next Step In The Podcast Wars: Two Companies Looking To Be The Netflix Of Podcasts Start Fighting
- Despite Spielberg’s ‘Get Off My Lawn’ Moment, The Oscars Won’t Ban Netflix
- Now more expensive to sue multiple online infringers
- Don’t let industry write the rules for AI: Technology companies are running a campaign to bend research and regulation for their benefit; society must fight back (Yochai Benkler)
- World Economic Forum’s AI head on how to protect human rights without stifling innovation
- Is Artificial Intelligence Good for Our Health?
- Can algorithms themselves be biased?
- Google’s poetry algorithm automates teen angst: Give it a word and it’ll give you a masterpiece (of sorts).
- Why Congress Needs The Office Of Technology Assessment More Than Ever
- Google’s VP Of Agency And Brand Solutions Wants Facebook Watch To Get Bigger
- GroupM’s Global Head Of Social Says Marketers Must Practice Non-Linear Storytelling
- The Age Of The Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For The Slacker To Rise Again
- Amazon Posts Record Profit in Q1 of $3.6 Billion, Plans to Upgrade Prime to Free One-Day Shipping
- How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for ‘productivity’: Documents show how the company tracks and terminates workers
- A doorbell company owned by Amazon wants to start producing “crime news”
- Amazon Spent $1.7 Billion on Content in Q1, but Original Video Investments Still Unknown
- Amazon plans to make Prime shipping one-day by default
- Amazon Takes Direct Aim At Jay-Z’s Tidal
- BBC Expanding News Coverage With Interactive Video, Audio Articles, And New Verticals
- Hulu Greenlights Two New Marvel Series, Inks Two-Year Programming Pact With Chrissy Teigen
- Hulu tops 28 million customers, unveils new shows and a ‘binge watch’ ad experience
- Vudu Announces ‘Blue’s Clues’ Remake, Studio71 Film ‘Adventure Force 5’
- Technological Warnings from the Inside
- MIT finally gives a name to the sum of all AI fears
- The AI Group Elon Musk Quit Just Released An Amazing Music AI
- Spotify Now Has Over 100 Million Subscribers, Narrows Q1 Losses
- Layer and Nio’s intelligent Pal scooter learns your favourite routes
- The Vast Majority of All Futures Trading Is Now Automated
- Amazing AI Generates Entire Bodies of People Who Don’t Exist: The algorithm whips up photorealistic models and outfits from scratch.
- The Role of Professional Norms in AI Governance: Some Observations and Outline of a Framework (Urs Gasser)
- Beyond Bias: Re-imagining the Terms of “Ethical AI” in Criminal Law (Chelsea Barabas)
- Do You Know the Origin of your Website Content? . . . and Why You Should.
- Condé Nast Entertainment Says It Has 100 Pilots In The Works
- Condé Nast Taps Joe Sugg For New YouTube Series, To Launch Sports-Themed ‘GQ’ Channel
- Vice to Relaunch Main Site, Bring Noisey Under Flagship Umbrella: Exclusive
- Viacom’s Kelly Day Wants To ‘Build Digital Worlds’ Around Its Biggest TV Hits
- Viacom is launching Pluto TV channels for Comedy Central, MTV and more
- Viacom Taps Eva Gutowski, Tana Mongeau, And Jason Nash For Latest YouTube Series Slate
- Billboard Music Awards Pacts With Nascent Stories-Editing App ‘Unfold’
- Slack plans to go public after hitting 10 million daily users
- Shoddy Software Is Eating The World, And People Are Dying As A Result
- In Its Race to Be First, Samsung Screwed Itself
- Samsung puts the screws to iFixit, makes it remove the Galaxy Fold teardown
- UWinnipeg receives $2.4 million to grow digital agriculture
- The leading “stablecoin” is no longer backed by $1 for every coin
COMMUNICATIONS
- SCC decision could focus on CRTC’s reach
- Anti-spam laws are overreaching, say lawyers
- Of Course Wireless Carriers Are Fighting a Bill That Stops Them From Throttling Firefighters’ Data
- Verizon Media Unveils Augmented Reality News Partner Program, 5G Tech At NewFronts
- AT&T Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Fake 5G,’ Won’t Change A Thing
- Ajit Pai-proposed upgrade to 25Mbps starts paying off for rural ISPs
- Ajit Pai says he’s fixed giant FCC error that exaggerated broadband growth
- Comcast usage soars 34% to 200GB a month, pushing users closer to data cap
- Charter Spectrum Won’t Get Kicked Out Of New York State After ISP Promises To Suck Less
- Charter data use “rising rapidly” as cord cutters average 400GB a month
PRIVACY
- Canada Says Facebook Broke Privacy Laws With ‘Superficial’ Safeguards
- Facebook data leak: Province-by-province breakdown of affected Canadians
- Zero-day attackers deliver a double dose of ransomware – no clicking required: High-severity hole in Oracle WebLogic under active exploit for 9 days.
- At Long Last, NSA Finally Recommends Its Bulk Phone Collection Program Be Put Out Of Its Misery
- Vulture with GPS tracker held in Yemen on suspicion it was used for spying
- Probable Russian Navy covert camera whale discovered by Norwegians
- Massachusetts’ Top Court Says Warrants Are Needed For Real-Time Cell Site Location Info
- Coercive and Non-Coercive Surveillance Authorities
- Fear the Man in the Middle? This company wants to sell quantum key distribution
- Appeals Court: Chalking Tires For Parking Enforcement Violates The Fourth Amendment
CREATIVITY
- Myths and Reality About Canadian Copyright Law, Fair Dealing and Educational Copying (Michael Geist)
- The Copyright Board’s “New Leaf”? Not So Much and Not at All (Howard Knopf)
- The Toronto Real Estate Board is Back in the Copyright News (Howard Knopf)
- Can the taste of a cheese be copyrighted? (Eleonora Rosati)
- Today In Bananas Copyright Law: Court Urged To Rule That A Banana Costume Is Not Infringing
- Second Circuit Judges Brawl Over the Meaning of “Volition” in Copyright Cases–BWP v. Polyvore
- Announcing: The Public Domain Song Anthology
- Watch: The Latest Avengers Movie Is Already On Torrent Sites, But That Won’t Stop A Torrent Of Sold Theater Tickets
- Picture this: no direct infringement but no fair use either
- FanX, Previously Salt Lake Comic Con, Ordered To Pay $4 Million For San Diego’s Con’s Attorney’s Fees, Barred From Calling Itself A Comic-Con
- How Queer Is Star Trek?
- First teaser for Veronica Mars revival is everything we loved about the series
- Encyclopedia Brown And The Case Of The Mysterious Author: Donald J. Sobol created a mystery icon and sold millions of books. But who was he?
- Oxford Professor Argues Invisible Aliens Are Interbreeding With Humans
- The world is sadder and angrier than ever, major study finds
- A theory of style: We can analyse how fashion works by breaking it down into networks of style elements. What role, then, for human creativity?
GAMES
- Report: Talks of developer walkouts prompt conversation inside Riot Games
- Citing arbitration clauses, Riot Games moves to block employee lawsuits
- Riot Files Motions To Block Current Employees From Taking Legal Action
- Riot employees threaten walkout over forced arbitration: League of Legends developer’s attempt to keep workers’ gender discrimination claims out of court draws backlash
- Riot says women waived right to sue when they were hired: League of Legends maker wants to enforce private arbitration clauses for gender discrimination claims
- The heavy toll of making games in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Swery’s White Owls is building a better work culture for Japan: Hidetaka Suehiro says his new studio’s treatment of employees is, “inspired by foreign game companies”
- New York Saxophonist Latest To Sue Fortnite Developers For Supposedly Ripping Off His… ‘Likeness’
- Musician Leo Pellegrino sues Epic Games over alleged misappropriation of his identity: Pellegrino’s “trademark moves have become inseparable from his persona and his life story” argues filing
- Epic Games acquires Rocket League dev Psyonix
- Epic acquires Rocket League studio, bringing game to Epic’s store this year: Steam sales will continue for now; Steam “support” will continue indefinitely.
- If Epic Vs Steam Is To Be A PR War, Epic’s Boss Just Issued A Brilliant Retaliatory Strike
- Steam crosses 1 billion registered accounts
- NCSoft Has A Great Opportunity To Be Awesome And Human To ‘City Of Heroes’ Enthusiasts
- The streaming service that wants to save the retro gaming biz from piracy
- Cox Internet now charges $15 extra for faster access to online game servers
- Google removes Do Global Games from Play Store: Developer with over 100 apps and 600m installs banned following reports of concealing ownership info, ad fraud
- Google CEO: Publishers “want to see our commitment” to Stadia – But Sundar Pichai says giving games execs hands on time with streaming service “completely wins people over”
- Publishers see Stadia as an ‘opportunity for a shift,’ says Google CEO
- Google Stadia will support “a variety of business models”
- Coming Facebook Gaming features focus on discovery and engagement
- Banned Republican politician restored to EVE Online council following investigation: “We made a mistake here and we offer our formal apologies,” says CCP Games
- EA lays out Apex Legends community tournament guidelines: This is what you need to know if you want to hold a local tournament without fear of EA’s legal department.
- Apex Legends updates less to maintain dev quality of life: Respawn’s Vince Zampella says studio is wary of overworking the team and reducing quality of work in the process
- BioWare delays multiple Anthem features: “There is a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be,” says BioWare
- Epic Removed A Popular Fortnite Mechanic Because It Made People Play Less
- Epic Games Boss Says They’ll Stop Doing Exclusives If Steam Gives Developers More Money
- Tim Sweeney: Epic would stop pursuing exclusives if Steam improved its revenue share – Epic CEO says Steam committing to permanent 88% revenue share would be “a glorious moment in the history of PC gaming”
- Phoenix Labs’ undaunted quest for cross-platform play: Founder Jesse Houston on choosing the Epic Games store over Steam, and how that choice is helping to realise its cross-platform vision for Dauntless
- Epic Games acquires Psyonix: Epic seems to leave door open for game to continue to be sold on Steam after Epic Games store release
- Snap’s big plan to turn Snapchat into a gaming platform
- Watch the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal streams and you might win in-game loot: A new Echocast plugin will also enable viewers to look at streamers’ loadouts, inventories, and skill trees.
- Borderlands 3 is about more bullets, not new bullet points: Gearbox developers say the latest entry was about broadening the familiar, share thoughts on collaboration, crassness, and crunch
- Adult gaming portal Nutaku launches Android storefront: Restrictions on Google Play and App Store demanded new measures to “improve accessibility” for mobile users
- In-depth: Portfolio-scale machine learning at Zynga
- Zynga’s Q1 revenues, losses top expectations: Publisher credits “outstanding performances” from Empires & Puzzles and Merge Dragons for helping top line and hurting bottom line
- Record-breaking year for Jagex with revenues of £92.8m: Launch of Old School RuneScape on mobile drives fourth consecutive year of growth
- Original Earthworm Jim team reunites for new, Intellivision Amico-exclusive entry: Ten of the game’s original developers participating in creation of new title for upcoming, exclusive-heavy console
- There’s a 1 percent chance Valve announces a Half-Life VR game this week
- Valve Index is a 120Hz-plus ‘fidelity first’ VR headset, and it isn’t cheap
- Valve Index VR headset ships June 28 for $499-$999
- Hands-on: Valve’s Index Headset Sets an Impressive New Bar for VR Fidelity
- Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest launch May 21 for $399 each
- Oculus Quest Review – The First Great Standalone VR Headset
- A VR game is helping researchers learn about and potentially detect Alzheimer’s
- Japanese mobile operator Docomo sinks $280 million into Magic Leap
- Magic Leap gets $280m investment from Docomo: Japanese telecomms deal pushes lifetime funding above $2.6 billion
- ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ & ‘Zelda Breath of the Wild’ Updated with Switch VR Support
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate driving new Switch sales for Nintendo
- Nintendo Slays The Threat From Modded Nintendo Games For The Commodore 64
- Over 9.8 million people are using Nintendo’s premium Switch Online service
- Nintendo saw over $1 billion in digital sales this year, a company first
- Game with hidden Ruby interpreter pulled from Nintendo Switch eShop
- Nintendo’s VR Upgrade for Zelda Messed Me Up
- The Switch is closing in on 35 million lifetime sales
- Software driving growth at Nintendo as Switch falls just short of sales goal
- Nintendo remains the industry’s best long-term bet | Opinion: With Switch soaring and clear space ahead as competitors prepare next-gen offerings, Nintendo is back on top – and the long-term outlook is even more rosy
- Nintendo Switch had 23 million-selling games in the last fiscal year: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says there will be no new hardware announcement at E3 this year
- Nintendo Switch Online reaches 9.8m subscribers in six months: Just under one third of Switch owners are paid members of the online service
- Nintendo pulls A Dark Room from eShop over secret code editor
- Nintendo shares drop 5% after conservative Switch forecasts: But platform holder’s share price has still risen 29% since the start of the year
- A Dark Room pulled from Switch eShop for including code editor: Developer added Ruby editor at the “last second” without publisher’s knowledge
- Mario Kart Tour steps closer to launch with closed beta test: Nintendo’s upcoming mobile game was delayed from March 2019 launch due to concerns over its quality
- Xbox should absolutely team up with Nintendo at E3 | Opinion: This could be the quietest E3 yet, making it the ideal time for Microsoft and Nintendo to call a truce
- Microsoft is using the Xbox Adaptive Controller to support U.S. veterans
- Sega keen to improve profitability of digital titles after disappointing year
- Don’t Miss: A postmortem of the original Sonic the Hedgehog
- Mojang has released the ‘biggest Minecraft update yet’
- Microsoft continues to distance itself from Minecraft creator: Citing “his comments and opinions,” Mojang parent explains why Marcus “Notch” Persson won’t be involved in anniversary event
- Minecraft creator Notch unwelcome at 10th anniversary due to online conduct: Transphobia, homophobia, and racism aren’t Microsoft’s core values.
- Mojang donates $100k to water charity after Minecraftplayers rally to the cause
- PlayStation Now has 700,000 subscribers
- PlayStation Now downloads get double the play time of streamed games: Sony’s on-demand service has 700k subscribers, and many of them are choosing downloads over streams
- Rising PS4 game sales drive Sony to $78.1bn full-year revenues: Game segment’s operating income to take a $278.3 million hit as investment increases in PlayStation 5
- PS4 software sales up at Sony as hardware decline continues
- UK Charts: Days Gone defeats Mortal Kombat 11 to claim No.1 – PS4 exclusive scores decent debut in UK Top 40
- Slightly Mad Studios withdraws trademark for Mad Box console: Withdrawal follows opposition from French casual games firm called Madbox
- Project Cars dev fails to secure ‘Mad Box’ trademark for new console
- St. Jude’s PLAY LIVE Gamer Fundraising Summit Kicks Off In Memphis With Tons Of Twitch Stars
- Fans Can Now Buy Their Own Ninja Headbands For $22, Exclusively At Walmart
- Capcom restructures esports and media licensing business units: Company forms Capcom Media Ventures to manage global esports projects
- Denmark creates ‘national esports strategy’ to nurture competitive gaming
- Fnatic Secures $19m Funding, Announces Management Changes
- YouTube Millionaires: ProPepper’s YouTube Channel Is All ‘Fortnite,’ All The Time — And That’s What Drives His 10+ Million Monthly Views
- The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: The slow journey to killing crunch
- Ex-NetherRealm devs: crunch and exploiting contractors was the studio norm
- Codemasters moves F1 team into new Birmingham studio: Studio head Ian Flatt says new premises allows developer to “recruit even further to expand the franchise”
- Starbreeze sells 10 Crowns publishing rights back to developer Mohawk Games
- Starbreeze sells publishing rights for 10 Crowns back to developer: Marks third such deal in just over a year, but still holds on to Psychonauts 2
- Snapchat is launching an SDK to let devs use Bitmoji avatars in their own games
- Four years after launch, Angry Birds 2 is still Rovio’s top-earning game
- Dino Patti: “If you get what you expected, it always gets boring”
- Blog: Approaching player choice in video games
- Blizzard will skip Gamescom this year to ‘focus on development’
- Bloodborne board game adaptation raises $1.6m in two days: Tabletop adaptation of FromSoftware’s nightmarish monster-fest breaks funding goal in 17 minutes
- AbleGamers reveals plan to get accessibility experts into AAA studios: “We’ve found that once we embed champions within the studio space, accessibility becomes a really cheap thing to add,” says CEO
- This Video Game Detects Alzheimer’s Earlier Than Lab Tests
- Ubisoft is rewarding players for reporting reproducible bugs in Rainbow Six Siege
- Mobile VR game Sea Hero Quest generates 1,700 hours of research into Alzheimer’s: Researchers claim every two minutes of gameplay is equal to five hours of lab-based studies
- Valve Index reveal: The best of VR’s first generation—but is it worth $999?
- Valve has a ‘flagship’ game headed to SteamVR headsets
- Oculus Quest review: 2019’s best new gaming system is wireless, affordable VR
- UK government awards £12m funding for innovation projects based on homegrown IP: Augmented and virtual reality games in development for Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit, and BAFTA-winning Peaky Blinders
- Mass Effect-inspired porn game is now one of the biggest gaming Kickstarters of all time: Subverse, a “kinky sci-fi RPG,” will likely break $2 million, putting it in an exclusive crowdfunding club.
- The Indie Guide To Marketing: Freelance marketer Bee Wakefield offers devs advice on how to promote their game – and why it takes more than just social media
- Understanding Inkle’s approach to making unique game settings
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Vault: How Inkle designed its first 3D game
- A brief history of 3D texturing in video games
- Don’t Miss: The making of the N64 classic, GoldenEye 007
- Deux Ex: The game you can’t win – Why I Love – Bow to Blood developer Matthew Hoesterey says the immersive sim was everything he hoped for, but not what he expected
- Did a vigilante ROM leaker go too far to “preserve” a lost Atari ROM?
- Don’t Miss: How the developer of Dig Dog learned to make games without using his hands
- Coding without a keystroke: The hands-free creation of a full video game
Jon