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Yesterday, we reported that CBS pulled their content from Dish Network in 16 major metro cities after months of failed licensing negotiations between the two.

Today, the programming is back, as the companies have reached a "multi-year deal covering carriage payments, streaming rights" and ends the two's dispute over Dish's Hopper DVR and its ability to remove commercials.

The Hopper and its "AutoHop" feature was a big enough deal that CBS had sued Dish, and it seems that Dish has caved as part of the new deal. AutoHop is disabled for CBS programming for the first seven days after a program airs on CBS networks. Dish has long defended AutoHop, and its convenience for customers. The company says AutoHop does exactly what all TV watchers with DVR do anyway: fast forward through the commercials.

On Dish's end, the satellite TV company also gets rights to Showtime VOD content and Showtime Anytime, as well as all CBS programming and affiliate programming.

Source:
Deadline

2014 has undoubtedly been a year to forget for retailers and customer data, as many prominent companies have seen severe security breaches leading to the loss of names, addresses, credit card numbers and other sensitive information of hundreds of millions of Americans.

The related fraudulent charges and the costs to replace credit and debit cards has led banks to lose over $400 million on just one single scandal this year (Target), and thanks to a early court ruling, the banks can now move forward with lawsuits against retailers that have been negligent with their security.

In the Target incident, nearly 50 million cards were compromised and in the past the banks have borne the costs of replacements but until this year, the breaches have never been so large. The new ruling allows banks to sue the merchants if there is enough evidence to prove that the company was "negligent" in securing their networks and customer data.

In the case of Target, a number of banks sued claiming that Target "ignored security software alerts and disabled some of its security features" before they were attacked, and the judge agreed.

"Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Target's actions and inactions -- disabling certain security features and failing to heed the warning signs as hackers' attack began -- caused foreseeable harm to plaintiffs," Judge Magnuson wrote in his ruling. "Plaintiffs have also plausibly alleged that Target's conduct both caused and exacerbated the harm they suffered."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into threats received by employees of Sony Pictures claiming to be from the hackers that targeted the entertainment company.

The threats were e-mailed to Sony employees, allegedly sent by the "Guardian of Peace" - or GOP - which previously claimed responsibility for a devastating cyber attack on the entertainment firm starting in late November. It included the theft of 11TB of data and leaking of movies and personal information of employees.

The FBI said it is aware of the threatening e-mails that have been received by some employees. While the e-mail hasn't been released publicly, Bloomberg reports that it threatens the families of recipients if they don't "sign their names" to some e-mail address.

"We continue to investigate this matter in order to identify the person or group responsible," FBI spokesman Joshua Campbell said in an e-mailed statement to the press.

It is very likely that the e-mails didn't come from the attackers at all, and were sent by other parties that obtained the e-mail addresses from the data released online.

As is becoming standard procedure in the industry, CBS has pulled its programming from the Dish Network in 16 metro cities in the U.S., including NYC, LA and Chicago following failed licensing negotiations.

"Dish has dragged its feet at our many attempts to negotiate in good faith," said CBS in an official statement. "Behavior like this is why Dish has a long history of depriving customers of the programming they have paid for." Dish has lost programming from CNN and other large content providers over past disputes. A dispute with AMC left 'Walking Dead' fans without their show for over 9 months.

The two companies have been in negotiations for at least the last six months, and CBS offered two extensions in just the last week.

Dish was quick to respond: "CBS has chosen to black out their local channels, but remain optimistic that the channels will return quickly as both sides are continuing to work tonight to finalize an agreement."

According to a new report, Google will launch a second-generation model of the Google Glass headset next year, one that is powered by an Intel processor.

The new model will offer increased battery life compared to the current Explorer Edition model, and will likely see other upgrades, as well.

So far, Google has tweaked the glasses to include compatibility for prescription glasses and also to increase the RAM, but otherwise little else has changed.

Reportedly, the new Intel chip will come with a partnership that includes Google marketing Glass to "hospital networks and manufacturers, while developing new workplace uses for the device" as it appears that Intel is looking to promote the device in the workplace.

It is unclear which low-powered Intel chip will power the new device, but it will likely be similar to the chip powering the company's new MICA bracelets.

Twitch, the undisputed king of streaming video game gameplay, now has a big-time rival.

Valve, the company behind Steam, has unveiled Steam Broadcasting, allowing gamers to watch their friends (or strangers) play and to allow their friends to watch them play, all with just one simple click.

You can visit any gamer's profile, see what they are playing and start watching; as long as they have made their gaming public. You have the option to be public, completely private, or have it limited to your Steam friends.

The service is currently in open beta so you can try it out now.

According to a new report, both Sony and Microsoft had great Black Friday weeks, moving consoles at record paces.

Sony sold over 550,000 units for the week ended November 29th in the U.S., stronger than any Black Friday week its predecessor PS3 had.

Microsoft, thanks to bundles and a price cut across the board, sold a whopping 720,000 units in the U.S., easily outselling its rivals.

The Xbox One's sales set a record in the U.S., outselling every console in history for the Black Friday holiday week, according to the site. Keep in mind, VGChartz is normally very shaky with their information, and even the sourced article has errors and typos, but the news would not be shocking.

Microsoft dropped the price of their consoles by $50 to $349 MSRP, and that included bundles like Assassin's Creed. Some retailers even dropped the price to $329 to move units. The PS4 also saw some discounts, but nothing along the lines of those seen by the Xbox One.

Microsoft has finally approved the app, and Windows Phone owners can download it now.

The massively popular desktop media player VLC is now available in an early beta form on Windows Phone devices, with an official launch likely due before the end of the year.

VLC has been around in different stages of completion for Android and iOS for some time now, and the apps are popular due to their ability to play MKV, AVI, MP4 and other popular media file types that the native media apps cannot. Apple removed VLC for iOS with the launch of iOS 8 and it has still not returned, giving Windows Phone users a big leg up on the operating system.

Windows Phone has been sorely lacking such an app, but with VLC, that time appears to be coming to an end.

Source:
Windows Phone Store

The teaser trailer for the latest Star Wars took the world by storm last week and now we have what appears to be a firm date for the next one.

New reports claim that the next Star Wars trailer, expected to be more than just a teaser, will play ahead of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which is expected to be the biggest Disney movie of the year (at least until Star Wars comes out).

Age of Ultron is slated for release on May 1st, 2015, and as geeks know, "Star Wars Day" is May 4th, so the timing seems right.

Many expected the next trailer to be on Super Bowl day in early February, given the audience of over 100 million that will be tuned in, and that likely remains a possibility. However, fans will definitely be getting a trailer in May.

See the original teaser here:

Street Fighter V has accidentally been outed as a console exclusive to PS4, and will also be released for PC.

It appears that a trailer was released prematurely ahead of the PlayStation Experience event tomorrow, and has since been switched to private. The news is already out though (intentionally?) and it's good news for PlayStation owners, and not so good news for those who invested in Xbox One.

The trailer reportedly confirmed that the game will not be released for other platforms initially at least, it will only be available on PS4 and on PC. Whether that refers to lifetime of the title, or if it is just a timed exclusive, is unclear.

More details on Street Fighter V will probably surface at the PlayStation Experience event tomorrow.

Are you exciting for Street Fighter V?

Target Australia banned the sale of Grand Theft Auto V at its ~300 stores across Australia this week following a petition that decried the imagery of violence against women.

The initial petition had reached over 40,000 signatures when Target Australia agreed to stop selling GTA V at its stores. It claimed that GTA V encourages acts of sexual violence against women, and called out Target for claiming to be a family company, while also selling copies of the controversial blockbuster.

As you can imagine, some people expressed disappointment that Target would remove a product from its shelves that was only ever supposed to be sold to adults in the first place. Others note that Target sells other games, films, books and even music that depict violence of one sort or another; 50 Shades of Grey in particular was thrown around as an example as it had been criticized even by some feminists for portraying "abusive relationships."

We're dealing with gamers here though, so there was always likely to be some ironic push back against Target Australia's decision to drop the game from stores, and now it has come in the form of a petition for Target to stop selling The Holy Bible at its stores.

The ongoing international effort to block Internet users from reaching sites like the Pirate Bay is continuing, and now proxy and mirror sites are being dragged in.

A court in Paris has ordered French Internet Service Providers to begin blocking their customers' access to the notorious Pirate Bay website. Notably, the court also insisted that the ISPs block proxy and mirror sites designed to get around ISP blocks of the BitTorrent site.

The injunction was served by the court at the behest of anti piracy group La Société Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques (SCPP), which represents most than 2000 music labels including the big boys.

A full list of the domains ordered blocked by the court was published by nextinpact.com, and here it is:

Site d'origine (Main):

• ThePirateBay.se

Site de redirection (Redirects):

• piratebay.net
• piratebay.org
• piratebay.se
• piratebay.vg
• thehydrabay.net
• thehydrabay.org
• themusicbay.com
• themusicbay.net
• themusicbay.org
• thepiratebay.cc
• thepiratebay.com
• thepiratebay.net
• thepiratebay.org
• thepiratebay.qa
• thepiratebay.se
• thepiratebay.sh
• thepiratebay.tw
• thepiratebay.vg

Sites miroirs (Mirrors):

• proxybay.eu
• Proxybay. De
• ThePIrateBay.se.byud.net

Proxies:

• 51tsj.com
• bayproxy.me
• bayproxy.org
• bich.in
• dieroschtibay.org
• filehound.co.uk
• kuiken.co
• lanunbay.org
• malaysiabay.org
• piratebaybyproxy.com
• piratebayproxy.se
• piratebayunion.com
• pirateblay.com
• pirateby.info
• pirateproxy.net
• pirateproxy.nl
• pirateproxy.se
• piratereverse.info
• pirateshit.com
• pirateshore.org
• proxybay.fr
• proxybay.net
• quluxingba.info
• theproxybay.biz
• tpb.5gg.biz
• tpb.arnaudcornu.com
• tpb.cryptocloud.ca
• tpb.derp.pw
• tpb.fattylewis.com
• tpb.genyaa.org
• tpb.kleisauke.nl
• tpb.madfedora.site40.net
• tpb.me
• tpb.ninja.so
• tpb.occupyuk.co.uk
• tpb.par
• anoia.net
• tpb.partipirate.org
• tpb.piraten.lu
• tpb.pirates.ie
• tpb.pirati.cz
• tpb.qwertyoruiop.com
• tpb.roylenferink.nl
• tpb.skit.kiev.ua
• tpb.skit.org.ua
• tpb.unblocked.co
• tpbproxy.cremoznik.si
• tpbproxy.net
• tpbunion.com
• battleit.ee/tpb
• bayproxy.com

Via: TorrentFreak

Microsoft is targeting a late summer, early fall release of the Windows 10 operating system, according to note from Kevin Turner at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference.

The Redmond giant previously said it would be releasing the updated operating system during the summer next year. According to the note from Turner, the RTM is likely to show up sometime in early Fall.

"The thing I want to tell you about on Windows 10 is in the Windows 10 timeframe, which we plan to talk about the end-user consumer experiences in the early spring, we'll have a developer preview and be able to talk to that in depth in the early summer timeframe. And then by next late summer and early fall we'll be able to bring out this particular OS. That's the current plan of record."

According to a Neowin source, Microsoft is targeting release for around August to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the release of the Windows 95 operating system on August 24, 1995.

Source: Neowin

A Chinese website has posted shots of the AnTuTu benchmark app allegedly showing the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S6 flagship.

Samsung hasn't even confirmed that the Galaxy S6 is coming, but there are widespread media reports of the South Korean consumer electronics giant working hard to get this iteration of its flagship smartphone right. It is fair to say that the Galaxy S5 was underwhelming, and reports suggest that Samsung is designing the S6 from scratch to breathe new life into the S series.

If the information published by cnmo.com is correct, the Galaxy S6 has the model number SM-G925F.

It will sport a 5.5-inch QHD (2560x1440) display with a 20-megapixel rear camera and a 5 megapixel front camera. Under the hood, it is driven by a Samsung Exynos 7420 (Octa-core 64-bit) and an ARM Mali-T760 GPU. It packs 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage.

Of course, it runs Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The Galaxy S6 had previously been rumoured to pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, but recent reports of an overheating and speed problem with the AP led to speculation that Samsung would use its own Exynos option instead. Other reports predict a Snapdragon 810 model will come later.

Source: cnmo.com (via: BGR)

Do you get annoyed with recaptcha prompts that require you to identify jumbled up text and type it into a field to prove you are not a robot? Google feels your pain and is trying to help.

The idea behind the recaptca system is simple; you are presented with distorted text and you type the text into a box. This task is possible for humans to solve (though some kind it more difficult than others) but it has been historically difficult for "robots" to perform the same pattern recognition and produce the correct text.

Things have changed however, and Google's own research into modern artificial intelligence showed that the technology can solve even the most difficult variant of distorted text at 99.8% accuracy. Clearly, it is time for a change, and Google had come up with something far more simple.

Here it is.

Google's new API is called "No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA" because for the majority of users will be able to prove they are not robots with a single click. The magic that can tell the difference between a human interaction with the captcha, and a robot interaction, happens in Google's new Advanced Risk Analysis backend.