It goes on sale early next year, so don’t start camping out at the dealer just yet.
Source: CNET
The highly anticipated trailer gives us a glimpse of the post-Snap world, but there’s still a lot we don’t know.
Source: CNET
Rapper 2 Milly is suing Epic Games over Fortnite’s use of his dance move, the Milly Rock.
The lawsuit claims direct infringement of copyright, contributory infringement of copyright and violation of the Right of Publicity under California Common Law, among other things.
From the filing:
Defendants capitalized on the Milly Rock’s popularity, particularly with its younger fans, by selling the Milly Rock dance as an in-game purchase in Fortnite under the name “Swipe It,” which players can buy to customize their avatars for use in the game. This dance was immediately recognized by players and media worldwide as the Milly Rock. Although identical to the dance created, popularized, and demonstrated by Ferguson, Epic did not credit Ferguson nor seek his consent to use, display, reproduce, sell, or create a derivative work based upon Ferguson’s Milly Rock dance or likeness.
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen the Milly Rock. Rock dwellers can check it out below:
On Fortnite, the dance is called the Swipe It, and it looks like this:
Back in July, around the time that Fortnite unveiled the Swipe It dance, Chance the Rapper pointed out that Epic Games tends to use in the game dance moves popularized by famous artists. These emotes cost money, and heavily contribute to the hundreds of millions in revenue that Epic Games pulls in on a monthly basis via its free-to-play game.
Moreover, the default emote on Fortnite is the relatively famous little routine from actor Donald Faison on the show Scrubs.
This lawsuit is particularly complicated considering that it’s over a dance move, which is difficult to lock down with copyright. The Verge reported that this lawsuit is the first of its kind, in that it challenges the gaming industry’s use of pop culture as for-profit virtual items. NPR reports that the U.S. Copyright Office “can’t register short dance routines consisting of only a few movements or steps with minor linear or spatial variations, even if a routine is novel or distinctive.”
That doesn’t mean there is no way to protect choreographic works. Those works, however, must be defined as “a series of dance movements or patterns organized into an integrated, coherent, and expressive compositional whole,” according to NPR.
Concluding the 22-page filing is a request for injunctive relief, which would bar Epic Games from using 2 Milly’s likeness in the game, as well as financial compensation for the use of the Milly Rock dance.
We reached out to Epic Games and will update the story if/when we hear back.
Source: TechCrunch
IBM announced last night that it is selling the final components from its 1995 acquisition of Lotus to Indian firm HCL for $1.8 billion.
IBM paid $3.5 billion for Lotus back in the day. The big pieces here are Lotus Notes, Domino and Portal. These were a big part of IBM’s enterprise business for a long time, but last year Big Blue began to pull away, selling the development part to HCL, while maintaining control of sales and marketing.
This announcement marks the end of the line for IBM involvement. With the development of the platform out of its control, and in need of cash after spending $34 billion for Red Hat, perhaps IBM simply decided it no longer made sense to keep any part of this in-house.
As for HCL, it sees an opportunity to continue to build the Notes/Domino business, and it’s seizing it with this purchase. “The large-scale deployments of these products provide us with a great opportunity to reach and serve thousands of global enterprises across a wide range of industries and markets,” C Vijayakumar, president and CEO at HCL Technologies said in a statement announcing the deal.
Alan Lepofsky, an analyst at Constellation Research who keeps close watch on the enterprise collaboration space says that the sale could represent a fresh start for software that IBM hasn’t really been paying close attention to for some time. “HCL is far more interested in Notes/Domino than IBM has been for a decade. They are investing heavily, trying to rejuvenate the brand,” Lepofsky told TechCrunch.
While this software may feel long in tooth, Notes and Domino are still in use in many corners of the enterprise, and this is especially true in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AP (Asia Pacific). Lepofsky said.
He added that IBM appears to be completely exiting the collaboration space with this sale. “It appears that IBM is done with collaboration, out of the game,” he said.
This move makes sense for IBM, which is moving in a different direction as it develops its cloud business. The Red Hat acquisition in October, in particular shows that the company wants to embrace private and hybrid cloud deployments, and older software like Lotus Notes and Domino don’t really play a role in that world.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval processes, is expected to close in the middle of next year.
Source: TechCrunch
According to a new report from Reuters, Amazon is looking at several top U.S. airports for potential locations for its cashier-free Go stores. The service cites public request records from airport operators suggesting meetings with the head of the retail service. Both the San Jose and Los Angeles airports have confirmed Amazon’s interest. Dallas appears to be on Amazon’s list of potential spots, as well.
Amazon has been slowly rolling out the model across the U.S. over the past couple of years, beginning with locations in its native Seattle and adding Chicago and San Francisco along the way. Go initially appeared as a kind of proof of concept for a retail future where check out is primarily handled by merchandise monitoring (cameras, sensors, et al) and apps.
A move toward airports, however, could find the company viewing Go as part of a more earnest push into brick and mortar. Airports certainly make sense for the kind of quick convenience model Amazon is pushing here.
Of course, Hudson News likely doesn’t have too much to worry about, short term. Amazon’s been very deliberate in its expansion, primary relying on the novelty of the business model to help drive traffic to a handful of Go locations.
Source: TechCrunch
Spotify has made some significant moves to bypass record labels and work directly with artists, and there are signs that Apple could be eyeing up a similar approach to get a bigger share of original content.
According to a report in Music Business Worldwide and also confirmed by us with sources close to the deal, Apple has acquired Platoon, a startup out of London that works primarily with musicians — but also other creators like writers — to produce, distribute and sell their work, using analytics to source talent, and figure out the best way to target and market that content: the modern-day tech equivalent of A&R services.
We have reached out both to Apple and Platoon to try to confirm the acquisition. (Sometimes Apple’s deals are not full acquisitions but involve hiring people, such as in the case of a music startup, working in analytics, called Asaii — but our source tells us this is “definitely an acquisition.”)
Platoon was founded in 2016 by Denzyl Feigelson, Ben Grabiner and Saul Klein.
Feigelson is a music industry vet. Previously an executive at Apple in iTunes, he describes himself as a “long-term advisor” to the company in areas like Apple Music and live events.
Before Feigelson’s 15-year stint at Apple, he founded AWAL — Artists Without A Label, which eventually was acquired by Kobalt. (Ironically, Kobalt, the Google-backed startup that helps musicians collect royalties across digital streaming platforms, also operates label services.)
Grabiner and Klein, meanwhile, have a double connection into Platoon through VC firm Local Globe, which appears to have been the only investor in the startup, which has raised around $600,00, according to PitchBook, and was last valued at a modest $3.78 million.
Grabiner left Local Globe to become Platoon’s GM; Klein, a co-founder of the VC who is still active there, is on the Platoon board.
As sales of iPhones have been slowing down — part of a bigger global trend resulting from mobile phone saturation across a number of countries — Apple has expanded its focus into more services that run on its hardware.
Its media, and specifically music, operations have been a key beneficiary of that, with some of Apple’s largest acquisitions being made to grow that business. Those have included acquiring Beats and Shazam, expanding the remit of what Apple Music provides to artists on its platform beyond simple access to music tracks (including adding in more analytics, which was the focus of Asaii, which was coincidentally also founded by Apple alums).
It makes sense both in terms of Apple’s own focus on its music business, and also in terms of providing services comparable to that of its closest competitor, Spotify, to address all segments of the music industry.
Labels — especially large labels — continue to reign supreme, but the massive shift to digital distribution and streaming has opened the door for a wider range of channels for musicians to connect with listeners, and to make money through that experience.
And it’s no surprise that they want to: musicians collectively only made 12 percent of the $43 billion generated by the music industry last year.
Apple potentially making a stronger move into services for artists plays into both sides of the marketplace. On one side, it could find itself helping the labels source up and coming talent. Indeed, a number of Platoon’s early finds are now signed to major labels. (They include Billie Eilish and Jacob Banks at Interscope, Stefflon Don at Universal/Polydor, Jorja Smith at Sony.)
On the other hand, for those who do not make that leap and those who do, Apple can find a route to becoming their digital home (potentially exclusively, but potentially across a number of platforms) by giving them a range of tools to create and distribute their work, providing Apple more access to a catalogue of original content, and maybe even a cut when it’s listened to somewhere else. It’s a potential hit one way or the other.
We’ll update this post as we learn more.
Source: TechCrunch
The surprise new clip also reveals the movie’s spring release date.
Source: Wired
Browsing the web can be less secure than most users would hope. If that concerns you, a virtual private network — aka a VPN — is a decent solution. Check out a few of the best VPN services on the market.
The post The best VPN services of 2018 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 3000 generation of CPUs could be the most powerful processors we’ve ever seen, with higher core counts, greater clock speeds, and competitive pricing. Here’s what we know so far.
The post AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs: Everything you need to know appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Everything you ever wanted to know about Equifax, Mariott, and the problem with social security numbers.
Source: Wired