Gather ’round, children, and let me tell you a story about the old bugaboo we used to call DRM. Digital Rights Management was the beast under every gamer’s bed in the mid-2000s, an invisible bit of software baked into game discs that dictated and tracked player behavior under the guise of preventing piracy. DRM software, like SecuROM, limited the times a game could be downloaded and forced players to regularly connect to the internet for authentication checks, at a time when less than half of American adults had reliable broadband connections. DRM features soured the releases of BioShock, Mass Effect and Spore, and by 2010, anti-piracy software had rendered Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter-Cell: Conviction unplayable. When Microsoft attempted to release the Xbox One with always-on DRM features in 2013, intense vitriol from fans forced the company to reverse its plans at the 11th hour. There were lawsuits. DRM was a curse word. Meanwhile, Valve was building out Steam. When it landed in 2003, the digital PC storefront was designed to streamline the patch process for games like Counter-Strike and make it easier for Valve to implement anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. Steam was made to be a DRM machine. In 2004, with the release of Half-Life 2, Valve made Steam a requirement for every player, and even those who’d purchased new, physical copies of the game had to boot up the launcher first. There was some low-level grumbling, but PC players were used to being lab rats, and... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2024-03-04 16:30:21 UTC ]
Last week over 100 cops from the EU’s police agency fanned out over Georgia and Latvia to bust a group of criminals who stole around 170 antique books from libraries across Europe. Over two years, the gang is suspected in the robbery of “rare books mainly written by Russian writers—including... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-30 17:42:09 UTC ]
More news stories like this
One of the great embarrassments of New York, the richest city in America, is how money can’t be found to keep public libraries open every single day.It is, truly, a matter of priorities. Other far-reaching, progressive policy proposals can come with enormous upfront costs — municipal or... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-04-29 15:50:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Mayor Eric Adams’ nearly $112 billion executive budget, released Wednesday, includes more than $5 billion for health care initiatives, a figure that has grown by $172 million since his January preliminary budget.The revised plan avoids new spending cuts for city agencies and paints a rosier... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-04-25 09:33:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Mayor Eric Adams announced a revised $111.6 billion budget plan on Wednesday that avoids new spending cuts and increases estimates of the city’s tax haul, reflecting his administration’s increasingly sunny view of New York’s finances. But the proposal rebuffs the City Council’s request to undo... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-04-24 16:53:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Beautiful bookstores, finalists for the NYPL's Young Lions Award, and more of the day's most interesting bookish news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-04-19 16:41:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this
It’s 2015. My partner and I are in Moab, Utah, for the summer, far from our home of Philadelphia. He is doing research for his dissertation. I am struggling to rewrite a novel that my editor says—and I agree—isn’t working. The desert landscape in southwest Utah is magnificent and to us wholly... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-19 08:53:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Children of the Sun burst onto the indie scene like a muzzle flash on a dark night. Publisher Devolver Digital dropped the game’s first trailer on February 1, showcasing frenzied sniper shots and a radioactive art style. A Steam demo highlighting its initial seven stages went live that same day... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-04-18 19:45:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this
With a solar eclipse recently plunging parts of the world in darkness—and the #1 show on Netflix highlighting the chaos caused by multiple celestial bodies in motion (3 Body Problem)—it’s safe to say that the stars have captured the popular imagination yet again. Astronomers, physicists, and... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2024-04-17 20:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Diana Goetsch spent months visiting red-state libraries to do presentations on the freedom to read. Would she be recognized, or clocked as transgender? Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-04-17 10:00:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Among the headlines this week: ALA releases the 2024 State of America's Libraries Report; PLA reports strong attendance at its annual conference; and Idaho passes a "harmful to minors" bill. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
I suspect many writers spend hours and hours at their local library and, if they’re anything like me, they can often feel like they’re swallowed up in a grandiose, if not downright mythological reservoir of knowledge. I remember living in Los Angeles, going to the Los Angeles Public Library,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-04-11 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Pretendo Network, an open-source Nintendo Network alternative, no longer requires a hacked Wii U console. With Nintendo’s servers for the obsolete console shutting down on Monday, the Pretendo Network shared a new workaround that provides (limited) access to its homebrew servers without... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-04-09 19:27:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A Louisiana bill would criminalize membership in the American Library Association with fines, jail time, or hard labor. No, this isn't a joke. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-04-03 16:22:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The City Council said it has found an additional $6 billion in newly identified city dollars to undo many of Mayor Eric Adams’ spending cuts and make new investments in affordable housing construction and education.Lawmakers on Monday released their official response to the mayor’s $109 billion... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-04-01 17:27:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The hearing comes nearly year after administrators in the Mat-Su district, located just north of Anchorage, responded to a handful of parental complaints by pulling 56 titles from school libraries without any formal review. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
It's not easy being green, so the Hulu integration on Disney+ is going teal. Disney announced the launch today of Hulu on Disney+ in the U.S. for Disney bundle subscribers, combining the Disney+ and Hulu libraries in one application. Although each app remains available... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2024-03-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Qualcomm is said to have new Arm-based laptops of its own in the pipeline, while consumer versions of the new Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 that run on the Snapdragon X Elite chipset are believed to be on the way. While that in the past would have meant the makers of x86- and x64-based... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-22 15:25:41 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Meditation is often touted as a mental cure-all, purported to help with stress, sleep, mood, focus and even certain medical conditions. I’ve been meditating most of my adult life. I’ve done silent retreats. I’ve been formally trained in various techniques. I’ve had someone in my contacts list... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-22 14:00:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Among the week's headlines: ALA is honored by the National Book Critics Circle; the political attacks on libraries in Alabama continue to escalate; and a report on how libraries are bridging the mental health divide in Texas. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-22 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In good times or hard times, lawyers always win.Revenues at the top 100 firms rose to $131 billion in 2022, the most recent year available, from $7 billion in 1986, a 19-fold increase, according to American Lawyer. Profit margins never fell below 35% in even the worst years and hit a record 45%... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-03-21 10:03:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this