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 ]
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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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A shift of focus on libraries to retail channels and an aggressive acquisition of new titles—including, recently, works by John LeCarré and Jon Fosse—led to nearly $30 million in revenue in 2023, a 39% jump for the Ohio-based audiobook publisher. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Barbara Blair is mad as hell about the state of Midtown and isn’t going to take it anymore. “There’s general disorder and mayhem,” the president of the Garment District Alliance said at a Crain’s Power Breakfast Tuesday morning. She noted the unlicensed vendors on the streets, decrepit... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2024-03-19 18:21:51 UTC ]
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A deep dive into what Carnegie libraries are, what they aren't, and how they attain historic significance. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-03-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In a release, ALA officials said that 4,240 unique book titles were reported challenged in schools and libraries in 2023, a stunning 65% increase over 2022, when 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Libraries across the U.S. are struggling to cover the cost of e-books, which have grown in popularity Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2024-03-12 14:54:40 UTC ]
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Just as Engadget was hitting publish on its first posts, I was putting a freshly minted English degree to use working at an indie bookshop in Los Angeles. In seemingly unrelated news, Amazon had just reported its first profitable year after switching from selling books to selling “everything”... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-08 14:15:57 UTC ]
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Do you, like me, have paper documents that have long since been scanned and processed, records or music cassettes that you would like to listen to on your mobile phone, and photo prints that are planned for a digital photo book? Then you will appreciate the two-step instructions in... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2024-03-08 14:00:00 UTC ]
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A Llano County librarian who refused to ban books at the direction of the board and county has filed a lawsuit with a firm making a name for themselves protecting libraries nationwide. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-03-05 15:19:15 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-04 16:30:21 UTC ]
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It’s 1995, and I’m trying to watch a video on the internet. I entered the longest, most complex URL I’d ever seen into AOL’s web browser to view a trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s long-awaited film adaptation of Mortal Kombat. I found it in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, tucked away in... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-01 17:00:14 UTC ]
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Minnesota's HF 3782 would not only aim to end book bans in public schools and libraries but would emphasize the knowledge, training, and expertise of librarians. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-02-29 14:32:52 UTC ]
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The Many Worlds of Anna May Wong: A Conversation with Katie Gee Salisbury, by Susan Blumberg-Kason Interviews [email protected] Wed, 02/21/2024 - 15:24 Katie Gee Salisbury first came across Anna May Wong when she was doing a college internship and... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-02-21 21:24:15 UTC ]
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Some Wyze camera owners have reported that they were suddenly given access to cameras that weren't theirs and even got notifications for events inside other people's homes. Wyze cofounder David Crosby has confirmed the issue to The Verge, telling the publications that "some users were able to... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-02-17 14:00:59 UTC ]
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Challenges cited allegations of racism and hatred, as well as supposedly inaccurate or age-inappropriate content, but all were rejected. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2024-02-10 09:00:00 UTC ]
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