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VR movie-watching service Bigscreen will offer Paramount films

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Bigscreen’s virtual cinema app was a major part of the Oculus Quest launch, allowing people to use a VR headset to watch a movie in simulated environments like around a campfire or in a retro cinema. Users can watch along with friends including customizable avatars and sharing audio.

Previously, users could use watch a streaming service like Netflix or Twitch in a Bigscreen environment, or join a friend’s multiplayer room to view a shared desktop. With the new system, they can join group showings of films they don’t own, which are displayed in a virtual theater. The first movies being shown in December include Interstellar, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Trek, accessed on a pay-per-view basis.

There will be a rotating schedule of four new movies shown each week, and viewings will be scheduled every 30 minutes. Most will be 2D screenings, but some will be shown in 3D too using VR technology. As well as viewing the movie, users can hang out with other movie buffs and voice chat in the virtual lobby.

Bigscreen will premiere its first movies on December 16th, available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Japan.

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Instagram is using AI to alert bullies to offensive captions

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The anti-bullying notice is available now in “select countries,” and should be available elsewhere in the “coming months.”

Whether or not this proves effective is uncertain. Instagram said that its efforts to reduce bullying in comments have been “promising,” but that doesn’t guarantee similar performance for the posts themselves. Someone caught up in the heat of the moment might hit “share anyway,” consequences be damned. And there will be moments where a vicious tone may not represent bullying at all — calling a politician stupid may not be constructive, but it’s not bullying. Still, this could be helpful if it leads even a handful of people to mend their ways.

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The Morning After: PewDiePie is taking a break from YouTube in 2020

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Well, from early 2020.
PewDiePie is taking a break from YouTube

Folded into a video critiquing YouTube’s new harassment policy, online phenomenon PewDiePie says he’ll be taking a rest from the service that made him a star. The streamer, with an audience of millions, has faced more scrutiny and criticism in the last few years, being held to account over racist outbursts and the behavior of his fans. (If you haven’t heard of the “subscribe to PewDiePie” meme, it’s a whole thing.) While Felix Kjellberg added that a more detailed explanation would come later, he hinted that it might be due to burnout. “I’m feeling very tired,” he said.

And you thought the mechs were overpowered.
‘Fortnite’ adds lightsabers following Star Wars event

If you missed Fortnite’s Star Wars event over the weekend, here’s what happened. There was a heavily teased Rise of Skywalker clip and a virtual appearance by director J.J. Abrams, and it also gave people lightsabers (and blasters) to play with in-game — and yes, they’re available outside the event, too. Fortnite has added a few more Star Wars touches around the game, including themed challenges and new unlockables like a Jedi training emote and a TIE Whisper glider.

They’re the first of eight to face court over two large piracy outlets.
Two men plead guilty to running huge illegal streaming sites

Several people have been charged over illegal streaming services iStreamItAll and Jetflicks, each of which offered tens of thousands of bootlegged TV episodes and movies, dwarfing the selection found on Netflix or Amazon Prime — though likely including their biggest shows.

Darryl Polo and Luis Villarino have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges, and the remaining six people charged over alleged roles in ISIA and Jetflicks will go to trial on February 3rd next year.

Facebook has allowed the ads to run despite complaints.
Ads on Facebook are spreading misinformation about anti-HIV drugs

Facebook’s problematic political ad business is usually the focus of any misinformation claims, but The Guardian and GLAAD have noted that personal injury law firms continue to run Facebook ads making false claims about the risks of Truvada, a drug meant to reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission. Some float the specters of bone loss and kidney damage despite evidence that the risks of either are “not clinically significant.”

GLAAD has contacted Facebook’s public policy team and reached out to five fact-checking agencies, but the social network answered by pointing to a public ad policy page explaining why ads can be removed. In response, GLAAD posted an open letter asking Facebook to remove the ads, with support coming from 50 organizations. The advocacy group is also buying ads on Facebook to promote the letter among the LGBTQ+ community — meaning the social network is making money from that, too.

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Researchers bypass airport and payment facial recognition systems using masks

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To perform the test, artificial intelligence company Kneron commissioned high-quality 3D masks that mimicked the face of another person, and tested whether someone could wear one to fool facial recognition systems. Researchers were able to make purchases from another person’s account via the AliPay and WeChat payment systems.

The team were even able to fool systems at airports. In Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, they managed to trick a self-boarding system with just a photo of another person’s face. They also tricked train station systems in China where travelers use facial recognition to pay for their journeys. All tests were supervised and performed with permission.

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about the accuracy of facial recognition technology. In August, the American Civil Liberties Union announced that the technology misidentified 26 California lawmakers, primarily people of color. Another report from the UK found that the police’s facial recognition system has an 81 percent error rate.

Certainly, some facial recognition systems are better than others. Kneron, for example, announced that their test did not fool the iPhone X. However, other systems were easily bypassed using deception and could potentially lead to fraud. The concern is that people could impersonate wealthy individuals and access their banking or other accounts, or even that terrorists could bypass security measures.

“This shows the threat to the privacy of users with sub-par facial recognition that is masquerading as ‘AI’,” Albert Liu, CEO of Kneron, told Fortune. “The technology is available to fix these issues but firms have not upgraded it. They are taking shortcuts at the expense of security.”



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Visa warns that hackers are scraping card details at gas pumps

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The hack doesn’t appear to affect more security chip-and-pin cards, but not all consumers have those, so service stations often work with mag stripe readers, too. The data is apparently sent in an unencrypted form to the vendor’s main network, where the thieves have figured out how to intercept it. The other problem is that the POS systems aren’t firewalled off from other, less critical parts of the network, allowing thieves to gain lateral access once the network is breached.

There’s not much cardholders can do to avoid the attacks, but Visa has advised fuel merchants to encrypt data while it’s transferred or use a chip-and-PIN policy. “Fuel dispenser merchants should take note of this activity and deploy devices that support chip-and-pin wherever possible, as this will significantly lower the likelihood of these attacks,” it advised in the December security alert.

Earlier this year, Visa announced that fuel merchants must deploy chip-and-PIN readers by October 2020. After that, any service stations without the new tech will be liable for any fraud. The problem is, many such businesses have very old technology and must replace the entire pump at an estimated cost of up to $250,000 per station. Spread across all the convenience stores in the US, the total hit has been estimated at around $22.5 billion.

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Former NASA engineer thwarts porch pirates again with ‘Glitter Bomb 2.0’

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The first prank was extremely popular, but Rober had to re-post the video after discovering that several of the “victims” were actually friends of a volunteer who agreed to place the packages on his porch. “That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won’t happen again,” he said at the time.

Rober said he spent six months retooling the bomb, which combines GPS trackers, smartphones with wide-angle cameras, fart spray and glitter. This time, the design was more streamlined, had much more powerful fart spray (“that’s like proper poo,” said one test subject), and featured sound effects like a countdown and police radio chatter. The whole thing was sponsored by Bose and the product box featured fake Bose “Buzz” headphones named after a Home Alone character.

Rober distributed the packages to 10 volunteers around the US, who placed them on their porches as bait. One would-be theft kenned to the scheme after glitter spilled out, as he was apparently aware of the original video (which currently has 77 million views). Another volunteer just took the package himself, so Rober sent him a Scientology subscription and cringey postcards to his neighbors.

The prank worked as planned on several victims, though, particularly one poor sap who tried to give the “headphones” to his girlfriend as a gift. Rober noted that several good Samaritans tried to return the parcels to their rightful owners, and so he rewarded them with $400 in cash. “Because that was the opportunity cost for them when they made the right choice,” Rober said in the video.

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Google pauses Chrome update for Android after reports of app data loss

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Android Police found that the bug was leading angry users to tank app ratings.

The company is currently exploring ways to fix the flaw, such as moving missed files or reverting to the old method. Either way, you’ll have to be patient if you haven’t already received Chrome 79 or are waiting on a fixed version.

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Google Maps helps you find EV chargers that work with your car

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There’s also a new “electric vehicle settings” option in the app’s settings that you can use to set your plug preferences.

This filtering isn’t a novel concept among EV station finding apps. It does, however, bring the option to a much wider audience. And strictly speaking, additions like this will likely be necessary going forward. Car makers will electrify more and more of their lineups in the years ahead, and you’ll probably want to have these kinds of charger tools in the navigation apps you’re already using.

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RCS messaging is now available to all Android users in the US

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RCS is considered a rough parallel to Apple’s iMessage with WiFi chatting, high-quality photos and videos, typing notifications, read receipts and better group chat controls. It doesn’t have end-to-end encryption like iMessage, though. As with SMS, your conversations aren’t particularly secure.

There’s still a long way to go before RCS is truly universal, though. Google reiterated that the technology is only available beyond the US in France, Mexico and the UK, and it’s still “working’ to bring support to both more regions and third-party apps. And of course, Apple isn’t in a rush to support RCS. Although the finished US rollout is a major milestone, it’s only one step among many.



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PewDiePie is ‘taking a break’ from YouTube in 2020

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There’s little doubt that PewDiePie has faced a lot of scrutiny due to his actions in recent years. He’s had more than one racist outburst, and the “subscribe to PewDiePie” meme grew so out of hand that he urged people to stop in the wake of mass shooters using the trope. Add his chart-topping subscriber count and there’s a lot of pressure on him, whether it’s from critics or simply people who expect him to continuously deliver videos.

The declaration also draws attention to a common problem for online video personalities: burnout. Creators frequently feel compelled to put out a non-stop wave of content lest they lose viewers, and that can discourage them from taking time off. PewDiePie clearly has enough viewers that he can afford a break, but many smaller-scale YouTubers might not have that luxury.

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