News written by James Delahunty (May, 2020)

Nintendo of America has filed two lawsuits targeting products that circumvent the technological protection measures of its Nintendo Switch devices.

It filed two lawsuits last week in the United States. One lawsuit filed in Los Angeles targets the operator of a website called UberChips, while a second lawsuit filed in Seattle targets anonymous defendants from numerous different websites.

At the core of the complaint are mod products created by the group Team Xecuter. In the lawsuits, Nintendo described the infringing products as providing an "unauthorized operating system." This OS circumvents the device's protection against unauthorized access and copying.

Makers of video game console devices tend to use systems that prevent or limit the running of third-party software. This prevents the devices from being tricked into running pirated copies of video games or to do other things like interfering with a running video game for the purposes of cheating and unauthorized modifications.

These systems can be breached by hardware or software modifications once a weakness is found. Team Xecuter is one group that has long developed modchips and tools that enable the modification of software and hardware video game devices, enabling them to execute what would otherwise be restricted.

Apple is reopening more of its stores in the U.S. and Canada but it taking extra precautions to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The Cupertino giant had closed all of its Apple stores worldwide in April as the world responded to a wave of COVID-19 cases. Now that the pandemic seems to be slowing in many places, Apple is responding in line with local circumstances and orders in reopening its retail stores.

According to reports, 25 stores are reopening next in California, Washington, Florida, Colorado, Hawaii and Oklahoma. However, it is not business as usual. For starters, all staff at the stores will be wearing face masks and all customers are expected to wear masks or face coverings too. If customers do not have a mask, they will be provided with one.

Additionally, customers may have their temperature checked and be posted health questions will screen for those with symptoms -- like cough or fever -- or who have had recent exposure to someone infected with COVID‑19. Overall level of service will depend on the status of the virus locally, so in some places there may be only pick up service. Stores may close just as quickly as they opened if circumstances change too.

Multiple reports of compromised high-performance computer systems across Europe surfaced in the past week, and clues may indicate a single actor behind the breaches.

Supercomputer systems are energy-hungry high-performance number crunchers that are used for everything from weather pattern modelling to simulating protein folding. That same raw calculation power can be used for mining cryptocurrencies, and cases have happened in the past where employees have been busted running unauthorized mining operations on HPCs.

Reports out of Europe last week suggests that for the first time hackers have successfully breached multiple HPCs and clusters to run a mining application. Last Monday, the ARCHER supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh was was shut down while a security exploitation was investigated. The same day, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the bwHPC organization shut down five of its HPC clusters due to similar incidents.

Furthermore, later last week similar incidents was reported in Germany, in Barcelona, and also in Zurich. None of the organizations managing the systems gave detailed accounts of the breaches, but the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) for the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) provided malware samples and network compromise indicators from the multiple incidents.

Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against Apple and Google over the availability of a game it alleges to have ripped off its intellectual property on their digital stores.

In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Friday, the French publisher claims that the tech giants have refused to remove Area F2. Developed by Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.'s Ejoy.com, Area F2 is the title is a near carbon copy of Rainbow Six: Siege, according to the Ubisoft complaint.

"R6S is among the most popular competitive multiplayer games in the world, and is among Ubisoft's most valuable intellectual properties," Ubisoft claims, reports Bloomberg.

"Virtually every aspect of AF2 is copied from R6S, from the operator selection screen to the final scoring screen, and everything in between."

The title has been available to download from the services for a month, and according to Ubisoft, it notified both Google and Apple of its infringing nature.

While the use of legitimate film and TV streaming services has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for illegal streaming has also gone up sharply.

In some cases, it has also trebled, according to a report by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). FACT has observed a significant increase in links to illegal streams of films that are shared online during the past couple of months, compared to February.

It reports that the FACT scanning team removed more than double the volume of film links and illegal streams in April. FACT also notes that the closure of movie theaters has resulted in movies being made available for streaming when in normal times they would be exclusively in cinemas.

While that has been seen as a success - with Trolls World Tour generating more revenue during three weeks of digital release than its prequel did during five months in cinemas - FACT also warned that it comes with a hidden cost of piracy spreading illegal copies and streams of them around the world.

"Piracy is any rights holders' biggest competitor and with content consumption set to stay digital, it's never been more important to protect content. Whenever its release; we can protect it," the FACT report reads.

Social network giant Facebook is to acquire animated GIF-sharing platform Giphy, putting it under its Instagram service.

The company announced its decision to acquire Giphy in a company blog post on Friday, though it did not disclose the financial cost of the move. However, Axios estimated the cost at around $400 million.

Facebook will make Giphy a part of its Instagram photo-sharing platform, revealing that 50 percent of GIPHY's traffic comes from the Facebook family of apps, half of that from Instagram alone.

"GIPHY will continue to operate its library (including its global content collection), and we're looking forward to investing further in its technology and relationships with content and API partners," the Facebook announcement blog reads.

"People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY's APIs, and GIPHY's creative community will still be able to create great content."

Read more at Facebook.

Sony has released an app that will help shoppers determine if televisions will fit comfortably in their living rooms.

The new Envision TV AR app lets potential buyers select a TV model and see how it will fit in a given space. All the user has to do is select a TV and point the phone's camera to view the TV in any space. It can show TVs mounted or on a stand.

Additionally, the app displays technical details including HDMI and other ports.

"As we continue to stay home, this app offers a new way for our customers to confidently purchase a Sony TV in the comfort of their living rooms," said Mike Fasulo, president, and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics North America. "We hope this new technology takes the guesswork out of shopping online."

The Envision TV AR app can be downloaded for Android devices from the Play Store. It is also available from Apple's App Store for iOS devices.

Epic Games online store greeted users with errors on Thursday as online shoppers sought to get a copy of Grand Theft Auto V for free.

The Rockstar Games blockbuster, released in 2013, is available for free until May 21 and can be downloaded from the Epic Games Store provided you install the store's launcher on your computer. There is currently a Mega sale going on at the store with many big titles seeing price ups up to 50 percent.

As news of the GTA V freebie spread, traffic to the Epic Games Store blew up to the point that visitors started to see a '500' error presented in a variety of languages. There were also reports that Launcher logins were affecting Fortnite players throughout the day as a result of the extra traffic.

Popular titles including Red Dead Redemption 2 and Control are available with significant discounts until June 11, while the store is also giving everyone a $10 coupon to spend on games that cost $14 or more.