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YouTubers have used VidCon to vent their frustration at YouTube over declining viewership due to subscribers not being notified of new videos.

Starting last year, many YouTubers began to notice their average number of video views falling dramatically. It emerged that YouTube wasn't notifying their subscribers as often about new videos, and wasn't promoting them to subscribers as prominently as before.

Some of the drops were significantly steep. King Russell, who goes by the YouTube name "Kingsley", counts three million YouTube followers. He noticed that his views per video declines to around 100,000, compared to over one million per video in the previous years.

"It's unacceptable," he said, reports Reuters. "It's tacky, rude and needs to change."

YouTube justifies its actions by explaining that YouTube viewers can become overwhelmed by too many alerts, but YouTubers remain unconvinced. Many videomakers have resorted to asking their subscribers to click/press the "bell" notification button beside the subscribe button to get more notifications. In theory, this should result in a user being notified of ever video upload, but some viewers claim this doesn't always happen either.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has introduced Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), providing wireless networks with their first major security upgrade in well over a decade.

WPA3 tackles some of the lingering vulnerabilities that have affected WPA2. For example, individualizes data encryption for each device protects against eavesdropping from within a protected network. Like WPA2, WPA3 comes in different flavors: WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Enterprise.

On WPA3-Personal, users will benefit from more resilient, password-based authentication even when users choose fairly weak passwords. Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) is also introduced, comprising a secure key establishment protocol between devices, to provide stronger protections for users against password guessing attempts by third parties.

WPA-Enterprise kicks up the security a bit further by providing the equivalent of 192-bit cryptographic strength. As suggested by its title, it is made for deployment when data is particularly sensitive, such as in government facilities or a corporate environment.

Also introduced is Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect, which comes about in time for the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart homes. It makes it possible to securely add devices to a WPA3 protected network even if the device has limited or no display capabilities at all. It achieves this by adding the device using another device with a more robust interface, such as a smartphone, by simply scanning a product quick response (QR) code.

The Official Charts Company in the UK will begin counting YouTube video views in its singles chart ranking from Friday.

User-uploaded videos and user generated content will not count, but offcial videos played on YouTube, or on Apple, Tidal and Spotify within the United Kingdom will be counted. The first chart including video streams will be published on 6 July, and the album chart will remain unaffected.

Another change will affect the weight given to premium streams versus free streams. As things stand, every 150 streams is counted as if it's the equivalent of a sale. Starting from Friday, this will change dramatically to 600:1 for songs streamed for free on ad supported services like Spotify, and to 100:1 for premium streams.

Some have called for free streams to be excluded completely but the official charts company has resisted those calls so far, citing the music tastes of the youngest users who rely on ad-supported services and low-income listeners.

More info on the changes: BBC News

Uber is appealing against a decision to deny the company a license to operate in London in a UK court.

Last year, the Transport for London (TfL) group denied Uber a license renewal in the British capital, citing public safety and security concerns. Uber filed an appeal and has been allowed to continue operating while the appeal is underway.

"I know we got things wrong and that we have more work to do. But I promise Londoners we will keep listening and improving as Uber moves forward in a new direction," Uber's UK general manager, Tom Elvidge, said in May.

Uber has begun making its case this week in the Westminster Magistrates' Court. The hearing is expected to last throughout the week. It is detailing to the court the significant changes it promised to make including improved procedures for reporting criminal offenses.

According to a memo sent from Uber to TfL, as many as 1,148 London-licensed Uber drivers ranging from dangerous driving to stalking.

Source: BBC News

Nintendo is blocking pirated games for the Switch console from accessing the Nintendo network.

According to posts on the SwitchHacks subreddit, Nintendo has already begun banning game cart certificates. Server-side checks can determine whether a copy of a game being run is legitimate, be it a game cart or a digital copy. It will provide an authorization token once authenticity has been established.

If the server-side checks determine that the software being run is an unauthorized copy, it will block the game from connecting to online play and Nintendo can also easily ban a console from accessing its online network entirely.

Pirated games can be run on Nintendo's Switch console because hackers discovered a flaw that could be exploited to run arbitrary code.

If you are waiting for a VR headset for Xbox One, you will be disappointed in Microsoft.

According to Mike Nichols, chief markering officer for gaming at Microsoft, the Redmond-based giant has no plans specific to Xbox One in the virtual reality and mixed reality spaces. He revealed as much in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

The revelation comes in contrast to past comments by Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who said the firm planned to integrate VR into Xbox One X.

"We don't have any plans specific to Xbox consoles in virtual reality or mixed reality," Nichols said.

"Our perspective on it has been and continues to be that the PC is probably the best platform for more immersive VR and MR. As an open platform, it just allows faster, more rapid iteration."

Sony's rival PlayStation VR sales didn't match the levels the Japanese consumer electronics firm expected, maybe prompting Microsoft to halt development of VR on their consoles for now.

Read Nichols' full comments at: www.gamesindustry.biz

Tesla has filed a lawsuit against a former disgruntled employee for allegedly committing acts of sabotage and data theft against the all-electric automaker.

Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an e-mail to the firm's employees revealing that a fellow employee had modified manufacturing operating system software, and had also stolen sensitive information. Following that e-mail, it has emerged that Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the individual accused.

Filed in a federal court in Nevada, the lawsuit alleges that the former process technician was angry after being reassigned to a different role at the company. The individual is accused of handing over videos and photographs relating to Tesla's manufacturing systems to third parties.

Tesla has suffered "significant and continuing damages" as a result of his actions, the suit alleges. Furthermore, Tesla also accuses the man of making false statements to the press about delays and other things.

The firm is seeking an initial $1 million in damages and other forms of relief, to be determined at trial.

The BBC will stream tennis matches from this year's Wimbledon tournament to some UK users in 4K resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR).

The national broadcaster is already streaming World Cup matches in 4K HDR from Russia which has been praised by viewers despite some technical glitches. For Wimbledon, it will also offer streams in 4K without HDR so that Sky Q customers and tune in.

As with the World Cup, the ability to access the very high-quality streams will be on a "first-come-first-served" basis as streams will be limited to "tens of thousands". This is to meet the high bandwidth demands that such streams have on both ends of the connection.

To access the content through iPlayer, you will need to be using a compatible set-top-box or smart TV. While not listed by the BCC, Sony's PlayStation Pro is also capable of streaming live World Cup games from iPlayer in 4K UHD, though not in HDR.

Here is a list of compatible devices: www.bbc.co.uk

Instagram will compete with existing video giants like YouTube following the launch of IGTV this week.

The Facebook-owned social network released a new separate IGTV app for mobile platforms this week, but will also incorporate IGTV into the existing Instagram app. Founded in 2010 as a more humble photo-sharing app, Instagram has now reached over one billion monthly users, according to CEO Kevin Systrom.

"Teens are now watching 40 percent less TV than they did five years ago," Systrom said at the launch event. "It's time for video to move forward and evolve."

IGTV will not feature advertising for now but is almost certain to include it later on. As such it also does not plan to share revenue with video creators for the time being, though it has partnered with some of Instagram's most popular content creators for the launch.

Instagram joins parent company Facebook Inc, rival Snapchat, and others in beefing up its video offerings as it seeks to try to take content creators from YouTube. Google's YouTube service plans to update its commercialization options in the coming days.

Google has launched Google Podcasts, a dedicated app for finding and listening to podcasts on Android.

Google Podcasts is available from the Play Store globally from today, and integrates with Google Assistant across your devices. It allows you to find and listen to your favorite podcasts and will also help you to discover new postcasts you might be interested in subscribing to through personalized recommendations.

Google Podcasts seamlessly syncs across a variety of Google products, including the Google Home. So if you're listening to a podcast on your phone during your commute home, you can resume it on your Google Home when you arrive.

In the future, Google hopes to be able to utilizes speech-to-text to provide automatic subtitling for the hearing impaired, or just for when you are on a noise, busy commute and have trouble hearing the audio. With Google Translate, such subtitles will be translated to other languages on the fly too.

The app is available to get directly from the Play Store for Android 4.1 and newer.

Adobe is working on a video-editing solution for Desktop and Mobile that streamlines the process of video editing, production and distribution.

With Project Rush, your work automatically syncs to the cloud, so you can start on your phone or tablet and seamlessly move to your laptop for further editing. All of the features available on Desktop are available on the Mobile Apps. While in beta, Project Rush is available for Mac, Windows and iOS, and Adobe will release an Android app too.

You can capture right into Project Rush, then edit, add filters, optimize audio, and select from a wide variety of highly customizable title sequences. When it comes to pushing the final product out, Rush also has that covered. You can easily add a thumbnail, schedule a post and publish to multiple social platforms (Facebook, Facebook Stories, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter etc.) all from within the app.

Project Rush essentially combines Premiere, Audition, Stock and After Effects into one solution.

For the time being, Project Rush is under development and available as a Beta if your application is accepted. You can apply for the beta at: www.adobe.com/go/project-rush

Sony's PlayStation Hits offers a list of popular PS4 titles from award winning epics to family friendly favorites for $20.

This promotion keeps in line with a similar promotion for the previous PlayStation console generations. It applies to the United States and Canada for now and covers both downloads and physical copy sales (physical copy has visible PlayStation Hits red banner on the cover).

The offer starts June 28 and involves titles including Bloodorne, Battlefield 4, DRIVECLUB, inFAMOUS Second Son, Killzone Shadow Fall, The Last of Us Remastered, LittleBigPlanet 3, Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience, Project CARS, Ratchet & Clank, Street Fighter V, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0.

According to the World Health Organization, 'Gaming disorder' is now a condition like gambling or hoarding.

Gaming disorder has been included in the organization's eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The ICD is used by medical professionals worldwide as a baseline for the classification and identification of diseases and disorders.

It characterizes 'Gaming disorder' thus:

Gaming disorder is characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour ('digital gaming' or 'video-gaming'), which may be online (i.e., over the internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) impaired control over gaming (e.g., onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context); 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. The behaviour pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning. The pattern of gaming behaviour may be continuous or episodic and recurrent. The gaming behaviour and other features are normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe.

Plenty of experts disagree with defining it as a condition along with hoarding and other mental conditions. In 2016, a collection of experts wrote a letter to the WHO arguing against including Gaming disorder in the 11th edition of the ICD. The experts said that while problematic gaming behaviors deserved attention, "we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder."

Tesla chief Elon Musk has sent an e-mail to the company's staff revealing 'extensive and damaging' sabotage carried out by a Tesla employee.

In an e-mail obtained by the Reuters News Agency, Musk revealed that he had become aware of the sabotage by the unnamed employee over the weekend. While not going into specific details, the e-mail alleges that the saboteur made alterations to the code of the company's 'manufacturing operating system' and sent sensitive Tesla data to unidentified third parties.

Right now, Tesla is trying to determine who this employee was working with, or if the individual was working alone. The reason given in the e-mail for the nefarious activity is that the employee was seeking a promotion and did not get it.

"As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die," Musk wrote. He identified such parties as Wall Street short sellers, oil and gas firms and rival auto companies.

In another alarming e-mail obtained by Reuters, Musk had revealed that a small fire had broken out and extinguished at a company facility on Sunday. While the e-mail stressed there was no injuries and the facility is operational again, and that the fire could have been a random event, Musk asked employees to be on the look out for "anything that's not in the best interests of our company."

The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to take up a lawsuit against Apple relating to App Store commissions, at the request of the Cupertino iPhone maker.

The antitrust lawsuit dates back to 2011 when it was filed by iPhone owners in a federal court in California. It alleges that Apple has monopolized the market for iPhone software applications by linking them to the App Store, and through its 30 percent commission may be causing consumers to pay more that they might if they could purchase from competitors.

A federal judge in Oakland, California initially threw out the lawsuit out arguing that the higher fees that consumers potentially pay are passed on to them by developers.

However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco revived the case last year, finding that Apple directly sells iPhone apps to consumers and so must face antitrust claims when made.

The outcome of this case could affect many other markets where individuals are the ones who set prices, such as StubHub, Amazon's Marketplace or even eBay.

Apple had support for the Supreme Court review of the case from the Trump Administration.

Source: Reuters News Agency