News blog TorrentFreak spoke with a member of piracy group "The Scene" to understand how they obtain -- or rip -- movies and shows from sources such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The technique these people use is different from hardware capture cards or software-based 'capping' tools. From the report: "Content for WEB releases are obtained by downloading the source content. Whenever you stream a video online, you are downloading chunks of a video file to your computer. Sceners simply save that content and attempt to decrypt it for non-DRM playback later," the source said. When accessing the content, legitimate premium accounts are used, often paid for using prepaid credit cards supported by bogus identities. It takes just a few minutes to download a video file since they're served by CDNs with gigabits of bandwidth.

"Once files are downloaded from the streaming platform, however, they are encrypted in the .mp4 container. Attempting to view such video will usually result in a blank screen and nothing else -- streams from these sites are protected by DRM. The most common, and hard to crack DRM is called Widevine. The way the Scene handles WEB-releases is by using specialized tools coded by The Scene, for The Scene. These tools are extremely private, and only a handful of people in the world have access to the latest version(s)," source noted. "Without these tools, releasing Widevine content is extremely difficult, if not impossible for most. The tools work by downloading the encrypted video stream from the streaming site, and reverse engineering the encryption." Our contact says that decryption is a surprisingly quick process, taking just a few minutes. After starting with a large raw file, the finalized version ready for release is around 30% smaller, around 7GB for a 1080p file.

One of the scientists who worked on the black hole picture is now pursuing an even more ambitious visualization, this time for the super-massive black hole at the center of our own galaxy.

Long-time Slashdot reader Esther Schindler shares this report from Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Insights blog: Lia Medeiros, a physicist, astrophysicist, and National Science Foundation fellow, is working to put together a movie of sorts of a black hole, using data from the Event Horizon Telescope, a global telescope array that gave scientists the data needed to capture that first black hole image. And she's going to do it using machine learning... Scientists basically will be pitting Einstein's theory of general relativity, which tells us what we know, or think we know, about gravity, against the most powerful gravitational forces in the universe. It's about comparing these new black hole observations with predictions based on our mathematical models of them. And if general relativity doesn't fully hold up at the event horizon, then the theory may need to be rethought.

Her work also could tell us more about how quantum mechanics, which is still quite mysterious to the best physicists, interacts with the theory of gravity... Having a black hole movie could be a scientific game changer because they are one of the only types of objects in the universe that scientists need both theories to explain. Black holes, simply put, live at the intersection of quantum and gravity. Movies of a black hole could give scientists the information they need to see if they behave the way we expect them to, helping them figure out the complicated intersection of two major scientific theories.

According to a recent Hub Entertainment Research survey, twenty-three percent of respondents said they would definitely or probably drop their Netflix subscription if it began running ads at its current price point or a dollar cheaper. "That percentage would represent a loss of nearly 14 million subscribers from Netflix's 60 million paid subscribers in the U.S," reports CNBC. From the report: Respondents were more forgiving of the ads if Netflix dropped prices. Only 14% of respondents said they would definitely or probably drop their subscription if it were $2 cheaper than they currently pay. That number fell to 12% at a $3 discount. The study's findings were based on a survey of 1,765 U.S. TV consumers between ages 16 and 74 who watch at least one hour of television a week and have broadband in the home. The Hub study comes as advertising insiders speculate Netflix will make advertising a core part of its business someday. At a panel during IAB's Digital Content NewFronts in April, Joshua Lowcock of media agency UM said he "can't imagine a world where Netflix will be ad-free forever."

MoviePass, the long-embattled film subscription service, has shut down for "several weeks" in order to complete work on an updated version of its app and to recapitalize for when the service relaunches. From a report: "There's never a good time to have to do this," MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe said in a statement, "but to complete the improved version of our app, one that we believe will provide a much better experience for our subscribers, it has to be done." Lowe's statement promised "an enhanced technology platform, which is in the final stages of completion," in the upcoming app. The service shut down on July 4th at 5AM ET, and MoviePass has not announced when it will come back online. During this period, MoviePass will not accept new sign-ups, and existing subscribers will not be charged while the service is offline. Subscribers will also be automatically credited for the downtime once the service is back online.

Regal Cinemas is prepping to launch a new unlimited movie ticket subscriptions service at the end of July in the U.S. Deadline has the details: There will be three tiers of pricing, which work out to $18, $21 and $24 per month, each granting access to unlimited tickets (really). While the monthly price of AMC Stubs A-List movie ticket subscription program varies by state, we hear that Regal's is based on theater location. Those purchasing a top-priced tier will have access to any Regal Cinema (i.e., from Valencia, CA to 42nd Street in NYC), while the lowest tier gets access to about half of the chain's national footprint. If someone purchased a subscription at a low tier and ventures to an out-of-network Regal in a higher tier (like a major city), there's apt to be a surcharge (not final, but around $2-$3) on a gratis ticket.

There are also 10% cash reductions on concessions for each tier, which are immediate rather than receiving a voucher for the next visit. Also, there's buzz that Regal Unlimited subscribers will have to purchase an entire year in advance for the unlimited ticket program, hence the tier prices respectively would be $288, $252 and $216. At this point in time, it's not clear whether premium venues (Imax, Dolby 3D, Premium Large Format screens, Dbox) will be included in the monthly subscription like it is with AMC's. Studio executives have mentioned to us in passing that a greater degree of revenue exists in upcharging a subscriber on premium tickets. Details are still being worked out despite what many might be reading in online chat rooms.

Public library cardholders in New York City will no longer have access to tens of thousands of movies through Kanopy as of July 1, when the New York, Brooklyn and Queens public libraries end their partnerships with the streaming service because of the cost, the libraries said Monday. From a report: The San Francisco-based platform, which notified library cardholders by email on Monday, offers well-known feature films, like "Lady Bird" and "Moonlight," as well as classic movies, documentaries and foreign-language films not always available on other services. In a statement, the New York Public Library said, "We believe the cost of Kanopy makes it unsustainable," adding that it would use its resources to purchase "more in-demand collections such as books and e-books." The Brooklyn and Queens libraries also cited what they said were Kanopy's rising costs in dropping the service. About 25,000 people with New York Public Library cards -- about 1 percent of the library's 2 million cardholders -- used the service in the past year. The New York library -- with branches in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island -- and the Brooklyn Public Library first offered Kanopy in August 2017, and the Queens Library followed several months later.

An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg: Twitch Interactive, the livestreaming platform owned by Amazon.com, has sued anonymous trolls who flooded the site last month with pornography, violent content and copyrighted movies and television shows...

Twitch says it works to remove offensive posts and ban the accounts of the users who post them, but that the videos quickly reappear, apparently posted by bots, while other bots work to drive users to the impermissible content. Twitch temporarily suspended new creators from streaming after a May 25 attack by trolls.

The company said that if it learns the identities of the anonymous streamers who have abused its terms of service -- named in the lawsuit as "John and Jane Does 1-100" -- it will ask the court to prohibit their using the platform and order them to pay restitution and damages.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols from ZDNet argues that "the expensive and abusive pharmaceutical industry needs to open up to improve everyone's health." An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Now, I know little about creating and testing drugs. Here's what I do know: Open source and data produces better results than proprietary methods. In technology, the field I know best, almost every company -- including open source poster-child enemy Microsoft -- has embraced open source. Why? Because it works better than the short-sighted proprietary approaches. It's not just programming that benefits from open source. Cars now run Linux under the hood. Energy and electricity transmission managers are moving to open source. Most of the movies you love are made with open-source programs. Heck, even contract law is going open source.

I'm far from the only one to conclude that open-source methods are needed to break what amounts to broken pharmaceutical research methodology and drug price gouging. Open Source Pharma, an organization devoted to building on existing initiatives to develop an alternative, comprehensive, open-source pharmaceutical system, is leading the way. Dr. Manica Balasegaram, executive director for the Access Campaign of Medecins Sans Frontieres, aka Doctors Without Borders, explained: "There is something rotten in the kingdom of biomedical R&D... That the system is inefficient is probably difficult to dispute. It works in silos, encourages a protectionist, proprietary approach, promotes duplication, multiplies failure, is costly, and importantly, is directed at markets and not at public health needs. The consequences are fatal." Open source can revolutionize our hunt for better, more affordable medicine. It has everywhere else. It can in medicine, too. "We need to fundamentally let go of thinking that there is only one possible business model," says Balasegaram. "We need alternatives. Open source R&D is the key." Since the biomedical field is dominated by big companies with an iron grip on IP, Balasegaram admitted: "Promoting the concept of sharing will be tough. Sharing, however, is a difficult and somewhat scary idea to promote. It sounds suspiciously 'radical.' However, when one takes into account that this has been done in other areas, we need to rethink our reservations."

Spielberg's After Dark horror series will only be able to be streamed when it's dark outside. It'll be available exclusively on Quibi (short for "Quick Bites"), a new streaming platform dedicated to short-form video, created by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HP CEO Meg Whitman. Variety reports: Spielberg had an unusual request however: He wanted viewers to only be able to watch the program after midnight. Given that phones can track where it is at the moment -- and keep tabs on when the sun rises and sets in its area -- Katzenberg and Whitman challenged their engineers to come up with an idea for how to view the show when it's spooky out. The result: A clock will appear on phones, ticking down until sun sets in wherever that user is, until it's completely gone. Then the clock starts ticking again to when the sun comes back up -- and the show will disappear until the next night. According to the report, Quibi is planning for an April 2020 launch, and is "hoping to trigger a 'third generation of film narrative,' following movies and TV."

"At launch, Quibi will offer a two-week free trial period, and have eight 'super premium' productions (which Katzenberg still called 'movies') ready to view," reports Variety. "After that, there will be 26 more 'lighthouse' (read: signature projects) productions that will roll out, every other Monday, for the first year."

AT&T's WarnerMedia has abandoned its plan for a three-tiered streaming service and instead will likely package HBO, sister channel Cinemax and the vast library of Warner Bros TV shows and movies into one offering at a price of between $16 and $17 a month, WSJ reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The subscription service will debut in "beta" form later this year, the people said and is expected to be fully up and running as early as next March, according to one of them. WarnerMedia is also considering rolling out an ad-supported version of the streaming service -- at a cheaper price -- later in 2020, they said. It is unclear what the content makeup of that version would be. Further down the road, WarnerMedia could add an additional premium option for people to watch live events or sports, one of the people said.

Slashdot reader Nicola Hahn argues that at first, Edward Snowden's revelations six years ago "put mass surveillance and state sponsored hacking center stage," leading to other revelations like the ANT Catalogue, the Equation Group tools, and the Vault 7 leaks: In the wake of these developments a number of high-ranking officials scrambled to justify clandestine programs. Executives likewise recalibrated their stance toward the government and lawmakers worked to defend our civil liberties. Yet despite the tumult of the post-Snowden era and the debates that ensued, has it actually changed anything? Or did society merely offer a collective shrug to the looming threat of pervasive monitoring, surrendering to the convenience of mobile devices?

One observer who has warily followed the aftermath of the Snowden affair believes that most people followed the latter path and that it does not bode well for civilization.
That observer is Bill Blunden, who asks this question in an essay at Counterpunch.

"After all the breathless headlines, Hollywood movies, book deals, Pulitzer prizes, and glossy primetime biopics. What, pray tell, has come of it?"

dryriver writes: If you had asked someone doing 3D graphics seriously back in 2000 what 3D technology will look like two decades away in 2019, they might have said: "Most internet websites will have realtime 3D content embedded or will be completely in 3D. 3D Games will look as good as movies or reality. Everyone will have a cheap handheld 3D scanner to capture 3D models with. High-end VR headsets, gloves, bodysuits and haptics devices will be sold in electronics stores. Still and video cameras will be able to capture true holographic 3D images and video of the real world. TVs and broadcast TV content will be in holographic 3D. 3D stuff you create on a PC will be realtime -- no more waiting for images to slowly render thanks to really advanced new 3D hardware. 3D content creation software will be incredibly advanced and fast to work with in 2019. Many new types of 3D input devices will be available that make working in 3D a snap."

Except of course that that in the real 2019, none of this has come true at all, and the entire 3D field has been stagnating very, very badly since around 2010. It almost seems like a small army of 3D technology geniuses pushed and pushed 3D software and hardware hard during the 80s, 90s, 2000s, then retired or dropped off the face of the earth completely around 10 years ago. Why is this? Are consumers only interested in Facebook, YouTube, cartoony PlayStation graphics and smartphones anymore? Are we never going to see another major 3D technology innovation push again?

While it was initially reported that iTunes would live on in macOS 10.15, it now looks like the app will be retired, over 18 years after it was introduced by the late Steve Jobs at Macworld on January 9, 2001. MacRumors reports: Apple will be replacing iTunes with standalone Music, TV, and Podcasts apps in the next major version of macOS, expected to be unveiled at WWDC 2019 next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman: "iTunes has been the way Apple users listen to music, watch movies and TV shows, hear podcasts, and manage their devices for almost two decades. This year, Apple is finally ready to move into a new era. The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac -- Music, TV, and Podcasts -- to replace iTunes. That matches Apple's media app strategy on iPhones and iPads. Without iTunes, customers can manage their Apple gadgets through the Music app."

This information lines up with a recent report from 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo, who claimed that iTunes will be renamed to "Music" on the Mac. In other words, iTunes is going away and will be replaced by the new Music app, which is expected to become the new utility for syncing and managing Apple devices.

The companies behind the movies "Singularity," "Once Upon a Time in Venice," "Mechanic: Resurrection," "The Hitman's Bodyguard," "I Feel Pretty," "Boyka: Undisputed" and "Hunter Killer," accuse the alleged operators of YIFYMovies.is and YTS.am of inducing and contributing to massive piracy. From a report: "Plaintiffs bring this action to stop the massive piracy of their motion pictures brought on by websites under the collective names YIFY and YTS and their users," it reads. The case was filed last month but has thus far remained under the radar. The names of the alleged site operators are not known. They are referred to as Doe 1 and Doe 2 respectively. "Defendants DOE 1 and DOE 2 cause harm to Plaintiffs' business within this District by diverting customers in this District to unauthorized Internet based content distribution services through, at least, the websites yifymovies.is and yts.ag."

Both sites operate differently. YTS.ag, which now uses the YTS.am domain name, is a torrent site and by far the most popular of the two. YIFYMovies.is, on the other hand, allows users to stream content directly on the site. The movie companies accuse both site operators of intentional inducement of copyright infringement as well as contributory copyright infringement.

"Netflix has 175 days left to pull off a miracle... or it's all over," argues a headline at Forbes for an article by the chief analyst at disruption research firm RiskHedge: Netflix is not the future of TV. Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn't really change what we watch... Netflix has achieved its incredible growth by taking distribution away from cable companies. Instead of watching The Office on cable, people now watch The Office on Netflix. This edge isn't sustainable.

In a world where you can watch practically anything whenever you want, dominance in distribution is very fragile. Because the internet has opened up a whole world of choice, featuring great exclusive content is now far more important than anything else... Netflix management knows content is king. The company spent $12 billion developing original shows last year... To fund its new shows, Netflix is borrowing huge sums of debt. It currently owes creditors $10.4 billion, which is 59% more than it owed this time last year. The problem is that no matter how much Netflix spends, it has no chance to catch up with its biggest rival...

in about 175 days, Disney is set to launch its own streaming service called Disney+. It's going to charge $6.99/month -- around $6 cheaper than Netflix. And it's pulling all its content off of Netflix. This is a big deal. Disney owns Marvel, Pixar Animations, Star Wars, ESPN, National Geographic, Modern Family, and The Simpsons. Not to mention all the classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. In six of the past seven years, Disney has produced the world's top-selling movie... Disney has shown it can produce movies and shows people want to watch. No competitor comes within 1,000 miles of Disney's world of content. Disney's ownership of iconic franchises like Star Wars gives it something no money can buy.

Meanwhile, Netflix will lose a lot of its best content -- and potentially millions of subscribers who switch to Disney+. While Netflix is running into debt "trying out" new shows, Disney already has the best of the best in its arsenal.

"The Resistance's war against Skynet rages on with the sixth installment of the Terminator series," reports Variety, adding that the James Cameron-produced film "serves as a direct sequel to the first two movies in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening films to alternate timelines."

Or, as ET Online: puts it, "Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and James Cameron are together again!" On Thursday, Paramount Pictures released the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate, and it's a reunion for the film franchise's original stars and filmmaker. Hamilton steps back into her role as the badass Sarah Connor, who teams up with Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a woman from the future who shows up in New Mexico and first appears much like Schwarzenegger's character did in the first movie. Directed by Deadpool's Tim Miller, Cameron wrote the story treatment for the sequel and was a producer on the film.

After several action scenes, Sarah Connor knocks on the door of an old house, and the original Terminator (Schwarzenegger) appears with a salt-and-pepper beard. "We're back," Schwarzenegger, 71, tweeted along with the trailer, alluding to his iconic line "I'll be back."
After two days the trailer has racked over 12.5 million views on YouTube, and James Cameron "not only assures that the new entry will be R-rated, but he makes it clear this will be, in more than one way, much more similar to the first two movies in the series," reports Movieweb -- quoting these remarks from one of Cameron's recent interviews.

"I think, tonally, what makes this a direct sequel to T1 and T2 is as much about the tone as it is about the narrative: it's R rated, it's grim, it's gritty, it's fast, it's intense, it's linear."

More changes are coming to review site Rotten Tomatoes. As of Thursday, the audience score for new movies added to the site will default to show ratings from fans confirmed to have purchased tickets to those films. From a report: "The goal is to strengthen consumer confidence around that audience score," said Greg Ferris, vice president of product for Rotten Tomatoes' parent company, Fandango. Here's how it'll work: Any site user will still be able to write a review of a film. But now users can opt to have their rating and review marked as "verified." That means they bought their film ticket on Fandango, the movie-ticketing site that owns Rotten Tomatoes. Later this year, AMC Theatres and Regal and Cinemark ticketing sites will also be participating. So if you buy your ticket for Aladdin at the box office, for example, sorry, but you can't get verified for that review. (At least for now: Dana Benson, Fandango vice president for communications, says that the site is "exploring options" for ways to verify box office purchases.)

Reviews associated with a ticket purchase will be marked with a "verified" icon. By default, the verified reviews will be used to make up the audience score shown on Rotten Tomatoes. To see the total audience score, including reviews by those who didn't purchase through Fandango or didn't opt in to the verification, users can select the "all audience" tab. "Every rating counts, but the score that we're putting out there is verified," Ferris said. The Rotten Tomatoes site will automatically verify that a ticket was purchased and that the time for that movie showing has already passed. For now, only one verified review will be allowed per transaction, no matter how many tickets were purchased.

Taking a page from the Marvel playbook, Sony Interactive Entertainment is reportedly launching its own studio to take its video games to the movie and TV screen. From a report: PlayStation Productions is a new division of Sony Interactive Entertainment with the task of adapting PlayStation games into films and TV shows, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday. Heading up the new studio will be Asad Qizilbash, who was vice president of marketing for Sony Interactive Entertainment of America, according to the report. Overseeing the studio will be Shawn Layden, chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, The Hollywood Reporter said. [...] The new PlayStation Productions will reportedly work with Sony Pictures for distribution of the new batch of movies and TV shows.

An anonymous reader writes: In 1989, just a few months after the web became a reality, a computer worm infected thousands of computers across the world, including those of NASA. Late last month -- 30 years after the "WANK worm" struck NASA -- the agency released an internal report that the agency wrote at the time, thanks to a journalist and a security researcher who have embarked on a project to use the Freedom of Information Act to get documents on historical hacking incidents. The project is called "Hacking History," and the people behind it are freelance journalists Emma Best, and security researcher (and former NSA hacker) Emily Crose. The two are crowdfunding to raise money to cover the costs of the FOIA requests via the document requesting platform MuckRock.

In the last few years, hackers and the cybersecurity industry have gone mainstream, earning headlines in major newspapers, becoming key plotlines in Hollywood movies, and even getting a hit TV show. But it hasn't always been this way. For decades, infosec and hacking was a niche industry that got very little news coverage and very little public attention. As a result, the ancient and not so ancient history of hacking has a lot of holes. Now, the two women are trying to fill in those gaps in hacker history, like missing pieces of a puzzle, sending FOIA requests to several US government agencies, including the FBI.

Google says it will soon introduce a "dedicated placement" in Google Search for AMP Stories in specific categories, like travel, along with components that let AMP Story creators embed interactive content. From a report: The dedicated placement -- a carousel of visual covers from Stories -- will appear beneath the Search bar on mobile for queries like "Things to do in Tokyo" and "The top 10 places to go in Tokyo." Tapping on any of the covers will launch the corresponding AMP Story, which you'll be able to navigate using swipe gestures and scroll gestures. Swiping far enough to the left will open the next Story on the list. The new discoverability feature will roll out in the coming months on Search. AMP Story categories like gaming, fashion, recipes, movies, and TV shows will follow afterward, Google says.