We’re in a brand-new age of piracy this week, as torrent sites are rapidly adding 4K copies of movies and TV shows likely ripped from Amazon or Netflix. A couple such files were offered earlier this year, but the sheer volume now offered suggests pirates have had an encryption-breaking breakthrough.
Today would-be pirates can download the Netflix exclusive Jessica Jones at an impressive resolution of 4096 x 2160, assuming they have a big enough hard drive. At 10GB per episode, it’s going to take up a lot of space.
Streaming sites have been offering 4K videos for a while now, and pirates have mostly left them alone, seemingly because they were well protected.
TorrentFreak reports that someone likely cracked the encryption used by these sites to protect media files. A member of a release group – the anonymous pirates who leak content to file sharing sites – told TorrentFreak to expect more such videos to pop up.
“Many groups started releasing 4K rips recently and they are working perfectly,” he or she told the site. “I expect that 4K resolution releases will become more popular now.”
Files offered include the Amazon exclusive Man In The High Castle, and movies found on both Amazon and Netflix are all making appearances. The flood of content is likely to continue until streaming sites plug whatever hole the content is getting through.
But it’s not clear what breakthrough has made it possible for pirates to bypass content encryption, or what streaming sites can do to stop it. The cat and mouse game will almost certainly continue, with streaming sites working to secure their files and pirates working to break new protections.
Ultimately, the genie can’t be put back into the bottle. Once a file is offered on a torrent site, it’s easy for pirates to share it further. The content leaked so far will stay leaked even if the hole is plugged, and with no indication yet as to how the encryption is being broken, it’s unlikely a response will appear quickly.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.