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Swedish police raid The Pirate Bay and knock the site offline
Despite The Pirate Bay's efforts to escape an increasingly hostile environment in Sweden, the torrent site has been taken offline today. TorrentFreak and Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter report this is the result of a police raid as confirmed by Fredrick Ingblad, a special prosecutor for file sharing cases. The Rights Alliance is a local group backed by the music and film industries, and it took credit for the shutdown, claiming its criminal complaint lead to the action and called Pirate Bay an illegal commercial service. Only time will tell if this shutdown sticks, but TorrentFreak says it is affecting the site's forum Suprbay, as well as Bayimg.com and Pastebay.net. [Image credit: shutterstock]
Swedish trade group proposes sexism ratings for games
Sweden-based industry trade group Dataspelsbranchen is researching a new content rating system for video games based on promotion of gender equality. The proposed ratings system, inspired by the Bechdel test, will examine how in-game female characters are portrayed with regard to equality and diversity. The group recently received a 272,000 kronor (nearly $37,000) grant from Sweden's government-funded Vinnova agency to further its research. "I do not know of any other project in the world asking this question and of course we want Sweden to be a beacon in this area," project manager Anton Albiin told Swedish publication The Local. "Of course games can be about fantasy but they can be so much more than this. They can also be a form of cultural expression - reflecting society or the society we are hoping for. Games can help us to create more diverse workplaces and can even change the way we think about things." The group's research follows up on recent concerns raised by Anita Sarkeesian and other media critics, who highlight the one-dimensional treatment women characters often receive in video games. [Image: 2K]
Sweden considers adding 'sexism' ratings to video games
In a world where 52 percent of gamers are female, it seems odd that women get such a rough treatment in so many games. That's what prompted Dataspelsbranchen, Sweden's game industry trade group, to ponder adding a sexism rating next to age and content ratings on newly-released titles. According to The Local, the organization has received a grant from the country's government to work out the idea. So far, the plan is to take an approach similar to the Bechdel Test to examine if women are given fair treatment in video games, but also to look at how publishers deal with the issue of gender equality given that Sweden's game industry only employs a female workforce of 16 percent. If you were wondering, there's no word on if the ratings would apply to all games or just those made in Sweden, but given that the country is the home of Minecraft, Just Cause, Hotline Miami, the Battlefield series and Goat Simulator, you can be sure that it'll be pretty visible.
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde released from prison
Authorities can't keep the entire Pirate Bay crew under lock and key, it seems. Just days after the arrest of Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde has been released from prison; he spent only five months behind bars rather than the originally intended eight, albeit in a high security wing. Sunde is focused primarily on "sleep, eat and travel" at this stage, so it'll be a short while before we know exactly what he does next. However, media executives probably won't have reason to panic any time soon. He was pouring most of his energy into legal services like encrypted chat (Heml.is) and micro donations (Flattr) before the police caught him, and it's likely that he'll pick up where he left off. [Image credit: SHARE Conference, Flickr]
Turn into a bird and save the world in PS4 game 'Aer'
Aer stands out even though it is accidentally, obviously on-trend: It's a low-poly exploration game set on a series of floating islands, it features a giant owl and it's devoid of combat. Some of these aspects appear in recent notable games, including Secrets of Raetikon, BioShock Infinite, Monument Valley and Fez, but Aer remains intriguing. Even in its early stages, it's fascinating and mysterious – it feels fresh, even in a market saturated with its individual components. "It's kind of funny," Forgotten Key co-founder Robin Hjelte told me at GDC Europe. "It's like, when you have a new car, you always start to see all the new cars. It's been a bit of the same thing: First we started off with, 'Yeah, floating islands. That's a cool setting; we want to do something with this.' And then we were like, 'Oh, boy. Everyone is doing floating islands.'" The same thing happened with the low-poly art style, too, Hjelte said.
Gaystation 4 up for auction
In celebration of pride week in Sweden, retailer Webhallen is auctioning off a customized PlayStation 4 to support The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Rights (RFSL). Designated the "Gaystation edition," the auction for the $400 console is already up to $1,630 (as of this writing). "For many young people, the world of games will become a refuge to escape the taunting or worse of real life. On Webhallen, we are gamers in heart and mind, and are keen that as many as possible have the opportunity to feel welcome and enjoy the world's largest and fastest growing interest: video games," notes the Webhallen post, with #thisisforthegaymers.
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde caught after two years on the run
A Swedish court convicted Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde for copyright infringement back in 2012, but he never served his eight-month jail sentence -- despite an Interpol warrant, the piracy advocate has been living in Germany for years. His freedom has come to an abrupt halt, though, as police arrested him this weekend at a farm in Sweden's Skane region. It's not clear why Sunde was in the country that wanted him behind bars, but TorrentFreak suggests that he might have been visiting family.
Volvo's self-driving cars tackle merging, braking traffic in first road tests
Volvo has now joined Google and others by testing autonomous cars on public roads, in its hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden, no less. This is the first phase of its "Drive Me" project, and will be limited to semi-autonomous vehicles on 50km (30 miles) of set commuter routes. The vehicles have progressed to where they can now adapt their speeds, follow traffic and deal with merging vehicles, according to Volvo. That means drivers still need to give their undivided attention, but eventually, the automaker intends to have 100 fully autonomous vehicles on the road operating in an "Autopilot" mode. Volvo hopes to avoid the kind of collisions that its cars are famous for surviving by eliminating the main cause -- us.
Spotify's quest to get it 'just right' through balanced design
In the heart of Stockholm a team of designers and engineers have been hard at work, mostly in secret, overhauling one of biggest names in music. (And no, we're not talking about Icona Pop or even an ABBA reunion.) On Birger Jarlsgatan, a street that divides the neighborhoods of Ostermalm and Norrmalm in the Swedish capital, sits the home of Spotify. Not all that long ago it was the undisputed king of subscription music services. Today it is just one of many major players in the exploding marketplace with would-be usurpers, from Google to Beats, surrounding it on all sides. Over the years it's shoehorned in new features and accelerated its international expansion, but the design stagnated. Its iTunes-like desktop client didn't just look dated, it was cumbersome and many of its features bordered on obsolete. Its mobile apps and web player filled a need, but lacked the polish and stability many mainstream customers demanded. So for the last several months a team led by Michelle Kadir (Director of Product Development) and Andreas Holmstrom (Lead Communications Designer) have been toiling away to bring Spotify into the 2010s. That means a flatter more playful look with soft edges and large images. But the company also bucked the trend towards lighter color palettes by slathering its UI with enough black to make Tomas Skogsberg proud.
Swedish carrier hints at an HTC One M8 Mini, we feign surprise
HTC has just released a new One smartphone, so it stands to reason that the company would give the One Mini a similar upgrade, wouldn't it? Sure enough, there's now a hint that such an update might be in the cards. Swedroid has spotted an "M8 mini" lurking in Swedish carrier Telia's list of HD Voice-capable phones. While the entry has vanished (as have other HTC models), the provider explains that it changed the list to reflect the phones it has "right now" -- not a confirmation of the tiny M8, but not exactly a denial, either. The listing didn't include any details of the phone, and there's no guarantee that it will launch soon, if it launches at all. However, HTC recently told us that its existing "product family strategy" has been working well; it would be shocking if the firm didn't have something like a One M8 Mini in development.
Xbox One rolling to 26 new regions in September
Microsoft plans to bring the Xbox One to 26 more markets in September, eight of which were in the original plans for the console's November 2013 launch. Those eight territories, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland, were cut from the first run in August, at which point Microsoft scaled its launch plans back to 13 regions. Head past the break to see the list of the other 18 regions the system will arrive in come September.
Sweden fines pirate $650,000 for illegally sharing a single film
Sure, it's no Somalia, but Sweden's been fighting plenty of its own battles against piracy -- of the digital variety. The former home of Pirate Bay, the infamous online repository for everything the RIAA and MPAA stand against, has just fined an unnamed 28-year-old man 4.3 million krona (about $650,000) for uploading a single film to a torrent site. Granted, an anti-piracy group called Rights Alliance described the man as the country's "worst ever" pirate, according to a BBC report, so just because this fine covers only one film, he's likely responsible for ripping off plenty more. In fact, the same court that assigned the fine also convicted the man of sharing 517 other flicks -- that charge brought a rather tame punishment, including a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service.
Volvo to conduct large-scale autonomous car tests by 2017
Volvo has been one of the stronger proponents of self-driving cars, and it's proving that today by detailing its plans for a large-scale autonomous vehicle project in its native Sweden. The Drive Me initiative will put 100 robot cars on Gothenburg's streets, where they'll explore the social and technical challenges involved in going hands-free. As with smaller tests, Volvo will still require a human in the driver's seat for trickier situations. The project officially begins in 2014, although locals will have to be patient -- Volvo is only promising that the autonomous fleet will hit the road "by 2017."
Sweden's Com Hem launches TiVo soon, will offer Netflix in December
It appears the tests of an IPTV-ready TiVo on Sweden's Com Hem service went well, as the provider is officially launching service September 30th. It's also built a few new service packages around the three tuner, 1TB HDD-equipped DVR, with the TiVo Max option offering about 80 channels and TiVo Combo Max bundling internet and phone service. Another part of some of the TiVo packages is a TiVoToGo offering that let's users stream several live TV channels and video on-demand to other devices, along with DVR scheduling and remote control features from the iOS app. The other juicy detail is that, like Virgin Media in the UK and Google Fiber in the US, Com Hem will allow the Netflix app on its set-top boxes. The Netflix feature is expected to launch on its TiVos in December, and we figure there will be plenty of customers ready, with a claimed 45,000 already preregistered for the new boxes since May 15th.
Apple adds free iBook offer to Apple Store app
At the beginning of August, Apple launched a new free-content program in their Apple Store app, kicking things off with a free download of Color Zen. Today the latest piece of free content has been released, and it should make parents of small children very happy. The over-the-air update allows users to download Margaret Wise Brown's children's book Away in My Airplane as a free iBook. Apple retail employees were told about the free book release this morning in a note informing them to use the release to promote iBooks and the iBookstore with customers in their stores. The book offer expires on August 28th, and is only available in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Sweden according to a source for 9to5mac.com. iBooks was announced as a major part of the upcoming OS X Mavericks release at this past June's WWDC event. It is clear that Apple is working hard to get users familiar with the app before it officially becomes a new addition to their Macs in the fall.
Facebook opens first European data center, uses company-designed servers
Facebook's first European data center in Luleå, Sweden (near the Arctic Circle) is now online, and thus far it's the only facility that's exclusively using servers the company itself designed. Similar to the social network's North Carolina complex that served as testing ground for its outdoor air-cooling configuration, the Swedish facility takes advantage of the region's frigid winds. Excess heat produced by the machines is then routed to offices to keep employees warm in the chilly region. The firm claims the 900,000-square-foot center is powered entirely by hydroelectric energy -- a source so reliable that Facebook saw it fit to scale down the number of backup generators by more than 70 percent. With an average power usage efficiency (PUE) of 1.07, the servers should consume 1.07 watts of energy for each watt they need to function pointing to minimal energy loss. Now that the Luleå installation is complete and operational, the company can focus on building its $1.5 billion megastructure (its biggest data center yet) in Altoona, Iowa. [Image credit: Facebook]
Google buys Swedish wind farm's entire output to power Finnish data center
Google has just secured the services of an entire 72MW wind farm in Maevaara, Sweden for the next ten years to keep its Finnish data center humming, according to the official blog. It brokered the deal through German insurer Allianz, which purchased the farm and will begin selling all the electricity it produces to Mountain View by 2015. The move is part of Google's quest to remain carbon neutral, and is along similar lines to a recent deal which saw the search giant purchase 48MW of energy from a wind farm in Oklahoma. The news follows Apple's announcement that it gets 75 percent of its power from renewable sources -- showing the arch-foes can at least agree on something.
HTC shutting down Watch movies in six countries by May 31st
While there are signs HTC's fortunes might turn a corner through the launch of the One, few would doubt that its finances could use some streamlining. The company has just outlined one of the ways it will be pinching pennies: it's closing its Watch movie stores in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden by May 31st, with some Italians reporting a shutdown on the 15th. As the company explains to us in a statement (after the break), it's concentrating on supporting Watch in those regions with the "highest engagement" while dropping those with "less application traffic" -- in short, markets with poor performance get the boot. HTC stresses that Watch isn't going away, however, and it's delivering a steady stream of content. We're glad to hear that the company is sharpening its focus rather than cutting the cord. Still, that won't be much consolation to movie-loving Europeans and Scandinavians.
Swedish Language Council drops 'ungoogleable' from new word list after legal pressure from Google
The Swedish Language Council appeared on Google's radar when it wanted to add the term ungoogleable (in Swedish, ogooglebar -- yep) to a list of new words. The company didn't want the word nixed, but redefined to reference Google directly and not just any general search engine -- this was the initial meaning of the term. Lawyers got involved, but instead of battling in court, the Language council decided to drop the addition entirely, not due to the objection but to bring more input to the process and avoid any legal time (and money) being wasted. The head of the council, Ann Cederberg said that "it's our use that gives it meaning -- not a multinational company exerting pressure." For now, at least, it looks like the definition is headed in the same direction of the one-time home of the Swedish Chef translator.
Pirate Bay goes on the lam from Sweden, heads for safe harbor in Spain, Norway
Despite a recent effort to move its servers to the cloud, Pirate Bay will be moving its base out of Sweden thanks to recent legal pressure. The Swedish Pirate Party that hosted the torrent site has been feeling heat from the film and music industry-backed Swedish Rights Alliance, which gave it until today to cut ties in order to avoid a lawsuit. As a result, the site has moved its operations to servers in Spain and Norway hosted by Pirate Parties there, saying it's had a contingency plan in place for awhile to do so. Anway, if the embattled site has to keep criss-crossing the seas while fighting legal battles to stay afloat, it might make for another good documentary.
