As US Investigates Ticketmaster, Botched Sale of Taylor Swift Tickets Fuels Monopoly Criticisms

Ticketmaster provoked ire with a botched sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s first concert in five years. NPR reports:
On Thursday afternoon, the day before tickets were due to open to the general public, Ticketmaster announced that the sale had been cancelled altogether due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” Taylor Swift broke her silence on Friday in statement on Instagram in which she said it is “excruciating for me to watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” She said there are many reasons people had a hard time getting tickets, and she’s trying to figure out how to improve the situation moving forward. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” she wrote, without naming Ticketmaster.

America’s Justice Department “has opened an antitrust investigation into the owner of Ticketmaster,” reports the New York Times. But the investigation “predates the botched sale” and “is focused on whether Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry.”

The new investigation is the latest scrutiny of Live Nation Entertainment, which is the product of a merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster that the Justice Department approved in 2010. That created a giant in the live entertainment business that still has no equals in its reach or power…. The debacle involving Ms. Swiftâ(TM)s concert tickets this week has exacerbated complaints in the music business and in Washington that Live Nationâ(TM)s power has constrained competition and harmed consumers.
Or, as NPR puts it, “The frenzy has brought renewed scrutiny to the giant Ticketmaster, which critics have long accused of abusing its market power at the expense of consumers.”

Would-be concertgoers have complained vocally about recent incidents with near-instant sellouts and skyrocketing prices, and artists like Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen have feuded with it over the decades. One common complaint is that there doesn’t seem to be a clear alternative or competitor to Ticketmaster, especially after it merged with concert provider Live Nation in 2010 (a controversial move that required conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Justice).

Now Tennessee’s attorney general, a Republican, is opening a consumer protection investigation into the incident. North Carolina’s attorney general announced on Thursday that his office is investigating Ticketmaster for allegedly violating consumers’ rights and antitrust laws. And multiple Democratic lawmakers are asking questions about the company’s dominance â” not for the first time…. “Taylor Swift’s tour sale is a perfect example of how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger harms consumers by creating a near-monopoly,” tweeted Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of several lawmakers who has long called for investigation and accountability into the company, especially after becoming a subsidiary of concert behemoth Live Nation.

The article also cites a Thursday statement from Ticketmaster:
The company says that using Verified Fan invite codes has historically helped manage the volume of users visiting the website to buy tickets, though that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. “The staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests â” 4x our previous peak,” it said, adding that it slowed down some sales and pushed back others to stabilize its systems, resulting in longer wait times for some users.

It estimates that about 15% of interactions across the website experienced issues, which it said is “15% too many.”

The Tuesday sale also broke Ticketmaster’s record for most tickets sold for an artist in a single day,” reports People, “selling two million tickets.”
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SpzToid for submitting the story.

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FBI, Air Force Agents Mysteriously Raid House of Guy Who Runs Area 51 Blog

Earlier this month, agents from both the FBI and the U.S. Air Force raided multiple homes belonging to a man who runs a little-known blog about Area 51. Gizmodo reports: That man, Joerg Arnu, said the swarm of federal agents in riot gear busted into his primary residence, handcuffed him, then marched him outside to wait in the freezing cold while they rifled through his apartment and took pretty much every piece of electronic equipment that he owned. So far, the government has been pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing, but officials did verify that it happened. In a statement provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Lt. Col. Bryon McGarry confirmed the raid. He did not elaborate on its purpose, saying only: “This is an open and ongoing law enforcement investigation between the Las Vegas FBI and Air Force OSI.”

What did cops want? It’s not exactly clear. Since 1999, Arnu has run Dreamland Resort, a website that covers activities in and around Area 51, the notoriously secretive government facility located in Groom Lake, Nevada. Long the subject of speculation and curiosity, the highly classified facility is the site of myriad UFO sightings. Coincidentally (or not), it is also the location where the Air Force reportedly tests and develops some of its most sensitive and experimental new projects and aircraft (see: the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s, for instance). Among other things, Arnu’s site features pictures and writing about the Air Force’s so-called “black projects” — opaque, classified operations carried out behind a veil of government secrecy. Arnu claims that the agents confiscated his “laptops, phones, backup drives, camera gear, and my drone were seized.” He describes the situation in detail in a blog post on his website.

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China Tops US To Take Research Crown At Global Chip Conference

“China has submitted the most research papers accepted at a prestigious international academic conference focused on semiconductors, underscoring the country’s growing presence in the field and bumping the U.S. into second place (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source),” reports Nikkei Asia. The committee of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) was held in South Korea on Nov. 16. From a report: According to the committee, a total of 629 research papers were submitted for next year’s ISSCC, including 198 that passed the screening. The 198 include 59 from China, 42 from the United States and 32 from South Korea. China rose from third to first and South Korea’s number decreased by nine compared to the previous one. “China increased its selected research paper count in every category and the Chinese government played an important role in this,” one of the participants said […].

The academic conference in the field of semiconductor integrated circuit design was first held in 1954. It is the largest and most renowned international conference in this field and next year’s conference will start on Feb. 19 in San Francisco. More than 3,000 researchers from over 30 countries will attend it to share the latest technologies in the field.

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Epic Says Google Paid Activision Millions Not To Launch Rival App Store

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Fortnite developer Epic Games said Google paid the equivalent of $360 million to Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard as part of a broad agreement that included a promise the gaming giant would not create a rival app store. The move, Epic said, helped solidify Google’s hold on phones and tablets powered by its Android software. In the filing, newly unredacted Thursday, Epic said Google paid other developers in a similar way to Activision. Epic cited an agreement Google struck with Tencent, the Chinese company that owns League of Legends developer Riot Games, giving it about $30 million over one year. Like Activision, that money too was part of a larger agreement for Riot to maintain its Google-powered games and spend money promoting them as part of Android.

Google and Activision Blizzard both denied Epic’s allegations about competing app stores. Google said the agreements are designed to provide incentives for developers to create apps for Google Play. “Epic is mischaracterizing business conversations,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “It does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as Epic falsely alleges.” Activision, for its part, said Google never “asked us, pressured us, or made us agree not to compete with Google Play.” Activision is in the midst of being acquired by software giant Microsoft for $68.7 billion. […] The filing is the latest allegation in Epic’s ongoing lawsuit against Google, which it accuses of operating a monopoly with Google Play, which sells apps for Android. Epic’s ongoing lawsuit is similar to another battle it’s waging against Apple and its App Store over similar concerns of monopolistic practices. In both cases, Epic is pushing the companies to reduce the control they exert over their respective platforms, both in terms of how phone and tablet owners pay for apps and where to download them from.

It’s unclear whether Epic’s argument that Google paid developers to not compete will win in an eventual court case. Epic said in its complaint that “Google understood” the agreement would mean that Activision would “abandon its plans to launch a competing app store, and Google intended this result.” But Armin Zerza, now Activision Blizzard’s finance chief, said in one of the court filings that the company chose not to launch a rival app store because of the risk of failure, in addition to costs for development and marketing. When asked about entering a deal with Google that “accomplished your objectives,” Zerza said that the Activision Blizzard board approved a deal with the Android maker because it “created multi-hundred-million dollars of value for us across multiple ecosystems.” If Activision is ultimately purchased by Microsoft though, it may end up helping create an app store after all. Microsoft told regulators in October that it intends to build its own mobile app store to rival Google and Apple. Activision’s deep library of popular games, including Candy Crush Saga and World of Warcraft, will be a key part of that effort. “Epic’s allegations are nonsense,” an Activision representative said in a statement sent to PC Gamer. “We can confirm that Google never asked us, pressured us, or made us agree not to compete with Google Play — and we’ve already submitted documents and testimony that prove this.”

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Facebook To Remove Several Information Fields From Profiles, Including Religious and Political Views

Nearly 50% of macOS Malware Comes From One App

joshuark writes: Yikes, gadzooks, and shiver my timbers! Elastic Labs has found surprisingly that 50% of malware comes from one app: MacKeeper, ironically. Ironic in that MacKeeper claims to “keep your Mac clean and safe with zero effort.” MacKeeper also has a tainted reputation for being difficult to completely uninstall and as a malicious antivirus. A new spin on the biblical phrase, “Am I my brother’s keeper…” Well, when the inmate is running the asylum. The findings appear in Elastic Security Labs’ recently released 2022 Global Threat Report. As Neowin reports, MacKeeper “can be abused by threat actors because it has extensive permissions and access to processes and files.”

With that said, the report found that only 6.2% of malware ends up on macOS devices, compared to 54.4% and 39.4% on Windows and Linux, respectively.

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Google Rolls Out New Features Across Maps, Search and Shopping

Google announced today that it’s introducing a slew of new Maps, Search and Shopping features. The company revealed a majority of the new features during its Search On event in September and is now starting to roll them out to users. TechCrunch reports:
Search
Starting today, users will be able to use Search to find their favorite dish at a restaurant near them. For example, you can search “truffle mac and cheese near me” to see which nearby restaurants carry the dish on their menu. Once you find a specific dish that you’re looking for, you can get more information about its price, ingredients and more. Another new Search functionality lets you use Google’s multisearch feature to find specific food near you. Say you see something tasty-looking online, but don’t know what it is or where to find it. You can now use Lens in the Google app for Android or iOS to snap a picture or take a screenshot of a dish and add the words “near me” to find a place that sells it nearby. Later this year, Google is going roll out an update to its Lens AR Translate capabilities so users can more seamlessly translate text on complex backgrounds. Instead of covering up the original text like it currently does, Google is going to erase the text and re-create the pixels underneath with an AI-generated background, and then overlay the translated text on top of the image.
Maps
As for the new Maps features, Google is launching a new visual search experience called Live View in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. […] In addition to displaying information about where places are, users will be able to see key information about each spot overlaid, such as whether the location is busy, if its open, what the price range is, etc. Another new Maps feature makes it easier for EV owners to find the best charging station for their vehicle. Now, you can search for “EV charging stations” and select the “fast charge” filter. You can also filter for stations that offer your EV’s plug type. Google also announced that it’s expanding its “accessible places” feature globally after initially launching it in the U.S., Australia, Japan and the U.K. in 2020. The feature is designed to help people determine whether a place is wheelchair accessible.
Shopping
Google has announced a new AR shopping feature that is designed to make it easier to find your exact foundation match. The company says its new photo library features 148 models representing a diverse spectrum of skin tones, ages, genders, face shapes, ethnicities and skin types. As a result, it should be easier for shoppers to better visualize what different products will look like on them. […] Users can now also shop for shoes using AR.

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Fentanyl Vaccine Developed By Researchers Could Eliminate Drug’s ‘High’

Researchers have developed a fentanyl vaccine that could eliminate the drug’s “high” by blocking its ability to enter the brain — which could be a major step forward in the ongoing opioid crisis. Yahoo News reports: The study, conducted by a research team led by the University of Houston and funded by the Department of Defense through the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Disorder Research Program, was published in the journal Pharmaceutics at the end of October. Colin Haile, a research associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study, said in a news release that the vaccine “is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys. “Thus, the individual will not feel the euphoric effects and can “get back on the wagon’ to sobriety.”

Haile added that the anti-fentanyl antibodies didn’t cross-react with other opioids, meaning a vaccinated person could still be treated for pain relief with other opioids. The vaccine did not cause any adverse side effects in rats involved in lab studies, and clinical trials in humans are planned “soon,” with manufacturing of clinical-grade vaccine to begin in the coming months.

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Apple AirPods Can Work As More Affordable Hearing Aids, Study Finds

A new study has found that Apple’s wireless earbuds can serve as a more affordable and accessible sound amplification device than medical hearing aids. Gizmodo reports: Inspired by a feature called Live Listen released in 2016 by Apple, which allows an iPhone or iPad to be used as sound-boosting microphone, researchers from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital wondered whether the performance of AirPods 2 and the original AirPods Pro using this feature could compare to medical hearing aids. Apple does not position Live Listen as a tool for those dealing with hearing loss but as a way for users with normal hearing to boost desired sounds, like the calls of a bird. However, the researchers found that, in some situations, consumer-level personal sound amplification products faired quite well against pricier medically prescribed solutions, and given the popularity of products like Apple’s AirPods, there’s no stigma associated with wearing them.

The researchers tested the $129 AirPods 2 and $249 AirPods Pro paired with iPhone XS Max smartphones running iOS 13. They compared these against the $10,000 OTICON Opn 1 behind-the-ear hearing aids and a more affordable alternative, the $1,500 Bernafon MD1. The four options were tested with 21 participants dealing with mild to moderate hearing loss, who were asked to repeat short sentences read to them by the researchers in varying environments. In a quiet setting, the AirPods Pro were found to perform as well as the cheaper hearing aids and almost as good as the premium model, while the Air Pods 2 performed the worst of all four tested devices but still helped participants hear what was being read to them more clearly than not using a sound-enhancing device at all. In a noisy environment, the AirPods Pro performed even closer to the premium hearing aid model, thanks to their built-in noise cancellation, but only when the distracting noises were coming from the sides of the participant. When the noise was coming from the front, alongside the sample sentences being read by the researchers, both wireless earbud products failed to help improve what was being heard. “Hearing aids remain the best option for those dealing with hearing loss, but for those who don’t have access to them for whatever reason, a cheaper product like Apple’s AirPods Pro could provide noticeable improvements in hearing and clarity for those dealing with mild-to-moderate hearing loss and could serve as a useful alternative until over-the-counter solutions are more readily available and affordable,” concludes the report.

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration decided to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter and without a prescription to adults, a decision that “could fundamentally change technology,” said Nicholas Reed, an audiologist at the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sony’s first OTC hearing aids were announced last month.

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