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• Sony’s New Movies Leak Online Following Hack Attack | Variety
  At least five new movies from Sony Pictures are being devoured on copyright-infringing file-sharing hubs in the wake of the hack attack that hobbled the studio last week. Copies of DVD screeners of four unreleased Sony movies including the upcoming “Annie” are getting some unwelcome early exposure, but nothing compared with the frenzy enveloping “Fury,” the war pic still in theaters. “Fury” has been downloaded by over 888,000 unique IP addresses since showing up on peer-to-peer networks on November 27th, according to piracy-tracking firm Excipio.
• Exclusive: FBI warns of 'destructive' malware in wake of Sony attack | Reuters
  The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned U.S. businesses that hackers have used malicious software to launch a destructive cyberattack in the United States, following a devastating breach last week at Sony Pictures Entertainment. Cybersecurity experts said the malicious software described in the alert appeared to describe the one that affected Sony, which would mark first major destructive cyber attack waged against a company on U.S. soil. The five-page, confidential "flash" FBI warning issued to businesses late on Monday provided some technical details about the malicious software used in the attack. It provided advice on how to respond to the malware and asked businesses to contact the FBI if they identified similar malware. The report said the malware overrides all data on hard drives of computers, including the master boot record, which prevents them from booting up.
• Kim Dotcom beats US bid to get him thrown back in jail | Ars Technica
  Kim Dotcom has successfully fended off an American government bid to put in him back in a New Zealand jail for allegedly violating his bail. Auckland District Court Judge Nevin Dawson restored the prior conditions of Dotcom’s "free on bail" status, which requires him to check in with local police twice per week. But the judge also imposed new restrictions on Dotcom’s movements: he cannot travel by air or boat charter, only by commercial or public transit. It’s been nearly three years since New Zealand authorities raided Kim Dotcom’s mansion, complete with two helicopters, as part of the American-led global shutdown of his Hong Kong-based file sharing company, Megaupload. Dotcom still faces American criminal charges of copyright infringement, online piracy, and money laundering charges, a civil case brought in April 2014 by the MPAA, and more recently, a July 2014 civil forfeiture case. Dotcom and his lawyers have relentlessly fought back in multiple jurisdictions.
• Google Glass Deal Thrusts Intel Deeper Into Wearable Devices - WSJ
  Intel will supply the electronic brains for a new version of Google's Glass device expected next year, part of a push by the semiconductor giant into wearable technology. An Intel chip will replace a processor from Texas Instruments included in the first version of Glass. Intel plans to promote Glass to companies such as hospital networks and manufacturers, while developing new workplace uses for the device, according to one of the people. I wonder how it'll work in the shower?
• The smart mouse with the half-human brain - health - 01 December 2014 - New Scientist
  Mice have been created whose brains are half human. As a result, the animals are smarter than their siblings. The idea is not to mimic fiction, but to advance our understanding of human brain diseases by studying them in whole mouse brains rather than in dishes. The altered mice still have mouse neurons – the "thinking" cells that make up around half of all their brain cells. But practically all the glial cells in their brains, the ones that support the neurons, are human. "It's still a mouse brain, not a human brain," says Steve Goldman of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. "But all the non-neuronal cells are human." I wonder if sharks will be next?
• Cord cutting accelerates as 150,000 cancel TV service
  Cord cutting is accelerating as more people in the U.S. turn to Internet services such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube to watch their favorite programs. About 150,000 pay-TV customers canceled video service in the three months that ended June 30th, according to estimates published on Friday by Leichtman Research Group. Pay-TV systems lost 25,000 subscribers during the same time period last year, Leichtman said. Sony, satellite-TV provider Dish Network and other companies have announced plans to start pay-TV systems that transmit channels over-the-Internet and offer smaller, less-expensive bundles. Sony and Dish said their aim is the attract younger consumers who have so far never signed up for traditional cable TV service.
• Feds want Apple’s help to defeat encrypted phones, new legal case shows | Ars Technica
  Newly discovered court documents from two federal criminal cases in New York and California that remain otherwise sealed suggest that the Department of Justice is pursuing an unusual legal strategy to compel cellphone makers to assist investigations In both cases, the seized phones—one of which is an iPhone 5S—are encrypted and cannot be cracked by federal authorities. Prosecutors have now invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, which compels a person or company to do something. Some legal experts are concerned that these rarely made public examples of the lengths the government is willing to go in defeating encrypted phones raise new questions as to how far the government can compel a private company to aid a criminal investigation. Two federal judges agree that the phone manufacturer in each case—one of which remains sealed, one of which is definitively Apple—should provide aid to the government.