Friday, January 26
Daily News Stuff 26 January 2024
Australia Dayn't Edition
Australia Dayn't Edition
Top Story
- Apple is bringing third-party app stores and side-loading to the iPhone. (The Verge)
But only in the EU.
- Apple will allow full versions of Firefox and Chrome browsers to run on the iPhone, instead of just hastily-drawn skins on top of Safari. (The Verge)
But only in the EU.
- Epic Games will make its app store and the game Fortnite available on iPhones. (The Verge)
But only in the EU.
- Twitter has been flooded with risque AI-generated images of Taylor Swift. (The Verge)
But only in the EU. Wait.
Tech News
- The Pokemon (with a little thing on the e) Company has announced it intends to investigate Palworld (over eleventy billion sold). (Tech Crunch)
Except that The Pokemon (with a little thing on the e) Company announced no such thing. Tech Crunch includes the full text of the announcement, and it's lawyer boilerplate that TPwaltoteC will take legal action against infringing content.
Palworld has been in development for three years now. No action from TPC.
A mod that made Palworld look just like Pokemon came this week out and it was taken down the same day.
- Microsoft has announced layoffs - A Thing of the Past (TM) - of 1900 Xbox and Activision staff. (The Verge)
Including the president of Blizzard, which is part of Activision, which Microsoft owns.
- The Hugo Awards are in the spotlight again, for the usual reasons: They are complete garbage and have been for the past decade. (The Guardian)
In this case, the 2023 awards were held in China, and multiple award nominations that received enough votes to be on their respective shortlists... Weren't.
The head of the awards jury, Dave McCarty issued a particularly blatant non-denial:There was no communication between the Hugo administration team and the Chinese government in any official manner.
But unofficially..."After reviewing the constitution and the rules we must follow, the administration team determined those works/persons were not eligible." He declined to elaborate on what the rules were.
The rules that let us get out of the country with our kneecaps.
Disclaimer: Oh, those rules.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:29 PM
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1
It's only mentioned in passing, but Zenimax/Bethesda employees are on the chopping block, too, as part of that layoff.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 27 2024 01:11 AM (BMUHC)
2
I can see where the 'looks like Pokemon' people are coming from, but think that they are probably fairly garbage IP lawyers, and additionally are not thinking in terms of Japanese IP law. Look, there is a lot of capricious legal stuff apparently happening in general, but two Japanese companies might possibly share an understanding that look and feel is not that protected under Japanese law. IANAL.
The world is insane, so a thirty year old IP might decide to drastically change its business strategy, and marketing. But, in that context it still looks a lot like crazy people being crazy.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, January 27 2024 02:40 AM (r9O5h)
3
The Pokemon people are undoubtedly well aware that the Palworld people are making an effort to stay on this side of copyright law, and that, as mentioned, they're making a legit effort to keep stuff that would cross the line away by nuking mods. I've read elsewhere they're also active in forums telling people to avoid infringement and whatever.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 27 2024 03:32 AM (BMUHC)
4
I wonder if the Pokemon mod was a tactic. Proof that it took a mod changing things to make it actually look like Pokemon, proving that the base product doesn't.
Posted by: Mauser at Saturday, January 27 2024 06:14 PM (nk1Z+)
5
With over a thousand pokemon, it's pretty easy to find visual matches with pals, and the core catch-em-all gameplay loop primes you to look for the resemblances, like running into a field full of not-Pikachu.
-j
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sunday, January 28 2024 02:59 AM (oJgNG)
6
The elephant pal looks a bit like one of the elephant Pokemon, but there are clear design differences.
Back in the day, hadn't seen much anime, so my first guess about the pokemon ads was that it was the same universe as DBZ, because of the art style.
At a little older, when I first saw the gameboy game, I would not have known the prior art well enough to see the Dragon Quest or the Megaten.
I was a kid.
These people apparently purport to be adults.
Back in the day, hadn't seen much anime, so my first guess about the pokemon ads was that it was the same universe as DBZ, because of the art style.
At a little older, when I first saw the gameboy game, I would not have known the prior art well enough to see the Dragon Quest or the Megaten.
I was a kid.
These people apparently purport to be adults.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, January 29 2024 07:34 AM (r9O5h)
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