In the run up to the release of Fallout, the new movie in the Mission Impossible franchise, Paramount studio re-released the entire Mission Impossible series on 4K Blu-ray last month. The new discs aren't only a huge upgrade for cinephiles -- they're also a fascinating glimpse at how studios can revive older films for the 4K/HDR era. Engadget: "In terms of any re-transfers or remastering that we are doing for our HDR releases, we will go back to the highest resolution source available," Kirsten Pielstick, manager of Paramount's digital mastering group, said in an interview. In the case of Mission Impossible 1 and 2, that involved scanning the original 35mm negatives in 4K/16-bit. As you'd expect, the studio tries to get the original artists involved with any remasters, especially with something like HDR, which allows for higher brightness and more nuanced black levels. Pielstick worked with the director of photography (DP) for the first Mission Impossible film, Stephen H. Burum, to make sure its noir-like palette stayed intact. [...] "Our mastering philosophy here is always to work directly with the talent whenever possible, and use the new technology to enhance the movie, but always stay true to the intent of the movie," Pielstick said. "You're not going to want to make things brighter just because you can, if it's not the intent of how you were supposed to see things." [...] "You also have to remember that we're not putting in anything that didn't exist on the film [for HD remasters]," Pielstick added. "It was always there we just didn't have the ability to see it. So we're not adding anything new, we're not doing anything to increase those, we're just able to look at the negative in a much clearer way than we ever could before."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Today's tech startups have largely stayed out of the debate over whether antitrust law should be used to humble -- and possibly break up -- giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon. Startups are often in position to lead the antitrust charge against major competitors. But entrepreneurs face a dilemma: If they go running to regulators, they have to admit they're in danger and tick off a powerful player in their world. If they do nothing, they risk bleeding out. [...] Tech giants have immense leverage over startups. "The tech hypercaps have never been more powerful relative to startups, including Microsoft in the '90s," said Sam Altman, the president of startup accelerator Y Combinator. "[T]he resources are so mismatched it's an unfair fight." Startups (or larger competitors) can confidentially press their case before staff members at the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission, or the startups can go public with their concerns. With the exception of Yelp, there are no major startups in the U.S. that have turned to regulators to take on today's biggest companies, like Facebook, Amazon, or Google. [...] Why startups don't lodge antitrust complaints: "Running a startup, running a growth company there's so many things to do, and every hour is precious," said Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures.

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North Korean films are publicly shown for first the at a South Korean film festival amid the thaw in inter-Korean relations.

If passed, the new law will define Israel exclusively as nation for Jewish people, marginalising 1.8m Palestinians.

Jeff Grubb, reporting for VentureBeat: Over the weekend, some thrifty gamers spotted a deal on Amazon. A downloadable version of the tough strategy survival sim Frostpunk was available on the Amazon Marketplace from a third-party seller for $3, which is a 90 percent discount from the standard $30 price. But after looking into the game, some customers who dropped the three bucks had some questions. For example, why does the metadata for this version of Frostpunk refer to the DRM-free version that people can buy from GOG. [...] So I reached out to Amazon, and it provided the following statement from a company spokesperson: "Our customers trust that when they make a purchase through Amazon's store --either directly from Amazon or from its third-party sellers -- they will receive authentic products, and we take any claims that endanger that trust seriously. We strictly prohibit the sale of counterfeit products, and these games have been removed." That's all it would say on this.

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Rescue crews were able to save 105 people, but were still searching for around 30 people.

The 2nd Circuit denies an immediate appeal in a case that challenges how news organizations used embedded photos of Tom Brady. The Hollywood Reporter: Back in February, a New York judge caused a bit of a freakout by issuing a copyright decision regarding the embedding of a copyrighted photo of NFL superstar Tom Brady. Now comes another surprise with potentially big ramifications to the future of embedding and in-line linking: The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has denied an interlocutory appeal. Justin Goldman is the plaintiff in the lawsuit after finding the photo of the New England Patriots quarterback he shot and uploaded to Snapchat go viral. Many news organizations embedded social media posts that took Goldman's photo in stories about whether the Boston Celtics would recruit NBA star Kevin Durant with Brady's assistance. Breitbart, Heavy, Time, Yahoo, Vox Media, Gannett Company, Herald Media, Boston Globe Media Partners and New England Sports Network were defendants in the lawsuit, but many of these companies have since settled. Heavy has not, and in February, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest shocked many legal observers with a decision that refused to apply the "Server Test," where the direct liability of a website publisher for copyright infringement turns on whether the image is hosted on the publisher's own server or is embedded or linked from a third-party server. Although the Server Test has been adopted in other jurisdictions, Forrest wrote, "The plain language of the Copyright Act, the legislative history undergirding its enactment, and subsequent Supreme Court jurisprudence provide no basis for a rule that allows the physical location or possession of an image to determine who may or may not have 'displayed' a work within the meaning of the Copyright Act." She added, "Nowhere does the Copyright Act suggest that possession of an image is necessary in order to display it. Indeed, the purpose and language of the Act support the opposite view."

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Scientists from Edith Cowan University say the new test could help doctors detect the skin cancer before it spreads.

Kim Zetter, reporting for Motherboard: The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them. In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software ... to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them. The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees, ⦠including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said. ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it's not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.

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The Nassib crossing, at the Syria-Jordan border, had been closed for years causing billions of dollars in losses.

Rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into the recent extrajudicial killings of 11 suspected criminals in an intensified crackdown on drug dealers.

Four men. Four stories. Four alternative views of the battle for Aleppo.

Trump has been trying to erode Russia's monopoly over Europe's gas market for the past year.

The boys and their coach are discharged from hospital after they were extracted from a cave in a daring operation.