Latest News - Page 1616

It seems as though some hackers got into the University of Edinburgh's ARCHER supercomputer, forcing administrators to recently shut it d own and look into the attack. It's forced them to reset all SSH passwords, too.

Computer Security Incident Response Team (or CSIRT for short) for the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) have released samples of the malware used, as well as network compromise indicators for some of the hacks on the ARCHER supercomputer. Other security researchers have since reviewed the samples and said hackers were successful in their infiltration of the ARCHER supercomputer through compromised SSH credentials.

ZDNet reports that the first report of an attack on ARCHER on Monday, reporting a "security exploitation on the ARCHER login notes". System administrators quickly shut the ARCHER supercomputer down, and reset SSH passwords to stop future attacks.

Well folks, it looks like we might not need a coronavirus vaccine after all -- as the former World Health Organization (WHO) director said that COVID-19 could "burn out naturally", thus, not needing a vaccine.

The former WHO director tweeted: "There is a real chance that the virus will burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed. We are seeing a roughly similar pattern everywhere - I suspect we have more immunity than estimated. We need to keep slowing the virus, but it could be petering out by itself".

Professor Sikora replied to his own tweet, adding: "It is my opinion that this is a feasible scenario. Nobody is claiming to know what will happen for sure - I believe in an unknown situation this is a possibility. We need to continue to keep our distance and hope the numbers continue to improve".

HBO Max is about to launch and with it there will be millions of hours of your favorite TV shows and movies, and hopefully the launch of Zack Snyder's Justice League -- yeah of course I was going to say it.

AT&T's Warner Media will be launching HBO Max on May 27 for a price of $15 per month, which is more expensive than the competitors and their cheapest plans. Netflix costs $9 per month, while Disney+ starts at $7 per month, and Apple TV+ at $5 per month. However, HBO Max launches out of the gate with some gigantic libraries of some of the biggest TV shows in history, as well as a gigantic library of movies.

HBO Max isn't just another quick streaming service being launched, rather the company has invested billions of dollars into HBO Max to make sure it is a success. This is why the company paid $1 billion to the streaming rights of The Big Bang Theory, a 5-year streaming deal for Seinfeld that cost over $500 million, and they signed Lost and Fringe creator, as well as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Mission Impossible director J.J. Abrams for $250 million.

Zack Snyder recently held an awesome and very casual screening of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on his personal Vero account, and now the director has announced a Man of Steel Watch Party. You can join the Man of Steel Watch Party (with a Q&A) right here.

Snyder will host the Man of Steel Watch Party on his personal Vero account on Wednesday, May 20 @ 8AM PDT, where he will provide some live commentary on the movie. He tweeted: "Many of us are struggling during this difficult time. Felt it could be cathartic to come together now for a Man of Steel Watch Party and celebrate the ultimate symbol of hope. Submit some questions, I'll answer a few after".

Man of Steel was an important moment for Warner Bros. as it started the DCEU, in its battle against Marvel and the MCU. Snyder had much more control alongside Dark Knight producer Christopher Nolan, with Man of Steel being the start of a 5-part story arc from the director. The second movie was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the third was Justice League.

It might not seem like it, but Disney has had a gigantic shake up internally in the last few months -- having its ex-CEO Robert Iger stepping down in February 2020, and now its head of streaming has left for TikTok.

Disney has lost its Head of Streaming to Chinese video giant TikTok (where influencers can make $1 million per post -- more on that here), with Kevin Mayer leaving as the boss of Disney's Direct to Consumer & International division. Mayer was recently passed over for the position of CEO when Iger stepped away suddenly, with now-CEO Bob Chapek replacing him.

Just as Disney+ is beginning its streaming dominance, and days away from the huge launch of HBO Max -- it loses its head of streaming to... TikTok. There's another few reasons why this is big: Mayer has been with Disney for over a decade, joining Disney in 1993 -- but left the company for Playboy.com, and then returned to Disney to run many websites for the company that eventually led him to strategic planning at Disney.

We are not very far away from the official launch of Intel's new 10th Gen Core processor launch, with the Comet Lake-S processors led by the flagship Core i9-10900K -- which TecLab is reviewing early with some delicious results below.

TecLab secured themselves a retail processor, so it has not been cherry-picked like most of the review samples going out to the press. TecLab used an Intel Z490-based motherboard (but didn't say which board they used) against AMD's Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 9 3950X processors inside of the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE motherboard.

Both systems were powered with DDR4 memory with the AMD system using DDR4-3600 while the Intel system bumped it up to DDR4-4000, an 850W PSU, and EKWB AIO 360 D-RGB cooler. In terms of graphics cards, the systems were powered by the GALAX HOF GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Sony plans to start breaking its silence on PS5 games and hardware in early June, sources tell VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb.

We actually know a lot about the PlayStation 5, including its next-gen DualSense controller, the system's internal specs, how transformative the PCIe 4.0 SSD is, and how the system's SoC has been customized to push more performance at a steady rate of power. But the most important info still remains a mystery: Price, form factor, and the games. Sony will start revealing its hand starting in June.

Sony's June stream will focus on next-gen games, sources tell VentureBeat, but there's no word on whether or not the PS5 will be revealed in earnest.

A random 4Chan rumor laid out an appealing proposition: Daredevil getting the Spider-Man exclusive treatment on Sony's PlayStation 5. Too bad it's not actually happening.

Following big heated anticipation, Marvel has officially squashed the Daredevil PS5 game reports. Marvel's creative VP Bill Rosemann confirms no such game is in active development with Marvel and its partners. Rosemann wants to do it, though.

"From the office of Nelson & Murdock: While Bill greatly admires the Man Without Fear, there is no Daredevil game in development. Bill's tweet to Troy Baker was an acknowledgment of their shared desire about creating said game & he apologizes for any confusion his tweet created," Rosemann said.

Respawn's new Apex Legends studio team is part of Electronic Arts' Vancouver-based offices, and joins teams from EA Motive and EA Vancouver.

Apex Legends is one of the biggest things EA has right now. The BR sensation contributed lots to EA's $2.7 billion earned from live services in FY20, and the company has made comments about carrying Apex across the next decade.

"You'll see us launch true platform games like Apex Legends, which we expect will continue to grow over the next decade," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q4'20 earnings call. So it makes sense that EA and Respawn are opening a second studio in Vancouver to focus exclusively on the game's continued development.

If PC gamers want to be able to game on the go, a standard gaming notebook is the traditional answer. The problem is that the hardware required inside most gaming notebooks means they are larger, bulky machines. A very small and portable mobile gaming machine for PC fans called the GPD WIN Max is currently on Indiegogo. The campaign went live not long ago, seeking a goal of $25,801.

As of writing, the Indiegogo campaign for the handheld game console has raised $1,149,675, which is over 4450% of its initial goal. Even more impressive than raising over $1.1 million is that the campaign has 44 days left to go. The hardware inside the small chassis is impressive considering the machine's size with a 10th generation and Intel Core i5-1035G7 and Intel Iris Plus 940 graphics. The builders of the device claim that the GPU performs nearly as good as an NVIDIA GeForce MX250 on 3DMark 11 with lower power consumption.

The little gaming machine has an eight-inch H-IPS display and 512 GB of storage. Under its tiny hood is 16 GB of LPDDR4 RAM. One of the more exciting features of the small, mobile, PC gaming device is D-Pad, a pair of joysticks, and four buttons above the keyboard. Power comes from three 5000 mAh batteries good for about three hours of runtime with heavy use and up to 14 hours of runtime for light use.

Microtransactions and monetization drive Activision's business. New games are just gateways to live service earnings. This should be the case for the new Tony Hawk remaster collection, which is a prime avenue for in-game purchases.

The new Tony Hawk remaster collection will have live service hooks via online multiplayer and custom map-making, so it should be monetized. Successfully monetizing engagement is the entire basis for Activison's billion-dollar business (ATVI earned $956 million from mTX in Q1'20 alone), and that even includes some games that don't really need it, including Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.

The same should be true for the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 collection releasing in September. While Activision and developer Vicarious Visions promise the game won't have microtransactions at launch, that doesn't mean the game will stay mTX free. Crash Team Racing didn't have mTX at launch either--those were added in later. Given Tony Hawk's robust monetization potential, I'm pretty sure the game will have some sort of buyable content.

Amazon has an outstanding deal going right now on the Microsoft Surface Pro X. It's offering a discount of 31% or $399.01 off the standard retail price of $1299. With the discount, the purchase price comes down to $899.99. It's worth noting that this deal is for the version of the tablet with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage.

The removable keyboard is not included at that price. Buyers wanting the tablet with the Surface Pro X Signature Keyboard and the Slim Pen accessory will pay $1249. That represents a discount of $321 off the normal price. Either way, you go, both bundles include a tablet that has both Wi-Fi and integrated 4G LTE connectivity.

While the Pro X lacks an Intel processor like other tablets in the Surface range, it does run Windows 10 home. The processor is made by Qualcomm and is a custom part called the Microsoft SQ1. The display is a 13-inch touchscreen with a native resolution of 2880 x 1920. Microsoft integrates firmware TPM, and enterprise-grade protection with Windows Hello face sign-in.

Square Enix's latest financials show steady earnings and profit resiliency against COVID-19 disruption and weak yen exchange rates, but overall game sales are down year-over-year.

Square Enix just announced its latest earnings report for FY19, and unlike Sony and Konami, the Final Fantasy-maker didn't see a profit slide. In the period ending March 31, 2020, Square Enix earned $196.37 million in profits, up over 10% from last year's strong surge in game releases. Net sales were down 4%, weighted by hefty dips in physical game purchases. Operating income jumped 33% to $301.37 million on the back of strong mobile/browser and MMO segment earnings.

Overall game sales were down 32% from last year and managed to push 18.09 million across both physical and digital. Physical saw the biggest sales drop.

Italy has been one of the countries hit hardest by the coronavirus, and yet the country's government has just announced that it will reopen in early June.

According to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who spoke publically through a television address to the country, Italy will reopen early June to European tourists. This is an effort by the government to restart the economy, while at same time being extra cautious of a potential second wave of COVID-19. Cote said that gyms and cinemas will also be reopening, and that "We're facing a calculated risk in the knowledge that the contagion curve may rise again. We have to accept it otherwise we will never be able to start up again."

Italy is heavily dependant on its tourism, and early in early March, Cote announced a full shutdown of the country due to coronavirus. Now, the virus has taken nearly 32,000 lives. Italy will also be abandoning the two-week mandatory quarantine when tourists decide to enter the country; this new ruling will begin on June 3. Local authorities will be monitoring the situation, and if they notice a spike in COVID-19 infection cases, they will be limiting travel throughout the region.

I'm sure most of you will know what "red pilling" someone means, but if not here is the definition of it in the "slang dictionary" of Dictionary.com: "Red pill refers to the truth behind a situation, especially a truth that is difficult to accept".

The site itself even refers to it originating from "1999 cult classic film" -- and one of my favorite movies of all time: The Matrix. Dictionary.com explains: "There's a scene early on in the movie in which the main character, Neo, is offered two pills: a red one and a blue one. The red pill represents an awakening, but one that could be difficult and painful. Neo's world will be changed uncomfortably if he takes the red pill, but he'll be made aware of the truth of the world. The blue pill represents comfort and security. If he takes the blue pill, he'll continue to live in blissful ignorance".

But now there's a war raging on Twitter between Lilly Wachowski, who is the director of the upcoming The Matrix 4 -- as well as co-director on The Matrix Trilogy, and SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk -- as well as President Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump.

Epic Games blew the world away with the announcement of Unreal Engine 5, and while you will need a next-gen console like the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X -- you will be able to run it on the PC too.

On the PC you'll need a high-end GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER at a minimum, as well as a super-fast NVMe SSD -- but what about Commodore 64 owners? Yeah, sorry everyone -- you'll need to do some upgrades I think. Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney joked around recently, where during his talks about Unreal Engine 5 he said that the Commodore 64 won't be supported.

In a flurry of tweets, Sweeney addressed the mind blowing Unreal Engine 5 demo on the PlayStation 5 as "the culmination of years of discussions between Sony and Epic on future graphics and storage architectures". Sweeney tweeted:

MSI is continuing to introduce new members into its growing family of PC products, where today the company is announcing its first liquid cooler: the MAG CORELIQUID series.

The new MSI MAG CORELIQUID series comes in four different models, with the MAG CORELIQUID 360R, MAG CORELIQUID 360RH, MAG CORELIQUID 240R, and MAG CORELIQUID 240RH. As you can probably already tell by the product names here, there are two with 360mm radiators, and two models with 240mm radiators.

MSI has integrated the pump itself into the radiator, something that will reduce the sound emitted from the MAG CORELIQUID cooler. Not only that, but MSI has used a three-phase motor in the core of the pump which will reduce vibrations, also keeping the noise down.

Epic Games blew our minds with their recent unveiling of Unreal Engine 5 and its recent video, which is an utter work of art and one of the examples of the closest we've gotten to photorealistic graphics.

Well, now we know what kind of grunt you'll need inside of your gaming PC to pull it off. Epic used Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 to run the Unreal Engine 5 demo, but World Today News has compiled some statements from Epic Games that detail just what we need to run the demo on our PCs (if we could).

Kim Libreri, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Epic Games, was paraphrased by World Today News: "Can the demo work on a modern PC with the GeForce RTX 2070 Super? According to Mr. Libreri, yes, and the results will be 'pretty good.' For comparison: the PS5 graphics accelerator, on which the demonstration was run, is capable of providing up to 10.28 teraflops (TFLOPS), and the GeForce RTX 2070 Super has a theoretical performance of 9 TFLOPS".

Epic Games recently announced some big changes and developments that'll arm game creators with even more power and flexibility for their titles.

Shortly after announcing Unreal Engine 5, Epic Games also revealed two other major breakthroughs for game devs: Waived royalty fees until a game sells a certain amount, and new online services. UE5 in itself offers huge advantages for productivity and efficiency, namely for artists. The engine uses new Nanite polygon technology that allows artists to render native cinematic-quality megatextures into scenes via virtual sub-pixel goemetry, complete with no LoD or pop-ins. Devs can easily import assets and replicate them on-the-fly to increase productivity.

On the business level, Epic is also helping developers earn money without being instantly weighted down by fees. Unreal Engine royalty fees are now waived until the game makes its first $1 million, and that also includes UE5 when it launches in 2021. And even then the licensing is 5% afterwards.

UPDATE: Bethesda confirms Fallout 76's seasonal battle pass-style system will remain free for everyone.

You can often tell how well a live game is doing based on its updates--frequency, radical changes etc. If a GaaS title is constantly shifting things around and trying new things, odds are it's not monetizing well and the devs are trying new tricks to see what works. That's apparently happening with Fallout 76 and Bethesda's aggressive push towards new models.

Fallout 76 has pretty much tried every popular monetization scheme under the sun. Now it's trying something new, well not new for the industry, but new for the game. In an attempt to re-engage its playerbase and spin the Engagement Cycle wheel, Fallout 76 now has a tiered progression system right out of a battle pass. This system is free at the start, but Bethesda inadvertently hints we may have to pay for battle passes eventually: