Latest News - Page 2642

DARPA wants to help develop new solutions to defend against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, with foreign cybercriminals launching large volumes of attacks against US military and government targets.

The Extreme DDoS Defense (XD3) aims to provide a DDoS countermeasure system that is able to identify incoming attacks, and help defend networks. Depending on the attack sophistication, DARPA wants to have a response time of 10 seconds or less - a difficult challenge, but an important one that could be used in the private sector and by the government/military.

"In general, the program aims to thwart DDoS attacks by dispersing cyber assets (physically and/or logically), disguising the characteristics and behaviors of those assets, and mitigating the attacks (especially low-volume attacks) that still penetrate the targeted environment," according to the DARPA Broad Agency announcement, asking for applicants.

Throughout the decades Nintendo has been forced to reinvent itself in some capacity with every new generation, and now it looks like the Japanese gaming giant might make a dramatic change and open the doors to film adaptations of its beloved franchises like The Legend of Zelda.

"Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people's natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies," Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto said in an interview with Fortune. "I've always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different."

"As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo's role as an entertainment company, we're starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that," he added. "And we'll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future."

Well, it didn't take long before the scam artists and extortionists started taking advantage of the recent Ashley Madison data dump. People with email addresses exposed are receiving shady looking emails that demand payment in exchange for secrecy so their spouses and partners aren't informed.

Here is one email that was shared with Brian Krebs from Krebs on Security:

Hello,

Grand Theft Auto V has topped 54 million copies shipped, with the Grand Theft Auto series reaching 220 million units, according to Take-Two Interactive. The disclosure was filed in a recent SEC report, with the game studio describing 2015 as "one of [its] best years ever."

Instead of noting how many units have been sold, the number of units shipped describes shipments to game retailers. However, it's still an impressive accomplishment, as Grand Theft Auto one of the most successful game franchises - still unable to close in on Mario or Pokemon, but ahead of Call of Duty.

However, Grand Theft Auto could put pressure on Pokemon - which tallies close to 300 million - as there are new game updates and editors in the works.

Want your DualShock 4 to last longer? The solution is simple--just swap out the battery.

With a sleek feel and an innovative touchpad, the PS4's wireless DualShock 4 controller is arguably one of the best controllers in recent memory, but it has one problem: the power-draining lightbar. Although the lightbar is a nifty little feature that actually changes color to signal in-game interaction, most PS4 users would be happy to nix the light just to get some extra usage time before having to recharge.

The easiest solution is simply unscrewing the DualShock 4 and swapping out its stock 1,000 mAh battery and replacing it with this 2,000 mAh battery for just $4.32 which will double its battery life. Or you could spend $13 for Nyko's PS4 PowerPak.

In Win has just announced their new 805 Mid Tower, which continues the "element of aluminum and tempered glass", with the new 805 Mid Tower also featuring a USB 3.1 Type-C port.

It has a very unique look with a 'skeleton structure' that is completely see through, allowing a huge 270-degree wide-angle look inside of the case. So for case modders and gamers who want to show off the insides of their gaming PCs, the new In Win 805 Mid Tower is going to be quite the unique chassis.

Better yet, it comes in a few different versions with a 'white LED light' in the gold and black editions, while the red LED will light up on the red version of the 805 Mid Tower. The inclusion of a USB 3.1 Type-C port allows owners of the In Win 805 Mid Tower to use 10Gbps speeds, transferring files to and from their external drives at over 1GB/sec.

A new patent filing has unloaded a bevy of new information on Nintendo's mysterious NX console, giving a new perspective on what Nintendo is cooking up for the future. The patent, which was filed in February and just released, describes Nintendo's filing as a "Stationary Game Apparatus, Game Apparatus, Game System, Recording Medium and Speed Control Method".

What we know so far is that the NX won't have a disc drive, that it sports two NAND flash memory banks as well as a primary hard-disk for storage, a processor, and its very own Wii U-like wireless display controller. Rather than relying on Blu-ray discs the console will instead rely on SD memory cards, which herald a nostalgic transition back to the cartridge medium which most of us grew up on. Only instead of the 128MB SNES cards of our youth, the NX will need at least 32-64GB SD cards to keep up with today's demanding games. It's likely that the system will also be buffered by digital games and apps via Nintendo's eShop.

According to the filing, the NX includes "a processor, a first memory, a second memory, an internal HDD (Hard Disk Drive), an image output unit , a communication unit, a wireless communication unit, a power supply unit, an HDD connection unit, a card slot, and a wireless display controller".

One of the more surprising video cards in AMD's new Fiji-powered lineup was the super-small Radeon R9 Nano, which is only as long as the PCI Express x16 port that it gets installed into.

The Radeon R9 Nano uses the same Fiji GPU that the R9 Fury and R9 Fury X are based on, with 4GB of HBM on-board. AMD is teasing that the R9 Nano has 2x the performance-per-watt compared to the Hawaii-based R9 290X, which is quite the claim. Especially when you consider that the R9 Nano will be using just 175W of power.

As for the performance compared to the Radeon R9 Fury X, it will reportedly have up to 85-90% of the performance that the Fury X does, leaving it toe-and-toe with the R9 Fury. If this is true, the R9 Nano will become AMD's most exciting video card released out of all of the Fury and 300 series cards.

Evolution Studios, the developer behind PlayStation 4 exclusive Driveclub, has announced that they've sold over 2 million copies of the game. The studio has said that it reached the goal before the free trial version was offered through PlayStation Plus.

The developer has also said that it will continue to support Driveclub for another year at least, with more DLC expected in the near future. Evolution Studios teased that there will soon be new features, modes, tracks, cars and even some "big surprises" announced soon. Monthly updates are on the horizon, with the studio to soon add fan-requested features such as fully customizable multiplayer lobbies, new difficulty options, more tracks, community events, extra photo mode options, fine tuning for drift mode, smarter notifications, and "a lot more".

Driveclub fans are already enjoying a Double XP weekend which is active on all 15 cars in the PlayStation Plus edition, with the Double XP weekend continuing until Monday, August 24.

Avid Life Media has gone on the offensive following the Ashley Madison data dump, sending takedown notices to social networking websites and file-sharing services.

Stolen data includes data of up to 33 million users, and while removing data from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and other sites has been successful, it's going to be nearly impossible to scrub the data dump from the Internet.

The data is out there, and there are plenty of links to anyone looking for a searchable database - yielding everything from names, usernames, email addresses, and sexual preferences - as Avid Life Media tries a desperate effort to fix its PR disaster.

It looks like spouses are calling divorce lawyers after finding potentially unfaithful partners listed as members of Ashley Madison.

A report published by The Times indicates relationship counseling services and divorce lawyers have seen an uptick in phone calls and correspondence from angry spouses. After 33 million members were exposed, it's likely a similar trend is likely to happen in the United States and elsewhere in the world - as more people search the database.

The data dump has created "lots of difficult emotions" for partners finding spouses in the Ashley Madison data dump, said Denise Knowles, a counselor at Relate counseling service, told The Times.

Spotify tried to quietly change its privacy policy, but issued a public apology after members and subscribers voiced their displeasure over the changes.

The policy change requested access to pictures on mobile devices, phone contacts, voice controls, and location information - but Spotify justified the changes.

Users are able to choose which images they choose with Spotify, and have control over how the images are stored and used. The location identification is to help personalize recommendations, along with share information about trending music in a user's area. Spotify might include voice controls so it's easier to control playlists, and isn't interested in accessing a user's microphone without permission.

Avid Life Media has suffered a major PR disaster after hackers were able to spend a lengthy amount of time stealing data from the Ashley Madison website. The Impact Team hacker group, reportedly made up of "very" experienced hackers, has collected information from Ashley Madison "over the past few years."

"Bad. Nobody was watching," The Impact Team told Motherboard, when asked about security protocols. "No security. Only thing was segmented network. You could use Pass1234 from the Internet to VPN to root on all servers."

The group also has plenty of other information taken from Avid Life Media, including "300GB of employee emails and docs from internal network. Tens of thousands of Ashley Madison user pictures. Some Ashley Madison user chats and messages. 1/3 of pictures are dick pictures and we won't dump. Not dumping most employee emails either. Maybe other executives."

During the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel spent a lot of time promoting the "Maker" craze in the current world. Intel corporate strategy officer Genevieve Bell believes it's a great time in the maker movement, with Intel interested in supporting new technology ecosystems created by developers.

Intel is a supporter of the Maker Faire and of Make magazine, with growing popularity in the print publication and global maker events.

"It's never been a more exciting and accessible time to invent the future," Bell said during IDF. "It's about changing the world, in small ways and big ways. It's about breaking the rules. Possibilities and disruption. Hard work. Solitary or collaborative. It's not always clear what you are doing. It involves curiosity. It certainly involves failures. It is exhilarating. Sometimes people resist it. To me, that is making."

After reports that Apple Music members are jumping ship, Apple has issued a statement saying just 21 percent of users have stopped using the streaming music service.

The MusicWatch survey indicated around 48 percent of people testing the service are jumping ship. In its survey of 5,000 users, 28 percent are Spotify Premium members, 11 percent use Spotify free users, and six percent listen to ad-supported Pandora.

In late July, it was reported Apple Music had 10 million users - and Apple reported 11 million users in early August - are currently enjoying a free three-month trial of the new streaming service. Spotify has 20 million paid subscribers and about 55 million free users.

It's not a surprise that federal agencies have fully embraced mobile technology like smartphones and tablets, but there is great concern that 40 percent of government employees put sensitive data at risk by ignoring agency policies.

A recent study from mobile security firm Lookout discovered employees rooting, jailbreaking and sideloading applications, while still having direct access to work documents, work email, and other possibly sensitive data. The study also found 49 percent of federal employees don't have any form of anti-malware or anti-virus security solution installed, and employees use unsecured devices while handling sensitive data.

Not that the policies used by government agencies should be followed in the private sector, but gives decision makers guidelines on behaviors that don't work - and how to avoid them.

Bethesda has grown considerably over the years, evolving from a dev studio to a titan reigning over a consortium of studios and IP's. The company wants to start firing on all cylinders for the future, but first it plans to dethrone Skyrim and crown Fallout 4 as its most popular game release.

In a recent interview with MCV, Bethsoft exec Pete Hines discusses the company's most important game for the next year or so: "I think Fallout 4 can top Skyrim [to become] our biggest release ever. But we will see. It is part of my job to build the megaphone that we hold up to the game, and the game decides how loud it goes. Just how big it is going to be is hard to say. Skyrim was a massively big deal."

Although Fallout 4 will be the nexus of Bethsoft's attention for quite some time, it still has a number of other projects like Doom 4 and Dishonored 2 in the works. Hines went on to say that the studio wants to find a consistent stride that involves "releasing up to three to four games a year", but Bethsoft isn't about to release first-party juggernauts like Elder Scrolls and Fallout together in the same period. This push towards more production isn't going to jeopardize the studio's carefully cultivated image of quality over quantity and Hines affirms that we don't have to worry about Bethesda becoming another Activision or Ubisoft.

Although not in-game footage specifically, this trailer is "inspired by the emotional experience of Until Dawn" and features one young woman's bid to free herself from the clutches of serial-killing madmen.

This R18+ PlayStation 4 exclusive title is 'Road Not Taken - Until Dawn' and is based on a classic poem by Robert Frost. The video itself is produced by the PlayStation Australian team and depicts some of the sequences of gameplay you can come to expect in Until Dawn, deciding the fate of your character depending on action you take.

The main character, Sam, is played here by Hayden Panetierre, and this short film showcases ways that you might go about escaping or confronting your masked killer, trying all options available through a process of trial and error.

2K Games and Firaxis Games have released a new 12-minute gameplay video of XCOM 2, with action taking place 20 years after XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Humans lost the war with the aliens, and viewers can take a look at the custom mobile HQ, customization systems, and upgrade paths for weapons, armors, and other characteristics.

Working under the alien regime following a major war, a human resistance is tasked with trying to overthrow the alien race's power.

XCOM 2 is scheduled for release in November, and will be available for PCs, Mac OS, and Linux. A console launch for the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 is still possible, but 2K and Firaxis Games haven't announced anything.

Once a week my parents would buy the newspaper in order to get a TV guide for the next 7 days. I'd groan as a flip the pages and realize that there is actually nothing worth watching for a whole week, so I'd run off to tinker with computers a little more. This old technology has been largely replaced by online guides which are live updating and cover hundreds more channels - so why not have something like this for eSports events?

Well, the guys at FolloweSports.com thought exactly the same thing, so they went out and something to fix this issue. It's free to use and covered all major eSports titles - loading up the webpage quickly I can see all tournaments that are currently or soon to be happening, complete with prize pools, bracket information, event naming, game titles and more.

Without signing in, all game times are tailored towards my personal time zone and each game has a direct link to the stream when live. There's a bunch of filters and searches you can conduct to find something specifically if you wish.