Latest News - Page 2708

Yesterday we told you about how ESEA and the all-mighty Valve had spoken up, banning numerous American and Canadian professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players from their future events due to match fixing and a betting scandal.

In recent news, two other large-scale CS:GO entities have followed suit - seeing FACEIT and CEVO both taking action against these players.

FACEIT have removed the ex-iBUYPOWER team from their 2015 league, further stating that Joshua "steel" Nissan and Derek "dboorN" Boorn from Torqued will be barred from competing in their league closed qualifier. Not only the players were affected, with Casey Foster (pictured above), a member in this scandal and a head admin of FACEIT North America, being dismissed from his position.

While CD Projekt Red may have delayed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to May 19, we're finding out more information on the game thanks to various members of the press playing with the latest build of the open-world title.

The developer has revealed that the most recent build of The Witcher 3 is running at 1080p on the PS4 while the Xbox One version is knocked down to 900p on the Xbox One, which is the least impressive version of the game against the PS4 and PC. The Witcher 3 on the PS4 is running at 1080p at 30FPS with higher fidelity graphics than the Xbox One version, even though it's been knocked down to 900p.

What's more interesting is that gaming industry insider 'shinobi602' reporting that the PCs that CD Projekt Red had setup with The Witcher 3 were "specced to consoles" or whatever that means.

In something that feels like it has come truly out of nowhere, Netflix has teased its new original series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. The new series is a prequel to David Wain's 2001 comedy, which has a huge list of stars attached to it, as well as an iconic 80s America look to it.

As for the list of actors, check this out: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Michael Ian Black, Judah Friedlander, Janeane Garofalo, Ken Marino, Zak Orth, David Hyde Pierce, Joe LoTruglio, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Michael Showalter, and Molly Shannon.

We will see Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp released with an 8-episode limited run. Also, because of the sheer size of the cast, only a few of them will be used per episode, in a similar matter to how Netflix handled Arrested Development. There's currently no release date for Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to finish this movie five months earlier.

In an event that rarely occurs in Hollywood, Paramount Pictures has decided to move the fifth installment of the long running Tom Cruise spy franchise 'Mission Impossible' forward by a whole 5 months. The initially announced release date of December 25th has now changed to July 31.

Hemled by Christopher McQuarrie who previously directed Cruise in 2013's 'Jack Reacher'), the film reprises Jeremy Renner as Agent Brandt, Simon Pegg as Benji and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell. New to the film are Alec Baldwin, Simon McBurney and Rebecca Ferguson. With this newly minted released date, look for marketing including the first theatrical teaser trailer to begin ramping up soon.

When Microsoft launched the first Windows 10 Technical Preview last year, it included a built-in keylogger that would collect information about "you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage".

Well, it looks like the latest version of Windows 10 that the public can get its hands-on in the form of the Technical Preview still includes this built-in keylogger. Microsoft adds "[When you] enter text, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features".

Since this is stated in the EULA for the Windows 10 Technical Preview, Microsoft isn't exactly hiding it. A post on Reddit bought this to my attention, warning people to not use this as their "daily driver" operating system. Since it's collecting copious amounts of not just personal data, but being a keylogger, it can secure everything on you. What if someone has found a way to hack into this built-in keylogger, and has been taking users' logged keys of Internet banking sessions, and various log-ins like Facebook and the such?

Late last year, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Jurassic World' star Chris Pratt passed on the role of the video game adaptation of Sony's 'Uncharted', which I thought was rather curious at the time. Now, it's a little clearer why.

According to Deadline Hollywood, Disney, who now own the rights to the 'Indiana Jones' franchise after purchasing Lucasfilm in 2012, are not only looking at bringing the franchise back, but are looking at casting Chris Pratt in the role once occupied by 72 year old Harrison Ford.

Deadline do make the point that "while things are very early", it sure looks like we might be seeing some more 'Indiana Jones' adventures soon - and hearkening back to the classic Hollywood serials that the franchise is based on, I think this can only be a great thing.

A little over fifteen years ago Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. In a final convulsion, the company decided to bring back its exiled founder Steve Jobs who, as we all know, went on to revolutionise the company to the powerhouse it is today. Still, not many industry analysts called today's profit result for the company, which has just broken the record for the largest quarterly profit in history.

According to the release from the company, up until the quarter ending quarter ending December 27 2014, Apple earned $74.6 billion in gross revenue and recorded quarterly net profit of $18 billion, primarily off the back of strong strong sales of iPhone and Mac products leading into the Christmas period.

To put the revenue result in context, this is more than Microsoft and Google combined, with the latter making less than what Apple did in this quarter in all of 2014. Apple shares closed last night at just under $110 dollars.

Set to ride the smartwatch success wave, Chris V Woolpert has set out to create a limited edition charging station - adding class and style to your charging experience.

Recently releasing a Kickstarter campaign, Woolpert describes this project as a "derivative or "spin off" design from a larger parent design project called USDCS." Further explaining that "the goal of this Kickstarter project is to raise funds for the proper development of the USDCS smart technology design project."

The product itself will hold your smartwatch up high for all to see, whilst providing a charging cable threaded through the 'arm' of the device - allowing you to hold and charge your smartwatch in style. All new major-brand smartwatch releases will require nightly charging, so if you're looking to keep your watch safely off the ground or a desk, this might be the solution for you.

Just 8 years on from the release of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer', which starred a pre-'Captain America' Chris Evans, Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd, Twentieth Century Fox have completely reset the franchise, with the release of this years 'The Fantastic Four' from 'Chronicle' director John Trank.

The studio have now released their first look at the film, with a rather generous 2 minute trailer that I gotta admit doesn't really make me excited in the same way as, say 'Jurassic World' or 'Terminator: Genisys'. Still, take a look and see for yourself.

'The Fantastic Four' hits screens worldwide in August, and also in 3D if you're that way inclined.

With $1.428 billion net revenue posted for the reported period, EA blew their $1.275 billion expectation out of the water - claimed by CEO Andrew Wilson as due to "great execution with our leading IP, new mobile hits and continued strength in our catalogue of top games and services."

Proud of their results, Wilson went on to state that "Electronic Arts delivered amazing experiences to our players in Q3, from the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition to SimCity BuildIt to our live services for FIFA, Madden NFL and more," as seen in their recent press release. The results achieved this quarter mark a record for Electronic Arts, seeing it ranked as the best "cash flow for a calendar year period."

Further results include EA being listed as the #1 publisher on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - due to their releases of Dragon Age: Inquisition, FIFA 15, NHL 15, Madden NFL 15, UFC, Titanfall, Battlefield 4 and FIFA 14. They also pushed through 22 million downloads on SimCity Buildit and saw their titles hit the top 5 iOS downloads in more than 100 countries.

Well, the Lizard Squad tried to take credit for the short Facebook and Instagram downtime Monday night, but Facebook admitted that the incident was its fault. The outage hit users in the United States, with members in Asia, Australia and New Zealand briefly losing access, with the problem beginning just after 12:10 a.m. ET last night.

"This was not the result of a third-party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems," Facebook said in a statement following the short down time Monday evening. "Both services are back to 100 percent for everyone."

Kudos to the Lizard Squad for trying to get itself some glory for something that it had absolutely nothing to do with. Not surprisingly, users logged onto Twitter and other websites to complain about the sudden and unexpected Facebook downtime.

The FCC is attempting to expand the definition of broadband internet, but the usual suspects are lining up to oppose the move. The FCC wants broadband to be defined as 25Mbps down, and 3Mbps up, to match the reality of current generation internet connections. Unfortunately the entrenched ISP's want to leave the definition at a paltry 4Mbps download speed.

The map above illustrates just how depressingly slow the internet is at most locations in the US. The areas in blue all have access to speeds above 25Mbps, but the remainder of the map does not even have access to services that reach that speed.

The FCC has opened the floor for debate on the issue, and several cable companies have come forward to decry the new definition. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) is one of the most vocal opponents to the new classification system. This isn't surprising in light of the fact that current regulations stifle competition in many markets, a system that President Obama is trying to change through executive actions that remove much of the red tape for new telecom companies.

Launching cyberattacks against targets once was a time intensive, difficult and costly effort, but it has become easier and inexpensive to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Groups such as Anonymous and Lizard Squad are able to launch devastating attacks against large corporations and major targets using botnets of hijacked computers and routers. However, companies are becoming better at identifying these types of cyberattacks, but prove to be hugely inconvenient when the attacks succeed.

"There's been a massive jump in the number of very large attacks going on out there," said Darren Anstee, senior analyst at Arbor, while speaking to BBC. "In 2014 we saw more volumetric attacks, with attackers trying to knock people offline by saturating their access to the Internet."

The US government is no stranger to casting a large net in hopes of catching a few fish, so news of a new vehicle tracking database isn't entirely surprising. The Justice Department has a sophisticated database to track vehicle movements, and several other agencies are already using the data.

Several US law enforcement agencies already use automated license plate scanners mounted to police vehicles, and there also stationary systems that monitor highways and also take pictures of the vehicles. Some of these systems can actually be used to identify individuals inside of the vehicles.

The Justice Department has noted that there are already 343 million records in the database. This data includes the vehicle, time, and direction of travel. The primary intention is to find trafficking offenders for the DEA, but the Justice Department plans to expand the system to search for vehicles involved in rapes and murders. There is no word if the system will be expanded to encompass even more types of crime.

Google is announcing four new cities they are adding to the ultra-fast Google Fiber network. According to the Wall Street Journal the blazing-fast one gigabit connections will soon be added in Atlanta and Nashville. Lucky North Carolinians will get two cities added to the list, with Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte joining the ranks of those blessed with fast connections for as low as $80 per month.

The rollouts will not be offered to the entire city in each area, but instead will be deployed based upon customer interest. This expansion more than doubles the number of cities benefitting from Google Fiber connections, which are currently offered in Kansas City, MO, Austin, TX, and Provo, UT.

Google Fiber is challenging the status quo of normal ISP's, which charge prices well in excess of global averages for a fraction of the speed. The US lags woefully behind other developed countries in terms of speed and price, and much of that has to do with rules and regulations governing telecommunication firms. President Obama recently took to the airwaves to announce executive actions targeting these restrictive regulations, so there are some hopeful developments along that front.

Between PC gaming and console gaming, there is a lot that gamers have to be thankful for - but it could be a rather dull year, according to an industry analyst.

"My general thesis is that nothing is going to happen in 2015, it's going to be really, really dull," said Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief and industry analyst, in a statement to the Guardian.

Don't worry, gamers, Lovell is speaking more towards an industry shakeup, not that new game titles won't be entertaining to play. There will be plenty of new game titles for PC, console, and mobile gamers, with studios excited to push the limits of recent hardware improvements.

Companies have struggled against cyberattacks and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, while mobile devices remain "the perfect target for attackers," said Thomas Tschersich, Deutsche Telekom's computer security chief.

Cybercriminals are able to easily compromise mobile devices, and with connection speeds via mobile topping many home broadband connections, can be exploited to launch attacks against targets. To counter this threat, Deutsche Telekom informs around 20,000 German subscribers per month about malware infection - and urges them to remove the malware.

Despite Deutsche Telekom's proactive efforts, attack bandwidth is estimated at several gigabytes per hour from these mobile devices. For just a couple hundred euros, criminals are able to launch attack and generate an impressive return on investment (ROI) for their efforts.

With the ability to fly up to 61 mph, track emergency calls using a GPS for navigation and reach a patient within 12 square km in under 60 seconds - this drone is set to greatly increase cardiac-related survival rates for members of the public.

Once the drone arrives at the scene, an operator can observe, speak with and instruct any willing helper how to operate the devices located on-board. Still not impressive enough? As according to their official Facebook page, a 125 mph model is currently being worked on, achieved through more power and decreased drag.

Complete with the on-board camera, GPS capabilities and speaker system, this drone is set to carry a defibrillator, allowing passers-by to attempt a heart restart of any cardiac victim that may need this drones life-saving service.

Featuring a real-time traffic network that is community-curated, the Waze app by Google is making some US Sheriffs uneasy - they're claiming that it will aide cop stalking and allowing would-be cop killers to complete their tasks with ease.

Sergio Kopelev, a reserve deputy sheriff from California, and Sheriff Mike Brown from Virginia are two officers that have asked Google to abandon the police-tracker feature located within.

This feature has been located within Waze for some time now, however it's been brought to light though an Instagram conversation between 'dontrunup' and another user. 'dontrunup' is the Instagram username for the a well-known person responsible for the death of two police officers in NYPD last December, Ismaaiyl Brinsley - explained as a revenge act due to Eric Garner's death.

Not only has the popular North American-based Counter-Strike league ESEA thrown the ban-hammer at some professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players caught in a betting ring, but Valve themselves have spoken - barring these players from all future 'Valve majors'.

The betting ring saw players gather upwards of $10,000 worth of in-game items thanks to one singular match in which members created numerous betting accounts and purposefully altered the final score to suit their own benefit.

In an official release, ESEA stated that these bans were originally listed as one-year only on their platform, however "ESEA reserves the right to extend the bans indefinitely."