The Arrowhead and Sony game Hellldivers surpasses other record-setting titles such as God of War and Spider-Man on Steam.

The two were eclipsed by the third-person cooperative shooter that now boasts the top spot and 155,000 concurrent users on the PC platform, according to SteamDB.

The bug-blasting game is described as a “squad-based shooter that sees the elite forces of the Helldivers battling to win an intergalactic struggle to rid the galaxy of the rising alien threats.”

Helldiver’s director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has been responding to positive messages from the community about the game’s continued success.

He said on X (formerly Twitter):

You think sony will say any public statement on the units sold? Congrats on the success!!

— GamerUP (@GamerUPGaming) February 11, 2024

The future of the title

Arrowhead has said that the game will deploy free updates to users and new enemies to fight, with the always vocal CEO saying on Discord that “we are constantly going to add more stuff to the game! Enemies, objectives, biomes, etc., are always going to be free and expand the experience.”

Pilestedt commented on the pay-to-win elements of games, saying, “You have to earn the right to monetize’—I truly believe that. If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so.”

The CEO said of the only pay-to-win element on X in a tongue-in-cheek jibe:

I'm partial but we really applied ourselves to not make it p2w even though items are functionally different. The only item that's p2w is the revolver – which will win you any "cool gun" competition. Only (minor) problem is that it's not that good. https://t.co/c8T8TruLVi

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 11, 2024

The game has been battling some bugs, with the studio keeping gamers posted about the downtime in a statement on X from the ever-active Pilestedt;

”Thank you for your patience,” He said. “With it, we deployed three “rapid-fixes” aimed at improving the situation with rewards often not being handed out properly, login issues, and server capacity. “

“For now, please once again accept our sincere apologies for the issues you’re facing, and rest assured, we’re doing our utmost to make it right..”

After a long night, the developers are hoping for some well-deserved shut-eye, with the game designer capping off his post by saying, “Right now, it is crucial that our team gets some sleep, and we will be back at this again in a few hours.”

Image: Sony blog

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The Switch 2 has the rumor mills of the gaming world turning and fans are holding their breath for a Nintendo update.

For the past five years, the Japanese gaming titan has held an event consecutively around this time of year for the flagship console and future games in development.

It has been eerily silent from the console company, with the only major reported successes being those of the existing Switch.

Across seven years of existence, the device has a recorded total of 32,027,938 units sold in Japan and the top ten games sold in the country were all Nintendo Switch titles.

So there is life in the older console, but rumors abound of specifications and hardware we could see in a successor to the Switch.

Switch 2 hardware rumors

Reuters reported that a “new version of the Nintendo Switch console expected this year is likely to include a Nvidia custom design.”

The news comes from a source close to those in the know about the new console’s chip of choice, stating that “Nintendo’s current Switch handheld console already includes Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chip.”

In a recent Q&A, translated to English and titled ‘Nine Months Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ending March 2024’, some key questions were asked of the company after a successful year.

President and Representative Director Shuntaro Furukawa responded to questions about new devices:

“Regarding new hardware, we are unable to make any comments beyond saying that our company is constantly conducting research and development on new hardware and software,” he said.

”As we mentioned before, articles claiming to reference information released by Nintendo and other speculations have been appearing mainly on the internet lately. Information that has not been officially announced by Nintendo can mislead consumers and investors.

The President concluded that the journalists present at the Q&A “exercise good judgment based on the information we provide on our official websites and social media accounts. It takes a long time and thorough planning to get ready for new hardware, and those plans are not impacted by whatever the latest business conditions might be.”

Furukawa was tight-lipped on a new Switch, but did confess that “as Nintendo Switch is entering its eighth year, we do not think it will be easy to maintain sales at the same level as in the past.”

Gamers will have to wait on news from those official channels it seems to get concrete news of the new console and the details of when it will drop.

Featured image: Pexels/Michael Adeleye

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The Three UK mobile network is reportedly down impacting thousands of users and the customer service department of the cell company.

Subscribers across the Super Bowl weekend reported outages and a patchy service from the fourth-largest mobile network in the UK.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time with the biggest sporting event of the year being streamed in households and on devices across the world.

Three has posted on its social channels about the outages, the company said on x:

Some customers may be experiencing issues with our network this morning. Our engineers are working hard to fix it.
This issue is also impacting customer service, so please check back here for the latest updates (1/2)

— Three UK (@ThreeUK) February 12, 2024

The cell provider also has a network service checker which has a post apologizing for the sudden halt in services and the inability to check the current status of the network.

The post stated that “some customers may be experiencing issues with our network this morning. Our engineering teams are working hard to fix it. This issue is impacting our customer service channels and network status checker, so please check our social feeds for the latest updates.”

Recurring problems

Earlier this weekend the provider placed a message on its social channels stating that an outage was being looked into by engineers.

Three would then go on to post on X yesterday that the issue had been resolved in the early part of the day:

Following an issue with our network for a number of customers, services have now recovered. If any customer is still having an issue, they should fully restart their device to reconnect to our network. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.

— Three UK (@ThreeUK) February 11, 2024

The problems persist, however, and sites like network outage reporter Down Detector have recorded over 12,850 outages across the past 24 hours.

The site mentions that 36% of users are having issues with mobile internet, 33% of users have no signal and 30% of users record a total blackout of the service.

Smarty, a UK mobile operator and user of the Three network had to apologise to customers on X this morning;

Some customers may be experiencing issues with our network this morning. Our engineering teams are working hard to fix it.

We are sorry for the issues with service over the past few days and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. – Jodie

— SMARTY (@SMARTYMobileUK) February 12, 2024

In early December we reported that the Three network has gone down, impacting over 20,000 users.

It remains to be seen if this issue is related to the merger with Vodaphone that was announced in the middle of last year.

The press release on the merger stated that “from day one, millions of customers of Vodafone UK and Three UK will enjoy a better network experience with greater coverage and reliability at no extra cost, including through certain flexible, contract-free offers with no annual price increases, and social tariffs.”

Image: Yan Krukau, Pexels.

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According to community leaks the rugged frontier of Fortnite’s LEGO Survival will be getting new content to battle and build in the coming weeks.

The Danish constructible toy creator dropped the collaboration with the games studio in December last year and there have been multiple skins and creations available to players who enjoy the standalone survival title.

We’ve previously reported on the now-released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the upcoming One Piece collabs, and the leaks keep coming.

Lego Fortnite Leaked items

This LEGO take on the genre will be receiving a host of new items in the coming weeks for the hardy adventurers braving the brick-laden expanse.

They were announced by active community leaker FN Assist via X.

ALL upcoming #LEGOFortnite updates:

– Legendary Tools (Rift Sword, Titanium Pickaxe, Iron Axe, Titanium Shovel, Darkwood Crossbow, Titanium Shield)
– Hammers (Stone, Marble, Obsidian, Malachite, Rift)
– Dagger weapons (Common-Legendary)
– Wrist Trinkets (Give effects like… pic.twitter.com/bneO6t6gOa

— FNAssist (@FN_Assist) February 5, 2024

New enemies are part of the new update including animals such as horn beetles, skeletons, bears, and wolves. More complex characters or mini-bosses could come in the form of baddies named Swooper, Rift Brute, Rift Blaster, Forest Beamer, Ice Beamer, and Slammer.

New Legendary Tools will combat these dark denizens of the cubed world including the Rift Sword, Titanium Pickaxe, Iron Axe, Darkwood Crossbow, and Titanium Shield. More crafting features will be unlocked for gamers who love to take the raw materials of an environment and build their LEGO dream base. These include an anvil, rift processor, smelter, food Cart, and a Tier 5 Crafting Bench to name a few.

The leak goes on to show the other items coming to the game.

• Hammers (Stone, Marble, Obsidian, Malachite, Rift)
• Dagger weapons (Common-Legendary)
• Wrist Trinkets (Give effects like Charms)
• Steering Wheel
• Enchanted Guitar
• Ghost Chests & Keys (seems like you can only use them at night)
• Vending Villager NPCs (Original LEGO Characters – Racoon, Fox, Wolf)
• Quest Villager NPCs (Witch, Duke)
• Stud Gun
• Grab-itron
• Gong
• Riding (Animals/Objects)
• Ziplines
• Catapults
• Cannons
• Impulse Grenades
• Gravestones
• Working seats

What is LEGO Fortnite Survival?

The brick-based test of the great outdoors is a mode similar to titles like Minecraft where resources are harvested, buildings are progressively scaled and the odd monster turns up to ruin it all. Players collect, build, and delve into dungeons for precious resources to enhance their camps with more content coming to the game each time a new season or pack is launched. The game is free to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC on Epic Games Store and cloud-based gaming streaming services.

In related Epic Games news, Disney announced earlier this month that they would be investing $1.5 billion to create a new world with the studio.

This could unlock the potential to work with intellectual properties such as Star Wars and Marvel in a more substantial manner to the timed releases of content packs across the Fortnite-verse.

With the studio trusted with so many household and global staples, the rest of the year is set to be a good one for LEGO fans and those of Disney’s beloved characters.

Image: LEGO Newsroom.

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Ransomware hackers extorted $1bn across 2023, according to data insights company and blockchain platform.

The company published a report showing the extent of malicious hacking and developing trends affecting entities across the last year.

Chainanalysis provides data, software, services, and research to government agencies and companies across seventy countries.

”Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely,” says the company site.

The report details a staggering increase of $433 million in ransom taken from victims compared to 2022, growing to the highest-ever rate of $1bn in 2023.

Report shows biggest ransomware attack of 2023

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) in June of last year highlighting the MOVEit vulnerability, carried out by the CL0P Ransomware Gang.

This would be one of the biggest reported ransomware attacks recorded and was the spike point of 2023’s issue with ‘Zero-Day’ exploits.

What is a Zero-Day?

The report details this as a ‘Zero-Day’ vulnerability that compromised multiple institutions simultaneously. The attack is given this name as it gives the developers zero days to respond to it as it exploits an existing crack in the defenses they were unaware of.

The MOVEit hack was like finding all the keys to multiple company lockboxes in one big digital bank vault.

The hack hit several established institutions and exploited a vulnerability in the file transfer system. The software owner would announce that the service had been compromised with sensitive data, including personal details, and in some cases, banking information was in the hands of hackers.

Sony, the BBC, and Flagstar Bank were a few of those affected. The Maine Attorney General documented that 837,390 users had their data violated, with the report stating, “Information Acquired — Name or other personal identifiers in combination with Social Security Number.”

The Japanese tech giant, Sony, would also send letters to those affected stating that the company wanted to “provide you with information about a cybersecurity event related to one of our IT vendors, Progress Software, that involved some of your personal information.”

“This event was limited to Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer platform and did not impact any of our other systems.”

This would extort massive amounts of data and considerably damage Progress Software’s reputation.

U.S. Federal forces and companies across the globe will be hoping that the number of attacks and the amount extorted will fall across 2024.

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Meta is set to stop promoting political content across the company’s social apps.

In a report released on both Meta’s Transparency Centre and an Instagram blog post, the content-sharing giant made its approach clear.

“People have told us they want to see less political content, so we have spent the last few years refining our approach on Facebook to reduce the amount of political content – including from politicians’ accounts – you see in Feed, Reels, Watch, Groups You Should Join, and Pages You May Like,” the report read.

The company stated that following a political account will not result in related or linked accounts being proactively suggested if this isn’t your cup of tea.

Facebook

According to the announcement, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms will also play their part in considering “personalized signals, like survey responses, that help us understand what is informative, meaningful, or worth your time” on Facebook.

The posts also state that the customization of preferences can be made via Facebook ‘Feed Preferences’ and that the AI recommendations and personalization can be limited.

The releases announced, “If you don’t want AI systems to personalize your Feed at all, you can use the Feeds tab, which will rank posts chronologically. You can also add people to your Favorites list, so you always see content from your favorite accounts.”

Instagram and Threads

On the Instagram and Threads front, Meta states that it would like both apps to be a great experience for all users and reassures users that the company “won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads.”

The apps seem to be walking away from the previous approach of suggesting accounts and content that might be politically charged.

“If you decide to follow accounts that post political content, we don’t want to get between you and their posts, but we also don’t want to proactively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow,” said the blog post.

Account Status will control the chances that professional accounts have in getting into a user’s eyesight, but this will be determined by their posting of political content and Meta’s decision-making on what it sees as ‘political’ and potentially barring the way.

The platform has said that through the settings, a user can disagree with a post that is deemed ‘political,’ saying “they (Users) can edit or remove recent posts, request a review if they disagree with our decision, or stop posting this type of content for a period of time, in order to be eligible to be recommended again.”

With the U.S. elections taking center stage in the media for the foreseeable future this move by Meta will be an interesting one for politicians and voters across 2024.

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Three students share the grand prize for using artificial intelligence (AI) to translate Pompeii scrolls found by an eighteenth-century Italian farmer.

The $700,000 Vesuvius Challenge grand prize was awarded by an international team of papyrologists (ancient paper specialists) to students Luke Farritor from the U.S., Youssef Nader from Egypt, and Julian Schilliger from Switzerland.

The students would successfully complete the task of being the first team to recover four passages, with a total of one-hundred-and-forty characters of the archaic writings.

The work the students carried out sent waves across the world and did not escape the attention of arguably the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who posted on his social media platform that he would back more translations of antique texts;

Musk Foundation will support this

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2024

The scroll of Herculaneum

The scroll centered around the AI challenge was named after the place where it was discovered, the small Roman town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed in the catastrophe of the Vesuvius eruption.

The texts stayed trapped in carbon for 2,000 years under the mud, ash, and slag that amazingly completely covered the villa of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law.

Many attempts were made to open them, but most destroyed the fragile contents, with a monk taking the time to painstakingly unwrap some of them, revealing ancient Greek text.

Six hundred would remain undisturbed, according to the grand prize’s website, and would lead to the young students getting their chance to unlock this historic time-trapped text.

They would follow in the footsteps of Dr. Brent Seales and his research team from the University of Kentucky, who used X-ray tomography and computer vision to read the scrolls without cracking the contents open. Their work paved the path to the historic work conducted by the students.

Youssef Nadar would post on his personal site “I am eternally grateful to be a part of such an incredible community, and having the chance to contribute to something so amazing.”

He continued, “This work was built on the shoulders of giants, first and foremost Prof. Seales and his team (I pretty much had Stephen’s Thesis open at all times), many amazing papers by FAIR and DeepMind, and so many open contributions from the community.”

Nebraska’s own Luke Farritor would be the first human to lay eyes on the contents and the winner of the first text prize in 2023. You can view his initial submission via Google Drive.

The technology and historical world will be keeping a close eye on the work of the young students and where, in time, their translation journey will take them.

Image Credit: Photo by Brent Keane; Pexels.

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The chances of the cult classic Discworld game series being remastered is in the hands of the United Kingdom’s Monarchy, according to the game’s former studio designer and co-founder of Perfect Entertainment.

Gregg Barnett was integral to Perfect Entertainment and GT Interactive’s development of the three titles that took on the setting of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and the characters that roamed the cobble-stoned streets of Ahnk-Morpork.

Discworld, Discworld 2, and Discworld Noir were part of the pantheon of established point-and-click adventure titles in the 1990s. The latter is known for its slow jazz soundtrack and legendary H.P Lovecraft-meets-Casablanca vibes. They sat alongside the likes of LucasArt’s Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, as well as Broken Sword and Monkey Island, as the definitive narrative-driven video game tales of their time.

The Pratchett-verse titles have never seen a remaster like those other formative games that managed to grace consoles and platforms like Steam in recent years.

Vacant Goods

Barnett recently told Time Extension that a Discworld release is “on the cards. It may happen. And then it could advance to new versions of them.”

”May” is the Prefect Entertainment co-founder’s operative word, as there is a bit of mist for the missing part of the ownership rights. Fifty percent of the ownership rights have fallen into the lap of the UK Monarchy, so Barnett’s statement shows that a consultation with the Crown “may” be necessary for any remaster to happen and “may” take time.

Barnett continued on the topic of a remaster, saying, “There have been discussions, and something may be happening down the track — a rerelease or a remaster. But it’s obviously a complicated process when you’re dealing with the Crown.”

Barnett owns 50% of the rights to the three titles. Still, due to the expiry of the game’s licenses and the closure of Perfect Entertainment, the other half falls to agents of the British Crown when a company’s property becomes the flotsam and jetsam of the business world.

This department is known as the ‘Bona Vacantia’, which means vacant goods in Latin, the name given to ownerless property, which by law passes to the Crown.

According to the UK Government’s website “the Treasury Solicitor acts for the Crown to administer the estates of people who die intestate (without a Will) and without known kin (entitled blood relatives) and collect the assets of dissolved companies and other various ownerless goods in England and Wales.”

Pratchett Estate’s say

PC Gamer recently reached out to Terry Pratchett’s Estate and the daughter of the Discworld creator and much-loved British writing icon, Rhianna Pratchett.

Rhianna Pratchett is responsible for the intellectual property (IP) of the late great writer with the company Narrativa. She told PC Gamer, “we’d certainly love to see the old games re-released. It’s news to us if His Majesty owns 50% of the Discworld games. Who knows what might happen if that’s really the case? Maybe he’s a fan!”

Barnett’s dream may yet come true to work on the remaster for modern platforms and consoles, but for new titles, Rhianna Pratchett was clear about the IP rights and ideas that could be approved.

“We still own the IP rights… The reason why Gregg got the rights to do the games was that he came up with solid ideas that fitted the nature of Discworld. The simple reason that there’s never been a fully-fledged Discworld game since then is no one has come to us with the right ideas and the resources to actually make it happen.”

Fans of the Discworld setting and the wonderfully unique characters the legendary writer conjured will hope that the remasters go ahead and that new titles could take us back to the world of a mystical land perched on the back of four elephants riding on the shell of a giant space turtle.

Image: Pexels.

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Meta has announced that across its social media platforms artificial intelligence (AI) generated images must be labeled going forward.

The labeling system that will be titled “Imagined with AI” seeks to help users navigate the images that are created using AI software and those taken by a user traditionally.

Synthetic and non-synthetic content

Meta will be rolling out the watermark on the images created by its own generator and will be a standard for other major AI image generators such as Midjourney, Dall-E, and Bing Image Creator that have images uploaded to the company’s platforms.

The social media conglomerate is working with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) standards to clearly mark what “synthetic and non-synthetic content” is, according to the release.

C2PA is a Joint Development Foundation project from Adobe, Arm, Intel, Microsoft, and Truepic that hopes “to address the prevalence of misleading information online through the development of technical standards for certifying the source and history (or provenance) of media content,” according to the site’s mission statement.

Founded in 1965 in the United Kingdom, the IPTC is an established media and news agency coalition that develops and promotes industry standards.

Meta also said that audio and visual content are things they cannot identify from other companies that have been generated using AI. The company will add the option for users to tag this content as non-synthetic content to inform and protect users.

The company release said that users must use this “label tool when they post organic content with a photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.”

The recent release strengthens Meta’s policies and rules on image and video content across all of its platforms, focusing especially on the well-being of minors.

Earlier this year, new content rules came into place to stop nude images from being sent to vulnerable users of Meta’s social sites as an optional feature.

With this momentum of policy and content changes, Meta is shaping up to be an industry leader in the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and content verification.

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Spyware is a flourishing business and runs under the government’s radar despite efforts to crack down on the very lucrative and invasive digital surveillance economy.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) published a report on Tuesday (6 Feb) with a series of insights on commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs).

CSVs the focus of U.S. and Google sights

These CSVs exacerbate the effect of cyber-crime when their tools tumble into the wrong hands, or in some cases land in the wrong ones for the right price.

The search engine giant keeps tabs on forty of these surveillance tools that offer their spyware to government clients. At the base of the published report each known CSV is accompanied by a detailed list of their actions and pay-to-access software.

The TAG report found that almost half of the ‘0-Day’ exploits that hit Google and Android devices are software designed by entities that develop spyware.

A ‘0-Day’ exploit is a vulnerability in a system not detected and it essentially gives the developers of that system zero days to fix the metaphorical hole in the defenses.

TAG unearthed that 25 0-days happened across the last year, with 20 of those being caused by software developed by a CSV.

According to the TAG report, Google believes “it is time for government, industry and civil society to come together to change the incentive structure which has allowed these technologies to spread.”

Last year the White House released an Executive Order (E.O.) prohibiting the use of commercial spyware that poses risks to the nations security.

In March of 2023 a joint statement was released by eleven nations as a shot across the bow to commercial spyware developers internationally.

”The misuse of these tools presents significant and growing risks to our national security, including to the safety and security of our government personnel, information, and information systems,” the joint statement read.

In a further strengthening of policy, the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced this week that visa restrictions would be applied to any individuals involved in the misuse of commercial spyware.

”The United States remains concerned with the growing misuse of commercial spyware around the world to facilitate repression, restrict the free flow of information, and enable human rights abuses,” said the release.

Blinken’s approach as Secretary of State mirrors that of Google, saying the U.S. “stands on the side of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will continue to promote accountability for individuals involved in commercial spyware misuse.”

Both the U.S. and the technology powerhouse have a dedicated approach to limit the impact CSVs can have on both the citizens United States and users globally, but it remains to be seen if spyware continues to be a presence in the background.

Featured image: Dall-E

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A new threat to Roblox players comes in the form of a malicious impersonator of official Noblox.js and Noblox.js open-source downloads.

Noblox.js is an open-source Roblox API wrapper written in JavaScript that interacts with the game’s website.

Seeing 1,642 weekly downloads, this is one of Roblox’s most popular third-party node packet manager (NPM) downloads.

Alert to #Roblox developers: The Socket research team took a deep dive into a malicious npm package we flagged, which is masquerading as Noblox.js. It targets Roblox users for data theft. Read our full analysis on the blog: https://t.co/IDn60Nwv3r

— Socket (@SocketSecurity) February 6, 2024

How has this unsafe NPM tricked Roblox users?

NPN is the world’s largest software registry and the popular route for developers to share and install software relating to Java Script Object Notation (JSON), a lightweight format for storing and transporting data.

As reported by the Socket, the malicious NPM package is named noblox.js-proxy-server. Similar in name to the legitimate open-source Noblox.js.

According to the Socket Research Team, three techniques were used to make the malware seem legitimate: brandjacking, typosquatting, and starjacking.

Although these terms may seem overcomplicated, they are terminology used to identify how a malicious digital entity can present itself competently.

Brandjacking — A super simple term that impersonates a brand to gain legitimacy, hoping those not casting a keen eye will be duped.

Typosquatting — This is the space in between where a malicious entity benefits from that half-attempted search or typo, bringing the user into a place that looks legitimate enough but is, in fact a trap for unsuspecting users.

Starjacking — A slightly more elaborate way of linking an existing brand or models reviews and star-ratings without having anything to do with the product. Think about someone stealing all your positive eBay reviews or as a clone of a well-rated Instagram account.

The Socket Team uncovered that the evil NPM is designed to retrieve data, such as the Roblox username, and repeatedly scans files with specific extensions and adds them to a zip archive.

This zip file is then uploaded to a server on a specified URL. It sends a webhook to a Discord server with information on the uploaded file, prompting the same process to be repeated every 4,000 milliseconds.

Thanks to the Socket Team, awareness has been brought about this vindictive digital threat to the 70.2 million daily users and 216 million monthly active gamers on Roblox.

In related Roblox news, the game announced a development on the artificial intelligence (AI) front with a real-time text translation tool for users.

Image: photo by Sora Shimazaki; Pexels

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The Jacksonville Jaguars are seeking money that was stolen and used to fund an ex-employee gambling habit returned from FanDuel, according to ESPN.com

Amit Patel was responsible for the NFL team’s virtual credit card and pleaded guilty to wire fraud and illegal monetary transactions in Federal Court to the figure of $22 million.

In his time at the Jaguars Patel was responsible for departmental budgets and monthly financial statements up until his termination in February of last year.

According to federal court documents Patel staggeringly used the funds “to place bets with online gambling websites, to purchase a condominium in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, to pay for personal travel for himself and friends (including chartering private jets and booking luxury hotels and private rental residences), to acquire a new Tesla Model 3 sedan and and luxury wrist watches.”

This incredible amount of outlandish fraud seemed to go unnoticed as Patel was the sole administrator of the company system, managing to place $20 million worth of sportsbook bets with the ill-gotten gains.

Jaguars fighting tooth and nail

The Jaguars are believed to be pursuing the embezzled funds on the grounds that they were acquired by illegal means to place the sportsbook bets.

According the the ESPN.com report, there is a “settlement” ongoing between FanDuel, the NFL and the Jaguars.

Patel’s attorney Alex King said that his client suffers from a “serious gambling addiction” and the majority of the funds he embezzled were to patch over those massive debts according to the Athletic.

King said “It started with a little bit and, as these things usually do, spiraled wildly out of control.”

”Almost the entirety of the funds Mr. Patel used from the VCC were spent on the gambling websites and efforts to win money back, with the anticipation he would repay the funds with the winnings and make the Jaguars whole,” King told the Athletic about his clients $20 million in bets to FanDuel and 1$ million to Draftkings.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Patel’s compulsive gambling only exacerbated the situation, and he continued to misappropriate funds in an effort to have gambling winnings offset his significant losses,” he concluded.

The Jaguars will be enquiring about the lack of account red flags and gambling controls that were not triggered with the amount of large daily sums that were wagered by Patel.

No matter the outcome this will most definitely set a precedent in the world of sports gambling, but for the Jaguar’s sake, they will hope the lion’s share of the luck falls their way.

Image: Jean-Daniel Francoeur, Pexels.

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Sources have earmarked Sony’s gaming rival will announce big news about the future of Xbox exclusives and other titles coming to Playstation and Switch next week. A series of data-mined leaks have also let the cat out of the bag on Hi-fi Rush, which sparks more rumors of the games that could be making an appearance on other consoles.

Stay Tuned

Phil Spencer set out on X to calm the rising tide of questions aimed at the console:

We're listening and we hear you. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 5, 2024

The event in question was reported to have been scheduled for later this month, but the rumor mill working overtime has prompted the Head of Xbox to bump up the announcement.

Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Starfield were all Xbox exclusives for console players that are now potentially going to jump the digital gaming divide. We touted Bethesda’s possible hyper-speed jump back to the Playstation earlier this month.

This is something that Xbox gamers aren’t exactly thrilled about as the monetary tug of war to pick the Xbox or Sony console was a huge talking point when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S were gathering a head of steam in the console sales charts.

The choice of what side to pick was decided by Sony and Microsoft’s acquisitions of a gamer’s favorite studios and the titles they generate are now an ‘exclusive’ tethered to that console.

Starfield is an example that split the loyalty of gamers and was a huge win for Xbox. The idea of someone missing out on the next Skyrim in space was too much for those loyal to the Maryland-based gaming studio.

The reception of the space game hasn’t been the fanfare that Microsoft would have wanted, but the possibility of PS5 gamers getting to boldly go may recoup some of the investment in the Bethesday takeover and set a path to other consoles in the future for seemingly exclusive Xbox staples.

So the opportunity presents itself to Microsoft to begin the trading and porting over of titles. Players will be eagerly awaiting what Phil Spencer has to say about the timeframe and games that will be making the jump, while quelling the rumors that Microsoft is pulling out of the console market, despite rumors of two new machines in the works.

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A university in Singapore has developed a bone conduction headphone and a micro camera that captures the wearer’s field-of-vision, translating the data using artificial intelligence (AI).

Associate professor of the information and analytics department of the National University of Singapore Computing (NUS), Suranga Nanayakkara is hoping that interaction with AiSee can be seamless between a user and the world around them.

”With AiSee, we aim to empower users with more natural interaction. By following a human-centered design process, we found reasons to question the typical approach of using glasses augmented with a camera,” the professor said of the new technology.

AiSee’s Vision Engine

The ‘vision engine’, is the informational capture software that can scan for data such as text, logos and labels from the objects in the camera’s eye line. A bone conduction headphone is also a core part of AiSee that allows the wearer to hear the world around them, but also receive information from the device.

Using text-to-speech and speech-to-text recognition the device interacts with the user who has an object of interest they wish to scan. This scanning tool allows for the cloud-based algorithms, which is an information repository used by AI similar to that of an OpenAI, to compose and answer to queries posed by the wearer.

NUS student Mark Myers took part in the testing of the device as a visually impaired user, saying “I think AiSee is a good balance. Both visually impaired and blind people could get a lot of benefits from this.”

Nanayakkara hopes to make the technology available to everyone in his home nation, saying the people of Singapore “do not have access to assistive AI technology of this level of sophistication. Therefore, we believe that AiSee has the potential to empower visually impaired people to independently accomplish tasks that currently require assistance.”

The NUS is working with a disability care provider SG Enable in Singapore to conduct further testing with visually impaired users to collect more data to refine the offering AiSee can provide those with impairments.

”Our next step is to make AiSee affordable and accessible to the masses. To achieve this, we are making further enhancements, including a more ergonomic design and a faster processing unit,” Nanayakkara concludes.

Image: NUS.

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Dexory, the UK’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics firm, is set for an expansion into the North American logistics and warehouse robotics market.

The company leads the way with an autonomous AI solution executed by robotics called DexoryView.

DexoryView allows the environment to be scanned and mapped in three dimensions (3D). This sensory and image data is crucial for the speed at which the analytics system processes and the robotic device executes tasks.

Co-founder and CEO Andrei Danescu said, “Following successful customer deployments in Europe, we have seen an increased demand from the North American market.”

Dexory is proud to announce its expansion into the North American market.

As featured in the recent article by Brian Heater, our scanning technology and innovative collapsing tower address the challenges of vertical inventory in warehouses.https://t.co/LnEA8Gaids

— Dexory (@dexoryHQ) February 5, 2024

Todd Boone, former Director of Project Management at Zebra Technologies has been appointed to Head of North America at Dexory.

Boone said the “opportunity to lead Dexory’s expansion into the North American market comes at an exciting time for the industry.”

“Organizations across the globe are getting to grips with the challenging demands of modern supply chains, and DexoryView allows businesses to gain rapid insights into their operations and make informed decisions that drive better efficiencies across their businesses,” he concluded.

Astrid

Late last month Dexory also announced a collaboration with ID Logistics to introduce the world to Astrid (Autonomous Stock Taking Robots for high-speed inventory management).

Astrid can reportedly process up to 10,000 pallets per hour and has an accuracy rating of 99.9%, according to the announcement on the Dexory site.

Beniot Boiron, Group Innovation Manager at ID Logistics, stated that “this collaboration marks a significant milestone in the evolution of inventory management and warehouse data acquisition. Astrid’s precision and real-time monitoring capabilities have transformed our day-to-day operations, bringing accuracy to new heights”.

Astrid also has a digital twin that teams can utilize at any time to see real-time data, and the robots themselves can work in harmony with humans on the warehouse floor.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with ID Logistics to support the elimination of inventory visibility gaps in their warehouses using real-time data. This partnership represents a significant leap forward in enhancing operational efficiency, accuracy, and overall productivity,” said Oana Jinga, Chief Operating and Product Officer at Dexory.

Image Credit: Dexory Media.

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The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned Iranian officials linked to cyber activities against critical infrastructure in the United States and other countries.

The six individuals in question were part of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC), an Iranian government organization.

All individuals have been added to the Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN) and their properties and financial assets have been held by the OFAC as part of the counterterrorism authority Executive Order (E.O.).

According to the note published by the OFAC, Hamid Reza Lashgarian, head of the IRGC-CEC and a commander in the IRGC-Qods Force, has been a part of IRGC cyber and intelligence operations in the past.

The other six persons are all senior officials of the IRGC; Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin Saberian.

Treasury sanctioned six officials in the IRGC’s Cyber-Electronic Command. Today’s sanctions reinforce our commitment to protecting America’s critical infrastructure from foreign adversaries like Iran. https://t.co/SvxCPntSJW

— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) February 2, 2024

Sensitive targets

The accused are reported to have hacked portable logic controllers produced by Israeli company Unitronics.

The United States, with Private Sector companies and the countries impacted, worked to minimize the damage to critical water systems that had been compromised.

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson said that “the deliberate targeting of critical infrastructure by Iranian cyber actors is an unconscionable and dangerous act.”

The public services that had been hacked received minimum impact, but it has left the United States concerned that these infrastructure services have been targeted.

“The United States will not tolerate such actions and will use the full range of our tools and authorities to hold the perpetrators to account,” Nelson concluded.

In other U.S. security news, the FBI has foiled an attempt by a Chinese hacker group known as Volt Typhoon. The hackers have targeted U.S. routers in homes and small businesses as part of a wider botnet.

Last week, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco announced that “in wiping out the KV Botnet from hundreds of routers nationwide, the Department of Justice is using all its tools to disrupt national security threats – in real-time.”

Image credit: Pexels

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Samsung has partnered with Baidu, one of the major artificial intelligence (AI) players in China, in a bid to win over Chinese consumers.

Baidu AI’s Ernie large language model (LLM) is seen as a straight swap for global partner Google Gemini AI on the Galaxy S24 series.

Google services are currently unavailable in the country and this collaboration, announced last week, was seen as the South Korean electronics titan’s best bet to have a wider share of the world’s largest smartphone market.

Microsoft is promoting Bing Chat in China, but no other U.S.-developed AI such as ChatGPT or Google Bard is officially available in mainland China or Hong Kong.

AI is at the heart of technological development in China as 40 LMMs were approved by the state in the second half of 2023, as we reported late last month.

Huawei to Oppo and Vivo are all domestic vendors in mainland China and are building their versions of AI chatbots and LLMs. This is something Samsung is keen to get ahead of with this partnership with Baidu.

What is Baidu’s Ernie LLM?

Ernie Bot was unveiled at Baidu World 2023 by co-founder and CEO Robin Li Yanhon, becoming the first significant generative AI released from the Chinese tech sector.

“Ernie Bot has completed a series of significant updates in its abilities of understanding, prompting, reasoning and memorizing,” Li said. “Its generalized abilities are by no means inferior compared to GPT-4.”

As reported via Reuters in December last year, Wang Haifeng, Chief Technology Officer for Baidu said that Ernie had reached over 100 million users since its release in August of 2023.

Baidu has also made efforts to expand its offerings in collaboration with the Chinese state-backed Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (BAQIS). The search giant offered to donate a quantum computing lab, which is integral to developing more AI tools and technology.

China’s AI race

The U.S. has made significant efforts to stop or at least limit China’s access to advanced processors used for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) applications across the past year.

These attempts to stunt the development of AI’s based in China is down to tensions and White House security concerns, which had seen some validation in a recent landmark chip bust to the tune of $11.6 million last month.

Featured image: Omar Markhieh/Pexels

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Part of the Pennsylvania Courts online system has fallen victim to a cyber attack.

The Chief Justice of the US State, Deborah Todd announced that that a denial of service attack (DDoS) had hit the Pennsylvania court website.

Integral court systems such as the PACFile, online docket sheets, PAePay, and the Guardianship Tracking System are affected.

Law enforcement agencies are now involved in diagnosing the extent of the attack.

“Our court information technology and executive team is working closely with law enforcement including the CISA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the F.B.I to investigate the incident.” The Chief Justice announced via the official statement.

pic.twitter.com/F0HQV0nxYm

— PA Courts (@PACourts) February 5, 2024

This cyber attack restricts litigants, lawyers and key court stakeholders who rely on the court’s online systems to prepare for legal proceedings.

“At this time, there is no indication that any court data was compromised, and our courts will remain open and accessible to the public,” said the Chief Justice.

The Pennsylvania courts will hope that all data remains secure and the investigating legal bodies can bring back the key functions that keep the wheels of the courthouse turning.

For updates on when the Pennsylvania Court website is back up, follow the organization’s X account.

What is a DDoS cyber attack?

A denial of service attack (DDoS) is a targeted attempt by a third party to cripple a digital system by undermining and removing core functions.

It is generally the precursor to information or a system being compromised and then a group will take responsibility for the attack, prompting further developments such as a ransom for extracted data or an official statement from those responsible.

Cyber attacks more than doubled across 2023. According to security firm Armis, in January, legacy systems were the cause of many breaches and assaults on digital security.

The FBI however managed to eradicate the Volt Typhoon bot net earlier this month after a series of routers were flagged as compromised. The coordinated strike operation prevented the reinfection of the routers and removed the malware that was deployed by the hackers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said “Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide as they targeted our communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors. Their pre-positioning constitutes a potential real-world threat to our physical safety that the FBI is not going to tolerate.”

Image credit:  Pete Linforth from Pixabay

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The smash hit Insomniac Studios game will be available to Sony’s premium monthly subscription.

The news was announced on the Playstation Blog as part of the February unveiling of what is on offer to PS Plus members.

The adventures of Miles and Peter across the cityscape of New York will be free to premium subscribers starting February 6. The game was one of the top-selling titles across 2023.

Valentines celebration

The blog announcement was part of the PSN Valentine celebration, and fans of the website will love being able to pick up a preview of the record sales-setting Sony title.

The blog post read:

“Get a taste of the life of Peter Parker and Miles Morales as they swing through the city and face various villains. As a PlayStation Plus Premium member,  you’ll have access to Marel’s Spider-Man 2 with a 2-hour time-limited trial starting February 6. Trophies and save progress from this trial will carry over if you decide to purchase the full game.”

The announcement was made alongside monthly games FOAMSTARS, Rollerdome, and Steel Rising.

FOAMSTARS is the new 4V4 online party shooter from Square Enix. Game modes include: Smash the Star, Happy Bath Survival, and Rubber Duck Party.

Each campaign a new FOAMSTAR will become playable as part of the five week season pass, wich has a free and paid-for option.

Rollerdome is a first-person shooter meets skater from critically acclaimed studio Roll7. It is a throwback to the James Caan-led dystopian blood sport film Rollerball.

Players compete in a deathmatch to become champions of the Rollerdome tournament. Winner of three 2023 BAFTA titles, including Best British Game, this is certainly a boon for monthly subscribers.

Finally, Steel Rising caps off the February games of the month.

Set in a dystopian version of France where a robot army has quelled the revolution, the game follows the story of Aegis as they experience the combat and the mysteries of the era.

PlayStation Plus members will also receive exclusive skins for Fall Guys and the February titles highlighted come with a Spotify playlist.

Image credit: PlayStation Blog.

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The FBI has suppressed an attack by Chinese hackers Volt Typhoon group.

The concentrated attack focused on routers in an attempt to cripple Cisco and Netgear devices in small businesses and homes.

The court-authorized operation prevented reinfection of the routers and removed the malware that was deployed by the hackers.

”The United States will continue to dismantle malicious cyber operations – including those sponsored by foreign governments – that undermine the security of the American people,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement.

FBI’s Houston Field Office and Cyber Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas and the National Security Cyber Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division were responsible for the successful co-ordination and delivery of the operation.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said “Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide as they targeted our communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors. Their pre-positioning constitutes a potential real-world threat to our physical safety that the FBI is not going to tolerate.”

”We are going to continue to work with our partners to hit the PRC hard and early whenever we see them threaten Americans.” he concluded.

Disrupting the botnet

The Hackers targeted a vulnerability in old routers that were near the “end of their life” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The malware, known as “KV Botnet” had its ties severed by the co-ordinated response from the FBI.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said that “in wiping out the KV Botnet from hundreds of routers nationwide, the Department of Justice is using all its tools to disrupt national security threats – in real-time.”

The operation did not alter or compromise the devices, nor was any data collected by the response to the Chinese hacker group.

The FBI has contacted the service providers of the Cisco and Netgear devices to inform them of the suppressed corruption of the devices.

In other cybersecurity infrastructure news earlier this month, the Biden Administration announced more robust measures for U.S. hospitals. The new requirements are set to fortify digital defenses in healthcare facilities.

The current administration has been dedicated to finding solutions to cybercrime and building bulwarks against invasive online criminals. Last year the White House laid the foundations of a national cybersecurity certification and labeling program.

Featured image: FBI

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