Nvidia launches became the fourth most valuable U.S. corporation on Monday — temporarily surpassing Amazon.com Inc. and opening a new chapter in market capitalization as the chipmaker was propelled to prominence by the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence. “It seems that Nvidia has gone up every day so far this year,” says Ben Reitzes of Melius Research. At its peak price of $734.96, Nvidia’s market value was $1.82 trillion, compared to the retail master, Amazon.com’s $1.81 trillion and only a few billion short of Alphabet, the company that owns Google.

Nvidia was more valuable than Amazon in 2002 — when each company was worth $6 billion. With shares up 47% year to date and ranking as the most significant gain among S&P 500 components, expectations were high going into the report. Investors will be watching Nvidia’s quarterly results on February 21, the last of the megacap companies to report this earnings season, especially following the company’s better-than-expected holiday quarter sales last month.

In January, Microsoft surpassed Apple to take the top spot as the most valuable business in the world, with Alphabet coming in third.

A year ago, Nvidia’s stellar predictions and impressive quarterly results proved that the chip manufacturer was leading the way in providing to tech companies developing so-called generative AI, such as chatbots and image creation. Nvidia’s stock has soared 223% over the last 12 months, making it the highest-performing stock among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” on the company’s strong AI demand forecast. With a 163% increase, Meta Platforms comes in second.

The so-called “Magnificent Seven” — Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla — have dominated the S&P 500 this year as investors scooped up shares of megacap tech names.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Stas Knop; Pexels

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Xbox and PlayStation have had their rivalries for years — and they started playing in the sandbox together as infants. Even though these players have grown up — they’re still in competition for gamer’s time and money. Famous rivalries in video game history exist, such as Sonic vs. Mario, Crash vs. Cortex, Link vs. Ganon, and Switch owners vs. Joycon Drift.

The PS5 has succeeded better than the Xbox Series X by a wide margin, to the extent that there have been rumors that Microsoft may forego developing consoles completely in favor of the next generation.

But Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox reassured all Xbox employees that the company will not stop producing consoles. Saying that Xbox has no plans to quit consoles — and then having a podcast format announcement on February 15th has a few fans a bit nervous? Might we see Xbox announce a new harde, or perhaps a Pro version of the Series X — or forget a remake or update — might there be something completely new? The Ad on X says to watch on “YouTube.com/Xbox or where you listen to your podcasts.” Also, “Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business.”

Many wonder why Xbox continues to make exclusives and not go multiplatform? For many fans, the hope this week is that Microsoft will reveal plans to go multi-platform with some of the biggest Xbox games — and Game Pass, of course.

This would be an interesting move because among of the Xbox Series X’s major selling points are games like Sea of Thieves, Starfield, and Hi-Fi Rush. It should come as a relief to fans of studios like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard who joined with Microsoft, as this would virtually guarantee that PlayStation titles like Fallout and Call of Duty will continue to have a presence.

We await Phil Spencer’s news on February 15 to find out the destiny of our beloved Xbox.

Featured Image Credit: Luca Nardone; Pexels

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Meta is introducing a new feature called “Today’s Topics” on its Threads app, aiming to highlight current discussions that are capturing the attention of its user base. Announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, this initiative is set to begin with a small-scale test in the United States. It represents Meta’s latest effort to foster meaningful engagement and keep its community informed about trending conversations.

According to TechCrunch, the “Today’s Topics” feature is powered by Meta’s AI systems, which identify popular discussions by analyzing user interactions and the volume of conversation around specific subjects. This algorithmic approach ensures the topics presented are both relevant and timely, mirroring the collective interests of Threads users.

To uphold the integrity and relevance of the topics featured, Meta has enlisted a team of content specialists. Their role is to ensure that all topics comply with the platform’s Community Guidelines and other integrity policies, while also removing duplicates and filtering out misleading or nonsensical topics. Users play a crucial role in maintaining content quality, as they are encouraged to flag any topic that might breach the platform’s guidelines.

Navigating political content on Threads

Despite Meta’s recent declaration to scale back on recommending political content across its platforms, “Today’s Topics” will not exclude discussions on political themes. Meta clarified that political subjects could indeed emerge as topics of interest, as long as they do not contravene the platform’s Community Guidelines or integrity policies. This stance highlights Meta’s commitment to offering a broad spectrum of timely and relevant discussions, without tailoring recommendations to individual users.

The launch of “Today’s Topics” could enhance Threads’ appeal as a dynamic platform for real-time conversations and debates, potentially positioning it as a stronger competitor to X (formerly Twitter). The degree of human curation versus algorithmic selection in managing these topics is yet to be fully disclosed, leaving room for speculation on how Meta will balance editorial oversight with automated processes.

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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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Since the start of this year, Microsoft, eBay and PayPal have axed thousands of jobs in a pivot to artificial intelligence as companies revise their resources.

As reported by the Financial Times, tech companies have cut around 34,000 jobs in a matter of weeks as the focus turns to generative AI.

In addition to the heavyweight names mentioned above, Snap has also shed a significant number of roles as part of an industry-wide cut of 138 firms that have let staff go. These figures are significant but not quite at the same level as one year previous when Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon culled their numbers.

Layoffs.fyi — indicated 263,000 roles were lost in the tech sector during 2023 as analysts have indicated the latest round of cuts is a sign of the pivot to AI, while some companies have considered productivity relating to their overall output.

Brent Hill, an analyst at the renowned financial institution Jefferies, opined companies have assessed their workforces with the conclusion that “we’ve got a bunch of dead wood, and if we had a leaner organization, we can do more.”

“The lay-offs are going to continue, and it may get worse. It’s become contagious,” added Hill.

Who is next?

Last month, Amazon-owned Twitch was hit with the blow of around 500 employees being axed due to financial pressures, a further indicator of the cost-cutting and adjusting across the industry. Even the ‘Big Five’ are impacted as part of an extensive list of employers who have cut their cloth over the last few weeks.

Enterprise software company SAP confirmed a “company-wide transformation” in January, including the loss of around 8,000 jobs as it turns further to AI while reskilling staff as much as possible.

Autumn Mitchell, a QA tester at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax, commented on the current uncertainty, “Anybody working in tech or games right now is worried about lay-offs to some degree, either for themselves or someone they know.”

“You see one company announce lay-offs and think, Here we go, who’s it going to be next week?” Mitchell said.

Image: PVMS/Pexels.

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Sometimes you just do not need a team of 400 coders and a billion-pound budget to make something that people enjoy playing. For hours. In the last few days, a web-based sandbox “game” called Infinite Craft has taken the internet by storm, as people desperately “craft” items trying to make discoveries and become the owner of the “First Discovery” badge on something, meaning you were the first player to get that combination.

If you haven’t played Infinite Craft, this will sound like absolute gibberish, but bear with us!

How to play Infinite Craft 

To get in on the action you need to head to the Infinite Craft website in your browser. This will take you to developer Neal Argawal’s site and you will be faced with an empty screen and a column on the right-hand side containing boxes named after four elements, Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth.

To craft new things you must first drag one of the elements into the center of the screen. Let’s Start with Earth. Now drag Water on top of it and it will change to Plant. Congrats, you have just made your first thing in Infinite Craft. You will notice that Plant has now been added to your items on the right.

Now drag Fire onto Plant and you get Smoke. And so on and forth. Add Wind to Smoke and you now have Cloud as well. Keep going. There are some crazy things in there, most of which make perfect sense if you think about it. 

For example, if you drop Earthquake onto Tunnel it gives you Cave. Drop Hot onto Cave and now you have a Sauna. It’s a wacky train of thought but you will soon get an idea of how it all works in the mind of Neal at least.

How to make monsters in Infinite Craft

Right, let’s make some monsters. Here’s how we get to the Loch Ness Monster

Make the Loch Ness Monster in Infinite Craft

• Clay+Clay = Brick
• Brick + Brick = Wall
• Flood + Flood = Ocean
• Ocean + Flood = Tsunami
• Clay + Brick = House
• Stone + House = Castle
• Castle + Castle = Palace
• Palace + Tsunami = Atlantis
• Swamp + Atlantis = Loch Ness
• Loch Ness + Ocean = Monster
• Loch Ness + Monster = Nessie

Want another?

Make Godzilla in Infinite Craft

Let’s try Godzilla. Here goes:

• Water + Water = Lake
• Lake + Water = Ocean
• Ocean + Earth = Island
• Island + Island = Continent
• Earth + Earth = Mountain
• Mountain + Continent = Asia
• Asia + Earth = China
• Mountain + Mountain = Mountain Range
• China + Mountain Range = Great Wall
• Water + Earth = Plant
• Plant + Plant = Tree
• Tree + Fire = Ash
• Ash + Fire = Phoenix
• Phoenix + Great Wall = Dragon
• China + Asia = Japan
• Japan + Dragon = Godzilla

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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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Nearly every industry is being transformed by AI’s familiar yet disruptive technology, including the real estate sector. Its impact has become more compelling as institutions realize its generative capabilities.

The real estate sector isn’t too far ahead in using AI as an aid for residents, builders, mortgage brokers, agents, and contractors. Going beyond ChatGPT, other platforms can help streamline other more complicated areas in real estate. It’s hard to tell what AI will do, but it’s already changing the real estate sector.

AI is Impacting Real Estate. Here’s How.

1. Generating and validating real estate leads

It remains a challenge for real estate brokerages to gather contacts that match their ideal client profiles. The cost and time needed to generate high-quality leads have always been a critical issue, but with AI platforms, easing up the process is possible.

Using predictive analytics, real estate businesses can seek out leads with updated addresses and contact details. AI can also help clean up entire databases to remove invalid contacts and redundancies. This helps increase the success rate of marketing campaigns and avoids DNC policy violations.

2. Running accurate property valuations

For property owners looking to put their homes up for sale, selling at the right price has always been a major hindrance. There are numerous factors to consider such as the age of the property and the median selling price within the neighborhood.

This won’t be ideal for homeowners who, according to a home cash buying company, have to deal with too many repairs and avoid foreclosure. AI streamlines the task by using algorithms to create accurate valuations and propose sweet spot asking prices.

3. Ease up property management

For landlords and investors who own entire condo buildings or townhouses, keeping track of tenant satisfaction and property health has always been a matter of guesswork. This is expected to change with the inclusion of AI in property management processes. Using the right software, property owners can accurately measure rent collections, ROI, and maintenance expenses.

Not only that, AI can help reduce the paperwork needed for compliance and handle the more intricate parts of tenant screening and tenant communications. At the moment, there are software packages on the market that are specifically meant for property management, offering owners and landlords a great way to stay profitable.

4. Come up with an accurate market analysis

Market research serves as the guiding force for realtors. How buyers and sellers behave provides insight into the overall health and the availability of opportunities on the market. Rather than conduct surveys, real estate professionals can use AI software to analyze and predict market trends. That way, they will be able to make informed decisions in crafting marketing campaigns and business strategies.

Whether you like it or not, AI is here to lessen the grunt work in the real estate sector. It will make life easier for buyers, sellers, and investors. It’s only a matter of using the right software and understanding what else this technology is capable of in the near future.

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Drake had a night to remember after staking a $1.15 million bet on the Kansas City Chiefs to win the 2024 Super Bowl.

The ‘God’s Plan’ rapper announced on Instagram he had placed his bet on the cryptocurrency gambling site, Stake, in which he has a business interest. He celebrated his substantial winnings with a nod to Taylor Swift in his Instagram caption, “I can’t bet against the Swifties.”

The reference to the iconic American singer-songwriter and her adoring fanbase is due to her boyfriend, Kansas City star Travis Kelce.

'Can't bet against the Swifties'

(via @Drake) pic.twitter.com/GL77dUkhHn

— br_betting (@br_betting) February 12, 2024

Drake has pocketed an impressive 100% return on his massive outlay, but the gambler’s past hasn’t been so rewarding.

Previous losses have resulted in the Drake “curse”, due to outcomes related to his wagers. MLB player Shohei Ohtani was said to be on his way to the rapper’s hometown to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays.  Drake posted an image of himself wearing the player’s jersey only for Ohtani to join the LA Dodgers.

Then last year, Drake backed Logan Paul, to the tune of $850,000, to knock out Dillion Danis but things didn’t go to plan for the 37-year-old.

The YouTuber won the bout but ultimately by disqualification, meaning Drake lost his bet. This track record left Chiefs fans feeling apprehensive ahead of the Las Vegas showdown in Superbowl 58 but their fears proved to be unfounded with the success at the Allegiant Stadium.

Far East fever pitch

As for Taylor Swift, it was a whirlwind weekend of work and play for the 14-time Grammy winner to make it to Sin City to cheer on her man.

The superstar artist took a 12-hour flight in a personal $54 million Dassault Falcon-9 business jet immediately after the last of her four ‘Eras’ tour Tokyo gigs on Saturday to watch boyfriend Kelce feature in the Super Bowl victory over the Francisco 49ers.

Swift’s enormous pull and exposure have worked wonders for NFL, thanks to her appearances at Chiefs games and the media swarm that has ensued.  It has taken the game to a new demographic, particularly young females, as well as fuelling a hot demand for Travis Kelce’s Chiefs jersey, with a 400% spike reported.

The 34-year-old tight-end commented prior to the Super Bowl, “It’s been fun to gather the Swifties into Chiefs Kingdom and open them up to the football world.”

Image: Drake/X.

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Losing the FIFA license does not seem to have damaged EA Sports’ standing as the publisher of the best, and realistically, only football game that people still play in large numbers. The change of title to the clumsier EA FC 24 is more or less the only downside between this year’s offering and FIFA 23 from last year.

EA did not want to pay FIFA’s asking price for the license and decided it was big enough and had enough fans of its game to go it alone without the world governing body, not that this is some plucky underdog story, the FIFA licensed football games are said to have generated over $20 billion in revenue in the last two decades, with a healthy chunk of that coming directly out of my bank account courtesy of my kid being a huge fan.

FIFA’s ever-popular Bond-villain leader Gianni Infantino said last year (in not his only odd quote in the last few years), “The new FIFA game – the FIFA 25, 26, 27 and so on – will always be the best egame for any girl or boy, we will have news on this very soon.”

Now I can’t remember ever hearing the term egame either before or indeed since that moment, but it seems as though if rumors are to be believed, that 2K may be responsible for the new said FIFA egame.

A post on X from tech leaker Zuby_tech simply states, “Rumour FIFA Chooses 2K To Make The Next FIFA!”

Rumour FIFA Chooses 2K To Make The Next FIFA!#FIFA #2K pic.twitter.com/g8CSsqfmvi

— @Zuby_Tech (@Zuby_Tech) February 12, 2024

It’s not really backed up by anything but 2K would be a good position to make the game having other top sports franchises in its portfolio already. Konami’s eFootball is not in a great position, but it is also difficult to see any real competition for EA FC, if only because, while not having the FIFA license, EA holds the licenses for most of the top Leagues, teams, and player likenesses in the world, and that counts volumes for players who want a minimum level of realism in their games. Nobody wants Theo Messy to score a goal when they could be playing with Leo Messi.

Not popular

The reaction to the rumor on Reddit has been far from positive, with these just a selection of reactions:

“The Greatest Money Milking Fight”

“You’ll have two publishers that will want to milk you dry. EA vs 2K is a competition from hell.”

“2K vs EA is like getting to choose between two muggers down a dark alley”

It’s worth pointing out that the reliability of the leaker is not great, so this may not turn out to be true, but having missed a FIFA football game in 2024, the world’s governing body for Football will not want to hang about much longer. As yet there is no comment from either FIFA or 2K to the legitimacy of the rumor.

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Elon Musk has been ordered to answer to a federal judge concerning his takeover of Twitter in an ongoing US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform.

In a follow-up to a preliminary ruling in December 2023, the SEC and the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX now have seven days to agree on a date for him to testify, otherwise, it will be decided for them.

As reported by Reuters, Musk previously refused to attend an interview in September as part of the overall probe of his acquisition of Twitter, which he later rebranded as X.

US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with the regulator on that occasion after Musk’s dismissive action was prompted by claims of harassment. He insisted the subpoena was requesting irrelevant information, as well as undergoing two interviews, but that argument was rejected.

Ongoing dispute

The SEC is challenging whether Musk adhered to the correct legal process when filing the necessary paperwork for his purchase of Twitter and if he made misleading statements during the transaction. It is seeking further answers from the 52-year-old, who also argued the subpoena fell outside the SEC’s authority as it was issued by a staff member appointed by the SEC’s Director of Enforcement.

Beeler ruled the subpoena is valid, throwing out Musk’s claims which brings us to the latest stage of this legal saga. The Magistrate’s next action could be to hear both representations, to set a new hearing date, if they do not agree.

Musk has also taken additional action, asking the US Supreme Court for a review, citing his constitutional right to free speech following the December decree.

Tensions between the X supremo and the SEC commenced back in 2018 when the body sued him after he tweeted “funding secured” relating to a potential move to take Tesla private. Musk agreed to a Tesla lawyer vetting his tweets regarding the company, to settle the case, but he was sued again, the following year, for an alleged breach of the agreement.

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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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Believe it or not, there was a time when multiplayer games didn’t have microtransactions. You bought the game, played it, and if you liked it you picked up any expansions that came out further down the line and the world rested peacefully.

Then came the era where you could buy horse armor for your mount in Skyrim and turn your automatic assault rifle pure gold in Call of Duty and the cosmos shifted. Now, with our bank accounts permanently connected to constantly hacked developers servers and payment gateways, we can open up a Loot Box and hopefully get a player card with a rating of 84 instead of 83, at least for this season, before we lose them all when next years version of the game comes out.

Until now one game has bucked the trend, Escape from Tarkov has been Escape from Microtransactions but sadly, not for much longer. Somewhat more irritatingly, not all the purchases are purely cosmetic either like we get in Fortnite. PC GameN reports that beyond paying to unlock new clothing options early, you can also purchase the offline co-op mode. 

Okay fine, that’s newish to the game and it has been around for eight years so is a decent additional feature. The next change though allows you to pay for a quality-of-life addition by increasing your Stash size by up to 280 slots.

You will be able to earn these extra slots in the game without paying for them also, but this will obviously involve a grind or what’s the point in buying them, potentially making the game more enjoyable for those who wish to purchase.

These features were previously available in the Edge of Darkness edition of the game which has now been removed, and if you bought that you will not have to get them again. A post from Battlestate Games’ chief operating officer Nikita Buyanov says:

“So, the thing is that we want to add purchasable options for EFT players cause:

1. We removed the EoD version and some of the EoD features need to go back (offline co-op for example).
2. The game is running for eight years without any additional flow. You just buy and play it forever, and it’s a pretty unique situation for a game such as EFT.”

It also goes on to state that there will be no in-game currency gear packages and the like to buy, just what has been mentioned so far.

These changes will arrive in “the near future” and be available from your profile page on the Escape from Tarkov website as we wave goodbye to the end of an era.

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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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Google has extended the availability of its Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) assistant and chatbot to several more territories and in various languages.

Last week, the Alphabet company confirmed the rebranding of Bard to Gemini, which is also the name of its flagship large language model (LLM) AI. The Gemini assistant was rolled out for Android and iOS, but only to users in the United States, in the English language. It was expected that availability would be rolled out to other countries soon after, which has now been made official.

As reported by Sam Mobile, Android users across Asia have confirmed access to Gemini on their devices but there is no sign of the feature in Europe just yet. This rollout could be impacted by regulatory issues in the European Union but given the size of its consumer base there, efforts are surely ongoing to fix any issues.

On the Android devices that Gemini accesses, consumers can access it from its app, as well as by long pressing the power button, swiping diagonally from the lower corners of the screen, or saying “Hey Google.” It first appears on top of other apps, and you can type your question using the keyboard or by using your voice.

Advanced UI

Jack Krawczyk, a lead developer on Gemini, intimated the program would soon be arriving in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, as well as in North America, as Google works to make its AI assistant available to the world’s 2.5 billion Android users.

Gemini is powered by the LLM of the same name, which has a far greater capacity for understanding communications such as natural language and conversations. It is expected to fully replace Google Assistant in a matter of time given its advanced user interface and capability.

Gemini seamlessly integrates with Google services including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, YouTube and more, allowing users to make prompts from their account on the apps.

Image: Google

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A massive security breach has been confirmed with almost one in two French citizens affected, involving two service providers for medical insurance companies.

The third-party payment portals involved were Viamedis and Almerys, due to the former experiencing a sophisticated phishing attack that compromised its systems late last month. Almerys did not elaborate on the cause of its loss, but it is thought to be a similar incident.

The French Data Protection Authority (NCIL) detailed the full incident, with around 33 million customers’ data stolen. The leaked data includes personal information such as birth dates, marital status, social security numbers, and insurance details. NCIL moved to allay further fears by stating no banking credentials, medical data, or contact numbers were lost but the scale of the cyber attack is clear.

Yann Padova, a digital data protection lawyer and former secretary general at CNIL commented on the seriousness of the data breach, “This is the first time that there has been a violation of this magnitude (in France),” further adding it was suspected to be the biggest ever leak of its kind, in France.

Investigation underway

The attackers used credentials stolen from healthcare professionals, in a targeted raid, to access the systems at the two companies.

CNIL is now working with Viamedis and Almerys to contact all those impacted, as bound by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. However, given the sheer number of customers involved it will take some time to complete the task.

As a result of this attack, the “tiers payant” system in which patients do not need to contribute the full cost of medical services in advance may be unavailable for providers for some time, but users will still have access.

The French data authority has sent out a renewed warning, to be wary of phishing attacks, given the volume of compromised data now in the wrong hands whilst a full investigation is underwater to ascertain exactly how the massive breach happened and if Viamedis or Almerys are culpable.

Image: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

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In all the years of Fortnite and its collaborations, perhaps one of the biggest surprises is that we have never had any content from anime powerhouse One Piece appear in the game. The number one Manga of all time with an estimated sales revenue of over $516 million, the marriage of One Piece and Fortnite seems to be an eventual no-brainer.

And we might be about to see it finally realized if the latest Fortnite leak from the game’s leaking community, who also broke the scoop on the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collab is correct.

Although details are thin, there is no smoke without fire and while a One Piece collab has been requested many times by fans of the series, bringing characters such as Monkey D. Luffy, Nami and Nico Robin wouldn’t seem to be as complicated or riddled with danger as we saw in with the arrival of the recent Family Guys skins, which caused problems for some players. Although we would love to see Tony Tony Chopper make an appearance on the Island too.

As for timelines, nothing is known at the moment, we are still in the middle of the Turtles Cowabunga event, so we are likely talking at least a month away, although we could get initial skins earlier.

Even though One Piece has been tremendously successful since its first Manga back in 1997, its following transition to Anime and a series starting in 1999 has propelled it to a new audience. Last year Netflix streamed Season one of a new live-action version series, bringing the content to more people than ever before.

There have also been several One Piece games including last year’s One Piece Odyssey across all major formats that was an enjoyable, largely-open world romp across the story’s main settings.

Featured Image: AI-Generated with Ideagram

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Rumors have been circulating for a few months now that the highly-anticipated DLC for Elden Ring, The Shadow of the Erdtree was about to drop, potentially by the end of this month, which coincidentally is the two-year anniversary of the original game’s release. 

Such is the popularity of Elden Ring, a two-year hiatus has not damaged the yearning from its fans to get back into the fiendishly difficult Soulslike, to the point where leakers and those who want to be the first to spread the word, have been poking around in the inner sanctums of the Steam backend for any trace that an update may be on the way.

Plenty of evidence had been uncovered, and new files, some even with DLC in the title appeared to have been uploaded, leading to rife speculation that From Software was about to do what From Software does, and just release new content without warning.

Several publications including PC Gamer have now poured water on the rumor because of a line in a financial report from Kadakow – FromSoftware’s parent company, which said, “We are currently working hard on the development of DLC for Elden Ring but we have not announced a release date at this time.”

Having said that, Shadow of the Erdtree is definitely on the way, the Steam updates cannot point to anything else at this stage. They would have nothing to do with the recent leak of a mobile Elden Ring being worked on by Tencent, and there previously hadn’t been any new files uploaded to Steam since the original game’s release. Something is going on, but as yet, it does not seem as though it is going to be any of our business any time soon.

An awful lot would need to happen now in the next two weeks until the anniversary for Shadow of the Erdtree to arrive. Perhaps it will just be an announcement. We will have to wait and see.

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Poker is as challenging as it is entertaining, and if you can master a few important skills, there’s money to be made. However, if you jump into a game without an understanding of basic poker strategy, you’re putting your bankroll at risk.

We don’t want you to do that, which is why we’ve written down our 10 best poker tips. Starting with the fundamentals and working up to some intermediate concepts, we’ve given you the perfect base on which to build a winning poker strategy.

Whether you’re aiming for $10 million WSOP payouts or you just want to clean up at your next home game, here are 10 of the best poker strategies to master.

(Source: Chris Liverani/Unsplash)

Basic Poker Strategies: Getting Started

Everyone needs to start at the bottom if they want to know how to win at poker. That’s why we’re kicking off this guide with five important poker tips for beginners. The following concepts will give you a solid foundation on which to build a solid long-term strategy.

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Tip #1: Choose Your Starting Hands Wisely

(Source: Michael Parzuchowski / Unsplash)

You can’t learn how to be good at poker without knowing which cards to play and which ones to fold. It might sound basic, but every successful poker strategy starts with the cards you’re dealt and one decision: play or fold.

The first thing to say is that there are no right or wrong hands to play; there are only options. However, because we’re focusing on poker strategies for beginners, it makes sense to create a solid foundation.

So, for this discussion, we’re going to list hands that you should consider playing from three positions: early, middle, and late. As with everything in this poker strategy guide, we’ll be using Hold’em as our base, but the following concepts can be applied to any variant.

Each poker strategy chart we’ve created should be taken as a guide. For example, you might have 10-10 in late position. Normally, you’d play this hand. However, if there’s been a lot of action before it’s your turn to act, it might be best to fold.

Therefore, just because the chart says play, it doesn’t mean you should. Always consider the context. Additionally, each poker strategy chart shows a range of hands. If it says, “connected cards from 5-6 to 9-10,” that means all the connected cards between those two points.

#1: Early Position

Full-Ring Game (9 players)

Six-Max Game (6 players)

#2: Middle Position

Full-Ring Game (9 players)

Six-Max Game (6 players)

#3: Late Position

Full-Ring Game (9 players)

Six-Max Game (6 players)

Tip #2 – Players and Position Matter

All poker strategy is based on two fundamental concepts: players and position. The starting hand charts we’ve outlined above contain an increasing number of hands the later your position is. Why? Because acting late gives you more information.

You can get a better sense of what people have if they’ve already made a move. The first player to act doesn’t have any information, which is why it’s best to play tight and only open with a few hands.

In addition to position, make sure you know the players you’re up against. Opening with 4-4 in late position in a six-max game filled with passive players is fine.

Their passive tendencies mean they’ll play fewer hands, which, in turn, gives you more scope to take the lead with a wider range. If, however, the table is full of aggressive players, you might be better off folding 4-4, even though you’re in late position.

Tip #3 – Play Fewer Hands and Play Them Aggressively

Aggression is a skill you need to master in poker. In fact, aggression was one of the most important Texas Hold’em tips Doyle Brunson gave to the world in his book Super System. The key point to remember here is that you need to combine aggression with timing. This means sticking to a fairly narrow range of hands.

But, when you do decide to play a hand, try to be the aggressor as much as possible. One of the best ways to win at poker is to put opponents on the back foot so they make mistakes. You do that by playing tight (i.e., a few hands) and aggressively (i.e., betting and raising).

Tip #4 – Learn Pot Odds

You can’t learn how to win in poker if you don’t understand pot odds. Why? Every bet, raise, and call you make needs to be considered in relation to the money you can win, i.e., the chips in the pot. Poker strategy books define pot odds in the following way:

The ratio between the amount of money you need to call vs. the amount of money in the pot.

The 16% figure tells us that you need to win more than 16% of the time to make a profit in this situation. At this point, look at your hand and estimate how likely it is to win against the range of hands your opponent could have. If it’s likely to win more often than the pot odds, call. If not, fold.

Tip #5: Don’t Go on Tilt

One of the simplest but hardest-to-implement poker tips we can give you is to not tilt. Going on tilt means you’ve lost control of your emotions. This causes you to make rash decisions and potentially blow your bankroll. You don’t want this to happen, so the trick is to remain calm as much as possible.

Remember that poker is meant to be fun. If you get a bad beat, shake it off and carry on. Every move you make in poker should be focused on its long-term potential. Go all-in with pocket aces against 7-2, and you’ll win way more often than you lose. Remember this fact, and short-term fluctuations won’t affect you as much.

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Intermediate Poker Strategy Tips

Our basic poker strategy tips are enough to get you started. You could stop reading now, and the poker help we’ve given you so far would serve you well in micro-stakes games. However, if you’re anything like us, you’re probably aiming a bit higher than $0.01/$0.02 games.

If that’s the case, we’re going to build on our poker tips for beginners with five intermediate concepts. They’re not super advanced poker tips, so don’t worry. We’ve got other poker strategy articles covering pro-level tips. The following poker hints will be enough to take you from micro-stakes to low and mid-stakes games.

Tip #6. Everything Matters

A lot of basic poker strategies focus on fundamental concepts such as position and bet sizing. All of these poker tips are useful, but newbies tend to view them in isolation. In other words, they look at one Texas Hold’em strategy concept as distinct from another. The reality is that everything is interconnected.

You can’t think about position without taking into account player types. You can’t think about bet sizing without pot odds and implied odds. That’s why everything matters.

Of course, we’re not saying you need to know all of the best poker strategies right now. We’re simply saying that you need to merge individual tips to develop an overall strategy. This is how the pros think and how you need to think if you want to move beyond basic poker strategy.

Tip #7. Learn the Math

“Math is idiotic” used to be a meme, and a lot of old-school pros will give you poker tips that don’t have a mathematical foundation.

Playing with “feel” is fine, but the reality is that poker is a game of numbers, and you need to know them if you want to win. Some of the mathematical concepts you need to know are:

•         Pot odds (see previous section)
•         Implied odds
•         Probabilities
•         Expected Value
•         Equity
•         Fold Equity

The best poker strategy books to learn about these topics are:

•       The Theory of Poker
•       The Mathematics of Poker
•       Essential Poker Math

Tip #8. Tell Convincing Stories

You’ll hear professional players talk about “lines” when they’re discussing hands and how to get better at poker. A line refers to the way a hand plays out and includes everything from the amount someone bet and their position to the time it took for them to make a decision.

Lines are, essentially, stories. The art of being a good poker player is learning to tell a convincing story. This poker strategy concept is most important when you’re bluffing. Skilled opponents can spot inconsistencies in your story from 100 paces.

Therefore, if you’re going to run a bluff, make sure you’ve told a coherent story. This means playing as though you’ve got a strong hand from the start. Don’t suddenly decide halfway through a hand that you’re going to bluff because the story won’t be believable. Identify a potentially profitable situation to bluff, then tell a convincing story.

Tip #9. Learn How to Be Good at Poker from All Angles

We’ve focused on Texas Hold’em tips in this guide, but the majority of things we’ve said can be applied to any variant. Indeed, poker strategy concepts such as pot odds, hand selection, position, and coherent lines apply to Omaha, Stud, Draw, and Mixed Games.

Therefore, you can take our poker beginner tips, combine them with our intermediate ideas, and test them in different variants. This will give you a better overall understanding of poker and how all of the best poker strategies are malleable.

There’s never a one-move-fits-all solution for every situation. You’ll learn this when you play games other than Hold’em.

Tip #10. Go GTO

Game Theory Optimal is a way of playing poker that bases each move on the mathematics of the situation. It’s, essentially, a statistically and logically unexploitable way to play. You’ll need to understand the fundamentals of GTO before you use this poker strategy. We suggest reading Modern Poker Theory as a starting point and for an overall grounding.

Once you’ve done that, start playing around with a GTO calculator to find the optimal moves for common scenarios in poker. You can keep it running alongside your poker app or desktop software as you play cash games.

Read More on Playing Poker to Win

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•       Discover the best online poker sites
•       Read up on the top poker terminology
•       Unearth top offshore poker sites

Final Thoughts

We’ve given you the best poker strategies for beginners. We’ve sprinkled in some more advanced poker tips. We’ve even told you where to practice your newfound skills.

Something we haven’t addressed is cost. We can give you advice on how to win at poker, but it doesn’t mean you will. Nothing is guaranteed in this game, which is why it’s a good idea to play free poker games.

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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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