About a month ago, Valve teased that it was working on its own VR headset separate from the HTC’s Vive and Vive Pro, but still compatible with all the Steam VR games that are currently available. Now, Valve has finally released a ton of details about the Index, including some of its new and unusual abilities.
Source: Gizmodo – The Most Interesting Thing About Valve’s Fancy New VR Headset Might Be Its Controllers
In happened one night, in the woods. Set designer Lisa Soper was on location filming a scene from the second season of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, when executive producer Sarah Schechter came up to her with an offer. Did she want to design the sets for the CW’s Batwoman pilot? To answer the question,…
Source: io9 – Sabrina’s Set Designer Teases the World She Built for CW’s Batwoman
Valve has just launched a brand-new virtual reality (VR) system that will supersede the Vive family that was produced by HTC. Called the Valve Index, in many ways this headset is even more compelling than the HTC Vive Pro.
The full-blown Valve Index Kit will set you back $999 and includes the headset, two wireless controllers, and two
Source: Hot Hardware – Valve Index Headset Touts 120Hz Displays And High Fidelity VR Experiences
Lately, the EVE community is buzzing about a potentially galaxy-shattering invasion. It’s not one designed by the game’s creators or by one of the current power blocs looking to start a new great war. Rather, players from EVE’s dedicated Chinese server, called Serenity, are planning to join the rest of EVE’s single…
Source: Kotaku – Chinese EVE’s Largest Corporation Is Moving To International Servers
Privacy advocates have long been concerned that US border agents may be overstepping their boundaries when searching devices, and the ACLU just obtained evidence appearing to support that theory. The civil rights group has motioned for summary judgm…
Source: Engadget – ACLU: border agents regularly perform ‘warrantless’ device searches
You can hang around as many laboratories as you want, but there are zero chances you’ll ever get bitten by a spider and find yourself with superpowers. The easiest (and safest) way to realize your Spider-Man fantasies is to build this DIY web shooter instead, which also ensures no music stands will ever pose a threat…
Source: Gizmodo – How to Make Your Own Functional Spider-Man Web Shooters
GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton released a new version of his RaspAnd Pie operating system, which lets you run Android 9 Pie on your Raspberry Pi computer, to add a few much-needed improvements.
Source: LXer – Android 9 Pie OS for Raspberry Pi 3 Gets Yalp Store and Evie Launcher
About 10 percent of women have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, so chances are good that someone you love is facing or will face infertility. But if you haven’t experienced it yourself (or even if you did but your circumstances were different), it might be hard to know what to say or do to support them.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Support Someone You Love Through Infertility
New research looks at how we are enticed by healthy claims on cereal packaging, which is often completely unrelated to actual nutritional quality.
Source: TreeHugger – 4 ways shoppers are misled with cereal box health claims
Enlarge (credit: Cisco Talos)
Attackers have been actively exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability in the widely used Oracle WebLogic server to install ransomware, with no clicking or other interaction necessary on the part of end users, researchers from Cisco Talos said on Tuesday.
The vulnerability and working exploit code first became public two weeks ago on the Chinese National Vulnerability Database, according to researchers from the security educational group SANS ISC, who warned that the vulnerability was under active attack. The vulnerability is easy to exploit and gives attackers the ability to execute code of their choice on cloud servers. Because of their power, bandwidth, and use in high-security cloud environments, these servers are considered high-value targets. The disclosure prompted Oracle to release an emergency patch on Friday.
On Tuesday, researchers with Cisco Talos said CVE-2019-2725, as the vulnerability has been indexed, has been under active exploit since at least April 21. Starting last Thursday—a day before Oracle patched the zero-day vulnerability, attackers started using the exploits in a campaign to install “Sodinokibi,” a new piece of ransomware. In addition to encrypting valuable data on infected computers, the malicious program attempts to destroy shadow copy backups to prevent targets from simply restoring the lost data. Oddly enough, about eight hours after infection, the attackers exploited the same vulnerability to install a different piece of ransomware known as GandCrab.
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Source: Ars Technica – Zero-day attackers deliver a double dose of ransomware—no clicking required
Google employees will hold a sit-in tomorrow at 11am to protest what they call a “culture of retaliation.” The group Google Walkout For Real Change announced the event on Twitter, saying they’ve encountered everything from being told to take sick lea…
Source: Engadget – Google employees will sit-in to protest retaliation culture
More than a year ago, we were told Niantic, Inc. was working on an Ingress: The Animation streaming series. Today, the anime show, a sci-fi adventure thriller, is available on Netflix, and you can watch the trailer below.
Source: Engadget – The anime adaptation of mobile game ‘Ingress’ is now on Netflix
Mordhau is a medieval multiplayer fighter named after a German sword technique from the Renaissance era in which knights hold their weapons by the blade and try to bash their opponents heads in using the pommel. Like its namesake, Mordhau is slow, awkward, and bloody, but for some reason, I want to keep playing.
Source: Kotaku – Mordhau Is A Clunky Game For Swordplay Nerds That I Can’t Put Down
This is a video of University Of Georgia competitive gaming team Jack Stuttard and Ibrahim Diaz being interviewed after winning the recent Collegiate Starleague (CSL) Fortnite championship in Atlantic City, and admitting they’re not really into the game anymore. I’ve transcribed the interview below for those of you can’t watch videos at work because I just want you to like me, even though I know you’re way out of your league. “What league are you in, GW?” Twenty thousand under the sea:
Interviewer: Final question — what’s next for this duo? Another season, more tournaments, the online circuit? How’s it going?
Jack: Honestly, we don’t really like the game that much anymore. Uh, not gonna lie, so, we’ll see what happens. Epic is kinda messing around a little bit with the way they’re balancing everything so–
Interviewer: I’m pulling the plug on that one. [To Ibrahim] Give us a better answer here.
Ibrahim: We’ll, we’ve decided we don’t want to play like, competitive Fortnite anymore, so we’re gonna move on to different games, or just probably like, do different stuff.
Ahahahhaha, “I’m pulling the plug on that one.” Man, I’m going to start using that anytime anybody says something I don’t want to hear. Sorry mom but I’m pulling the plug on that one, you will be driving me to the mall. And I want enough money for a corn dog and an Orange Julius. Get your purse, let’s go. Haha, nice try, but I’m pulling the plug on that grounding as well.
Keep going for the video interview, complete with the interviewer making the neck cut gesture when Jack starts answering.
Source: Geekologie – During Interview After Win, Collegiate Fortnite Champions Admit They Don’t Like The Game Anymore
It’s been nearly a year since Microsoft unveiled the Xbox Adaptive Controller aimed at allowing special needs gamers to enjoy playing video games more easily. The controller even had its own Super Bowl commercial celebrating these dedicated gamers. Microsoft is now talking up the work that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is doing to
Source: Hot Hardware – Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller Is Empowering Veterans In Rehab Centers Across The US
For as long as Indonesia has existed—even during colonial times—Jakarta has been its capital. But the 10 million-strong coastal city that sits on the northern coast of Java will soon lose that title, thanks to some serious infrastructural and environmental challenges.
Source: Gizmodo – Indonesia Is Moving Its Capital City as the Current One Sinks Into the Sea
It’s happened before, and with another presidential election looming next year, it’s going to happen again and again. The spread of “fake news,” the incorrect labeling of real news as “fake,” and overall confusion as to how to tell the difference.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Tell if a News Site Is Reliable
Yesterday we began with our preliminary performance benchmarks of Fedora 30. From those results Intel Core i9 and AMD Threadripper systems and what we’re seeing on other systems in the labs, Fedora 30 indeed is coming out generally slightly faster than Fedora 29 when looking at the performance overall. In some cases the performance is much better thanks to GCC 9 and other upgrades, but overall it’s a small, modest performance improvement. While that’s better than seeing Fedora 30 running slower than its predecessor, there still is more potential to squeeze out of the system.
Source: Phoronix – Fedora 30 Performance Is Moving In The Right Direction But A Lot Of Untapped Potential
The production company from President and Mrs. Obama, Higher Ground, has unveiled its first lineup of Netflix shows roughly a year after forging a deal with the streaming giant. The initial seven-show catalog will take “several years” to arrive, but…
Source: Engadget – The Obamas’ production company unveils its first Netflix projects
Moms who say they don’t want anything for Mother’s Day are lying. But buying a present for the woman who gave you life doesn’t have to mean emptying out your bank account. We’ll be updating this post with the best gift-able deals, so you can get Mom something nice and still save money. Your mother didn’t raise you to…
Source: Kotaku – The Kinja Deals Guide to Discounted Mother’s Day Gifts [Updating]
