Epic Games has acquired Harmonix, the studio behind titles like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Central and more recently Fuser. Financial terms have not been disclosed. Epic’s vision for Harmonix involves the metaverse. In the immediate future, the two plan to create “musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite.”

Viewed through that lens, Epic’s interest in the studio makes a lot of sense. Outside of frequent brand collaborations, Fortnite is at this point best known for its virtual concerts. In the last two years, a handful of major artists like Ariana Grande and Travis Scott have drawn a lot of interest to the game. In the latter case, for example, more than 12.3 people watched Scott’s performance concurrently.

In the meantime, Harmonix says it will continue to support its existing slate of games. That means Rock Band players can continue to look forward to new DLC and Fuser players can expect the studio to continue hosting events. Additionally, any game that’s currently available through Steam will continue to be sold through Valve’s storefront.

Source: Engadget – Epic Games buys Harmonix to create ‘musical journeys’ in ‘Fortnite’

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum hasn’t been open much since the pandemic started, but it’s already poised to shut its doors again — if for more positive reasons. The Washington Postreports the Smithsonian is closing its flagship National Mall building for at least six months of renovations starting March 28th, 2022. The move will maintain the “continued safety” of visitors while the museum finishes work on its first new west wing galleries.

The closure is part of the first phase of a seven-year renovation poised to cost over $1 billion. The Smithsonian is staggering closures to keep at least some physical museum spaces open during that period, including the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia (which will remain open). Some parts of the collection have relocated to other relevant museums in the meantime, such as the Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the American Indian.

The wait could be worthwhile. Eight west wing exhibits should launch when the main museum reopens, including “One World Connected” (shown above) and spaces touching on the Wright brothers, planetary exploration and the Moon.

Some parts of the renovation are still far from completion. The museum will start “deinstallation” of the east wing in March and won’t complete its upgrade until sometime in 2025. If you can live with those limitations, though, the Air and Space Museum may soon be more relevant and engaging than in the past — even if you’ve visited relatively recently.

Source: Engadget – The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum will close for at least six months in 2022

Apple is more than a little angry at NSO Group for developing spyware tools. The iPhone maker has filed a lawsuit against NSO to “hold it accountable” for governments spying on and targeting Apple device users. In addition to punishing NSO, Apple also seeks to ban the surveillance software developer from using Apple products for future research.

Senior VP Craig Federighi acknowledged that NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is only aimed at surveilling a small number of people on multiple platforms, including Android. However, Apple stressed that targets are frequently activists, journalists and other critics of regimes that routinely suppress political dissent. The company further accused NSO of “flagrant violations” of federal- and state-level laws in the US.

The lawsuit also sheds more light on NSO’s reported “FORCEDENTRY” exploit. According to Apple, intruders pushed FORCEDENTRY by creating bogus Apple IDs to send malicious code without alerting targets. Apple said its servers weren’t compromised in the process, but it clearly wasn’t happy that its account system was used for this surveillance.

Alongside the lawsuit, Apple is promising to donate $10 million (plus any lawsuit damages) toward groups advocating against or researching this kind of digital surveillance. It’s further promising free engineering, intelligence and technical help for FORCEDENTRY discoverer Citizen Lab and other organizations with similar goals.

We’ve asked NSO Group for comment. In the past, it has repeatedly maintained that it shuts off access to known abusers. It also denied that Pegasus was used to target murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Israeli firm has even gone on the offensive, hiring a libel attorney that accused investigators of ‘misinterpreting’ data and otherwise smearing NSO’s reputation.

NSO might not have many allies. WhatsApp, for instance, accused NSO of enabling attacks on government officials and rejected the Pegasus creator’s denials. The tech industry sees NSO as a threat to the privacy of its users (and thus its reputation), and it won’t be surprising if other companies support Apple’s case.

Source: Engadget – Apple sues NSO Group over state-backed spyware