Monthly Archives: July 2022

A studio of ‘Witcher 3’ developers are making an online action game set in feudal Japan

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A group of former CD Projekt Red developers is working on a new online action that will take players to feudal Japan. This week, Dark Passenger co-founders Jakub Ben and Marcin Michalski announced the formation of their studio and put out a call for talent in a series of tweets spotted by PC Gamer. Ben and Michalski were part of the art team that worked on The Witcher 3 and later went on to do contract work on Cyberpunk 2077.

Dark Passenger’s first game doesn’t have a name yet, but the studio’s website provides some details on the project. Ben and Michalski say they want to create an online multiplayer game with support for both competitive and cooperative play. They describe a title that sounds like it will borrow elements from games like Titanfall and Absolver. “Our locomotion system will allow players to perform incredible [feats] such as running on arrows that were fired by other players, fast climbing on vertical surfaces with the use of shuko claws or using [a] yari spear like a pole to jump over obstacles,” the studio said. “Engaging [in] close-ranged combat will demand as much dexterity as tactics and close cooperation with teammates.”

The news of the founding comes after former CDPR executive Konrad Tomaszkiewicz announced at the start of the year he was creating a studio named Rebel Wolves. He said his team would release its first project, a dark fantasy role-playing game built in Unreal Engine 5, sometime in 2025. After directing the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3 and contributing to Cyberpunk 2077, Tomaszkiewicz left CDPR in May 2021 amid allegations he bullied coworkers. Before his departure, it came out that work on Cyberpunk involved a lengthy and brutal crunch period for many of its developers.

As PC Gamer points out, Dark Passenger’s careers page alludes to some of the criticisms of CDPR. “We create a prejudice-free environment based on tolerance, support and understanding. We treat individual needs as seriously as the group’s expectations,” the page states. “We provide all amenities, private medical care and paid overtime. With an emphasis on work-life balance, we offer flexible working hours and holidays.” As for when you can expect to play the studio’s first game, Dark Passenger has not shared a release date.



Source: Engadget – A studio of ‘Witcher 3’ developers are making an online action game set in feudal Japan

The Simpsons Movie Was a Unique, But Inevitable Step for Fox's Yellow Family

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Is there a family in media who’s persisted quite so much as The Simpsons? Matt Groening’s five-person (and one dog!) family of yellow oddballs has been going on strong since 1989, as long as some of our parents have been married, if not alive altogether. Depending on who you are, time hasn’t entirely been kind to the…

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Source: Gizmodo – The Simpsons Movie Was a Unique, But Inevitable Step for Fox’s Yellow Family

A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed In Australia

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Newsweek reports that “A huge piece of space debris appears to have fallen from the sky and landed on a sheep farm in Australia.”

On July 9, locals across the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales heard a bang, ABC Australia reported. It was heard for miles, by those as far away as Albury, Wagga Wagga and Canberra…. Sheep farmer Mick Miners then came across a strange, charred object on his ranch, south of Jindabyne, on July 25. “I didn’t know what to think, I had no idea what it was,” Miners told ABC Australia.

He found the 10 foot chunk of metal wedged into the ground in a remote part of his sheep paddock.

He was not the only one. His neighbor, Jock Wallace also found some strange debris in the area. “I didn’t hear the bang, but my daughters said it was very loud,” Wallace told ABC. “I think it’s a concern, it’s just fallen out of the sky. If it landed on your house it would make a hell of a mess.”

Serial numbers were noted on the charred, pieces of debris. Australian National University College of Science astrophysicist Brad Tucker told ABC News that the debris is likely from the trunk section of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft launched in 2020, and the debris may have fallen as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Tucker told ABC that is may have been the largest piece of space debris to fall in Australia for decades — the last time was in 1979, when NASA’s Skylab space station fell in Western Australia.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader 192_kbps for sharing the article!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – A Large Chunk of Rocket Space Debris Landed In Australia

Learn Rust by debugging Rust

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In my previous article about rustup, I showed you how to install the Rust toolchain. Well, what good is the toolchain if you won’t be using it to get more hands-on with Rust? Learning any language involves reading existing code and writing a lot of sample programs. That’s a good way to become proficient in a language. However, there’s a third way: debugging code.

Source: LXer – Learn Rust by debugging Rust

Intel Confirms Commitment To Arc Graphics Roadmap, Alleged Launch Date Surfaces

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Intel Confirms Commitment To Arc Graphics Roadmap, Alleged Launch Date Surfaces
Recent rumors have implied that top brass at Intel were considering the cancellation of Arc’s entire product line. While Intel has been known to do such a thing—that was the eventual fate of Larrabee—it seems unlikely to us given that the AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics) division cost the company some $500 million over the

Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Confirms Commitment To Arc Graphics Roadmap, Alleged Launch Date Surfaces

Innovative New Samsung Repair Mode Secures Your Data While Your Phone Gets Fixed

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Innovative New Samsung Repair Mode Secures Your Data While Your Phone Gets Fixed
Smartphones are inherently personal devices. We use them to help with and document so much of our lives. While data security is always a concern, the physical act of handing our phones over to be serviced can be particularly nerve-wracking. Sometimes the technician can perform the service in front of your watchful eye, but often smartphones

Source: Hot Hardware – Innovative New Samsung Repair Mode Secures Your Data While Your Phone Gets Fixed

Freshman Year is Basically a Spider-Man Season of What If

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The upcoming Spider-Man: Freshman Year cartoon was shrouded in some degree of secrecy since its initial reveal last year, but last weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, more information on the show came to light. Initially, it seemed like the cartoon would tell the story of MCU Peter Parker in his early days of heroism, but…

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Source: Gizmodo – Freshman Year is Basically a Spider-Man Season of What If

Proxy Service 911[.]re Closes After Disclosing Breach and Data Damage

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Long-time Slashdot reader tsu doh nimh writes: 911[.]re, a proxy service that since 2015 has sold access to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows computers daily, announced this week that it is shutting down in the wake of a data breach that destroyed key components of its business operations, KrebsOnSecurity reports.

From the article:

“On July 28th, a large number of users reported that they could not log in the system,” the statement continues. “We found that the data on the server was maliciously damaged by the hacker, resulting in the loss of data and backups. Its [sic] confirmed that the recharge system was also hacked the same way. We were forced to make this difficult decision due to the loss of important data that made the service unrecoverable.”

Operated largely out of China, 911 was an enormously popular service across many cybercrime forums, and it became something akin to critical infrastructure for this community after two of 911’s longtime competitors — malware-based proxy services VIP72 and LuxSock — closed their doors in the past year…

911 wasn’t the only major proxy provider disclosing a breach this week tied to unauthenticated APIs: On July 28, KrebsOnSecurity reported that internal APIs exposed to the web had leaked the customer database for Microleaves, a proxy service that rotates its customers’ IP addresses every five to ten minutes. That investigation showed Microleaves — like 911 — had a long history of using pay-per-install schemes to spread its proxy software.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Proxy Service 911[.]re Closes After Disclosing Breach and Data Damage

Google is not shutting Stadia down

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Contrary to what you may have heard in the past few days, Google says it’s not shutting down its Stadia gaming service. The company issued the statement after a rumor began circulating earlier this week that suggested it would sunset the platform later this year. “Stadia is not shutting down,” the official Stadia Twitter account told a concerned fan in a tweet spotted by PC Gamer. “Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.”

Some Stadia fans were convinced Google would finally pull the plug on the service after Cody Ogden of Killed by Google fame, a Twitter account and blog that keeps track of the company’s constantly expanding graveyard, shared a post from a Facebook fan group. According to the message, an “old coworker and friend” told the poster Google had recently held a meeting to discuss Stadia’s future — or lack thereof. They claimed the company would shut down the platform by the end of the summer and would do so using the same strategy it employed with Google Play Music.

At the time, the only commentary Ogden, a self-proclaimed shitposter, offered on the post was a popcorn emoji. However, that wasn’t enough to stop the rumor from sending much of the Stadia community, including the official subreddit, into freefall. To its credit, Google responded to the episode with a bit of humor.

That even a thinly sourced rumor caused upheaval among the Stadia community isn’t surprising. The service has been on an extended deathwatch ever since Google shut down its first-party studios. The incident highlights the unhealthy parasocial relationships people can sometimes have with tech companies like Google. “Communities that are confident in their continued existence don’t respond like some of the things that have been hurled at me in public and in DMs the past couple days,” Ogden said after the dust settled. “If even the suggestion that a piece of technology could go away affects you so deeply that it brings you to threats, maybe you need to reevaluate your relationship with the tech?”



Source: Engadget – Google is not shutting Stadia down

Two Meteor Shower Spectacles Will Light Up The Night This Weekend, Where To Watch

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Two Meteor Shower Spectacles Will Light Up The Night This Weekend, Where To Watch
With three active meteor showers currently, you should have a decent chance of seeing a falling star this weekend and into late August. While the Delta Aquariids showers peaked this morning, the Alpha Capricornids is expected to peak tonight and into tomorrow.

Summer is a great time to stay up late and try to catch a glimpse of a shooting

Source: Hot Hardware – Two Meteor Shower Spectacles Will Light Up The Night This Weekend, Where To Watch

Uber starts showing more US drivers how much they will earn on potential trips

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Uber has launched a couple of features designed to improve the experience of and increase transparency for drivers. A few months ago, the ride-hailing giant started piloting a feature called “Upfront Fares” in a handful of cities. Now it’s expanding its availability and rolling it out to most of the US over the coming months. When they get access to the features, drivers will see how much they’ll earn and where they’re going for a trip on the request screen before they accept the booking. 

According to the Help page explaining how Upfront Fares work, Uber calculates the amount it shows using several factors, “including base fares, estimated trip length and duration, pickup distance and surge pricing.” Uber will also show drivers the cross streets closest to the pick up and drop-off points to help them make a decision. In addition, Uber will also expand the availability of “Trip Radar,” a feature that shows drivers a list of possible trips nearby, along with Upfront Fares. They’ll still get individual trip requests, but now they can pick another booking that might suit them better. 

Uber is positioning these new features as a way to support its drivers, but as Axios notes, the impact they may have on customers remains unclear. They could end up being misused and lead to the increase of rider and trip discrimination if drivers look at them as tools to avoid specific neighborhoods. That said, the features could also prevent canceled trips, because they allow drivers to make a conscious decision when accepting trips.

The company has also launched a new Uber Pro debit card that will enable drivers to earn cashbacks for getting gas at select stations. Back in March, Uber added a fuel surcharge to rides and deliveries, as well, to help drivers keep up with skyrocketing gas prices.



Source: Engadget – Uber starts showing more US drivers how much they will earn on potential trips

The Story Behind Google's In-house Desktop Linux

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“For more than a decade, Google has been baking and eating its own homemade Linux desktop distribution,” writes Computerworld.

Long-time Slashdot reader waspleg shared their report:

The first version was Goobuntu. (As you’d guess from the name, it was based on Ubuntu.) In 2018, Google moved its in-house Linux desktop from the Goobuntu to a new Linux distro, the Debian-based gLinux. Why? Because, as Google explained, Ubuntu’s Long Term Support (LTS) two-year release “meant that we had to upgrade every machine in our fleet of over 100,000 devices before the end-of-life date of the OS.”

That was a pain. Add in the time-consuming need to fully customize engineers’ PCs, and Google decided that it cost too much. Besides, the “effort to upgrade our Goobuntu fleet usually took the better part of a year. With a two-year support window, there was only one year left until we had to go through the same process all over again for the next LTS. This entire process was a huge stress factor for our team, as we got hundreds of bugs with requests for help for corner cases.”

So, when Google had enough of that, it moved to Debian Linux (though not just vanilla Debian). The company created a rolling Debian distribution: GLinux Rolling Debian Testing (Rodete). The idea is that users and developers are best served by giving them the latest updates and patches as they’re created and deemed ready for production.
Google’s using what appears to be an automated build system (along with virtualized test suites, and eventually “incremental canarying”), the article points out. The end result?

“The entire gLinux development team consists of a single on-duty release engineer position that rotates among team members.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – The Story Behind Google’s In-house Desktop Linux

Avengers Movies are Now the Endgame for MCU Sagas

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The Avengers sub-franchise of the MCU occupies a strange spot in the larger series. Though the original 2012 film was where that first batch of movies was building up to, and ended Phase One, the same couldn’t be said of its sequels. 2015’s Age of Ultron released mid-Phase Two, and though the duology of Infinity War …

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Source: Gizmodo – Avengers Movies are Now the Endgame for MCU Sagas

Hot August Smart TV Deals Bring Big Savings On Big TCL, Samsung And Sony 4K Beauties

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Hot August Smart TV Deals Bring Big Savings On Big TCL, Samsung And Sony 4K Beauties
It is very close to back-to-school time, and you know what that means! The parents finally get the TV to themselves during the day! So why not make the kids a little jealous and gift yourself an upgrade. After all, you’ve been a good parent all summer, right?

Let’s start with the budget friendly Insiginia 50-inch Class F30 LED 4K UHD Smart

Source: Hot Hardware – Hot August Smart TV Deals Bring Big Savings On Big TCL, Samsung And Sony 4K Beauties

Fix bugs in Bash scripts by printing a stack trace

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No one wants to write bad code, but inevitably bugs will be created. Most modern languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, etc., automatically print a stack trace when they encounter an unhandled exception, but not shell scripts. It would make it much easier to find and fix bugs in shell scripts if you could print a stack trace, and, with a little work, you can.

Source: LXer – Fix bugs in Bash scripts by printing a stack trace

$TWINKcoin: Hostess Releases a New Crypto-themed Twinkie

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“There’s a new cryptocurrency in town,” quips SFGate. “But the only crash you’ll experience with this one is from sugar.”
Inspired by the recent headlines and discussion around cryptocurrency, Hostess decided to capitalize by debuting their own edible investment: Enter $TWINKcoin, the latest limited-edition Twinkie iteration to hit shelves.

“We saw an opportunity to release a new take on fan-favorite Hostess Twinkies, to create the best investment consumers can make to satisfy their snacking needs,” a Hostess representative told Decrypt. “With more than 12,000 cryptocurrencies already in existence, $TWINKcoin is the first coin-shaped golden sponge cake of its kind. And, what’s more, it’s a currency with a stable value — it’s always delicious!”
Compositionally, $TWINKcoins are indistinguishable from original Twinkies, with the same dense cake and synthetic cream filling; but instead of the classic cylindrical mold, the pecuniary pastries are formed into coin-shaped discs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – $TWINKcoin: Hostess Releases a New Crypto-themed Twinkie

The weekend’s best deals: Kindle Unlimited, Nintendo Switch games, and more

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The weekend’s best deals: Kindle Unlimited, Nintendo Switch games, and more

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It’s the weekend, which means it’s time for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a hefty discount on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription service. You’ll have to be a new user to take advantage, but if you’ve been thinking about giving the service a try, Amazon is currently offering a four-month membership for $5. The subscription normally costs $10 a month after a 30-day free trial, so this discount saves you $25 in total.

Not every ebook included in Kindle Unlimited’s library is a winner—a chunk of the selection consists of self-published works—and it’s always possible to use apps like Libby to borrow ebooks from your local library for free. Still, the collection is large enough to cover plenty of works that are worthwhile, including a variety of magazines and comic books, and a subscription lets you take out up to 20 titles at a time. You don’t need to own an actual Kindle device to access the library, either.

At its normal going rate, Kindle Unlimited’s value is more questionable, but this deal should make it less risky to see if the service is worth it for you. If you do subscribe, note that your subscription will be set to auto-renew at the normal $10-per-month rate, but you can cancel your membership immediately after signing up without losing access to the discounted trial period.

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Source: Ars Technica – The weekend’s best deals: Kindle Unlimited, Nintendo Switch games, and more