Send a Pencil-and-Paper Battleship Game in Your Kid's Lunchbox

I like to send little notes in my kid’s lunches, but “I love you, have a good day” gets old after a while. For my youngest, I send corny jokes instead. But I found the perfect thing for my 11-year-old: a pencil-and-paper game of Battleship.

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Source: LifeHacker – Send a Pencil-and-Paper Battleship Game in Your Kid’s Lunchbox

FDA Warns of Infection Risk From 26 Big-Brand Eye Drops

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to ditch 26 over-the-counter eye drop products found at big retailers — including CVS, Rite Aid, and Target — due to a risk of infection. Consumers should not buy any of the products and should immediately stop using them if they’ve already purchased them. From a report: The products include Target’s branded Up & Up Dry Eye Relief Lubricant Eye Drops and Up & Up Extreme Relief Dry Eye, as well as Lubricant Eye Drops and Lubricant Gel Drops branded by CVS Health and Rite Aid. The warning also includes eye drop products branded as Rugby and Leader (both from Cardinal Health) and Velocity Pharma. A full list can be found here, as can links to report adverse events.

In an advisory posted Friday, the FDA reported that no infections or adverse events have been linked to the products so far. But the agency said it “found insanitary conditions in the manufacturing facility and positive bacterial test results from environmental sampling of critical drug production areas in the facility.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – FDA Warns of Infection Risk From 26 Big-Brand Eye Drops

Samsung ships Android 14 in record time

The square one is the S23 Ultra; the other two are the S23 and S23 Plus.

Enlarge / The square one is the S23 Ultra; the other two are the S23 and S23 Plus. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung is getting Android 14 out the door in record time. SamMobile spotted that the operating system update is rolling out now to European users with the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. If past timelines are any indication, US users should get the update in the next week or so once Samsung huddles up with your cellular carrier.

Android 14 came out for Pixel phones on October 4, so Samsung is releasing the OS in under a month. That is easily a new record for the company and a huge improvement over the usual multi-month wait. Like previous years, Samsung started a beta program for the new Android release about a month before Google’s official release. Is this increased speed the result of Google’s constant work to make Android easier to upgrade, or just a side effect of Android 14 is also one of the smaller releases in recent years?

In Samsung land, Android 14 is called “One UI 6” and also comes with a range of Samsung UI changes. Apparently, the quick settings have been redesigned, and there are a lot of changes to the camera and photo editing experience. For now, the first release is for users of Samsung’s latest flagship, but eventually, the update will hit devices from the last three years. For S23 users on Android 13, expect about a 3GB download.

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Source: Ars Technica – Samsung ships Android 14 in record time

Sundar Pichai Defends Google Paying Billions to Remain Top Search Engine

Google CEO Sundar Pichai upheld the company’s decision to pay out billions of dollars to remain the top global search engine at the U.S. anti-trust trial on Monday, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Pichai claimed he tried to give users a “seamless and easy” experience, even if it meant paying Apple…

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Source: Gizmodo – Sundar Pichai Defends Google Paying Billions to Remain Top Search Engine

The Easiest Way to Clean Blinds

You don’t really think about how to clean your window blinds until you have to, but when you get down to it, it’s a tedious job. You probably avoid cleaning them as long as possible, but eventually, the job needs to be done. Fortunately, there’s an easy method you probably haven’t heard of.

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Source: LifeHacker – The Easiest Way to Clean Blinds

Players Love This New FPS, Except For The Cheaters And AI Voice Acting

The Finals is a forthcoming free-to-play first-person shooter from new studio Embark, set in a fictional game show’s death arena. Its open beta—which you can sign up for now through November 5 on Steam, PS5, or Xbox Series X/S—promises confetti colors and similarly striking flames and explosions. It looks exciting,…

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Source: Kotaku – Players Love This New FPS, Except For The Cheaters And AI Voice Acting

Stars of the New Hunger Games Prequel Will Likely Walk the Red Carpet

In a surprise move, Lionsgate has signed an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA for the upcoming Hunger Games prequel film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Variety reports. This means that the actors—including top-billed Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler—will be able to promote this film, and will very likely be walking…

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Source: Gizmodo – Stars of the New Hunger Games Prequel Will Likely Walk the Red Carpet

Hackers Accessed 632,000 Email Addresses at US Justice, Defense Departments

A Russian-speaking hacking group obtained access to the email addresses of about 632,000 US federal employees at the departments of Defense and Justice as part of the sprawling MOVEit hack last summer, according to a report on the wide-ranging attack obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. From a report: The report, by the US Office of Personnel Management, provides new details about a cyberattack in which hackers exploited flaws in MOVEit, a popular file-transfer tool. Federal cybersecurity officers previously confirmed that government agencies were compromised by the attack but have provided little information on the scope of the attack, nor did they name the agencies affected.

The Office of Personnel Management, in a July report on the incident submitted to a congressional committee, said an unauthorized actor obtained access to government email addresses, links to government employee surveys administered by OPM and internal OPM tracking codes. The impacted employees were at the Department of Justice and various parts of the Defense Department: the Air Force, Army, US Army Corps of Engineers, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff and Defense Agencies and Field Activities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Hackers Accessed 632,000 Email Addresses at US Justice, Defense Departments

Evil Week: How to View Someone Else's TikToks Anonymously

Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.

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Source: LifeHacker – Evil Week: How to View Someone Else’s TikToks Anonymously

Fake Ozempic Has Sent Several People to the Hospital, Health Agency Warns

Health officials in Austria are the latest to warn the public to stay away from sketchy sources of semaglutide, the active ingredient in popular weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, following recent reports of severe adverse effects linked to counterfeit products. Residents have reportedly been hospitalized with…

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Source: Gizmodo – Fake Ozempic Has Sent Several People to the Hospital, Health Agency Warns

Bungie reportedly lays off staff, delays Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Bungie has reportedly laid off an unknown number of staffers and delayed two highly anticipated games. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports that the studio’s CEO, Pete Parsons, warned staffers they would hear “some news today” while announcing a team meeting later on Monday to “discuss today’s events.”

Meanwhile, the studio has reportedly delayed the Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape, and the studio’s next game, Marathon. Sony completed its deal last year to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Bungie delayed Destiny 2: The Final Shape to June from its original target of February 27, 2024. While not necessarily the end of Destiny 2, the expansion will serve as a resolution, wrapping up its main story’s loose ends. In addition, the studio has pushed back the release date for extraction shooter Marathon to 2025. That title, rebooting an IP from a 1990s Mac cult classic, is Bungie’s attempt to re-establish itself as a force in the modern gaming industry beyond Destiny.

Sony has joined much of the gaming industry (and the tech world at large) in laying off staff this year. Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and PlayStation’s Visual Arts support team have all faced cuts recently. In addition, Epic Games cut around 900 staff members in September, and CD Projekt Red announced in July it would lay off about 100 people. Niantic, Telltale, EA and Unity have also let go of workers in 2023.

Engadget has reached out to Bungie to try to confirm the layoffs and delays. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bungie-reportedly-lays-off-staff-delays-marathon-and-destiny-2-the-final-shape-192722536.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Bungie reportedly lays off staff, delays Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Windows CE Reaches End of Life, If Not End of Sales

Microsoft’s dedicated OS for embedded and pocket devices, Windows CE, has reached the end of its support lifetime. From a report: Windows CE — and there’s never been an official explanation of what the WinCE-inducing name stood for — debuted in November 1996, just a few months after Windows NT 4, the first version of NT with the Explorer desktop from Windows 95. Earlier this month, as reported by HPC Factor, the last ever version, CE 8, branded Compact Embedded 2013, reached its end of support.

In 2011, Microsoft said it would be replaced by a unified platform based on Windows 8, but we know how well that went down. By 2020, the official migration path was set — to a container on top of Win10 IoT. Its fortunes have always fluctuated. In 1999, we asked does MS care about WinCE? By 2003, we reported that eTForecasts said it would outship PCs. Indirectly, the researchers were right — smartphones did end up massively outselling PCs. They just weren’t Microsoft ones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Windows CE Reaches End of Life, If Not End of Sales

Nickmercs Will Stream Gambling On Kick, But Not ‘A Sh*t Ton’

Controversial streamer Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff recently announced a massive $10 million deal with Twitch rival Kick, and it seems that, although he once implored pro-LGBTQIA people to “leave children alone,” he’s not worried about teaching children how to gamble.

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Source: Kotaku – Nickmercs Will Stream Gambling On Kick, But Not ‘A Sh*t Ton’

YouTube fumbles NFL Sunday Ticket streaming

Fans watch a 49ers, Cardinals game on October 2.

Enlarge / Fans watch a 49ers, Cardinals game on October 2. (credit: Getty)

When YouTube TV took over NFL Sunday Ticket, the key was ensuring that the experience was as good as it had been on DirecTV for the previous 29 years. For its initial seven Sundays, that was the case. But YouTube TV fumbled the ball this Sunday.

Users across social media reported suffering lag and long, repetitive buffering sessions with the streams throughout the day. There were nine NFL games playing on NFL Sunday Ticket yesterday. According to The Washington Post, subscribers were having problems “well into the second half of games.”

YouTube acknowledged the problems via its TeamYouTube X account, saying, “If you’re experiencing buffering issues on YouTube our team is aware and working on a fix. YouTube TV or NFL Sunday Ticket may also be impacted. we’ll follow-up here once this has been resolved.” However, the social media account hasn’t provided an update as of this writing.

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Source: Ars Technica – YouTube fumbles NFL Sunday Ticket streaming

RADV Driver Drops NGG Stream-Out Code For RDNA1/RDNA2 GPUs

While the original AMD Navi GPUs featured Next-Gen Geometry (NGG) support, it was borked for some GPUs and initially didn’t work out quite as well as planned for vertex and geometry processing. The Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver “RADV” has worked on the NGG code for years and with RDNA3 GPUs it’s finally been working out very well from the start and better than their legacy pipeline. All the while the RDNA1/RDNA2 experimental NGG stream-out support has continued to exist but hidden behind a feature/debug flag. That code is now being removed…

Source: Phoronix – RADV Driver Drops NGG Stream-Out Code For RDNA1/RDNA2 GPUs

This Lifetime Learning Subscription Is $160 Through the Rest of October

Rosetta Stone is arguably the program that made at-home language-learning possible when it hit the market over 27 years ago—in its time, it’s been used by organizations ranging from NASA to Calvin Klein. It offers access to 24 available languages with concise lessons and speech-recognition technology for adjusting…

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Source: LifeHacker – This Lifetime Learning Subscription Is 0 Through the Rest of October