Peter Parker may be an unemployed school teacher late on his mortgage at the start of Insomniac Games’ hotly anticipated Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but that won’t stop the webhead from going goblin mode crafting sleek new Spidey suit designs. Now that everyone has had some time to refamiliarize themselves with the…
Source: Kotaku – Peter Parker’s 10 Best-Looking Suits In Spider-Man 2
Saving for retirement is a crucial part of everyone’s financial planning. I’ve recommended before that dividing your money into multiple accounts helps you see all your saving goals separately. A big part of that is taking advantage of retirement-specific accounts in order to invest in your future. So, how can…
Source: LifeHacker – All the Different Retirement Accounts You Can Take Advantage Of
If you’re on the internet browsing with the recently redesigned Google Chrome, you’re probably not the most privacy-minded person out there. Still, the world’s most popular browser is gearing up to allow users to hide their IP address from websites, even without a VPN.
Source: Gizmodo – Google’s Chrome Browser Could Soon Help You Hide Your IP Address
Between October 27 and 29, home theater sets from Sonos will be 20 percent off. The Ray + Sub Mini, which is regularly priced at $708, will be available for $565.99. The rare deal on the subwoofer and soundbar bundle, which works great for listening to music or getting a more immersive movie-watching experience, could make a great holiday gift for someone living in an apartment or smaller space.
The Ray soundbar, which secured a spot on Engadget’s list of best soundbars, is compact but equipped with four class-D digital amplifiers. The device has a “solid stereo presence” for its size, and can pair with other Sonos speakers to improve bass performance. We gave it a score of 82 in our review thanks to its solid sound quality for both music and TV audio and easy setup process. As mentioned above, it’s arguably best for those living in smaller spaces; anyone with a big living room will want to step things up to a larger soundbar.
The Sub Mini, which pairs with the Ray, connects to Wi-Fi with any 5GHz broadcast-capable router and can reach down to 25Hz. The device received praise in our review for its “excellent bass” considering its size and for how easily it can connect with Sonos’ wired speakers. This deal might be one worth checking if you’re on the hunt for a practical sub and soundbar, but the Ray + Sub Mini is just one of many entertainment sets on sale right now. The most expensive topline set, the Ultimate Immersive Set with Arc, which normally is listed for $2,596 is available for $2,211.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonos-home-theater-sets-are-up-to-20-percent-off-this-weekend-174800255.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Sonos home theater sets are up to 20 percent off this weekend
Enlarge / Is this “evocative” header image stretching the limits of good taste? (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)
Here at Ars, we’ve seen time and again how simple web and/or mobile games can be cloned or outright stolen by unscrupulous developers aiming to cash in on someone else’s game concept. But developer Josh Simmons was in a unique position to inflict a particularly rude punishment on websites that were directly stealing and monetizing his web game Sqword without permission.
Since its launch last year, Simmons says he has attracted a “steady group of daily active users” for Sqword, which involves placing letters sequentially in a 5×5 grid to make as many valid words as possible. But as noted on Simmons’ blog (and noticed by 404 Media), searching for Sqword also brings up several “game aggregator” sites that simply embed the game content from Sqword.com in an iFrame window, only now surrounded by annoying banner ads.
“This made me angrier than it should have—not because Sqword is a cash cow—we don’t run ads on the site and don’t make money from it, it’s just for fun—but because it was a passion project with friends, something pure and intentionally free to play WITHOUT ads,” Simmons writes. “It’s against my ethos as a developer, there are banners and popups everywhere. If I build an app, I believe it should either be free or it should be upfront about what the subscription or purchase price is (and then not upsell you). I couldn’t abide seeing my code monetized in this way.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Dev sets up “goatse” trap for sites that steal his free web game
You can now use passkeys to sign into your Amazon account, the company announced on Monday. Amazon is following suit from other big tech players who are moving away from passwords and towards biometrics, such as your fingerprint or face, as well as pins to secure your digital identity.
Source: Gizmodo – Amazon Rolls Out Passkeys as Big Tech Bids Farewell to Passwords
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has only just released for PlayStation 5, but it’s already garnering heaps of praise for its impressively detailed version of New York City that expands upon the original’s. From the addition of Brooklyn and Queens to the increased pedestrian and vehicle traffic, New York City in Spider-Man 2…
Source: Kotaku – The Quintessential New York Landmarks In Spider-Man 2
Keeping an eye inside and outside your home is a lot more affordable with Woot’s fall sale on Blink devices. They’re selling refurbished Blink cameras for up to 66% off, starting at $15 until Oct. 27 at 1 a.m. ET or until supplies last.
Source: LifeHacker – These Refurbished Blink Cameras Are up to 66% Off
Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher, won the 2023 Hugo for best novel and found inspiration for her acceptance speech in a 2020 study about a species of water beetle that survives being swallowed alive by a frog by escaping through the frog’s butt. Credit: Shinji Sugiura, 2020.
Inspiration can come from the most unlikely places, as fantasy author Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher, clearly knows. Vernon won the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel this past weekend for her dark fairy tale, Nettle and Bone, and while she was unable to travel to Chengdu Worldcon in China for the event, she posted the text of her acceptance speech (read at the ceremony by a friend) on her Patreon. After the usual preliminary remarks and thanks, Vernon opted to forego “serious and heavy” commentary for the following revelation:
There is a species of water beetle that regularly gets swallowed whole by frogs. And while there’s a lot of things you can do to keep from being eaten, once you’re inside a frog, your options are severely limited. Generally you get digested. But this particular species of beetle said “You know, I bet there’s another way.” And it started walking. In fact, it walked through the frog’s digestive tract and out the back end.
This is 100 percent true, you can look it up.
Naturally, we did look it up and honestly can’t believe we missed covering this fascinating study in 2020. (At least we didn’t miss the 2022 study on how certain species of beetle have evolved unusual “back pockets” to safely house symbiotic bacteria during metamorphosis, shuffling the populations out of those pockets via friction to the genital area as they emerge from their pupae.)
Shinji Sugiura of Kobe University in Japan discovered the unusual survival strategy of the aquatic beetle Regimbartia attenuata while looking into how predation pressures can lead to the evolution of innovative escape behavior in prey animals. He fed a bunch of the beetles to a pond frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus) under laboratory conditions, expecting the frog to spit the beetle out. That’s what happened with Sugiura’s prior experiments on bombardier beetles (Pheropsophus jessoensis), which spray toxic chemicals (described as an audible “chemical explosion”) when they find themselves inside a toad’s gut, inducing the toad to invert its own stomach and vomit them back out.
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Source: Ars Technica – Yes, this beetle runs out of a frog’s anus to survive being swallowed alive
Xbox is presenting a showcase on Wednesday to highlight the various third-party titles coming to Microsoft’s gaming consoles, Windows computers and Game Pass. The festivities kick off on Wednesday, October 25 at 1PM EST. You can watch via the official YouTube channel or on Twitch.
The stream promises a “fresh mix of indie games and familiar favorites” from third-party companies like Remedy, Studio Wildcard, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and more, with 20 minutes of trailers and gameplay footage on the docket. Consider this Xbox’s version of those Nintendo Indie World showcase events.
So what should you expect during the stream? Microsoft hasn’t released a list of games that’ll take center stage, but did drop some teases. The company says it’ll reveal the “latest information” about Yakuza-adjacent RPG Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Dungeons of Hinterberg. It also promised a launch trailer for the long-awaited Alan Wake II, which releases at the end of this week, and the first gameplay footage of Ark: Survival Ascended. There should also be some surprises, so can we have a little Hollow Knight: Silksong trailer… as a treat?
The stream will be available in 30 languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL.) Additionally, Xbox says that YouTube streams will be in 4K at 60fps, which should be a good way to suss out real-world graphical performance.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-watch-xboxs-third-party-games-showcase-172052353.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – How to watch Xbox’s third-party games showcase
Google is getting ready to test a new “IP Protection” feature for the Chrome browser that enhances users’ privacy by masking their IP addresses using proxy servers. From a report: Recognizing the potential misuse of IP addresses for covert tracking, Google seeks to strike a balance between ensuring users’ privacy and the essential functionalities of the web. IP addresses allow websites and online services to track activities across websites, thereby facilitating the creation of persistent user profiles. This poses significant privacy concerns as, unlike third-party cookies, users currently lack a direct way to evade such covert tracking.
While IP addresses are potential vectors for tracking, they are also indispensable for critical web functionalities like routing traffic, fraud prevention, and other vital network tasks. The “IP Protection” solution addresses this dual role by routing third-party traffic from specific domains through proxies, making users’ IP addresses invisible to those domains. As the ecosystem evolves, so will IP Protection, adapting to continue safeguarding users from cross-site tracking and adding additional domains to the proxied traffic. “Chrome is reintroducing a proposal to protect users against cross-site tracking via IP addresses. This proposal is a privacy proxy that anonymizes IP addresses for qualifying traffic as described above,” reads a description of the IP Protection feature. Initially, IP Protection will be an opt-in feature, ensuring users have control over their privacy and letting Google monitor behavior trends.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Google Chrome’s New ‘IP Protection’ Will Hide Users’ IP Addresses
The social experiments seen in Netflix’s Squid Game dystopian future series have become real in our dystopian present: the trailer for the reality game show inspired by the hit series gathers 456 real contestants to put their skills to the test for that grand, glass-pig-encased prize of $4.56 million.
Source: Gizmodo – Squid Game: The Challenge Goes Full Meta With Reality Show
Michigan State University has suspended an employee it said was responsible for allowing a quiz question about Hitler and an image of the dictator to be broadcast on the video screen before the school’s football game against Michigan on Saturday. The School’s Associate Athletic Director, Matt Larson issued an apology…
Source: Gizmodo – Michigan State University Employee Suspended After Hitler Image Loomed Over Football Stadium
There are a number of ways to get a better seat assignment when you fly, but if you have a specific seat in mind that’s not available when you book, and you don’t want to constantly be checking back, ExpertFlyer can alert you if and when it does open up.
Source: LifeHacker – Use This Tool to Get Your Preferred Seat on Any Flight
Canonical continues investing in Mir as their Wayland compositor and set of platform abstraction interfaces to make it easier for IoT and other “smart” devices to run atop Ubuntu Core. Most recently the Mir developers have been working to partially re-architect their graphics platform handling to better handle multiple GPU/display devices…
Source: Phoronix – Ubuntu’s Mir Working On Hybrid Graphics / Multi-GPU Support
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Bribery. Embezzlement. Terrorism.
What if an AI chatbot accused you of doing something terrible? When bots make mistakes, the false claims can ruin lives, and the legal questions around these issues remain murky.
That’s according to several people suing the biggest AI companies. But chatbot makers hope to avoid liability, and a string of legal threats has revealed how easy it might be for companies to wriggle out of responsibility for allegedly defamatory chatbot responses.
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Source: Ars Technica – Will ChatGPT’s hallucinations be allowed to ruin your life?
Ahead of the official planned announcement for Tuesday, the Mozilla Firefox 119.0 release binaries have been published for this monthly feature update…
Source: Phoronix – Firefox 119 Available With Improved Firefox View, Expanded PDF Editing
Matter — the IOT connectivity standard with ambitions to fix the smart home and make all of our gadgets talk to each other — has hit version 1.2, adding support for nine new types of connected devices. From a report: Robot vacuums, refrigerators, washing machines, and dishwashers are coming to Matter, as are smoke and CO alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, room air conditioners, and fans. It’s a crucial moment for the success of the industry-backed coalition that counts 675 companies among its members. This is where it moves from the relatively small categories of door locks and light bulbs to the real moneymakers: large appliances.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), the organization behind Matter, released the Matter 1.2 specification this week, a year after launching Matter 1.0, following through on its promise to release two updates a year. Now, appliance manufacturers can add support for Matter to their devices, and ecosystems such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings can start supporting the new device types. Yes, this means you should finally be able to control a robot vacuum in the Apple Home app — not to mention your wine fridge, dishwasher, and washing machine.
The initial feature set for the new device types includes basic function controls (start / stop, change mode) and notifications — such as the temperature of your fridge, the status of your laundry, or whether smoke is detected. Robot vacuum support is robust — remote start and progress notifications, cleaning modes (dry vacuum, wet mopping), and alerts for brush status, error reporting, and charging status. But there’s no mapping, so you’ll still need to use your vacuum app if you want to tell the robot where to go.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Matter 1.2 is a Big Move For the Smart Home Standard
Shudder’s VP of programming, Sam Zimmerman, is billed as the streamer’s “in-house horror curator,” which not only means he has one of the coolest jobs around, it also means he’s uniquely suited to recommend what to watch. This Friday, October 27, you can ask him yourself thanks to the Shudder Halloween Hotline.
Source: Gizmodo – Call Shudder’s ‘Halloween Hotline’ to Narrow Down Your Streaming Screams
Amazon Prime Video announced Monday that the Fallout television series will premiere on April 12, 2024. The news came from a short teaser video the streaming service posted on its social channels, including Instagram, styled like a Pip-Boy interface. The series, initially announced in 2020, will adopt a “serious and harsh” tone while adding “ironic humor” and “B-movie nuclear fantasies.”
The live-action series, from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, will have an original (canonical) story set in the Fallout gaming universe. It will take place in 2077, beginning in Vault 33 in Los Angeles. As fans of the game know, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland following the events of “The Great War” on October 23, 2077. That date has become known as “Fallout Day” among the game’s fans — an ideal day for Amazon to reveal the series’ premiere date.
04.12.24. #Falloutpic.twitter.com/3Go3llsjtD
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) October 23, 2023
Fallout will star Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Walton Goggins (Justified), Aaron Moten (Emancipation), Xelia Mendes-Jones (The Wheel of Time), Moisés Arias (The King of Staten Island) and Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks). Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner are the series’ executive producers, writers and showrunners. Additional executive producers include Athena Wickham of Kilter Films, along with Bethesda’s Todd Howard and James Altman.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-fallout-series-finally-has-a-release-date-163430938.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Amazon’s Fallout series finally has a release date
