Category: Technology

Obsidian founder Feargus Urquhart has revealed his intentions to work on the new Fallout, if the opportunity presents itself.

Obsidian hasn’t worked on Fallout since New Vegas in 2010, but many fans still see the game as the best modern Fallout game. After New Vegas, Bethesda Game Studios took back the reins of Fallout and has evolved ever since fallout 4 The controversial 76.

Fallout is a post-apocalyptic series where you have to challenge the atomic wastelands of different American cities. One of the main attractions of the series is that its setting, characters and story will change from game to game. But encountering terribly mutated non-human beings like the aptly named Deathclaws or thick and decaying Yao Guais ​​is always fun and always terrifying.

The love for the game doesn’t stop with the Fallout community in general or me. In fact, Obsidian founder Feargus Urquhart has strong feelings for the series as well. “I quit at Interplay for an extra year probably because I wanted to work on Fallout more,” he said. Urquhart in an interview with Dualshockers (Opens in a new tab), “I love fallout.” I love Fallout too, but haven’t been a fan of where it has ended up in recent years.

While I enjoyed Fallout 4 thanks to its extensive map and sense of exploration. But after playing fallout 76I can’t help but think of Fallout New Vegas. This may be through stained glass, but that game was what a modern Fallout game should look like. Whereas in the past, Bethesda has attempted to cram a linear campaign into an open-world RPG that made you feel like you’re heavily armed into the central story, Obsidian has adopted a more fluid approach with several faction-defined storylines and choices.

pink glasses

Obsidian doesn’t just have Fallout New Vegas to brag about. The developer recently released Grounded, a survival game that takes your backyard exploration to whole new levels. Normally, dealing with bugs isn’t a big deal, but in Grounded you have to scavenge for supplies and fight the fearsome creep after shrinking down, so that your average spider looks like an elephant. Grounded has been a huge hit, with the majority of Steam reviews being very positive. I, personally, loved Grounded because it gave me that sense of danger and pathological curiosity that I fondly remember from Fallout New Vegas.

Obsessed curiosity and adventure weren’t New Vegas’ only selling points. Obsidian worked tirelessly to provide deep and engaging insights with storylines that encouraged replayability. With faction systems, the routes from each event to the next felt customized to your character. This custom storytelling offered a unique and indie adventure game that you can try over and over again.

I can talk about the benefits of the faction system over the karma system that Fallout games are known for or how awesome the DLC is. But this is for another time. In the end, Obsidian showed the detailed care of Fallout that I feel has been missed in recent years.

76 item

None of this means that Bethesda can’t make great games. I suspect starfield It looks amazing, and it has high hopes that Bethesda will deliver this epic space adventure game. Sounds like a real breath of fresh air after somewhat of the disaster of Fallout 76. There were a lot of elements that made me fall in love with the game even before I played it.

When it comes to launching Fallout 76, I haven’t had better luck. Full of bugs and lighting so bright I thought I was going to die and was on my way to the afterlife. These issues made Fallout 76 difficult to play, which meant I didn’t enjoy my experience cruising around those wastelands.

However, the errors weren’t the worst part. Bethesda’s initial reaction of denials, excuses, and most importantly, pushing players to purchase expensive upgrades from the Atomic Store made me feel like Fallout became a way to get easy money from fans who loved the series.

If Fallout has a chance to go back to the days when adventure and fans took precedence over revenue, I can’t wait to see what Obsidian does with the wastelands and hideous monsters.

Welcome to the Adobe Max 2022 live blog, where we’ll be covering all the big announcements from today’s Festival of Creative Apps. Whether you’re a fan of Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, or just seeing the future of creative digital tools, Max is always a fun ride – and we’ll gather all the news here as it happens.

What exactly is Adobe Max? The software giant calls the event in Los Angeles the “Creativity Conference,” but it’s really an excuse for Adobe to launch a slew of its own Creative Cloud apps. Think Lightroom’s AI-powered tricks, new releases like Photoshop for the web, and many future demos on machine learning, augmented reality, and virtual reality.

Even if you’re not a hardcore Adobe fan, Max Conference is always a good sneak peak into cutting-edge creative tools that spring from our expertly delivered pipeline. Given the increasingly heated competition that Adobe is facing right now, from Google’s AI editing tools to machine learning processors like Dall-E, this year’s conference should be especially impressive.

The live default keyword doesn’t start until 9am PDT / 5pm GMT (or Wednesday 19 at 2am EST), but Adobe has historically made some big announcements in the lead-up to its live presentation – and we expect the same thing again this year.

Join us as we discuss everything we hope to see and what the new updates to Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Illustrator and InDesign could mean for you, whether or not you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber.

Google just announced a new ultra-clear update to keep you in the spotlight the next time you sign in to a Meet video call.

After more than two years of asking to work from home and many of us still trying to figure out the final setup for a WFH office. First of all, our computer monitor should be in a comfortable place to avoid unnecessary stress. What this means for a lot of people is that when it comes to video conferencingthey may not be in the best position on the screen.

In its latest update, Google Meet can now automatically frame a participant before they join a meeting by digitally zooming in to crop around the topic closely, helping to eliminate nearby distractions.

Google is dead tracking the topic

on it Workspace updates blog (Opens in a new tab)Google says this only happens once, so there’s no automatic theme tracking in the same way we saw with iPad Pro central dock (which depends on the latest hardware).

This means that your camera view doesn’t move constantly while you’re on the move, which can be a distraction, but the support article says users can open the settings pane to partially refocus with a call if needed.

Availability is currently limited to Chrome version M91 or Edge version 91, which means that Safari users will not be able to access this feature.

The rollout has already started, but it may take until the end of November for some users to see it in their accounts. Supported account types include Workspace Business Standard / Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials / Starter / Standard / Plus, Education Plus / Teaching, Learning Upgrade and Workspace Individual, but a supported device is also required – more on that Google help page (Opens in a new tab).

A quarter of a million American soldiers will be used Collaboration Tool Google workspace After entering into a partnership with the tech giant.

Made Google Cloud Advertising Last week after giving the service Impact level 4 license by the Department of Defense in July, which imposed penalties for its use of non-confidential, controlled information, such as those related to defense and intelligence.

The partnership comes from behind the creation of the company’s new division, Google Public Sector, which is responsible for providing its cloud-based services to local and federal public organizations in the US, in order to streamline their operations.

Google workspace in the public sector

Because of the unique challenges of military action, Hybrid work Collaboration is common. Google Public Sector cites the ease of use of their service as a primary reason for its suitability for use in the military.

Google is also partnering with cloud infrastructure company SADA, which specializes in building enterprises with Google Cloud, to help ease the transition of military personnel.

It appears that the ever-increasing threat of cybercrime in the military context has not deterred the US military from deciding to adopt such a massive cloud computing initiative. This trust may come from Google Workspace no confidence Policy, which is currently considered the gold standard in cloud security.

In simple terms, any user, regardless of their location, needs to be authenticated before they are granted access.

Common methods of enforcing mistrust include two-factor authentication (2FA), which requires the user to have another device, usually a smartphone, with which to verify their identity and grant access to the respective service on their primary devices.

The US Army deal is just another example of how Google’s cloud offerings are attracting the attention of public sectors around the world.

In 2020, the UK government signed a deal With Google Cloud to bring cloud computing to public sector services such as the National Health Service (NHS). While in 2022 New York State announce It will partner with Google Public Sector to bring cloud computing to the air quality monitoring initiative.

Cloud computing has its benefits in a world that has continued to shift to hybrid work. However, it remains to be seen if Google’s no-trust policies can continue to protect ordinary people’s data amid increasing dependence on the cloud.

Finding out where your last presentations left off can be a lot easier thanks to the new one google docs Modernization.

The company revealed that its users word processor They are now able to copy a file GoogleMeet Connecting directly into a Google Docs file, which means you’ll never lose the information you need.

The company noted in a Google Workspace update that “meeting transcripts automatically capture the meeting discussion, making it easy to follow up afterward or serve as a record.” Blog Posts (Opens in a new tab) Announcing the feature.

Convert Google Meet to Docs

The feature will be turned on by default, with attendees seeing a notification telling them that texts are active before joining the call.

Once done, the written file will be saved to the host’s “Meeting Recordings” folder in Google Drive, similar to meeting recordings.

For meetings with less than or equal to 200 invitees, the meeting host, co-hosts, or text initiator will receive a link to the transcription document via E-mail After the meeting ends. In addition, the text will be automatically attached to the associated calendar invitation for the meeting.

for greater video conferencing For meetings (those with more than 200 people), copies will be shared only with the meeting organizers, host, co-hosts, and individual users who have requested it. For recurring meetings, new transcript documents will be constantly added to the calendar invitation.

Now available to Google Meet users on desktop and laptop computers, but only in English for now, it will be offered to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers.

However, users with personal Google accounts, or existing users of Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Education Standard, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline and Nonprofits, as well as old G Suite Basic and Business customers will only be able to use it until right Now.

Google Meet also made it recently Easier to share your video feedWhich means that starting online presentations or starting team meetings should soon involve less stress, and it also allows all participants to share their video feed with anyone else.

PayPal Launches a new rewards program to help people find deals online and save money while acquiring Honey at its core.

Honey is a browser extension that searches the internet for deals, promotional codes or coupons for online retailers (and a popular YouTube channel sponsor). PayPal bought the developer behind Honey (Opens in a new tab) Back in early 2020, but haven’t done much with it until today. now with Aptly Named PayPal Rewards (Opens in a new tab)Aspects of honey will serve as the basis for the new programme. The company states that the motivation behind PayPal Rewards is to help people “become high prices [as we head] In the holiday shopping season.”

Discounts and rewards

PayPal Rewards has been given its own in-app status on mobile and desktop where you can keep track of the points you collect. These points can be earned either by transacting with the official app or using the Honey browser extension to find discounts.

In return, the points can be exchanged for “cashback and other rewards”. However, it appears that these other rewards are simply more points added to your account. It doesn’t look like PayPal will be used gold honey (Opens in a new tab), which provides additional savings on purchases. Speaking of which, customers who are part of Honey Gold can link their account to PayPal and use those points in the new program.

A company representative told us that 100 points equals $1. This money will appear in your PayPal balance where it can be transferred to a bank account, sent to someone else via peer-to-peer payment, or donated to charities.

The new program is currently rolling out to users in the US, so we highly recommend updating the PayPal app if you’re concerned. When asked about expanding PayPal Rewards globally, the same representative told us that there are no plans to grow at the moment. There are plans to include PayPal Card products such as the Debit Card in the rewards program, but no date has been set for that.

The future of online payment

The launch of PayPal Rewards comes at a really fun time, and it’s not because of the holiday season. The company seems to see the writing on the wall when it comes to the future of online payment technology: providing your customers with deals and discounts. Apple saw this coming too: when She reactivated her Pay appAnd the It included a Pay Later feature that gives people a new option to buy. Instead of paying for something in full, you can use Pay Later to create a more budget-friendly payment plan.

Google also recently brought back the old Wallet app (Opens in a new tab), but did not add any tool to find the opponent. Instead, it focuses more on providing comfort and safety. Perhaps PayPal Rewards will give the long-term platform the edge it needs over its competitors.

If you are looking for an alternative to PayPal, we recommend checking out List of TechRadar Money Transfer Apps for 2022And the which was recently updated.

linux creator Last update for Linus Torvalds (Opens in a new tab)detailing some basic information for the first release candidate for release 6.1, contains some key messages and appeals to project developers.

He opened by saying, “We have 11.5K non-merging commitments during this merge window, compared to 13.5K last time,” which is “not exactly small, but it’s smaller than the last few releases.”

We have already written about Linux commitment to support Rust, and the latest news confirms that the Rust Elemental Scaffolding is part of version 6.1-rc1. He explains that “there is no real current Rust code in the kernel yet, but the infrastructure is there”.

Torvalds message to developers

Torvalds also took the opportunity to express his frustration with the amount of late withdrawal requests.

“Yes, the consolidation is two weeks,” he says, “but that gives me time to look at things, not ‘two weeks to hurry up a branch you send to Linus on Friday of the second week’.”

In fact, he continues his search for the project’s developers: “All of them” worked all night to get the paper the day before [deadline]’Something should have gone out the window after high school. Not for kernel development. “

The threat continues along the lines of the teacher-pupil: “You know who you are.”

While requesting that things be sent to him before the merge window opens, Torvalds expresses his tolerance of some late entries, which he attributes to “life happens”.

This isn’t the first time Torvalds has had to ask developers to pull their fingers, and he suspects it won’t be the last, either, and going forward, he hopes “more people can take it seriously.”

It looks like Microsoft has finally addressed an issue that could have left Windows users at risk of all kinds of cyberattacks.

A method of cyber attack called Bring Your Vulnerable Driver, or BYOVD for short. It is about attackers installing older, legitimate software drivers, known to carry vulnerabilities, on the target endpoints (Opens in a new tab). Installing a legitimate driver will not run any software Antivirus (Opens in a new tab) alerts, but it will open the back doors for attackers to deliver a more dangerous payload.

However, researchers aren’t happy with the way the company handled the problem, as Microsoft appears to have come up with only a one-time solution to a problem that needs ongoing support.

No updates

The number of BYOVD attacks has skyrocketed in the past two months, prompting researchers from Ars Technica to investigate whether Microsoft’s solutions to the problem (dubbed “Secured Core” PCs) are working as intended. This is when they realized that the list had not been updated in some time.

“But while I was reporting on the aforementioned North Korean attacks, I wanted to make sure that the highly promoted driver blocking feature worked as advertised on my Windows 10 device,” wrote Dan Goodin of Ars Technica. “Yes, I have Memory Integration turned on in Windows Security > Device Security > Core Isolation, but I haven’t seen any evidence that the list of banned drivers is periodically updated.”

Microsoft dismissed the initial findings as irrelevant, but as other researchers merged, it later changed its position, saying that it was “working to fix issues with our service process that prevented devices from receiving policy updates,” Godin added.

“The list of vulnerable drivers is updated regularly, however we received feedback that there was a synchronization gap across OS versions,” Microsoft was cited. “We have corrected this and it will be maintained in upcoming and future Windows updates. The documentation page will be updated when new updates are released.”

While Microsoft claimed to have fixed the problem by having a constantly updated driver block list, researchers discovered that the company had not updated the list in nearly three years. In other words, whatever vulnerable drivers were discovered in the past 24 – 36 months, were not added to this block list, and could have been used by threat actors to isolate the vulnerabilities that have already been filled.

Microsoft has since released a new tool that allows Windows 10 users to publish blocklist updates that have been pending for three years. “But this is a one-time update; It’s not clear yet whether Microsoft can or will push automatic updates to the driver block list through Windows Update, Godin concluded.

Across: Ars Technica (Opens in a new tab)

The Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are sure to be a long way off, like Pixel 7 And the Pixel 7 Pro It only launched in October 2022, but we’re already thinking about – and even hearing about – the following models.

Below you’ll find everything we’ve heard so far, along with our expert predictions, covering a potential release date, price, and specs.

Then below we’ve included a wish list of what we want from the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, because while the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are best phones that Google has ever made, it’s not perfect.

The standard Pixel 7, in particular, has room for improvement, but even the Pixel 7 Pro has some flaws, so our wish list includes the major improvements we want from these next models.

cut to chase

• What is this? Google’s next flagship phone
• When does it come out? Maybe October 2023
• How much will it cost? Probably no less than $599 / £599/AU$999

Google Pixel 8 release date and price

There’s no word yet on when the Google Pixel 8 will be released, but it’s easy to guess, as flagship phones almost always land in October of the year of their release.

In fact, every Pixel model was announced off the A-line in October, except for Pixel 5which was revealed on September 30, 2020 (therefore, approximately October) and didn’t ship until October.

Getting more specific details is more difficult, as dates vary in October, but the Pixel 8 will likely be revealed in early or mid-October 2023, then shipped in mid- or late-October, perhaps about a week after the announcement.

We’re not sure how much the Pixel 8 will cost, but the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro both have exactly the same prices as their predecessors, so Google will likely stick with that price for another year.

In this case, the Pixel 8 will start at $599 / £599/AU$999, while the Pixel 8 Pro will start at $899/£849/AU$1299. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if Google pushed the price up a bit, especially since current models undermine major competition like iPhone 14 Line.

Google Pixel 8 news and leaks

We haven’t heard much about the Google Pixel 8 yet, but some leaks have surfaced. For one thing, there Report that Tensor 3 A chipset that we expect will actually power the phone, and Samsung will do so again. However, there is no news yet on how powerful this Tensor G2 is in the Pixel 7.

We know that too Satellite communications are likely to be offered By Pixel 8, just like the iPhone 14. Hiroshi Lockheimer (Senior Vice President of Android) said that support for this will be with Android 14; So the Pixel 8 is likely to be the first Google phone to offer.

Finally, there’s evidence of a mysterious Pixel phone in action, which based on the leaked specs could be the Pixel 8 or the Pixel 8 Pro. 9to5Google (Opens in a new tab) Found this guide in publicly available code from the Android Open Source Project, it refers to a phone with a 1440 x 3120 120Hz screen, Tensor chipset, and dimensions of 155 x 71mm.

These screen specs are in line with current Pro models, but the dimensions are more than we’d expect from the standard Pixel 8, so that could mean an upgrade in resolution and refresh rate is planned for the standard model.

What we want to see

Below we’ve listed the five things we want the Pixel 8 line to offer.

1. 120Hz screen for both models

The Pixel 7 Pro has a 120Hz screen, just like you’d expect from a flagship phone, but the standard Pixel 7 doesn’t — it’s stuck at 90Hz.

Given that some Best cheap phones Now it has 120Hz screens, which seems a bit unacceptable, so we really hope Google will offer a 120Hz screen on both the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

2. More power

The Pixel 7 line uses the Google Tensor G2 chipset, which is a chipset with a lot more.

Built specifically for these phones, it excels in areas like machine learning and artificial intelligence, but when it comes to raw power, the Tensor G2 is a bit lacking, performing worse on most benchmarks than major competitors like the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 and Apple A16 Bionic. In fact, it performs much worse.

So we’d like to see an emphasis on power from the Tensor G3 (or whatever the next model is called), so that the Pixel 8 line is more competitive on this front. However, we don’t want that to come at the expense of the good stuff in the Tensor chips right now.

3. Better battery life and faster charging

The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro should comfortably help you through a day of fairly heavy use, based on our tests, but they won’t extend you through day two, or even into the middle of day two in most cases.

So their longevity is respectable but far from exceptional, and they both charge very slowly, so we’d like to see improvements in both battery life and charging speed for the Pixel 8 line.

4. Long-term support

Google has promised three years of Android version updates and five years of security patches for the Pixel 7 line, which beats some Android phones but doesn’t come close to the number of years of support Apple typically offers with its iPhones.

Since Google makes Android and uses a dedicated chipset built specifically for phones here, there shouldn’t be any reason why they can’t support their phones for much longer, so we’d love to see expanded support offered with the Pixel 8.

5. 10x optical zoom on mobile

Google Pixel 7 Pro offers 5x optical zoom, up from 4x in Pixel 6 Probut we’d like to see an even bigger leap for the next model, going up to 10x in line with Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

However, we still wanted a shorter zoom distance – ideally 2x or 3x – to be offered as well, so there are two distinctly different zoom distances available. Google Pixel 7 Pro is already one of the releases The best camera phonesBut with this upgrade, the Pixel 8 Pro could be even better.

open to the public remote desktop Researchers say the services are being misused to spread new ransomware on targeted endpoints.

A cybersecurity researcher named linuxct recently contacted MalwareHunterTeam to try to find out more about ransomware They discovered a breed called Venus.

The team later found that the ransomware operators have been active since mid-August 2022, targeting victims around the world by accessing the corporate network through the Windows Remote Desktop protocol, even when the organization uses an unusual port number for the service.

Hide behind a firewall

The researchers concluded that the best way to protect against such attacks is to put these services behind a Firewall. Moreover, remote desktop services should not be disclosed to the public, and access to them would ideally only be through a VPN (vpn).

For Venus ransomware, the way it works is not out of the ordinary for this type of malware. Once you have completed network mapping, endpoint identification, and other survey work, Malware It will kill 39 processes used by database servers and Office applications. Event logs and backup volumes will be deleted, data execution prevention will be disabled, and all files will be encrypted to bear the .venus extension.

Finally, the ransomware will generate a ransom note demanding payment in cryptocurrencies in exchange for a decryption key. Venus usually asks for Bitcoin to be paid, and the latest information indicates the group is requesting 0.02 BTC, or roughly $380, for the decryption key.

The end of the ransom note contains a base64-encrypted blob, which researchers believe is most likely the encrypted decryption key, and new transmissions are uploaded to the ID ransomware daily,

Last year, there were another series of ransomware using the same encrypted file extension, but researchers aren’t sure if it’s the same ransomware variant.

Across: Computer (Opens in a new tab)