Category: reader

‘PUBG’ is quietly changing video games with its 3D replay technology

The new replay tools offered in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are so much more than standard video-capture technology. In fact, it isn’t video capture at all — it’s data capture. The 3D replay tools allow players to zoom around the map after a match, tracking their own character, following enemies’ movements, slowing down time and setting up cinematic shots of their favorite kills, all within a 1-kilometer radius of their avatar. It’s filled with statistics, fresh perspectives and infinite data points to dissect. This isn’t just a visual replay; it’s a slice of the actual game, perfectly preserved, inviting combatants to play God. The toolset comes from South Korean company Minkonet, which just opened a second office in Los Angeles. PUBG is its first big client, and last month’s rollout marks the first real mainstream implementation of this data-capture technology. It definitely won’t be the last. According to Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer Gilbert Kim, Minkonent’s phone has been ringing off the hook since the PUBG announcement, with studios around the world wanting a piece of the replay pie. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls and a lot of interest, ” he says. “Getting in new games is really competitive, and every feature counts, but we see data capture and replay technology is probably going to be mainstream in the next few years. … I think this is going to unleash new content that’s never been seen before in games, and it’s just starting. It’s just starting right now.” PUBG is an ideal test case. It’s a massively popular online game where up to 100 players parachute onto a map, scavenge for supplies, upgrade weapons and attempt to be the last person standing. Even though it technically came out in December, PUBG has been available in early access since March and it’s picked up a considerable number of accolades — and players — in the process. Just last week, SteamDB reported PUBG hit 3 million concurrent players on PC, vastly outstripping its closest competitor, Dota 2 , which has a record of 1.29 million simultaneous players. Part of PUBG ‘s success stems from developers’ relentless focus on making the game fun to watch. Live streaming is now a major part of the video-game world, with sites like Twitch and YouTube Gaming growing in prominence and eSports bursting into the mainstream. Kim says PUBG creator Brendan Greene and CEO Chang Han Kim built the idea of data-capture into the game from the beginning, and Minkonet’s tech is a natural evolution of this focus. Minkonet and PUBG developers connected in late 2016 and started working together on the actual software earlier this year. “One of their first visions was to have PUBG as not just a great game to play, but a great game to watch, ” Kim says. “So they were already from the very beginning focused on having PUBG as a great live streaming game; esports was also one of their sort of long-term visions.” Minkonet’s replay suite for PUBG addresses four main issues, as Kim explains it: cheating, learning, video editing and esports. Cheating is a huge issue in PUBG — more than 1.5 million accounts have been banned from the game since it hit Early Access 10 months ago. “One of the biggest sort of issues right now in gaming is cheating, hacking, ” Kim says. “There’s a core, a few people who are doing it to a lot of people. But I think with our 3D replay technology we can sort of provide an anti-cheat — we can’t prevent a hack completely. But because of what we do with the 3D death cam, people sometimes when they play, they want to know how they died, and sometimes our technology can find out how you died. Is there is something a little bit suspicious, maybe something we should be looking at?” On top of possibly catching cheaters in the act, Minkonet’s tech allows players to review their games and cut together cinematic videos of their best (or worst, or funniest) plays. Plus, it features improved spectator modes for esports and live-streaming goodness. All of this exists on PC for now, but PUBG is also available on Xbox One . Minkonet doesn’t have any concrete details to share about bringing 3D replay tech to consoles, but Kim says it’s definitely going to happen. Minkonet is working on fresh features to add to its 3D-replay technology, and it’s talking with developers about bringing these tools to other games. The days look numbered for traditional video-only replays. “We are just starting, but demand has been great, ” Kim says. “We just opened an LA office in the US. There are going to be several more projects next year.”

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‘PUBG’ is quietly changing video games with its 3D replay technology

The World’s First 88-inch 8K OLED Display

From a report: Come CES, LG will be letting attendees get up close with its new 88-inch 8K OLED display, which is both the largest and the highest-resolution OLED panel to date. But as far as specs go, that’s all we have for now. Previously, the largest OLED screen size was 77 inches, and it “only” came in 4K. While this combination is currently offered to consumers by the likes of LG Electronics, Sony and Panasonic, they all source their large OLED panels from LG Display. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The World’s First 88-inch 8K OLED Display

Forever 21 breach exposed customer credit card info for months

If you shopped at a Forever 21 store this year, there’s a chance your credit card information may have been stolen, CNET reports. The retail store confirmed this week that between April 3rd and November 18th of this year, a number of point of sale terminals at stores across the US were breached. While it hasn’t provided any numbers on how many customers were affected, Forever 21 did say that in most cases, card numbers, expiration dates and verification codes, but not cardholder names, were obtained by hackers. However, in some cases names were also obtained. Encryption is usually used by the store to protect its payment processing system, but in some stores, the encryption was sometimes off, opening up their point of sale terminals to malware. Not every terminal in every affected store was infected with the malware and not every store was impacted during the full time period of the breach. In some cases, credit card data stored in certain system logs prior to April 3rd were also exposed. Forever 21 said payment processing systems outside of the US work differently but that it was investigating whether non-US stores were affected as well. Purchases made through its website weren’t impacted by the breach. Chipotle and GameStop suffered similar breaches this year while hotel giant HEI announced it was hit with the same type of data breach last year . In a statement , Forever 21 said, “In addition to addressing encryption, Forever 21 is continuing to work with security firms to enhance its security measures. We also continue to work with the payment card networks so that the banks that issue payment cards can be made aware of this incident. Lastly, we will continue to support law enforcement’s investigation of this incident.” Via: CNET Source: Forever 21

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Forever 21 breach exposed customer credit card info for months

Dutch Utility Plans Massive Wind Farm Island In North Sea

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Britain’s homes could be lit and powered by wind farms surrounding an artificial island deep out in the North Sea, under advanced plans by a Dutch energy network. The radical proposal envisages an island being built to act as a hub for vast offshore wind farms that would eclipse today’s facilities in scale. Dogger Bank, 125km (78 miles) off the East Yorkshire coast, has been identified as a potentially windy and shallow site. The power hub would send electricity over a long-distance cable to the UK and Netherlands, and possibly later to Belgium, Germany, and Denmark. TenneT, the project’s backer and Dutch equivalent of the UK’s National Grid, recently shared early findings of a study that said its plan could be billions of euros cheaper than conventional wind farms and international power cables. The sci-fi-sounding proposal is sold as an innovative answer to industry’s challenge of continuing to make offshore wind cheaper, as turbines are pushed ever further off the coast to more expensive sites as the best spots closer to land fill up. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dutch Utility Plans Massive Wind Farm Island In North Sea

Louisana Police Bust an Infamous Nigerian Email Spam Scammer

MojoKid writes: You have probably at some point been contacted via email spam by someone claiming you are the beneficiary in a will of a Nigerian prince. As the scam goes, all you have to do is submit your personal information and Western Union some funds to process the necessary paperwork, and in return you will receive millions of dollars. One of the people behind the popular scam, Michael Neu, has been arrested by police in Slidell, Louisiana. This may come as a shocker, but Neu is not a prince, nor is he Nigerian. He is a 67-year-old male possibly of German descent (based on his last name) who is facing 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering for his alleged role as a middle man in the scheme. According to Slidell police, some of the money obtained by Neu was wired to co-conspirators who do actually live in Nigera. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Louisana Police Bust an Infamous Nigerian Email Spam Scammer

Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests

Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: As seething discontent has boiled over in Iran leading to mass protests, protesters have taken to the streets and social media to register their discontent… The government has been closing schools and shutting down transportation. Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Iran Cuts Internet Access and Threatens Telegram Following Mass Protests

Movie Ticket Sales Hit A 22-Year Low in 2017

An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times: Hollywood is celebrating the end of 2017 with astronomical sales from “Star Wars: The Last Jedi, ” which is on track to soon exceed $1 billion in global ticket sales and eventually become the biggest movie of the year. But that won’t be enough to write a happy storyline for the industry. Although movie ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada are expected to dip just below last year’s record of $11.38 billion, the number of tickets sold is projected to drop 4% to 1.26 billion — the lowest level since 1995, according to preliminary estimates from studio executives. The falloff in ticket sales can mostly be explained by a handful of movies that flopped, especially during the dreary summer season that posted the worst results in more than two decades. Even such massive hits as “Wonder Woman, ” “Thor: Ragnarok” and “It” couldn’t make up for a lackluster summer lineup populated by rickety franchises (“Alien: Covenant”) and poorly reviewed retreads (“The Mummy”). However, the long-term decline in attendance reflects systemic challenges facing the industry. Audiences are spending less time going to the movies and are consuming more entertainment on small screens and through streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon that are spending billions on original video content. At the same time, while higher ticket prices have helped to offset attendance declines, they have made consumers pickier about what movies they’re willing to go see. And those increasingly discerning consumers turn to social media and Rotten Tomatoes to decide what’s worth their time and money. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Movie Ticket Sales Hit A 22-Year Low in 2017

Construction Workers Find 30 Perfectly Preserved Dinosaur Eggs

An anonymous reader quotes BGR: Chinese construction workers digging on Christmas day found a gift that was wrapped 130 million years ago in the form of 30 incredibly preserved dinosaur eggs. The discovery was made in the city of Ganzhou at the future site of a new middle school, but work on the new facility had to be put on hold after the ancient eggs were discovered. According to state media, the workers reported uncovering “oval-shaped stones” while clearing rock away using explosive blasts. The workers suspected they might be important so they alerted local law enforcement who took command of the site and contacted experts from a nearby museum who confirmed the “rocks” were actually fossilized dinosaur eggs. The eggs, which are thought to date from the Cretaceous period, are estimated to be as old as 130 million years. The location where they were discovered is believed to have once been an ancient lakeshore, which would have been a pleasant place for the dinosaurs to raise their brood. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Construction Workers Find 30 Perfectly Preserved Dinosaur Eggs

Congo Shuts Down Internet Services ‘Indefinitely’

On Saturday Engadget wrote: Authoritarian leaders are fond of severing communications in a bid to hold on to power, and that tradition sadly isn’t going away. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government has ordered telecoms to cut internet and SMS access ahead of planned mass protests against President Joseph Kabila, whose administration has continuously delayed elections to replace him. Telecom minister Emery Okundji told Reuters that it was a response to “violence that is being prepared, ” but people aren’t buying that argument. Officials had already banned demonstrations, and the country has history of cutting communications and blocking social network access in a bid to quash dissent. And today in the wake of deadly protests, Congo announced that the internet shutdown will continue “indefinitely.” The New York Times reports: At least eight people were killed and a dozen altar boys arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after security forces cracked down on planned church protests against President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to leave office before coming elections… Congolese security forces set up checkpoints across Kinshasa, and the government issued an order to shut down text messaging and internet services indefinitely across the country for what it called “reasons of state security.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Congo Shuts Down Internet Services ‘Indefinitely’

Drone collides with US Army helicopter, puts 1.5“ dent in rotor

A DJI Phantom 4 at a launch event in 2016. (credit: Ron Amadeo) On September 21, 2017, just as dusk fell, Vyacheslav Tantashov launched his DJI Phantom 4 drone from a spot near Dyker Beach Park in Brooklyn, just southeast of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Tantashov wanted to see some spectacular views, he said, and he flew the drone nearly 280 feet up in the air and well out of his line of sight. The drone hovered over the shipping channel near Hoffman Island, some 2.5 miles from the launch site. Tantashov maneuvered the craft a bit, watching the images displayed on his Samsung tablet, and then punched the “return to home” button. The drone, which had a rapidly dying battery, made a beeline back toward the launch site. But it never arrived. After waiting 30 minutes, Tantashov assumed there had been a mechanical malfunction and that the drone had fallen into the water. He returned home. On September 28, Tantashov received a call at work. It was an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), calling to asking if Tantashov was the owner of a Phantom 4 drone. He was, he said, though he had lost it recently near the Verrazano Bridge. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Drone collides with US Army helicopter, puts 1.5“ dent in rotor