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PlayStation 4 Update 5.0 Officially Revealed

After the PlayStation 4’s 5.0 update was leaked last week, Sony decided to officially reveal what’s coming in the update. GameSpot highlights the new features in their report: Some of the enhancements center around streaming using the PS4’s built-in broadcasting capabilities. PS4 Pro users will be able to stream in 1080p and 60 FPS, provided their connection is strong enough, and PSVR users will be able to see new messages and comments coming through while broadcasting. PSVR is also adding 5.1ch and 7.1ch virtual surround sound support. Next up, the PS4’s Friends List is being updated with greater management tools, such as the ability to set up separate lists of friends. You’ll be able to create a list of all the people you play Destiny with and send them all an invite, for example. This feature replaces the old Favorite Groups tab. In another move to help reduce the amount of time spent in menus, the Quick Menu is being updated to have more options. For example, you’ll be able to check on download progress and see new party invites. You can also leave a party from within that menu and see your current Spotify playlist. Notifications are also being improved when watching films and TV, as you can now disable message and other notification pop-ups while watching media. You can also change how much of a message is displayed, as well as its color, when playing or watching any form of content. Finally, Parental Control features are being overhauled in favor of what Sony calls “Family on PSN.” This replaces the old Master/Sub account system; instead, one user is deemed the Family Manager, and they can set up other accounts and appoint them as a Parent/Guardian, Adult, or Child. Parents or Guardians can restrict Child accounts in their “use of online features and communication with other players, set restrictions for games, restrict the use of the internet browser, and set spending limits for PlayStation Store.” Note that Sony says the first time any North American user tries to set up an Adult account, they will be charged $0.50 “to verify that you are an adult.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Higher Minimum Wages Bring Automation and Job Losses, Study Suggests

An anonymous reader shares a report via email: As of the start of the year, 19 U.S. states had raised minimum wages, dramatizing a long simmering debate: Do minimum wages kill jobs, and make the working class worse off in the end? Or do they simply make them a little richer, with little or no loss to overall employment? In a new paper, economists Grace Lordan of the London School of Economics and David Neumark of UC Irvine parse 35 years of census data and come down on the worse-off side: For lower-skill jobs like bookkeepers and assembly-line workers, they say, higher minimum wages encourage employers to automate — according to their calculations, a $1 increase can cost tens of thousands of jobs nationally. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shipping Company Maersk Says June Cyberattack Could Cost It Up To $300 Million

An anonymous reader shares an article: Container shipping company A.P. Moller Maersk on Tuesday said it expects that computer issues triggered by the NotPetya cyberattack will cost the company as much as $300 million in lost revenue. “In the last week of the [second] quarter we were hit by a cyber-attack, which mainly impacted Maersk Line, APM Terminals and Damco, ” Maersk CEO Soren Skou said in a statement. “Business volumes were negatively affected for a couple of weeks in July and as a consequence, our Q3 results will be impacted. We expect that the cyber-attack will impact results negatively by USD 200-300m.” Maersk Line was able to take bookings from existing customers two days after the attack, and things gradually got back to normal over the following week, the company said. It said it did not lose third-party data as a result of the attack. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Shipping Company Maersk Says June Cyberattack Could Cost It Up To $300 Million

Spotify removes ‘hate bands’ from its streaming library

You can add Spotify to the growing list of companies taking a stand against hateful, racist content. In the last few days we’ve seen Google and GoDaddy cancel a white supremacist website domain, Facebook and Reddit ban hate groups, Discord shut down racist accounts and GoFundMe remove a campaign in support of the man accused of driving a car into protesters this weekend in Charlottesville. Now Billboard reports that Spotify is removing “hate bands” from its streaming service. On Monday, Digital Music News published a story that pointed out 37 white supremacist bands that could be found on Spotify. Many of those bands were listed in a 2014 Southern Poverty Law Center report that named 54 racist bands whose music could be listened to on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon while others were found through the help of Spotify recommendations. A few months after the SPLC’s report was published, the center noted that iTunes had removed a number of the bands while Spotify and Amazon had not. A Spotify spokesperson told Billboard, “Spotify takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention. We are glad to have been alerted to this content – and have already removed many of the bands identified today, whilst urgently reviewing the remainder.” The company is also reportedly considering removing these sorts of bands from its algorithm-based recommendations and has put together a new “Patriotic Passion” playlist. We’ve reached out to Spotify for comment and will update this post if we receive more information. Via: The Verge Source: Billboard

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Spotify removes ‘hate bands’ from its streaming library

Horror adventure ‘The Black Mirror’ revived for modern gamers

Despite being released long after the point-and-click game genre’s heyday, 2003’s The Black Mirror became a gothic horror hit long before the unrelated British sci-fi anthology show. THQ Nordic tapped German developer King Art Games to revive the original game into modern adventure title, which is due for release on November 28th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The game puts you in the shoes of protagonist David Gordon as he explores his spooky family manor, Black Mirror, soon after the death of his father. It’s not the first time King has taken a stab at the franchise: In 2009, they created concept art for a full sequel, The Black Mirror II , which set the look for a third game released the following year that closed out the trilogy. It’s not THQ Nordic’s first rodeo with gothic darkness, either, given its experience with the Darksiders franchise. The last few years have seen a steady resurgence of interest in point-and-click legends. The old LucasArts game Full Throttle recently made it to iOS, the latest in a line of Tim Schafer reduxes. But more broadly, players are gobbling up remade versions of decades-old titles, from the relatively recent Modern Warfare Remastered to the resurrected PS2 cult classic Phantom Dust . If Crash Bandicoot can ride the redux train, then nostalgia is truly selling well.

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Horror adventure ‘The Black Mirror’ revived for modern gamers

Dogs in Navi Mumbai are turning blue

A number of very unusual-looking blue dogs have been spotted in Navi Mumbai, India. Sadly, the cause is industrial waste in the Kasadi river where stray dogs often wade. From the Hindustan Times : A water quality test at Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation found the waste treatment was inadequate. The levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) — the concentration of oxygen required to sustain aquatic life — was 80 milligram a litre (mg/L). Levels of chloride, which is toxic, harms vegetation, aquatic life and wildlife, were also high…. “It was shocking to see how the dog’s white fur had turned completely blue,” said Arati Chauhan, resident of Navi Mumbai, who runs the (Navi Mumbai Animal Protection Cell). “We have spotted almost five such dogs here and have asked the pollution control board to act against such industries.” MPCB officials said they had taken cognisance of the complaint. “Allowing the discharge of dye into any water body is illegal. We will take action against the polluters as they are destroying the environment,” said Anil Mohekar, regional officer, MPCB, Navi Mumbai. “We have directed our sub-regional officer to investigate,” he added. Animal rights activists have, however, wondered whether the move comes too late. “We have only spotted blue dogs so far. We do not know if birds, reptiles and other creatures are affected or if they have even died owing to the dye discharged into the air,” said Chauhan.

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Dogs in Navi Mumbai are turning blue

Apple going all-in on original programming, to the tune of $1 billion a year

Apple Music on iOS 10, with Senior VP Eddy Cue. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) As the battle to create original content for online video services continues, we get a glimpse into Apple’s plans for the coming year. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal , Apple has a budget of $1 billion to spend in 2018 to “procure and produce” original content. The iPhone maker could acquire and produce up to 10 shows next year with this money, which will be largely left in the hands of new Apple hires Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg. Erlicht and Van Amburg are former presidents from Sony Pictures Television that moved to Apple in June to oversee video content strategy and production. The $1 billion budget signals how serious Apple is about boosting its original programming, the newest of which lives on its Apple Music subscription service. This is Apple’s first major push into original content, but $1 billion less than the money spend on content by rival companies. HBO spent about double last year on content (it reportedly costs $10 million to produce one episode of Game of Thrones ), and Netflix may spend upwards of $6 billion this year. Apple’s starting budget is similar to Amazon’s when it first got into original programming in 2013 with Prime Video; Amazon could spend $4.5 billion on original content in 2017. Original programming is the way to go, as it has proven to be a big driver in the growth of streaming services. Netflix’s business benefited immensely from original hits like House of Cards , Orange is the New Black , and Stranger Things . Those kinds of shows—scripted comedies and dramas—are expensive to produce, and we’ve seen Netflix’s annual budget for original programming increase over the past few years to accommodate that. Apple’s first original series, Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke , both just became available to Apple Music subscribers, and critics’ reviews have been mixed. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple going all-in on original programming, to the tune of $1 billion a year

Every judicial decision has been liberated from the US court system’s paywall

US court records are not copyrighted, but the US court system operates a paywall called “PACER” that is supposed to recoup the costs of serving text files on the internet; charging $0.10/page for access to the public domain, and illegally profiting to the tune of $80,000,000/year . (more…)

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Every judicial decision has been liberated from the US court system’s paywall

Watch: Stunning rare white moose caught on video

A white moose is rare, with only about 100 of them in Sweden. But Hans Nilsson, who has been tracking them for three years, according to Inhabitat , caught this moose on video on August 11 in Varmland, Sweden. The moose is not an albino, but its white fur is a genetic mutation. Or magical, to be more exact.

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Watch: Stunning rare white moose caught on video

Powerful backdoor found in software used by >100 banks and energy cos.

(credit: Jeremy Brooks ) For 17 days starting last month, an advanced backdoor that gave attackers complete control over networks lurked in digitally signed software used by hundreds of banks, energy companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers, researchers warned Tuesday. The backdoor, dubbed ShadowPad, was added to five server- or network-management products sold by NetSarang , a software developer with offices in South Korea and the US. The malicious products were available from July 17 to August 4, when the backdoor was discovered and privately reported by researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. Anyone who uses the five NetSarang titles Xmanager Enterprise 5.0, Xmanager 5.0, Xshell 5.0, Xftp 5.0, or Xlpd 5.0, should immediately review posts here and here from NetSarang and Kaspersky Lab respectively. Covert data collection The attack is the latest to manipulate the supply chain of a legitimate product in hopes of infecting the people who rely on it. The NotPetya worm that shut down computers around the world in June used the same tactic after attackers hijacked the update mechanism for tax software that was widely used in Ukraine . Supply-chain attacks that targeted online gamers included one used to spread the PlugX trojan in 2015 and the malware dubbed WinNTi in 2013 . Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Powerful backdoor found in software used by >100 banks and energy cos.

Ken May

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