_Happy boy

new report says that UK Premier League clubs are in talks with US firm Respondology over software that could stop online abuse against players. Six Premier League sides are in discussions with an American tech firm in a deal they hope will enable clubs and players to eliminate their exposure to abuse on social media platforms... Premier League clubs are not ruling out a boycott of their own but their battle to protect players against abuse has intensified after several leading clubs heard a pitch during the past few weeks from the US firm Respondology, whose software allows the abuse to be hidden in real time on several major social platforms, which means their players would not be exposed to the abuse. The software reportedly works using artificial intelligence and a team of 1,000 human moderators to filter abuse in real-time. It stops the abuse being seen by clubs and players but leaves the post visible to the original poster so they are non-the-wiser and can still be identified. The report says that "numerous clubs in the top flights" have been presented with the software, including some competing in Europe, as well as the Football Association itself. The Premier League is also reportedly considering using the software on its own social channels. Respondology's software, which is called Mod™, is already used by NASCAR and some of its drivers, as well as "several" NBA, NFL, and NHL sides. The President of Respondology Erik Swain stated "Our tool is called 'Mod™'. This removes abusive comments, as well as spam and bots, in almost less than a second in real-time. It works 24/7, 365 days per year. We use keyword filtering technology to do this, which is highly customisable for every club or every brand. This enables them to draw the line where they want on allowing discourse and discussion, so it does not stray into what they consider to be abuse." NASCAR chief digital officer Tim Clark said the sport had seen a "positive impact" in using the software.

New information regarding AMD's Van Gogh line of Ryzen APUs for ultra-low power notebooks has been leaked. According to the details, we now have an idea of how many CPU & GPU cores the new chips will pack and what other features they are going to bring for power-constrained laptops & PC devices. AMD's Van Gogh Powered Ryzen Notebooks To Feature RDNA 2 GPU & Zen 2 CPU Cores AMD's Ryzen APUs that are part of the Van Gogh family will feature two key technologies. These include the Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU architectures. The design will be unlike anything that AMD has done on the PC platform but the same two architectures have been incorporated for the next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The existing Ryzen 5000 Cezanne APUs feature the Zen3 CPU and Vega Enhanced GPU architecture. In details posted by Moore's Law is Dead, it is reported that the Van Gogh Ryzen APUs will come with quad-core designs. The AMD Zen 2 powered chips will be based on the TSMC 7nm process node and will feature a monolithic design composed of the CPU, GPU, and I/O IPs. The chip itself will have a very small footprint in terms of die area and the lower cache will allow for cost-savings for AMD in mass-producing these chips.At the heart of the Van Gogh Ryzen APUs would be the AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture. MLID reports that the APU is expected to feature a total of 8 Compute Units based on the RDNA 2 GPU architecture. In terms of performance, the Van Gogh APUs should deliver faster performance vs Cezanne APUs in graphics but don't expect them to be a lot faster as the Cezanne chips have a bigger power budget dedicated to the GPU cores while Van Gogh APUs will feature a total TDP of around 7.5-15W. As for Infinity Cache, it is already confirmed that AMD won't be featuring that on its Van Gogh APUs as confirmed in the latest Linux Kernel patch. The AMD Van Gogh Ryzen APUs will also rely on LPDDR5 memory and once again, the movie is to offer the latest IPs which looks good from a marketing perspective than offering higher gaming bandwidth. The APUs will be designed for the FF3 socket which is a compact low power socket to compete against Tiger Lake-U processors. Intel's Tiger Lake-U is in fact the direct competitor for Van Gogh and AMD can also use the chip in the future for low-cost products until a true successor arrives which has already been leaked as Dragon Crest.

As has become something of a habit in Call of Duty: Warzone as of late, a new weapon has been added to the game without notice from Activision. But unlike the relatively harmless Shadowhunter crossbow, today's new Sykov pistol is very good at killing. By default, the Sykov looks and feels like any other pistol in Warzone, but it has a handful of attachments that could make it an overpowered beast. Once leveled, the Sykov can be configured to fire full-auto, equip 80-round drum magazines, and be dual-wielded to double up firepower. If you're keeping count, that's 160 bullets at an extremely high fire rate without having to reload. As you can see below in a clip from BennyCentral, the Sykov makes quick work of bots set up with roughly the same health as players have in Warzone. Its impressive time-to-kill at short range is something to behold. Via BennyCentral on YouTube Despite initial reports from players having trouble unlocking and leveling up the Sykov, its release today was apparently intentional. Raven announced in a tweet today that progression should now be tracked on the gun "as intended," so I guess it's the real deal. Warzone players might recognize the akimbo pistol strategy from the Diamatti pistols that were very po[CENSORED]r earlier this year. The rapid-fire pistols were similarly destructive at close range until Activision eventually nerfed their hipfire accuracy. With 80-round drum mags and seemingly no problem hitting their mark, a pair of Sykov pistols could prove even better than the Diamattis at their peak. Call of Duty Youtuber TheXclusiveAce has already released an initial dive into the Sykov's stats. Ace is among the most levelheaded and analytical voices in the CoD community, and even he is worried that the pistol will be overpowered once it's fully unleashed. "At this point, it does have me concerned." Me too. Morgan is an FPS specialist and one of PC Gamer's resident young people. He would love to spend more time playing weird stealth games and immersive sims, but he's still waiting for Warzone shaders to install.

Well both are good but i will vote for V1 he have good text and blur .

i will vote for v2 . text & effect

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/fdc7ae21-bd59-4887-8417-7905d57b67ba Before the pandemic, it was the best time ever to be a human. We lived longer, fought less and had more opportunities than our ancestors. This is the world that we hope to return to soon. But what about other animals? For them, these years are quite possibly the worst time to be alive. If you are a non-human mammal in the 21st century, you have a greater chance than your ancestors of living on a factory farm. If you are a bird, you are probably a chicken — generally an overbred, confined one whose bones struggle to support your weight. Indeed, if you were randomly incarnated, you would be at least 20 times more likely to be a chicken than a dog. Meanwhile, pick a wild animal at random — a lion, a puffin, a cigarette beetle — and they probably have a greater chance than ever of being squeezed off the planet by humans’ relentless expansion. On our current trajectory, in a couple of centuries the largest land animals will be cows. This divergence in fortunes would be understandable if we humans didn’t care about other animals — if we, like René Descartes, saw them as automatons that cannot feel pain or joy. But we are not Descartes, and we do care. We watch cat videos and Attenborough documentaries. We lavish money on pets and safaris. We find animals beautiful, seductive and amusing. We know that they have emotions and suffer pain. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/fdc7ae21-bd59-4887-8417-7905d57b67ba Even stony-hearted humans refer to themselves as animal lovers. “I love animals, don’t get me wrong,” smiled football manager José Mourinho earlier this season, after comparing his star strikers to animals. “I love animals, and I don’t like the way factory farms treat animals,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson insisted, as he debated with a vegan. Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden all brandished dogs when they took office; the pets would be re-elected more easily than they would. The singer Lorde declared that her dog Pearl had “led me towards the ideas” in her music. Lady Gaga recently offered $500,000 for the return of her own two stolen French bulldogs (they were recovered). In dating profiles, people advertise their pets, even if they don’t actually have any (a fakery alluded to in the viral short story “Cat Person”). Is there a way that we can coexist with other animals, without delusions and without guilt? Is this planet big enough for all of us? Put simply, love for animals is one of our society’s core values. Rational thinking is another. The way we treat animals doesn’t fit with either of these values; it is guided by tradition and inertia. No one would vote for the looming mass extinction of wild animals, certainly not the animals themselves. Goodness knows how we will explain it to the next generation. But it is happening on our watch. For me, the change came when my daughters were born. When you have children, you find yourself surrounded by animals — soft toys, storybooks, Disney films. I promise that I’m not the kind of pedant who points out that Peppa Pig would be part of a litter, and that, if the tiger really did come to tea, he would eat the little girl first. I was struck, however, by doubt. Surely my daughters were entitled to infer, from all these depictions of animals, that we adults had sussed out how to live alongside other species? Surely I wouldn’t give them Sophie the Giraffe toys if the numbers of actual wild giraffes were plummeting? Surely I wouldn’t read them countless stories about wolves and weasels if I had never seen any? My daughters asked questions for which I felt ill-equipped, such as: “Are foxes happy or sad?” and “Why are there so many animals in the zoo?” Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/fdc7ae21-bd59-4887-8417-7905d57b67ba So, for the past two years, I have tried to unpick the contradiction between how much we love animals and how little space we make for them on our planet. I worked in an abattoir and on farms. I went hunting, fishing and birdwatching. I interviewed scientists, pet owners and conservationists. I have tried to come up with an ethic that my daughters and I can follow. Is there a way that we can coexist with other animals, without delusions and without guilt? Is this planet big enough for all of us? My belief is that appreciating animals should not simply be lip service; it should change the way we live. The first thing you learn about slaughterhouses is that it’s easy to find work in one. There are jobs for which you need a CV, a reference or even a permanent address. There are jobs for which each listing brings a deluge of applications. “Abattoir ancillary worker” does not seem to be one of them. I call up the number on an online job ad, and am told to come down whenever is convenient. The ad said “training provided”. Training turns out to consist of white overalls, white rubber boots and a hairnet. A man called Steve gives me those, opens the door to a one-storey metal building. I find myself standing beside a line of headless sheep. This is all within four minutes of showing up. At a London office block, it would have taken longer to get past reception. Working in an abattoir is a shock . . . It’s also a reminder: the biggest way that we interact with animals today is by eating them The sheep are hanging from a motorised track, and every metre or so, a man is removing a different part of their insides or outsides. In a windowless space, the animals go from things you would see in a field to things you would see on a supermarket shelf. Red is splattered everywhere. Almost as soon as I arrive, the man next to me loses control of his knife and cuts off the skin from his knuckle, as if opening a boiled egg. He stares at the scarlet-and-white circle, the size of a small coin, which has now appeared on his finger. “Oooh, that’s a nasty one,” chips in a man one down, laughing. I am placed in front of a machine called the puller. By the time the sheep arrive here, their necks have been slit, their heads and trotters cut off, and the skin on their front legs cut from their flesh. The puller has two clamps that grab the loose skin on the front legs, and then drag it down, taking the wool coat halfway off the body. “Don’t get your fingers caught,” says a colleague, unaware that I have already made it my life’s mission. Working in an abattoir is a shock. I won’t go into details here, but it’s perhaps the only job where it’s an advantage to have lost your sense of taste and smell. It’s also a reminder: the biggest way that we interact with animals today is by eating them. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/fdc7ae21-bd59-4887-8417-7905d57b67ba In our lifetimes, we might have a handful of cherished pets. By my calculations, if meat consumption remains at its current level, a British baby born today will — over the course of their life — eat the equivalent of five whole cows, 20 whole sheep, 25 whole pigs and 1,785 chickens. When countries get rich, they eat more meat. Even fish-eating Japan has doubled its meat consumption per person during the past 40 years. The UK kills 11m pigs a year, Japan 16m, Germany 53m, and the US a whopping 130m. This meat-eating relies on cognitive dissonance. If you give someone a beef snack and ask them whether cows suffer pain, they are less likely to say yes than if you give them some nuts. If you overstate the intelligence of tapirs, wild animals that look somewhat similar to pigs, people say that tapirs deserve more moral concern; if you do the same with pigs, they don’t. We discount their suffering because we want to eat them.

XPeng Motors‘ new XPeng P5 smart electric vehicle is equipped with automotive-grade lidar technology. The P5 has “navigation guided pilot” (NGP) capabilities, which will be on China’s city roads for the first time in a production vehicle, powered by XPeng’s full-stack in-house developed autonomous driving system XPILOT 3.5. The XPILOT 3.5 autonomous driving system has a high-precision positioning unit (GNSS + inertial measurement unit, or IMU) along with 32 perception sensors — two lidar units, 12 ultrasonic sensors, five millimeter-wave radars and 13 high-resolution cameras. The sensors are fused into a 360° dual-perception system to provide sufficient redundancy to handle challenging and complex road conditions. The double-prism lidar units are able to distinguish pedestrians, cyclists and scooters, static obstacles, and road work, in challenging scenarios such as night and low-light conditions, backlighting and alternating light-and-dark illumination in tunnels. Extending the NGP function from highways to city diving, the P5 will be able to handle situations such as other autos cutting in, automatic follow and speed-limit optimization on urban roads, recognizing traffic lights as well as small objects. The P5’s Xmart OS 3.0 in-car operation system supports all-voice interaction. It uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SA8155P auto-grade computing platform to ensure seamless user control and interaction. The instrument console includes a 15.6-inch screen with essential information and controls where the driver needs them. Xmart OS 3.0 also allows vehicle-to-home connection. The P5 will be featured at Auto Shanghai 2021 on April 19.

When it comes to taking control of your health, fitness can be beneficial towards meeting your goals and attaining a better quality of life. Many people turn to the gym at first, but it's essential to consider that developing good habits takes time. It's about creating a better lifestyle that is sustainable. Derek, the man behind “More Plates More Dates”, explains why optimising your health should feel like a seamless lifestyle integration rather than a conscious choice on a daily basis. More Plates More Dates is a comprehensive health, wellness, and performance platform dedicated to improving people's lives through legitimate science-based content. Realising that fitness is a commitment and not just about dragging yourself to the gym for an hour every once and a while, Derek built a community that communicates unique information about self-improvement in an entertaining way and makes it fun to educate yourself. "I like to focus on self-improvement as a whole, rather than just fitness or exercise in the gym," explains Derek. "There are so may pigeonholed channels out there that seem to get stuck talking about one thing over and over again. Granted, I often have overlapping topics, or even the exact same topic that comes up repetitively, but I consistently try to incorporate as many aspects of health, vitality, and self-improvement as a whole into my content in an entertaining way. Being fit and healthy isn’t just about eating a certain macro allotment and going to the gym five days a week, there are so many deeper topics that most don’t even touch on, like blood work analysis or genetics." Understanding that no healthy lifestyle is complete without a well thought-out plan, Derek develops content that not only educates his viewers, but also presents it in an entertaining way simultaneously to help encourage information absorption. The owner of Gorilla Mind and Marek Health, Derek believes that a multi-faceted approach to achieving a high quality lifestyle yields the best results. "You can eat as healthy as you want, but if you aren’t exercising enough, or your sleep hygiene is terrible, you are missing the full picture," Derek explains. "More often than not, someone will dial in one part of their life, like their workout routine, but then totally neglect the meat and potatoes of recovery and proper nutrition." THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY An Online Exhibition of Artisanal Watchmaking of the past 50 Years C.P. Group named as one of the world's most ethical companies TRUE unveils the first digital eco-uniform, 100% eco-friendly "Prioritising health entails optimising several aspects of your life; not just hitting the vanity muscles a couple of times a week and assuming you’re healthy because you lift hard," explains Derek. Motivated by a thirst for knowledge, Derek continues to educate himself, and he passes that information along to his followers via his blog, YouTube channel, and other social media platforms.

The announcement by President Joe Biden that the US will withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, has sent tremors through the region’s fault-lines. Unlike the Trump Administration, which made its troop withdrawal by May 1 conditional — on Taliban taking steps to prevent al-Qaeda or any other group from sheltering in Afghanistan, and agreeing to a dialogue on power sharing with the Afghan government — the Biden plan has no strings attached. There are about 2,500-3,500 US troops in Afghanistan at present, plus a NATO force of under 8,000. A co-ordinated withdrawal is expected to begin soon. The impact of this announcement on various actors within Afghanistan and outside is bound to be far-reaching. It can be said with certainty that no country in the region will remain untouched. Afghanistan: advantage Taliban Biden’s announcement has removed all incentives for the Taliban to agree for a dialogue with the Afghan government. In a statement on Thursday, the Taliban indicated as much: “The Islamic Emirate will under no circumstance ever relent on complete independence and establishment of a pure Islamic system, and remain committed to a peaceful solution to the Afghan problem following the complete and certain end of occupation. Newsletter | Click to get the day’s best explainers in your inbox The proposal by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in March is now almost certainly dead in the water. It included a 90-day ceasefire; talks under the auspices of the UN for a consensus plan for Afghanistan among the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and India; and a meeting in Turkey between the Taliban and Afghan government towards an “inclusive” interim government, an agreement on the foundational principles of the future political order and for a permanent ceasefire. Turkey has scheduled the talks for April 24, and the Biden Administration has said it remains committed to finding a political solution. But the Taliban are now in a different zone. The Taliban declared in the statement that the “American officials have understood the Afghan situation” but as the withdrawal had been put off “by several months” to September, rather than stick to the Doha Agreement (signed between the Trump Administration’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban last March) date of May 1, America had violated the agreement. This had “opened the way” for the Taliban to take “counter-measures”, and the American side “will be held responsible for all future consequences, and not the Islamic Emirate” According to the Long War Journal (a project of the US-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies), of Afghanistan’s 325 districts, the Taliban are in control of 76 or 19%, and government forces 127 or 32%. The remaining are contested. According to the Council of Foreign Relations, the Taliban are stronger now than at any point since 2001, when US forces invaded Afghanistan. After the full withdrawal of troops, Taliban are likely to see the war, which they believe they have already won, to its completion. The recently published US Threat Assessment Report, an annual US intelligence briefing, said prospects for a peace deal are dim, the Taliban are confident of victory in the battlefield, and the Afghan government will struggle to hold them at bay. President Ashraf Ghani tweeted the stoic message that his government “respects the US decision and we will work with our US partners to ensure a smooth transition”. But he and others who have invested in a democratic Afghanistan know the country is close to losing all the gains of the last 15 years. There is deep apprehension of a return to the 1990s, although there is also a view that the Taliban too have changed over 25 years, and would not want to alienate the international community as they did when they ruled Afghanistan during 1996-01. Earlier, Ghani had proposed that if the Taliban were ready to talk, he would give up what remained if his presidential term, and hold a re-election in which the Taliban were free to participate. The Taliban have always rejected elections as un-Islamic, and the government of Afghanistan as a “puppet” of the US. Ghani’s proposal gained no traction. This is a moment of both vindication and concern in Islamabad. The Taliban are a creation of the Pakistani security establishment. After the US invasion of Afghanistan, they removed themselves to safe havens in Pakistan territory, and the Taliban High Council operated from Quetta in Balochistan. It was Pakistan that persuaded the Taliban to do a deal with the Trump Administration. For the Pakistani Army, which has always seen Afghanistan in terms of “strategic depth” in its forever hostility with India, a Taliban capture of Afghanistan would finally bring a friendly force in power in Kabul after 20 years. India, which has had excellent relations with the Karzai and Ghani governments, would be cut to size. But a US withdrawal also means Pakistan will need to shoulder the entire burden of the chaos that experts predict. Civil war is not ruled out and with it, the flow of refugees into Pakistan once again, even as the country struggles with refugees from the first Afghan war. All this at a time when the economy is flailing, and Pakistan stays afloat on an IMF loan with strict conditionalities. Plus, the Taliban are not a monolith, and have recently shown streaks of independence from Pakistan. It has to guard against instability in Afghanistan from spilling over the border. Pakistan’s eastern front with India is quiet at the moment, so that is one headache less, but it would remain a concern for the Pakistan Army. India: time to be wary New Delhi, which was hoping to be part of the Blinken initiative, would be nervous about the US withdrawal. India was on the outer edges of the Trump drive to exit Afghanistan that culminated in the Doha Accord, and was a reluctant supporter of the “intra-Afghan talks” between the Taliban and Afghan government. When the Biden Administration came in, India was hopeful of a US reset. The Blinken proposal gave India a role, by recognising it as a regional stakeholder, but this proposal seems to have no future. The Haqqani group, fostered by the ISI, would have a large role in any Taliban regime. Another concern would be India-focused militants such as Laskhar- e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohamed, which the Indian security establishment already believes to have relocated in large numbers to Afghanistan. Russia, China & Iran China would have much to lose from instability in Afghanistan as this could have an impact on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. A Taliban regime in Afghanistan might end up stirring unrest in the Xinjiang Autonomous region, home to the Uighur minority. Conversely, as an ally of Pakistan, it could see a bigger role for itself in Afghanistan. The US exit is for Russia a full circle after its own defeat at the hands of US-backed Mujahideen and exit from Afghanistan three decades ago. In recent years, Russia has taken on the role of peacemaker in Afghanistan. But both the Taliban and the Afghan government have been wary of its efforts. After a conference in March of Russia, US, China and Pakistan, along with Taliban and Afghan delegates, a joint statement by the four principals said they did not support the establishment of an Islamic Emirate, leaving the Taliban angry. Russia’s growing links with Pakistan could translate into a post-US role for Moscow in Afghanistan. As a country that shares borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, Iran perceives active security threats from both. And a Taliban regime in Kabul would only increase this threat perception. But Iran, with links to the Hazaras in Afghanistan, has of late played all sides. Despite the mutual hostility and the theological divide between the two, Iran opened channels to the Taliban a few years ago, and recently, even hosted a Taliban delegation at Tehran.

The best Bitcoin wallets out there make it easy to secure and manage your cryptocurrency, but selecting the right option can still be a little tricky, especially if you're new to the space. Simply put, once you’ve purchased Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) or any other altcoin, you'll need a safe place to store your holdings. Using a wallet, instead of storing your crypto with an exchange, gives you greater control over your virtual wealth. In this guide, we delve into the best Bitcoin wallets available to help you choose the optimal platform for your needs. The definition of the best crypto wallet will depend on your main priorities (accessibility, transaction privacy, multi-platform support etc.). All of the crypto wallets in our list are non-custodial, meaning you'll have full control over your private key (we advise using a secure password manager), without which no transactions can be made. Most of them are also classified as hot wallets, which means they are connected to the internet at all times. If you hold large amounts of Bitcoin, though, consider using a hardware wallet to store your assets in a more secure fashion. With all that in mind, here's our rundown of the best Bitcoin wallets out there right now: To purchase cryptocurrency, you'll need to sign up with an exchange or trading platform such as Coinbase, eToro, Robinhood or SoFi. The Ledger Nano X is a premium hardware cryptocurrency wallet built to keep your digital wealth as secure as possible by storing your private keys offline. To ensure the hardware is as resilient as possible, Ledger employs a custom built OS (BOLOS) and CC EAL5+ certified Secure Element (SE) chip. The security of the device has also been audited and verified by ANSSI, the French national cybersecurity agency. The Nano X offers all the features of its cheaper sibling, the Ledger Nano S, but with the added ability to store a greater range of assets at once and to manage your portfolio on the go by linking the device to the smartphone app via Bluetooth. While the Nano X is designed primarily with HODLers in mind, it’s also simple to add to your cryptocurrency portfolio and put your holdings to use, thanks to partnerships with crypto exchanges Coinify and Changelly and DeFi protocol Compound. Just bear in mind, the company recently suffered a data breach that exposed the personal data of a large number of customers. While the breach itself had nothing to do with the security of the actual hardware wallets, it's not unreasonable to look upon this kind of incident as a red flag. For more, read our full Ledger Nano X review Buy the Ledger Nano X here The Trezor from SatoshiLabs is one of the oldest cryptocurrency hardware wallets on the market. First released in 2014, the Trezor Model T is the company's premium offering, designed to suit both HODLers and active traders alike. The Trezor Model T offers all the features that come with the Trezor One, along with support for newer cryptocurrencies and exchanges such as XRP, Cardano, Monero and more. Everything about the Trezor Model T, from its hardware specifications to the software that powers it, is released under an open source license, which is a definite plus. A built-in touchscreen, meanwhile, gives the Model T a premium feel and enables you to enter the PIN and passphrase on the device itself, which is very convenient. For more, check out our full Trezor Model T review. Buy the Trezor Model T here Exodus is a multi-currency wallet that supports over a hundred cryptocurrencies. The wallet was originally available only on desktop, but is now also available for iOS and Android mobile platforms as well. Exodus sets itself apart from other wallets with a design focus on people who have never dabbled in the world of crypto. It has an easy-to-use interface and its developers spend a great deal of time and effort polishing the UI to make it more intuitive. One of Exodus’ most po[CENSORED]r features is support for a range of different altcoins, on top of Bitcoin. You can also use the wallet to exchange one cryptocurrency for another without any form of registration. Exodus is a solid option for managing and exchanging small amounts of cryptocurrencies without getting into the nitty-gritty parts of the process. We wouldn’t suggest it for advanced cryptocurrency users, though, primarily because the ability to set custom fees is currently restricted to Bitcoin only. And while it’s a good thing the app gets updated every two weeks, the fact that it isn’t entirely open source will put some people off. For more, read our full Exodus review. Download Exodus here

Chinese memory and flash product maker, Netac, has claimed that they will be offering gaming-grade DDR5 memory with speeds beyond 10,000 MHz. The company OEM announced yesterday that like several other memory manufacturers, they too have received their first patch of DDR5 DRAM. Netac Receives First Batch of DDR5 DRAM, Claims To Offer Gaming DDR5 Memory With Over 10,000 MHz Speeds ITHome got the word from Netac that they have received their first batch of DDR5 DRAM from Micron. With this initial batch, Netac can officially enter the development stage of DDR5 DRAM-based memory products.The DDR5 DRAM that the company received has the IFA45 Z9ZSB product code which is ES ICs based on information from Micron's website. Each DRAM has a 2Gx8 capacity and is rated to operate at CL40 timings. The DDR5 DRAM chips are based on the 1znm node and measure at 11x9mm or 99mm2. Chinese memory and flash product maker, Netac, has claimed that they will be offering gaming-grade DDR5 memory with speeds beyond 10,000 MHz. The company OEM announced yesterday that like several other memory manufacturers, they too have received their first patch of DDR5 DRAM. Netac Receives First Batch of DDR5 DRAM, Claims To Offer Gaming DDR5 Memory With Over 10,000 MHz Speeds ITHome got the word from Netac that they have received their first batch of DDR5 DRAM from Micron. With this initial batch, Netac can officially enter the development stage of DDR5 DRAM-based memory products.The DDR5 DRAM that the company received has the IFA45 Z9ZSB product code which is ES ICs based on information from Micron's website. Each DRAM has a 2Gx8 capacity and is rated to operate at CL40 timings. The DDR5 DRAM chips are based on the 1znm node and measure at 11x9mm or 99mm2. Netac currently offers a few DDR4 memory products but they are claiming to offer gaming-grade DDR5 memory with speeds beyond 10,000 MHz. It will be interesting to see Netac achieve this as DDR5's native speeds will 4800 MHz and to go to 10,000 MHz means to offer twice the speeds. It's not impossible since DDR4 memory started at 2133 MHz and we have seen several manufacturers offering kits that are rated at up to DDR4-5333 MHz that can further be pushed beyond DDR4-6000 MHz with some overclocking expertise. T-Force had previously stated that DDR5 memory has far greater room for voltage adjustment when it comes to overclocking support. This is primarily due to the upgraded power management ICs (PMIC) that allows for voltages over 2.6V. It is also detailed that existing DDR4 memory modules handled their voltage conversion through the motherboard but that changes with the new DRAM standard. The components that are required for the voltage conversion are now moved over to the memory DIMM itself, reducing voltage wear and noise generation while simultaneously offering increased room for overclocking. With the mass production now underway, we can expect DDR5 memory to be ready for consumer platforms such as Intel's Alder Lake 12th Gen CPUs and the respective Z690 motherboard platform in the second half of this year.

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection released on Nintendo Switch in February to divided reviews, with the old school difficulty being the main point of contention. That’s in the series’ DNA of course, but it did look like a pretty conservative take on the run-and-gun platformer formula. Whatever the case, we’ll be able to try it for ourselves because it’s “coming soon” to Steam. Capcom pushed out Resurrection as part of the series’ 35th anniversary, and it’s even helmed by series creator Tokuro Fujiwara, who has worked on a dizzying number of Capcom games. It’s made in RE Engine and rocks an art style that is kinda easy to hate, but apparently it plays really well. Resurrection did add some concessions to players unwilling to punish themselves: there’s a Squire mode, which lowers the difficulty, and a Page mode, which lets you revive exactly where you die, checkpoints be damned. But if your worry is that the game won’t be hard enough, there’s a Legend mode for punishment lovers.It’s exciting news for hard-as-nails platformer fans, though for my money, I found Cursed Castilla scratched this itch adequately, and if Capcom’s going to revive something GnG adjacent, please, can we please have a Maximo remake or re-release? Shaun is PC Gamer’s Australian editor and news writer. He mostly plays platformers and RPGs, and keeps a close eye on anything of particular interest to antipodean audiences. He (rather obsessively) tracks the movements of the Doom mudding community, too.

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Virtually no animal currently found in Wisconsin generates more controversy, confusion or emotional extremes than the gray wolf (Canis lupus). Farmers who have lost livestock to the animals, and people who have seen hunting dogs and family pets killed, would prefer fewer wolves on the landscape. Many native American tribes, who claim a kinship with wolves, and individuals and organizations who oppose most hunting, trapping and even some animal agriculture, appear to favor unchecked wolf po[CENSORED]tion growth throughout the state. Some people have an irrational fear of wolves, seeing them as a sinister threat to humans, while others tend to romanticize them as benevolent predators taking only weak or sick wild animals. The reality is wolves are apex predators at the top of the food chain that don’t distinguish between wild and domestic animals. The state’s largest carnivores can, and will, kill a sheep, calf, cow, hunting dog or pet, just as quickly and effectively as a deer or elk. Remarkable recovery The recovery of the gray wolf po[CENSORED]tion in Wisconsin and neighboring states is one of the true successes of the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) that was signed into law in 1973 by President Richard Nixon. Its goal was to prevent the extinction of imperiled plant and animal life, and to recover and maintain those po[CENSORED]tions by removing or lessening threats to their survival. In 1974, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) added gray wolves in the lower 48 states to the list of federally protected species under the ESA. In 1975, wolves were listed as a state endangered species. By 1980, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) counted 25 wolves in northern Wisconsin, as a few packs moved in from across the Minnesota border. The DNR completed a wolf recovery plan in 1989 that set a state goal for reclassifying wolves as threatened once the po[CENSORED]tion remained at or above 80 for three years. A new management plan in 1999, set a delisting goal of 250 wolves in late winter outside of Indian reservations, and a management goal of 350 wolves outside of Indian reservations. In 1999, wolves were reclassified to state threatened status with 205 wolves in the state. In 2004, wolves were removed from the state threatened species list and were reclassified as a protected wild animal with 373 wolves in the state. Since then Wisconsin’s wolf po[CENSORED]tion has continued on an upward trajectory, often growing by 15 to 16 percent annually. As of April 2020, the DNR estimated the state’s wolf po[CENSORED]tion at 1,195 animals in more than 256 packs found in several regions of the state. Wolf conflicts The significant increase in wolf numbers, coupled with an inability of state authorities to control problem animals due to their protection led to a corresponding increase in the level of frustration among hunters, farmers, public officials, conservation organizations, pet owners and much of the general public. Initially, farms with the most wolf predation tended to be near large blocks of public land like the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, according to Dave Ruid, a supervisor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which investigates such livestock killings. However, those problems have spread to central Wisconsin. Ashleigh Calaway and her husband raise beef cattle on their Wood County farm in the town of Pittsville, while her in-laws, Ray and Barb Calaway, hold the sheep herd on an adjoining farm. RELATED: Wisconsin farm family lives wolf attack nightmare “In July 2019, after a long day of hay-making, everyone slept like a rock,” she recalled. “But when my father-in-law walked out the next morning to check the flock of sheep, he found them massacred by wolves. Some of them were killed in one strike, while others were strung from one end of the pasture to the other. Most of the sheep were unrecognizable, with just their head or rib cage all that was left. Thirty years of our family’s blood, sweat and tears were gone along with 30 years of genetics.” Three days later, Diane Schiller's 18-year-old dog, Tucker, was killed by a wolf just a quarter mile from the Calaway's farm. Calaway said the family is slowly rebuilding their flock, “but we still cannot bring ourselves to put them on summer pasture. We are also taking extra measures to protect the beef herd, but that comes with a lot of extra cost and time,” she added. Eric Koens raised registered Polled Hereford cattle for over 33 years on a 400-acre farm in northwestern Wisconsin. He has also worked closely with USDA Wildlife Services staff responding to complaints from farmers who’ve experienced depredations, indirect damage and livestock harassment by wolves. Koens emphasized that indirect damage caused by wolves is often more of a problem than the livestock they actually kill. “If a wolf pack runs 200 head of cattle through a fence, the farmer needs to spend days retrieving those animals, some of which could run on the road and get hit by vehicles,” he said. “The stress put on the animals also can substantially reduce production, result in abortions and weaken the animals to make them more susceptible to illness, and there’s no compensation for this type of damage.” Wolf predation costs Wolf predation has not only taken a toll on livestock farmers, owners of hunting dogs and family pets, the state also has paid out nearly $3 million in damage claims. In an attempt to build tolerance for the increased wolf po[CENSORED]tion, the state established an income-tax checkoff in1983, allowing residents to donate to support federally protected species. It earmarked 3%, or up to $100,000 a year, to pay for damage from wolves and other protected species. According to USDA Wildlife Services, from 2003 through early September 2013, there were 993 verified wolf complaints in Wisconsin. “During that period 369 farms had verified losses, including nine horses, 82 sheep, 50 captive deer, 398 poultry, 535 cattle and 252 dogs, During the latest survey period, the agency tallied 90 wolf complaints, up from fewer than 70 the previous year. Wisconsin made its first wolf damage payment in 1985 to a Douglas County farmer who received $200 for wolf-killed sheep. As of April 2020, the state paid out over $2.7 million in compensation for wolf depredations. This amount includes nearly $1.8 million for killed and missing calves, $174,000 for wolf-killed cattle, $47,465 for sheep and $913,966 for wolf-killed hunting dogs and pet animals. Resisting delisting Both listing and delisting of species under the ESA were to be done by the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) based on sound scientific evidence. However, this has not been the case with the gray wolf when scientific evidence clearly called for removing it from ESA protection. Wolves were federally reclassified to threatened on April 1, 2003, but on January 31, 2005 wolves were re-listed as endangered due to a lawsuit. Wolves were removed from the federal list in Wisconsin and the remainder of the Western Great Lakes Distinct Po[CENSORED]tion Segment on March 12, 2007, because the po[CENSORED]tion goal had not only been met but had nearly tripled. Despite the scientific evidence, the Center for Biological Diversity and its allies got a court order blocking this mandated action. A new FWS delisting proposal for the wolves was published in 2011, with FWS stating that, “Wolves continue to exceed recovery goals and are no longer threatened with extinction.” With wolves removed from the endangered species list, Wisconsin enacted a law requiring an annual wolf season between November and February. Hunting/trapping seasons were held in 2012, 2013 and 2014 when hunters and trappers took 528 wolves. The delisting lasted for only three years, until Dec. 19, 2014, when U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., in response to a lawsuit filed by the Humane Society of the United States, ordered that wolves in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota placed the animals back on the endangered species list. In the fall of 2020, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that wolves once again would be removed from the federal ESA effective Jan. 4, 2021. Harvest controversy The delisting announcement opened the door for a statewide hunting/trapping season in January or February. However, it also brought controversy, confusion and emotional responses. The Department of Natural Resources was criticized for failing to follow state law and conduct a harvest this winter until it was forced to do so by a court order. Greg Kazmierski, vice chairman of the Natural Resources Board, said the DNR should have been ready to go with a season as soon as the wolves came off the endangered species list Jan. 4, as required by state law. “The department has enough data from previous wolf seasons to set quotas that protect the overall po[CENSORED]tion’s viability,” he added. Some critics of the harvest claimed the wolf po[CENSORED]tion was still too fragile to support hunting. Chippewa tribal officials felt they weren’t adequately consulted prior to the harvest. John D. Johnson, chairman of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Voigt Intertribal Task Force, said, “wolf pelts are in bad shape this time of year which means the hunt was all about killing.” However, several successful hunters reported pelts were in prime condition. Some media outlets also contributed to the controversy and confusion. A widely circulated newspaper article headline intimated that hunters and trappers had vastly exceeded the harvest goal, which was 200 animals. The latest numbers reveal that 218 animals were harvested, just 18 above what was described as “very conservative goal” by DNR officials. The Ojibwe tribes also added to the confusion by claiming 81 of the allocated permits, in accordance with their treaty rights. However, it was clear they opposed the harvest, and likely had no intention of participating. Based on current information, there is no indication that any tribal permits were actually issued and that no tribal members legally harvested any wolves. Future prospects Following the February season, DNR Communications Director Sarah Hoye reported that Wisconsin’s wolf po[CENSORED]tion remains stable. “It’s healthy, capable of sustaining harvest, and remains well connected to neighboring wolf po[CENSORED]tions in Michigan and Minnesota,” she said. Although Ashleigh Calaway and her family have suffered significant losses to their sheep flock, she doesn’t want to see the wolf po[CENSORED]tion eliminated. "But I do want to see the po[CENSORED]tion managed so we can coexist in harmony; I want to see the ecosystem reestablished so that wolves learn that humans are not on their easy-prey list,” she said. While it’s possible that a political decision or court ruling could place wolves back on the endangered list, Randy Johnson, DNR large carnivore specialist, reaffirmed the state’s commitment to science-based wolf management. “Wolves have a place in Wisconsin, and the DNR is committed to keeping wolves on the landscape at biologically and socially-acceptable levels,” he said. Johnson also noted some people mistakenly believe that when wolves are removed from the federal endangered species list they’re unprotected. “This is not true,” he stressed. “Instead, delisting allows the DNR to manage the species to best achieve biological and social objectives while minimizing conflicts, which is similar to how we manage many other species of wildlife in the state. This approach includes a regulated harvest season informed by science and research, as well as a fully integrated approach to dealing with wolf conflict and depredations, all while maintaining a sustainable wolf po[CENSORED]tion in the state.” The agency is currently preparing for a fall 2021 wolf harvest season through a transparent and science-based process that will include coordination with tribal partners and public input on harvest objectives. Plans are to present quota recommendations to the Natural Resources Board at its August meeting. DNR continues to partner with USDA-Wildlife Services to address wolf conflicts in Wisconsin. If you suspect wolves in the depredation of livestock, pets or hunting dogs,

Fewer sick people, more car sales. With few exceptions, that seemed to be the rule when the summer and fall of 2020 brought about a significant increase in regional new vehicle sales across Canada. Following the economic meltdown and ensuing disappearance of vehicle sales through much of March, April, and May, most of the significant recoveries occurred in markets where COVID-19 never fully broke out. But before examining each province’s collapse and respective rate of recovery, it’s first worth asking: just how bad was it? How quickly did demand for new vehicles evaporate? When dealers locked showroom doors, when potential customers lost their jobs, and when consumer confidence crumbled – how long did the auto industry’s disastrous phase linger? Despite a relatively normal first-half of March 2020, sales during the month in which COVID-19 broke loose in Canada still fell by nearly 50 per cent, year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada. Nationally, that equalled a loss of more than 90,000 sales, with the bulk of those losses occurring in the final two weeks of the month. April, however, revealed the true extent of the damage. Compared with April 2019, three-quarters of Canada’s April auto sales disappeared, a staggering loss of more than 138,000 sales. Roughly 63,000 of the lost sales occurred in Ontario and Quebec, two provinces typically home to two-thirds of the Canadian auto market. In April 2020, Ontario and Quebec generated less than half of Canada’s auto sales. Yet by May, the worst was over. Compared with 2019, the auto industry continued to shed sales, but the rate of decline never again resembled April’s 75 per cent national drop. By the time the third-quarter rolled along, auto sales were limited as much (if not more) by supply limitations as decreased demand. In fact, by September of 2020 – only six months after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic – auto sales in Canada were stronger than they were in September 2019. FOR IN-DEPTH EV NEWS & ANALYSIS TUNE IN TO OUR PLUGGED-IN PODCAST The national auto industry’s COVID-19 sales timeline is nevertheless not representative of each province’s COVID collapse or recovery. With 2019 and 2020 monthly figures from Statistics Canada’s New Motor Vehicle Sales data set, here’s a province-by-province look at COVID-19’s impact in car dealerships over the last year. Four out of every 10 Canadian residents live in Ontario. With that kind of buying power, Ontario has the capacity to fuel the Canadian auto industry and the sheer force to bring a market down. Throughout much of 2020, worse-than-average Ontario sales results have constrained Canada’s recovery potential. Year-over-year, Ontario fell behind the national average in each of the last nine months of 2020. At 646,275 sales in 2020, Ontario finished the year down 23 per cent. In 2019, 43 percent of Canada’s auto sales occurred in Ontario. That figure dipped to 41 per cent as Ontario’s auto sales volume dropped by 197,000 units. Quebec During the early part of the pandemic, no provincial auto market in Canada suffered declines as sharp as Quebec. April’s 85 percent decrease in Quebec auto sales was, for example, 29 percentage points worse than Saskatchewan’s. The severe nature of the decrease fuelled greater pent-up demand as spring turned to summer – Quebec sales in June 2020 were actually 9 percent stronger than they were a year earlier. After losing nearly 73,000 sales between March and May, Quebec ended the year with 371,124 vehicles sold, a decrease of slightly less than 80,000 units. Alberta At 183,540 sales in 2020, Alberta auto sales slipped 17 per cent from 2019. Although Alberta reported only one monthly year-over-year increase in the final 10 months of the year, the market was only slightly off-balanced throughout much of the second-half. Auto sales decreased by 37,323 units during the first four months of the crisis, but then fell by only 3,205 units over the following six-month span. British Columbia (including Territories) By the end of 2020, British Columbia (including its northerly neighbours in StatsCan’s counter) performed slightly better than the national average. BC auto sales dropped 18 percent – Canada was down 20 percent – to 171,412 units, a drop of 37,000 sales from 2019. BC’s loss occurred almost exclusively in the spring and summer. During a four-month span to end the year, auto sales in BC actually rose 4 percent. Manitoba Largest among Canada’s six small provincial auto markets, Manitoba still managed to lose more than 10,000 sales in 2020. Yet the tail end of March didn’t drag Manitoba’s auto market down as sharply as any other province in the country – sales slid “only” 40 percent compared to the 49 per cent national average. Indeed, Manitoba’s declines throughout the spring weren’t as severe as anywhere else: March-to-May volume was down “only” 34 percent. Nova Scotia The most populous province inside the short-lived Atlantic Bubble still produced the most auto sales of the four east coast markets in 2020, but its losses were more severe and its recovery less impressive. 39,891 vehicles were sold in Nova Scotia in 2020, a 22 percent year-over-year decrease of more than 11,000 units. Between March and May, Nova Scotia sales tumbled 45 percent, on par with its neighbours. But while NL, PEI, and New Brunswick reported marginal year-over-year decreases (or improvements) in the June-August recovery period, auto sales in Nova Scotia were still down 16 percent. Saskatchewan Since auto sales began their sharp decline in mid-March of 2020, Saskatchewan’s monthly auto sales performance punched above the national average all but once during a 10-month span. Only in July, when Saskatchewan’s 9 percent decrease trailed the national market’s 6 percent drop, did the prairie market appear inordinately slow. Statistics Canada says 41,817 vehicles were sold in Saskatchewan in 2020, down 14 per cent from 2019 levels, a decrease of nearly 7,000 vehicles. New Brunswick Down “just” 16 per cent from 2019 levels, New Brunswick’s year-end auto sales volume in 2020 ticked down by nearly 6,400 units. Just how much of that drop occurred in the spring, during the peak of COVID shutdown impacts? In March, April, and May, New Brunswick’s new vehicle showrooms collectively recorded 5,332 fewer sales than during the same period, one year earlier. In the final four months of the year, on the other hand, New Brunswick actually grew volume by over 500 units compared with 2019.

When Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff died yesterday in a North Carolina prison, the conman’s lawyer said he was “by no means perfect – but no man is”. Madoff, who was 82, was serving a 150-year sentence for orchestrating the world’s largest Ponzi scheme, a $64.8 billion scam that fell apart as crisis ripped through the world’s financial system in 2008. “It’s all just one big lie,” he admitted as the money finally ran out after conning thousands of investors in an elaborate ruse that carried on for 15 years at least. A Ponzi scheme is a fraud that generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors. Madoff had been an acclaimed figure in New York and he was chairman for three years of the Nasdaq stock market, a position that would have reinforced his standing as an investment guru with seemingly impeccable credentials and stellar results. Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff dies in US prison Marathon Madoff Ponzi case settled before opening in High Court Those hit by the swindle include actors Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and John Malkovich, and the charitable foundation of director Steven Spielberg. Also hit was late Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose foundation lost $15.2 million. “We thought he was God. We trusted everything in his hands,” Mr Wiesel said in 2009. The ripples still reverberate. In the High Court yesterday in Dublin, a long-running 2013 case linked to the affair was settled shortly after Madoff’s death. Incarceration A British Virgin Islands investment fund, Defender Ltd, had sued HSBC Continental Europe (formerly HSBC France) of Grand Canal Square, Dublin. Defender claimed negligence and breach of contract regarding HSBC’s alleged role as a custodian of funds lost as a result of fraud by its alleged sub-custodian Bernie L Madoff Securities LLC, a Madoff company. The claims were denied. Madoff’s prison death and 12 year incarceration were a far cry from the ritzy life he led as a baron of the financial world before his name became a byword for chicanery, excess and deceit. Madoff, who had terminal kidney disease, sought “compassionate release” last year to die at home. But the judge who had originally sentenced him, saying he was guilty “extraordinary evil”, rejected that request. The year before his fall Madoff said it was “virtually impossible” to violate rules in the prevailing regulatory environment, something he himself had been doing without a hint of any wrongdoing for many years. “But it’s impossible for a violation to go undetected, certainly not for a considerable period of time.” Brandon Sample, Madoff’s lawyer, said in a statement his client had “lived with guilt and remorse for his crimes” until his death. “Although the crimes Bernie was convicted of have come to define who he was – he was also a father and a husband. He was soft spoken and an intellectual.” – Additional reporting: Agencies

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats will introduce legislation Thursday to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices, joining progressive activists pushing to transform the court. The move intensifies a high-stakes ideological fight over the future of the court after President Donald Trump and Republicans appointed three conservative justices in four years, including one who was confirmed days before the 2020 election. The Democratic bill is led by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. It is co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mondaire Jones of New York. The Supreme Court can be expanded by an act of Congress, but the legislation is highly unlikely to become law in the near future given Democrats' slim majorities, which include scores of lawmakers who are not on board with the idea. President Joe Biden has said he is "not a fan" of packing the court. But it represents an undercurrent of progressive fury at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for denying a vote in 2016 to President Barack Obama's pick to fill a vacancy, citing the approaching election, before confirming Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett the week before the election last year. The anger has taken hold within the Democratic Party, and the new push indicates that it has not dissipated in an era when the party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. The lawmakers, who intend to announce the introduction of the bill outside the Supreme Court building, will be joined by progressive activists Aaron Belkin, who leads Take Back the Court; Chris Kang, a co-founder and chief counsel of Demand Justice; and Meagan Hatcher-Mays of Indivisible, according to an advisory notice. All three groups advocate adding justices. "This bill marks a new era where Democrats finally stop conceding the Supreme Court to Republicans," said Brian Fallon, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide and a co-founder of Demand Justice, who described the court as "broken and in need of reform." Our task now is to build a grassroots movement that puts pressure on every Democrat in Congress to support this legislation because it is the only way to restore balance to the court and protect our democracy," he said. Last week, Biden announced the formation of a commission of liberals and conservatives to study the structure of the Supreme Court, including the number of justices and the length of their service. The size of the Supreme Court, which has fluctuated since it was established in 1789, has remained at nine since 1869. McConnell has strenuously warned Democrats not to add seats to the court, saying there is "nothing about the structure or operation of the judicial branch that requires 'study.'" He quoted remarks from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September, and liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, both of whom voiced skepticism about expanding the court. "President Biden campaigned on a promise of lowering the temperature and uniting a divided nation," McConnell said in a statement last week. "If he really meant it, he would stop giving oxygen to a dangerous, antiquated idea and stand up to the partisans hawking it."

While web shells have been removed that previously provided attackers access to Microsoft Exchange Servers, the FBI has revealed that some malicious software might remain that hackers are still using as backdoors into victim networks. Now, U.S. Justice authorities have initiated the copy and removal of evil web shells from hundreds of computers running on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server software to operate their corporate email services. These attacks began back in January and February of 2021 when various hackers discovered and exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server software. The hackers took advantage of these vulnerabilities to set up backdoors and gain persistent access to these servers, right up until they were caught in March of 2021. Even after the initial hackers came to light, more attackers looked for ways to attack following patching and publication of these vulnerabilities. While thousands of victims of this attack managed to remove these backdoors, hundreds of malicious web shells have gone unremedied. For the target servers that the FBI succeeded in salvaging, they ended up writing a command from the web shell to the server, triggering the server to delete the web shell after identifying the shell's unique file path. So far, authorities have expressed positive sentiment regarding the ability of private and public organizations to join cybersecurity forces in order to oppose this threat. In fact, the FBI has already partnered with international colleagues in the field in order to keep an eye on further vulnerabilities and threats of this nature. Indeed, since this attack came to light in March, Microsoft and its various partners have taken significant efforts to provide their thousands of customers with the information and tools to help mitigate this threat, even for those organizations whose servers have already been impacted. However, despite many Microsoft Exchange Server users successfully removing evil web shells on their networks, the FBI warns that the original zero-day vulnerabilities have still not been fully patched. Therefore, the company recommends that all affected organizations continue to monitor and investigate their environments for potential malicious presence. At this time, the FBI intends to notify all entities from whose servers malicious web shells associated with these attacks have been removed. They expect network defenders of impacted organizations might encounter the challenge of detecting these evil web shells based on their unique file name and path. For now, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have collaborated toward a Joint Advisory on Microsoft Exchange Server to tackle this incident.

AMD has benchmarked their flagship 3rd Gen EPYC Milan CPU in Cinebench R23 and broken all previous records set by last-generation Ryzen Threadripper CPUs based on the Zen 2 architecture. The world record benchmark not only puts AMD in the leading position when it comes to multi-threaded performance but also shows just how fast the upcoming generation of HEDT AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs is going to be. AMD Breaks Cinebench World Record With Its 3rd Gen EPYC Milan CPUs Proving That Next-Gen Ryzen Threadripper HEDT CPUs Would Offer A Monstrous Performance Uplift The AMD 3rd Gen EPYC Milan lineup is based on the 7nm Zen 3 core architecture with a brand new cache design and all-new cores. The Zen 3 architecture brought a 19% IPC uplift over Zen 2 which is major considering that Zen 2 already delivered an impressive IPC gain over the first generation Zen core architecture. In a video posted by the official AMD YouTube channel, AMD's Server Performance Demo Engineer, Apostolos Kotsiolis, demonstrated the performance of the AMD EPYC 7763 flagship CPU. The EPYC 7763 is a beast of a chip with 64 cores, 128 threads, a base TDP of 2.45 GHz, & a boost clock of up to 3.50 GHz. The CPU comes with an insane 256 MB of L3 cache, 32 MB of L2 cache & a 280W TDP. The CPU retails at around $8000 US and is literally the best of the best when it comes to industry-leading server performance.AMD demoed the dual chips in the CInebench R23 benchmark and scored an impressive 113,631 points in the multi-thread test. The performance was demonstrated within a Dell EMC server that was relying solely on air cooling. This is currently the highest Cinebench R23 score ever achieved by any processor.The previous world record was held by AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3990X under the LN2 cooling at clock speeds of 5.22 GHz. That chip scored 105,170 points. Even against a massively over-clocked Threadripper on LN2, the EPYC Milan CPU scores an 8% performance lead. Compared to dual EPYC 7H12 64 Core CPUs at stock, the dual EPYC 7763 net a 23% performance uplift. You can see the world-record entry over at HWBot here.If we talk standard numbers, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X scores around 75,000 points and that puts the EPYC Milan chip in a mind-blowing 52% lead. This is simply put just insane amounts of performance and just goes off to show how fast the next-generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU lineup is going to be. The AMD EPYC Milan CPUs rely on conservative clock speeds due to 24/7 use so we can expect greater than 25% performance improvement for Zen 3 based Threadripper CPUs given that they will boast much higher clock speeds. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Desktop CPUs will also retain support on the TRX40 platform and will be the last generation of Threadripper CPUs for the SP3 socket before AMD moves to its brand new platform offering DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support. The HEDT lineup is expected to debut in August 2021 so we can expect an unveil by mid of 2021.

Half-Life: Alyx wasn't built to be played without a big plastic headset. But if you absolutely must play the Half-Life prequel on a flat screen (and who'd blame you), this VR-free mod increasingly seems like it might the best way to do so. Several creators have taken their shot at providing a more traditional FPS experience in Alyx. YouTuber Goutrial did so by importing Half-Life 2's weapons and character controls into the new game, letting you sprint around City 17 like it's 2004. Developer SoMNst, meanwhile, has been slowly "flattening" Alyx's VR toolset into something that controls like a regular flatscreen FPS. Their first video, posted almost a year ago, looks perfectly serviceable—but since then, everything from animations and viewmodels to camera movements have been tightened up to make No-VR Alyx not only playable, but enjoyable. It's very impressive, too. But the closer Alyx gets to becoming a more familiar FPS, the more convinced I am that it's probably not a very good one. In VR, Alyx is terrifying, heart-pumping, where even a single headcrab could become the scariest thing you've ever seen. On a flat screen, it's a surprisingly slow and boring Half-Life game. But even if Alyx itself isn't a great non-VR game, more flatscreen developments open the doors for using the game's toolset to create brand new mods—and give me a chance to try that impressive custom Bioshock campaign without having to go borrow an Index again. SoMNst isn't quite ready to release the mod to the public, and is currently floating the idea of a limited alpha for Patreon backers. In the meantime, you can keep up with regular progress updates over on their YouTube channel.A one-time dog sledder, pancake flipper, alien wrangler and indie darling, Nat now scours the internet looking for the hottest PC gaming news. Destined to become Scotland's first Battlemech pilot.

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