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Un mic edit daca se poate la cerere... in loc de GFX as vrea sa fac parte din staff-ul gambler, si as vrea sa ajut nu doar in sectiunea "social" dar si in sectiunile de stiri-timp liber si media Multumesc

Travelex’s stores, airport counters and exchange services were forced offline by a ransomware attack on New Year’s Eve. The numbers that usually glow with exchange rates on Travelex boards in airports worldwide have gone dark, after the London-based currency exchange company was forced to go offline after it discovered a ransomware attack on Dec. 31. The disruption has also affected banks like Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC, which have been unable to fulfill foreign currency orders for their customers. Travelex said it had contained the threat and had no evidence that customer data had been removed. It has been offering only over-the-counter services since New Year’s Eve, when it discovered that it had been compromised by ransomware known as Sodinokibi, or REvil. The hackers told the BBC on Wednesday that they had downloaded five gigabytes of sensitive customer data since gaining access to Travelex six months ago and intended to sell it if there was no response by Jan. 14. They have demanded $6 million for the data’s return, according to the BBC. The company declined to provide details on how many customers had been affected, what data was at risk or when it expected the problem to be resolved. It said the investigation continued, and declined to comment on the hackers. “We take very seriously our responsibility to protect the privacy and security of our partner and customers’ data, as well as provide an excellent service to our customers, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience,” Tony D’Souza, the Travelex chief executive, said in the statement. Travelex is still changing money, but must do the calculations by hand, based on rates issued each morning from its headquarters. At a central London branch of Travelex on Thursday, its ATMs permitted withdrawals only in pounds and the screens that usually show the exchange rates offered for each currency were blank. Banks including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC that use Travelex to offer currency exchange services are waiting for the issue to be fixed, as well. “Unfortunately we are unable to process foreign-currency orders due to an issue with our service provider, Travelex,” Barclays said in an emailed statement. “We are sorry for the inconvenience and will be restoring the service as soon as we are able to do so.” The Royal Bank of Scotland said that customers who had placed money orders in branches would be refunded if the order had not been fulfilled. The episode raised questions about how many more parts of the financial system could be at risk, said Bob Sullivan, a cybersecurity expert. “We would not normally think of a company like Travelex as infrastructure, but clearly it is,” Mr. Sullivan said. “A big payment company that has tentacles into hundreds of institutions: It’s a reminder of how fragile these systems are.” London’s Metropolitan Police and the National Crime Agency are conducting criminal investigations. The National Cyber Security Center, part of a government intelligence agency, also said it was working to understand the hack’s impact. The company has not reported a data breach, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office, a British government agency that enforces data-protection laws. Travelex could also come under scrutiny from data protection authorities. Under European data privacy law, companies can be fined for being hacked if regulators determine that they did not do enough to protect the information. Firms found to have made the most serious infringements of European law can be fined as much as 20 million euros, or about $22 million, or 4 percent of the previous year’s worldwide annual revenue, whichever is higher. British Airways was fined nearly $230 million last year for privacy lapses. “This is new because it combines a ransomware attack with the threat of G.D.P.R. fines,” said Mr. Sullivan, referring to the European Union’s general data protection regulation. “This is why these folks think they can get a big payday.” Travelex had revenue of £729.5 million, or about $952 million, in 2018, according to its annual report. The Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator, said it was also in contact with Travelex and expected it to “treat affected customers fairly.” The regulator said customers with concerns about currency orders should contact Travelex or the bank where they had placed the order. Travelex said the software virus was detected on Dec. 31, but it was not reported to the Metropolitan Police until Jan. 2. “Among others, we reported to the N.C.S.C., and then the N.C.A. who in turn passed it to the Metropolitan Police to investigate,” a company press official said. The shutdown’s duration has prompted complaints from customers unable to get access to their travel money and frustrated by the lack of information from the company. Customer service telephone numbers were shared on social media and the Travelex website. The firm also attracted criticism from security experts, who said that Travelex had been warned about weaknesses in its system before but had not responded. One security company, Bad Packets, told computer weekly that it told Travelex about a vulnerability last April but the firm took six months to fix it and its systems could have been compromised within that time. Travelex declined to comment. “It’s clear they’re not ready for this,” said Mr. Sullivan, the expert. “Clearly they didn’t have a recovery plan.” It could take weeks for Travelex to determine how the hackers had embedded themselves into its system, said David Grout, a regional chief technology officer for FireEye, a security firm. It might not be as simple as just booting somebody out of a system. “Companies like them will need to rebuild some part of the architecture to understand the nature of the attack,” Mr. Grout added. Travelex said it did not anticipate any “material financial impact” for its owner, Finablr Group, based in Abu Dhabi. But Finablr shares fell more than 15 percent on the London Stock Exchange after Travelex confirmed the attack.

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Remember Daisy, the Apple robot announced in the spring of two years ago capable of taking apart and recycling 200 iPhones every hour? Well, the Cupertino company intends to rely more and more on this solution with a very specific intent: to depend less and less on the extraction of new minerals from the mines. It was above all the advent of electric cars that accelerated the problem, with more and more manufacturers intent on collecting precious metals (lithium above all for batteries) with obvious consequences of over-exploitation of the territories involved and the risk of serious imbalances from the point of social, economic and environmental view. For this reason, Apple intends to turn more and more to Daisy to separate the materials that make up the iPhone and reuse them in new production processes. In economics we speak of a "closed circuit", that is, a system that does not require input from the outside as the refusal of the last phase of the product life cycle becomes input (raw material) for a new product. Entropy and laws of thermodynamics, however, prevent total reuse, but the recovery of most of the raw materials from objects destined to be transformed into waste can only be considered a benefit for both Apple (economic) and the environment. "We are not necessarily competing with people who undermine," said Lisa Jackson, who is responsible for Apple's environment and social initiatives recently. There are 14 minerals that are recovered by Daisy: the robot does nothing but disassemble the product (the iPhone in this case), while in a subsequent phase the separate components are entrusted to external companies that extract the minerals by refining them to make them usable again in a new production process. Apple's work with Daisy is part of a broader policy to reduce the impact of production on the environment. Two examples above all: • last December we also talked about the purchase by the Cupertino company of the first batch of carbon-free aluminum, the result of an official collaboration in 2018 with Alcoa and Rio Tinto. • last September Lisa Jackson herself had publicly said that the Taptic Engine of the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and Pro Max is made with 100% recycled materials The environmental efforts and recovery of materials can only be viewed favorably, even if there are those who pull Apple's ears equally: this is the case of iFixit - which we know well - which points the finger not only at Cupertino, but in general against all the producers, reminding them that recycling is not enough. Making repairs simpler by increasing the lifespan of technology products would represent a significant environmental benefit.

At CES2020 a startup presented a round smartphone. It's called Cyrcle Phone, and although it's a prototype at the moment, it could really hit the market later this year, the company says. Smartphones, as a concept, have been reduced down to glowing rectangles that have grown boring. Why not have it take on a different shape? Well, the people behind the Cyrcle Phone have decided to take up the challenge, showcasing a circular phone at CES 2020. And from the looks of it, let's just say Android will be a tight fit on the thing. The Cyrcle Phone started out as a Kickstarter in 2015, raising $10,739 out of a $10,000 goal. Prototype units were imagined to clip onto clothing and fit snugly into more pockets than a typical smartphone. They would have a smart touchscreen and 2G connectivity. Fast forward to today and we now see a larger LED display, LTE radios, cameras facing front and back, two (!?) headphone jacks. All of this doesn't necessarily make the Cyrcle Phone more negotiable in the hand or pocketable than a conventional smartphone, despite what is described as a more "sensual" shape. And, as opposed to Wear OS, it'll also be a challenge to fit Android 9 Pie into a circle. "What we need to do as a team is actually modify the system UI just slightly," Cyrcle Phone co-creator Christina Cyr told the BBC in an interview, "so that apps actually open up within the circular interface."

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v1 blur

Wild boar. Blacktail deer. Roosevelt elk. European bison. Beautiful, majestic creatures, all of which I’ve killed with a big gun in The Hunter, a semi-realistic hunting simulator set across two vast rural landscapes in Germany and America’s Pacific Northwest. But you can’t just sprint around firing your rifle like a Call of Duty protagonist: you have to be slow, quiet, and methodical if you want to bag one of the many furry trophies on offer. Being a simulator, there’s more to a successful hunt than pointing your gun at the first creature you see then shooting it. There are a lot of places in the woods for an animal to hide, and your first job is usually tracking one down, which can take a while. As you creep through the trees you’ll see tracks highlighted on the HUD. Interact with them and your character will use his magical hunter senses to determine which direction the animal is moving in. Then it’s just a case of patiently following the tracks, trying not to make too much noise, until you catch up with it. But that’s only half the battle. Walking quickly or through thick brush will alert the animal to your presence. If this happens, the best thing to do is crouch and move slowly. But the problem with this is that The Hunter is a game largely about quietly stalking animals, which means you spend most of it crouching and edging through the forest at an incredibly slow pace. I enjoy a slower-paced game, but it’s too ponderous even for me. And if you spook an animal it’ll sprint away and remain in a state of alert for a while, meaning the chances of finding them again are quite slim. This does give the game a nice sense of tension, and makes it genuinely challenging, but it requires—no, demands—an extraordinary amount of patience. Once you’ve successfully cornered your prey, it’s time to shoot it. But even this comes with its own set of challenges. If your heart rate’s up from running, your hands will shake and make aiming more difficult. The wind is also a factor, affecting your accuracy. And even if you hit the beast, you might just clip its leg, and it’ll run away in panic. You can follow the blood trail to finish it off, but this has a negative impact on your final score. The best kills in The Hunter are the quick ones, preferably as a result of hitting a vital organ. There are other factors to consider too. Animals will give a warning call if they sense you nearby, meaning they’ll be more likely to flee if you get close. Skulking behind trees and bushes will make you harder to spot, but the rustling will scare your prey. And your score for killing an animal is even determined by how ethically suitable the ammunition you used was. There’s a lot going on here, making it a fairly deep simulation, but at the expense of some accessibility and, crucially, fun. Actual entertainment is sparingly drip-fed in The Hunter, which makes playing it, for the most part, pretty tedious. Weirdly, what I enjoyed most in The Hunter wasn’t the actual hunting, but the world. It’s a gorgeous game, and one of the most convincing digital recreations of nature I’ve seen on PC. The autumnal forests feel wonderfully organic, with foliage swaying in the wind, motes of pollen floating through the air, and realistic lighting and shadows courtesy of the engine’s global illumination tech. The sound design is fantastic too, from the crunch of dry leaves under your feet to the gentle chirp of birds. It’s so nice that it’s almost a shame you have to ruin the peaceful, serene ambience by shooting animals with a gun. The game is free on Steam. Here you have a video with the game (the review it's made on ps4)