Mr.Shehbaz

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May your leadership continue to inspire — happy birthday, legend!

We're always keeping our eye on the ever-shifting fortunes of Steam's most-wishlisted games, and there have been some interesting developments lately. A few weeks ago there was the whole The Day Before debacle(opens in new tab), where one of the most-wishlisted games on Steam abruptly vanished due to a trademark dispute, a story that managed to only get weirder(opens in new tab) from there. And this week horror survival sandbox Sons of the Forest(opens in new tab) took over the top wishlist spot from Starfield, Bethesda's intensely-anticipated RPG. It looks like more Steam users are now interested in exploring a single creepy island than they are in visiting 1,000 planets in outer space. 'Course, there are few explanations for why an indie survival game just trumped Bethesda's next RPG on players' shopping lists. Starfield is coming to PC Game Pass at launch, so I'm sure tons of Steam users won't even be playing it on Steam. And despite loads of speculation(opens in new tab), Starfield still doesn't have a gott-dang release date yet. Also… why even bother wishlisting Starfield? It's not like you'll need an email reminder from Valve when it finally launches. You'll hear about it from every streamer, YouTuber, and gaming site in the world. But it's still a pretty amazing feat for a game about chopping down trees and hacking up cannibals in the woods, especially considering developer Endnight Games announced only two weeks ago that Sons of the Forest will launch into early access(opens in new tab) on February 23, rather than as a full release. The words "early access survival game" typically doesn't strike confidence into the hearts of gamers. Cool, cool. But what the heck is Sons of the Forest? If you're not familiar with Sons of the Forest, it's the sequel to another survival game, The Forest, which hit early access in 2014 (back when Steam Greenlight was still a thing). Marooned on an island, you had to build a shelter, craft weapons and tools, gather food and water, and deal with the island's scary-as-hell inhabitants, a tribe of vicious cannibals. The Forest had a pretty shaky start, as unfinished games often do, but it also showed tons of potential with striking visuals, horrifying enemies, and memorable survival and combat systems (you could use a severed leg as a melee weapon). Over the next several years the developers patched it repeatedly, added new features like co-op and even VR support, and eventually drew a crowd. More importantly, the crowd stayed: there are still thousands of people playing The Forest every day, and its peak consecutive player count of over 76,000 happened only a few months ago. So, The Forest became a sort of cult hit, and the sequel has some fun goodies planned. This time you're visiting an island to locate a missing billionaire, and you're not alone. Not only can you play Sons of the Forest in co-op, but you'll have a companion to help you out, too. As revealed by IGN(opens in new tab) last month, an AI-controlled survivor named Kelvin will pick up the slack by chopping wood, stockpiling resources, and handling other mundane chores while you focus on building or exploring. There are apparently other companions you can recruit later in the game, including a three-legged mutant. That's definitely intriguing enough for me to put it on my own wishlist. According to its Steam page(opens in new tab), Sons of the Forest plans to remain in early access for 6-8 months, though that could change depending on player feedback. It's set to launch on Feb 23. link: https://www.pcgamer.com/this-early-access-survival-game-just-climbed-over-starfield-to-become-the-most-wishlisted-game-on-steam/

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of photos of asteroid Dimorphos when it was deliberately hit by a 1,200-pound NASA spacecraft called DART on September 26, 2022, according to their statement. Hubble's time-lapse movie of the aftermath of DART's collision reveals surprising and remarkable, hour-by-hour changes as dust and chunks of debris were flung into space, NASA said in their statement. Smashing head on into the asteroid at 13,000 miles per hour, the DART impactor blasted over 1,000 tons of dust and rock off of the asteroid. The Hubble movie offers invaluable new clues into how the debris was dispersed into a complex pattern in the days following the impact, NASA said. This was over a volume of space much larger than could be recorded by the LICIACube cubesat, which flew past the binary asteroid minutes after DART's impact, they said. The primary objective of DART, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was to test our ability to alter the asteroid's trajectory as it orbits its larger companion asteroid, Didymos, the agency said. Though neither Didymos nor Dimorphos poses any threat to Earth, data from the mission will help inform researchers how to potentially divert an asteroid's path away from Earth, if ever necessary, the statement said. The DART experiment also provided fresh insights into planetary collisions that may have been common in the early solar system. "The DART impact happened in a binary asteroid system. We've never witnessed an object collide with an asteroid in a binary asteroid system before in real time, and it's really surprising. "I think it's fantastic. Too much stuff is going on here. It's going to take some time to figure out," said Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. The study, led by Li along with 63 other DART team members, was published on March 1 in the journal Nature. The movie shows three overlapping stages of the impact aftermath: the formation of an ejecta cone, the spiral swirl of debris caught up along the asteroid's orbit about its companion asteroid, and the tail swept behind the asteroid by the pressure of sunlight, resembling a windsock caught in a breeze, the statement said. The statement described that the Hubble movie starts at 1.3 hours before impact. In this view both Didymos and Dimorphos are within the central bright spot; even Hubble can't resolve the two asteroids separately. The thin, straight spikes projecting away from the center (and seen in later images) are artifacts of Hubble's optics. The first post-impact snapshot is 2 hours after the event. Debris flies away from the asteroid, moving with a range of speeds faster than four miles per hour, fast enough to escape the asteroid's gravitational pull, so it does not fall back onto the asteroid, the statement said. The ejecta forms a largely hollow cone with long, stringy filaments. At about 17 hours after the impact the debris pattern entered a second stage. The dynamic interaction within the binary system starts to distort the cone shape of the ejecta pattern, the statement described. The most prominent structures are rotating, pinwheel-shaped features. The pinwheel is tied to the gravitational pull of the companion asteroid, Didymos. "This is really unique for this particular incident," said Li. "When I first saw these images, I couldn't believe these features. I thought maybe the image was smeared or something." Hubble next captures the debris being swept back into a comet-like tail by the pressure of sunlight on the tiny dust particles, the statement said. This stretches out into a debris train where the lightest particles travel the fastest and farthest from the asteroid. The mystery is compounded later when Hubble records the tail splitting in two for a few days, the statement said. A multitude of other telescopes on Earth and in space, including NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Lucy spacecraft, also observed the DART impact and its outcomes. This Hubble movie is part of a suite of new studies published in the journal Nature about the DART mission. link: https://www.gadgets360.com/science/news/nasa-hubble-telescope-captures-collision-dart-asteroid-dimorphos-3834581

Neural radiance fields (NeRFs) are advanced machine learning techniques that can generate three-dimensional (3D) representations of objects or environments from two-dimensional (2D) images. As these techniques can model complex real-world environments realistically and in detail, they could greatly support robotics research. Most existing datasets and platforms for training NeRFs, however, are designed to be used offline, as they require the completion of a pose optimization step that significantly delays the creation of photo realistic representations. This has so far prevented most roboticists from using these techniques to test their algorithms on physical robots in real-time. A research team at Stanford University recently introduced NerfBridge, a new open-source software package for training NeRF algorithms that could ultimately enable their use in online robotics experiments, This package, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, is designed to effectively bridge ROS (the robot operating system), a renowned software library for robotics applications, and Nerfstudio, an open-source library designed to train NeRFs in real-time. "Recently members of my lab, the Stanford Multi-robot Systems Lab, have been excited about exploring applications of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) in robotics, but we found that right now there isn't an easy way to use these methods with an actual robot, so it's impossible to do any real experiments with them," Javier Yu, the first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. "Since the tools didn't exist, we decided to build them ourselves, and out of that engineering push to see how NeRFs work on robots we got a nice tool that we think will be useful to a lot of folks in the robotics community." NeRFs are sophisticated techniques based on artificial neural networks that were first introduced by the computer graphics research community. They essentially create detailed maps of the world by training a neural network to reconstruct the 3D geometry and color of the scene captured in a photograph or 2D image. "The problem of mapping from images is one that we in the robotics community have been working on for a long time and NeRFs offer a new perspective on how to approach it," Yu explained. "Typically, NeRFs are trained in an offline fashion where all of the images are gathered ahead of time, and then the NeRF of the scene is trained all at once. In robotics, however, we want to use the NeRF directly for tasks like navigation and so the NeRF is not useful if we only get it when we arrive at our destination. Instead, we want to build the NeRF incrementally (online) as the robot explores its environment. This is exactly the problem that NerfBridge solves." NerfBridge, the package introduced by Yu and his colleagues, utilizes images captured by the sensors and cameras integrated in physical robots. These images are continuously streamed into Nerfstudio's powerful NeRF training library, enabling the creation of NeRFs that are constantly updating themselves and improving as the robot captures new images of its surroundings. To demonstrate the potential of their method, Yu and his colleagues used it to train a NeRF based on images captured by a camera mounted on a quadrotor, a drone with four rotors, as it flew around in both indoor and outdoor environments. Their results were remarkable, highlighting the value of NerfBridge for facilitating the use of NeRFs in robotics research. This promising method could thus soon be used by other researchers to train NERFs and test their algorithms on physical robots as they navigate their surrounding environment. Meanwhile, Yu and his colleagues plan to explore additional strategies that could broaden the use of NeRFs in robotics. "Ultimately, we hope that NerfBridge will lower the barrier of entry for other researchers to start looking at applications of NeRFs in robotics, and to test their new algorithms on robots in the real world," Yu added. "Moving forward from NerfBridge, we are going to be looking into methods for improving NeRF training when images come streamed from a robot and demonstrating the concrete advantages of using NeRF-based maps for other tasks in robotics like localization and navigation."

Just over 24 hours ago we announced a serious error on the part of the Gigabyte company. A bug in its latest firmware update left a major security gap in many board models. Today it seems that they recognize their mistake and launch a readjustment so that all affected users can do it as soon as possible and thus avoid security problems. BIOS update If you have a Gigabyte board, it is more than likely that you have been affected, so it is very interesting that you take into account what the company has launched a few hours ago to heal you. This update consists of a BIOS update that improves the signature verification process. It is not a permanent solution, but the company recommends doing it to avoid any unnecessary risk as much as possible, since they guarantee that the validation process for downloaded software and files is more secure, and installing something that compromises our files would be a more difficult task. Therefore, although the gap is still there, the temporary barrier that Gigabyte offers us can save us from some scare. As a second change, they have activated cryptographic verification, which consists of making sure that all downloaded files come from verified servers, certified and considered safe. The update also covers motherboards that were not affected by the problem such as the Intel 500/400 and AMD 600 series. We assume that they were afraid that another door would be found that would open more models and preferred to cover their backs. Therefore, with these two changes, the peace of mind that they offer us is somewhat greater than what we could have yesterday where there was no type of solution from them and we were sold waiting for such news. That doesn't change that the bug is very serious and hopefully they keep that in mind for future changes, where we will see updates tested and proven in a much more robust way. They also recommend putting a password to access the BIOS settings, something quite simple, which is not a major problem for us and which closes the door to unwanted activities. On the other hand, Eclypsium, the company that revealed the error, has also added that the previous version (with the error) automatically connected to 3 websites from which it downloaded software without our permission, these would be: http://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://software-nas/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 Because of that, they recommend accessing the motherboard and from the firewall disable the "APP Center Download & Install". What will ensure that these types of actions are not carried out automatically, and we have to manually decide what we want to download and, above all, update. With all these changes and advice we hope that no user has been affected by this vulnerability and that everything has been a little scared. Of course, we will have to be aware of all the updates that come to us from now on if we have one of the affected boards. It's not going to happen to them again.

Bro, just do one thing — read this POST, you’ll understand everything about how to stay active and become a moderator 🙂 #contra for now

One of the biggest shortcomings in 2015's city builder Cities: Skylines was the number of map tiles players were allowed to build on. The buildable space on a map was a grid of 5x5 tiles (25 in total), and of those available tiles players could only unlock a total of nine to build their cities on. Just nine! At least at first. Modders were quick to remove that restriction, allowing all of the tiles on the map (which was 9x9) to be built on, for a total of 81 tiles. Cities: Skylines 2 was announced(opens in new tab) today, and it looks like modders can stand down: The maps in Cities: Skylines 2 will allow you to unlock a whopping 150 map tiles, quite a leap over the original game. Granted, we don't know the size of those tiles, so they may be smaller than in the original. But it still sounds like a hell of a lot more room to build without having to install a mod. This information comes from the Xbox achievement list for Cities: Skylines 2, which was also released today (perhaps accidentally). Several sites like Xboxachivements(opens in new tab) and Trueachievements(opens in new tab) are displaying the full list of 40 achievements, which combine to award 1,000 points toward your gamerscore. One of those achievements, "Everything the Light Touches," awards 50 points for unlocking 150 map tiles in a single city. Based on the name of the achievement it sounds to me like that's the entire map, and the amount of points awarded makes it seem like it's a late-game sort of cheevo. Rest assured, if there are more map tiles in an area you can't build on, modders will find a way to unlock those too. Among the rest of the achievements there are plenty of routine-sounding accomplishments, like for building an airport, creating a district, having various numbers of citizens and happiness ratings, unlocking every building in the game, and things like that. But there are a few more interesting ones: "Things Are Not Looking Up" - Experience a rat infestation "The Size of Golf Balls!" - Experience a hailstorm "You Little Stalker!" - Follow a citizen's lifepath from childhood to old age Boy, rats and hailstorms? Are we sure this isn't a survival city builder? I guess the rat problem could be an event if you have sanitation issues, trash buildup, or sewage problems in your city, and hail sounds interesting because unlike rain or snow it could do damage to buildings or vehicles. There are also more classic disasters like tornadoes and forest fires shown in the achievements. As for following a citizens "lifepath" from childhood to old age, well, been there done that(opens in new tab). But it could be fun to do it again in Cities: Skylines 2. Here's the full list of achievements(opens in new tab). link: https://www.pcgamer.com/cities-skylines-2-will-have-hailstorms-rat-infestations-and-150-map-tiles-in-a-single-city/

Are you one of the people who leaves the house with a low battery? Are you worried about being on the street and that your mobile will turn off? Or has your power bank broken and you are considering buying a new one? Lidl answers all questions thanks to the external battery of the Tronic brand that has a capacity of 1,000 mAh and is compatible with any device. This solution indicates the battery level through four LED lights that allow you to know at all times how much charge is left and when it should be charged, in addition, it has PD 3.0 (USB Type C only) and Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0 technologies that guarantee ultra-fast charging (Supplies 50% battery to any device in 30 minutes.) As if these characteristics were not enough, the external battery has the Smart Fast Charge function to ensure optimal charging speed; In addition, it prevents overheating, overloading and short circuits to ensure safety and durability. Regarding its design, the product measures 13.2 centimeters long, 6.8 centimeters wide and 1.6 centimeters thick so that it can be transported comfortably thanks to its weight of 216 grams. The battery costs 12.99 euros and can be purchased at the Lidl online store. https://www.20minutos.es/tecnologia/moviles-dispositivos/la-solucion-definitiva-para-no-quedarte-sin-bateria-en-el-movil-cuesta-menos-de-15-euros-5107842/

Apple ’s mixed reality headset debut marks a “watershed moment” for the industry, said the executives of some major players in the augmented and virtual reality space as they welcomed competition for the U.S. tech giant. Apple launched its Vision Pro headset at its annual WWDC event Monday, ending months of speculation that the Cupertino, California, tech giant was getting ready to launch its own VR or augmented reality product. Cher Wang, CEO of Taiwanese tech giant HTC, told CNBC that she sees Apple’s move as a validation for the industry. HTC has long been a mainstay of the virtual and augmented industry, pivoting from its ailing smartphone business several years ago to focus on its Vive headsets division. “Apple’s entry into the market is a watershed moment for the industry, and a big validation of everything HTC VIVE has been working on,” she told CNBC. “This will bring even more confidence in the global market for VR.” However, she added that the “closed” nature of Apple’s services ecosystem — which is more restrictive when it comes to the platforms and devices through which users access its services — is problematic. “Apple has historically used a closed ecosystem for their iOS products and content distribution platforms, which could be limiting for developers in a new value chain. If developers are locked into one ecosystem, it’s difficult for them to maximize their reach.” Apple says the Vision Pro will allow users to see apps in a new way in the spaces around them. Users can use their eyes and hands to navigate through apps and search with their voices. With the headset, users can watch movies, including in 3D with spatial audio, view their own pictures or videos, and play video games. It can also be used for work through videoconferencing apps such as Microsoft Office tools and Adobe Lightroom. Vision Pro will run on visionOS, a new spatial computing platform designed specifically for the company’s new headset to enable developers to build apps like they would for iOS on the iPhone. It will be available starting at $3,499 beginning early next year. ‘Important moment’ To be sure, the reaction from the crowd to Apple’s AR headset was more muted than its response to other announcements from the company earlier in the day, including new features for its iPad and Apple TV Siri Remote. “The next paradigm shift will happen when these devices are fully integrated with 5G technology, and are streaming content from a Cloud Edge network,” Wang told CNBC. “HTC VIVE has already invented this technology, and we will lead this paradigm shift in the near future.” HTC has pivoted over the years from an expertise in smartphones to increased focus on VR, as it struggled to win traction in the highly competitive handsets market. In 2018, the Taiwanese firm sold most of its smartphone business to Google for $1.1 billion. The VR industry has long struggled to be taken seriously, with consumers mainly looking to it as a way of playing casual games rather than a device embedded in their everyday lives. Meta , formerly known as Facebook, has staked its whole future on the idea that people will engage in virtual worlds through VR products like its Meta Quest line of headsets and Horizon Worlds VR social game, in a network of vast virtual worlds known as the “metaverse.” But Meta hasn’t yet found broad commercial appeal for its product — it is losing billions of dollars on its investment into the technology each year. Sales of VR headsets have underperformed lately, particularly as consumers are grappling with a sharp rise in the cost of living. Research group NPD Group told CNBC last December that sales of VR headsets in the U.S. declined 2% in 2022 from a year earlier, to $1.1 billion. It’s more of a surprising launch for a company like Apple, which has typically stuck to waiting for a product to get mass adoption before it enters a product category. Nevertheless, industry executives said the launch marked a significant milestone for the nascent mixed reality market. It signifies how mixed reality is likely to have more viable use cases in the business-facing side of things, said Urho Konttori, chief technology officer of Finnish mixed reality startup Varjo, in an emailed comment. “Apple’s entrance into XR with Vision Pro is an important moment for our whole industry,” Konttori said. “Mixed reality is already a fixture in the enterprise sector, and the innovative technologies pioneered by Varjo have changed the way the world’s biggest companies work, train, design, conduct research, and collaborate.” “We hope today is the turning point for consumers when it starts being part of their everyday lives too, with promising applications for entertainment, personal productivity, and communication,” he added. Leo Gebbie, analyst at CCS Insight, said, “Even though it won’t launch until early 2024, we expect that the Vision Pro will transform the spatial computing segment, thanks to some of Apple’s design decisions and its innovative visionOS.” “Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) have been through a period of intense scrutiny and scepticism in recent times but if one company has the star power to revive the segment, it’s Apple,” he added. — CNBC’s Kif Leswing, Ashley Capoot and Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

When by necessity or obligation, we are forced to work on a day-to-day basis with a laptop, one of the sections that we must take care of the most is that of the battery. The battery is the main source of energy for our laptop when we don't have a plug nearby, so we must pay special attention to it to prevent it from discharging quickly and we are left without the possibility of using our equipment when we need it most. In the last 20 years, batteries have hardly seen the technology they implement evolve, fortunately, if the electronic components used by electronic devices have done so, so that consumption is lower and batteries can offer greater autonomy. If we want the battery of our laptop to be as good as possible, and to extend the time that we can use it as much as possible, then we show you 5 changes that we can make to achieve it. Calibrate the battery. Over the months, batteries tend to lose storage capacity and on many occasions, they do not quite know what their real capacity is. The solution to this problem is as simple as calibrating the battery, a process that we can do by charging the equipment to the maximum, using it until it runs out of battery again or putting it on charge again for a whole night. Use a suitable power plan. We all want our team to do everything we ask of them in the shortest amount of time possible. However, when we work with a laptop using the battery, we must reduce, as far as possible, the energy consumption made by the equipment in order not only to extend the life of the battery, but also to avoid that a high consumption harms the capacity of the battery to know what is its state and capacity. Disable equipment features. As far as possible, while we use the battery, we should try to disable all Windows functions that make consumption higher, such as a high refresh rate on the screen, reduce the brightness level, disable the graphics card among others. If we charge our laptop several times throughout the day, in the end, the battery will lose the ability to correctly manage energy and may lead to displaying erroneous information about its capacity. Use third-party applications. Windows has never been known for offering really reliable information about the battery level. If we want to know the level and status of the battery using another application, BatteryDeley is one of the best options on the market, a completely free application that we can download from here. Charge the laptop in a ventilated place. One of the main enemies of the battery is heat. Heat not only affects its ability to function, but also its storage. If we charge the equipment in a poorly ventilated area or where it is very hot, it will most likely take a long time to charge and indicate false battery levels, so we will never really reach 100 capacity.

As ransomware attacks continue to plague local government entities — Bexar County Appraisal District was the latest victim — hackers’ methods and organizations have become more sophisticated. At least one hacker group identified by the FBI appears to have an HR department, performance reviews and an “employee of the month.” Professionals simulated these complex, highly targeted attacks this week at a student competition in San Antonio, sponsored by Raytheon Technologies as a way to train and recruit the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. The finals of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, held at the Hyatt Regency Hill County Resort and Spa from Thursday to Saturday, saw 10 teams from 10 schools across the country play defense against coordinated cyberattacks. More than 150 other teams had already been eliminated before this week. The competition is the largest of its kind in the country, organizers said. Students on the teams played the roles of cybersecurity professionals protecting a business under active attack from intruders. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, real cybersecurity professionals acted the part of the hackers, seeking to disrupt and shut down system after system: emails, cloud-based servers, internal data and even the help desk. Points were awarded to teams who repelled the attacks and restored their systems as quickly as possible. Inside the University of Texas at Austin’s team room, sophomore Rishabh Ahlawat worked furiously to configure a firewall that would protect the Longhorns’ cloud servers and even alert them to new intruders. The teams’ computers sprawled across the desks showed blue screens and massive walls of coding text. “It’s stressful, but it’s a fun kind of stressful,” Ahlawat said. The team lost points every minute a product server remained down. His lunch sat untouched in its paper bag. Ahlawat said when he first came to college, he didn’t envision a future in cybersecurity. But competitions like this one have convinced him to enter the field when he graduates. His story illustrates a powerful reason why Raytheon Technologies, one of the largest intelligence contractors and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue, has sponsored the annual competition, now in its 17th year. Two dozen or so professionals from the company helped run the event, acting as performance assessors, and roleplaying as hackers and customers. “This is what you don’t get in classrooms,” said Jon Check, senior director of Cyber Protection Solutions for Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon subsidiary. He said the competition provides a way for students to hone their skills and see how the concepts they study apply to the real world. Of course in real life, cybersecurity more frequently takes the form of pre-emptive defense and recovery, rather than the intensive and condensed exercises experienced by these students. But cases like it do still happen. Ransomware attacks have risen for years in Texas, as they have across the country. In Texas, there were a just under just under 300 ransomware attacks in 2021, up nearly a third from 2020, according to FBI cybercrime statistics. In 2016 the FBI recorded 37 attacks of this kind in the state. In Bexar County, hackers last year launched a ransomware attack on Judson Independent School District, for which the district paid more than $500,000 to recover sensitive data. In March, the Bexar County Appraisal District found itself the target of an attack, though IT professionals detected the infiltration before it progressed through the entire network. A spokesman for the county department said critical systems were restored within days, and as of this week the restoration of all affected systems were “99% complete.” Assistant Chief Appraiser Scott Griscom said he could not say how attackers broke into the system, given that final findings of the investigation are not complete, but initial suspicions that it came through email have been disproven. Efforts are growing to counter these attacks. The White House recently signed legislation that will require a wide range of public and private entities affiliated with critical infrastructure to publicly disclose details about cyberattacks, including whether the organization paid a ransom. “That’s a big deal,” Check said, as historically many companies have chosen to simply hide it. For instance, Equifax, a consumer credit reporting agency, waited weeks before telling its 143 affected customers that their private data may be on the loose. Check said disclosing the hack helps law enforcement identify repeat attackers, puts other organizations on alert, and helps cybersecurity professionals know what kind of attacks to look out for. Elias Bou-Harb, director of UTSA’s Cyber Center for Security and Analytics, said one reason ransomware attacks are on the rise is because the infrastructure to launch them has gotten more accessible. He said there are now illicit service providers that sell off-the-shelf tools for launching ransomware attacks, so hackers no longer need to have as much technical expertise. Some of these tools-for-hire even sweep the internet to look for vulnerable systems. “The threat landscape is crazy. We’re in a cyber war,” Bou-Harb said. While cyberattacks grow increasingly sophisticated, there are ways to lower the risk of attack, experts say, for both individuals and organizations. It’s important to back up systems, (making sure those backups actually function, Bou-harb says), avoid reusing passwords (the jury is still out about writing down passwords), and be careful what you click on in emails. And to avoid encouraging future attacks, entities and individuals shouldn’t pay ransoms. “If you pay once, you’re probably opening a door on yourself,” Bou-Harb said.

Google is working on a sizable security update that'll introduce a total of seven new features to Chrome for desktop and iOS. Four of those features are currently making their way to desktop users, and they all involve the company’s Password Manager software. Be sure to keep an eye out for the patch once it arrives. Starting from the top, Password Manager will have a new home in Chrome’s Settings menu. There, users will be able to manage their login credentials or adjust their security settings. But if you prefer a more direct approach, “you [can] create a desktop shortcut for Google Password Manager,” according to the post. The tech giant is also adding the ability to write down notes for specific logins. As an example, let’s say you have multiple accounts for one website, but you have a hard time remembering every single detail. You can click the key icon in Chrome’s address bar to open a context menu, revealing your notes that house those details. Clicking the pencil icon lets you make edits. Next, the company will allow users to import passwords from third-party managers to Chrome on desktop. The Google Help webpage states people must first convert their credentials into a .csv file before uploading anything to the browser. Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found on the Chrome Help website. However, it appears the tool will only be able to bring in your information from certain apps. Those apps are Microsoft Edge, Safari, 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane and LastPass. No word on future plans to support other sources. Coming soon Regarding the final three additions, they will arrive later in the year. First, Chrome on desktop will be getting biometric authentication, something that's been exclusive to the mobile app up to this point. Google states that enabling this will add a second “layer of security before” auto-filling credentials. The types of biometric authentication Chrome supports ultimately depends on your computer. For example, if you own a laptop sporting a fingerprint reader, then the browser allow you to sign into accounts with only your fingerprint. On iOS, Password Checkup on Chrome will begin to flag faulty logins. The tool will urge you to change your information if it detects a weak, reused, or compromised password. The rest of the iOS update consists of minor design tweaks to make some things easier to do. Autofill prompts will be made larger, and whenever you review your saved credentials in the Settings, “multiple saved accounts for one website will be [now] grouped together." We reached out to Google for more info on when both the biometric authentication expansion and iOS patch will launch. This story will be updated at a later time. https://www.techradar.com/news/googles-new-chrome-security-update-to-make-password-management-easier

It appears that Nvidia plans to introduce its cheapest Ada Lovelace-based graphics cards — the GeForce RTX 4060 with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory onboard — on June 29, 2023, according to reputable leaker MEGAsizeGPU that tends to be accurate when it comes to Nvidia's launch plans. However, as this information is from a leak, consider it cautiously and with the required amount of salt. Based on a document published by the leaker, Nvidia and its add-in-board (AIB) partners will ship GeForce RTX 4060 products to the channel on June 12, so the cards will be in stock shortly. Nvidia wants reviews of graphics cards carrying a $299 MSRP to be published in June 28 and reviews of boards with a non-MSRP price tag to be released on June 29. On the same day, the product, which has all chances to become one of the best graphics cards available this summer, will be on the shelves. The GeForce RTX 4060 is expected to use the AD106 GPU, which comes with 3072 CUDA cores, and is paired with 8GB of 17 GT/s GDDR6 memory via a 128-bit interface. This new AIB comes with a GPU that features notably fewer active CUDA cores compared to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, which has 4352 CUDA cores, indicating a significant disparity in performance between the two. However, the power consumption of the RTX 4060 model is estimated to be up to 115W, which is considerably lower than that of the RTX 4060 Ti model. The relatively low power consumption will enable makers of graphics cards to experiment designs for both the printed circuit board as well as cooling system. Therefore, expect both compact GeForce RTX 4060 boards with single-slot coolers or with low-profile PCB as well as cards featuring large cooling systems that will promise extended overclocking capability. It is noteworthy that the document published by @Zed_Wang also notes the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, which is potentially a very interesting graphics card for gamers, but only indicates that this will be available in July without clarifying the date. Keep in mind that while the leaker is reputable and tends to have actual documents, plans can change and this is still an unofficial source. That said, take the information with a grain of salt. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidias-geforce-rtx-4060-alleged-launch-date-revealed

It is likely that if you have a Steam Deck you will be very satisfied for many reasons. Valve's machine is being a complete success and one of its most problematic aspects has been completely improved: the stock. Although the laptop's battery lasts less than many would like, it has a large catalog of compatible games whose number exceeds 8,000 titles. You're probably wondering how Steam Deck sales are doing, but Valve hasn't revealed the data yet. However, the GamesIndustry medium has echoed what a company specialized in technology and research has pointed out. Omdia has pointed out that throughout 2022 Steam Deck has managed to sell 1.6 million units. However, it considers that throughout 2025 it could even exceed 3 million. James McWhirter, Lead Analyst at Omdia, explained that Steam Deck is targeted for a niche player: "It's clear that Steam Deck remains a niche player in the PC gaming landscape. However, this is unlikely to deter players. Valve, which has plans beyond the mere sale of hardware units," he says. He also says that sales are limited by its zero retail presence because it can only be purchased through the website, which is a clear disadvantage when it comes to aspiring to more units sold. One of the best features of Steam Deck is its extensive support based on updates. One of the last ones added ray tracing, although it only went to Doom Eternal. On the other hand, we must not forget that the developers are talking about an OLED Steam Deck, but they point out that its implementation is not easy at all. https://www.3djuegos.com/pc/noticias/cuanto-vendera-steam-deck-2023-pese-al-silencio-valve-hay-quien-pone-numero-al-que-pueden-aspirar