Новости за 06.05.2022

Cryptocurrency mixers are sometimes used to help online criminals launder their stolen money by hiding its true origins, and the US Treasury is now ready to clamp down on them when hostile governments are involved. The department has issued its first sanctions against a Bitcoin mixer, Blender.io, for allegedly and "indiscriminately" helping North Korea launder over $20.5 million in crypto from the $620 million Axie Infinity heist and other crimes. 

It's been 11 months since Microsoft confirmed it's making a dedicated game-streaming device and a smart TV app for the Xbox ecosystem. The company hasn't announced many more details about either since then, but a new report suggests they could arrive in the coming months.

Amazon fired a number of senior managers from its JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island on Thursday, only a month after workers voted to unionize. The New York Times reported that the company axed more than half a dozen senior-level workers on Thursday, many of who were involved in union organizing. A number of anonymous employees told the NYT that they believed the firings were retaliatory. JFK8 is the first and currently the only unionized Amazon warehouse in the US.

Spotify's experimental Stations app is soon to be no more. The company says it will shut down the app on May 16th. It took a leaf out of the Pandora playbook with Stations, as the app and web player offered a way to listen to curated playlists in a radio-style format. Stations debuted in Australia in 2018 and arrived in the US the following year. The app has now been removed from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Google is putting together a team to build backend services for blockchain developers. The company is hoping to make Google Cloud Platform the primary destination for those who want to run Web3 apps.

It's no secret these days that GPU makers profited from the early cryptocurrency mining boom, but NVIDIA is now facing some repercussions as a result. The company is paying $5.5 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission charges it failed to disclose that crypto mining played a "significant" role in its surging revenue from GPU sales throughout fiscal 2018. NVIDIA allegedly violated both the Securities Act and Securities Exchange Act when it didn't reveal that its success was tied... Читать дальше...

EVE Online has often been derided as a "spreadsheet simulator." Many dedicated players use spreadsheets to keep track of data like profit margins and to calculate fleet damage output at certain ranges. Developer CCP Games is now leaning into the spreadsheet lifestyle even more with official Microsoft Excel support.

Luxury probably isn't the first word that comes to mind when you think about gaming laptops, especially with some looking, shall we say extra, with flashy light bars and dot matrix displays embedded in their lids. But with its excellent performance, superb build quality, understated design and a very luxurious price, the Razer Blade 15 really feels like it's crossed the line into portable gaming opulence.

You now have the chance to own a truly one-of-a-kind Nintendo Wii... provided you have the well-stuffed bank account to match. Kotakureports Dutch collector and Consolevariations owner Don is auctioning an infamous 24 karat gold-plated Wii bankrupt game developer THQ intended to deliver to Queen Elizabeth II in 2009. The system was meant as a promo piece for the forgettable mini-game collection Big Family Games, but never made it to Buckingham Palace due to an "understandably strict" royal gift policy. Читать дальше...

The Strong National Museum of Play has revealed the Video Game Hall of Fame class of 2022. This year's quartet of honorees are Ms. Pac-Man, Sid Meier's Civilization, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Dance Dance Revolution.

The UK's recently established Big Tech regulator will have extensive authority to punish giant companies it deems anti-competitive. As TechCrunchnotes, the country's Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has revealed that the Digital Markets Unit will have the power to levy fines of up to 10 percent of a company's worldwide annual turnover if it doesn't honor codes of conduct, plus up to five percent of daily turnover for each day the violations continue. Firms will also have... Читать дальше...

In the fall of 2018, tucked away in a side hall at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, seven-time Classic Tetris World Champion (CTWC), Jonas Neubauer, found himself against the ropes. 37-year-old Neubauer, the Tony Hawk of Tetris, was two games down to teenage rookie Joseph Saelee. To stage a comeback, he now had to win three games in a row, a monumental task that would require every last drop of focus.

As the first week of May comes to a close, a number of our favorite gadgets remain on sale, with some at record-low prices. Apple's latest iPad mini is the cheapest we've seen it at $400, while most AirPods have been discounted. Also, a bunch of Kindles are on sale at Amazon and you can still pick up a Roomba from iRobot for hundreds of dollars less than usual. Here are the best tech deals this week that you can still get today.

So does the Overwatch 2 beta live up to all of the hype and anticipation? This week, Jessica Conditt joins Devindra to chat about Blizzard’s long-awaited sequel and why she thinks it’s worth the wait. Also, we discuss why you should care about data privacy given the current wave of anti-abortion legislation, and why the Embracer Group is gobbling up so many developers.

Microsoft has partnered with Epic Games to make Fortnite playable, for free, on Xbox Cloud Gaming. No subscription required. So long as you have a Microsoft account in one of 26 streaming-enabled countries, you can play the battle royale title through the web browser on an iPhone, iPad, Android device or Windows PC.

The astronauts that flew to the ISS as part of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission are back on Earth after almost six months on the orbiting lab. They splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance, which made its debut flight with the same astronauts back in November 2021, on May 6th at 12:43am ET — and NASA has captured a pretty spectacular night video of the event.

After teasing the feature last month, WhatsApp has starting rolling out emoji reactions to all users around the world, it announced. In the coming days, you'll be able to react with one of six emojis: Thumbs Up ????, Red Heart ❤️, Face with Tears of Joy ????, Face with Open Mouth ????, Crying Face ????, and Folded Hands ????. The messaging app also introduced two more features — 2GB file sharing and an increase in group members to 512 people. 

In a win for net neturality, ISPs agreed to end their legal challenge to a 2018 Californa law that bars providers from throttling service. Telecom groups and California Attorney General Rob Bonta today jointly agreed to dismiss the case, reportedReuters. 

Whisteblowers are accusing Facebook of purposely blocking government, healthcare and emergency services pages in Australia in order to thwart a potential law that would require platforms to pay for news, according to WSJ. The accusers say the platform last year created an algorithm to identify pages that would affect the most publishers. But Facebook reportedly didn’t just take down pages for media outlets — it also removed pages for hospitals, governments and charities.

And. And. And. And. And. 

For whatever reason that specific string of words seems to be enough to permanently brick a Google Docs page. Noted Google's support pages mere hours ago, the poster who seemingly discovered this unusual bug is quick to point out that the series of five conjunctions, separated by periods, is case-sensitive (at least if the goal is to cause the document in question to become unusable.) 

Engadget was able to confirm the issue on a 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro running... Читать дальше...

Activision Blizzard is continuing a hiring spree in light of its ongoing harassment scandal. Blizzard has hired Jessica Martinez as its first Vice President of Culture. She'll both implement and expand the game studio's culture strategy, and lead a learning and development team that will help create a work environment where people feel "safe, valued" and eager to cooperate.