Month: May 2024

The priest, a huge fan of ‘Candy Crush’, who spent a fortune… with his church’s credit card

Or, why not, to give a little to video games. God understands the idea of not putting in extra hours praying. The problem is that there has been one who has taken heavenly forgiveness a little out of hand.

We have come across the church. And it is that sometimes we forget that, after giving the sermon every day, priests also have a life: they take off their cassock and go shopping at the supermarket, have a drink at the bar and watch the game or listen to heavy metal, depending on what they feel like. Or, why not, play some video games. God understands not putting in extra hours praying. The problem is that there has been one who has gone a little overboard with heavenly forgiveness.

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Candy Crush, amen

Pottstown is a small town in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, named after its founder, John Potts, and home to about 23,000 people who even have their own newspaper (‘The Mercury’, the smallest media outlet to ever win two Pulitzer Prizes), their own television, and, of course, a proper cathedral. That’s where Reverend Lawrence Kozak, 51 years old, delivers his sermons. Or, well, used to.

And it turns out that Kozak likes to play with his mobile phone, maybe too much. So much so that when a church accountant discovered “an astronomical amount of transactions from Apple” between September 2019 (when the reverend entered the church) and July 2022. And what abominations has this sinner spent the money on? Well, on microtransactions from ‘Candy Crush’ and ‘Mario Kart Tour’ that added up to 40,000 bucks, in addition to an Amazon tablet for his goddaughter.

Regarding the authorship of the events, there is not much doubt: the gifts were sent with a note that said “Uncle Larry”. When the police spoke to him, the priest claimed not only that he was seeking a solution to his gambling problems, but that these problems were based not on betting, but on spending thousands of dollars on items to gain advantages in games. Forgive me, father, for I have played.

Lawrence Kozak no longer preaches in Pottstown, he is reformed and has already returned $8,000 to the church, although he still owes another $32,000 to be at peace. As for whether he continues to play ‘Candy Crush’, but this time without paying extra to advance levels, that’s between him and Jesus.

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What is Funko Fusion and why will it make you never want to play video games again?

‘Funko Fusion’ is a blend of pop culture taken to the infinite, like an endless version of Pampling and La Tostadora’s t-shirts.

Putting pop culture in the spotlight was a mistake. Because from that spotlight came the Funkos. And from the Funkos, abominations like ‘Funko Fusion’, a game that tries to capture the spirit of LEGO games but using, instead of the beloved figurines, big-headed monsters with dead eyes. That being said, the crossover makes our teenage selves drool, bringing together so many franchises at the same time that it becomes an abominable amalgamation and a professional money grab.

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Fuuu-sion, now!

Have you ever wanted to play a video game that combines ‘The Mummy’, ‘Nope!’, ‘Hot Fuzz’, ‘Jaws’, and ‘Battlestar Galactica’? If your answer is, for some reason, “Yes”, you’re in luck, because ‘Funko Fusion’ is a mix of pop culture taken to the extreme, like an infinite version of Pampling and La Tostadora t-shirts.

Regarding the game itself, it will be a type of LEGO game: shooting, moving forward, picking up objects, those things. But of course, you can do it with details from ‘The Thing’ or ‘Xena, the warrior princess’. A few years ago, we would have been very excited about something like this, but now, accustomed to the endless mishmash of franchises colliding with their own franchises, it tastes like boredom and a tasteless mix with nothing else to offer. Terrifying. If this is the future of video games, why bother to continue.

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Razer will have to refund over one million dollars for lying about their Zephyr mask

At the beginning of 2021, the world was going through one of the most complicated moments of the pandemic, caused by the COVID virus. During the month of January of that year, Razer presented to the world Project Hazel (later known as Zephyr), a “N95 surgical respirator”. However, it turned out to be false: the mask did not have that certification and now, they will have to refund over 1.1 million dollars.

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The Zephyr mask was met with some skepticism by the community. Although Razer’s promotional material marketed the mask as a “surgical N95 respirator,” the company itself had to clarify upon its release that it was not a medical mask.

Furthermore, although it was promoted as an N95 mask, it never underwent testing by the FDA or the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health).

According to PCGamer, the company started removing all traces of certification from its official website once user complaints came to light. However, Razer defended itself by claiming that they notified customers that the Zephyr was not a medical mask. Shortly after, they stopped selling it and refunded the buyers.

None of this has been enough for the FTC, which has ended up imposing a one million dollar fine on the company, “equal to Razer’s earnings from the masks”. Additionally, they will also have to pay another 100,000 dollars as a civil penalty. The FTC demands that Razer provide full refunds to US consumers. The organization alleges that “Razer only stopped the false advertising after negative press coverage“.

The FTC complaint also points out the posts made by Razer CEO, Min-Liang Tan, on Facebook. There, he claimed that they were in the process of obtaining certification for the mask and that its filters had been “tested and certified for 99% BFE (bacterial filtration efficiency), the same standards as the most demanding medical-grade masks that exist.”

Source: PCGamer

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Artists sue Google for using their works in the training of an AI

Once again, Google finds itself in court. A group of American artists have joined forces to denounce that their work has been used by the company to train its AI-powered image generator.

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The affected artists are photographer Jingna Zhang and illustrators Sarah Andersen, Hope Larson, and Jessika Fink, who filed the lawsuit last Friday according to Reuters. The group denounced the improper use of billions of copyrighted images to train Google’s Imagen generator.

Google first announced the existence of Imagen through a research document. In this document, Google admits that Imagen had been trained with the LAION-400M public database of images, which in turn contains copyrighted material from these artists.

Artwork by Leslie Zhang

Zhang and Andersen are also involved in another similar case against Stability AI and Midjourney, among others. In addition, the lawsuit filed against Google also specifies that both Stability and Midjourney used the same databases to train their systems.

A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, stated last Monday that “our AI models are primarily trained with publicly available information on the Internet […] US legislation has long supported the use of public information in new and beneficial ways, and we will refute these allegations in court“.

For the artists’ lawyers, Joseph Saveri and Mathew Butterick, this is “another example of a multi-billion dollar technology company deciding to train a commercial AI product with copyrighted works of others without consent, credit, or compensation“. The artists have requested the court for compensation for damages, as well as to force Google to destroy their works within the systems.

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Hatsune Miku arrives at Magic because, well, why not?

Nobody should be surprised by this drift of ‘Magic’, which, like ‘Fortnite’, is not the first strange crossover it sets up in its ‘Secret Lair’ line.

‘Magic’ was born in 1993, and has been ruining its followers for three decades. On the other hand, Hatsune Miku appeared for the first time 14 years later and along the way, the virtual idol has enamored thousands, has married some and her fame has been growing more and more. Both are beloved franchises by millions of fans. And both were destined to meet.

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Hatsune is magic

And you may ask, what does a 17-year-old Japanese idol have to do with a medieval fantasy game? Good question. The thing is, she will be part of a deck made up of fan-created art from around the world, and in its first release, it will have six cards for 30 euros (without a foil) or 40 euros (with a rainbow foil). No one should be surprised by this turn of events in Magic, which, like Fortnite, is not the first strange crossover it has done in its ‘Secret Lair’ line.

From ‘Final Fantasy’ to ‘Doctor Who’ through ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Fallout’, everyone wants to appear in the most expensive and well-known card decks in the world. And, of course, Hatsune is no exception, with cards like “Miku’s Spark”, “Miku, Lost but Singing” or “Miku, the Renowned”, versions of others from the game itself. Is it worth the fortune it costs to have a deck of your virtual idol? You decide.

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Google makes the strangest mistake in Sonic’s history: not even SEGA understands what’s happening

The problem is that already from the first image, where they were supposed to talk about the ‘Sonic’ of 1991, they included Tails, who didn’t appear in the saga until the sequel. But the errors were just going to pile up one after another. One. After. Another.

There are times when the Internet gives us moments of absolute wonderful incomprehension, as if all the errors in the world came together in one gigantic and impossible to avoid. This is the case of what Google Play has given to the world today with its particular tribute to ‘Sonic’, taking advantage of the success of the Knuckles series on HBO Max. And I assure you that you didn’t see this coming.

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Cute Sonic

The idea was that the more you scrolled, the more the character would age over the years, and it was fun. The problem is that from the first image, where they were supposed to talk about Sonic from 1991, they included Tails, who didn’t appear in the saga until the sequel. But the errors were just going to accumulate one after another. One. After. Another.

Just to give a few examples: to illustrate the Sonic Frontiers, they uploaded an image from season 3 of ‘Sonic Prime’, which appeared this year; the illustration of Sonic from 1993 was from ‘Sonic Boom’ (2014); the one from 1996 was from ‘Sonic Dash’, the mobile game from 2013 from which the terrible image from the movie was originally taken (and modified) in 2020; the one from 2003 was a promotional image from ‘Sonic Jump’, from 2005… Well, you get it.

So much so that even the official account of the blue hedgehog replied to them saying “What are you doing”. Some believe it was a thread written by artificial intelligence, and that even ChatGPT provided the links to the images, and some think it was a strategy to anger the fans (for some reason) taking advantage of the character’s popularity.

In any case, Google has not given any explanations or deleted the thread, so we can only assume that someone on their team is really enjoying the chaos. The community manager is a fan of Nintendo. It couldn’t be anyone else.

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You can now enjoy EA Sports WRC in VR.

Codemasters has confirmed that there will be a virtual reality mode in the PC version of EA Sports WRC. This way, rally lovers will be able to experience the races in “first person” without leaving their homes.

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This is a free patch that will be available from today through Steam, Epic, and the EA store. Currently, it is still in beta state and is expected to improve in future updates.

Codemasters has also released the list of compatible helmets with EA Sports WRC:

  • Meta Quest 3
  • Meta Quest 2
  • Meta Quest Pro
  • Valve Index
  • Oculus Rift S
  • Oculus CV1
  • HTC Vive
  • HTC Vive Cosmos – partial support
  • HTC Vive Pro 2 – partial support

Other helmets like PSVR, PSVR 2, and Apple Vision Pro are not officially supported.

EA Sports WRC is the official title of the FIA World Rally Championship. Racing fans will appreciate its dynamic driving system, which offers a very realistic and precise experience. EA Sports WRC also allows you, among other things, to design your own rally car and participate in different international championships.

EA Sports WRC was released in October 2023 and is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, and PC.

Source: TSA

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NASA explains how spaceships will refuel… in the middle of space

SpaceX has a contract with NASA to supply two Starships with crew capacity for the first two landings on the Moon.

In 2025, NASA believes that SpaceX will be ready to join two spacecraft in orbit for an ambitious refueling demonstration, a technical feat that will bring the Moon within reach.

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SpaceX has a contract with NASA to supply two human-capable Starships for the first two astronaut landings on the Moon through the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

The first of these landings, on NASA’s Artemis III mission, is scheduled for 2026, although it is considered a very difficult date to meet. Last year, NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin for the development of its own landing module, which offers Artemis officials two options for future missions.

Designs designed for the future, refueling in space

The designers of both landing modules were thinking ahead. They designed Starship and Blue Moon to refuel in space. This means that, over time, they will be able to be reused for multiple missions and ultimately could take advantage of the propellants produced from the resources of the Moon or Mars.

Amit Kshatriya, who leads the “From the Moon to Mars” program within NASA’s exploration division, presented SpaceX’s plan on the matter at a meeting with a committee of the NASA Advisory Council held on Friday.

The expert said that the Starship testing program is gaining momentum, and that the next test flight from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in southern Texas is expected to take place at the end of May.

Before reaching the Moon, SpaceX and Blue Origin must master the technologies and techniques necessary for space refueling. Right now, SpaceX is planning to attempt next year the first demonstration of large-scale propellant transfer between two starships in orbit.

Until then, several test flights of starships will be carried out. During the last test flight of the Starship in March, SpaceX conducted a cryogenic propellant transfer test between two tanks inside the vehicle.

This transfer of liquid oxygen from tank to tank was part of a demonstration funded by NASA. Agency officials said this demonstration would allow engineers to learn more about how the fluid behaves in a low gravity environment.

Kshatriya said that, although engineers are still analyzing the results of the cryogenic transfer demonstration, the test on the starship flight in March “was a resounding success”.

“That milestone is now behind us,” he said on Friday. Now, SpaceX will move forward with more test flights of the Starship. The next launch will attempt to test some capabilities that SpaceX did not demonstrate in the March test flight.

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Among them will be included a precise landing of the Super Heavy Starship rocket in the Gulf of Mexico, necessary before SpaceX attempts to land the rocket on its launch platform in Texas.

Another objective will probably be the in-flight restart of a single Starship Raptor engine, something that SpaceX did not achieve in the March flight due to unexpected vehicle oscillations while navigating through space.

Achieving an in-orbit engine restart – necessary to guide the Starship towards a controlled reentry – is a prerequisite for future launches to a stable higher orbit, where the spacecraft could remain for hours, days, or weeks to deploy satellites and attempt refueling.

The creator of ‘Balatro’ believed that he was going to sell ten copies and return to his normal job

It’s been a crazy year. I’m very grateful to be doing what I love as a career now.

It has been the big surprise of 2024 so far: ‘Balatro’ seemed to come out of nowhere but this poker-based roguelike has already sold one million copies, allowing its sole developer, Localthunk, to dream of a future in the industry. It’s not easy to break through, hundreds of games are released every day, and only a few achieve what this title has accomplished. And the creator didn’t even think it would achieve anything at all.

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Return to work

In his Twitter account, Localthunk has commented on his real expectations when launching ‘Balatro’: “A year ago, I was getting ready to release my little weird game on Steam and look for an IT job again. I put up the game’s page in May and was hoping to sell maybe ten copies. It’s been a crazy year. I’m very grateful to be able to do what I love as a career now”.

Currently, ‘Balatro’ has over 30,000 extremely positive reviews on Steam, and word of mouth continues to spread, far surpassing its initial market niche. In fact, what is surprising is that it continues to regularly be among the top ten most played on Steam, alongside titles like ‘Dragon’s Dogma 2’, ‘Like a dragon: Infinite wealth’, or ‘Persona 3 Reload’, with the difference being that it has spent a tiny fraction of what those games cost.

For the future, Localthunk is already thinking about possible DLC as well as mobile versions for which, it believes, only a few things of the user experience should be touched to make it perfect. A new developer has been born. Now we just need to know if it has many more games inside it.

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Apple’s “incredibly private” Safari is not so private in Europe

According to Bakry and Mysk, Apple’s URI system has three major flaws. First, it doesn’t check the origin of the website; second, …

The European antitrust rules that Apple has had to accept (for the benefit of users and to its own economic detriment) have left Safari browser users exposed to possible web tracking.

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Developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk investigated how Apple implemented the process of installing third-party software markets on iOS with Safari, and concluded that Cupertino’s approach is particularly deficient.

“Our tests show that Apple provided this feature with catastrophic security and privacy flaws,” wrote Bakry and Mysk in a notice published over the weekend.

Where does the Safari security flaw come from?

Apple, which advertises its Safari browser as incredibly private, has evidently undermined the privacy of Safari users in the European Union through a marketplace-kit: URI scheme that allows third-party app stores to track those users across the web.

A URI scheme is a way to determine how a specific network request is handled. A website that offers an alternative software marketplace may include a button that, when clicked in Safari, launches a marketplace-kit request: managed by a MarketplaceKit process on the user’s iPhone in the EU.

This process, integrated in iOS 17.4 by Apple, contacts the authorized market’s back-end servers to complete the installation of the application from that store on the phone.

The problem is that any site can activate a marketplace-kit: request. On iOS 17.4 devices in the EU, Safari will send a unique user identifier to approved marketplace servers, filtering the fact that the user was visiting that site.

This happens even if Safari is in private browsing mode. Market servers may reject the request, which may also include a custom payload, passing more information about the user to the alternative store. All of this is illustrated in the following video.

According to Bakry and Mysk, Apple’s URI system has three major flaws. First, it does not check the origin of the website, which means that the aforementioned cross-site tracking is possible.

Secondly, Apple’s MarketplaceKit – their API for third-party stores – does not validate JSON web tokens (JWT) passed as input parameters through incoming requests. “Even worse, it blindly transmits the invalid JWT token when calling the /oauth/token endpoint,” Bakry and Mysk noted. “This opens the door to various injection attacks targeting the MarketplaceKit process or the marketplace backend.”

And thirdly, Apple is not using certificate pinning, which leaves the door open to a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack during the exchange of MarketplaceKit communications. Bakry and Mysk claim they were able to overwrite the servers involved in this process with their own endpoints.

Is Apple interested in fixing the bug?

The limiting factor of this attack is that a marketplace must be approved by Apple first before being able to carry out this type of tracking. At the moment, there are not many marketplaces that have obtained the approval.

The two security researchers argue that fraudulent applications regularly make their way through Apple’s review process, meaning that fraudulent app stores could be authorized. And they claim that privacy issues are due to Apple wanting to track the use of third-party stores.

Users of iOS in Europe are encouraged to use Brave instead of Safari because Brave’s implementation checks the website’s origin with the URL to prevent cross-site tracking.

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By not making the extra effort to securely implement third-party app stores, Apple has possibly turned their concerns about security and privacy into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In its observations [PDF] on DMA compliance, Apple stated: “In the EU, the security, privacy, and protection of each user will depend in part on two questions. First, are alternative markets and payment processors capable of protecting users? And second, are they interested in doing so?”.

There is also the question of whether Apple is capable of protecting users, and if it is interested in doing so.