Live eSports! In VR! On your face!
ESL and Sliver.tv are teaming up for the first ever eSports VR livestream of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and League of Legends during Intel’s Extreme Masters Oakland tournament next week (November 19th and 20th). The coverage will be available on nearly every mobile and PC platform, including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear VR and others. It’ll drop you into the middle of the action with a 360-degree birds-eye view and first-person player perspectives, in the case of Counter-Strike.
Viewers will also see real-time stats like kills with different weapons and multi-kill streaks by player and round. “Having a real-time, in-depth look at everything that happens in a CS:GO match is … only possible in a VR environment,” says ESL Product Manager Stuart Ewen.
Having watched highlights from the ESL One New York CS:GO tournament on a Gear VR, I can confirm that it’s an easy and immersive way to follow the action compared to a regular stream. It did choke sometimes and drop to a lower resolution on my Galaxy S6 Edge, despite the fact that I have a 1 Gbps fiber connection. That may be down to a previous-gen smartphone and the fact that I’m in France, but obviously you’ll need an excellent connection to tune it at any kind of a decent resolution.
Sliver.tv is a pretty new startup and isn’t the only company doing VR streaming, but as Techcrunch notes, it made the canny decision to focus on big eSports titles like Dota 2, CS:GO and League of Legends. That’s helping it to gain notoriety, as those three titles alone have around 140 million fans.
If you have a VR headset and are interested in tuning in, you can get the best experience by downloading the Gear VR, Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive apps. You can also download the iOS and Android apps to watch in mobile Panorama 360 or use Google Cardboard.
New Filing Confirms Yahoo Was Aware of Large-Scale Email Hack in 2014
In September, Yahoo confirmed that at least 500 million of its users’ accounts had been compromised during an attack in late 2014. Now, in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was revealed that the company knew about the hack when it originally happened in 2014, but waited two years to divulge it to the public (via TechCrunch)
Describing the investigation, the new SEC filing notes a “state-sponsored actor” who gained access to the company’s network in late 2014, along with Yahoo’s awareness and identification of the individual in question during the same time period. Information stolen included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.
In late July 2016, a hacker claimed to have obtained certain Yahoo user data. After investigating this claim with the assistance of an outside forensic expert, the Company could not substantiate the hacker’s claim. Following this investigation, the Company intensified an ongoing broader review of the Company’s network and data security, including a review of prior access to the Company’s network by a state-sponsored actor that the Company had identified in late 2014. Based on further investigation with an outside forensic expert, the Company disclosed the Security Incident on September 22, 2016, and began notifying potentially affected users, regulators, and other stakeholders.
Now a board made up of independent counsel and a forensic expert is said to be investigating “the scope of knowledge within the company in 2014,” as well as Yahoo’s basic security measures and related incidents. The filing describes $1 million in losses for Yahoo relating to the security breach so far.
Additionally, Yahoo said that 23 class action lawsuits have been filed against the company by consumers targeted by the security breach in 2014, in both federal and state courts, as well as foreign courts. Plaintiffs in the cases claim to have been “harmed by the company’s alleged actions and/or omissions” relating to the hack. The scope and monetary damages sought by each consumer was not divulged.
In attempts to move past the incident, Yahoo is cooperating with federal, state, and foreign governments and agencies who are investigating the hack. The biggest blowback for Yahoo might still be in its planned sale to Verizon, the latter company now asking for a $1 billion discount due to Yahoo’s current turbulent drama with the news of the 2014 hack.
Tag: Yahoo
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How to enable two-step verification on WhatsApp
It’s time to secure your WhatsApp account.
WhatsApp rolled out two-step verification on its platform, giving users the ability to secure their accounts with a passcode. The service relies on an SMS confirmation whenever you set it up on a new phone, and the new measure provides an added layer of security. Given the relative ease with which you can set it up and the added security benefits, there’s no reason not to create a passcode for your WhatsApp account.
How to enable two-step verification on WhatsApp
Open WhatsApp from the app drawer or the home screen.
Tap the menu icon in the top right corner.
Go to Settings.
Select Account.
Select Two-step verification.
In the setup window, tap Enable.
Enter your six-digit passcode and hit Next. Confirm your password.
Enter your recovery email address and hit Next. WhatsApp won’t verify your address, so ensure you provide a valid email ID.
You’ll see a message that says Two-step verification is now enabled. Hit Done.
That’s it! Your WhatsApp account is now much more secure. You’ll get periodic reminders to enter your passcode so you don’t forget it, and in the unlikely event that you do, you’ll be able to use your email address to disable the feature.
WhatsApp took a huge step toward ensuring its users’ privacy earlier this year by making all conversations end-to-end encrypted by default, and given the service has over 1 billion users, that is a big deal. The platform has also seen a constant stream of feature additions this year, including the rollout of a desktop client, introduction of voice calls, improvements to group chats, video calling, and GIF support.
New features make their way to the beta channel weeks (often months) before they’re rolled out widely, and if you’re interested in getting a first look at upcoming additions, you should consider signing up for WhatsApp beta on Android.
Leica SL shootout: Four photographers test out the full-frame mirrorless system
”Remember, remember the fifth of November”. And not because of gunpowder, treason and plot. But because an explosive Leica Akademie workshop took place, which was attended by winners of a Pocket-lint competition for the chance to get their hands on the latest Leica SL full-frame mirrorless camera under expert instruction.
The workshop, led by Leica Akademie tutor, Robin Sinha, was based around photographing the Regent Street Motor Show in London. The show, which has been running for 120 years, sees the capital’s iconic street shut to traffic, to make room for traffic of a whole other kind: vintage cars aplenty are on display, as are their owners, adorned with attire of the era.
It’s the perfect place to go shooting street photography, without feeling too exposed yourself. So many eye-catching subjects make it easier to sleuth around and find those perfect decisive moments.
Nick Board
With Leica SL in hand, complete with 24-90mm f/2.8-4 lens to be able to zoom in on the action as needed, our four attendee photographers – Nick Board, Peter Ramsay, Siraj Yusuf, and Nicholas Redhead – went exploring solo for a couple of hours in the brisk cold to see just what they could achieve with the camera.
First, a little foresight about what the Leica SL is all about. As a brand new Leica system, revealed in 2015, the SL was the world’s first full-frame mirrorless camera to market, showing the German company’s progressive view towards new technologies.
Among those is the EyeRes viewfinder, a 4.4-million dot electronic viewfinder that is higher-resolution than anything else you’ll find on the market today. It’s about as close to a traditional optical viewfinder as you can get, plus it brings the benefit of various electronic overlays and details during shooting – if you want them.
Shooting in among a sea of spectators on Regent Street posed a challenge, but also as an opportunity. The various bodies became useful for framing, say for obscuring part of the frame to highlight the intended subject, and with eyes pressed to finders the world feels shut away, out of sight.
Peter Ramsay
Not that it’s all about the viewfinder. The SL’s autofocus system can be commanded by simply pressing a finger on the camera’s rear touchscreen, or by using the rear toggle control to manually position it. Pair that with an autofocus system with 529 spot positions and the world, as they say, is your oyster.
And make no bones about it: the SL is super-quick to snap subjects into focus, whether in single autofocus for still subjects, or continuous autofocus for moving ones – which is handy when people are so prone to moving or suddenly spotting that they’re being photographed.
Burst shooting became another useful tool. The SL is capable of shooting at up to 11 frames per second – yep, eleven – at its full 24-megapixel resolution, which is on par with the pro cameras that you’ll see used at the Olympics. Snapping a subject on repeat in this way will glean those in-between moments and give more options to source the one that’s the pick of the bunch. It’ll make a bit more noise whilst doing so, too, but as cameras go the SL’s shutter is subdued in the best possible way.
Nicholas Redhead
And when let loose, the most interesting thing to come from the workshop was the way the four different photographers saw their surroundings. Some went fully abstract, using depth and colour to create painterly-like images. Nicholas Redhead’s example is a great one.
Others went more traditional, waiting patiently and hunting out those special moments – be it the suggestive signage next to some passers by implying its own story, or simply catching a reflective moment. Peter Ramsay’s photograph of gentleman with two balloons fixed in a moment of thought is one such example – a quiet moment extracted from the madness.
Or if (like this particular author) the cars and people became a little bit too much, then sticking the SL into monochrome and snapping a trio of dogs patiently waiting for their owner was too good an opportunity to miss. Good lads.
Mike Lowe
It was an exciting, educational and social Akademie Workshop. And very fitting that Leica, a company whose cameras are synonymous with street photography the world over, can demonstrate that even its latest, most technological kit is also up to the job, not just the manual focus style of the famous M-series.
If all that sounds like your cup of tea then Leica is running a complimentary Leica SL Taster on 7 December 2016, plus many other workshops run year-round from its Mayfair base.
Nintendo’s mini NES is out today
You may want to ready your wallets and your mouse-clicking fingers for the NES Classic’s launch today. Some fans who attended the midnight event at Nintendo’s New York offices were already able to get one, but don’t worry: you can grab your own from several retailers. Amazon, for one, has sent out emails informing customers that it’ll start selling the retro-console in “very limited quantities” starting at 2PM PT/5PM ET later. The online shopping giant warns that it expects demands to be high and that “there’s no guarantee that it will remain in stock for long.” If you’re looking to buy from Amazon, make sure to bookmark the device’s page and set an alarm.
Amazon isn’t the only place where you can grab a NES Classic, though. Best Buy and Target have product pages up and running, but both websites indicate that you can only get a unit in store. You’ll have to go to one of the big-box stores’ locations to actually buy the device. GameStop’s website wouldn’t let us put one in our virtual cart either, but you can try ringing up a brick-and-mortar outlet to ask if they have any for sale. In the UK, stores have little to no stock and marketplace sellers are already offering the console at more than double its recommended retail price.
The NES Classic is a tiny version of the old console we’re sure a lot of you played as kids. It comes pre-loaded with 30 games, including several Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy and Zelda titles. And, yes, you can save so you can pick up where you left off later. The console will set you back $60/£50, but since it only comes bundled with one controller and you can buy another separately, you may have end up spending a bit more money than that.
The Morning After: Friday, November 11, 2016
It’s Friday: Do you know where your virtual reality headset is? We have reviews of Google’s Daydream View and the new Surface Book laptop, plus a “perfect” mobile game called “RunGunJumpGun.”
Childhood nostalgia incomingThe NES Classic Edition has arrived
Nintendo’s miniaturized NES emulator is officially on sale today. The $60 hunk of nostalgia will be sold on Amazon at 2PM ET, so set a reminder if you can’t stop by a local Best Buy, Gamestop or Target to pick one up. Even if you don’t buy one immediately, expect more impressions from us soon.
The laptop to beat doesn’t come cheapReview: Surface Book (2016)
This year’s Surface Book has very few flaws. It’s well-crafted and has a comfortable keyboard, a vibrant screen, fast performance and even longer battery life than last year’s model. As ever, you’ll pay dearly for the privilege, and the relatively heavy weight and imbalanced weight distribution make it less portable than lighter systems. With that heft, though, comes incredible battery life and no shortage of port options.
It doesn’t completely reinvent mobile VR, but it’s a good stepReview: Google’s Daydream View VR headset
Google’s Daydream View is here, and it’s a solid first attempt at a mobile VR headset from the company that gave us Android. Importantly, it’s comfortable, and VR experiences look great. The only problem is there aren’t many apps available for it yet — and we need more Daydream-compatible phones. At the moment, users are limited to Google’s own Pixel handsets.
Daydream streamerYouTube’s VR app is Daydream-only for now
Now that Google’s VR platform is available, it’s launched the official VR app for YouTube. You’ll need the new phone and headset to access it, since it’s not on any other platforms yet, but now you can watch anything from the streaming site in its virtual confines. That includes 360-degree videos, or just regular stuff projected on an imaginary screen, along with voice search and all your existing subscriptions.
Didn’t see that one comingTrump’s win shows our polling industry needs a lot of work
Election 2016 sparked discussion for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest shock came to pollsters. So did Nate Silver and everyone else just forget how to do their job, or was something else at work? We took a look at the methods and results of polling data to present some possibilities for why the predictions ended up being so different from what we got.
Please exit the country on the left coast, watch for the closing doors …Hyperloop’s co-founder is funding a campaign for California to secede
Billionaire Shervin Pishevar’s family escaped being marked for death by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, and he’s not waiting around to see what happens with Donald Trump. Asked yesterday about his comments in support of a so-called Calexit, Pishevar said he was serious, and to expect announcements soon.
The real spectacle is how rare they areSnapchat’s hard-to-get shades will be available only via vending machine
If you want a pair of Snapchat’s circular video-recording sunglasses, you’ll need to find a SnapBot machine. So far there’s only one, located near the company’s headquarters in LA. It’s already run out, and pairs are already selling for $900 on eBay. The best way to get a pair is probably by watching the Spectacles Twitter account, or hitting the home page that lists where bots are available.
Two buttons, a world of possibilitiesA “damn-near-perfect” mobile game?
ThirtyThreeGames programmer Logan Gilmour says, “We weren’t out to just make an infinite runner mobile game that’s run-of-the-mill,” and Aaron Souppouris agrees. “RunGunJumpGun” is out for iOS and Android, with challenging gameplay built around two inputs: shoot and jump. According to Aaron, “it’s perhaps the most challenging, rewarding and downright fun mobile game of the year,” and it’s available for $3 on iTunes, Steam and Google Play.
But wait, there’s more…
- How will Facebook fight the spread of fake news?
- OK Google, how did Donald Trump get elected?
- This disposable USB stick can offer results on HIV levels in less than 30 minutes
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Bungie gives ‘Destiny’ streamers a signal boost
While it’s never been easier for PC and console players to stream their Destiny exploits, finding players who provide insight and entertainment in equal measure isn’t easy. Twitch provides a listing of top channels, but Destiny streams don’t always figure in amongst popular League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Hearthstone broadcasts.
To fix this, Bungie has taken Twitch’s API, worked out when streamers are playing Destiny and will soon incorporate Twitch streams directly into its Companion website. Viewers can browse based on following, whether a streamer is trending or undertaking a specific raid or quest that might be particularly hard to beat.
Just like on Twitch, watchers can engage with streamers and fellow viewers in Twitch Chat, but also see exactly what the player has equipped at any given moment. It’s useful not only to see what gear they might be missing out on, but also to see how a particular load-out might help dispatch a particularly difficult boss. It also means the streamer doesn’t have to waste time explaining their roll, allowing them to get on with the important tasks at hand.
The new feature isn’t just aimed at top streamers who play games for a living. When Bungie’s Twitch integration goes live, any Destiny player will be able to host their own stream on their profile page. Anyone hosting more than 77 non-consecutive hours on a channel linked to their Bungie.net account will get a “Can’t Stop The Signal” emblem, showing the rest of the Destiny player base they’re kind of a big deal.
Source: Bungie
Spotify App Accused of Thrashing Storage Drives With Excessive Data Writes
Spotify’s desktop music streaming app has been accused of putting an unnecessary burden on users’ machines by continuously writing massive amounts of data to local storage, even when the app is idle.
Over the last five months, multiple users have posted about the problem in Spotify’s official support forum, as well as on Reddit, Hacker News, and elsewhere. Users claim the Spotify app has been writing inordinate amounts of data to their drives while running in the background, in some cases writing up to 10GB every 40 seconds.
Reports of tens or hundreds of gigabytes of data being written in an hour have become commonplace, said ArsTechnica, which was able to replicate the problem on Macs running the current version of the Spotify app. The data writes appear to occur regardless of whether songs are set to be stored locally or if music is actually being played, potentially significantly reducing the life of users’ storage drives – particularly SSD devices, which have a finite amount of write capacity.
“This is a *major* bug that currently affects thousands of users,” Spotify user Paul Miller told Ars. “If for example, Castrol Oil lowered your engine’s life expectancy by five to 10 years, I imagine most users would want to know, and that fact *should* be reported on.”
Spotify eventually responded to ArsTechnica’s requests for comment and said “any potential concerns have now been addressed” in version 1.0.42 of the app, which is in the process of being rolled out, but which reportedly remains unavailable to many users.
According to some reports, the data writes are thought to involve playlist-related database files with titles that include the string Mercury.db. Several manual workarounds to stop the writes have been suggested in the forums, but the best short-term solution for concerned Mac users may be to use Spotify through their browser until the app update becomes available and the issue is independently confirmed fixed.
Tag: Spotify
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Snapchat’s Video Spectacles on Sale via ‘Snapbot’ Vending Machines
Snapchat’s video-recording Spectacles became available to buy in the U.S. on Thursday, not online or in stores, but from pop-up vending machines.
Called ‘Snapbots’, the giant vending machines will dispense the Spectacles in either Black, Coral or Teal, and allow customers to try them on virtually using a built-in augmented reality display.
For those unfamiliar with Snapchat’s first hardware product, the $129 Spectacles are a one-size-fits-all pair of sunglasses that can record 10 seconds of video at a time and sync wirelessly with the mobile Snapchat app, which was updated on Tuesday.
According to Recode, Snapchat plans to deposit the machines “soon” throughout the U.S., with the first machine appearing in Venice Beach, California. Reminiscent of Snapchat, the machines will only remain in one location for a day before being removed. The company said it will announce new Snapbot locations 24 hours before they appear, via the “Find a Bot” map on the Spectacles website.
Upon discovering a bot, customers press one of the large circular buttons to ‘try on’ their chosen color of sunglasses, after which they must insert a debit or credit card to purchase. About 10 seconds passes as the transaction is processed, before the Bot’s mouth lights up and the spectacles are dispensed along with a receipt.
Snapchat, now dubbed Snap, has been developing the Spectacles for years and considers them “a toy” best used at concerts and outdoor events. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the limited-distribution product was made “because it’s fun” and the company wants people to figure out if the glasses fit into their lives.
Tags: wearables, Snapchat, Snap
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HTC Bolt Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
The HTC Bolt won’t electrify you
But it’s got a large screen and Android 7, and it costs less than the Google Pixel XL.
by Jessica Dolcourt
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Right now the HTC Bolt is a Sprint exclusive that sells for $600. So for that chunk of change, you’re expecting something with a great screen, great camera, fast processor…right? Well on paper, it looks pretty good. It’s got a big 5.5-inch display and Android Nougat 7.0. The camera takes RAW photos if you want them and has a pro mode if you wanna get fancy. Enhanced audio sounds great out of the included earbuds, and you can add a new profile if you use a different set of headphones. The Bolt is also water-resistant (IP57) and runs on Sprint’s new and improved LTE network (LTE-A) — upload speeds are on fire. Download speeds in my area, San Francisco, ranged from the lower end of average to pretty darn fast, but that will fluctuate depending on where you live.
So far, so good. But there are some things you should be wary of if you’re thinking about getting this phone. HTC is usually awesome at design but I just don’t love this one. It feels like an angular shingle: flat, wide and pokey. But you can always buy a case, so there’s that. The back also heats up when the phone charges or the processor works hard, and after Samsung’s exploding Note 7 debacle, the mere suggestion of an overheating phone could put people on edge.
HTC’s Bolt: Shocking? Maybe not
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The cameras take decent photos that you’ll be able to use anywhere and everywhere, but there is a noticeable blue cast to some of them and some selfies came out looking a little greyer than they should. HTC got rid of the awesome set of audio speakers that once upon a time graced the top and bottom of the phone face in favor of a static home button/fingerprint reader, and I miss that booming, party-starting bass.
I also made a lot of mistakes typing on the keyboard; the quick-charging technology isn’t the fastest it could be; and the processor — while still fast — isn’t the modern one everyone else is using on their flagship phones (it’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 rather than the 821 in the Google Pixel).
I really like the camera controls. The swipe-down menu makes picking modes super convenient.
Josh Miller/CNET
One other thing to note is that HTC is following the iPhone 7-led trend of ripping out the audio jack and giving you headphones with a USB-C attachment instead. That means you won’t be able to charge your phone while also listening to podcasts, and it means you won’t be able to use your favorite non-USB-C headphones without an adaptor. If you use wireless headphones anyway, you probably won’t care.
I know I’ve just spent the last few minutes nitpicking the Bolt, but from my experience with it so far, it’s absolutely not an awful phone. It’s a pretty good one. But it also feels a little pricey for what it is, and I know that HTC can do better — I’ve seen it.
I’ll be spending more time with the Bolt and doing much more testing (like battery drain tests) before assigning a final review assessment. But here’s what I think so far: If you don’t care about a larger screen, the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 and 5-inch Google Pixel are cutting edge phones that cost only $50 more. Or, you can get some good-and-cheap phones like the OnePlus 3 and Huawei Honor 8 for $400 each, which is quite a bit less. If you’re with Sprint and the Bolt hits your sweet spot on price, you’ll probably be happy enough with it. But it’s hard to recommend it when there are so many other phones out there that have fewer marks against them.
AIVAnet 