Blizzard is increasing ‘Overwatch’ penalties for bad behavior

Blizzard is doubling down on its punishments for nefarious Overwatch players. Aside from the permabans in place for cheaters, the developer will also penalize anyone who abuses, harasses, spams, or griefs others. Players in violation of the rules will be silenced, suspended, or even banned from the game. A word of warning to those fond of bending the rules: the changes are effective immediately, so you better be on your best behavior.

That’s not all. Blizzard is also planning a wave of improvements to its Overwatch reporting and penalties system. Over the coming months, it will start scaling competitive season bans, and add notifications that alert you when a player you’ve reported is disciplined. Those caught abusing the reporting tool will also receive more severe punishments.

Console players sick of dealing with jerks are also in for some much-needed relief. Blizzard claims it’s working on bringing all its reporting features to PS4 and Xbox One. However, the developer didn’t offer an ETA for the updates.

Although the latest crop of changes are laudable, Overwatch isn’t the first game to clamp down on cheaters. Last year, Street Fighter V began punishing rage quitters by reseting their League Points. Additionally, Ubisoft’s strict anti-cheating efforts for Rainbow Six Siege and The Division have included permabans for first-time offenders.

Source: Battle.net

A billion people use WhatsApp daily

One billion people check WhatsApp every day. Not every month — it hit that number way back in early 2016 — but every single day. The Facebook-owned chat app has announced the milestone number in a post thanking its users, though it was also mentioned in passing during the company’s earnings call. Zuckerberg mentioned during the call that Facebook’s own Messenger app has reached 1.2 billion monthly actively users (MAU), but WhatsApp still has more patrons in that regard at 1.3 billion MAU. Taking those numbers into account, 76 percent of people who use WhatsApp don’t go 24 hours without firing it up on their devices.

The Facebook chief has also revealed that WhatsApp Status, its Snapchat Stories clone, has reached 250 million daily users. That means it has eclipsed Snapchat itself, which only has 166 million daily users altogether. In other words, WhatsApp may not be that popular in the US, but it’s a force to be reckoned with in the global scale. It’s also not just another chat app for a lot of people: it’s now seen as a top news source in some countries, and in the future, it could even become the go-to app for peer-to-peer payments.

Source: WhatsApp

The top Twitch clip involves a horror game and Jack Daniels

Tom Wheldon started streaming on Twitch as JurassicJunkieLive two months ago. He was an intrepid tinkerer and a veteran video creator who started making YouTube videos before it was the cool kids’ multi-million-dollar industry. Wheldon regularly discussed video games, so Twitch felt like a natural evolution of his online presence — his channel quickly earned a following of about 100 folks, some of them tuning in every Friday to watch Wheldon scream his way through a horror game.

Last week, Wheldon booted up Outlast 2 for his regular “Frightday” stream, and he became Twitch legend.

Roughly an hour and a half into Wheldon’s stream, as his character was wandering around a corpse-ridden desert in the dead of night, an on-screen crow spooked him. He yelped and immediately looked down — and Wheldon shrieked, clutching his chest and leaping up in his chair. He paused the game, flipped his headphones to the side and leaned down to pick up his 2-year-old daughter, who had crept into the room to deliver a drink — a pre-mixed can of Jack Daniels and soda — to her streaming dad. “Are you OK?” he asked, laughing and lifting her onto his lap.

That moment, a clean jump scare followed by an adorable interaction, was clipped by one of Wheldon’s viewers, allowing anyone on Twitch to watch it over and over again. Someone shared that clip on Reddit and it hit the front page. By Monday, Wheldon being scared witless by his daughter was the most-watched clip on Twitch, racking up more than 1 million views. His channel exploded and today has well over 3,000 followers, up from the pre-fright figure of about 100.

Wheldon isn’t a stranger to viral videos, but this is the first time things have worked out so nicely for him: The clip actually links back to Wheldon’s page, allowing people to easily find his channel, follow him and watch more of his videos. Some of his YouTube creations over the years have gained similar traction, but people ended up “freebooting” these videos — essentially stealing and re-uploading them to Facebook or other video players, taking the views (and credit) for themselves.

We touched base with Wheldon to see how viral Twitch life is treating him just days after his clip went wide. The following conversation has been edited for clarity:

When did you realize this was actually a big deal?

Well, at first I saw it had landed on the front page of Reddit, so I already knew I would be getting some good hits from it, but the moment I knew it was big, was when I noticed it was fourth place for most-watched Twitch clip on the day. I then left it for an hour and came back to check again — at this point I was No. 1 for the daily stats. I then checked weekly and monthly stats, and saw I was No. 1 on both. The last thing to check was “of all time,” and I was third. At that moment I felt the adrenaline kick in, and spent the rest of the day hitting refresh to watch it climb to second and first place.

How have you felt over the past few days?

The fact my channel has been getting a lot of attention is an amazing thing to have, but this means I’ve had a phone glued to my face for the past two days. I’ve become addicted to checking social media, news outlets and every place you can think of. I think once this dies down I need to give myself an internet detox for a week.

Our new #1 “Most-Watched” Twitch Clip of all time! 🎬🥇@JurassicJunkie’s daughter decides to shows up while he’s playing a horror game. pic.twitter.com/S3EiIY4cAh

— Twitch (@Twitch) July 24, 2017

Your set-up looks professional, especially for a small-time streamer. What motivated you to renovate an entire portion of your house and go all-in on streaming?

I run my own business from home and have done for five years now. I’ve never had a real work space, so this year decided to roll up my sleeves and build an office in the loft. This room is also the furthest distance from my daughter’s room so I started to game in the office at night instead of the living room so I wouldn’t wake her. I thought I would give live streaming a try as the room is perfect for it with the lighting and a place to hang my green screen.

Regarding the “professional” look, this is just down to me falling in love with tinkering around to get the perfect setup. At one point I was getting more pleasure out of playing with the streaming software than I was playing the games.

Have you had any problems with freebooting this time around? How big of an issue is freebooting for small- and mid-size streamers hoping to catch a break?

I’ve been on YouTube for seven years now (and used to make videos way back before YouTube was around). My channel gets around 300 to 500 views a video, on average, and has kept my happy in the years. Sadly, anytime I’ve made some content that’s been good enough for people to share, it’s been turned in to GIF and shared on Reddit, or re-uploaded and freebooted to Facebook.

The last time this happened was on a video called “How to make a game,” and it got 5 million views on other websites and only netted me 100,000 views (and that was only because I posted the original link in the comments on the freebooted videos). So, sadly, freebooting is a thing that can starve any small channel and stop it from getting off the ground.

This is also what made me want to give Twitch a try.

How do you plan to leverage this moment?

By doing one thing: listening to my viewers. They were the ones who said they liked me playing scary games due to my reactions to jump scares. If it wasn’t for them, along with the perfect timing of my partner sending my daughter to hand me a drink, then that small 30 seconds of footage would have never happened. So, I will continue to listen to my viewers.

Anything else you want to say about this strange experience?

A few people have questions if my daughter, Jessica, is OK. Yes, she took it like a champ — in fact, she hugged me, said “bye bye” to the stream and took herself off to bed completely unfazed. She has way more backbone than I have.

GoPro QuikStories automatically creates a sweet edit for you

If you’ve spent more than five minutes on social media recently, you’ll know that “stories” are the hot new currency. Sharing your day with your followers keeps you and your friends coming back for more. While stories have largely been the realm of apps like Instagram and Snapchat, GoPro recently decided it would toss its hat into the narrative-telling ring with “QuikStories.”

The clue really is all in the name. GoPro’s Quik app has been around for a while, and has always been about making short, shareable videos from your camera for uploading to social media. The difference with QuikStories is that it generates your clips automatically. GoPro’s long been trying to punch through the barrier between videos languishing on your memory card and your social network, and this latest update seems to be the strongest blow yet.

Starting today, the latest version of the GoPro app comes with QuikStories baked right in. You just need to spend the day shooting clips with your GoPro, then connect to your phone at the end of the day, and pull down on the home screen. The app will then search your camera for new clips, and slice them up into something you might want to share, complete with edits and music.

If you want to get more hands on, you can. You’ll still be able to tinker with the clips, move them around, change music and edits etc, but if all has gone well, you’ll not have much, if any work to do.

Think of something between what Google Photos does when it sends you an automatically-generated video after a day out, and the intentional uploading of clips and photos to Instagram stories. It’s a little bit of both, just with a GoPro in the mix. For what it’s worth, you can also add media from your phone if you use both throughout the day.

In practical terms, it works well. The experience is definitely the most seamless way I have ever used to get media off of my GoPro and turn it into something I might want to share. Of course, it’s not so good for longer, more “pro” looking videos. Also, longer clips in general (like a 20 minute bike ride) open up the margin for error. GoPro’s app will pick a slice from that clip, but it might not be the part you want.

If anything, the biggest change might be how you think about using your GoPro. A lot of people like to slap it on a helmet, record and go. But with QuikStories, you can start using it to grab short videos, knowing that the app will sandwich them together in order. It also means “stories” on Instagram and Snapchat can break out of the dry, warm confines of where your phone likes to live, and include moment in the ocean, snow and other more hostile conditions.

Perhaps the smartest move on GoPro’s side, is that QuikStories integrates with most of the social networks you already have on your phone, or you can just export the video and do what you want with it. That’s to say, GoPro is trying to get out of the way as much as possible, and not steer you in any direction, or lock you into a new app. Needless to say, your stories-game is going to need to ratchet up a few notches, that day at the mall won’t cut it any more.

Tesla will livestream the first Model 3 deliveries tomorrow

Elon Musk promised to hand over the first 30 Tesla Model 3s at a special soirée tomorrow (July 28th), and buyers and fans of the EV are psyched. Rightfully so — it’s the most important electric car ever, with sales estimated at around 400,000. To help more folks join the fun, Tesla says it will livestream the event at 8:45 PM PT (a quarter to midnight on the East coast) on the home page at Tesla.com.

Musk will be handing the keys to the first Model 3 to himself, as Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis gifted his place in the queue to Tesla’s CEO. The other 29 copies will go to Tesla employees or current owners of Tesla EVs. After that, Musk has promised to ship 100 Model 3s next month and around 1,500 in September, eventually ramping up to 10,000 per week.

Watch the first Model 3 handovers on https://t.co/7Ol1Bw0ZaG this Friday at 8:45pm PT pic.twitter.com/b00OZGviNK

— Tesla (@TeslaMotors) July 26, 2017

Those buyers, some of whom placed deposits as early as March, 2016, have not been told their place in the queue, however. Nor does anyone know what options they’ll be getting and hence the final price, Bloomberg notes. Consequently, many future owners are getting a bit antsy, and are hoping that Musk will provide more details tomorrow.

Depending on your place in the queue, the Model 3 could get much more expensive. After Tesla sells 200,000 EVs in total, the government starts to phase out the $7,500 federal tax credit. That will happen pretty soon, as Tesla sold an estimated 112,000 cars at the end of 2016, and delivered around 47,000 vehicles in the first half of 2017. If the company hits its target of delivering 20,000 cars per month by December, it will hit that 200,000 EV target in around six months.

At that point, the credit drops by half to $3,850 for the next six months, and in half again to $1,875 for the six months after that, at which point it drops to zero. Consequently, buyers will be pressing Tesla hard to get their vehicles built in the 12 month period after it hits 200,000 EVs sold to get any kind of rebate at all. Many consumers will be eligible for state rebates regardless of Tesla sales, however.

Source: Tesla (Twitter)

LCD Maker Japan Display Seeks Nearly $900 Million in Bank Loans Ahead of First iPhone With OLED Display

Loss-making LCD manufacturer Japan Display has reportedly asked banks and its largest shareholder for around 100 billion yen, or roughly $897 million, to fund restructuring efforts, according to Nikkei Asian Review and Reuters.

The Tokyo-based manufacturer of liquid crystal display panels, also known as JDI, requested the loan from lenders including Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, the government-backed fund that is Japan Display’s largest shareholder, will provide indirect support in the form of loan guarantees.

The capital raised will help Japan Display’s turnaround efforts, which reportedly may involve halting production and trimming staff at smartphone panel plants in the central Japanese city of Nomi and China’s Jiangsu Province.

Japan Display, formed in 2012 when the LCD divisions of Hitachi, Sony, and Toshiba merged, has lost money for a third consecutive year, reportedly due to problems getting smartphone panel production up to speed. The company also faces increased competition from South Korean and Chinese rivals.

Japan Display is also threatened by the increasing adoption of OLED displays in smartphones, which it doesn’t produce. Samsung is currently the only company that can reliably manufacture OLED displays for smartphones, with LG and Foxconn aiming to begin mass production over the next few years.

Apple, which has long been Japan Display’s biggest customer, is widely rumored to release its first iPhone with an OLED display in the coming months. At least two new iPhone models are expected to continue using LCDs, but rumors suggest Apple’s entire iPhone lineup could use OLED displays by 2019.

Earlier reports have claimed Japan Display is also planning to manufacture OLED displays, but if it doesn’t act fast, it could eventually lose Apple as a customer and face significantly worse financial problems.

Tag: Japan Display
Discuss this article in our forums

WikiLeaks Publishes New ‘Vault 7’ Exploits Tested on Older Macs Running Snow Leopard and Lion

Earlier in March, WikiLeaks began “Vault 7,” a project focused on sharing exploits created and used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, beginning with leaking 8,761 documents discovered within an isolated network in Langley, Virginia that included iOS-focused exploits. Following the release of the iPhone-related documents, as well as some Mac exploits, Vault 7’s publications didn’t specifically include Apple products for much of the year.

Now, the leakers have shared two new exploits that are said to have been created under the codenamed “Imperial” project by the CIA. The first is called “Achilles,” and WikiLeaks said it allows an operator to trojan a disk image installer on a Mac computer, giving the operator “one or more desired…executables” for a one-time execution. This means that a .dmg file could be downloaded by a user, containing malicious content, and dragged into their application directory without knowing.

In the Achilles user guide, it’s explained that the trojaned .dmg file would behave similarly to the original file, and that all of the operator’s intended executables would run the first time the app is launched. Afterwards, all traces of Achilles would be “removed securely” from the .app file and that file would “exactly resemble” the original, un-trojaned application. Achilles was only tested on OS X 10.6, which is Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system that launched in 2009.

Achilles is a capability that provides an operator the ability to trojan an OS X disk image (.dmg) installer with one or more desired operator specified executables for a one-time execution.

The second exploit is called “SeaPea,” and is described as a Rootkit for OS X that provides an operator with “stealth and tool launching capabilities.” SeaPea hides files and directories, socket connections, and processes from the user, allowing the operator to access a Mac computer without their presence being known.

SeaPea was tested on Macs running both OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7 (Lion), and requires root access to be installed on the Mac in question. The vulnerability would remain on the computer until the hard drive was reformatted or the user upgraded to the next major OS version.

SeaPea is an OS X Rootkit that provides stealth and tool launching capabilities. It hides files/directories, socket connections and/or processes. It runs on Mac OSX 10.6 and 10.7.

Among the Imperial documents is an automated implant for Windows devices called Aeris, which rounds out all of the leaked CIA files published by WikiLeaks today. Another Vault 7 release earlier this summer focused on the use of modified versions of router firmware to turn networking devices into surveillance tools, called “Cherry Blossom.”

Due to the older Mac software used for testing Achilles and SeaPea, it’s likely that such exploits have already been adressed by Apple in the numerous updates that have been released since Snow Leopard in 2009 and Lion in 2011. The previous vulnerabilities leaked by WikiLeaks in March were quickly adressed by Apple, which said that it had fixed the “alleged” vulnerabilities in iPhone 3G devices (called “NightSkies”) back in 2009, and the Sonic Screwdriver Mac exploit in all Macs released after 2013.

Tag: WikiLeaks
Discuss this article in our forums

Top Project Fi referrers can earn a trip to Google’s Mountain View headquarters

Why it matters to you

Even if you don’t win the trip to Google HQ, Project Fi customers could still get Play Store credit, swag, and more.

Google is taking the referral program for Project Fi to the next level. While the company offers customers $20 of credit for each referral as part of its referral program, now customers can refer new subscribers for the chance to win a range of prizes. Like what? Well, the top three referrers will get a trip to Google HQ in Mountain View.

There are other prizes to win, too. Upon first referring a new customer, you’ll get $20 of credit to your Google Project Fi account, as you normally would. Refer a second new customer, and you’ll get $20 of credit to the Google Play Store. Five new customers will get you a “Fi weekender bag,” which comes with $100 of Project Fi referral credit and, we assume, some Project Fi swag. At the end of the campaign, the top three referrers will win a trip to Google HQ.

Unlike Google’s standard referral program, this one is only valid for a limited time — and it’ll expire on September 25.

There is a limit to the number of people you can refer — and that’s 100, which would equate to $2,000 in Project Fi credit. You can also check out the leaderboard here. Currently, it looks like Abner, who writes for 9to5Google, is at the top of the charts — but considering he’s winning with only four referrals and the fact that there’s only 12 people currently on the leaderboard, that could change pretty easily.

Project Fi itself was launched as a fairly innovative new offering, largely because of how its pricing works. Each month, you’ll pay a $20 base fee for Project Fi, after which you’ll pay $10 for each GB that you think you’ll use at the start of the month. Unlike other companies, however, that money isn’t necessarily gone forever — instead, you’ll be refunded for data that you don’t use. So, let’s say for example that you think you’ll use 2GB of data in a month, which will cost you $40 for the base fee plus $10 for each 1GB. If you only end up using 1.5GB, you’ll get $5 credited to your account, which you can use the next month. And, if you happen to go over the 2GB, you can simply keep using your data and you’ll just be charged for the extra.

It’s really a nice system, and ensures that customers aren’t paying way too much for a small amount of data — you really only get what you pay for.

Make more precise measurements with Cubit, now available on Indiegogo

Why it matters to you

Precision is of the utmost importance when it comes to home renovation projects, and Cubit is here to help.

Measure two times, cut once. That’s sage advice passed down through the ages, but there are times when getting precise measurements and then putting them to use in real-world projects can be a lot tougher than just marking a board with a pencil before sawing it. Saying it offers “measure-just-once” capability for regular and irregular objects and surfaces in consumer projects, Plott announced Cubit at CES 2017, and now, it’s available on Indiegogo.

Plott is a newly launched consumer subsidiary of NWi, a technology platform firm that specializes in helping construction companies scale designs up and down. NWi’s platform uses dimensional data to help its clients visualize projects’ end results before they actually start. It’s from this perspective — simplifying the measurement and dimensional aspects of projects — that NWi started Plott for consumers. Cubit is the first device in the line.

“Cubit is the only solution that partners with the user along their entire creative journey, allowing them to get over mental and physical hurdles, and bring their projects from idea generation to reality,” said Plott CEO David Xing. “We believe people should spend their time enjoying their projects, rather than struggling to figure out how to get them done. We’ve designed Plott’s ecosystem of tools as a direct response to that, leveraging best-in-class technology to remove complexity from the creative process.”

Cubit’s major features include real-time, accurate dimensional data from a built-in smart wheel, and a laser distance measurer. The data can then be used on a smartphone app in project planning and layout. According to the company, by minimizing measurement tasks, organizing project data, and taking care of all calculations, customers will be able to keep their focus on their projects. They can also attach photos, videos, and notes to the data points. Cubit will transmit data to the smartphone app with low-energy Bluetooth for efficiency and longer battery life.

Plott’s Cubit is now available on Indiegogo for the early bird price of $49, which is 50 percent off the retail price of $99. Included in your order is both the Cubit and a micro USB charger. For $90, you can grab two Cubits and two such chargers, with an estimated delivery date of November 2017.

Update: Cubit is now available for pre-order on Indiegogo.

Not even imprisoned execs and exploding phones can stop Samsung

Why it matters to you

Scandals may capture headlines, but they haven’t stopped Samsung from selling a lot of Galaxy S8 phones.

Samsung has seen significant revenue growth throughout its business over the past three months, despite ongoing scandals and the ghost of the Galaxy Note 7 hanging over it. It’s also very confident about the near future, trumpeting the arrival of the Galaxy Note 8, a series of new midrange and low-end smartphones, plus continuing demand for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.

From April through the end of June 2017, Samsung took in $54.8 billion in revenue, with $12.8 billion coming as profit, which it says is a record-breaking quarter for the company. It’s also a 72-percent increase over the first three months of 2017, and up again from the end of 2016, after the small slump it endured during the height of the Galaxy Note 7 turmoil. To put the $12 billion profit into perspective, at the end of September last year, it posted $4.5 billion in profit.

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have been instrumental in Samsung’s return to massive profits. In its earnings report, it says the “strong sales” of the new phones have driven the recent increases, and the S8 Plus in particular has been a big seller. Samsung states it makes up more than 50 percent of all Galaxy S8 phone sales, despite being larger and more expensive than the regular Galaxy S8. Samsung’s mobile shipment totals were harmed by falling demand for its cheaper phones, which it will counter with new models announced in the future.

Samsung’s next major phone release will be the Galaxy Note 8, expected on August 23, which it mentions throughout its earnings report. It’s going to market the phone hard, so expect to see plenty of ads and promotional activity surrounding the phone, something it warns investors will affect earnings in the next quarter. It’s also mindful of Apple and Google’s smartphone plans for the remainder of 2017, saying that while there will be an increase in demand for its devices, “competition is expected to intensify as new smartphone models are released by competitors.”

The Galaxy Note 7 isn’t the only scandal Samsung has endured over the past year. The ongoing bribery and corruption trial centered around former South Korean president Park Geun-hye has seen Samsung vice president Lee Jae-yong arrested and put on trial, with sentencing expected soon. The company’s stock price has taken several hits; but the earnings report proves none of these problems have affected the public’s willingness to go out and buy Samsung products.