You can explore the Great Pyramid’s hidden chamber in ‘Assassin’s Creed Origins’

Why it matters to you

The Origins model of ancient Egypt is so real, it even includes features that weren’t yet discovered during development.

The recent discovery of a massive chamber hidden deep in Egypt’s Great Pyramid in Giza has made headlines around the world. The first significant pyramid discovery since the 19th century, it was virtually unearthed by scientists using cosmic-ray imaging with subatomic particles called muons, which can penetrate deep into the rocks of the structure.

So, does Assassin’s Creed Origins, the sprawling new adventure set in a historically accurate ancient Egypt, now need an update or patch to reflect the new discovery? Nope, says Assassin’s Creed historian Maxime Durand. It’s already in there.

“We have long believed that Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theories about the inner ramps and royal circuit with two antechambers inside the Great Pyramid are probably the most credible, which is why we decided to use them in the game,” she explained to Kotaku. “We were betting on the fact that these secret locations inside of the Great Pyramid would probably be discovered in the near future, so we wanted to allow players the chance to visit them in advance.”

The Origins developers worked with Houdin and many other Egyptologists for years to make the pyramids and other aspects of the game as authentic as possible, as detailed by The Guardian. The renowned architect even posted a trailer for the game on Facebook last August.

The secret room itself isn’t all that exciting — it’s not even necessary to ever enter the pyramid to complete the main storyline of the game, although there is a side quest that encourages you to explore it. However, if you work your way to the King’s Chamber, look for a small gap that leads to the large secret antechambers, which are roughly in the same place as the new discovery.

If you like the idea of being a virtual tourist traveling back 4,000 years to an ancient civilization, the developers are planning an additional educational mode that lets you explore the world without worrying about being stabbed in the back. The Discovery Tour is a free DLC billed as a “combat-free living museum” that lets you explore the game’s representation of Egypt.

“We spent years recreating Ancient Egypt, documenting ourselves, validating the content with historians, with consultants, and we feel that many more people than just the players can benefit from that,” Jean Guesdon of Ubisoft said at the company blog.

The Discovery Tour DLC will arrive in 2018, but you can go visit Giza in the game now and feast your eyes on the remarkable new discovery that no one has ever seen before.

Editor’s Recommendations

• Meet the tech that revealed a hidden chamber inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid
• ‘Assassin’s Creed: Origins’ mode wants to teach you all about Ancient Egypt
• The 10 best exoplanets we’ve discovered so far, ranked
• 16 annoying LG G5 problems, and how to fix them
• A copy of NES game ‘Golf’ is reportedly found hiding on the Nintendo Switch

Your weekend comments are slow and easy

The best 48 hours of the week, every week.

Another weekend is here, and this time of the year means an outdoors weekend for some and a weekend by the fireplace for others. Here in DC area this one will be glorious and could be the last glorious one for a while. That means making the most out of it!

I’ll probably just sit around and do a lot of nothing while my wife does some early holiday shopping; Hanukkah and Christmas are closing in and both can be a pretty big deal around my house. And since I mostly suck at shopping for, well, anything I get to stay home and babysit the dogs. Not complaining, not even one little bit.

Of course, the big holiday spending spree is yet to come and there’s always a chance I’ll get drafted to be chauffeur and doorman and anything else that doesn’t involve gift decisions except for my dad, who wants a pair of headers for his El Camino. I totally have that one under control.

One thing that’s not on anyone’s list this year is a new phone. Everyone in the family is set for a while and while the new iPhone X is one I want some time with, I’m still not into the prices new phones have attached to them. $1,000 buys like five sets of headers for pop’s 396 and won’t be nearly as fun to use once set up. Vroom vroom.

Hopefully, your weekend is nice and relaxed or exciting and hectic — whichever way you like it. Take a few and share what’s going on with you this weekend!

Microsoft ends its last free Windows 10 upgrades on December 31st

Microsoft largely stopped offering free Windows 10 upgrades back in July 2016. However, there’s been an ongoing exception: if you use accessibility features, you’ve had an extension of that promo. And now, that last deal is coming to an end. Microsoft has quietly updated its site to reveal that free upgrades for those who need assistive technologies will end on December 31st, 2017. The company hasn’t directly explained the timing for the cutoff, but the extension was announced to give extra time to users who had to wait for the July 2016 Anniversary Update before they got promised accessibility features. Given that there have been numerous milestone updates since then, there’s a good chance you’ve already moved to Windows 10 if you were holding out.

This isn’t likely to have a dramatic impact on Windows 10’s uptake. The odds are that you’ve already upgraded to Windows 10 if you wanted it in the first place, and you may have had no choice but to buy a a Windows 10 PC even if you didn’t. And the odds of someone abusing the loophole aren’t that high given how easy it was to score a free copy before July 2016.

Nonetheless, it’s an important milestone: it marks the formal end of Microsoft’s bid to modernize and unify the Windows user base by removing the price barrier. Did it work? It’s hard to say. Windows 10 adoption was brisk while free upgrades were common, but it’s not clear that Microsoft moved the needle any more than it would have otherwise. NetMarketShare notes that Windows 10’s usage share of the overall PC market surged from 9 percent in November 2015 to 29.3 percent in October 2017, but Windows 7 is still the dominant version at 46.6 percent (a dip of less than 10 percent). There’s still a lot of inertia, whether it’s companies worried about compatibility or home users who just see no rush to ditch a familiar experience.

Via: ZDNet

Source: Microsoft

Crunchyroll website hack tried to infect visitors with malware

Hacks that target major websites are nothing new, but Crunchyroll just suffered a particularly vicious attack. The anime streaming service was compromised for hours on November 4th after intruders planted a fake home page that pushed a malicious “CrunchyViewer” program to visitors. If Windows users were trusting enough to launch the file, it installed a mysterious background process that likely affected their systems. Mobile users were safe, although Crunchyroll noted that they weren’t functional simply because the web team was fixing the website.

It’s not certain just what happened or who was responsible. We’ve asked Crunchyroll for details and will let you know if it has more to share. It’s evident that the site was deliberately targeted, though, and the perpetrators caught the site off-guard. As Customer Support Lead Nate Ming put it, the hack was the “first thing” some on the team woke up to in the morning. And the timing was definitely less than ideal if you were a viewer — you may have received a rude surprise if you spend Saturdays catching up on Dragon Ball or Attack on Titan.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Crunchyroll (Twitter 1), (2), Nate Ming (Twitter)

T-Mobile and Sprint Officially Call Off Merger

T-Mobile and Sprint today announced that plans for a merger have officially ended after the two companies were unable to find “mutually agreeable terms.”

Rumors last week suggested the merger might be called off because Sprint parent company SoftBank was having doubts about the deal over the ownership terms. SoftBank was concerned about “losing control” of the combined company, as T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom wanted a controlling stake.

The two companies allegedly attempted to save the merger by negotiating new terms after Deutsche Telekom submitted a revised offer, but an agreement was not able to be reached.

In a statement, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said a that while a deal with Sprint was “compelling,” it would have needed to offer “significant benefits” for both consumers and shareholders.

“The prospect of combining with Sprint has been compelling for a variety of reasons, including the potential to create significant benefits for consumers and value for shareholders. However, we have been clear all along that a deal with anyone will have to result in superior long-term value for T-Mobile’s shareholders compared to our outstanding stand-alone performance and track record. Going forward, T-Mobile will continue disrupting this industry and bringing our proven Un-carrier strategy to more customers and new categories – ultimately redefining the mobile Internet as we know it. We’ve been out-growing this industry for the last 15 quarters, delivering outstanding value for shareholders, and driving significant change across wireless. We won’t stop now.”

Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said Sprint had decided that it would be best to move forward alone. Sprint will instead aim to “compete fiercely” in the wireless industry.

“While we couldn’t reach an agreement to combine our companies, we certainly recognize the benefits of scale through a potential combination. However, we have agreed that it is best to move forward on our own. We know we have significant assets, including our rich spectrum holdings, and are accelerating significant investments in our network to ensure our continued growth. As convergence in the connectivity marketplace continues, we believe significant opportunities exist to establish strong partnerships across multiple industries. We are determined to continue our efforts to change the wireless industry and compete fiercely. We look forward to continuing to take the fight to the duopoly and newly emerging competitors.”

This is the second time that T-Mobile and Sprint have failed to reach a merger agreement. Sprint parent company SoftBank attempted to purchase T-Mobile back in 2013 in a deal worth more than $20 billion, but ultimately abandoned its plans in 2014 amid regulatory scrutiny.

Even had the deal succeeded this time around, it’s not clear if it would have gained regulatory approval. Back in 2014, U.S. antitrust regulators said having four national carriers in the United States was important for maintaining a competitive market.

Tags: Sprint, T-Mobile
Discuss this article in our forums