February 2023 – Page 7 – scrollingindia.com

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Tech News

This Fallout successor is coming to PS5 with more than just a facelift

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If you missed its earlier releases, then The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition on PS5 looks like the ideal way to experience Fallout’s spiritual successor. The enhanced version of the open-world RPG launches on March 7 and is also coming to Xbox Series X and PC.

However, this isn’t just a case of an older game coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X with an updated resolution and texture work. The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition benefits from all the advantages of current-generation console hardware. All versions can expect the game to run in 4K at 60fps with brand-new particle effects and volumetric lighting improvements.

Naturally, as a re-release, you’re also getting all the DLC and expansion content, which followed The Outer Worlds’ original October 2019 release. This means you’re also getting Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos, along with A.I. improvements for your companions and the various extra nasties to encounter on Terra-2 and Monarch for both Xbox Series X and PS5.

Detailed in full in a PlayStation Blog post, there has been a lot of thought into exactly how the DualSense might be utilized to bring Obsidian’s bombastic space opera satire into 2023. One of the most exciting editions to the game has to be how the adaptive triggers work with the various ranged weapons in The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition. This means that you’ll be able to really feel the recoil from an assault rifle, as well as feel a bolt action sniper firing out of a barrel backed up by the subtle vibrations of the haptic feedback.

If you already own an existing version of The Outer Worlds, then the Spacer’s Choice Edition upgrade can be purchased for $9.99 / £7.99.

As someone who played and thoroughly enjoyed the original experience almost four years ago, I’m personally quite excited by the improvements made to fully flesh out the game world. The original version did suffer from noticeably dumb enemy A.I., which was particularly obvious in some of the wider open environments. More than a handful of times, companions like Felix and Parvati got stuck on the geometry, too.

It’s the same all-star development team behind Fallout: New Vegas, so if you’re into big open-world games with compelling stories and exciting combat, this one isn’t going to disappoint. You’re looking at anywhere from 15 to 30 hours of content with very little filler; just be careful not to drive you and your crew directly into the sun.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

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Snapchat’s ChatGPT-powered sidekick will make you look like a haiku genius

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Snapchat has become the first social media giant to build a ChatGPT-powered chatbot into its app, with the messaging platform calling its new feature ‘My AI’.

According to Snap, the new chatbot is running the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology (its GPT-3.5 model) and is an “experimental feature” for paying Snapchat Plus subscribers (a service that costs $3.99 / £3.99 / AU$5.99 a month).

So what can it do? Given the many recent examples of Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing search engine going off the rails, Snap has wisely puts some guardrails in place by training it to “avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information”. It’s also mainly designed help organize your social life and boost your Snapchat game.

Some examples of things that My AI can help with include planning your hiking trip, recommending birthday present ideas, suggesting dinner recipes and, for fans of Japanese verse, “writing a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal”. That all certainly sounds a bit more family-friendly than watching Bing have an existential crisis.

Still, Snap is also bracing itself for errors and has already apologized in advance (opens in new tab) for My AI’s own clangers. It says that “My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything”, which sounds worrying. Snap also tells users to “please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance” for its potential mistakes.

Unlike Bing’s ChatGPT-powered chatbot, My AI is customizable – you can give it a name and also customize the wallpaper for your chat sessions. But, despite this cuddly exterior, the AI helper is likely to go very wrong – with Snap stating that you can press and hold on any message to submit feedback and help guide it towards better behaviour.

An example of Snapchat's My AI chatbot creating a haiku poem

An example of a cheese-themed haiku written by Snapchat’s My AI chatbot. (Image credit: Snapchat)

The arrival of a ChatGPT-powered helper on Snapchat isn’t quite as earth-shattering as an equivalent feature would be on the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or TikTok – after all, Snapchat is only tenth on the list of social media sites (opens in new tab) in terms of global active users.

But it does give us an interesting glimpse of how ChatGPT (or an equivalent chatbot technology) could be baked into some of the world’s most popular apps. Imagine, for example, an equivalent sidekick in Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp groups. Meta did recently announce (opens in new tab) its own “state-of-the-art AI large language model called LLaMA”, so that could well be coming.

The arrival of chatbots in social media and messaging apps does also raise privacy issues. Snap is keen to stress that “all conversations with My AI will be stored and may be reviewed to improve the product experience”, and you shouldn’t “share any secrets with My AI” or “rely on it for advice”.

Those are all big disclaimers that show where we are with AI chatbots – while they’re fun sidekicks that could work well in the likes of Snapchat, they’re also far from the all-knowing sages they purport to be.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

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Most ransomware payments go on to fund many further attacks

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When a threat actor manages to extort money out of a ransomware victim, they rarely use the cash to take a holiday – but instead use the newly acquired funds to finance more cybercriminal activities, new research has found.

A report (opens in new tab) from by Trend Micro claims that while just 10% of ransomware victims end up paying the ransom, the money paid often gets used in future attacks.

The report also found that the victims that agree to pay the ransom usually do it quickly, and are often forced to pay more per incident.

Funding more attacks

What’s more, although the risk is not homogenous and differs between sectors, company size, countries, etc. – there is a dose of similarity between them. Namely, victims in some countries, and some verticals, usually pay a higher demand than others, and that makes them a more popular target among attackers.

Usually, businesses are advised against paying the ransom. The payment does not guarantee they’ll get their data back, even partially. At the same time, it motivates the attackers to continue with their ransomware operations. And finally – there is no guarantee that the same organization will not be targeted again – by the same threat actor, or someone completely different.

Trend Micro also added that paying the ransom “often only results in driving up the overall cost of the incident with few other benefits”.

Instead, the companies should build their infrastructure and be prepared for potential attacks. The best time of year to do so is in January, and July-August, as those are the periods when ransomware monetization activities are at their lowest, the researchers said.

“By prioritizing protection left of the kill chain, continuing in-depth analysis of the ransomware ecosystems, and focusing global efforts on reducing the percentage of victims paying,” businesses could make ransomware attacks less profitable for the attackers.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

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Microsoft unveils a new Azure platform to drive the future of 5G and beyond

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Microsoft has announced details of a new Azure platform that it says will see cloud and edge come closer together through the power of 5G.

Speaking at its MWC 2023 launch, Microsoft says it’s time to move away from legacy systems as 5G development continues to accelerate, citing improved bandwidth, reliability, and reduced latency as some of the key benefits of 5G connections.

The latest iteration of Azure for Operators will allow companies to modernize their networks, resulting in improved cost efficiency and the rollout of new services.

Microsoft Azure for Operators

For Azure for Operators, Microsoft has moved the engineering and program organization from AT&T’s Network Cloud 2.7 Software technology (which it acquired in June 2021) into Azure for Operators.

Microsoft claims that Azure Operator Distributed Services combines the best of AT&T’s and Azure’s offerings, such as security, monitoring, analytics, AI, and machine learning.

“Imagine the benefits to communities and organizations that have access to improved bandwidth, reliability, and reduced latency, while leveraging the rich capabilities of cloud-to-edge technology without compromise to security, critical services, or key workloads,” noted (opens in new tab) Jason Zander, Microsoft EVP, Strategic Missions and Technologies.

“With the most complete offerings for the telecommunications industry, Microsoft is the ideal cloud provider to help operators with their digital transformation journey and enable them to deliver these innovative services to their consumer, enterprise, and public sector customers.”

“We are pleased with Microsoft’s plan to evolve Network Cloud and integrate it with Azure technologies to create hybrid telco-grade Azure Operator Distributed Services,” noted AT&T Executive VP and CTO of Network Services, Andre Fuetsch.

“This will enable AT&T and other operators to host Network Functions on clouds spanning telco premises and public cloud and will help us realize the many benefits of the cloud-native approach and Azure innovation including additional speed, resiliency, security, cost, and operational improvements.”

At the same time, Microsoft has announced the private preview of the Azure Operator 5G Core and public preview of the Azure Private 5G Core, designed with the secure deployment of private 4G and 5G networks in mind. With Industry 4.0 and IoT at their hearts, use cases could include smart cities and autonomous vehicles.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

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MIUI 14 global rollout announced: List of smartphones, rollout time and more

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Alongside the Xiaomi 13 series announcement, Xiaomi has also announced its MIUI 14 global rollout details at MWC 2023 event. The company has also revealed the list of 18 Xiaomi and Redmi devices that are set to receive the latest MIUI 14 update. Although the company hasn’t revealed any specific timeline for the update rollout, it’s expected to start by the end of Q1 this year.
MIUI 14 update rollout
Xiaomi’s MIUI rollout schedule includes devices from across the price bracket including flagship, mid-range and budget devices from the company. Xiaomi has also confirmed that more devices will be added to the list in the future.
When these devices will receive updates is still not clear as of now as the company hasn’t revealed the exact rollout timeline except the fact that the rollout will begin by the end of the first quarter.
We expect that the company will first rollout the update for its flagship devices and follow it with other smartphones.
It is also important to note that it is possible that MIUI 14 update may not include the latest Android version to the devices as Xiaomi has a history of pushing its latest custom user interface to their devices without the latest version of Android.
Xiaomi and Redmi devices confirmed to receive MIUI 14 update
Xiaomi 121 Pro
Xiaomi 12X
MI 11 Ultra
Mi 11 Lite SG
Xiaomi 12T
Xiaomi 12 Lite
Xiaomi 12 Pro
Xiaomi 111 Pro
Mi 11
Xiaomi 12
Xiaomi 111
Mi 111
Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
Mi 11 Lite
Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
Redmi Note 10
Redmi 10 5G
MIUI 14: Key features
In terms of features, the MIUI 14 brings improved customisation options, back end optimisation, built-in privacy features and more.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

Tech News

Gmail: Gmail is down for some users

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Google email service Gmail is down for several users across the globe. So if you having problems with your Gmail, you are not alone. Downdetector, the online platform that provides users with real-time information about the status of various websites and services, is showing an outage in Gmail. Several users have reported issues with Gmail.
Disruption in services started around 6 pm. Presently, the complaints have peaked at 6.42 pm, with as many as 1900-plus users reporting issues with Gmail. It is currently not clear how widespread the outage is. As per Downdetector, some 61% users are reporting issues with the Gmail website, 31% while login into Gmail and 8% while receiving mails. Some users also reported that they are seeing 502 error, and temporarily unable to get to their messages.
Google has not yet officially acknowledged the outage. The Google Workspace dashboard is showing all services in green, which means no disruption in any service.
The official handle of Gmail on Twitter too has not tweeted anything on the outage in services. However, several users on Twitter have shared screenshots of the Gmail not working for them. The DailyMailUS too has shared a tweet on the outage in Gmail services, which means that the disruption in services is not limited to India.

Gmail Server down??#gmaildown #Gmail @gmail https://t.co/hvqJcDY766

— Lalit Singh (@Raolalitsingh2) 1677502977000

Gmail is DOWN https://t.co/AheMlhibGm https://t.co/ujzD1oiplI

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) 1677504063000

Not complete disruption in services
The problem doesn’t appear to be a complete shut-out of Gmail, and appears more to be more intermittent in nature. As Gmail services are working for everyone in the TOI Tech-Gadgets Now team as well as for the most people in office.

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Feb, Mon, 2023

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Dish Network down following suspected cyberattack

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Dish Network has reportedly suffered over a highly disruptive ransomware attack that took the company’s websites and apps offline, as well as rendering its call centers unavailable, and cutting off remote workers from access to internal systems.

Customers have also been affected by the incident, as signing into certain Dish TV channel apps wasn’t possible.

At press time, the company’s main website was still showing a notification saying “we are experiencing a system issue that our teams are working hard to resolve.” Other websites are completely unavailable.

VPN issue?

There was little information coming from the company itself. Even some of its own employees are being kept in the dark, it seems. The company’s Twitter support account posted of “an internal systems issue is impacting some of our customer service operations.”

The Verge (opens in new tab) obtained an internal email the company sent to its employees, saying there’s a “VPN issue” it’s trying to resolve. Employees are asked to “stand by”.

“They say it hasn’t even been made clear whether they’ll be paid,” The Verge’s report states. “Employees have also been told that they won’t be able to connect to their VPN, keeping remote workers from logging in to work.”

But speaking to BleepingComputer, a different source confirmed the company was hit with a cyberattack in which employees were met with “blank icons” on their desktops. According to the publication, this is a typical occurrence in a ransomware attack.

Soon after, an employee reached out to the publication to say they were briefed by a manager that an “outside bad actor, a known threat actor” launched a cyberattack against the firm. They’re not yet certain how the attackers obtained access.

The story is developing and new details are likely to emerge in the coming hours and days, namely the identity of the group behind the attack, the ransom demand, and if any malware (opens in new tab) was used in the attack.

Via: BleepingComputer (opens in new tab)

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