Amazon Web Services (AWS) has revealed plans to invest $35 billion in the US state of Virginia to expand its operations between now and 2040.
Virginia is home to the company’s US-EAST-1 region, which has suffered significant outages and other issues in recent years, leading some to cite it as a major cause for concern in Amazon’s ability to handle crises.
AWS has been operating in the state since 2006, and later chose Virginia to open a second headquarters in 2018 (which it calls HQ2).
AWS in northern Virginia
Governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, announced (opens in new tab) the plans which he believes will create “at least” 1,000 new jobs in the area as he continued to express a clear interested in the industry within his state:
“Virginia will continue to encourage the development of this new generation of data center campuses across multiple regions of the Commonwealth. These areas offer robust utility infrastructure, lower costs, great livability, and highly educated workforces and will benefit from the associated economic development and increased tax base, assisting the schools and providing services to the community.”
Reuters (opens in new tab) also reports that the cloud storage giant had already invested $35 billion in northern Virginia data centers between 2011 and 2020, meaning that the continued investment could see a huge boost to the local economy.
Director of Economic Development at AWS, Roger Wehner, highlighted that the company’s continued investment in the area since 2006 has already boosted the Commonwealth’s GDP by nearly $7 billion, accounting for thousands of jobs.
In time to come, AWS will be eligible for a new Mega Data Center Incentive Program, should it be approved by the Virginia General Assembly. This would include a 15-year maximum extension of Data Center Sales and Use tax exemptions “on qualifying equipment and enabling software”, and a further grant worth up to $140 million “for site and infrastructure improvements, workforce development, and other project-related costs.”
Samsung has patched two vulnerabilities in its mobile app marketplace that could have allowed threat actors to install any app on a target mobile device without the device owner’s knowledge or consent.
Cybersecurity researchers from the NCC Group discovered the vulnerabilities in late December 2022 and tipped Samsung off, with the company issuing a patch (version 4.5.49.8) on January 1 2023.
Now, almost a month after the flaw was addressed, the researchers published technical details and a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code.
Installing malicious apps
The first flaw is tracked as CVE-2023-21433, an improper access control flaw that can be used to install apps on the target endpoint. The second flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-21434, is described as an improper input validation vulnerability, which can be used to execute malicious JavaScript on the targeted device.
While local access is required in the exploiting of both vulnerabilities, for skilled criminals that’s a non-issue, it was said. The researchers demonstrated the flaws by having the app install Pokemon Go, a globally popular geolocation game based on the world of Pokemon.
While Pokemon Go is a benign app, the flaws could have been used for more sinister goals, the researchers confirmed. In fact, threat actors could have used them to access sensitive information (opens in new tab) or crash mobile apps.
It also needs to be mentioned that Samsung devices running Android 13 are not vulnerable to the flaw, even if their device still carries an older, vulnerable version of the Galaxy Store.
This is due to additional security measures introduced in the latest version of the popular mobile OS.
However, according to figures from AppBrain, just 7% of all Android devices are sporting the latest version, while unsupported versions of Android (9.0 Pie and older) make up roughly 27% of the entire Android market share.
Sensitive data belonging to the FanDuel users was compromised in the recent MailChimp data breach, the of sports betting site has told customers.
An email sent to FanDuel customers confirmed their full names and email addresses were accessed as a consequence of the MailChimp cyberattack, and warning them to stay vigilant against potential phishing attacks.
“Recently, we were informed by a third-party technology vendor that sends transactional emails on behalf of its clients like FanDuel that they had experienced a security breach within their system that impacted several of their clients,” BleepingComputer cited a FanDuel ‘Notice of Third-Party Vendor Security Incident’.
Passwords are safe
“On Sunday evening, the vendor confirmed that FanDuel customer names and email addresses were acquired by an unauthorized actor. No customer passwords, financial account information, or other personal information was acquired in this incident.”
While FanDuel didn’t name the vendor in the notification, it later confirmed to media that it was referring to MailChimp.
The company also added that as this wasn’t a breach of its own internal systems, sensitive information including “passwords, financial account information, or other personal information” was not accessed.
While just getting people’s names and emails might not be much, it’s enough for a phishing attack which could be more devastating, and could result in people losing access to valuable accounts, private data, and possibly even money from their devices and endpoints (opens in new tab). Now, FanDuel is warning its users to keep both eyes open:
“Remain vigilant against email “phishing” attempts claiming an issue with your FanDuel account that requires providing personal or private information to resolve the problem,” the notification further claims. “FanDuel will never email customers directly and request personal information to resolve an issue.”
FanDuel also urged its customers to regularly update their passwords, and to make sure those passwords are strong and not used on other platforms at the same time. Furthermore, it told everyone to activate multi-factor authentication (MFA) if they hand’t already done so.
Music streaming giant Spotify has announced it would be cutting 6% of its staff, with around 600 employees in total departing the company.
Spotify’s move is the latest in series of mass layoffs at large tech firms, with Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, and Google parent Alphabet all having recently announced job cuts in response to the current economic downturn. Tech companies had earlier been on a hiring spree as pandemic-fueled spending drove increased need for consumer goods and services.
But Spotify isn’t the only entertainment streaming service to make staff cuts – Netflix trimmed 2% of its workforce back in May of last year as part of a larger cost-saving effort where it canceled a number of projects in development, many of them in the company’s animation department.
Spotify had previously made its own content cuts in a bid to scale back costs. Back in October 2022, the company axed 11 original podcasts, most from the Gimlet and Parcast studios the company had acquired as part of its aggressive push into the podcasting sector. Spotify had spent billions of dollars building up its podcast presence, dropping 200 million alone on its contract with Joe Rogan, the platform’s number one audience draw.
How Spotify’s woes will affect future pricing is unclear, but subscription costs for the best music streaming services are generally rising, with Apple Music having hiked the price of an individual plan from $9.99 / £9.99 to $10.99 / £10.99 per month (and $4.99 / £4.99 to $5.99 / £5.99 for a student plan) back in October 2022, followed by similar announced price hikes for Amazon Music Unlimited.
CEO Daniel Ek commented in the company’s layoff announcement that “in 2022, the growth of Spotify’s operating expenses outpaced our revenue growth by two times,” and that the situation was “unsustainable long-term in any climate.” Spotify is clearly in hot water, and Ek’s statements seem to indicate that costs for the service, which has maintained a stable $9.99 / £9.99 individual pricing plan since its early days, will soon be going up as the company scrambles to cope with rising expenses and falling revenues.
As reported by Variety, Spotify’s CEO had said previously in an October 2022 earnings call that a price increase “is one of the things we would like to do and it’s something we will [discuss] with our label partners.”
Analysis: A more expensive Spotify will be a hard sell
Streaming prices are going up for all manner of services, and a price hike for Spotify is something that can be easily swallowed by music listeners who have long used and depended on it. After all, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited are now both more expensive, and the cost of everything is going up from eggs to airline tickets.
Right?
Not so fast. Compared to Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited, Spotify was already a bad value. For their $10.99 / £10.99 per month cost, both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited offer lossless and high-res audio, while Spotify continues to stream using a lossy compression format that reduces sound quality. The company had announced plans for a Spotify HiFi tier with lossless high-resolution audio, but that was back in 2021 and we’re still waiting on it. (It’s unclear if the higher-quality tier would be priced significantly more than the company’s current Premium offering.)
Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited also both provide tracks and full albums in Spatial Audio – essentially Dolby Atmos for music – and so does Tidal, another music service that delivers lossless streams, and does so at a $9.99 / £9.99 per month cost. Spatial Audio, which can be experienced on either headphones or a full home theater speaker system, continues to impress us with its sound quality and is one of the more exciting advancements to come to music listening in decades.
The cost for both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited can also be lessened by buying into either of those companies’ larger bundled subscription services. Apple offers its Apple One bundle, which includes Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and 50GB iCloud Plus cloud storage for $16.95 / £16.95 for an individual plan, and $22.95 / £22.95 per month for a family plan with up to five accounts. If you’re an Apple user, you’re getting a lot there for your money.
Amazon Music Unlimited, meanwhile, is available at a reduced price to Amazon Prime members (currently $8.99 / £8.99, though that may rise to $9.99 / £9.99 when the price for the service rises in February).
When you add everything up, Spotify isn’t really providing enough to music fans to justify any potential price increase. It does offer exclusive podcasts and, in the US at least, audiobooks, but most listeners gravitate to its platform for music. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks or months as the smoke clears from the company’s workforce cuts, but a more expensive Spotify at this point seems inevitable.
WhatsApp is currently developing a way for users to send images in their original resolution without impacting quality.
WABetaInfo, which discovered the feature (opens in new tab), reports users will be able to choose photo quality via a new Settings menu located in the app’s drawing tool. The current version of WhatsApp does allow you to choose “Best Quality” prior to sending images to keep the resolution high, but it still compresses files – just to a lesser extent in order to provide a fast data transfer time. But still, having that newfound level of control will be especially helpful in situations where the quality of a photo is important, as WABetaInfo points out. Not much else is known about the feature, but it’s probably safe to say sending images in their original resolution will most likely increase data transfer time, download time, and the amount of space needed on a device to store said files.
As stated earlier, the original image resolution feature is in development so it won’t be a part of any upcoming WhatsApp betas or launch anytime soon. It’s also worth pointing out that the update was discovered on the Android version of WhatsApp with no mention of whether or not the original image resolution feature will arrive for iOS.
Incoming shortcuts
WABetaInfo also uncovered new shortcuts for WhatsApp mobile (opens in new tab). These shortcuts will allow group chat admins “to quickly and easily perform actions… [and] simplify some interactions with group members”. The full extent of this feature is unknown, but according to one example, admins can choose to highlight phone numbers whenever someone joins or leaves a group chat. Additionally, admins can create a new context menu for themselves for certain actions like privately calling chat participants or adding them to their contacts.
These shortcuts will be especially helpful when dealing with massive groups. Back in November 2022, WhatsApp launched Communities: large-scale chats that can house 1024 participants. With chats that big, admins need all the tools they can get to manage everything. This shortcut feature will definitely be a major boon for them.
And unlike the original image quality feature, the shortcuts are currently available for both Android and iOS through their respective WhatsApp betas. Unfortunately for iPhone owners, the TestFlight program for WhatsApp (opens in new tab) is no longer accepting newcomers. If you’re already a participant, you can just download the beta, no problem. Android users can still join the Google Play Store beta program (opens in new tab), however.
2023 is slated to be a big year for WhatsApp. January alone has seen WABetaInfo reveal a ton of beta features for the messaging app like the ability to record statuses with your voice and a revamped chat transfer that removes Google Drive from the equation. Be sure to check out TechRadar’s recent WhatsApp beta coverage.
Meta has announced that it’ll be continuing its partnership with the NBA, and that it’s giving basketball fans the chance to catch 52 live matches in VR for free during the 2022-23 season.
If you have a Meta Quest Pro or an Oculus Quest 2 headset you’ll be able to dive into either XTADIUM (a US-only app) or Horizon Worlds to watch the games as they happen. Horizon Worlds will also offer players the chance to compete in interactive minigames, and watch game highlights and recaps from matches they’ve missed.
If you want to check out these free games then the lineup for January is:
Milwaukee Bucks vs. Detroit Pistons:
January 23, 4 pm PT / January 24, midnight GMT / January 24, 10 am AEST
Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Pelicans:
January 24, 5 pm PT / January 25, 1 am GMT / January 25, 11 am AEST
Denver Nuggets vs. Milwaukee Bucks:
January 25, 5 pm PT / January 26, 1 am GMT / January 26, 11 am AEST
Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder:
January 27, 5 pm PT / January 28, 1 am GMT / January 28, 11 am AEST
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Cleveland Cavaliers:
January 29, 4 pm PT / January 30, midnight GMT / January 30, 10 am AEST
Miami Heat vs. Cleveland Cavaliers:
January 31, 4 pm PT / February 1, midnight GMT / February 1, 10 am AEST
If you can’t catch any of these, there are games happening until April 9 so you have plenty of time to catch a few before the season ends; the full schedule can be found in the official Meta Quest blog post (opens in new tab).
What’s more, five of the NBA games (Meta hasn’t announced which yet) will be available to watch in 180-degree immersive VR with celebrity broadcasters giving you their commentary on the action. This more immersive view will put you courtside as you watch the game unfold making it feel more like you’re at the event itself rather than simply seeing it on a TV screen.
And if that still wasn’t enough b-ball for you, Meta will be hosting some WNBA, NBA G League, and NBA 2K League games as well.
(Image credit: Meta)
But, before you get too excited, there are some restrictions you’ll need to watch out for. For a start, you’re going to need to be in a region that has access to Horizon Worlds – Meta’s metaverse platform which is currently only available to users in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Iceland, France, and Spain.
Though, even if you are in one of these regions your access isn’t guaranteed. Meta warns that some content won’t be accessible in every region (kinda like how Netflix US and UK have different catalogs based because of how rights are distributed) and that some viewers that live near the stadia the games are taking place in may be locked out from watching the games. Meta is, unfortunately, a little vague on exactly who can and can’t watch a match, so you might need to try watching a game or two for yourself to know if you’re locked out or not.
That said it’s definitely worth giving it a try. VR concerts and sports aren’t yet a replacement for attending the actual live event – you don’t get the true sense of the atmosphere for one – but they’re still an absolute blast, especially if they’re free to attend like these NBA games.
If you’re looking for other stuff to do with your VR headset, check out our picks for the best Oculus Quest 2 games you can download and play today.
Microsoft recently confirmed it would be cutting around 5% of its workforce globally, leading to around 11,000 departures across the company.
At the time, it was uncertain which workers and departments would be most affected, but the Internet has had an entire weekend to unravel the situation and many ex-employees have now exposed detail on the matter.
Among the most notable cuts appear to be Microsoft’s extended reality (XR) operations, closing down or significantly scaling back a number of projects, possibly including its famous Hololens headset.
Microsoft XR cutbacks 2023
AltSpaceVR, acquired by the company in 2017, is among the worst affected by the cuts, with the arm set to be closed down in March 2023.
Some reports say that Microsoft’s metaverse efforts may continue to live on in its Mesh project, but that all remains to be confirmed.
Open-source project, MRTK, has also been axed, which could have significant implications for the future of the company’s HoloLens, however its open-source nature lead some to speculate that it may be able to live on in somewhat of a reduced format.
This news joins recent reports that the US Congress had denied a huge $400 million spend on the Microsoft-built Army-destined ‘IVAS’ HoloLens headset, though the Army is still set to spend a newly-approved $40 million budget on an upgraded version of the headset, following complaints from soldiers about previous versions.
While the partnership continues to develop, a larger picture painted by the shutdown of several XR operations may spell the future of tech like augmented reality for Microsoft (which, for now at least, is looking a little concerning).
Top game developer Riot Games suffered a cyberattack that forced it to delay releasing new content, it has confirmed.
In a short Twitter thread (opens in new tab) that left many questions still left unanswered, the company confirmed that an unknown threat actor used social engineering to attack Riot Games employees and access systems in the company’s development environment.
As a result, the company was forced to delay game patches for multiple games, including the globally popular multiplayer online battle arena – League of Legends (LoL).
Minor setback
Fortunately, customer personal data is safe, the company believes.
“We don’t have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained,” the thread reads.
“Unfortunately, this has temporarily affected our ability to release content. While our teams are working hard on a fix, we expect this to impact our upcoming patch cadence across multiple games.”
Individual game departments also confirmed the breach, BleepingComputer has found. LoL’s team confirmed the delay in patching, but reassured the players that wherever was planned to be released, will eventually be released.
“This may impact our delivery date for Patch 13.2. The League team is working to stretch the limits of what we can hotfix in order to deliver the majority of the planned and tested balance changes on time still,” the devs said. “Other things like the Ahri ASU might have to move to patch 13.3 (Feb. 8), but we’ll keep you updated as we work through this.”
The developers working on Teamfight Tactics (TFT), another Riot Games product, said the players could expect a hotfix: “This issue may impact our ability to release the full scope of balance changes planned, but we’re working to implement the most meaningful of those possible through a hotfix at our scheduled patch time.”.
Dead Space remake’s trophy list has been published, revealing that it will feature an alternative ending not seen in the original game.
Published by TrueTrophies (opens in new tab) (via TheGamer (opens in new tab)), the Dead Space remake‘s trophy list includes an achievement called ‘Reunion’, which is rewarded to those who “see the alternative ending on any difficulty mode”.
It’s unclear what this alternative ending will involve (fortunately) and developer EA Motive hasn’t confirmed there is indeed more than one ending, but I’m certainly intrigued to see what the studio has up its sleeve for the finale of Isaac Clarke’s journey through the Ishimura.
It’ll also be interesting to see if this alternative ending changes the franchise’s canon in any way, as any major changes could potentially have a longer-tail impact should EA Motive decide to remake Dead Space 2 and 3 – though the developer hasn’t indicated any plans for this.
Leaks galore
(Image credit: EA)
Dead Space remake leaks are rife ahead of the game’s release on January 27. Lengthy gameplay videos have been shared online that reveal some of the remake’s biggest surprises. EA has removed these videos but not before their contents were spread throughout the web.
I personally haven’t looked at them as I’m currently playing through the original Dead Space for the first time and don’t want to spoil it. But if you want to avoid specific spoilers then I advise being wary on social media. Just go into a hibernation pod until release day.
The battle of PS5 DualSense vs Xbox Series X controller has never been more fierce. Maybe you’re platform-dependent or interested in having one on PC. Here’s all you need to know.
After two years after launching, the battle between the PS5 and Xbox Series X is underway. Exclusive games, high-value services, and console specs get a lot of attention when deciding which console to pick. But it’s important not to underestimate the significance of each console’s controller.
A controller can have a significant effect on your gaming experience, so it’s worth paying attention to whether or not your chosen console has one that suits you. Interestingly, both Microsoft and Sony have tackled the controller problem differently with their new-gen consoles.
While Microsoft has opted for a refinement of its existing design, Sony went a little further by dropping the DualShock name for DualSense, which introducing new and exciting immersive features, like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Either way, it all helps towards creating the best PS5 games and best Xbox Series X games.
Want to know how the two controllers stack up against one another? We’re putting the PS5 DualSense controller and Xbox Wireless Controller head-to-head, providing an in-depth comparison of the two latest-generation gamepads. If you’re curious to know how the consoles specifically stack up against each other, check out our PS5 vs Xbox Series X guide.
PS5 DualSense controller vs Xbox Series X controller: price
(Image credit: Microsoft)
While pricing for the Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles is pretty much a match, the controllers do differ slightly. The DualSense controller for PS5 costs $69.99 / £59.99 / AU$95.85, while the Xbox Wireless Controller’s standalone price is $59.99 / £54.99 / AU$74.99.
It’s worth nothing, though, that you can use all your existing Xbox One accessories on Xbox Series X|S, including older controllers. The same can’t be said about the PS5, which only lets you use a DualShock 4 if you’re playing a PS4 game via backwards compatibility, while the DualSense cannot be used with a PS4 console at all.
PS5 DualSense controller vs Xbox Series X controller: design
(Image credit: Sony)
Both companies took different approaches to controller designs with this generation. Sony did away with the traditional DualShock design but Microsoft doubled down, improving its current design in subtle but important ways.
The immediate change you’ll notice with the PS5 DualSense controller is in its white color scheme – which was restricted to limited edition PlayStation controllers in the past – while the central aspect of the controller remains black. While the analog sticks are in the same place, face buttons are now transparent, giving the controller a more premium look.
Otherwise, the touchpad returns, and the light strip embedded within it since the Dualshock 4’s mid-cycle revision is now positioned around the touchpad itself. The ‘Share’ button has been replaced with the ‘Create’ button, which Sony claims they’re using to “pioneer new ways for players to create epic gameplay content to share with the world”.
The controller is also now charged via USB-C connection, as opposed to the previous micro-USB. USB-C is becoming the new standard, meaning you’ll be able to charge your controller via the same cable you use for many Android phones, recent iPad Pros, MacBooks, or your Nintendo Switch.
That USB-C port can also be found on the Xbox Series X controller, although Microsoft’s changes are much more conservative. For one, a new ‘Share’ button has been added to the center of the controller, hopefully meaning we’ll no longer be digging through menus in the heat of battle to grab a clip.
The D-pad has also been switched out for a hybrid dish-style input that draws inspiration from the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. That allows more control over complex inputs that you might find in a fighting game. There’s also new textured grips on the triggers, helping prevent players from slipping in those tense battle royale encounters. The general outline of the controller has been minimized too, helping smaller hands feel more comfortable when holding it.
PS5 DualSense controller vs Xbox Series X controller: features
(Image credit: Microsoft)
The Xbox Series X controller has a nifty feature under the hood. It involves sending information from the controller to the console (and the TV through HDMI) more frequently, allowing your actions to match up with frames on the screen. That shaves milliseconds off of response times and is part of what the company calls Dynamic Latency Input.
The controller works on the same Xbox Wireless Radio infrastructure of the Xbox One, continuing to offer Bluetooth compatibility using Bluetooth Low Energy pairing to make switching devices instantaneous. That’s likely to be very helpful if you’re planning on streaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming to other devices you own.
Sony’s DualSense offers much more player-facing technology. The DualSense has its own built-in microphone, so you can use this to talk with your friends online without the use of a headset. In addition, it also offers Bluetooth connectivity, the headline addition is haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers.
This technology, built into the game’s triggers and body, allows players to feel in-game actions, like pulling back the string of a bow or driving through thick mud. It’s extremely impressive, and can create some truly amazing sensations that help make games feel more immersive. It’s down to developers to implement the tech of course, but expect Sony first-party studios to adopt it regularly.
One drawback to the DualSense that we’ve noticed is that while it has a bunch of great features, there’s also a fairly mediocre battery life. It isn’t quite able to rival that of the Xbox Series X controller, which can use AA batteries or a ‘play and charge’ pack.
