RageFor | Gamers First!

Terafab: Tesla's New Chip Fabrication Business?

2026-04-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

The chip shortage is very real, and Tesla's new chip manufacturing business Terafab can help ease the pressure.

Just one week ago, Tesla and xAI's parent company, SpaceX, announced a new company called Terafab, with the goal of being a US-based chip manufacturer. The goal, according to Elon Musk, chairman and CEO of Tesla, would be to manufacture the AI brain of the Tesla vehicles inside of it's autonomous cars.

Previously, the AI chips inside of the Tesla vehicles were not manufactured in-house, but rather, fabricated with the help of companies like Samsung in South Korea, and TSMC in Taiwan. However, with all the pressure these two companies are under due to the AI boom of the post-Covid 19 world, Tesla is pivoting toward manufacturing their own chips in the United States.

When asked by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, he hinted that the company is considering working with Intel on this project.

We haven't signed any deal, but it's probably worth having discussions with Intel...

Chip fabrication -unlike chip assembly or manufacturing- is one of the most notoriously difficult and costly industries in the tech world, with only a handful of companies in the world that can do it, let alone do it well. TSMC is the top company in the world for this sort of thing, with its 6 nanometer process, and relatively high volume. The only two other companies in the world doing most of the world's chip manufacturing are Samsung, SK Hynix, (both in South Korea,) and Micron in the United States. So, Elon Musk's announcement was met with skepticism.

Reddit user BruhMansky on the r/RealTesla subreddit had this to say:

No evidence of Terafab being real
by u/BruhMansky in RealTesla

Many skeptics seem to think this new Terafab initiative is all just smoke and mirrors to boost the Tesla stock price, with no real plans on making any of this happen.

Why everything is so expensive

It wasn't that long ago that Cryptocurrency and NFTs practically obliterated the market for GPUs that gamers used for video GAMES. That is happening again, only this time, AI is leeching off of the gaming hardware market, leveraging the APUs inside of most GPUs for deep learning.

Unlike previous trends, this is a lot worse. AI doesn't just need the hardware in GPUs; it needs a ton of RAM to run models, and a hell of a lot of fast internal storage to house the training data AI needs to learn. This is causing the market to inflate like a DeviantArt fetish, with the average Solid State Drive, or DRAM chip, costing almost 4 times what they would have cost in 2024.

Right now, 64GB of DDR5 RAM will set you back almost 5 times as much as it would have cost in 2024, with costs rapidly approaching a thousand dollars. SSDs aren't doing to well price-wise either with a 2TB SSD averaging just under $300. However, nothing in the tech world is more expensive than the average flagship video card, with an Nvidia RTX 5090 costing nearly $4000.

Fake or not, Tesla would need at least one extra manufacturer outside of the big 3 to exist in order to keep up with demand.

Nvidia's Yassification filter for DLSS 5 is Hilarious, Nvidia CEO Responds

2026-03-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

Is Nvidia's DLSS 5 doing too much?

As I'm sure we all know by now, DLSS stands for Deep-Learning Super-Sampling. It's a way for Nvidia GPUs to leverage its own internal AI features to sharpen a game's visuals. It starts by running a game in a much lower resolution than your screen supports, then using its AI to sharpen the images on screen.

For most of us, DLSS is only for one thing: upscaling. DLSS5, however, is taking things in a wildly different direction.

Facebook slop-looking-ass AI

During Nvidia's GTC showcase on March 15th, Jensen Huang unveiled DLSS 5. Unlike its predecessors, this isn't an upscaler; it's a dynamic rendering engine that runs inside of the game. It's some of the most revolutionary technology to be released on a GPU outside of Ray-Tracing. The problem is, it looks like MidJourney had a baby with the LooksMaxing community on X.

You know those shitty AI images you see online, where people de-uglify female characters in video games? Well, that's what was showcased. Despite Nvidia displaying some truly game-changing technology, that appears to be the entire problem.

The internet was alight with backlash, calling it the "Yassification" filter, among other things. Immediately, people started comparing it to instagram filters, and AI slop.

the one good thing to come out of DLSS 5 is the memes at least 🤣 pic.twitter.com/u3njnhIk6b
— Ramez @ Monster Hunter Wilds #MHWilds (@Ramez05) March 17, 2026

I want DLSS 5 for horrible casting in TV shows and movies too. pic.twitter.com/rikBZGnvyX
— Dr. Clown, PhD (@DrClownPhD) March 17, 2026

Nvidia DLSS 5 OFF / Nvidia DLSS 5 ON pic.twitter.com/PEPxUgrN8M
— Сергей Михеев (@micheevs5) March 17, 2026

One major area of concern is whether or not this filter interferes with the design language of a game. The filter itself seems to have been taking creative liberties with the characters in many of the games on display, including Hogwarts Legacy, and Resident Evil. Grace Ashcroft presents an area of particular concern, as she is barely recognizable from the original design.

Some of the drastic changes the DLSS 5 filter adds to the characters don't look half bad, but it all falls apart the moment a character's face starts moving. What may look convincing in still image immediately looks like a rubber mask crudely taped on a character's face as soon as they become expressive.

Nvidia CEO responds?

Jensen Huang responded to questions from Paul Alcourn, Editor-in-Chief at Tom's hardware. When asked about concerns that DLSS5 is making games look worse, or that it seems to be forcing art to fit Nvidia's vision of the future, Huang had this to say...

Well, first of all, they're completely wrong... The reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the of geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI.

Huang continued further, explaining that developers can fine tune the feature the way they want, to fit the developer's vision, implying that DLSS 5 is more of a rendering tool for developers, rather than a blanket filter for gamers.

Could this all have just been a misunderstanding? Was the GTC showcase just a bad example of what the new technology is capable of?

TwitchCon Disaster: Twitch Apologizes over Lackluster Security

2025-11-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Just last month, TwitchCon publicly apologized for their mishandling of an assault on one of their top streamers, Emiru. Now, more than a month later, they are doing it again.

We wanted to follow up on the post we recently made about a security incident at TwitchCon San Diego. As many of you know, at the 2025 TwitchCon San Diego event, one of our valued creators, Emiru, was assaulted by an attendee during a meet-and-greet event.

Although Twitch works…
— Twitch (@Twitch) November 7, 2025

Even Dan Clancy, the current CEO of Twitch, published an apology on X, citing his own mishandling of the situation, as well as clarifying some of the awkward statements he made, following the event.

Twitch failed in our response to the assault of Emiru at 2025 TwitchCon San Diego, and in particular, I failed to communicate clearly in talking about the incident afterwards during an interview. I do not believe, and in no way intended to suggest that Emiru had any… https://t.co/ptMwtwPQ3r
— Daniel Clancy (@djclancy999) November 7, 2025

In early October, during a meet-and-greet event hosted at the SanDiego convention, a Twitch attendee can be seen walking on stage (uninvited,) going up to the streamer, and attempting to grab -and kiss- her. In a video uploaded to X shortly after the incident, Emiru's personal bodyguard -at the time can be seen running on stage to shove the man away, following the assault.

So some freak just assaulted Emiru at @TwitchCon . This behavior is fucking disgusting. I’m amazed that she still came back to finish the Meet and Greet line, honestly she deserves the utmost of respect. THIS HAS TO STOP!!!@EmiruUpdatess @emiru pic.twitter.com/pyO2QHQ9Pv
— BaconCrumbz 🥓 (@BaconCrumbz) October 18, 2025

Later the following day, Emiru was given a conference room, where she would stream a video, explaining the situation; revealing a series of surprising details, including TwitchCon staff's abysmal handling of the rather serious situation.

🚨Emiru claims Amazon's head of security and Twitch's head of risk initially issued a 30-day platform ban for the guy who assaulted her! 😳

Asmongold speaks on how Twitch tried to downplay Emiru getting sexually assaulted at Twitchcon... 😬 pic.twitter.com/GPUKGR7gCp
— Bestfriend (@BestfriendKick) October 19, 2025

Emiru reveals that not only was this treated as unimportant to Twitch Staff, but the assailant was allowed to leave following the assault, wouldn't reveal the identity of the predator to Emiru's manager, and -after significant pressure from Emiru's manager- was subsequently banned from the Twitch streaming website for all of 30 days.

After almost an entire day of trying to pretend nothing happened, Twitch finally responded to the event on X, stating the following:

The safety and security of all those attending TwitchCon is our highest priority. The behavior displayed by the individual involved in the incident yesterday involving a high profile streamer was completely unacceptable and deeply upsetting.

In line with existing TwitchCon…
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 18, 2025

A notable quote of contention in that tweet is that Twitch "worked swiftly with law enforcement" to detain the assailant.

In line with existing TwitchCon security protocols, law enforcement and event security were on site and responded to the incident. We immediately blocked this individual from returning to the TwitchCon premises, and they are banned indefinitely from Twitch, both online and in-person events. We are coordinating with the impacted creator’s team and, per our standard protocols, continue to cooperate with any law enforcement investigations.

Emiru, as well as current -and former- OTK members like Asmongold and Tectone, would confirm that this statement was false, citing the fact the suspect was largely ignored by Twitch staff after the event, and even allowed to leave the property, following the assault.

Since the event, Emiru has pressed charges on her attacker, seeking prosecution for the sexual assault she suffered, at the event.

TwitchCon Disaster

Literally one week after the collective crash-out viewers had over the Daiper-furr pedo being featured on the front page of Twitch, fans and streamers were appalled at the sheer volume of things to complain about this year, with many streamers calling for an end to the annual event entirely.

Whether you are a gaming Streamer, or a Vtuber, Everyone agrees that TwitchCon was an unmitigated disaster this year. Whether it was IRL streamers ruining people's time, lack of security, or event management, the consensus by viewers -and the streamers- is that 2025 should be the last year of the convention.

Shortly during -and after- the convention, stories started pouring out of the event, with things like gifts from fans being thrown in the trash, to Vtubers being forced to unmask themselves during the event, defeating the purpose of Vtubing in the first place.

Long before the the event even started this September, many streamers expressed concern over the overall lack of basic safety considerations at the event, with many streamers fearing for their safety.

"I saw Valkyrae, Pokimane, Hasan, QTCinderella saying I don't really want to go to TwitchCon because I don't feel safe... I should've listened to them"

Emiru on her experience at TwitchCon pic.twitter.com/hXXxlPVYJK
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) October 20, 2025

There were many vocal critics of these concerns, (mostly on X,) suggesting that the concerns are exaggerated, or even disingenuous. However, in a surprising move, many of the usual culture critics, such as Tectone and Asmongold, would chime in - echoing these same concerns. Asmongold -in particular- citing that women in the space should avoid TwitchCon altogether.

TECTONE, QTCinderella and many others were right in their warnings regarding safety leading up to TwitchCon.

Emiru could have been seriously hurt. pic.twitter.com/WtV2PMrsaN
— Erica🎮 (@EricaIsCoded) October 18, 2025

TwitchCon: A history of negligence.

During the 2022 San-DiegoTwitchCon event, one might notice a foam pit prominently featured. During a televised stream, Twitch streamer and adult film star Adriana Chechik can be seen perched atop a platform, as twitch staff can be seen encouraging her to leep into the foam.

What Chechik didn't know, was that this foam was roughly a foot deep, and couldn't support the weight of an adult, resulting in Adriana breaking her back in three places.

Probably the most painful thing I’ve seen in awhile. Twitch streamer Adriana Chechik has confirmed broken her back in two separate places following this jump at TwitchCon pic.twitter.com/QdojGn5UtG
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) October 9, 2022

Chechik needed to be rushed to a hospital, only to find out she was -also- pregnant, which led to her needing to have an abortion to continue her treatment, and recovery.

Will Twitch ever learn?

The recent events have sparked a nationwide debate on whether those running these events should be fired or not. No word from Amazon on this year's events, but this even has no shortage of controversy surrounding it, and how it reflects on the Amazon brand.

Flowstone Saga Lands on Steam

2025-06-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

The grassroots Indie developer Impact Gameworks has released their latest puzzle turn-based RPG on Steam.

Fresh off the staggering success of its dungeon crawler Taggledeep, Indie Developer and music composing legend Andrew Versa released Flowstone Saga; An RPG with a unique twist.

Matching blocks for initiative instead of rolling.

Flowstone takes a unique approach to the RPG formula. Rather than rolling die for initiative, and hoping to get lucky, this RPG applies a mechanic where players use a Tetris mini-game in place of rolls, giving the player more control over the success of their character's abilities.

Story-heavy experience.

In the whimsical and dangerous world of Ocean's end, you play as Miera - a heroine who's goal is to build her party and home, with the help of a bunch of friends she finds along the way. Build a social network in the town by helping your neighbors and friends in order to decorate and improve your neighborhood.

This game stands out with the unique ability to switch between Action RPG and turned-based RPG mechanics on the fly, with specific advantages and disadvantages, depending on your strategy. Victory depends not on your strength, but your strategy, and tactical acumen.

Yet another thing that stands out about this game is its music. The two developers -Andrew Aversa and Andrew Lauers are both musicians, with the former being a legendary video game music composer. Together, this game has some high-quality in-game music.

The game has the styling of a classic 16-bit console RPG. Players would feel right at home with its SNES-like graphics, and gameplay.

This game will be $14.39 - 20% off until October 3rd, so if you want to ad this game to your steam library, now is a good time. After that, this g
ame returns to its original price of 17.99.

9th Dawn Remake now Available on iOS, Android

2025-06-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest looking RPGs available on Steam finally makes its way to Android and iOS.

9th Dawn is a classical fantasy RPG that lets you play the whole game with optional camera views. If you play it top-down, you get your classic Final Fantasy-type experience. Switching to first-person mode, however, gives you a first-person experience with modern controls, but the look and styling of Wolfenstien 3D.

2.5D and FPS camera views aren't the only thing that sets this game apart from other RPGs. Veteran RPG makers at Valorware remade the original 9th dawn as an open-world RPG, complete with pet-collecting, and more side quests than most MMOs. There is easily over 70 hours of gameplay, here.

Dynamic and scalable visuals, paying homage to the original.

The 9th dawn remake gets its name from the original 9th Dawn, where its original 2D sprites and maps are replaced with a dynamic 2.5D environment. It is a significant upgrade, while maintaining the look, layout, and gameplay of its original incarnation.

This is what the original 9th Dawn looked like.

The game finally made it out of the confines of STEAM machines, and into the hands of the literally billions of gamers with mobile phones and tablets.

Search for it in the Apple App store, or on Google Play now.

Polygon Butchered after Vox Media sells Publication, Most Staff Laid Off

2025-06-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Could this be the end of Polygon as we know it?

Earlier this month, the second largest game publication Polygon has just lost more than two thirds of its writing staff, and nearly every editor on the payroll.

This comes after the owners of the gaming publication, Vox Media, sold the website to Valnet for some undisclosed amount of money.

The overwhelming majority of staff laid off from Polygon's writing team were members of the Vox Media union, and included the entire union negotiating team, according to PC Gamer.

Many editors and writing staff took to sites like Bluesky to collectively air their grievances, as well as beg for jobs. Among the casualties was Polygon Co-founder and CEO Chris Plante.

I'm no longer with Polygon. If you're hiring, please consider the many talented writers and editors now on the market. Every one of them deserves a spot on your staff. I won't be talking more about the sale because I wasn't involved. Going to hang out with my kid. Taking wins where I can.
— Chris Plante (@plante.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 11:25 AM

The Canadian umbrella company Valnet already owns the vast majority of gaming news and review sites, including TheGamer, HardCore Gamer, Gamerant, FextraLife, and Opencritic, but the corporation's reach extends even further; owning a near virtual monopoly on websites that review movies and comic books, including CBR (Comic Book Reader) and MovieWeb, just to name a few.

Even more concerning than the layoffs is Valnet's less-than-stellar reputation among readers. According to a bombshell investigative report by media watchdog TheWrap, many current -and former- employees are accusing the company of transforming great websites into "click farms," turning many of the journalistic pieces into content mills to farm ad revenue. The piece detailed what many of the company's workers called a content 'sweatshop,' where employees were expected to push out an unreasonable amount of content, irrespective of quality and relevant in information.

The sentiment among the general public isn't much better. In the Reddit thread covering this story alone, many are blaming Valnet as one of the culprits behind the 'enshitification' of the internet, accusing most Gaming news sites of looking -and reading- the same.

Comment
byu/Forestl from discussion
inGames

Valnet and its CEO pushed back on these allegations with a lengthy lawsuit, targeting TheWrap, accusing the investigative piece of being defamatory, and completely untrue. The lawsuit seeks a staggering 64.5 million in damages, citing personal harm the piece caused to CEO Hassan Yousef's reputation, causing emotional distress, as well as effecting the company's bottom line.

Even more impactful than Valnet's growing monopoly on video game news is the wider implications this buyout has on gaming media. This purchase comes mere weeks after Fandom sold Giant Bomb to its employees, and the resurrection of GameInformer. The gaming news industry has been taking Ls everywhere you look, and with the looming threat of AI large language models that already read like most of these writers, the future of written gaming news looks very unstable.

The Unexpected Death of GameInformer

2025-05-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

GameInformer ends its 33-year run abruptly.

We here at RageFor are a little late to the party, but so was Game informer's shutdown.

After over 3 decades of publication worldwide, GameStop abruptly ended its 33-year print media streak, outlasting every other gaming-focused magazine in existence.

GameStop, The parent company in charge of the GameInformer brand, took to X (formerly Twitter) in a post on August 2nd, which read,

"

The Final Level: Farewell from Game Informer 🕹️ pic.twitter.com/tmrEB2TE7U
— Game Informer (@gameinformer) August 2, 2024

"

The announcement came just hours after GameInformer staff were told they would be laid off, leaving the last issue of Game Informer to be published in mid June, despite the July issue being worked on since before the June issue was published. The July issue may never see the light of day, as a result of the publication's unexpected shutdown.

As readers might expect, this left the nearly 200+ members of the staff reeling from the sudden lack of a job. Not only were staff laid off without warning, but the nearly 25 year-old website -and its hundreds of articles- were removed from the website; leaving the staff that wrote them scrambling to preserve their own legacy. This puts many writers -and editors'- portfolio in jeopardy, as they scramble to look for new jobs in this already volatile market.

This represents what many consider the final step towards a post-gaming print media world, as both magazine stands and even printed manuals in game boxes fade out of existence.

The Crew Officially shuts down

2025-01-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

Just when you think the negative discourse surrounding live service games starts to die down, Ivory Tower games and publisher Ubisoft killed another one of their games; proving us right once again.

Not long after the trailer for The Crew: Motorfest was published to the acclaim of many racing enthusiast, The original 'The Crew's' servers will be shutting down by March 24th; rendering the game useless to any gamers who may have purchased it.

On December 14th, Ubisoft would post an announcement on their official website entitled: "An update on The Crew," in which it announces the closure of not only the game itself, but its subsequent online stores, virtual currency packs, and editions, on every platform it was ever sold on.

"...Today, The Crew 1, including all its editions, and virtual currency packs, will be delisted from all online stores. The game will remain playable until March 31st, 2024, for all The Crew 1 owners. After this date, the servers will be shut down, which means that the game will not be accessible anymore on any platform, including PC / Xbox 360 / Xbox One / PlayStation 4 / Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+."

The announcement -which reads like it was crafted by an A.I. that just got laid off on LinkedIn- gives the most predictable excuse anyone who as ever paid for a live service could imagine off the top of their heads; citing "Licensing constraints" and "Server infrastructure."

... We understand this may be disappointing for players still enjoying the game, but it has become a necessity due to upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints. Decommissioning a game, and especially our first one, is not something we take lightly. Our goal remains to provide the best action driving gameplay experience for players and to deliver on it, we are continuing to provide new content and support for The Crew 2 and the recently launched The Crew Motorfest.

Aside from how utterly bullshit the "server infrastructure" excuse is, Ubisoft almost lets the mask slip at the end of the former paragraph, hinting to what many believe was the REAL reason the game was shut down; an attempt to push players into their newer titles, like 'The Crew 2' and 'Motorfest.'

The announcement then states that people who recently purchased the original Crew game can check the refund policy on Ubisoft's website if they want their money back. No word on what exactly qualifies as "recent" to ubisoft, and seems to exclude players who purchased the game for full price when it came out.

This serves as yet one of many outstanding examples of why piracy is always morally correct, and why live service software is a ripoff.

Welcome to my Cave now on iOS, Android

2021-12-12T17:17:00.007-08:00

If you ever wanted to play a real-time strategy game, in the vain of Civilization or Age of Empires, but start it from the very beginning of humanity, instead of some specific 500 B.C.E. era civilization, this is likely the game for you.

Welcome to my Cave is a casual RTS, similar in design to many historically-focused RTS games out there, but with a unique twist on an established formula.

Unlike most RTS games where you build a civilization based on a specific time frame, WTMC let's you start from the early paleolithic era, and scale your technology far beyond the limits of the era you start in. In theory, with enough time and skill, a player can go from a stone-aged civilization to a space-age one, where players can travel the universe.

If this title looks similar to a lot of Kairosoft titles like Pocket Academy and Game Dev Story, this wasn't an accident. Marina Makarevskaya, founder and lead developer at Error300 studios, makes no secret of WTMC's early RTS inspiration.

Screenshot of the gameplay.

I’m a huge fan of Kairosoft games. I’m not even going to pretend I’m not – because anyone seeing Welcome to My Cave is going to spot the similarities. The truth is that I’ve always wanted to make a game like this. We had to come up with an innovative theme in order to stand out from the countless sims already in existence. It needed to be something that hadn’t been done before. One of our team members suggested cavemen. I thought ‘Hmmm, cavemen simulator…’ – and the rest is (pre)history!

You can play this game now, on both iOS and Android. It's free to play, with a full version available for $3.99.

Apple wants to Spy on your iPhone Pictures to 'Save the Children' or some Bull Crap

2021-08-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

Another year, another alarming breach of personal privacy by Apple.

It seemed like it was only yesterday that Apple battled with the FBI - refusing to cooperate with law enforcement when it came to cracking a terror suspect's phone. Tim cook, Apple's CEO and chairman, would give speeches at universities and Macworld conferences about the importance of not treating its users like 'the product.' Apple is well known for its rampant advertising campaigns detailing it's commitment to privacy and user security, But, much like Apple's excuse to slow down your iPhone in the iOS 10 update in order to "save your phone's battery life," it might have all been bullshit.

Recently, reports have surfaced that Apple is planning to search iPhones, iPads and Macs for sexually explicit material of minors. This includes not only the iCloud, but also the internal storage in the device, as well as messages being sent to -and from- the encrypted iMessage system.

The system -Apple claims- was designed to cooperate with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, (NCMEC) and is part of an effort to track known images of child abuse, using a technolgy called perceptual image hashing.

Image hashes are a special signature withing the image file with a string of numbers and letters. Any time the image is modified, some of the letters and numbers change, to indicate it wasn't the original. Perceptual image hashing works differently, matching the images themselves, rather than the resource data behind the image- to find the child sexual abuse material, or CSAM.

So what about images that have been slightly modified? well, Apple has an answer for that too. At first, they claimed they were only searching image hashes, and now they say they have developed a deep learning AI they have trained to search the images themselves to find close approximations to child abuse, even if the image has been changed in some way. They call this technology NeuralHash, and it has been used already in the iCloud platform.

This is nothing new for cloud platforms that host images online. Everything from DropBox, to AWS has some form of hash searching for files hosted on their servers for things like child abuse, and even terrorism. What Apple is planning to do here -in the coming iOS and Mac OS Mojave update- takes it in a direction that experts are claiming sets a very dangerous precedent.

Alex Muffett, a former Facebook staffer, and renowned encryption specialist, took to Twitter to describe what he considers a betrayal of the consumer trust.

although it ostensibly exists to prevent upload of CSAM to their iCloud platform, they are using the user’s device to do it and making the tectonic-shift statement that ‘it’s ok by us to do this sort of thing to user devices.

Muffett went on to voice political concerns over this decision as well, citing the many ways this technology could be misused by less democratic nations around the world.

How such a feature might be repurposed in an illiberal state is fairly easy to visualize. Apple is performing proactive surveillance on client-purchased devices in order to defend its own interests, but in the name of child protection, [...] What will China want them to block?

Matt Green -A cryptographer and professor at John Hopkins University- raised many of the same concerns. He -and others- believe now that Apple has opened the door to scanning images on devices, instead of just images on the cloud, the precedent could lead to pressure from many governments across the world to use this technology for other -less altruistic- purposes, like stifling political protests, or even targeting marginalized groups for political persecution.

This sort of tool can be a boon for finding child pornography in people’s phones. But imagine what it could do in the hands of an authoritarian government? https://t.co/nB8S6hmLE3
— Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) August 5, 2021

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) -an organization founded to protect the rights of people online- has chimed in on this issue, arguing Apple is going in the wrong direction.

Apple’s compromise on end-to-end encryption may appease government agencies in the U.S. and abroad, but it is a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.

Predictably, not everyone is against this idea. There is a vocal part of the social media world who are insisting that this is all a big misunderstanding of what's going on.

There is still debate as to whether the images being scanned on the phone are really being scanned on the phone at all, or just being hashed while they are uploaded to iCloud. Several noted industry professionals don't seem to think so.

David Thiel, a technology and cybersecurity researcher at Stamford University, believes the focus of the concern should be somewhere else.

The CSAM detection uses some clever crypto to match images you back up to iCloud with known CSAM, using a joint operation between your device and Apple. Apple can only decrypt your image info if you have a certain number of known CSAM images detected. 2/
— David Thiel (@elegant_wallaby) August 6, 2021

Apple's proposed approach to 'protecting kids' online didn't end at perceptual image hashing. Apple has plans to take on "sexting", and it's potential to result in people's nudes being leaked or used in extortion attempts, and this is where Thiel finds Apple's approach alarming.

Apparently, there is a separate perceptual image hashing technology that would be built into the iPhone's software, which would detect nude images, and warn users before sending them.

The first assumption being that this detects images taken by a party to the conversation, rather than being generic nudity. Does this system alert on a third-party topless photo? Burt Reynolds' Cosmo centerfold? Nobuyoshi Araki portraits? We have no real details. 8/
— David Thiel (@elegant_wallaby) August 6, 2021

Theil isn't the only academic that isn't totally against the concept, either. Dr. Nicholas Weaver, computer scientist and lecturer at the University of California Berkeley, had this to say.

So this leaves the elephant in the room: the slippery slope.

But as mentioned, there really are TWO slippery slopes here, the oppressive government side and the CSAM side. Apple would rather risk the former than the latter. And I don't blame them one bit.
— Nicholas Weaver (@ncweaver) August 5, 2021

Weaver refers to the EARN IT act of 2020: A U.S. bill passed into law with bipartisan support, which would make companies liable for any CSAM images hosted on their servers -including ones that are encrypted. Hosting images uploaded to the iCloud puts Apple in a precarious position, since the iPhone maker must now balance its privacy-focused marketing with the demands of the U.S. government. Now, they must have one or the other, but they can't have both.

Apple calls concerned people "Screeching minority"

You heard that title right. In an internal memo at Apple dated August 6th, there is a message from Marita Rodriguez, director of strategic partnerships at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, (NCMEC) which says the following:

Team Apple,
I wanted to share a note of encouragement to say that everyone at NCMEC is SO PROUD of each of you and the incredible decisions you have made in the name of prioritizing child protection.
It’s been invigorating for our entire team to see (and play a small role in) what you unveiled today.
I know it’s been a long day and that many of you probably haven’t slept in 24 hours. We know that the days to come will be filled with the screeching voices of the minority.
Our voices will be louder.
Our commitment to lift up kids who have lived through the most unimaginable abuse and victimizations will be stronger.
During these long days and sleepless nights, I hope you take solace in knowing that because of you many thousands of sexually exploited victimized children will be rescued, and will get a chance at healing and the childhood they deserve.
Thank you for finding a path forward for child protection while preserving privacy.

What's interesting to note here is that a large chunk of the push back against this policy is coming from Apple employees themselves. On August 12th, Reuters reported an alarming number of employees flooding Apple's internal Slack messaging system with concerns about the system's potential for being misused.

Apple employees have flooded an Apple internal Slack channel with more than 800 messages on the plan announced a week ago, workers who asked not to be identified told Reuters. Many expressed worries that the feature could be exploited by repressive governments looking to find other material for censorship or arrests, according to workers who saw the days-long thread.
Past security changes at Apple have also prompted concern among employees, but the volume and duration of the new debate is surprising, the workers said. Some posters worried that Apple is damaging its leading reputation for protecting privacy.

This is an awkward circumstance coming from a company that just tried to write off its opposition's concerns as a "vocal minority."

NeuralHash reverse-engineered on GitHub

Reddit user and developer Asuhariet Ygvar claims to have reverse-engineered the algorithm NeuralHash is using to detect CSAM on Apple devices. He says that NeuralHash was already included with iOS as early as version 14.3, and that using code provided by the iOS binary, he managed to re-build the entire program using Python. Ygvar even provides source codes so that other Reddit devs can build it themselves.

According to Ygvar, there is a 7 step process to the perceptual image hashing used by Apple to detect CSAM.

Convert image to RGB.
Resize image to 360x360.
Normalize RGB values to [-1, 1] range.
Perform inference on the NeuralHash model.
Calculate dot product of a 96x128 matrix with the resulting vector of 128 floats.
Apply binary step to the resulting 96 float vector.
Convert the vector of 1.0 and 0.0 to bits, resulting in 96-bit binary data.

When questioned by a reddit user if the algorithm compiled by Ygvar is the same one Apple is using now, Ygvar said this:

First of all, the model files have prefix NeuralHashv3b-, which is the same term as in Apple's document.
Secondly, in this document Apple described the algorithm details in Technology Overview -> NeuralHash section, which is exactly the same as what I discovered. For example, in Apple's document:
Second, the descriptor is passed through
a hashing scheme to convert the N floating-point numbers to M bits. Here, M is much smaller than the
number of bits needed to represent the N floating-point numbers.
And as you can see from here and here N=128 and M=96.
Moreover, the hash generated by this script almost doesn't change if you resize or compress the image, which is again the same as described in Apple's document.

It wasn't long before another Reddit user was able to use the information from Ygvar's build of NeuralHash to create a 'collision' -or false match- with two completely unrelated images.

This is the very circumstance many experts in the field feared would happen. If the system could somehow be cracked, it could be used to detect false positives, or even false negatives - completely defeating the purpose of NeuralHash.

An Apple spokesperson told Motherboard yesterday that despite Ygvar's findings, the version of NeuralHash (v3B) that was reverse engineered isn't the same one being used by Apple going forward.

Apple has been spying on you for years

Back in 2019 Apple was caught eavesdropping on conversations through the Siri user assistant. After weeks of publicly denying it was happening, the company finally apologized for it, once it was revealed that the company shared recordings of conversations users were having to third parties.

For most non-Apple users, getting the message across to iPhone users that a multi-billion dollar technocratic monopoly doesn't have your best interests at heart is like trying to tell a christian that Jesus Christ didn't die for our sins. There is a sort of alt lifestyle associated with the brand that has taken on almost religious proportions in the past 20 years. However, this appears to be the last straw for many Apple users. After buying products marketed on superior privacy to its competitors, Apple has proudly gone even further than others to breach the trust of their consumers.

What the Crypto Market Fall means for Mining and GPU prices

2021-06-18T15:43:00.006-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, the cryptocurrency market has been falling off of a cliff at terminal velocity, only occasionally jumping to a manageable –less heart attack-inducing– decline from its February-march highs, and there is talk among gamers that this will somehow make GPU prices drop to a price that doesn't involve donating both of your kidneys for one. This is not likely, and here is why...

Let's start with what cryptocurrency is, and what gaming video cards –or GPUs– have to do with it.

What is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptography is an encryption system that works by spreading chunks of a certain type of information over a series of computers or –ASIC systems– across the world. This information is usually something called smart contracts, which is just a regular contract, that spreads itself all over the place until the moment someone wants to verify its authenticity. Since the information is divided, spread, and copied onto multiple computer systems across the world, it's nearly impossible to fake a smart contract without the other divided copies proving the fake one is a fraud. This is ideal for financial transactions, which is where Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin come in.

With most crypto, the currency itself is not the primary focus of the technology, but the byproduct of it. In Ethereum's case, as well as many of its derivatives like Chainlink and Minds Token, the "token" or cryptocurrency, is a reward for running a piece of the network. Hosting this data on your own computer gives you a trade-able cryptocurrency full of a string of rare numbers that can be traded for other -more valuable- currencies. Since the currency has a perceived value, a money market has formed behind it, with people betting on the cryptocurrency's futures, using websites like Crypto.com and Coinbase.

What does this have to do with graphics cards being expensive?

Well, the vast majority of processing power for cryptography requires APUs, which you can only find in two types of machines: ASICs –the purpose-built machines designed for specific computation-heavy tasks like encryption and cryptography– or modern gaming video cards, which have similar capabilities, only the APUs that power the super high resolution graphics can be re-purposed for other uses, such as cryptography. ASICs (Application-specific integrated circuits) are often in the tens of thousands of dollars range, and so modern day video cards are a more cost-effective way to get the same results.

Unfortunately for gamers, this means large corporations looking to capitalize on this booming crypto industry, buy up the vast majority of gaming GPUs. This was what happened way back in 2019 with the very first "GPU crisis", as major overseas companies would buy tens of thousands of gaming GPUs, fly the bulk of those GPUs overseas on private jumbo jets, drying up the GPU market for everyone else. This scarcity of gaming cards for gamers is what drove the horrifying prices we have today.

It won't get better any time soon.

Since Elon Musk likes to send emojis and say words on Twitter to screw up the crypto market, crypto stock prices have been taking repeated nose dives, with only the bull buyers keeping the entire market afloat. If you want a gaming GPU without having to miss two months rent, you might think the price is going to go down, since their value for crypto is less. Unfortunately, there is one more problem: The global chip shortage.

There just aren't enough chips on the market –anywhere in the world– to make a large enough inventory to drive the value/price down. Ever since the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, supply chains for factories all over the world were crippled for over a year. The global economy nearly came to a screeching halt, as components for chips that used to come from several countries, had closed borders in a failed attempt to stop the spread. Typically, chip makers are ahead of the system; making more chips than they would ever need. Now, they are behind, and demand for chips is the highest its ever been, and this is driving up the manufacturing costs. Higher costs to make GPUs is even worse than high demand from crypto miners, since the cause of the price hike in GPUs isn't caused by the artificial scarcity of the crypto market, but by the very real limitations of post-pandemic manufacturing. Not enough manpower, factories, or hours in a day to meet –let alone exceed– the demand for silicone chips means these god-awful prices might be here a while.

If you're still a PC gamer after hearing that, your best bet is to buy a previous gen GPU. Don't even bother with current gen until the demand for the GPU is low enough to drive the price to a reasonable range. Of course, the "triple-A" game developers will inevitably try and manipulate the market by forcing their games to require cutting-edge hardware to run, making it nearly impossible to run their games at a decent frame-rate unless they buy into the current-gen ponzi scheme, but don't fall for it. You are losing money the more you fall for it.

Twitch Warns Streamers VODs will get DMCA Strikes (Again)

2021-05-29T08:49:00.001-07:00

Less than five months after Twitch published a stark warning on their blog about the coming waves of copyright strikes against video game streamers, Twitch has once again sent out an email to partners with more dire news. This time, it's not about the streams themselves, but the recordings of the live streams that are added to the channels later.

Videos on demand (or VODs) of existing Twitch streams have become the latest target of the Recording Industry Association of America (or RIAA,) and Warner Music Group, in their never-ending war on the general public, as Twitch warns of thousands of live stream copyright claims filed against Twitch partners as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright act. (DMCA.)

As a result, several popular streamers have already had multiple DMCA strikes on videos from months -even several years- ago, and if the trend continues, several of your favorite streamers can be banned from the platform overnight.

One popular Minecraft streamer Tubbo is already on the verge of losing his account, garnering several copyright strikes already as the result of Music he plays in the background while he streams.

i seriously do hope that tubbo takes the DMCA stuff seriously because if he doesn’t delete those vods with the copywrited music that he loses his alt, his main AND his ability to be on other people’s streams
— max (@tubbosoot) May 28, 2021

To make matters worse, if there has already a claim on a video, only the copyright claim holder can access the video at all. This means some old videos with claimed music can't be edidet or deleted, and the claims can pile up, even if its only from ONE video.

here's his tweet about ithttps://t.co/ZauyHmZGGL
— vanth 💥 (@vilburco) May 28, 2021

Yesterday, May 28th, Twitch sent out an email to partners, informing them that there were about 1000 individual strikes affecting a number of different channels, and that more are likely on their way.

We recently received a batch of DMCA takedown notifications with about 1,000 individual claims from music publishers. All of the claims are for VODs, and the vast majority target streamers listening to background music while playing video games or IRL streaming.

Twitch is suggesting users combat the onslaught of DMCA claims on VODs by deleting as many them as possible from their channels, as soon as possible.

Some are worrying that this measure is not enough, and that Twitch needs to step up and do something about it. A popular World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold thinks it's time for Twitch streamers to openly call out the ridiculous copyright claims.

Another round of DMCA strikes going out on Twitch

Streamers and YouTubers should get together and bribe (lobby) politicians to change these ridiculous and antiquated laws

Embarrassing that the internet still follows a law written in 1998
— Zack (@Asmongold) May 28, 2021

Right now, dealing with the onslaught of dubious copyright claims on entire videos is like staring down the barrel of a gun, since the record labels that own all the background music currently hold all the power here. One has to wonder if deleting VODs to cover our tracks will be enough.

Twitch Responds to Angry Streamers after DMCA Takedowns in New Blog Post

2020-11-13T18:37:00.004-08:00

In a world of free-form content creation on the internet, it was the Digital Millennium Copyright act that once laid waste to YouTube, and now that menace comes for Twitch.tv.

Over the past few weeks, dozens of content creators on Twitch have had their videos flagged and even removed for "community guideline strikes". The problem is, Nobody knew exactly what the guideline being violated was, until just a few days ago, when Twitch announced what it was. A recent tweet by the Twitch.tv Twitter account finally confirmed what we all suspected: Major music publishers are issuing DMCA takedown notices on any videos or streams containing copyrighted background music.

Your questions around music and copyright deserve more complete responses than 280 characters allows. We appreciate your continuing feedback and have compiled a list of your questions that we will be answering on an ongoing basis. https://t.co/8tr9489WmF
— Twitch (@Twitch) November 13, 2020

For some content creators on the world's largest live streaming platform, this meant temporary bans across large swaths of the userbase, including some of the top streamers on the website.

It wasn't long before Twitch users would get an e-mail from the Twitch representatives, referencing a long -and angry- blog post that functioned as a FAQ. This e-mail opens with the following paragraph:

Today, we published a blog post that addresses creators' questions and concerns about the recent uptick in DMCA takedowns from music rights holders. While this may not affect you directly, it's important that every creator understands what DMCA is, how to ensure your streams don't infringe on the work of others (and what to do if they may), and what changes we're making to help make navigating DMCA (and similar laws) easier for everyone. Our full message is included below.

The e-mail itself contains the entire blog post from the Twitch.tv website, which opens with the following statement:

Creators, we hear you. Your frustration and confusion with recent music-related copyright issues is completely justified. Things can–and should–be better for creators than they have been recently, and this post outlines our next steps to get there. Moving forward, we’ll be more transparent with what’s happening and what tools and resources we’re building to help.

Copyright law and the DMCA are not small or simple topics, so this won’t be a brief post. We’ll do our best to keep the legalese to a minimum, though there’s bound to be technical terms here and there.

The post is indeed long, and it is recommended that anyone who uses the platform read it in it's entirety here. Suffice to say, Twitch recommends that its users erase any videos containing any copyrighted music tracks.

The DMCA is a copyright protection law, designed to protect intellectual property owners from having their work stolen for profit by rival companies. Passed into law by congress in 1998, This law was originally intended to extend much of the same protections patent owners have from getting their ideas ripped off to copyright holders of music, art, and photography. However, there are very few instances of the DMCA being used the way it was intended. Most of the time, the DMCA has been used as a means of censorship, or a way for companies to use platforms like YouTube to rob small content creators of their ad revenue, via YouTube's severely broken copyright claim system.

There is a clause in the DMCA law known as the "fair use doctrine", stating that anyone who uses copyrighted content for the purposes of general education (I.E. teaching someone how to play a song) or in a "transformative" way, (I.E. heavily edited and modified,) would be exempt from lawsuits or restrictions under the DMCA law. However, the fair use clause does very little in practice when a major corporation wants to bully a smaller content creator, since major music and film companies like Warner Music group and Sony Pictures have a ton of money, and at least 5 -or 10- lawyers ready to fuck your shit up.

Twitch streamers were hit particularly hard by this recent DMCA attack since it involved the music featured as the ambient background of almost every Twitch stream ever made. It's no secret that the overwhelming majority of songs featured within any given stream is a collage of full-length copyrighted songs, often owned by some of the largest music publishers in the world, so it was only a matter of time before twitch users would suffer a similar fate to YouTubers with similar content.

It seems like the best option for Twitch streamers now is to feature as many royalty free background music as possible to avoid DMCA takedowns.

See how this library in Minecraft helps journalists around the world

2020-03-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Human rights organisation 'Reporters Without Boarders' created a giant Minecraft library.

On the surface, this massive structure filling a whole island would be a creative wonder in and of itself, but this building hides an important secret.

Designed and maintained by an organization known as Reporters without Boarders, (or the RSF,) this giant Minecraft structure is a library, housing thousands of news articles.

It was designed as a safe haven for news that would normally be suppressed by despotic regimes, and undemocratic governments that would otherwise censor these topics from public consumption. The RWB calls it a "loophole to overcome censorship."

Minecraft is a sandbox block-building open world game, designed by small indie developer Mojang. Since it was purchased by Microsoft in 2014, Minecraft has become one of the top selling videogames of all time, and has a staggering global player base of 145 million online.

According to the RSF, The structure took three months to build, and is made from 12.5 million blocks.The flexibility of Minecraft as a sandbox world-building game gives players a surprisingly large verity of possible things to build. The 10 story building houses a wide variety of things, including books, as well as entire entire bookshelves. In the case of the 'uncensored Minecraft library', the books are entire articles, archiving important information from around the world that would otherwise be heavily censored or destroyed by countries that aren't fans of the free press.

On the official RSF website, Managing director of the German branch of the RSF had this to say:

In many countries around the world, there is no free access to information. Web- sites are blocked, independent newspapers are banned and the press is controlled by the state. Young people grow up without being able to form their own opinions. By using Minecraft, the world’s most popular computer game, as a medium, we give them access to independent information.

RSF opened the Minecraft server hosting the library to the public on "World anti-censorship day", March 12th, and is available to the general public.

Google is really bad at getting developers for Stadia

2020-03-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Usually, when a new game console or platform is in its development stage, console developers put forth incentives for publishers to port games on their platform. Either they offer a certain amount of money, or -in some cases- free development kits for developers to get their product on the platform. console makers are competing with other console makers for a developer's effort and time.

Stadia, on the other hand, clearly doesn't give a shit. Google is not only having trouble securing larger triple-A titles from some of the industry's biggest publishers, but reports from across the internet seem to confirm Google's lack of commitment to convincing smaller studios to port their games.

Business Insider contributor Ben Gilbert spoke to a developer -who wished to remain anonymous- who said the following:

"We were approached by the Stadia team," one prominent indie developer told me. "Usually with that kind of thing, they lead with some kind of offer that would give you an incentive to go with them." But the incentive "was kind of non-existent," they said. "That's the short of it."

This, of course, isn't the only developer who echoed these complaints. There are numerous similar stories out there that say pretty much the same things: Either Stadia's monetary offers are too low, or non-existent. Business insider also spoke to a lead publisher, who expressed that once they were approached by Stadia's reps, that the money they were offering the publisher was “so low that it wasn’t even part of the conversation.”

Another publisher -who wished to remain anonymous- said that their studio declined Stadia's offers, citing that “there was no positive reason to move forward. There wasn’t really anything to want us to get in the door other than to be the first on the platform”

Google's legacy of bad ideas

Most developers out there are apprehensive about Google's long-term support of the platform, and one can hardly blame them. Google has a proverbial laundry list of I.P.'s that they abandoned shortly after they were launched, with most only lasting less than five years. When we covered the death of Google Plus in late 2018, we cited how little of a shit Google gave about the platform while it was alive; repeatedly butchering the U.I., and giving the platform little -or no- moderation from spam bots.

Google's illustrious history of only propping up one of their ideas for about a year has consumers apprehensive about the platform as well, with many questioning whether the service will be around in another five years.

Google Stadia's Attempts To Attract Developers Are Worthlessly Pathetic https://t.co/mdAWmkSV6s
— Sterling! (@JimSterling) March 5, 2020

As you can see, Stadia is getting amazing games and amazing support from developers/publishers. https://t.co/oA6zqXC50N
— Connor Duffus (@masterduffus) March 12, 2020

E3 is cancelled due to COVID19 risk

2020-03-11T16:19:00.002-07:00

If you ever needed an excuse to do nothing but sit in your house and interact with your fellow human beings through the relative safety of VR chat, now is the time.

After careful consideration, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has officially cancelled E3 for 2020.

The news comes less than a month after Sony cancelled its plans for PAX East for the same reasons. Back then, however, an E3 spokesperson said that the event would continue unchanged. However -in light of recent events- the ESA has went back on their decision.

The ESA made the following statement:

After careful consultation with our member companies regarding the health and safety of everyone in our industry--our fans, our employees, our exhibitors and our longtime E3 partners--we have made the difficult decision to cancel E3 2020, scheduled for June 9-11 in Los Angeles,

This decision came just hours after the New York Times reported that the World Heath Organization declared COVID19 a 'pandemic'.

The ESA says it's working with attendees in order to give out "full refunds".

The best promotional Image E3 ever had is for an event that isn't going to happen now.

Since the event was canceled, we now have confirmation that both Microsoft and Ubisoft have plans to host their own digital events, citing both Coronavirus concerns, as well as the fact that they now don't have a physical venue to showcase their games. No word yet from Nintendo on this issue, or whether they will be hosting their own events.

What is the Coronavirus? (In case you've been living under a rock)

Corona chan is the anthropomorphized interpretation of the deadly strain of SARS that originated in Wuhan China. Created by some anons on 4chan, it takes a cynical approach to the fears surrounding the deadly pathogen.

COVID19, (A.K.A. Corronavirus) is a close relative of the SARS virus. It's a highly contagious virus that can quickly progress into multiple organ failures, and Pneumonia.

So far, there are over 4,000 confirmed deaths worldwide.

Again, a great E3 poster that no one is going to use now that the thing is cancelled.

So far, the landscape of gaming announcements is going to be scattered, with multiple separate announcements from multiple studios and publishers. Stay tuned for more news that should have been at E3.

Geforce Now Streaming Service is Losing Game Publishers

2020-02-29T12:00:00.002-08:00

Cloud gaming is having its worst period since Onlive was introduced in 2011.

Much like Google's Stadia, Nvidia's GeForce Now service is having a really hard time during its launch.

Earlier this month, GeForce Now Exited its beta stage with some unfortunate news. Now, the service will no longer host Activision Blizzard games.

The decision is said to come after a licensing dispute between Nvidia and publisher Activision. We reached out to Activision for comment, but did not get an immediate response.

GeForce Now loses even more games?

Here's a random wallpaper, because I couldn't figure out what else to put here.

But the Nvidia streaming platform has more bad news: If losing one major publisher wasn't enough, now they're losing two.

Bethesda Softworks is now pulling most of its games from the GeForce now service, including heavy hitters like Fallout 4 and Skyrim. The only game that may be staying on the platform at all would be Wolfenstein: Youngblood; one of their worst games.

But don't worry, game streaming fans: Nvidia's Geforce blog has a post from the 20th of February that I think is supposed to make you think these games are coming back.

This trial is an important transitional period where gamers, developers and publishers can try the premium experience with minimal commitment while we continue to refine our offering.
As we approach a paid service, some publishers may choose to remove games before the trial period ends. Ultimately, they maintain control over their content and decide whether the game you purchase includes streaming on GeForce NOW. Meanwhile, others will bring games back as they continue to realize GeForce NOW’s value (stay tuned for more on that).

What is GeForce Now?

[INSERT RANDOM NVIDIA WALLPAPER TO PAD OUT THE LENGTH OF THE ARTICLE HERE]

Unlike Google Stadia's disastrous launch, full of false promises and a handful of games, GeForce Now shows a lot of potential, with its massive game library, and a $5 per-month subscription. But there's a catch: All the games on GeForce Now, you have to have already purchased elsewhere, like Steam, and, you can't play any games that the publisher and Nvidia don't already approve, which is where this licensing problems comes from.

Temporary setback or not, cloud gaming is not looking good for 2020. Between North America's notoriously weak broadband coverage, and cloud service's tendency to disappear any product you pay for without notice, I think we can stop pretending to be excited about cloud gaming. Let's be honest; we're not, and neither are you.

Bioware wants to Overhaul Anthem?

2020-02-10T12:59:00.002-08:00

Social media is going apeshit over the news of Bioware's most recent announcement, and people are speculating that Anthem is going to be re-invented from the ground up.

Bioware has hinted that they are planning to overhaul the core Anthem experience in their latest announcement, following in the footsteps of games like Warframe and No man's Sky.

The announcement came to us from the official Bioware blog, by way of Bioware General Manager Casey Hudson.

Over the last year, the team has worked hard to improve stability, performance and general quality of life while delivering three seasons of new content and features. We have also heard your feedback that Anthem needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression and a more fulfilling end game. So we recognize that there’s still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience, and it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion.

Hudson then goes on to vaguely describe the changes we can expect from Anthem in the future by saying this:

Over the coming months we will be focusing on a longer-term redesign of the experience, specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges and progression with meaningful rewards – while preserving the fun of flying and fighting in a vast science-fantasy setting. And to do that properly we’ll be doing something we’d like to have done more of the first time around – giving a focused team the time to test and iterate, focusing on gameplay first.

Bioware plans to continue the Cataclysm event into anthem's anniversary. No word on what comes after that, or even a definite timetable on when players can expect the improvements they were asking for.

Screen-cap of the original post on blog.bioware.com

Anthem had one of the most legendarily disappointing launches of the past decade, rivaled only by game publisher EA's other big multiplayer game, Battlefront II. The game was initially announced in 2012, and was called Beyond, right up to the last minute, just before the game was teased again in 2017. The game was missing most of the features that Bioware said the game would have were missing when it launched, and had one of the biggest micro transaction controversies of 2019.

If this announcement has any truth to it, this could mean that the game is looking at a major comeback.

China is Making its own x86 CPUs | Zhaoxin KX-6000-Series

2020-02-01T09:48:00.001-08:00

China is finally making its own x86 chips, and they are already on sale.

The last time a Chinese company made an x86 CPU, they were an affiliate manufacturer of AMD's -then brand new- EPYC line of CPUs. They wanted to get the Zen-based CPUs out on time, so they enlisted the help of THAIC (Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co,) to help manufacture the chips and make the deadline.

Today, Zhaoxin -an entirely different company based in Shanghai- got a licence to produce chips based on the x86 architecture from Intel, and wants to compete in the CPU market.

This image borrowed from Zhaoxin's website.

The Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6000 series processors are not only ready to ship, but they were already on the market. The KaiXian KX-U6780A is on sale on the Chinese retail site Taobao.

the KX-U6780A has 8 cores, 8 threads, and 8MB of L2 Cache. It even supports Directx 11 and modern PCI standards like PCIe 3. and things like SSE4.2. This chip also has a Dual-channel Memory controller, as all CPUs should these days.

There are some downsides though. Despite clocking in at 2.7GHz, the CPU has no L3 cache, and no support for DX 12 (At least not officially.)

The roadmap for Zhaoxin's technology down the road.

Right now, there is only one board manufacturer for the KX line of chips, and that comes to us from Shenzhen-based company Cjoyin Electronics. They make a board called the C1888 for the KX,

The CPU is closest to the 2012's AMD FX line of processors in terms of performance, clocking in at around a 1300 score on Cinabench R20.

Amazon is Planning the Next Big Leap in VR with 5G Internet

2020-01-29T18:52:00.000-08:00

Amazon wants to make VR WAY faster.

According to roadtovr.com, Amazon has been promising the fastest streaming speeds with its new online platform, coming to Amazon Web Services. They call it "wavelength", and it's slated to be the best possible streaming platform.

Wavelength, according it an Amazon blog, uses what they are calling "edge computing" to cut down on the latency problems most over-the-web streaming services have.

Edge computing refers to a unique way two computers communicate over a network. Rather than data going over the internet, and having to pass through several data centers and checkpoints to send data over the web, Edge computing simply passes the data over from one single computer to another through a 5G network. This drastically cuts down on syncing and latency issues, since data on Wavelength doesn't have to pass through 4 or 5 checkpoints to get to the user.

Today, application traffic has to travel from a device to a cell tower to metro aggregation sites to regional aggregation sites and to the Internet before it can access resources running in AWS. These network hops can result in latencies of more than 100 milliseconds. This prevents developers from realizing the full potential of 5G to address low-latency use-cases [...] Wavelength addresses these problems by bringing AWS services to the edge of the 5G network, minimizing the latency to connect to an application from a mobile device. […] [Wavelength] allows developers to build the next generation of ultra-low latency applications using the familiar AWS services, APIs, and tools they already use today—eliminating the need for developers to negotiate for space and equipment with multiple telecommunications providers, and stitch together application deployment and operations through different management interfaces, before they can begin to deploy their applications.

One of the "low-latency use cases" Amazon is referring to is VR, and Amazon has had some very out-there ideas when it comes to ways of implementing it. Back in 2017, Amazon Prime video started including VR movies and TV shows into its subscription-based service. Not only that, but Amazon has also been talking about a VR shopping experience for its online store.

Sony PS5 Rumor: Someone Just Spoiled the VR Announcement?

2020-01-24T15:10:00.000-08:00

Brace yourselves: The PSVR2 is coming.

Ever since Sony bowed out of E3 in 2020, Rumors have been circulating that February of 2020 will mark the time of the official PS5 reveal. However, with the most recent leak to date, Sony might not have any surprises left for its press conference.

Turns out, the Playstation VR2 headset was set to be revealed at Sony's New York press conference, according to TechBriefly.

In 2020, Sony will release PlayStation 5 and a new version of the PlayStation VR headset (PSVR), which will further expand the high-end VR user base – the group intends to support this device with its current software package

PSVR had a moderate level of success when it was first launched in October of 2016, selling a grand total of 5 million units globally. So, the PSVR2 seems like the logical next step for the future of gaming.

With a seemingly non-stop barrage of new PS4 leaks in 2019, it's hard to imagine Sony has any surprises left to show. We already know what every version of the PS5 dev kit looks like, and there are even rumors of a leaked controller floating around.

Specific details about the PS5 specs have leaked as well, even some claiming that the SSD in the PS5 will be double the speed of the Xbox series X's drive.

Let's hope this turns out out be true, because VR needs to have all the competition it can get to drive prices down.

Xbox Series X Images Leaked on Twitter. What's That Port on the Back?

2020-01-23T14:44:00.001-08:00

Xbox series X got leaked?

From the hardware company that brought you a black box, comes yet another black box, but this time, it's a brand new black box, which makes it better than the last black box.

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox series X will launch about a year from now, marking its stake in the next console generation. Despite being fairly open about how X this box is going to be, Microsoft isn't really saying much in terms of what it can do, or how this Xbox is going to differ from the last. We know it's going to be about 4 times as powerful, and that it will be powered by an AMD Ryzen chip, but not much else.

That hasn't stopped info on the Xbox from leaking online, with everything from alleged system specs, and even a look at the console no one has seen before.

Some leaked images popped up on twitter recently, giving us a candid pictures of what is alleged to be the Xbox Series X.

@IdleSloth1984 @blueisviolet @XcloudTimdog pic.twitter.com/qmVlhTTaqi
— Doug - XBOX SERIES X (@Doug_DragoX) January 22, 2020

These images have lead people to ask what the mystery port is on the back.

My big question is what in the fuck is that mystery slot on the back there beside the HDMI port? https://t.co/0FhpZLmeJA
— AlphaOmegaSin (@AlphaOmegaSin) January 22, 2020

Ordinarily, most leaks have to be taken with a grain of salt. They could easily be fake, but there is at least some evidence that these are legit. For one, Gizmodo ran the leaked Xbox series X's serial number and found that it shows up as "generic unknown device" on Microsoft's website.

Google Stadia Blames Linux for Bad Stadia Port, Linus Torvalds Had This to Say

2020-01-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

While Stadia devs blame the Linux Kernel for the lag, Linus Torvalds blames developers.

Google Stadia has had a predictably glitchy and lackluster launch in 2019. Many of the problems gamers predicted would happen when Stadia exited the development phase were proven right when the Stadia was made public this past November –not the least of which was issues with milliseconds–long LAG. But a developer named Malte Skarupke has shed some light on what he believes the problem is: Spinlocks.

I overheard somebody at work complaining about mysterious stalls while porting Rage 2 to Stadia. The only thing those mysterious stalls had in common was that they were all using spinlocks. I was curious about that because I happened to be the person who wrote the spinlock we were using. The problem was that there was a thread that spent several milliseconds trying to acquire a spinlock at a time when no other thread was holding the spinlock. Let me repeat that: The spinlock was free to take, yet a thread took multiple milliseconds to acquire it. In a video game, where you have to get a picture on the screen every 16ms or 33ms (depending on if you’re running at 60Hz or 30Hz), a stall that takes more than a millisecond is terrible. Especially if you’re literally stalling all threads.

Spinlocks, –for those of you who don't speak fluent programming– is one of the ways a computer waits for input from a program, and processes a programs' request. We call these requests "treads". Since dozens of threads can be brought to a computer at the same time, software developers would use spinlock commands in their code to cause every thread to wait its turn, so each request can be handled one at a time. Imagine a revolving door that blocks whoever is behind it until one person gets through; hence the term 'spinlock'. In linux, this whole spinlock thing is handled by the Linux Kernel event scheduler.

Spinlock, isn't the only way a computer can handle the kind of traffic threads create. There are multiple methods that a programmer can use to control thread traffic, such as Mutex, Semaphore, and "Busy wait." Sharpuke suggests that "most mutex implementations are really good, that most spinlock implementations are pretty bad and that the Linux scheduler is OK but far from ideal."

Sharupke spent months investigating the problem himself, and his conclusion seems to be that the Linux implementation of Spinlocks kernel scheduler is causing problems with games ported to Stadia. Since the Stadia datacenters are built on Google's implementation of Linux, and since the Chrome OS and Android Kernel are all based on the Linux kernel, these milaseconds-long delays could be multiplied on any games that use the Spinlock method for event handling. The developer settled on using Mutex to handle threads, suggesting that it's faster.

Linus Torvalds reply

But the patron inventor of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, did his own digging into the issue. According to Phoronix, Torvalds investigated these reports, calling them to be "pure garbage."

In a long-ass email thread response to Phoronix, Torvalds had this to say:

The whole post seems to be just wrong, and is measuring something completely different than what the author thinks and claims it is measuring. First off, spinlocks can only be used if you actually know you're not being scheduled while using them...It basically reads the time before releasing the lock, and then it reads it after acquiring the lock again, and claims that the time difference is the time when no lock was held. Which is just inane and pointless and completely wrong. That's pure garbage.

Torvalds seems to be suggesting that developers are using spinlocks wrong, or that they shouldn't be using it in the first place. Rather than measuring how long spinlock takes to unlock after receiving a thread, they're measuring how long it takes spinlock to get a thread in the first place, and the time it takes sitting with nothing to do.

Torvalds suggested a fix.

Use a lock where you tell the system that you're waiting for the lock, and where the unlocking thread will let you know when it's done, so that the scheduler can actually work with you, instead of (randomly) working against you...I repeat: do not use spinlocks in user space, unless you actually know what you're doing. And be aware that the likelihood that you know what you are doing is basically nil.

Well, there you have it. It's not the Linux kernel event Scheduler that's the problem; it's the fact that developers are using it wrong, or shouldn't be using it in the first place.

Linus then goes on to write a very long thread of posts on RealWorldTech.com, where he explains in great detail, the correct way to use the Linux Kernel scheduler.

Spinlocks is implemented differently, depending on the OS. In Windows, Spinlock commands are used mostly for user input. On linux, -an operating system used mostly in datacenters and online networking- spinlock mostly revolves around backend code, or things that don't require user input, hence why Linus suggests not to use spinlock commands when programming for "user space", I.E, any keystrokes or mouse clicks.

Since Linus chimed in, only time will tell if his suggestions will sort out the myriad of lag problems the Stadia already has.

Apple Wants to Get Into Esports with a Gaming PC?

2020-01-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

"Yeah, I game on my Mac. Is that a problem? -Glorious Mac Gaming Master Race, playing a multiplayer shooter at a local coffee shop, circa January 2020 (Colorized)

When the gamers think of gaming, the last thing anyone thinks of is a Macintosh, but, according to a rumor from computer tabloid Patently Apple, Tim Cook's company plans to take Apple into the E-sports scene this year.

According to the website, rumor on the streets of Taiwan claim that Apple wants to build a high-end gaming PC of some kind, in order to break into the E-Sports scene, with an estimated retail price tag of $5,000.

All of Apple's off-shore component manufacturers, including Quanta, TSMC, Hozun, Kechang, and Delta are reportedly in on it, with plans to create either an All-in-one PC, or a laptop with a massive screen.

If this turned out to be true, Apple's foray into the E-Sports scene should surprise no one. Apple has been making big moves into the gaming market already, with the release of iOS 13's Apple Arcade subscription service. Though we may not know what it is Apple is trying to manufacture, we can speculate that Apple plans to leverage its massive iOS gaming market share, with thousands of games representing well over 24% of all iPhone and iPad apps on the platform.

According to researcher Christina Gough of Statista.com, the global E-Sports market is valued at nearly 865 million U.S. dollars on 2018, and is expected to reach 1.8 billion by 2022.

This is the stareotype Apple has to overcome in the gaming scene.

But if the rumors are true, and Apple wants to build a traditional gaming PC, then Apple may have to take drastic steps to change their image in the minds of gamers. Macintosh PCs -Particularly MacOS- have never been considered the ideal platform for gaming. Sure, games were always available for Mac, but the historically scarce availability of games, coupled with almost NO exclusive titles, on top of a bloated and inefficient operating system like current MacOS makes Mac gaming less than appealing to most PC Master Racists.

And then there's the alleged price...

This debate has raged on longer than I've been alive.

The rumor perpetuates Apple's long-running stereotype of overpricing hardware. Gamers -particularly PC gamers- typically don't spend $5,000 on any PC they build for gaming. In fact, PC gamers see the low pricetag for building an entry-level PCs as a selling point that gives PCs an edge over consoles. Those $5,000+ prices are typically reserved for ASICs (Computers designed for mining cryptocurrency) or mid-range workstations built for film production and deep learning A.I. Most games on the market barely require 8GB of system RAM for high settings, and the bulk of the price of the system usually comes down to the CPU and Graphics card.

Apple, on the other hand, charges -on average- a $900 premium on any Mac product they sell, when compared to similar PCs, and typically carry system specs inferior to a comparable PC of the same price.

The alleged pricetag is also drastically out of step with the price range of current American consumers. Most gamers between the ages of 18-35 are already out-priced when it comes to spending anywhere near $5,000, when you compare rising wages with the weakened purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. Most Americans don't even earn that dollar amount in a month, so, even assuming the average consumer can save the money, the time it would take to save the needed amount to buy this thing would make that particular model obsolete.

Who would this be marketed to?

But maybe Apple's theoretical Gaming PC isn't marketed to consumers. What if -like touring cars- this is a specially designed machine that only sponsored competitors will be using?

A price tag like that would only ever make sense in the world of E-Sports. Competitive FPS pros often sing the praises of 120hz 4K monitors. An 8K screen alone would set you back well over $1000, so factoring in 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and potentially, a core i9 or AMD Ryzen 7 system, and you have about half the price of the rumored mac already. And what about video cards? having two Radeon RX VEGA GPUs connected in Crossfire, (Or SLI if you're using Nvidia GeForce 2070s,) and you're looking at almost $700 on top of the monitor and CPU. When you look at it that way, the $5,000 price tag starts making more sense. Perhaps this is a move by Apple to sponsor competitors using sponsored machines, with the ultimate goal being brand recognition in this previously untapped market.

And then there's the OS. Assuming this machine is a Mac, I would be lying if I said that Mac OS didn't have a history of oversized operating systems, dating all the way back to the release of Mac OS X way back in 2001. Even back then, the system required more minimum system RAM than any of the entry-level Macs Apple was selling at the time. Since then, Apple has been nearly doubling the minimum amount of RAM required for every other Mac OS version, leading many Apple users to believe it's a form of planned obsolescence to trick its customer base into buying the latest system every year. Every gig of RAM the OS needs just to be open is a gig the software or games you need can't use, which is terrible for gaming performance. One could speculate that the gaming PC's minimum $5,000 price is a result of buying high-end hardware to offset the performance hit that games would take with the operating system.

In any case, if this rumor turns out to be true, gamers stand to benefit from it. Gaming has never had more representation than it has today, so it would make sense that Apple would want to get in on that market.

It's Finally here! Halo Reach comes for Steam and Microsoft Windows

2019-12-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember when Bungie used to make the HALO games?

Halo: Reach finally got released on PC through both Steam and the Microsoft store, to the excitement of halo fans around the world.

Halo: Reach hasn't had a re-release in over a decade, marking the first time this critically acclaimed game has been showcased on the PC since its debut in 2004. Now PC gamers can take a refreshing look at this highly regarded FPS from a time before microtransactions and always-online DRM ruined everything.

You can buy this game outright for Steam and the Microsoft Store for $10 -- a price unheard of for an official re-release.

343 studios, along with Halo Insider, mulled over this game for months trying to work the bugs out. as a result, the studio missed its opportunity to have a playable demo ready for this year's E3 in early April. Fortunately, this hasn't killed hype for the re-release at all.

Be sure to check it out here: