Automaton Games is working on the next PUBG killer. Powered by Improbable’s cloud-based SpatialOS tech and the CryEngine, an untitled MMO tactical shooter will support 1,000 concurrent players within a shared world and also include a last-person standing combat mode with up to 400 players “in direct combat”.
What else can we say? Well, the developers promise to present a huge 144 sq. km playable area (against PUBG’s 8km x 8km space), and a system with character progression and social hubs.
Why do they need SpatialOS?
[The game has] unprecedented world simulation and effects, including environmental destruction, roaming wildlife, dynamic weather, foliage displacement, tracks, blood trails, fire and water effects, fully immersing players into the experience of being the hunter—or the hunted.
SpatialOS is Improbable’s distributed operating system for game development and operation in the cloud, which allows developers to exceed the power of a single game engine or server. By building games with standard tools and deploying on SpatialOS, developers like Automaton Games can build virtual worlds that offer permanent, persistent and engaging experiences.
SpatialOS
The game is said to be released in 2018. Something playable will be presented in Spring.
There's a bug in the widely used Apache Web Server that causes servers to leak pieces of arbitrary memory in a way that could expose passwords or other secrets, a freelance journalist has disclosed.
The vulnerability can be triggered by querying a server with what's known as an OPTIONS request. Like the better-known GET and POST requests, OPTIONS is a type of HTTP method that allows users to determine which HTTP requests are supported by the server. Normally, a server will respond with GET, POST, OPTIONS, and any other supported methods. Under certain conditions, however, responses from Apache Web Server include the data stored in computer memory. Patches are available here and here.
Optionsbleed, by contrast, doesn't pose as big a threat, but its effects can still be damaging. The risk is highest for server hosts that allow more than one customer to share a single machine. That's because Optionsbleed allows customers to exploit the flaw in a way that exposes secret data from other customers' hosts on the same system. On the Internet at large, the threat is less serious. A recent scan by Hanno Böck, the freelance journalist who documented the bug on Monday, found that only 466 sites in the Alexa Top 1 Million were vulnerable. What's more, Optionsbleed leaks smaller chunks of memory than was the case with Heartbleed.
Optionsbleed is a use-after-free bug that's the result of certain types of configurations that restrict the HTTP methods a site will support. When the Limit directive is inapplicable—either because of a typo or because it bars use of a method that's already not allowed—the bug is created. It can then be exploited by sending an OPTIONS request to the site. Organizations that rely on Apache should install the patch soon, especially if they're part of a shared hosting service.
Interestingly, the bug was first identified in 2014. Why it's only now being patched is unclear.
For those that missed the news over the weekend, IBM has open-sourced its in-house JVM and contributed it to the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse OpenJ9 is this new, full-featured, enterprise-ready open-source Java Virtual Machine.
OpenJ9 is a new alternative to the Hotspot JVM currently used within OpenJDK. OpenJ9 is said to be more featureful and production-ready and comes with the full backing of IBM.
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The long term goal of the Eclipse OpenJ9 project is to foster an open ecosystem of JVM developers that can collaborate and innovate with designers and developers of hardware platforms, operating systems, tools, and frameworks. The project welcomes collaboration, embraces fresh innovation, and extends an opportunity to influence the development of OpenJ9 for the next generation of Java applications,
It sounds like we may end up seeing better performance too out of OpenJ9 over Hotspot, so I may end up trying it on some benchmarks. More details on the new project at
It’s hard to say for sure — I cannot replicate this myself — but modders say they have found an emulator within the Nintendo Switch and a copy of all-time NES great Golf installed on it.
This is less about the game and more about the larger meaning. An emulator on every Switch would be a rather big deal. Moreover, as SwitchBrew.org noticed, this game packs instructions specific for the Joy-Con controllers, at least according to the images they supplied.
We emailed Nintendo of America to ask what was going on and received a reply from a representative that they were looking into it. It’s the weekend after all.
Switchbrew found Golf, un-cleverly disguised by the file name “flog” they say. That washed out of a dump of title names from the Nintendo Switch’s file system back in July. According to Github poster yellows8 the game is on every copy of the Switch OS going back to system 1.0. However, “It’s unknown what exactly triggers launching this title.” That’s assuming it can be launched.
While Microsoft continues to invest and expand its PowerShell scripting environment—and pushes new GUI-less Windows environments such as the Nano Server configuration—the graphical user interface isn't going away. GUI tools retain advantages for certain tasks, such as visualizing data and comparing multiple systems. They also tend to be much easier to use for ad hoc configuration and troubleshooting tasks that depend more on exploration and investigation rather than automation.
Most of Windows' GUI management tools are built around MMC, first introduced in Windows 2000 all those years ago. MMC is clumsy in a number of ways; for example, different MMC plug-ins handle remote system administration in different ways. MMC also does not provide any easy bridge to task automation. It's often useful to use the GUI to configure one system and then replicate those settings against other systems.
To that end, the company announced Thursday "Project Honolulu," a new Web-based graphical management tool that'll be available as a preview for Windows Server 2016 version 1709, along with certain (currently unspecified) other versions of Windows Server. Microsoft also promises that it will require no additional cost beyond that of Windows Server.
The full reveal of Honolulu will be made at Ignite at the end of the month.
Security researchers from Armis Labs recently published a whitepaper unveiling eight critical 0-day Bluetooth-related vulnerabilities, affecting Linux, Windows, Android and iOS operating systems. These vulnerabilities alone or combined can lead to privileged code execution on a target device. The only requirement is: Bluetooth turned on. No user interaction is necessary to successfully exploit the flaws, the attacker does not need to pair with a target device nor the target device must be paired with some other device.
The research paper, dubbed BlueBorne (what’s a vulnerability, or a bunch, without a cool name nowadays?), details each vulnerability and how it was exploited. BlueBorne is estimated to affect over five billion devices. Some vendors, like Microsoft, have already issued a patch while others, like Samsung, remain silent. Despite the patches, some devices will never receive a BlueBorne patch since they are outside of their support window. Armis estimates this accounts for around 40% of all Bluetooth enabled devices.
A self-replicating worm that would spread and hop from a device to other nearby devices with Bluetooth turned on was mentioned by the researchers as something that could be done with some more work. That immediately reminds us of the BroadPwn vulnerability, in which the researchers implemented what is most likely the first WiFi only worm. Although it is definitely a fun security exercise to code such worm, it’s really a bad, bad idea… Right?…
So who’s affected?
It is difficult to provide a comprehensive list of all affected devices. All unpatched Windows systems from Vista and up: Microsoft secretly released patches in July for CVE-2017-8628. All Linux devices running BlueZ are affected by an information leak and all Linux devices running kernel version 3.3-rc1and up (released in October 2011) are affected by a remote code execution flaw. All Android phones, tablets, and wearables of all versions are affected, except for those which use only Bluetooth Low Energy. Google patches were issued in the September Android Security Bulletin. iPhones, iPads and iPods devices running iOS 9.3.5 and lower and AppleTV devices with version 7.2.2 and lower are affected. Linux-based OSes are likely to be affected, for instance Samsung Tizen OS. I know my Samsung Galaxy S8 is, or so the Android app that the researchers published shows.
It is probably a good idea to check and apply the latest patches available for your favourite devices, especially if they are mobile and you carry them everywhere with Bluetooth on. That being said, the obvious solution is to turn off Bluetooth. This is probably something you already do in order to save battery. Unfortunately, this might not be possible for everyone, especially those who heavily rely on Bluetooth devices, like hands-free, for example.
Here’s a quick sketch I did yesterday about a randomized data structure: the treap. It’s basically a really cool way to implement a balanced binary search tree. Kamal told me about it!
The main reason I know for sure this is useful is in case someone asks you to implement a balanced binary search tree in an interview. More seriously though – if you want to implement an ordered map (like C++’s std::map), then you probably want a balanced BST!
C++’s std::map is usually a red-black tree, but a treap performs just as well (in expected value) and the algorithms for insert/delete are way simpler.
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I believe that some of the main factors that impede the spread of GNU/Linux in Ukraine are, first, the continuing prevalence of online piracy and a pervasive stereotype that such software is designed solely for computer geeks because of its complexity, and second, the insufficient number of computer games in the ???A??? category.
According to a Taiwanese news outlet called Commercial Times, Google is in the final stages of acquiring all or part of smartphone maker HTC. CNBC reports: The report seems fishy, since Google has already been down this road, but there's a reason why Google might be interested in HTC. The Taiwanese company builds the Google Pixel, which means it could be a good fit for Google as it continues to cater to consumers with its "Pixel" smartphone brand. Here's where it sounds off base: Google acquired Motorola Mobility and then sold it off just a couple of years later. Why repeat that move? Commercial Times said HTC's poor financial position and Google's desire to "perfect [the] integration of software, content, hardware, network, cloud, [and] AI," is the driving force behind Google's interest. The news outlet said Google may make a "strategic investment" or "buy HTC's smartphone R&D team" which suggests that the VR team would exist as its own.
When RED Camera first announced its crazy $1,200 Hydrogen smartphone with a "holographic display," a lot of folks wondered how that would actually work. Now, CEO Jim Jannard has revealed that RED is creating the screen in partnership with a company called Leia Inc. (yes, like that Leia). A spin-off from Hewlett-Packard labs, it calls itself "the leading provider of light field holographic display solutions for mobile," and the key words "light field" gives us a pretty good idea as to how it works
Light field displays use multiple layers of LCDs with a "directional backlight," letting you see two different views of the same object with each eye, producing a 3D effect. In practice, when you rotate a display, objects like buildings would appear to project from the screen, as shown in the video below. The effect shows a lot of promise for virtual and augmented reality headsets, but for external displays, viewing angles have been limited so far.
Leia says it "leverages recent breakthroughs in nano-photonic design and manufacturing to provide a complete lightfield 'holographic' display solution for mobile devices." It says the tech can create a holograph-like effect, "while preserving the normal operation of the display." In other words, if you turn off the 4D part, it'll work like a regular smartphone screen. RED hasn't showed the tech to many folks yet, but MKBHD's Marcus Brownlee did see it, and said he was "pretty impressed," adding that it wasn't perfect because of issues like light bleeding and stuttering for 4D gaming.
To produce content for the screen in the form of .h4v files, Jannard has told Redusers that "you can generate .h4v (holographic 4-View) by shooting 4 cameras (we are building solutions from consumer to professional), or by converting 3D to .h4v (very easy), or converting 2D to 3D (very hard) and then to .h4v."
RED has formed a "strategic partnership" with Leia and made an unnamed investment in the company, and Jannard will join its board of directors. It says the smartphone will arrive in the first half of 2018, and functional prototypes are supposed to be ready in the coming months.
There are many projects that call out for a custom language parser. If you need something standard, you can probably lift the code from someplace on the Internet. If you need something custom, you might consider reading [Federico Tomassetti’s] tutorial on using ANTLR to build a complete parser-based system. [Frederico] also expanded on this material for his book, but there’s still plenty to pick up from the eight blog posts.
His language, Sandy, is complex enough to be a good example, but not too complex to understand. In addition to the posts, you can find the code on GitHub.
The implementation code is Java, but you can still learn a lot even if you plan to use another language. The posts take you through building a lexer (the part that breaks text into tokens), the parser, handling syntax highlighting and autocompletion, creating an abstract syntax tree, and more.
The example compiler generates Java bytecode, so it can produce output that can run anywhere Java can run.
If you are using C, you might consider looking up lex and yacc or flex and bison to get similar results. You might also be interested in using LLVM as a very specific kind of parser if you are wanting to parse C or C++. Either way, a custom language is just the ticket to give your custom CPU project a boost.
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Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman has confirmed on his blog that Linux kernel 4.14 will be the next LTS kernel branch, which will be supported with stable kernel patch backports for at least 2 years.
Intel could launch the first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processors in the retail channel, on the 5th of October, 2017. It's also becoming ominous that with increasing core counts across the lineup, Intel is also raising prices by anywhere between 12.5 to 25 percent. For example, the Core i7-8700K, which logically succeeds the $339 Core i7-7700K, could be priced upwards of $400. The i5-8600K, which succeeds the $249 i5-7600K, could be priced a little over $300. One can expect similar price-hikes across the board for other Core i5 six-core and Core i3 quad-core SKUs.
The first wave of 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processor launches could be limited to certain overclocker-specific Core i7 and Core i5 SKUs. It is also launching just one compatible motherboard chipset option with this first wave, the Z370 Express, which supports CPU overclocking. Among the SKUs to look out for, are the top-dog Core i7-8700K six-core processor with HyperThreading enabling 12 threads, 12 MB of L3 cache; and the Core i5-8600K, which is also a six-core part but lacks HyperThreading, and comes with 9 MB of L3 cache.
When Amazon's Alexa doesn't know how the answer to a question, the digital assistant typically just says so. Now, though, instead of "Hmmmm. I don't know that," Alexa may start to recommend third-party skills to help you out more effectively.
In a video shot by Voicebot's Bret Kinsella, you can clearly hear Alexa recommending a non-Amazon skill to answer his question about Apple stock prices. According to Kinsella, after Alexa asked if he wanted to use a skill to answer his stock query, it went straight to a genera listing of prices instead of addressing the specific question he originally asked.
It's clear from Kinsella's video that this new behavior is still hit-or-miss, but it does make a lot of sense. If Alexa can't figure out what you need, then surely there's a skill that might. Instead of having users find a skill that might have the answer, Alexa can do most of the heavy lifting in finding an appropriate one.
As TechCrunch notes, Google Assistant can already recommend apps to users when the app developers tell Google what kind of actions it can handle. How this works with Alexa and when it will roll out to all users is still unclear, however. When reached for comment, Amazon said, "In limited scenarios, Alexa will suggest skills that may be helpful to answer a customer's question. We are excited for this feature to roll out to more customers over time to help them discover new skills and get information through Alexa."
