The Case of the Golden Idol was a rewarding series of point-and-click murder mysteries that became one of my favorite games of 2022. And while I felt there was more story to explore about the titular golden idol, I wasnt sure if a potential sequel could live up to its clever puzzles and fascinating, slowly unfolding story. Turns out, I had nothing to fear: The Rise of the Golden Idol, the newly launched sequel, easily surpasses the original by improving on just about everything.At its core, Rise is a very similar game to Case. The new game takes place in the 1970s, around 200 years after the events of the original, and each of Rises cases drops you into a specific moment in time, typically during or shortly after a murder. Youre tasked with solving whats going on. To figure that out, you first have to click around the scene to discover relevant words and names that get saved in a menu. Then you use those words to solve puzzles within the case, like the names of the individuals in a scene, a description of how the murder happened, or even things like how to interpret parts of a dance or who won a game show.Heres an example of how you use the words you find to solve elements of a case. Image: Playstack / Color Gray GamesIts a clever system. Clicking around to collect all of the words forces you to scrutinize everything thats going on, and having to fill in the blanks means you really have to think about how elements of the scene might be connected. Ive come to think of it like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle: while the scattered elements may seem like a lot to tie together, as you slowly solve the disparate elements of the puzzles within cases, its easier to figure out how they connect.There are more layers, too, as you have to solve puzzles encompassing the events of entire chapters, which typically have three or four cases within them, to be able to move on to the next one. A few recurring characters will pop up across chapters, meaning the game is able to tell a holistic story by forcing you to understand their actions across a bunch of different scenes. (You dont need to have played Case to understand the events of Rise, though there are a few tidbits that will be familiar to fans of the first game.)The system isnt perfect. Like with Case, if youre off the mark after youve slotted in words for a specific puzzle, Rise will tell you if your guess is incorrect or if you have two or fewer words in the wrong place. Usually, knowing that I was close meant I could reexamine my assumptions and tweak a few words to get things right. But as I also did with Case, if I couldnt figure out the two or fewer incorrect words on my own, I would just brute-force a bunch of guesses until I got things right.Rise has some tough puzzles, but so far, Ive been able to solve all of them without turning to an online guide like I had to do with the final few cases of Case. Rise also has an improved hint system that offers up to three hints for a specific part of a case, and often, checking those pointed me in the right direction when I was stuck. Id also recommend having pen and paper handy to write things down, especially because some cases scatter details across multiple areas. And if you can play with someone else, that helps, too my wife saw a bunch of things that I completely missed. Image: Playstack / Color Gray GamesI will warn you that the game can be grotesque. Case generally erred on the side of creepy with its old-school pixel art style, but Rise looks more like a painting, and that means youll be seeing slightly more realistic dead bodies. Scenes and characters move in short loops, which makes them feel alive but also means youll see certain uncomfortable movements over and over again. The first case opens with a man actively strangling somebody else; another shows a person getting electrocuted. If you have a fear of birds, theres one case youre really not going to like. But like a good scary movie, those twisted scenes are part of what makes the game compelling. Every time I started a new case, I was always eager to see what terrible things Id come across.Im not quite done with Rise. After more than 15 hours, Im on one of the last of the games 20 cases, and this one is taking me a couple of days to muddle through. I think the eventual thrill of figuring it all out will be worth the pain, though, as theres nothing better than that lightbulb moment of slotting the final word into the right place of the puzzle. And even when Im done with all 20 cases, there will be four DLC packs to look forward to next year perhaps theres even more that we dont know about the mysterious golden idol.The Rise of the Golden Idol is now available for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and on mobile with a Netflix subscription.

Apple Pay is celebrating 10 years since launching, and a new video ad highlights something about Apple Pay that has been true since day one. Apple Pay makes it really easy to spend money on the internet.Even on copperplateantiques.com, which doesnt appear to be real: But seriously, Apple Pay on the web truly makes online shopping so incredibly convenient. How many thousands of dollars have you spent online thanks to the simplicity of shopping with Apple Pay?MoreFollow Zac: X, Threads, Instagram / Shop Apple on Amazon to support my work Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Apple has updated its lists of vintage and obsolete products today, adding the iPhone XS Max, several Apple Watch models, and more. Heres what that means.Two new vintage products and four obsoleteTodays additions were spotted by Joe Rossignol at MacRumors and come after Apple marked a variety of Macs and iPads vintage just last month.Heres whats been added in the most recent update:Newly VintageiPhone XS MaxiPhone 6s PlusNewly ObsoleteApple Watch Series 2, Aluminum (2nd generation), 38mmApple Watch Series 2, Aluminum (2nd generation), 42mmApple Watch Series 2, Stainless Steel (2nd generation), 38mmApple Watch Series 2, Stainless Steel (2nd generation), 42mmIts interesting that the iPhone XS Max and iPhone 6s Plus are joining the vintage list at the same time, since they debuted three years apart. The 6s Plus arrived in 2015 and the XS Max not until 2018.Apples vintage and obsolete designations, though, are based on when a product stops being sold rather than when it starts. Clearly, the iPhone 6s Plus had an especially long run in the market compared to the XS Max.Apples definitions for vintage and obsolete productsHere are Apples definitions of these two terms:Vintage: Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago.Obsolete: Products are considered obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago. Monster-branded Beats products are considered obsolete regardless of when they were purchased. Apple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, and service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products. Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.In short, the designations are entirely tied to the passage of time, no other factor.What they mean, though, determines a devices repairability prospects. Vintage products can perhaps still be repaired by Apple, assuming parts are available, but obsolete products cannot.Anything you find surprising from todays vintage and obsolete additions? Let us know in the comments.Best iPhone accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismStudiesScientists looked into the efficacy of an app that claims to help people lucid dream and foundit was a runaway success.Published in the journalConsciousness and Cognition, this study out of Northwestern University seems to demonstrate that so-called "Targeted Lucidity Reactivation" (TLR) can help people remember their dreams, and even propel them into a fascinating dive into the subconscious.The app involves training people to associate a specific sound, such as a tone or melody, with the awareness of dreaming. That sound is then played while subjects are asleep, tipping them off that they're not in the waking world helping them enter the state of lucid dreaming.In a two-part study, Northwestern psychology researchers first recruited participants 19 in the first phase, and 416 in the second who historically remembered their dreams upon waking.Using a specialized Android smartphone app, the participants in the first phase completed one week of TLR training that consisted of 20-minute sessions in which they were instructed to associate the sound, which was either a sequence of beeps or a violin note, with lucid dreaming.After participants fell asleep, the app would stay on and play these sound cues on a six-hour delay softly, so as not to wake the dreamers. In the morning, study subjects were asked to write down any dreams they remembered, and whether they were lucid or the sound was merely incorporated into the dream's narrative.Second-phase participants had a similar training protocol, with some variation in the post-sleep execution: some would get the cues they were trained on, while others would get unrelated sounds or no cues at all.In both phases, participants who received the sound cues on which they were trained reported the highest frequency of lucid dreaming. In the first phase, subjects reported an average of 2.11 lucid dreams during the training week compared to 0.74 before a nearly three-fold increase.AsPsyPost notes, this experiment appears to be the first to take lucid dreaming research out of a sleep laboratory setting and into the hands of the public.By the way, for those wondering, you can try out the app here.In an interview with PsyPost, study author and Northwestern postdoctoral student Karen Konkoly gushed that these findings could help bring lucid dreaming to the masses."Since weve been developing more effective ways to induce lucid dreams in the sleep laboratory," Konkoly said, "we wanted to take a step towards making these advances available for individuals to use on their own."More on dream research: Startup Claims It's Achieved Communication Between Two People Who Were Both DreamingShare This Article

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananFinancial Fraud / BlockchainIlya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday.Lichtenstein was charged for his involvement in a money laundering scheme that led to the theft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (valued at over $10.5 billion at current prices) from the crypto exchange. Heather Rhiannon Morgan, his wife, also pleaded guilty to the same crimes last year. They were both arrested in February 2022. Morgan is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18."Lichtenstein, 35, hacked into Bitfinex's network in 2016, using advanced hacking tools and techniques," the DoJ said in a press statement. "Once inside the network, Lichtenstein fraudulently authorized more than 2,000 transactions transferring 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex to a cryptocurrency wallet in Lichtenstein's control."Besides taking a string of actions to cover up the tracks by deleting access credentials and other log files from Bitfinex's network, the couple is said to have used fictitious identities to set up online banking accounts to launder the proceeds, depositing them in darknet markets and cryptocurrency exchanges.The funds were eventually withdrawn, converted to other cryptocurrencies (a technique referred to as chain hopping), depositing a chunk of the ill-gotten assets into mixing services like Bitcoin Fog, converting them to fiat currency and moving to a U.S. bank account, and exchanging a portion of the crypto for gold coins.The development comes days after Roman Sterlingov, the 36-year-old founder of Bitcoin Fog, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for facilitating money laundering activities between 2011 and 2021. Earlier this year, Lichtenstein had testified in court that he had used Bitcoin Fog 10 times to launder the virtual assets.Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis previously revealed how the couple's purchase of Walmart gift cards using the stolen bitcoin at an unnamed virtual currency exchange eventually proved to be their undoing, after it was found that the gift cards were redeemed using the retail giant's iPhone app under an account in Heather Morgan's name."That enabled agents to get a search warrant for Lichtenstein and Morgan's home and cloud storage accounts, where they found files containing details of the cryptocurrency addresses used to move the stolen funds including their private keys along with the false information used to open accounts at cryptocurrency exchanges and plans to acquire fake passports," Chainalysis said."That discovery enabled investigators to trace the flow of funds in its entirety."According to the Associated Press, Morgan is a business owner and writer. She also adopted the alter ego Razzlekhan to perform rap songs and record videos for her music. The pair had been living in San Francisco at the time of the hack."Lichtenstein masterminded and orchestrated the Bitfinex hack without telling [Morgan]," prosecutors said. "He also initially solicited the defendant's assistance without explaining exactly what he was doing. The defendant was certainly a willing participant and bears full responsibility for her actions, but she was a lower-level participant."Chinese National Faces 20 Years in U.S. Prison for Pig Butchering ScamThe sentencing also follows a guilty plea from Daren Li, 41, for partaking in a criminal scheme to launder $73.6 million stolen through cryptocurrency investment scams using a network of shell companies and international bank accounts. Li was arrested back in April 2024 at Atlanta. He is expected to be sentenced next March."Li admitted that he conspired with others to launder funds obtained from victims through cryptocurrency scams and related fraud," the DoJ said. "In furtherance of the conspiracy, he communicated with his co-conspirators through encrypted messaging services.""In order to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained victim funds, Li would instruct co-conspirators to open U.S. bank accounts established on behalf of shell companies and would monitor the receipt and execution of interstate and international wire transfers of victim funds."The funds were subsequently deposited to financial accounts under their control, after which they would be converted to virtual currency like Tether, and distributed to wallets owned by Li and his co-conspirators. Li faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison."Financial criminals and the money launderers who enable them wreak untold harm, ruining lives in the process," said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California. "Investors should be diligent and on guard against anyone offering quick riches via new, exotic investments. A healthy dose of skepticism could prevent financial ruin down the road."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

Nov 15, 2024Ravie LakshmananNetwork Security / VulnerabilityThe U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday warned that two more flaws impacting the Palo Alto Networks Expedition have come under active exploitation in the wild.To that, it has added the vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to apply the necessary updates by December 5, 2024.The security flaws are listed below -CVE-2024-9463 (CVSS score: 9.9) - Palo Alto Networks Expedition OS Command Injection VulnerabilityCVE-2024-9465 (CVSS score: 9.3) - Palo Alto Networks Expedition SQL Injection VulnerabilitySuccessful exploitation of the vulnerabilities could allow an unauthenticated attacker to run arbitrary OS commands as root in the Expedition migration tool or reveal its database contents.This could then pave the way for disclosure of usernames, cleartext passwords, device configurations, and device API keys of PAN-OS firewalls, or create and read arbitrary files on the vulnerable system.Palo Alto Networks addressed these shortcomings as part of security updates released on October 9, 2024. The company has since revised its original advisory to acknowledge that it's "aware of reports from CISA that there is evidence of active exploitation for CVE-2024-9463 and CVE-2024-9465."That said, not much is known about how these vulnerabilities are being exploited, by whom, and how widespread these attacks are. The development also came a week after CISA was notified of the active exploitation of CVE-2024-5910 (CVSS score: 9.3), another critical flaw affecting Expedition.Palo Alto Networks Confirms New Flaw Under Limited AttackPalo Alto Networks has since also confirmed that it has detected an unauthenticated remote command execution vulnerability being weaponized against a small subset of firewall management interfaces that are exposed to the internet, urging customers to secure them."Palo Alto Networks has observed threat activity exploiting an unauthenticated remote command execution vulnerability against a limited number of firewall management interfaces which are exposed to the internet," it added.The company, which is investigating the malicious activity and has given the vulnerability a CVSS score of 9.3 (no CVE identifier), also said it's "preparing to release fixes and threat prevention signatures as early as possible."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

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You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereFortnite seems to be moving away from exclusivity. With the release of Chapter 5 Season 4 Battle Pass, Epic Games decided to change its playbook regarding exclusive items. Due to this, Battle Passes will return in the future, and anyone will be able to purchase them. As a result, many players are wondering if this affects older seasonal passes as well.Epic has revealed a lot of details regarding Fortnite Battle Pass exclusivity, and thanks to a recent post on the companys website, we now know if the older passes will return.Will older Battle Passes return to Fortnite in the future?Exclusivity is a big part of Fortnite Battle Royale. Many players want to have limited-time items that will not be available in the future. This is what the Battle Pass was all about, but things have changed since August 2024. Seasonal passes are no longer exclusive, although they still give many benefits, including early access to cosmetics.This ground-breaking change made the community believe that the older passes would stop being exclusive as well. However, that is not the case, the Fortnite developer clarified. The exclusivity change will only affect Battle Passes released after August 7, 2024, starting with Chapter 5 Season 4.Any Battle Passes released after August 7th, 2024 will be impacted by this change. Any Battle Passes released prior to August 7th, 2024 will not be impacted by this change.Epic GamesOlder Fortnite cosmetics, such as Black Knight, will remain exclusive. Image by VideoGamerWhile Epic Games wont bring older Battle Passes back to Fortnite, we expect the company to release many remixed skins in the future. This has been the case for the past few years and is a decent way of redesigning older skins and bringing them back without affecting their exclusivity.With Fortnite Chapter 1 returning permanently in December 2024, Epic will likely design new remixed skins. After all, the Season 2 Battle Pass is one of the most popular seasonal passes, and many players would love to own classic skins such as Black Knight and Blue Squire. FortnitePlatform(s):Android, iOS, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/XGenre(s):Action, Massively Multiplayer, Shooter9VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereHelldivers 2 received another major patch which brought in a much-awaited DSS (Democracy Space Station) which is now operational for every player. Still, despite a long wait, the newly added feature is ridden with issues and bugs that have left the community pleading with Arrowhead for fixes.While the devs and the community manager both have assured players of incoming fixes and admitted to a lack of testing of the station, players believe these fixes might take longer than expected. In the meanwhile, players are trying to figure out ways to counter those bugs, and to help with that Arrowhead has rewarded them with a hilarious solution.Arrowhead rewards Helldivers 2 players with free shields as temporary solution to DSS issuesHelldivers 2 players are now receiving free shields in their Mission Stratagems after the devs admitted to the failure of a successful DSS launch in the game. The free shield adds an extra layer of protection for players who embark on major orders or battle enemies across the galaxy.Players are being given free shield by devs in Helldivers 2. Image by Reddit/WhiteRaven_M.However, players believed this reward was merely to pacify them as a temporary solution to the massive issues going on with DSS. One such player wrote, Titanic is sinking? Thats where flex tape comes in, comparing this reward to a mere useless solution to them taking friendly damage from space stations.Another user chimed in, This is like giving us a snorkel for a tsunami and I find that absolutely hilarious. A third user said, Im sorry, but I cant help but laugh about this whole ordeal. Yeah, the devs really fumbled with this station, but the fact that weve been working towards this, excited about this station bringing absolute dominance on the enemy, only for it to kill us in the end is hilarious.Arrowhead has assured players that theyre working on these issues in addition to the fixes needed with excessive ragdolling,revamping the jet pack, and adding to theGalactic War Map. However, at the same time, its the community who are making hilarious moments with friendly fire team wipes at the station.Helldivers 2Platform(s):PC, PlayStation 5Genre(s):Action, Shooter, Third Person8VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share