Emergence today announced the launch of the New Worlds Initiative, for creating new worlds for the Open Metaverse.Read More

Codecks secures 1m in fundingInvestment will help firm expand the capabilities of its project management toolImage credit: Codex | Left to right; Riad Djemili and Daniel Berndt News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Nov. 27, 2024 Berlin-based Codecks has secured 1 million in funding to further support its project management tool.This investment includes a grant of 700,000 from the EU's Creative Europe Media Program, and 300,000 from Codecks itself.The funding will enable the firm to expand the capabilities of its project management tool by improving and introducing new features, as well as expanding its core team and infrastructure capabilities."We're committed to helping game developers make games in a way that's both effective and enjoyable," said Codecks co-founder Riad Djemili."This grant opens doors for us to significantly improve and expand Codecks, amplifying the tools we offer and creating new ones, making project management as fun and efficient as possible.Co-founder and lead developer Daniel Berndt added: "We developed Codecks as a love letter to the game development community. With this grant, we're empowered to make that vision even bigger, with features that make Codecks more valuable to every team member whatever their project, wherever they are in the world."Codecks was founded in 2019, and uses a game-inspired, card and deck system for its management tool. Companies and developers that have utilised its services include Unity, Warpfrog, and Free Lives.

Sony has released a retrospective for its PlayStation consoles ahead of the original PlayStation's 30th Japanese anniversary on December 3.In it, the console maker looks back on the history and significant milestones of major PlayStation hardware. For example, the now 20-year-old PlayStation 2 has sold over 160 million unitscorroborating what PlayStation boss Jim Ryan first stated back in April. It continues to be one of the highest-selling consoles ever.Along with the sales, Sony recognized the PS2 for taking "giant steps forward in home console gaming," and touted then-revolutionary features such as online play, "hugely attractive" DVD playback, and backwards compatibility with PlayStation 1 titles. Praise was also given for first-party titles like Team ICO's Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, plus franchises like Sly Cooper and God of War that have since expanded to other PlayStation systems.Sony goes on to note the PlayStation 4 sold 117 million units sold in its lifetime, while the original PlayStation and PlayStation 3 respectively sold 102 million and 87 million units. Hard numbers weren't given for the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation Vita, or either of the PlayStation VR headsets, but Sony's latest fiscal report reveals the PS5 has sold over 65.5 million lifetime units.PlayStation 5 is still riding global wavesThe PS5's writeup acknowledged the console was PlayStation's biggest global launch (and equally big for game consoles overall), despite releasing in "challenging global conditions." It came out in 2020 during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and its supply was impacted by a component shortage. During that time, Sony increased the console's price in several territories, including Japan, and made more PS4s to make up for the new system's shortage.As of last year, those supply issues have been rectified, and Sony has since released Slim and Pro versions of the PlayStation 5, plus the PlayStation Portal cloud streaming device. Earlier this week, reports claimed the company is developing a new portable console that can play PlayStation 5 games, making it the first dedicated PlayStation handheld since the PlayStation Vita.You can see the full timeline of PlayStation history here.

When we started the last year of our masters in videogame development, we already knew that the challenge ahead was a big one: creating a complete videogame and publishing it on Steam as the final project. However, what seemed like just a challenge on a technical level at first sight, turned out to be a journey that included design, production, marketing and all the other aspects of the industry that make a good idea become a finished and published project. There are lessons that you only learn when you take the leap.We want to share the lessons we learned, talk about what worked, and also about the things we could have done better, so that if you are also facing this challenge, you have the best perspective and avoid common mistakes in this area so unknown for many.You have to be realistic. Know your abilities and define a scope.One of the most important learning experiences when we started out was to understand our own limitations and the real resources we had. At the beginning, everyone wanted to develop something big, innovative, open worlds but we also knew that we had a limited amount of time and a small team. So the first challenge was to define an idea that was exciting, but doable. This meant carefully adjusting the scope: there was no place for features that we would not be able to polish on time. We learnt that a well executed project, even if it is humble in its ambition, will always be better than one that tries to do a lot of things with no quality or polish.In the case of Everdark, we decided to do a first person shooter with survival horror elements, inspired by horror and B-movies from the 80s. This idea allowed us to focus our creativity in a compact but well thought out project. If you are in front of the challenge of creating a first game, do not underestimate the importance of limiting your scope so time is on your side and you can achieve your goals in terms of quality.The next challenge? Organizing ourselves.In such a short development, it was crucial that each member had a well defined role, no matter if it was in modelling, level design, programming or marketing. The key was to give ourselves specific roles and responsibilities from the get-go. This helped us avoid ambiguity and allowed each of us to know what to focus on at every moment. If youre working with a small team, it is essential to assign clear tasks and use management tools that keep the workflow structured. For example, Trello, creating a Discord server or using Notion are excellent options. (Spoiler: these are the tools used by studios and it is very useful to have worked with them previously).You know very well the skill set of each person in the group, so its fundamental to understand your strengths and assign roles that make the most out of those skills.The production plan and the infinite amount of unexpected situations that will come up.Defining a production plan is crucial to make an efficient use of time and resources. In the initial stages of planning, identify the different stages of the development and establish realistic milestones. This plan will help you have a clear roadmap, but keep in mind that in videogame development, you have to be ready to adapt to anything. The best you can do is assess everything weekly, so in case there are any problems, you have room to deal with them.If youre developing your first game, establish achievable goals, make a list of priorities and review the production plan constantly. Accept that not everything will go according to plan, and that it will be necessary to adjust priorities according to unexpected events.Publishing the game on Steam can look like an odyssey and it is. However, Steam offers many tutorials through SteamWorks, and if you follow them step by step, you shouldnt have any problems. Speaking from experience, we recommend you read the tutorials ahead of time and with a lot of attention so that your Steam page going public, the release of your Demo, or any other action you take on the platform does not suffer from any delays.You hear a lot about Marketing, but its still a big unknown.Do you think your project has great quality and you want to show it off? From this moment onwards, everything you do is marketing. The way you present your game, no matter if it is through its pictures on Steam, the GIFs on social media or showcasing it at an event, will define how users perceive you.Social media is not an all or nothing thing; you have to choose them carefully. If you feel particularly comfortable on a specific platform, start there. You can also explore other platforms to find out where your content can get the most attention. These platforms are windows that allow the press and potential content creators to learn about your game. Before you start contacting them or making posts, think about who your players will be: their age, their tastes All of this will be key to prepare adequate messages, to determine who you address with your communication and to decide where to post all that content.Another point that we cannot ignore is to start contacting content creators and the press. Using our project Everdark as an example, we are currently investigating blogs, YouTube channels and Twitch profiles that talk about horror games. Especially if they are attracted to 80s aesthetics or horror B-movies, which are the most obvious inspirations of our game.Do you have your contact list ready? Now it is time to focus on what we will send them. In these cases, the best thing is to have a Press Kit ready. If you visit many websites from different studios, you will find a Press Kit in it, where you have to add a short description of the game, pictures, videos, YouTube links, etc. that showcase your game in the best possible light. We also recommend adding the history behind the project and the team. It is like a presentation letter, so everything people need to know about the game has to be there.Once you send out the e-mails, you have to follow up on them. You have to always be nice, especially if you get a reply. Persistence, as long as it is done with respect and you keep it professional, can make a difference. When you approach anyone interested in the game, you have to show you are being genuine and convey the passion you have for the project. It is not just about generating interest for the game, but also about establishing connections that can be useful now or in the future.We did it and you can do it too.Now that our game, Everdark, has a brand new Steam page and we will start communicating it to the media and streamers, and building a community on social media, we look back and realize how valuable it has been to face all of these challenges before finishing our studies, so we know about the reality of developing videogames and publishing them before we face the brutal market as an independent development studio, unlike other people who finish their degree without having had a real and complete experience. Not only that, but now is when possibly the hardest part starts, we have to make our game known and attract the interest of players and professionals. And we have decided to make this article for GameDeveloper the starting point as part of the experience.For everyone who is starting out, do not forget that developing is only a part of the process. Each challenge and learning experience that comes up along the way will make the games quality improve. We hope this information will be useful and that you will be able to see your own games very soon on Steam or any other platform of your choice. Good luck and keep going forward!

Microsoft is being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission in a wide-ranging antitrust probe, making it the fifth Big Tech company to fall under such scrutiny in several years.The agency is looking into Microsofts cloud and software licensing business, cybersecurity services, and AI offerings. Bloomberg first reported the news and The Verge confirmed the investigation with a person familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak to a confidential probe. The demand for information that spans hundreds of pages and culminates over a year of informal discussions with Microsoft competitors and partners. One focus is on how Microsoft bundles productivity and security software with its Azure cloud, per the source. The FTCs interest in Microsofts cloud business picked up in the wake of several security incidents impacting its products, particularly because Microsoft is a top supplier of software to US government agencies. The FTC and Microsoft both declined to comment.The government Cyber Safety Review Board concluded earlier this year that Microsofts security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul, particularly in light of the companys centrality in the technology ecosystem. Soon after, CEO Satya Nadella issued a memo to employees saying, If youre faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear:Do security.If the FTC brought a lawsuit against the company, it would put Microsoft back into a familiar position, if one from a bygone era. The company faced an anti-monopoly lawsuit from the Department of Justice in the late 90s over the bundling of its web browser and Windows operating system. But in recent years Microsoft has mostly escaped the kind of antitrust scrutiny applied to Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google, each of which is fighting its own monopoly charges from the government. Still, a Democratic majority on the FTC is set to change soon when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in January. He will likely choose one of the agencys current two Republican commissioners to serve as acting chair, and will ultimately get to nominate a new chair or commissioner to the agency who aligns with his viewpoints. Its not out of the question theyd continue the probe, however since Trumps last DOJ and FTC respectively filed antitrust suits against Google and Meta.

Google Chat is launching huddles, a Google Meet-powered addition that lets you start a quick call with your coworkers. Google said it would add huddles to Google Chat in customer preview over a year ago, but we havent heard about it since then. The company says the feature has started rolling out and should reach all Workspace users by January 6th.As we noted last year, this is the same feature as Slacks Huddles, using the same exact name. There arent a lot of differences between the various office suites these days, but this is really going the extra mile. GIF: GoogleTo get one going, simply click a dropdown menu at the top of a chat and select Start a huddle. Thatll pop open an audio call invite that you can turn into a Google Meet-style video chat, complete with the ability to share your screen for a fuller meeting experience while multitasking in Chat. Since last years big relaunch, the company has rolled out some other features to Chat, like Gemini-powered AI summaries, the ability to reply to or tag coworkers, and a voice-recording feature. I think Id like to have had huddles before most of those, but better late than never, I suppose.

Transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) face significant challenges in efficiently processing long sequences due to the quadratic complexity of the self-attention mechanism. This will increase their computational and memory demands exponentially with sequence length, so scaling up these models to realistic applications like multi-document summarization, retrieval-based reasoning, or even fine-grained code analysis at the repository level proves impossible. Current approaches fail to manage sequences extending to millions of tokens without considerable computational overhead or loss in accuracy, which creates a major obstacle to their effective deployment in diverse use cases.Various strategies have been proposed to address these inefficiencies. Sparse attention mechanisms are designed to reduce computational intensity but often fail to preserve the most critical global dependencies, resulting in degraded task performance. Methods for enhancing memory efficiency, such as key-value cache compression and low-rank approximations, reduce resource usage at the cost of scalability and accuracy. Distributed systems such as the Ring Attention improve scalability by distributing computations across several devices. However, these approaches incur significant communication overhead and thus limit their effectiveness in extremely long sequences. Such limitations point to the urgent need for an innovative mechanism that can balance efficiency, scalability, and performance with accuracy.Researchers from NVIDIA introduced Star Attention, an innovative block-sparse attention mechanism designed to address these challenges. Star Attention essentially breaks an input sequence into smaller blocks, which is preceded by what researchers call an anchor block, which holds much information globally. Then blocks process independently on many hosts to significantly reduce computation complexity with the capability to capture patterns globally. The inference processes combine the attention scores for each block using a distributed softmax algorithm that enables efficient global attention while minimizing the data transmission. The integration of the model with prior Transformer-based frameworks is non-intrusive and fine-tuning is not mandatory, making it a quite practical solution to manage lengthy sequences in real-world practice. The technical foundation of Star Attention is a split process. In the first phase, context encoding, each input block is augmented with an anchor block that ensures the model captures global attention patterns. After processing, key-value caches for anchor blocks are discarded to conserve memory. In the second phase, query encoding, and token generation, attention scores are computed locally on each host and combined via distributed softmax, allowing the model to maintain computational efficiency and scalability.Star Attention was evaluated on benchmarks such as RULER, which includes retrieval and reasoning tasks, and BABILong, which tests long-context reasoning. Over sequences between 16,000 to 1 million tokens long, the models tested Llama-3.1-8B and Llama-3.1-70B are being tested, using HuggingFace Transformers and the A100 GPU, which takes advantage of bfloat16 for maximum speed.Star Attention delivers significant advancements in both speed and accuracy. It achieves up to 11 times faster inference compared to baselines while maintaining 95-100% accuracy across tasks. On the RULER benchmark, it shines in retrieval tasks but its accuracy degrades by a mere 1-3% in more complex multi-hop reasoning scenarios. The BABILong benchmark focused on testing reasoning over longer contexts, and the results are always within the 0-3% range compared with the baseline. Its also scalable up to 1 million tokens sequence length, making it a strong and flexible candidate that adapts well to highly sequence-dependent applications.Star Attention establishes a transformative framework for efficient inference in Transformer-based LLMs, addressing key limitations in processing long sequences. Block-sparse attention plus anchor blocks strike the right balance between computational efficiency and accuracy, enabling speedups with significant performance preservation. This advance brings scalable, practical solutions to a wide range of AI applications: reasoning, retrieval, and summarization. Future work will involve designing refinements to anchor mechanisms and improving bottleneck performance in inter-block-communication-dependent tasks with it.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. If you like our work, you will love ournewsletter.. Dont Forget to join our55k+ ML SubReddit. Aswin Ak+ postsAswin AK is a consulting intern at MarkTechPost. He is pursuing his Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is passionate about data science and machine learning, bringing a strong academic background and hands-on experience in solving real-life cross-domain challenges. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)

If you're a PC gamer looking for the ultimate office chair, there is no shortage of brands and options at every price point. Of course, once you exceed the $1000 threshold, expectations rise for best-in-class performance. Mavix goes all-in on these expectations with the M9 Gaming Chair, with what they promise is a true S-tier experience, delivering overclocked performance and engineering. While the company can wield all the PC gaming buzzwords they want, the proof is in the end product. In that regard, once properly configured, Mavix does indeed deliver something approaching a beast of a chair with the M9, although it doesn't necessarily reach a quality level on par with its price point.Mavix M9 Gaming Chair Options and AssemblyMavix offers the base model of the M9 in four different color schemes: all-black, all-white cushions, two-tone black and white, and black and glacier blue, each starting at $999 (although some colors may occasionally go on sale for less). The M9 is also available on Amazon in black, white, and black and white, but only in the base configuration. The black and white model features a white back rest and white seat, while the black and glacier features a blue lumbar support.The rear of the lumbar provides a cavity to insert the optional Elemax cooling, heating, and massage unit, which adds $129 to the price. The base model of the chair comes with highly adjustable 4D arms, but you can upgrade to the FS 360-degree rotational arms, which add a full range of swivel, slide, and rotation options for an additional $164. Lastly, there are the wheel options, which are available in nine different colors: red, smoke (grey), black, white, glacier (greyish blue), azure (bright blue), flamingo (pink), royalty (purple), and venom (green).Mavix M9 Gaming Chair - AssemblyFor my configuration, I chose the black base model, and added the Elemax unit, FS 360-degree rotational arms, and smoke-colored wheels. At $1292, it's a pricey option, but I was particularly intrigued by the Elemax feature to help with my sometimes balky lower back, as well as sometimes getting overheated during long gaming sessions.Once properly configured, Mavix does indeed deliver something approaching a beast of a chair with the M9...Regardless of how you configure the chair, it comes in one large, awkward box that weighs well over 70 pounds. It's bottom-heavy, and unbalanced, so it really needs two people to carry. Per usual, the shipping company really did a number on the exterior of the box and knocked the contents around, but fortunately, nothing was damaged inside.Two Allen wrenches, and a small handful of bolts and washers, including some extras, are included. Instructions to assemble the chair aren't included, however, with Mavix instead directing you to a video. Since the FS 360-degree rotational arms and wheels are customizable options, they come in their own boxes within the main box. The armrests come with their own instructions, Allen wrench, and bolts, while the wheels just pop onto the base.Looking for a proper desk for work and play?Our Top PickFlexiSpot E7 Pro Premium Standing DeskWith a hefty max load, sturdy steel frame, and easy height adjustability for a mid range price, the E7 Pro can't be beat.See it at FlexiSpotBe sure to check out our roundup of the best gaming desks!The Elemax unit was preinstalled in the lumbar support, although it has separate instructions of its own for installation and removal. It comes with a USB-A power brick and a barrel connector to USB-A cable for insertion into the power brick, although any decent USB-A port can charge it.Assembly was a breeze, with only a small number of steps, and can easily be completed by only one person. Of course, for me, having a second person available to line up the arms proved helpful. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to attach the headrest, a cover is included for the slot.Mavix M9 Gaming Chair Design and FeaturesAesthetically, the M9 does kind of look like a badass gaming chair, but definitely errs on the more subdued, less obnoxious side, particularly in all-black. My home office has a casual, but clean, look, and this chair does a good job of blending in rather than trying to draw attention to itself.The M9's smooth seat cushion features what Mavix calls cool gel M-Foam, which is supposed to help with airflow and help balance weight distribution. The seat is really wide at roughly 22 inches, which is up to an inch wider than many other chairs. While this is not promoted as a chair for the big and tall, the wider seat and weight capacity of 275 lbs., means it can handle a wider range of body types. It's not as deeply cushioned as I would like at just under 20 inches, but it proved far more bottom-friendly than something like the FlexiSpot C7.The independent lumbar support features a woven, multilayered nylon material that is supposed to be spill- and stain-resistant. There's no way to manually adjust the lumbar support, but both the material and the attachment respond to your movements, providing a decent amount of push on your lower back.Seat height is adjustable with the front paddle on the front right-side lever. You can adjust the recline tension by unlocking the seat with the left-side knob and then adjusting the right-side knob. You can recline as low as 127-degrees, which can be best described as a deep lean back rather than a full recline. Any of the recline positions can also be locked into place.Both the backrest and headrest heights can be adjusted, with the latter recommended being aligned with the nape of your neck. The headrest also pivots in response to your head movements, although, as the chair contoured to the particulars of my body, I really could only reach the headrest when at least slightly reclined.Although in the end they're just wheels, the FS Wheels do have a particularly smooth glide. In fact, there are times where it can be too easy to roll. Fortunately, each wheel has its own locking mechanism, so you can secure the chair in place, which is particularly useful for its full recline position.Finally, there's arguably the star of the show, the Elemax element. It looks a bit like a heating pad, but once its charged, it can provide a constant or variable vibrating massage cycle, heat, or cooling (through its dual fans). While its nice that the Elemax can charge over USB, it's a shame that it doesn't use a standard USB-C connection. The included USB-A cable terminates in a barrel connector, so make sure you keep it handy. In any case, when fully charged, you can expect up to seven 15-minute cycles of combined massage and heating or cooling, which works out to about 1 hour and 45 minutes of total usage. If you only use the massage function, you can get up to 20 15-minute cycles, or about five hours of total usage between charges.Mavix M9 Gaming Chair Comfort and PerformanceOnce I made the necessary adjustments for my body, including seat depth, backrest height, and headrest height, I found the M9 to be suitably comfortable. While there was nothing particularly outstanding about the materials, cushioning, or how anything gets adjusted, it all felt like intentional design rather than a mish-mash of parts that can sometimes happen with customizable products like this. I would have liked to be able to manually adjust the lumbar support to push more into my lower back, but I never had any discomfort from how this part automatically adjusted to how I sat. In terms of heat management, even without activating Elemax, between the mesh lumbar, its material, and the gel within the seat, I never once felt overly warm.Unfortunately, I was a bit less enamored with the FS 360-degree rotational arms. They feature what I consider a cardinal sin with office or gaming chairs, and that's arm rests that don't stay in place when I want them to. Sure, these can be moved around in all kinds of useful ways, and in fact are more positionable this includes full extensions on the six axes of inward, outward, forward, backward, upward, and downward. This makes them more adjustable than any other chair I've ever used. The issue is you can't lock the actual arm rests in place. Even when you lock the arm position, the arm rests freely rotate. If those were also locked in place, I'd consider it near perfect, save for one other big downside.The biggest downside to the FS 360-degree rotational arms is that, despite me securing them correctly and as tightly as possible, there remained a disturbing wobble at the bottom of the chrome base. Every time I pushed myself up to get out of the chair, I was afraid these were going to snap. There's probably no danger that they will, but at this price point, I expect every element of the chair to be rock solid.With that said, again, I did at least appreciate how truly adjustable the FS 360-degree rotational arms are. I don't really need the extra wide seat, but being able to position the arms close to my body and angled made me feel just that bit more secure when I wanted to make that spacing seem tighter. Similarly, when I wanted the arms out of the way, it was no issue pushing them far enough out.The Elemax comfort features do help elevate the experience.Of course, my favorite feature is Elemax. With age, my lower back has gotten increasingly prone to aches and soreness. As such, I need to keep a close eye on it at the gym and regularly make use of massage and heat treatments whenever they're available. While I have a standing desk that helps me stay more active when Im on my computer all day, sometimes I just need to sit. Having the vibration and heat options built into the chair allow me to work or play much longer, while still caring for my lower back. Of course, when I run hot, I love the cooling fan function as well. And while the heat is never truly hot or the cooling ever icy-cool, I had no trouble feeling either side of the temperature spectrum through my shirt. The experience is similar with the massager the vibration isn't super intense even at its max setting, but it's enough to feel it and for it to get its intended job done. It's really special for something so relatively small and unobtrusive that gets incorporated right into the chair, making it the far more valuable add-on in my opinion than the FS 360-degree rotational arms.

As you get into your online holiday shopping, there are some amazing tech deals you should be aware of. One in particular that stands out is the Black Friday Kindle sale at Amazon, which includes some first-time deals on the newly launched Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, Kindle Kids, and Kindle Paperwhite Kids. In case you missed it, Amazon announced a few brand-new Kindles back in October, alongside upgraded versions of most models. Depending on how much storage you need and who you're shopping for, the 2024 Amazon Kindle with 16GB storage is a safe pick for anyone.Save $25 on the New Amazon Kindle (16 GB)Amazon Kindle (16 GB)The new Kindle is the lightest and most compact of its kind, with glare-free display, faster page turns, adjustable front light, and long battery life.Why choose (or upgrade to) the newest model?The latest Kindle's glare-free screen has an adjustable, brighter front light and higher contrast than previous models, making reading easier and faster with quicker page turns. This USB-C charged model has a sustainable design made with recycled materials, which is an added bonus in my book. Grab this Kindle deal while you can! More Kindle DealsSave $45 on New Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (32 GB)Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (32 GB)The fastest Kindle with auto-adjusting front light, wireless charging, and weeks of battery life.Save $35 on New Amazon Kindle Kids (16 GB) at $94.99Amazon Kindle Kids (16 GB)The new Kindle Kids comes with ad-free books and a cute Kindle cover!For those who already subscribe to Amazon Kids+, your active subscription will automatically be replaced as soon as you activate a new Kindle Kids device, and youll receive six months of the subscription.Kindle Unlimited for $0.99If you own or are about to own a Kindle, it's also worth subscribing to Kindle Unlimited. You can access over 2M titles with this subscription, including audiobooks and magazines. Right now, you can take advantage of a Black Friday deal of three months for $0.99 before it goes back toKindle UnlimitedGet 3 months for $0.99See it at AmazonWhy a Kindle Is Worth the InvestmentHere's what commerce writer and Kindle owner, Hannah Hoolihan had to say: "Since the Kindles use e-ink instead of traditional screens like your phone or iPad, they can be read in just about any lighting. In fact, the pages look like actual paper pages, so any artificial light or even bright sunlight are no factor when using the Kindle. It only uses energy when you turn the page, use the backlight or leave Wi-Fi turned on, so if you go into Airplane mode you can go weeks, even months, between charging your Kindle. Generally I go long enough to completely forget where I put my charging cable." For more Black Friday deals to explore, also see Amazon's Black Friday 2024 top deals we've found so far. The actual date of Black Friday 2024 falls on November 29 this year, but majority of sales have already begun. Expect many tech deals to remain on sale through Cyber Monday, December 2.Lindsey (she/her) is IGN's Director of Audience Development and Commerce. She's been at IGN since 2021 and has a background in SEO, especially in the gaming, entertainment, and tech media spaces. Find her on Twitter at @LindseySalzer.

The threat actor known as APT-C-60 has been linked to a cyber attack targeting an unnamed organization in Japan that used a job application-themed lure to deliver the SpyGlace backdoor.That's according to findings from JPCERT/CC, which said the intrusion leveraged legitimate services like Google Drive, Bitbucket, and StatCounter. The attack was carried out around August 2024."In this attack, an email purporting to be from a prospective employee was sent to the organization's recruiting contact, infecting the contact with malware," the agency said.APT-C-60 is the moniker assigned to a South Korea-aligned cyber espionage group that's known to target East Asian countries. In August 2024, it was observed exploiting a remote code execution vulnerability in WPS Office for Windows (CVE-2024-7262) to drop a custom backdoor called SpyGlace.The attack chain discovered by JPCERT/CC involves the use of a phishing email that contains a link to a file hosted on Google Drive, a virtual hard disk drive (VHDX) file, which, when downloaded and mounted, includes a decoy document and a Windows shortcut ("Self-Introduction.lnk").The LNK file is responsible for triggering the subsequent steps in the infection chain, while also displaying the lure document as a distraction.This entails launching a downloader/dropper payload named "SecureBootUEFI.dat" which, in turn, uses StatCounter, a legitimate web analytics tool, to transmit a string that can uniquely identify a victim device using the HTTP referer field. The string value is derived from the computer name, home directory, and the user name and encoded.The downloader then accesses Bitbucket using the encoded unique string in order to retrieve the next stage, a file known as "Service.dat," which downloads two more artifacts from a different Bitbucket repository "cbmp.txt" and "icon.txt" which are saved as "cn.dat" and "sp.dat," respectively."Service.dat" also persists "cn.dat" on the compromised host using a technique called COM hijacking, after which the latter executes the SpyGlace backdoor ("sp.dat").The backdoor, for its part, establishes contact with a command-and-control server ("103.187.26[.]176") and awaits further instructions that allow it to steal files, load additional plugins, and execute commands.It's worth noting that cybersecurity firms Chuangyu 404 Lab and Positive Technologies have independently reported on identical campaigns delivering the SpyGlace malware, alongside highlighting evidence pointing to APT-C-60 and APT-Q-12 (aka Pseudo Hunter) being sub-groups within the DarkHotel cluster."Groups from the Asia region continue to use non-standard techniques to deliver their malware to victims' devices," Positive Technologies said. "One of these techniques is the use of virtual disks in VHD/VHDX format to bypass the operating system's protective mechanisms."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.