The studio founded by ex-Avalanche Studios COO and co-founder Christofer Sundberg, Liquid Swords, is getting hit by layoffs. Announced through a post on its official website, the layoffs were made in an effort to scale back operations.In the post, the studio describes the layoffs as being intended to ensure the long-term sustainability of Liquid Swords. Development on its first untitled game, however, is still in progress.I promised our employees and shareholders success and to build a studio redefining game development with a small, expert-driven team and a sustainable work model, wrote Sundberg in a statement.While we achieved much of this, shifting market conditions prevented us from succeeding within our timeframe. As a result, we must part ways with talented individuals who have been instrumental in our journey. This is incredibly difficult, but we remain committed to our vision and will continue to work on our IP and first game with a dedicated team.The announcement by Liquid Swords doesnt include details about how many of its employees will be affected by these layoffs, and what departments of the studios will be affected. However, it does say that the studio remains focused on a vision of simplifying the game development process.While the game Liquid Swords has been working on is still untitled, the studio did give us a glimpse at what it would look like through a pair of screenshots back in October. The screenshots indicate that it will be an open-world game featuring some sort of contemporary setting. The fidelity of the two screenshots was also impressively high. Liquid Studios has stated in the past that its first game will be a narrative-driven title.Liquid Swords is still a relatively new studio, having been founded back in 2020. Based in Sweden, the studios development team includes veterans of the industry, including developers that have previously worked on franchises like Battlefield, Minecraft, PayDay, Grand Theft Auto, and Just Cause.

Bethesda has announced a promotion with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to offer fans of The Elder Scrolls franchise what it calls a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. By taking part in the promotion, players will be able to create their own NPC in the upcoming The Elder Scrolls 6.To take part in this, fans can place a bid for this opportunity by taking part in a silent auction in the Make-A-Wish Foundations Mid-Atlantic page. Currently sitting at $11,050, the money would go to the famous charity.One winner will have the opportunity to work with the Bethesda Game Studios development team to create a character to appear as a video game NPC in The Elder Scrolls VI, reads the description of the auction.With this exclusive experience, youll work with the developers to create a custom character that will appear in the game, leaving your mark on the legendary franchise.It is worth noting that details about being able to create your own NPC in The Elder Scrolls 6 are sparse; while the winner of the charity auction will likely get a lot of say over what this NPC ends up looking like, their name, and even where in the open world game theyll appear, there will also likely be some restrictions. However, it is also likely that Bethesda might decide to commemorate this special NPC with a small quest featuring them.The Elder Scrolls 6 was originally announced all the way back during E3 2018. While the majority of the show revolved around Bethesdas other titles, a small teaser was shown to let players know that the company has begun work on The Elder Scrolls 6 in some capacity.We learned quite a few things from the short teaser, including the fact that The Elder Scrolls 6 will likely take place in a new environment we havent seen since The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.Bethesda exec Pete Hines had previously referred to The Elder Scrolls 6 as being a big and ambitious game. Back in 2018, he had also revealed that the game would still be quite some time away. A few years later in 2023, Xbox boss Phil Spencer spoke about the upcoming RPG as well, saying that it was still over five years away from release.Despite Bethesdas silence over the games details, however, we have managed to learn a few key things here and there. A former design director from Bethesda, for instance, revealed that the game would feature the same levelling system as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. This means that players that use specific skills will start getting specialised in those skills, making them stronger. For instance, using a 2-handed weapon continuously will make the character better at using other 2-handed weapons as well.When he was asked back in 2023 about why The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced so early, a former Bethesda developer revealed that Todd Howard wanted to assure fans that there was indeed a new single-player entry in the franchise that was being made.While we still dont know when The Elder Scrolls 6 will be coming out, or even what platforms it might come to, Bethesda revealed back in 2024 that development on the game was well under way. Early builds were being prototyped and tested internally, according to the company.In the meantime, here are 15 things you might not have known about The Elder Scrolls 6.

Square Enix to end support for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on iOSDecision made due to unfixable bug following changes to its in-app purchases modelImage credit: Square Enix News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Feb. 18, 2025 Square Enix has announced it will be shutting down Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered on iOS.In a statement, the firm explained it had been made aware of issues regarding in-app purchases that were the result of "changes made to the in-app purchases model.""Further investigation revealed that we are unable to completely fix the bug and implement the new changes, making it unlikely to resume service for the game," it wrote. "Thus, we must regretfully announce that we will end support for the iOS version."Customers who bought additional content in January 2024 or later are eligible for refunds, which can be made via contacting Apple support.Square Enix advises customers with questions about this process to contact its customer support center by August 31, 2025.Despite being shut down on iOS, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered will continue to be available on other platforms.

Microsoft was planning to make some changes to the way you sign in to a Microsoft account in February, keeping accounts signed in automatically unless you sign out or use private browsing. While the changes were communicated to Outlook.com users through a notification and in a now-removed Microsoft support article, Microsoft has now confirmed to The Verge that this was a mistake.There will be no changes to Microsoft users commercial (Microsoft Entra) or consumer (Microsoft account) sign in experiences in February, confirms Alex Simons, corporate vice president of identity & network access program management at Microsoft, in a statement to The Verge. Media reports were based on incomplete information mistakenly published by a Microsoft product team. The incorrect notifications have been removed.Microsoft hasnt clarified when it plans to eventually roll out these changes after the mistaken notifications, but once they arrive it means youll no longer be asked if you want to stay signed in, and Microsoft will automatically keep you signed in instead. Once Microsoft starts to automatically keep you signed in youll have to use a private browsing window on public PCs or make sure you remember to sign out once your session ends, otherwise the account will remain signed in.

Elon Musks xAI unveiled Grok-3 on Tuesday, announcing that the new artificial intelligence model has more than 10 times the compute power of its predecessor. xAI said its latest flagship outperforms OpenAIs GPT-4o, Googles Gemini, and DeepSeeks V3 models in early testing, and now features advanced reasoning capabilities.So-called reasoning models are trained to answer more complex questions by breaking instructions down into smaller tasks and attempting to fact-check themselves before offering a solution, with the aim of providing stronger results. Similar models have been developed by rival companies, including OpenAIs o1, DeepSeeks R1, and Googles Gemini Flash Thinking.There are two Grok-3 reasoning modes available: Think, which will display Groks reasoning as it resolves requests; and Big Brain for complex tasks that require more computational power. xAI is also launching a Grok AI agent product called Deep Search, which the company describes as a next generation search engine.Musk says that Grok-3 is a maximally truth-seeking AI even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct. Previous versions of the xAI chatbot have been criticized for spreading election misinformation and having fewer guardrails on text-to-image generation, allowing it to spit out questionable or offensive imagery. OpenAI is also exploring how to develop its models to seek the truth when handling controversial topics, but with the aim of maintaining certain safety rails.The Grok-3 reasoning capabilities are available in the Grok app for subscribers to X Premium Plus, which now starts at $40 per month. This is the second hike for Premium Plus in two months, having increased from $16 to $22 in December. xAI said it is also launching a new subscription plan called SuperGrok that will provide the most advanced capabilities and earliest access to new features. SuperGrok will reportedly cost $30 per month, though its unclear if this is an additional charge on top of X subscriptions.Elon Musk said that the Grok chatbot will soon gain a synthesized voice feature that sounds similar to OpenAIs Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT. xAI is also planning to make Grok-2 open source in the coming months.

Osgood Perkins is taking a big step into King country this week as he turns Stephen Kings 30-page, 1980 short story The Monkey into one hell of a bloody fun ride. The film, like the original story, focuses on twin brothers named Hal and Bill (Christian Convery as children) who discover an old drumming monkey toy among the detritus left by their deadbeat dad. Heres the problem: Every time the monkey is wound and bangs his little drum, someone dies horribly and ironically. The curse of this monkey follows the boys into adulthood where they are now played by Theo James of The White Lotus and Divergent fame. Much cartoonish gore ensues.Its ironic that Perkins honed in on Kings writing since the original 1977 hardback cover art for The Shining depicted Jack Torrance with imagery undeniably reminiscent of Ozs famous actor dad, Anthony Perkins (Psycho, co-writer of The Last of Sheila). The Shining was a lot of peoples gateway drug into Kings storytelling, and fittingly enough, Ozs own initial encounter with King also came via Anthony Perkins.My Dad was a child of the 30s, 40s, 50s, Perkins says in a sitdown with Den of Geek, a movie actor and a stage actor, and TV was not something that we did. My brother and I [watched] MTV, but a lot of television was not how we were raised. My Dad was a really avid paperback novel reader. I guess he traveled a lot and had a lot of downtime. He was an extremely smart dude.During all those travels and well-worn paperbacks, one cover in particular caught young Osgoods imagination.Says Perkins, I have a distinct memory of holding his fat paperback copy of Pet Sematary with the cats face and the misspelled title, and the kids handwriting. For whatever reason, whatever age I was when I held that in my hand, I cant even tell you why it had such a profound impact on me but I never will forget that moment of seeing the vibe coming off of that book. The title treatment and the misspelling of the word, I thought was so great. Creepshow, the comic book with the Bernie Wrightson artwork, the playfulness of that element of Stephen King, those are my gateways through the visual weirdly more than through the text.The Dark Humor (and Autobiography) in TragedyYet when it came time to finally adapt King as a filmmaker, Perkins found himself drawing on a vibe that was much lighter than Pet Sematarys tone, if an intensely perverse way. There have of course been plenty of Stephen King film adaptations with a great deal of levity, including Stand By Me or Misery, but The Monkey is straight up, front-to-back gallows humor comedy. But as Perkins tells us, he found the kernel of absurdity in the original story via the title simian doll itself.The filmmaker explains, I was given an opportunity to work with the material, and it was exciting immediately because the monkey itself is such an iconic, instantly uncanny thing that, for whatever reason, just stirs in the human mind. Theres something about that thing I dont like. We showed our monkey doll to one of the stand-ins for one of the kids, and his response was, Oh, I hate that so much.Perkins notes that unlike other dangerous movie dolls, your M3GANs or Chuckys, the Monkey doesnt technically do anything. Its just a totem, but that is one place where the films dark humor springs. It felt like the leer of Gremlins, he muses. But while thoroughly funny, the plot of The Monkey threads several childhood traumas for its twin protagonists, including the death of a parent. Perkins drew from many tragedies in his own life. (While he does not confirm these are the influences, Perkins father died from AIDS in 1992 and his mother Berry Berenson died as a passenger during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.)Learning to cope with those tragic events helped him process the lighter side of mortality.The monkey doesnt do things, it just exists, so it represents the fact that everybody dies, said Perkins, echoing one of Tatiana Maslanys lines in the movie. The Monkey just happens to be there when people die in insane ways. I connected that to my own personal experience with some pretty shocking tragedies in my life, which feltat the timevery cursed and so far out of the realm of possibility. I connected to The Monkey as being, Oh, its just how life goes. I was like, Oh, well, Im an expert on that. Life sometimes goes into this insane place of death.Making the movie likewise tapped into a perhaps therapeutic space for the director: I was able to connect with the healed part of myself. When these things happened when I was younger, it was bad. But as time goes on things change and you adapt, you heal, and your life changes. Your surroundings change and you cope with things, you process things, youre able to take a different attitude or different point of view if youre lucky.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Honoring Stephen KingBesides layering in autobiographical aspects of himself into The Monkey, Perkins threaded a few details intrinsic to King as a person, a big one being the Dad that went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Another is the main characters lifetime connection to a small town since King is a lifetime Bangor Maine-er. And of course the idea of childhood traumas coming back to haunt you as an adult is a staple of Kings writing (IT, Salems Lot, Doctor Sleep, etc.).The whole idea from the getgo is that it was going to be a movie that honored Stephen King, Perkins says. I wanted it to be called Stephen Kings The Monkey. That was on the title page. Things get nudged through legal and advertising and all this stuff, but every title page of every draft I turned in was Stephen Kings The Monkey. I felt like the combination of the image and his name was the alchemy, the most honest representation of the thing.Since completing the film, the director muses about recently revisiting Kings On Writing memoir.Says Perkins, I was surprised by how much I had taken unconsciously, like the babysitter. The relationship with the babysitter is foremost in the first couple chapters. He had this crazy babysitter who used to sit on his head and fart. The fact that this trickled down made me think I really did reflect him more than I even thought. His stuff sunk in so deep to all of us, especially those of us who work as horror writers. If you dont bow at the altar of that, who are you?While there are no other King stories Perkins currently has his eye on to adapt, he would be open to a specific type of film inspired by one King movie in particular.I tend to be a little bit more like, What does the universe want for me? As opposed to call my agent and get all these books. I want to option all this shit. I just dont think about that. If anything, I would want to do something that felt like Creepshow, something short, a vignette kind of thing. I had a real admiration, adoration, and weird sick love for the episodic, chopped up vibe of something like Tales from the Crypt. The Robert Zemeckis Santa Claus one is so good. The energy of the little shot, like a short story, may be the answer. I would love to do a collection of King short stories, an anthology.The Influence of Barry Sonnenfeld and Batman?!King wasnt the only artist he was trying to pay tribute to though. The way Perkins and his cinematographer Nico Aguilar shot the film only enhances that darkly comedic vibe. It harkens back to cinematographer-turned-director Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family, Men in Black) in the use of wide angles, framing people with a lot of existential headroom, and the Gothic art direction.Sonnenfeld was absolutely something that Nico and I talked about. The kinetic, playful nature of the camera. Things like Raising Arizona [on which he DPd] is such a wild, expressive take on how to use the camera for comedy. Zemeckis does it also. Death Becomes Her has a couple really great examples. We set that intention for ourselves.That appreciation also extended to another filmmaker who has had dealings with The Addams Family, namely Tim Burton.I also wanted to bring back the canted angle, the Dutch angle, said Perkins. I kept calling it the Batman shot, and thats from Tim Burtons Batman where every once in a while hed go to a really canted Dutch angle. Thats fun. A lot of upshots looking at Theo are canted out of admiration for early Tim Burton, which we also wanted to emulate.Osgood Perkins The Monkey opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, Feb. 21.

A new render aims to visualize a potential iPhone 17 Pro design, with a full-width camera module replacing the current offset square.3D artist and developer Asher Dipprey previously shared the renders in a video, which was restricted to his Patreon members All recent Pro models have had a square camera module on the left side of the casing, with a triangular arrangement of lenses within in. Reports suggest that the iPhone 17 Pro will abandon this design and instead extend the camera bump across almost the full width of the phone, though retaining the triangular lens arrangement.In Dippreys render, which he also shows in Space Black, the camera bump is not symmetrical, with a larger gap on the left than the right.The renders appear to be based on a claimed CAD image circulating last month. Leaker Majin Bu last month said that the image itself was fake a view endorsed by Bloombergs Mark Gurman but that it did reflect the overall design of genuine CAD images.I received an image of an alleged CAD of iPhone 17 Pro, I showed it to some designers to try to understand if the image was real and they told me that their warning is a fake. Even if it is fake it should reflect what are the CAD of the models currently being testedBu has a decent though imperfect track record, including the new Desert Titanium color of the iPhone 16 Pro.Reactions to the purported design havent been good, and while Dippreys images provide a very polished look, he describes the design only as bearable.Dipprey is also the developer behind Radiance, a free app which helps you create your own wallpaper. 9to5Macs TakeThis is the best look yet at what the reports to date appear to describe, including what is said to be represented by CAD images. However, theres still a lot of guesswork involved in translating a design feature into a realistic render.Personally, even allowing for the fact that a first look at a new design is often jarring, I cant help feeling this looks well, terrible. What are your views? Please let us know in the comments.Render: Asher DippreyAdd 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

Skip to main contentApple @ Work PodcastApple @ Work Podcast: How did Parallels bring x86 emulation to Apple Silicon? Bradley C|Feb 18 2025 - 3:00 am PTApple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle,the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost.Request your EXTENDED TRIALtoday and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.In this episode of Apple @ Work, I talk with Kamal Srinivasan from Alludo about Parallels gaining the ability to emulate x86 on Apple Silicon.Connect with BradleyListen and subscribeListen to Past EpisodesAdd 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 Featuredfrom 9to5Mac9to5Mac Logo Manage push notificationsAllPost

Feb 18, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network SecurityJuniper Networks has released security updates to address a critical security flaw impacting Session Smart Router, Session Smart Conductor, and WAN Assurance Router products that could be exploited to hijack control of susceptible devices.Tracked as CVE-2025-21589, the vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8 and a CVS v4 score of 9.3."An Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in Juniper Networks Session Smart Router may allow a network-based attacker to bypass authentication and take administrative control of the device," the company said in an advisory.The vulnerability impacts the following products and versions -Session Smart Router: From 5.6.7 before 5.6.17, from 6.0.8, from 6.1 before 6.1.12-lts, from 6.2 before 6.2.8-lts, and from 6.3 before 6.3.3-r2Session Smart Conductor: From 5.6.7 before 5.6.17, from 6.0.8, from 6.1 before 6.1.12-lts, from 6.2 before 6.2.8-lts, and from 6.3 before 6.3.3-r2WAN Assurance Managed Routers: From 5.6.7 before 5.6.17, from 6.0.8, from 6.1 before 6.1.12-lts, from 6.2 before 6.2.8-lts, and from 6.3 before 6.3.3-r2Juniper Networks said the vulnerability was discovered during internal product security testing and research, and that it's not aware of any malicious exploitation.The flaw has been addressed in Session Smart Router versions SSR-5.6.17, SSR-6.1.12-lts, SSR-6.2.8-lts, SSR-6.3.3-r2, and later."This vulnerability has been patched automatically on devices that operate with WAN Assurance (where configuration is also managed) connected to the Mist Cloud," the company added. "As practical, the routers should still be upgraded to a version containing the fix."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

Is AI really reshaping the cyber threat landscape, or is the constant drumbeat of hype drowning out actual, more tangible, real-world dangers? According to Picus Labs' Red Report 2025 which analyzed over one million malware samples, there's been no significant surge, so far, in AI-driven attacks. Yes, adversaries are definitely continuing to innovate, and while AI will certainly start playing a larger and larger role, the latest data suggests that a set of well-known tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are still dominating the field.The hype around artificial intelligence has certainly been dominating media headlines; yet the real-world data paints a far more nuanced picture of which malware threats are thriving, and why. Here's a glimpse at the most critical findings and trends shaping the year's most deployed adversarial campaigns and what steps cybersecurity teams need to take to respond to them.Why the AI Hype is Falling Shortat Least For NowWhile headlines are trumpeting AI as the one-size-fits-all new secret weapon for cybercriminals, the statisticsagain, so farare telling a very different story. In fact, after poring over the data, Picus Labs found no meaningful upswing in AI-based tactics in 2024. Yes, adversaries have started incorporating AI for efficiency gains, such as crafting more credible phishing emails or creating/ debugging malicious code, but they haven't yet tapped AI's transformational power in the vast majority of their attacks so far. In fact, the data from the Red Report 2025 shows that you can still thwart the majority of attacks by focusing on tried-and-true TTPs."Security teams should prioritize identifying and addressing critical gaps in their defenses, rather than fixating on the potential influence of AI." Picus Red Report 2025Credential Theft Spikes More Than 3X (8% 25%)Attackers are increasingly targeting password stores, browser-stored credentials, and cached logins, leveraging stolen keys to escalate privileges and spread within networks. This threefold jump underscores the urgent need for ongoing and robust credential management combined with proactive threat detection.Modern infostealer malware orchestrates multi-stage style heists blending stealth, automation, and persistence. With legitimate processes cloaking malicious operations and actual day-to-day network traffic hiding nefarious data uploads, bad actors can exfiltrate data right under your security team's proverbial nose, no Hollywood-style "smash-and-grab" needed. Think of it as the digital equivalent of a perfectly choreographed burglary. Only the criminals don't peel out in a getaway car; they lurk silently, awaiting your next misstep or opening.93% of Malware Uses at Least One Top 10 MITRE ATT&CK TechniqueDespite the expansive MITRE ATT&CK framework, most adversaries stick to a core set of TTPs. Among the Top 10 ATT&CK techniques provided in the Red Report, the following exfiltration and stealth techniques remain the most used:T1055 (Process Injection) allows attackers to inject malicious code into trusted system processes, making detection more challenging.T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter) lets adversaries run harmful commands or scripts from within legitimate interpreters on target machines.T1071 (Application Layer Protocols) gives attackers "whisper channels" for command-and-control and data exfiltration, hidden in common protocols like HTTPS or DNS-over-HTTPS.The combined effect? Legitimate-seeming processes use legitimate tools to collect and transmit data over widely used network channels. Not surprisingly, these techniques can be difficult to detect through signature-based methods alone. However, using behavioral analysis, particularly when multiple techniques are used to monitor and correlate data together, makes it far easier to spot anomalies. Security teams need to focus on looking for malicious activity that appears virtually indistinguishable from normal network traffic.Back to Basics for a Better DefenseToday's threats often chain together numerous attack stages to infiltrate, persist, and exfiltrate. By the time one step is identified, attackers may already have moved on to the next. So, while the threat landscape is undeniably sophisticated, the silver lining uncovered in the Red Report 2025 is rather straightforward: most current malicious activity actually revolves around a small set of attack techniques. By doubling down on modern cyber security fundamentals, such as rigorous credential protection, advanced threat detection, and continuous security validation, organizations can confidently ignore the tsunami of AI hype for now and focus instead on confronting the threats that are actually targeting them today.Ready to Cut Through the AI Hype and Strengthen Your Defenses?While the headlines are fixated on AI, Picus Security, the pioneer of Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) since 2013, is intently focused on the methods and techniques attackers are actually using: tried-and-true TTPs. The Picus Security Validation Platform continuously assesses and fortifies organizations' defenses, emphasizing fundamentals like credential protection and rapid threat detection.Ready to see the difference for yourself? Download the Picus Red Report 2025 or visit picussecurity.com to learn how to tune out the hype and keep real threats at bay.Note: This article was written by Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan, co-founder of Picus Security and VP of Picus Labs, where simulating cyber threats and strengthening organizations' defenses are what we do every day.Found this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.