Rabu, 22 Mei 2019

Valve’s Steam Chat gets its own iOS and Android apps - TechCrunch

 

A little under a year ago, Valve released a big overhaul for the chat features built into its Steam game store/launcher. Focusing on modern day chat conveniences like better group chats and embedded media (GIFs!), some saw it as a move to hopefully keep a few more users from heading for Discord — which, as it just so happened, was weeks away from poking around Valve’s turf with a game store of their own.

Today, Steam Chat goes mobile. Valve has just announced that dedicated Steam Chat apps are available immediately on both iOS and and Android.

The new mobile client will let you see who’s online, who’s playing what, add new Steam friends, and, of course, chat (both one-on-one, or in groups.) Don’t want your phone buzzing nonstop? Valve says you can tweak notifications on a friend-by-friend, group-by-group basis.

One thing it can’t do quite yet? Voice chat. Valve says it’s on the way, but it didn’t make it into this initial release.

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https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/21/valves-steam-chat-gets-its-own-ios-and-android-apps/

2019-05-22 04:32:37Z
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Google stored some users' passwords in plain text for years - Mashable

Google inadvertently stored enterprise passwords in plain text.
Google inadvertently stored enterprise passwords in plain text.
Image: Chesnot/Getty Images

Google has revealed it had left some business users' passwords exposed in plain text.

In a blog post on Tuesday, the tech giant said it had discovered the issue in Google's popular enterprise product, G Suite, back in January. 

When stored in a system, passwords are cryptographically hashed — scrambled into a random-looking assortment of numbers — which make it near-impossible to try and guess what it is. 

The bug, which had existed since 2005, stored an unhashed, plain text copy of the password in G Suite's administration console. The console had allowed administrators to reset a password for a user, in case they forgot it, but Google said the function no longer exists.

"This practice did not live up to our standards," Suzanne Frey, Google's VP of engineering, Cloud trust, said in the blog post.

"To be clear, these passwords remained in our secure encrypted infrastructure. This issue has been fixed and we have seen no evidence of improper access to or misuse of the affected passwords."

Google didn't reveal how many users were impacted by the bug, but the issue only affects users of G Suite, and does not impact people who use Google's free consumer accounts.

The company said it has contacted G Suite administrators to change those impacted passwords, and has reset passwords for those users who have not done so already.

While Google's security issue arguably pales in comparison, it comes after millions of passwords were discovered stored in plain text by Facebook back in March.

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https://mashable.com/article/google-plaintext-password-enterprise/

2019-05-22 04:29:00Z
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Selasa, 21 Mei 2019

Huawei says it's a 'victim of bullying by the US' - Engadget

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To no one's surprise, Huawei isn't reacting calmly to losing key suppliers in the wake of the US' trade restrictions. Representative Abraham Liu said the company was the "victim of the bullying by the US administration," and that this was an attack on the "liberal, rules-based order." He added that the company wasn't taking the loss of Android support lying down. Huawei was "working closely" with Google to see how it could "handle the situation," Liu said, noting that Google had no motivations to block the company beyond complying with US law.

In an earlier statement, founder Ren Zhegfei said that the company had prepared for this possibility. The company previously acknowledged that it had a backup operating system in case it was cut off from Android, although it has yet to talk about rolling out the alternative software. Huawei could technically use Android's open source version on its devices, although it would lose proprietary Google apps and thus the Play Store.

While Huawei is clearly hoping Google can help, it's not clear there's much it can do. Even with a temporary license, Huawei can only help existing phone users. Google still can't help with new devices during that period, and it can't offer its proprietary software at all afterward. So long as the business ban persists, Huawei likely won't have much choice but to explore alternatives.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/21/huawei-accuses-us-of-bullying/

2019-05-21 14:29:34Z
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Sony just laid out everything there is to know about the PS5 - Engadget

Sony's next-generation console isn't due to launch anytime this year, but the tech giant has been surprisingly generous with details. During a corporate strategy presentation, the company has listed all the information it has revealed so far, confirming yet again that the PS5 will have backwards compatibility. Since it has a similar architecture to the PS4, it will be able to play games designed for the current-gen console and will also be compatible with the current version of PlayStation VR.

"We will leverage backwards compatibility to transition our community to next-gen faster and more seamlessly than ever before," the company's presentation said at the event. Sony intends to use PS4 games to encourage early adopters, which it says are critical for the PS5's success. In fact, it promises more AAA games for the PlayStation 4, seeing as it will remain an "engine of engagement and profitability" over the next three years. This may hint at Sony pricing the PS5 at a loss, and relying on the PS4 to keep the gaming division in the black.

Even though the upcoming console will have similarities with the PS4, it will be powered by an all-new CPU and GPU. In an interview with Wired, lead system architect Mark Cerny said it will use a third-gen AMD Ryzen CPU with eight cores and a custom GPU built on AMD's Radeon Navi family. The GPU will support an advanced rendering technique called ray tracing, which is limited to high-end gaming PCs at the moment, and will provide the console with immersive 3D audio.

In addition, the PS5 will use SSDs for storage instead of hard drives. The SSD, along with its other components, lead to a significant speed bump: at the event, Sony showed how the PS5 is around ten times faster than the PS4 Pro when it comes to loading complex scenes.

SonyThe upcoming console will also support 8K graphics to be able to make the most out of all the 8K TVs making their way to the market, although don't hold you breath for any native 8K games given that's essentially beyond even the most powerful gaming PC. And perhaps most importantly for those still not sold on going 100 percent digital: it will still have support for physical discs, though Sony didn't mention what discs it'll be able to play other than PS4 games.

Sony intends to make PS5 owners consider streaming as an option if they haven't yet, though. It plans to improve the quality of its PlayStation Now offerings until users consider streaming just as good as downloads and discs. Plus, it intends to to leverage its partnership with Microsoft to "achieve growth and scale faster than ever before." The two tech giants recently announced their team up to build technologies for gaming and content streaming.

While there are still a lot of unknowns, one thing's for sure: Sony will not be talking about PlayStation 5 at E3 next month. In fact, it won't be talking about anything, as it's skipping the conference entirely this year.

Unfortunately, Sony has still yet to reveal when the PS5 will come out -- we know for sure that it won't appear this year -- or where it will first become available and how much it will cost. It sounds like we'll have to keep waiting for the company to reveal those details the closer we get to the PS5's rollout.

Source: Sony (PDF)
In this article: gadgetry, gadgets, gaming, playstation, ps5, sony
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Mariella loves staring at her cute dog while writing space, science and tech stories for Engadget. In her spare time, she enjoys pretending to be an opera diva, watching action movies, reading detective/horror fiction and playing video games. 
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https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/21/sony-playstation-5-next-gen-console-details/

2019-05-21 12:56:54Z
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Sony demos PlayStation 5 fast load times, hints at cloud gaming future - The Verge

Sony isn’t holding its usual E3 press conference this year, but the company has been gradually revealing parts of its next-generation PlayStation console. The PlayStation 5 will support 8K graphics, 3D audio, SSD storage, and backwards compatibility with existing PlayStation 4 titles. That SSD storage should boost load times significantly, and Sony offered up some clear demonstrations of exactly that today.

During a Sony investor relations meeting (PDF), the company demonstrated PlayStation 5 load times using Spider-Man to load cities and rapidly navigate throughout them. While the PS4 takes around eight seconds to load a Spider-Man level, the PS5 (identified simply as next-generation) does the same in less than a second. The PS5 can also better handle dynamic maps that load portions of a game as a player moves throughout them, avoiding the classic spinning circle or pause when you move from one part of a map to another.

Sony might be focused on its next generation PlayStation 5 console, but the company says the PS4 will “remain the engine of engagement and profitability in the next three years” and will provide early adopters for the next generation of PlayStation. Sony also previously revealed that the PS5 will use an eight-core CPU based on AMD’s third-gen Ryzen line, and include a GPU that supports ray-tracing graphics. Sony has not yet demonstrated ray-tracing on the PS5, though.

We’re still waiting to hear about pricing and release dates (not in the next 12 months) for the PS5, and even games and the general user experience, but Sony has started hinting at how it sees cloud gaming as part of the next generation. Sony is planning to leverage its existing PlayStation Now network to support 1080p and beyond games, while improving the quality of content and maximizing what it describes as its “off-console opportunity.”

PlayStation Now has been criticized for a lack of content, especially compared to offerings like the Xbox Game Pass, but it’s clear that Sony sees it playing a big role in the next generation console space. Sony’s vision is that PlayStation Now will rapidly expand beyond its capacity to support 5 million subscribers, and the company is partnering with Microsoft to help achieve scale.

While cloud gaming is a focus, Sony says it still believes in gamer choice for its next-generation console. During one particular slide, Sony even hints that the PS5 could come with a Blu-ray drive and support downloads and streaming. Sony has only officially said that the next console will support discs so far.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/21/18633791/sony-playstation-5-demo-load-times-cloud-gaming

2019-05-21 09:53:55Z
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Huawei founder: US government 'underestimated our power' - Fox Business

The growing animosity between Huawei Technologies and the U.S. government was inevitable and a sales ban imposed by the Trump administration will have no effect on the firm’s plans, according to the founder of the Chinese telecommunications giant.

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Speaking to Chinese state media on Tuesday, Ren Zhengfei said there would be “conflict with the United States sooner or later” as Huawei seeks to grow its dominance in the global telecom industry.

“We sacrificed [the interests of] individuals and families for the sake of an ideal, to stand at the top of the world,” he said according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

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The White House last week announced an executive order to prevent U.S. companies from doing business with foreign telecom firms that pose a national security risk. While the action was company and country-agnostic, Huawei is the largest firm set to be impacted.

After the order, the Commerce Department also placed the company on a “black list” that prevents U.S. businesses from selling to Huawei without federal approval, which experts say is unlikely.

On Monday, the agency said it would permit some limited transactions for 90 days to allow American firms to “make other arrangements,” Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

While large domestic telecom firms like AT&T and Verizon Wireless have vowed not to use Huawei equipment in the development of pending fifth-generation wireless networks, rural carriers still rely on its low-cost equipment.

Zhengfei said the ban would have no impact on Huawei’s 5G strategy and expects it to have a two-to-three-year advantage on competitors.

“The current actions by American politicians underestimated our power,” he told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

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Following the actions from the Trump administration, a number of companies took immediate steps to limit their relationship with the Chinese firm. Google, for example, said it would restrict access to popular applications on Huawei smartphones, a decision that was reversed after the White House’s 90-day reprieve.

Chipmakers like Intel and Qualcomm Inc. also reportedly suspended shipments to Huawei. While the company develops some of its own chips, it relies on U.S. firms for other parts.

Spokespersons for Qualcomm and Intel did not immediately respond to request for comment.

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Federal officials and U.S. lawmakers have long charged that Huawei is closely aligned with the Chinese government and effectively acts as a conduit for espionage for the Asian nation around the globe.

The Trump administration has attempted to pressure some U.S. allies to also restrict the use of Huawei equipment in pending 5G networks. Following the ban, however, countries like Germany signaled they are unlikely to pursue any new actions against the company.

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https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/huawei-founder-us-government-underestimated-our-power

2019-05-21 11:45:44Z
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PS5 Game Streaming Will Be Just as Important as Physical Discs and Digital Downloads - Push Square

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Off the back of its recent partnership with Microsoft that will see the two companies come together on future cloud streaming solutions, Sony has revealed in an investor relation meeting that streaming a PS5 game will be just as important as its physical disc and digital download counterparts.

It's something everyone has assumed due to the way the industry is going, but this announcement sets the streaming method in stone for PlayStation 5. This type of content delivery is set to become the norm alongside purchasing a physical copy at a store or downloading it from the PlayStation Store, meaning that a streamable option may be available for most, if not all, games from launch.

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This is a fairly major shift in role for PlayStation Now, which adds games to its library monthly well after those titles have hit the market. On the PS5, it looks like you'll be able to stream a game the moment it's available. Would you like to embrace the streaming future and play a PS5 title as soon as it becomes available, without any prior download? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/05/ps5_game_streaming_will_be_just_as_important_as_physical_discs_and_digital_downloads

2019-05-21 08:45:00Z
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