Fortnite’s Turbo Building Time Delay Change Rolled Back by Epic Games After Backlash

Photo source : Epic Games

Epic Games has had a rough couple of weeks. First, it was the B.R.U.T.E mechs in Fortnite that caused outrage among players, causing Epic Games to make a host of changes in order to level the battlefield. Now, it is the changes done to Fortnite's turbo building feature that has generated quite a controversy and has again pushed Epic Games to backtrack. To give some context, Epic Games recently increased the delay between placing items while Turbo Building from 0.05 seconds to 0.15 seconds. Fast forward a few days, and Epic Games has reverted it back to its original span in Fortnite.
Epic Games recently delayed subsequent Turbo Build placements from 0.05 seconds to 0.15 seconds. The change went live with the Fortnite v10.20 update, and to put it simply, not many people liked it. And even Fortnite pros like Ninja and Daequan expressed their displeasure at the change. The logic behind it all? Well, Epic Games says that “Rapid Turbo Building favours players with low ping in disproportionate ways” when it comes to turtling and taking walls.
Epic Games also cited accidental item placement, spam building, and disproportionate benefits of turtling for defenders as the other reasons. But it appears that increasing the time gap while turbo building did not sit down well with players, who said their ability to perform 90s and waterfalls in Fortnite was affected as a result. The time delay might not sound like a big deal on paper, but in high-stakes situations, the ability to build a wall quickly for defending oneself is vital.
Now, Epic Games has rolled back the turbo building time delay and has provided an update about it in a blog post. The turbo building delay is now back to 0.05 seconds, which means Fortnite players should again feel at home while performing 90s and waterfalls. But there are a couple of other changes as well. First, there will be a delay of 0.15 seconds between destroying a structure and building another one at the exact same spot. Second, when two players are trying to do so simultaneously, it will be decided randomly whose structure is given the ground.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Has Been Fully Assembled

Photo Credit: NASA/ Chris Gunn

Engineers have finally assembled NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble observatory.

Once in space, the telescope will explore the cosmos, planets and moons within our solar system as well as the most ancient and distant galaxies using infrared light, NASA said on Wednesday.

NASA's most powerful and complex space telescope has now been mechanically connected. The next step will be to electrically connect the two halves and test the electrical connections.

"The assembly of telescope and its scientific instruments, sunshield and the spacecraft into one observatory represents an incredible achievement by the entire Webb team," said Bill Ochs, Webb Project Manager for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"This milestone symbolises the efforts of thousands of dedicated individuals for over more than 20 years across NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, Northrop Grumman, and our industrial and academic partners," Ochs said.

Next up for Webb testing, engineers will deploy the intricate five-layer sunshield, designed to keep Webb's mirrors and scientific instruments cool by blocking infrared light from the Earth, Moon and Sun.

The ability of the sunshield to deploy to its correct shape is critical for the success of the mission.

The fully assembled observatory will then go through additional environmental and deployment testing to ensure mission success. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in 2021.

Activision revenue beats estimates on higher investments

Source : Internet

Activision Blizzard recently had their quarterly earnings call where they said they outperformed their outlook, and yet investors remain skeptical of their overall game output, which has lagged in recent years, to say the least. To try and reassure everyone on that front, Activision Blizzard said that they were expanding their development teams across Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch and Diablo.

Activision raised its full year forecast for adjusted profit to $2.15 per share, from $2.10, but reaffirmed revenue of $6.30 billion. Analyst were expecting a profit of $2.15 per share and revenue of  $3.36 billion, according to IBES data from refinitiv. Activision recorded $1.7 billion in revenue a year ago, bolstered by expansions in two of its hit video game franchises: "Destiny" and "World of Warcraft." Wall Street didn't expect Activision's forecast to beat last year's numbers, but it was hoping for more than $1.1 billion.

Candy Crush remains the top-grossing app in the United States. King, the developer which makes Candy Crush and is owned by Activision, brought in revenue of $499 million during the second quarter. Activision's other popular titles performed well, too. "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4," and "Hearthstone" grew sales and the number of monthly active users rose on both games. The company plans to continue expanding upon its well-worn franchises. The Over-watch League is set to hold its grand finals in Philadelphia next month, with a $1.7 million prize pool between the top two teams.

 

Source : Internet

 

"Our second quarter results exceeded our prior outlook for both revenue and earnings per share," said Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard. "In the first half of 2019 we have prioritized investments in our key franchises and, beginning in the second half of this year our audiences will have a chance to see and experience the initial results of these efforts." Kotick said.

Overall, the company reported a net income of $328 million in the second quarter, an 18.4% decline compared to last year. Revenue was also on the downturn. Activision recorded $1.4 billion in sales compared to $1.6 billion a year ago.

GTA 5 Online Casino update is out Next Week

Grand Theft Auto players have been looking forward to getting into gambling. The good news is that the players of Grand Theft Auto Online are not going to have to wait for long to get their hands the Casino DLC. On the 18th of July, Rockstar Games came up with a new trailer concerning the release of the Casino DLC. 

The GTA 5 Online Casino DLC will have a release date of  Tuesday July 23 on PS4, Xbox One and PCs . At the new GTA Casino in Vinewood Grand Theft Auto 5 Online players will be able to try their luck at traditional casino games like blackjack, roulette and on the slot machines.The GTA Casino also features a Penthouse area with VIP lounges, and the DLC will also bring with it the brand new Truffade Thrax super-car.

In addition to the new games, the developer also allows the player in gaining access to more of a customizing Master Penthouse. There is a slight catch when it comes to the Master Penthouse, and that is only the VIP members can access the play area. The Penthouse grants a new set of co-op missions, where you'll work with casino owner Tao Cheng to keep the place safe from rich, threatening Texans. Completing all the missions here will unlock a new vehicle for free, although Rockstar doesn't say what it is.

Rockstar hasn’t said if chips will be purchasable with real money, but in Red Dead Online, players gamble with in-game cash that can only be earned by playing the game, not by micro-transactions. Given internet gambling laws, it’s likely Rockstar will employ the same method in GTA Online. This way, players can’t spend real money or win fake money that is worth real cash in the casino. We’ve reached out to Rockstar for clarification.

Rockstar has been teasing the casino for a while, and it’s something players have wanted since GTA Online’s launch. While things in the casino update sound exciting and fun, they also sound extremely pricey: A private arcade, artwork, fancy clothing, and personal cinema certainly won’t come cheap. Hopefully exploring the casino and playing some games won’t cost an arm and a leg.

Microsoft Xbox shutting down their Classic Games

Source : Internet

After a long journey, Microsoft has been finally decided to killing all of its iconic games including Hearts, Spades, Checkers and Backgammon  and MSN Go. After almost 20 years of entertainment, windows users are no longer be able to play these games. They started shutting down these games from Windows XP and ME then Windows 7 .

From now on the company would focusing on Xbox Cloud or XCloud, Xbox streaming that would be debuting in October, CNET reported on Friday. In a post to the Microsoft forums, Microsoft Moderator M. Hamer posted that they were going to begin shutting down the Internet Games services for Windows ME and XP starting on July 31st, 2019. For Windows 7 users, it will be shut down on January 22, 2020, eight days after Windows 7 reaches end of support. “While we’re saddened to leave this chapter behind, we continue to be committed to delivering engaging, delightful gaming experiences. We hope you’ll come with us on this journey and join the community of any of the other Microsoft casual games,” Hamer added.

Source : Internet

There are bound to be web-based equivalents to these games, so you might not be completely stuck if you're determined to play something on an older PC. Microsoft would no doubt prefer that you upgrade to a Windows 10 system and play something from its own app store, though. As it is, it's almost surprising that support didn't end earlier. Microsoft stopped regular maintenance of Windows XP and ME years ago -- Internet Games on those platforms were clearly living on borrowed time, and Windows 7 isn't far behind

Microsoft has been focused on developing and launching its xCloud Xbox streaming service, which will become available in October. The service will let you play on devices like phones and tablets, and will work with all 3,500 games in the Xbox One library as well as the 1,900 titles still in development.

 The games affected by this shutdown are listed below:

• Internet Backgammon (XP/ME, 7)
• Internet Checkers (XP/ME, 7)
• Internet Spades (XP/ME, 7)
• Internet Hearts (XP/ME)
• Internet Reversi (XP/ME)
• MSN Go (7)

Google admits about eavesdropping your private talks via Voice Assistent

Source : Internet

Google has admitted that it listens to voice recordings of users from its AI voice-assistant Google Assistant after its Dutch language recordings were leaked by Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS. 

Earlier this week, VRT NWS claims that Third-party contractors who working for google are secretly recording and listening your privet talks. “Most of these recordings were made consciously, but Google also listens to conversations that should never have been recorded, some of which contain sensitive information,” VRT claimed in its report. After obtaining copies of some recordings, VRT NWS reached out to the users and had them verify their voice, or those of their children, talking to the digital assistant.

Google’s product manager of Search David Monsees responded to the report, publishing a blog titled "More information about our processes to safeguard speech data", where he claimed “These language experts review and transcribe a small set of queries to help us better understand those languages. This is a critical part of the process of building speech technology, and is necessary to creating products like the Google Assistant,”

In a statement, Google said it only transcribes and uses "about 0.2 per cent of all audio clips", to improve their voice recognition technology. However, of over 1,000 recordings from Assistant, which is used on smartphones, smart home speakers like Google Home and other products, VRT reported that 153 were recorded accidentally and even revealed some personal information of users such as their address in one case and names of grandchildren of a family in another. "The company has launched an investigation because the contractor breached data security policies," said the Google spokesperson.

In February, Google detailed that its Nest Guard, the centerpiece of the Nest Secure home alarm system, would soon receive Google Assistant functionality -- meaning the device needed to have both a speaker and microphone. Users were not made aware that the Nest Guard had a microphone at all, however. Google responded by saying the failure to make users aware of a microphone in Nest Guard was nothing more than a mistake.

25 Million Android Devices Infected By Malware named "Agent Smith"

Source : Google

A new Android Malware called "Agent Smith" has infected over 25 million devices worldwide, including 15 million in India. The malware disguises itself as a Google-related application and then replaces installed applications with malicious versions of them using known Android vulnerabilities without users' knowledge. “The malware attacks user-installed applications silently, making it challenging for common Android users to combat such threats on their own,” said Jonathan Shimonovich, Head of Mobile Threat Detection Research at Check Point.  
As per a press note shared by Check Point Research, the Agent Smith malware uses its access to Android devices to show fake ads for financial gain, but given its access, it can also be used for more nefarious purposes. However, it is unclear if the malware has been doing so.

Agent Smith infection world heat map

Root of the Malware :

The 'Agent Smith" is originally downloaded from the widely-used third party app store 9Apps and targeted mostly Asian Countries. Some of the apps that infected devices via 9Apps Store are Screen Theme, Photo Projector, Rabbit Temple, Kiss Game : Touch Her Heart, and Girl Cloth XRay Scan Simulator. It’s always recommended to download the apps from only trusted sources like Google play store. It’s most common that, If you use any third party websites, you may infect with malware.

How to Check whether your phone is infected by Agent Smith?

Recently Downloaded any apps from 9Apps website, then you should definitely check whether your mobile phone is malware affected. Agent Smith shows you some fault advertisements without your intervention. It collects sensitive information about yourself and your bank accounts to use for fraudulent activities.
If you have ever noticed a few advertisements which are really odd or you have downloaded any Google related apps from 9Apps websites, you just need to follow the precautions to get rid of the things.

How to remove Agent Smith ?

If your device is infected by Agent Smith then you can remove it with few basic troubleshooting steps. First you have to uninstall all the apps that you have downloaded before from any third party sources. If you have any anti-virus software, better we do a full device scan to detect the malware. If you feel like other apps also infected with this Agent Smith malware, just try to uninstall all of them immediately. Otherwise, even if you delete the apps from 9Apps, it will still continue to be effective as it has already changed the code of other innocent apps.