Tag: pokemon

‘Minecraft Earth’ Will Shut Down On June 30th

A little over a year after bringing Minecraft Earth in the US, Microsoft announced this week it will shut down the game later this year. Engadget reports: Minecraft Earth players have until June 30th, 2021, to play the augmented reality title before Microsoft shuts down its servers and it’s no longer available to download from app marketplaces. Developer Mojang Studios blamed…

Uri Geller Finally Apologizes for Suing Pokemon 20 Years Ago

In January of the year 2000, Pokémon was sued by stage magician Uri Geller for $97 million (over a Pokémon card with a similar name that carried the magician’s trademark bent spoon). 20 years later, Kotaku reports…
Spoon-bending magician Uri Geller gave Nintendo permission to use the character Kadabra on Pokémon cards today, after a 20 year legal dispute in which Geller…

The Worst Passwords of 2020 Show We Are Just As Lazy About Security As Ever

After analyzing 275,699,516 passwords leaked during 2020 data breaches, NordPass and partners found that the most common passwords are incredibly easy to guess — and it could take less than a second or two for attackers to break into accounts using these credentials. Only 44% of those recorded were considered “unique.” ZDNet reports: On Wednesday, the password manager solutions provider published…

Nintendo’s New Mario Kart Makes Your Living Room the Race Track

Nintendo is about to release its biggest product for the holiday season, where it will be up against new-generation consoles from rivals Microsoft and Sony. An early look at the new Mario Kart game for the Switch, featuring augmented reality and your living room as the race track, indicates that Nintendo will be just as competitive. From a report: In Mario…

Microsoft’s Livestreaming Service Mixer Shuts Down Today

Microsoft’s livestreaming platform Mixer will shut down later today and encourage users to migrate over to Facebook Gaming’s livestreaming service, with treasured Mixer Partners getting partner status over there too. Rock Paper Shotgun reports: From what I’ve seen on my stroll through Mixer on this final day, a whole lot of folks are planning to switch to Twitch. The shutdown comes…

Videogames Are Setting New Records For Simultaneous Users

Forbes reports that in a world filled with school closings and social isolation, gaming has surged:
– Steam, the most popular digital PC gaming marketplace, reached new heights Sunday, drawing a record 20,313,451 concurrent users to the 16-year-old service, according to third-party database SteamDB – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, released by Steam-owner Valve in 2012, seems to be the top beneficiary of the…

How Russian Trolls Spread Propaganda Using Uplifting Tweets

Two associate professors of communication at Clemson spent two years studying online propaganda and state-affiliated disinformation campaigns on social media. This week in Rolling Stone they explain how professional trolls share uplifting “Trojan horse” tweets meant to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, and then “use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.” Professional disinformation isn’t spread by…

Brain Scans Reveal A ‘Pokemon Region’ In Adults Who Played As Kids

“By scanning the brains of adults who played Pokemon as kids, researchers learned that this group of people have a brain region that responds more to the cartoon characters than to other pictures,” reports the Verge. “More importantly, this charming research method has given us new insight into how the brain organizes visual information.” For the study, published Monday in the…

More Than 23 Million People Use the Password ‘123456’

Bearhouse shares a new study from the UK’s “National Cyber Security Centre,” which advises the public on computer security, about the world’s most-frequently cracked passwords. It’s probably no surprise to the Slashdot readership: people use bad passwords. A recent study of publicly-available “hacked” accounts — by the UK National Cyber Security Centre — reveals “123456” was top, followed by the much…