Author Archives: Adam Westlake

There's no doubt that Elizabeth Warren raised a lot of eyebrows earlier this month when she revealed her plans to split up some of the US's biggest tech companies. The senator, in announcing her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, specifically named Google, Amazon, and Facebook as having too much power, and operating like a monopoly. But for some people in San Francisco, her proposals go a bit too far.

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After being a staple on PCs for so many years, last month it was discovered that WinRAR, software used to open .zip archive files, has been vulnerable for the last 19 years to a bug that's easily exploited by hackers and malware distributors. Fortunately, the software has been patched with the recent release of version 5.70, but after being unchecked for so long and installed by so many people, a new wave of malware is taking advantage.

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In an age of user reviews, the practice of review bombing has become a serious problem. The tactic involves large groups of people leaving negative reviews in an effort to ruin a product's review score, and nowhere has it been more apparent than on Valve's Steam marketplace. The last few years have seen the company take steps to fight review bombing, which is less about evaluating a game and more about retaliation, and now they're adding a new tool to the arsenal.

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The battle royale genre has been successfully shaken up thanks to the arrival of Apex Legends, with Respawn's team shooter hitting 50 million players in its first month. But that rapidly growing player-base means more than a few cheaters are jumping in as well. Fortunately the developer is on top of things, for the most part, revealing that several hundred thousand players have been struck down by the ban-hammer.

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NASA revealed earlier this week that two of its astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station will make history later this month: Anne McClain and Christina Koch will conduct a spacewalk outside the station on March 29th, something that's not uncommon on its own, but this will be the first with the entire team involved made up of women.

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Software maker Citrix has revealed that it's been the target of a data breach, resulting in international hackers making off with a large amount of data. The company states that it was contacted by the FBI last week and warned that its network was likely compromised by an Iran-linked hacker group, which stole between 6TB and 10TB of business documents.

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The last few months have seen an increase in Tesla Model 3s on the road as more of the earliest buyers have received their car. This surge in visibility means that when the carmaker finally launched the long-awaited $35,000 base model just over a week ago, interest in the vehicle was at its highest. As you'd expect, this popularity has resulted in a huge number of orders, forcing Tesla to extend its delivery timelines.

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Ubisoft's online loot-based shooter The Division 2 is launching next week, with pre-loads starting this weekend and players able to jump in over the days leading up to March 15th, depending on which edition they pre-ordered. Unfortunately, players won't exactly be jumping in right away, as they'll be required to download the game's huge day-one patch, regardless of what platform they're on.

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Infrared camera technology is one of the types of tech that has huge potential for beneficial uses, both in consumer-focused devices and in a number of scientific fields, yet continues to remain prohibitively expensive. That might change in the near future, thanks to a new discovery by a group of University of Chicago scientists that shows promise in reducing the costs of manufacturing.

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February saw just over a dozen employees laid off from Valve, possibly the result of shifting plans for the game company's virtual reality division. Among the 13 people let go, a number are confirmed to have been working on VR-related projects, including the SteamVR platform, along with some that are believed to have been involved in new hardware development.

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Last week, a CNN report detailed the alarming amount of anti-vaccine content that's available on Amazon, including documentaries on its Prime Video service. It appears Amazon got the message and is acting quickly to address the situation, as only days later the company has starting pulling the video content from Prime.

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As the spring season approaches, one of the many things we can expect is the announcement of this year's Call of Duty title. It's developer Infinity Ward’s turn to release the latest game in the FPS series, and it looks like fans might be getting not one but two titles this year, much like in 2016. An early rating for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered was posted by PEGI, Europe's game ratings board, and then quickly scrubbed from the site.

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