Although Ubisoft has yet to formally confirm a new Ghost Recon game is on the way, in a recent shareholder Q&A, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and CFO Frederick Duguet talked openly about the upcoming sequel.
NASA's future Artemis booster sputters during test
video Old Space has shown itself to be just as adept at explosive malfunctions as New Space, with Northrop Grumman encountering an anomaly during a static fire test of an updated solid rocket booster design.…
The US government has charged a dual Russian and Israeli national with allegedly building and maintaining LockBit’s malware code, while receiving over $230,000 in cryptocurrency for his work. The 51-year-old Rostislav Panev was arrested in Israel pending extradition to the US, making him the third member of the LockBit ransomware group in custody.
Authorities are still searching for Lockbit’s alleged ringleader, Dmitry Khoroshev, with a reward worth up to $10 million. The DOJ claimed in May that “Khoroshev alone allegedly received at least $100 million in disbursements of digital currency through his developer shares of LockBit ransom payments,” based on a 20 percent share of ransom payments extorted by affiliates who used the group’s software.
Law enforcement linked Panev to LockBit after finding login credentials on his computer for a dark web repository housing “multiple versions of the LockBit builder,” which is the tool that allowed members “to generate custom builds of the LockBit ransomware malware for particular victims.”
Panev allegedly admitted to writing and maintaining LockBit’s malware code in interviews with the Israeli police. Some of the code he’s said to have created can disable Windows Defender antivirus software, run malware on multiple computers on a network, and print LockBit’s ransom note on all the printers in a victim’s network. Panev claimed he didn’t realize he was involved in illegal activity at first, according to the complaint.
Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is a truly iconic bit of 80s computer design, and readers of a certain age will have the opportunity to relive a youth spent palpating its rubber keys this November, when it returns to homes - with a bunch of included classic games and modern niceties thrown in - courtesy of Retro Games, the team behind this year's Atari 400 Mini.
The Spectrum (as Retro Games is calling its new bit of old-school-inspired hardware) takes its design cues from the unforgettable 48K, with its rubber keys and iconic rainbow stripe - but, as per VGC, its innards are a little more multi-generational, capable of emulating all the classic Spectrum variants: the 16K, 48K, Spectrum+ (AKA my first home computer), and 128K.
Notably, The Spectrum's rubber keyboard is fully functional, and there's support for a wide variety of USB controller devices, meaning purchasers have a decent number of options when it comes to playing its 48 bundled games - which include bona fide classics such as Head Over Heels, Jack the Nipper, Manic Miner, The Hobbit, Auf Wiedersehen Monty, and Skool Daze.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a comprehensive ban on asbestos, a carcinogen that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year but is still used in some chlorine bleach, brake pads and other products. The final rule marks a major expansion of EPA regulation under a landmark 2016 law that overhauled regulations governing tens of thousands of toxic chemicals in everyday products, from household cleaners to clothing and furniture. The new rule would ban chrysotile asbestos, the only ongoing use of asbestos in the United States. The substance is found in products such as brake linings and gaskets and is used to manufacture chlorine bleach and sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda, including some that is used for water purification. [...]
The 2016 law authorized new rules for tens of thousands of toxic chemicals found in everyday products, including substances such as asbestos and trichloroethylene that for decades have been known to cause cancer yet were largely unregulated under federal law. Known as the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, the law was intended to clear up a hodgepodge of state rules governing chemicals and update the Toxic Substances Control Act, a 1976 law that had remained unchanged for 40 years. The EPA banned asbestos in 1989, but the rule was largely overturned by a 1991 Court of Appeals decision that weakened the EPA's authority under TSCA to address risks to human health from asbestos or other existing chemicals. The 2016 law required the EPA to evaluate chemicals and put in place protections against unreasonable risks. Asbestos, which was once common in home insulation and other products, is banned in more than 50 countries, and its use in the U.S. has been declining for decades. The only form of asbestos known to be currently imported, processed or distributed for use in the U.S. is chrysotile asbestos, which is imported primarily from Brazil and Russia. It is used by the chlor-alkali industry, which produces bleach, caustic soda and other products. Most consumer products that historically contained chrysotile asbestos have been discontinued. While chlorine is a commonly used disinfectant in water treatment, there are only eight chlor-alkali plants in the U.S. that still use asbestos diaphragms to produce chlorine and sodium hydroxide. The plants are mostly located in Louisiana and Texas.
The use of asbestos diaphragms has been declining and now accounts for less than one-third of the chlor-alkali production in the U.S., the EPA said. The EPA rule will ban imports of asbestos for chlor-alkali as soon as the rule is published but will phase in prohibitions on chlor-alkali use over five or more years to provide what the agency called "a reasonable transition period." A ban on most other uses of asbestos will effect in two years. A ban on asbestos in oilfield brake blocks, aftermarket automotive brakes and linings and other gaskets will take effect in six months. The EPA rule allows asbestos-containing sheet gaskets to be used until 2037 at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina to ensure that safe disposal of nuclear materials can continue on schedule. Separately, the EPA is also evaluating so-called legacy uses of asbestos in older buildings, including schools and industrial sites, to determine possible public health risks. A final risk evaluation is expected by the end of the year.
An anonymous reader shared this report:
After 20 years of development, the open source GnuCOBOL "has reached an industrial maturity and can compete with proprietary offers in all environments," said OCamlPro founder and GnuCOBOL contributor Fabrice Le Fessant, in a FOSDEM talk about the technology. GnuCOBOL turns COBOL source code into executable applications. It is very cross-platform, running Linux, BSD, many proprietary Unixes, macOS, and Windows, even Android. And the latest version, v.32, is being used in many commercial settings...
Sobisch noted that the GnuCOBOL is seeing a lot of commercial deployments, such as for banking back-end apps, many of which are being migrated from Micro Focus, with users reporting performance improvements as a result. The French DGFIP federal agency moved from a GCOS mainframe to GnuCOBOL, with the help of Le Fessant's firm.
Originally called OpenCOBOL, the project was started in 2002 and renamed GnuCOBOL in 2013. In the past three years, it has received attention from 13 contributors with 460 commits. Most Linux package managers have a copy of GnuCOBOL for the program for downloading... It can compile to C code (C89+), making it extremely portable, from mainframes to Raspberry Pi's, Sobisch said...
Also new is SuperBOL, a development studio for GnuCOBOL developed by Le Fessant's OCamlPro. It runs as a VSCode Extension and features a full COBOL processor (written in OCaml).
£12.50 - Warner Bros Commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s cinematic masterpiece, Schindler’s List, one of the most historically significant films of all time. Winn...
'Hello, our records indicate that you had an accident with a massively overhyped technology that wasn't your fault...'
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is tightening the rules protecting cellular network users and has kicked off an effort to understand the impact of AI on robocalls and robotexts.…
Suit Direct Grab yourselves an extra bargain with an extra 20% of our outlet section with lots of new lines added into our outlet. We have worked with Suit Direct To r...
£3 - Smyths Contents: 2 figures Includes Pikachu and Aipom Each figure is dynamically posed and ready for battle Figures fit in Clip 'N' Go Poké Ball, Carry ...
Showcased today at the annual FOSDEM conference in Brussels was RustyHermit, a Rust-written modular unikernel intended for handling micro virtual machines...
Officials chairing this year's International Conference on Machine Learning event have banned academics from submitting papers containing text generated by large language models and tools like ChatGPT, and they aren't alone in banning such material.…
£359.10 - Crampton & Moore Big on capacity, style, and quality. This sleek Samsung fridge freezer brings you a stand-out style that fits in with your space. Thanks to SpaceMax™ making the...
The superhero match-3 game, Marvel Puzzle Quest, has officially completed eight years since its launch! And D3 Go! and Demiurge Studios have an entire celebration planned for fans.
The Director of Production at D3 Go! John Austin described Marvel Puzzle Quest’s long journey, he said:“Eight years. It’s hard to believe that MARVEL Puzzle Quest has been a fixture of gaming for the better part of a decade! Over this period, it has been a remarkable opportunity to develop our favourite Marvel characters for our special blend of puzzle battles, while showcasing the creativity of our team with the addition of amazing characters like Peggy Carter (Captain America) and countless competitive events that millions of players have competed in.” ... [MORE]
