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Few game studios have come close to matching the level of cinematic quality as Naughty Dog had some nine years ago with the original release of The Last of Us for PlayStation 3. Critics and fans alike praised the title, and that recognition was certainly well deserved. Two years later, this same title was given an overhaul for PlayStation 4 while keeping the content and experience largely identical to that fans had played only a console generation before. Now again in 2022, Naughty Dog is bringing their journey to the west to a fresh console generation that may leave some wondering if such a sudden remake was necessary for such an acclaimed gaming experience with The Last of Us Part I, remade for PlayStation 5.

For many, The Last of Us Part I Remake might be the very first time they step into the well-worn shoes of a smuggler named Joel and the package he’s agreed to deliver way out west. Because of that, I don’t wish to delve too deeply into the narrative so players can experience this sorrowful tale for themselves. Not a zombie survival story in a traditional sense, The Last of Us Part I still captures that desolation and the way various folks just try to survive after a global pandemic or outbreak completely upends typical daily life. With infection onsetting soon after breathing in infected spores, any hope for a cure can bring even the hardiest of folks to desperation to see that opportunity through until the end. That opportunity comes from Ellie, a young girl who’s proven to be immune some weeks after being bitten by an infected soul. Thus begins Joel’s journey to safely guide and deliver her to a faction of survivors who may very well be able to find a cure or solution for the apocalyptic outbreak.

Whether you’re experiencing Joel and Ellie’s journey for the first time with fresh eyes or gearing up for a third (or eleventh) playthrough, The Last of Us Part I offers that same gripping narrative Neil Druckmann’s team brought to life two console generations ago. Fans that knew every word of Bill’s raving monologues or the reverberating sound of a Clicker stalking through underground pathways will be pleased to know that the original voice work remains intact with some overall improvements in the audio fidelity to take advantage of Sony’s Tempest Audio tech if you happen to play with headphones. The very first time I fired a rifle, I had to turn around and make sure there wasn’t someone aiming at Joel, only to find out it was simply the echoing off a nearby wall. Keeping the original vocal performances can be a bit of a mixed bag, especially with how often you’ll hear Steven Jay Blum shout callouts to his fellow bandits.

While the voice work remains intact, the character models and faces themselves have been completely overhauled, leading some like young Ellie to look like completely different characters on PlayStation 5. The original motion capture was left intact, so this is merely some reworked designs over the existing character rigging and modeling. This can lead to some unintended situations and many of the same graphical bugs that were present in the prior two iterations of The Last of Us (albeit at much lower frequencies now). Just as there are subtle differences in each time Joel shuffles around or picks up a new item, there are the same scripted animations of Joel raiding to grab every spare bullet or crafting supply in the area as he crouches through an abandoned locale.

From a purely mechanical and gameplay standpoint, this is the absolute best way to play the first story of The Last of Us. Subtle changes to the enemy AI and challenge turn each encounter into its own miniature battleground. Ammo is just as scarce as its ever been, forcing Joel and Ellie to rely heavily upon discarded bottles and iron pipes more often than the sidearm in the back pocket. Sure, much of this challenge is alleviated when playing on a lower difficulty level, but playing on Grounded or the difficulty level just below highlights just how meticulously crafted the combat has become. Innovations from The Last of Us Part II are neatly intertwined into the combat here in the Part I remake and if you were to play the two back to back, you’d clearly see the enhanced combat that even the PlayStation 4 Remastered edition of The Last of Us didn’t yet have.

The consistent fidelity of Naughty Dog’s recent IPs on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 is nearly peerless. That sentiment is even greater with The Last of Us Part I. The foundation was already impressive even on PlayStation 3, but this full remake is clearly pushing the fidelity of the middle of the latest console generation. Both cutscenes and gameplay hold the same impressive detailing for everything from the pores on Ellie’s nose to the age and scratches on her short pistol. Save for the few cutscenes that lock the camera in place, players have free reign to slip into photo mode and have full control of lining up shots and playing around with the animations frozen in time (and a frame-by-frame advance to get that perfect shot). It isn’t a new revelation to have a Photo Mode in a Sony title, but this is the definitive game to just take a moment and take in all of that natural splendor.

As Joel and Ellie’s journey comes to a close and the credits begin to roll, Naughty Dog has thrown in several additional features and bonuses to unlock through a cache of credits. Even on its lowest difficulty, completing the campaign rewards players with enough credits to purchase every costume and weapon skin as well as most concept art and gameplay modifiers, assuming they found enough collectibles.

It’s rather silly that Ellie gets more than a rucksack full of t-shirts, mostly based on PlayStation IP that might not have existed post-outbreak whereas Joel mostly gets different flavors of flannel. Even the weapon skins are very few in number, leading to only a couple of specific weapon types. However, it’s the unlockable graphic/audio modes and gameplay modifiers that make it well worth replaying The Last of Us Part I Remake all over again the moment you finish the first playthrough. For ease of use, there are a number of modifiers for one-hit kills or infinite ammo and crafting materials and even an upgrade to gain the Exploding Arrows that used to be exclusive to the sequel. One of my personal favorite modifiers was an option to mirror the gameplay world while keeping the player models intact, something that was first present as a secret feature added to the Demon’s Souls remake at the PlayStation 5’s launch.

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Content-wise, you’re getting the same vocal performances from the PlayStation 3 release of The Last of Us and the same story beats word for word in addition to Ellie’s Left Behind DLC expansion that is best enjoyed after completing the campaign. No single-player content is left lacking and remains intact in its entirety with more aftermarket parts than just a fresh coat of paint. However, the removal of the Factions multiplayer that was present within both prior releases of The Last of Us is sorely missed and easily would have been another source of many hours of enjoyment just as the last time I played this experience. The full $70 price point also feels like a crucial part of Naughty Dog’s magnum opus has been stripped away, especially with the multiplayer component of The Last of Us Part II yet to arrive. Even without the price tag accompanying this remake, The Last of Us Part I feels intended to be the first taste for players that might not have experienced this journey before or might be their first taste of a Sony blockbuster. For those that find the full price difficult to swallow, the PlayStation 4 remaster is available in compliments of the PlayStation Plus game collection.

The Last of Us Part I is a testament to how timeless this Cormac McCarthy-inspired tale is. Fully remade for Sony’s latest console generation, if this is the first chance a player has to experience the post-outbreak tale, it’s without a doubt the best version to play. Both visual and mechanical enhancements bring this title to life as no other Naughty Dog game has done before. However, the omission of the multiplayer component is lamented by fans of the original that cannot be overlooked for keeping The Last of Us Part I from being a perfect gaming experience.

Review code provided by the publisher.

The post The Last of Us Part I Review – You Can’t Escape Your Past by Kai Powell appeared first on Wccftech.

The "Star Trek" shows from the Paramount+ era clearly have a lot of affection for the original 1966 "Star Trek" pilot and the 1990s Trek shows "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Voyager." Of the newer programs, both "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" rely heavily on characters and events from "The Cage." Meanwhile, "Star Trek: Lower Decks" seems to be drawing from the attitudes and iconography from NextGen. "Star Trek: Picard" is, obviously, about Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), but also "Voyager" character Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). And "Star Trek: Prodigy" features a hologram of the U.S.S. Voyager's Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) as one of its central characters. 

Curiously, there haven't been many overt references devoted to events and characters from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (which ran for seven seasons, from 1993 to 1999). To date, there have been a few cute winks to DS9 in "Lower Decks," and an episode of "Picard" saw a brief shot of a bar named Quark's, but apart from these minor, passing references, "Deep Space Nine" seems to remain the black sheep of the "Trek" family. 

This does not stem from a lack of desire from certain members of the cast. Armin Shimerman, who played DS9's shrewd bar owner and freelance criminal element Quark, has said that he would love to return to the franchise ... but only if the paycheck was right. 

Shimerman, appearing at the 2022 Fanboy Expo in Knoxville, Tennessee (and transcribed via Trek Movie), talked about wanting to return as Quark, but also the nature of his character. Shimerman revealed that DS9's writers played a little too fast and loose with Quark, leading to Shimerman's constant questions as to how smart Quark really was. 

How Smart Is Quark?

To offer a brief rundown: Quark is a Ferengi business owner on the Bajoran space station Deep Space Nine. He ran the bar when Bajor was still being occupied by the Nazi-like Cardassians, and now has adjusted to selling drinks to the Bajorans and Starfleet officers who run the station during Bajor's reconstruction. Ferengi are a species devoted to commerce and profit. Everything they say and do is in service of making more money. Even their belief systems are built around the acquisition of wealth; a Ferengi can't enter the afterlife until they've paid enough money for a prime ticket. Quark is staunchly devoted to this philosophy. Although Quark's values may not match those of humans, he is still deeply principled, and will stand up for his business and his right to earn more and more money ... even if it's not entirely legal. 

That said, Ferengi were also often the "comic relief" of "Deep Space Nine," and were the stars of the show's few comedy episodes. Because Quark's values so differed from the Starfleet characters, the show's writers were constantly tempted to give him comedy lines about amusingly exploiting his workers while pooh-poohing Gene Roddenberry's post-capitalist sci-fi utopia. The push-and-pull of Quark is that he is a smart businessman, but also something of a buffoon, a dichotomy Shimerman did not appreciate, as he said in Knoxville:

"We could not change lines. We could make suggestions, which were rarely followed. I know that three times a year I would take the writers out to lunch and make some suggestions. I remember begging them many times, 'Just tell me what his IQ is. Just tell me because sometimes he's smart and sometimes he's not. Just tell me what his IQ is.'"

The Trouble With Ferengi

Shimerman might be considered one of few "Trek" actors who was able to inform an entire alien species. Just as Leonard Nimoy defined Vulcans with Spock, Shimerman has largely determined the attitudes and behaviors of Ferengi through various characters. 

In the first season of "Next Generation," a lot of dialogue was devoted to a strange, off-screen species called the Ferengi that Starfleet, at the time, knew very little about. It was clear the writers were setting up the Ferengi to be the central villains of the new series. The Ferengi would appear on screen for the first time in the episode "The Last Outpost" (October 19, 1987) and would be transformed into sniveling, cowardly, comedic villains. Shimerman played one of the first Ferengi, Letek, and attempted (as he said in Knoxville) to hunch his character over like Richard III. The result didn't quite work, and the Ferengi looked silly. 

After that, it was an uphill battle to give the Ferengi a personality beyond that initial portrayal. When Shimerman was cast as Quark, he was given an opportunity to "redeem" an entire Trek species. On DS9, the Ferengi were still comedic, but they emerged slowly as real people as well. More human than humans, in fact. Shimerman said: 

"You may not agree with me, but the Ferengi were the most human of creatures on 'Star Trek.' You might not like the Ferengi, but a lot of the characteristics that the Ferengi had are very much human characters. And so I was very was happy to do that."

Shimerman's comments certainly make curious Trekkies wish Paramount+ would prepare a big enough paycheck, just so we can see where Quark is some 20 years on. No doubt, his principles are still intact.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

The post Armin Sherman 'Begged' Star Trek's Writers To Make Up Their Minds About Quark's IQ appeared first on /Film.

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There’s a new Legend of Zelda PC port, and while it isn’t an official PC release from Nintendo, playing the classic RPG game on your computer is still legal provided you use it with a legal copy of the game's original ROM. The Zelda PC port in question is A Link to the Past, first released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, rereleased multiple times through Nintendo’s virtual console and online offerings, and, as ever with Nintendo games, locked to Nintendo systems only. GitHub user snesrev reverse engineered A Link to the Past, also known as Zelda 3, and created a native PC port of the game that’s completely playable – so long as you have the ROM yourself.

Most 'realistic graphics' mods make games look worse, but that's not the case with NaturalVision Evolved. The long-in-development Grand Theft Auto 5 mod is a comprehensive revamp of lighting, textures, models and much more, but it remains faithful to the art direction of the base game.

You can now download a Single Player Beta of the mod - and even if you don't plan on doing that, it's worth watching the trailer below.

Read more

Phishers are enjoying remarkable success using text messages to steal remote access credentials and one-time passcodes from employees at some of the world’s largest technology companies and customer support firms. A recent spate of SMS phishing attacks from one cybercriminal group has spawned a flurry of breach disclosures from affected companies, which are all struggling to combat the same lingering security threat: The ability of scammers to interact directly with employees through their mobile devices.

In mid-June 2022, a flood of SMS phishing messages began targeting employees at commercial staffing firms that provide customer support and outsourcing to thousands of companies. The missives asked users to click a link and log in at a phishing page that mimicked their employer’s Okta authentication page. Those who submitted credentials were then prompted to provide the one-time password needed for multi-factor authentication.

The phishers behind this scheme used newly-registered domains that often included the name of the target company, and sent text messages urging employees to click on links to these domains to view information about a pending change in their work schedule.

The phishing sites leveraged a Telegram instant message bot to forward any submitted credentials in real-time, allowing the attackers to use the phished username, password and one-time code to log in as that employee at the real employer website. But because of the way the bot was configured, it was possible for security researchers to capture the information being sent by victims to the public Telegram server.

This data trove was first reported by security researchers at Singapore-based Group-IB, which dubbed the campaign “0ktapus” for the attackers targeting organizations using identity management tools from Okta.com.

“This case is of interest because despite using low-skill methods it was able to compromise a large number of well-known organizations,” Group-IB wrote. “Furthermore, once the attackers compromised an organization they were quickly able to pivot and launch subsequent supply chain attacks, indicating that the attack was planned carefully in advance.”

It’s not clear how many of these phishing text messages were sent out, but the Telegram bot data reviewed by KrebsOnSecurity shows they generated nearly 10,000 replies over approximately two months of sporadic SMS phishing attacks targeting more than a hundred companies.

A great many responses came from those who were apparently wise to the scheme, as evidenced by the hundreds of hostile replies that included profanity or insults aimed at the phishers: The very first reply recorded in the Telegram bot data came from one such employee, who responded with the username “havefuninjail.”

Still, thousands replied with what appear to be legitimate credentials — many of them including one-time codes needed for multi-factor authentication. On July 20, the attackers turned their sights on internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare.com, and the intercepted credentials show at least three employees fell for the scam.

In a blog post earlier this month, Cloudflare said it detected the account takeovers and that no Cloudflare systems were compromised. Cloudflare said it does not rely on one-time passcodes as a second factor, so there was nothing to provide to the attackers. But Cloudflare said it wanted to call attention to the phishing attacks because they would probably work against most other companies.

“This was a sophisticated attack targeting employees and systems in such a way that we believe most organizations would be likely to be breached,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince wrote. “On July 20, 2022, the Cloudflare Security team received reports of employees receiving legitimate-looking text messages pointing to what appeared to be a Cloudflare Okta login page. The messages began at 2022-07-20 22:50 UTC. Over the course of less than 1 minute, at least 76 employees received text messages on their personal and work phones. Some messages were also sent to the employees family members.”

On three separate occasions, the phishers targeted employees at Twilio.com, a San Francisco based company that provides services for making and receiving text messages and phone calls. It’s unclear how many Twilio employees received the SMS phishes, but the data suggest at least four Twilio employees responded to a spate of SMS phishing attempts on July 27, Aug. 2, and Aug. 7.

On that last date, Twilio disclosed that on Aug. 4 it became aware of unauthorized access to information related to a limited number of Twilio customer accounts through a sophisticated social engineering attack designed to steal employee credentials.

“This broad based attack against our employee base succeeded in fooling some employees into providing their credentials,” Twilio said. “The attackers then used the stolen credentials to gain access to some of our internal systems, where they were able to access certain customer data.”

That “certain customer data” included information on roughly 1,900 users of the secure messaging app Signal, which relied on Twilio to provide phone number verification services. In its disclosure on the incident, Signal said that with their access to Twilio’s internal tools the attackers were able to re-register those users’ phone numbers to another device.

On Aug. 25, food delivery service DoorDash disclosed that a “sophisticated phishing attack” on a third-party vendor allowed attackers to gain access to some of DoorDash’s internal company tools. DoorDash said intruders stole information on a “small percentage” of users that have since been notified. TechCrunch reported last week that the incident was linked to the same phishing campaign that targeted Twilio.

This phishing gang apparently had great success targeting employees of all the major mobile wireless providers, but most especially T-Mobile. Between July 10 and July 16, dozens of T-Mobile employees fell for the phishing messages and provided their remote access credentials.

“Credential theft continues to be an ongoing issue in our industry as wireless providers are constantly battling bad actors that are focused on finding new ways to pursue illegal activities like this,” T-Mobile said in a statement. “Our tools and teams worked as designed to quickly identify and respond to this large-scale smishing attack earlier this year that targeted many companies. We continue to work to prevent these types of attacks and will continue to evolve and improve our approach.”

This same group saw hundreds of responses from employees at some of the largest customer support and staffing firms, including Teleperformanceusa.com, Sitel.com and Sykes.com. Teleperformance did not respond to requests for comment. KrebsOnSecurity did hear from Christopher Knauer, global chief security officer at Sitel Group, the customer support giant that recently acquired Sykes. Knauer said the attacks leveraged newly-registered domains and asked employees to approve upcoming changes to their work schedules.

Knauer said the attackers set up the phishing domains just minutes in advance of spamming links to those domains in phony SMS alerts to targeted employees. He said such tactics largely sidestep automated alerts generated by companies that monitor brand names for signs of new phishing domains being registered.

“They were using the domains as soon as they became available,” Knauer said. “The alerting services don’t often let you know until 24 hours after a domain has been registered.”

On July 28 and again on Aug. 7, several employees at email delivery firm Mailchimp provided their remote access credentials to this phishing group. According to an Aug. 12 blog post, the attackers used their access to Mailchimp employee accounts to steal data from 214 customers involved in cryptocurrency and finance.

On Aug. 15, the hosting company DigitalOcean published a blog post saying it had severed ties with MailChimp after its Mailchimp account was compromised. DigitalOcean said the MailChimp incident resulted in a “very small number” of DigitalOcean customers experiencing attempted compromises of their accounts through password resets.

According to interviews with multiple companies hit by the group, the attackers are mostly interested in stealing access to cryptocurrency, and to companies that manage communications with people interested in cryptocurrency investing. In an Aug. 3 blog post from email and SMS marketing firm Klaviyo.com, the company’s CEO recounted how the phishers gained access to the company’s internal tools, and used that to download information on 38 crypto-related accounts.

The ubiquity of mobile phones became a lifeline for many companies trying to manage their remote employees throughout the Coronavirus pandemic. But these same mobile devices are fast becoming a liability for organizations that use them for phishable forms of multi-factor authentication, such as one-time codes generated by a mobile app or delivered via SMS.

Because as we can see from the success of this phishing group, this type of data extraction is now being massively automated, and employee authentication compromises can quickly lead to security and privacy risks for the employer’s partners or for anyone in their supply chain.

Unfortunately, a great many companies still rely on SMS for employee multi-factor authentication. According to a report this year from Okta, 47 percent of workforce customers deploy SMS and voice factors for multi-factor authentication. That’s down from 53 percent that did so in 2018, Okta found.

Some companies (like Knauer’s Sitel) have taken to requiring that all remote access to internal networks be managed through work-issued laptops and/or mobile devices, which are loaded with custom profiles that can’t be accessed through other devices.

Others are moving away from SMS and one-time code apps and toward requiring employees to use physical FIDO multi-factor authentication devices such as security keys, which can neutralize phishing attacks because any stolen credentials can’t be used unless the phishers also have physical access to the user’s security key or mobile device.

This came in handy for Twitter, which announced last year that it was moving all of its employees to using security keys, and/or biometric authentication via their mobile device. The phishers’ Telegram bot reported that on June 16, 2022, five employees at Twitter gave away their work credentials. In response to questions from KrebsOnSecurity, Twitter confirmed several employees were relieved of their employee usernames and passwords, but that its security key requirement prevented the phishers from abusing that information.

Twitter accelerated its plans to improve employee authentication following the July 2020 security incident, wherein several employees were phished and relieved of credentials for Twitter’s internal tools. In that intrusion, the attackers used Twitter’s tools to hijack accounts for some of the world’s most recognizable public figures, executives and celebrities — forcing those accounts to tweet out links to bitcoin scams.

“Security keys can differentiate legitimate sites from malicious ones and block phishing attempts that SMS 2FA or one-time password (OTP) verification codes would not,” Twitter said in an Oct. 2021 post about the change. “To deploy security keys internally at Twitter, we migrated from a variety of phishable 2FA methods to using security keys as our only supported 2FA method on internal systems.”

Update, 6:02 p.m. ET: Clarified that Cloudflare does not rely on TOTP (one-time multi-factor authentication codes) as a second factor for employee authentication.

AMD has officially announced the Ryzen 7000 processor models, which the company had accidentally revealed back in July. It will release four models on September 27th, to be specific, the most affordable of which is the 6-core Ryzen 5 7600X that will set you back $299, followed by the 8-core Ryzen 7700X that costs $100 more at $399. The 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X CPU will be sold for $549, while the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X will cost $699. As Ars Technica notes, the 7600X and the 7900X models have the same launch prices as their direct predecessors from the Ryzen 5000 lineup, whereas the 7950X is $100 cheaper. The 7700X costs $100 more than the 5700X, but that model launched over a year after the first Ryzen 5000 processors came out.

The Ryzen 7000 models are based on AMD's Zen 4 architecture, which promises to deliver max boost speed above 5GHz, AI acceleration and a doubled L2 cache. They use AM5 platform, the chipmaker's new socket generation, and will require DDR5 RAM. They're also the first desktop CPUs based on the 5nm manufacturing process, according to Gizmodo, and that means they have more transistors than the 5000 chips. That usually translates to less heat and more power for users. 

AMD claims that the Ryzen 7000 processors are around 29 percent faster than the Ryzen 5000 models for single-threaded tasks, including games. Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster told CNET, though, that when the company measured for tasks that span the processor's 16 processing cores, the speed boost was as much as 49 percent.

If you're looking for Zen 4 CPUs cheaper than these four, you'll have to wait until next year when the more affordable options and models for laptops are slated to arrive. The company intends to continue selling processors based on older Zen architectures that work with the AM4 platform, though,so you still have options if you're looking to build a PC on a budget.

With AMD finally having unveiled its Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 platform, it's time to switch gears to Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs & the Z790 platform.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs To Launch on 20th October, To Include Z790 Motherboards & Unlocked SKUs

The latest information has been leaked by @wxnod who managed to get his hands on a full Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake schedule from a presentation in China. As per the presentation, it looks like Intel will be officially introducing the Raptor Lake chips on the 27th of September (28th in Taiwan) and the launch will take place around a month later on the 20th of October. Meanwhile, Intel will be taking pre-orders for the chips. Based on the information we have:

Intel Raptor Lake-S Processors & Intel Z790 Chipset: Enthusiast Consumer K & KF CPUs Only

• Product Information Embargo Date: 27th September 2022 @ 9:20 am PT (Intel Innovation '22)
• Sales Embargo Date: 20th October 2022 @ 06:00 am PT

Intel Raptor Lake-S Processors Commercial & Entry Workstation

• Product Information Embargo Date: 19th February - 18th March 2023
• Sales Embargo Date: 19th February - 18th March 2023

Do note that AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 platform will be hitting retail shelves the same day as Intel's announcement. As per the schedule, Intel will begin taking pre-orders for the Core i9-13900K (F) on the 27th of September while pre-orders for the Core i7-13700K (F) and Core i5-13600K (F) are going to open on the 13th of October. Currently, we don't have the embargo date but this means the blue team will have their next-gen parts launching almost a month after AMD's Zen 4 lands on the desktop PC platforms.

Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs will utilize the hybrid core design, featuring a mix of Performance-Optimized 'P' and Efficiency-Optimized 'E' cores. For the new chips, Intel will be using a brand new P-Core known as Raptor Cove which will replace the Golden Cove cores featured on the Alder Lake CPUs. For The E-Core, Intel will retain the existing Gracemont core architecture but it will come with minor improvements. Following are some of the main changes you should expect:

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs Expected Features:

• Up To 24 Cores & 32 Threads
• Brand New Raptor Cove CPU Cores (Higher P-Core IPC)
• Based on 10nm ESF 'Intel 7' process node
• Up To 6.0 GHz clock speeds (expected)
• Double The E-Cores on certain variants
• Increased Cache for both P-Cores & E-Cores
• Supported on existing LGA 1700 motherboards
• New Z790, H770, and B760 motherboards
• Up To 28 PCIe Lanes (PCH Gen 4 + Gen 3)
• Up To 28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Gen 5 x16 + Gen 4 x12)
• Dual-Channel DDR5-5600 Memory Support
• 20 PCIe Gen 5 Lanes
• Enhanced Overclocking Features
• 125W PL1 TDP (Flagship SKUs)
• AI PCIe M.2 Technology
• Q4 2022 Launch (October Possibly)

So starting with the lineup, there are a total of 14 SKUs which include four Core i9 models, four Core i7 models, five Core i5 models, and a single Core i3 model. There are three revisions of the CPUs which start with H-0 for the only Core i3 model, C-0 for the Core i5-13400, Core i5-13500 & Core i5-13600 while the rest are based on the B-0 revision.

The H0 and C0 revisions might have similar silicon and die structures as existing Alder Lake parts minus the upgraded cache from the Raptor Lake designs while the B0 silicon might have the added cache.

Intel Core i9-13900K 24 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i9-13900K is the flagship Raptor Lake CPU, featuring 24 cores and 32 threads in an 8 P-Core and 16 E-Core configuration. The CPU is configured at a base clock of 3.0 GHz, a single-core boost clock of 5.8 GHz (1-2) cores, and an all-core boost clock of 5.5 GHz (all 8 P-Cores). The CPU features 68 MB of combined cache and a 125W PL1 rating that goes up to 250W. The CPU can also consume up to 350W of power when using the "Extreme Performance Mode" which we detailed a few hours ago here.

• Core i9-13900K 8+16 (24/32) - 3.0 / 5.8 GHz - 66 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 250W+ (PL2)?
• Core i9-12900K 8+8 (16/24) - 3.2 / 5.2 GHz - 30 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 241W (PL2)

Intel Core i7-13700K 16 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i7-13700K CPU will be the fastest 13th Gen Core i7 chip on offer within the Raptor Lake CPU lineup. The chip features a total of 16 cores and 24 threads. This configuration is made possible with 8 P-Cores based on the Raptor Cove architecture and 8 E-Cores based on the Grace Mont core architecture. The CPU comes with 30 MB of L3 cache and 24 MB of L2 cache for a total combined 54 MB cache. The chip was running at a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The all-core boost is rated at 5.3 GHz for the P-Cores while the E-Cores feature a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a boost clock of 4.3 GHz.

• Core i7-13700K 8+8 (16/24) - 3.4 / 5.3 GHz - 54 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 244W (PL2)?
• Core i7-12700K 8+4 (12/20) - 3.6 / 5.0 GHz, 25 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 190W (PL2)

Intel Core i5-13600K 14 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i5-13600K features a total of 14 cores which include 6 P-Cores based on the Raptor Cove and 8 E-Cores based on current Gracemont cores. That's the same P-Core count as the Intel Core i5-12600K but the E-Core count has been doubled. So we are looking at a 40% core count bump and a 25% thread count bump vs the Alder Lake Core i5-12600K. The CPU comes with 24 MB of L3 and 20 MB of L2 cache for a combined total of 44 MB cache. Clock speeds are set at 3.5 GHz base, 5.2 GHz boost, and 5.1 GHz all-core boost while the E-Cores operate at 3.5 GHz base & 3.9 GHz boost clocks.

• Core i5-13600K 6+8 (14/20) - 3.5 / 5.1 GHz - 44 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) /180W (PL2)?
• Core i5-12600K 6+4 (10/16) - 3.6 / 4.9 GHz - 20 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 150W (PL2)

Moving over to the rest of the SKUs, we obviously have the lower TDP optimized 65W Non-K SKUs. The Intel Core i5-13400 seems to be a nice upgrade from the Core i5-12400 as it now offers a total of 4 E-Cores besides the 6 P-Cores which should help boost the multi-threaded performance. The Core i5-13500 is another upgraded variant that offers a step up to 6 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores unlike the Core i5-12400 and Core i5-12500 which shared an identical configuration without any P-Cores. The Core i3 lineup only features 1 SKU and that's the Core i3-13100 which will retain its 4-core and 8-thread layout.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S Desktop CPU Family:

CPU Name	Silicon Revision / QDF	P-Core Count	E-Core Count	Total Core / Thread	P-Core Base / Boost (Max)	P-Core Boost (All-Core)	E-Core Base / Boost	E-Core Boost (All-Core)	Cache (Total L2 + L3)	TDP	MSRP
Intel Core i9-13900K	B0 / Q1E1	8	16	24 / 32	3.0 / 5.8 GHz	5.5 GHz (All-Core)	TBD / 4.7 GHz	4.3 GHz (All-Core)	68 MB	125W (PL1) 250W (PL2)?	TBA
Intel Core i9-13900KF	B0 / Q1EX	8	16	24 / 32	3.0 / 5.8 GHz	5.5 GHz (All-Core)	TBD / 4.7 GHz	4.3 GHz (All-Core)	68 MB	125W (PL1) 250W (PL2)?	TBA
Intel Core i9-13900	B0 / Q1EJ	8	16	24 / 32	2.0 / 5.6 GHz	TBD	TBD	TBD	68 MB	65W (PL1) ~200W (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i9-13900F	B0 / Q1ES	8	16	24 / 32	2.0 / 5.6 GHz	TBD	TBD	TBD	68 MB	65W (PL1) ~200W (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i7-13700K	B0 / Q1EN	8	8	16 / 24	3.4 / 5.4 GHz	5.3 GHz (All Core)	3.4 / 4.3 GHz	TBD	54 MB	125W (PL1) 228W (PL2)?	TBA
Intel Core i7-13700KF	B0 / Q1ET	8	8	16 / 24	3.4 / 5.4 GHz	5.3 GHz (All Core)	3.4 / 4.3 GHz	TBD	54 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i7-13700	B0 / Q1EL	8	8	16 / 24	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	54 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i7-13700F	B0 / Q1EU	8	8	16 / 24	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	54 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i5-13600K	B0 / Q1EK	6	8	14 / 20	3.5 / 5.2 GHz	5.1 GHz (All-Core)	3.5 / 3.9 GHz	TBD	44 MB	125W (PL1) 180W (PL2)?	TBA
Intel Core i5-13600KF	B0 / Q1EV	6	8	14 / 20	3.5 / 5.2 GHz	5.1 GHz (All-Core)	3.5 / 3.9 GHz	TBD	44 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i5-13600	C0 / Q1DF	6	8	14 / 20	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	44 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i5-13500	C0 / Q1DK	6	8	14 / 20	2.5 / 4.5 GHz	TBD	TBD	TBD	32 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i5-13400	C0 / Q1DJ	6	4	10 / 16	2.5 / 4.1 GHz	TBD	TBD	TBD	28 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA
Intel Core i3-13100	H0 / Q1CV	4	0	4 / 8	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	12 MB	65W (PL1) TBD (PL2)	TBA

The Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs including the flagship Core i9-13900K is expected to launch in October on the Z790 platform. The CPUs will be going up against AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup which also launches in Fall 2022.

The post Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs & Z790 Platform To Be Announced on 27th September, Launch on 20th October by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

See all the detail in your favorite shows and movies with the best 4K Ultra HD projectors we've tested.

During an interview with AMD after the Ryzen 7000 Unveil, the company confirmed that its 5nm Zen 4 CPUs won't face any supply constraints. In addition to that, AMD has made a commitment that it will support the AM5 platform through and beyond 2025.

AMD 5nm CPUs Including Ryzen 7000 Will Not Have Any Supply Issues At Launch, Enough CPUs For Everyone!

The first and most important bit that comes directly from AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, is that the 5nm Zen 4 CPUs including the recently unveiled Ryzen 7000 lineup won't be affected by supply issues, reports PCGamer.  The red team acknowledged that while previous products on the 7nm process node saw supply constraints at launch, that won't be the case with their 5nm products and as such, the Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup will be available plenty.

"It is true that if you look at the past 18 months there have been a number of things, whether its capacity limitations or logistics," says Dr. Su. "From an AMD standpoint, we have dramatically increased our overall capacity, in terms of wafers, as well as substrates and on the back end. So with our launch of Zen 4 we don't expect any supply constraints.

"Logistically it takes a little bit longer for things to get into region. So we're having this event at the end of August and we're on sale on September 27. One of the reasons for that time, frankly, is to make sure that we do have product in region so that people can really look at buying across the board."

AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su

AMD Promises To Support AM5 Platform Through & Beyond 2025

Another major thing confirmed by AMD is the commitment to the new AM5 platform. The AM4 socket has seen over 5 years of support and the red team has promised continued support for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, plans to offer a similar level of commitment to the AM5 platform that should last through 2025 and beyond.

Through 2025 means that we will definitely see at least four generations of Zen CPUs on the platform including the upcoming Zen 4, Zen 4 V-Cache, Zen 5, and whatever comes after that. All of these are expected between 2022-2025.

"We built the platform around next generation technologies so that you can build today and upgrade as your needs grow over time," explains AMD's David McAfee at today's event. "And, just like AM4, we're making a commitment to support the AM5 platform with new technologies and next generation architectures through at least 2025. We're really excited about the next era of rising desktops with AM5."

"We do expect AM4 and AM5 to coexist for quite some time," Lisa Su tells us. "You should expect that, like with AM4, we'll build out the entire AM5 stack, but it will it will take some time to build out and we want to make sure the cost points are right, as always."

AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs Feature 2 RDNA 2 Compute Units With 2.2 GHz Clock Speeds

The last part of this story is something that AMD's Robert Hallock had already confirmed a while back but it looks like we now know the exact specifications of the integrated GPU featured on the Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs. As expected, the Zen 4 CPUs will feature an RDNA 2 GPU core featured within the IOD and fabricated on a 6nm process node.

This low-power and low-core count design are to make troubleshooting easier with access to a display output without requiring a discrete GPU. In addition to that, AMD stated that there's a large market for iGPUs in the office & business segments where consumers don't require higher-end GPUs.

We still think of the Ryzen 7000 series as a CPU. The graphics cores in that IO die are not many, the purpose of adding graphics is three-fold. One, it greatly expands these products in the commercial market where they don't buy discrete at all, they just want to turn it on, have video encode/decode and light up some displays for office work and that's what the GPU in the IO die will offer so that's a huge business opportunity for us on the Ryzen PRO side as we start migrating these components over to that business.

The second is for diagnostic purposes, how do you know that you have a bad graphics card? Well, you have to swap in another graphics card but with the graphics core we have, you can do a little bit of troubleshooting thirdly, we were thinking about users who are planning to buy a discrete graphics, and it's still in transit in the mail but all the other hardware has arrived first so it's all sat there, looking at a pile of components and don't have a GPU to actually set that all up. That would go away with the Ryzen 7000 series.

We are still going to do APUs with big graphics so APUs 'BIG GRAPHICS', CPUs 'little graphics'. That would be our strategy going forward.

Robert Hallock (AMD Director of Technical Marketing)

We are developing a lot of technologies that make use of integrated graphics in many ways and there are things that we are able to do with technologies such as Smart Shift ECO where we can turn off the discrete graphics and we can run the notebook off of the iGPU and say you want that because you want less heat, longer battery life (even when you are playing a game) or you want less fan noise or lower power consumption, there's all these benefits to it. Because we have that thin integrated graphics in Ryzen 7000 series, it's going to allow us to bring more of these types of smart technologies over to the desktops aswell so those customers can get some of these benefits.

Frank Azor (Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions)

So coming to the specifications, the iGPU on the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs will feature 2 Compute Units for a total of 128 stream processors. These cores will run at a base clock speed of 400 MHz and a graphics frequency of 2200 MHz which could be the peak frequency. Offering up to 0.563 TFLOPs of 563 GFLOPs of compute power, this will deliver slightly better performance than the Nintendo Switch which is rated at 500 TFLOPs. You can definitely enjoy some old-school or less graphics-intensive gaming with the iGPU but the CPUs are mainly designed to be used primarily with discrete graphics cards.

The AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs and the AM5 platform will be making an official retail debut on 27th of September so stay tuned for more information.

The post AMD’s 5nm Zen 4 CPUs Including Ryzen 7000 Not To Be Hindered By Supply Constraints, AM5 Socket To Be Supported Through & Beyond 2025 by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

This article contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" episode 2.

In episode 2 of "House of the Dragon," aptly titled "The Rogue Prince," Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) defies his elder brother Viserys' (Paddy Considine) orders in a big way. After Daemon's son died a day after his birth, the king declared his daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) as his heir. The Targaryen heir is supposed to rule at Dragonstone once they come of age, so Daemon decided to take that for his own since he couldn't have the throne. He also stole a dragon egg that had been kept in his late nephew's cradle, though he eventually gave it back when Rhaenyra came to retrieve it. Dragonstone, however, he kept, and it looks like the sprawling castle will serve as his base of operations for some time. It's a perfect Targaryen home, complete with carvings of dragons absolutely everywhere, and since it's on an island, it's easy to visit on dragonback and not much else. 

Dragonstone serves an important history in the world of Westeros, and ends up being an important setting in "Game of Thrones." The castle ends up being the home of two very different rulers in later years, but hey, at least one of them is a Targaryen. 

No Place For Stags

Dragonstone is the birthplace of Aegon Targaryen I, who would go on to be known as Aegon the Conqueror when he united the seven kingdoms of Westeros for the first time. Many of the houses had been there for centuries before the Targaryens ever crossed the narrow sea, but they soon fell in line with their dragon-riding rulers. While the Targaryen kings ruled out of King's Landing, as the other Westerosi kings had done before, their true ancestral home was still Dragonstone. After the Mad King, Aerys II, was killed by a teenage Jaime Lannister, House Baratheon ascended the throne, and Dragonstone became a Baratheon holding instead. Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), the younger brother of King Robert, ends up taking the island castle and making it his home. 

The room that Stannis eventually made into his war room, complete with a giant wooden table that's a map of Westeros, appears in the second episode of "House of the Dragon," when Daemon tries to reassure his lover, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), after lying about both getting married to her and her being pregnant. The big wooden map is missing, but the rest of the room is unmistakable, right down to the dragon carvings on the walls and the floor-to-ceiling "windows" overlooking a beautiful view of the ocean. 

The Heart Of The Targaryen Dynasty

Eventually, Dragonstone ended up back in Targaryen hands, when Daenerys Targaryen crossed the narrow sea from Essos and took back her ancestral home. Those loyal to Stannis had abandoned the castle after his death, and Daenerys (and her dragons) had no problem taking control of the island castle. She ends up leading her efforts to take back the Iron Throne from Dragonstone for quite some time and eventually returns there with Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) in season 8 of "Game of Thrones" to prepare for her final battle with the Lannisters in King's Landing. The two of them even use Dragonstone's incredible caches of dragonglass, or obsidian, to help in their fight against the encroaching white walker hordes of the north. 

After the events of "Game of Thrones," there's no telling who Dragonstone might fall to, or if the castle will ever be used again. While some of the other spin-offs in production might address the fate of Dragonstone, at least fans will get a chance to see more of its history in "House of the Dragon," because I don't imagine Prince Daemon's going to give it up any time soon.

New episodes of "House of the Dragon" premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max. 

Read this next: The Best TV Shows And Movies Coming To HBO Max In August 2022

The post A Brief History of Dragonstone, Daemon Targaryen's New Home in House of the Dragon appeared first on /Film.

Cyberinsurance doesn't cover acts of war. But even as cyberattacks mount, the definition of "warlike" actions remains blurry.

The post The Patient – Review [Hulu Series] appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

Steve over at Gamers Nexus recently got the opportunity to go hands-on with a delidded AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU.

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Delidding Reveals Gold-Plated IHS & Zen 4 CCDs With High-Quality TIM

The CPU that was delidded is part of the Ryzen 9 family since it has two dies and we know that the two CCD configuration is only applicable to the Ryzen 9 7950X & the Ryzen 9 7900X. The chip has a total of three dies, two of which are the aforementioned AMD Zen 4 CCDs fabricated on the 5nm process node and then we have the larger die around the center which is the IOD and that is based on a 6nm process node. The AMD Ryzen 7000 CCD measures at a die size of 70mm2 compared to 83mm2 for Zen 3 and feature a total of 6.57 Billion transistors, a 58% increase over the Zen 3 CCD with 4.15 Billion transistors,

Scattered around the package are several SMD's (capacitors/resistors) that usually sit under the package substrate if we consider Intel's CPUs. AMD is instead featuring them on the top layer and as such, they had to design a new kind of IHS which is internally referred to as the Octopus. We've already seen the delidded IHS before but now we get to see a final production chip with no lid on it to cover those gold Zen 4 nuggets!

With that said, the IHS is an interesting component of the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs. The one picture shows the arrangement of the 8 arms which Robert Hallock 'Director of Technical Marketing at AMD' refers to as the 'Octopus'. Each arm has a small application of TIM beneath it which is used to solder the IHS to the interposer. Now delidding the chip is going to be really hard since each arm is right next to the massive array of capacitors. Each Arm is also slightly raised to make room for the SMDs and users shouldn't worry about heat getting trapped beneath.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Delidded (Image Credits: GamersNexus):

2 of 9

Der8auer has also given a statement to Gamers Nexus regarding his upcoming delidding kit for AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs which is in the works and he also seems to explain why the new CPUs feature gold-plated CCDs:

Regarding the gold coating, there's the aspect that you can solder indium to gold without the need of flux. This makes the process easier and you don't need aggressive chemicals on your CPU. Without the gold coating, it would theoretically also work to solder the silicon to copper, but it would be more difficult and you would need the flux to break the oxide layers.

Der8auer to GamersNexus

The most interesting area of the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU IHS, besides the arms, is the gold plated IHS which is used to increase thermal dissipation off of the CPU/IO dies and directly to the IHS. The two 5nm Zen 4 CCD's and singular 6nm IO die have liquid-metal TIM or Thermal interface material for better heat conductivity and the aforementioned gold plating does help a lot with heat dissipation. What remains to be seen is whether the capacitors will feature silicone coating or not but from the previous package shot, it kind of looks like they do.

It is also reported that the smaller surface area of the IHS means that it will be better compatible with existing coolers with round and square-shaped cold plates. Square-shaped cold plates will be the preferred choice but round ones will work just fine too. Noctua has also pointed out the TIM application method and they are suggesting users go with the single-dot pattern in the middle of the IHS for AMD AM5 CPUs.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Render (With/Without IHS):

2 of 9

Another thing that needs to be pointed out is that each Zen 4 CCD is really close to the edge of the IHS which wasn't necessarily the case with previous Zen CPUs. So not only delidding will be highly difficult but the center is mostly the IO die which means that cooling equipment needs to be ready for such chips. The AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs launch in Fall 2022 on the AM5 platform. That's a chip that can reach up to 5.85GHz with up to 230W package power so every little amount of cooling will be a must for overclockers and enthusiasts.

AMD Mainstream Desktop CPU Generations Comparison:

AMD CPU Family	Codename	Processor Process	Processors Cores/Threads (Max)	TDPs (Max)	Platform	Platform Chipset	Memory Support	PCIe Support	Launch
Ryzen 1000	Summit Ridge	14nm (Zen 1)	8/16	95W	AM4	300-Series	DDR4-2677	Gen 3.0	2017
Ryzen 2000	Pinnacle Ridge	12nm (Zen +)	8/16	105W	AM4	400-Series	DDR4-2933	Gen 3.0	2018
Ryzen 3000	Matisse	7nm (Zen 2)	16/32	105W	AM4	500-Series	DDR4-3200	Gen 4.0	2019
Ryzen 5000	Vermeer	7nm (Zen 3)	16/32	105W	AM4	500-Series	DDR4-3200	Gen 4.0	2020
Ryzen 5000 3D	Warhol?	7nm (Zen 3D)	8/16	105W	AM4	500-Series	DDR4-3200	Gen 4.0	2022
Ryzen 7000	Raphael	5nm (Zen 4)	16/32	170W	AM5	600-Series	DDR5-5200	Gen 5.0	2022
Ryzen 7000 3D	Raphael	5nm (Zen 4)	16/32?	105-170W	AM5	600-Series	DDR5-5200/5600?	Gen 5.0	2023
Ryzen 8000	Granite Ridge	3nm (Zen 5)?	TBA	TBA	AM5	700-Series?	DDR5-5600+	Gen 5.0	2024-2025?

The post AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Delidded: Gold-Plated Zen 4 CCDs & Octopus-Styled IHS For Wider Cooler Compatibility by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

One of the benefits of working from home (or anywhere) is the ability to choose the devices you will use. Unfortunately, the client or office won't always pay for what remote workers want.

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When I moved into my home, the front yard was gray and lifeless. The previous owners, in lieu of landscaping, had put a layer of rocks over the entire front yard, which meant that the soil beneath was devoid of all life. But over the years I managed to revive it, turning what was once gray and dead into a habitat…

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Shia LaBeouf grew up in front of cameras. The actor made his acting debut at age 12 in an episode of "Caroline in the City" before getting a main role in the Disney Channel sitcom "Even Stevens," which lasted for 65 episodes and a movie. Say what you will about his personal life, his stunts, or his career, but he still was the star of an "Indiana Jones" movie, for better and worse. But before he played Indy's son, he was a child actor, with all the problems that come with the territory.

The reality of child stars is a difficult one, as people like Jennette McCurdy ("iCarly") have reminded us in recent times. Abuse by loved ones and by a cold, calculating industry aren't out of the ordinary, unfortunately, and LaBeouf used his own experiences as a child actor to write the pseudo-autobiographical Sundance darling "Honey Boy."

The film stars Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe as younger versions of LaBeouf and details LaBeouf's relationship with his abusive father (whom he plays in the film) as well as his childhood stardom. The film also stars Maika Monroe, Natasha Lyonne, Martin Starr, Clifton Collins Jr. and FKA twigs. Alma Har'el, who directed the film, has previously talked about how she connected to the script's portrayal of abuse, and how, as a child of abuse and addiction, she wanted to bring that to the screen in an accurate and respectful way.

It seems, however, that reports of the film's accuracy may have been exaggerated.

'My Dad Was So Loving To Me My Whole Life'

While on Jon Bernthal's "Real Ones" podcast, LaBeouf confessed to have taken creative liberties with his portrayal of his father in "Honey Boy." Well, creative liberties may be a bit of an understatement, because LaBeouf himself described the film's narrative as "Just f***ing nonsense."

"My dad was so loving to me my whole life. Fractured, sure. Crooked, sure. Wonky, for sure," LaBeouf said. "But never was not loving, never was not there. He was always there... and I'd done a world press tour about how f***ed he was as a man."

A big appeal of the film was that it was supposedly an autobiographical look at LaBeouf's time as a child star, particularly his time on "Even Stevens," as there are multiple references to that show in the film. To hear that was not true is a disservice to not just audiences, but particularly to LaBeouf's father. LaBeouf continued:

 "Here's a man who I've done vilified on a grand scale. I turned the knob up on certain s*** that wasn't real. My dad never hit me, never. He spanked me once, one time. And the story that gets painted in 'Honey Boy' is this dude is abusing his kid all the time."

The Damage Is Done

This unfortunate and maddening situation brings to mind the controversy surrounding James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces," which became a best-seller after being included in Oprah Winfrey's book club. Frey admitted that he embellished details of the story, including a prison stint, to make a better narrative.

Sure, LaBeouf also recognizes how messed up this is, and the damage he did to his father, but the damage is done, as he points out. "I wronged him. I remember getting on the phone with him, and him being like, 'I never read this stuff in the script you sent.' Because I didn't put that s*** in there."

"My dad was going to live with this certain narrative about him on a public scale for a very long time, probably the rest of his life," LaBeouf said. But the damage has been done.

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Shia LaBeouf Admits to Making Up His Father's Abusive Actions in Honey Boy appeared first on /Film.

Power anywhere... just add sunlight!

Nicolas Cage is the kind of actor who can make oddball roles of any variety work in his favor. Over the course of his long and eventful career, Cage has had several meme-worthy moments, which are almost always endearingly hilarious. Take the "How'd it get burned?!!" scene from 2006's "The Wicker Man" as an example — the scene stands out due to Cage's manic delivery of the line in an otherwise underwhelming folk horror remake. However, Cage's ability to take on complex roles and imbue them with dark humor is on full display in films like "Mandy" and "Wild At Heart," and this ability reaches its peak in the critically-acclaimed culinary drama, "Pig."

So, when Richard Stanley conceived the idea of a harrowing Lovecraftian cosmic horror movie about a family hounded by an imperceptible alien species, Cage emerged as the natural choice to play the family patriarch, Nathan Gardner. Stanley's "Color Out Of Space" centers on the Gardner family, who cling on to the idea of a sustainable utopia after moving into an isolated farmhouse, but their lives are overturned after a meteorite crashes straight into their backyard. While Stanley's film is an engrossing look into the unknown, it is Cage's rendition of Nathan that heightens the taut drama of a family driven to the brink of madness.

But, what was the inspiration behind Nathan Gardner's out-of-touch eccentricity in the face of a cosmic threat? According to Stanley, Cage's performance in "Color Out Of Space" was heavily drawn from one of his most unhinged roles on screen: the character of Peter Loew in "Vampire's Kiss." Yes, the one in which Cage's Loew believes that he is allergic to sunlight and is turning into a vampire while running through the streets of New York in a crazed display of madness.

'I Never Misfile Anything. Not Once, Not One Time'

In an interview with Screen Anarchy, Stanley explained that as Cage was "a huge Lovecraft fan," the production company behind "Color Out of Space," SpectreVision, hooked him up with Stanley's script. The characterization of Nathan Gardner, who goes from a level-headed, practical patriarch to an incensed, tortured man who wants to euthanize his own family, owes a lot to Cage's approach to the role. Stanley claims that Cage based a lot of Nathan's character on his own father, August Coppola, something he had already done before in "Vampire's Kiss." The director said:

"When Nic puts on this strange, whiny, almost British accent, he's imitating his dad, who's the same person he was parodying in Vampire's Kiss. It's very much a turn to his Auggie [August Coppola] characterization from Vampire's Kiss."

Cage's drawling, whiny way of speaking in "Vampire's Kiss" adds greatly to his character in the 1988 black comedy horror film. A good example would be this scene, in which Loew lectures his therapist about the simplicity of filing documents in alphabetical order. The hilarity of the scene aside, it establishes the outlandish nature of Cage's character, highlighting his narcissistic tendencies and penchant for theatrics. As Leow becomes more isolated and irritated as the film progresses, it makes sense for him to lean heavily into his delusions that he is a vampire on the prowl. Per Stanley's statement above, Cage parodied his father's mannerisms in "Vampire's Kiss" — something he turned to once again while portraying a family man on the edge of sanity. 

Injecting A Parodied Performance With Substance

What's interesting about Cage applying his "Vampire's Kiss" mannerisms to "Color" is the wildly disparate effects the same approach has on the two characters. On the one hand, the exaggerated mannerisms in "Vampire's Kiss" perfectly capture the film's tone, which is an extremely dark comedy about a man spiraling into unflinching madness. Leow is driven by corporate greed and hedonism but is not honest enough to confront himself with the hollow nature of his existence. As a result, Leow resorts to fantastical delusions of being an apex predator and begs for death in the end. 

On the other hand, Cage's parodied mannerisms in "Color Out Of Space" paint a completely different picture. As the film begins, Nathan Gardner is simply a man with a utopian vision, who wishes to escape the injustices of the world by rearing his own animals and growing his own crops for his family. When the "color" permeates the farm, Nathan's behavior becomes uncharacteristically deranged, leading him to put on a different accent as he goes about grappling with the unknowable. The "color" affects Nathan more than anyone else, leading to moments that are humorous in a bleak, existential way. There's pathos in Cage's portrayal of Nathan as well, as it also highlights the themes of childhood trauma and the fear of losing loved ones in the face of inevitable cosmic threats. 

Thus, while Cage's role in "Vampire's Kiss" adds a sense of heightened, crazed fantasy to a darkly comic storyline, his approach in "Color Out of Space" grounds and humanizes the plight of the Gardner family in the face of terror. Amid all the memes and hilarity, there's substance to Cage's performance in both films, actualized in a way that can only be done by Nicolas Cage alone.

Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever

The post Color Out Of Space Was A Redux Of One Of Nicolas Cage's Weirdest Roles appeared first on /Film.

The “as a service” business model has gained widespread popularity as growing cloud adoption has made it possible for people to access important services through third-party providers. Given the convenience and agility of service offerings, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the “as a service” model is being used by cybercriminals for nefarious purposes.

Ransomware as a service (RaaS) involves cybercriminals purchasing and selling access to ransomware payloads, leaked data, RaaS “kits,” and many other tools on the dark web. We explore this topic in the second edition of Cyber Signals, Microsoft’s quarterly brief that shines a spotlight on threat topics informed by our 43 trillion signals of data and research by more than 8,500 security experts. It’s one of the many resources available on Microsoft Security Insider, a site where you’ll find the latest cybersecurity insights and threat intelligence updates.

At Microsoft, we have been tracking the trend of human-operated ransomware. These threats are driven by humans who make decisions at every stage of the attack, making them particularly impactful and destructive to organizations. RaaS operations, such as REvil and the now-shutdown Conti, have the malware attack infrastructure and even stolen organizational data necessary to power ransomware activities. They then make these tools available on the dark web for a fee. Affiliates purchase these RaaS kits and deploy them in company environments. Like legitimate “as a service” offerings, RaaS may even include customer service support, bundled offers, and user review forums.

Ransomware as a service: Appealing to cybercriminals, challenging for companies

In more than 80 percent of ransomware attacks, the cybercriminals exploited common configuration errors in software and devices, which can be remedied by following security best practices. This means that ransomware actors are not using any new and novel techniques. The same guidance around timely patching, credential hygiene, and a thorough review of changes to software and system settings and configurations can make a difference in an organization’s resilience to these attacks. The other challenge is that some actors have opted to forgo the ransomware payload. They exfiltrate the victim organization’s data and extort money by threatening to release their data or sell it on the dark web.

As a result, companies that limit their hunting efforts to looking for signs of just the ransomware payload are at a greater risk of a successful breach and extortion. Finally, the ease of RaaS for cybercriminals means it is highly likely to remain a challenge for organizations worldwide.

Cybercrime—including ransomware, business email compromise schemes, and the criminal use of cryptocurrency—comes at a significant cost. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2021 Internet Crime Report found that potential losses exceeded USD6.9 billion in 2021.¹

In the European Union, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) reported that about 10 terabytes of data were stolen each month by ransomware threat actors between May 2021 and June 2022, and a whopping 58.2 percent of that stolen data involved employees’ personal information.²

Ransomware as a service offers a few advantages to cybercriminals:

• Lowers the barrier to entry for cybercriminals interested in committing ransomware attacks because these ransomware kits enable people with minimal technical expertise to deploy ransomware.
• Conceals the identity of the cybercriminals behind the attack because anyone with a laptop and a credit card can search the dark web, purchase RaaS kits, and join the RaaS gig economy. As a result, governments, law enforcement, media, security researchers, and defenders face a bigger challenge in determining the culprit behind the attacks.

What Microsoft is doing to share threat intelligence insights

Microsoft gains deep insights into the ever-evolving threat landscape and threat actors by analyzing more than 43 trillion threat signals daily and leveraging the unique skills of more than 8,500 experts—threat hunters, forensics investigators, malware engineers, and researchers supporting our threat intelligence community and customers. These experts specialize in dedicated areas, such as vulnerabilities, threat actors, ransomware, supply chain risk, social engineering, and geopolitical issues.

Microsoft focuses on gathering intelligence about these cybercriminals’ behaviors, tactics, tools, and techniques to truly understand the end-to-end scope of their attacks and operations. We believe cybersecurity intelligence should be shared broadly. You can see our insights in our security intelligence blogs, the Microsoft Digital Defense Report, and Cyber Signals, our quarterly briefing, which can be found on Security Insider, our source for threat insights and guidance.

We understand that managing the myriad tasks necessary to grow a business gives organizations precious little time to stay updated on the latest security threats, let alone to preempt and disrupt extortion threats. We are committed to sharing the threat insights we have gathered with the cybersecurity community to help organizations secure their employees, customers, and partners. We are all cybersecurity defenders. Together, we can stay ahead of these threats.

Strategies to protect your organization

Because cybercriminals rely on security vulnerabilities they can exploit, companies can help block attackers by investing in integrated threat protection across devices, identities, apps, email, data, and the cloud. Here are three major strategies to help protect your environment from RaaS attacks:

1. Prepare to defend and recover: Adopt a Zero Trust approach, which means never trusting an identity but instead always fully authenticating, authorizing, and encrypting every access request before granting access. This strategy also involves taking measures to secure your backups and protect your data.
2. Protect identities from compromise: Safeguard network credentials and prevent the lateral movement used by attackers to evade detection while moving through your organization in search of assets to exfiltrate or destroy.
3. Prevent, detect, and respond to threats: Leverage comprehensive prevention, detection, and response capabilities with integrated security information and event management (SIEM) and extended detection and response (XDR). This means understanding typical attack vectors, like remote access, email and collaboration, endpoints, and accounts, and taking steps to prevent attackers from getting in. And, very importantly, ensure that along with outside-in protection you are also doing inside-out protection focused on data security, information protection, and insider risk management.

You can find more in-depth security guidance in Cyber Signals and Security Insider.

A great security posture starts with understanding the threat landscape. Microsoft remains deeply committed to partnering with our entire community on sharing intelligence and building a safer world for all together. 

Learn more

To stay up-to-date on ransomware as a service and other threat insights and guidance, bookmark Microsoft Security Insider.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

---

¹Internet Crime Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2021.

²Ransomware: Publicly Reported Incidents are only the tip of the iceberg, European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. July 29, 2022.

The post Cyber Signals: 3 strategies for protection against ransomware appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

This is the moment you all have been waiting for, vSphere 8.0 was just announced. There are some great new features and capabilities in this release, and in this blog post I am going to be discussing some of these. First of all, vSphere Distributed Services Engine. What is this? Well basically it is Project Monterey. For those who have no idea what Project Monterey is, it is VMware’s story around...

Source

It's rare to see a magic trick pulled off in a video game the way Immortality does it.

By the time I knew something was up with Sam Barlow and Half Mermaid's latest FMV mystery, I had already ripped open Pandora's Box. I just didn't know it yet. Little hints and bread crumbs were laying there. Percolating theories were just waiting to be blown open to something big. And I just kept tugging at the threads.

Immortality is the latest game from Barlow and co., and it sees Barlow returning to full-motion video similar to Her Story and Telling Lies. The most obvious difference is how the experience itself handles; rather than typing queries into a database, you have a reel setup similar to a classic Moviola machine and a crosshair.

Point that crosshair at something that catches your eye, and Immortality match cuts to another scene with a similar or same object. Then scrub through the footage, turning dials and knobs to your heart's content. Find information. Learn. It's the mechanical feeling of Immortality that absolutely floored me already, and kept this experience feeling so different even when some moments of Immortality felt a bit more shaky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEStlPKIGL8

Immortality (PC [reviewed], Xbox Series X|S, Android, iOS, Mac)
Developer: Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid
Publisher: Half Mermaid
Released: August 30, 2022
MSRP: $19.99

The actual framing of Immortality surrounds a found-film archive of Marissa Marcel, an up-and-coming actress who starred in just three movies. They were never released, and Marcel hasn't been heard from since. Presented as an interactive slice of history, Immortality lets you jump through time between her roles: 1968's Ambrosio, 1970's Minsky, and 1999's Two of Everything.

A mechanical feeling of locking in reels of film and rolling through them is at the heart of Immortality. The best way to play it is in a darkened room, poring over the moving lights and sounds, headphones isolating you from anything else. Clips are fairly easy to navigate and sort, which is good because you'll uncover dozens upon dozens of them. There is a lot of footage to comb over. Some you'll even want to revisit over and over. Marcel's movies, as well as behind-the-scenes footage, rehearsals, promos and interviews, and more are all available.

But rather than just looking at a box of old labels, you're given the choice to thread your own journey through match cuts. Much like Her Story asked you to type in a word and follow your curiosity, Immortality asks the same: what interests you?

The reel life of film stars

It's that involved notion of discovery that really captivated me in Immortality. Your own curiosity is your guide. But by removing the text-based search and focusing on the visual, Immortality feels less like a keyword hunt than other games. Every scene has a visual makeup that can be pored over. Maybe a portrait catches my eye, and I want to find it elsewhere. I could chase jewelry, or a microphone, or an expression. Following a star through different scenes could be as easy as match-cutting their face. I even used the clapboard a few times just to fill in gaps for a particular movie.

The match-cut system is really impressive, as it covers a huge breadth of film. Not everything can be match-cut, but a pretty sizeable amount of items in frame can. It's not without the occasional hitch, though. Sometimes clips might bounce back and forth between a single match, or certain visuals would 'rebound' to the same clip. This could lead to moments of frustration, though they just as often served as checks for me to drop one lead and chase another.

Special attention needs to be called to the actual films as well. All three movies and their ancillary footage serve as the basis, and a lot of care has gone into them. Everything is period appropriate, and even has the right look and feel of when they were filmed. I loved diving into the American New Wave of Minsky, the gorgeous art of Ambrosio, and the extremely late '90s vibe of Two of Everything. Each one feels like a window into a point in time, and it's (mostly) easy to mark when and where clips happen as you zip between them.

Ready for my close-up

The live-action cast does a fantastic job as well. Manon Gage (Marissa Marcel) shows an incredible range across all the movies, deftly portraying Marcel's shifting persona over the years. The actors who play characters like director John Durick, actor Carl Greenwood, and others play up their own moments really well. Little glances, smirks, or expressions don't just add to the mystery, but build these characters up and inform the years of film we're scrubbing through.

Immortality is a game about movies, and it goes to some incredible lengths to marry the two. It's keenly interested in the relationship of the audience to motion pictures, as much as it is player to game, and viewer to creator. Like its name suggests, Immortality dives into questions of life and death, performance, and who mandates how those stories are told. At one point, a director remarks that ownership of some of his films will go to the studios once he's dead. His legacy becomes their property, to manage as they wish.

It's moments like these that keep me going in Immortality. But this FMV mystery can pull a trick on you too. They're subtle, and I was impressed by how quietly they snuck up on me.

I do want to note that while Immortality is a mystery game, it is also a horror game. To what end, and how any of that manifests, I'll leave it to prospective players to discover. I wouldn't want it laid out for me, after all.

But Immortality does shift directions in a noticeable way. And while it's still good, that feeling does get a bit more complicated.

Ghost in the machine

While Immortality is about the mystery of Marissa Marcel, that cold case becomes much larger the further you dig. Ultimately, I think it serves the themes Immortality is trying to convey well. And the manner in which some big bits of information is doled out is amazing; I literally gasped out loud at one discovery, and more still caught me by surprise several more times afterwards. Half Mermaid pulls some really clever tricks with the set-up they've created.

Some of this discovery can cause repetition and frustration though. Certain bits of info may repeat. This can compound when you're looking for a specific bit of info, a scene with Marissa for example, and keep matching and returning to the same clips.

It's hard to talk in too great a detail about Immortality, because it's a story-driven game where discovery and the interaction between player and game are so crucial. There's a minefield of spoilers and secrets to dance around, and even after spending over eight hours rolling credits and searching out some additional context, I still have theories and ideas I'm excited to discuss.

Immortality is the kind of game that shifts the way you're going to think about the genre moving forward. It's got some incredible tech in its match-cut system, and it puts its themes out there in a headstrong manner that really works. Barlow got genuine gasps, and one literal shout, from me in the course of its runtime. Even for moments when I was frustrated, skimming back and forth, searching for some way to learn more, that same system made those surprises feel genuine and involved in a way most games don't.

Immortality is another great entry to the collection of FMV puzzle-boxes that Barlow and co. have been producing for years now. I don't quite know that I've played anything like it. From big revelations to little moments that just build on the life and times of Marissa Marcel, these scenes are going to stick with me for a while, living on. Immortalized.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Immortality appeared first on Destructoid.

It's out with the old and in with the new — another month is coming to a close, so it's time for each of our many different streaming services to refresh their libraries by adding new titles and getting rid of others. So far, no one is doing this quite as dramatically as HBO Max, but alas, no one is completely safe from the possibility of removal. Bet let's instead focus on the upside: More titles will be available to stream this month! Meaning lots more TV series and movies to add to your watchlist and hopefully cross off before they inexplicably disappear from the service.

This month, Hulu is whipping out a selection that really runs the gamut. Looking to linger in the comforting space of reality TV? The streamer has everything from Kardashian family drama to foodie-leaning titles like "Best in Dough" and the season premiere of "Hell's Kitchen." In the realm of speculative fiction, September marks the arrival of the fifth season of "The Handmaid's Tale," the bleak dystopian series set in a world where a totalitarian theocracy has taken control of America. And if you need something light to recover from those horrors, then you can always await the return of "Abbott Elementary," the hit sitcom coming back for its sophomore season. As usual, there will be plenty of new titles to choose from, so we've highlighted five that you should definitely set aside time to check out.

Wedding Season

One of Hulu's newest additions is a romantic murder mystery comedy about a wedding gone terribly wrong. "Wedding Season" tells the story of Katie (Rose Salazar) and Stefan (Gavin Drea), strangers who fall for each other at a wedding and begin a beautiful affair with all the trappings of a whirlwind romance. Unfortunately, the keyword is affair because Stefan soon discovers that Katie is not only in a relationship, she's engaged and her wedding date is fast approaching. That would probably be the end of that, but when Katie's wedding finally arrives, her husband and his entire family are murdered. The police naturally turn their attention to the man that Katie started an affair with and Stefan begins to fear that Katie is responsible for the murders. So begins their romantic getaway -- avoiding capture form the police, desperately trying to prove their innocence and each hoping that their new companion isn't a mass murderer. "Wedding Season" sounds like a binge-worthy eight episode romp that veers into the absurdist comedy realm, with the slight possibility of turning into a "Gone Girl" scenario. What more could you want from a love story?

10 Things I Hate About You

Over two decades since its release, "10 Things I Hate About You" is a timeless, rewatchable classic. The film gives Shakespeare a teen comedy makeover, loosely stealing the plot of "The Taming of the Shrew" for a story of two Seattle sisters with an overbearing father who refuses to let them date (lest they come home knocked up). His solution? He pits them against each other, declaring that superficial younger sibling Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) can't date unless her antisocial older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) dates first. Contemporary, clever, and very self-aware, "10 Things" has lots to observe about teen dramas and manages to pull it off without sacrificing any of the swoon.

Watching the fiercely independent Kat clash with her mysterious bad boy love interest Patrick (an irresistible Heath Ledger) never gets old. Both of them are fully embodying one of the film's best moments, and taking the "can't take my eyes off of you" quality to the next level. And of the many points in this film's favor is the fact that it's always fun to revisit the work of actors on the cusp of stardom. "10 Things I Hate About You" stars Ledger and Stiles in top form, along with a goofy but likable Joseph Gordon Levitt, Gabrielle Union regularly delivering hilarious lines ,and Alison Janey as a terribly ineffective guidance counselor who writes erotic literature and is named Ms. Perky.

"10 Things" is a classic, and if you haven't seen it yet, then that's an issue that you desperately need to correct. But if (like me) you've seen in a million times, then this is a wonderful opportunity to make that a million and one, because it only ever gets better.

Petite Maman

After "Portrait of Lady on Fire" took the world by storm, all eyes were on Céline Sciamma for a followup and the French filmmaker certainly didn't hold back. "Petite Maman" is a tender fairytale that follows an 8-year-old girl exploring the woods of her mother's childhood home. There she encounters a girl around her same age, who looks suspiciously similar and happens to share her mother's name (the young actors who play the girls are twins).

If you're only familiar with the lush, erotic romance of "Portrait," then Sciamma's latest film may feel like a turn in a new direction. But it harkens back to much of Sciamma's earlier work, as an emotional coming-of-age tale in the vein of "Tomboy," now with an understated sci-fi twist. Her emotionally tender storytelling once again cuts deep and earned a a glowing review from /Film's Hoai-Tran Bui who wrote that Sciamma "finds meaning in the loaded silences, complexity in the closed and dusty spaces, and beauty in the withered branches that make up the hut that Nelly and Marion build together. 'Petite Maman' is richer in its simplicity; a lovely slice-of-life tale that knows that loss is so enormous and monumental that we can only linger with it for brief moments."

Ernest & Celestine

"Ernest & Celestine" is a buddy-comedy about a friendship between a mouse and the bear that once tried to eat her. It may not be the most intuitive friendship -- as their respective communities will frequently remind them — but it's certainty the purest. Both artists and dreamers, these two bohemian animals form an unlikely bond that is questioned by everyone around them but fiercely persists as they pursue new lives. Celestine comes from a civilization of hardworking mice who are terrified of the bears above ground. When we meet her, she's pursuing a career in dentistry but has absolutely no interest, spending all her free time on dreams and sketches. Above ground, Ernest is a bear without food and money. After a twist of fate brings them together, they find a new way to survive.

Put simply: it's wholesome, but they also do crime. This underseen beauty looks like a water color painting come to life, with an art style that directly emulates the children's book it's based on. If the good vibes and stunning visuals are piquing your interest then consider this — the sooner you allow yourself the joy of seeing this movie, the sooner you can watch "Ernest & Celestine 2: A Trip to Gibberitia," the sequel set to arrive later this year.

Abbott Elementary Season 2

The gap between seasons of TV always seems to be getting longer, but thankfully, "Abbott Elementary" won't be torturing us with patience any longer than it must. The hit sitcom is set to return with new episodes on ABC at the end of the month, all of which will arrive to Hulu the very next day. Very soon, we'll be thrust back into the world of Abbott where the staff will try their damndest to give their kids the education they deserve while curbing whatever desk-hopping craze happens to strike next.

The series stars Quinta Brunson stars as young teacher Janine Teagues, who has yet to be fully beaten down by the broken public school system and is sprinkling her unwavering optimism all over Abbott. Even though her fellow newbies Jacob (Chris Perfetti) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) don't always match her energy and veteran teachers Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) know better than to trust the system, they all share a passion for their students and with Janine's hopeful demeanor rubbing off in a big way, Abbott is heading towards success.

The selling point of the show isn't just that wholesome vibe and wondrous energy -- it's the laughs,. Like "The Office" and "Parks and Rec" before it, the series makes incredible use of its mokumentary style, and finds plenty of situational hilarity in the everyday lives of its ensemble cast.

Movies And TV Shows Coming To Hulu In September 2022

September 1

The Mighty Ones: Complete Season 3 (Hulu Original)

A Certain Scientific Railgun: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

A Certain Scientific Railgun: Complete Season 2 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Aftermath with William Shatner: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Aftermath with William Shatner: Complete Season 2 (FYI)

Alone: An Inside Look: Complete Season 1 (History)

America's Book Of Secrets: Complete Seasons 1 & 3 (History)

American Pickers: Complete Seasons 2 – 4 (History)

American Ripper: Complete Season 1 (History)

Ancient Aliens: Complete Season 15 (History)

Ancient Aliens: Complete Season 16 (History)

Ancient Impossible: Complete Season 1 (History)

Ax Men: Complete Seasons 1, 8 & 9 (History)

Behind Bars: Rookie Year: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Beyond the Headlines: Catching the Craigslist Killer: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond the Headlines: Secrets of a Marine's Wife: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond the Headlines: The Carlina White Story: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond the Headlines: The College Admissions Scandal with Gretchen Carlson: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond the Headlines: The Jennifer Dulos Story: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond The Headlines: The Kamiyah Mobley Story with Robin Roberts: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond the Headlines: The Tiffany Rubin Story: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Beyond The Headlines: The Watts Family Tragedy: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Biography: KISStory: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Blood-C: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Bloods: Season 2B (Sky)

Born This Way: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Breaking Their Silence: Inside the Gymnastics Scandal: Complete Season 1 (Crime & Investigation)

The Cars That Built the World: Complete Season 1 (History)

The Cars that Made America: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Catering Wars: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

City Confidential: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Counting Cars: Complete Season 2 (History)

Court Cam: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Court Cam: Complete Season 2 (A&E)

Court Cam: Complete Season 3 (A&E)

Crime 360: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Cultureshock: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Dance Moms: Complete Season 5 (Lifetime)

Dance Moms Miami: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Dance Moms: Abby's Studio Rescue: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

The Day I Picked My Parents: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Days That Shaped America: Complete Season 1 (History)

Desafio Sobre Fuego: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Desafio Sobre Fuego: Complete Season 2 (A&E)

Divided States: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Dog The Bounty Hunter: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

The Engineering That Built the World: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Escaping Polygamy: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Extreme Moms: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Extreme Paranormal: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Extreme Unboxing: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

The First 48 Presents: Critical Minutes: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Fit to Fat to Fit: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Fix This Yard: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Flip This House: Complete Season 2 (A&E)

Flip This House: Complete Season 3 (A&E)

Flip Wars: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Flipping Vegas: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Food Porn: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Forged in Fire: Complete Seasons 1 – 3 (History)

Forged in Fire: Knife or Death S1 (History)

Forged in Fire: Knife or Death S2 (History)

Found: Complete Season 1 (History)

Gangland: Aryan Brotherhood: Complete Season 1 (History)

Gangsters: America's Most Evil: Complete Season 1 (History)

Gene Simmons: Family Jewels: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Gene Simmons: Family Jewels: Complete Season 2 (A&E)

Gigantes de Mexico: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Glam Masters: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Going Si-ral: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Gungrave: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Haunted History: Complete Season 1 (History)

The Haunting Of: Complete Season 1 (LMN)

Hispanic Heroes: Complete Season 1 (History)

Hoarders: Complete Season 4 (A&E)

How Playboy Changed the World: Complete Season 1 (History)

The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer: Complete Season 1 (History)

Hunting Hitler: Complete Seasons 1 – 3 (History)

Hunter x Hunter: Episodes 53-148 (DUBBED) (Viz)

Hunter x Hunter: Episodes 80-148 (SUBBED) (Viz)

I Dated a Psycho: Complete Season 1 (LMN)

I Killed My BFF: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

I Love You...But I Lied: Complete Season 1 (LMN)

I Survived . . . Beyond and Back: Complete Season 1 (LMN)

I Survived: Complete Season 1 (LMN)

I Survived: Complete Season 2 (LMN)

Ice Road Truckers: Complete Season 1 (History)

Ice Road Truckers: Complete Season 2 (History)

Jamie & Doug's NYC Date Night: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Jamie and Doug Plus One: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Jep & Jessica: Growing The Dynasty: Complete Season 1 (History)

JFK Declassified: Tracking Oswald: Complete Season 1 (History)

Kingpin: Complete Season 1 (History)

Kocktails with Khloé: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Late Nite Chef Fight: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

The Machines That Built The World: Complete Season 1 (History)

Making a Model with Yolanda Hadid: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Man vs. Child: Chef Showdown: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Man vs. Master: Chef Battle: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Married at First Sight: Complete Seasons 1 – 4 & 7 – 9 (Lifetime)

Married At First Sight: Happily Ever After?: Complete Season 7 (Lifetime)

Married At First Sight: Honeymoon Island: Complete Season 7 (Lifetime)

Married at First Sight: Second Chances: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Married At First Sight: The First Year: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Married At First Sight: The First Year: Complete Season 2 (Lifetime)

Married Life Diaries: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

The Men Who Built America: Complete Season 1 (History)

The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen: Complete Season 1 (History)

Midnight Feast: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Mobsters: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

MonsterQuest: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Mountain Men: Complete Seasons 1 – 5 (History)

Mushi-shi: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Obsessed: Complete Season 1 (History)

Ozzy and Jack's World Detour: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Panic 9-1-1: Complete Seasons 1 & 2 (A&E)

Paranormal Cops: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Pawn Stars: Complete Seasons 2, 11, 13 & 14 (History)

The Rap Game: Complete Season 1 (Lifetime)

Sell This House: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Space Dandy: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Steins;Gate: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

Storage Wars: Complete Season 12 (A&E)

Swamp People: Complete Season 10 (History)

Taking the Stand S1 (History)

The Titans That Built The World: Complete Season 1 (History)

Tiny House Hunting: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Tiny House Nation: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

The Toys That Built The World: Complete Season 1 (History)

TRANsitioning: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Unidos por la Historia: Complete Season 1 (History)

Unidos por la Historia: Complete Season 2 (History)

The UnXplained with William Shatner: Complete Season 3 (History)

Wahlburgers: Complete Season 1 (A&E)

Wahlburgers: Complete Season 2 (A&E)

World Food Championships: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

Zombie House Flipping: Complete Season 1 (FYI)

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)

A La Mala (2015)

About Last Night (1986)

The American (2010)

American Pie (1999)

American Pie 2 (2001)

American Wedding (2003)

American Reunion (2012)

American Rapstar (2020)

Anaconda (1997)

Anais in Love (2021)

Bad Girls (1994)

Batman Begins (2005)

Big (1988)

Breaking Up (1997)

Chronicle (2012)

Cliffhanger (1993)

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

The Dark Knight (2008)

Diggers (2006)

Dolphin Tale (2011)

Drive Angry 3D (2011)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Fight Club (1999)

The Fisher King (1991)

Get Smart (2008)

The Good Shepherd (2006)

The Gospel (2005)

He Got Game (1998)

High-rise (2015)

The Hitcher (1986)

Hook (1991)

Hope Floats (1998)

Hostel (2006)

Hostel: Part II (2007)

I Do...Until I Don't (2017)

Jessabelle (2014)

Kazaam (1996)

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

Little Fockers (2010)

Lost In Space (1998)

The Man With The Iron Fists (2012)

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Maverick (1994)

Meet The Fockers (2004)

Meet The Parents (2000)

Multiplicity (1996)

Nell (1994)

Nine Months (1995)

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Open Water (2004)

The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

Philadelphia (1993)

The Pirates! Band Of Misfits (2012)

Robot And Frank (2012)

Roll Bounce (2005)

Short Circuit (1986)

Snow White And The Huntsman (2012)

The Social Network (2010)

Straw Dogs (2011)

Stripes (1981)

Tell It to the Bees (2018)

This Is 40 (2012)

The Three Musketeers (2011)

Tigerland (2000)

True Lies (1994)

Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family (2011)

Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion (2006)

Unplugging (2021)

Van Helsing (2004)

We Bought a Zoo (2010)

Won't Back Down (2012)

Year One (2009)

Young Guns (1988)

Young Guns II (1990)

September 2

Cuttputlli (2022) (Hulu Original)

A Cat in Paris (2010)

Ernest & Celestine (2012)

Lupin III: The First (2019)

Wasted! The Story of Food Waste (2017)

White Snake (2019)

September 3

Active Measures (2018)

September 4

Stratton (2017)

September 5

You're Not You (2014)

September 6

Petite Maman (2021)

September 7

Grid: Complete Season 1 (SUBBED) (Hulu Original)

Tell Me Lies: Three-Episode Series Premiere (Hulu Original)

The Cove (2009)

Racing Extinction (2015)

September 8

Wedding Season: Complete Season 1 (Hulu Original)

The Zone: Survival Mission: Complete Season 1 (SUBBED) (Hulu Original)

Among the Shadows (2019)

Half Magic (2018)

September 9

Wild Horses (2015)

September 10

Capital One: College Bowl: Season 2 Premiere (NBC)

The Last Victim (2022)

September 11

In Dubious Battle (2016)

Dirty Weekend (2015)

September 12

Monarch: Series Premiere (Fox)

The Grand Seduction (2013)

September 13

Around the Globe in 80 Days (2021)

September 14

The Handmaid's Tale: Two-Episode Season 5 Premiere (Hulu Original)

The Come Up: Series Premiere (Freeform)

Higher Power (2018)

The Last Duel (2021)

September 15

2 Days In New York (2012)

Alan Partridge (2013)

Cosmos (2019)

The Dustwalker (2020)

Freakonomics (2010)

I Give It A Year (2013)

Lost Girls (2022)

Love, Simon (2018)

The Mandela Effect (2019)

Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

Red Dog (2019)

The Rest of Us (2019)

This Mountain Life (2018)

September 16

Atlanta: Fourth and Final Season Premiere (FX)

I Think We're Alone Now (2018)

September 19

Best in Dough: Three-Episode Series Premiere (Hulu Original)

September 20

Reboot: Three-Episode Series Premiere (Hulu Original)

9-1-1: Season 6 Premiere (Fox)

The Cleaning Lady: Season 2 Premiere (Fox)

Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years Of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017)

September 21

The Resident: Season 6 Premiere (Fox)

September 22

The Kardashians: Season 2 Premiere (Hulu Original)

Abbott Elementary: Season 2 Premiere (ABC)

Big Sky: Season 3 Premiere (ABC)

The Conners: Season 5 Premiere (ABC)

The Goldbergs: Season 10 Premiere (ABC)

Home Economics: Season 3 Premiere (ABC)

Lego Masters: Season 3 Premiere (Fox)

The Masked Singer: Season 8 Premiere (Fox)

Spy x Family: Complete Season 1 (DUBBED) (Funimation)

September 23

Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (ABC)

September 24

Shark Tank: Season 14 Premiere (ABC)

Dinner in America (2020)

September 26

Chefs vs. Wild: Two-Episode Series Premiere (Hulu Original)

Bob's Burgers: Season 13 Premiere (Fox)

Celebrity Jeopardy!: Series Premiere (ABC)

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune: Season 3 Premiere (ABC)

Family Guy: Season 21 Premiere (Fox)

The Great North: Season 3 Premiere (Fox)

The Rookie: Season 5 Premiere (ABC)

The Simpsons: Season 34 Premiere (Fox)

A Chiara (2021)

September 27

Reasonable Doubt: Two-Episode Series Premiere (Onyx/Hulu Original)

September 28

The D'Amelio Show: Two-Episode Season 2 Premiere (Hulu Original)

Bachelor in Paradise: Season 8 Premiere (ABC)

The Rookie: Feds: Series Premiere (ABC)

September 30

Ramy: Complete Season 3 Premiere (Hulu Original)

Call Me Kat: Season 3 Premiere (Fox)

Hell's Kitchen: Season 21 Premiere (Fox)

Welcome to Flatch: Season 2 Premiere (Fox)

Read this next: The 15 Best Netflix Original Series Of 2021 Ranked

The post The Best TV Shows And Movies Coming To Hulu In September 2022 appeared first on /Film.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the movie "Three Thousand Years of Longing."

George Miller is a visionary director with a filmography that can't be confined to one genre. Although known best for "Mad Max: Fury Road," he's also directed the horror comedy "The Witches of Eastwick" and various children's movies, including "Babe: Pig in the City" and both "Happy Feet" films. Miller has demonstrated an ability to delve into the darkest regions of humanity and explore the innocence of childhood imagination. "Three Thousand Years of Longing" combines both of these strengths into one sweeping, visually gorgeous narrative, but don't expect the high-octane action of "Fury Road." As /Film's Rafael Motamayor's review states, the film is "about the importance of storytelling, especially today. It's about how, even if we no longer need to explain the mysteries of the universe through fables, we still use storytelling to explain our emotions and desires."

The main plot centers around Alithea, a narratologist, and her conversation with a Djinn she accidentally releases from a bottle. Djinn is defined by Merriam-Webster as "one of a class of spirits that according to Muslim demonology inhabit the earth, assume various forms, and exercise supernatural power" and, in this case, acts like more a genie. Every story yarn the Djinn spins plays out in sumptuous detail, taking Alithea and the audience on a journey across thousands of years. The massive and fantastical scope of George Miller's "Three Thousand Years of Longing" inspired us to tackle the 10 wildest moments from the film. Get your wishes ready; the Djinn is out of the bottle. 

Sultan Murad IV Kills A Storyteller

The Djinn's second tale takes place in the early Ottoman Empire, where a curious young boy grows up to become the bloodthirsty Sultan Murad IV. We get glimpses of his brutal battles and his lack of regard for human life, including his own. His mother tried desperately to curb his lesser impulses by bringing master storytellers to his throne room in hopes of amusing him. One, in particular, does not end well when the Sultan kills a fleeing storyteller with an arrow.

This moment is a darkly comedic juxtaposition. After witnessing the carnage Murad IV is capable of, it's hilariously tragic to watch a storyteller frantically rowing away, then cut to the Sultan calm and emotionless as he lets his bow string loose. The arrow travels hundreds of feet, and the storyteller slumps over in the boat, dead from a ridiculous distance and a remarkably accurate shot. While not the most outlandish moment in the movie compared to the rest of the list, scenes like this add to the movie's fantastical elements and the humor in the tall tales that grow in exaggeration as years and centuries go by.

The Djinn Is Ghosted For 100 Years

The Djinn is trapped for over one hundred years after a young woman is killed before she can make her third wish. He is doomed to wander the halls of a palace, attempting to lure anyone to where the bottle is hidden so he can finally be freed. A warped camera angle that distorts the sides of the images and brings the center of the frame into focus serves as our point of view of a wayward Djinn. The camera zooms through halls, past the Sultan's family, lush throne rooms, and in and out of the hidden chambers below.

The entire sequence is haunting. The audience and the Djinn become voyeurs to decades of life passing by, an unseen fly on the wall. There's a particular moment where the camera tracks through the palace halls, past dancing concubines, fierce guards, and the new Sultan, before landing on a dancer wearing a red mask (see above) performing next to a drummer. The camera zooms past them, then circles back and pauses to take it in. The moment might not make the biggest dent in the audience's experience, but it's oddly surreal and beautiful, giving the feeling of how fleeting everything is from the Djinn's perspective. Our lifetimes are but a blip to an immortal genie.

A Bottle's Epic Journey

The Djinn was first trapped in a bottle after falling in love with the Queen of Sheba. His fate was sealed when a new suitor, King Soloman, arrived and cast a spell trapping the Djinn in a tiny golden bottle. From there, it's tossed out a castle window, scooped up by a hawk, dropped in the ocean, encased in rock, found in the eye of a soldier's skull, used as a food mashing tool, and finally placed as a stone on a castle wall in the Ottoman Empire. Later, the bottle is accidentally uncovered by a young girl who has fallen in love with the Sultan's son. 

This moment beautifully encapsulates the debate between chance and fate. Was all of this meant to happen or was it just random luck? The movie doesn't have a concrete answer. Instead, George Miller decides to take us on a whirlwind journey, allowing us to soak in the imagery as years pass rapidly. The visual effects are heightened just enough to feel like everything we're witnessing lives outside of time in a fantastical reality. So much happens in a few minutes on-screen, and it's a head-spinning trip to take with the Djinn.

Alithea's Animated Friend

Alithea tells the Djinn the story of how, as a child, she went to an all-girls school and didn't fit in. She was often sick from asthma and had no family or friends. To cope with her loneliness, she created an imaginary friend named Enzo, who appeared to her as an animated 2D ink drawing. Her adventures with Enzo filled her with joy and purpose, so she wrote these stories down. The older Alithea got, the sillier this all seemed. She eventually burned all her pages with Enzo, deciding it was time to grow up.

This sequence is not only visually incredible, with the mix of 2D animation and live-action, but it also sums up Alithea's central dilemma and the movie's theme. Is there room for stories in a world of science? Alithea has grown up from a child who believed in the impossible to an adult who dissects narratives and celebrates science over myth. The discovery of the Djinn reminds her that maybe there's more truth to these fantastical stories than her logical mind wants to believe. It's a touching flashback that reminds us of the imagination and innocence of childhood and how that often conflicts with adulthood.

A Stranger In The Airport

Alithea starts her journey in Istanbul. She arrives at the airport and is stopped by what she first assumes is a child, only to reveal it's something supernatural. This being speaks in an ancient language, and its eyes shift colors. They attempt to lead Alithea somewhere, but her friends show up, and the being is gone. In the car, she mentions the being's skin was hot to touch, and they joke maybe it was a Djinn.

This moment marks the first otherworldly event in the movie and sets the stage for the trippy adventure we're about to take with Alithea. Appropriately placed in the middle of our list, it's bizarre, intriguing, a little creepy, and unexplained: All elements the rest of the film will explore. We never fully get an answer as to what this Djinn was doing or why it appeared to Alithea. She later writes moments like these off, saying her imagination gets the better of her. But what if these imaginary creations are actually from her connection to the Djinn world? Perhaps she's more open to the supernatural than her lectures let on?

The Djinn Gets Dusted

Our next wild moment takes us to London. Alithea brings the Djinn back to her home, and the city's electromagnetic energy, noise pollution, and overall chaos are too much for him. He tries to tune it out, but eventually, his corporeal form starts to break down. It escalates to Alithea finding him in the basement, frozen and nearly turned to dust. He's only awoken from this state when she wishes for him to speak.

The reveal of the Djinn's face crumbling and gasping is a haunting image. A spirit that, up until this point, has been so powerful is just wasting away. It seems like this may be the end for our new favorite genie. Alithea warned us at the film's beginning that every story involving wishes is a "cautionary tale." But as the audience buckles up for a tear-jerker ending, Alithea chooses to save the Djinn. She selflessly decides to use her final wish to free him. It's a beautiful end to a long and unlucky chapter in the Djinn's journey, allowing both their stories to continue.

An Angry Spirit Appears

Alithea's imaginary or actual spirit sightings escalate during her lecture. Appropriately, she's talking about how myths and Gods were created when humans didn't understand the world and needed stories to guide them. She argues that science solves these mysteries now. The film's message seems to be that humanity needs both stories and science. Alithea sees an angry figure staring at her in the audience. Her anxiety over this encroaching wayward being ends with it opening its mouth to consume her and Alithea falling unconscious.

This moment is incredibly surreal. The spirit looks creepy yet regal. There's no real explanation for who or what this thing is. Alithea even searches the faces of the Gods on the PowerPoint presentation behind her to no avail. Is it her imagination or a Djinn trying to frighten her? We don't find out. This sighting and the Djinn at the airport are just an appetizer for the bizarre imagery that is about to unravel before our eyes. It also showcases the delicate balancing act of comedy, darkness, and the fantastical in store for Alithea from here on out.

One-Man Band Seduces The Queen Of Sheba

The Djinn's happy love story with the Queen of Sheba is interrupted by King Soloman's arrival as the whackiest one-man band ever put to screen. He plays an upright guitar with another fret that's sentient. It has a face that can whistle, hands to pluck the strings, and bone arms to play the drums. If that wasn't strange enough, Sheba's court includes dozens of mythical creatures, half animal, half human, wraiths, Gods, and mortals.

The fantastical elements in this sequence are on full display, more so than in later tales. This seems purposeful, as if to say before humankind became distracted by science and technology, we were more open to the supernatural, the unexplained (like the half-zebra man standing next to Sheba in this scene). It's a wonderfully bonkers moment, and the only complaint is that we don't get to live in this world longer. There are so many intriguing creatures in the background, and the bizarre duet with the King and his sentient guitar could be its own story. George Miller leaves it up to the audience if all this happened or if the tale became "taller" after a few thousand years.

A Skin-Crawling Spider Monster

The second from the top of our list is easily the creepiest moment in the entire film. The Djinn is running to save a doomed young woman, only to be stopped by a guard who turns out to be otherworldly. The guard crawls up the tunnel wall as if possessed. His face morphs and his head pops. Slime and a giant talking spider pour out onto the ground. A warning not to interfere is uttered, and the head bursts into thousands of tiny spiders. This scene is nightmare fuel for anyone with arachnophobia.

"Three Thousand Years of Longing" has a lot of bizarre visuals, but none quite like this. What makes it so shocking is that it's entirely unexpected. It also echoes several horror films like "The Exorcist" with unnatural movements and demonic shifts in voice, or "The Thing" with the gooey exploding head and a spider creature whose design is grotesque yet fun. The Djinn and the audience recoils as thousands of spiders crawl by him. It's an incredibly effective and quick gross-out moment.

The Djinn Is Out Of The Bottle

Our choice for the wildest moment in this film is when Alithea first awakens the Djinn from his latest bottled prison. She uses her electric toothbrush to chip away at the dirt crusted around the top. It bursts open with thick colorful smoke, zipping into the other room. There's a pause, and then a giant gold foot appears. Alithea stares bewildered. The foot disappears in a puff of smoke. Alithea peers around the bathroom door and finds a colossal Djinn taking up her entire hotel living room. His scaled blue legs cramped trying to fit. He eventually shapeshifts into a more manageable height, but his first impression is a big one (pun intended).

This sequence is wild and quite literally opens the floodgates to the otherworldly imagery that follows. Alithea's reaction to a giant foot fumbling on her bathroom door is deadpan perfection. We've all seen a genie exit a bottle in movies before, but this one seems more uncomfortable and less lively than the norm. His initial demeanor seems "over it," and it's only through reliving his tales of woe and connecting with Alithea that they both realize the importance of their own stories. It's a great setup narratively and one of the stand-out visuals in the film. 

Read this next: The Weirdest Kisses In Sci-Fi Movie History

The post The 10 Wildest Moments In George Miller's Three Thousand Years of Longing, Ranked appeared first on /Film.

A massive Chinese database storing millions of faces and vehicle license plates was left exposed on the internet for months before it quietly disappeared in August. From a report: While its contents might seem unremarkable for China, where facial recognition is routine and state surveillance is ubiquitous, the sheer size of the exposed database is staggering. At its peak the database held over 800 million records, representing one of the biggest known data security lapses of the year by scale, second to a massive data leak of 1 billion records from a Shanghai police database in June. In both cases, the data was likely exposed inadvertently and as a result of human error. The exposed data belongs to a tech company called Xinai Electronics based in Hangzhou on China's east coast. The company builds systems for controlling access for people and vehicles to workplaces, schools, construction sites, and parking garages across China. Its website touts its use of facial recognition for a range of purposes beyond building access, including personnel management, like payroll, monitoring employee attendance and performance, while its cloud-based vehicle license plate recognition system allows drivers to pay for parking in unattended garages that are managed by staff remotely. It's through a vast network of cameras that Xinai has amassed millions of face prints and license plates, which its website claims the data is "securely stored" on its servers. But it wasn't. Security researcher Anurag Sen found the company's exposed database on an Alibaba-hosted server in China and asked for TechCrunch's help in reporting the security lapse to Xinai. Sen said the database contained an alarming amount of information that was rapidly growing by the day, and included hundreds of millions of records and full web addresses of image files hosted on several domains owned by Xinai.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In addition to continued improvements to its Steam Snap for running that gaming client within Canonical's sandboxed confines, the latest Linux gaming component to receive similar treatment is now Feral Interactive's GameMode...

AMD unveiled its 5nm Ryzen 7000 lineup today, outlining the details of four new models that span from the 16-core $699 Ryzen 9 7950X flagship, which AMD claims is the fastest CPU in the world, to the six-core $299 Ryzen 5 7600X, the lowest bar of entry to the first family of Zen 4 processors. Tom's Hardware reports: Ryzen 7000 marks the first 5nm x86 chips for desktop PCs, but AMD's newest chips don't come with higher core counts than the previous-gen models. However, frequencies stretch up to 5.7 GHz - an impressive 800 MHz improvement over the prior generation -- paired with an up to 13% improvement in IPC from the new Zen 4 microarchitecture. That results in a 29% improvement in single-threaded performance over the prior-gen chips. That higher performance also extends out to threaded workloads, with AMD claiming up to 45% more performance in some threaded workloads. AMD says these new chips power huge generational gains over the prior-gen Ryzen 5000 models, with 29% faster gaming and 44% more performance in productivity apps. Going head-to-head with Intel's chips, AMD claims the high-end 7950X is 11% faster overall in gaming than Intel's fastest chip, the 12900K, and that even the low-end Ryzen 5 7600X beats the 12900K by 5% in gaming. It's noteworthy that those claims come with a few caveats [...]. The Ryzen 7000 processors come to market on September 27, and they'll be joined by new DDR5 memory products that support new EXPO overclocking profiles. AMD's partners will also offer a robust lineup of motherboards - the chips will snap into new Socket AM5 motherboards that AMD says it will support until 2025+. These motherboards support DDR5 memory and the PCIe 5.0 interface, bringing the Ryzen family up to the latest connectivity standards. The X670 Extreme and standard X670 chipsets arrive first in September, while the more value-oriented B650 options will come to market in October. That includes the newly announced B650E chipset that brings full PCIe 5.0 connectivity to budget motherboards, while the B650 chipset slots in as a lower-tier option. The Ryzen 7000 lineup also brings integrated RDNA 2 graphics to all of the processors in the stack, a first for the Ryzen family.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.