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Distribution Release: Tails 5.0
Steam On Linux Gaming Usage Grew In April
Elden Ring New Mod Unlocks Additional Mounts
A new Elden Ring mod that has been shared online this week allows players to mount horses other than Torrent as well as other creatures.
The More Mounts mod requires modding the regulations file, so it cannot be used to play online. Additionally, all mounts, including horses, cannot jump, so there is no real advantage in using them in place of Torrent.
Enables you to mount more horses other than Torrent.
BACKUP YOUR SAVE FILES AND YOUR REGULATION.BIN BEFORE INSTALLING.
Install through either two means:
1. Simply put the regulation.bin inside your game folder and replace.
OR
2. Install yapped rune bear (https://github.com/vawser/Yapped-Rune-Bear/releases)
3. Go into res/GR/Data and put the two text files there
4. Open your regulation.bin with yapped, go to "ActionButtonParam" -> tools and import data, choose the file I provided with the same name
5. Do the same with "RideParam".WARNING
---------------
This mod is just for fun and is not meant to be fully practical. You can ride Big wolves, Ants and the Knight´s horses but you cannot jump.How to use: Simply go to a horse and you will see the button prompt for riding it. If an enemy is already riding that horse, use the buckler or any shield to parry him when he is attacking, and he will fall down.
The Elden Ring More Mounts mod can be downloaded from Nexus Mods.
Elden Ring is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One worldwide. Learn more about the game by checking out my review.
Elden Ring is not only the best action RPG developed by From Software but one of the best open-world titles ever made. A masterclass of game design, Elden Ring isn't just a game but an epic dark fantasy journey that no one will be able to forget for a very long time.
The post Elden Ring New Mod Unlocks Additional Mounts by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.
Putin may soon officially declare war on Ukraine, surprising many who thought he already had [News]
Grindr User Data Was Sold Through Ad Networks
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Now Streaming: BOSCH: LEGACY, Still Searching for Justice
Titus Williver, Madison Lintz and Mimi Rogers star in the L.A. detective show, debuting on the Freeverse streaming service.
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Review: A Sam Raimi Marvel
What does a Sam Raimi Marvel movie look like? That's the big question going into "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," a sequel whose obligations to the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large are written all over its clunky title and its alarmingly big ensemble of superheroes and supervillains alike. We know what a Raimi superhero movie looks like, and even what a Raimi love letter to Marvel's most beloved web-slinger looks like. But how does the horror auteur behind such works as "The Evil Dead" work within the confines of the Marvel Studios machine? The answer is a little complicated.
Raimi has gone into overdrive downplaying how much his distinct directorial style shows up in "Multiverse of Madness," promising that he's playing nice with the Marvel house style. And while that appears to be painfully true for much of the first half of the "Doctor Strange" sequel, Raimi and all of his campy, cheesy quirks can't help but pop to the surface. The result is a horror-tinged trip that is as macabre and gnarly as Marvel has ever been, and as muted as Raimi has ever been. But even at his most muted, Raimi gives us one hell of a ride.
Sam Raimi, Leashed
"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" can't hide the fact that its main purpose is to bridge the gaps between the rapidly expanding Marvel properties — within the first half-hour it namedrops Spider-Man, makes multiple callbacks to The Blip, and fast-forwards through an explanation of how the multiverse works (we've been talking about it for two movies and several TV shows now, move on).
Which is why it's jarring when its opening drops you right in the middle of a video game cut scene between America Chavez (a spunky and spirited Xochitl Gomez) and an alternate Doctor Strange, fleeing from the giant tentacled monster, Gargantos. A very Marvel fight ensues, full of CGI beams and whips, which ends in America accidentally activating her powers of punching through the multiverse and landing her in our Stephen Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch, dutifully snarky) Earth, right outside of the wedding of Strange's former flame, Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams, given something to do this time!). With the help of the new Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong, always scene-stealing), Doctor Strange saves America and inadvertently steps in as her guardian when it becomes clear that the demons pursuing her could result in her multiverse-hopping powers falling in the wrong hands. Those hands belong to Wanda Maximoff (a magnificent Elizabeth Olsen, at once wounded and arch), who has emerged from the depths of "WandaVision" as the villain of the story, now intent on finding a universe where she can be reunited with the real versions of her fake children.
"The Multiverse of Madness" hits the ground running and never once stops, which is in equal turns exhausting and industrious. It's here that you can feel that Marvel machine at work, "Loki" scribe Michael Waldron's script hitting all the plot points and exposition with ruthless efficiency, in a frenzied pace that could almost be admirable in how it doesn't wait for the audience to catch up. But as the movie starts to settle into a rhythm, something else catches up: the Raimi of it all.
Sam Raimi, Unleashed
At first Raimi's stylings pops up in little things: the hokey wipe transitions, a particularly dedicated extra or two, goofy overlays of characters during long exposition dumps, people screaming at the camera in extreme close-up. But the way that Raimi's influence most obviously exerts itself is in the surprising brutality of "Multiverse of Madness." Marvel has often cut away from violence in favor of a more sanitized view of superheroes, but "Multiverse of Madness" flirts with horror in a manner that gives us some of our goriest deaths yet — an impaled eyeball, a bisected person, an exploded head, and one unfortunately placed metal fence are just a sampling of how gruesome "Multiverse of Madness" can be. It feels like Raimi acting in direct opposition to the fan service that he's called upon to enact — you might even say that he kills the fan service in such a hilariously vicious way that it could only be intentional.
And in the way that Raimi's stylings start to become more prominent, so do the director's own affinities for the film's characters. It's clear that Raimi doesn't care one lick about Stephen Strange — the titular superhero barely getting a character arc beyond "Isn't it sad he can't be with the love of his life?" But Wanda Maximoff, Raimi loves. Though she is unquestionably the villain of the movie, Wanda is afforded the internality that Stephen Strange isn't, and Olsen runs away with the film in her tortured, grief-stricken depiction of Wanda's downward spiral as she's driven to terrible deeds in the name of her children. Even when Olsen morphs into a terrifying bloodstained gremlin who leaps out of reflections with red eyes and crooked limbs — the embodiment of the film's horror tendencies, and the center of some of the movie's best scenes — she maintains the emotional core of the movie. It's a bit of a shame that Wanda's depiction futzes around with her arc from "WandaVision," but Olsen is so good in the movie that it's almost forgivable.
As the film goes on, it starts to embrace these Raimi-isms until the third act unleashes some of the director's most recognizable visual quirks in all their glory. It's silly, it's gory, it's a little "Evil Dead," a little "Darkman," and it's refreshingly cornball in a way that Marvel rarely is. It might be Raimi copping on his own directorial flairs within a Marvel movie — but at least he does it with style. Paired with Danny Elfman's fizzy score, Raimi elevates "Multiverse of Madness" from the bridge-building bit of IP it so transparently is. While he doesn't quite elevate it to the "madness" that the film promises, he does, for a few brief, shining moments, show the kids how those superhero movies could be done.
/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Read this next: Every Pre-MCU Marvel Movie Ranked
The post Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Review: A Sam Raimi Marvel appeared first on /Film.
Nightingale Closed Beta Targeting This Summer; Devs Reveal New Details and Images
The Gaslamp-meets-Fae fantasy survival game Nightingale has often appeared on Wccftech in these past few months, between the official unveiling at The Game Awards 2021, our exclusive interview with former BioWare GM Aaryn Flynn, and the recent news of developer Inflexion Games getting acquired by Tencent.
Now, Inflexion Games has been featured in the latest PC Gamer magazine issue, revealing new juicy details about Nightingale.
The Canadian developers have said that the game includes several renowned historical figures, such as two-time Nobel winner Marie Curie, American journalist and world trip record-breaker Nellie Bly, and plenty more as NPCs.
Aaryn Flynn: We lean into that. We like it a lot, bringing in these potentially recognisable characters into the lore. Things like that, famous 19th-century personalities who players are going to get a chance to interact with.
Neil Thompson (Art and Audio Director): Nellie Bly was an interesting character in that period, a very independent and resourceful woman at the time, and meeting her gives players an opportunity to just delve deeper into the world and into the lore. And obviously, she will give you information and tasks that will help you help you further your quest to find Nightingale.
NPCs in Nightingale will also eventually be recruitable by players, as outlined by the studio.
Aaryn Flynn: You don’t have to necessarily do all the work yourself. You can come across these other NPCs who are lost in the same situation you are, perhaps some of them have been in the realms for a long time. And you can connect with them, then you can bring them to your estate and you can have them do things for you. They also can join you on adventures so you can bring them along to help you hunt, help you defend yourself, etc.
Leah Summers (Director of Production): I think an important thing to talk about, that we as a studio think of a lot is, to bring that sense of kind of balance to the world, the NPCs aren’t just people you hire. What are their desires? How do you need to take care of their needs or satisfy them so that we’re not just kind of hiring out a bunch of people to do mundane chores. There’s really choices and interesting consequences to what you’re doing with the NPCs.
Perhaps the most interesting new tidbit of information is the so-called Hope meter that Inflexion Games is adding to Nightingale. Flynn himself explained:
All Realmwalkers carry an amount of hope with them, and it’s a bar on your UI. As you do positive things, hope goes up. As you do negative things, as negative things happen to you, hope goes down. And so you have to manage that hope through the dangerous parts of the realms as you go adventuring. And you’ll want to look to things to increase your overall pool of hope over time, you get stronger, you get more resilient and there’ll be things that come at you that will shatter your hope and make you feel lost and alone forever.
The survival bars are traditionally grounded in the physical: health, hunger, etc. Now we want to bring in one that speaks more to a psychological element. A fun question developers ask themselves is, what’s the power of hope? And so what if you did things that just absolutely swelled your hope beyond belief? What could you do in that mindset? What could you achieve?
Nightingale is targeting a Summer Closed Beta, while the Steam Early Access launch is planned for Q4 2022. Check out a bunch of new screenshots in the gallery below.
The post Nightingale Closed Beta Targeting This Summer; Devs Reveal New Details and Images by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.
Sure, we're only about a month away from America actually becoming Gilead for real. But let's focus on the important question: Have we hit peak TV? [Facepalm]
The Doctor Strange TV Movie You Probably Never Heard Of, Starring Arrested Development's Jessica Walter
Doctor Strange is now viewed as one of the A-list characters within the Marvel Comics universe. But just a handful of years before 2016's "Doctor Strange" movie, that wasn't always the case. The fact of the matter is that most people in the general public outside of comic book readers didn't really know who the Sorcerer Supreme was until director Scott Derrickson's film hit theaters. In the years since, the character appeared in "Thor: Ragnarok," "Avengers: Infinity War," "Avengers: Endgame," and "Spider-Man: No Way Home," providing a gigantic boost to his profile. Having Benedict Cumberbatch play the part certainly doesn't hurt matters either.
But a full 30 years before "Iron Man" would be released and kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe era as we know it, Stephen Strange made his way to the screen in the form of a TV movie in 1978 titled "Dr. Strange." The film has garnered a tiny bit of recognition recently as the folks at Shout! Factory recently made it available on Blu-ray for the first time. For various reasons, especially as we're on the eve of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" hitting theaters, it is worth taking a look at this radically different adaptation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's creation.
Philip DeGuere Jr. wrote and directed the film which originally aired on CBS and the idea was that, if it were successful, it could be used as a pilot for a TV show. Bear in mind that "The Incredible Hulk" had been a big success for Marvel at that time, so the idea wasn't farfetched by any means. Starring in the role of Stephen Strange would be Peter Hooten, of "Orca" fame, with none other than Jessica Walter, who modern audiences likely know from her roles in "Arrested Development" and "Archer," as the villain, Morgan LeFay.
The Movie Itself
It is not difficult to imagine that a relatively low-budget TV movie based on a sorcerer from a comic book was not adapted faithfully at this time. Honestly, it's a minor miracle that the MCU's Doctor Strange is so faithful to the source material. The movie takes many liberties but, just to get on the same page to start, here is the movie's official synopsis:
A modern hospital may seem worlds apart from the days of ancient sorcerers. But for psychiatrist Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) and his patient Clea Lake (Eddie Benton), this is where those worlds collide... and the nightmare begins! Nothing Stephen Strange learned in medical school could prepare him for an attack by an evil sorceress from the 'fourth dimension,' Morgan le Fay (Jessica Walter), a villainess who plans an invasion of unimaginable evil on Earth. Chosen by an ancient guardian of the spirit world to learn the mystic arts to defeat Morgan and safeguard the Earth, Stephen Strange must take the place of the Earth's last sorcerer. Come along for a fantastic adventure into the 'fourth dimension' with ... Dr. Strange!
There is no Ancient One in this version of the story. Rather, Strange's predecessor is an old man named Lindmer. Strange, it's also worth pointing out, is not a surgeon and does not get in a terrible car accident leading him on a quest to discover sorcery. Rather, he is a psychiatrist, which changes the dynamic quite a bit. He also happens to be quite the lady's man, which plays into things later as Morgan ends up seducing him in the film. It's kind of a wild ride in some ways.
Essentially, Morgan has been trapped in the underworld for years and some ancient volcano-looking god tells her she needs to kill the current Sorcerer Supreme and his successor (Lindmer and Strange) or she is going to be stuck in the Underworld forever. Wong (Clyde Kusatsu), played by Benedict Wong in the MCU, is also present here but, sad to say, it's a far cry from the version audiences are familiar with. Though not as racist as the servant version of the character from the early comics, it's still not great.
Battles between Morgan and Strange take place (aside from the lovin') before, in the end, Strange saves the day and becomes the Sorcerer Supreme he's meant to be. It's an odd film and, to put it delicately, does not hold up to modern scrutiny. It feels comic book-y in the worst of ways, looks cheap, is mostly poorly acted, and did very little to inspire confidence in Marvel as a powerful media brand. Hence, it didn't get picked up to series beyond the single TV movie. It's truly a relic of its time.
Marvel Before Blade
In the era we live in where the MCU films have made tens of billions of dollars at the box office, it is incredibly easy to forget that things weren't always this way. Marvel for most of its life had an incredibly difficult time breaking out in Hollywood. Aside from some hit animated shows, cinematic success and box office glory escaped the so-called house of ideas. Yet, Stan Lee always thought these characters can and should be reaching a wider audience through movies and TV shows.
1978's "Dr. Strange" represents just one of Lee's many attempts over the years to make that happen. But it wasn't until 1998 when "Blade" came out that Marvel actually ever had a certifiable hit that mattered. This was the true turning point. Though the tide would turn in an even more meaningful way just two years later with "X-Men," which was an even more mainstream success. The floodgates would be permanently opened two years after that with 2002's "Spider-Man," a true landmark moment in superhero cinema.
But the state of Marvel before 1998 was not one of success outside of the comics themselves, generally speaking. Other relics of the before times for Marvel include the 70s "Amazing Spider-Man" TV show, 1990's "Captain America" movie, and the never-released 1994 "Fantastic Four" film, just to name a few. "Dr. Strange" is truly representative of this era, for better or for worse.
We've Come A Long Way
One of the most important lessons one can learn by looking back on "Dr. Strange," or other movies like it, is that we truly have come a long way. Even the worst superhero movies of the modern era, such as 2015's "Fantastic Four," aren't nearly as bad as they may seem on the surface when compared to some of the worst of the worst stuff released before Hollywood was forced to take superheroes seriously.
That's not to say this film is the worst of the worst, because it's not, but where we are at now is leaps and bounds better in terms of overall quality. Even from what some might consider to be more middling Marvel films, such as "Eternals" or "Iron Man 2." We get Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange playing the part with full commitment and the special effects to back it up. We get multi-dimensional beasts, time-bending spells, and comics-accurate representation. It's better now for those who love this stuff and that's all there is to it.
"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" hits theaters on May 6, 2022.
Read this next: 20 Underrated Rom Coms You Need To Watch
The post The Doctor Strange TV Movie You Probably Never Heard Of, Starring Arrested Development's Jessica Walter appeared first on /Film.
Hilary Swank Kept A Dangerous Secret From Clint Eastwood During Million Dollar Baby
In film theory, the term "verisimilitude" means the appearance of truth. It's easy to feel like the 2004 Clint Eastwood film "Million Dollar Baby" is based on a true story. It is far from what you'd expect out of Hollywood. It is dark, gritty, raw, and depressing. Downright exhausting, really. But it's also beautiful in the way it captures hope, determination, and the sweet science behind the sport of boxing in a different light.
The movie is based on a short story from the book "Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner" by F.X. Toole (the pen name of former boxing cornerman Jerry Boyd) and stars Eastwood and Hilary Swank. In the film, curmudgeon boxing trainer and gym owner Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) reluctantly takes on an aging first-time female fighter, Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank). The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning four, including Best Picture.
"Million Dollar Baby" marked Swank's second Oscar for Best Actress (she also won for 1999's "Boys Don't Cry"). But she paid a high price for the award, going far beyond what actors typically do to prepare for a role. The verisimilitude of becoming a fighter meant Swank had to physically transform her body, leading to a life-threatening injury she hid from her director.
Swank Added 20 Pounds Of Muscle
Hilary Swank relied on the process of actors relying on their own experiences to tap into the psyche of a character. It wasn't hard for Swank, as her journey to Hollywood mirrored that of her character Maggie Fitzgerald. According to CBS, Swank, like Fitzgerald, grew up in a trailer park and was a high school dropout when she left Washington state for Los Angeles at a young age.
Swank's training for the film is legendary. She trained at New York's Gleason's Gym six days a week for three months. Per the Chicago Tribune, workouts designed to transform Swank's body to that of a fighter sometimes lasted four hours per session. Her caloric intake reached up to 4,000 calories a day, including waking up in the middle of the night for a protein shake to keep on the 20 pounds of muscle. When discussing her progression, Swank said:
"I could do half a pull-up when I first started training. I literally, I tried to pull myself up, and I was shaking. And I couldn't do it. And I couldn't believe it. And then when I was done, I could do 11."
But it was during this time that Swank was keeping something from her trainers and the studio. It was a secret that threatened not only the film, but potentially her life.
She Hid A Life-Threatening Staph Infection
During the intense training sessions, Hilary Swank developed a huge blister on her foot, something common for boxers. Within two days, the blister was infected with staphylococcus. Swank barely made it to the doctor before damage was done. Swank told "60 Minutes":
"There were streaks going up my foot. So, I went to the doctor that second, and he looked at me, and he said, 'This is really serious. And if you had waited two more hours, you would have been in the hospital for three weeks. And if it gets to your heart, that's it.'"
Swank hid the scare from Clint Eastwood, treating it as an occupational hazard her character would face. Eastwood credited much of the film's success to Swank's determination to play the role of the fighter. She didn't waste time putting her training to good use. Although Swank had a stunt double, she performed much of the boxing scenes herself.
In the same "60 Minutes" segment, Eastwood called Swank "the best there is, as good an actress as I've worked with." It is certainly high praise from an actor and director of the stature of Eastwood. In a film where Eastwood claimed a Best Director Oscar with masterful long takes, complex boxing sequences, brilliant use of shadow to create mood, and inspiring, naturalistic performances, it was Swank's dedication that ultimately made the film. "Million Dollar Baby" ended up being a $216 million dollar baby worldwide at the box office. Like her character is known for in the film, Swank easily scores a first round knockout for the dedication to her craft in "Million Dollar Baby."
Read this next: The Best Movies Streaming Right Now: Malignant, A Hero, And More
The post Hilary Swank Kept a Dangerous Secret From Clint Eastwood During Million Dollar Baby appeared first on /Film.
Slowly but surely, America is shedding some of its dumber regional dialects. Now get in the cah [Murica]
How to Make Your Front Door More Secure
Upgrading your home’s security doesn’t have to involve major renovations—to start with, it can be as simple as evaluating your front door and making some small—but key—changes. There are several things you can do to make your home’s main entry point more secure.
Let's Remember The Many Times Sam Raimi And Coen Brothers Teamed Up
As we prepare to bear witness to "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," let's take a look back through director Sam Raimi's career to see where it intersects with two recurring partners of his, Joel and Ethan Coen. This can seem an odd pairing — the Coens are cynics with as many comedies to their name as crime thrillers, while Raimi's a schlockmeister with a love of horror and comic books. However, the friendship between the three very different filmmakers goes back decades. Without their mutual support, neither Raimi's nor the Coens' careers may have turned out as they did.
Evil Dead Brought Them Together
"The Evil Dead" wasn't just Sam Raimi's breakthrough hit as a director, it also introduced him to Joel Coen. Born in Minnesota, Coen moved to Michigan — Raimi's home state — and worked as an assistant editor to Edna Ruth Paul. When Paul was hired to edit "The Evil Dead," Coen assisted her and met Raimi. The pair became friends, so when Coen and his younger brother were trying to get a film of their own funded, Raimi was on hand to offer advice.
Raimi, who'd gotten "The Evil Dead" made in parts thanks to a proof-of-concept short "Within the Woods," suggested the Coens do the same. The teaser trailer for what became the brothers' debut, "Blood Simple," even features Raimi's go-to star, Bruce Campbell.
In an interview for the Criterion Collection release of "Blood Simple," Coen recounts:
"Sam taught us that if you call on the phone and ask people to invest in a movie they'll tell you to go hell. But if you tell them 'I have a piece of film to show you,' then some of them would let you come into their living room and set up your little projector and show it to them."
With the releases of "The Evil Dead" and "Blood Simple," Raimi and the Coens had proven themselves as filmmakers to audiences (and, even more vitally, investors). However, their collaborations didn't end even as their careers took off.
Roommates
While Sam Raimi and Joel and Ethan Coen now had directorial experience under their belts, they couldn't stay in the Midwest forever if they wanted to make it big. The three moved to Los Angeles at the same time, living under the same roof in the neighborhood of Silver Lake. Other roommates included "Blood Simple" star and Joel's wife, Frances McDormand; Holly Hunter, star of the Coens' sophomore film "Raising Arizona"; and Kathy Bates. Living under the same roof left them plenty of time to write together.
One of the scripts the three wrote together became "Crimewave," Raimi's next film in 1985. A murder plot gone awry is more the Coens' territory, but the aesthetic is unquestionably Raimi, from the manic camerawork to the sound design right out of "Looney Tunes." It's not considered a high point for neither Raimi nor the Coens, and with good reason. To be blunt, "Crimewave" is an unfunny mess, and the mashup of styles is so sloppy it's hard to care.
Another of their scripts, "The Hudsucker Proxy," took a decade to make it to the silver screen in 1994. This one, the Coens directed, though Raimi got screenwriter and second unit director credits. "Hudsucker" is one of the Coens' sillier films; like "Crimewave," it's set in a cartoon version of mid-20th century New York. However, it's much more successful than "Crimewave." It helps that "Hudsucker" is actually funny, with the stand-out being Jennifer Jason Leigh doing Rosalind Russell. The film's initial middling reviews do it a disservice.
The Coens are not among the five credited writers on Raimi's "Darkman," a 1990 film mixing his fondness of superheroes and Universal horror into a single package. However, according to a Hollywood Reporter retrospective, the Coens did uncredited work on the film. Producer Robert Tapert said the brothers were "instrumental early on with building the structure."
Exchanging Cameos
Sam Raimi and the Coens' collaborations don't end behind the camera. They've appeared in each other's films as well.
One of the motifs of a Raimi film is the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. First driven by Ash Williams in the first two "Evil Dead" films, it also appears during a chase sequence in "Darkman." The driver and passenger are none other than an uncredited Joel and Ethan Coen. As a final mark of the Coens' influence on the film, Frances McDormand plays the female lead and Darkman's lover, Julie Hastings. McDormand called Julie "the first bimbo I've ever played" to Starlog Magazine.
The same year as "Darkman," the Coens directed "Miller's Crossing," which for this writer's money is one of their very best films. To repay the brothers for a cameo in his film, Raimi appeared in theirs. He plays an unnamed policeman gunned down during a raid on the local Irish mob. Raimi's "Miller's Crossing" appearance is more memorable than the Coens' in "Darkman" (you can clearly see his face!), even if he only has a minute of screen time.
Raimi likewise cameos in "Hudsucker Proxy," as does Bruce Campbell. While Raimi had no involvement, Campbell also shows up for cameos in "Intolerable Cruelty" and "The Ladykillers," not to mention a memorable turn as Ronald Reagan in season 2 of "Fargo."
Raimi and the Coens are also some of the many directors who cameo in John Landis' "Spies Like Us," a project they otherwise had no involvement in.
A Simple Plan
"A Simple Plan" is a neo-noir set in Minnesota. Adapted from Scott B. Smith's novel, the story focuses on three men (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Brent Briscoe) who come across a crashed plane and find $4.4 million dollars inside. Them keeping the money a secret turns into a web of lies and murder. Based on the premise alone, the movie seems much more like a Coen brothers joint. Yet it was Raimi who directed. One can even see it as the director giving it a go at making the type of movie his friends usually do.
"A Simple Plan" was released a mere two years after the Coens' own Minnesota noir, "Fargo." The Coens didn't have any official role in the production of "A Simple Plan," but they gave Raimi advice on shooting in the snow.
Despite the abundant similarities, the outlooks of "Fargo" and "A Simple Plan" are quite different. "Fargo" is one of the Coens' most optimistic movies. Even if there are innocent casualties, the criminals are all punished and as Marge (Francis McDormand) notes, it's a beautiful day. "A Simple Plan" is bleak as the frozen tundra it's set in; Hank (Paxton) discovers the money contains marked bills, meaning the murders were all for nothing.
Since the turn of the century, there haven't been official collaborations between Raimi and the Coens; their careers just took different paths. The Coens have become prestige filmmakers, especially after "No Country For Old Men," while Raimi was scooped up by the blockbuster machine in 2002 with his "Spider-Man" trilogy. They never would've gotten there without each other; even the greatest artists need support and friends to best realize their potential.
Read this next: Every Pre-MCU Marvel Movie Ranked
The post Let's Remember The Many Times Sam Raimi and Coen Brothers Teamed Up appeared first on /Film.
If You Believe Bruce Campbell, Doctor Strange 2 Has Been Chaotic To Make
Every day that passes brings us ever closer to the premiere of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," the superhero movie sequel that pretty much every invested fan has been eagerly looking forward to for years. The blockbuster promises to throw open the doors of the Marvel Cinematic Universe even wider, introducing more multiverse-related chaos, thrilling action sequences with some pretty gnarly new monsters ripped straight out of the pages of Marvel Comics, and appearances by new and returning characters alike — hopefully including a few, ah, outside-the-box choices, too.
But where comic book fans have their hearts set on potential cameos by the Illuminati or any other unexpected pulls from the MCU, those who've followed director Sam Raimi's career know that the real star of the show could very well be Bruce Campbell, who's consistently caused certain viewers to go full Leonardo DiCaprio at the screen whenever the actor makes his usual appearance in Raimi films. The duo's close friendship almost certainly resulted in another fun cameo for Campbell in the "Doctor Strange" sequel, making him privy to some of the more behind-the-scenes details about the production of the film that, at one point, looked to be in serious trouble after the departure of original director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill over "creative differences."
Though his reputation as a notorious prankster can make it hard to know when to take him at face value — look no further than his April Fool's social media post, for example — Campbell recently had some interesting comments about the very real-life chaos involved in filming "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."
'I Don't Think Benedict Cumberbatch Even Knows If He's In This Movie Or Not'
Like any blockbuster franchise that loses a director at an inopportune moment, Marvel has had prior experience with needing someone to step in and guide a film to completion by a certain deadline. Many fans certainly hoped that wouldn't be the case with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," particularly when a filmmaker as talented as Sam Raimi was recruited to work his own magic on the film. Unlike directors with vastly less experience and clout in the industry, Raimi would never allow himself to be pushed around by a major studio again, especially after the less-than-ideal circumstances of "Spider-Man 3" ... right?
Well, here's where Bruce Campbell comes in. In an interview with Game Informer, the actor and longtime Sam Raimi collaborator shed some light on the production of "Doctor Strange." After answering some questions about the possibility of portraying the villainous Mysterio in Raimi's hypothetical "Spider-Man 4" ("Look, this was all fan shit, it was somebody saw a storyboard that kind of looked like me as he turned around," he good-naturedly responds with a laugh), Campbell mentioned some of the challenging conditions Raimi had to work with to bring the MCU sequel to the finish line.
"The Marvel guys, they make eight of these movies at the same time, so they're always updating storylines. My buddy Sam [Raimi] has had to add scenes that they told him he had to shoot, and he's removed scenes that no longer apply, so until May rolls around I don't think Benedict Cumberbatch even knows if he's in this movie or not."
Again, the crack about Cumberbatch certainly points to Campbell joking around with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but the murky filming situation he describes isn't exactly all that unheard-of, either. Those looking for definitive "evidence" of how "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" may turn out will probably need to keep looking, but luckily we'll all find out for ourselves on May 4, 2022.
Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever
The post If You Believe Bruce Campbell, Doctor Strange 2 Has Been Chaotic to Make appeared first on /Film.
The Northman Director Robert Eggers Isn't Counting Out Science Fiction Completely
Robert Eggers has made a career out of exploring the violence and horror of the past. In just three feature films, the director has captured the superstition, the isolation, the paranoia, and also the fart jokes of history, whether it's a 17th century New England Puritan family farm, a remote 19th-century lighthouse, or a Viking farm in Iceland. Indeed, his movies are difficult to both make and watch. From "The Witch" to "The Northman," these are uncomfortable, painful, horrific, but also incredibly entertaining historical fictions. Who else could give us the wonderfully weird "The Lighthouse" and its long prayers to Neptune, then follow that with a naked fight in a volcano that is also a lot like "The Lion King"?
But after three movies set in the past, Eggers seems to be ready for something new. While you shouldn't expect the director to helm a Marvel movie any time soon, don't rule out an Eggers movie set in the future just yet.
Only Time Will Tell
Of course, no director would outright shut the door to a job opportunity before it even opens, but it is still fun to speculate. This is to say, when Robert Eggers spoke to The Wrap about his future, he didn't rule out exploring different genres.
"I could be interested in the early 20th century. And I would also, if I could figure out a way to do it that hasn't really been done before, in a way that would be satisfying for me, but I would also be interested in science fiction. I don't know if I could find the right thing. I don't know if I could pull it off. But I'd be interested."
Leaving no stone unturned, The Wrap asked if Eggers meant science fiction as in being set on a spaceship, to which Eggers simply teased, "only time will tell."
Now, it's hard to picture Eggers doing a bright and shiny "Star Trek" style sci-fi movie, but what about something like "Alien," which feels distinctively old, even if it's set in the future? I can definitely picture Eggers doing some sort of speculative future history movie and getting really gritty with it — while still keeping the fart jokes. He could even set his "Nosferatu" in the 23rd century and take it from there!
Keeping with the theme of experimentation, Eggers also commented on "The Northman" having a wider aspect ratio than his previous films, and whether he'd go wider.
"I know this is insane given the history of cinema, but I do find that close-ups in scope can be a little bit anemic. I'm not particularly drawn to it. I would be interested in doing a nearly vertical movie, but you'd need to make your own movie theater."
"The Northman" is playing in theaters.
Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022
The post The Northman Director Robert Eggers Isn't Counting out Science Fiction Completely appeared first on /Film.
Better Call Saul Season 6 Stages A 'Hit And Run'
The latest "Better Call Saul" cold open reveals a couple out for a bike ride through a seemingly normal suburban neighborhood. But then things change — the couple enters their home and goes about their daily routine, while large men armed with large guns mingle about in the kitchen. At first, it almost seems like the couple can't see these gun-toting guys; like they're ghosts. And then they talk to one another. Eventually, the camera reveals a wall of TV monitors, all of them watching the front door of a house.
As it turns out, that house belongs to none other than Gus Fring. But it will take almost the entire episode to learn that the cold open didn't show us an operation spying on Gus. Instead, it's Gus' operation — everyone works for him. It's all part of Mike's new security measures. After all, Lalo is still out there somewhere, and even though the late Nacho took the fall, it's more than likely that Lalo still believes The Chicken Man is the one who tried to have him killed.
This brief glimpse into Gus' operation shows that things continue to grow. He's not quite the huge kingpin he was in "Breaking Bad," but he's damn close. And it's only a matter of time before he comes out on top. Of course, anyone who has seen "Breaking Bad" can tell you Gus' time at the top comes to an explosive end. But that's a story for another day. And yet, this all also points to Gus becoming increasingly paranoid. Paranoia is a big part of this episode — someone always seems to be watching — or being watched.
Salamanca's Guy
Kim and Jimmy are still out to get Howard, and their plan enters a whole new level this week. Jimmy goes into full Howard cosplay mode, dressing identically to the man, slathering himself with a fake tan, and even sporting a wig. Up close, it's clearly Jimmy. But from a distance, it really does look like Howard. As for the real Howard, we watch him as he goes to therapy. As Howard talks about his troubles at home, it occurred to me that we really know very little about Howard. He's a bit of a mystery.
While Howard shares his troubles with his therapist, Jimmy steals his car, picks up prostitute Wendy, and then hits the road. Elsewhere, Kim is meeting with Cliff Main. Jimmy and Kim have it all worked out so that while Kim and Cliff have lunch at an outside table, Jimmy — disguised as Howard — drives by and pushes Wendy out of the car. Cliff immediately spots Howard's car and is understandably shocked. Now Cliff thinks that Howard is a coke addict and an abusive nut who tosses women out of his car. Not good news for Howard.
This is all darkly amusing, as is a moment when Jimmy tries to return Howard's car to its original parking spot in the therapist's lot — only to find someone else has taken it. Jimmy tried to prevent this by placing an orange cone in front of the parking spot, but someone moved it. This is shocking to Jimmy, who yells, "Who moves a cone?!" Later, he repeats the question to Kim at home, with the two of them laughing about how smoothly things are going.
But things don't stay smooth. People at the courthouse have discovered Jimmy, aka Saul, got a known cartel member (Lalo) out of jail by scamming the court, and they're disgusted with him. It looks like this could really hinder Jimmy/Saul's career. And then, the calls start coming in. Soon, Saul has a bunch of new clients — all of them looking mighty suspicious. As it turns out, word has gotten around the criminal community that Saul is "Salamanca's guy." It's a classification "Saul" happily accepts, even though that might not be the best idea. But with that move, Jimmy has taken one of his final steps toward really becoming Saul Goodman, Criminal Attorney, emphasis on the criminal.
Kim Watch! How Worried Should We Be About Kim Wexler This Week?
Level Of Worry: RISING.
Rhea Seehorn actually directed this week's episode, and she did a damn fine job, leaning into the show's trademark style. As for Kim, though, she seems to finally be having second thoughts about the whole Howard thing. Or at least feeling guilty. Jimmy tries to make her feel better by stating she only feels that way because they got away with it. But still, Kim seems uneasy.
That uneasiness rises when she starts suspecting she's being followed. As it turns out, she is. But not by the cops, as she initially suspects. No, as it turns out, the men who have been driving around following her all over town work for Mike, which means we finally get a scene where Kim and Mike get to share the screen. Mike, in his low-key style, calmly tells Kim that Lalo is still alive. Kim is understandably concerned. Mike adds that the reason she's being followed is that there's a chance Lalo might contact her. Jimmy, too, is being followed for this same reason, and when Kim asks why Mike isn't telling him this, Mike replies: "Because I think you're made of sterner stuff."
Later, Kim doesn't tell Jimmy about any of this while the two of them go to look at a strip-mall office spot that will soon become the new digs of Saul Goodman. Kim and Jimmy head off into the night to get dinner, but Kim can't help but cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder as she goes.
She's nervous. So am I.
Sidebar
- One of Saul's new clients is Spooge, a character who appeared in "Breaking Bad."
- So what is the deal with the happy bike-riding couple living with Gus? Are they hired guns working for Mike? They don't seem like it. So who are they?
- "The wicked flee when no man pursueth," Jimmy jokes, leading Kim to ask: "You think we're wicked?" She seems ... unsettled at the suggestion.
- Another week without Lalo. He's no doubt going to make a grand, violent entrance whenever he returns.
- Who moves a cone?!
Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever
The post Better Call Saul Season 6 Stages a 'Hit and Run' appeared first on /Film.
AvosLocker Ransomware Variant Using New Trick to Disable Antivirus Protection
New Ghostwire Tokyo Update May 2 Adds PS5 VRR Support and Improves Performance
Bethesda and Tango Gameworks have rolled out a new Ghostwire Tokyo update across PS5 and PC, adding VRR support on Sony’s console and improving performance.
In addition to VVR support and improved performance, the new May 2 update also allows players to fast-travel earlier in the game. In addition, PC players are now able to enable/disable mouse smoothing via a new “mouse smoothing” option. Other changes include various fixes for encountered issues as well as overhauled starting values for player camera options and adjustments to the gamepad analog stick deadzone.
You’ll find the official release notes for the Ghostwire Tokyo May 2 update down below:
Ghostwire Tokyo Update May 2nd Release Notes PS5/PC
UPDATE HIGHLIGHTS
- Performance Improvements: This update addresses some performance issues for PS5 and PC.
- Silence, Tengu: There’ve been some noise complaints about the Tengu, so Ed has developed some noise-cancelling headphones for Akito and KK. (Tengu volume can now be adjusted.)
- Children’s Day Cosmetic and Emotes: Two new emotes and a new headwear piece inspired by Golden Week.
CHILDREN’S DAY
Held annually on May 5 in Japan, Children’s Day is one of four national holidays observed during Golden Week, to celebrate the health and happiness of children—typically by decorating with fish-shaped kites and wearing paper samurai helmets! Now you can get in on the festivities in Ghostwire: Tokyo: – Koinobori Emote – Akito displays koi-shaped streamers – “They Grow Up So Fast” Emote – Akito proudly dons a folded paper “Kabuto” samurai helmet – Paper Kabuto – Wear the origami samurai helmet from the emote.
CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS
- Added “Yokai Volume” slider, allowing players to adjust the screeching of the Tengu
- (PC) – Added “Mouse Smoothing” option (Allows players to enable/disable mouse smoothing)
- Fast travel is now available earlier in the game
- Added support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) on PS5
BUG FIXES
All Platforms
- Improved overall performance
- Overhauled starting values for player camera options
- Adjusted gamepad analog stick deadzone, and added options to adjust deadzone
- Fixed collision issues in some environments
- Spirit Perception Prayer Beads will no longer guide you towards spirits you have already absorbed
- Fixed text for some menu items in French and German
- Fixed Sharpness option when using FSR 1.0
PS5 Fixes
- Fixed low performance while in Quality Mode
- Numerous fixes to main missions, side missions, and world events where performing certain actions could prevent progression
- Adjusted detection for analog stick deadzone on PS4/PS5 controllers
- Fixed a bug that occurred when moving while crouching
- Fixed bug when spotted by a “Forsaken” Visitor
- Adjusted visual aspects of some complete outfits
- Fixed progression issue when speaking to dogs
- Fixed visual bug when speaking to dogs
- Some hint text for relics adjusted
- Fixed tab-switching behavior on the menu screen
- Fixed issue in which the database on the menu screen would not be updated
- Fixed age restriction settings for Sweden
Ghostwire Tokyo is available globally now for PlayStation 5 and PC.
The post New Ghostwire Tokyo Update May 2 Adds PS5 VRR Support and Improves Performance by Aernout van de Velde appeared first on Wccftech.
Five Things in Your Home You Should Probably Replace Right Now
Even if keeping a clean home is important to you, there’s a lot to stay on top of. There’s the obvious: taking out the garbage, unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming—let any of those slide and you’ll feel the impact almost immediately. But they are also so in your face that keeping up with them is easy (or easier,…
Microsoft launches Defender for Business to help protect small and medium businesses
Happy National Small Business Week1 in the United States! Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are the bedrock of our economy, representing 90 percent of businesses and more than 50 percent of employment worldwide.2 As we celebrate their innovation and contributions this week, it’s important to acknowledge the increased cyber risks they face as they embrace hybrid work and new digital business models, along with the emergence of cyberattacks as a service.
Increased security concerns with the changing SMB landscape
Microsoft surveyed more than 150 small and medium businesses in the United States in April 2022 to better understand the changing SMB security needs.3
More than 70 percent of SMBs said cyberthreats are becoming more of a business risk. With nearly one in four SMBs stating that they had a security breach in the last year, they have reason to be concerned. In fact, there has been a more than 300 percent increase in ransomware attacks, of which more than half were directed at small businesses.4
Despite facing similar risks as enterprises, SMBs often lack access to the right resources and tools. Many SMBs still rely on traditional antivirus solutions for their security. Although 80 percent of SMBs state they have some form of antivirus solution, 93 percent continue to have concerns about the increasing and evolving cyberattacks—with phishing, ransomware, and data protection being top of mind.
What makes SMBs particularly vulnerable is that they often have fewer resources and lack specialized security staff. In fact, less than half of the SMBs surveyed have a dedicated IT security person in-house, and SMBs cite a lack of specialized security staff as their top security risk factor. Sophisticated enterprise security solutions are often prohibitively complex or too expensive—or both.
Delivering on security for all to help protect SMBs
At Microsoft Ignite, we shared our vision for security for all, believing that small and medium businesses should have affordable access to the same level of protection as enterprises. Today, we’re excited to take that vision a step further with the general availability of the standalone version of Microsoft Defender for Business. Defender for Business brings enterprise-grade endpoint security to SMBs, including endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, with the ease of use and the pricing that small business customers and their partners expect.
Microsoft Defender for Business is already included as part of Microsoft 365 Business Premium, our comprehensive security and productivity solution for businesses with up to 300 employees. Customers can now purchase Defender for Business as a standalone solution. Server support will be coming later this year with an add-on solution.
Enterprise-grade security to protect against ransomware and other cyberthreats
To protect against the increasing volume and sophistication of cyberattacks such as ransomware, SMBs need elevated security. Many SMBs still rely on traditional antivirus, which provides only a single layer of protection by matching against signatures to protect against known threats. With Defender for Business, you get multi-layered protection, detection, and response, spanning the five phases of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework—identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover—to protect and remediate against known and unknown threats. Let’s look at the capabilities in detail:
Identify
- Threat and vulnerability management helps you to prioritize and focus on the weaknesses that pose the most urgent and highest risk to your business. By discovering, prioritizing, and remediating software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, you can proactively build a secure foundation for your environment.
Protect
- Attack surface reduction options help to minimize your attack surface (like the places that your company is vulnerable to cyberattacks across your devices and applications), leaving bad actors with fewer ways to perform attacks.
- Next-generation protection helps to prevent and protect against threats at your front door with antimalware and antivirus protection—on your devices and in the cloud.
Detect and respond
- Endpoint detection and response provides behavioral-based detection and response alerts so you can identify persistent threats and remove them from your environment.
Recover
- Auto-investigation and remediation help to scale your security operations by examining alerts and taking immediate action to resolve attacks for you. By reducing alert volume and remediating threats, Defender for Business allows you to prioritize tasks and focus on more sophisticated threats.
Built for SMBs, easy to use, and cost-effective
We designed Defender for Business keeping the needs of SMBs in mind.
Because IT admins for SMB customers and partners are often juggling many roles at once, we wanted to provide a solution that was easy to set up and could detect and remediate threats automatically so you get time back to focus on running your business. Defender for Business comes with built-in policies to get you up and running quickly. We’ve also included a simplified wizard-based onboarding for Windows devices. Additional simplification for macOS, Android, and iOS is on the roadmap.
With automated investigation and remediation, we do the type of work handled by a dedicated Security Operations (SecOps) team by continuously detecting and automatically remediating most threats.
For Martin & Zerfoss, an independent insurance agency, security was top of mind. Partner Kite Technology Group recommended Defender for Business: “With Microsoft Defender for Business, we’re able to bring enterprise-grade security protection to our small and midsize business customers. We can now meet their current security requirements and prepare them for whatever comes tomorrow,” said Adam Atwell, Cloud Solutions Architect, Kite Technology Group.
He adds, “Automated investigation and remediation is a huge part of the product [because] it’s just happening in the background. Microsoft Defender for Business makes our security so simple.”
Benefits of Defender for Business for partners
SMBs often turn to partners for securing their IT environments, and rightly so. We recognize that securing SMB customers often means providing partners with tools to help them secure their customers efficiently.
Defender for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Premium give partners new opportunities to help secure customers at scale with value-add managed services. Both solutions integrate with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, made generally available on March 1, 2022, so Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners can view security incidents across tenants in a unified portal. WeSafe IT, a CSP partner from Sweden, was an early adopter of Defender for Business in Business Premium with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse. The company found that the integrated solution brought it comprehensive customer value and the ability to increase automation and earnings.
“We’ve found no other solution like Microsoft 365 Business Premium that manages such a complete span of functionality for small- to medium-sized businesses at anywhere near the cost or flexibility,” said Martin Liljenberg, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, WeSafe. “From a partner perspective, it’s intuitive and effortless to apply to customer environments. MSPs that take advantage of Defender for Business can increase automation and earnings while providing their SMB customers better security and service.”
We’re also pleased to announce integrations of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools that managed service provider partners often use to secure their customers at scale. Datto RMM’s integration with Microsoft Defender for Business is now available for partners. ConnectWise RMM integration with Microsoft Intune and Microsoft 365 Business Premium is coming soon.
Microsoft Defender for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Premium are available from a variety of Microsoft Cloud Partners, including some of the most recognized names in the industry, such as ALSO, Crayon, Ingram Micro, Pax8, and TD Synnex.
For more details on the partner opportunity and benefits of Defender for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Premium, see our partner blog post.
See how Microsoft Defender for Business can help your business
If you work for a small or medium business, try Defender for Business for yourself to see how the solution can benefit your company or reach out to your partner for more information. You’ll also find more details in our TechCommunity blog. Partners can check out the Microsoft Partner blog and join our webinar on May 5, 2022.
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.
1National Small Business Week, U.S Small Business Administration.
2Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Finance, The World Bank.
3April 2022: Microsoft Small and Medium Business quantitative survey research: Security in the new environment.
4May 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in an interview.
The post Microsoft launches Defender for Business to help protect small and medium businesses appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
VESA launches AdaptiveSync open performance standard targeting gaming display variable refresh rates
Today, the Video Electronics Standards Association, or VESA, revealed the initial publicly open standard for the front-of-screen performance of variable refresh rate displays. The VESA AdaptiveSync Display Compliance Test Specification, or AdaptiveSync Display CTS, delivers a broad and stringent collection of more than 50 test measures, an automated testing procedure, and performance directives for computer monitors and laptops that support VESA’s AdaptiveSync protocols.
VESA launches the industry’s first open standard and logo program for PC monitor and laptop display variable refresh rate performance
The AdaptiveSync Display CTS also designates a product compliance logo program containing two performance tiers: AdaptiveSync Display, which is concentrated on gaming with exceptionally higher refresh rates and lower latency. Media sync Display, developed for jitter-free playback of media, helped all multinational broadcast video configurations by establishing the VESA Certified AdaptiveSync Display and MediaSync Display logo programs.
The VESA Certified AdaptiveSync Display logo is developed for gaming monitors, concentrated on higher refresh rates and low latency panel performance. The logo contains a value exhibiting the highest video frame rate attainable for the AdaptiveSync procedure when experimented with manufacturer default settings at native resolution—values in the logo comprising 144, 165, 240, 360, and higher. Vendors wishing to partake in the VESA Certified AdaptiveSync Display or MediaSync Display logo program can send their products for testing at VESA’s approved Authorized Test Centers (ATCs).
VESA will allow customers to effortlessly recognize and compare displays' varying refresh rate performance supporting AdaptiveSync before buying. Only displays that pass all AdaptiveSync Display CTS and VESA DisplayPort
compliance tests can authorize for the VESA Certified AdaptiveSync Display or MediaSync Display logos.
The VESA Certified MediaSync Display logo is developed for displays predominantly focused on jitter-free media playback backing all global broadcast video formats. This logo has no performance tier since product certification focuses on the lack of jitter and flicker instead of an elevated frame rate.
VESA’s AdaptiveSync Display CTS and logo programs were founded with assistance by more than two dozen VESA member organizations traversing the display ecosystem, including prominent OEMs that provide displays, graphic cards, CPUs, panels, display drivers, and other components.
VESA added AdaptiveSync protocols to the VESA DisplayPort video interface standard to enable smoother, tear-free images for gaming and jitter-free video playback. And the new standards allow lower power and greater efficiency in displaying content rendered at a wide range of frame rates as early as 2014. Since then, VESA’s AdaptiveSync technology has seen widespread adoption across the industry and is currently supported by all significant GPU chipset vendors.
While many PC and laptop displays currently support AdaptiveSync protocols, there has not been an open standard in calculating the level of performance or quality of AdaptiveSync support for displays. VESA’s AdaptiveSync Display and MediaSync Display logo programs manage this demand, supplying the buyer with a specific benchmark for front-of-screen visual performance of variable refresh rate operation verified by testing in compliance with the AdaptiveSync Display CTS.
We believe that with VESA launching its AdaptiveSync Display standard in the rapidly growing gaming market, we can expect to see even greater innovation in the gaming monitor categories. We are proud that the LG UltraGear
— Seok Ho Jang, Vice President in charge of the IT Development Division at LG Electronics
The VESA AdaptiveSync Display CTS incorporates over 50 automated display performance tests covering a few key factors: refresh rate, flicker, and gray-to-gray response time (remembering limits for overshoot and undershoot to guarantee top-notch pictures), video frame drop, and video frame rate jitter.
The VESA AdaptiveSync Display CTS expected that all monitors be tested in the industrial facility shipping state or default factory mode configurations and tested in encompassing room temperature environments before shipping. Furthermore, all displays that meet VESA AdaptiveSync Display and MediaSync Display logo confirmation requirements should likewise be tried and ensured to VESA's DisplayPort standard. Most of the laptop and PC GPUs presented in the most recent two years are equipped for supporting VESA's AdaptiveSync conventions. VESA urges buyers to check with their GPU merchant to confirm that their GPU and programming driver automatically empowers Adaptive-Sync activities with VESA Certified AdaptiveSync Display and MediaSync Display items.
The Adaptive-Sync Display CTS builds upon the foundation that VESA laid with the introduction of the Adaptive-Sync protocols eight years ago. It provides an open, industry-wide, and brand-agnostic standard backed by a logo program that gives consumers a guarantee that the displays that they’re buying for gaming or for media playback will meet a clearly defined minimum set of front-of-screen performance criteria when used with a suitable GPU. In designing the test specification and logo program, VESA explicitly set a high bar on performance criteria and testing methodology with tighter criteria than many existing specs and logo programs. As with all of our standards, VESA will continue to develop and refine the Adaptive-Sync Display CTS to address new display developments and market needs in order to enable further improvements in visual quality and user experience for consumers.
—Roland Wooster, chairman of the VESA Display Performance Metrics Task Group responsible for the Adaptive-Sync Display CTS and the association’s representative from Intel Corporation for HDR and Adaptive-Sync display technology
| Test | AdaptiveSync | MediaSync |
|---|---|---|
| Adaptive-Sync operation maximum refresh rate range |
≥ 144 Hz | ≥ 60 Hz |
| Adaptive-Sync operation minimum refresh rate range |
≤ 60 Hz | ≤ 48 Hz |
| Testing that Overdrive factory-default setting does not result in excessive Overshoot/Undershoot |
≤ 20% overshoot and ≤ 15% undershoot (on any of the 16 test cases) |
≤ 20% overshoot and ≤ 15% undershoot (on any of the 16 test cases) |
| Limit in average of the 20 G2G tests from a 5 × 5 matrix with factory-default overdrive |
≤ 5-ms average over the 20 tests | N/A |
| Flicker(max) on low-variability refresh rate tests |
-50 dB | -50 dB |
| Flicker(max) with high-variability refresh rate tests |
-50 dB | Test is not performed as a logo performance tier mandate |
| If SuccessiveFrameDuration IncreaseTolerance is present, minimum duration for variable |
8.5 ms | 1 ms |
| If SuccessiveFrameDuration DecreaseTolerance is present, minimum duration for variable |
9.75 ms | 1 ms |
| Video frame-to-frame jitter duration for 23.976- to 60-Hz video frame rates |
±0.5 ms | ±0.5 ms |
The post VESA launches AdaptiveSync open performance standard targeting gaming display variable refresh rates by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.
Onboard the Space Station at the End of the World - CNET
What are these SIDs of the form S-1-15-2-xxx?
If you are the curious sort of person who looks at security descriptors, you may find SIDs of the form S-1-15-2-xxx. What are these things?
SIDs of the form S-1-15-2-xxx are app container SIDs. These SIDs are present in the token of apps running in an app container, and they encode the app container identity.
According to the rules for Mandatory Integrity Control, objects default to allowing write access only to medium integrity level (IL) or higher. App containers run at low IL, so they by default don’t have write access to such objects.
An object can add access control entries (ACEs) to its access control list (ACL) to grant access to low IL. There are a few security identifiers (SIDs) you may see when an object extends access to low IL.
S-1-15-2-1: All Application Packages (SDDL abbreviation: “AC”)
Packaged apps, also known as Universal Windows apps. This covers all classic Windows Store apps.
I’ve seen some web pages where people speculate that “All Application Packages” is some sort of malware. It’s not. It’s just a security group.
S-1-15-2-2: All Restricted Application Packages
I’m not sure what this means or how it differs from All Application Packages.
S-1-15-2-x1-x2-x3-x4-x5-x6-x7: Specific app
This is a SID for one specific app. The seven numbers that come after the S-1-15-2 are 32-bit decimal numbers that collectively represent the first 28 bytes of the SHA256 hash of the app package family name.
You can ask the system to calculate this SID for you by calling DeriveAppContainerSidFromAppContainerName:
PSID sid;
if (SUCCEEDED(DeriveAppContainerSidFromAppContainerName(
L"Contoso.Deluxe_yda3mdg2t4ngp", &sid)))
{
// you have the sid in "sid"
}
You use this SID to grant access to a resource for one specific app. Of course, if you want to allow multiple apps, you can add multiple ACEs, one for each SID you want to allow.
Since the value comes from a cryptographic hash, there is no known way to reverse the SID back to the original package family name.¹ If you find one of these and are curious which app it applies to, you could enumerate all the apps that are installed on the system and feed each one into DeriveAppContainerSidFromAppContainerName looking for a match. But even then, you may not find it, because the SID may refer to an app that isn’t currently installed: It may have been applied in anticipation of installing an app, or it may have been applied at a time when the app was present, but you have since uninstalled it.
There’s another family of SIDs related to app containers that you may also run across. We’ll look at them next time.
¹ If you find a way to do that, you’ll probably use your new discovery to do much more lucrative things than reversing package family names.
The post What are these SIDs of the form S-1-15-2-xxx? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
Man whose penis "just dropped off onto the floor" grew a new one his arm
Malcolm MacDonald (47) says, "I feel like a real man again," after receiving a replacement for his former penis, which "just dropped off onto the floor" after a blood infection.
Doctors created an artificial penis using skin on his left arm. — Read the rest
Rebecca Romijn Insisted On Wearing A Starfleet Dress On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
The original "Star Trek" series remains spellbinding for its forward thinking science fiction ideas. But it remains equally spellbinding for being a show so firmly entrenched in the '60s that all female crew members on board the USS Enterprise wear short miniskirts while the men get to strut around in far less revealing uniforms. And while "Trek" has gone a long way in the decades since to make Starfleet uniforms work for all genders and body types ("The Next Generation" even featured male officers in the Starfleet minidress, or "skant," uniform), that classic short-skirt look has at least one major fan: "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" star Rebecca Romijn.
Una Chin-Riley, better known to Captain Christopher Pike and "Star Trek" fans as "Number One," rocks the Starfleet dress look throughout the first five episodes of "Strange New Worlds," with the tough-as-nails first officer of the Enterprise making a strong case for this seemingly outdated look to make a major comeback. And you can consider this mission accomplished for Romijn, who not only requested that Una wear a Starfleet dress, but that she actively wear it during action sequences.
"Number One" made her debut in the original "Star Trek" pilot, titled "The Cage," where she was Captain Pike's uber-reliable, no-nonsense first officer (and was played by Majel Barrett, the future wife of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry). But who said Uber-reliable and no-nonsense don't have a feminine side? Una remains a tough leader and military commander in "Strange New Worlds," but Romijn felt is was important for the character to embrace her femininity:
"Initially, I was inspired by the hair and the nails. There would be background artists on the original series that I would get screen grabs of and send that into hair and makeup and be like, 'Let's try something like this.'"
The Badass Starfleet Dress
And it was Romijn's idea for Una to wear the uniform style made famous by Nichelle Nichols (among others) in the Original Series, even though the show's producers originally didn't intend for skirts to be part of the official Starfleet wardrobe on the new show:
"I requested a Starfleet dress, which, the first answer was, 'No. We're just going to do pants and tops."'And then they came back around and said, 'No, we changed our mind. Why don't we start building uniform wardrobes,' where sometimes I'm wearing Starfleet dress and sometimes not."
The result is a nice touch: every character on "Strange New Worlds" has multiple uniforms, which they rotate through regularly (one of Captain Pike's wardrobe options will have longtime "Trek" fans losing their minds). And while we do see Una wearing pants, her default uniform tends to be the skirt, and it was important to Romijn that she wear it even during hazardous situations:
"I made a specific request that the Starfleet dress shouldn't just be on the Enterprise. I actually want to make sure that Starfleet dress goes into action and turn it into a badass Starfleet dress, so it's not just like a flight attendant standing around on the enterprise."
The result is a low-key subversion of sci-fi tropes. So often, the "badass" woman on board a spaceship is coded with more masculine features and dress -- everyone aims for Vasquez from "Aliens." But Una, second in command of the flagship vessel of Starfleet, wears her long hair down, paints her nails, and calls the shots while rocking an unapologetically feminine dress. "Strange New Worlds" is happy to put women in charge, and to let them embrace their femininity even when they're shooting phasers on an away mission.
"I wanted to flip the narrative," Romijn told me of her Starfleet dress. "I want to make sure it's out there doing some action."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" premieres on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022. It's spectacular.
Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order
The post Rebecca Romijn Insisted on Wearing a Starfleet Dress on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds appeared first on /Film.
Amazon Kindle E-Readers Will Now Make It Easier to Load EBooks You Didn't Buy From Amazon
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Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 Brings a New Economy Expansion While Fueling Fortunes
The latest Star Citizen Alpha brings with it a new economic expansion. The update also adds new functionality to NPC vendors and storefronts while also adding a new hospital and the first interactive River Tech. To celebrate the release of this new expansion known as Fueling Fortunes, the development team posted a new trailer which you can see below:
The Fueling Fortunes expansion brings new frontiers for the economic and career opportunities available to pilots with the addition of new locations to explore, and tools to support emergent gameplay. The update also adds new functionality to NPC vendors and storefronts, allowing pilots to sell unwanted inventory items for UEC when they’re done hunting pirates or exploring for resources.
In addition, there are new ways to earn credits with the addition of ship-to-ship refueling, allowing MISC Starfarer owners to refuel ships in space and charge customers for the service, as well as mining gadgets that can enhance the mineral yield of asteroids.
Star Citizen Creative Director Chris Roberts said the following in a press release:
With the Alpha 3.17: Fueling Fortunes release we’re thrilled to introduce new places to explore like the Maria Pure of Heart hospital in Lorville and new ways to participate in the in-game economy – whether it be through selling plunder from hard-fought pirate battles or counting your profits from a day of mining and cargo transporting.
We’re excited to see how pilots interact with the new features and watch the emergent gameplay unfold, especially with ship-to-ship refueling, which will create interesting encounters between players. This is just the start of our plans for 2022, and we can’t wait to share more details about what is in store for Star Citizen.
The Fueling Fortunes update also brings a new hospital to the Hurston Dynamics company town of Lorville. The Maria Pure of Heart hospital is now welcoming new patients. Not only that, but pilots are now able to access all hospitals in all landing zones of the Stanton system. Also, as mentioned before, this update brings the first interactive river since the implementation of river tech. This interactive river can be found on MicroTech.
Star Citizen is currently in development exclusively for PC.
The post Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 Brings a New Economy Expansion While Fueling Fortunes by Ule Lopez appeared first on Wccftech.
VESA Launches Variable Refresh Display Performance Standards: AdaptiveSync and MediaSync
Kicking off what’s set to be a busy May, this morning the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), the PC display industry’s primary consortium, is rolling out a new set of performance standards for variable refresh rate displays. Dubbed AdaptiveSync and MediaSync, these new test standards are designed to offer an industry-neural and open specification for the behavior and performance of DisplayPort displays. AdaptiveSync is a standard designed for high-end gaming displays, while MediaSync is aimed at eliminating video jitter on a much wider array of devices.
Evil Dead Rise Is Almost Done, Will 'Knock People's Socks Off,' Says Sam Raimi [Exclusive]
When the "Evil Dead Rise" next, they'll be doing it on HBO Max without Sam Raimi in the director's seat. However, Raimi has given the fifth installment in the franchise his blessing, and, in fact, he's already seen several cuts of the movie and has some high praise for it.
"The Evil Dead" franchise kicked off in 1981 with Raimi's original film of the same name, and since then, a whole trilogy, reboot, and TV show has sprung from it, leaving us with Raimi's "Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness," Fede Álvarez's 2013 "Evil Dead," and the "Ash vs. Evil Dead" series on Starz. "Evil Dead Rise" sees writer-director Lee Cronin taking the helm, and though it's only his second feature film after "The Hole in the Ground," it sounds like he's done right by Raimi and may be able to avoid the sophomore slump.
In Jacob Hall's interview with Raimi for /Film, Raimi said:
"I've seen a rough cut [of 'Evil Dead Rise'], a medium fine cut, and a fine cut. There's probably a few changes that Lee Cronin is making that I haven't seen, but it's great. It's terrifying and it's going to knock people's socks off."
'I Loved The Hole In The Ground'
Raimi's first "Evil Dead" movie followed the franchise's signature yellow Oldsmobile out to the archetypal cabin in the woods, where five college students on a weekend vacation found a trove of ancient artifacts in the basement. One of those artifacts was a Book of the Dead with pages bound in human flesh. Bruce Campbell, the star of Raimi's trilogy and the "Ash vs. Evil Dead" TV series, said last November that "Evil Dead Rise" is about "a single mom who now has to deal with this book."
"The Hole in the Ground" also centered on a single mother, so Cronin already has experience writing a character like that, and when Raimi saw the movie, there was something there that made him think Cronin was the right filmmaker to helm "Evil Dead Rise." Raimi explained:
"He had always liked 'Evil Dead,' and I loved 'The Hole in the Ground.' And that picture was brought to the executives that I work with and they showed it to me and I thought, this is really a great director. And we met and we talked and he said he really liked 'The Evil Dead.' And I said, then why don't you make the new one? I think you're just the kind [of] guy I'd like to do it. He said, great. Let's go. We put together a script and we gave notes and he made some changes and then we raised money for the movie and he went down to New Zealand to shoot it with my partner, Rob Tapert. Now Bruce Campbell is working with him in post production sound."
We also heard last year that "Evil Dead Rise" would take place in an urban setting instead of a cabin in the woods, so that will put at least one new twist on the franchise. "Evil Dead Rise" is expected to hit HBO Max this year.
Read this next: The 31 Scariest Movie Scenes Ever
The post Evil Dead Rise is Almost Done, Will 'Knock People's Socks Off,' Says Sam Raimi [Exclusive] appeared first on /Film.