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Microsoft is urging customers to patch two security vulnerabilities in Active Directory domain controllers that it addressed in November following the availability of a proof-of-concept (PoC) tool on December 12. The two vulnerabilities — tracked as CVE-2021-42278 and CVE-2021-42287 — have a severity rating of 7.5 out of a maximum of 10 and concern a privilege escalation flaw affecting the

There’s plenty of sex on TV, though much of it is incidental window dressing—thoughtlessly tossed in as if by decree from ratings-hungry executives (looking at you, Game of Thrones).

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One researcher calls the embryo nicknamed Baby Yingliang "one of the most beautiful fossils I have ever seen."

When you hear the term BSD, you might think of FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD, but there's another BSD variant that seems to get less attention—DragonFly BSD. What is this newest variant of BSD, and is it for you? Read on to find out.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Belgian Ministry of Defense has confirmed a cyberattack on its networks that involved the Log4j vulnerability. In a statement, the Defense Ministry said it discovered an attack on its computer network with internet access on Thursday. They did not say if it was a ransomware attack but explained that "quarantine measures" were quickly put in place to "contain the infected elements." "Priority was given to the operability of the network. Monitoring will continue. Throughout the weekend, our teams were mobilized to contain the problem, continue our operations and alert our partners," the Defense Ministry said. "This attack follows the exploitation of the Log4j vulnerability, which was made public last week and for which IT specialists around the world are jumping into the breach. The Ministry of Defense will not provide any further information at this stage." Multiple reports from companies like Google and Microsoft have indicated that government hacking groups around the world are leveraging the Log4j vulnerability in attacks. [...] Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium spokesperson Katrien Eggers told ZDNet that they too sent out a warning to Belgian companies about the Apache Log4j software issue, writing that any organization that had not already taken action should "expect major problems in the coming days and weeks." "Because this software is so widely distributed, it is difficult to estimate how the discovered vulnerability will be exploited and on what scale," the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium said, adding that any affected organizations should contact them. "It goes without saying that this is a dangerous situation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

75% of the top 1,000 games run on Linux now, and the figure is even higher, at 80%, for the top 100 games. gHacks reports: Valve Software, the company behind the popular Steam gaming platform and smash hits such as Dota 2, Half-Life and Team Fortress, announced plans in 2018 to improve Windows game support for Linux. [...] The independent database protondb keeps track of compatibility using user reports. Compatibility has improved significantly in recent years. The site highlights compatibility for the top 10, top 100 and top 1000 games on Steam. 75% of the top 1000 games run on Linux now, and the figure is even higher, at 80%, for the top 100 games. Only the top 10 games are not well represented, as only 40% of them run on Linux without major issues according to the database. Users have submitted more than 150,000 reports for over 21,000 games to the site. Of these 21,000 games, more than 17,600 are working according to the site. Games on the database are ranked using a medal system. Platinum and Gold rated games run perfectly, and silver games may have minor issues. Bronze games may crash or have serious issues. Borked games won't work at all or are unplayable, and native Linux games are just the opposite of that. Protondb has a search feature that Linux gamers may use to find out if games that they are interested in work well on Linux. All games that match the search term are returned, which means that you can search for entire series of games, e.g. King's Bounty, Final Fantasy or Civilization, and get all reported games and their compatibility rating returned. Compatibility is improving, and while there are still games that won't run on Linux, it is clear that compatibility has improved significantly in the past couple of years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon Prime Video has a new Queen and it's Rosamund Pike! "The Wheel of Time" has just ousted "Hunters" as the most-watched original series on the streamer, according to Variety. Joining Pike (who plays Moiraine Damodred) on the throne are cast members Madeleine Madden as Egwene Al'Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon (Dónal Finn will play him in Season 2), Zoë Robins as Nynaeve, and Josha Stradowski as Rand Al'Thor.

It's looking like the show that has been touted as the next "Game of Thrones" is off to a great start. The series reportedly had 1.16 billion viewing minutes in the first week of release, which knocked "Hunters" down. Interestingly enough, the site reports that there is an older audience profile. 65% of viewers are in the 35-64 age range. As someone who read the books when they came out back in the 1990s, that makes total sense. (Fun fact: I met author Robert Jordan before he passed at a book signing, and he was wearing the craziest cowboy hat I've ever seen with some sort of what appeared to be snakeskin on it.)

The Wheel Of Time Turns And Ages Come And Pass

Nielsen's Top 10 SVOD Lists said this series premiered in the number one original spot, and Prime Video reported that from the week of November 15 to 21, 2021, it was one of the top five launches of all time for the service. In a statement, Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios said:

"We are elated by the strong debut of 'The Wheel of Time,' one of our most-watched series premieres of all time ... It's a testament to everyone involved in the series — the incredible cast, led by Rosamund Pike, and our showrunner Rafe Judkins, and the entire team, who took viewers on a journey into a visually stunning world populated with diverse characters and cultures. It's unlike any other fantasy series, and our customers all over the world are responding."

Even cooler? The site reports that the first novel in the "Wheel of Time" series called "The Eye of the World" made the Top 20 of Amazon's Most Read Fiction chart in the week the series premiered.

The Wheel Turns As The Wheel Wills

The series has been renewed for season 2 and production began this summer in Prague. "Wheel of Time" is based on the book series by Robert Jordan and finished by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan's notes. Here is the synopsis for the series:

"The Wheel of Time" is one of the most popular and enduring fantasy series of all time, with more than 90 million books sold. Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity.

The series is on Nielsen's Top 10 SVOD Original Programming. Also on the list are "The Great British Baking Show" ("The Great British Bake Off" for you purists), "Tiger King," "You," "Locke & Key," "Narcos: Mexico," the recently canceled "Cowboy Bebop," "Maid," and "Hellbound."

Read this next: Every Peter Jackson Film Ranked From Worst To Best

The post The Wheel of Time Has Bumped Hunters As Amazon Prime's Most-Watched Original Series To Date appeared first on /Film.

When Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Remake as a PlayStation exclusive, many fans hoped it would come to other platforms. The publisher announced a PC port during The Game Awards 2021, causing gamers without PlayStation consoles to rejoice. But fans didn't expect the game would launch with major problems.

ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system that aims to be a full re-implementation of the Windows NT kernel and system, complete with the ability to run applications, games, and drivers designed for Windows. It has been in development since 1996, and now the first new release since last year is available to download.

The ReactOS team wrote in a blog post, “it took us over a year to get this release in shape and fix regressions. As such, ReactOS 0.4.14 does not contain the very latest developments we advertised in 2021 on our blog and on social media. They can be found instead in our nightly builds. Consider this a maintenance release, and stay tuned for what’s coming next!”

ReactOS 0.4.14 includes the first implementation of ‘Send To’ in the Shell, which has been available on Microsoft’s operating system since Windows 2000, and allows you to quickly share files to applications (e.g. create a new email with a file as an attachment). ReactOS also now has ‘Open file location’ and ‘Open Command prompt here’ options when right-clicking a file or directory, which is handy. Windows software compatibility should be a bit better as well, with updated DLLs from the Wine project, and initial support for booting NEC PC-9800 computers is present.

This update also includes improvements to the operating system’s Internet Control Message Protocol implementation, Plug n’ Play, runtime exception handling for software written in C, bootloader, on-screen keyboard, and fonts. All those changes mean ReactOS runs a bit smoother and consumes less memory than before — in most cases, the entire operating system should use less than 100MB of RAM while idling.

ReactOS is still pretty far from replacing Windows for most people, but it’s an impressive technological achievement. The project’s Twitter account frequently posts examples of applications, games, and PCs that work with ReactOS. While most of the software fully compatible is pretty old, like Diablo 2 and Microsoft Office 97, some modern applications like VLC Media Player are also functional.

You can learn more about ReactOS and try it out from the official website.

The post ReactOS, the open-source Windows clone, has a new update available appeared first on xda-developers.

If there's one positive we can glean from Valve's decision to delay the Steam Deck, it's that the company now has some extra time to polish its handheld gaming PC good and proper. In fact, this newfound extra time has already helped improve Proton compatibility with Steam's top games, which has just hit a new milestone.

According to analysis conducted by the ProtonDB community, 80% of Steam's top 100 games now run perfectly on Proton after a few tweaks. However, there's still plenty of work to be done before we can expect a flawless experience using the Steam Deck, with just 35% of the top 100 either running flawlessly or natively on Linux.

Compatibility could quickly rise to 88% if developers were to patch their games with Proton compatible versions of Easy Anti-Cheat or BattlEye services, which are currently leaving games like Destiny 2 and New World unplayable. That said, because the affected games currently can't launch using Proton, there's no way of knowing whether other issues accompany those related to anti-cheat measures.

RELATED LINKS: Best SSD for gaming, How to build a gaming PC, Best gaming CPU

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: Many apps used by schools contain features that can lead to the "unregulated and out of control" sharing of student data to advertising companies and other security issues, according to a report published Monday by the nonprofit Me2B Alliance. The report follows up on research published by the group in May, which audited 73 apps used by 38 schools to find that 60% of them were sending student data to a variety of third parties. Roughly half of them were sending student data to Google, while 14% were sending data to Facebook. In the update, Me2B specifically looked at the use of a common feature called "WebView," which allows developers to integrate web pages into apps. Although the feature allows schools to include dynamic details -- like calendars and results of sporting events -- in apps without having to update the app itself, it can lead to the siphoning of student data and, in particularly bad cases, students and parents being targeted by scams. For example, on several occasions the researchers observed the hijacking of web pages linked to by school apps, leading users to malicious sites. An app used by Maryland's largest school district accidentally directed users to a compromised site that once was used for the district's sports teams. The Quinlan, Texas school district had a sports domain integrated into its app that was purchased by an unknown actor for $30 before anyone took action -- a security threat that's sometimes called a "dangling domain." Some of the recommendations to mitigate security risks include "training for app administrators, creating processes at schools for keeping track of expiring URLs, requiring schools to report lost or dangling domains within a specific time, and launching a 'privacy bounty program' at the US Department of Education to audit school apps," reports The Record. "But perhaps the fastest way to reduce these risks is to alter the way the apps work." "Apple and Google can change rules for in-app WebView links to ensure app developers can't overrule a local device browser preference," said Zach Edwards, who is in charge of data integrity testing for the Me2B Alliance.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Most tasks don't require a trip to the garage. With a multi-tool, you can keep a toolbox's worth of tools in your pocket, desk drawer, or glove compartment.

Watch Nirvana grind through a killer noisy set on December 1, 1989 at Fahrenheit, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. Note that the drummer was Chad Channing who predated Dave Grohl on the skins. Also, don't miss TAD taking the stage after Nirvana opens. Led by Tad Doyle, TAD was a key band in the Sub Pop label's formative years and embodied the first wave of Seattle's grunge scene. — Read the rest

The comic book-loving community was recently dealt a bit of a big surprise when Marvel Comics announced a new prestige-format "Punisher" series from Jason Aaron ("Avengers") coming our way next year. The book will evaluate Frank Castle's past, present, and future, and it looks like that future might (emphasis on might) involve a new logo, opting to move on from the classic skull that has been a part of the character from the very beginning. This has, understandably, been met with thoughts and opinions of all sorts.

That is but a small sampling of what has been said on social media. With this potentially serving as a big change for a beloved character that has real-world implications, we're going to discuss what we know about the book and the new symbol, what the classic symbol represents, the history behind its use by various groups, and why those appropriations are problematic.

The New Book

"Punisher" is being touted as a big deal, with words like "culmination" being thrown around by Marvel, and each issue of the book being oversized during its 13-issue run. A bit of preview art was released, but one piece, in particular, caught everyone's eye, as it features a brand new logo.

As we can see, it appears Frank is working with The Hand, who fans might know from "Daredevil." It appears this affiliation has granted him a new logo instead of his original skull, which dates all the way back to when Punisher debuted in the pages of "The Amazing Spider-Man" #129. For a little more context, here's the synopsis for the upcoming series:

As the Punisher, Frank Castle has become the most accomplished killer the world has ever seen. After a shocking secret pushes him to become the warlord of the Hand, he now serves the Beast, a role he's been fated to fulfill. Tragedy, war, and rage come together as he takes up his sword and his new armor with the most notorious clan of assassins in the Marvel Universe. Will it mean an end for the Punisher? Or a whole new bloody beginning?

Right now, little is being said by way of specifics. Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski, in a statement, discussed an "evolution" that could hint at what's to come:

"A few years ago, Jason Aaron came into one of our creative summits with a pitch for Frank that made our collective jaws drop. The story Jason is telling – a truly epic tale about darkness, violence, and choices – can only be told with the Punisher at its core. This series will build on Frank's legacy while introducing us to a side of him we've never seen before, setting the stage for an evolution that we'll find was inevitable."

So, while we don't know yet if the new logo is permanent, it does seem like the notion of an evolution and a grand tale could pave the way for major changes to the character and a more permanent makeover. For various reasons, that might make sense.

A History Of Violence

Marvel may be known best for characters like Spider-Man and the Avengers, but Frank Castle is a major outlier, as far as the company's widely known characters go. Punisher is a violent, gun-toting killer who operates outside the law. Yes, he has a moral code of sorts, but make no mistake, he's a murderer and not a hero. By Marvel standards, he's incredibly violent and that has been a staple of his character over the years.

Like any major comic book character, things get silly every once in a while (see 2011's "Space Punisher"). but the core of who Frank Castle is remains intact. A man who suffered the death of his wife and children at the hands of the mob. A man who served his country in the armed forces only to have everything taken away from him by criminals who weren't stopped by the proper authorities. A man who is driven by vengeance. This is not Captain America. Heck, it's not even Daredevil. This is about as cold-blooded and close-to-home as it gets in the Marvel universe. Are characters like Thanos more violent on a grand scale? Sure. But something about Frank being street-level makes it hit a little differently.

A Complicated History Of Appropriation

The character's motivations are important to understand when looking at how is iconography has been appropriated in the real world. As has been well-documented in the 2000s, various groups such as American military personal, police officers, firefighters, and right-wing militia groups have all, at various points, used the Punisher logo while carrying out their various duties or pushing their agendas. This is, to say the very least of it, problematic, and has led to a lot of controversies, while also putting Marvel (as well as its parent company Disney) in an increasingly precarious position.

While various military personal have used the logo, it got a big boost when Chris Kyle's story was told in Clint Eastwood's blockbuster hit "American Sniper," as he used the symbol during his time overseas. In his autobiography, Kyle explained it thusly:

"We spray-painted it on our Hummers and body armor, and our helmets and all our guns. We spray-painted it on every building or wall we could, We wanted people to know, We're here and we want to f*** with you."

Outside of the military, right-wing groups such as the 3 Percenters have adopted the logo as well, and it was prominently featured at the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Police officers of varying sorts across the U.S. have adopted it as well, and it is particularly popular within the Blue Lives Matter movement. This is unsettling, as it sees those who represent law and order taking on the logo of a character who represents the failures of law and order.

Perhaps most troublingly, the skull emblem was seen several times branded on the clothing of insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A Misunderstanding Of The Punisher

The problem is that many of the groups using the logo represent law and order. Or, when we look at the insurrectionists from January 6, they represent criminal actions and senseless violence against innocent people. Jon Bernthal, who played Frank on Netflix's "The Punisher," decried the rioters who adopted the symbol.

Marvel even decided to take a stand on the matter in the pages of Marvel Comics back in 2019. In writer Matthew Rosenberg's "Punisher" #13, Frank Castle comes across a couple of police officers who are fans of his work. However, Frank decides to make things abundantly clear to them, essentially stating the company's official opinion on the matter through the character himself:

"I'll say this once, we're not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave that up a long time ago. You don't do what I do. Nobody does. You boys need a role model? His name's Captain America, and he'd be happy to have you.... If I find out you are trying to do what I do, I'll come for you next."

There are arguments to be made in favor of changing the Punisher, especially with the gun violence running rampant in the U.S. and the problematic adoption of the character by groups who have no business taking him on as a role model. At the same time, it could be argued that reshaping the character due to real-world factors such as these could be viewed as giving in on some level to far right groups and those who misguidedly appropriate the character for their agendas. It's tricky. That being said, it's easy to see why a gigantic corporation with an image to protect might want to find a way to rebrand the popular character. And, if Aaron can find a story reason to give Frank Castle a makeover, it's not hard to see why that might be an appealing option. Maybe it really is time to move on.

"Punisher" #1 hits shelves in March 2022.

Read this next: Every MCU Post-Credits Sequence Ranked From Worst To Best

The post The Punisher is Seemingly Getting a New Logo, and the Timing Feels Right appeared first on /Film.

South Park reveals the truth about NFTs. And if you are still confused, StyledSnail posted an explanatory video (below) along with this glossary of terms used:

HODL – Hold on for Dear Life (don't sell or panic when price spikes up or down)

NFTs – Non Fungible Tokens (completely unique one of a kind digital asset)

Moon – When the price has a strong upward trend

Right-click in reference to NFT pictures being screenshotted

Pump-and-dump – artificially raise the price just to sell out and leave

FOMO – Fear of Missing Out (the drive to buy before the price moons)

The Flippening – a possible future event where ethereum overtakes bitcoin as the biggest crypto)

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading faster than the Delta variant and is causing infections in people already vaccinated or who have recovered from the COVID-19 disease, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said. From a report: WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan added it would be "unwise" to conclude from early evidence that Omicron was a milder variant that previous ones. "... with the numbers going up, all health systems are going to be under strain," Soumya Swaminathan told Geneva-based journalists. The variant is successfully evading some immune responses, she said, meaning that the booster programmes being rolled out in many countries ought to be targeted towards people with weaker immune systems. "There is now consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the briefing. "And it is more likely people vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 could be infected or re-infected," Tedros said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IPFire is a lightweight Linux distribution for firewalls, routers, and other security-sensitive appliances. The developers have released a new version, IPFire 2.27 Core Update 162 which will be the last version to support 32-bit x86 machines. "Once a few releases after upgrading to Linux 5.10, we have now....

In the final moments of Francis Ford Coppola's seminal classic "The Godfather," the audience bears witness to one of the most stunning onscreen transformations of a character in Al Pacino's Michael Corleone. It's the consummation of his shift from the virtuous and patriotic war hero he is at the beginning of the movie, to the malevolent and intimidating figure he becomes by its end. Portrayed by Al Pacino in only his third acting role, Coppola's adaption of Mario Puzo's novel elegantly and brutally illustrates Michael's tainted rebirth as Don of the Corleone crime family. 

Under the bleak and gaudy strokes of Coppola and Puzo's design, the audience watches Michael's christening as godfather of his sister's child occur in tandem with the brutal murders he orchestrated. In those last diabolical minutes, "The Godfather" leaves a lasting impression with its severe visuals, with Pacino driving home the grave consequences of his character's victory. 

The Baptism Scene Unveils Michael's Ruthlessness

As Michael becomes godfather to Connie's child, his execution orders are carried out against the various enemies and betrayers of the Corleone family. The leaders of the other families, Moe Greene, the traitor Tessio -- even his sister's husband Carlo -- all are eliminated as threats to Michael's vision of the future. Over the course of 67 shots that cut back-and-forth over roughly five minutes, the baptism montage is one of the more famous scenes in "The Godfather." As a foreboding organ track plays over the shots, Coppola illustrates Michael's desire to separate his vicious role as Don with his family and public life with the quick cuts. But it also exposes just how little the deaths weigh on Michael's mind, even as he stands inside a church at the baptism of his godchild, renouncing sin, and proclaiming his belief in a morality he doesn't abide by. To him, the deaths are necessary for securing the future of the Corleone family, revealing the narcissistic ambition that's begun to float to the surface of Michael's personality and its dangerously indefinite limits.

In Decieving Carlo, Michael Foreshadows His Own Family Isn't Safe

The finale of "The Godfather" escalates Michael's transformation further with the killing of Carlo over his role in the death of Sonny, the eldest Corleone brother and original heir to the title of Don. In a terribly brilliant deception, Michael shares with Carlo that he's settled "all family business," AKA he's murdered everyone who could possibly be a threat and it's in Carlo's best interest to 'fess up. Like his father Vito, Michael knows not only when to exert brute force but also when to use tact, coming to Carlo like the Devil himself -- calm and suave. He even wields his new status as godfather to Carlo's son as a reason to trust him, offering him exile as punishment if he confesses. When he does, he has him strangled in a violent scene that sees Carlo kicking the window out in a vain struggle to escape. 

If Michael's cold-blooded mass execution of the family's enemies wasn't enough to get across his metamorphizes into a callous, wartime Don, the murder of Carlo is the resounding finale of his violent crescendo. Although Carlo was responsible for Sonny's death, it's the fact that Michael thoughtlessly turns his own sister into a widow and is now himself responsible for the death of his godchild's father that pushes him past the point of no return. Connie says as much when she confronts Michael, alternating between her uncontrollable grief and inability to comprehend that her brother could be capable of such brutality. Michael's decision to kill Carlo is a chilling precursor of his future descent into further ruthlessness, foreshadowing even his family could find itself in the crosshairs of his wrath.

Michael's Cold Shutting Out Of Kay Completes His Transformation

When Michael's capos remove Connie from his office he's left alone with Kay, he's forced to reckon with the one person he must be fully honest with -- but instead, he lies straight to her face. After she has the courage to ask if he really did kill Carlo, Michael explodes in anger telling her that she cannot ask about his business. But his anger is only another deception and he utilizes it to feign the burden of pulling back the curtain on his organization for the peace of mind of his wife. "Just this once," Michael tells Kay, manipulating her desperation to close the growing distance between them, as well as assuaging her fears that he's not a heartless murderer. Her relief when he gives her an effortless "no" is not felt by the audience and in many ways, this is Michael's final and cruelest act in becoming Don: the betrayal of Kay's trust and her love. 

But it's the film's final shot that's quintessential of the entire exchange, one that ends with Kay looking on at her husband from across their home before the door to his office is closed by his men, shutting her out. There is a harsh finality to the scene that, like the baptism one that precedes it, pairs Michael's hard-won victory with a change in how he both interacts and views his own family. As Don, he's secured their safety by destroying their enemies, but by the end of "The Godfather" that cost appears to be Michael's very heart and soul, and its conclusion grandly sets up Coppola's second act of the story in "The Godfather: Part II."

Read this next: The 14 Best Noir Movies Ranked

The post The Godfather Ending Explained: Baptism by Blood appeared first on /Film.

"Nightmare Alley" isn't the first time that filmmaker Guillermo del Toro cast Ron Perlman (who also figured into del Toro's "Blade II," the "Hellboy" films, and "Pacific Rim") in a strongman role. Back in 1993, the writer-director was working on his debut feature film "Cronos," a horror-fantasy and a stellar, moody take on the vampire subgenre. Perlman came on board (in his fifth feature film role) in the role of Angel de la Guardia, nephew/enforcer of his obscenely rich and equally craven uncle Dieter de la Guardia; the pair worked together in pursuit of a device alleged to give eternal life to its owner. 

In an interview with ComicBook, the Golden Globe winner sings Del Toro's praises and makes it clear that he always knew, even on the set of "Cronos," that the director was one of the greats. Perlman tells ComicBook:

I'll never forget, in Mexico City, we were working on his first film, which is called "Cronos." And nobody knew who he was. I didn't know who he was. I was getting to know the man. You really don't have a feel for the filmmaker because you're too busy in the foxholes along with him, just trying to get the movie in the can. And then this movie had so little money and was so f***ed financially, that it took two weeks for us to see our first set of dailies. The very first frame that came up on somebody's VCR, I guess, it was Guillermo's VCR, that I was sitting with him. He asked me to watch these dailies with him. The very first frame, I said to myself, I said out loud in front of everybody, "This guy is as good as they get. He's [François] Truffaut, he's [Akira] Kurosawa, he's William Wyler, he's Francis Ford Coppola.

'...He's A Filmmaker Of The Highest Order'

Perlman called it from frame one of the dailies -- Guillermo del Toro is up there with some of the medium's most celebrated storytellers. Indeed, the Mexican filmmaker's sense of composition and thorough obsession with monsters as powerful figures is apparent in his earliest professional works. The Criterion Collection agrees, having added "Cronos" to its acclaimed closet of "important classic and contemporary films" in 2010. For Perlman, it's all in del Toro's visual translation of his stories' darkest themes:

There was just something about the way he frames an image, which is quintessentially the thing that separates cinema from every other art form, that you just know he's got it, that he's a filmmaker of the highest order. And it turned out I was right. That's odd in and of itself because I'm usually never right about anything. But now, all these years later, the world has found out what I was clumsily trying to just say at that moment.

Read this next: The 12 Best Vampire Movies Of All Time

The post Ron Perlman Recalls the Moment He Realized Guillermo del Toro Was a Genius appeared first on /Film.

Four days ago, the Log4Shell Java exploit was unearthed, allowing hackers to take control of exposed web-facing servers by sending and activating a malicious string of text, affecting tech giants such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Intel. This exploit is located in the open-source Apache Log4j library that logs events and errors inside Java-based applications.

Log4J, or Log4Shell exploit attacks Java-based systems remotely, opening up to crucial data leaks and more

The vulnerability is, also known as Log4J, is tracked under CVE-2021-44228, given by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. This exploit can be accessed via a mobile device, API, or a browser window.

Top tech companies, such as Intel, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have all been affected by this highly effective exploit. Intel has nine applications that utilize Java and are vulnerable to the hack. Provided is the list of Intel applications affected:

• Intel Audio Development Kit
• Intel Datacenter Manager
• oneAPI sample browser plugin for Eclipse
• Intel System Debugger
• Intel Secure Device Onboard (GitHub)
• Intel Genomics Kernel Library
• Intel System Studio
• Computer Vision Annotation Tool maintained by Intel
• Intel Sensor Solution Firmware Development Kit

Due to the nature of NVIDIA and their applications and services consistently updated with the latest versions, the exploit is much harder to trace. The company does put into consideration that server managers do not consistently offer the newest updates to their machines, so NVIDIA is listing four possible products that could have a high percentage of being affected by Log4J, especially if the drivers for the products are outdated since release:

• CUDA Toolkit Visual Profiler and Nsight Eclipse Edition
• DGX Systems
• NetQ
• vGPU Software License Server

Since NVIDIA's DGX enterprise PCs are preloaded with Ubuntu-Linux OS and also vulnerable to the exploit, NVIDIA is communicating to users capable of manually installing Apache's Log4J functionality block to update their systems immediately.

The post AMD slips by as Log4Shell exploit affects other top tech giants, such as Intel, Microsoft, and NVIDIA by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

As audiences, we know what scares us, but it's still nice to have some official validation when we're defending our decision to sleep with the lights on. Viewers who are terrified of a select few horror films now have that validation, thanks to a study called the "Science of Scare Project."

The Science of Scare Project was conducted by a platform called broadbandchoices, which measured viewers' heart rates via BPM as they sat through a selection of scary movies. Researchers determined viewers' resting heart rates, then measured for both new averages and momentary BPM spikes throughout the films.

Scientists Are Studying What Scares Us

The 2020 project sounds like both a legitimate scientific study and an all-around fun time for horror-loving participants. According to an infographic shared by Forbes, a panel of 50 participants were fitted with heart rate monitors and subjected to a total of 50 horror films, all screened in 5.1 surround sound. The films were curated based on a mix of critical favorites and Reddit recommendations, and include classics like "The Shining," "The Thing," and "Halloween," along with plenty of newer horror hits.

According to the results of this scientific study, no other horror movie got hearts pumping like Scott Derrickson's 2012 film "Sinister." The Ethan Hawke-led film follows a true crime writer who moves his family to a house that was the scene of multiple murders, and soon becomes enraptured by a box of apparent snuff films he finds in the attic. "Sinister" is overwhelmingly unsettling, from the moment it opens on Super 8 footage of a family eerily swinging from a hanging tree, down to its last-second jump scare. I'm no scientist, but I had to pause "Sinister" several times to calm down despite my high tolerance for horror. That the film, which was a box office success and earned a sequel, is considered among the scariest of all time is no surprise.

21st Century Films Top The List

"Sinister" narrowly beat out James Wan's new classic "Insidious" for the number one spot in the study's ranked results. While "Sinister" raised viewers' resting heart rates 32% on average, "Insidious" cornered the market on jump scares. Participants watching "Insidious" saw their heart rates spike to 133 BPM during the film's moment of highest anxiety. Want to bet it was during the shot of the infamous red-faced demon?

There are a few surprises among The Science of Scare Project's results. Other 21st century favorites, including "Hereditary," "Paranormal Activity," and "It Follows," are included among the 10 biggest scarers, but so is M. Night Shyamalan's horror-comedy "The Visit." Meanwhile, the first pre-2000 horror movie ranks at #13. "A Nightmare On Elm Street" barely beat out two other classics, "Halloween" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," raising heart rates 12 BPM above average.

The Scariest Movie Has Already Been Dethroned

According to their website, The Science of Scare Project is still ongoing. In 2021, they did the same test, only with 250 participants and a slate of 40 films including several recent releases. In fact, a new release already dethroned "Sinister" in the project's latest batch of results. Rob Savage's "Host," a quarantine-set horror film taking the structure of a Zoom hangout, raised viewers' heart rates 24 BPM on average, while "Sinister" and "Insidious" came in second and third place with a 22 and 21 BPM difference, respectively.

As a horror fan, I would love it if this study kicked off a trend of scientific research related to horror. It would be awesome to see how different viewers with different levels of exposure react to the genre. Is a movie scarier if you go into it knowing little about it, or with high expectations? Are non-horror-fans more easily scared, or do downright freaky films like "Sinister" scare seasoned genre veterans just as much as genre newcomers? Hopefully we'll get answers to these questions in the future. For now, you can at least tell your hardcore horror friends you have a highly scientific reason to continue putting off watching "Hereditary."

Read this next: 17 Horror Movies Based On True Stories That Will Creep You Out

The post The Scariest Horror Film of All Time According to Science appeared first on /Film.

Disney has become synonymous with family-friendly films, seldom crossing the line into anything that may be perceived as "scary" or "upsetting." Disney Channel Original Movies are notorious for their Halloween fare, but with the exception of the criminally underrated "Don't Look Under The Bed," even their spookiest films are rated-G for general audiences. When Disney+ was first announced, I was thrilled to revisit the weird and forgotten Disney movies of my youth, but unfortunately, there are still some films that Disney has decided to keep in the vault after all these years. One of those films is the 1980s anti-fairy tale, "The Watcher in the Woods."

Growing up, I was fortunate to live just three blocks down from my local Mom & Pop video store, and I had standing approval from my parents with the owners to rent whatever my little monster kid heart desired. As luck would have it, the shop had a VHS copy of "The Watcher in the Woods," the story of an American family who moves into a British country house plagued by malevolent spirits, namely, the ghost of the longtime owner's daughter who torments the new family's young daughter. Before you get too excited and think the House of Mouse made a bonafide slasher or something, know that the film was definitely creepy but in a similar vein as something like "The Changeling" or "The Lady in White."

Disney Told Children Not To See The Film

It's hard to remember a time when Disney wasn't the most dominant force in entertainment, but until the Disney Renaissance from 1989 to 1999, the studio was definitely riding the struggle bus. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was doing their best to attract older audiences, as their family-friendly offerings weren't performing as well as they'd liked. This is how we ended up with films like "Escape to Witch Mountain," "The Island at the Top of the World," "The Black Hole," and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," all films that people frequently forget are Disney-made due to their content. In 1980, Disney tried their hand at horror and the result was the film adaptation of Florence Engel Randall's 1976 young adult Gothic sci-fi novel, "A Watcher in the Woods." Knowing their reputation for kid's movies, Disney actively told small children not to see the film, which only added to the film's allure.

The former home owner is Mrs. Aylwood, played by Bette Davis who has at this point proven herself in "hagsploitation" horror films. The youngest American girl, Ellie, was played by Kyle Richards, just two years after her role in John Carpenter's "Halloween." What starts out as a pretty standard haunted house movie slowly turns even creepier, as Ellie's sister Jan discovers the town locals were screwing with dark magic during a solar eclipse. Thinking she's solved the case, Jan decides to recreate the ceremony during another solar eclipse in the hopes it will bring Mrs. Aylwood's daughter back. Dancing with the dark arts is a bit much for Disney, but in 1980, they were hoping the film would be popular enough to help save their failing company.

A Cult Favorite

"The Watcher in the Woods" received terrible reviews and only ran for a short time in theaters because of it, but critics have often hated horror movies, so take that with a grain of salt. The film was shot in the same house used by Robert Wise in 1963's "The Haunting," which adds an extra oomph of spookiness to those that know their haunted house movies. Sure, some of the special effects have aged like a glass of milk in the sun, but the storytelling and atmosphere are still surprisingly effective. In one particular moment, Jan slips into the pond and looks as if she's going to drown, and the scene elicits a similar anxiety as watching Artax the horse struggle to escape the Swamp of Sadness in "The Neverending Story." We see Jan under the water, staring at Mrs. Aylwood above her and trying to get out. It's genuinely terrifying because Jan really does look like she's about to drown in front of our eyes.

Despite the film's negative reviews, "The Watcher in the Woods" developed a cult following and was even given the made-for-TV remake treatment in 2017 featuring Melissa Joan Hart and Anjelica Huston. Parents are frequently looking for transitory horror films to help bridge the gap between certifiable children's films to hard-R horror, and "The Watcher in the Woods" is a perfect addition, if only Disney+ would release this beast from the vault.

Read this next: The 25 Best Kids' Movies Of All Time

The post Disney's Creepy '80s Horror Movie You Have to See To Believe appeared first on /Film.

Even with the growing awareness about cybersecurity, many myths about it are prevalent. These misconceptions can be a barrier to effective security.  The first step to ensure the security of your business is to separate the false information, myths, and rumors from the truth. Here, we're busting some common cybersecurity myths. Read on to find out which of the following you thought were true.

Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Harris Dickinson, Djimon Hounsou and Rhys Ifans star in an action-adventure, directed by Matthew Vaughn, and opening exclusively in movie theaters this week.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

The last several years have seen an ever-increasing number of cyber-attacks, and while the frequency of such attacks has increased, so too has the resulting damage. One needs only to look at CISA's list of significant cyber incidents to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. In May of 2021, for example, a ransomware attack brought down the Colonial Pipeline, causing a serious fuel disruption

We’re in the midst of a modern day space race. Where once the two most powerful empires on the planet vied to be first to the moon, we now have corporations led by billionaire barons — Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic — boasting a future filled with exo-planetary tourism. In 2021, the heads of these private companies finally made good on their myriad promises, successfully launching civilians, astronauts and, in two cases, themselves into the uppermost reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

SpaceX continues to lead the burgeoning private spaceflight industry from the front. In January, the company successfully launched its first “rideshare mission” aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, ferrying 133 microsatellites into orbit along with 10 of its own Starlink satellites. SpaceX’s Starlink ISP service, which now serves more than 10,000 customers, has put some 1,475 of the microsats into orbit above the planet (with a total of 42,000 planned, offering global coverage by September), despite the vehement protests of astronomers who fear their presence will blind ground-based telescopes.

SpaceX’s endeavors to get its Starship prototype off the ground have not been nearly as successful as Starlink, mind you. The 100-passenger spacecraft, which was designed to help fulfill CEO Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars and, presumably, titling himself God Emperor of the Red Planet (or some such), spectacularly exploded on the launchpad following a high-altitude test flight in March.

A subsequent test of the SN11 Starship prototype later that month didn’t even get back to the landing pad. SN15, which launched in May, did however manage to land in one piece. The company is currently working on a plan to launch a Starship prototype into orbit, though no timetable is currently set for that launch — it was originally slated for July then pushed back to November, depending on regulatory approval, and is now set for January.

But those failed tests have done little to slow SpaceX’s roll over its competition. In February, NASA awarded SpaceX with a $331.8 million contract to bring its Gateway station into lunar orbit in 2024. And in April, NASA gave the company a $2.9 billion contract to ferry its Artemis lunar lander to the moon.

Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin responded to the Artemis contract by first protesting the “fundamentally unfair” decision with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which delayed progress on the project until July when the GAO dismissed the claims, even though Bezos offered NASA $2 billion to grant them the contract instead.

"We stand firm in our belief that there were fundamental issues with NASA's decision, but the GAO wasn't able to address them due to their limited jurisdiction," the company said following the GAO’s announcement.

Still seething from the GAO’s rebuke, Bezos then filed suit against NASA in Federal Claims court, essentially trying to “sue [its] way to the moon,” per Musk. Blue Origin claimed this was done "in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System," a spokesperson for Blue Origin told Engadget in August. "We firmly believe that the issues identified in this procurement and its outcomes must be addressed to restore fairness, create competition, and ensure a safe return to the Moon for America." Blue Origin eventually lost that lawsuit as well.

And that’s when a prestige competition between the two richest men on Earth devolved into a middle school slap fight with SpaceX accusing Amazon of intentionally delaying proposals for its Starlink service while Amazon countered with incriminations that Musk and SpaceX “don’t follow the rules.”

“Whether it is launching satellites with unlicensed antennas, launching rockets without approval, building an unapproved launch tower, or re-opening a factory in violation of a shelter-in-place order, the conduct of SpaceX and other Musk-led companies makes their view plain: rules are for other people, and those who insist upon or even simply request compliance are deserving of derision and ad hominem attacks,” Amazon’s FCC filing reads.

This year, not only did SpaceX become the first private company to successfully transport astronauts to the ISS, it also offered its first orbital flight for civilians with the launch of the Inspiration4 mission in September. A quartet of amatuer astronauts spent three days circling the Earth in a Dragon Capsule before safely returning. And while Musk has not yet left the planet’s atmosphere aboard a rocket of his company’s design, he has reportedly made a $10,000 down payment on a trip aboard a future Virgin Galactic flight.

One notch Bezos has on his belt that Musk does not is the fact that he has, in fact, flown aboard his own spacecraft. Following successful test flights of Blue Origin’s upgraded New Shepard in both January and April, Jeff Bezos and his brother — along with 18-year old Oliver Daemen (whose parents spent $28 million for the honor) and 84-year-old Wally Funk — successfully traversed the Karman line on July 20th. Blue Origin followed up that feat in October when it shuttled William Shatner, of Star Trek fame, into space. During that flight, Shatner, who is 90, unseated 84-year-old Funk as the oldest person to go to space. Way to snatch the last few highlights from an old woman’s life, Captain Kirk.

Looking ahead, Blue Origin is working on a spacecraft capable of handling a Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system for DARPA — and competing against Lockheed Martin to successfully demonstrate it outside of low Earth orbit in 2025. The company also announced at the end of October that it hopes to build and deploy a commercial space station called the Orbital Reef — think, the ISS but with more intrusive advertising — by the second half of this decade. NASA has since awarded the project a Space Act Agreement, along with funding through the design phase, as part of its Commercial LEO Development program.

Virgin Galactic, on the other hand, started its 2021 off in a holding pattern. The company’s SpaceShip II test at the end of last December — its first major flight out of the Spaceport America site in New Mexico – ended in abruptly after the ship’s engine failed to ignite. A subsequent redo test scheduled for February was also delayed to May after the company opted to make additional “technical checks.”

While these aren’t major setbacks in the same vein as say an exploding StarShip, VG’s continued delays have pushed back the company’s goal of commercial space tourism flights to at least 2022. They did not, however, impact Virgin Galactic’s unveiling of SpaceShip III in March.

In May, VG’s perseverance paid off when SpaceShip II successfully completed its rocket-powered test flight, flinging a pair of pilots and a cargo hold full of NASA experiments into the very upper reaches of the atmosphere. The following month, Virgin Galactic received approval from the FAA to begin commercial operations, becoming the first such company to secure permission from the aviation industry. With the FAA’s blessing firmly in hand, Virgin Galactic decided to blast CEO Sir Richard Branson into space — heedless of Blue Origin’s derisions — the following month. On July 11th, Branson and his crew did just that — well, technically.

Buoyed by the success of their boss’ flight, Virgin Galactic began offering tickets to would-be space tourists for the low, low discount price of $450,000. As of the start of November, more than 100 tickets have been sold.

Branson’s flight was not flawless, however, and that raised the ire of the FAA. During SpaceShip II’s landing, the spacecraft “deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance as it returned to Spaceport America,” per the FAA. In a subsequent statement from the company, Virgin disagreed with the FAA’s characterization.

“When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters,” the company argued. “Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they were trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures. Although the flight’s ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. At no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory.” A brief investigation by the FAA eventually cleared the company to resume test flights.

Despite these advances in private spaceflight systems, don’t expect the space tourism industry to take off before at least the start of the next decade. If Virgin Galactic’s recent price hike from $250,000 to $450,000 per ticket is any indication, very few people will be able to afford such a trip for the foreseeable future. So while two of the world’s richest men may have had the honor of temporarily escaping our gravity well, don’t think you’ll get your chance anytime soon — unless you can win it like a Golden Ticket like Keisha S did.

Apple is reported to be working on the M2 chipset for next year, which will serve as the direct successor to the M1. Fortunately, just like the M1 Pro and M1 Max designed for the new MacBook Pro line, the company is also working on their direct successors, presumably named the M2 Pro and M2 Max.

Just Like the M2, Both M2 Pro and M2 Max Will Take Advantage of TSMC’s 4nm Node

Unfortunately, the M2 Pro and M2 Max will not launch in the same year as the M2, according to Commercial Times. Where the M2 will reportedly be ready in the second half of 2022, the M2 Pro and M2 Max will likely launch in the first half of 2023, with the higher-end variants codenamed Rhodes. Like the M2, the two upcoming custom silicon will be mass produced on TSMC’s 4nm architecture, leading to improved performance and power efficiency.

Sadly, at this time, there is no word on how many CPU and GPU cores Apple intends to incorporate on the M2 Pro and M2 Max, so we will have to wait on additional information to come through. Also, before 2023 arrives, we should expect an iMac Pro that is rumored to be available in the M1 Pro and M1 Max variants for 2022, as well as the possibility of an iPad Pro refresh with the same chipset options. In short, there could be plenty of unveilings before we are greeted with the M2 Pro and M2 Max launches.

In our previous report, we talked about how Apple plans on updating its custom silicon every 18 months, so the M2 Pro and M2 Max possibly launching in H2 2023 is right on the cards as far as timing goes. After this, Apple is expected to transition to TSMC’s N3 architecture to unveil the M2 Pro and M2 Max successors, which could be called the M3 Pro and M3 Max, but it is highly likely that we will not be seeing them until Q4, 2024.

Remember to treat this information with a pinch of salt, and we will be back with more updates concerning Apple’s silicon development plans, so stay tuned.

The post Apple Working on M2 Pro, M2 Max, Likely for New MacBook Pro Models – Launch Could Happen a Couple Years From Now by Omar Sohail appeared first on Wccftech.

Valve are working to upgrade a number of their more popular games for the Steam Deck, optimising controls and interfaces to play better on their upcoming portable powerhouse, the Steam Deck. The Half-Life series, Dota 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, either already have or will receive upgrades designed to make them "better experiences".

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