firehose

Federal investigators unsealed the criminal complaint against California Senator Leland Yee and 25 other defendants today, charging the politician with firearms trafficking and six counts of fraud related to campaign contributions.

Yee, a Democrat who represents San Mateo County and part of San Francisco County, has been a vocal opponent of video game violence and the game industry practices, as well as a proponent of gun control. Yee famously sponsored the 2005 bill that became the basis for Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, a 2011 Supreme Court decision that ruled that video games are protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

He was arrested this morning in an FBI raid.

According to a press release and criminal complaint (PDF) published by U.S. Attorneys, Yee and another defendant, Keith Jackson, allegedly raised campaign funds for the senator's Secretary of State campaign by "soliciting donations from FBI undercover agents, in exchange for multiple official acts."

Jackson, a consultant involved in raising campaign funds for Yee since 2011, allegedly solicited an undercover FBI agent to make contributions to Yee's San Francisco mayoral campaign, donations in excess of the individual limit of $500, the complaint reads. Yee and Jackson are also charged with soliciting another undercover agent, resulting in a personal donation of $5,000 to the politician's failed mayoral campaign.

In August 2013, Jackson is alleged to have solicited a donation from one of the agents in order for Yee to "facilitate a meeting with the arms dealer with the intent of the undercover agent to purportedly purchase a large number of weapons." Yee and Jackson allegedly discussed the specific types of weapons the undercover agent was interested in buying and importing, the complaint says.

The multiple violations Yee is charged with carry between five and 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count.

Yee's arrest is tied to a larger investigation of the San Francisco-based Chee Kung Tong organization and its leader, Dragonhead Raymond "Shrimpboy" Chow, who official said exhibiting a pattern of alleged racketeering activity. Chow was arrested on money laundering, stolen property and contraband cigarette tracking charges.

Polygon left a message with Senator Yee's office seeking comment.

Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment is now enforcing anti-cheating bans on the game's Windows PC version, according to a post on the game's official website.

The developer has been "collecting data" since the game's launch but "not immediately enforcing bans." Respawn revealed earlier this month that it was tracking players exploiting the game with third-party devices like "aimbots," "wallhacks" and other exploits that offer advantages to players who use them. The developer's policy changed last Friday, March 21, when it "started banning cheaters in Titanfall."

Those banned from the game will see the message in the screenshot above. They'll still be able to play Titanfall but only with other flagged players.

"You can play with other banned players in something that will resemble the Wimbledon of aimbot contests," an FAQ on the game's official site reads. "Hopefully the aimbot cheat you paid for really is the best, or these all-cheater matches could be frustrating for you. Good luck."

Parties with a banned player will treat each player as banned for that play session. Remove that player from the party, and you'll be able to play with those not flagged as such. Those who believe they've been unfairly banned for cheating can contact Respawn through a dedicated email address available in the FAQ.

To track culprits, Respawn enabled GameBlocks' FairFight, server-side anti-cheating software designed to identify unruly behavior.

"Players' actions are tested against multiple statistical markers to identify cheating as it occurs," the software's description reads. "FairFight crosschecks these indicators using objective server-side reporting tools and takes action when both approaches correlate to cheating. FairFight's graduated penalty system (warning/restriction/suspension) has been shown to effectively suppress and deter 'cheaters' by imposing prompt and appropriate penalties automatically, while simultaneously notifying them that continued misbehavior will result in harsher penalties."

For more on the game, be sure to read and watch Polygon's Titanfall review.

A coalition of Swiss robotics labs has announced the Cybathlon, the first-ever international competition for athletes who use prosthetics and other aids, will be held in October of 2016.

The competition is modeled after the Olympics and will feature six events: a bike race, leg race, wheelchair race, exoskeleton race, arm prosthetics race, and Brain Computer Interface race for competitors with full paralysis. The National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics is hosting the competition to spur interest in emerging human-oriented robotics technologies.

Unlike the Olympics, where athletes can use prosthetics only to make themselves as good as able-bodied athletes and not better, Cybathlon competitors are encouraged to use the best technology. Dual prizes will be awarded, one to the athlete and one to the company that created the prosthetic, device, or software.

"The rules of the competition are made in such way that the novel technology will give the pilot an advantage over a pilot that would use a comparable but less advanced or conventional assistive technology," the organization says on its website. "There will be as few technical constraints as possible, in order to encourage the device providers to develop novel and powerful solutions."

Of course, the races will be slower than their Olympic counterparts, but they're also arguably more mind-boggling. The exoskeleton competitors, for example, must walk over a slope, up steps, around pillars, over a see-saw, across a narrow beam, then pick up a bag and carry it, go around tight corners, and then sprint to the finish line.

Jon Brodkin

Following widespread criticism over his donations to pass California's Proposition 8 in 2008, new Mozilla Foundation CEO Brendan Eich issued a statement on his personal blog today which laid out a plan of action for future inclusiveness and diversity at Mozilla.

"I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla," Eich wrote. While his post didn't directly mention his $1,000 financial donation to Prop 8, nor his $2,100 in contributions to Prop 8 supporter and CA Congressman Thomas McClintock between 2008 and 2010, Eich did deliver a list of specific and varied plans to "work with LGBT communities and allies," both in reiterating the company's diverse healthcare options and in insisting that he participate in "community-building exercises" down the road. In addition, Eich took the opportunity to announce Project Ascend, a Mozilla initiative meant to expand access to open-source projects to "those who lack privilege."

"I don’t ask for trust free of context, or without a solid structure to support accountability," Eich wrote. "No leader or person who has a privileged position should."

Not everyone is happy about Facebook buying Oculus VR. Many who backed the original Kickstarter are concerned about the fate of the company, while the creator of Minecraft has said that he will no longer release a version of the game for the platform simply because he doesn't like the social network. But not everyone is so pessimistic. In fact, a number of developers — those who will actually be making the virtual reality games that will make the Rift awesome — actually seem optimistic that the partnership could be a good thing for VR, helping it reach a larger audience.

"VR and AR are hardware technologies that will eventually reach billions of users," says Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney. "For Oculus to lead the way, they would necessarily either need to grow into a big company or become part of one. Now it will be the latter."

"Who says that Facebook is even going to intervene?

Minecraft's Markus "Notch" Persson seems particularly worried about Facebook's uneven history as a gaming platform. "People have made games for Facebook platforms before," he wrote in a blog post yesterday, "and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build." But other developers see the opposite — Facebook has made other high-profile acquisitions before, but those services have remained largely unchanged since.

"Who says that Facebook is even going to intervene? Look at Instagram and WhatsApp," says James Crowson, from Oculus developer Hipster Squid Studios. "How has Facebook intervened with regards to those apps? You don't need a Facebook login to sign into WhatsApp and you're not forced to see Facebook ads."

"This announcement makes us nervous."

Likewise, many developers seem to simply trust the leadership in place at Oculus — and company founder Palmer Luckey has already said that the VR firm will still operate independently, despite its new owners. "Palmer Lucky and John Carmack are visionaries, and [Oculus CEO] Brendan Iribe has a great business sense," says Sweeney. "They certainly put a lot of brainpower into making a decision they felt was best for the future of VR." David Reid, CMO at EVE: Valkyrie developer CCP, agrees, saying that "we share their vision about the future of VR and gaming and are looking forward to participating in the consumer launch of the Oculus Rift."

That doesn't mean that the news wasn't shocking for those in the development community. Like many of us, Owlchemy Labs' Alex Schwartz and Devin Reimer were surprised to learn about the acquisition. "We have to admit this announcement makes us nervous because we perceive very little alignment between the goals of Facebook and Oculus," the pair told The Verge in an email. "It's definitely a bit disconcerting from a game developer's standpoint." That said, the studio — which is currently porting its crazy BASE-jumping game AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! to the Rift — recognizes that this could be a positive move for VR in the long run.

"It seems too early to panic."

"The good news here is that Oculus is now backed with the amount of capital required to not only make the Oculus Rift go mainstream but compete directly with Sony's offering," Schwartz and Reimer say. "Competition is great for consumers." They say that the news won't influence their development plans, "but it does cement in our minds that VR, in whatever form it might be, is here to stay."

Of course, it's too early to tell just how much Facebook will change Oculus, if it changes it at all. Already reports have suggested that Facebook will redesign the Rift hardware and interface to better fit its brand (though Facebook later denied this). But what influence it will have on the Rift as a game platform is unclear, and we likely won't find out until the commercial version of the headset finally launches later this year, or early next.

"Maybe they can just keep doing what they were doing before, but with more cash," says E McNeill, developer of Darknet, one of the Rift's more anticipated games. "Maybe not. It seems too early to panic, though, and I wish people would stop the hysterics."

Video game publisher Bethesda Softworks has announced a special edition of its upcoming game Wolfenstein: The New Order that enhances the shooter with “a vintage footlocker-style box,” “a set of 14 full-color weathered-looking postcards,” and other simulacra of rugged, war-torn objects. About the only thing missing from Wolfenstein: The New Order—Panzerhund Edition is the game itself, which has to be purchased separately. If that’s not a first for a mainstream game studio, it’s certainly unusual. And while on the surface, this move could be seen as a greedy cash grab, Bethesda has a practical explanation:

Keep your pre-order at your favorite retailer and we’ll send you these goodies separately—this way we can ship these boxes worldwide and you're not stuck waiting for your game to come along with an oversized, expensively shipped box.

The “keep your pre-order” bit is a sop to brick-and-mortar retailers ...

Wildcats quarterback Kain Colter lobbies to the newly formed College Athletes Association. (David Banks/Getty Images)