Month: August 2021

Enlarge / This is arguably not the best promotional image to leave on your Diablo II: Resurrected site these days, Blizzard. (credit: Blizzard)

On Wednesday, Blizzard confirmed reports about three major staffers on its game-design teams no longer working for the company. This is yet another example of the tumult that has recently overtaken the lawsuit-plagued game publisher and creator.

In a statement provided by Blizzard to Ars Technica, the studio confirmed that the following staffers are no longer working for the company: Luis Barriga, who'd served as director of the upcoming sequel Diablo IV; Jesse McCree, a Diablo IV designer who is also the namesake of an Overwatch character; and Jonathan LeCraft, a designer on the World of Warcraft team. Blizzard's exact statement says that the three men in question are "no longer with the company," without clarifying the nature of the change in employment (layoff, termination, resignation, etc.) or whether all three staffers parted ways at the same time.

McCree and LeCraft entered the limelight in the wake of last month's widespread lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard by a California state agency. Their faces appeared prominently in a series of photos, originally revealed and reported on by Kotaku, about the contentious "Cosby Suite," a makeshift shrine to Bill Cosby that appeared in the July lawsuit. The lawsuit suggested that the "Suite," adorned with a painting of Bill Cosby, was part of extracurricular parties connected to Blizzard's 2013 BlizzCon fan expo. The suite's name is arguably a reference to Cosby's notorious public reputation at the time.

Enlarge / A pharmacist holding a vial of the undiluted Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19. (credit: Getty | JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER)

Update 8/13/2021 9:30 am ET: Just before midnight on Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration updated the emergency use authorizations for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, allowing immunocompromised people to receive a third dose of vaccine at least 28 days following the two-dose regimen to further boost protection. The FDA said the change applied specifically to "solid organ transplant recipients or those who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise."

In a statement, Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said, “The country has entered yet another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease. After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Vaccines."

Woodcock further emphasized that, for now, only certain immunocompromised people need an additional dose. "As we’ve previously stated, other individuals who are fully vaccinated are adequately protected and do not need an additional dose of COVID-19 vaccine at this time. The FDA is actively engaged in a science-based, rigorous process with our federal partners to consider whether an additional dose may be needed in the future.” Health officials expect that booster shots may be needed for the general population at some point in the future, but it's unclear when.

Enlarge / The front of the 24-inch iMac with Apple's M1 chip. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Today, Apple released a new version of its Mac operating system, macOS Big Sur. The new update is labeled macOS Big Sur 11.5.2, but there aren't any new features or major security updates. Rather, macOS 11.5.2 focuses on "bug fixes." In fact, these are Apple's release notes for the latest version of Big Sur, in their entirety:

macOS 11.5.2 includes bug fixes for your Mac.

As you can see, the release notes do not specify which bugs have been fixed and mention no new features. Apple maintains a support page where it details the security updates within a given release, too. But that's bare for this release. "This update has no published CVE entries," it says.

While Apple often (but not always) releases software updates for many or all of its platforms at the same time, macOS was alone today—at least in terms of public releases. Today also saw major new beta releases of iOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS Monterey, and more.

Enlarge / Sensitive BIOS passwords leaked by QAnon figure Ron Watkins have been linked to a Colorado County office run by a clerk who promotes "Stop the Steal" messaging. (credit: JJ Gouin / Getty Images)

Last week, Ron Watkins—conspiracy theorist, QAnon enthusiast, and former 8chan site admin—released photocopies of an installation manual for Dominion voting machines. The copied pages gave basic instructions for configuring BIOS passwords (necessary to change some system settings) and iDRAC, a standard network remote control tool (which the manual explicitly requires the administrator to disable).

On the next day, Watkins released a video purporting to be from a "whistleblower" exposing Dominion's "most egregious lie"—that, supposedly, Dominion can remotely administer the machines. He also released several screenshots of Election Management Systems hardware his "whistleblower" had access to.

Although none of Watkins' screenshots—which will be immediately familiar to anyone who's ever administered enterprise-grade hardware—are as damning to the voting machines themselves as Watkins would clearly like, they did end up causing problems for one of Watkins' fellow travelers—county clerk Tina Peters of Mesa County, Colorado, whose office manages the machines in question.

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  Nicholas Cage is an imprisoned bank robber named Hero. [credit: YouTube/RLJE Films ]

Nicholas Cage's unusual artistic choices over the years have been frequently remarked upon by critics, and no doubt he's been in some pretty bad films over his long and storied career (*cough* The Wicker Man *cough*). But he's also chosen some truly original, visionary independent projects, most recently 2019's Lovecraft adaptation Color Out of Space and the bloody horror comedy Willy's Wonderland earlier this year. He's currently earning critical raves for his portrayal of a chef turned truffle hunter in search of his stolen truffle pig in Pig. And now we have the official trailer for Cage's latest film, Prisoners of the Ghostland, a post-apocalyptic thriller that looks like Max Max transported into a surreal samurai Western.

Prisoners is helmed by idiosyncratic auteur Sion Sono. While Sono isn't a household name in the US, he has enjoyed a fair amount of fame in his native Japan and on the film festival circuit. The Hollywood Reporter once called him "the most subversive director working in Japanese cinema today, with nearly 50 films of various genres—rite-of-passage stories fueled with social transgressions, all-out sex-and-gore thrillers, hip-hop musicals, and warm human drama." He's perhaps best known for 2008's Love Exposure, a four-hour (!) art-house comedy drama inspired by Sono's own youthful experience with a cult.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is Sono's English-language debut, and it looks like a good fit for Cage's colorfully flamboyant, mega-acting style. (Cage himself has called his method "Nouveau Shamanic" or "Western kabuki.") The film premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival to decidedly mixed reviews, although both Cage's performance and Sono's striking visuals received praise.

Enlarge / Mike Richards (right) will be the new regular host of Jeopardy! when it returns for its 38th season. The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik will host "primetime and spinoff series." (credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced today that Mike Richards and Mayim Bialik would share hosting duties on Jeopardy! when the show returns for its 38th season later this year, with Richards hosting the regular version of the show and Bialik hosting "primetime and spinoff series, including the upcoming all-new Jeopardy! National College Championship."

The former co-host of Beauty and the Geek and the 2012 reboot of The $100,000 Pyramid, Richards has served as an executive producer of Jeopardy! since 2020 and will continue in those duties while hosting the show. Bialik is best known for her roles on The Big Bang Theory and Blossom, and she also has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.

Richards and Bialik will take over for longtime host Alex Trebek, who passed away in late 2020 following a pancreatic cancer diagnosis; his last episodes aired in January 2021. Throughout the rest of its 37th season, the show used a long list of guest hosts to fill in for Trebek at the podium, including Richards and Bialik but also former Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, newscasters Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper, and book enthusiast LeVar Burton.

Enlarge (credit: RobertAx | Getty Images)

A decentralized financial network has claimed hackers absconded with about $600 million worth of cryptocurrencies in one of the largest heists to target the growing digital asset industry.

Poly Network, which links some of the world’s most widely used digital ledgers, said on Tuesday that attackers had exploited a vulnerability in its system and taken thousands of crypto tokens. The attack would be one of the largest to date on a crypto venture, on a par with breaches of exchanges Coincheck and Mt. Gox.

The alleged hack was a blow to supporters of decentralized finance, or DeFi, which has been one of the fastest-expanding areas of the booming cryptocurrency market. It also highlighted the lack of consumer and investor protections in a market with only light oversight from financial regulators.