Month: February 2023

Enlarge / Five years later, there are still seemingly infinite upgrades to each class you'll get after just _one more run_. (credit: Ghost Ship Games)

Deep Rock Galactic, the grim vision of galactic extractive hypercapitalism that's also a wonderful community and great hang, will soon be 5 years old. The co-op first-person shooter is celebrating by letting you play the game as it launched in preview form in 2018.

Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) is a co-op shooter that's not like other co-op shooters. You and up to three other players choose a class of dwarven miner, enter a procedurally generated section of an insectoid-infested planet, and then shoot, dig, build, fix, collect, and goof your way toward objectives. One moment you're deep into a tough-as-nails, Aliens-esque blitz for survival, and the next you're picking out silly hats and tossing beer steins at a robot barkeep.

Some of Deep Rock Galactic's sales and engagement stats since its early-access release in 2018. (credit: Ghost Ship Games / Steam)

That game and other factors—lower system requirements, a generally friendly and welcoming online community, constant updates, Game Pass availability—have led to DRG selling more than 5.5 million copies by the end of 2022, across all platforms. Its daily active users have nearly tripled since 2019. And its Steam reviews have been 97 percent positive since its launch there.

Enlarge / Five years later, there are still seemingly infinite upgrades to each class you'll get after just _one more run_. (credit: Ghost Ship Games)

Deep Rock Galactic, the grim vision of galactic extractive hypercapitalism that's also a wonderful community and great hang, will soon be 5 years old. The co-op first-person shooter is celebrating by letting you play the game as it launched in preview form in 2018.

Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) is a co-op shooter that's not like other co-op shooters. You and up to three other players choose a class of dwarven miner, enter a procedurally generated section of an insectoid-infested planet, and then shoot, dig, build, fix, collect, and goof your way toward objectives. One moment you're deep into a tough-as-nails, Aliens-esque blitz for survival, and the next you're picking out silly hats and tossing beer steins at a robot barkeep.

Some of Deep Rock Galactic's sales and engagement stats since its early-access release in 2018. (credit: Ghost Ship Games / Steam)

That game and other factors—lower system requirements, a generally friendly and welcoming online community, constant updates, Game Pass availability—have led to DRG selling more than 5.5 million copies by the end of 2022, across all platforms. Its daily active users have nearly tripled since 2019. And its Steam reviews have been 97 percent positive since its launch there.

Enlarge / The job and cost cutting come after a decade of heavy spending in a focus on top-line growth. (credit: FT/Bloomberg)

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft will collectively incur more than $10 billion in charges related to mass redundancies, real estate, and other cost-saving measures, as the Big Tech companies reveal the hefty price they incur to rein in spending.

The US companies that have been implementing the largest job cuts in the tech sector disclosed the high costs related to their restructuring efforts in earnings statements released this week.

The four groups had previously announced 50,000 job cuts to convince Wall Street they were heading into a “year of efficiency,” as Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described it. This trend comes after more than a decade of heavy spending in a focus on aggressive top-line growth.

Enlarge / The job and cost cutting come after a decade of heavy spending in a focus on top-line growth. (credit: FT/Bloomberg)

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft will collectively incur more than $10 billion in charges related to mass redundancies, real estate, and other cost-saving measures, as the Big Tech companies reveal the hefty price they incur to rein in spending.

The US companies that have been implementing the largest job cuts in the tech sector disclosed the high costs related to their restructuring efforts in earnings statements released this week.

The four groups had previously announced 50,000 job cuts to convince Wall Street they were heading into a “year of efficiency,” as Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described it. This trend comes after more than a decade of heavy spending in a focus on aggressive top-line growth.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Searching Google for downloads of popular software has always come with risks, but over the past few months, it has been downright dangerous, according to researchers and a pseudorandom collection of queries.

“Threat researchers are used to seeing a moderate flow of malvertising via Google Ads,” volunteers at Spamhaus wrote on Thursday. “However, over the past few days, researchers have witnessed a massive spike affecting numerous famous brands, with multiple malware being utilized. This is not ‘the norm.’”

One of many new threats: MalVirt

The surge is coming from numerous malware families, including AuroraStealer, IcedID, Meta Stealer, RedLine Stealer, Vidar, Formbook, and XLoader. In the past, these families typically relied on phishing and malicious spam that attached Microsoft Word documents with booby-trapped macros. Over the past month, Google Ads has become the go-to place for criminals to spread their malicious wares that are disguised as legitimate downloads by impersonating brands such as Adobe Reader, Gimp, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Slack, Tor, and Thunderbird.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Searching Google for downloads of popular software has always come with risks, but over the past few months, it has been downright dangerous, according to researchers and a pseudorandom collection of queries.

“Threat researchers are used to seeing a moderate flow of malvertising via Google Ads,” volunteers at Spamhaus wrote on Thursday. “However, over the past few days, researchers have witnessed a massive spike affecting numerous famous brands, with multiple malware being utilized. This is not ‘the norm.’”

One of many new threats: MalVirt

The surge is coming from numerous malware families, including AuroraStealer, IcedID, Meta Stealer, RedLine Stealer, Vidar, Formbook, and XLoader. In the past, these families typically relied on phishing and malicious spam that attached Microsoft Word documents with booby-trapped macros. Over the past month, Google Ads has become the go-to place for criminals to spread their malicious wares that are disguised as legitimate downloads by impersonating brands such as Adobe Reader, Gimp, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Slack, Tor, and Thunderbird.