Month: November 2016

(credit: Megan Geuss)

GoPro may have touted strong Black Friday sales, but the company is still experiencing turmoil. GoPro announced it would cut 15 percent of its workforce, totaling about 200 full-time positions, and close its entertainment unit to reduce 2017 operational costs.

This news comes at the end of a frustrating year for the action cam company. Back in January, GoPro cut seven percent of its workforce in an effort to "better align resources to key growth initiatives." Earlier this month, the company recalled its $799 Karma drone because some of them lost power during operation. Only about 2,500 Karma drones were sold, but GoPro decided to recall all of them for safety reasons and because the number of drones affected by the problem was unknown.

One of the employees departing the company before year's end will be President Tony Bates, who previously worked at Skype and Microsoft. "My time at GoPro has been an incredible experience," Bates wrote in the statement. "In the past three years, GoPro has seen enormous progress in camera technology, software and international growth. Today GoPro has a solid leadership team deeply focused on its core business and profitability."

The No Man's Sky page on Valve's Steam platform didn't mislead customers despite a litany of gripes, the UK's advertising regulator has ruled.

In a comprehensive Advertising Standards Authority ruling responding to 23 complaints made by disgruntled gamers, the regulator concluded that the pictures and videos used to promote the game on its Steam page did represent the sorts of things players might expect to encounter in the game.

Neither Valve, which operates Steam, nor Hello Games, which made the game, are on the hook for any further action.

Enlarge / Super Mario Bros. 3 looks really different than I remember...

When I first heard that Nintendo was porting what is likely my favorite Wii U game to the fully portable Nintendo 3DS, I was excited. When I heard that the 3DS version of Super Mario Maker would severely limit the online sharing functions that helped make the Wii U version so special, I was skeptical. When I actually played the game this week, though, I ended up surprised that the limited level builder also came packed with built-in levels that form one of the most enjoyable 2D Mario experiences in years.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. At its core, level-building base, Super Mario Maker for 3DS is a pretty faithful reconstruction of the Wii U original. Just as in its console cousin, you use a stylus to place blocks, coins, items, enemies, doors, pipes, and all manner of other Mario series staples to create the levels of your dreams. You can still choose between four classic Mario games for core themes (Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros.), each with slightly different physics, items, and moves for Mario to use.

The level-crafting interface feels a tad more cramped on the 3DS' smaller touch screen, but you can temporarily move unnecessary elements off screen to get more real estate to work with. Switching from editing to playing is a tad more annoying on the 3DS, too, since you have to wait for the level to shift from the bottom screen to the wider top screen and back with each switch.

(credit: Ron Amadeo)

Researchers say they've uncovered a family of Android-based malware that has compromised more than 1 million Google accounts, hundreds of them associated with enterprise users.

Gooligan, as researchers from security firm Check Point Software Technologies have dubbed the malware, has been found in at least 86 apps available in third-party marketplaces. Once installed, it uses a process known as rooting to gain highly privileged system access to devices running version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and KitKat) and version 5 (Lollipop) of Google's Android operating system. Together, the vulnerable versions account for about 74 percent of users.

The rooted devices then download and install software that steals the authentication tokens that allow the phones to access the owner's Google-related accounts without having to enter a password. The tokens work for a variety of Google properties, including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite. In a blog post published Wednesday morning, Check Point researchers wrote:

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The number of reported webcam blackmail cases has more than doubled in the past year, and at least four suicides in the UK have been connected to this form of sextortion, says the National Crime Agency.

The NCA's Anti-Kidnap and Extortion unit has seen 864 cases of financially motivated webcam blackmail so far this year, up from 385 for the whole of 2015. The NCA believes the true number is a lot higher, though, due to significant under-reporting. Most victims (95 percent) were men or boys; men between 21 and 30 represent the largest group, but boys between 11 and 20 were also a "substantial portion."

The four sextortion-linked suicides have all been men and boys—and again, that figure could be under-reported.