2021 is the year of what animal

Facepalm: One might imagine that with so many individuals caught smuggling hardware into China, people would decide it just wasn't worth the risk. But no. Not only has another person tried to avoid paying import taxes, but they also broke the record for the number of China-bound processors strapped to their body: an uncomfortable 239 CPUs, worth around $50,000. MyDrivers reports that the incident took place a few days ago. As is often the case, the smuggler made his way through the 'nothing to declare' lane at customs. But officials at Gongbei Port noticed he was wearing black baggy clothes. Nothing unusual there, you might think, but his appearance was said to be bloated and abnormal, which is usually a sign something is wrong. The man was taken aside by port authorities for further inspection. It was discovered that he had used the old, and rarely successful, technique of strapping computer hardware to his body. A massive 239 processors were wrapped in bags and taped to his … [Read more...] about Smuggler tries to sneak 239 CPUs past Chinese customs by strapping them to his body

You can turn your Meta Quest 2 (formerly Oculus Quest 2) into “an almost-native Steam VR headset” that should also improve your VR performance thanks to an open-source tool. This free-to-download program is available on GitHub and was created by ItsKaitlyn03 (opens in new tab) late last year (via UploadVR (opens in new tab) ). This software engineer is an active member of the Oculus community and was the same person who discovered the Oculus code that referenced the Air Bridge a month ago. Their tool is called OculusKiller (opens in new tab) and it effectively “kills” the Oculus Dash function of the Oculus PC app and auto-launches Steam VR. If you only even play PC VR games from Steam - titles like Half-Life Alyx - then OculusKiller will make it way easier to load up these games quickly. What’s more, ItsKaitlyn03 found that removing Oculus Dash will save you around “200 MB of memory + GPU” which it eats up even when it’s not in use. This should mean … [Read more...] about Playing Steam VR games is now way easier with this free Meta Quest 2 tool

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is again demanding that Hollywood stop using live animals after a horse died on the set of the nearly billion-dollar Amazon series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power . The animal died on March 21 after suffering a cardiac arrest during rehearsals of the fantasy show’s second season on set in the United Kingdom, according to Variety . PETA used the death to push its agenda and called for an immediate end to the entertainment industry’s use of live animals. “It seems that living underground with the orcs is par for the course for the producers of ‘The Rings of Power,’ because they have the option to use CGI, mechanical rigs and other humane methods that wouldn’t run vulnerable horses to death on set,” PETA said in a statement. “PETA is calling on the show’s creators — and all other producers — to take on a new quest without using any real horses. If they can’t avoid exploiting animals for their art, they should … [Read more...] about PETA Outraged After Horse Dies on ‘Rings of Power’ Set

Two men who were caught stuffing fish with lead weights to win an Ohio fishing tournament weigh-in last year have now pleaded guilty to charges of cheating. Pennsylvania fisherman Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyon from Ohio initially won the Lake Erie Walleye Trail Championship in Cleveland, Ohio’s Gordon Park on Sept. 30 and were awarded a $5,000 prize. But tournament director Jason Fischer was suspicious over the weigh-in results and confronted the pair and sliced into the catch. Once he sliced open Cominsky and Runyon’s catch, Fischer discovered that the men had stuffed the fish with lead weights and walleye fillets to make them heavier and to give them the advantage during the tournament weigh-in. The pair initially pleaded not guilty last Oct., but it appears that defense has been dropped. According to CBS News , the pair have now pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal. Runyan and Cominsky pleaded guilty to cheating and unlawful ownership of wild animals. They … [Read more...] about Men Caught Stuffing Fish with Lead Weights During Ohio Fishing Tournament Plead Guilty

In context: While gamers are patiently waiting for further details about the recently announced Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, Elden Ring developer FromSoftware has just released a new patch bringing ray tracing effects and many balance adjustments to its award-winning action-RPG. The much-awaited ray tracing update for Elden Ring is finally here, as Japanese developer FromSoftware has released patch 1.09 on all supported platforms. The new lighting effects are only available on recent gaming consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X) and PC, FromSoftware said, and users can expect a significant impact on the game's performance as support for upscaling algorithms isn't available yet. The new ray tracing feature can be enabled in the Settings menu, and early tests are confirming that the performance impact is indeed pretty noticeable. Despite the steep FPS drop, ray tracing illumination seems to be very limited (with no ray traced reflections ) while the overall effect on graphics … [Read more...] about New Elden Ring patch introduces ray tracing and more

Leaving a database exposed online without a password can be extremely damaging for both businesses and their customers. Despite this risk, a new report (opens in new tab) from NordPass (opens in new tab) has identified a total of 9,517 unsecured databases containing more than 10bn entries filled with data such as emails, passwords and phone numbers. To conduct its research, the company behind the new password manager partnered with a white hat hacker who scanned Elasticsearch and MongoDB libraries between June of last year and this year looking for exposed, unprotected databases. The exposed databases were found across 20 different countries with China, the US and India at the top of the list. China had nearly 4,000 exposed databases with 2.6bn entries, the US had 2,703 with 2.4bn entries and India had just 520 with 4.8m entries. We've put together a list of the best business password management software Create strong passwords easily with the best … [Read more...] about These countries have the most exposed databases online

Unsecured databases exposed on the public web are once again being targeted but this time they're falling victim to automated 'meow' attacks that wipe their data without any explanation or even a ransom note. This new wave of attacks began recently and both Elasticsearch and MongoDB instances are being targeted by an unknown attacker. Security researchers have responded accordingly and they're now on the lookout for exposed databases so that they can warn their owners before they become 'meowed'. The Hong Kong-based VPN provider UFO VPN is the most recent example of a company whose Elasticsearch database was hit by a meow attack. Comparitech's Bob Diachenko first discovered the unsecured database at the beginning of July and warned the company about it. We've put together a list of the best database design software These are the best cloud databases on the market Stay protected online with the best antivirus software UFO VPN then took steps to secure … [Read more...] about Watch out – your unsecured database might be about to get ‘meowed’

The latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence could lead to the automation of a quarter of the work done in the US and eurozone, according to research by Goldman Sachs. The investment bank said on Monday that “generative” AI systems such as ChatGPT, which can create content that is indistinguishable from human output, could spark a productivity boom that would eventually raise annual global gross domestic product by 7 percent over a 10-year period. But if the technology lived up to its promise, it would also bring “significant disruption” to the labor market, exposing the equivalent of 300 million full-time workers across big economies to automation, according to Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani, the paper’s authors. Lawyers and administrative staff would be among those at greatest risk of becoming redundant. They calculate that roughly two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe are exposed to some degree of AI automation, based on data on the tasks typically performed in … [Read more...] about Generative AI set to affect 300 million jobs across major economies

There are essentially three areas in the world where clusters of private companies have started to develop small launch vehicles. The first such cluster emerged in the United States nearly two decades ago with SpaceX, which was then followed by Rocket Lab and about a dozen other serious companies. Next came China, with a profusion of quasi-private companies leveraging technology from the country's state-owned launch enterprises with private funding. The final region that has emerged in the last five years is in Europe. This European small launcher race has essentially followed a US model, with venture capital and investors backing a number of privately led efforts to develop commercially viable small satellite launchers. Much of this activity has been clustered in Germany and Great Britain, but Spanish and French companies are also in play. Because none of the dozen or so European companies have actually attempted an orbital launch attempt yet, it can be difficult to tell who is … [Read more...] about A front-runner emerges in the European small launcher race

Further Reading Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel gets official name, May 2023 release date For a major game that was first announced nearly four years ago and is set to launch in less than two months , we've seen remarkably little gameplay footage from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom beyond some very sparse trailers . Nintendo set out to partially fix that today, releasing a new video in which Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma showed off some of Link's new abilities in a guided 10-minute gameplay presentation. The most impactful new ability on display was called "Fuse," which lets Link put together two disparate objects to create a new one with a brand-new effect. In the simplest example of this, Aonuma fused together a basic tree branch (which breaks incredibly easily even during simple fights) with a rock, creating a makeshift hammer with a lot more power and durability. Unlike in Breath of the Wild , where Link had to hunt for the most powerful weapons, the … [Read more...] about lets you make weapons, rafts, and more from component parts