March 8, 2019 - The WAN Show Document

[LinusTech]

 

Main News Topics

TechDeals RTX 2060 Giveaway

Source 1:

Source 2:

 

Linus,

 

I don't suppose I could talk you into retweeting this one?

 

https://twitter.com/TechDeals_16/status/1101259812011196416

 

Giving away 4 RTX 2060 GPUs, early access for Floatplane subs!

 

Right now I've got 6 videos up that are early access, hope all is going well on your end!

 

Steam won’t distribute Rape Day

Source 1: https://www.cnet.com/news/rape-day-developer-might-agree-game-doesnt-belong-on-steam-valve/

Source 2: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240304050758

Source 3: https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082

 

• Steam won't distribute a game called Rape Day following mounting outrage calling on Valve to ban it.

  • a Change.org petition asking Steam to remove the game received almost 8,000 supporters.

    • "We need to let reviewers know that a game centered on raping and killing women is unacceptable and cannot hit the market,"  

  • The game was scheduled for release on the Steam Direct distribution channel in April.

• The game, by Desk Plant, "is a visual novel where you control the choices of a sociopath during a zombie apocalypse," according to the developer's website.

  • "You can verbally harass, kill people and rape women as you choose to progress the story."  

• After a game called Active Shooter debuted on Steam last year, the company posted an explanation of their decision to allow any games to be put on the platform as long as they were legal

  • They described a new system of tags and filters that either hide or put speed bumps between users and content they consider too gory or violent, too sexual or generally too mature.  

• However, Steam decided not to distribute Rape Day, saying the move comes "after significant fact-finding and discussion."

  • “we think 'Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam

  • "We respect developers' desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience,"

  • "but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that."

• In an email Wednesday night, Rape Day's developer acknowledged Steam might not be the best platform for the game.

  • "I think I might agree with Steam that my game is not the right fit for a distribution site that is marketed at the general masses and children,"

  • "My next move is to sell the game on my own site. Maybe that would have been a better move for me from the start."

 

Spoiler Alert

Source 1: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/05/new-spoiler-vulnerability-in-all-intel-core-processors-exposed-by-researchers

Source 2: https://www.techradar.com/news/spoiler-flaw-in-intel-cpus-is-similar-to-spectre-yet-dangerously-different

 

• A new vulnerability dubbed "Spoiler" is able to determine how virtual and physical memory is related to each other by measuring the timing of speculative load and store operations performed by the processor.

  • By spotting discrepancies in the timing, it is possible for an attacker to determine the memory layout, and in turn know which areas to attack.

  • "The root cause of the issue is that the memory operations execute speculatively and the processor resolves the dependency when the full physical address bits are available,"

• It is believed the technique could make existing cache and "Rowhammer" attacks easier to perform, while at the same time enabling attacks using JavaScript to take seconds to complete, rather than weeks.

• "There is no software mitigation that can completely erase this problem," according to the researchers. While the chip architecture could be fixed, it would considerably cut into the chip's performance.

• Intel was advised about the vulnerability on December 1, 2018, and was disclosed to the public after a typical 90-day grace period.

• As it is an issue that affects all Intel Core processors from the first generation onwards to the most recent releases, regardless of operating system, it is almost certain that all Macs are susceptible to attacks that take advantage of the vulnerability.

  • ARM and AMD processor cores do not exhibit the same behavior

 

What’s Coming Out on Floatplane? Go Over Current Week.

Rapid Fire

Thunderbolt 3 becomes USB4?

Source 1: WelshDdraig https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1040671-intel-decides-to-contribute-its-thunderbolt-3-standard-to-the-usb-promoter-group-will-this-be-the-new-usb-4/

Source 2: https://www.overclock3d.net/news/input_devices/thunderbolt_3_becomes_usb4_-_intel_contributes_thunderbolt_3_to_create_usb4_specification/1

 

• The USB Promoter Group has revealed its USB4 specification which, thanks to the contribution of Intel's Thunderbolt standard, will offer 40 Gbps of bandwidth, a 2x improvement over the recently announced USB 3.2 Gen 2X2.

• Intel has handed over Thunberbolt 3.0 to the USB Promoter group, effectively allowing Thunderbolt 3 to become the next iteration of USB, while also maintaining full backwards compatibility with USB 3.2, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3.

• Why would Intel do this?

  • Starting with Ice Lake, Intel plans to integrate Thunderbolt 3.0 directly onto their processor.

  • This will likely make them the first to support USB4, a factor which will place AMD at a disadvantage until they can offer USB4 support in their devices.

• In a single move, Intel has ensured that their Thunderbolt standard

  • will be adopted by every major manufacturer,

  • while also giving them a clear advantage when it comes to implementing USB4 support.

• Thanks to Thunderbolt much of the software/hardware ecosystem for USB4 has already been built

  • The USB4 specification will be published in the middle of 2019,

  • This will launch alongside an updated USB Type-C specification, which will accommodate the changes that are brought in by USB4 and the standard's updated power requirements.

  • USB claims that over 50 companies are actively working on the draft specification.

 

‘Anthem’ bug “bricks” PS4s

Source 1: Sovek https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1040646-anthem-on-ps4-and-xbox-causing-hard-crashes-reports-of-bricking/

Source 2: https://kotaku.com/anthem-players-say-the-game-is-shutting-down-and-even-s-1833039161

Source 3: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/anthem-ps4-brick-fix,news-29563.html

 

• Some PlayStation 4 players of BioWare’s new loot shooter, Anthem, are finding that the game occasionally completely powers-down their console..

  • “When encountering a crash or game error, sometimes I get booted to the main menu or out of the game completely to the PS4 dashboard,”

  • “But twice now when trying to matchmake my PS4 has completely turned off.”

• After powering down, the PS4 treats it as an improper shut off, as if the power cord had been pulled.

  • “It is the same as if someone pulled the plug without properly shutting the hardware down or if the power went out in the house. Sometimes the button on the front of the console works, other times I have to unplug the console then plug it back in.”

  • On startup the console goes through a short process of checking the internal database for any issues before turning back off again and then restarting as normal.

• At least 2 players have claimed the game bricked their console, but at least one of the users was able to turn their machine on again by starting in Safe mode

  • On wednesday, Bioware tweeted “After thorough review, we have not encountered an instance where Anthem has “bricked” a PS4 console.”

 

• It’s unclear if the shutdown problem is indeed heating related or caused by something else.

  • Bioware has said they will be publishing an update next week to address the major causes of these problems.

• A few people on Reddit claim to have gotten their money back, while others said they were unsuccessful.

 

LTX 2019

• July 27th and 28th, 2019

• 11am to 6pm each day

• Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver BC, Canada

• MSI will have a booth there, and Linus will be doing a panel with someone from the company, talking about the computer hardware industry

• LG and Seasonic will be sponsoring our 10 years of gaming pcs booth

  • We’ll be making multiple videos about this project, so stay tuned

• Blog Posts - Ticket Sales https://www.ltxexpo.com/updates/2019/3/8/state-of-ticket-sales

  • We’re working on getting more BYOC tickets

• If you want to volunteer for the event, please fill out the form below our announcement video or send us an email through ltx expo dot com. Us and DreamHack need quite a few this year.

 

Nintendo asks devs to relax In-App Purchases

Source 1: LukeSavenije https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1041936-nintendo-asking-partner-phone-developers-to-avoid-gouging-gamers-on-in-app-purchases/

Source 2: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/nintendo-to-smartphone-game-makers-you-can-only-gouge-our-players-so-much/

 

• CyberAgent Inc, maker of the Nintendo-published Dragalia Lost has blamed a 20% in revenue expectations on Nintendo’s response to players' complaints about Dragalia's loot box economy by asking the developer to "adjust the game" to reduce how much a player might spend in the game to progress normally.

  • “Nintendo is not interested in making a large amount of revenue from a single smartphone game,”

  • “If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more.”

• Nintendo's revenue goals for its entire smartphone-gaming sector are considered modest compared to other large Japanese publishers.

  • Nintendo is as a cash-heavy company,

  • its smartphone games are positioned less to make oodles of cash and more to raise awareness of Nintendo's IP

    • which Nintendo will soon leverage with theme park attractions and a feature-length film.

[AirSocial]

Cool

[Shiva96]

loved to hear that Scrapyard Wars are Back Really Enjoyed it

@LinusTech 

What you said about ShareHolders is Spot on i plan on Starting my own Company and The Advice that i get more often is try to avoid Share Holders because they will make you forget who you are for the sake of Profits, and Also a vast majority of them would have no clue about what they have invested into and dont Understand how it works.

 

So feeling Inspired by the talk on Wan Show.....

The Brain Can be a Manipulative piece of shit while the Heart is Always Honest and True

 

[Theguywhobea]

Hey @LinusTech I really enjoyed listening to your insight on the business this evening

[poochyena]

Linus said exactly what I felt about that game rape day. How can it be any worse than any other violent game?

[DaiGurenMK42]

I like the TL idea. Solid plan to be different than TQs and provide some sort of Tech Journalism BY Tech people.

[ahuckphin]

pod cast link? I really appreciate the recent change from soundcloud to libsyn apart from the lack of consistency. Can you please ensure the pod cast link is not TBD and actually posted in the description. Thanks 

[Freeman]

Thank you for posting the doc .