Latest Tech News

The Pokémon Company says it is "actively working on ways" to restock its Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum collection after scalpers promptly cleaned out the limited edition items.

Citing "overwhelming demand", the company apologized for disappointing fans who had missed out and said it would let them know about restock options "at a later day".

"We apologize for all the fans eagerly awaiting our Pokémon Center x Van Gogh Museum release today," the company said across its social media channels.

"Due to overwhelming demand, all our products from this collection have sold out. We understand this is disappointing to many who were looking to our official email and social media channels for guidance on how and when to purchase.

"We are actively working on ways to provide more Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promo cards for fans shopping at Pokémon Center in the future. Details will be released at a later date."

Official statement regarding today from r/PokemonTCG

The statement is not enough to assuage the disappointment for some, however, not least because dozens of the free promo cards some purchasers received are already on eBay, asking hundreds of dollars for what was a pro bono item. 

"This is complete utter bullsh*t," said one particularly irate fan. "I spent 36 hours and ended up with a bunch of error codes and it telling me to remove the item. I can't f*cking stand the way this has went.

"Three different times… I had an item in my cart…

"Yesterday, the Sunflora canvas got lucky on refreshing, this morning the Eevee figure from a link on Twitter, then the moment the store opened up today. I tried like 5 times to get the pins in my cart, it refused. I ended up trying for the journal. After I start to fill out shipping information it loads me to the cart and says I need to remove OOS items to finish. I do that, go back to the store just to find nothing.

"What a sh*t show."

The Pokémon Company didn't say when it hoped to restock the promotional items, only that it would release more details "at a later date".

On the subject of card games – did you know that a Toronto retail worker sold a rare Magic: The Gathering card to musician Post Malone for $2 million?

Brook Trafton – who realized his "childhood dream" when he discovered the rare card earlier this year – parted with his prized collectable after what he'd thought was a standard meet and greet with Post Malone turned into an "unexpected" sale.

After hiring a lawyer and a public relations firm, Trafton was contacted by representatives of Post Malone who said he wanted to meet him and see the card for himself. 

"He's like: 'Yes, I will take this card'. It was so magical. I'm not going to lie. I cried a little bit. I cried a lot."

As for what's so special about this particular card? Hailing from Magic: The Gathering's Lord of the Rings set, the "One Ring" card is completely one-of-a-kind, making it one of the game's rarest finds, particularly as it was discovered in perfect mint condition, too.

Find out more about Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield's new game studio. 

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Latest Tech News

Google’s next Pixel event is less than a week away, and yet new details about the device keep leaking. This time, we’ve learned that the wearable will be gaining the Body Responses feature seen previously on the Fitbit Sense 2.

This batch of information comes from industry insider Evan Blass on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). The watch face will display how your body reacts to stress at certain times of the day, according to the images he posted. Each time period will be accentuated with an emoji making a face befitting the mood. For example, a user might feel particularly stressed out at 11 am, feel fine at noon, then feel a little off at 1 pm. 9To5Google points out this is better than what the Fitbit Sense 2 has because the user interface is cleaner than before and a lot “easier to understand at a glance.” 

 What’s particularly interesting is this indicates the Pixel Watch 2 may have an “electrodermal activity sensor”, EDA for short, which is something the original model doesn’t have. This technology works by measuring certain factors like the amount of sweat produced when stressed and the temperature of your skin.

pic.twitter.com/SvxmBjtkIvSeptember 29, 2023

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And as you can see in the post above, you can replace the plastic band with a fancy-looking metallic one for that extra pizazz.

The last picture Blass posted is of the “new interface for Fitbit workouts”. The UI has a heart rate meter on the side made up of segmented pieces. A “target zone” indicating where your heart rate should be at will be highlighted. Next to the meter is a more detailed read out displaying the BPM (beats per minute) plus how long you’ve spent in the target zone. 

There is seemingly more to the interface because there are pagination dots at the bottom, but this single screen is all we see. Fortunately, there are clues. Another 9to5Google report claims the UI will have “Pace Training” on the screen as well as “automatic start and stop reminders for workouts”.  

Colorful array

In addition to the feature leak, German tech news site WinFuture had its own showcasing four colors the Pixel Watch 2 may come in. Official names for these shades aren't given, but just by looking at them, we can see the wearable will be available in black, white, gray, and a baby blue. It's unknown if the metallic band mentioned earlier will have its own set of colors.

Of course, take these leaks with a grain of salt. Things can always change at the last minute. Either way, we won’t have to wait long as the Pixel event will be held on October 4.

Until then, check out TechRadar’s list of the best Android smartwatch for 2023.  

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Latest Tech News

Elon Musk has made drastic cuts to the 'election integrity team' at X (formerly Twitter), a department that was responsible for combating the spread of misinformation online, and also scrapped a feature that lets users self-report false political statements.

The announcement was made just weeks after the platform said it had plans to expand its safety teams, ahead of next year’s US presidential election. Musk took to X to announce that the team had been disbanded via a typically blunt statement.

Following the team cuts, a feature that allows users to report misinformation has also been removed from the X platform.

Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.September 27, 2023

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Musk acquired the platform last year for $44 billion, and his latest move raises fresh concerns about X’s ability to manage information and content surrounding important political events.

It follows a European Commission study published by TrustLab, which revealed that X has the highest ratio of misinformation spread across its content. The study analyzed content across six social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and X – that appeared in Poland, Slovakia, and Spain. 

The cuts to X’s election integrity team saw more than half of the global team laid off. It’s uncertain how many people remain on the team. This includes the department based in Ireland where X’s Co-lead of 'threat disruption', Aaron Rodericks, was based.

(Image credit: Future)

Recently, X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino had told The Financial Times that the platform was “expanding the safety and election teams all around the world to focus on combating things like manipulation, surfacing of inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for any emerging threats”.

This came after Elon Musk suggested in a live-streamed interview that X could start charging all users "a small monthly payment" to use the app, beyond the existing Twitter Blue.

The feature that allowed users to report fake news on the platform has been absent since the release of the study. It was noticed by Reset Australia, an organization that campaigns for democracy in digital media, which addressed concerns in an open letter to X.

You can still report X posts that you consider to be spam and hateful; however, there’s currently no option to report electoral misinformation. In the build-up to the US Presidential election, other companies, including Google, have implemented plans to safeguard electoral information online, most recently in its move to eradicate AI deepfakes during the presidential race by enforcing AI transparency policies.

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Latest Tech News

One of the most important factors when looking for a new laptop is battery life. Given power and performance is getting better with every generation, it might even be the most important.  At the premium end of the market, high-end devices can be extremely versatile and powerful, but this usually comes at the cost of battery life, which can be a real inhibitor in the hybrid working age. 

Enter the Surface Laptop Studio 2, announced at the recent Microsoft Surface Event 2023, which marks a watershed moment for Windows machines. From every angle, it looks the real deal. A 13th-Gen Intel Core CPU is paired with an 80W Nvidia GeForce RTX4060 GPU, with the machine also boasting up to 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD.

Starting from $1,999.99, this device isn’t just comparable to the best laptops out there, but it can even give Apple’s MacBook Pro a run for its money – based on the manufacturer’s claims.

Do claims around the Surface Laptop Studio 2 really stack up?

Few Windows devices can outpace the MacBook Pro on performance, let alone meet or exceed its battery life, thanks to the in-house M-series CPUs, like the M2 Ultra, Apple fits into them. 

But not only does the Surface Laptop Studio 2 claim to outpace the latest MacBook Pro, it also has a staggering 18 hours maximum battery life, which Microsoft attained in controlled demos. 

The MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) lasts more than 19 hours on a single charge, by way of comparison.

This is a game changer: at last, a powerful high-end, possibly MacBook Pro killer, that can deliver high-end performance for close to a full day of usage. Or, at least, that’s what I thought until I read the find print.

Digging deeper, it seems thes “controlled demos” are more akin to a light jog than anywhere near the strenuous typical day-to-day activity any user would naturally put the Surface Laptop Studio 2 under.

Microsoft achieved this battery lifespan by employing a few tricks, including running the device at low brightness and “a portion of time with the device in use with idle applications”.

We cannot, with confidence, claim the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 has an 18-hour battery life, or anywhere close it, without putting the machine to the test ourselves. 

Microsoft’s “controlled” conditions aren’t reflective of typical day-to-day usage, but we’ll be sure to verify this as soon as we can. Because, on paper at least, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 could well be a major entry into the premium market. Whether this works out in practice remains to be seen.

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The infamous Xenomorph Android malware is back with new tools, and ready to steal more than just money from unsuspecting victims, experts have warned.

Cybersecurity researchers ThreatFabric, which has been monitoring the malware since early 2022, there is a new campaign active at the moment, targeting victims in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium.

The infection chain is similar to what we’ve seen from Xenomorph in the past - the attackers set up phishing pages, “warning” victims that their Chrome browser needs to be updated and then delivering the malicious APK to the endpoint. 

New distribution mechanism

Those that take the bait and install the APK will get an advanced version of Xenomorph, capable of stealing money from numerous banks, as well as cryptocurrencies from different wallets.

The malware does so by overlaying legitimate apps, and this time around, Xenomorph comes with approximately a hundred different overlays. The app chooses the right overlay, depending on the target demographic.

"This latest campaign also added plenty of financial institutions from the United States, together with multiple crypto-wallet applications, totaling more than 100 different targets per sample, each one using a specifically crafted overlay to steal precious PII from the victim's infected device," the researchers said in their technical writeup.

Xenomorph has endured countless changes throughout the years. The latest version comes with a couple of new features, including a way to mimic legitimate apps, simulating a tap on the screen, and making sure the smartphone doesn’t switch its screen off by keeping active notifications on at times. 

The malware was first discovered in early 2022 when it was observed targeting users of 56 banks in Europe. Back then, it was being distributed via Google Play, and was downloaded more than 50,000 times. Since then, it was removed from Google’s repository and deployed via a dropper called “BugDrop”.

Via BleepingComputer

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