Monthly Archives: September 2019
$240,000 Stolen in World’s First ‘Artificial Intelligence Heist’
Thieves stole over $240,000 by using voice-mimicking software to trick a company’s employee. The thieves used an AI voice deepfake of a company executive to get the employee to wire money to an offsite account in what researchers say is the first publicly reported AI heist.
If you haven’t heard by now, AI technology like deepfakes are able to accurately mimic or copy the likeness and sound of real people. This is what happened to one company’s managing director who received a call from someone he believed was his superior. The superior’s voice told the employee to wire the money to a Hungarian bank account to avoid “late-payment fines.”
According to the company’s insurer Euler Hermes, who detailed the events of the heist to The Washington Post, the AI-altered voice “was able to imitate the voice, and not only the voice: the tonality, the punctuation, the German accent,” of the company superior. The heist was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Fans Lost It Over Sans Being Announced as a Smash Ultimate Mii Fighter
Following yesterday's 40-minute Nintendo Direct extravaganza, Nintendo revealed that five new Mii Fighter costumes were coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - but only one stole the hearts and attention spans of fans across the internet: Sans from Undertale.
Sans is a wisecracking, fatalist, lazy skeleton with a penchant for fighting, and fans have been requesting he be added to Smash Ultimate as a fighter for quite some time (though judging by fan reactions, nobody thought it would actually happen). While Sans isn't an original fighter, his Mii Gunner outfit is pretty darn faithful to his character, complete with his dimpled smile, skull Gaster Blaster, and comfy pink slippers.
Reprisal Creator Josh Corbin Talks Tarantino Influences and Resident Evil 2
All September long, IGN is highlighting the best TV coming your way in the 2019-2020 season. Today, we're delving into the world of Hulu's Reprisal, created by Josh Corbin. The series centers on a relentless femme fatale who, after being left for dead, leads a vengeful campaign against a bombastic gang of gearheads. Reprisal features the acting talents of Abigail Spencer (Timeless), Rodrigo Santoro (300), and Mena Massoud (Aladdin). The series premieres on Hulu on Friday, December 6, 2019.
IGN spoke to Reprisal's creator, Josh Corbin, who has been working on this particular project "for the better part of 10 years." Abigail Spencer stars as femme fatale Doris Quinn, a woman hell-bent on revenge after being left for dead. At a time when adaptations and reboots are commonplace, Corbin is attempting to create something unique for Hulu.
Become an Avenger in Marvel’s Dimension of Heroes AR Game
For the last few years, the Lenovo Mirage Augmented Reality headset has been the best way to experience lightsaber battles with the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges game. This year, the Lenovo Mirage AR will let you explore another universe that’s closer to home and from a time not too long ago with Marvel Dimension of Heroes.
For those hearing about the Mirage AR headset for the first time, it’s basically Lenovo’s version of the Samsung Gear VR. You can slot almost any iPhone or Android phone into the headset and it'll project the characters into your eyes using a one-way mirror. The experience doesn't have you dive completely into a virtual reality world, rather this experience places digital characters in your living room, backyard, airport or anywhere you decide you want to play.
Days Gone Gets New Game Plus Mode Next Week, Adds New Syphon Filter Gun
PlayStation 4 exclusive title Days Gone will be getting a free update that includes New Game Plus mode on September 13 and at least one gun and Bike skin from Syphon Filter.
Announced by Days Gone's game director Jeff Ross from Bend Studio, this New Game Plus mode will allow players to replay Days Gone with "the advantage of previously earned weapons, bike upgrades, NERO boosters, skills, recipes, encampment trust and credits, collectibles, and trophy progress unlocked from the beginning."
New Game Plus can be activated on any save file that has the "I'm Never Giving Up" storyline completed and any difficulty level can also be used, including the newest Hard II and Survival II difficulties.
Chernobylite Hands-On: Inside the Exclusion Zone… and Beyond
Unlike the phenomenal HBO miniseries that recreated the horrific events of 1986 with gripping realism, Chernobylite uses one of humankind's greatest catastrophes as a stepping off point for a survival horror experience with a distinctly supernatural slant. After having around an hour of hands-on time with a pre-alpha build of the game, I’m certainly intrigued to see more of this stealth-driven shooter that derives just as much dread from the nervous crackling of its Geiger counter as it does from its HR Giger-esque enemies.
Set 30 years after the disaster, Chernobylite puts you in the shoes of Igor,a physicist formerly employed at the Chernobyl nuclear plant who returns to the disaster zone in search of his missing wife, Tatyana. The opening of my hands-on demo had Igor infiltrating the bowels of the facility in order to extract a piece of chernobylite, a product of the nuclear accident that in the words of Igor, “creates transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum”. For those of us who aren’t Stephen Hawking, that means the chernobylite is able to power Igor’s portal gun in order to teleport between areas via a singularity bubble. In my demo the use of this portal gun seemed to be restricted to returning Igor back to his base after completing a mission, but theoretically it could have time travel or transdimensional uses later on in the game.
Doctor Sleep: How Involved Was Stephen King With the Shining Movie Sequel?
It would be difficult to accurately describe the way it felt to turn the corner of an otherwise nondescript backlot building in Atlanta, Georgia and suddenly find myself standing in the Colorado Lounge of the Overlook Hotel. It would have almost felt like trespassing -- like gawking at something we were never meant to see -- had director Mike Flanagan not been there, beaming ear-to-ear as he ushered invited press into the heart of his latest project: Doctor Sleep, a successor to The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.
Doctor Sleep was always destined to be a complicated thing, considering the legacy that surrounds its predecessor, but the looming shadow of both Kubrick and King is not something Flanagan had any interest in trying to dodge or duck around. Instead, he welcomed the challenge -- even though the idea was "scarier in practice than it was in concept."
The TCL Plex is the Company’s First Officially Branded Smartphone
TCL is best known for making some of the Industry’s best looking and affordable 4K TVs, but at IFA 2019 the company has announced it’s getting into smartphones.
Meet the TCL Plex, a 6.53-inch Android phone that is—just like the company’s televisions—heavily focused on giving you the best viewing experience possible for a bargain €329 (about $360) price.
Dubbed the TCL Dotch display, it’s an almost completely bezel-less screen serving up a 90% screen-to-body ratio. The only bit of black border you can see is the small bottom chin and the punch hole camera—get it, notch plus dot equals Dotch.
Sonos Finally Introduces its First Bluetooth Speaker
Sonos is finally giving us what we all wanted: a Bluetooth speaker.
Meet the Sonos Move, the company’s first Bluetooth, Outdoor, and Portable speaker.
Previously, the Play One was the closest thing you could get to pairing your phone with a Sonos speaker, but it was really a matter of Bluetooth pairing to a Connect to stream music over Wi-Fi. With the Move, you’ll be able to pair it directly to your mobile device with Bluetooth—version 4.2 to be specific. That said, the Move also comes with Wi-Fi connectivity and the ability to work with other Sonos speakers using the Connect.
The Move also boasts one of Sonos’ other best signature features: Automatic True Play, which means the speaker can analyze the music it’s playing and listen to how sound is reflecting off the walls, furniture, trees, or other objects to tune itself for the best audio experience. The speaker will spot check itself every 60 seconds and adjust its equalizer settings accordingly, so you don’t have to worry about keeping the speaker in one place all the time.
LEGO’s New Imperial Star Destroyer Is the 3rd Largest Star Wars Set of All Time
The largest-ever LEGO set based on a Galactic Empire ship, and the third-largest LEGO Star Wars set yet, can be a part of your collection at the end of this month. The 4,784-piece 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer hits retailers October 1, but LEGO VIP members can claim theirs on September 18.
The massive Ultimate Collector Series Imperial Star Destroyer measures a jaw-dropping 17-inches high, 26-inches wide and 43-inches long. It's based on the Star Destroyer we see at the very beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope, and even includes "an attachable, buildable scale version Tantive IV starship" the Empire is pursuing at the opening of the movie.