Technology

Amazon’s top reviewers in the UK appear to have engaged in fraud, leaving thousands of five-star ratings in exchange for money or free products. The company took down 20,000 product reviews following an investigation by the Financial Times. Justin Fryer, the number one Amazon reviewer in the UK, left a five-star rating once every four hours on average in August, according to the FT’s analysis. Many of these reviews were for products from random Chinese companies. Fryer then seems to have resold the products on eBay. a five-star rating once every four hours on average Scams like these typically start on social networks and messaging apps such as Telegram, where companies can meet potential reviewers. Once the connection is made, the reviewer chooses a free product, then waits a few days to ...

Doom is the game that just won’t die, no matter how many times you blast those demons away — and owner Bethesda has seen fit to give the 27-year-old original quite a number of upgrades this year. After adding 60fps support and community-made add-ons in January, the re-released Doom and Doom II are now getting official 16:9 widescreen support as well. According to a Bethesda blog post (via Polygon) the company has actually modified the original Doom renderer to natively provide 16:9 without letterboxing, giving you a wider field of view on the original game instead of big ugly borders or simply stretching out the existing image. The lack of letterbox should be particularly handy for owners of the Nintendo Switch, iPhone and Android versions of the game, since those big borders will no longe...

My wife bought a toy game controller for our baby girl. I couldn’t have been prouder. Our six-month old already loved to drum her feet on my DualShock 4 — a born gamer. So I started absentmindedly fiddling with the so-called “Fisher-Price Game & Learn,” impressed by how many sounds they’d managed to cram into one toy. Then, a funny idea struck me. I started pressing the buttons in that infamous sequence — the one that’s become such a must-have easter egg in the gaming community, it’s worth punching into practically any game to see if developers decided to pay respects. Up. Up. Down. Down. Left. Right. Left. Right. B. A. By the time I got halfway through, I’d convinced myself it was folly. The controller’s audio wasn’t keeping up with my taps. Then, I noticed the last button in the sequ...

I’ve often heard that Shenmue set the standard for a living, breathing open world in video games when it was released on Sega Dreamcast in 1999. It was followed by some of the most highly anticipated video game sequels ever made, and Shenmue III set a record for the most-funded Kickstarter game in 2015. Now, AT&T’s Crunchyroll has announced that Shenmue is getting its own anime series. According to Deadline, it’ll air on Adult Swim’s Toonami in the United States, not just on Crunchyroll itself, and will follow game protagonist Ryo Hazuki in his quest to become a martial artist and avenge his father’s murder. Other than that rough outline, the image above, and the fact that Crunchyroll has ordered 13 episodes, we don’t have much more to share. Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki will have an exec...

Today, the Trump administration released its fifth Space Policy Directive, this one designed to come up with a list of best practices for the space industry on how to protect their spacecraft from cyber threats. The goal is to encourage the government and space industry to create their space vehicles with cybersecurity plans in place, incorporating tools like encryption software and other protections when designing, building, and operating their vehicles. Senior administration officials, speaking on background, claimed that focusing on cybersecurity in space is key right now, as there are growing threats to space hardware from foreign adversaries. “These threats are diverse and complex, and robust public-private cooperation to enhance the security and resilience of an infrastructure is key...

Last year, T-Mobile announced a plan to provide 10 million low-income households free broadband internet to close what then-CEO John Legere called “the homework gap,” pitching it as one of the reasons that the company should be allowed to merge with Sprint. The company has now revealed that it has allocated $10.7 billion for that “Project 10Million” program over the next decade, with the goal of making it available to K-12 students who participate in the national school lunch program for low-income families. “Even before the pandemic, more than 9 million of America’s 56 million school-age kids did not have access to reliable internet, and could not complete after-school assignments,” the company said in a news release, suggesting that existing gap leaves many kids at risk of falling behind...

On Friday, Apple published a new human rights policy committing to “freedom of information and expression” after facing years of criticism over the company’s willingness to follow mainland China’s censorship laws. As first reported by the Financial Times on Friday, Apple’s four-page policy document commits to “respecting the human rights of everyone whose lives we touch — including our employees, suppliers, contractors, and customers.” But it does not cite any particular country, like China, where the company has been asked to ban apps that allow users to circumvent censorship before. According to Apple’s policy document (PDF), this approach is based on the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. “We’re required to comply with local laws” Apple says that it will co...

Following an investigation by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense says it is standing by its decision to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft, not Amazon, the latest in an ongoing legal battle over the lucrative infrastructure project. On Friday, the Department of Defense said in a statement that it had completed its investigation into the awarding of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, an investigation it pursued to determine whether there were discrepancies in the procurement process. The Defense Department said it had “determined that Microsoft’s proposal continues to represent the best value to the Government,” adding that “contract performance will not begin immediately.” That’s because, in February, a judge issued a temporary injuncti...

Marvel’s Avengers is something of a superhero take on the Destiny formula. It’s a game where you can play as your favorite comic book hero, team up with friends for various missions, and uncover lots and lots of loot. You gain new powers and outfits and just generally keep grinding away. I’ve been playing the game for the past week and have hardly experienced any of that — instead, I’ve been focused entirely on the single-player campaign, which is surprisingly great. The premise is, admittedly, somewhat generic. Five years after a tragedy that infected some of the population of San Francisco with superpowers, so-called inhumans are essentially outlawed, and the Avengers themselves have disbanded, viewed as a danger to society. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are in hiding and have grown gnarly...

Removing Chinese equipment will cost small carriers as much as $1.8 billion, according to a new report from the Federal Communications Commission. The report estimates that as much as $1.6 billion of the cost would be eligible for federal reimbursement — but Congress has yet to appropriate the necessary funds. Significant national security concerns have been raised about the use of Huawei and ZTE equipment in US networks — but many small carriers are still struggling with the cost of replacing it. In one instance, Eastern Oregon Telecom told The Verge that replacing the $500,000 of Huawei equipment was likely to cost as much as $1.5 million — a cost too high for the small carrier to shoulder on its own. Today’s report makes clear that story is all too common among US providers. “I once aga...

For the past few weeks, a new influencer has steadily grown in popularity. She has long pink hair, posts about her cat Bao and her clueless dad, has lots of fan art, and frequently retweets pieces of music that she loves. Her Instagram bio reads: “aspiring songwriter, professional feeling catcher.” Oh, and she also isn’t real. Seraphine is a virtual influencer, though as her growing fan base quickly noticed, there’s something different about her. Her posts are filled with League of Legends easter eggs, and she released an acoustic cover of “Pop/Stars,” the 2018 League anthem from the virtual K-pop group K/DA. Now League developer Riot has confirmed that it’s behind the character. In a statement, Riot says: Seraphine is a digital influencer and artist in association with Riot Games. As a vi...

Some Facebook users have recently noticed that they can now watch their Instagram stories right from within the main social network app. Facebook has long allowed (and encouraged) cross-posting of Instagram stories to Facebook to help build momentum for its own version of the format — but a new test brings Instagram stories right into Facebook for direct viewing. You’ll know whether you’re looking at a Facebook or Instagram story based on what color encircles the profile photo; Facebook stories have blue circles, and Instagram’s have the same pink/orange hues of the app icon. Image: ec_wife (Twitter) Facebook is being very clear that nothing about who can see your stories is changing; only your Instagram followers who’ve linked their Facebook account — and who can already see your stories ...