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Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is buying "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) for $68.7 billion in the biggest gaming industry deal in history as global technology giants stake their claims to a virtual future.

The deal announced by Microsoft on Tuesday, its biggest-ever and set to be the largest all-cash acquisition on record, will bolster its firepower in the booming videogaming market where it takes on leaders Tencent (0700.HK) and Sony (6758.T).

It also represents the American multinational's bet on the "metaverse," virtual online worlds where people can work, play and socialize, as many of its biggest competitors are already doing.

"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella said.

Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world largely thanks to corporate software such as its Azure cloud computing platform and Outlook franchise, is offering $95 per share - a 45% premium to Activision's Friday close.

Activision's shares were last up 26% at $82.10, still a steep discount to the offer price, reflecting concerns the deal could get stuck in regulators' crosshairs.

Microsoft has so far avoided the type of scrutiny faced by Google and Facebook but this deal, which would make it the world's third largest gaming company, will put the Xbox maker on lawmakers' radars, said Andre Barlow of the law firm Doyle, Barlow & Mazard PLLC.

"Microsoft is already big in gaming," he said.

However, a source familiar with the matter said Microsoft would pay a $3 billion break-fee if the deal falls through, suggesting it is confident of winning antitrust approval.

The tech major's shares were last down 1.9%.

The deal comes at a time of weakness for Activision, maker of games such as "Overwatch" and "Candy Crush". Before the deal was announced, its shares had slumped more than 37% since reaching a record high last year, hit by allegations of sexual harassment of employees and misconduct by several top managers.

The company is still addressing those allegations and said on Monday it had fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and disciplined another 40 since July.

CEO Bobby Kotick, who said Microsoft approached him about a possible buyout, would continue as CEO of Activision following the deal, although he is expected to leave after it closes, a source familiar with the plans said.

In a conference call with analysts, Microsoft boss Nadella did not directly refer to the scandal but talked about the importance of culture in the company.

"It's critical for Activision Blizzard to drive forward on its renewed cultural commitments," he said, adding "the success of this acquisition will depend on it."

'METAVERSE ARMS RACE'

Data analytics firm Newzoo estimates the global gaming market generated $180.3 billion of revenues in 2021, and expects that to grow to $218.8 billion by 2024.

Microsoft already has a significant beachhead in the sector as one of the big three console makers. It has been making investments including buying "Minecraft" maker Mojang Studios and Zenimax in multibillion-dollar deals in recent years.

It has also launched a popular cloud gaming service, which has more than 25 million subscribers.

According to Newzoo, Microsoft's gaming market share was 6.5% in 2020 and adding Activision would have taken it to 10.7%.

Executives talked up Activision's 400 million monthly active users as one major attraction to the deal and how vital these communities could play in Microsoft's various metaverse plays.

Activision's library of games could give Microsoft's Xbox gaming platform an edge over Sony's Playstation, which has for years enjoyed a more steady stream of exclusive games.

"The likes of Netflix have already said they'd like to foray into gaming themselves, but Microsoft has come out swinging with today’s rather generous offer," said Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Microsoft's offer equates to 18 times Activision's 2021 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). That compares with the 16 times EBITDA valuation of "Grand Theft Auto" maker Take-Two Interactive's (TTWO.O) cash-and-shares deal for Zynga last week.

According to Refinitiv data, the Microsoft-Activision deal would be the largest all-cash acquisition on record, trumping Bayer's $63.9 billion offer for Monsanto in 2016 and the $60.4 billion that InBev bid for Anheuser-Busch in 2008.

Tech companies from Microsoft to Nvidia have placed big bets on the so-called metaverse, with the buzz around it intensifying late last year after Facebook renamed itself as Meta Platforms to reflect its focus on its virtual reality business.

"This is a significant deal for the consumer side of the business and more importantly, Microsoft acquiring Activision really starts the metaverse arms race," David Wagner, equity analyst and portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors said.

"We believe the deal will get done," he said, but cautioned: "This will get a lot of looks from a regulatory standpoint."

This article is copy paste from Reuters Check the original article here

Source: Reuters

The instant messaging app is also testing a new emoji message reaction info tab and new  message reaction notification settings.

 WhatsApp feature tracker WABetaInfo said that WhatsApp is introducing new drawing tools to its Android app. You get two pens, including one thinner and one thicker than your existing pen. The app is also working on a blur  tool that may be added  in the future. 

The new features appeared in the WhatsApp Beta for Android 2.22.5 update, but they are disabled by default. These features are still under development and may be made available to WhatsApp beta testers soon.

The WABetaInfo report said the app is also introducing new colour to its Windows and macOS apps with WhatsApp beta for Desktop 2.2201.2.0 update. The new colour scheme will be visible in the dark theme and the chat bubbles seem to be greener compared to the existing colour.

Other elements of the app will also see colour changes with chat bar and background colour now reportedly have a blue tinge.

At present, there is no evidence  that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine,  World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Tuesday. 

Speaking at a news briefing, she said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research is needed to determine who needs a booster shot.

"There is currently no evidence  that healthy children or heavy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all," he said. 

Israel began offering boosters to children as young as 12, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month authorized the use of a third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12 and 15. 

Last week, Germany became the latest country to recommend that all children between the ages of 12 and 17 receive a COVID-19 booster shot. Hungary did it too.

Swaminathan said the WHO’s top group of experts would meet later this week to consider the specific question of how countries should consider giving boosters to their populations.

“The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying. Those are our elderly populations, immuno-compromised people with underlying conditions, but also healthcare workers,” she said.

 Apple has confirmed that  iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro do not cancel noise  during phone calls, including  iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Apple included the feature in the iPhone 12 series and earlier models to improve call quality in noise environment. 

No reason was given to remove this feature from the iPhone 13 series noise cancellation during phone calls. By reference, by  iPhone 13 series, we mean  iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro and  iPhone 13 Pro Max. On previous iPhones, the feature was available in Settings under  Audio/Visual, which is found in Accessibility.

According to Apple, the setting reduces ambient noise when making calls, but only when you hold the iPhone to your ear. By default, Apple has the feature enabled, although it's hidden in Accessibility.Theoretically, the feature made it easier for people to be heard when making calls from busy areas, such as in the  near heavy traffic. 

Apple has now confirmed to 9to5Mac that the lack of noise cancellation on the iPhone 13 series is not a bug in iOS 15. Instead, Apple ruled out the feature but didn't explain why. However, older iPhone models still support "phone noise cancellation" in iOS 15. Currently, the only workaround is to enable the voice isolation feature in Control Center, although this doesn't work with all apps.

Samsung  today unveiled the Exynos 2200, its latest flagship chipset that will power  Galaxy S22 smartphones in certain regions. The new platform is based on  4nm EUV process technology and comes with a custom GPU called Xclipse.

 It is based on the AMD RDNA2 architecture and as such is a "single hybrid graphics processor" that offers advanced features such as ray tracing and variable rate shading on mobile devices, the first smartphone chip to do so. Ray tracing is a technology that simulates how light behaves in real life, calculating the motion and color of objects as light rays bounce off surfaces.

 The hardware-accelerated feature offers realistic effects and immersive graphics, making playing games that support these features as great as it looks. Variable rate shading is another technology implemented in PC and console games. Developers apply lesser shading to areas where quality is not compromised, improving frame rate and smooth gameplay.

Exynos 2200 is also one of the first chips to integrate ARMv9 CPU cores. The octa-core processor features a single powerful CortexX2 core, three CortexA710 cores that balance performance and efficiency, and four small CortexA510  cores for power efficiency. 

Traditionally, Samsung does not disclose the frequency of its chips are cloaked at. The new GPU and upgraded CPU also have a more powerful NPU to keep them company. Compared to the Exynos 2100, the performance has been doubled and allows more calculations in parallel, improving the overall performance of the AI. 

The chipset is powered by the latest LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. The 5G modem works on both sub-6GHz and mmWave frequencies, while the global navigation system is compatible with all major standards and satellites. Samsung said the Exynos 2200 is "currently in mass production". We'll see the Galaxy S22 lineup with the chip, but rumors point to February 8th as a possible launch date.

Photo credit: Marvel Studios

Marvel's Eternals is a very different beast to many other MCU movies; directed by autheor Chloe Zhao,  is a slow-paced, meditative story that explores the emotional toll of immortality on a group of extraterrestrials who have lived on the fringes of human society for millennia. This departure from the familiar house style has led many fans to dislike Eternals, but there's one thing  it does  as well as other Marvel films: hide Easter eggs in plain sight. And now that the film is streaming on Disney+, a new video on the Heavy Spoilers channel just picked up all the niche references and clues.

The first Easter egg appears  seconds into the film: The "six singularities" mentioned in the opening text are a nod to the Infinity Stones, those brightly colored McGuffins who have directed the action for much of the past decade. Following the introductory exhibition montage, as we move to Sersi in present-day London, we see an announcement from the Global Repatriation Council, the organization set up to deal with the aftermath of the Avengers undoing the Snap featured in The Falcon and the Winter  Soldier.

A number of different versions of Captain America's shield also show up in the movie, first in Kingo's Bollywood number, and then later on his private plane, where the earliest design is on display. But it's not just Marvel properties that the movie is alluding to: Eternals includes a couple of nods to DC, with Phastos' son calling Ikaris "Superman," and Kingo's valet Karun being compared to Batman's butler Alfred.

The Celestial whose "emergence" functions as the movie's climactic crisis is named Tiamut, which is a reference to an apocalyptic figure from Babylonian mythology. This is especially apt given that ancient Babylon is one of the historical locations where we see the Eternals influencing humanity in the movie.

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Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Monday that while the "most likely scenario" is that the coronavirus will circulate for many years, he believes the current wave of infections will be the last to require restrictions.

Bourla gave an interview to the French medium BFM. TV to commemorate the announcement of an investment package by the pharmaceutical company in France. Bourla also touted the vaccines' effectiveness and safety, saying  he believed people would still need booster shots. "It's important that people get Pfizer's three-dose regimen. coronavirus vaccine and will likely  require yearly booster shots, although the immunocompromised may need them every four months," Bourla said.

“Children need to be vaccinated  to protect them. Its effectiveness in children is very, very, very good. Bourla also said  the company's anti-COVID pill, Paxlovid, is "changing everything" as a new way to fight serious illnesses. Pfizer said in December that its Paxlovid pill had reduced hospitalizations and deaths by nearly 90 percent in vulnerable people.

In the interview, Bourla said the company was working on a plan that would invest 520 million euros ($593.7 million)  in France over the next five years, including a partnership with French company Novasep to develop an anti-inflammatory treatment -COVID pills.

France, like many other countries, is facing a record number of infections caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant. France's parliament passed legislation on Sunday barring unvaccinated people from all restaurants, sports stadiums and other venues, the centerpiece of the government's effort to protect hospitals. in the middle of the wave.

The government of French President Emmanuel Macron is hoping the step will be enough to limit the number of patients filling up strained hospitals nationwide without resorting to a new lockdown.

More than 76% of French ICU beds are occupied by virus patients, most of them unvaccinated, and some 200 people with the virus are dying every day. Like many countries, France is in the grip of the Omicron variant, recording more than 2,800 positive cases per 100,000 people over the past week.

Warren Buffett says these are the best businesses to own — 3 examples from Berkshire's portfolio

While we're constantly bombarded with confusing investment mumbo jumbo, we must never forget that, for the most part, companies  exist for one primary reason: to take capital from investors and make a return on it. For this reason, it makes sense for investors to look for companies with enduring competitive advantages that are capable of consistently delivering high returns on investments.

As Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, once said, "The best company to own is one that  can deploy large amounts of incremental capital at very high prices at very high rates of return. With that in mind, here are three Berkshire holdings with double-digit returns on invested capital.

With returns on invested capital consistently in the mid-20% range, credit rating leader Moody’s leads off our list.

Moody’s shares held up incredibly well during the height of the pandemic and are up nearly 220% over the past five years, suggesting that it’s a recession-resistant business worth betting on.

Specifically, the company’s well-entrenched leadership position in credit ratings, which leads to outsized returns on capital, should continue to limit Moody’s long-term downside

Moreover, Moody’s has generated about $2.4 billion in trailing twelve-month free cash flow. And over the first three quarters of 2021, the company has returned $975 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends.

As of Q3 2021, Berkshire holds more than 24.6 million shares of Moody’s worth just under $8.8 billion. Moody’s has a dividend yield of 0.7%.

Next up, we have consumer technology gorilla Apple, which boasts a five-year return on invested capital of 28%, much higher than that of rivals like Nokia (-3%) and Sony (12%).

Even in the cutthroat world of consumer hardware, the iPhone maker has been able to generate outsized returns due to its loyalty-commanding brand and high switching costs (the iOS experience can only be had through Apple products).

And with the company continuing to penetrate emerging markets like India and Mexico, Apple’s long-term growth trajectory remains healthy.

In the most recent quarter, Apple’s revenue jumped 29% to $83.4 billion. The company also returned over $24 billion to shareholders.

The stock currently sports a dividend yield of just 0.5%, but with a buyback yield of 3%, Apple is doling out more cash to shareholders than you might think.

It's no wonder that Apple is Berkshire's largest public holding, owning more than 887 million shares in the tech giant worth roughly $125.5 billion.

Rounding out the list is consumer staples giant Procter & Gamble, with a solid five-year average return on invested capital of 13.5%.

Berkshire held 315,400 shares at the end of Q3, worth around $44 million at today’s price. While that’s not a big position by Berkshire standards, something does make P&G stand out: the ability to deliver rising cash returns to investors through thick and thin.

The company offers a portfolio of trusted brands like Bounty paper towels, Crest toothpaste, Gillette razor blades and Tide detergent. These are products households buy on a regular basis, regardless of what the economy is doing.

In April, P&G’s board of directors announced a 10% increase to the quarterly payout, marking the company’s 65th consecutive annual dividend hike.

P&G share currently offer a dividend yield of 2.2%.

Source: Yahoo News

Image Credit: Onleaks
 Details about Oppo's next flagship  are starting to gather. Multiple leaks suggest it will be called the Find X5 Pro, with a similar design to last year's Find X3 Pro and specs broadly in line with the new OnePlus 10 Pro, now available in China. (OnePlus is now, of course,  treated as an Oppo sub-brand. 

The Find X3 Pro wasn't sold in the US, but it made its way to Europe and was one of the best phones of 2021. Renderings recently released by OnLeaks show a device with a camera hump that flows into the rest of the rear much like the Find X3 Pro, although the camera setup has changed and doesn't appear to include the previous phone's unique ring light accoutrement, which features a 'microscope' camera.

Alleged real photos confirming the OnLeaks renders have also now surfaced online, showing a white Hasselblad branded model of the phone, just like recent OnePlus flagships. There's also a photo of the device's settings menu, stating that  it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, like the OnePlus 10 Pro, as well as Oppo's own new chip, the MariSilicon X. This is an NPU used for image processing . It was announced  alongside Oppo's Air Glass AR device late last year. 

There are other specs  floating around on Chinese social media channels that can't be verified but don't sound very surprising, like the OnePlus 10 Pro. Both of Oppo's previous  Find X flagships were announced in March, for which we should get official details pretty soon.

Satellite images from JMA show the volcano eruption in Tonga on January 15.

An undersea volcano near Tonga has erupted for the third time in four days, potentially threatening the ability of surveillance flights to assess  damage to the Pacific island nation following Saturday's massive eruption and tsunami.

The Australian Meteorological Service said a "major eruption" occurred on the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano on Monday, but no tsunami warning was issued. Saturday's eruption was probably the largest recorded  on the planet in more than 30 years, experts said.

Dramatic footage from space captured the eruption in real time, when a huge plume of ash, gas and steam was spewed up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) into the atmosphere and Tsunami waves were sent to crash into the Pacific.

Footage on social media showed people fleeing as waves flooded Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, and the afternoon sky turned  black from the heavy ash cloud.

Tsunami waves have also been recorded thousands of miles away along the west coast of the United States, in Peru, New Zealand and Japan. In Peru, at least two people have died after being hit by high waves.

No mass casualties have yet been reported, but aid organizations are concerned about  air contamination and access to clean water for residents of Tonga's outer islands.

With communications down, Australia and New Zealand sent flights to survey the damage.

Where is Tonga's Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano?

Tonga is a Polynesian country of over 170 islands in the South Pacific  and is home to around 100,000 people. It is a remote archipelago that lies about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Fiji and 2,380 kilometers (1,500 miles) from New Zealand.

The HungaTongaHungaHa'apai volcano, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Tonga's Fonuafo'ou Island, lies underwater between two small islands  about 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) high from the sea floor, with about 100 meters (328 feet) visible above sea level.

Researchers said it has erupted steadily over the past few decades.

In 2009 an eruption sent plumes of steam and ash into the air and formed new land above the water, and an eruption in January 2015 created a new island about 2 kilometers wide , effectively merging with the islands of HungaTonga and HungaHa'apai.

The most recent eruption began in December 2021, with plumes of gas, steam and ash  rising about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the air.

The volcano erupted again on January 14, and a massive eruption on January 15 sent shock waves around the world and triggered tsunami waves in the Pacific.

Where did the tsunami hit?

The eruption caused a tsunami on Tonga's largest island, Tongatapu, with waves recorded at 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) near Nuku'alofa city flowing onto coastal roads and flooding properties on Saturday.

Tsunami warnings went into effect across Pacific Island nations including Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu. Footage from the ground in Fiji shows people fleeing to higher ground in the capital, Suva, as large waves hit the coast.

Tsunami warnings and advisories were also issued from parts of New Zealand, Japan and Peru, to the United States and Canada's British Columbia.

In Japan, the northeastern prefecture of Iwate saw waves as high as 2.7 meters (9 feet) and multiple smaller tsunamis were reported in numerous other locations, according to public broadcaster NHK. By Sunday afternoon, all tsunami advisories had been lifted in Japan.

The eruption also sent waves to the US West Coast, with some exceeding 3 and 4 feet in height, according to the National Weather Service office in San Diego. Tsunami waves were felt in California, Alaska and Hawaii.

What is happening with the ash cloud?

A giant cloud of volcanic ash  blanketed Tonga over the weekend, obscuring the afternoon sky  and blanketing Nuku'alofa in a thick foam of volcanic dust on Saturday.

Save the Children said drinking water supplies could be contaminated with ash and smoke and the immediate concern in Tonga is  air and water safety. The ash cloud was moving west and was visible over Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia on Sunday.

According to the state weather service, it reached Queensland in Australia on Monday. at dawn sunlight was  scattered by #volcanic ash from the #Tonga eruption," the Queensland Bureau of Meteorology said on Twitter.

The ash prevented an Australian reconnaissance flight from departing to assess the damage  early on January 17, although the flight took off later that morning.Several flights from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to Tonga were postponed due to the ash cloud. suggest the volcanic ice eruption was the largest since the 1991 explosion at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, New Zealand volcanologist Shane Cronin told Radio New Zealand.

"This is a better observed eruption  from space," Cronin said, according to Reuters. The eruption suggests  it was likely the largest since  the Pinatubo eruption in 1991," Cronin said.

What is the scale of devastation?

So far there have been no reports  of mass casualties in Tonga and the extent of the damage is unknown as communications, particularly on the offshore islands, have  yet to be restored.

Tonga "needs immediate help to provide its citizens with clean water and food". said the  Speaker of the country's House of Representatives, Lord Fakafanua, in a statement released on social media.

It said "many areas" had been affected by "significant volcanic ash fall" but "the full extent of the damage to life and property is unknown at this time". Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said  January 16 that tsunami waves had had a "significant impact" on Nuku'alofa as boats and large rocks washed ashore.

"Shops along the coast have been damaged and major cleanup will be required," he said. The main underwater communications cable is also affected, likely due to a power outage. Australia's Minister for Pacific and International Development  Zed Seselja said there was "significant  damage" in Tonga, including to roads and homes.

He said there was still "very limited, if any" information  from the outer islands. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said its teams are on the ground and have enough supplies in the country to feed 1,200 homes.

"Based on what little current information we have, the extent of the devastation could be immense, particularly for the outer  islands,"  Katie Greenwood, head of the IFRC's Pacific delegation, said, according to Reuters.

The New Zealand Defense Force sent an Orion aircraft  on a surveillance mission to Tonga to assess the damage. Ardern said the country initially provided $340,000 for relief supplies, technical assistance and on-site assistance.

Australia said it was preparing for additional support, with a plane loaded with humanitarian supplies including water and hygiene items ready to deliver to Tonga as soon as conditions allow.

China and the autonomous island of Taiwan said in separate statements that they are ready to provide assistance at Tonga's request.

Google has revealed that the January software update for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro is now available as factory images and full OTA images via the Google Play services website (12.0.0 (SQ1D.220105.007), Jan 2022 - specific device/images links can be found in "sources" below). Those who prefer to wait for the OTA package to arrive with a “check for update” notification may start receiving the update from Monday January 17 onwards according to a report from 9to5Google. The list of fixes for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro in the December and January patches is extensive and an installation should help relieve some of the serious teething issues users have experienced.

We recently reported on Google's flagship smartphones being criticized for their flaws, including a scathing comment from tech blogger Marques Brownlee who claimed he would return to his Galaxy S21 Ultra for now. However, it looks like it's ready to give the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro another chance as it's been busy downloading the software update (215MB of fixes in this particular case, presumably  from November) . Google took a lot of flak when the December update appeared to leave many Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones with critical issues like signal reception issues. Also, many users have complained about the battery drain issue in cellular network standby mode and the slow fingerprint sensor.

Browsing through the list of fixes (see drop-down element "changelog" below for full list) one can find several for battery and charging and for network and telephony. One of these is “general improvements for network connection stability and performance”, which will hopefully alleviate two of the more serious issues mentioned above. There are fixes for biometrics too, with a “general improvements” update coming for the fingerprint sensor. While it’s unlikely every single problem with the Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro can be fixed with this December/January OTA package, it does seem that Google is at least paying attention to the growing din of complaints about the new Pixel phones and doing something proactive about the situation.

Buy The Google Pixel 6 Pro On Amazon

Buy the Google Pixel 6 on Amazon

Source: NoteBook Check

In this undated handout photo released by Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Press Service, the building of Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is seen during snowfall in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian officials and media reports say a number of government websites in Ukraine are down after a massive hacking attack. While it is not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, they come amid heightened tensions with Russia and after talks between Moscow and the West failed to yield any significant progress this week. (Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP)

Microsoft said on Saturday that dozens of computer systems in an unknown number of Ukrainian government agencies were infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a revelation that suggests a defacement attack that draws attention to official websites was a diversion. 

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense standoff appear to have stalled. Microsoft said in a short blog post that this amounted to the sound of an industry alert that it first detected the malware on Thursday.

This would coincide with the attack which temporarily took some 70 government websites offline. The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a senior Ukrainian security official as saying the disfigurement was indeed a cover for a malicious attack.

Separately, a senior private sector cybersecurity official in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack was successful: intruders entered government networks through a shared software vendor in a self -so-called SolarWinds 2020 Russian cyber-espionage campaign-style supply chain attack against Microsoft said in another technical article that the affected systems "spread across multiple government, non-profit, and  technology and information Technology Organization.

 "The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable," Microsoft said. In short, there is no ransom recovery mechanism. 

Microsoft said the malware "runs when an associated device is turned off," a typical initial reaction to a ransomware attack. Microsoft said it was not yet able to assess the purpose of the destructive activity or associate the attack with a known threat actor. 

Ukrainian security official Serhiy Demedyuk was quoted by Reuters for claiming that the attackers used malware similar to that used by Russian intelligence services. He is Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

In their latest findings, they discovered that a relevant setting has appeared in the new beta  on iOS. WABetaInfo shared that WhatsApp version 22.72  on iOS adds a new Reactions Notifications toggle to app settings. 

With this toggle  visible to beta users, the feature may come to the platform fairly quickly. Alternatively, the company may have accidentally revealed this setting and may remove it in future betas if the Reactions feature is not yet ready.

In 2020, Mark Zuckerberg shared that Meta (Facebook at the time) planned to merge the messaging systems of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. He said plans won't materialize until 2022. With WhatsApp likely to add reactions to messages soon, the gap between it and Facebook/Instagram direct messages (DMs) is narrowing even further. 

The merger between Facebook and Instagram DMs has already happened, as both platforms support the same messaging features (for the most part). WhatsApp is still far from becoming similar to either of these two services. It remains to be seen whether the merger of the three will take place this year. It is also possible that the company is prevented from making this potential move for monopoly reasons.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), currently pointed skyward from its home in the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is tasked with tracking the expansion of space, to study dark energy and create the most detailed 3D map. of the Universe that was never assembled.

It's only been seven months since the DESI mission began, and we already have a record-breaking, stunning three-dimensional image of the galaxy  all around us, demonstrating DESI's capabilities  and  potential  for mapping space.
DESI has already cataloged and tracked over 7.5 million galaxies, with over a million new additions per month. When the scan is fully completed in 2026, more than 35 million galaxies would have been mapped, giving astronomers  a huge library of data to mine.

"There's a lot of beauty in there," says Lawrence astrophysicist Julien guy in California. "In the distribution of  galaxies on the 3D map, there are huge clusters, filaments and voids.These are the largest structures in the Universe.

But within them you will find an imprint of the  early Universe and the story of its expansion since DESI is made up of 5,000 optical fibers, each individually controlled and positioned ionized by its own little robot These fibers must be precisely positioned  within 10 microns,  less than the thickness of a human hair,  then catch glimpses of light as they filter through the Earth of the cosmos.

Through this fiber network, the instrument takes color spectrum images of millions of galaxies, covering more than a third of the entire sky, before calculating how much the light has been redshifted – that is, how much it's been pushed towards the red end of the spectrum due to the expansion of the Universe.

As this light can take up to several billion years to reach Earth, it's possible to use redshift data to see depth in the Universe: the greater the redshift, the farther away something is. What's more, the structures mapped by DESI can be reverse engineered to see the initial formation that they started out in.

The main objective of DESI is to reveal more about the dark energy that is thought to make up 70 percent of the Universe as well as speeding up its expansion. This dark energy could drive galaxies into an infinite expansion, cause them to collapse back on themselves or something in between – and cosmologists are keen to narrow down the options.

[DESI] will help us  search for clues about the nature of dark energy,” Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at Durham University in the UK, told the BBC. We will also learn more about  dark matter and the role it plays in how it happens, forms galaxies such as the Milky Way, and how the universe evolves.
The 3D map that has already been released shows that scientists don't have to wait for DESI to finish its work to start benefiting from its deep look into space explores whether or not small galaxies have their own black holes like large galaxies.

The best way to spot a black hole is to identify the gas, dust and other material  dragged into it, but that's not easy to see in small galaxies - something where high-precision spectral data collected by DESI should help. Then there's the study of quasars , particularly bright galaxies powered by supermassive black holes, which serve as clues to billions of years of space history.

DESI  will be used to test a hypothesis around quasars: that they start out surrounded by an envelope of dust that is chased away over time. The amount of dust around a quasar is believed to affect the color of the light it emits, making it a perfect job for DESI.

The tool should be able to collect information on around 2.4 million quasars before its survey is complete."DESI is really great because it collects much fainter, much redder objects," says Durham University astronomer Victoria Fawcett.

"We're finding quite a few exotic systems, including large samples of rare objects that we've simply never seen able to study in detail before.

Source: ScienceAlert

Netflix is ​​raising the prices of all  its plans in the United States today. The enterprise standard plan will increase from $14 to $15.50 per month, while the 4K plan will increase from $18 to $20 per month. The basic plan, which does not include HD, goes up to $10 per month from $9 per month. Prices in Canada are also on the rise.

Price increases take effect immediately for new subscribers. For existing subscribers, the changes will be rolled out "gradually", with Netflix promising to email members 30 days before the price hike takes effect. The prices for a Netflix package have steadily increased over the past few years. 

The standard plan went from $13 to $14 per month at the end of 2020, after dropping from $11 to $13 in 2019. Previously, Netflix raised prices in 2017 and 2015. When Netflix announced its first  price hike in 2014, the company was so worried about losing subscribers with a $1 a month hike that it allowed existing members to hold their price for two years. It hasn't offered such a generous perk in the years since then.

The price hikes come during a successful but challenging moment for Netflix. The company already has a wealth of subscribers across the US, and adding more is a challenge — making price hikes an obvious answer for how it can make more money. At the same time, Netflix is now competing with several other serious streaming services for attention, including Disney Plus and HBO Max, and it’s been spending big on content to keep up.

“We are updating our pricing so that we can continue to offer a wide variety of quality entertainment options,” a Netflix spokesperson told Reuters.

 "As always, we offer a range of plans so members can choose a price that fits their budget. Netflix isn't the only service that has increased prices lately. Hulu has increased the price of its funded tiers by advertising and without advertising of $1 per month in October.

Hackers launched at least seven different attacks last year, mostly targeting corporate investments and centralized exchanges with a variety of tactics including phishing, malware and social engineering, according to a report by Chainalysis, a company that tracks cryptocurrencies. 

Cybercriminals attempted to gain access to organizations' "hot" wallets: Internet-connected digital wallets, and then transfer funds to accounts controlled by the DPRK. The thefts are the latest indication that the heavily sanctioned country continues to rely on a network of hackers to help fund its domestic programs. 

A confidential UN report previously accused North Korean regime leader Kim Jong Un of carrying out "operations against formerly moving financial institutions and virtual currency" to pay for weapons and keep the country afloat North Korean economy. 

Last February, the US Department of Justice  charged three North Koreans with conspiring to steal more than $1.3 billion from banks and businesses around the world and orchestrating crypto thefts. digital currency.

"North Korea is, in most respects, cut off from the global financial system by a long sanctions campaign by the United States and its foreign partners." said Nick Carlsen, an analyst at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs. “As a result, they have taken to the digital battlefield to steal cryptocurrencies, essentially [a] high-speed internet bank robbery, to fund weapons programs, nuclear proliferation and other activities.  >

North Korea's hacking efforts have benefited from this.The rise in value of Rising prices and the use of cryptocurrencies have generally made digital assets increasingly attractive to malicious actors, which led to more successful cryptocurrency thefts in 2021. 

According to Chainalysis, most of the thefts in the past year were committed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker group with ties to North Korea that was previously  linked to the  Sony Pictures hack, among other incidents. ie North Koreans, in addition to sanctiones cybersecurity defensive measures such as crimes such as criminql have no real chance of being extradited. 

As the cryptocurrency market becomes more popular, "we are likely to see continued interest from North Korea in targeting cryptocurrency companies that are young and that are building  cyber defenses and anti-virus controls. -money laundering," Carlsen said.

David Colombo explained in the thread that the flaw "wasn't a vulnerability in Tesla's infrastructure. It's the owner's fault." He claimed to be able to remotely disable a car's  camera system, unlock doors and open windows, and even start driving without a key. It could also determine the  exact location of the car.

However, Colombo has made it clear that it can't actually interact with Tesla's steering, throttle, or brakes, so at least we don't have to worry about an army of remote-control electric vehicles doing a Fate reenactment. 

Colombo says he reported the issue to Tesla's security team, which is investigating the matter.

On a related note, early  Wednesday morning, a third-party app called TezLab reported seeing “multiple thousand Tesla Authentication Tokens expiring at the same time.” 

The TezLab application uses Tesla's  APIs which allow applications to perform operations such as accessing the car and activating or deactivating the anti-theft camera system, unlocking doors, opening windows, etc

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) will accept the meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin as payment for its products such as the "Giga Texas" belt buckle and mini  electric vehicle models, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday in a tweet. 

The move which sent dogecoin prices up 14% higher, comes a month after Musk said Tesla would test  the digital token as a payment option. Musk, a voucal of cryptocurrencies has heavily influenced  dogecoin and bitcoin prices, and at one point  said the company would accept bitcoin for the purchase of its cars before scrapping the plans. 

Tesla's products, which also include the recently launched "Cyberwhistle" and "Cyberquad for Kids," are a hit with its fans and typically sell out within  hours of listing.

"Some have noticed that goods for doge are depleting even faster than for dollars. This news is a good example of the continued penetration of cryptocurrencies into corporate culture," said Alex Kuptsikevich, senior financial analyst at FxPro. 

Musk on dogecoin's tweets, including  one where he called it the "people's crypto," turned the once obscure digital currency that started as a social media joke into a speculator's dream. The price of the token has increased by around 4,000% in 2021. 

Tesla revealed last year that it purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and Musk  also claimed to own bitcoin and dogecoin. 

Tesla faces intense competition as legacy automakers like Ford Motor Co (FN) and startups such as  Rivian Automotive (RIVN.O) are set to launch their electric car this year. Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck will begin production in the first quarter of 2023, pushing  its plan to start production to late 2022, Reuters reported.

A massive cyber attack warning Ukrainians to "be afraid and expect the worst" hit government websites  on Thursday night, leaving some websites inaccessible on Friday morning and prompting Kyiv to open an investigation.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters it was too early to say who could be behind the attack, but said Russia had launched similar attacks in the past.
The cyberattack, which affected the Foreign Ministry, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Security and Defense Council, among others, comes as Kyiv and its allies sound the alarm on a possible new Russian military offensive against Ukraine.
"It's too early to draw conclusions, but there is a long history of (cyber) Russian attacks on Ukraine in the past," the Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters.
The Russian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russia has previously denied cyberattacks against Ukraine.

"Ukrainian! All your personal data was uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed, it is impossible to restore it," said a message visible on the hacked government websites, written in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

"All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future."

After a wave of inconclusive talks this week on security in Europe, the United States  on Thursday warned that the threat of a Russian military invasion of Ukraine was high.

Russia said the dialogue continued but reached an impasse as it tried to persuade the West to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and roll back decades of alliance expansion in Europe, demand that Washington has called "non-starters".

Commenting on a cyber attack a senior Ukrainian security official told Reuters: "All cybersecurity subjects  were aware of such possible provocations from the Russian Federation. Therefore, the response to these incidents is being carried out in accordance with the government.

The government later claimed that he had restored most of the affected sites and that no personal data had been stolen. Many other government websites were suspended to prevent the attack from spreading, it said .

Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of war between the same year. Kyiv forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The United States said on Thursday that Russia could try to create a pretext to launch a new military assault on Ukraine by comparing the situation with the circumstances of 2014.

Russia warned of possible "catastrophic consequences" if there was no agreement on what the Kremlin called the security red lines, but said Moscow had not abandoned diplomacy and would even speed it up.

The Russian comments reflect a trend in which Moscow claims to want to pursue diplomacy but rejects calls to reverse the training of its troops near Ukraine and warns of unspecified consequences for Western security if its demands are not heard.

Ukraine has suffered a series of cyberattacks since 2014, which have cut power, frozen supermarket checkouts and forced  authorities to back the hryvnia currency after the bank's computer systems crashed. Ukraine believes the attacks are part of what it calls Russia's "hybrid war" against Ukraine and its allies.

In 2017, a virus called NotPetya by some experts hit Ukraine and spread around the world, crippling thousands of machines as it spread to dozens of countries.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement, dismissing "general unfounded accusations".