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Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (Xbox One, PS4, and Steam) is free until May 10th

Price is "on sale" for free until May 10th, so claim it while you can.

 

PS4: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0700-CUSA04924_00-PACMANCE2BUNDLE0

 

Xbox One: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/pac-man-championship-edition-2/bpv04qgbn8j8#activetab=pivot:overviewtab

 

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/441380/PACMAN_CHAMPIONSHIP_EDITION_2/

 

This is apparently Bandai-Namco's way of helping keep people entertained while stuck at home amidst the COVID stuff.





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Fortnite Darkfire Bundle (PS4/XB1/Switch) $14.99 & BOGO Fortnite Figures at Best Buy - DotD

Fortnite Darkfire Bundle (PS4/XB1/Switch) $14.99  msrp $29.99

Amazon has the PS4 version for the same price.

 

BOGO Fortnite Figures

 

Other Fornite deals:

Buy any v-bucks card, get the SteelSeries - Arctis 1 Wireless Stereo Gaming Headset for PC for $59.99

 

 

Here's what the Darkfire Bundle includes:

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/darkfire

Spoiler
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    mafia 3 free to play until 5-7-20

    2k has a new promotion during the pandemic they are offering a free game each week. I have little info about this but I'm playing mafia 3 on xbox one currently. feel free to post with details if you want. I barely remeber playing this on last gen, I think I played a few hours and quit. now though I'm really enjoying it as a time-filler, it's a good gta rip-off.




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    Free $15 Target GiftCard with $100 iTunes Digital Gift Card purchase at Target

    Different digital styles to choose from!

    Online only.

     

    http://goto.target.com/itunesgiftcards

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    free 2 play until 5-13 ... The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA TOUR

    https://2k.com/en-US/blog/play-the-golf-club-2019-for-free-right-now/

     

    Trial available on Xbox starting 12:00AM PT 5/7/20 through 11:59PM PT 5/13/20 and on Steam starting 10:00AM PT 5/7/20 through 9:59AM PT 5/14/20. Progress will transfer for people who purchase the full game.

     

    2k is posting a free game play session each week

     

    2K’s Give Back Project offers Free Play periods for the 2K community on Xbox and Steam




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    Cut the Turkey and Run

    Tis’ the season for throwing down at dinner. Every year the humor and the horror stories about Thanksgiving hit our social media feeds. This isn’t just about politics, either. Family dinners have a strong symbolic significance. When the stakes are high for a once-a-year gathering, other kinds of social conflicts are primed to play out as well. […]




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    Mike's Blog Round Up

    It's Saturday, and I'm still shocked that our Attorney General Bill Barr was an accomplice in undermining justice in America. Our only way out of this mess is to vote in overwhelming, historical, legendary, epic numbers; we can't go on living like this.

    Sky Dancing presents... Banana Republicans!

    Greg Fallis says that the Rule of Law is most sincerely dead.

    Boomer Dem-Nation didn't sign-up for this!

    Bonus Track: Juanita Jean and God don't split hairs. But Ted Cruz does!

    Round-up by Tengrain who blogs at Mock, Paper, Scissors. You can follow Tengrain on the Twitters, too. Send tips, requests, and suggestions to mbru@crooksandliars.com (with For MBRU in the subject line).



    • mikes blog round up

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    Haunted Gallery

    Exclusive offer from Giveaway of the Day and ToomkyGames! No third-party advertising and browser add-ons! In Haunted Gallery, a hair-rising hidden object game, the famous exorcist Gwendolyn Rose is going to have to save the world again! This time the road leads her to the Haunted Gallery. Each painting in the gallery is a magic portal to a distant and abandoned place. The Gallery is connected with the real world by invisible threads. The problem is that an evil essence called Custodian has seized power over this sacred place. Help Gwendolyn defeat him!




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    The Lost Dungeon Of Knight

    The Lost Dungeon Of Knight is a first-person adventure game with puzzle elements. The game takes place in a mysterious dungeon in which you have to explore the mysterious catacombs and be smart to uncover all the secrets of this mysterious place.




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    Plague Universe: Strategy RPG Bundle Is Now Available For Xbox

      Product Info: Developer: Arcade Distillery Publisher: Arcade Distillery Website: Plague Universe Twitter: @LucBernard / @ArcadeDistiller / @PlagueUniverse




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    SokoBunny Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

    NOTE: You may pre-download this game, but it will not be playable until the release date/time: 05/22/2020 – 3:00 AM (check the product page for release date/time in your region).   Product Info: Developer: DillyFrameGames Publisher: DillyFrameGames Website: SokoBunny Twitter: @DillyFrameGames




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    Fury Unleashed Is Now Available For Xbox One

      Product Info: Developer: Awesome Games Studio Publisher: Awesome Games Studio Website: Fury Unleashed Twitter: @AwesomeGamesStd




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    In the Interest of Safety, NFPA Cancels June 2020 NFPA Conference & Expo® in Orlando

    At this time, the world continues to be significantly impacted by COVID-19 and we no longer believe it is possible to host and conduct the NFPA Conference and Expo in June. NFPA is a safety organization and we would not hold an event where the well-being



    • nfpa conference & expo
    • home fire sprinklers
    • 2019 nfpa conference & expo
    • home fire sprinkler advocacy

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    The Paramount Leader is Ready for Sacrifice: Your Sacrifice

    This week President Trump had a new message: he’s bored with the COVID19 epidemic. Or perhaps putting it a bit...




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    HyperX Teams up with Ducky and Launches HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

    The HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini mechanical gaming keyboard features HyperX red linear mechanical switches built for performance, longevity and an 80 million lifetime click rating per switch.

    The post HyperX Teams up with Ducky and Launches HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini Mechanical Gaming Keyboard appeared first on ThinkComputers.org.





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    How amateur satellite trackers are keeping an 'eye' on objects around the Earth

    Around the planet, a loosely knit but closely woven band of amateurs monitor the whereabouts of satellites — be they secretive spacecraft, rocket stages, orbital debris or lost space probes.




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    There are two kinds of sunspots on the sun right now amid solar cycle change

    The sun offers plenty of brainteasers: Right now, for instance, it's sporting magnetic knots formed by two different cycles — simultaneously.




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    The moon isn't 'dead': Ridges on lunar surface show signs of recent tectonic activity

    The moon isn't "dead" after all: Newly discovered ridges on the moon's surface are leading scientists to think that the moon might have an active tectonic system.




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    Scientists keep debunking 'monster black hole' discovery. So, what's the deal with binary system LB1?

    As scientists continue to weigh in, one thing is clear: the "monster black hole" discovered in 2019 doesn't exist.




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    Book week 2019: David Adger's Language Unlimited

    Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have:

    Language unlimited
    the science behind our most creative power

    by David Adger
    Oxford University Press, 2019


    This is a book for people who like to think about HOW THINGS WORK. It's a serious work of popular science writing, which carefully spells out the mysteries of syntax. And by mysteries, I mean things you've probably never even noticed about language. But once they're pointed out, you have to sit back and say "Whoa." Because even though you hadn't noticed these things, you know them. Remember a few years ago, when the internet was hopping with posts about how we subconsciously know which order to put adjectives in? That's kid's play compared with the stuff that Adger'll teach you about the things you know but don't know about.

    Adger (who is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University, London) describes the situation carefully, clearly, and engagingly, using copious examples and analogies to communicate some really subtle points. (I particularly liked the explanation of form versus function in language, which drew on the form versus the function of alcohol. Chin-chin!) He draws in evidence from neurology, psychology, and computer science to both corroborate his points and to introduce further questions about how language works.

    As I said in the intro to Book week, I have not read all the books I'm reviewing absolutely cover-to-cover. In this case, of the ten chapters, I read 1–3, 7, and 10—and skimmed through the other chapters. The early chapters make the case that there's more to linguistic structure than meets the eye and that human linguistic abilities must consist of something special—they must be qualitatively different from the types of cognition that other animals use and that humans use in non-linguistic communication. Later ones cover issues like how children experience and acquire their first language and what happens when computers try to learn human language. Throughout, the examples feature Adger's partner Anson and his cat Lilly.  I almost feel like I know them now. Hi Anson and Lilly!

    Adger makes clear from the start that his book makes a particular argument in favo(u)r of a particular way of explaining language's mysteries—and that particular way is a Chomskyan way. This means that he makes the case for a Universal Grammar that underlies all human language. I was struck by his willingness and ability to take this all the way for a lay audience. By chapter 9, he is explaining Merge, the key tool of Chomsky's Minimalist Program

    Now, here I have to say: this is not the kind of linguistics I do. It's not just that I'm not a syntactician—though I have, from time to time, dipped my toe into theories grammatical. It's also that I lost faith in theoretical monotheism when I moved from a very Chomskyan undergraduate degree to a more ecumenical linguistics department for my (post)graduate studies. When I arrived for my PhD studies, the department wanted to know which syntactic theories I'd studied, so they could determine which courses I needed to take. I could not tell them. After four years of studying Chomskyan linguistics, I thought I had spent four undergraduate years studying "Syntax". No one had told me that I was studying a theory of syntax, just one among several theories.

    Ever since, I have tended to agnosticism and s{c/k}epticism when it comes to syntactic theory. (This is probably how I ended up as not-a-syntactician; I don't know that it's possible to have a career in grammatical studies without adhering to one theoretical church or another.) Being a lexicologist has meant that I don't have to take sides on these things. And so I play around with different theories and see how they deal with the phenomena I study. When I listen to the evangelists, I listen warily. I tend to find that they oversimplify the approaches of competitor theories, and don't learn as much from them as they could (or, at least, sometimes don't give them credit for their contributions). This is all a very long explanation of why I skipped to chapter 7—the chapter where Adger responds to some non-Chomskyan ideas (mostly personified in the chapter by Joan Bybee).

    So (mostly BrE*) all credit to Adger for spending a chapter on this, and for citing recent work in it. I generally thought his points were fair, but I did what I usually do in response to such theoretical take-downs: I thought "ok, but what about..." I do think he's right that some facts point to the existence of a Universal Grammar, but I also think it's not the only interesting part of the story, and that it's premature to discount arguments that explore the possibility that much of what happens in language learning is based in experience of language and general cognitive abilities. But then, I would think that.

    I definitely recommend the book for people who are interested in the scientific approach to language, but I'd skip the final chapter (10). It is an oddly tacked-on bit about sociolinguistic phenomena, precisely the kinds of things that are not even approached in the theory the rest of the book has been arguing for.

    I congratulate Adger on this strong work that makes extraordinarily abstract concepts clear.





    P.S. Since I'm not doing Differences of the Day on Twitter this week, here's little chart of use of all credit to (frequency per million words) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, for good measure.





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    Free webinar on "Storage Protection under Sloped Ceilings"

    In the event of a fire, a sloped ceiling may alter sprinkler performance from expected results for a conventional horizontal ceiling configuration. Prior computational studies investigated the effect of ceiling slope on sprinkler activation times and




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    RFP now open for Fire Protection Research Foundation project on “Combustible Gas Distribution in Buildings and Detector Location Analysis”

    Recent experiences with combustible gas releases in residential buildings have led to a proposal for NFPA Standards Development for locating combustible gas detectors and consensus on installation location requirements. NFPA is considering a proposed




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    Research Foundation Set to Study the Economic and Emotional Impact of Active Shooter/Hostile Events

    The Fire Protection Research Foundation, the research affiliate of NFPA is overseeing a two-year project on the Economic and Emotional Impact of an Active Shooter/Hostile Event – thanks to Fire Prevention and Safety Grant money from FEMA.




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    Changing of the guard at the Fire Protection Research Foundation

    Amanda Kimball has been named executive director of the Fire Protection Research Foundation (Research Foundation). The eight-year veteran of the independent, non-profit research affiliate of the National Fire Protection Association replaces Casey Grant



    • fire protection research foundation
    • research

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    NFPA’s Lorraine Carli named to National Fallen Firefighter Foundation Board of Directors

    The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) recently announced the appointment of new members to their Board of Directors including the addition of Lorraine Carli, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) vice president of Outreach and




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    Research Foundation to Host FREE Webinar: “Review of Audible Alarm Signal Waking Effectiveness” - Wednesday, February 5, 12:30-2pm EST

      At-risk populations such as the elderly, school-age children, those who are hard of hearing or alcohol-impaired do not fully benefit from conventional smoke alarm alerts, particularly during sleeping hours. Research has been conducted to develop




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    ReGen Villages plans smart, circular communities in Sweden

    Silicon Valley-based ReGen Villages has teamed up with Swedish architecture firm White Arkitekter to develop ReGen Villages Sweden, a vision for smart, self-sufficient communities throughout the Scandinavian country. Developed to meet the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the proposal combines a wide variety of high- and low-tech environmentally friendly systems from organic gardens for local food production to the integration of artificial intelligence on a community-wide scale. The two firms hope to break ground on a ReGen Villages Sweden pilot project in 2020. [...]




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    Grade II listed Victorian home undergoes a green renovation

    London-based firm Will Gamble Architects has breathed new life into a dilapidated building in the small village of Gretton, U.K. The complex consisted of a Grade II listed Victorian house, a disused cattle shed and a set of ruins of a former parchment factory. Although the project presented several challenges, the architects managed to strategically incorporate the existing structures, as well as several reclaimed materials found onsite, into the new design in lieu of complete demolition.[...]




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    Research center sits lightly near turtle nesting grounds in Australia

    When architect Richard Kirk was tapped to lead the design for the Mon Repos Turtle Centre, he knew that his team at the international architecture firm KIRK would need to tread lightly. The project’s coastal site, located in Bargara, Queensland, is home to one of the most significant seasonal nesting grounds for the loggerhead turtle. To minimize landscape impact, the architects designed the center with a prefabricated glulam timber frame that is wrapped in low-maintenance copper and wood to visually blend the building into the surroundings.[...]




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    A Rocky Mountain forever home passively offsets heating costs

    When Ed and Leigh approached Colorado-based architecture firm F9 Productions to design their custom Rocky Mountain home, the couple wanted a residence that could last well into the future. This meant that the forever home not only had to be engineered with ADA-compliant features, but it also needed to be robust enough to weather the region’s extreme winter conditions for years to come. As a result, the architects crafted the Eastwatch House, a highly durable home that also takes advantage of passive solar conditions to reduce energy demands.[...]




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    Project Lunark to test a prototype moon habitat powered by solar

    “What does it take to live on the moon?” That was the question put forward by Sebastian Aristotelis and Karl-Johan Sørensen, the founders of SAGA Space Architects and the analog astronauts behind Lunark, a prototype moon habitat. Designed in collaboration with scientists, engineers and polar experts, Lunark will be tested over three months in northern Greenland as part of the first Arctic-simulated moon mission. In addition to its resilience to extreme temperatures, the habitat will be engineered for a zero-waste ecosystem and will draw power from solar panels.[...]




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    Peaceful floating villa in Australia runs on solar energy

    Australian architect Chuck Anderson has created a beautiful, solar-powered floating villa that has us dreaming of brighter days. Anchored just north of Sydney’s Palm Beach, the Lilypad is meant for those travelers who are looking to spend a little down time on serene waters while staying true to their sustainable lifestyles.[...]




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    LEED Gold-targeted library and community park has otherworldly appeal

    Toronto-based architecture firm RDHA has completed the Springdale Library and Komagata Maru Park, a new inclusive gathering space for Brampton, a city located about 45 minutes west of Toronto. Designed as a visual contrast to the flat suburban environment, the architects created an undulating landscape of hills that is reinforced by the building’s mountainous form. Surrounded by walls of glass and solar shades, the green-roofed library is powered by geothermal energy and is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification.[...]




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    Community collects locally sourced materials to construct a school in Vietnam

    The Xuan Hoa commune in the Lao Cai province of northwest Vietnam is, like much of the surrounding area, a region that has suffered from economic hardships in the past. A large number of households in Xuan Hoa live in extreme poverty, including many of the school district’s 78 students aged 6 to 11 years old. The new Dao school by 1+1>2 Architects was completed in 2019 to provide provide education to the area’s children in first through fifth grades.[...]




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    Relax and unwind in this tiny home with a walk-in hot tub

    From climbing walls to a roaming music studio, we've seen a lot of ingenious tiny house features over the years. But this tiny home on wheels from Movable Roots has a distinct feature we never thought was possible — a walk-in hot tub! The Culp is a 500-square-foot home that, in addition to its accessible, spa-like bathroom, boasts unique cork flooring and an incinerating toilet.[...]




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    UNStudio installs new energy-generating facade for solar producer Hanwhas HQ

    UNStudio has completed renovations of the Hanwha headquarters in Seoul — all without disrupting the building’s normal business operations. The impressive feat was achieved thanks to efficient and low-impact construction methods that the international design firm dubs “remodeling in place.” In addition to renovated interior spaces and a redesigned landscape, the Hanwha headquarters is now home to a completely new, energy-generating facade with integrated solar panels to express the company’s identity as an ambitious global leader in the solar panel industry. [...]




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    Red brick firehouse in Belgium runs on solar power

    Rotterdam-based studio Happel Cornelisse Verhoeven has built a charming new firehouse for Wilrijk, Belgium. The firehouse is clad in bright red bricks that stand out thanks to white grout and vertical columns made of larger bricks. The building is also incredibly sustainable, generating its own clean energy through a massive rooftop solar array.[...]




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    Distinctly modern net-zero home sits in harmony with its woodland surroundings

    Chapel Hill-based firm Arielle Condoret Schechter is known for its commitment to building sustainable homes that don't sacrifice elegance or comfort. The company's latest work includes the spacious Haw River House, which was built with several efficient features to create a net-zero energy home that is seamlessly linked with its natural surroundings.[...]




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    Record high amount of microplastic found on seafloors

    Researchers in a new U.K.-led study found a staggering volume of microplastics on the seafloor. At up to 1.9 million pieces on a single square meter, it’s the highest level on record.[...]




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    WKE LifeProof phone cases use recycled ocean-bound waste

    In an effort to find a balance between protecting the significant investment in our cellular devices and protecting the planet, LifeProof has developed a phone case that sources materials diverted from the ocean and simultaneously supports organizations directly involved in providing safe water, protecting ocean life and maintaining river habitat. [...]




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    Elevated, green-roofed cabin minimizes impact on mountain in Norway

    Designed by San Francisco- and Oslo-based firm Mork-Ulnes Architects, the Skigard Hytte Cabin in Norway features various openings on each side that allow the architects, who designed the cabin for themselves, to immerse themselves in the incredible, mountainous surroundings. The 1,500-square-foot cabin is resilient to the extreme weather and is elevated off the landscape to reduce its impact. To top it all off, the cabin is crowned with a lush green roof.[...]




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    Black Hole Closest To Earth Found by ESO Astronomers

    Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other institutes have found the black hole that is currently the closest to Earth. The aforementioned black hole lies just 1000-light years from our planet, and is closer to our Solar System compared to others found to date. What’s more, it is part of a triple system that can be seen with the naked eye.

    They say this system could just be the tip of the iceberg, as many more similar black holes could be found in the future.
    "We were totally surprised when we realised that this is the first stellar system with a black hole that can be seen with the unaided eye," says Petr Hadrava, Emeritus Scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague and co-author of the research.

    More details about this finding over at ScienceDaily.

    (Image Credit: JohnsonMartin/ Pixabay)




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    Ace Attorney Zoom Backgrounds

    As even lawyers now work from home, and trials are now held via Zoom, I guess it would only be appropriate if they had a background that’s related to their job. And what background would that be other than the courtroom? But even if you’re not a lawyer, you can still use these Zoom backgrounds released last week by Capcom’s Ace Attorney, via Twitter. You can use the 2D background from the original trilogy, or opt for the 3D one from the more recent games.

    Take that! And no objections, please.

    (Image Credit: Ace Attorney/ Twitter)




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    Unpatchable 'Starbleed' Bug in FPGA Chips Exposes Critical Devices to Hackers

    A newly discovered unpatchable hardware vulnerability in Xilinx programmable logic products could allow an attacker to break bitstream encryption, and clone intellectual property, change the functionality, and even implant hardware Trojans. The details of the attacks against Xilinx 7-Series and Virtex-6 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have been covered in a paper titled "The




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    How An Image Could've Let Attackers Hack Microsoft Teams Accounts

    Microsoft has patched a worm-like vulnerability in its Teams workplace video chat and collaboration platform that could have allowed attackers to take over an organization's entire roster of Teams accounts just by sending participants a malicious link to an innocent-looking image. The flaw, impacting both desktop and web versions of the app, was discovered by cybersecurity researchers at




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    Researchers Uncover Novel Way to De-anonymize Device IDs to Users' Biometrics

    Researchers have uncovered a potential means to profile and track online users using a novel approach that combines device identifiers with their biometric information. The details come from a newly published research titled "Nowhere to Hide: Cross-modal Identity Leakage between Biometrics and Devices" by a group of academics from the University of Liverpool, New York University, The Chinese




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    Critical Bugs Found in 3 Popular e-Learning Plugins for WordPress Sites

    Security researchers are sounding the alarm over newly discovered vulnerabilities in some popular online learning management system (LMS) plugins that various organizations and universities use to offer online training courses through their WordPress-based websites. According to the Check Point Research Team, the three WordPress plugins in question — LearnPress, LearnDash, and LifterLMS —




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    Facebook Launches 'Discover,' A Secure Proxy to Browse the Internet for Free

    More than six years after Facebook launched its ambitious Free Basics program to bring the Internet to the masses, the social network is back at it again with a new zero-rating initiative called Discover. The service, available as a mobile web and Android app, allows users to browse the Internet using free daily data caps. Facebook Discover is currently being tested in Peru in partnership