General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i7 Gaming System, WD Red 4TB NAS HDD, and More!

Posted: 11 Mar 2016 12:15 PM PST

Intel Bundle

Top Deal:

Getting ready to blow your tax refund on a new gaming setup? There's nothing wrong with that, though if you want to save some funds leftover to apply towards games, then check out today's top deal for an All Action Packed Core i7 Gaming System Configuration for $900 with free shipping (normally $973; additional $10 Mail-in rebate). This bundle of parts puts you Haswell territory with an Intel Core i7-4790 CPU, HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3-1866, MSI Z97 PC Mate ATX motherboard, Zotac GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, Deepcool Tesseract case, Raidmax 735W PSU, SanDisk Z400 256GB SSD, and a 24X DVD burner.

Other Deals:

Asus Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i5 6300HQ (2.30 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 2GB GDDR5 15.6-inch Windows 10 Home 64-Bit for $799 with free shipping (normally $849 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFF56])

WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch for $140 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [ESCEHFF22])

Adata Premier SP550 2.5-inch 960GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive for $200 with free shipping (normally $220 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFF24])

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 6GB CLASSIFIED Gaming w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling w/ Free Installed Backplate Graphics Card for $640 with free shipping (normally $700; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Hitman on Disc Won't Sneak into Homes Until 2017

Posted: 11 Mar 2016 09:26 AM PST

Digital first, physical later

Hitman

Developer IO Interactive and publisher Square Enix released the first episode of a new Hitman title today, which is the sixth entry in the popular Hitman series. It's available right now in digital form, though if you prefer to wait for the complete game to be released on disc, get cozy, it won't be here until early 2017.

"This year is all about delivering the best episodic experience for Hitman and that takes us to Autumn/Fall," IO Interactive told VideoGamer. "Releasing the disc version in January just makes sure we have enough time after the season concludes to dedicate to getting the best disc version of the game out."

IO Interactive and Square Enix originally planned to release the full Hitman game on disc sometime near the end of the year, though there was never any mention of a specific release date. There still isn't, though we surmise that early 2017 would point to a January or February launch.

The first episode is available now in digital form. It's set in Paris, with future episodes taking place in a variety of other locations, including Italy, Morocco, Thailand, Japan, and the United States. There will also be a seventh episode, though it's not currently known where the location will be.

An episodic release wasn't always in the cards. IO Interactive and Square Enix made the decision to switch gears last year when it was clear that the game wouldn't be ready by the end of 2015.

You can buy the Intro Pack on Steam now for $15. It includes the Prologue Mission, the Paris Sanguine Fashion Show, full access to Contacts Mode, Escalation Mode, elusive targets, and other live content. The remaining six releases will be spread out through 2016 starting in April.

If you purchase the Intro Pack and get hooked, there's an Upgrade Pack available for $50, which includes the remaining releases. Or you can pay $60 for the full game right off the bat.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Hey Look, Another Emergency Update for Adobe Flash Player

Posted: 11 Mar 2016 08:53 AM PST

More holes than Swiss cheese

Flash Holes

The web can't move away from Adobe's Flash Player fast enough. Though efforts have been made to leave Flash behind, it's still a prominent part of the web. It's also still prone to what seems like an endless discovery of security holes. To that end, Adobe has released another update for its Flash Player, one that patches up no less than 23 security holes.

The update addresses vulnerabilities labeled as critical, one of which Adobe said it's aware is being actively exploited in the wild in limited, targeted attacks. Left unpatched, the vulnerabilities could potentially allow an attacker to control of an affected system.

Anyone running Adobe Flash Player version 20.0.0.306 or earlier should apply the update right way. That includes not only Windows users, but also Mac OS X, Linux, and Chrome OS users as well. If you're not sure which version you have installed, you can check on Adobe's website.

This is the latest in a string of security threats discovered in Flash Player. The web at large is making a concerted effort to move away from Flash—Google is banning Flash-based ads by 2017, YouTube already punted Flash in favor of HTML5, and and Twitch had begun phasing out Flash Player for HTML back in 2015, to name just a few examples.

In 2015, McAfee noted a 317 percent increase in new Adobe Flash malware in the first quarter of the year. More recently, McAfee said (PDF) that "application vulnerabilities are an ongoing problem for software developers and their customers," and that "Adobe Flash is perhaps the most frequently attacked product."

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

FCC Wants ISPs to Follow a New Set of Data Privacy Rules

Posted: 11 Mar 2016 07:35 AM PST

Getting ISPs to respect your privacy

Fcc

The moment you hop online, you can pretty much kiss your privacy goodbye. There are steps you can take to limit how much of your privacy you give up, but for the most part, your online activities are logged, tracked, sold, and everything else. To ensure that ISPs don't go too far with things, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed rules that would limit the kind of data they can share.

"Every broadband consumer should have the right to know what information is being collected and how it is used. Every broadband consumer should have the right to choose how their information bits should be used and shared. And every consumer should be confident that their information is being securely protected," Wheeler said in an op-ed piece posted to Huffington Post.

To be clear, Wheeler doesn't want to completely strip away the ability of network providers to collect information about its customers and use that information as they see fit. But what it does want to do is make it so that ISPs have to get permission from customers before sharing certain data.

Specifically, Wheeler says ISPs should be able to use information about where you want to go on the Internet so that it can deliver the broadband service you signed up. He's also in favor of ISPs collecting and using customer data for "other purposes that are consistent with customer expectations," like marketing higher speed connections and online billing, and sharing your information with third-parties to market other communications-related services unless you opt out.

For everything else, Wheeler says ISPs should be required to implement an opt-in method for consumers. Put another way, the burden would fall on the ISP to obtain permission from customers to use their data.

"Simply by using the Internet, you have no choice but to share large amounts of personal information with your broadband provider. You have a right to know what information is being collected about you and how that information is being used," Wheeler added.

Wheeler's proposal will go up for vote on March 31. If it's approved, the general public will have an opportunity to weigh in and provide feedback.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Total Pageviews

statcounter

View My Stats