Govt reviews social networks progress on curbing deepfakes; advisory on 100% compliance soon

Steam’s next city-building hit mixes two endlessly endearing things: Lemmings-style people-guiding to collect money and an incomprehensible amount of particles flying around the screen. 

In a significant move today,  the Lok Sabha has cleared the Telecom Bill 2023, laying the foundation for some far-reaching changes and even the transformation of the sector. The bill allows the government to temporarily take control of telecom services in the interest of national security. Not just that, in a huge move away from yesteryears, it also provided a non-auction route for the allocation of satellite spectrum. Significantly, the bill also allows the Centre to take possession of a telecom network in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety. It also provides for stopping transmission and even intercepting of messages in case of public emergency, in the interest of the public, to prevent incitement for committing offence. "The bill will promote structural reforms in the telecom sector," said Union Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. 

We review Rauha, an engine-building card game published by Hachette. In Rauha, you are a shaman trying to score the most victory points.

Humans are horrible. You don’t need an allegory about the environment filled with blue aliens to tell you that. However, the joy of James Cameron’s Avatar isn’t in its humans, or the azure Na’vi, it’s in the vibrant, living world of Pandora. From the instant you start Frontiers of Pandora, it’s clear that Ubisoft has done an incredible job bringing this world to life, and while you bathe in the neon glow of its incredible wildlife, you’ll discover a people whose lives and culture you’ll want to protect.

Facebook-owner Meta and China's TikTok restricted a record number of social media posts and accounts in Malaysia in the first six months of 2023, data published by the firms showed, amid a jump in government requests to remove content.

Dead Space Somebody wake me up when they update this with Gyro Aiming. 120fps could also be possible on PS5 Pro a year or so from now. But at this point, that's neither here nor there. I have seen it run at a fake 120fps and it's beautiful, ultimately making it a smoother more life-like experience. Gyro aiming + 120fps would make it feel more modernized and more next gen, breathing much needed life into what otherwise is an XBOX360 experience with a new lick of paint...

The Indian government has issued a critical alert to users of Samsung smartphones across the country, urging them to swiftly update their handsets in response to identified security vulnerabilities. The advisory, issued by the Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In) highlights a threat to Samsung devices operating on Android versions 11, 12, 13, and 14. These vulnerabilities, if exploited, could potentially allow unauthorised access to sensitive data on these devices.

Update, 12/13/2023:

TEVI is the recently released spiritual successor to 2016’s Rabi-Ribi, a bullet heaven action game in a Metroidvania wrapper, and the seven-year wait seems to have been well worth it based on fan reception. 

The saga of The Day Before has been quite a wild and winding tale. One, it seems, without a happy ending. Originally revealed back in 2021, developer Fntastic promised an ambitious open-world looter-shooter zombie MMO along the lines of something like The Division and impressive early “gameplay” trailers earned the project a large following on Steam. Then the delays came, with Fntastic sometimes offering odd excuses for why the game had to be pushed back, including unexplained trademark issues (an explanation they later walked back). Fans also began to pick apart the gameplay showcases we’d seen, accusing them of being mere mockups and not representative of an actual game.

is a game that promises a lot just by existing. Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, it's a very AAA take on a very blockbuster film franchise, hellbent on creating a beautiful world that's almost impossibly dense with vivid life. Much to the game's credit, it rises to the challenge of rendering Pandora's splendor with care, and a share of somewhat pedestrian elements never manage to overwhelm everything that it does right.

Short of somehow growing a Na’vi neural braid and jamming it directly into the base of James Cameron’s skull, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is pretty much your best option for taking a virtual tour of the stunning alien moon of Pandora. This open-world shooter serves up a mind bogglingly large slice of the fantastic fictional universe to explore, from staggeringly dense forest areas to picturesque open plains and properly intimidating mountain ranges both on land and suspended impossibly in the skies above. However, hidden amongst all that beauty is a disappointing amount of bloat, with copy-pasted enemy outposts and facilities that made venturing off the main story path far less rewarding than it has been in recent landmark adventures such as Elden Ring or the last two Legend of Zeldas. I still largely enjoyed the 25 hours I spent trying to fend off a resource-hungry human invasion, but I wish the environment itself had presented me with more compelling reasons to fight for it beyond its surface-level splendor.