Saturday, December 27, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
Hacked? Xbox and Playstation Networks Both Go Down for Christmas
Thousands of people reported Christmas Day problems on the Xbox Live and Playstation gaming networks, as a band of hackers took gleeful credit. The networks, which allow users of the popular consoles to play the video games with a wider online community, first crashed on Wednesday evening and the problems persisted into Friday morning, enraging many users — but especially those powering-up new machines from Santa Claus.
A hacker group called "Lizard Squad" claimed responsibility, saying on Twitter that it toppled both networks with so-called distributed denial of service attacks. The tactic involves overwhelming Sony and Microsoft's servers with unexpected — and bogus — user traffic. "Jingle bells jingle bells xbox got ran," the group wrote on Twitter Thursday, adding a similar line about Sony. "oh my fun it is to troll of you morons ... hey!"
Xbox on Thursday said it was working to address the problem and investigating what caused it. Early Friday, a Tweet from the official Playstation support account said engineers still were working hard to resolve the problems and thanked users for their patience. Playstation is owned by Sony, the same company that released "The Interview" on Thursday. Xbox is owned by Microsoft, one of the companies which agreed the stream the film despite threats of a 9/11-style attack by the original hackers. There were no immediate indications the incidents were related.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Friday, December 19, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Monday, December 8, 2014
The father of video games Ralph Baer has passed away
One of the founding fathers of video games as we know them has passed away at the end of 92.
Ralph Baer was the creator of the pioneering Brown Box in 1969, which formed the foundation of what became one of the first home consoles – 1972’s the Magnavox Odyssey.
The Odyssey, which sold hundreds of thousands of units and hosted over 25 software titles, was the inspiration of many competitors, chief amongst them being Atari’s seminal title Pong.
Baer’s legacy spans wider than that, however. As well as developing the first ever lightgun game in 1967 and holding some 150 patents, he was also the creator of the popular Simon Says electronic toy in 1979.
Baer was born in Germany in 1922. He and his family fled from the Nazis to the Netherlands before eventually settling in America. Baer is survived by two sons and a daughter.
Image credit: Hight3ch
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
The 20th Anniversary Edition PlayStation 4
To mark the 20th anniversary of the PlayStation, Sony is releasing a special 20th anniversary PlayStation 4. The console is limited to only 12,300 numbered units worldwide.
It is priced at 49,800 yen (US$418) in Japan and available through the Sony Store starting tonight. No word yet on an international release date or pricing.
