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Redbox signature red kiosks will no longer carry video games for rental, the company has confirmed.

Redbox game rentals provided a means to play through the story mode of a video game without having to purchase a copy. Unfortunately, Redbox is getting out of the video games business to focus entirely on movies from 2020.

Redbox customers had noticed that video game rentals had disappeared from their kiosks, but that there were still some games left available to purchase. The games will be available to purchase until the end of the year.

Engadget noted that there is an opportunity for some good deals before Redbox gets out of games entirely. For example, Death Stranding and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be available for $40.

Via: Engadget

Facebook won't provide law enforcement with access to its encrypted messaging products.

Law enforcement agencies and politicians around the world are demanding some level of access to messaging services that are protected by end-to-end encryption. They cite the use of the services for criminal activity including terrorist networks and abuse material.

However, WhatsApp and Messenger bosses Will Cathcart and Stan Chudnovsky, say that such backdoor access can be exploited for nefarious purposes.

"The 'backdoor' access you are demanding for law enforcement would be a gift to criminals, hackers and repressive regimes, creating a way for them to enter our systems and leaving every person on our platforms more vulnerable to real-life harm," Cathcart and Chudnovsky wrote in a letter, reports The Verge.

"People's private messages would be less secure and the real winners would be anyone seeking to take advantage of that weakened security. That is not something we are prepared to do."

The Justice Department has opposed Facebook's pivot to end-to-end encryption for its Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger services, with AG William Barr declaring that companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content even for preventing or investigating the most serious crimes.

Google will integrate a feature into its Chrome web browser that can detect if your login usernames and passwords have been leaked in a data breach.

It has previously introduced the Password Checker extension for the Chrome browser, which checks user credentials against over 4 billion sets of credentials that are known to be compromised. It also built into the Google Account and is accessible from password.google.com if logged in.

Google is now integrating it into Chrome, gradually rolling out with release M79. If Google discovers a username and password exposed by a data breach, it stores a hashed and encrypted copy of the data on its servers.

When you sign in to a website, Chrome will send a hashed copy of your username and password to Google encrypted with a secret key only known to Chrome. No one, including Google, is able to derive your username or password from this encrypted copy.

Google uses a technique called private set intersection with blinding that involves multiple layers of encryption to determine if your username and password appear in any breach. Only you discover if your username and password have been compromised. If they have been compromised, Chrome will inform you so you can change the credentials.

One of the most talked about startups of 2018 was the controversial Magic Leap. The company's new type of augmented reality headset was hoped to be a revolutionary product in the VR/AR space.

The headset was small and some of the people that got to use an early prototype echoed superlatives everyone was hoping for in this stagnant phase in AR development.

While Oculus, PSVR and others were trying to push the boundaries of price, portability and specs, augmented reality was stuck at Microsoft's burdensome HoloLens implementations.

So where is the hyped Magic Leap headset? After all, it's been two years since the company unveiled the first generation of their futuristic goggles (pictured).

According to an ex-employee their expectations for sales were in the clouds and that did not pan out. Magic Leap hoped for more than 100 000 units sold while they only managed 6 000. An exposé by The Information, explains exactly how pear-shaped the company's past couple years have turned out.

In the previous few years mini-sized retro gaming consoles have become a thing. With tiny versions of NES and SNES as well as the original PlayStation and even Commodore 64, nearly everyone's favorite retro gaming rig was brought back to life in a tiny form factor.

Now, however, Retro Games Ltd. is bringing back Commodore 64 in its full-sized glory – with working keyboard and everything.

The new product, called TheC64, was available via Indiegogo, where it managed $100,000 in crowdfunding. Now The64 MicroComputer is shipping, just in time for some Christmas retro gaming.

It comes with a very authentic looking main frame with, as mentioned, working keyboard. There's also a joystick and a total of 64 games in either C64 or VIC-20 mode. It comes preloaded with classics like California Games, Paradroid and Boulder Dash.

You might know Nokia from the mobile revolution in the 90s and early 2000s. However, the company was producing all kinds of technology in its heyday – obviously the company is still very much alive, and even new Android sets are released under the brand.

In the 90s the Finnish technology powerhouse was producing some of the best monitors and TV sets around. Widescreen Nokia branded TVs might not have been the marvel that was the iconic, and fairly indestructible, Nokia 3310, but perhaps their new venture into TV business is going to rectify that.

See, Nokia has announced their first smart TV. The company is bringing their own 4K-enabled television with smart capabilities to the market.

The 55-inch Nokia LED-backlit TV is set to launch in India, and there's no word on whether Europe or USA will get the product at all.

In fact, Nokia has licensed their brand to an Indian electronics retailer Flipkart, which will be at this point the sole seller of these TVs.

If you are in India, and interested in buying a new smart TV, the Nokia has nice specs to go with the nostalgic brand. The 55-inch LED TV features UHD 4K resolution, Dolby Vision and HDR10 support, and is powered by a quad-core chip that runs Android TV operating system.

Rocket League has eliminated its loot boxes - or crates - and replaced them with Blueprints in an update.

In video games, loot boxes essentially contain surprise items like weapons, costumes and so forth. This surprise element has prompted critics to liken the purchasing of these packs to gambling. They have provoked the ire of regulators and politicians in several countries.

Rocket League has decided to scrap its crates and replace them with Unrevealed Blueprints. All existing crates in a player's inventory have been converted into these Blueprints. Blueprints will drop after select online matches and can be traded with other players.

Revealing a Blueprint will show you which item that Blueprint can build, along with how many Credits that item will require to build.

There is still a random element with Blueprints, but at least this way players can see the item before they choose whether to spend on it.

Via: Engadget

Apple has explained why its newer iPhone handsets will intermittently query location information even if location services have been disabled.

Researcher Brian Krebs had revealed how his iPhone 11 Pro handset seemed to routinely query location information even though he had set all apps and system services never to request location information. He pointed out that under Apple's own documentation, this shouldn't be happening.

Initially, Apple said that there was no security concern and that the device was performing as designed. However, after the story was picked up, questions about the need for the device to intermittently query locations piled up.

Apple has explained the behavior of the device in statements to TechCrunch.

Newer iPhone models, including the iPhone 11 Pro that Krebs owns, come with ultra wideband technology. One use of UWB is to enable wirelessly sharing files over AirDrop, for example, and it is likely to be used in upcoming features as iOS updates.

"Ultra wideband technology is an industry standard technology and is subject to international regulatory requirements that require it to be turned off in certain locations," a spokesperson told TechCrunch.

YouTube has published its YouTube Rewind 2019 video, highlighting content on the world's largest video platform.

Last year was a disaster. To say that the YouTube Rewind 2018 video was poorly received by the public is to push the limits of understating. In fact, it was so detested that it quickly became the most disliked YouTube video in history.

This year, YouTube prepared us all for its 2019 rendition with a Twitter teaser showing a car driving off the highway toward a destination of "something different for real."

While the 2018 video focused on original content, the 2019 rehash showcases the most viewed videos on the platform, along with the more viewed creators over the past twelve months. The highlight reel includes stars like Billie Eilish and PewDiePie.

It organizes the content into charts that include top creator videos, top music videos, top dance videos, video game videos, and more.

Following on from the most disliked video ever must surely be easier, but it should be pointed out that at the time of writing the new video has 1.3 million downvotes to 756,000 upvotes. Judge it for yourself.

Plex streaming service is supported by advertisements and features a wide range of content.

Available in over 200 countries across the world, Plex's new streaming service features thousands of titles including Movies, TV Shows, documentaries, sports, and more. There is no paid option for the service, it is ad-supported even if you are an existing & paying Plex Pass subscriber.

The service isn't filled with obscure titles either, its library includes content from Legendary, MGM, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Gravitas, and many more.

It is available in almost every country in the world. There are some geo-restrictions in place for certain content but most is available everywhere. As for the ads you can expect to see, Plex says it will be about a third of the ads you would expect from cable TV.

The service works with Apple devices, Android devices, Amazon devices, Roku devices, Smart TVs, and so forth. For existing Plex users, the service is available a sidebar item "Movies and TV".

More: Plex

(Via: Engadget)

In a clear example of irony, Mozilla has pulled four add-ons from popular security firms for violating policies on data collection.

The add-ons are developed by Avast and AVG, who are among the most popular providers of consumer-level security products across platforms. Mozilla removed two add-ons from each firm that protected consumers from dangerous websites and also from scams and other undesirable activity.

Starting in October, Adblock Plus developer Wladimir Palant detailed how the add-ons in question were excessively vacuuming up data from the browsers they were installed on. Far from just collecting data about websites visited, the add-ons went further to collection information on search history, and behavioral information including how long was spent on a webpage, what users had clicked on, the number of open tabs, and even when they switched tabs.

Such detailed information violates Mozilla's policies and it pulled the four add-ons from its store after it was notified of them on December 2. Opera followed suit shortly afterward.

The add-ons are likely to return sooner rather than later. ZDNet reported that Avast is already working with Mozilla to bring its add-ons to compliance.

The service will ask new users for their date of birth when creating a new account, it has confirmed.

Instagram has no plans to retroactively seek the date of birth of its vast millions of existing users, feeling it may be intrusive to do so. On a blog post explaining the change, Instagram cited a desire to provide age-appropriate experiences for its users.

"Asking for this information will help prevent underage people from joining Instagram, help us keep young people safer and enable more age-appropriate experiences overall," the blog post explains.

"We will use the birthday information you share with us to create more tailored experiences, such as education around account controls and recommended privacy settings for young people."

Instagram will not be attempting to verify the date of birth provided by new users, however. Age verification is a topic that is increasingly at the forefront of public discussion about digital services and their effects on young users. Within the industry itself, there is a debate on how exactly age verification can be successfully implemented, though regulators would certainly like to see it implemented.

Nowadays pictures get taken in vast quantities and are published olnine routinely (social media, instant messaging, etc.). Sometimes the picture that you captured on your phone doesn't just seem good enough and you need to edit it; crop, change colors, and add special effects. Or, you may want to create a totally new image using multiple pictures, effects, etc.

In all of these cases you need a proper photo editing software.

Many popular photo editing suites are commercial, but luckily there are amazing free options on the market too. So, we built a list of - in our opinion - the five best free photo editing software for Windows:

1. Gimp

Gimp is considered by the world to be the best free photo editing software - and it's not a huge shock. The main reason Gimp is the best is the varied range of tools.

Gimp's tools and features range is enormous: from layers to different kinds of effects, everything's on Gimp and for free without ads.

In our article series, we're digging into AfterDawn's news archive and looking what happened exactly 20 years ago. This article series also celebrates AfterDawn's 20th anniversary.

So, we're digging into our news archive and trying to figure out what was hot and what was not, back in November, 1999 when our site was only four months old. I'd like to remind you, our readers, that back then, AfterDawn was strictly focused on digital audio and video technologies and reporting events in those genres. More generic "all about tech" arrived to our site much later.

New file sharing software pop up almost daily

As Napster has grabbed the headlines across the world, competitors appear on almost daily basis to take a slice of the growing file sharing business. Legal or not, there's a goldrush among software developers those days, hoping that somehow, file sharing would be deemed legal and one of the players would emerge out of the wars as the winner.

In our news back in November, 1999, we covered several software releases related to file sharing software. One of the strongest players back then was CuteMX. Software itself didn't live for very long, as the developers decided to call it quits after Napster's troubles with the law started to grow. But for a very short time, back then, it was considered as the top contender to Napster - superior technically in many ways.

Valve's Steam Controller is to become a part of gaming history as the company confirms it is manufacturing no more units.

Valve first introduced the initial Steam Controller to the world in September 2013, as part of its Steam Machine initiative. It was a different controller than most gamers were used to. Instead of the common-place thumbsticks, it sports clickable trackpads that deliver haptic feedback. It also features fourteen separate buttons.

It's odd-looking design and unconventional feel did earn it some scorn from gamers, but that didn't stop it amassing its own following. This is due to the fact that it is one of the most customizable gamepads available, and thousands of gamers uploaded their own custom configs for their game libraries on Steam.

If you haven't used one and would like to own a piece of gaming history, you can buy it for a limited time for $5, if you are willing to pay the full shipping cost. Valve confirmed to The Verge that this is the last of the supply and there will be no more. It will be on sale until December 3, presumably only if stocks last.

You can find it at store.steampowered.com.