A viral TikTok account is doxing ordinary and otherwise anonymous people on the internet using off-the-shelf facial recognition technology, creating content and growing a following by taking advantage of a fundamental new truth: privacy is now essentially dead in public spaces.

The 90,000 follower-strong account typically picks targets who appeared in other viral videos, or people suggested to the account in the comments. Many of the account’s videos show the process: screenshotting the video of the target, cropping images of the face, running those photos through facial recognition software, and then revealing the person’s full name, social media profile, and sometimes employer to millions of people who have liked the videos. There’s an entire branch of content on TikTok in which creators show off their OSINT doxing skills—OSINT being open source intelligence, or information that is openly available online. But the vast majority of them do it with the explicit consent of the target. This account is doing the same, without the consent of the people they choose to dox. As a bizarre aside, the account appears to be run by a Taylor Swift fan, with many of the doxing videos including Swift’s music, and including videos of people at the Eras Tour.

404 Media is not naming the account because TikTok has decided to not remove it from the platform. TikTok told me the account does not violate its policies; one social media policy expert I spoke to said TikTok should reevaluate that position.

The TikTok account, conversations with victims, and TikTok’s own lack of action on the account show that access to facial recognition technology, combined with a cultural belief that anything public is fair game to exploit for clout, now means that all it takes is one random person on the internet to target you and lead a crowd in your direction.

One target told me he felt violated after the TikTok account using facial recognition tech targeted him. Another said they initially felt flattered before “that promptly gave way to worry.” All of the victims I spoke to echoed one general point—this behavior showed them just how exposed we all potentially are simply by existing in public.

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The A. hitleri beetle has been collected to near-extinction by neo-Nazis, sparking a fierce debate among taxonomists over whether to change offensive species names.

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In 1933, amateur entomologist Oskar Scheibel added an unusual insect to his collection. The specimen turned out to be a previously unknown and rare blind cave beetle from Slovenia. The Austrian engineer named it Anophthalmus hitleri. The first word derived from the Greek for “without eyes,” the second from the leader of Nazi Germany at the time, Adolf Hitler.

Over the ensuing decades, many in the taxonomy community objected to using nomenclature linked to the man largely responsible for the Holocaust. Now that name could be changed – but not for the reason you might think.

Some scientists are proposing the change to protect the beetle. They point out that the tiny blind bug has been driven to near extinction by neo-Nazis unlawfully collecting it because of its infamous scientific title.

“It’s an innocent insect,” a Canadian anthropologist wrote last year in the Economist. “Why not end this illegal trade by changing its name?”

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The practice of using objectionable identifications for fauna and flora has been argued over for years by taxonomists – those responsible for naming new species. Some are asking why these identifications are still in use. Others are defending the nomenclature process, saying that making retroactive changes based on personal sentiment would upset the stability of science communication.

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Two years ago, the metaverse was billed as the next big thing - but many in the tech world have already moved on.

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But almost two years on, Zuckerberg has been forced to deny that he is now jettisoning the idea.

"A narrative has developed that we're somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse," he told investors in April. "So I just want to say upfront that that's not accurate."

On Wednesday the company holds its annual VR event called Meta Connect.

It's a chance, perhaps, for Zuckerberg to again explain his reasoning for taking an extremely profitable social media company and diverting its focus to an extremely unprofitable VR venture.

How unprofitable? Well, the most recent figures from Meta are eye-watering.

Reality Labs - which as the name suggests is Meta's virtual and augmented reality branch - has lost a staggering $21 billion since last year.

Part of the losses reflect long-term investment. Meta wasn't expecting short-term returns. But the worrying fact for the company is that, so far, there is very little evidence that this enormous punt will work.

Horizon Worlds, a game published by Meta, is about as close as the company has got to creating a metaverse.

Users can hop into different settings - cafes, comedy clubs, night clubs, basketball courts - to hang out and play games.

Meta claims it has 300,000 monthly users: tiny when compared to the billions of people on Facebook and Instagram.

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A small update has gone out for Starfield on Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft Store, and Steam. This update addresses some issues with performance and stability as well as a few general gameplay issues. We are continuing to work on a larger update that will add features and improvements that we noted in our last update notes. Thank you so much for your continued feedback and support of Starfield and we look forward to a future with you on this journey.

General

• Characters: Fixed an issue that could cause some characters to not be in their proper location.
• Star Stations: Fixed an issue where Star Stations would be labeled as a player-owned ship.
• Vendors: Addressed an issue that allowed for a vendor’s full inventory to be accessible.

Graphics

• AMD (PC): Resolved an issue that caused star lens flares not to appear correctly AMD GPUs.
• Graphics: Addressed an upscaling issue that could cause textures to become blurry.
• Graphics: Resolved an issue that could cause photosensitivity issues when scrolling through the inventory menu.

Performance and Stability

• Hand Scanner: Addressed an issue where the Hand Scanner caused hitching.
• Various stability and performance improvements to address crashing and freezes.

Ships

• Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause displayed items to disappear when applied to in-ship mannequins.
• Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause items stored in Razorleaf Storage Containers and Weapon Racks to disappear after commandeering another ship.

A small update has gone out for Starfield on Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft Store, and Steam. This update addresses some issues with performance and stability as well as a few general gameplay issues. We are continuing to work on a larger update that will add features and improvements that we noted in our last update notes. Thank you so much for your continued feedback and support of Starfield and we look forward to a future with you on this journey.

General

• Characters: Fixed an issue that could cause some characters to not be in their proper location.
• Star Stations: Fixed an issue where Star Stations would be labeled as a player-owned ship.
• Vendors: Addressed an issue that allowed for a vendor’s full inventory to be accessible.

Graphics

• AMD (PC): Resolved an issue that caused star lens flares not to appear correctly AMD GPUs.
• Graphics: Addressed an upscaling issue that could cause textures to become blurry.
• Graphics: Resolved an issue that could cause photosensitivity issues when scrolling through the inventory menu.

Performance and Stability

• Hand Scanner: Addressed an issue where the Hand Scanner caused hitching.
• Various stability and performance improvements to address crashing and freezes.

Ships

• Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause displayed items to disappear when applied to in-ship mannequins.
• Displays: Fixed an issue that would cause items stored in Razorleaf Storage Containers and Weapon Racks to disappear after commandeering another ship.

Hardware Busters put the new 12V-2x6 connector—which is part of the ATX v3.1 standard—to the test to see how it compares to the 12VHPWR connector and the results are very encouraging. Not only does the 12V-2x6 cables appear to run at much cooler temperature, even at a 55 Ampere load, although the setup that was tested had only been running at this load for around 30 minutes. Even so, the cable and connector was only reading a surface temperature of around 46 degrees, which is well within specs.

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YouTube Video - Hardware Busters

How a developer hid Pitfall III inside Pitfall II, and how Activision almost made him delete it.

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The story surrounding Pitall II’s second world has taken on mythical proportions – no doubt in part because recollections have faded over the years and much of the documentation is lost. Some claim you have to collect treasures in a certain order to unlock the second half, which is why it’s an Easter egg. You don’t. Some claim that the extra level is hidden in the other versions. It isn’t. The only way to play it is to finish the first half of Pitfall II on an Atari 8-bit computer or the 5200. If you're curious, you can watch the second world unlock in this WorldofLongPlays video (played via an emulator).

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So Mike started to think bigger, convincing himself that if the original game had 256 screens with seven things – “the alligators and whatnot” – he needed to have 256 screens with seven brand-new things. “One was the rabid bat,” he said, and offered in one of many asides during our conversation: “The rabid bat actually has a repeating pattern, all you had to do is study it.”

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“'We can’t have [that], Brad. We are marketing the two products together and they need to have the exact same gameplay. You are going to have to strip that second game out of the product.' I couldn't change his mind, none of my arguments worked. I drove back to the office trying to figure out how I was going to give Mike this terrible news.”

Fregger recalls that he told Mike that "we are going to have the best, damn, Easter egg ever."

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The ending seemed so elaborate compared to other games, I just had to ask Mike about it – who didn’t disappoint and offered another anecdote:

“I wanted the classic snake-charming music [hums the tune]. And so they brought in a musician and composer, named Ed Bogas, who wrote commercial jingles. Dave Crane is a fucking genius, right? His IQ is off the charts! Ed Bogas is another one. The day he came in to do the music for me, he composed four different sets of music while having a conversation with me. He said ‘give me the translation paper’ and then he memorized it and gave me the notes in hex. While creating four other pieces of music. That’s probably the person with the most bandwidth, the most simultaneous processing I ever saw.”

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From September 2024, any games featuring simulated gambling (such as social casino games) will be rated R18+. R18+ is a legally restricted category in Australia, and games rated R18+ cannot be sold to people under 18.

Additionally, the minimum rating for “games containing in-game purchases linked to elements of chance, including paid loot boxes” will be M. Games rated M in Australia are recommended for people over 15, but this is advisory only; M is not a legally restricted category.

The changes will only apply to games that are released from September next year, and will not apply retrospectively.

From September 2024, any games featuring simulated gambling (such as social casino games) will be rated R18+
According to pre-pandemic figures, Australia has the greatest per capita gambling losses in the world, and is a staggering 40 per cent clear of second place.

The introduction of mandatory minimum classifications for gambling-related content was one of the recommendations from a review Australia’s classification regulations that was undertaken in 2020 and published earlier this year.

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If you're in the US and buy a PlayStation 5 console between now and October 20, 2023, you will be entitled to a free PS5 digital game of your choosing. This brand-new deal is eligible for any who will buy or have bought the console since September 20. This could be a great offer for anyone who is picking up a PS5 in the near future (or before Spider-Man 2 exclusively launches on the console), and well worth keeping an eye on.

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The conversation/free-for-all around the role of automated "AI"-based game development rolls on with a few thoughts from Tom Hall, co-founder of id Software and one of the creators of the original DOOM, who says he's (Commander) keen on the prospect of "ethical" uses for such tools in gamedev, but worries that reliance on them "will homogenize games, sort of like AAA games are now".

Speaking to Sektor.sk, Hall said he was "excited" by "how AI could be used ethically to be more of a core element of the game, so it's almost like a game that you're playing and it's playing you, in a sense, or it knows what you want. It could generate things for you, or enable different gameplay, it can adapt much more seamlessly to what you're doing, or just sensibly create more game content."

But he added: "I don't want it to just willy-nilly be procedural, everything AI, and just not have any crafting to it, because that will homogenize games, sort of like a lot of AAA games are now. They're just kind of like I attack the monster, oh, it's attacking, I'll roll out of the way. It's all kind of the same stuff. And that's what I don't want to happen to games because of AI. I want it to enable us to make cooler things, and more amazing things, but there still needs to be a sense of craft."

Reworked skill trees and new minigames aside, Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update includes a Ukrainian localisation of the game's million-plus-word script. It turns out the Ukrainian version is awash with references to Russia's on-going invasion of Ukraine, all of it seemingly in support of the latter. The news comes via Zone of Games, who have published a few side-by-side comparisons from the game's files, underlining differences between the English and Ukrainian translations in various bits of dialogue and menu text.

I asked the organisers of Indie Cup - a Kyiv, Ukraine-based digital festival of games like Pahris Entertainment's upcoming Space Wreck - to help me double-check the Ukrainian version's alterations. The Indie Cup team's Arsenii Tarasov was happy to oblige, and also volunteered a few further examples of more... adventurous localisation from his own research, supported with screenshots.

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