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Games News

Half-Life 3 Finally Happened, Thanks to Indie Developers

Marc Laidlaw was a former writer that worked on the first and second game in the Half-Life franchise. On the 25th of August, 2017 he released a letter called Epistle 3 through which he shared his perspective and feelings on how Half-Life 3 should look like from his perspective.

What was the story?

Well, to be fair there isn’t a clear statement that he wrote specifically about Half-Life 3, maybe because of some legal liabilities. However, it doesn’t take much to overlook the gender-swapping of characters or other disguised details and realize that the letter is an interpretation on the 3rd version of Half-Life (call it as you like, Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2: Episode 3).

It represents the final chapter in the story of Gertie Fremont (or Gordon Freeman, if you’d like), as she calls herself in that letter. Officially, the story still hasn’t concluded and this letter was finally something to let us know how it could’ve been.

What happened after that?

Laura Michet, a writer herself, read this letter and decided to not leave it at that. In the evening that she stumbled upon the letter, she was with friends. They proceeded to read it and it had an impact on them, is that they grew up with the games and the never-ending expectations of seeing Half-Life 3 happen.

Then, inspired by the letter she opened her computer and started working on the game jam. They are similar to the open mics of stand-up. Here every veteran can try to dig into their own creative pools and see what comes out at the other end. Not just Laura but many other independent developers had a go and form this, emerged quite a few interpretations of Half-Life 3.

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News Tech

Google Pixel 3 Release Date Announced on October 4th

We just found out that Google’s Pixel 3 smartphone will be announced on 4th of October, which is not surprising, since earlier Pixel phones were released on the same date. Back in 2016, Pixel and Pixel XL were also launched on 4th of October, and the same happened the following year, in 2017, when Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were released on the same day.

Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL will be announced on 4th of October

The news about the release date comes from the ‘This Is Tech Today’ channel, which revealed that both Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL will be officially announced on October 4th. The announcement was revealed by Famebit in a job listing. Famebit was acquired by Google in 2016 and is based in Canada. Starting with 2016, the company is grouped under the YouTube division. Famebit gives YouTubers the opportunity to get some extra money through the promotion of various products and services to their audience.

What is mentioned in the listing

The job listing seems to be searching for “Canadian creators ONLY” and in particular a Creator who is not at the moment a Google Pixel user but would like to switch to Pixel 3. Google wants the creator to share a video with their experience of switching from another device to the Pixel 3 smartphone, once they switched over their contacts, apps and other necessary data. The promotional video needs to have details about why the user decided to switch and how the process was like.

More details about the upcoming smartphones

Both smartphones will run Android Pie, with Pixel 3 expected to have a 5.3-inch display with no screen cut out, and Pixel 3 XL featuring a 6.2-inch display.

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Crypto News

Joao Amoedo, Presidential Candidate Of Brazil, Thinks Cryptocurrency Can Be A Viable Payment Method

Joao Amoedo, presidential candidate of Brazil, for the New Party, has expressed that a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (BTC) can be a viable payment method in the country, as long as there is a regulation that supervises its use. The information was presented in an interview the candidate gave to a local media in recent days.

According to Amoedo, Bitcoin (BTC) should receive the same regulatory treatment as a fiat currency like the US Dollar, which could be a very controversial issue for the Bitcoin (BTC) community.

It must be made clear that the country [Brazil] has only one national currency, the currency which is legal tender, that is to say, the currency which the persons are obliged to accept as the real currency (…) Also, there are restrictions on the use of the US Dollar for payments and as an account currency, which should be the same for any other foreign currency, including cryptocurrency.

Joao Amoedo

At this moment, there is no regulatory framework regarding cryptocurrency use in Brazil

Currently, no legal framework regulates the use of cryptos in Brazil, despite the debates in Parliament on blockchain technology. The presidential elections to which Amoedo would be running are scheduled to be held in October, and his proposals could only materialize if he is elected.

Amoedo was very open to distributed ledger technology, believing that it could significantly reduce bureaucracy in public institutions by integrating it into real estate registration, document authentication, and electronic signature recognition.

Joao Amoedo also praised the advances in digital identity made thanks to blockchain technology, as well as its application in the supply chain, data transparency, and voting systems.

Since 2015, there has been a conflict between banks and cryptocurrency exchange operators in Brazil, which has led to the closure of some bank accounts belonging to a few exchange platforms and the subsequent reactivation of some of these blocked accounts.

Regarding this conflict, the Brazilian presidential candidate claimed not to have a specific position. In fact, Amoedo believes that the more competition there is in the cryptocurrencies market, the better it is.

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Crypto News

Fake Cryptocurrencies Giveaways On Twitter Are Conducted By 15,000 Bots

A survey released yesterday, August 6th, uncovered the notorious phenomenon of Twitter accounts which promote fake cryptocurrencies giveaways, disclosing a network of about 15,000 scam bots, reported the CoinTelegraph.

The Twitter bots analyze, which still cheat unknowing users, originates from computer security firm Duo Security.

The project entailed 88 million Twitter accounts, which were discovered and ranked using a software program designed by engineers based on machine learning.

With only the last 200 tweets from every account, this software has uncovered a network of 15,000 bots that promote fake contests by impersonating a few of the most well-known characters in the crypto-verse.

“Users tend to trust a tweet even based on how often it has been tweeted or appreciated. Anyone who manages this particular botnet knows this, and has designed it to take advantage of this trend,” states Duo Security data scientist Olabode Anise in the news release that comes with the research.

A network of 15,000 bots are offering fake cryptocurrencies giveaways on Twitter

A number of industry figures who have been embodied by bots have renamed themselves on Twitter to indicate that they are not offering cryptocurrencies or crypto tokens, including Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who is now known as Vitalik Non-giver of Ether on Twitter.

“It’s important to analyze an account almost holistically, even looking at the metadata of the content,” added Olabode Anise.

“For example, these accounts usually tweet in short bursts, so the average time between tweets is very low. Documentation of these patterns of behavior can also be used to identify other malicious botnets,” the security expert continued.

Anise and the associate Jordan Wright will showcase their achievements at the Black Hat USA 2018 IT security briefing in Las Vegas on Wednesday, August 8th.

In reply to the research, Twitter said it knew about the issues and that ‘spam’ accounts would be less than 5% of all current accounts on the social network. The company also indicated that, in most instances, the false cryptocurrencies giveaways are concealed by default.

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Crypto News Tech

Sirin Labs Opts For Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain Over IOTA’s Tangle For The Blockchain Smartphone

Sirin Labs, the developer of the enormous $16,000 Solarin Android smartphone, is developing a blockchain phone and has chosen to construct its new device line named “Finney,” a blockchain smartphone series, to support a private blockchain from Ethereum (ETH), instead of IOTA’s Tangle distributed ledger technology, as initially stated in its white paper.

Sirin Labs to work with Ethereum (ETH) blockchain instead of IOTA’s Tangle for the blockchain smartphone

“We are not working with IOTA. We considered the option and decided to go our separate ways. At launch, we’re going to use Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. The Finney Phone will work through complete nodes that are hosted at Sirin Labs.” said Marketing Director of Sirin Labs, Nimrod May.

“Our plan since the release of our report has always been to migrate the SRN token and the Sirin Labs ecosystem to a next-generation chain of blocks,” Nimrod May added.

The Finney devices, including a blockchain smartphone and PC, will run on Sirin Labs’ open source OS, the Sirin OS. The Sirin OS will be engineered to handle native blockchain applications such as a cryptocurrency wallet, secure exchange gateway access, secure communications, and an ecosystem of peer-to-peer resource for sharing applications and payments, all of which supported by the SRN token.

The Finney devices will make up a stand-alone blockchain network

The goal of Finney devices is to facilitate people’s use of cryptocurrencies and associated services. In April, a branch of Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s premier electronics manufacturer, decided to help manufacture the Finney smartphone.

Foxconn will build the Finney blockchain smartphone series in-house, spearheading the original design and manufacture of the phone, while Sirin Labs will be leading the cold wallet hardware design and operating system development for Sirin.

The Finney smartphone, which will be available for retail sale for $1,000, will launch in November, while the Sirin Labs is planning to sell the device via eight new shops in locations with the most actively involved crypto communities.

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