The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a surge in sales for consumer technology in the U.S., even as spending declines overall, an NPD analyst is reporting. The Verge reports: For the week ending April 18th, NPD's Stephen Baker notes that consumer tech sales increased by 23 percent year-over-year. In contrast, the group tracked an overall decline in spending of 23 percent across the industries it tracks. NPD's data also suggests that people are buying more tech to keep themselves entertained, not just to work or learn remotely.

TV sales are up by a massive 86 percent and are selling at the highest volume ever outside a holiday, according to Baker. People are also buying accessories like soundbars (up by 69 percent) and streaming players (42 percent). DVD and Blu-ray players were also up by 27 percent, showing that even physical media is getting a boost. That's not surprising given that last week the NPD reported that nearly a third of US households are without broadband access, which could limit their ability to stream video. Sales of monitors increased by 73 percent compared to last year, PCs were up 53 percent, printers were up by 61 percent, and microphones were up by a massive 147 percent. Chromebook sales are also reportedly seeing triple-digit sales increases, which makes sense given how popular they are in classrooms. Underpinning all this tech is a 70 percent increase in the sale of networking equipment.

Nintendo has confirmed that about 160,000 Nintendo Network ID accounts have been compromised since the beginning of April. Digital Trends reports: The Japan-based video game company says login ID and password information of these profiles were obtained "illegally by some means other than our service" and in response, it's freezing the ability to log into a Nintendo account through Nintendo Network ID (NNID). Nintendo began looking into a potential breach after several players reported suspicious logins and fraudulent transactions for digital items like Fortnite VBucks through linked PayPal accounts earlier this month. Nintendo's investigation revealed intruders may have accessed personal data such as nicknames, dates of birth, country of residence, and email addresses.

Plus, for users who used the same password for an NNID and Nintendo account, it's warning that their "balance and registered credit card/PayPal may be illegally used at My Nintendo Store or Nintendo eShop." In addition to halting Nintendo Network ID (NNID) logins, Nintendo is reaching out to affected customers via email and resetting their passwords. It's also recommending enabling two-factor authentication to everyone. Despite this, Nintendo is asking users who have discovered fraudulent transactions in their accounts to contact the company so it can cancel the purchases and possibly for initiating refunds.

"The source code for Team Fortress 2 has apparently been leaked, leading to hackers reportedly able to deliver malware through Remote Code Execution to other players," reports TechRadar. However, Valve assures users that playing on official servers is perfectly safe. From the report: This leak was initially reported by @SteamDB on Twitter, with the source code in question dating back to 2017 and 2018, affecting Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. According to a report on the issue from PCGamesN, several Team Fortress 2 server communities have advised players to avoid the game until further notice.

Valve has reached out with a comment, saying "We have reviewed the leaked code and believe it to be a reposting of a limited CS:GO engine code depot released to partners in late 2017, and originally leaked in 2018. From this review, we have not found any reason for players to be alarmed or avoid the current builds (as always, playing on the official servers is recommended for greatest security)." Valve goes on to clarify that it's investigating the problem and anyone who has any information can report it on Valve's security page, which will explain how to fix the issue.

Movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart's on-demand video streaming service, Vudu, for an undisclosed sum. From a report: The video service today reaches over 100 million living room devices across the U.S. including smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other over-the-top streaming devices, as well as Windows 10 and Mac computers, and iOS and Android mobile devices. To date, the Vudu app on mobile has been installed over 14.5 million times. As a part of the agreement, Vudu will continue to power Walmart's digital movie and TV store on Walmart.com. In addition, Walmart says Vudu customers will have uninterrupted access to their Vudu library. They'll also continue to be able to use their Walmart login as well as their Walmart wallet to make purchases on Vudu, the retailer notes.

An anonymous reader quotes CNN: A 16-year-old Iranian chess prodigy has upended the chess world by beating World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen in the final of the Banter Blitz Cup. Alireza Firouzja defeated the Norwegian 8.5-7.5 in the final of the online quickfire knockout contest -- where players must comment verbally on their moves, and their opponents, during the game -- to claim the $14,000 prize...

After 7 months and 131 matches, the series of three-minute games involving 128 contestants ended in a final between the world champion since 2013 and the rising superstar...

The Iranian is the second-youngest player to reach the 2700 Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) rating -- the rankings that govern international chess competition... Firouzja initially rose to fame when he came in second to Carlsen in the Moscow World Blitz in December.
The speed chess tournament saw Firouzja "best 132 players in a knock-out style tournament that included 109 grand masters going head to head," reports News.com.au.

"Despite living in France since he was eight-years-old when his family fled from Iran, Firouzja has elected to compete as a stateless competitor that doesn't represent any country."

Business is booming for Medal.tv as house-bound users flock to the gaming startup, making it one of the rare coronavirus success stories. Half its employees are still taking salary cuts in the wake of the outbreak. From a report: In return, the 33-person company is offering those employees restricted stock units which will vest over one year. The company intends for employees to be able to sell those shares when Medal eventually closes its next round of financing. Timing on that: to be determined. "If everything goes well, not only does the company save money and slow down its cash burn, but the employees that exchange their salary for stock will have a bigger payout during our Series B round," said co-founder Pim de Witte.

Medal is among a growing number of startups offering stock-for-salary trades to preserve cash as the tech industry reels and economic uncertainty mounts. Medal, which lets players clip and share snippets of games on social media, has doubled its user growth rate since shelter in place orders started. The company said while high earners were "strongly encouraged" to take the deal, the pay cut and stock option swap was voluntary. It's a move that only works for "employees who believe in the financial outlook of your company," De Witte said.

A Nintendo Switch video game has been pulled off China's grey market e-commerce platforms, Reuters' checks show, after Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong used the game to protest against Beijing's rule of the Chinese territory. From a report: The game, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," is a colorful social simulator in which players can decorate their own island and invite others to visit. It became an instant hit after its launch last month and has been used by many players to interact and simulate real-life scenarios while they are stuck at home because of measures to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong democracy activist, took his protests to the game last week and on Twitter posted a screenshot of his island decorated with a banner saying: "Free Hong Kong, revolution now." China has stringent rules on content from everything from video games to movies and music, censoring anything it believes violates core socialist values. Gaming companies must also seek licences for the games they want to publish.

Nintendo's Animal Crossing has become a place for Hong Kong protesters to congregate without flouting social distancing rules. Bloomberg reports: Animal Crossing is a simulation game where players live on an idyllic tropical island and befriend anthropomorphic animals. Players can customize their islands with in-game illustrating tools and visit each other's islands online. Pro-democracy content created for the game has gone viral on social media, including Twitter. In a tweet last week, one of Hong Kong's most well-known democracy campaigners, Joshua Wong, said he was playing the game and that the movement had shifted online. In one video posted to Twitter, a group of players use bug-catching nets to hit pictures of the city's leader Carrie Lam on a beach in the game. A nearby poster states "Free Hong Kong. Revolution Now."

Sony has revealed the DualSense, PlayStation 5's new controller that will "bring a sense of touch to PS5 gameplay." IGN reports: Announced on PlayStation.Blog, the DualSense will keep "much of what gamers love about DualShock 4 intact, while also adding new functionality and refining the design." Touch was a big inspiration when designing the DualSense, and haptic feedback is one of the ways this new controller will help bring PS5 games to life. Sony mentions that this feedback will add " a variety of powerful sensations you'll feel when you play, such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud." Adaptive triggers have also been incorporated to the L2 and R2 buttons, which will help players "feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow."

The angle of the hand triggers were changed and some subtle updates were made to the grip. One thing that will be missing from the DualSense is the "Share" button that was featured on the DualShock 4. Sharing from the controller is not gone, but that previous button was replaced by the new "Create" button. Sony promises more details will be revealed on this change as we get closer to PlayStation 5's launch. DualSense will also have a built-in microphone array that will allow players to easily chat with friends, even for those who don't own a headset.

As for the controller's color, it is a bit of a non-traditional design as far as PlayStation is concerned. Usually, PlayStation controllers have a single color, but the DualSense has a two-toned design to make it stand apart. Additionally, the position of the light bar, which will be returning, was moved to "give it an extra pop." Now, the light bar sits on either side of the touch pad, as opposed to the top of the controller. Here's a picture of the front of the controller:

An anonymous reader quotes Rock, Paper, Shotgun: For as long as there's been Minecraft, there's been people who want to re-create the world in Minecraft. For one modder, though, it's not enough to have a to-scale replica of our pale blue dot recreated in Mojang's block-builder. A new project named Build The Earth is looking for talented builders with too much time on their hands, bringing them together to fully recreate every last man-made structure on Earth in Minecraft.

YouTuber PippinFTS unveiled the project in a YouTube video earlier this week. It's awfully dramatic, but give the guy a break — he's only trying to go and build a planet.

PippenFTS' project is building from Terra 1 to 1, a project headed up by modders orangeadam3 and shejan0. Using a few extra mods to get around the game's strict world limitations, Terra 1 to 1 uses public terrain datasets, street maps and forest databases to accurately map the earth's terrain, roads and woodland areas in Minecraft... [H]e wants to build a community that can collectively recreate thousands of years of human history by filling out every single man-made structure on Earth. His "Build The Earth" project hopes to crowdsource player-recreated cities, towns, stadiums, bridges and otherwise. PippenFTS himself will contribute with his own hometown.

"Regardless," he writes, wistful in his obligation, "I will build Seattle. Super excited."
The project already has a Patreon account -- plus 5,500 members in its subreddit.

An anonymous reader shares a column: The United States economy is grinding to a halt as the country grapples with the novel coronavirus pandemic, and one of the first major actions President Trump has floated is having the government bail out the cruise line industry, which he says is a "prime candidate." He shouldn't do it. There are myriad reasons not to bail out the cruise industry's biggest players.

Here are just a few: 1. They're not really US companies. [...] 2. They pay basically zero federal income tax. [...]
3. They're bad corporate actors: These companies use the protections offered by the countries they are incorporated in as a shield. They make passengers sign over a ton of rights before they even come aboard. Many employees often face long hours and brutal working conditions.
4. They pollute the air and oceans. Every fossil fuel-powered mode of transportation pollutes the air, but cruise ships are among the worst. They emit more sulfur dioxide than all of the passenger vehicles in Europe combined. Cruise ships also pollute the oceans by dumping waste. Not just illegally, for which these companies have been repeatedly fined, but also in some cases with impunity, again thanks to protections afforded by the laws of the countries where they're incorporated. And where they've been caught, there have been coverups.
5. They are not necessary. [...]

For many, the cancellation of major sporting events was the moment that made the coronavirus pandemic feel real for the first time. But while fans of baseball, basketball, soccer are left wondering when they'll see players back in action, racing fans don't have to wait -- because many of their favorite drivers are already competing in online sim racing competitions that were spun up in the days since the first real world races were canceled. From a report: The first few of these substitute sim races, held last weekend, were successful in ways that surprised even the organizers. Now, many of the people who put them on have spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to use that momentum to fill the gap left by real world racing, as fans around the world hole up at home in a collective attempt to slow the spread of a global virus. It likely won't be that difficult, though. The success of these first few replacement races was a testament to how far sim racing has come during the rise of esports, but it also sheds light on a truth that a lot of motorsports fans have become familiar with: that a new age of competitive, virtual motorsports is already upon us.

Forbes reports that in a world filled with school closings and social isolation, gaming has surged: - Steam, the most popular digital PC gaming marketplace, reached new heights Sunday, drawing a record 20,313,451 concurrent users to the 16-year-old service, according to third-party database SteamDB

- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, released by Steam-owner Valve in 2012, seems to be the top beneficiary of the increased engagement, breaking it's all-time peak on Sunday with 1,023,2290 concurrent players, topping its previous peak last month by a million, which itself beat the record set in April 2016...

- Activision Blizzard's new free-to-play battle royale spinoff Call of Duty: Warzone, launched March 10 on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, is also likely benefiting, drawing in a staggering 15 million in three days, besting the record 10 million in three days by last year's battle royale sensation Apex Legends.
Polygon adds: Gaming saw a 75% increase, week over week, in data usage this March, Verizon said. Video games are proving to be a popular way to pass the time during lockdown -- though we're also starting to see the strain this is placing on various networks and services... Recently, Nintendo experienced a nine-hour network outage. Over the weekend, Xbox Live also went down, preventing users from online play.

Gaming adjacent tools and services are also seeing a surge. As our sibling site The Verge reports, live streaming platform Twitch had a 10% jump in viewership. The popular communication app Discord, meanwhile, recently saw server outages that coincided days after it expanded its screen sharing limit for users.

The games that people are playing themselves are changing in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, too. Pokemon Go, for instance, has tweaked its mechanics to make it easier for people to play from home, while also changing its events to make it easier for people to play solo. And in an effort to entice its players to stay home, Rockstar vowed to add fun bonuses to the MMO for players who are "spending a little extra time at home." Elsewhere, game developers are starting to give out their games for free in an effort to help people stay indoors. It's no wonder we're seeing changes in usage, playtime, and outages across the board.

In countries where websites, blogs and a free press are strictly limited, Minecraft "is still accessible by everyone," notes the official official web site for Reporters Without Borders (an international nonprofit defending freedom of information): Reporters Without Borders used this backdoor to build "The Uncensored Library": A library that is now accessible on an open server for Minecraft players around the globe. The library is filled with books, containing articles that were censored in their country of origin. These articles are now available again within Minecraft hidden from government surveillance technology inside a computer game. The books can be read by everyone on the server, but their content cannot be changed. The library is growing, with more and more books being added to overcome censorship.

On March 12 — the World Day Against Cyber Censorship — the Uncensored Library will open its doors, giving young people around the world access to independent information, through a medium they can playfully interact with. The campaign runs under the hashtag: #TruthFindsAWay...

Additional to banned articles from journalists, visitors of The Uncensored Library can find the Reporters Sans Frontières World Press Freedom Index and reports on the current press freedom situation of 180 countries in the world.
They spent three months working with the design studio BlockWorks to assemble 12.5 million blocks into a vast structure with a neoclassical architecture.

You can see it in a short film at uncensoredlibrary.com, or access it in Minecraft at visit.uncensoredlibrary.com

Italy's school shutdown is driving a surge in internet traffic as kids turn to online video games to stave off boredom. From a report: With schools, shops and restaurants closed in an attempt to limit Europe's worst coronavirus outbreak, the amount of data passing through Telecom Italia SpA's national network has surged by more than two-thirds in the past two weeks, the company said. A lot of that extra activity is due to online games such as 'Fortnite' and 'Call of Duty,' which can involve multiple players and take up more bandwidth than the business programs and conference call apps used by adults working from home. Gaming traffic can spike even higher when the games are refreshed and millions of kids download the latest 25-gigabyte update at once. "We reported an increase of more than 70% of Internet traffic over our landline network, with a big contribution from online gaming such as Fortnite," Telecom Italia Chief Executive Officer Luigi Gubitosi said Wednesday on a call with analysts.

"The best-kept secret in quantum computing." That's what Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) CEO Ilyas Khan called Honeywell's efforts in building the world's most powerful quantum computer. In a race where most of the major players are vying for attention, Honeywell has quietly worked on its efforts for the last few years (and under strict NDA's, it seems). But today, the company announced a major breakthrough that it claims will allow it to launch the world's most powerful quantum computer within the next three months. From a report: In addition, Honeywell also today announced that it has made strategic investments in CQC and Zapata Computing, both of which focus on the software side of quantum computing. The company has also partnered with JPMorgan Chase to develop quantum algorithms using Honeywell's quantum computer. The company also recently announced a partnership with Microsoft. Honeywell has long built the kind of complex control systems that power many of the world's largest industrial sites. It's that kind of experience that has now allowed it to build an advanced ion trap that is at the core of its efforts. This ion trap, the company claims in a paper that accompanies today's announcement, has allowed the team to achieve decoherence times that are significantly longer than those of its competitors.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has been sneaking onto online chess sites using stupid pseudonyms and taunting his opponents by using pointless maneuvers with names like "the Bongcloud." One YouTube commenter calls it "a revolution in the history of chess."

Slate documents the antics in an article titled "DrDrunkenstein's Reign of Terror." "DrDrunkenstein" is one of many aliases Magnus Carlsen has played under during the past two years, when he went on a killing spree across the speed chess tournaments of the internet. Since winter 2017, Carlsen has taken to livestreaming his games on a variety of platforms, which has provided a surprisingly entertaining window into the mind of an all-time great.

Lichess.org is a free, ad-less web platform for chess players, a favorite in the online chess community... Carlsen appeared incognito as "DannyTheDonkey" and won, donating his small prize money back to the website. Carlsen's first showing as DrDrunkenstein was in Lichess' second Titled Arena the following month... Carlsen streamed the games on Twitch, where he lived up to his username, pounding Coronas while bantering in Norwegian with his friends. Chess fans were astonished. There's something hypnotizing about watching a guy known as "the Mozart of chess" — a player who is quantifiably better than Bobby Fischer — taking a big gulp of beer, announcing his position as "completely winning," then singing along to Dr. Dre saying "motherfuck the police" while coasting into another quick checkmate...

In an interview with a Norwegian newspaper in October, Carlsen admits he quit drinking for his health. "I wouldn't say I was an alcoholic exactly," he said, "but I found out this year, if I'm going to travel and play a lot... I need to prioritize differently...." On the eve of his world championship defense, Carlsen appeared in the next tournament as "manwithavan," playing a large chunk of his games on a phone from a minivan, where the touch screen presented a massive handicap. He again earned the adoration of spectators, this time for riskily walking his king into the center of the board against one of the most dangerous players in the tournament. He came in third... As DrNykterstein, he alternated between two ways of wasting his early, important opening moves. Sometimes, he'd take his queen on a four-move tour of the board before swapping her home square with the king's, letting his opponent develop their pieces while he showboated... Other times, he'd fidget his knights back and forth from their starting squares, offering his challenger a six-move time advantage. In this tournament he filled with gags, he came in first again...

One of the sweetest benefits of watching these matches is enjoying Carlsen's dry, self-deprecating sense of humor — something no chess prodigy has any right to have.
In December, Magnus also reached the #1 spot, beating seven million other players, on a fantasy football table.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Rockstar refuses to let GTA Online die, and why would it when it's one of the company's biggest moneymakers? If you haven't played GTA 5's online component in a while, today's update may convince you to step back into the world of San Andreas. Rockstar is adding a new competitive racing mode to GTA Online called Open Wheel Races that allows you to drive the game's equivalent of F1 cars against other players. As part of the update, Rockstar is adding two new cars, the Ocelot R88 and the Progen PR4. You can purchase both through the in-game Legendary Motorsport store and customize them with different tires, spoilers, engine mods and more through Los Santos Customs.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last year, Forbes published an article titled "'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' Needs to Respect Its Players and Add an Easy Mode." In the piece, Dave Thier, the author, argues that the title's egregiously high difficulty settings detract from the superb world and character design. "The difficulty is only one part of what defines these games for me, and honestly, it's not the most important part," wrote Thier. Easier difficulty settings would allow those with physical or cognitive limitations -- or just limited time to play games -- the opportunity to experience the studio's artistic vision. It was the latest salvo in a debate that has taken on a culture war-level valence among players online, a debate that has been litigated and re-litigated to no apparent end.

Fans of the series, angered by the article, argued that not all games are meant for disabled players. Futzing with difficulty settings, they said, tampers with the creative intent of a game, especially in genres where a game's key selling point may be its difficulty (as is the case with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice). But the recent efforts of accessibility consultants and developers to create inclusive products tell a different story. Unbeknown to many, accessibility consultants have been pushing for an accessible industry for years. From menus containing a plethora of options, including the ability to customize controls and adjust subtitle size, to disabled inclusion within the workspace and gaming community, the often-hidden efforts of accessibility consultants are beginning to become standard practice within the industry.

Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a producer credited with implementing the fabled "Konami Code" that gave players godlike cheats in Contra, Gradius, Castlevania, and other Konami games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, died on Tuesday. He was 61. Polygon reports: Hashimoto was a programmer and producer for the home console port of Gradius, which in 1986 was the first video game to use the Konami Code. Hashimoto put it in the game as an aid for his playtesting, memorably saying that he "obviously couldn't beat it." For unclear reasons, the Konami Code was left in the shipped game, and was later used to playtest other games made by the publisher.

Contra, which launched on the NES in 1988, sold much better than Gradius and is more closely associated with the Konami Code's origins. In it, cheat-code sharers discovered video gaming's Charm of Making -- up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start! -- and were blessed with 30 lives, absolutely critical to a super-tough one-hit-kill side-scroller like Contra. Nostalgia for the Konami Code, if not gratitude for its usefulness to many difficult games of the day, led to its inclusion in numerous other works. A Wikipedia entry on the code counts more than 100 Konami games with the cheat or some version of it inside them. Another 22 games made by other publishers included the code as a tribute, often revealing an Easter egg or secret message. It has also shown up elsewhere in popular culture, most recently in Google Stadia's website (and on its controller), and as a pastime Easter egg in Fortnite in October.