Four times in recent weeks, the White House press secretary was relayed questions from someone that Mediate describes as "a gag persona for a former Secretary of State made of Legos."

The reporters believed they were helping a real reporter who was prohibited by Covid protocols from attending. Politico reports: That colleague, who goes by the name Kacey Montagu, doesn't exist — at least not as an actual reporter. Since late last year, Montagu has taken on the identity of a White House correspondent extraordinaire with a fictional outlet to boot: White House News, shortened in emails to WHN... In communications with confidants, Montagu has posed as a member of White House Correspondents Association, claiming to be a reporter for The Daily Mail, the British tabloid known for its gossipy coverage of celebrities and political figures. Montagu also communicates regularly with top White House reporters and has had several exchanges with White House officials.

But Montagu never joined WHCA and The Daily Mail. There is no Kacey Montagu, except as a digital impersonation of a White House correspondent...

Montagu's activity is a remarkable illustration of how the online landscape, along with the age of pandemic-related virtual work, has opened up avenues for the mischievous-minded to infiltrate the top echelons of power. What's perhaps more remarkable is that he or she did it all without raising a solitary eyebrow... until Thursday.
Montagu had started a Twitter account showing the schedules of White House officials, which ultimately attracted a following by actual White House correspondents and even some minor government staffers, according to the article.

Acquaintances...believe Montagu's White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves "Legos." Within that platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from across the world engage in a mock U.S. government exercise...

Another longtime member of the community in touch with Montagu said they suspected that they created the account "just for the memes" and never assumed things would progress this far.

Rei writes: Having moved from pigs to rhesus macaques in pursuit of the goal of hopefully beginning human trials by the end of the year, Neuralink has continued their recruitment drive with a pair of videos showing their latest progress. In the first video, they show how they train the macaque to control a joystick with its mind, and how after associating the neural signals with intent, they can disconnect the joystick and the macaque continues to be able to operate the training interface solely through Neuralink. They then switch it over to controlling a cursor in Pong (picture-in-picture showing synapses here). Even with the game set to high speed and with the distraction of his banana-milkshake reward, the macaque puts out an impressive gaming performance.

Musk expects the first commercial product to enable a paralyzed person to interact with a smartphone faster than a healthy person using their thumbs. ["Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again," adds Musk. "The device is implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look & feel totally normal."]

Intel is launching an artificial intelligence application that will recognize and redact hate speech in real-time. It's called Bleep, and Intel hopes it'll help with one of gaming's oldest and most intractable problems -- people can be real pieces of shit online. From a report: A video of the app shows that it will allow users to customize what kind and how much hate speech they want to see, including "Racism" and "White Nationalism" sliders that can be set to "none," "some," "most," or "all," and a separate on and off toggle for the "N-word." "While we recognize that solutions like Bleep don't erase the problem, we believe it's a step in the right direction -- giving gamers a tool to control their experience," Roger Chandler, Vice President and General Manager of Intel Client Product Solutions, said during a virtual presentation at 2021's Game Developers Conference.

According to Intel Marketing Engineer Craig Raymond, Bleep is "an end-user application that uses AI to detect and redact audio based on your user preferences." In footage of the application, Bleep presented users with a list of sliders so gamers can control the amount of hate and abuse they encounter. The list included ableism and body shaming, LGBTQ+ hate, aggression, misogyny, name-calling, racism and xenophobia, sexually explicit language, swearing, and white nationalism. As Chandler explained, Intel can't "solve" racism or the long-running and well-documented problems in gaming culture (and culture more broadly). At the same time, Bleep is techno-AI solutionism that feels pretty dystopian, pitching racism, xenophobia, and general toxicity as settings that can be tuned up and down as though they were graphics, sound, or control sliders on a video game. It is also a way of admitting defeat: if we can't stop players from being incredibly racist in chat, we can simply filter out what they say and pretend they don't exist.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Live-streaming service Twitch will ban users for offenses such as hate-group membership or credible threats of mass violence that occur entirely away from the site, in a new approach to moderating the platform, the company said on Wednesday. The Amazon-owned platform, which is popular among video gamers, said under its new rules it would take enforcement actions against offline offenses that posed a "substantial safety risk" to its community.

It said examples of this "severe misconduct" include terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault and threatening Twitch or its staff. "Taking action against misconduct that occurs entirely off our service is a novel approach for both Twitch and the industry at large, but it's one we believe -- and hear from you -- is crucial to get right," the company said in a blog post. The company said users will be able to report such behaviors but it may also investigate cases proactively, for instance if there is a verified news report that a user has been arrested. Twitch said it would rely more heavily on law enforcement in "off-service" cases and is partnering with an investigative law firm to support its internal team. It declined to name the firm. The new standards will apply even if the target of the offline behaviors is not a Twitch user or if the perpetrator was not a user when they committed the acts. Perpetrators would also be banned from registering a Twitch account, it said.

Twitch said it would take action only when there was evidence, such as screen shots, videos of off-Twitch behavior or police filings, verified by its internal team or third-party investigators. Users who submit a large amount of frivolous reports will face suspension. The company said in cases where the behavior happened in the distant past, users had gone through rehabilitation such as time in a correctional facility, and they no longer presented a danger to the community, it might not take action or might reinstate users on appeal. It said it would share updates with the involved parties but would not share public updates about actions under this policy.

E3 will return in 2021 as a "reimagined, all-virtual" event, organizers announced Tuesday. E3 2021 will take place June 12-15, and will feature content from Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games, and Koch Media, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) said in a news release. From a report: Game developers and publishers will showcase their games at E3 2021 "directly to fans around the world," the ESA said. E3 2021 content will be free to access, thanks to unannounced global media partners. "We are evolving this year's E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA. While this year's E3 will be virtual, organizers say they are planning for an in-person E3 2022.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the world's largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meagre compared to mobile and PC games for years -- at least by the official numbers. There remains a community of hardcore console lovers, but they are finding it harder to get hold of devices and cartridges recently. A handful of grey market videogame console vendors on Taobao stopped selling and shipping this week, according to checks by TechCrunch and online posts by gamers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The popular and entirely legal Steam Database has found itself in a precarious position following two erroneous DMCA notices from SEGA. Steam Database's host is being asked to suspend the platform due to a claimed lack of response to the first notice. This prompted the site to take down entirely legal content in an effort to address the problem. [...]

TorrentFreak was able to review the notice sent by SEGA to SteamDB's host and it pulls no punches. SEGA doubles down by stating that SteamDB is illegally distributing the game Yakuza: Like a Dragon, noting that it has tried to inform SteamDB but was "not able" to resolve the issue. Worryingly, it then implies that legal action might be taken against SteamDB for non-compliance, adding that the host should "immediately suspend" SteamDB due to the alleged ongoing infringement. Which, of course, is not taking place.

This puts SteamDB's host in a tough position. Failure to act against an allegedly infringing customer can put the host at risk in terms of liability but disabling a customer's website can cause a whole new set of problems, especially when that customer has not infringed anyone's rights. In an effort to sort the problem out, SteamDB's host asked for additional input from the operators of SteamDB but nevertheless warned that if that information was not received, it may still block the SteamDB server within 24 hours, as demanded in the SEGA takedown notice. In order to defuse the situation, SteamDB took down the allegedly-infringing page which as far as SEGA goes (and at least in theory) should solve the disconnection threat problem. However, the entire situation has proven counterproductive for SEGA too.

Sony confirmed on Monday that PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable will end this summer. From a report: The PS3 and PS Vita stores close Aug. 27, 2021; the PSP's remaining purchase functions will end on July 2, 2021. PS3, Vita, and PSP owners will still be able to re-download and play any games they've purchased through the PlayStation Store. Users can still redeem voucher codes for games and PlayStation Plus, too. Additionally, multi-platform cross-buy purchases are still possible, meaning users can still buy content made available to both PlayStation 4 and PS3, PS Vita, and/or PSP. Players can still access their content by way of the Download List, on their respective device. Sony also specified that these store closures will not affect any user's PlayStation Now subscription, or their access to PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita titles they claimed through their PlayStation Plus subscription.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The video in this story will be familiar to anyone who's played the 3D world-building game Minecraft. But it's not a human constructing these castles, trees, and caterpillars -- it's artificial intelligence. The algorithm takes its cue from the "Game of Life," a so-called cellular automaton. There, squares in a grid turn black or white over a series of timesteps based on how many of their neighbors are black or white. The program mimics biological development, in which cells in an embryo behave according to cues in their local environment.

The scientists taught neural networks to grow single cubes into complex designs containing thousands of bricks, like the castle or tree or furnished apartment building above, and even into functional machines, like the caterpillar. And when they sliced a creation in half, it regenerated. (Normally in Minecraft, a user would have to reconstruct the object by hand.) Going forward, the researchers hope to train systems to grow not only predefined forms, but to invent designs that perform certain functions. This could include flying, allowing engineers to find solutions human designers would not have otherwise foreseen. Or tiny robots might use local interactions to assemble rescue robots or self-healing buildings. The researchers presented their system in a paper posted on arXiv.

Microsoft is rebranding Xbox Live to Xbox network. Instances of the new branding started appearing in the Xbox dashboard recently for beta testers, with clips being uploaded to "Xbox network" instead of Xbox Live. Microsoft has now confirmed the name change. From a report: "'Xbox network' refers to the underlying Xbox online service, which was updated in the Microsoft Services Agreement," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "The update from 'Xbox Live' to 'Xbox network' is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships." Microsoft has used Xbox Live to refer to its underlying Xbox service since its original launch 18 years ago. Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson, has been known as "Xbox Live's Major Nelson" for years, but Hryb now refers to himself as "Xbox's Major Nelson."

Nintendo plans to adopt an upgraded Nvidia chip with better graphics and processing for a new Switch model planned for the year-end shopping season, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The new Switch iteration will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, a novel rendering technology that uses artificial intelligence to deliver higher-fidelity graphics more efficiently. That will allow the console, which is also set for an OLED display upgrade, to reproduce game visuals at 4K quality when plugged into a TV, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is not public. The U.S. company's new chipset will also bring a better CPU and increased memory. DLSS support will require new code to be added to games, so it'll primarily be used to improve graphics on upcoming titles, said the people, including multiple game developers. Bloomberg News previously reported that the new Switch is likely to include a 7-inch OLED screen from Samsung Display and couple the console's release with a bounty of new games.

As VGC notes, the preservation group Hidden Palace has obtained 752 PS2 game prototypes and demos from collectors, shuttered developers and defunct media outlets as part of a Project Deluge initiative. Engadget reports: The mix includes prototypes of classics like God of War II, Katamari Damacy, Okami and the Ratchet & Clank series. There are also E3 demos, including big titles like Shadow of the Colossus, as well as very rough alpha previews for titles like Def Jam: Fight for New York and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. It's not a complete look at the PS2's history, but it could easily make you nostalgic. Hidden Palace stressed it checked for differences from retail versions, and that most of these prototypes will run in emulators.

There's no tentative release date. Another batch is coming "real soon," though. If nothing else, this is already useful as a snapshot of gaming culture in the early 2000s. You can see breakthrough games before they were finished, or remember just how many extreme sports games were on store shelves.

Long-time Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck writes: A grandmother let her 13 year old grandson use her credit card to buy added content for one of his games for which she thought would be a $15 charge. After the account opened up because of the credit card on it, he started downloading other things not realizing they were adding substantial charges to her credit card. She asked Sony to refund the charges, it's not like they can't disable the added content if they wanted, but they told her basically too bad so sad.
From the article: When CTV News Toronto reached on to PlayStation on Liscoumb's behalf a spokesperson said "We reviewed this case at your request and determined that it did not qualify for a refund as outlined in our terms of service and user agreement."

"I'm just heartbroken and Visa said they can't do anything, because I'm the one that put the credit card into the system," [the grandmother, Diana] Liscoumb said... Liscoumb said it will be difficult to pay back the $1,400 in charges and says her grandson is upset too. "He even offered to get a job when he turns 14 to help pay for it."
This story drew a range of reactions from Slashdot readers:

• "This was a $1400 lesson that hopefully they both learned. Never trust a corporation to do the right thing."

• "This is not on the vendor it is on the grandson, his parents and his grandmother... This should not be a news story at all. This should be a private learning lesson for the child, and his guardians."

• "The real problem is still that companies are putting addictive gambling mechanics into games."

• "Someone at Sony should fix the problem."

Sony is revealing its new VR controllers for the PS5 today. The Verge reports: The orb-shaped controllers look more like typical VR controllers than existing PlayStation Move motion controllers, and they also include the same adaptive trigger technology found on the DualSense PS5 controller. Each controller has tensions in the triggers, and Sony is aiming to use this tech in future VR games. The controllers also have haptic feedback, and finger touch detection that will let them detect fingers without having to press areas where you rest your thumb, index, or middle fingers.

Naturally, these controllers will also include tracking to Sony's new VR headset via a ring at the bottom of the controller. These certainly look far improved over what's currently available on the PS Move controllers, with better ergonomics, too. Sony hasn't shown off the design of its next-gen VR headset for the PS5 just yet, but the company did reveal it has an improved field of view, resolution, and even a single cord to make it easier to use. Sony isn't planning to launch its VR headset for the PS5 in 2021, but it's clear the company is getting ready to test it with game developers soon. Don't expect an Xbox virtual-reality headset anytime soon. Yesterday, a Microsoft representative reiterated that "VR for console is not a focus for us at this time."

MojoKid writes: AMD just unveiled its latest RDNA 2-based GPU that targets 1440p PC gamers, known as Radeon RX 6700 XT. The Radeon RX 6700 XT is built around the company's Navi 22 GPU. In terms of core counts, Navi 22 is effectively a Navi 21 -- the "Big Navi" GPU used on the powerful Radeon RX 6900 XT -- lopped in half. AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT has fewer CUs and Ray Accelerators (40 vs. 80), and 50% of the total number of Stream Processors (2,560 vs. 5,120). Other parts of the of Navi 22, however, aren't scaled back quite as far. For example, the Radeon RX 6700 XT has 96MB of Infinity Cache, down from 128MB of on the 6900 XT. And the 6700 XT's memory interface is 192-bits wide versus 256-bits on Radeon RX 6800 / 6900 series cards. The 6700 XT also features 12GB of GDDR6 memory (versus 16GB).

AMD has set the MSRP for its Radeon RX 6700 XT at $479. That puts its price higher than the competing GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ($399 MSRP), but somewhat lower than the RTX 3070 ($499 MSRP). Looking at the numbers, that's right where the Radeon RX 6700 XT falls in terms of performance with traditional rasterization. Factor ray tracing into the mix, however, and the Radeon falls behind both of NVIDIA's competitive products. Radeon RX 6700 XT card should be available starting today but for sure demand will be very high, so supply will likely be limited.

Microsoft has once again reiterated that VR support for Xbox was not a focus for the company, following reports earlier today that hinted it was working on a VR headset compatible with the Xbox Series X/S. The Verge reports: The rumor first surfaced after IGN Italy reported that some Italian Xbox users received messages, which translated to "[a]n update for the VR headset is available" and "[u]pdate VR headset," when connecting the recently released Xbox Wireless Headset to their Xbox Series X or Series S consoles. A Microsoft representative told The Verge that "the copy in this error message is inaccurate due to a localization bug," while again reiterating that "VR for console is not a focus for us at this time."

Microsoft has yet to explore the VR space for its Xbox consoles. In 2018, the company pulled back on plans to support virtual reality headsets for Xbox in 2018, explaining that it wanted to focus "primarily on experiences you would play on your TV." In late 2019, Xbox boss Phil Spencer tweeted out that although he played "some great VR games" such as Half-Life: Alyx, console VR was not Xbox's focus ahead of the Xbox Series X / S release.

Rockstar Games has paid a modder $10,000 for identifying a way to make Grand Theft Auto Online load significantly faster. From a report: The modder, who goes by the handle 't0st,' recently posted their discovery of a single-thread CPU bottleneck that occurs in the PC version of the hit multiplayer mode. They created a fix they claim enables the game to load 70% faster, and included a message for Rockstar, advising that the issue "shouldn't take more than a day for a single dev to solve." Reports spread of t0st's discovery and Rockstar has confirmed not only that this works, but that it will release an official fix in a future update for the game. In a statement to PC Gamer, the company said: "After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved. "As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update."

On Friday, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that the PS5 is currently the fastest selling hardware platform" in U.S. history, in terms of total dollar sales. CNET reports: Piscatella didn't share an exact dollar amount for the PS5 but noted that consumer spending across video game hardware, software and accessories has already totaled $9.3 billion this year. Sony didn't include specific sales figures in its earnings report last month, but the company did indicate it shipped 4.5 million PS5 consoles in 2020 alone. Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at a February news conference that Sony is aiming to sell upward of 14.8 million units in the coming fiscal year, which begins this month.

The PS5 did fall to second place for the month of February, according to NPD. It was superseded only by the Nintendo Switch, which may have seen a sales boost on the heels of Super Mario 3D World -- Bowser's Fury, the latest Switch title, released last month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yesterday, Roblox made good on its plans to go public, with employees and previous investors selling hundreds of millions of shares in a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In a private funding round in January, those shares were worth $45. When the market closed Wednesday, they were selling at $69.50, a price that valued Roblox Corp. as a whole at $45.3 billion (as of this writing, Roblox Corp.'s stock price peaked at $77.30 and currently sits at $72.72 in Thursday morning trading).

How did this company, whose single title has become a game platform unto itself, become worth more than major game publishers like Electronic Arts and Take-Two? To help answer that question, we put together this deep dive into the numbers that are powering the Roblox revolution. They paint a picture of a company with an extremely young and incredibly engaged user base that has ballooned during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. But Roblox is also a company that is struggling to convert its huge and growing annual revenues into profitability. Here are the valuations of Roblox and how it compares to the other gaming companies:

Roblox
- Jan. 2017: $500 million
- July 2018: $2.3 billion
- Feb. 2020: $3.9 billion
- Jan. 2021: $29.5 billion
- March 10, 2021: $45.3 billion

Other gaming companies (current valuations)
- Ubisoft: $9.58 billion
- Take-Two: $19.43 billion
- Electronic Arts: $38.09 billion
- Roblox: $45.3 billion
- Activision: $72.23 billion
- Tencent: $843.86 billion

Visit Ars' article for the full deep dive into the numbers, which are sourced from SEC documents and Roblox's own website.

Google Stadia has a "State Share" feature that lets people click on a screenshot or video clip of a game to play the level that was captured -- providing they own the game themselves. Andy Kelly reports via PC Gamer: This week I've been playing PixelJunk Raiders, a new roguelike developed exclusively for Stadia by Q-Games, which makes particularly good use of this feature. Levels in this game are procedurally generated, so if the algorithm spits out something especially cool, you can take a screenshot and share it online, letting people experience it for themselves. A small community has sprung up around this feature, with people sharing interesting, challenging, or otherwise interesting levels in public spreadsheets.

There's also an asynchronous multiplayer element to it. You can go into someone's game state and drop weapons or handy gadgets like turrets or jump pads, then share the state again, creating a chain of people helping each other. Some players are even using states as supply drops, dumping weapons that you can scoop up then take back to your own missionsâ"which is very handy for PixelJunk Raiders in particular, a game that is both punishingly difficult and frequently stingy with its loot drops. You'll take any help you can get. Players can also use emotes to silently communicate across these chains. "Only a handful of Stadia games support State Share right now, including the Hitman trilogy," notes Kelly. "But even at this early stage it's impressive. Being able to show a friend something in a game and not just say 'look at this,' but actually let them play it themselves, feels kinda like the future."