Thurrott Daily: November 7

Thurrott Daily: November 7
Courtesy of https://www.ricksteves.com/

Happy Saturday. What else is happening today?

11/7/2015 10:50:51 AM

Rick Steves Travel Festival webcast today

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European travel guru Rick Steves is hosting a Travel Festival today near Seattle from 9:00 am–9:00 pm (PT). You can tune in virtually on the web—I recommend the first three talks in particular: Europe: The Joy of Travel and European Travel Skills with Rick Steves, and Packing Light & Right—or catch them later on YouTube.

“How to stop Windows 10 ‘spying’ on you”

Windows 10 isn’t spying on you. What we need is more education, not answers to problems that do not exist. Like this: Windows 10 Tip: Understand and Configure Privacy Settings.

“Is it time for Windows Phone owners to throw in the towel?”

I wish I could get mad at the premise of this article. This is a reasonable question, however.

That said…

Windows Phone OS may be the most secure smart phone platform

Oh, the irony. White-hat hacker Steve Lord tells What Mobile that Windows phone fans are right to be proud of their favorite platform.

Windows Phone seems to be the hardest nut to crack … If I have physical access to the device, I find Android’s usually the easiest target. Then comes iPhone, then older versions of BlackBerry. If it’s over a network or I have to attack via email or message, Android’s usually the softest target.

Older smartphones tend be considered less secure as they’re usually affected by known weaknesses … If you have to have an older smartphone, use an older BB10-based Blackberry, or a Windows Phone running Windows Phone 8 or newer.

Call of Duty is coming to the movies

Which makes sense, since the single player campaigns are basically interactive movies already, and they have many good games (the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series, in particular) to milk for movies. That said, I’m a bit concerned by the hubris of this decision and sort of anticipate some point years down the road when these efforts are quietly halted. Fortune reports:

Activision Blizzard has launched Activision Blizzard Studios, which will oversee development of television and film projects based on the company’s key franchises.

Activision Blizzard Studios envisions a series of Call of Duty feature films, as well as the possibility of television adaptations.

“The Call of Duty IP is much greater than the core IP of Marvel,” Activision Blizzard Studios co-president Nick van Dyk says. “Our players spent 14 billion hours last year of playing and viewing our content. To put that in perspective, that’s more time spent watching every movie released last year in every movie theater in the world. That’s why we’re pretty excited to address this demand.”

“The amount of time invested in our games is a different medium than a comic book … Comic books are a nearly $1 billion industry, which is dwarfed by the revenues the games business brings in. Movie studios plan theatrical releases so they don’t coincide with big game releases like Call of Duty.”

I’ll just point out that the single player campaigns are the weakest part of Call of Duty and that most people spend the most time on multiplayer. Moving on.

Buy an Xbox One for $300 on Black Friday

That’s $50 off, but the bad news is you need to visit a GameStop.

Ahead of the annual shopping bonanza, GameStop’s Black Friday advertisement has leaked, showing off all 319 items featured in the sale, which begins November 27. Some of the best deals include $299 PlayStation 4 and Xbox One bundles.

The GameStop Black Friday ad was posted on noted deals site Bfads.net.

Other good deals include $50 off all Xbox One bundles, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for $30, and $20 off the new Lunar White Xbox One controller. In addition, GameStop will give you a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Unity if you buy Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, while a buy two/get one deal will run all weekend long for pre-owned games and hardware.

 

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