exodus
Latest
Android spyware Exodus makes the leap to iOS devices
Researchers at security firm Lookout recently discovered an iOS version of Exodus spyware that typically targets Android devices. Before you go wiping your iPhone to ensure you aren't being spied on, it's worth noting that the iOS version of the malware has only been found in third-party app marketplaces and hasn't made its way into the walled garden that is Apple's official App Store.
NVIDIA’s RTX ray tracing put to the test
Welcome to the first episode of our new explainer series, Upscaled. We're going to be examining the components and gadgets that are helping move technology forward, and in this first episode, we're looking at graphics cards.
HTC's blockchain phone can now be bought with real money
HTC is taking its blockchain phone a little more mainstream. Today, the company has announced that the Exodus 1 can be purchased for 750 US dollars. That's right, traditional money. The kind that can be used in any store across the United States. Until now, the beleaguered phone manufacturer has only accepted Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) as tender. Presumably, that was a choice (and not just a lame marketing stunt) to ensure early adopters were open-minded crypto enthusiasts. In addition to USD, the company is adding the Ethereum-powered Binance Coin (BNB) as a way to acquire the niche handset.
HTC's blockchain 'Exodus' phone launches this fall
In May HTC announced plans for a blockchain-focused mobile device and now development is far enough along to say that its Exodus will arrive in Q3 of this year. A website is active and taking signups for more information, promising "the first cold wallet phone with key recovery." We still don't have a ton of details (although we're expecting to hear more today at the company's Rise event in Hong Kong) but it's all about decentralized internet, apps and the ability to hold your data on the device instead of in the cloud. HTC also announced it's partnering with CryptoKitties, the "world's biggest game to be built on blockchain technology." Instead of cryptocurrency, it uses the technology to create unique digital creatures that players can trade or breed, with billions of possible combinations. You won't have to wait for the Exodus to get in on the action either, since the app is coming to other HTC handsets starting with its U12+ flagship. These are the first Android devices with the app, and represent the companies first push into creating a decentralized app store.
HTC's 'Exodus' blockchain phone is made for a decentralized future
Just as HTC is gearing up for the launch of its next flagship smartphone come May 23rd, today it made a surprising announcement: it's also making a blockchain phone dubbed "Exodus" on the side. There aren't any specifics about this privacy-focused Android device just yet, but it will feature a universal wallet supporting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dfinity, Lightning Networks plus other cryptocurrency protocols. The company is aiming to "double and triple the number of nodes of Ethereum and Bitcoin" through its Exodus units, while delivering decentralized applications (DApp) to more consumers.
In and out: a look at HTC's two-year executive exodus
If you get offered a high-level position with HTC, run. At least, that's the reputation the Taiwan-based manufacturer has unfortunately built over the last two years. Since 2012, no fewer than 22 members of its senior management have left the company. Some took off for personal reasons; others faced criminal charges; and still others moved on to different companies. Many of these exits have been attributed to HTC's state of health, as the smartphone (and soon to be smartwatch) maker has made costly mistakes and experienced a string of decreasing profits stretching back to the end of 2011. Let's take a look at each major departure from the beginning until the present day.
WoW Archivist: A raid exploit compendium, part 2
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? If you missed last week's Archivist, I recounted some of WoW's earliest raid exploits. Guilds have been pushing for ways to make raids easier since Molten Core went live, whether for the glory of a first kill or simple convenience. This week, I'll continue our tour through this sordid side of raiding with more recent exploits. Many of them ended with suspensions. Shadow Word: World First In her heyday, Serpentshrine Cavern's Lady Vashj was considered one of the hardest raid bosses that the game had ever seen. In March 2007, more than two months since Serpentshrine went live with the release of The Burning Crusade, EU guild Nihilum posted screenshots of Vashj's loot and claimed the world-first kill. Nihilum was the dominant progression guild at the time, earning 20 world firsts throughout the expansion -- more than three times that of their closest competitor. There was only one problem: An ex-member named Lewt claimed that Nihilum exploited a bug to kill Vashj. As with Razorgore and other bosses, the mechanism seemed to revolve around that troublesome spell Divine Intervention. Using the spell despawned the pillars that are connected to Vashj's health, leaving her with 1 HP. Lewt popped a Soulstone and killed her with Shadow Word: Death. He even provided a screenshot to prove it. He also went on to badmouth the guild about exploits in Blackwing Lair, gold buying practices, and even an unlikely situation where an officer was paying the guild leader's real-life bills.
WoW Archivist: A raid exploit compendium
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? One week after Mists of Pandaria goes live, the expansion's first raid will become available and the race to world first will officially begin. To the most dedicated progression raiders, a world-first kill is a dream come true, the ultimate achievement in raiding. Other raiders are just as excited to get a regional or a realm first. To realize those dreams, however, some guilds bend the rules. Whether you call it cheating or a "creative use of game mechanics," it's been happening throughout WoW's long raiding history. The myriad methods have been as varied and creative as the bosses themselves. Let's take a look back!
Double the epic: Aika's Epic II: Exodus goes live
Aika, gPotato's free-to-play MMORPG, just got a lot more epic, as the game's Epic II: Exodus just arrived. The latest chapter brings a heapin' helpin' of new content to the game, including new zones, new instances, new loot, and perhaps most importantly, new things to kill. The story of Epic II sees players fleeing from the current world to the island of Traband. The local tribes, however, are none too happy about that and rise up against the players, and the treacherous Dark Legion is behind it all. Players, of course, will have to put a stop to the Legion's nefarious practices. In order to do just that, players will have to take advantage of the increased level cap, which now sits pretty at level 75. Players will also be able to take part in Aika's signature 1000 vs. 1000 PvP battles in order to vie for control of Traband's mystic towers. Control of the towers provides a player's nation with immunity from the harsh conditions of the island as well as granting access to an additional area. Lastly, players will have access to a new dungeon known as Lycan's Cave. This labyrinthine cavern system provides players with the choice of which path to take, with different bosses awaiting them at the end of each route. What other challenges await players on the island of Traband? Well, there's only one way to find out.
Transformers Universe rolls out concept art, teaser [Updated]
"Finally... choose your side," a tantalizing Transformers Universe teaser says as a shadowed figure completes the change from vehicle into robot. During BotCon, Jagex gave die-hard Transformers fans the first look at the MMO's development, including concept art and the aforementioned trailer. BotCon's turned out to be a gold mine of Transformers Universe info so far. Energon Pub brought back the official info from the event for our eager ears. The game, which is slated for a 2012 release, will be an action MMO that allows players to craft their own Transformers to suit their playstyles. Both Autobot and Decepticon sides will be open for play, and we'll be seeing many iconic figures from the Prime Universe, including the Prime cartoon, the book Exodus, and the War for Cybertron game. You can check out the concept art below -- and don't miss the teaser video after the jump! [Update: You can also sign up for the beta on the fledgling Transformers Universe website.] %Gallery-126338%
Pre designer Peter Skillman latest to leave Palm, entire senior staff now in exodus
Sure, the Mark Hurd departure has given HP quite an interesting (if not tumultuous) place in the news cycle, but here's one that's gotta sting pretty bad on its own. TechCrunch reports -- and independent sources confirm with us -- that Peter Skillman, the man with 11 years tenure and the reported designer of the Pre, has left HP / Palm. He joins... sorry, we need to catch our breath here... Michael Abbot, Mike Bell, Lynn Fox, Matias Duarte, Rich Dellinger, and Caitlin Spaan. That's all the Senior VPs (and almost all the VPs) now gone. We hope CEO Jon Rubinstein isn't feeling too lonely with most of his one-time dream team having defected en masse. [Photo Credit]
Intel snaps up former Palm and Apple VP Mike Bell for its smartphone push
Seriously, what the hell did HP acquire when it bought Palm? A bunch of pretty patents and a rapidly dwindling talent pool, it would seem. Mike Bell, a celebrated capture for Palm back in 2007 after 16 years at Apple, was most recently occupying the role of Senior VP for Product Development on Jon Rubinstein's team, but he has now switched allegiances to the blue team. Interestingly, though his address might change, his job spec will not -- Mike will act as Director of Smartphone Product Development in Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, where he'll "help build and lead a team to build breakthrough smartphone reference designs to accelerate Intel Architecture into the market." It's hard to imagine how Intel could signal its intent to be a big player in the smartphone realm any more forcefully. Click past the break for the full text of the internal email announcing Mike's arrival.
Palm loses webOS notifications architect to Apple
Rich Dellinger might not be a name you instantly recognize, but he is the dude credited with bringing about the unintrusive banner notification system that forms part of webOS' widespread appeal. And, as of today, he's also in the employ of one Steve Jobs. The new Senior UI Designer at Apple, Inc looks to have made his way through Palm's exit doors in the immediate aftermath of the HP takeover announcement, and joins Matias Duarte on the list of significant talent departures from the webOS design team. We expect Rich will be getting his teeth stuck into the iPhone's admittedly tired and obtrusive notifications, and hopefully sprinkling some of that webOS fairy dust into the next iteration of Apple's iOS. Let's be honest, who here hasn't dreamt of an iPre? [Thanks, Tal]
WoW Insider Show Episode 97: Chasing silhouettes
Good times as always on our podcast this past holiday weekend -- while Turpster was away, we Americans took over the show, and declared our independence the only way we know how: by talking about the most popular stories in the World of Warcraft this past week. Adam Holisky, Alex Ziebart, Michael "Belfaire" Sacco and I answered your emails, and then chatted about Blizzard's addition of faction changes to the game (and who'll go for it), patch 3.2 and its extendable raid lockouts and universal armor tokens, Exodus and Ensidia and how Blizzard has dealt with both, and of course, that sneaky Cataclysm trademark and what it might mean for Blizzard's future releases.Whew! If it sounds like a full show, that's because it was. It even went on longer than usual, so you can enjoy the extra-long WoW Insider Show at any of the links below (including clicking on the iTunes link to subscribe directly there). We won't be back next Saturday -- instead, we're setting up for a special Thursday evening show this week at 6pm Eastern, so those of you who can't make it on Saturdays can instead tune in on Thursday night to chat and listen live with us on the Ustream page.Enjoy this past weekend's show, and we'll see you on Thursday.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
The Daily Quest: They really are
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Grey Matter really dislikes the Moonkin set bonus on the recently unveiled Tier 9 armor. Pink Pigtail Inn has a pretty convincing argument for why "more epics" does not equal "new content." Burnout? With all of the new patch 3.2 information coming down, Pike doesn't know anything about burnout. Rhii of ISheepThings, on the other hand, isn't real happy with the World of Warcraft today. And finally, Sydera over at World of Matticus waxes philosophical about exploits and how Blizzard is punishing them. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
The best of WoW.com: June 23-30, 2009
See that shocked look on Thrall's face above? That guy's the leader of the Horde, and he just read (on WoW.com, of course) that for the first time, players of World of Warcraft will be able to switch their factions -- players will be able to leave his Horde, and those dirty Alliance might come to his side. No wonder he's so shocked. That story and more in this week's most popular posts from Joystiq's Azeroth-obsessed sister site. News Faction changes coming to World of WarcraftHorde can be Alliance, Alliance can be Horde, cats and dogs sleeping together! It's lunacy! Patch 3.2 PTR unveils Tier 9 setsThe next level of epic armor is coming to the game in the latest content patch... Patch 3.2 PTR Tier 9 set names...And it's got a great set of lore names to go with along with it. Patch 3.2 upcoming Engineering changesBig changes for one of the game's most popular professions. Exodus punished for exploiting Yogg-Saron encounterAfter a guild accomplishes a world-first achievement kill, Blizzard determines they didn't quite follow the rules. Features Patch 3.2 PTR: Tauren Druid conversation may reveal lore and expansion secrets A pair of Druids chatting in the new content patch might hint at the future of the game. The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Fire Festival achievementsAzeroth is heating up with the Fire Festival -- here's how to get everything done this week. Arcane Brilliance: More questions than answersOur Mage columnist didn't get all his questions answered in Blizzard's recent Q&A article about the class. Patch 3.2 PTR: New heirloom items galleryA pictoral look at some new heirloom items headed to the game. WoW Casually: What Patch 3.2 means for casualsOh, you don't raid five times a week? Patch 3.2 has something for you as well.
Exodus punished for exploiting Yogg-Saron encounter
As previously reported, there were accusations that US guild Exodus used an exploit to obtain the World First of the last unclaimed Hard Mode in Ulduar -- Alone in the Darkness. As it turns out, these accusations were true and blue poster Daelo posted on the official forums that the Yogg-Saron encounter was hotfixed on all servers to prevent this from happening in the future. Owing to this, Exodus' kill is no longer recognized by some achievement trackers.Contrary to some reports, however, Exodus released a statement on their website that members of their guild were not banned, clarifying that Blizzard meted out a 72-hour suspension for their abuse of game mechanics. They argue that the encounter wasn't beatable to begin with, similar to the C'thun fight in Ahn'Qiraj before it was fixed, prompting the exploit. In the same statement, Exodus also points at Ensidia's arguably hypocritical stance of complaining about the abuse considering Ensidia used similar questionable methods to achieve other World Firsts. Serennia mentions this behavior in his column at wowriot, as well, bringing into question Blizzard's apparent double standard when meting out punishment.
World first of "Alone in the Darkness" a possible exploit
We reported last week that a guild named Exodus on the US realm of Ysondre had come out of nowhere to topple the world first of the Heroic: Alone in the Darkness achievement, which requires that you bring down the biggest bad currently in the game, Yogg-Saron, with no help from any of the Keepers in Ulduar. But not so fast, says Serennia over at WoWRiot -- over on their forums Ensidia is claiming that Exodus used an exploit, and that their kill doesn't count at all. Apparently, having Thorim help on the fight keeps the "Immortal Guardians" in the last phase of the fight from being a problem, and without Thorim, you have to not only do the fight without his extra 10% damage bonus (each Keeper ups your DPS that much), but you have to deal with the Guardians messing up your melee classes, and oh yeah: they both heal and get healed by Yogg. Not that it's impossible to do it, but it's definitely not easy, and Ensidia claims that Exodus found a known exploit that allows you to evade the Guardians out completely, thus turning the last phase into a straight tank-and-spank, obviously much easier.After that, it gets into some guild back and forth (Ensidia apparently did something that might have been an exploit on Hodir, and when people call them out on that, they say that the exploits were different -- Ensidia's tactic was just an interesting use of game mechanics, while the exploit Exodus is suspected of using is more of a cheat), but the fact remains that Exodus is clearly not a guild that anyone expected to clear what might be the toughest raiding achievement in the game before anyone else, and yet that's exactly what they did. Ensidia says they won't be killing Yogg for the achievement using the exploit, and that they've reported the Exodus kill to the devs, so we'll have to see if the devs decide that Exodus did cheat, or if they let Exodus keep their achievements and mounts. We're not sure how much it all matters, with world first kills not being all that important any more (and that's exactly what the devs might say as well), but Ensidia is claiming that an exploit took place -- we'll have to see if that turns out to be true.Thanks, Nimrod!
Exodus scores world first Heroic: Alone in the Darkness
News is flooding in that Exodus of Ysondre-US has just scored the world first 25-man Yogg-Saron with 0 Keepers, a.k.a. Heroic: Alone in the Darkness. A quick look at their site proves it to be true, complete with screenshots.This achievement, when Ulduar was first launched, was largely considered to be mathematically impossible. One or two nerfs to Yogg-Saron more or less proved that to be true. The recent nerf to the spawnrate of the Guardians of Yogg-Saron wasn't aimed at the encounter with 4 Keepers up. It was aimed at the encounter with few (or zero) Keepers up. Without the buffs those Keepers provide, the encounter gets more and more difficult. As someone who has only killed Yogg-Saron with all 4 Keepers in the last few weeks, I fear seeing the fight with zero. Major, major props to Exodus.They were rewarded for their efforts with Bowser's Flying Machine Mimiron's Head. I guess he didn't need it anymore. Congratulations, Exodus!
The Daily Quest: Sometimes simple is best
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. This Saturday, the guild Exodus will be joining Stompalina and crew on the Rawrcast. It kicks off immediately after our own podcast, so give it a listen! Part seven of Too Many Annas' epic Angrathar fiction has been posted. James Peripheral, one of WoW.com's user bloggers, tells the world why he plays MMOs. Why? Family. Big Hit Box supplies some very basic tips for players new to grouping as melee. All of you new Death Knights and Retribution Paladins might want to take a look. Ret Vets get a pass. Do you have children that play WoW? Are you concerned that they might be seeing things in chat channels that they shouldn't be? NoStockUI has some suggestions for the parent that wants their child's game experience to be a little safer. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
