Updated on 11-16-2015 by Will Fulton: Kotaku’s Jason Schreier astutely pointed out that the statement from Belgian Minister Jambon was actually released before the attacks in Paris, and was referring to known general tactics of ISIS, rather than specific evidence. No official evidence lists from the Belgian raids have yet been released. The error in reporting cascaded from a story posted by Forbes on November 14. We apologize for amplifying that confusion.
Original Post: ISIS terrorists may have used the online chat function of the PlayStation 4 in order to plan the horrific, coordinated attacks on Paris this past weekend, according to Belgian authorities (via Express). The hunt for those who perpetrated the attack led authorities to make a number of raids in Belgium, which produced at least one PlayStation 4 console, which a Belgian government representative believes was used in planning the attack.
“PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,” said Belgian Minister of Home Affairs Jan Jambon. Although there is no hard evidence to support this claim (that has been publicly shared, at least), communication on Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) is notoriously difficult for authorities to monitor. Earlier this year, for instance, a 14-year-old Austrian boy plead guilty to using his PS4 to contact Syrian ISIS militants and download bomb schematics.
When asked about the possibility, a Sony spokesperson provided the following statement to Express:
“PlayStation 4 allows for communication amongst friends and fellow gamers and, in common with all modern connected devices, this has the potential to be abused. However, we take our responsibilities to protect our users extremely seriously and we urge our users and partners to report activities that may be offensive, suspicious, or illegal. When we identify or are notified of such conduct, we are committed to taking appropriate actions in conjunction with the appropriate authorities and will continue to do so.”
This is not the first time that anti-terrorism organizations have keyed into online video games as a possible space in which illegal schemes could be hatched away from the watchful eyes of authorities. Documents released as part of Edward Snowden’s leaks revealed that the CIA and NSA were tracking potential terrorist activity in Microsoft’s PSN-equivalent, Xbox Live, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Linden Labs’ Second Life. In addition to top-level chat systems in PSN and Xbox Live, players can also communicate through both text and voice chat within games themselves, which would be nearly impossible to comprehensively monitor.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.