NetEase Games announced today that it is developing a free-to-play mobile RPG called Destiny: Rising, set in the same universe as Bungie’s first-person shooter franchise. Bungie itself has licensed the Destiny brand to NetEase, which will develop and publish the title. According to the latter, Destiny: Rising features familiar Destiny characters in unfamiliar settings, as well as both returning and new game modes. At present, the game has no release date.
Destiny: Rising is set in an alternate universe to the primary Destiny canon, in a time after the collapse of civilization and the Dark Age. The game features single-player and co-op play, as well as competitive multiplayer. Players can switch between first-person and third-person modes, and Rising is compatible with both controllers and touch-based controls. It features multiple playable characters, explorable biomes and weapons from which to choose.
Ethan Wang, SVP of NetEase Inc, said in a statement, “With Destiny: Rising, NetEase Games is honored to partner with Bungie to deliver a Destiny-caliber experience to mobile devices. Destiny is an incredible franchise with a passionate and dedicated global fanbase. As huge fans ourselves, we are humbled and thrilled for the opportunity to bring gamers an action-packed RPG shooter set within the Destiny Universe.”
Bungie’s collaboration with NetEase goes back several years, as the two first announced they were working together on a new game in 2018. NetEase also invested over $100 million in Bungie and obtained a minority stake in the developer the next year. At the time, all it revealed about the game was that it wouldn’t affect the development of the mainline Destiny titles.
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Citi is warning that Constellation Energy could face execution risks in restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear plant , initiating coverage of the high-flying power stock with caution. The bank initiated a neutral rating with a price target of $284 per share for Constellation, implying modest upside of 4.5% over Monday’s close of $271.74. Constellation’s stock has more than doubled this year and is up nearly 40% over the past month as Wall Street bets that the company’s nuclear fleet is well positioned to serve power demand from the tech sector’s data center expansion. CEG YTD line Constellation Energy stock, year-to-date performance. But Citi analyst Ryan Levine warned that Constellation will likely face cost overruns and delays in restarting Three Mile Island. Constellation has set a 2028 start date and will sell the power to Microsoft to help offset emissions from its data centers through a 20-year contract. “We think the permitting timeline could slip to the right given [a] complicated and challenging regulatory process,” Levine told clients in a Monday note. Every month that the project is delayed could shave 9 cents off Constellation’s stock, according to Levine. And every $1 million of recurring cost overruns could hit the stock by 4 cents, he said. Levine also warned that Constellation could face challenges inking deals to directly power data centers with its nuclear reactors, the largest such fleet in the country. About 35% of Constellation’s current stock price assumes power sales from its nuclear fleet to the tech companies scaling up data centers. “Our caution is based on local politics, residential bill impact, ancillary services, backup generation needs, and reliability,” Levine said.
Audio maker Raycon has today unveiled the company’s first pair of bone conduction headphones, replete with water and dust protection, decent battery life, and low latency.
Like all of the best bone conduction headphones on the market, the Raycon Bone Conduction Headphones are designed to pipe audio to your eardrums using vibrations emitted into your skull. It’s a slightly strange prospect for the uninitiated, but bone conduction headphones are extremely popular with runners, cyclists, and commuters. They’re often lighter and more comfortable than many of the best headphones on the market, especially for those who struggle with the rubber tips of in-ear headphones. Furthermore, they let you listen to music and podcasts while retaining awareness of your surroundings.
Keeping up the trend, Raycon says its new Bone Conduction Headphones are designed for tough workouts and outdoor adventure. They feature an open-ear design and are designed to sit comfortably behind your ears. Retailing at $99 (UK and AU pricing tbc), they’re not as pricey as some options on the market, so what features can users expect?
Raycon Bone Conduction headphones: The rundown
Raycon says its Bone Conduction Headphones are rated for IP68 water and protection, so they can handle sweat, dust, and rain. They can’t be used in the pool or the sea for swimming, so they won’t be joining the ranks of the best waterproof headphones anytime soon, despite the fact that many swimming headphones are also bone conduction.
They feature environmental noise cancellation during calls to cut out distant background noise and ultra-low latency of 60ms ensures a snappy Bluetooth connection with less lag, making them more suited to watching videos.
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They also feature multipoint connectivity so you can bounce between two devices easily, such as a phone and tablet, without re-pairing or connecting each time. Battery life is rated for 14 hours of use at 50% volume, and a 10-minute quick charge will give you an hour of playtime.
The headband is made of a combination of steel and rubber that Raycon says provides strength, stability, and security during workouts. Audio-wise, they come with three sound profiles (Bass, Balanced, and Pure Sound) so you can choose a listening style that suits you. They also feature button controls for on-the-fly adjustments, and calls are made by way of two built-in microphones that also support Siri and Alexa.
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Raycon’s Bone Conduction Headphones are available from RayconGlobal.com today for $99.99.
The power needs of data centers will temporarily prolong the demand for coal, maintaining the reliability of the electric grid but delaying the nation’s decarbonization goals, according to Moody’s Ratings. The electricity demand from data centers could more than double to 35 gigawatts by 2030 compared to 17 gigawatts in 2022, according to a Moody’s report published Monday. Existing natural gas and coal-fired plants will likely bridge the supply gap to meet this load as the power industry builds new capacity. “The near-term rise in U.S. power generation will delay forecast declines in domestic demand for thermal coal, delaying decarbonization but still a near-term step necessary to keep the grid reliable,” Elena Nadtotchi, senior vice president at Moody’s, told clients in the report. Coal producers in central and southern Appalachia such as Alliance Resource Partners , Arch Resources and Consol Energy stand to benefit the most due to their proximity to the world’s largest data center market in northern Virginia, according to Moody’s. “That is obviously in close proximity to the Appalachia basin for coal, which is a pretty big basin and there is also a lot of coal-fired generation capacity in close proximity,” Sandeep Sama, a coal analyst at Moody’s, told CNBC. “It can be cost effective for them to supply coal to those power plants, and those power plants can, in turn, meet the incremental demand coming in from the new data centers,” Sama said. Merger set to close Arch Resources and Consol agreed to merge in August with the deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2025. The new company, Core Natural Resources, would have a market value of about $5.2 billion as of August. Arch Resources senior vice president of strategy, Deck Slone, told investors on an August call discussing the Consol merger that the company’s coal is “increasingly sought after” in industrial markets and to serve “resurging power generation demand in many economies, which is being driven in part by AI, data centers and [electrical vehicle] expansion.” The benefit to U.S. coal producers, however, will be temporary as data center developers transition to cleaner sources of power, according to Moody’s. Power companies are unlikely to build new coal plants due to environmental and sustainability goals as well funding challenges, according to the report. But sustained coal demand in the U.S. due to data centers could briefly lift prices before coal resumes its decline after a few years, according to Moody’s. “The average utilization of a coal-fired power plant was only around 43% so there’s a bit of a slack in the system,” Sama said. “You can run these existing incumbent assets a little harder, while in the background the solar and wind generation sources can continue to get built.” Coal is forecast to represent about 16% of U.S. power generation in 2024 and 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical unit within the Department of Energy. Coal transported to power plants declined 55% from 2010 to 2023, largely due to displacement by natural gas, according to a July report from the EIA. While overall coal production will decline in 2025, coal consumption by the electric power sector will increase from this year due to increased demand from data centers and other sources, according to the EIA’s short-term energy outlook published this month. Supply decreasing The largest grid operator in the U.S., PJM Interconnection, warned in July that power supply is decreasing due to plant retirements at the same time demand is increasing, raising reliability concerns. About 17% of the U.S. coal fleet has been retired since 2021, according to the EIA . The PJM area includes northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world. Alliance Resource CEO Joseph Craft told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call in late July that regulators and industry have increasingly recognized that “forced early retirements of coal plants, if implemented, will increase risk to the grid” as power demand surges from data centers used in artificial intelligence and other applications, and from manufacturing. Arch Resource’s stock has declined about 12% this year, through Monday. Consol has gained about 10% and Alliance has advanced about 18%. The stocks are sparsely covered by Wall Street. The three analysts who cover Alliance and Consol rate them both a buy, while four of the six analysts who cover Arch rate it a buy, according to FactSet data.
Just over two decades ago, the first Hellboy movie hit theaters from director Guillermo del Toro, and it was clearly a passion project for him. Hellboy looks just as good in 2024 as it did in 2004, despite its relatively modest $60 million budget. But that film, its 2008 sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and the 2019 Hellboy reboot all look like masterpieces compared to the recently released Hellboy: The Crooked Man.
Before we get into why the new movie is so awful, I want to say that I’m a big fan of the Hellboy character. I’ve been reading Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics since their debut in 1994, and I’ve seen every movie, including the Hellboy animated films that were direct-to-video. And I can say without reservation that Hellboy: The Crooked Man fails on every level to capture the appeal of the title character. If you ever see this movie, it won’t be a mystery as to why it skipped theaters. A wide release would have only magnified its failures.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Official Trailer (2024) Jack Kesy, Adeline Rudolph, Leah McNamara
But in the event that this Video on Demand release does go to a streaming service in the future, I feel like it’s my duty to warn other Hellboy fans away from it. I watched Hellboy: The Crooked Man so you didn’t have to… and that’s 99 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. But everyone who has ever loved a Hellboy story should know why this adaptation deserves to be buried indefinitely.
How much does $20 million buy in 2024? Because the first thing you’ll notice about The Crooked Man is how cheap it looks. It’s one thing to make a movie with one-third the budget of the original Hellboy, but there have been TV pilot episodes that had lower budgets than this film and still had higher production values and more cinematic flare. Where did all of the money in this movie go? Because it certainly wasn’t the unconvincing makeup for Jack Kesy’s Hellboy, the boring Belgium countryside that stands in for the Appalachian mountains, or some truly amateurish CGI and special effects.
Director Brian Taylor has worked on some terrible comic book adaptations before, including Jonah Hex as a writer and as the co-director of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Both of those films were better than this one, which features shockingly bad editing, mundane camera shots, and a musical score that only calls attention to itself when it keeps repeating the same flat notes over and over again. I’ve seen YouTube fan films that have looked better than this movie that were made for a fraction of the cost.
Typically, a bad comic book movie can’t be blamed on the men and women who created the character. But in this case, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola co-wrote the script with his frequent collaborator, Christopher Golden, as well as director Brian Taylor. That’s why it’s so surprising that this film is seemingly incapable of even capturing Hellboy’s personality.
The Crooked Man is based on one of Mignola’s stories from the Hellboy comics, but its pacing is an absolute slog to get through. Shortcuts to get the story moving in the comics are far less convincing in live-action, especially since Hellboy and Bobbie Jo Song are essentially along for the ride after getting thrown from a train without any serious injuries. The script also does a poor job of setting up the stakes for the main characters, even though one of the core trio has his soul on the line.
Good casting can elevate almost any film. Unfortunately, you won’t find any good casting in this movie. Almost anyone would have had a hard time following Ron Perlman’s Hellboy from the first two movies and the animated features. He just embodies the character in a way that hasn’t been matched since. David Harbour (Stranger Things season 5) looked the part in 2019’s Hellboy reboot, but he had more of a whiny take on the main character that didn’t resonate as well.
Jack Kesy has no memorable qualities whatsoever as Hellboy. It doesn’t help that the makeup used on Kesy is far less impressive than his two predecessors. Yet he’s meant to carry this film, and Kesy simply can’t do it. His take on Hellboy is dull and doesn’t capture his working-class-hero vibe or the otherworldly aspects of the character.
The kindest thing that can be said about Kesy is that at least his Hellboy is not as badly miscast as the film’s secondary lead, Tom Ferrell. As played by Jefferson White, Tom is supposed to be a former resident of the Appalachian mountains who is haunted by a near deal with this film’s devil, the Crooked Man (Martin Bassindal). However, White never seems to be able to capture the right emotional tone for his character, and he seems largely disinterested during his initial scenes in the movie.
Adeline Rudolph’s Bobbie Jo Song is a character who was created for this film as Hellboy’s partner in the B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense), but her inclusion is baffling for a few reasons. First, it was extremely difficult to buy that this Japanese-American woman was in that position barely 15 years after World War II. The film only lightly touches on racism when Bobbie Jo meets a local family in the hills, and then it never comes up again.
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Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Official ‘Transformation’ Clip | Comic Con (2024) Jack Kesy
But the most egregious aspect of Bobbie Joe’s character is the implication that Hellboy is secretly in love with her. There’s absolutely no chemistry between Kesy and Rudolph to support that turn. And while Rudolph’s performance isn’t as lifeless as her two male co-stars, she’s not great in the movie either.
A bad movie can still be fun to watch, especially if you’re mocking it with friends. Unfortunately, Hellboy: The Crooked Man is one of those bad movies that’s going to be hard to draw much humor from. There’s a lot of shoddy special effects and inexplicably blurry shots that might inspire some jokes. Tom Ferrell’s frequent use of his magic bone may also inspire some laughter.
Yet for the most part, this film’s joyless tone kills any sense of humor or fun that it might have had. It’s such a chore to watch that even the Mystery Science Theater 3000 or RiffTrax writing teams would be hard-pressed to make it entertaining.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Exclusive Clip (2024) Jack Kesy, Adeline Rudolph
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If Hellboy: The Crooked Man is the best Hellboy movie that can be made in 2024, then this franchise needs a long rest. That’s a better idea than running a great concept and a fantastic main character into the ground with substandard execution.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is now available on VOD via Amazon Prime Video and other digital outlets. But there are much better things that you can spend your money on.
A new variant of the TrickMo malware has been identified, posing a greater threat to Android users. The malware, designed to steal device unlock codes like PINs and patterns, has raised alarm among cybersecurity experts. This revelation, first disclosed on September 10 by Cleafy and further analyzed by Zimperium, highlights the evolving capabilities of TrickMo, making it a serious concern for Android users worldwide.
TrickMo malware’s new Focus on Android PINs
TrickMo, originally known as a banking Trojan, has evolved to target Android users more aggressively. This new variant employs advanced techniques to capture users’ unlock patterns and PINs. The malware tricks users into entering their credentials by displaying a deceptive user interface that mimics the device’s legitimate unlock screen. These details are then sent to the attacker’s server, linking the stolen information directly to the victim’s device.
Zimperium’s analysis found that the malware hosts this fake UI as an external HTML page. When users enter their unlock details, the malware immediately sends this data, along with a unique identifier, to the attacker. This feature lets attackers control the device even when it is locked.
Zimperium researchers identified over 40 variants of the TrickMo malware during their investigation. These variants have similar functionalities, such as OTP interception, screen recording, data exfiltration, and remote control. However, the addition of unlock code theft takes the threat to a new level. This capability enables attackers to access sensitive information, potentially leading to significant financial losses for users.
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The malware mainly targets Android devices in Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Germany. Zimperium’s research shows that the malware has compromised thousands of devices in these regions. It has stolen millions of records. Data theft goes beyond financial information. It also includes credentials for accessing corporate resources. This increases the risk for both individuals and organizations.
Steps to mitigate the TrickMo malware threat
To protect against TrickMo malware and its ability to steal Android PINs, users must take a few actions. First, regularly update your device’s operating system and apps. These updates often patch security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malware like TrickMo.
It’s also essential to avoid downloading apps from untrusted sources. Unverified apps can carry hidden malware, putting your device and personal information at risk. Similarly, be cautious about clicking suspicious links that might lead to harmful downloads.
Lastly, using advanced security solutions that offer real-time threat detection and response is crucial. These tools can detect and block malware like TrickMo before it compromises your device.
Meet Apple’s seventh-generation iPad mini. Arriving over three years after its predecessor, the new tablet adds a faster A17 Pro chip originally found in the iPhone 15 Pro series with support for Apple Intelligence, more entry-level storage and support for the Apple Pencil Pro.
The iPad mini 7 has the same 8.3-inch screen size as the previous model and an identical 2266 x 1488 resolution at 326 ppi. Unfortunately, the refresh rate remains a modest 60Hz; from what we can tell, the display is identical to the one in its predecessor. It’s dimensions remain unchanged as well. The front-facing camera is still in the portrait position, something that makes sense for a device of this size, and both the front- and back-facing cameras appear unchanged from the previous iPad mini.
Without any significant design upgrades, this update is more about what’s inside. The A17 Pro chip lets the new tablet use Apple Intelligence features like smarter Siri, Writing Tools, Image Playground and Genmoji. It also has more RAM and 128GB of storage in the base-level model, double that of the 2021 model. There’s also a 512GB storage option for the first time.
The new iPad mini arrives on October 23 and starts at $499 for 128GB storage.
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Update, October 15 2024, 9:40AM ET: This post originally said that the new iPad mini used the A18 chip; it has been updated to note that it uses the A17 Pro chip. We apologize for the error.
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