While it used to be, and in some cases still is, a struggle to find a game with a character creator that included a diverse range of hairstyles, newer games are getting better at providing styles to represent folks on the kinky / curly hair spectrum where a lot of people of color reside. However, the new struggle is getting those hairstyles to look and act natural. I remember looking at all the hairstyles in Horizon Forbidden Westand being bemused that the dreadlocks on Varl looked like they were made out of foam, while his beard was simply straight hair without an ounce of kink a Black man like him typically has. So it was refreshing to see that BioWare put so much effort into not only including diverse hairstyles but also ensuring that hair behaved authentically.
EA’s blog talked about how its Strand Hair technology, “combines physics with real-time rendering to simulate believable modeling of human hair.” According to the blog, Strand Hair technology was already in use for EA’s sports titles where rendering human hair correctly is important in order to accurately portray the real people represented in those games. But because Veilguard features characters running through waterfalls or surrounded by magic particles — activities you won’t see in Madden ‘25 — the Strand Hair tech needed further refinement.
“A major difference between Dragon Age: The Veilguard and existing Frostbite [EA’s in-house game engine] titles that have shipped with Strand Hair is the sheer variety and quantity of visual effects and transparent objects,” EA’s blog reads. “From magical spells to smoke, fire, and fog, the technology needed to blend seamlessly into the environment and magic of Thedas.” You can see Strand Hair in action in a video here.
The result is beautiful, luxurious-looking hair the likes of which I haven’t seen in any game I’ve played. I’m notoriously picky about hair in video games and I was suitably impressed by Veilguard’s offerings. I initially choose a cornrows / ponytail style for my Rook and was impressed that the choice came with styled baby hairs — a common component of Black and Latinx hairstyles that get frequently overlooked by all but the most dedicated of hairstyle modders. These developers really did their homework. But while the technology and variety was a refreshing change of pace, I do think the tech works a little too well.
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Black hair moves, but not as much as it does in Veilguard. About midway through my playthrough, I decided to change up my hairstyle (which you can do at any time, so don’t worry if you have character regrets after starting the game). I went from cornrows to a short, slightly curly style kinda like Zoë Kravitz’s hair in The Batman.
In real life, short, close-cropped hair like that usually stays in place, but this style moved with literally every slight motion my character made. It was too goofy, like jiggle physics but with hair. I deeply respect and appreciate the amount of technical work that went rendering something as simple but deeply culturally significant as hair. It’s one of those little things that makes Veilguard a big improvement over previous Dragon Age games.
Bluesky is continuing to blow up. The Twitter-like service and alternative to Elon Musk’s X, has now surpassed 16 million users after seeing rapid growth in the days following the U.S. presidential election. While many are leaving X over the service’s increasing right-wing leanings and Musk’s campaigning for Trump, others are unhappy with other changes Musk has made — like how blocks work or how their content on X will be used to train AI.
Despite those issues, X is still the leader in the space in terms of monthly active users, while Threads is quickly catching up. Meta announced on Thursday that Threads grew by over 15 million users in November alone, for instance. Earlier this month, Threads said it had 275 million monthly active users.
But if Threads is the big tech threat to X, Bluesky is the indie effort. It’s already bigger than Mastodon, another decentralized X competitor that now has 7.6 million users, less than a million of whom log in monthly. (The wider fediverse built on the ActivityPub protocol, however, has over 10.8 million users.)
If Bluesky’s growth continues, it may begin to affect X. According to analytics provider Similarweb, X has now seen the largest number of account deactivations since Musk acquired the company, previously known as Twitter.
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The firm based its findings on the number of visits to the confirmation webpage that appears after users indicate they want to deactivate their X accounts.
On Wednesday, X saw more than 115,000 U.S. web visitors deactivating their accounts, Similarweb found — more than any other day during Musk’s tenure. Previously, the peak had been around 65,000 on December 15, 2023, after Musk had restored the account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. (The tracking firm is not able to track the number of X users who deactivate their accounts via the X mobile app, indicating the true number is much higher.)
A Twitter clone? Not exactly!
While on the surface, Bluesky looks and feels a lot like X, its underpinnings are quite different.
The app offers a familiar feature set, including the ability to create and share short text posts that can include accompanying media like photos, videos, GIFs, and links. As on X, these posts can be liked, reposted, replied to, or shared via direct messages. There are also standard blocking and reporting tools, plus tools for muting threads, words, and hashtags. Users can send private messages to others, too, and create lists.
But Bluesky’s promise is that of a social network that puts its users in control. Designed to be decentralized, the company has begun offering federation, meaning anyone can host their own data. The idea is similar to the decentralized X alternative Mastodon but involves a different protocol (the AT protocol instead of ActivityPub). Unlike Mastodon, server choice on Bluesky won’t affect the content you see, the company explains.
How to sign up for Bluesky
To sign up for Bluesky, you can create a new account via the web at bsky.app or download the mobile app for iOS or Android. After creating your username and password and providing some basic information like your email and birthday, you can begin to interact with other Bluesky users and follow feeds of interest to find your community.
The company is also offering a site that helps you find a custom domain to use for your handle, which helps generate revenue for its otherwise free social networking platform.
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Bluesky’s third-party apps
If you want to venture beyond the official Bluesky app, third-party apps are available like Skeets, Graysky, and those that also cross-post to other networks, like Croissant, Openvibe, and SoraSNS.
If you prefer a more TweetDeck (X Pro) or column-based type of interface, the web app Skyfeed is an option.
How to find your favorite Bluesky feeds
Users on Bluesky also have more control over their individual feeds and algorithms than on X and other X competitors, like Meta’s Threads. While Bluesky operates its own app and provides its own feeds, users can customize their experience further based on the feeds and accounts they follow.
Anyone can build their own feed, and there are over 40,000 to now choose from. That means if you don’t like the feeds Bluesky offers, you can search for others and follow them, or even build your own.
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You can find new feeds to follow by clicking on the “Feeds” link in the left-side navigation bar on the web or by tapping the hashtag (#) button on the top-right of the Bluesky mobile app’s home screen. Here, you’ll find the feeds you already follow, like Bluesky’s Discover feed, and can search for or scroll through other popular feeds you might like to add.
Some popular feeds include those that let you track your Mutuals or the posts Popular With Friends; those focused on a topic, like Science, News, Art, or even something silly like Cat Pics; and those that help you find a particular community. In the latter group, there’s Blacksky, which is working to bring the Black Twitter community to Bluesky, plus groups for certain geographies, like Brazil and Japan, and many more.
Customize your Bluesky following feed
Another fun feature to explore in Bluesky’s Settings is the set of options you can configure around the content you see in your Following Feed.
Here, you can decide if you want to see Replies, Reposts, Quote Posts, and other content in your feed by toggling these options on or off.
Using “‘”Starter Packs”
Another area where Bluesky shines is how it approaches the so-called “cold start” problem — that is, it addresses the issue where new users on a service don’t know who to follow. Instead of leaving it up to the users, Meta’s Threads jumpstarted its X competitor by tying its user accounts to Instagram, allowing it to quickly build Threads’ user base off of an Instagram user’s existing social graph.
Bluesky lacks that built-in advantage so it instead came up with a tool for creating “Starter Packs.”
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These packs allow anyone to create a list of interesting accounts they recommend, similar to X’s Suggested User List. Other people can follow accounts individually from the Starter Pack or can follow everyone on the Starter Pack with a click.
A third-party site, Bluesky Directory, has also begun to organize the Starter Packs that others have created and track their adoption. Today, there are packs focused on politics, journalists, developers, technologists, academia, sports, AI, health, and various other fan groups and communities. As Bluesky grows, more will become available.
Finding your X friends on Bluesky
While there’s no official feature or service that allows you to easily import your followers or following from X, there are some third-party services that can help.
At present, the best option seems to be Sky Follower Bridge, a Chrome web extension that helps you identify, find, and follow the same users on Bluesky that you previously followed on X, or those who followed you.
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After installing the extension, you’ll head to your X Following or Followers page, then click the toolbar icon to launch the Sky Follower Bridge. You’ll need to then authenticate with Bluesky by entering your username and password.
However, instead of using your main password, you can and should create an individual “app password” to log in. This can be done from Bluesky’s Settings (under Advanced).
Once authenticated, you’ll press the “Find Bluesky Users” button. The service will scan the page and detect those X users who are on Bluesky, something it determines by comparing factors like the display name, handle, and more, or by looking for their Bluesky handle in their X profile’s description.
Image Credits:Sky Follower Bridge (opens in a new window)
When the utility first launched, you had to follow users one by one, but a more recent version of Sky Follower Bridge offers a handy “Follow All” button that saves a ton of time. The developer warns you that you may end up with false positives, though, because this sort of detection is not perfect.
It can also be used on your List members pages and block lists on X, we should note.
What to know about Bluesky moderation
In addition, Bluesky introduces a different take on moderation. Moderation on X and Threads is centralized, meaning the company makes the final decision. But Bluesky lets users tackle moderation as they see fit. They can mute and block users, create or subscribe to mute and block lists, subscribe to independent moderation services, or even self-host their own data on their own server.
There’s not a central directory of block or mute lists, but lists a user has created are available on their profile under the Lists tab. From there, you can subscribe to any list that looks like a fit for you. This is also where you’ll find any customer feeds the user has built. If something is a mute/block list, it won’t offer the “Pin to Home” button that lets you set the list as one of your default feeds.
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To find block lists of bad actors and others, a search for “block list” will usually turn up some posts from people who are sharing their favorites. The influx of former X users is currently making block lists of far-right and MAGA groups more popular for newcomers trying to escape Musk’s politics.
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Independent moderation services
Developers and communities can also choose to create their own independent moderation services using Bluesky’s tooling called Ozone. Once these alternative moderation services are built, other Bluesky users can subscribe to them to extend moderation beyond Bluesky’s own set of options.
To seed the ecosystem, Bluesky funded a few efforts focused on building independent labeling (moderation) services. Users can subscribe to these services’ filters by visiting the labelers’ page and clicking the subscribe button.
For instance, the XBlock Screenshot Labeller will let you hide screenshots — including those from X if you really want a clean break from Musk’s app. News Detective is another labeler that aims to fact-check Bluesky posts through a community of volunteers. (Users who subscribe will be able to see explanations and sources, and be able to request checks on questionable posts.)
You don’t have to get involved with self-hosting, building moderation services, or blocklists, if you’re not technically inclined. You can simply engage with the tools built by the community or the Bluesky team, which are found in the Bluesky app’s Settings. (Go to Settings > Moderation > Bluesky Moderation Service to configure your options.)
Getting engagement on Bluesky
Gaining traction on Bluesky is not much different from other social networks, though, so far, the service’s vibe tends to favor more regular posters — or even sh**posters, who tend to be more exuberant, carefree, and uncensored.
Adult content is also permitted but can be labeled as such. Meanwhile, users get to control what level of NSFW content they’ll see by configuring their choices in the moderation settings. Here, they can also set how Bluesky should handle other types of sensitive or harmful content, like misinformation, scams, spam, extremist content, threats, intolerance, rude content, self-harm, impersonation, and much more, allowing people to build a feed they feel comfortable with. Plus, you can choose to “Hide,” “Warn,” or turn a filter off entirely, depending on your preferences.
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This solution addresses an issue that has long plagued X: Everyone has different thresholds when it comes to the type of content they want to see in their feeds. Some prefer the uncensored firehose, however horrific it may be at times, while some want the opposite: heavy-handed moderation. Others want more control based over what type of content is displayed, hidden, or blocked.
After finding your community and preferred vibe, you should stop lurking and begin to interact. To generate engagement, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber suggests the following: “Post into some relevant feeds, comment on other people’s posts, find mutuals in feeds or elsewhere, use hashtags.”
Unlike Threads, which redesigned the way hashtags work (they’re links but don’t include the hash symbol itself), Bluesky embraced the traditional hashtag. That means you can search for topics, interests, or communities much like you do on X, like #Neuroscience or #BlackSky or #TechNews or anything else.
No trends!
Bluesky does not yet have a trending topics page, like X and Threads, which may make it feel a bit less like a real-time information hub. But it doesn’t make it hard to escape its algorithmic feeds, if you prefer something else — like a feed that’s centered around political news or updates from media publishers, for instance. And while Threads is no longer recommending political content to users — an editorial decision many disagree with, including creators — Bluesky leaves that choice up to each end user.
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To stay in touch with what’s news, users can also follow accounts or (unofficial) feeds focused on what’s trending, like Now Breezing, a bot that updates “on the :10s”, or Catch Up, which highlights the most popular posts from the last 24 hours.
Teenage Engineering’s new OP-XY is a portable synthesizer and sequencer that looks similar to the company’s OP–1 Field. But functionally it’s instead a more capable upgrade to the company’s six-year-old OP-Z, with a stronger focus on layering sounds with various effects and a steeper $2,299 price tag.
With an “anodized, all-black finish,” the OP-XY is yet another delightful example of Teenage Engineering’s design chops. Its black and white motif accented with a grayscale gradient running across its 16 sequencer inputs is the antithesis of the bright yellow Playdate handheld that Teenage Engineering helped Panic design. Unlike the $429 OP-Z that relied on a mobile device like a smartphone for its screen, the OP-XY now has a black and white OLED display built in, which probably contributes to the high cost.
Powered by a dual Blackfin CPU system paired with 512GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, the OP-XY offers eight “unique synth engines” and punch-in effects carried over from the OP-Z and Teenage Engineering’s calculator-sized Pocket Operators. There’s also a six-axis accelerometer inside allowing sounds and effects to change by simply moving the sequencer around.
The OP-XY includes several inputs and outputs, including USB-C and analog audio connections.Image: Teenage Engineering
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The OP-XY includes sampling capabilities through a built-in microphone or inputs that include a 3.5mm audio port. There’s also a USB-C port, a 3.5mm multipurpose output that includes MIDI capabilities for controlling external synthesizers, and a 3.5mm port for analog audio output. If you don’t want to deal with wires, the OP-XY’s rechargeable battery will keep it powered for up to 16 hours, and there’s support for MIDI over Bluetooth.
Although Teenage Engineering continues to sell its $59 Pocket Operators, the company’s audio gear has shifted towards more premium and pricier offerings in recent years. Its TP-7 Field Recorder, a digital audio recorder with a novel spinning “tape” reel, debuted last year for $1,499, following a tiny mixer called the TX-6 that arrived the year before for $1,199. Even the company’s original OP-1 synth, which debuted in 2011 for $849, has been replaced by the $1,999 OP-1 Field.
Security researchers from Group-IB discover unique new piece of malware
It abuses extended attributes for macOS files to deploy the payload
The malware is most likely built by North Korean state-sponsored actors
Cybersecurity researchers have stumbled upon yet another malware variant for macOS likely built by the notorious North Korean Lazarus group.
The report from Group-IB concerns the discovery of RustyAttr, a brand new piece of macOS malware built using the Tauri framework. T
he malware was not flagged on VirusTotal and was, at one point, signed using a legitimate Apple developer ID. The ID has since been revoked.
Extended attributes
Days before them, researchers from Jamf found something similar – a seemingly benign app on VirusTotal, built with Flutter, and serving as a backdoor for macOS victims.
In both cases, the malware used novel obfuscation methods, but wasn’t fully operational, leading the researchers to believe that they were mere experiments, as crooks look for new ways to hide the infection.
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RustyAttr was found abusing extended attributes for macOS, the researchers claim.
Extended attributes (xattrs) are a feature that allows files and directories to store additional metadata beyond standard attributes like name, size, and permissions. They are used for different things, from storing security-related information, to tagging files with specific metadata, and enabling compatibility with other file systems. In this case, the EA name was “test”, and carries a shell script.
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When the malware runs, it loads a website with a piece of JavaScript. This JavaScript – called preload.js, pulls content from “test” which seems to be a location. This location is then sent to the ‘run_command’ function, where the shell script executes it.
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While the process is ongoing, the victim is tricked with a decoy PDF file or a fake error message that pops up in the foreground.
RustyAttr was most likely built by Lazarus, the researchers said, although since there are no reported victims, they cannot be absolutely certain. However, they are confident that the malware was built to test new delivery and obfuscation methods on macOS devices.
Driverless cars can now do doughnuts and drift like stunt drivers, skidding sideways around corners while maintaining control, which might help the cars recover from dangerous situations
Google’s focus on Android safety and security has been pretty evident this year. From partial screen recording and private spaces to protection against juice jacking attacks, Android 15 has been quite a reassuring iteration.
Google is now injecting some more energy into that endeavor with a couple of new features that tackle the threat of scam calls and bad apps. These features are appearing first on Pixel smartphones, and will subsequently make their way to other Android phones.
First in line is Google Play Protect live threat detection, which shows real-time alerts for apps that pose a threat. “Play Protect analyzes behavioral signals related to the use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services,” says Google.
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The latest upgrade allows the system to send an alert as soon as it detects that an app is engaged in unusual activities. This notice will help users take necessary action, such as revoking access or uninstalling it, before a malicious app package does more damage.
The entire risk evaluation process relies on Android’s Private Compute Core, a safe processing environment that pushes for on-device analysis. Real-time alerts, originating from activity analysis, will initially focus on apps engaged in stalking behavior, and will soon expand to other types of harmful apps.
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Next, we have enhanced scam detection for calls. Once again, this is an on-device system, one that relies on AI to look for signs of suspicious behavior, such as a scammer asking for money or a code transfer.
Google
“If a caller claims to be from your bank and asks you to urgently transfer funds due to an alleged account breach, Scam Detection will process the call to determine whether the call is likely spam,” explains Google. This feature is now available to users in the U.S. as part of a phase testing program.
Less than a month ago, Google announced enhanced scam detection for the Messages app, with the intent of preventing fraudulent and package delivery scams. As far as call scam detection goes, it’s an opt-in feature.
It will be set to “off” by default, and only when users enable it, will the AI be able to do its job. The AI in question here is the Gemini Nano model, which is running locally on Pixel 9 series phones. However, it will expand to the Pixel 6 series, as well as all the subsequent models.
The OnePlus 13 launched last month in China with some amazing features. As we await the global launch, the device was recently spotted on multiple certification sites. Another smartphone that OnePlus will soon debut in the global market is the OnePlus 13R. Previously, rumors have hinted that it could be a rebrand of the OnePlus Ace 5. Now, a tipster has detailed the colors and variants of the OnePlus 13 and 13R ahead of the global launch.
The color options of the OnePlus 13 and 13R surfaced online ahead of the global launch
The OnePlus 13 is likely to launch with similar specs in the global market as well. OnePlus debuted three different variants of the OnePlus 13 in China with 12GB, 16GB, and 24GB RAM options. Today, in a post on X, the tipster (@MysteryLupin) hinted that won’t be the case with global models.
The tipster mentioned that the OnePlus 13 will debut globally with only two variants. You’re likely to see one variant with 16GB of RAM paired with 512GB of storage, while the other will feature 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That also means OnePlus wouldn’t launch the 24GB RAM variant of the OnePlus 13 in the global market.
Apart from these details, the tipster has also detailed the colors of the OnePlus 13 ahead of the global launch. If we consider the tipster’s words, the 16GB RAM variant of the OnePlus 13 will be available in Black Eclipse, Midnight Ocean, and Arctic Dawn color options. On the other hand, the base variant with 12GB of RAM will come in a single Black Eclipse color option.
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OnePlus 13R could be a premium mid-range phone
The tipster has also shared some details about the upcoming OnePlus 13R. According to the tipster’s post, OnePlus will globally launch the OnePlus 13R in only one variant variant featuring 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. However, that model might be available in two color options – Nebula Noir and Astral Trail.
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