TechCapsules

The Nintendo Switch 2’s price fell to $469 at Woot, a $30 cut from the $499 list price set after September’s increase, marking one of the first new‑unit discounts since the hike. The Amazon‑owned retailer’s deal appears limited, with past refurbished units selling out quickly and new units rarely offered at this level. The discount arrives just days before the highly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launches on November 5, prompting gamers to consider upgrading before [...]

Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 tracked a cyber‑espionage campaign against government‑linked Linux servers from October 2025 to April 2026, labeling it CL‑UNK‑1211. Researchers said the attackers used large‑language‑model‑generated PHP and shell scripts, as well as a custom Go‑based remote‑access trojan named SysGoRAT, to gain persistent, multi‑platform access. The malware establishes a WebSocket C2 link to 104.194.158.65:443, disables endpoint defenses, wipes logs and plants fake red‑team markers. Operators exfiltrated database dumps, government mailboxes and social‑media‑related emails, employing in‑memory [...]

Scotland’s Innovation Minister Alyn Smith visited Quantcore’s Glasgow facilities to assess how government policy can accelerate the nation’s quantum manufacturing sector. CEO Dr. Jack Brennan led a tour of the company’s superconducting quantum hardware labs, introducing co‑founder and Head of Engineering Wridhdhisom Karar, measurement engineer Daniel Kuznesof and design engineer Dr. Shilpi Pandey. After the walkthrough, Smith joined Quantcore and the University of Glasgow’s Economic Development and Innovation team for a roundtable on deep‑tech infrastructure and talent [...]

Hideo Kojima posted a detailed review of Warner Bros.’s “Clayface,” praising the film despite his unfamiliarity with the DC character. The horror‑thriller follows actor Matt Hagen, who, after a brutal facial injury, undergoes experimental treatment that restores his visage and grants him the ability to physically transform into anyone. Kojima likened the movie to classic 1950s‑60s sci‑fi body‑horror works such as “The Fly,” “The Shrinking Man,” and “Eyes Without a Face,” noting its blend of revenge‑driven tragedy and transformative [...]

Microsoft reported two intrusions in which attackers pretended to be IT support on Microsoft Teams and convinced employees to grant control via Windows Quick Assist. After gaining access, the hackers exploited Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) templates to issue login certificates for privileged accounts, including a domain controller. One intrusion used an ESC1‑type template that let low‑privilege users request certificates for privileged accounts; another employed the PetitPotam relay technique (ESC8) to obtain a domain‑controller certificate without a [...]

Developer S‑Game announced that its wuxia‑themed action title Phantom Blade Zero sold 4 million copies within 72 hours of launch. The game debuted atop Steam’s sales charts, outpacing long‑standing hits such as PUBG and Dota 2, and became the platform’s top‑grossing title, surpassing Modern Warfare 4, Aion 2 and the viral cyber‑punk sim Probably Stolen. Peak concurrent players on Steam reached 833,921 on Sunday. Pre‑launch figures had already exceeded one million units across Steam, PS5 and China’s WeGame, with roughly two‑thirds of [...]

French cinema giant Pathé has teamed with hypnotist Victor Kraemer to test whether classic films can be experienced as if for the first time. The “Pathé Rewind” trial will select 30 self‑identified movie enthusiasts, who will undergo a one‑on‑one online hypnosis session followed by a second hypnotic induction immediately before a screening. Participants will watch a single film—chosen from The Matrix, Se7en, La La Land or Interstellar—based on which title the group knows best. The experiment, slated for 9 November at Pathé Buitenhof in [...]

Niftski, the reigning speedrunner for Super Mario Bros., set a new ANY% world record during a Halloween livestream while dressed as Mario, posting the run on his YouTube channel. The 4:54.229‑second run shaved 0.33 seconds (33 milliseconds) off his previous mark of 4:54.332, leaving the performance just two frames short of the theoretical perfect run, a time of 4:54.265 that would match the game’s tool‑assisted speedrun (TAS). Niftski explained that the lost frames occurred early, when he mistimed fast accelerations in [...]