TechCapsules

Box Office Theory reports Clayface pre‑sales are 80% lower than Supergirl’s at the same stage, with only a $20 million domestic opening projected. The film’s $40 million budget is modest compared to other DCU releases, and horror audiences typically buy tickets later, so early sales are less critical. Clayface’s October 23 release may rely on word‑of‑mouth and late‑weekend momentum, similar to 2026 horror hits like Obsession and Backrooms. The film follows actor Matt Hagen, who can shapeshift into living [...]

Eric Barone, the creator of Stardew Valley, revealed that his upcoming title, Haunted Chocolatier, will shift from the series’ signature farming simulation to a more action‑oriented RPG. In a GQ interview, Barone described the game as a “town game” with a focus on adventuring, equipment upgrades, monsters, and boss fights, emphasizing a metaphysical theme tied to ghosts and spirits. The project remains in development with no confirmed release date, as Barone prefers to launch only when the [...]

Nicolas Cage told reporters at New York Comic Con that he refused to sign Amazon’s artificial‑intelligence waiver for the Prime Video series Spider‑Noir, in which he portrayed Ben Reilly. Cage said Amazon’s $50 billion investment in OpenAI makes the studio “very AI‑friendly,” a stance he does not share. He added that his refusal likely ends any future collaboration with the streaming giant, though he remains eager to work with younger, “Gen Z” directors who favor handcrafted approaches. Spider‑Noir, released earlier this year, [...]

Will de Renzy‑Martin, the English‑language voice of Coen in the upcoming game The Blood of Dawnwalker, used a TikTok teaser for the My Perfect Console Podcast to argue that an actor’s contribution extends far beyond vocal timbre, which he says is the only element generative AI can mimic. He emphasized that personality, on‑set choices and improvisation are why directors hire humans, and warned that producers who replace actors with AI must become adept at coaxing desired performances from [...]

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a dual‑track AI‑enhanced intrusion campaign run by a Russian‑speaking broker known as CyberXero. The group combines off‑the‑shelf tools such as Cobalt Strike with Anthropic’s Claude Code to automate attacks on vulnerable WordPress and e‑commerce sites while manually targeting Ukrainian energy and critical‑infrastructure operators. Exploiting flaws like CVE‑2026‑63030, CVE‑2026‑60137 and a SQL‑injection bug in the Support Board plugin, the automated pipeline scanned 4,708 sites, seized 429 admin panels and deployed 32 web shells within a minute. The [...]

The Coalition confirmed that Gears of War: E‑Day’s online services suffered distributed denial‑of‑service attacks on October 12, causing intermittent disconnects, login failures and other disruptions for players worldwide. The developer posted on Twitter that the attacks began earlier in the day and that technical teams are actively mitigating the traffic and monitoring the situation. Normal multiplayer functionality is expected to return soon, though some users reported hours of instability. The incident comes just days after the game’s [...]

Valve’s Steam platform set a new all‑time concurrent‑user record on Sunday, with 43,505,724 users online worldwide, according to SteamDB. More than 14 million of those were actively playing games, also a record high. This surpasses the previous peak of over 42 million set in January, marking the second record‑breaking surge in 2024. The spike followed the conclusion of Steam’s Autumn Sale and coincided with several high‑profile launches, notably the free‑to‑play MMO Aion 2, which logged 397,905 concurrent players at launch, [...]

Patchstack reported active exploitation of a CVSS 10.0 vulnerability in the Bricksforge WordPress plugin (CVE‑2026‑85097). The flaw, present in versions through 3.1.8.9, lets unauthenticated attackers upload a GIF/PHP polyglot, then manipulate the ‘temporaryFileUploads’ URL field to execute arbitrary PHP code via the plugin’s form‑submission endpoints. Exploits were first seen on Oct. 7, 2026, targeting the REST API (/wp‑json/bricksforge/v1/form_submit) and admin‑ajax.php actions, using varied PHP extensions and encodings to bypass filters. Patchstack observed 63 source IPs, with automated patterns suggesting [...]