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Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Gaming Company Fined $1 Million After Using Players To Mine Bitcoin

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-gaming-company-mining-2013-11

bitcoin

A gaming software company behind anti-cheating software for the popular Counterstrike game has been fined $1 million after a software update secretly added code that would mine for bitcoin without the users' knowledge, Robert McMillan of Wired reports.

About 14,000 customers of E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA) were infected by the code, which mined about 30 bitcoins over a period of two weeks. The company blamed a rogue engineer for the malicious code.

The software was designed to mine the cryptocurrency only when people weren't active on their computers, according to Forbes' Kashmir Hill. But one gamer noticed his computer was working much harder than usual and warned others of a possible Bitcoin botnet in April.

“These defendants illegally hijacked thousands of people’s personal computers without their knowledge or consent, and in doing so gained the ability to monitor their activities, mine for virtual currency that had real dollar value, and otherwise invade and damage their computers," said Acting N.J. Attorney General John Hoffman, in a press release.

From Wired:

Though they reached a settlement, ESEA and the New Jersey AG disagree over the facts of the case. The AG’s office says that company co-founder Eric Thunberg and software engineer Sean Hunczak were both involved in the scam. In a statement posted to its website, ESEA said the software was the work of a single engineer, presumably Hunczak, adding that the “press release issued by the Attorney General about our settlement represents a deep misunderstanding of the facts of the ca! se, the nature of our business, and the technology in question.”

The company must pay $325,000 of the fine upfront, but will be required to pay the rest if they are caught misbehaving in the next ten years.

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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

These Infamous 'Bitcoin Pizzas' Are Now Worth $6 Million

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-infamous-bitcoin-pizzas-are-now-worth-6-million-2013-11

Earlier this year, we checked in on the story of 'The Bitcoin Pizzas.'

As Internet lore has it, on May 18, 2010, Jacksonville resident Laszlo Hanyecz announced on Bitcointalk.org he would pay someone 10,000 BTC to order him two pizzas. At that time, 10,000 Bitcoin was worth $25.

Four days later, Bitcointalk.org user jarcos obliged. Hanyecz posted the proof: two piping hot "The Works" pizzas from Papa John's.

IMG_0984.small Our first post from this April quoted the price of Bitcoin at $234, which meant the pizzas were now worth $2.3 million.

Today, Bitcoin prices now stand at more than $600.

Which means that pizza is now worth more than $6 million.

There's actually a site, Ounce.me, that has live "Bitcoin Pizza" quotes. Here's a snapshot from earlier today:

live pizza We hope those pizzas were really, really good.

SEE ALSO: Bitcoin Could Go To $1 Million

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This Chart Shows The Incredible Decline of 'Call Of Duty' On The PC

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-decline-of-call-of-duty-2013-11

While not as big as "Grand Theft Auto," the "Call Of Duty" franchise is one of the few series in video games that can be expected to have a smash hit with every release.

That holds true for the latest entry in the series, "Call of Duty: Ghosts." As Kotaku's Owen Good notes, retailers ordered a billion dollars worth of copies from Activision for the holiday season. On top of that, many copies will likely be sold in the digital stores available on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

There's only one place where the series seems to no longer thrive: the PC, the bastion of hardcore gamers and the platform where "Call of Duty" got its start in 2003.

Steam is a digital store and gaming platform created by Valve and embraced by most of the PC gaming community. Valve collects (with permission) a massive amount of data about gamers on its platform, including the specs of their systems and what they're playing. SteamGraph is a tool that lets you manipulate and look at that data.

Below is a chart of the number of active players over time for every entry in the series going back to "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2." As you can see, the peak number of active players has steadily declined with each release, falling over 60% in just three years.

call of duty on pc players

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Step Inside Africa's First Underwater Hotel Room

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/africas-first-underwater-hotel-room-2013-11

Underwater hotel 2

Sleeping with the fishes just became a good thing.

Africa opened its first underwater hotel room this month, making it the second in the world.

The room, at the Manta Resort on the Zanzibari island of Pemba, was designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who also built the first underwater hotel room in a lake in Sweden. The Manta Resort room sits 4 meters beneath the surface (that's just over 13 feet, three feet deeper than the room in the Swedish lake).

The three-tiered suite includes a roof deck, a landing deck at sea level with a lounge and bathroom, and of course the underwater bedroom surrounded by windows that afford a nearly 360-degree view of a nearby coral reef and dozens of species of fish. Anchor wires tether the structure to the sea floor.

A stay in the underwater hotel room goes for $900 a night as a single or $1,500 a night as a couple.

Starting from the top, guests can sunbathe on the bed of the roof deck, or stargaze in an area with almost non-existent light pollution.

The three-tiered underwater room is anchored to the sea floor with two cables.