Today Blender announced that Facebook would be joining the Blender Development Fund as a Corporate Sponsor. A corporate sponsor is the highest tier of sponsorship and means at least 120K euro per year in financial support, which generally gets translated as two full time developers on the project. Facebook will be joining the likes of Unity, Epic Games, AMD and NVIDIA in the corporate supporter tier.

Details from the Blender announcement:

To support these artists and the countless other animators, researchers, engineers, designers and content creators who depend on open source tools, Facebook wishes to contribute to the development of Blender. Which is why we’re proud to announce that Facebook will join the Blender Foundation’s Development Fund as a Corporate Patron as of Q4, 2020.

We at Blender see this as another important signal of the industry’s willingness to migrate to open source, and contribute to open source’s continual improvement.

Ton Roosendaal,
Chairman Blender Foundation

Facebook currently use Blender in their AR product Spark AR Studio in addition to their ownership of Oculus. If you are worried about the corporate influence on Blender, don’t worry about it, for reasons described in this video. If you want to learn more about Facebooks support for Blender be sure to check out the video below.

Our public sector and enterprise customers regularly need to move their data between countries, regions and continents. Today, we’re announcing new protections for our public sector and enterprise customers who need to move their data from the European Union, including a contractual commitment to challenge government requests for data and a monetary commitment to show our conviction. Microsoft is the first company to provide these commitments in response to last week’s clear guidance from data protection regulators in the European Union.

Every day, our customers move data through their global networks to serve their clients, work with suppliers or partners, and manage payroll for their global workforce. These cross-border data transfers have been the subject of recent litigation and regulatory action including a ruling earlier this year from the Court of Justice for the European Union and draft recommendations issued last week by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) about how companies can comply with this ruling.

With today’s announcement, we are moving to be the first company to respond to the EDPB’s guidance with new commitments that demonstrate the strength of our conviction to defend our customers’ data. Microsoft has already demonstrated that we provide strong protections for our customers’ data, we are transparent about our practices and we defend our customers’ data. We believe the new steps we’re announcing today go beyond the law and the EDPB draft recommendations, and we hope these additional steps will give our customers added confidence about their data.

• First, we are committing that we will challenge every government request for public sector or enterprise customer data – from any government – where there is a lawful basis for doing so. This strong commitment goes beyond the proposed recommendations of the EDPB.
• Second, we will provide monetary compensation to these customers’ users if we disclose their data in response to a government request in violation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This commitment also exceeds the EDPB’s recommendations. It shows Microsoft is confident that we will protect our public sector and enterprise customers’ data and not expose it to inappropriate disclosure.

We call these protections Defending Your Data, and we will begin adding them to our contracts with public sector and enterprise customers immediately.

Defending Your Data makes a substantial addition to our foundational privacy promises, and builds on the strong protections we already offer customers.

• We use strong encryption: We encrypt customer data with a high standard of encryption both when it is in transit and at rest. Encryption is a critical point in the draft EDPB recommendations. We do not provide any government with our encryption keys or any other way to break our encryption.
• We stand up for customer rights: We do not provide any government with direct, unfettered access to customer data. If a government demands customer data from us, it must follow applicable legal process. We will only comply with demands when we are clearly compelled to do so. Our first step is always to attempt to re-direct such orders to customers or to inform them, and we routinely deny or challenge orders when we believe they are not legal.
• We are transparent: We have, for many years, published information about government demands for customer data. We sued the U.S. government over the ability to disclose more data about the national security orders we receive seeking customer data and reached a settlement enabling us to do so. As a result, twice a year, we disclose more detailed information about these national security orders across all our businesses (consumer, enterprise, and public sector), in addition to our regular Law Enforcement Request Report. 

• We have a track record of legal success. We have more experience than any other company going to court to establish the limits of government surveillance orders, and we have even taken one case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our efforts have provided customers with greater transparency and stronger protections. No commitment to challenge access orders can assure victory, but we feel good about our record of success to date.

 Some of the public discussion about the impact of U.S. government data demands focuses on U.S.-headquartered companies. But it is clear that U.S. laws regarding government access to data apply to companies that do business in the U.S., even if they are headquartered in Europe or elsewhere.

Privacy is a core value for us at Microsoft because we believe people will only use technology if they can trust it. That’s why we were the first cloud provider to work with European data protection authorities for approval of Europe’s model clauses, the first to adopt new technical standards for cloud privacy, and enthusiastic supporters of the GDPR since it was first proposed in 2012. We have extended core rights under the GDPR to consumers around the world, and we have honored core rights of the California Consumer Privacy Act for all our consumers in the United States. In addition, we have launched the Tech Fit for Europe initiative to develop digital solutions based on European values and rules.

We hope the steps we have announced today demonstrate to our enterprise and public sector customers that we will go above and beyond the law to defend their data, and the data of their users.

You can read more about our commitment to privacy here

Tags: data collection, data privacy, Data Protection, defending your data, GDPR, Tech Fit for Europe

Immortals Fenyx Rising is now just weeks away from launching on Nintendo Switch, but we’re still learning plenty of new, quirky facts about Ubisoft’s next action-adventure title.

In an interview with Game Informer, game director Scott Phillips has revealed a cool little tidbit about Immortals Fenyx Rising’s early development. As it happens, a bug found in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey kickstarted the inspiration the team needed to get started on a new project:

“There was a bug at the time where you’d be sailing on your trireme and instead of having a normal human crew, you’d have a crew of cyclops. We knew that was wrong for Odyssey, but it also sparked this idea of, ‘Actually it would be quite cool if we can break those historical bonds and just go full force into mythology.'”

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

Recently, Ubisoft has also unveiled its post-launch DLC plans for the title – including details of its season pass – and also teased a collaboration with Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time.

The game launches on Switch on 3rd December. Make sure to check out this gameplay footage if you missed it the first time.

Hamster has confirmed that the next game in its popular Arcade Archives series is Seibu Kaihatsu’s Zero Team, a side-scrolling fighter from 1993 which, until very recently, was considered something of a lost classic, due to the fact that it was never ported to consoles and only became playable in MAME in 2016.

Seibu Kaihatsu is most famous for its Raiden series, but Zero Team proved it was just as adept in other genres, too. Boasting slightly smaller sprites than Capcom’s Final Fight – which is a clear inspiration – Zero Team is nonetheless a good time if you’re a fan of belt-scrolling brawlers. It’s a shame that it never got ported in the ’90s, but, thanks to its inclusion in the burgeoning Arcade Archives range, it can now reach a wider audience.

Zero Team will cost the usual £6.29 / $7.99 / 6.99 Euros, and will apparently include both the Japanese and western versions of the game (the latter was rebalanced). Will you be downloading it tomorrow? Let us know with a comment.

Update: The Yooka-Laylee x Volta-X collab is now live! GungHo Online Entertainment America has shared all the details you need:

Introducing the playable crewmate, Yooka (with sidekick Laylee on his back) and a new story mission. You can now experience new, character-specific skills and abilities once the loveable duo join your team – no Play Coins required! Players will also receive two new weapons and the Emblem System as a part of a free content update.

Yooka is obtainable as a playable character after players complete a side mission in Episode 2. With his own personalised skills and unique special ability, Yooka is a force to be reckoned with in-battle. His main ability, “Slurp State,” allows Yooka to take on the properties of any elemental effect active in the room and imbue his next attack with that effect.

In addition to the collaboration, players will also receive a free content update with two new weapons and a new Emblem System:

– The Capital Ship takes up all four drone slots and summons a huge drone that works independently to attack different rooms in the opponent’s robot.
– The Dai Beam Cannon Weapon body weapon fires fast and doesn’t have a cooldown. However, use it with caution, as it can explode if it is used too much – or if someone uses fire or electricity to attack that room.
– The new Emblem System grants players special emblems for completing certain in-game achievements. Players can equip these emblems next to their names to show off to other players.

Original Article (Fri 30th Oct, 2020 04:15 GMT): GungHo Online Entertainment – arguably best-known for Ninjala – has announced its strategic real-time robot battler RPG, Volta-X, will be collaborating with Playtonic Games’ Yooka-Laylee this November.

Yooka-Laylee will turn a new page on this tale by joining the Volta Crew in an all-new and original story mission – Yooka will even have his own unique abilities, with more details expected to be shared soon.

Here’s a first look at this popular duo in Volta-X;

In addition to this, Volta-X has also received its first major content update today. Here’s a bit about it, directly from the PR:

As for the new update dropping today, the Headquarters hub is receiving an Edit Mode, which will allow players to move parts of their Base around. Improvements have also been made to Crew Assignments and selection. Players will receive new battle Emotes and a Volta taunt, and can now access multiple save slots if they want to battle their way through the game’s story again.

Four new weapons are being thrown into the mix to change up the game (light punch, ballista, shotgun, chainsaw),

starting on Halloween day, players will be able to compete in a series of special tournaments to win spooky new Kaiju and Volta themed Costumes for their Crew.

If you’re curious to see what this new update is like, along with the Yooka-Laylee collaboration, Volta-X will be 50 percent off on the Switch between now and 2nd November. Check out the trailer above to learn more about this game.

What do you think about this latest Yooka-Laylee collab? Tell us down in the comments.

We love a good dungeon-crawler, hacking and slashing our way through room after room packed with horrifying monsters. But it’s nice to have a break, too, and sit back with something a little more homely. We’re talking games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley that have a warm, comforting simplicity. Well, what if we told you there’s a game that has the best of both worlds? And what if we told you we were running a giveaway for that game this week…

Moonlighter is a dungeon-crawler/shop-keeping game where you play as Will, a merchant-turned-hero trying to keep his grandfather’s shop alive. In the game, you delve the dungeon, killing monsters and bosses, and then sell the loot you find in your shop, using the money to revitalise your hometown of Rynoka. It’s a really fantastic formula – read our Moonlighter review for more details!

The game originally launched on PC to much critical acclaim, and is coming to iOS on November 19. Lucky for you, we’ve got some copies for this week’s giveaway, so sign up down below if this sounds like you.

In order to enter, simply fill out the box below, though please have a look at our terms and conditions first.

ios

Moonlighter iOS giveaway

If you can’t wait to play Moonlighter for yourself, you can purchase the game on the App Store from tomorrow. We’ll send the codes out to the lucky winners next Thursday, so keep an eye on your inbox!