MLG sells "substantially all" assets to Activision Blizzard for $46 million, DiGiovanni replaced Major League Gaming, once the largest esports company in North America, is going out of business. In a special meeting on Dec. 21, MLG's Board of Directors approved an Asset Purchase Agreement granting Activision Blizzard a large majority of MLG's assets in exchange for $46 million. The next day, a letter went out to stockholders informing them of the sale. We have included an excerpt below... eSports Observer (shareholder tweet)

2016 Reality: Lazy authentication still the norm My PayPal account was hacked on Christmas Eve. The perpetrator tried to further stir up trouble by sending my PayPal funds to a hacker gang tied to the jihadist militant group ISIS. Although the intruder failed to siphon any funds, the successful takeover of the account speaks volumes about why most organizations – including many financial institutions – remain woefully behind the times in authenticating their customers and staying ahead of identity thieves. Krebs on Security

How a nation of tech copycats transformed into a hub for innovation The young programmer had an idea, and everyone thought it was nuts. Just out of college, he'd gotten a job writing software for YY, a livestreaming company based in the mas­sive city of Guangzhou, in China's Pearl River Delta. More than 100 million users every month stream them­selves, or tune in to broadcasts of others, singing, playing video­games, or hosting talk shows from their Beijing apartments. The audience chats back, prolifically, via voice or text. Wired

U.S. says its Internet speeds triple in three-and-a-half years U.S. Internet connection speeds have tripled over 3-1/2 years to keep up with consumer demands for streaming video and downloading content but the United States still lags many other countries. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a report on Wednesday average download connection speeds had increased to nearly 31 megabits per second (Mbps) in September 2014 from about 10 Mbps in March 2011. Reuters

Major Linux problems on the desktop or why Linux is not (yet) ready for the desktop, 2016 edition In this regularly updated article, which is without doubt the most comprehensive list of Linux distributions' problems on the entire Internet, we only discuss their main problems and deficiencies (which may be the reason why some people say Linux distros are not ready for the desktop) while everyone should keep in mind that there are areas where Linux has excelled other OSes... Artem S. Tashkinov

How the Internet changed the way we read As a professor of literature, rhetoric, and writing at the University of California at Irvine, I've discovered that one of the biggest lies about American culture (propagated even by college students) is that Americans don't read. The truth is that most of us read continuously in a perpetual stream of incestuous words, but instead of reading novels, book reviews, or newspapers like we used to in the ancien régime, we now read text messages, social media, and bite-sized entries about our protean cultural history on Wikipedia. The Daily Dot

Nigerian charged in sophisticated email scam is in custody in Dallas​ A Nigerian man living in the U.S. on a student visa faces federal wire fraud charges in connection with a sophisticated email phishing scam targeting businesses. Amechi Colvis Amuegbunam, 28, of Lagos, Nigeria, was arrested in Baltimore in August and charged with scamming 17 North Texas companies out of more than $600,000 using the technique. He remains in federal custody in Dallas. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Dallas Morning News

Virtual reality predictions for 2016 & beyond Virtual reality is not just a new medium, it is a new paradigm. VR is the first major paradigm shift in a long time in a long succession of technologies. Using the language of the old paradigm to describe VR fails to capture that it is a new paradigm. The adoption of VR is not simply like 'just another' new device, not like a new aspect ratio for display panels, not like just an upgraded generation of gaming console, but a fundamentally new kind of technology... Medium

Iran's blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web Late in 2014, I was abruptly pardoned and freed from Evin prison in northern Tehran. In November 2008, I had been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail, mostly over my web activities, and thought I would end up spending most of my life in those cells. So the moment, when it came, was unexpected. I was sharing a cup of tea when the voice of the floor announcer – another prisoner – filled all the rooms and corridors... The Guardian

Space for Europe and for all humankind: A brief history of the ESA In November 2014, a strange-looking little spider of a spacecraft caught the world's attention. It may have been one of the oddest-looking pioneers of all time, resembling a mini-refrigerator attached to an insect's legs. The spacecraft, christened Philae, electrified both die-hard space fans and casual observers despite its alien appearance. It made the first-ever soft landing on the face of a comet. Ars Technica

Stop Patent Trolls: Support the Innovation Act of 2015 This is the year for patent reform. The Innovation Act (H.R. 9), introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and co-sponsored by a bipartisan coalition, offers a host of critical fixes to the problem of patent trolls. Trolls' abusive litigation tactics have exploded in recent years, putting a drain on our innovation economy and harming innocent end users. EFF

Microsoft Edge browser keeps losing users despite Windows 10 push Figures revealed by market research firm Net Applications for the month of December 2015 reveal that Edge is still losing users, and the lack of features, such as extensions, is very likely to be one of the main reasons. Last month, Internet Explorer 11 was the number one browser out there with a share of 25.57 percent, and that's not a surprise at all. Softpedia

Messages from hell: Human signal processing Despite the title, there's no religious content in this post. The Hell in question is the German inventor [Rudolph Hell]. Although he had an impressive career, what most people remember him for is the Hellschreiber – a device I often mention when I'm trying to illustrate engineering elegance. What's a Hellschreiber? And why is it elegant? Hackaday

The sad graph of software death A few years ago, I helped save a company by showing them a single picture that took almost no work to produce. Although formally speaking, the picture was titled Issue Open vs. Close Rate Over a Four Month Period – I tend to refer to it as The Sad Graph of Death when discussing it in educational conversations. Here it is, in all its glory... Gregory Brown

Controversial security pioneer John McAfee invests in Everykey​ We don't know whether John McAfee killed his neighbor in Belize, but we do know that the Internet security pioneer is now an investor in Cleveland-based Everykey. Now he's using his fame to help the company raise even more money through Indiegogo.com. It's working... Crain's Cleveland Business

Ringing in 2016 with 64 open-spec, hacker friendly SBCs Community backed, open-spec SBCs vary wildly, from sub-$10 minimalists to octa-core powerhouses. Here we present 64 Linux- and Android-friendly models. LinuxGizmos

Linux and Unix SysAdmins New Year's resolutions (2016) Today is the last day of 2015 and it's that time of year again. Here is my very own 12 resolutions for the New Year. #1. Turn on Two Factor Authentication (2FA)... nixCraft