MoviePass parent’s CEO says its rebooted subscription service is already profitable

Two days after MoviePass announced the return of the company’s unlimited ticket plan, Ted Farnsworth, CEO of its parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics, sat down with TechCrunch to offer insight into the state of the beleaguered service.

According to the executive, MoviePass Uncapped is already seeing positive results. While he didn’t share concrete numbers, he says that subscribers have increased “well over 800 percent in the last few days. And that’s conservative.”

Asked what it would take to make the company’s subscription business profitable, Farnsworth says, “Well, it’s profitable right now.” As for when it turned the corner, he added, “I will tell you this, because it’s out there: MoviePass has actually paid Helios back money over the past several months, towards the loans that they have. So, that gives you an idea of when we really started focusing on getting rid of the 20 percent of the abusers.”

The plan marks a return to the initial unlimited model that helped turn MoviePass into a household name in the past year. But that success arrived with a massive price, as the service began hemorrhaging money. MoviePass withdrew the unlimited plan and began reworking its plans on what seemed to be a weekly basis.

In July, at the height of what was supposed to be the Summer of MoviePass, the service experienced an outage as it struggled to pay bills. Helios secured a $5 million loan from creditors Hudson Bay Capital Management in order to turn the lights back on.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 24: Ted Farnsworth attends the 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party sponsored by IMDb and Neuro Drinks celebrating EJAF and the 91st Academy Awards on February 24, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for EJAF)

“I think the big SNAFU there was the credit card company,” the executive explains. “When one company sold to the other, we had been doing business with them for four years. They decided it was too much credit for them and literally call the credit line on a Friday night and I do a personal guarantee on a Saturday.”

However things might have gone down on the back end, the optics of such a situation were clearly less than ideal. MoviePass’ struggles were very public from the beginning, as part of a publicly traded company. A literal shut down for the service appeared to be just the latest sign that the too good to be true service was exactly that.

And while Farnsworth admits that the company would have benefited from a bit more privacy, he claims that he never had any doubts about MoviePass’ future, even as he negotiated with creditors for a fresh cash injection.

“There were no moments in my mind where I thought it would go down. In my mind, I thought it was too big to fail,” he says. “You created a household name in less than a year. I think any time you have something like that, where you’re going to run into issues from sheer growth. Our investors did well investing along the way. The investors believed in us and they still do. We knew we had to slow it down to get in front of the fraud side because there were so many moving parts. It was moving so fast.”

It’s that “fraud” that was at the center of MoviePass’ woes, says Farnsworth. MoviePass’ initial downfall, he believes, was the product of too many users “gaming the system.” He believes the total number of users that fall into that category to have been around 20 percent of the overall subscriber base.

It was a minority, certainly, but still a sizable figure, given that, by June of last year, that total figure had exceeded three million. By that point, the service also comprised around five percent of U.S. box office receipts. Much of the past year has been spent attempting to plug holes in the subscription service as the MoviePass boat began rapidly taking on water.

To be clear, “gaming the system” doesn’t just mean watching a lot of movies — Farnsworth says he’s happy to have “hardcore” users, even if they’re buying way more than $9.95 or $14.95 worth of tickets. Instead, his concern is users who are doing things like sharing their subscription or just using a MoviePass ticket to use the theater’s restroom — something surprisingly common in places like Times Square, where public bathrooms are hard to come by.

One of the primary fixes, Farnsworth says, is utilizing mobile tracking to ensure that subscribers are, in fact, using the service as intended, and looking for “red flags” like constantly changing the device using the app. Users are already required to enable location-based tracking in order to enable ticket purchase. This will utilize that to ping the ticket purchaser’s location, in order to make sure that they’re actually attending the movies for which they’ve purchased tickets.

“For instance, another issue is where people would go to the theater, they’ll pick up the ticket, they’ll hand their ticket to the kid or their child or their friend or whatever it is … and the person that’s paying the subscription goes back home or whatever they do,” he says. The new strategy: “When the movie starts, 30 minutes later [we’re] able to ping them inside the theater, just to make sure they still are at that theater.”

Looking ahead, Farnsworth says that the days of constantly changing pricing and restrictions are over, and that the company is committed to the unlimited plan. In fact, in his telling, the goal was always to get back to the unlimited plan — it was just that MoviePass had to figure out how to cut down on fraud to make the plan work.

At the same time, he says MoviePass’ film studio will also be an important part of the business. It has been overshadowed by the headlines about the company’s subscription struggles, but MoviePass Films has titles starring Bruce Willis, Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone scheduled for this year.

MoviePass also invested in “Gotti,” and although the film was reviled by critics and only grossed $4.3 million at the box office, Farnsworth doesn’t see it as a failure.

“We never looked at Gotti as a money-maker” he says. “They only projected that it would do a $1.3 million in the box office here. Because then, when we pushed it with MoviePass, we took that up to five million. So, I mean, when you can take a movie — I gotta be careful here, but when you take a movie that might not be that great or perfect, and you can move that needle, [that] was always our theory of subscription.”

Check back later for our full interview with Farnsworth. 

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What Is Malvertising and How Can You Prevent It?

It is difficult to put an accurate figure on the impact of malvertising. At their peak between 2014-2016, malvertising campaigns lead security research firms to report millions of malicious advertisements across the web.

Whether the rate of malvertising incidents has risen or not, one thing is clear. Malvertising can do a lot of damage to an unsuspecting user. With the low entry level to malvertising, the threat remains active.

This guide which will help you understand what malvertising is, why it’s so popular, where it’s hiding, and what you can do about it.

What Is Malvertising?

“Malvertising” is a portmanteau of “malicious advertising.” In short, malvertising is the practice of using online ads to infect computers with various types of malware.

A malvertising attack (also known as a drive-by malware attack) can work in a variety of methods. However, there are two common techniques:

• Pre-click: A malvertising campaign that uses a special script that automatically downloads as soon as the ad loads. The user doesn’t have to click anything; visiting the page containing the ad is enough. This allows an attacker to place malvertising in a landing page, or set up a malvertisement redirect chain to bounce users through several malicious pages.
• Post-click: As it sounds; the user downloads the malware after clicking the malicious ad. Attackers still use malvertising redirects to keep users moving through numerous pages.

Malvertising can carry all kinds of malware types. It can be anything from adware to ransomware, to a piece of code that changes settings on your router. Exploit kits are a common malvertising payload. If successful, an exploit kit can open your system up to other malware types. Botnets, banking Trojans, and cryptojackers are also on the malvertising menu.

How Big a Threat Is Malvertising?

Judging the scale of malvertising can be hard. It is silent, and doesn’t come with the other common red-flags we train ourselves to spot. Vadim Kotov, Senior Security Researcher at Bromium, echoes this:

“The continued rise of malvertising is also of note, as it became so rapid and high-impact, largely due to its attacks on high-profile websites. Drilling down further, this year alone, there were malvertising attacks on more than a quarter of the Alexa 1,000. This class of attacks is fascinating as it represents a perfect symbiotic relationship between two discrete technologies that end up producing such detrimental effects.”

The main reason is that advertising is everywhere. Third-party-ad networks sell adverts to big sites like eBay, The Weather Channel, Rotten Tomatoes, and MakeUseOf.

Those sites display the ads in good faith. But if a malvertiser figures out how to insert a malicious ad into a legitimate ad network, there’s a chance it will appear on high-ranking websites before its caught.

Ad Networks Used as Malware Distribution Networks

The networks serving advertisements throughout the internet are largely automated, with only peripheral human involvement. This means attackers can take a chance.  If successful, their infected ad will sneak through the security systems of an internet advertisement network. Even highly trusted ad networks, like Google’s DoubleClick, have distributed malicious ads.

The automation means a majority of websites are unaware of precisely what will be displayed on their site, removing themselves from the selection process—and further distancing themselves from potentially malicious content.

One tactic for malvertisers to get their ads into trusted networks is by buying ad space for benign ads first. Once a reputation as a legitimate advertiser is established, the malware-laden ads begin. Because they’re under less scrutiny than new advertisers, they have a brief opportunity to slip these malvertisements onto websites.

Just-In-Time Malware Assembly

A newer method of getting malvertisements published is just-in-time malware assembly. This includes innocent-looking components of code in the ads that are downloaded separately to a victim’s computer. They’re then assembled and compiled into the malware payload.

This payload can then run or download additional components to complete the assembly. This is especially difficult to detect.

Malvertising Threat on Mobile

Malvertising is a particular threat to mobile users. How many times have you accidentally tapped an advert on a website while scrolling through? Or clicked an advert in a game as you try to speed through cooldown timers or lockout screens?

A malicious ad doesn’t differentiate between a “proper” click and an accidental click. Smartphone design doesn’t help, either. The screen is great for scrolling, but precise clicking is a different proposition.

Another smartphone issue is a lack of security programs. Many users simply don’t consider their smartphone security in the same manner as a desktop or laptop.

Where Does Malvertising Come From?

Common sense tells us to avoid the sketchier side of the internet. Think about the sites you’d normally consider to host malware or be privy to a malvertising campaign:

• Pornographic sites
• Sites offering other NSFW/NSFL content
• Sites offering free software/cracks/keygens/warez
• Sites offering Flash games
• Illegal streaming sites
• Torrent sites
• Sites using “unreliable” TLDs, hosted in “questionable” countries
• Sites offering coupons, savings, and questionnaires
• Online dating sites
• Betting sites

Unfortunately, you can find malvertising absolutely anywhere. Because of how third-party ad networks operate, infected ads can be spread to a wide variety of otherwise very trustworthy sites at high speed. While there are sites that are more likely than others to infect you with malware, you can be hit at any time with one of these ads.

Malvertising is a stealthy delivery method, too. However, RiskIQ’s research showed that in 2015, the most common form of malvertising was through fake software updates, especially for Adobe’s Flash plugin. They can also be spread through fake virus and malware warnings, though the prevalence of that particular method has decreased.

Note: The alert above looks legit, doesn’t it? Learn more about how to spot fake virus and malware warnings so you’re never caught off guard or tricked.

Tracking Malvertising Campaigns

Back in March 2015, Malwarebytes announced it had tracked a particular campaign as it dynamically traversed various internet outlets, culminating in malicious advertisements seen on:

• MSN.com: 1.3 billion monthly visits
• NYTimes.com: 313.1 million
• BBC.co.uk: 290.6 million
• AOL.com: 218.6 million
• my.xfinity.com: 102.8 million
• NFL.com: 60.7 million
• realtor.com: 51.1 million
• theweathernetwork.com: 43 million
• thehill.com: 31.4 million
• newsweek.com: 9.9 million

The injected malicious ads were designed to deliver the Angler exploit kit. This is known to search for and exploit vulnerabilities in HTML, Silverlight, Flash, JavaScript, Java, and plenty more. Once the Angler EK is installed, it installs a variant of commonly seen ransomware TeslaCrypt or AlphaCrypt. With the potential to infect literally billions of users, the malvertising stakes are constantly rising.

How to Protect Yourself Against Malvertising

It looks like a mammoth task. The malvertisements are seemingly everywhere, but there are a few precautionary steps you can take:

• Disable Flash and Silverlight. Both are frequent targets for attackers, both frequently contain security vulnerabilities.
• Use script management add-ons. As most ads and scripts are automatically implemented, you can use a script blocking browser extension to control your web content.
• Use and update your antivirus. This will catch more things than it misses.
• Consider upgrading. Malwarebytes Premium is a worthwhile investment alongside a free antivirus suite. I use Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium for a more secure system.

Until there is a monumental shift in how the internet is funded, ads will continue to be served as part of our day-to-day browsing. Massive ad-networks aren’t going to disappear unless there is a viable alternative, inclusive of those existing advertising behemoths. They certainly won’t want to relinquish their profits.

And while each of the major ad-networks will be actively addressing the malvertising menace, there is still a major emphasis on self-protection.

Want a browser that features auto-script blocking and cares about your privacy? Check out Brave, a browser that takes your privacy seriously.

Read the full article: What Is Malvertising and How Can You Prevent It?

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The 4 Best Budgeting Apps to Get Your Finances in Order

Who Wants to Win an Xbox One X?

Fancy getting your hands on a brand new Xbox One X? Well, the time could be now, and it won’t cost you a dime!

That’s right. We’re giving away one Xbox One X console bundle, worth $499, to one of our lucky newsletter subscribers! Read on to find out how to enter!

About the Xbox One X

The Xbox One X is a seriously powerful console. And by powerful, we’re talking about:

• Eight custom x86 cores clocked at 2.3GHz
• Integrated AMD graphics with 6 teraflops of performance
• 12GB of RAM
• 1TB HDD
• 4K/HDR Blu-ray drive
• And of course, that all-important 4K and HDR capability.

In other words, gaming is amazing on an Xbox One X. It’s smooth, detailed, interactive, and fast. The games are bigger and better than ever. And it works with all your older Xbox One games and your 1080p TV.

If you want to learn more, read our full Xbox One X review. But if you want to be in with a chance of winning one of these amazing consoles, including a wireless controller and a game, keep reading!

How to Enter

To enter, please subscribe to our newsletter using the form on this page.

Simply enter your name and email address into the form, then click the button to subscribe to our newsletter. Existing subscribers can also enter through the same process. Feel free to complete additional steps for more entries!

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The winner will be announced via our newsletter by 15 April 2019, so keep an eye on your inbox!

As a subscriber, you will receive roundups of our most popular articles and occasional third-party offers. For more info read our giveaway rules and our privacy policy.

Read the full article: Who Wants to Win an Xbox One X?

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Google Password Manager: 7 Things You Must Know

A password manager is the perfect way to create secure, unique passwords that can be controlled centrally. Google Chrome has one built-in, potentially saving you the need for third-party software.

The Google password manager has loads of benefits, like speeding up registration and keeping every account password unique. But there are some drawbacks, like being tied into Google’s ecosystem, that you should consider.

Here’s what you should know about the Google Chrome password manager.

7 Reasons to Use Google Password Manager

You may already be using the Google password manager tool, or you might be using a different password management tool. Either way, you’ve got seven good reasons to use the Google password manager:

1. It automatically detects registration forms and fills in the password
2. All the passwords generated are unique
3. The passwords will be strong and adhere to a site’s character requirements
4. The passwords will automatically be saved to your account
5. Your account can be accessed through the Chrome browser or online
6. Your passwords are safe and encrypted
7. You are linked into Google’s ecosystem

Let’s unpack these and consider them in more detail.

1. It Detects Registration Forms

Registration to every single online service is one of the banes of the internet. Chrome’s autofill feature has long helped speed that up. The password manager takes it one step further by automatically detecting that you’re signing up for something and offering a password.

No need to load into a separate password manager or rack your brain inventing some indecipherable code. Chrome has one ready for you as soon as you click into a password field.

2. All Generated Passwords Are Unique

You should never use the same password multiple times. This is because if someone gets hold of it, they’ll be able to access more than one of your accounts. You should minimize your risk by having a unique, secure password for every different thing you register for.

The Chrome password manager takes care of this for you. Every password that it generates is unique. It will never give you the same password for two different accounts.

3. It Will Adhere to Password Guidelines

A newly generated password will usually follow this format:

• at least one lowercase character
• one or more uppercase characters
• at least one number

These are all standard signs of a strong password.

The password generator will also detect if the site you are registering for requires symbols, and will include them if necessary. It’ll also avoid some characters like a lowercase “l” or uppercase “I” for readability issues.

4. Automatically Save Your Passwords

Of course, one of the main points of a password manager is that it stores all the passwords for you. How else will you remember those scrambled characters? This is much more secure than writing them down, which is an entirely dangerous practice that too many people do.

When you choose to use Chrome’s generated password, your username and password will automatically be stored within your Google account. If you opt to type your own password, the browser will specifically ask whether you want to save it.

5. You Can Centrally View All Your Account Information

There are two methods for seeing all the accounts and their associated passwords that you have saved.

If using Chrome, go to Account > Passwords. Everything you need is listed beneath Saved Passwords. Click the three vertical dots next to an entry to either view Details or Remove it. Click the eye icon to reveal a password—though you will need to be verified, via your computer password or using Google’s two-factor authentication.

Alternatively, go to passwords.google.com in a browser. Sign in to your Google account to see a list of all the sites stored. Click one to see further information about it. From there, click the eye icon to reveal a password or Delete to remove the entry.

6. Your Passwords Are Protected… To an Extent

Chrome will encrypt all of your passwords, as you would expect. In that sense, your passwords are secure. But nothing is ever truly secure!

Firstly, your password could leak if the website you’re using has been compromised. You should semi-regularly check if your online account has been hacked—it’s happened to big companies like Adobe and LinkedIn, and it’ll happen again. In these cases, it doesn’t matter how secure the password Chrome generated for you was.

Secondly, the Chrome password manager is only as secure as you keep Chrome. You’ll need a master password in order to access your data, so you should keep this protected. Also, avoid saving your password in an alternative browser. If you do, someone could access your machine, launch that browser, get your Chrome master password, and find all your other passwords.

7. You Are Tied Into Google’s Ecosystem

This is perhaps a given, but it’s worth highlighting. By using the Chrome password manager, you are tying yourself into Google’s ecosystem.

If Chrome is the only browser you use, that might not be a problem. But if you switch between them, you will likely find it frustrating to keep logging in to Google’s password service to store a new account or retrieve an existing password.

If you have been using the Chrome password manager and want to export your information into another service, have no fear. In Chrome, go to Account > Passwords, click the three vertical dots next to Saved Passwords and click Export passwords. This will download a spreadsheet containing everything you need.

Google Password Manager Alternatives

The Chrome password manager is but one of the many password managers available. It’s still relatively new and not as feature-rich as other utilities which can do things like automatically change your passwords.

To see what else is available, be sure to read our comparison of some of the best security-focused password managers.

Read the full article: Google Password Manager: 7 Things You Must Know

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You Can Now Buy Products Without Leaving Instagram

Instagram is becoming an online retailer, with Checkout on Instagram meaning you can now buy products without ever leaving the app. This essentially turns Instagram into a virtual shop, where the products you see are ready and waiting to be purchased.

How Does Checkout on Instagram Work?

Checkout on Instagram does exactly what the name suggests. It moves the whole process of buying products inside the Instagram app. So, whereas before you would be directed to a fashion retailer’s own website to buy an item, now you do it all on Instagram.

From now on, if you see something you want to buy while browsing Instagram, click on it, and you may see the “Checkout on Instagram” button. Click this, and you’ll be able to buy said product within the app itself. Making it far too easy to spend money.

Today, we're introducing checkout on Instagram. When you find a product you love, you can now buy it without leaving the app. ??https://t.co/o1L5WsfgVE pic.twitter.com/IlVJxOr10x

— Instagram (@instagram) March 19, 2019

The first time you buy something on Instagram you’ll be asked to enter payment details. This will be stored and used for future purchases. Businesses will see the information needed to process your order, but only Instagram will see your payment details.

Instagram will also handle all of the after-sale communications. A new “Orders” section of the app will enable you to track orders, and you’ll get notifications about shipping and delivery. You’ll also be able to cancel an order, make a return, or request support.

The Brands Supporting Checkout on Instagram

Checkout on Instagram has launched in the U.S. in a closed beta for businesses. Which means Instagram is initially only working with a handful of brands. These include Adidas, Burberry, Dior, H&M, Michael Kors, Nike, Prada, Warby Parker, and Zara.

While buying stuff on Instagram is fun, there’s also money to be made on Instagram by using affiliates. To help get you started selling your soul, here are the best Instagram affiliate programs and the best practices for Instagram affiliates.

Read the full article: You Can Now Buy Products Without Leaving Instagram

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10 Fallout Shelter Tips for Vault Dwellers

Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play simulation game that lets you manage your own vault in the Fallout universe. Initially released in 2015, the game has since been updated with new features and rolled out to more platforms.

Whether you’re just starting out or have already played the game and want to improve your strategy, here are some Fallout Shelter tips and tricks to help you succeed.

Fallout Shelter Tips for Beginners

The following are some basic Fallout Shelter tips for those just starting out playing the game.

1. Plan Your Layout Ahead of Time

Most rooms in Fallout Shelter can be expanded and merged, while elevators provide your dwellers access to different floors. However, traveling between rooms can become slow if you create a maze of disjointed areas.

It’s best to know what layout you want to use as soon as you start building. Each row in your vault has space for two elevators, two three-block rooms, and one two-block room.

You should make sure all your elevators form a straight line downwards—like a traditional elevator shaft. This makes sure your dwellers can get around easily. The exact layout is up to you, but most people opt to either have their elevator shafts down the sides of their vault or elevator shafts on either side of a three-block room in the middle.

To keep everything aligned, leave room for future expansions and build downwards instead of sideways if you need to add a new type of room.

2. Don’t Expand Your Vault Too Quickly

Each new room in your vault consumes extra electricity, so you don’t want to needlessly add rooms that you’re unable to use just because you’ve unlocked them.

Rather focus on expanding when you have enough electricity capacity. You should also make sure that you have enough dwellers to utilize these extra rooms, otherwise they’re a waste.

3. Use Spare Weapons to Equip All of Your Dwellers

You may be tempted to scrap and sell weapons that your explorers aren’t using, but you’ll find better use out of them by equipping your vault dwellers. These weapons can help prepare your dwellers for vault incidents and attacks.

Only salvage or sell low-damage weapons when you’ve equipped all of your dwellers. You should also make sure to keep some backup higher-damage weapons handy to equip any new dwellers.

4. Use the Dweller List to Manage Dwellers Easily

As your vault grows, it becomes more difficult to track your dwellers. However, your dweller list, which appears as a cog in the top-left of your screen, includes an overview of all your vault’s inhabitants.

This makes it easy to check the level, health, and skills of your dwellers. More importantly, it also makes it easier to check that your dwellers are remaining productive.

If you see dwellers on a coffee break, this means they are not assigned to a room. Click on the dweller’s icon and your game will center on them so that you can assign them to a room.

5. Use Outfits to Optimize Dweller Productivity Skills

In your vault’s early stages, most of your dwellers won’t have impressive skill sets. And since you don’t control the stats of dwellers who show up to your vault and training rooms only open up after 30 or more dwellers, outfits are a great way to boost their skills.

If you have dwellers with lower-than-average stats, use an outfit to boost the relevant skill for their assigned room. When you unlock training and can boost the stats of your dwellers, outfits can still provide a few extra points to help with productivity.

6. Keep an Eye Out for the Mysterious Stranger

Every now and then, you’ll hear an ominous three-note sound effect. After a few seconds, another sound plays. If you are playing this game on mobile, the sound is accompanied by your phone vibrating with each sound.

This prompt, which occurs every few minutes, signals the appearance and disappearance of the Mysterious Stranger. The character appears randomly in your vault while you’re in the game and disappears a few seconds later. You can recognize him by his trenchcoat and hat.

If you find the Mysterious Stranger before he vanishes, click on him for extra caps. Sometimes this only awards you around 60 caps, but other times you can get hundreds or even thousands of caps.

Fallout Shelter Tips for Experienced Players

If you know the basics but want to add an extra layer of strategy to your gameplay in the long-term, here are some Fallout Shelter strategy tips you should keep in mind.

7. The Best Ways to Earn Caps

Caps are the currency of the Fallout game universe, including Fallout Shelter. Naturally, players want to know the best ways to earn caps in the game.

According to Fallout Shelter’s own in-game hints, the fastest way to earn caps is by rushing rooms. However, rushing rooms comes with the risk of incidents. Furthermore, if you only have a few rooms, you won’t get a significant number of caps through rushing.

Other great ways to get caps in Fallout Shelter include:

• Completing daily objectives.
• Completing quests and missions from the Overseer’s Office.
• Exploring the wasteland and completing any popup quests.
• Finding the Mysterious Stranger whenever he appears.

Focusing on earning caps this way can help you avoid micro-transactions. Which can make Fallout Shelter one of the best free mobile games to play.

8. Endurance Is Your Essential Health Stat

Endurance is one of the most important stats for dwellers, even though it isn’t linked with any rooms that produce resources. Rather, endurance contributes to the health of your dwellers.

This is important for exploring, quests, and surviving vault incidents—especially when a Deathclaw comes knocking at your door. Even if your dwellers have low damage or other skills not related to combat, endurance makes sure that they can survive surprise encounters.

Endurance can even help with your vault protection since power armor can’t protect your guards against the blows of a high-damage enemy if they have little health.

When it comes to training rooms, you should make sure to train spare dwellers, especially guards and explorers, with endurance.

9. Use Quests and Exploration to Gather Resources

The option to send dwellers to explore the wasteland has been around since the launch of Fallout Shelter. However, quests were also later added to the game. Unlike objectives, which are simply daily goals that earn caps, quests are essentially small instances or dungeons within Fallout Shelter.

Quests become available when you build the Overseer’s Office. You can then choose pre-determined quests from the quest menu, or spontaneously come across them while exploring the wasteland.

These quests and general exploration are essential to gaining caps, outfits, weapons, and recipes. Without them, you’ll rarely come across new loot or high-tier items.

10. Try Breeding Dwellers With Max Stats

Breeding dwellers with the maximum number of skill points increases the chance of producing a rare or legendary dweller. This isn’t feasible at the beginning of the game when you will rarely find or have legendary dwellers. However, in later stages of the game, this is possible.

Producing legendary and rare children will reduce the amount of training you need to do, since they will have higher stats than the average new dweller.

Bonus: Fallout Shelter Cheats

Over the years, players have identified a couple of easy cheats to help you succeed at the game.

Re-Enter the Vault and Rooms for Objectives

Certain daily objectives related to your dwellers can be completed simply by letting your dwellers in and out of your vault. This includes objectives which count a certain type of dweller—such as “Have five bald dwellers in your vault.”

You can send the same dweller to the wasteland and then return them immediately to your vault. When they re-enter, the objective counts them as an additional dweller with the required trait.

Exploit Time to Aid Progress

A popular Fallout Shelter cheat is the time exploit. Players change the time settings on their device when their game is open, which fast-forwards progress on certain timed quests and other time-dependent rewards.

However, this exploit has been known to cause the game to freeze and isn’t a foolproof way to trick the game. In other words, use it at your own risk.

More Free Games to Play After Fallout Shelter

By using this Fallout Shelter tips, tricks, and cheats, you should succeed at the game in no time. And once you’ve mastered Fallout Shelter you’re probably start looking for other free games to play.

Thankfully, there are a variety of options out there, including plenty of games on Steam. And if you’re worried about the pay-to-win model, here are the best free Steam games that won’t force you to spend money.

Read the full article: 10 Fallout Shelter Tips for Vault Dwellers

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The 5 Best Hi-Res Music Player Apps for Mac

Most Mac owners use either iTunes or a streaming service to manage and listen to their music. That’s great, but if you’re an audiophile who prefers high-resolution audio, iTunes simply won’t cut it.

If you own music in a high-fidelity format, you may need to look beyond iTunes. Fortunately, there are plenty of other options available to you, so here are the best hi-res music player apps for Mac.

1. Vox

If you’ve looked around at solutions for playing FLAC files on a Mac, the chances are you’ve run into Vox. In addition to FLAC, Vox features support for other hi-res formats like ALAC (Apple Lossless), DSD (Direct Stream Digital), and uncompressed formats like PCM, WAV, and AIFF.

Vox can play hi-res audio in up to 24bit/192kHz. On the off chance that you have music in surround format, you also get 5.1-channel support. This isn’t especially common, but it’s a nice feature to have.

Vox is free to use, but Vox Premium is an optional subscription that adds several features. You’ll pay either $49/year or $4.99/month for the subscription.

With the subscription, you’ll also get advanced audio settings, like a built-in 10-band equalizer to tailor the sound to your tastes. The subscription also adds gapless playback and the ability to automatically set the sample rate of your output device to that of the file playing.

Vox Premium also includes unlimited storage with Vox Music Cloud, which is handy if you’re running out of hard drive space. This feature is also useful as it ties into the Vox iOS app. With your files in the cloud, you can listen on your Mac or iPhone whenever you want without worrying about running out of space.

Download: Vox (Free, with optional Vox Premium subscription)

2. Audirvana+

On its website, Audirvana+ is described simply as “the audiophile music player”. The use of this term likely either excites or bothers you. If you think hi-resolution audio is a scam, Audirvana+ is probably not for you. Especially when you consider the price tag.

Though it’s not the most expensive player on this list, Audirvana+ is still far from cheap. You get a fair amount of features for your money. Some of them aren’t even found elsewhere on this list. You also get a three-month trial of Tidal, plus a three-month trial of Qobuz if you’re not located in the U.S.

Audirvana+ features support for the major hi-res formats, including MQA (Master Quality Authenticated). This app was the first to integrate the MQA Core Decoder, which brings out the full quality of the music, even if you’re not playing through an MQA-capable audio device.

The app also supports formats like FLAC, ALAC, DSD, and even SACD ISO. Audirvana+ also features extensive features to catalog your library, including extended tags for classical and jazz. Full text search makes it easy to find your music.

Download: Audirvana+ ($74, with a 15-day free trial)

3. Colibri

The cheapest player on this list that isn’t free, Colibri offers plenty of features for its low price tag. The website even points out that this is a one-time purchase and guarantees free upgrades. That isn’t even mentioned on the websites of the more expensive players.

Colibri offers bit-perfect gapless playback of lossless audio formats, and it supports lossy formats as well. Supported lossless formats include FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, APE, TTA, DSD, and WavPack. When it comes to lossy formats, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and AAC/M4A are supported. The app includes support for Cue sheets as well.

If you prefer your Mac apps to look like Mac apps, you’ll love Colibri. The website states that one of the project’s goals is to be “as native to macOS as humanly possible”. It also aims for a tiny memory footprint and minimal battery impact. That’s great if you want to listen while you work from a coffee shop without having to plug in.

Download: Colibri ($4.99)

4. Amarra Luxe

At $99, Amarra Luxe is the priciest app on this list. It’s also one of a few Amarra-branded products from developer Sonic Studio. This isn’t cheap, but the app does have some unique features.

Amarra Luxe supports a host of file types, including DSD, MQA, and FLAC. The app features built-in real-time DSD to PCM conversion, meaning you can listen without the need for a fancy digital-to-analog converter. You also get integration with Tidal and Qobuz, letting you listen to streams from multiple services in one place.

One of the bigger features of Amarra Luxe is iTunes integration. If you love the iTunes interface but want the format support and sound quality of Amarra Luxe, this is an attractive feature.

Download: Amara Luxe ($99)

5. Pine Player

As the only fully free player on this list, Pine Player is anything but barebones. While the player may not be as flashy as some of the other apps, it should still does justice to your hi-res audio files. If you’ve just blown a bunch of money on digital albums, that’s a nice thing to know.

Pine Player supports a ton of formats, including MP3, FLAC, APE, AAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, OGG, WMA, DSD, and SACD ISO. It also supports listening to BIN / CUE files. Even better, it supports hi-res audio all the way up to 32bit / 768kHz.

If you’re a fan of keyboard controls, you’ll find a lot to like in Pine Player. You can control nearly every aspect of the app with a handful of keyboard shortcuts. This includes playback, volume, and playlist editing.

Other features include crossfading and gapless playback, as well as an automatic isolation function for damaged files.

Download: Pine Player (Free)

What If You Don’t Have a Hi-Res Music Collection?

These hi-res music player apps are great, but what if you don’t have a hi-res music collection? To start, you could use a streaming service like Tidal, which offers hi-res audio in the MQA format. Deezer is another option, but it only offers CD-quality sound, not hi-res.

Streaming can still be less than ideal. So, if you’re looking to start a collection, take a look at our list of music sites all audiophiles need in their lives.

Read the full article: The 5 Best Hi-Res Music Player Apps for Mac

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This is what the Huawei P30 will look like

You can already find many leaked photos of Huawei’s next flagship device — the P30 and P30 Pro. The company is set to announce the new product at an event in Paris next week. So here’s what you should expect.

Reliable phone leaker Evan Blass tweeted many different photos of the new devices in three different tweets:

pic.twitter.com/nIlhxby1Ah

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 20, 2019

As you can see, both devices feature three cameras on the back of the device. The notch is getting smaller and now looks like a teardrop. Compared to the P20 and P20 Pro, the fingerprint sensor is gone. It looks like Huawei is going to integrate the fingerprint sensor in the display just like Samsung did with the Samsung Galaxy S10.

mysmartprice also shared some ads with some specifications. The P30 Pro will have a 10x hybrid zoom while the P30 will have a 5x hybrid zoom — it’s unclear how it’ll work to combine a hardware zoom with a software zoom. Huawei has been doing some good work on the camera front, so this is going to be a key part of next week’s presentation.

For the first time, Huawei will put wireless charging in its flagship device — it’s about time. And it looks like the P30 Pro will adopt a curved display for the first time as well. I’ll be covering the event next week so stay tuned.

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This is what the Huawei P30 will look like

You can already find many leaked photos of Huawei’s next flagship device — the P30 and P30 Pro. The company is set to announce the new product at an event in Paris next week. So here’s what you should expect.

Reliable phone leaker Evan Blass tweeted many different photos of the new devices in three different tweets:

pic.twitter.com/nIlhxby1Ah

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 20, 2019

As you can see, both devices feature three cameras on the back of the device. The notch is getting smaller and now looks like a teardrop. Compared to the P20 and P20 Pro, the fingerprint sensor is gone. It looks like Huawei is going to integrate the fingerprint sensor in the display just like Samsung did with the Samsung Galaxy S10.

mysmartprice also shared some ads with some specifications. The P30 Pro will have a 10x hybrid zoom while the P30 will have a 5x hybrid zoom — it’s unclear how it’ll work to combine a hardware zoom with a software zoom. Huawei has been doing some good work on the camera front, so this is going to be a key part of next week’s presentation.

For the first time, Huawei will put wireless charging in its flagship device — it’s about time. And it looks like the P30 Pro will adopt a curved display for the first time as well. I’ll be covering the event next week so stay tuned.

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Facebook admits it stored ‘hundreds of millions’ of account passwords in plaintext

Flip the “days since last Facebook security incident” back to zero.

Facebook confirmed Thursday in a blog post, prompted by a report by cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs, that it stored “hundreds of millions” of account passwords in plaintext for years.

The discovery was made in January, said Facebook’s Pedro Canahuati, as part of a routine security review. None of the passwords were visible to anyone outside Facebook, he said. Facebook admitted the security lapse months later, after Krebs said logs were accessible to some 2,000 engineers and developers.

Krebs said the bug dated back to 2012.

“This caught our attention because our login systems are designed to mask passwords using techniques that make them unreadable,” said Canahuati. “We have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them,” but did not say how the company made that conclusion.

Facebook said it will notify “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users,” a lighter version of Facebook for users where internet speeds are slow and bandwidth is expensive, and “tens of millions of other Facebook users.” The company also said “tens of thousands of Instagram users” will be notified of the exposure.

Krebs said as many as 600 million users could be affected — about one-fifth of the company’s 2.7 billion users, but Facebook has yet to confirm the figure.

Facebook also didn’t say how the bug came to be. Storing passwords in readable plaintext is an insecure way of storing passwords. Companies, like Facebook, hash and salt passwords — two ways of further scrambling passwords — to store passwords securely. That allows companies to verify a user’s password without knowing what it is.

Twitter and GitHub were hit by similar but independent bugs last year. Both companies said passwords were stored in plaintext and not scrambled.

It’s the latest in a string of embarrassing security issues at the company, prompting congressional inquiries and government investigations. It was reported last week that Facebook’s deals that allowed other tech companies to access account data without consent was under criminal investigation.

It’s not known why Facebook took months to confirm the incident, or if the company informed state or international regulators per U.S. breach notification and European data protection laws. We asked Facebook but a spokesperson did not immediately comment beyond the blog post.

We’ve contacted the Irish data protection office, which covers Facebook’s European operations, but did not hear back.

Mark Zuckerberg is ‘proud’ of how Facebook handled its scandals this year

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Slowdown or not, China’s luxury goods still seeing high-end growth

Despite well-documented concerns over an economic slowdown in China, the country’s luxury goods market is still seeing opulent growth according to a new study. Behind secular and demographic tailwinds, the luxury sector is set to continue its torrid expansion in the face of volatility as it’s quickly becoming a defensive economic crown jewel.

Using proprietary analysis, company data, primary source interviews, and third-party research, Bain & Company dug into the ongoing expansion of China’s high-end market in a report titled “What’s Powering China’s Market for Luxury Goods?”

In recent years, China has become one of the largest markets for luxury good companies globally. And while many have raised concern around a drop-off in luxury demand, findings in the report point to the contrary, with Bain forecasting material growth throughout 2019 and beyond. The analysis provides a compelling breakdown of how the sector has seen and will see continued development, as well as a fascinating examination of what strategies separate winners and losers in the space.

The report is worth a quick read, as it manages to provide several insightful and differentiated data points with relative brevity, but here are the most interesting highlights in our view:

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Taxes on VC and electric buses harming oil prices

From Extra Crunch

• A lot of subscribers got to hear from TechCrunch hardware guru Brian Heater, who has been meeting with (too many) robotics companies as we prepare for TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics. If you weren’t able to join us, a transcript will be available in the next 48 hours.
• We have Lucas Matney and Eric Peckham on the horn this Friday at noon PDT to talk about all things Game Developers Conference (GDC). Be sure to check your emails for details.

Wide Angle

zssp via Getty Images

Stories from outside the 280/101 corridor

• Indian entrepreneurs are furious over a tax on venture investing, in which the government taxes the proceeds of an equity round.

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MoviePass co-founder’s new startup PreShow gives you free movie tickets for watching ads

As founding CEO of MoviePass, Stacy Spikes has already changed the way we think about paying for movie tickets. Now he’s pursuing a new approach — providing a free ticket to people who watch 15 to 20 minutes of ads.

Spikes told me that when it comes to watching movies outside the theater, there are three basic business models — pay-per-view, subscription and ad-supported. MoviePass brought a subscription approach into theaters, but Spikes (who stepped down as MoviePass CEO in 2016) said he kept wondering, “Well, why can’t you have an ad-supported version that will allow you to go to movies for free?”

It’s hard to imagine digital advertising being worth enough to really pay for that ticket, but Spikes insisted, “You’re paying your way. This is not going to be a loss leader model. It’s an ad-revenue based business.”

To make that work, he said the new service, called PreShow, is bringing a couple innovations to the table. First, there’s facial recognition technology that ensures you’re actually present and watching the ad.

Spikes demonstrated this feature for me last week, showing me how his face unlocked the PreShow app. Once he’d chosen the film he wanted to watch, he was presented with a package of video ads that were specifically selected to run with that movie — and any time he looked away from the screen or moved too far away from his phone, the ads would stop playing. (Apparently the sensitivity can be dialed up or down depending on user feedback.)

Spikes also said the ads should tie into the film in some way, whether that’s thematically, or by highlighting products that are also featured in the movie. And they’ll always include an opportunity to further engage with the advertiser.

So although 15 to 20 minutes might sound like a long time to watch ads,  it should be more interesting for the viewer than just watching a random collection of promotional videos. And for the advertisers who are already paying for product placement in a film, this could be a way to reinforce their message with consumers who are actually watching the movie. (Spikes also compared this to the marketing packages that usually play before showtime in theaters — hence the company name.)

By watching one of these 15- to 20-minute packages, you should earn enough points to purchase a ticket at the theater using a virtual credit card provided by PreShow. Technically, those points can be used to buy any movie ticket, but Spikes said you won’t be able to earn more than two tickets at once, “so people don’t stockpile.”

As for whether PreShow is competing with his old company, Spikes said, “I don’t think they’re competitive in any way. If you compare a subscription platform to an ad platform to a pay-per-view platform, they’re different animals.”

Stacy Spikes

The plan is to start testing the service with a select group of users in the next three to six months, and to find those users, PreShow is launching a Kickstarter campaign today. Pledge levels range from $15 to $60, with the amount you pay determining how early you get access, and how many friend invites you receiving.

Spikes said he’s less interested in raising money (which is why the campaign’s official goal is only $10,000) and more in attracting film lovers who want to try out the app.

“It’s a way to have innovation happen more organically, versus if you just open it up for the general public,” Spikes said.

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