We found out that the new NVIDIA App doesn't need an NVIDIA Account login, and yet gives you nearly all of its functionality. NVIDIA today rolled out the GeForce 551.61 WHQL drivers, and with it, the new NVIDIA App, as we detailed in the driver's news report. NVIDIA App is the company's latest take on a Control Panel application that combines the functionality of the over 20-year-old NVIDIA Control Panel Win32 application, and the modern GeForce Experience app (GFE). The former focuses on settings related to the display head, with one or more settings for the GPU, but has no hardware monitoring or performance overlay features. GFE is more of a concentric outer layer focused on the games installed in your PC, to which you can figure out and apply optimal settings. The new NVIDIA App essentially combines the functionalities of the two, but it has an ace up its sleeve—you don't need an NVIDIA Account to use it.

One of the biggest drawbacks of GeForce Experience is that it mandates you to create an NVIDIA Account, and keeps you logged into this account to use its functionality. Not everyone wants an app that does this; and so some gamers would want to skip installation of GFE altogether during the GeForce driver installation. NVIDIA App takes a refreshingly different approach. It is currently a public beta, isn't part of the driver package, isn't found on Microsoft Store, but is being distributed as a standalone app with its own installer.

We are thrilled to announce The International 10 - Dota 2 Championships will be held this October in Bucharest, Romania, and the epic battle for the Aegis of Champions will fittingly unfold inside the country's largest stadium—Arena Nationala. Group Stage will run October 7 - 10, with Main Stage play kicking off on October 12. Then on October 17, the two finest Dota 2 teams in the world will face off for the Aegis and their shares of the $40,018,195 prize pool that awaits. Additional information on ticket sales will come shortly.

We are grateful for the partnership we have formed with Romania and the city of Bucharest, and very much look forward to gathering with the global Dota 2 community, both in-person and virtually, to celebrate the elite players and amazing fandom at The International. Prepare yourselves. At long last, the battle begins.

Thanks to the report of ZDnet, we have information that Sony has launched a bug bounty program for its Playstation console. Sony will pay security researches upwards of $50K for a bug they discover. Of course, there are smaller rewards and it depends on what type of bug is discovered. The starting amount for the bug bounty program is $100. The area of bug exploits includes Playstation Network, the PlayStation 4 console itself, and the PS4 operating system. The bug bounty program is going to be available and managed through the HackerOne platform, where multiple companies like PayPal, Slack, etc. keep track of bugs and offer rewards for them. You can check out the Playstation bug bounty program here.

Cybersecurity researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, also known as VU Amsterdam, allege that Intel tried to bribe them to suppress knowledge of the latest processor security vulnerability RIDL (rogue in-flight data load), which the company made public on May 14. Dutch publication Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant reports that Intel offered to pay the researchers a USD $40,000 "reward" to allegedly get them to downplay the severity of the vulnerability, and backed their offer with an additional $80,000. The team politely refused both offers.

Intel's security vulnerability bounty program is shrouded in CYA agreements designed to minimize Intel's losses from the discovery of a new vulnerability. Under its terms, once a discoverer accepts the bounty reward, they enter into a NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with Intel, to not disclose their findings or communicate in the regard with any other person or entity than with certain authorized people at Intel. With public knowledge withheld, Intel can work on mitigation and patches against the vulnerability. Intel argues that information of vulnerabilities becoming public before it's had a chance to address them would give the bad guys time to design and spread malware that exploits the vulnerability. This is an argument the people at VU weren't willing to buy, and thus Intel is forced to disclose RIDL even as microcode updates, software updates, and patched hardware are only beginning to come out.Update: (17/05): An Intel spokesperson commented on this story.

The EVGA Associates Program offers a simple way for EVGA ELITE Members to allow others to purchase an EVGA product with a discount on www.EVGA.com - and lets you earn a percentage of the purchase back in EVGA Bucks!

First, share your Associate Code with someone interested in purchasing an EVGA product. Next, once they get to EVGA.com, they will need to make a purchase from one of the Product Types listed on the Dashboard. Finally, the buyer must use your Associate Code during checkout to receive the discount.

After purchase, you will receive a percentage of the net purchase back as EVGA Bucks that can be used to buy any products at the EVGA store! The EVGA Associates Program is the best way to Get Discounts and Earn Rewards at the EVGA store!

Learn more and sign up now at www.evga.com/associates/
Update: Currently only available to consumers in the Continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Canada

In a move that made us go "WTF" internally, Razer has decided to test their fanbase's loyalty more so than ever before. Today, the company introduced Razer Softminer, a mining software program that is intended to be installed on computers and run to mine cryptocurrency. But instead of the users getting whatever new cryptocurrency is in fashion, Razer instead wants to retain all mined crypto and in turn "award" users with the so-called Razer Silver- loyalty reward credits, in their own words. The miner appears to be running off a version of the Gamma desktop application, as per speculation from TweakTown.

Razer Softminer utilizes heavy GPU performance loads, and there is no mention as to what the actual mining is for. It is clear, however, that the users are not mining Razer Silver (which Razer is quick to admit is not cryptocurrency) and these loyalty credits are handed out in an equivalent manner based on the mining power of the system. In their estimate, a sytem with at least a NVIDIA GTX 1050 or AMD RX 460 running the mining program for a whole day will net ~500 Razer Silver, and these can be used to "redeem Razer peripherals, digital rewards such as games, vouchers and more" from a dedicated rewards page.

To all you out there wondering why you can't get a GPU for gaming at a reasonable rate, or why we are using record numbers in energy usage to mint so called "toy money," depleting our planets energy in the process, I have a bit of a statement to make as a former miner and "part of the problem" so to speak.

I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be this way. None of it was supposed to go down like this.

That probably requires some justification, yes? I mean mining is an inherently energy expensive operation, right? Well, yes and no, respectively. Yes, it requires justification, and that's precisely because mining is NOT an inherently energy expensive operation, despite public perception. It has become that way due to human greed, and nearly everything bad to come from cryptocurrency has decidedly come from that group: humans. Cryptocurrency is not inherently responsible. The inventors, pioneers, and early miners such as myself never anticipated what was to come, and we did not intend it to be this way. Bitcoin was intended to do good, and in the end, it wasn't cryptocurrency that screwed it all up, it was humans. Human greed, particularly.

It's never fun to be contacted by a legal department and be told that something you bought online is not rightfully yours. Still, this occasionally does happen in the case of intellectual property that has been misplaced and is not supposed to be resold. Example: The case of Reddit user Khemist49, who found himself in possession of a CD-ROM claiming to be the original source code for the game "StarCraft." Where did he get said disc? A box of "old Blizzard-related stuff" he bought on Ebay in April. Thinking he had something special, he posted on Reddit asking what to do with it.