CNN
—

Reality TV started for Jeremy Hartwell, a director at a mortgage company in Chicago, with a direct message on a dating app.

“Someone matched with me then very quickly messaged me saying, you know, ‘I have a boyfriend, but I think you’d be really great for the show I’m casting for, are you interested?’” Hartwell recalls in an interview with CNN.

While he can’t say for certain the casting agent was on there looking for potential contestants, he does claim that most of the cast of Season 2 of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind,” the show he was cast on, didn’t actually apply on their own.

“They were reached out to one way or another on social media,” he says fellow cast members told him.

“Love Is Blind,” which was nominated for an Emmy Award this week for outstanding structured reality show, features 15 men and 15 women who are placed in individual isolation rooms or “pods,” where they are paired with a contestant in a separate room . They then have conversations to see if they can spark a connection with someone – and eventually get engaged– without actually seeing them.

Hartwell says he agreed to appear on the show after checking the agent’s Instagram account and their job.

“I’ve actually, I’ve never really been that interested in reality TV. It just, you know, was never that entertaining for me,” Hartwell says. “But I have a personal philosophy of seeking out new experiences, challenging myself, doing stuff that seems scary – and this kind of fit all of the criteria there. I decided to throw my hat in the ring. I never actually thought I would be cast.”

Hartwell’s experience on the second season of “Love Is Blind” began in April of 2021, when producers booked him on an early morning flight from Chicago to Los Angeles.

“When filming started, the flight was very, very early for [a few of] us and I believe that was to separate the men and the women, so that we wouldn’t see each other,” he says, adding that things turned “uncomfortable” almost “immediately.”

“We were constantly told not to talk to each other, not to talk about things while we were waiting for people to finish getting their bags and get into the shuttle to be taken to orientation,” he says, as some of the show’s participants were transported at the same time.

Contestants were reminded not to communicate with each other, Hartwell says, even cordially.

After an introductory speech from producers, Hartwell says contestants’ belongings were searched and their cell phones, wallets and IDs were confiscated.

“They had told us they were going to take our cell phones, so that was expected, but taking our wallets, our passports, any identifying information, that was very unexpected,” he says, adding that “rubbed me the wrong way.”

“They went through all of our baggage – if you’ve ever seen a military movie, a boot camp, where they just go through the recruit’s baggage, but that’s exactly what it was like. They went through every single one of our personal belongings, presumably to make sure we didn’t have some sort of contraband.”

After that, Hartwell says producers shipped everyone to their separate hotel rooms.

“We were basically locked in the room,” he says. “The very first thing they did was isolate us in our rooms for about 24 hours straight.”

Hartwell alleges that snacks and water were so infrequent, they were forced to wait hours for fresh water if they were thirsty.

On day two, the cast took media photos and videos.

“Most of the activity was punctuated by large stretches of waiting,” Hartwell says.

Once production started, Hartwell claims he tried to fight the effects of sleep deprivation after long hours filming under bright lights. On set and back in his hotel, Hartwell says he could not access food and water, but alcohol was available – and even encouraged on an empty stomach.

In June, Hartwell filed a lawsuit against Netflix, Kinetic Content and Delirium TV, the production company and casting company behind the show, for a number of labor-law violations, including “inhumane working conditions” and inadequate pay for the amount of hours cast members worked.

Netflix has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

In a statement to CNN in response to Hartwell’s complaint, Kinetic Content and Delirium TV wrote: “Mr. Hartwell’s involvement in Season 2 of ‘Love is Blind’ lasted less than one week. Unfortunately, for Mr. Hartwell, his journey ended early after he failed to develop a significant connection with any other participant. While we will not speculate as to his motives for filing the argument, there is absolutely no merit Mr. Hartwell’s, and we will vigorously defend against his claims. ”

Hartwell’s attorney, Chantal Payton of Payton Employment Law in Los Angeles, tells CNN the lack of adequate food and isolation “made cast members hungry for social connections and altered their emotions and decision-making.”

Hartwell’s proposed class-action suit is on behalf of all participants in “Love Is Blind” and other non-scripted productions created by the defendants over the past four years. He is seeking unpaid wages, financial compensation for missed meal breaks, monetary damages for unfair business practices and civil penalties for labor code violations.

Kinetic Content also produces “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On” and “Married at First Sight,” both of which stream on Netflix.

Season 3 of “Love Is Blind” will stream on Netflix later this year.

For Hartwell, he says he hopes to change the practices of some reality shows going forward.

“It’s a matter of justice and it’s not about the money for me. It’s not about exposure,” Hartwell says. “I strongly feel that these practices are wrong and they need to change. And the reason why I am making these efforts with this argument is I’m hoping this becomes a catalyst for these changes, so that future reality TV cast members don’t have to go through this.”

.

<p>The post Netflix’s ‘Love Is Blind’ contestants forced to movie drunk, hungry and sleep-deprived says argument first appeared on harchi90.</p>

throughout the 1990s Totally Games had one of the most accomplished track records in all of video games. The studio, releasing games for Lucasfilm and then Lucasarts, specialized in all things flight, and won acclaim for releases set both in the sky and way beyond.

they made their name front classic WW2 sims like Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Their Finest Hourbefore really hitting the big time on a series of Star Wars titles like X-Wing, Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliancewhich weren’t just three of the best space shooters ever released, they were three of the best PC games of all time, period.

By the 2000s, though, it had all started going a bit wrong. While 2002’s Star Trek: Bridge Commander was OK, their return to the Second World War in 2003 with Secret Weapons Over Normandy flopped, and after 2007’s disastrous Alien Syndrome that studio shifted to releasing cheap licensed tuff before quietly fading away.

That’s the story as we know it, anyway, but today we got to add to it when axios published a report on Knights of Decaya game that Totally pitched first to Sony as a PS2 releaseand later were working on for Microsoft for the original Xbox.

While still primarily a flight game—it was the studio’s bread and butter, after all—knights traded X-Wings and Spitfires for a fantasy realm where players “controlled a knight on a flying seahorse and engaged in ranged combat against other knights and monsters, lance-based slow-motion jousting and diving underwater to fight sea creatures.”

Here’s a look at the game in action; note that this wasn’t anywhere near a finished product when this footage was captured, hence the framerate and other glaring shortfalls (and the fact it was called archipelago at the time):

So what happened to the game? it was being developed on a really tight timeframe, in a situation where the Totally Games team didn’t trust the Microsoft people they were reporting to; as an example, Holland remembers that one Xbox boss “had previously managed the Excel spreadsheet program”.

On Microsoft’s side of things, there’s an interesting anecdote surrounding the game’s fate: when current Xbox boss Phil Spencer first moved to the console operation in 2001,“the first assignment he had when he joined the Xbox gaming team was to ‘cancel Larry Holland’s game’”.

the cancellation wasn’t terminal at the time; Totally would go on to release a few more games before making the shift away from traditional games development in 2008. Holland says he found the game’s demise to be “demoralizing”, but also something where “I learned a lot about what to attempt and what not to in terms of sort of risk-taking and at least balancing the risk-taking with the schedule.”

You can read the full report over on Axioswhich you should, because it’s got loads of other little bits of trivia about both this game and Totally Games itself.

.

<p>The post The X-Wing Developers Were Working On A Cancelled Xbox Game first appeared on harchi90.</p>

While you’d all be aware that celebrities, despite their wealth, are given expensive shit for free all the time, today we’re going to take a look at one gift in particular. Partly because it’s a gaming PC, but also because we kinda have the receipt for it as well.

Esports guy Jake Lucky tweeted this out earlier today, and it certainly provoked a reaction:

Responses in the replies generally ranged from “it looks like shit” to “that’s massively overpriced” to “lmao all that just to gamble” (more on that soon). That first sentiment might be a bit much. I think this looks great! It’s a gaming PC, what do you expect, and the white lighting in these photos is an infinitely classier look than the electronic clown car aesthetic you often see on these kind of systems. I’m particularly fond of the lighting around the fans, it’s a very “starship corridor” look.

As for the price, well, there are some caveats here. The PC—which was put together by Paradox Customs—was actually bought for Drake as a gift by streamer Xposed (Paradox tells Kotaku they “hashed out” the component selection together), and in the time between the order first being placed and the PC actually arriving the market for a lot of expensive PC parts crashed for some reason. Throw in some Canadian taxes Xposed had to pay and Paradox say the actual cost in July 2022 is somewhere closer to $6500. Which, you know, is still ridiculously expensive for a PC, but it’s also not $8000.

How do we know that? Paradox tweeted this earlier today, which handily also gives us a chance to take a look at the kind of specs you can expect to see in a PC that cost more than my last three desktops combined.

As for who paid for the system and why, Xposed actually picked out this exact system for himself, then says he ordered a second for Drake because he had helped the rapper out with an earlier PC, but at the time had to skimp and get him a “prebuilt from Best Buy because it was short notice”:

In December 2021, Xposed signed a partnership deal with stakean online gambling site which Drake just happens to be continually streaming and promoting at the same timeand who shared this new PCs arrival on their socials.

.

<p>The post Drake Gifted $8000 Gaming PC From Twitch Streamer Xposed first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Security researchers have discovered a way to remotely unlock and start a wide variety of Honda vehicles using an exploit that targets the vehicles’ key fobs. Honda has attempted to brush aside the claims, but the hack appears to be quite easily reproducible. Even a reporter from The Drive managed to test out the exploit and successfully hacked his own car. Researchers say there’s no way to guard against the hack and no way to determine if it happened to you.

The attack, which has been dubbed “Rolling Pwn,” targets a bug in Honda’s remote keyless entry system, exploiting the way vehicles transmit authentication codes between the car and the key fob. Using easily purchasable hardware, the researchers were able to digitally eavesdrop on and capture those codes, then redeploy them at will. This allowed them to easily unlock and start cars affected by the vulnerability, which included models from as far back as 2012 and as recent as 2022.

Quite disturbingly, there doesn’t appear to be any fix for this issue. A Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) log has been entered, but it doesn’t list a patch. Even worse, the researchers write that there’s no way to tell whether someone has targeted your car with the exploit, as the “exploitation does not leave any traces in traditional log files.” In other words, someone could execute the exploit, rifle through your car, take it for a spin, park it where you left it, and, unless you caught them, you would have no way of knowing that anything happened except for a suspiciously low gas tank.

The issue was discovered by a pseudonymous researcher who goes by “Kevin2600,” and his research partner, Wesley Li. The research is highly resembles—but differs slightly—from threat research on a similar Honda vulnerability that was discovered in march. The “Rolling Pwn” researchers write:

“The goal of our research was to evaluate the resistance of a modern-day RKE [remote keyless entry] system. Our research disclosed a Rolling-PWN attack affecting all Honda vehicles currently existing on the market (From the Year 2012 up to the Year 2022),” the researchers wrote. “This weakness allows anyone to permanently open the car door or even start the car engine from a long distance.”

The research identifies the following models as being vulnerable to the exploit: 2012 Honda Civic, 2018 Honda X-RV, 2020 Honda C-RV, 2020 Honda Accord, 2021 Honda Accord, 2020 Honda Odyssey, 2021 Honda Inspire, 2022 Honda Fit, 2022 Honda Civic, 2022 Honda VE-1, 2022 Honda Breeze. However, other vehicles besides Honda could also be affected, researchers write.

Rob Stumpf The Drivetested out the exploit for himself and shared a video of the hijacked car starting up:

Unfortunately, Honda doesn’t appear to be taking the research too seriously. Kevin2600 says that he reached out to Honda about the vulnerability he was told to contact customer service. When Vice News reached out, the company apparently sent them a statement claiming that the research was “old news.” A company spokesperson told the outlet:

“We’ve looked into past similar lack. and found them to lack substance. While we don’t yet have enough information to determine if this report is credible, the key fobs in the referenced vehicles are equipped with rolling code technology that would not allow the vulnerability as represented in the report. In addition, the videos offered as evidence of the absence of rolling code do not include sufficient evidence to support the claims…”

“As expected Honda denied the bug exists. So best luck to all Honda owners :P,” the researcher tweetedfollowing the publication of Vice’s story.

Gizmodo also reached out to Honda for comment and will update this story if it responds.

.

<p>The post New Key Fob Hack Can Unlock and Start Hondas Remotely first appeared on harchi90.</p>

Over the last few years, Microsoft has made great strides toward making Windows more accessible to a wider audience. Windows 11 includes a Dedicated Accessibility section intended to help users adapt the display and the behavior of the OS according to their needs. This section is very helpful for users with visual impairments, hearing loss, or a physical disability—but these accessibility features can be used by anyone to make their Windows 11 experience better. Here are some worth highlighting.

Make everything bigger

If you wear glasses, or if you just aren’t comfortable staring at a tiny laptop screen all day, try making everything in Windows 11 biggerfrom text to the user interface.

go to Settings > Accessibility > display > scale and choose a setting between 100% and 200%. Particularly if you’re using a 4K display, 200% scaling mode will make everything nice and big, while remaining usable.

If you only want to increase the text size, you can do that from Settings > Accessibility > Text Size.

Quickly zoom in to anything using the Magnifier

The Magnifier is a readily accessible zoom tool you can activate by pressing windows and the Plus keys together. With the Magnifier feature enabled, press the Plus key again to zoom into the screen, and the mouse to pan around the screen. You can keep zooming in or out using the Plus and minus keys (while pressing the Windows key). Once you’re done, press the windows + Escape key to disable the feature.

Use Night Light to cut down on blue light emission

Contrary to popular belief, blue light isn’t necessarily keeping you awake at nightand the best option to stop light from impacting your sleep is to stop using screens at night. However, some find blue light limiters helpful from a comfort perspective. If you’re interested, try Windows 11’s nightlight feature. It can be accessed from the wifi menu in the taskbar, and it instantly adds a warm filter to the entire screen.

Make the mouse bigger or more colorful

You don’t need to live with the default mouse cursor. Ghe to Settings > Accessibility > Mouse Pointer to change its size and style. To change its color, click the last option.

You can do the same for the text cursor, from Settings > Accessibility > Text Cursor.

use high-contrast themes

Windows 11 has many transparent and translucent elements. If you find it difficult to see what’s a button and what’s a link, try using one of Windows 11’s high contrast themes. You can try a simple Dessert theme in a sepia-tone with blue highlightsor the Night Sky theme, which is completely black and highlights elements in a bright yellow. or click the “edit” button to customize your own theme.

Type with your voice

Speech to text has come a long way, as evidenced by Windows 11’s Voice Typing tool. Windows 11 users Azure Speech services to generate text for any speech, including punctuation, so what you say should (hopefully) appear verbatim on the page.

press the windows + H keyboard shortcut, or the Microphone icon next to the spacebar on the touch keyboard to get started. Voice Typing feature understands punctuation marks and special characters, so you can say something like “open single quote” and Windows will start a quoted sentence for you. read more details about the phrases and supported languages ​​in this document.

Get automatic captions for anything

Windows 11 has automatic captions that work for all sorts of videos, TV shows, and movies. You can enable it any time using the windows + control + L keyboard shortcut, or you can go to Settings > Accessibility > captions > Live Captions. From here, you can edit the caption style as well.

After you press the keyboard shortcut, Windows 11 will automatically start converting the spoken word into live text on the screen.

Let Windows be your narrator

Windows 11’s Narrator feature is quite cool, allowing you to complete basic tasks without the need for a mouse. it’s designed for users who are blind or have low vision, and as a screen reader, it will read everything that’s on the screen including text, buttons, and links. You can use the keyboard to navigate and select things.

Get started by using the windows + control + Enter key. To go to Narrator settings, use the windows + control + N keyboard shortcut.

.

<p>The post Windows 11 Accessibility Features Everyone Can Use first appeared on harchi90.</p>