The White House wants the government to adopt a security model called Zero Trust within the next two years. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a finalized federal strategy that lays out the initial details of the shift.

It told agencies to each designate a strategy implementation lead within 30 days. Agencies were given 60 days to submit an implementation plan to the OMB and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). 

"This memorandum sets forth a federal Zero Trust architecture (ZTA) strategy, requiring agencies to meet specific cybersecurity standards and objectives by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2024 in order to reinforce the government’s defenses against increasingly sophisticated and persistent threat campaigns," OMB acting director Shalanda D. Young wrote in the memo. "Those campaigns target federal technology infrastructure, threatening public safety and privacy, damaging the American economy and weakening trust in government."

The Zero Trust approach is based on the notion that local devices and connections can't be completely trusted. Users need to be authorized, authenticated and continuously validated. Organizations usually have control over Zero Trust setups, and users and devices are often only granted access to essential data, apps and services.

Google offers a Zero Trust solution called BeyondCorp. Last week, a company called Sikur revealed a smartphone it designed using Zero Trust principles.

The release of the strategy follows an executive order President Joe Biden signed last year with the aim of improving the country's cybersecurity, as well as a draft strategy that the OMB published in September.

The finalized strategy lays out a vision for the government in which staff have "enterprise-managed accounts, allowing them to access everything they need to do their job while remaining reliably protected from even targeted, sophisticated phishing attacks." The devices would be continuously monitored and each agency's system would be isolated, with reliable encryption for internal network traffic and sending data to other agencies.

Under this approach, enterprise applications would be tested internally and externally before staff could access them over the cloud. The OMB also said federal security teams and data teams would work together "to develop data categories and security rules to automatically detect and ultimately block unauthorized access to sensitive information."

The strategy directs agencies to harness strong, phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, perhaps using physical methods like Personal Identity Verification cards. The OMB also told agencies to have a full inventory of devices that are authorized and used for official business and to make sure they meet CISA standards.

The White House cited the Log4j vulnerability that recently emerged as the latest proof that "adversaries will continue to find new opportunities to get their foot in the door."

"This strategy is a major step in our efforts to build a defensible and coherent approach to our federal cyber defenses,” national cyber director Christopher Inglis said in a statement. “We are not waiting to respond to the next cyber breach. Rather, this administration is continuing to reduce the risk to our nation by taking proactive steps towards a more resilient society."

Following a two-month delay, Valve's Steam Deck will launch on February 25th. In a blog post the company published on Monday, Valve said it would open orders to the first batch of reservation holders that day. Those customers will have 72 hours to purchase the handheld. If they don't use the opportunity, Valve will release their spot to the next person in the reservation queue. The first orders will then ship on February 28th. Moving forward, Valve says it plans open orders to more customers on a weekly basis.    

Valve had planned to release the Steam Deck at the end of 2021, but due to parts shortages, the company pushed that date back. "We’re sorry about this — we did our best to work around the global supply chain issues," Valve said at the time. "Components aren’t reaching our manufacturing facilities in time for us to meet our initial launch dates."

Pricing for the Steam Deck starts at $399. That gets you a device with 64GB of eMMC internal storage and a carrying case. Valve will also offer models with 256GB and 512GB of NVMe storage. Those cost $529 and $649, respectively. The most expensive version also comes with a premium anti-glare screen. The Steam Deck's custom chipset features a 2.4GHz processor and a GPU with eight RDNA 2 computer units. It also comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. All of that creates a handheld PC Valve claims can run the latest games at a "very efficient" power envelope. Look to Engadget for a review of the Steam Deck come February 25th.  

It’s been almost 15 years since the original Crysis brought even the most powerful PCs to their knees, and close to a decade since the last brand new installment in the franchise. And while there’s no planned release date just yet, today Crytek confirmed that Crysis 4 is currently in development.

In a new blog post, Crytek CEO Avni Yerli says that while Crysis 4 is still “in the early stages of development,” the studio wanted to alert fans early about the next title in the franchise as the team works to create a “truly next-gen shooter.” Unfortunately, there’s no info yet regarding a development roadmap or even a projected release year, though Yerli says the studio will release more details“when we can.”

Alongside the blog, Crytek also dropped a short teaser trailer featuring some apocalyptic imagery and a tagline that says “Join the journey. Become the hero.” However, as it’s too early for the trailer to show much in the way of gameplay or story, it’s difficult to say if Crysis 4 will pick up after the events of the original Crysis trilogy, or if the new game will go in a different direction.

But perhaps the bigger question about Crysis 4 is if Crytek will put the same focus on delivering super high-quality graphics. Despite a successful trio of previous games, the Crysis series is often best remembered as being more of a torture test for high-end PCs than for any of its gameplay or story beats. For a number of years after its release, the original Crysis was routinely used as a benchmark to test the performance of new CPUs and GPUs, with Crytek even releasing a remastered version of Crysis last year featuring support for ray tracing, HDR, and 8K resolutions.

So while it might tempting to start dreaming up a system that might be able to play Crysis 4 at max settings, with the global chip shortage expected to persist throughout 2022 and no firm release date in sight, it’s probably best to hold off for now.

Unpacking is a lovely, relaxing puzzle game made by a small team. It's beautifully designed and manages to tell a compelling story with very little text. Unfortunately, its core mechanic — unpacking boxes and placing items in a new home — isn't exactly difficult to copy. One clone quickly found an audience on iOS and Android before it was removed.

Unpacking Master, which was published by a company called SayGames, was said to be a near-identical copy of Witch Beam Games' title. It adopted a freemium model (users could pay a one-time fee to remove ads) and it briefly topped App Store charts less than a week after it was released. As Game Developer notes, Unpacking Master is no longer available on Apple's App Store or the Google Play Store.

Earlier this month, a spate of Wordle clones barged onto the App Store with copycat developers looking to cash in on the success of the viral hit word game. Those apps were removed as well. These incidents highlight a long-running problem that studios behind popular games (particularly indies) have grappled with.

Knockoff games have plagued mobile app stores for years. For instance, the developers of 2048 made some minor changes to the formula of puzzle game Threes and became a hit. In 2018, publisher Voodoo adopted the central idea of the quirky Donut County (players move around a hole in the ground and swallow up objects) with Hole.io, which soared to the top of App Store and Google Play charts.

In the case of Unpacking, Witch Beam suggested SayGames' clone used almost identical items and very similar level layouts. It said that while other clones failed to find much success, Unpacking Master took off in the wake of an ad campaign on TikTok and Instagram.

"It's demoralizing for a small team like ours to see content we spent literally years planning, refining and handcrafting be hastily reproduced in an opportunistic ad-riddled app a mere 3 months after our launch," the team wrote on Twitter. "We're a tiny indie team and even with the success we have achieved, we still don't have the resources to pursue companies trying to use our game's distinct look and feel to make a quick buck. We have to rely on storefronts like the App Store to better curate their content."

At least for now, the original Unpacking isn't available via mobile app stores, though you can pick it up on PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch and Xbox. It's on Game Pass as well, so you can play over the cloud if you're eager to check it out on a phone or tablet.

Apple is honoring Black History Month once again, and that includes a special treat for Watch owners. The company has released a special edition $99 Black Unity Braided Solo Loop that weaves the Pan-African flag's colors into the stretchable black band. There's also a free, matching Unity Lights face you can download (using your iPhone) to show support — it's reportedly the first watch face to use '2D ray tracing' to simulate light, creating a distinctive aura around the minute and hour hands.

There's no special edition Apple Watch model this year. However, last year's was really a standard gray aluminum model with a bundled strap. This is an acknowledgment that you're more likely to buy the strap for your existing wearable.

The tech firm is also curating Black content across its services through February, and that includes material it's creating for fitness mavens. There will be new Black History Month workouts in Fitness+ with complementary soundtracks, a Time to Walk episode with Black Lives Matter co-founder Ayo Tometi and a Time to Run episode that includes civil rights landmarks in Atlanta. Whether or not you subscribe, there's a Unity Challenge Apple Watch owners can earn by closing their Move ring seven days in a row.

Huawei is set to start selling the P50 Pro and foldable P50 Pocket smartphones it announced last year outside of China. The flagship Pro device costs €1,199 and the P50 Pocket starts at €1,299. Those convert to around $1,353 and $1,466 respectively, but don’t expect to get your hands on these in the US.

Along with preventing Huawei devices from easily being sold in the US, sanctions imposed by the country mean that the P50 Pro and P50 Pocket don’t ship with Google apps and services, such as Gmail, Chrome, Maps and the Play Store. That’s despite Huawei basing its HarmonyOS on an open source version of Android. 

Sanctions also inhibit Huawei from sourcing 5G components, so the P50 Pro and P50 Pocket are 4G handsets. Those are significant tradeoffs that might make the P50 Pro and P50 Pocket hard sells, given that they'll likely be more expensive than flagship Apple, Samsung and Google devices in many markets. The next Galaxy S devices are right around the corner too.

Huawei

The P50 Pro has a 6.6-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2700 x 1228 and a 120Hz refresh rate, as well as support for 1.07 billion colors. There are four cameras on the rear: a 50MP True-Chroma main camera, 40MP mono camera, 64MP telephoto and 13MP ultrawide. There's also a 13MP selfie camera.

The 4,369 mAh battery supports up to 66W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging. The P50 Pro comes with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB of storage.

The P50 Pocket, meanwhile, has a clamshell foldable design akin to Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip devices. When unfolded, users can access the 6.9-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2700 x 1228 and a 120Hz refresh rate, along with support for 1.07 billion colors and P3 wide color gamut.

Huawei

There's a 10.7MP selfie camera and a triple-camera array on the rear. Along with the main 40MP True-Chroma sensor, there's a 32MP ultra spectrum camera and 13MP ultra-wide lens. One interesting feature in the Mirror app enables users to visualize their sunscreen application and check for spots they may not have covered up. 

There's a small, circular display positioned below the camera array, which can display things like notifications and the weather. It allows control over features like music playback and the cameras. The foldable also comes with up to 12 GB RAM and 512 GB of storage. The 4000 mAh battery supports 40W charging.

The two handsets both run on the Snapdragon 888 4G chipset. They'll go on sale in "key markets" in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as part of phase one of an international rollout. Huawei didn't disclose the specific markets or when exactly the phones will be available to purchase.

You won't have to run an unpolished beta to try Android apps on Windows 11. Microsoft's Panos Panay has teased the release of a Windows 11 public preview in February that will bring Android apps to the Microsoft Store. The company didn't say how many apps would be available in this test, but they'll be titles you would find in the Amazon Appstore.

The preview should still be helpful if you're content to stick to Windows apps. You can expect taskbar upgrades that include call mute controls, simpler window sharing and weather. Microsoft has redesigned the Media Player and Notepad apps, too.

You may want to hurry if you're still uncertain about upgrading to the new OS, though. Microsoft has warned the free Windows 11 upgrade rollout is "entering its final phase" sooner than the originally planned mid-2022 target. While that hints uptake has been strong, it also suggests you might have to pay for the upgrade if you don't decide relatively soon.

Android app support was one of the headlining features for Windows 11 at its reveal event, but is only reaching mainstream users several months after the new Windows version's launch. Nonetheless, it might be an important addition for both Microsoft and users. This will help if you'd like to use common Android apps on your PC, of course, but it could also spark interest in both touchscreen Windows 11 PCs and the Microsoft Store.

Squarespace is taking on Patreon, YouTube and the safe-for-work segment of OnlyFans with the launch of its new video offering. The web host is enabling its users to upload video directly to their Squarespace site and sell access on a one-off or recurring subscription basis. These clips will be hosted natively on the platform itself although users can route in videos from YouTube and Vimeo where necessary. The company added that it has built a new native video player with “slick playback” and “deep integration into the Squarespace platform.”

This is very much an extension of the work Squarespace took to enable its users to earn subscription revenue back in 2020. Much as it did back then, the company said that its new paywall and membership features are targeted toward chefs, instructors, wellness providers and educators. While the company has conceded that it will not be proactively moderating content uploaded on its platform, it does say that the material has to abide by its terms of service, which currently prohibit violent conduct and hate speech.

Creators will get the opportunity to upload 30 minutes of video content for free, with users needing to sign up for a Member Areas plan to get more. On the low end, the basic plan offers five hours of video space, while the Pro tier offers 50, with the promise of lower transaction fees as you grow.

This is part of a broader push that many sites are making into taking a slice of the aforementioned platforms’ pie. Just yesterday, Substack announced that it was expanding into video as a way of keeping creators within the same ecosystem.

Uncharted has been a tentpole franchise for Sony ever since the first game arrived back in 2007, so it’s not surprising that the games have been remastered for newer consoles over the years. Developer Naughty Dog first brought the original PS3 trilogy to the PS4 in 2015 as The Nathan Drake Collection, improving visual fidelity and frame rates. Now, the company is pulling the same trick with the two PS4 games in the series: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection arrives for the PS5 this Friday, almost five years after Naughty Dog last released a new game in the series. The $50 collection features a number of technical and visual enhancements, but the games themselves are identical to the PS4 versions. I’ve spent the last week or so playing both games in the Legacy of Thieves Collection to see how they hold up and determine who this package is for.

Sony / Naughty Dog

There are three visual modes here, all of which improve over the original PS4 game. A “fidelity” setting keeps the frame rate at 30 fps but renders the games in full 4K resolution. Performance mode, on the other hand, runs the games at 60 fps while making no promises about the exact resolution. Finally, there’s a “Performance+” mode for people with 120Hz TVs — the games run at 120 fps with a locked 1080p resolution.

I don’t have a 120Hz TV, so I can’t say how that mode looked, but both the Fidelity and Performance modes looked simply spectacular. Uncharted 4 was beautiful enough when I played it in 1080p back in 2016; the cold snowy vistas of Scotland and the wild landscapes of Madagascar look even better in 4K with HDR. The improved resolution is also appreciated in the dark, shadowy opening of The Lost Legacy, as well.

Sony / Naughty Dog

Despite how great things looked on Fidelity mode, I spent almost all my time playing the game on Performance, as the improved frame rates simply offer a better gaming experience. I don’t have the most discerning eye, it seems, because I couldn’t notice the resolution difference between Fidelity and Performance, so sticking with the 60 fps mode was a no-brainer. Of course, your mileage and TV will vary. If I was playing on a TV larger than my humble 43-inch model, or through a projection system, I might have found Fidelity mode more valuable.

There are a number of other improvements that make these games feel native to the PS5, as well. First off, the games support the adaptive triggers on the PS5 controller, which adds resistance and a different feel when you’re firing your weapons (something you do frequently in both games). Combined with the improved haptics in the PS5 controller, the two games in Legacy of Thieves feel more immersive than they did on the PS4.

Load times are also blissfully short, thanks to the PS5’s SSD and more powerful hardware. If the game wasn’t already running, it still took less than a minute to load my progress and get back into the adventure. I never really thought about the load times when playing on the PS4, but I went back and confirmed the unsurprising fact that the PS5 is much faster.

As for the games themselves, both A Thief’s End and The Lost Legacy hold up well. They look gorgeous, the stories are engaging and more intricate than the earlier games, and the gameplay is more varied than the original trilogy as well. On the other hand, it remains extremely difficult to reconcile the lighthearted tone of Nathan Drake, the protagonist in A Thief’s End, with the massive body count he racks up throughout the game.

Sony / Naughty Dog

The stakes are high, but Drake is a charming and charismatic adventurer — despite the fact that he’s put in a tough situation, needing to pull off a huge heist to save his brother’s skin, he’s not a deadly serious lead hero. But he is deadly, killing dozens throughout his quest. It’s easy enough to just go where the game takes you and not overthink it, but it’s worth mentioning that six years on, the two sides of Drake still don’t sit particularly well next to each other.

The Lost Legacy puts you in control of another antihero, treasure hunter Chloe Frazer who appeared in Uncharted 2 and 3. It’s the first Uncharted game where Nathan Drake isn’t the main character, and it overall has a bit of a darker tone — Frazer and her companion Nadine Ross are just as lethal as Drake, but it fits their personalities and the story a bit better. While we’re discussing The Lost Legacy, it’s worth pointing out that the game originally sold for $40 and wasn’t intended to have the same scope as Uncharted 4; as such, it’s much shorter (a standard playthrough takes about seven or eight hours).

Sony / Naughty Dog

Putting aside any misgivings about the ludonarrative dissonance in these games (something that’s come up a lot with Naughty Dog’s games), they are fun, beautiful, sprawling adventures. If you haven’t played any Uncharted games before, you could pick up the Legacy of Thieves Collection and get a lot of gaming value for your $50. Sure, you won’t know Drake’s entire backstory, but A Thief’s End fills in the blanks well enough even if you don’t know every detail of his past adventures.

I’m a completionist, so I have slight misgivings about telling someone to jump right into it with the fourth game in a four-part series. I might recommend spending $20 on Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, which is a remaster of the three PS3 games in the series — but Uncharted 4 holds up well enough on its own. As for The Lost Legacy, its protagonists are taking center stage for the first time, so their roles in past games aren’t terribly crucial to the story at hand.

If you enjoyed the original Uncharted trilogy, but somehow missed these games on the PS4, the Legacy of Thieves Collection is a no-brainer. If you’ve played them before, though, it’s a little less clear-cut. Improved frame rates and visual quality are solid updates to bring the games into the PS5 era, but they don’t fundamentally change the experience. That said, Sony is offering the Legacy of Thieves Collection for only $10 if you previously purchased A Thief’s End or The Lost Legacy. For the many people who love the series, that’s $10 well-spent, as these games hold up well — and look and play better than ever on the PS5.

If you're a streamer, you can't always reach for your keyboard (or a control deck) to activate a scene or effect. Thankfully, you might not have to. Elgato has released a Stream Deck Pedal that provides three customizable foot pedals to steer your apps and other broadcasting tools hands-free. You can manage Twitch or YouTube, change cameras, start an OBS transition or otherwise control your stream in a stealthy manner.

You can set app-specific profiles if you're routinely juggling multiple tools, and plugins control everything from Hue lights to Spotify and Twitter. There's adjustable pedal pressure, too, if you prefer a delicate tap or a firm stomp. And Elgato is keen to point out the use for offline creative work thanks to definable hotkey actions for software like audiovisual editing suites.

Accordingly, Elgato has introduced a Discord plugin for Stream Deck devices. You can use any of the Corsair brand's peripherals to change channels (including to voice), use push-to-talk, mute your mic or otherwise navigate a server.

The Stream Deck Pedal sells for $115. That's potentially a steep price if you're a new or part-time streamer, but it could be justifiable if you're either building a full-time career or just want to add some polish that brings in extra viewers. This could also be particularly helpful if you're a musician, VR gamer or other specialty streamer — you don't have reach for your PC (and interrupt your flow) just to perform a simple task.