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Google launches interest-based ads with ‘Privacy Sandbox’

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Google is rolling out Privacy Sandbox to all Chrome users to replace third-party cookies. The company claims this privacy-forward feature tracks your browsing habits to find relevant topics. This data lets advertisers show you relevant ads.

The company has been showing users a Privacy Sandbox popup for days. The pop-up has been criticized for not providing enough information about cookie replacement tech and how the company will generate topics of interest based on browsing data if you click “Got it”. Paul Graham, an investor, called this pop-up “spyware.”

Users will also get ad controls with the rollout. If you clicked “Got it” in the pop-up, the privacy sandbox will be enabled by default. Turn it off in Settings > Privacy and Security > Ad Privacy > Ad topics. This will prevent advertisers from showing topic-specific ads.

Chrome’s Ad Topics tab lets users view and block irrelevant system-generated topics.

Statcounter reports that Google Chrome has over 60% market share. It was the last to disable third-party cookies because Safari and Firefox have been blocking them for a while.

Chrome delayed phasing out cookies because it wanted to launch its targeted ads alternative before blocking third-party cookies. In the second half of 2024, the company will default off third-party cookies for all users, it announced in May. Google also said it would start with 1% of users in Q1 2024.

Advertisers and developers worry about the new solution because Chrome drives web traffic. The company made the API public in July for developers to test the Privacy Sandbox. The company plans to provide a simulation environment for developers to adapt to cookie-less environments. According to Insider Intelligence, advertisers in India are still spending a lot on cookies despite trying alternatives.

Google claims its solution eliminates third-party cookie fallbacks, but the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) has raised concerns. Chromium-only support for the Topics API could block users or limit the experience for other browsers, they said.

Earlier this week, marketing advocacy group Movement for the Open Web blogged that Google’s Privacy Sandbox collects a lot of personal data “sourced through an opt-in process that it’s hard for most web users to avoid.”

As Editor here at GeekReply, I'm a big fan of all things Geeky. Most of my contributions to the site are technology related, but I'm also a big fan of video games. My genres of choice include RPGs, MMOs, Grand Strategy, and Simulation. If I'm not chasing after the latest gear on my MMO of choice, I'm here at GeekReply reporting on the latest in Geek culture.

Gaming

Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

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As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

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This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

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Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

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