THEIR grip on the Asian Cup is about to be released – now the Socceroos know who they will have to play at the start of their defence of their crown. Australia will play Syria, Palestine and Jordan in Group B at the Asian Cup in January, a relatively benign introduction for Graham Arnold in what will be his first major assignment once he takes over from Bert van Marwijk as coach after the World Cup. As defending champions, after defeating South Korea in the final in 2015 under Ange Postecoglou, Australia will travel to the tournament in the UAE with confidence. To ease their path further, the tournament has been expanded to 24 teams from 16, meaning several of the third-placed teams will progress from the group stage to the Round of 16. If Australia top their group, which will be favourites to do, they will face the best-ranked third place team from one of three groups, before a potential quarterfinal with rivals Japan. In their group, Syria pose the most obvious test for Australia after pushing them all the way in October’s World Cup play-off – coming within the width of the post at the end of the second leg of knocking the Socceroos out. But Jordan also have recent success against the Socceroos, defeating them in World Cup qualifiers at home in both 2012 and 2015 – though equally also losing heavily to the green and gold on Australian soil in each cycle. Palestine will be an unknown quantity having never played Australia since they were admitted as a national team by FIFA in 1998. They reached the last Asian Cup for the first time, coming bottom of their group after losing to Japan, Iraq, and Jordan. Arnold officially takes over the Australian side in July, with Football Federation Australia expected to arrange a series of warm-up games in October and November – helped by the new international breaks to be incorporated into the A-League calendar. The 2019 Asian Cup will be played at eight venues in four cities in the UAE - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Al Ain, in a tournament that will run from January 5 to February 1.

AFTER a pair of unpredictable, exhilarating and quite simply incredible semi-finals decided that Newcastle Jets and Melbourne Victory would do battle for the A-League’s biggest prize, it’s hard to imagine a match that could live up to the hype. But as teams two and four at the end of the regular season prepare to duel, there’s a remarkable amount of compelling storylines underwriting the drama we’ve come to expect from the big dance. In the Newcastle Jets, the A-League has found a uniting underdog tale and one which could be granted the ultimate ending should they lift the trophy on Saturday afternoon. From the wooden spoon last season to the grand final in 12 short months, should they take it out, the Novocastrians will become the first side in any Aussie sporting code to ever achieve the feat. Hoping to prevent the unlikely first, Melbourne Victory will line up raring to avenge their agonising penalty shootout loss to Sydney FC in last year’s decider and in doing so would become the most successful A-League club in terms of Championships won (with 4). McDonald Jones Stadium will play host to the epic encounter, the first of any major code to be played in a regional town, as the home side look to ride a record crowd of local support to their second title. Casting your eye across the dugouts, the protégé has become the nemesis as Kevin Muscat goes head to head with his ex-mentor Ernie Merrick. Merrick has two ‘golden toilet seats’ to his name, both with the Victory and with a certain K. Muscat marshalling proceedings as captain in the heart of defence. Amongst the Victory ranks lies a wealth of grand final experience, not to mention the big game prowess of Besart Berisha – who, with a single strike on Saturday evening, can become the most prolific goalscorer in A-League grand final history. Sweetening the drama, the Jets boast a pair of players who themselves have lined up in the navy blue of the A-League’s serial grand final attendees. Last year’s Joe Marston medallist Daniel Georgievski will take on his ex-side as will stand-in keeper Glen Moss. Moss will replace no. 1 Jack Duncan between the sticks after his injury in the semi-final, while Rhys Williams will miss out for the Victory after picking up an injury in the warm up for the semi-final big blue. Chance creation kings Leroy George and Dimitri Petratos come face to face, and shape as the key attacking protagonists with goals expected in this match up. Victory have been involved in five A-League grand finals in the past, winning three while the other two went to penalties, as such we’ve come to expect sheer entertainment when they take part in the final match of the season. The Jets’ sole appearance came a decade ago and ended in the hoisting of the trophy, their return to the big dance marks the end of the longest drought between appearances the league has seen. How will Riley McGree follow up his globally acclaimed scorpion kick? Can Terry Antonis prove the match winner again? There’s so many questions surrounding the A-League’s showpiece match, the answers to which will write the script for one epic grand final. JETS ULTIMATE FAIRYTALE It’s the remarkable turnaround that has football fans everywhere captivated. And on Saturday night, the Jets can end their fairy-tale resurgence on the ultimate high. Built by CEO Lawrie McKinna, Head of Football Joel Griffiths and coach Ernie Merrick, this Jets side have taken the A-League by storm – going from cellar dwellers to serious contenders in the space of months. With an attack oriented game plan built around hard working players as well as a community first approach, the Jets have earned massive plaudits and endeared themselves to the public. As they take on the Victory, they’ll be cheered on by a massive home crowd raring for them to rewrite the record books and become the first side in any Aussie sport to go from bottom to top. After the turmoil of seven seasons without finals football and two wooden spoons, that winning feeling has returned to the Hunter, and if they can produce it just one more time, it would mean a perfect ending to the A-League’s very own fairy-tale. BIG GAME BES Besart Berisha has never played in an A-League grand final and not scored – in four appearances. No one gets up for the finals quite like Berisha, and a single strike this week would see him surpass Archie Thompson to become the most prolific player in the history of the league’s post-season (11) as well as in grand finals (6). A win for Victory would see him become just the second player to win four Championships, behind only Michael Theo – who has five. ‘’That’s my life, this is my game, I love these games. I want to be ready, I want to be ready for my club and my team. It just gives you more joy. You never know when your last game will be.,’ Berisha said ahead of the match. He could well be the difference once again. THE OMENS Melbourne Victory have won just once in their last 12 trips to McDonald Jones Stadium. However, historically, they are a different side come finals time – having won three of their five past grand finals with the other two going to penalties. The home team has won nine of the 12 previous A-League deciders, with two of those losses having been played at neutral venues. The Victory have lost 16 times to the Jets in 39 meetings, their most defeats against any side while that ranks as the Novocastrians’ second best record. These two sides have met three times this season, with the home team winning on every occasion. Newcastle’s 4-1 win over the Victory remains the visitors’ biggest loss of the season. No side finishing the regular season below second has ever won the grand final. THE COACHES Master vs apprentice. Ernie Merrick and Kevin Muscat have won two Championships together, but now they’ll face off for the right for one to hoist the silverware. Muscat was captain as Merrick and the Victory were crowned champions in 2006/07 and 2009/09, but now he gets the chance to equal his former mentor with a second of his own. The current Jets boss coached every one of his rivals’ 122 A-League matches, while the pair have met 13 times in the dugout – there has never been a draw. (Muscat 8 wins, Merrick 5 wins) Its set to be a thrilling clash, in past matches between sides coached by the pair there has been an average of four goals – 52 scored in those 13 meetings. Merrick equals Graham Arnold for most grand final appearances as a coach with 4 and can become the first man ever to win three deciders should his Jets get the job done. An intriguing subplot to a tantalising encounter.

JUSTIN Langer’s long wait to be named Australia’s head coach has finally come to an end. The former Test opener was officially named Darren Lehmann’s replacement in the men’s team on Thursday. It’s right reward for six outstanding years with Western Australia, in which the state made its presence felt in all forms of domestic cricket and made itself a nursery for the next generation of Australia players. As CA boss James Sutherland pointed out following Langer’s appointment, Western Australia has more players on the current list of CA contracted players than any other state. In CA’s media release announcing Langer’s appointment, the 47-year-old described his selection as “humbling.” Daunting may be a better description of the task facing Langer across his next four years in charge. We look at the burning questions to come out of Langer’s appointment. HOW WILL HE SORT OUT THE TEAM HE’S INHERITING? The team Langer is inheriting from Lehmann is nothing like the one he would have imagined. The side sits third in Tests and fifth in one-day internationals. More pressingly there are serious holes in the team’s top order, with rookie opener Cameron Bancroft and the side’s two best batsmen, Steve Smith and David Warner, serving lengthy bans over the Cape Town ball-tampering saga. Finding a way to cover those gaps is imperative. Matthew Renshaw and Joe Burns will be doing him a massive favour is they can maintain their red-ball form from the end of the Sheffield Shield, but it’s going to take contribution from No.1 to 11 to make up for Smith’s absence. Getting the best out of Usman Khawaja, the last remaining member of the top four, should also be a priority. Further complicating matters is question marks over Australia’s greatest asset — it’s bowling attack. Mitchell Starc (leg) and Pat Cummins (back) are both sidelined through injury right now. It remains unknown whether either quick will be fit to play in Australia’s next series in England in June, with both men ruled out of the Indian Premier League. Mitchell Marsh has already been ruled out of that series after having surgery to remedy a sprained ankle. The coach believes this is an opportunity rather than a problem. “One thing I know is that if you want sustained success you need depth,” Langer said. “This next 11 months or so gives a couple of guys or a few people to even make us stronger and add to the depth. “You can build the depth and then you’ve got some great players coming back in, that’s a pretty exciting time.” HOW CAN HE CHANGE AUSTRALIA’S CRICKET CULTURE? On top of rebuilding the team itself, Langer has been tasked with changing the side’s culture and winning back the faith of the Australian public. There are currently two reviews being conducted into the culture of Australian cricket. One is an all-encompassing examination being led by the Ethics Committee which will consider issues spanning Cricket Australia governance and issues in Australian cricket itself. The other is into the culture of the men’s team itself, and Langer will be involved heavily in this one as a part of Rick McCosker’s seven-person panel. He is uniquely placed to contribute to this matter, having played so long for Australia and also led a cultural shake-up of Western Australia cricket when he became the state’s head coach in 2012. He famously had heart-to-hearts with both Shaun Marsh and Mitchell Marsh, telling them to shape up or ship out, and made it a team mantra that you had to be not just a good cricketer, but a good person. It’s a key part of Langer’s coaching philosophy and it’s why the book “No Asshole Rule” sits proudly on his desk directly facing anyone who visits his office. At the same time, the culture Langer will be looking to change is largely to do with how Australia conducts itself on the field. What happens over the next 12 months as Australia strives to find the balance between playing competitive cricket and maintaining high behavioural standards on the field. “I think the public will be disappointed if we don’t play good, hard, competitive cricket,” Langer said. “That said, we can also modify our behaviours.” WHY IS HE COACHING ALL THREE FORMATS? When CA first started its hunt for a new coach all reports pointed to the role being split by format. Given the increasingly packed international cricket schedule and the demands that go with coaching the national team, it appeared a logical step. Ricky Ponting in particular was shaping up as a contender for the Twenty20 role given the success Australia enjoyed while he was Darren Lehmann’s deputy in this year’s tri-series. Instead, Langer has wound up head coach of all three formats. Given the need to drive cultural change in the Australian team, he believes it is imperative one person is in charge of what is happening. “Someone has got to oversee it,” he said, “ ... particularly if you’re looking at the culture and setting some parameters, certainly in the short term ... because we don’t want to have splits. We don’t want to have different messages.” WHAT ARE HIS TASKS OVER THE NEXT FOUR YEARS? Two Ashes series, World Cup and World Twenty20 campaigns are the biggest things on the horizon but Langer has signposted Australia’s next tour of India as the one that matters most. He is intent on this Australian team going down as one of the greats and he knows success in all conditions is key to forming that legacy. “The Indian Test tour in about three of four years’ time, to me that’s the ultimate because we will judge ourselves on whether or not we’re a great cricket team if we beat India in India,” he said, “I look back on my career and the Mt Everest moment was 2004 when we finally beat India in India.” Australia will get a crack at India this summer when Virat Kohli’s men come down under. Before he the leads the side at home however he has a limited-overs tour of England, a tri-series in Zimbabwe and Tests against Pakistan series in the UAE to worry about.

Nic Maddinson has been cut from the NSW cricket squad on the 'up or out' principle,' less than 18 months after playing three Tests for Australia against South Africa. Maddinson, 26, averaged just 6.75 in those Tests and 23 in the Sheffield Shield last summer, when he scored only one 50 in 13 innings. "Nic is a mercurial talent who has played Test cricket but he lacked consistency for the Blues at Sheffield Shield level, averaging under 33 across the past eight seasons," said Cricket NSW general manager of cricket performance David Moore. "NSW is an 'up or out' system and we now need to give new players their opportunity. We wish Nic well in the future and hope he achieves his potential in the game." Despite his inconsistency in the first-class arena, attacking left-hander Maddinson remains a dangerous, proven and coveted short-form performer. The Melbourne Stars have already signed the former Sydney Sixer to a three-year BBL contract. He was the second-highest run-scorer last season in the domestic one-day competition, tallying 398 runs at an average of 66.33, with two hundreds and a 50 in six innings. Maddinson has yet to to find a new domestic home for first-class and one-day cricket. He took a short break from the game early last year for personal reasons soon after being dropped from the Test team. Maddinson is one of five players from last season's squad, not on Cricket NSW's 2018-19 list of contracted players. Reserve wicketkeeper Jay Lenton wasn't retained, leaving former Test player Peter Nevill as the only contracted keeper on their roster. Paceman Gurinder Sandhu has moved to Tasmania, while Ed Cowan and Doug Bollinger have retired. In their places, NSW have promoted five young cricketers, who had been on rookie contacts last season. The quintet comprises highly rated batsman Jason Sangha, who captained Australia at the recent under-19 World Cup, allrounder and Australian teammate Param Uppal, legspinner Dan Fallins and fast bowlers Mickey Edwards and Liam Hatcher. Uppal, Edwards and Fallins all debuted last season for the Blues. Sangha made a first-class century against England during a November tour match in Townsville, and Hatcher has represented the Cricket Australia XI in the domestic one-day competition.

IT’S one of the ugliest sledging exchanges we’ve seen in modern times, and new Australian cricket coach Justin Langer said it still sticks in his mind as one that “crossed the line”. Langer, appointed to replace Darren Lehmann on Thursday, said one of his responsibilities in the role was to lead Australian cricket into a new era, putting in the past a damaged culture that culminated in the dismissal of three players. Australia’s reputation for sledging reached a nadir in South Africa when an ugly exchange between David Warner and Quentin de Kock precipitated the infamous ball-tampering affair that led to the downfall of Warner, captain Steve Smith and Cam Bancroft. When asked about cricket’s culture of sledging, Langer recalled the infamous incident between Glenn McGrath and Ramnaresh Sarwan in 2003 when the latter made comments about McGrath’s wife. “I probably saw two incidences in my career where it (sledging) got really personal and it crossed the line,” Langer said. “I think back to there was one with Glenn McGrath with Sarwan in the West Indies that was a very sensitive time for Pigeon at the time but it probably crossed the line and there was consequences for that.” The incident occurred during Australia’s fourth Test against West Indies at St John’s, when Sarwan was en route to a game-changing century. After a period of verbal niggle between the pair, tension escalated. In the penultimate ball of one McGrath over, he was hooked for four runs. Not one to back down, the very next ball he pretended to hurl the ball back at Sarwan, who flinched. McGrath can be seen calling Sarwan a “p***y”. Then it got nasty. McGrath to Sarwan: “What does Brian Lara’s d**k taste like?” Sarwan replied: “I don’t know, ask your wife.” This response set McGrath off. At the time, his now-late wife McGrath was battling cancer. McGrath, clearly incensed, approached Sarwan and let him have it. “If you ever f***ing mention my wife again I’ll f***ing rip your f***ing throat out!” McGrath yelled. Langer, then a teammate of McGrath’s in the Test team, can be seen pulling Sarwan aside in an attempt to mediate the ugly incident. Fast-forward to 2018 and it was another personal comment about a player’s wife — this time Warner’s — at the centre of a fiery exchange in South Africa. On Thursday, Langer said there was a difference between personal sledges and good cricket banter and that he was focused on drawing a clear line between the two. “October every year I read the same headlines and I laugh ... every team that comes over and they say ‘how are you going to combat the Australian sledging?’ “And they say ‘we’re not going to be afraid of Australian sledging’ and it’s great headlines. “We’ve always played hard, I think some of the best banter’s among each other to try and get the opposition thinking about other things, but that mental toughness is about being 100 percent focused on the next ball. “We all know what the accepted behaviours there are. There’s a difference between competitiveness and aggression and we’ve got to be careful with that.”

AUSTRALIA can’t go wrong investing in next generation leader Travis Head says former national selector Jamie Cox. Australian coach Justin Langer must manage keeper Tim Paine’s workload while replacing banned Steve Smith and David Warner for next month’s one-day series against England. Head is the most experienced leader of a young cohort including injury plagued Mitch Marsh and Pat Cummins. Victorian opener Aaron Finch, 31, has led Australia in two 50-over and nine T20 games and favourite as interim captain if Paine doesn’t tour England. “You have to give guys a chance to lead. Travis got an opportunity, albeit possibly before he was ready,” said Cox, with Australia’s one-day tour squad announced next week. “He has captained sides into some big finals. It would be a nice reward for some foresight a few years back.” Marsh is sidelined by an ankle injury until next summer while Paine, 33, was relieved by gun understudy Alex Carey in 50-over and Twenty20 last summer. Cox, as South Australian high performance manager, blooded batsman Head in 2011 before appointed its youngest skipper aged 21 in 2015. “Hopefully that opportunity he got from his home state pays dividends and selectors say ‘if his state was prepared to give him an opportunity four years ago, he has led them to finals and Strikers T20 title, give him a crack’,” said Cox. Cox noted Head’s 58 average across five one-day games opening for Australia compared to 36 over 34 games. “Him and Finch seem like a pretty dangerous combo to me,” Cox told The Advertiser.

As the reputation of the controversial militant-linked White Helmets continues to crumble, even the US State Department seems to be having second thoughts about supporting the group, reportedly placing a freeze on its funding. The State Department’s support for the White Helmets is “under active review,”according to a CBS News report. The group reportedly hasn’t received funding in weeks, but neither has it received formal confirmation that Washington’s financial assistance has come to a complete halt. This would mean a significant blow for the group, as the money accounts for about one-third of the White Helmets’ overall funding. An internal State Department document cited by CBS said that its Near East Bureau needed confirmation from President Donald Trump’s administration by April 15 in order to approve funding for the White Helmets. If that wasn't received, the department would initiate “shut-down procedures on a rolling basis.” Online reaction to the report has been mixed, with some continuing to hail the work of the White Helmets. Among them was Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the UN. The former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, also took to Twitter to say that he has donated to the White Helmets in the past and "will do so again." Meanwhile, Middle East political writer and commentator Marwa Osman took an entirely different approach towards the group which many hail as heroes. She referred to the White Helmets as "Al-Qaeda terrorists." The report comes amid major controversy surrounding the White Helmets, after residents of Douma, Syria, testified in The Hague at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The hearing centered on the alleged chemical attack that was used as a justification for the April 14 strikes by the US, Britain, and France. In a press conference following the hearing, hospital staff and 11-year-old Hassan Diab – who is seen in troubling White Helmets footage following the alleged attack – said there was no sign of a chemical incident at the time and that the White Helmets’ video with children was apparently staged. The footage, which showed Diab and other children being hosed down with water, was the only publicly available “evidence” that the attack ever took place. Still, Trump and his British and French counterparts deemed it sufficient proof to launch over 100 missiles on Syria on April 14, accusing the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad of being behind the alleged attack. The three allies were so keen to bomb Syria that they refused to wait for the results of an OPCW investigation before doing so. If the report from CBS News is true, it could represent a significant U-turn for Washington. Just last month, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert called the group “an incredible group of individuals.” At that time, she also stated that as far as she was aware, the White Helmets were still being paid by Washington, despite a $200-million freeze in US funding for recovery efforts in Syria in late March. Although the White Helmets says it acts solely as a makeshift emergency response team in a time of crisis, claiming to have heroically saved more than 70,000 lives in war-torn Syria, others disagree with its motives. Footage from Syria repeatedly showed members of the White Helmets assisting jihadist groups, while multiple accounts from civilians suggested they only helped “their own” and used civilians caught in the battle only for publicity. Russia has stated that the Douma “chemical attack” was staged by the White Helmets, with the UK pressuring the group to “speed up the provocation.” The group has enjoyed celebrity status in the West, with a documentary praising it even winning an Oscar. However, some artists have refused to give in to peer pressure and publicly spoke out against endorsing the shady group. Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters recently lambasted White Helmets at a concert in Barcelona, calling the group a “fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” His remark came after emails emerged showing that the White Helmets tried to lobby Waters with Saudi money.

Speaking on World Press Freedom Day, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert preached freedom from oppression for all journalists – unless they are Palestinian and the oppressor is Israel. Nauert started her Thursday briefing by praising the State Department press pool and urging accountability for the "apparent assassination" of a BBC journalist in Afghanistan on Monday (one of the nine that were killed in that attack). She then profusely condemned the many violations of journalists' rights across the world. Among the perpetrators, she listed Myanmar, Egypt, Turkey, Tanzania, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malta, Mexico and, of course, China and Russia. All of them were chastised as oppressive governments that repress, detain or outright murder unwanted journalists. Once Nauert was done with her opening speech (which included congratulating one of the journalists present on her promotion and praising another's dress choice), she moved on to other topics – but was pulled back on track by the first reporter to ask a question: "Would you also condemn the recent deaths of journalists, Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip?" Nauert answered that too many journalists die across the world, and the State Department can't mention them all. She said that the US, of course, is "always saddened by the loss of life," but "Israel has a right to defend itself." Israel has been defending itself from Palestinian protesters across the border in Gaza for a month now. Within that time, the defensive action, which includes live gunfire, has claimed 45 lives – two of them journalists’ – and caused 6,000 injuries, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) says the Gazans were rioting, throwing improvised explosives and trying to break through the border fence. When pressured further, Nauert claimed no detailed knowledge of any journalists killed or injured by the IDF, and ultimately told the pool reporters to go ask the Israeli government.

Al Qaeda richer than Islamic State, but US views Iran as bigger threat than terrorists – Moscow The revenues that Al-Qaeda receives are now more than a dozen times higher than that of Islamic State, but the US still considers Iran and Hezbollah to be greater threats than terrorists, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said. The income of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which once held vast parts of Iraq and Syria, dropped to $3 million per month, Dmitry Feoktistov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department on New Challenges and Threats told RIA Novosti. Feoktistov stressed that such a drop followed the cutting of the group’s channels of financing, mostly thanks to the efforts of the Russian Air Force, by blocking the terrorists’ trade of hydrocarbons. In the meantime, the revenues of Al-Qaeda currently exceed those of IS. The notorious faction’s total income from its cells across the globe “is estimated at $20-40 million,” according to Feoktistov. However, Washington seems to have forgotten about the dangers coming from both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the official stressed, adding that the US “is only interested in Hezbollah and Iran.” “Americans have recently stopped calling Islamic State the main threat. They don’t deny that IS is a threat when asked, but they try to put this issue on the back-burner,” he said. The diplomat noted that the US still maintains contacts with Russia on efforts to cut the terror groups’ lines of funding. “Countering terrorist financing is surprisingly an area where our dialogue has never been interrupted,” Feoktistov said. Both Al Qaeda and IS have been embroiled in fierce rivalry for quite some time, with the latter once being an affiliate of Al-Qaeda. In February 2014, Al-Qaeda publicly announced it had severed ties with the extremists due to a disagreement about tactics. In 2015 Al-Qaeda's spiritual leaders complained that the group’s structure “collapsed” due to the rise of IS in the Middle East. The Sunni Islamist organization, founded by Osama bin Laden, was particularly outraged by how IS extremists recruit people and use them against Al-Qaeda. In April this year the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) warned that the two factions may merge into a new network. This new group would have cells across the globe and would be able to produce chemical weapons, the FSB added.

Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Friday nominated one of its most prominent lawmakers, former high school physics teacher Muharrem Ince, 54, to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the June 24 snap presidential election. The secularist CHP, which is the main opposition party, has never won an election against Erdogan in his decade and a half in power. “I will be everyone’s president, a non-partisan president,” Ince told thousands of flag-waving supporters at a rally in Ankara, adding that “the depressing times will end on June 24.” Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has said he would not run for president. Ince is one of the most spirited speakers from the opposition in parliament. He ran as the sole challenger for party leadership against Kilicdaroglu in the last two CHP party elections.

A Greek warship has collided with a Turkish ship in the Aegean Sea, Greece said on Friday. The incident was the latest in a series of terse encounters between the regional rivals and the NATO allies. The Turkish merchantman ship “approached and touched” one of the Greek Navy’s gunboats, which was taking part in a NATO exercise, AFP said. After the collision the merchantman fled back towards Turkish waters, according to the military. Turkey has for decades disputed Greek sovereignty over Aegean waters and airspace close to Turkish shores, which Athens says is based on postwar treaties.

It was just a month and a half ago that Tesla approved an eye-popping long-term pay package, worth as much as $50 BILLION to founder and CEO Elon Musk. And on Wednesday afternoon, Tesla held its first corporate earnings call since then. You’d think that Elon would have been gracious and professional, anxious to demonstrate that the shareholders’ trust in him has been well-placed. Instead the call was filled with contempt and disrespect, with Elon outright refusing to answer questions that he deemed ‘boring’. Bear in mind, Tesla’s financial results were gruesome; the company burned through yet another $1.1 billion in cash last quarter. That’s 70% worse than in the same period last year. Even more problematic, Tesla is losing money at such an unexpectedly fast rate that they’ll likely run out within the next several months. According to the Wall Street Journal’s analysis, Tesla doesn’t have enough cash to cover its basic debt payments and capital leases due within the next six months. Needless to say, investors are worried. The shareholders and analysts on the call kept pressing Elon to explain how the company was going to survive, and how he would turn around Tesla’s notorious production challenges. But Elon completely dismissed any such questions as “boring”, “bonehead”, and “not cool”. Pretty amazing. I mean, this guy was given a potentially $50 billion compensation package just six weeks ago. So the LEAST he could do was answer his investors’ completely reasonable questions. But he didn’t. It’s almost as if he deliberately wanted to show as much disrespect as possible to the trust and confidence that shareholders have placed in him. This is a pretty despicable attitude for any executive to have. Yet this whole situation is emblematic of what I call ‘the new rules of capitalism.’ And New Rule #1 is: Businesses no longer need to make money. Tesla is just one of a multitude of high-flying, hot-shot companies whose entire business models are based on burning through cash, managed by executives who don’t care. WeWork, as we’ve often discussed, is an even more absurd example. WeWork provides short-term office space to companies around the world, with a whole bunch of interesting perks (including free tequila). For customers, it’s great. But WeWork loses tons of money providing all those great perks to its customers… which means that investors are ultimately footing the bill. In other words, the suckers who invested in WeWork are essentially buying tequila shots for the office tenants. Similarly, Uber continues to lose money; according to the company’s leaked financial statements, Uber lost a whopping $4.5 billion in 2017. To put it another way, every time you take an Uber somewhere, the company is losing money… which means that the suckers who invested in Uber are subsidizing your ride. Netflix is another perennial loser, having burned through more than $2 billion of its shareholders’ money last year in order to produce original content. Remember that the next time you binge watch Stranger Things— Netflix investors are heavily subsidizing your evening’s entertainment. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal last weekend about young people in San Francisco who receive oodles of free goodies from VC-funded startups. One guy was able to buy a small car because a car-sharing startup offered him thousands of dollars in CASH just to sign up and use the service. Others talked about eating dozens of gourmet meals for free, courtesy of the various meal delivery startups in San Francisco who offer free meals to new customers. Ultimately this means that the suckers who invested in those startups are buying meals, clothes, cars, and just about everything else, for freeloading consumers. There are so many more examples– Dropbox, Snapchat, etc.– of companies whose sucker investors are footing the bill for consumers. Each of these companies loses money. And it’s becoming an epidemic. In fact, more than 20% of the companies which comprise the Russell 2000 index, and nearly 10% of companies in the S&P 500 index, burn through so much cash that they have to BORROW money just to pay INTEREST on their debts. But under the new rules of capitalism, these losses don’t matter… because there are countless investors, funds, and bankers delighted to have the opportunity to put more capital into the business. This isn’t normal– it goes against the most basic laws of finance: businesses are supposed to make money for their investors, not the other way around. Yet investors keep throwing capital into these bottomless pits… while (and this is REALLY bizarre) simultaneously showering the founders with blind admiration. It’s incredible how much praise and esteem is hurled upon company founders who burn through their investors’ capital like a deranged financial sociopath. Instead of being fired for incompetence, however, they’re hailed as ‘visionaries’. These people are completely out of touch– both the founders who treat their shareholders with such contempt, as well as the sucker investors who continue enabling this abuse. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to recognize that some day this stupidity will end suddenly and painfully.

EU Commission Asks Public To Weigh In On Survey About Just How Much They Want The Internet To Be Censored A few years ago, when the EU Commission was first considering some really bad copyright policies designed to attack fundamental principles of how the internet worked, we pointed out the many, many problems with the EU Commission's online survey (including the fact that their survey tool was literally broken, which eventually resulted in them expanding the time that the survey could be answered). It appears that one thing the EU Commission is good at doing is pushing silly one-sided online surveys that seem uniquely designed to get people to answer in a manner that blesses whatever awful policy the EU Commission has already decided to adopt. The latest is, once again, an attempt to massively censor the internet. As we've discussed over the past few months, after burying the evidence that said piracy is a much smaller issue than people claim, and ignoring multiple people explaining the fundamental issues of mandatory content filters (i.e., automated censorship machines), the EU Commission appears to be hellbent on putting in place such filters. And it's now pushing a survey to get you to support their plan. Everything about the survey is designed to get you to be worried about the scourge of "illegal content" online (without any evidence that it's a serious problem) and to demand that the EU force platforms to wave a magic wand and make it go away. Here's the survey's introduction: The availability and proliferation of illegal content online remains an important public policy and security concern in the EU, notably with regards to the dissemination of terrorist content, as well as of illegal hate speech, child sexual abuse material, or illegal commercial practices and infringements of intellectual property rights, selling of illicit drugs, counterfeits or other illicit goods. First off, see what they did there? They mixed in copyright infringement with... things that don't belong in the same camp: "child sex abuse," "illicit drugs" and "hate speech." And that's not even touching on how problematic the whole area of "banning hate speech" has become. The Commission is collecting evidence on the effectiveness of measures and the scale of the problem, and will explore, by the end of 2018, further measures to improve the effectiveness of combating illegal content online. In particular, through the present public consultation the Commission seeks to gather views from all relevant stakeholders. The questionnaire is targeted to the general public, hosting service providers such as online platforms, organisations reporting the presence of illegal content online, competent authorities and law enforcement bodies, and academia, civil societies and other organisations. Collecting evidence? It appears what the Commission wants is a bunch of people to say "ooh, bad content," and the Commission will use that to demand internet platforms wave their magic wands and make it go away. However, as we've noted over and over again, this backfires every single time. When you put the liability on platforms, they will massively over censor, stifling both free speech and innovation -- while doing very, very little to stop "bad stuff" from happening online. Sex trafficking and drug dealing is already mostly underground, so demanding that platforms do more won't have much of an impact either way. Hate speech is an amorphous ball of trouble that frequently just leads to censorship of people critical of government. And, honestly, haven't we learned by now that merely censoring people doesn't make them stop thinking whatever it is they're thinking -- it just makes them feel more persecuted. Anyway, the survey starts out by asking you to designate who you are (and you can only pick one, even if more might apply): https://i.imgur.com/TPOfOFC.png It's a... weird sort of list. It seems to imply that someone representing "victims" can't also be representing "civil rights interests." Really? It also seems to suggest that organizations who "identify and report allegedly illegal content online" are somehow automatically opposed to organizations that host content online.... which is odd. Once you start filling out the survey, new questions pop up that seem designed to just hand the EU Commission a bunch of anecdotes about you running into "bad" stuff online, so that they can use those stories to insist that we need more censorship: https://i.imgur.com/ghkKbz5.png If you check off any of these a new box pops up, in which you can almost feel the Commission salivating, asking you to share "in what way this has affected you." Basically "please give us scary anecdotes to push through our horrible idea." Next up: please tell us how scary the internet is so we can, again, justify censoring it: https://i.imgur.com/29WGlD6.png See all that? It's just "give us scary stories so we can scare people into allowing us to censor the internet." Incredibly, even if you check off that you "never" came across any of these things, the survey still asks you to explain "how were you affected by the illegal activities." Then it asks who "has an important role to play in tackling illegal content online." https://i.imgur.com/fiLXpr6.png Um. Notice something missing here? For each party, the choices are "Main role," "important role," "marginal role," "I don't know" and "No answer." What's missing? How about "no role"? Why do we expect most of these parties to have any role in trying to censor content? Again, shouldn't the focus be on finding the person who did something illegal and bringing them to justice? Instead, this entire survey is 100% focused on just getting people to say platforms must "do more." Indeed, this survey doesn't let you say anything else. Also: what strange framing. What does "tackling illegal content online" even mean? Hell, it's still not even clear what "illegal content" really consists of or how serious any "problem" is, but already we need to know who needs to "tackle" it? But, really, this question is absurd for a different reason: it cleverly skips all the nuance behind this question. That is, in order to actually understand how one would "tackle illegal content" (whatever that means) you'd first need to understand quite a lot about what methods already work for dealing with content -- and how that changes depending on the type of content. Or the type of platform. Or the type of user. It also would seem to require some knowledge of all the many, many, many, many ways that attempts to "tackle illegal content" (whatever that means) has failed miserably and tragically in the past -- often in ways that expand the "bad" content or make it more difficult to track down the actual perpetrators. And this is a larger point that the survey makers don't seem to have considered at all: perhaps instead of focusing on the bad or illegal content... we should be focusing on those who created the illegal content. The underlying theme here is that we need to stop illegal content after it exists, rather than finding and stopping those creating this "illegal" content. It's a strange approach that focuses on burying the "crime" by blaming the tools, rather than targeting the criminal. What a silly approach. But if you're just asking people who don't follow this issue, of course they're going to point their fingers at whoever hosts the content, because that's always the easiest to point fingers at, without ever recognizing that doing so is asking for widespread censorship with little recourse. At this point it's simply unconscionable that the EU Commission working on this effort doesn't recognize the massive dangerous consequences of mandatory filters. Yet this question is clearly designed to get people to request filters, without ever giving anyone a chance to point out that filters don't tend to work and often have massive speech-suppressing consequences. There are then a few more questions, which all seem entirely focused on giving the EU Commission the cover they need to say that "the public has spoken" and "the public wants us to force platforms to censor speech." The whole thing is a travesty -- but at the very least, here's a chance for you to explain (politely) why this effort is not just nonsense, but actively dangerous to free speech and innovation. Oh, and just to make things even more ridiculous: in the process of writing this post, I took the time to fill out the whole survey. As I finished up I hit submit and this is what I got: https://i.imgur.com/M5AYSEW.png Apparently, if you don't fill out the survey quick enough (and I did it pretty quickly), they'll just dump all your results in the garbage. Nice work, guys. I'm so glad you're the ones deciding how the internet will be regulated. I'm sure that'll go over just great.

If you want to find specific text in files, in a command line output or elsewhere, you may use the findstr command on Windows to do so. Findstr is a built-in tool of the Windows operating system that you may run from the command line to find text in files or in command line outputs. You can use the application to filter command line outputs, search individual files or entire directory structures for files with matching text. Run findstr /? from the command line to display all parameters and options that "Find String" supports. Third-party tools like Notepad++, GGRep, or Everything support finding text in files as well. Using findstr You can run findstr from the command line or batch files. Open a new command line prompt by tapping on the Windows-key, typing cmd.exe and selecting the result. Useful parameters: /? -- display the help text /S -- searches the directory and all subdirectories /I -- search is not case sensitive /R -- use search strings as regular expressions /B -- matches patterns at the beginning of lines /P -- skip files with non-printable characters /V -- print only lines that contain a match /N -- print the line number Here is a list of examples that you may find useful: ipconfig | findstr "192.168" -- The command runs ipconfig and returns any result that matches 192.168. Any other result is ignored. netstat | findstr "123.123.123.13" -- Runs the netstat command and returns any result that matches the string (in this case the IP address). findstr /c:"windows 10" windows.txt -- Searches the document windows.txt for the string "windows 10" findstr "windows 10" windows txt -- Searches for "windows" or "10" in the file. findstr "windows" c:\documents\*.* -- Searches any file under c:\documents for the string "windows". findstr /s /i Windows *.* -- Searches every file in the current directory and all subdirectories for the word Windows ignoring letter case. findstr /b /n /r /c:"^ *FOR" *.bas-- Returns any line that begins with FOR that are preceded by zero or more spaces. Prints the line number as well. Findstr is a powerful command that you may use to search for strings in files or to filter command line output. You may use it to scan entire directory structures or drives for files that match the selected string or part of it, and to find specified text in command line outputs quickly. Advanced options include returning content that is found at the beginning or end of lines, using regular expressions, or using wildcards. Closing words Findstr's main advantage is that it is a built-in tool that you can run on any Windows machine. It is useful to find text in files quickly but works as a tool to filter the output of command line tools a swell.

Cadence and Micron have joined forces to build the world's first working DDR5-4400 memory module. Cadence provided their DDR5 memory controller and PHY for the prototype while Micron produced the 8 Gb chips, which were manufactured under TSMC's 7 nm process. They were able to achieve 4400 megatransfers per second, which is roughly 37.5% faster than the fastest DDR4 memory that is currently on the market. Nevertheless, Marc Greenberg from Cadence emphasized that DDR5 aims to provide increased capacity solutions, more than actual performance. The DDR5 standard should facilitate the production of 16 Gb dies and make vertical stacking easier. Restricted by laws of physics, dies eventually get slower as they increased in size. Once you start putting 16Gb die in 1X memory technology, the distances between them starts to get longer. As a result, core timing parameters become worse. Cadence's prototype had a CAS latency of 42 (No, not a typo). Although, the test module does run at 1.1 volts, which makes it quite impressive when compared to DDR4. Img Img2 Cadence expect DDR5-4400 to be the standard for DDR5 with DDR5-6400 coming later down the line. According to their analysis, we could see DDR5-based systems as soon as in 2019. However, they'll most likely be servers. The process of DDR5 adoption will be gradual and steady until 2021 when it starts to really ramp up. It's important to point out that the DDR5 standard isn't completed yet. JEDEC won't finalize the specifications for DDR5 until sometime this summer. Having being the first with IP for DDR5, Cadence already has its eyes set on LPDDR5 and HBM.

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The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) has hosted its second global workshop on illegal streaming. The event took place in London and was attended by over 90 people representing law enforcement, rights owners, platform operators, media technology providers, broadcasters and other trade associations from Europe, the United States, the Far East, Middle East and Latin America. According to the AAPA, it allowed for an exchange of views about trends and developments in illegal streaming; the challenges faced by law enforcement; how to collaborate with intermediaries; and future challenges. Discussion also took place on the adequacy of existing laws. A key theme of the day was the importance of collaboration and co-operation in the fight against audiovisual piracy. Commenting on the workshop, Mark Mulready, VP of AAPA and VP Cyber Security Services, Irdeto, said: “Events such as this are vitally important to our common, shared fight against piracy. The sharing of knowledge and expertise and collaborative action within the private sector and between the public and private sector allows all concerned to leverage our resources to greater effect. This workshop provides the basis for strengthening and expanding the co-operative global efforts which exist already”. Sheila Cassells, executive director of AAPA, added: “AAPA is pleased to host this workshop and encourage dialogue. The participation of law enforcement officers from INTERPOL, Europol, Spain, the U.K., the FBI, Hong Kong and Germany demonstrates also that law enforcement agencies consider IP crime to be a priority and highlights the global nature of piracy”.

From February until now, clues about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy J6 have been largely vague with some small bits of information here and there. Now, we have some solid evidence that the Galaxy J6 is coming soon. Samsung has uploaded the handset's support pages in some of its regional websites. The screenshots above show the model number for India (SM-J600G) and Ukraine (SM-J600F). Reports also suggest a third variant with model number SM-J600FN is coming for Western Europe, but that one is yet to be confirmed. The support pages give us no details about the specs so we have to rely on rumors and leaks to fill us in. An FCC report showed the Galaxy J6 with Infinity Display with 18.5:9 aspect ratio and 5.6" diagonal. The accessories listed on the FCC report confirmed a microUSB connector for charging and 3.5 mm audio jack. A Geekbench scorecard revealed the Exynos 7870 chipset paired with 2GB of RAM running Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. The rest we should find out shortly in the following weeks as the Samsung pages surely precede the Galaxy J6 launch.

Xiaomi officially confirmed the rumors of an upcoming Redmi S2 phone on its Weibo page. On the social media network, the company released an image, revealing a pink phone in the hands of the Chinese actor Turbo Liu. The device will be introduced on May 10 in the city of Nanjing, China. The Redmi S series is expected to be a bit cheaper than the already affordable Redmi phones, given the fact that the S2 will come with Snapdragon 625, while the similar-looking Redmi Note 5 Pro has a Snapdragon 636. The phone is advertised as a selfie device, with previous rumors suggesting a 16 MP snapper. Other specs include dual camera on the back, 5.99” tall display with HD resolution and 3/32 GB combo. The price is expected to be in the ballpark of $175, exclusively on Suning. Once the phone is announced next week, we will have more details on specs, colors, and availability.

I think we can all agree that the camera app is probably the worst aspect of the Essential Phone. Even though the US company released quite a few updates, the camera app is not there yet, so many Essential Phone owners might feel frustrated that they can't install third-party apps. Still, the updates continue to come for the Essential Camera app, so hope is not yet lost. The latest update that the Android app received this week doesn't bring any new features into the mix but certainly contains some improvements. The most important change is the speed with which the camera can capture photos. Essential says the latest update should further improve animations, as well as photo capture speed across all camera modes, including Burst mode. Additionally, various stability fixes have been implemented too, so you should feel the camera app much smoother after the update, which, by the way, is already available for download via Google Play Store.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Will Feature A 3850mAh Battery, ‘Teddy Brown’ Color, Virtual Fingerprint Sensing And A New S-Pen Suggests Old Source Right now, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 isn’t a regular feature of the rumor mill. This is normal since we’ve got at least four months before it’s launched. However, the rumor mill hasn’t been completely silent either. While the lack of all the relevant details suggests that Samsung has something big brewing up, it’s always comforting to have concrete details to go on. Especially as Samsung has finalized all of the Note 9’s major details by this point, in all likelihood. With that in mind, we’ve got more details for you today, straight from an old source. Head over below for all of them. Samsung Will Design A Brand New S-Pen For The Galaxy Note 9, Launch The Device With A New Color Option, A 3850mAh Battery And More Reveals Latest Leak As far as leaks go, we just might a big one on our hands today. Prior to Samsung’s Galaxy S8/Galaxy S8+ launch, one feature consistently surfaced on the rumor mill. If you’re a regular, you’ll know that we’re talking about virtual fingerprint recognition. Nearly every flagship mobile gadget had the feature rumored for it prior to launch, but none actually came with it. Now, after Vivo debuted under-the-display fingerprint recognition, looks like Samsung just might follow suit. Since the last few months of 2017, we’ve heard a lot of rumors for the Galaxy Note 9 and the new biometric recognition tech. However, former KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo put a wet blanket on all of it when he claimed that Samsung isn’t having much luck testing the feature with screen protectors. Famous tipster Ice Universe is back and he’s on fire. According to him, Samsung will make several, or seven upgrades on the Galaxy Note 9. These are: New S-Pen. Crown UX. Bixby 2.0. Exclusive under-the-display fingerprint recognition. 3850mAh battery with 18W fast charge. A new ‘Teddy Brown’ color. Camera upgrades. Out of these, the most intriguing are the bits about a new S-Pen, a brand new color, and virtual fingerprint recognition. If Ice Universe is correct, then this means Samsung has been successful with virtual fingerprint recognition on the Galaxy Note 9. If you ask us, we’re hoping that Seoul debuts the feature on its next flagship for 2018. After all, Apple needs all the competition that it can get and while all credit to Vivo for being the first, it’s Samsung which has the true potential to take the ball up Cupertino’s court. Of course, we’d still advise you take the bit about virtual fingerprint recognition with a fistful of salt. While Ice Universe is a regular, he’s been proven wrong before. With a feature as complex as virtual fingerprint recognition, it’s safe to err on the side of caution. In addition, the tipster also promises us a brand new color for the Note 9. This is a good change, demonstrating how Samsung hasn’t forgotten its aesthetic lessons learned from Apple. Now if only rumors for a variant with 8GB also start to surface, we’ll have a good device on our hands. Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments section below and stay tuned. We’ll keep you updated on the latest.

Earlier today, we passed along the interesting news that Samsung plans on unveiling its 2019 flagship phone in January. The manufacturer wants to leave some room for consumers to digest the Samsung Galaxy S10 and have room left over for dessert. And by dessert, we mean the the foldable Samsung Galaxy X (or whatever moniker the company chooses). Now, a report out of South Korea gives us some ideas about what features could be found on the Galaxy S10 and, we assume, the Galaxy S10+. The report points out that Samsung has failed for two years with its attempts to include an in-display fingerprint scanner for its phones. But this futility will end with the Samsung Galaxy S10, according to those in the know. The report adds that Sammy feels that it needs to do something special for what will be the tenth anniversary of its hugely successful Galaxy S line. Working on the in-display biometric scanner are U.S. suppliers like Qualcomm and Synaptics, along with Taiwan's Ezestek. It isn't certain at this point that the Galaxy S10 will include the 3D sensing that allows Apple to offer Face ID. The report notes that Mantis Vision and Samsung Electronics Institute of Technology have been assigned the task of developing the required algorithms for such a feature, but at the moment this technology is not ready for prime time. While those suppliers involved in delivering parts and components for the in-display fingerprint scanner have reportedly "detected mass production movements," suppliers for a 3D sensing camera have yet to see the same actions that would indicate that this technology is ready to be produced. Back in March, there was talk about Samsung incorporating 3D sensing camera modules into the Galaxy S10. While today's report doesn't change that goal, it does reveal how hard it is to develop such a feature.

Samsung is trying to outmaneuver the competition each year by launch its flagship smartphones earlier than usual. Both the Galaxy S9 and Note 8 came a couple of weeks earlier than its predecessors, but the Galaxy S10 may give a new meaning to the word “earlier.” It appears that Samsung has given the green light to its “foldable smartphone” project and has decided that the best release window for the device would be the one that coincides with the Galaxy S10's announcement. Because Samsung doesn't want the Galaxy S10 or its upcoming foldable smartphone to steal each others spotlight, Korean media reports the handset maker plans announce the former more than a month earlier. Basically, the Galaxy S10 is supposed to be unveiled at CES 2019, which is scheduled to take place in Las Vegas between January 8-11. Furthermore, Samsung's foldable smartphone will be introduced next month at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. The same source claims Samsung has decided not to order too many components for its foldable smartphone, which means the South Korean giant wants to test the market first before fully committing to this new type of devices.

New BIOS updates are available for several Intel 9-series motherboards. Right around a month ago, Intel announced it had completed the release of microcode updates for products launched within the last 9+ years to protect against Spectre and Meltdown. It was then up to Intel's hardware partners to issue BIOS updates based on the latest microcode, and Asus has begun doing that for some of its older products. Specifically, Asus now has new firmware available for several boards based on Intel's 9-series chipsets. Among those are socket LGA1150 motherboards for Intel's 4th generation Haswell and 5th generation Broadwell processors, such as the Z97-A/USB 3.1. Asus also has updated BIOSes available for its enthusiast X99 (socket LGA2011) motherboards like the ROG Strix X99 Gaming and ROG Rampage V Edition 10. The new BIOS releases are all labeled as "beta," which TechPowerup surmises is because they're dated motherboards that, in most cases, are now beyond their warranty coverage. If you own an Intel 9-series motherboard from Asus, head over to your model's product page and go to Support > Driver & Tools > BIOS & Firmware. To see what BIOS version you're looking for, reference this support document that Asus posted in January—it lists all the motherboards Asus plans to update, broken down by chipset and BIOS version.

A new trailer for Vampyr, the upcoming action-RPG from Dontnod Entertainment, has been released. The newest trailer for Vampyr explores protagonist Dr. Jonathan Reid’s growth in power through combat. Players can choose not to kill the citizens of London in-game, as previously reported, but at a cost. Using people for sustenance will evolve Reid’s vampire abilities, which he needs in order to defeat foes. In Vampyr, the greatest source of XP to learn and enhance abilities comes from blood. You do play a vampire, after all. Players will be able to Investigating citizens’ lives which provides an inside look into their lives. This will allow them to decide who deserves to be drained, or who can be used as a blood bank – but kept alive. “Killing certain citizens will have a greater impact on the local ecosystem than others, while simply killing too many may cause an entire district to collapse,” said the studio. After draining the blood of his victims, Reid can learn and evolve powerful combat abilities. Close combat abilities allow him to “close gaps quickly,” by pouncing on citizens and enemies from afar. Bloodspear is one skill which allows the player to deal damage from a distance. The Abyss skill unleashes “the shadows from within,” and Rage targets and strikes entire groups “with a terrible fury.” When the player’s abilities become more powerful, Reid will be feared by other vampires as well as citizens. Originally slated for a November 2017 release, Dontnod announced in September last year Vampyr would see a delay. The game would instead be released in spring 2018. Vampyr releases June 5 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Those who pre-order Vampyr will receive two additional weapons and an outfit.