Hasta La Gadget!

Brian Krebs has found a fascinating example of a card skimmer – essentially a machine that steals your credit card number – that masquerades as a real POS terminal. The skimmer fits over the ubiquitous Verifone POS reader and even reads key-presses. It is virtually indistinguishable from the actual POS card reader and can be slipped on and off without the retailer’s knowledge – or, more chillingly, with the retailer’s consent.

Should you be worried? Well sure. Your credit cards are approximately as safe in the wild as your cash. If you give your card to someone, the rules of decorum allow you to assume they won’t cheat you. That’s not always the case, and it doesn’t help that the thieves are getting so wily when it comes to card skimming.

Heck, thieves don’t even need skimmers. Sometimes they can simply install new software onto cash registers, giving them backdoor access to all transactions. Here’s hoping none of us get hit this heavy shopping season.

Microsoft has recognized that people appreciate the chance to make their own stuff, possibly due to the success of PlayStation exclusive LittleBigPlanet, and that’s why it created Project Spark, previewed back in June at E3. Spark is an even more free-form game creation engine with a focus on simultaneous game playing and building, which also encourages sharing among friends and family.

The beta for Project Spark kicks off today on Windows 8.1, which means if you’re one of the still quite small crowd on that latest desktop OS, you can take part – so long as you’ve also signed up for the beta over at the Project Spark website. The closed beta will extend to Xbox One users beginning in the new year, however, and that’s where I expect the software to really start to shine, given Microsoft’s sizeable user pool based on early sales numbers of the next-gen console. Microsoft also says cross-platform support is coming eventually, too.

Microsoft is touting Spark as a way to create collaborative, effectively unending games with your friends and connections, which is an interesting take on gaming as a social medium. Games have always had social aspects, to be sure: alternating turns or watching your friend who was lucky enough to own a PS1 play through Final Fantasy is no doubt an experience common to many of my particular vintage. Then of course came split-screen gaming, culminating the pure joy that was Goldeneye 007 for the N64, and the modern era of shooting and tea-bagging that is the Call of Duty series.

Now, Microsoft wants you to do something even more participatory, creating worlds as you explore them. At its most basic, Spark does most of the heavy lifting for you, with you specifying simply a scenario, setting and character before being thrown into a randomly generated game provided by the engine. But you can get much more granular, building different genres of games, using various different inputs including Kinect and the Xbox One controller, and even incorporating motion capture and voiceover using the Kinect for custom animations and dialogue. The Spark engine seems insanely flexible, so it’ll very interesting to see what a legion of brand new amateur game devs can do with this in their hands.

Grab the Spark beta app from the Windows Store, but you might have to wait a little while to use it if you haven’t yet got a beta key, and it’s not going to be available in all regions immediately. This is potentially the most interesting thing Microsoft has done for a long time, so it’ll be great to watch how this progresses, even if you’re not that interested in becoming an auteur yourself.

Canon’s first kick at the mirrorless market was without question a disappointing debut: The EOS M first launched in 2012, and was a let-down mostly because of its incredibly sluggish autofocus, as well as other quirks like a screen blackout that happened immediately after taking a picture. Canon seems to have addressed both issues with the new design, added Wi-Fi, and left most of the rest untouched.

The M2 has been officially announced via Canon China and Canon Japan so far, with English-language countries likely due for releases later today. The details of the camera are known, however, and include a body design that resembles the original, but that’s actually slightly smaller and packs new Wi-Fi connectivity for sharing and image transfer.

The big selling point however remains the improved autofocus, which was by far the biggest area requiring improvement on the original. Canon promises more than double the AF speed with its new Hybrid CMOS AF II system, which double checks the window for focus information that the original did for that improvement. Canon has kept the same APS-C 18 megapixel sensor in the M2, but the sensor wasn’t the issue, so this could be a very good entrant in the MILC field, so long as the AF actually does provide significant improvements over the original.

The M2 will ship in Japan in mid-December, but no word yet on when it’ll come to the U.S. A pre-holiday ship date would definitely help Canon move a few of these via the under-the-tree crowd, however, so fingers crossed it arrives before the new year. I always like the look of the EOS M, but with the M2, it might have some substance behind all that style, too. Check out Canon Rumors for the full spec sheet if you’re interested in the nitty-gritty.

Hex3, the company behind a successfully Kickstarted pressure-sensitive stylus called JaJa, and a follow-up stylus for tablets, called Nota, which had a (relatively) fine 3.7mm tip to make scribbling on a slate more precise, is expanding its line-up with three new stylus products — under a new brand name, YuFu.

Once again, the startup has taken to Kickstarter to get the required minimum orders to fire up production of the YuFu, YuFu Pro and YuFu Focus. It’s seeking to raise $25,000, and is more than half way there with 30 days left on its campaign. If successful it’s aiming to ship to backers next April.

It’s a couple of years since pressure sensitive styluses arrived so the YuFu is definitely facing more competition than Hex3′s earlier JaJa. Which presumably is why it’s spreading its bets with multiple models, as well as focusing on a premium, hardwearing build, with the YuFu rocking a slim, metal-case design that resembles a mechanical pencil.

The YuFu Pro — aimed at “serious artists” — has 4,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, with the function built into the pen, rather than the tip so you vary how much you squeeze it, rather than how hard you press it against the glass (to limit fatigue). It also has tilt sensors for shading and calligraphy, optional gestures such as tap and shake to erase, plus an ultrafine tip (1.9mm). This model is $65 for Kickstarter backers, but will retail for $99 in future.

The mid-range YuFu Focus has 64 levels of pressure sensitivity and the same ultrafine 1.9mm tip. Hex3 says this model is for “creative business and art school use”. It’s $49 for Kickstarter early birds, rising to $79 retail post-Kickstarter.

While the basic YuFu — aimed at “anyone who uses a tablet for notes or drawing” but doesn’t need pressure sensitivity to vary the flow of digital ink or an ultrafine tip – offers the same hardwearing metal construction and interchangeable tips (with brush, teflon or rubber tips) that all the models have but is designed for less precise scribbling. This model is up for grabs at an early bird Kickstarter price of $25, rising to $39 retail post-Kickstarter.

The YuFu styli are powered by 1x AAAA battery apiece. They use Bluetooth Low Energy to connect to the tablet, so are compatible with the iPad 3 and above, and the iPad mini. They will also work with other tablets that have support for BLE, according to Hex3 — so some Android tabs might also work.

What apps can you use YuFu with? Hex3 hasn’t listed compatible apps by name, rather it says it will support “all of the Apps you could need”. And includes the below graphic depicting currently supported apps. It’s worth noting that functions such as the YuFu Pro’s Gyro sensor (to support shading) will only work with “integrated apps”.

So if your art app of choice doesn’t appear below you may want to ask if they’re planning to support it before pledging any cash.

The PlayStation 4 took home the record for sales of a launch console this weekend in the UK, topping 250,000 units sold in 48 hours, which tallies up to around $1.4 billion U.S. in sales, according to The Telegraph. That’s far better than the PlayStation 3 managed back when it launched, and a good 100K units better than the 150,000 units reportedly sold by Microsoft during its Xbox One launch in the UK a week ago.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony are talking official numbers for the launches of their devices in the UK, despite crowing about million-plus device sales for their respective North American launches. Microsoft launched in more markets with its first release, however, as Matthew Panzarino points out, that included the UK in its pool.

It’s hard to make a strong case for a dramatic lead by either console at this stage in the game, with imperfect information coming in, but the PS4 does seem to maintain a slightly lead based on what we know. The last time a game console sold anywhere near as many units on launch day was the PSP, which shipped 185,000 units back in 2005. The Nintendo Wii U isn’t even in the running, which doesn’t bode well for Nintendo’s next decade.

Another interesting stat to coincide with these record console numbers: Steam has just announced that it passed a 7 million simultaneous user login milestone, meaning that many people were using its games platform all at once. That’s an incredible number given the usual pace of console sales, let alone active players, so Valve and its Steambox/SteamOS plans are still the key player to watch in this race as far as I’m concerned.