I finally had some time to catch up on Welcome to Wrexham. It’s my guilty pleasure. I love it. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw during a recent episode. While I’m getting used to seeing the familiar Irish faces of James McLean lining out for The Red Dragons, I wasn’t ready to see a Kilkenny jersey pop up in the Ivory Coast. He’s even in the preview shot for the show in the Disney app.
But that’s exactly what happens in Season 3 Episode 6, as we follow the dynamic Jacob Mendy’s trip to play international football with Gambia at the 2023 African Cup of Nations. Walking through the streets of the Ivory Coast, Mendy stops to chat with a man in a Kilkenny shirt.
It’s not just any Kilkenny shirt though. This is the 2006 fan replica jersey which would have been sold as Kilkenny defeated Cork in a thrilling final by just 3 points.
Kilkenny’s 2006 All Ireland winning jersey features in Welcome to Wrexham Season 3 – Source: GAA.ie
But just like the memories of Kilkenny’s All Ireland hurling dominance are a distant memory, so too is this shirt from a Kilkenny fan at the time.
How did a a Kilkenny shirt end up over in Ivory Coast? Shirts like this are often dropped off in clothes bins and end up getting shipped to Africa and either destroyed, reworked or resold.
Going by the lad in this shot, he’s just spotted one of the most beautiful GAA jersey styles and was taken by it. He’s wearing it really well to to be fair to him, with the sleeves rolled up a bit. But I suppose I can’t rule out that he’s on holidays from Thomastown either. Oddly it’s not Kilkenny’s first connection to Wrexham either, with Thomas O’Connor, a defensive player with the club, also born in Kilkenny.
Seeing shirts abroad like this isn’t an unusual thing to happen either. GAA jerseys are forever popping up in places unexpectedly. And I don’t just mean the incredible number of times they’re spotted in crowds at sporting events. In fact, there’s an entire reddit dedicated to this called GAA Warzone, though it’s not been updated in a while.
The trip of a lifetime. I’m just back from a stunning 15 days in Japan. It was all planned at relatively short notice for a trip that includes a 14-hour long haul flight. Because it was all last minute, I busted out the spreadsheets to get the trip itinerary organised. It was one of those moments where I thought “surely there’s an app to help with this”. There is. It’s called Wanderlog and it made my trip to Japan so much easier.
What is Wanderlog?
Wanderlog is essentially a calendar for your holiday. As I mentioned, I’d started planning my holiday in spreadsheets. Tracking dates, transfers and even exchange rates. But as the plans got tweaked and moved around, the spreadsheet started to get messy.
After moving my plans into Wanderlog, it became so much easier to plan the trip. The app integrates with Google Maps which gives you an incredible map view of your trip on a daily basis. This was incredibly useful for me given I would be touring Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Arima. With so much moving around in different cities, even extended stays in sprawling cities did little for my familiarity with the area.
A sample daily itinerary
The ability to overlay a daily itinerary onto Google Maps gave me an extremely helpful visual method of planning the day. Starting from the hotel, I could plan a looped route around the city in different clusters. Grouping sights and attractions close to each other and making the most of my time in certain areas. I also liked being able to make general lists of things I wanted to check out. I had lists of sights, attractions, bars and restaurants that looked great. They weren’t part of any days plans, but I could see them on my map so I could dip into these spots when I was in the area or within a Metro stop of one.
Just one of the amazing sights Wanderlog let me squeeze into my Japan trip
A couple of years ago I went to Korea. It was the last big holiday I went on without using Wanderlog and in hindsight I feel like I wasted a lot of time mainly because I didn’t have that sense of what should be done at the same time based on travel times and proximity.
Green markers were on the daily itinerary. Yellow markers were bars I was interested in checking out.
Arguably one of the most attractive elements of Wanderlog is that the app offers a massive range of features completely free. One of the biggest premium features you must pay for is offline access to your itinerary. But with EU roaming and relatively cheap eSIM plans easy to organise before you travel, I don’t really see this as a deal breaker.
That said, I was so massively impressed with Wanderlog while getting the holiday planned, I did wonder if I did ask myself if Wanderlog premium might be worth it. I opted for the 7-day free trial to test things out.
As I mentioned aleady, you do get offline maps. This wasn’t a massive selling point for me in Japan. I had already loaded my SIM Local plan onto my phone and had data from the moment I landed in Tokyo. Japan is an expansive country, but I still don’t recall ever being out of coverage and wishing I had offline access to my plans.
AI Assistant
What kind of service are you offering these days if you can’t plug AI into it. Once you go premium, you can unlock Wanderlog’s AI Assistant. As you plan your trip, you can ask the virtual chat box for local tips and then save these recommendations to your daily plans. To be honest, this wasn’t for me. I just rather go do my own research and add things that appeal to me whether I’ve found them from travel guides or YouTube videos.
Route Optimisation
By using Wanderlog at all, you’re already optimising your route. You can cluster attractions together based on how much you want to do in different areas divided by day. If you are a Wanderlog Premium user, you can go one step further. Just bundle everything into your daily itinerary and hit “Optimise”. Wanderlog will then cross reference what you want to fit into one day and give you the most efficient way of getting your day done, including travel times.
I did use this once or twice, but found that I could manually do this pretty easily too. A nice idea, but I’m looking for things to justify a hefty subscription cost. This isn’t the feature to do it.
Export to Google Maps
Being able to export my travel plans to Google Maps, at first, seemed like an absolute winning idea. But it was completely useless. I’m not sure it actually worked. It seemed to me that Wanderlog shares the locations to your Google Maps account in a certain way so that they can take it back when your subscription expires. I could be wrong, but that’s the impression I was left with.
What ever way they’ve worked this up, exporting was of no use to me.
What I will say is that Wanderlog itself as an app is so incredibly well designed and useful, that this was a feature I didn’t miss. I’d open the app when it was time to move to the next item on the itinerary, and just tap “Open Directions in Google Maps”. It worked so well that I was left wondering why I’d ever need to export to Google Maps. Which again left me wondering how I could justify a premium subscription.
Gmail Scanning
Now we’re talking. Slight privacy concerns aside, you can connect Wanderlog to your Gmail with a premium membership. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but there are a lot of emails you have to handle with a big trip. For Japan, I was juggling flights, hotel bookings, train tickets, bus tickets, event tickets and countless other little bits and pieces. While I had the trial active, anything I was booking automatically got pulled into Wanderlog.
The app was pretty smart to recognise what was related to the trip. It uses confirmation emails and dates from the trip to make accurate assumptions that the booking you’re making is related to the trip your taking. Once items are imported, you can check they are correct and add extra details if you like. If the app misses something, you can also upload at attach files and documents. This is a premium only feature.
I liked this feature. But the common thread continues. Would I pay for this at all, let along pay a substantial fee.
The Verdict: Is Wanderlog Worth Paying For?
No.
It pains me to say this because I appreciate that Wanderlog is an absolutely fantastic app. It truly contributed to one of the best holidays I’ve ever been on and I’m not so sure that trip would have been so enjoyable without Wanderlog either. I understand that apps like this have to make money, which Wanderlog does from subscriptions and booking affiliations. It seems a simple business model, but I really struggle to see how I could justify the massive price tag.
Perhaps worst of all is that Wanderlog suffers from it’s own excellence a bit. The freemium features of the app are frankly more than enough to plan a great holiday and a world apart from the hardship of planning everything in a spreadsheet or a Word doc.
I can’t help but feel Wanderlog would be a much easier sell if the price model was monthly and cheaper. I would have considered €60 if it was a lifetime license, but recurring annually at that rate is just too much.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so torn by a review. I absolutely recommend Wanderlog, but just cannot for a second recommend premium.
From a very young age, I was a massive fan of Sodastream. I’ve written about it before. My granny used to have one in her house and I adored it. Naturally, 5 year old me didn’t know about Sodastream and the connection to Palestine. To be fair, much older me took some time too. I’m not here to judge you whether or not you take an interest in boycotts and the likes. I am here to talk to you about the Sodastream alternatives that are available in Ireland.
Aarke Carbonators – Best Sodastream Alternative in Ireland
Aarke is a Swedish company that’s focused highly on design. If you never liked Sodastream because of design, let alone all the other stuff, Aarke will interest you.
Sodastream tends to be very plastic and feels rather cheap when put up against the products you’d find in a premium kitchen. If you imagine Kitchen Aid versus Kenwood, that’s what I’m talking about.
Image of Aarke courtesy of Faerly.
Aarke offers a wide range of water carbonators, starting at €168, which does put them in the upper price bracket. However, the build quality is far superior, even with the entry level Aarke Carbonator 3. One additional nice point is that glass bottles are more the norm. Glass bottles are great because they look awesome, but they are also dishwasher safe. It’s very hard to get dishwasher safe Sodastream bottles.
You can buy Aarke from Faerly too. Faerly is an Irish sustainability brand stocking some excellent products. I understand for many buying the cheapest solution is the only choice, but when you can buy from a brand like Faerly I always recommend it.
C02 Gas Bottle Exchange
There was a long time when Argos was the only place I could get CO2 bottles swapped out. This is an important point when it comes to owning a carbonator. They’re only useful as long as you can get the gas for them.
There was another large Australian company in Ireland offering Sodastream exchange, but it was always a pain going to get the bottles swapped out.
Faerly offers a delivery exchange system. It’s absolutely excellent. You send back your empties and they give you a €10 voucher for each so you can buy more. Brilliant, isn’t it.
Anyway, some other choices for you.
My Soda: Another Scandinavian Option
Massive cavaet here. I’ve never tested out My Soda. They are a Finnish maker of water carbonators that I just have to include because of the price. For just €60 you can get yourself a water carbonator from My Soda. If you add in some syrups with your order, you’ll get free shipping too.
One issue here is that they can’t ship their products to Ireland with a CO2 canister. I say problem. You can still order your bottles of CO2 from Faerly. So if you don’t want to buy Sodastream but feel like Aarke is just a little overpriced, My Soda is a very viable alternative.
Drinkmate: The German Option
I’m including Drinkmate here because I’ve seen them in operation before and liked them. I’m also including Drinkmate because we recently brought the deposit return system into Ireland; a system which Germany has had for ages. So it’s worth mentioning that if you hate the run to the shop with a bag of bottles to get your money back, why not change your habits.
Any drinks carbonator will reduce the number of plastic bottles you buy. I used to buy dozens of bottles a week, but now thanks to a filter jug and a water carbonator, I don’t buy any.
Drinkmate will ship the Omnifizz to Ireland for €135, it comes with a few spare bottles and is again compatible with the CO2 canisters that Faerly deliver to your front door as part of the CO2 canister return scheme.
Personally, from these products, I would recommend Aarke above all. But I appreciate that it’s also the priciest on the list. Which ever one you buy, I think you’ll be happy enough. At the end of the day, they all kind of do the exact same thing!
What I have seen popping up in a few more places these days are syrups. Random little shops around Dublin sell drops and flavours to spruce up your fizzy water. I might take a closer look at that soon!
The European Championships are into day two without too many shocks. That was until Albania scored just 23 seconds into their tie with Italy in the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, Germany.
As a result, using Google Trends, I can see that Google searches spiked as football fans at home and in the pub sought out to see if they had just witnessed a record breaker. And indeed they had.
Google has kind of ruined moments like this. Instead of people discussing and trying to remember Greece’s record being set back in 2004 by Dmitri Kirichenko, we all just Google it.
In case you’re wondering, yes. Bajrami’s goal for Albania is the fastest goal in Euro’s history now! Now put your phone away and enjoy the football.
Apple’s WWDC is over for another year. The centrepiece of the event this year was iOS 18 being announced with a plethora of new features. Every year I hear the same thing – “this is Apple’s most anticipated operating system update yet”. This year might very well actually be the most anticipated update to date, largely down to Apple’s entry into the Artificial Intelligence space (even if they call it Apple Intelligence). Naturally, this means curious consumers are considering installing the early beta releases of iOS 18, but is that a good or bad idea?
Is the iOS 18 Beta Safe?
iOS 18 beta is perfectly safe depending on what you intend to do with it. It’s important to understand which iOS 18 Beta is currently available from Apple’s usual release process:
Developer Beta – WWDC
Public Beta – iOS 18 Preview
Public Release – iPhone 16 Launch
As the name suggests, the Developer Beta is intended only for developers to test out their apps and software with Apple’s new operating system. Typically, this means this very early release of an operating system isn’t running on your day to day phone. Developers are installing it on test devices which are likely on left in the office and don’t handle any personal data or photos from your kids birthday.
I say that because the risks of you installing this operating system on your personal device is far greater than a developer that leaves that phone in the drawer of their desk after work every day.
Risks of Installing iOS 18 Beta
To be clear, this isn’t just about risks from the iOS 18 Developer Beta. This would come with installed any developer beta. I’ve run iOS betas myself in the past, from testing Focus mode to installing retro gaming emulators. But I nearly always wait for the early release beta and ignore the developer beta.
The reason being that you can brick (completely break) your iPhone by installing an early release of an operating system not intended for day to day use. Now, do I think the risk of bricking is high? Actually, no. It should still be extremely unlikely, however, it is possible. Even if you don’t brick your device, you run the risk of losing all your photos, contacts, messages and more.
Because the iOS 18 Developer Beta is intended for developers around the world to test their apps out, some of your apps might not work properly. Even if they do work, they likely won’t work efficiently. Another big issue with these releases is often dire battery performance. Again, developers are often at a desk with the phone plugged in, so battery isn’t a massive priority until the public releases. So, that’s some more food for thought for you.
Let’s not forget, many of the latest Apple Intelligence are not yet available in even the dev beta and these features require an A17 Bionic chip. When it comes to phones, you’ll also need an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 when it releases to use the most exciting features. If you have an iPhone 15 Pro you would really want to think twice about the potential of bricking such a valuable device.
Revert iOS 18 Beta: Downgrade from iOS 18 Beta to iOS 17
If you’ve already managed to get the iOS 18 Developer Beta installed and are now panicking a bit, don’t worry too much about it. You can either continue on in the hope everything keeps working or downgrade your iPhone to iOS 17. But please note from here on out, I’m not taking responsibility for any issues you run into!
Power off your iPhone – this may require you to press two buttons (Power and Volume Up)
Hold the power button and while holding it
Immediately connect your iPhone by cable to your PC/Mac with iTunes installed
Open iTunes on your PC/Mac
A prompt will appear. Choose Restore.
The bad news is that this will wipe your phone completely. The good news is, that all going well, you’ll have your phone back up and running with a stable version of iOS 17.
When is the Public iOS 18 Beta Being Released?
The big point to remember here is when the much safer public beta is released by Apple. I would expect to see Apple’s public iOS 18 Beta released around mid-July, 2024. In 2023 Apple release the public iOS 17 Beta on July 12th, so use that as reference. It’s really not that long to wait.
There are countless ways to pay for everyday items these days. Just a few years ago, you’d have been laughed at for trying to tap your phone on a card terminal, let alone your smart watch to pay for something. But today, in some part thanks to Covid, paying with cash has become arguably the most unusual way to pay for things. At least that was until I got my payment ring. Yep. I pay for items by fist bumping card machines. I’ve been doing it for a few months, so here’s everything I’ve learned so far.
Payment rings are a surprisingly logical evolution when it comes to ways to pay for items. The growth in contactless payments and near field technology (NFC) has left us as this point. The technology that makes your contactless bank card tapable can be moved into other items too, like a ring.
Rings are great because you wear them and kind of forget they’re there until you need them. I’ve been engaged for years and got in trouble for saying a payments ring is great because “it’s a wedding ring that would actually be of some use”. Don’t make that mistake that I made!
But simply put, payments rings are just another piece of jewellery with the added functionality of being able to act just like that contactless payment card. Let’s dive a little deeper into how they work.
How do Payment Rings Work?
There are quite a few parts to making a payments ring work. You’ll find many companies on the market offering similar ideas including the McLear RingPay. But the one I got sent over for testing came from a German company called PagoPace. It’s a pretty nice looking ring made from ceramic materials, though the company has more recently launched silver and gold rings too.
Day one trying on my PagoPace NFC payment ring
The internal tech of the ring is naturally fairly protected, but just imagine it’s pretty much like someone melted down your contactless bank card and turned it into a ring; at least in terms of similar technology connecting your ring to the card machine you’re trying to pay on. Just like your bank card, you don’t need to charge the ring because all it’s doing is confirming card numbers to link your details to the transaction. Because the internal tech is quite simple, there are no added bells and whistles here. It’s just a payment ring. No heart-rate monitoring or fitness tracking.
Once the contactless transaction is complete, the payment is processed. This is where Curve comes in. Curve is another company completely unrelated to PagoPace. They play a significant role in how this particular payment ring works. So much so, I’ll give them some more focus.
Curve
I’ve had a Curve Card in my wallet for a considerable amount of time. I love it because I tend to have a couple of different banks accounts and, as a result, debit or credit cards. Curve lets me add all these cards to a single account and, quite conveniently, a single Curve Card. Then, using the Curve App, I can choose which of my many debit or credit cards is linked to my Curve Card. When I tap my Curve Card, I’m effectively tapping the card that’s linked to it. 4 or 5 cards in my wallet have now become just one.
PagoPaco uses Curve for its card management. My PagoPace ring is linked to my Curve Card. So when I tap my ring, I’m tapping my Curve Card. Even if you’re still just considering a payments ring, I highly recommend Curve. I’m eternally shocked more people aren’t using it.
If you’re following along with this so far, you now see why this is handy. This means my ring can effectively be any of my cards for payments by the flick of a switch in the Curve App. It’s also very good news that you don’t have to worry about an Irish bank officially supporting payments rings themselves. We all know Irish banks are pretty slow when it comes to adopting new ideas. Using Curve completely sidesteps that issue.
Are Payment Rings Secure?
I’ll be talking a bit about my experience actually using a payment ring in stores below, but this question is what I’ve been asked by most people. My answer is simple. Payment rings are as secure as a bank card and arguably more secure depending on your bank. If I was to lose my ring, I’d just have to open my Curve App and block the card. I get notifications every time I tap my ring for a payment, so it’s unlikely anything would get by me in that sense. By comparison, if you were to tap a card from most traditional Irish banks, you’ll get no notification at all.
Some people asked me if others could just walk up behind me and tap a card machine off my hand. I believe this to be a very unlikely scenario for a multitude of reasons, but payment rings like the PagoPace have a feature to reduce this likelihood even further. When paying, you have to place your fist over the card machine in a specific position and angle in order to pay. So your hand down by your side won’t work.
Payment rings also unlock a new way of being out an about. If you want to go for a run, you can leave your wallet at home and still pay for a coffee on the way home with your ring. So I could make a case that you’re less likely to lose your wallet on a run and in turn, these contactless payment rings offer some added security by their very design.
As with anything, there are pros and cons in terms of the security at play here, but ultimately, I would say there’s very little different in a security sense between payment rings and payment cards, at least in terms of negatives. Here in Ireland, the ring is also limited to €50 transactions.
But the part of this introduction and review that I’m most looking forward to is talking about the experience I’ve had to date with my payment ring; because it’s been hilarious.
My Experience With a Contactless Payment Ring
First of all, paying with a ring took some getting used to. Because of that secure position the ring needs to be in, finding the sweet spot on a card machine can be tricky at first. Remember as well, not all card machines are the same. If you’re paying for parking, the card payment point might be flat on the machine. Some petrol stations have them on the side of tills. However, over time I got used to nearly every card machine and rarely have a miss now. But when it doesn’t work, however rare it is, you look very silly and have to explain what you’re trying to do.
However silly that might make you look, it’s worth it for the reaction you get with the card machine processes payment after you’ll hovered your fist over the terminal. From Dunnes Stores on Georges street to the bars and cafes in Tokyo, I’d say 80% of people have reacted with astonishment as I use my payments ring. People are first wondering what the hell you’re doing as you reach in over the fresh pints you’ve ordered and hover your fist over the card machine. But that astonishment quickly turns too utter shock when they hear the beep that follows a successful transaction. Nearly every time ends up with a reasonably long conversation about the ring, how it works and PagoPace itself (hi Steffen if you’re reading this).
It’s been utterly enjoyable in the most part. I did have one flower vendor convinced I had scammed her by making the card machine beep through witchcraft, but one quick check later and I was on my way. Beyond the odd person thinking I’m ripping them off, the ceramic does need some care. My ring cracked slightly and I don’t recall dropping it. I’m not sure when this happened, which means I didn’t notice, which means it didn’t take a massive knock for the ring to be damaged. Not too surprising when you hear “ceramic” but something I have to include.
PagoPace Payment Ring: The Verdict
I love my payments ring. I love the reactions and wonder that follows when I pay with a ring. But it’s not all good.
A McLear RingPay will set you back about €90. The PagoPace even more pricey, starting at €120. That’s a sizeable payment for something your phone, wallet and maybe even your watch can already handle. I was also disappointed to find it cracked with no idea how that had happened.
If you were in the market for a nice looking ring or even, joking aside, wanted a more functional wedding ring, the price quickly shifts into a more favourable context. Also, if you’re like me, you might just treat yourself to the “extra” from time to time.
Beyond the pricing of it, I do love the PagoPace payment ring. It’s just very convenient. In a few years time I believe these things will be a lot more popular. Maybe banks will start to include them with credit cards as a bonus. PagoPace also does a version of the ring which supports Tesla keycards. As the world around us evolves to include more swipe access and contactless payments, added use cases for a ring capable of this NFC uses will also grow. It’s an exciting space.
It’s time for another big summer of football. If there’s a game on ITV you’re looking forward to or you’ve just had enough of Didi Hamann or Kevin Doyle (sorry lads, I actually quite like you, honest), you can tune their channels in on your Sky Box. We’ve got you covered with this simple guide to adding ITV to Sky.
How To Add ITV To Sky
ITV doesn’t come preloaded on your Sky box. However, you can manually add TV channels in settings once you know the configuration. Here’s how you do this.
Turn on your Sky box
Press “Services” on your Sky remote
Select “Options” from the menu.
Scroll sideways to the “Add channel” tab and enter these settings:
Frequency: 10.891
Polarisation: H
Symbol Rate: 22.0
FEC: 5/6
Standard: DVB-S
Modulation Scheme: QPSK
Once all of these are set, press the yellow button to find channels
Once the search completes, you’ll see loads of “ITV” options.
Highlight one and press the yellow button
Press the green button to save your settings
Finally, press the “Select” button.
How To Watch ITV On Sky
Now that you’ve added ITV to your Sky box, it’s time to tune into the football. Unfortunately, adding a channel manually doesn’t assign it a channel number. This means the only way to access ITV is through the Sky menus. Here’s how.
Press “Services” on your Sky remote
Choose “Options” from the menu
Scroll sideways to the “Other channels” tab
Highlight “ITV” and press the “Select” button on your Sky remote.
And there you have it. You’re setup and ready to watch ITV’s coverage of EURO 2020 on your Sky box.
Why Watch ITV Coverage of Euro 2024?
There has been a lot of talk about the pundits being selected for TV stations ahead of the World Cup. More specifically, the talks have focused on BBC and ITV because they both have stellar lineups. The heavy hitter for ITV is Roy Keane. He’s joined by Mark Pougatch and Laura Woods, along with Ian Wright, Karen Carney, Graeme Souness, Ange Postecoglou, and Keane’s old teammate Gary Neville.
Bodycam is cashing in on arguably one of the most hyped PC games in quite some time. The hype stemmed from a clip released last year teasing a game called Unrecord. This photorealistic first person shooter was teased and then launched with an entry on Steam which went on to be wish listed by over 600,000 people. Some wondered if the whole thing was a scam or vapourware.
Now, a competing game studio has capitalised on that popularity and released Bodycam; a first step towards dismissing fears that photorealistic games like Unrecord won’t happen. But does this excitement alone make Bodycam worth a purchase, particularly when it’s still in early access?
What is Unrecord?
As I mentioned, Unrecord is a game that, as of yet, has only really been teased with a trailer. It’s a first-person shooter with two big unique angles. You are watching through a body cam, and it’s ultra realistic. Before I go any further, you should check that trailer out here:
Teaser trailer for Unrecord that set the internet alight
Now that you’ve watched that, I have to point this out. That’s a game. All of what you saw there is gameplay. It’s hard to believe, but this is the power of Unreal Engine 5.
An absolute testament to the apparent leap in realism Unrecord is bringing is most visible in the accusations that this trailer was faked. Shot in real life with real actors. But it wasn’t, at least not to the best of my knowledge.
Now the internet and gamers waited. Some debate sparked around whether or not first-person shooters this realistic should exist or not. More of a debate in the United States to be fair.
But while the game devs keep working on Unrecord, Bodycam has snuck onto the market.
What is Bodycam?
Bodycam is, well, it’s the exact same premise as Unrecord really. The game is a online multiplayer first-person shooter where you view everything through a bodycam. The camera movement is designed to be realistic and the graphics make an attempt to follow suit with realism.
Admittedly, the game is in Early Access on Steam, and you can now pick it up for €30. But I don’t recommend you do that.
Many of the reviews I’ve read so far really dial up the “don’t play this if you’re easily disturbed or don’t like violence” angle. It’s over doing it to be honest. A few minutes into playing Bodycam and I quit because the gameplay was utterly awful. I get what they’re going for, but games should be playable first. Bodycam isn’t.
On top of the sluggish and frankly unplayable controls, the graphics are only ok. Now, I’ll give my dues to the game devs because the game looks good despite a relatively small install file size. But it’s a far cry from the game that Unrecord promises to deliver. I can hear the fans at their keyboards now: “give it time”, “you’re just bad this FPS” or “noob”. Fair points, but this review is for the average Joe getting tempted by a pretty trailer and Youtube influencers.
I’m gaming on a respectable setup in a AMD Radeon 7900 XTX and Ryzen 7 7700X CPU. Still, it was only ok. Not – “OMG life has changed” good, which I had expected.
For me, Bodycam is a cash in job on the hype job. And fair play to the devs for bringing out a product that’s gotten so many gamers interested and parting with their money for Early Access. Indeed, I’ve read the comments of countless people on Reddit who are delighted with the Bodycam so far. Youtubers galore are playing it saying it’s excellent. But Youtubers rarely refuse video opportunities either and Bodycam has piqued the interest of people around he world.
Considering it’s a cash in job, the game is relatively good. But I just don’t see this game as being fun. And I definitely can’t recommend anyone parting with their money for Early Access to Bodycam. At least wait for this bun to bake a little longer in the oven.
If you’re reading that headline and thinking this doesn’t affect you – think again. Ticketmaster has been hacked; allegedly. Why allegedly? Because Ticketmaster, the company owned by Live Nation, has yet to confirm what the rest of the world is pretty darn sure about. Time is of the essence here too, yet the live events ticketing giant is staying quiet.
Update 01/06/2024: Ticketmaster has confirmed the company has “identified unauthorised activity within a third-party cloud database environment”.
Knowing that every second counts now for you, a likely owner of at least one Ticketmaster account, what should you be doing to keep secure?
Background to the Ticketmaster Hack
First up. What’s happening? Well, it appears that hackers have gained access to customer data. How likely is it? Australia is already engaging with Ticketmaster to try and find out what’s going on. A hacking group called ShinyHunters has claimed to have taken the customer data of 560 customers. It’s a massive hack leaving most people who’ve ever interacted with Ticketmaster affected.
It would appear that personal details such as name, email and possible shipping addresses have been taken. Partial payment details have also been reported to have been taken, but it does seem as if full payment details is safe for now.
But this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook I’m afraid. When a hack like this goes down, you likely have to update your password. The reason being that if you use one password for lots of different websites and services, those details are now likely on the deep web available to the highest bidder.
Identify How Many Ticketmaster Accounts You Have
This may seem an odd step, but I’m guessing there are a few others like myself out there. I had three Ticketmaster accounts. Two in Ireland with two different emails and one in the UK. This meant I was not involved in one breach, but three.
Reset Your Ticketmaster Accounts
Log out of your Ticketmaster accounts and set about logging back in. But this time, say you forgot your password. Follow the process to set yourself a brand new password. But before you do, consider this.
Get a Password Manager
I don’t know any of my passwords. Honestly. Well, I know one. I know the password for my password manager. If you can remember a password it’s already too easy. If you can remember a password, there’s a real chance that you’re using the same one in multiple places.
Instead, with a password manager, when I sign up for a service, I generate a random strong password using my manager. I have browser extensions, apps and plugins galore than then fill in the details for me when I need them. All the while, I have no idea what my password is.
I highly recommend that you take this opportunity to get a password manager when you’re resetting your Ticketmaster account. I recommend 1Password myself, but Keeper is a good alternative alongside Google and Apple’s own offerings. I would steer clear of LastPass. They’ve had some problems themselves.
And now, I’m about to give you the final step that makes using a password manager the greatest thing in the world.
Reset Every Account Using That Email and Password Combo
If you use the same email address and password combination for lots of different services and also Ticketmaster, you really should reset every account using these details. The reason is that hackers and other cyber criminals can easily get your email and password combination now and just try random websites. It could be relatively harmless like accessing your Netflix account, or a lot worse like getting into your email and gaining access to more accounts.
For this reason, you need to reset all your accounts. And, as I already recommended, resetting them with unique and complex passwords, ideally generated with a password manager.
This is all highly inconvenient, I know. I’ve been caught up in hacks myself. At this stage, you should probably assume you have too. Check websites like Have I Been Pwned to see if your email has already been publically leaked if you really want to know whether or not you’ve been caught up before. But, as I say, chances are you have been.
I spent days recently resetting all my passwords, and I recommend you do to.
I’m just back from a trip to Japan. Two weeks I was gone away. I plan to write up a review of all the tech I used when over there. But one of the most fascinating parts of my trip was seeing that in the two weeks I was gone, Dublin City Council managed to launch and close the Portal between Dublin and New York. Today, I overheard a tourist wondering if they were near it (they weren’t), and I broke the bad news to them. Little did I know that around the time I was talking to them, the Portal actually reopened.
In an effort to overcome what I described to the tourists as “us taking the piss”, the Portal will operate between 11am and 9pm here in Ireland. That’s 6am and 4pm in New York.
Blurring has also been implemented to overcome the piss-taking. If people get too close to the Portal, i.e. close enough to show stuff on their phones, the Portal gets blurred both here and over in New York.
My personal opinion is that shutting it down was largely an overreaction. Once the novelty wears off and the news stops talking about people grinding on the Portal, it’ll settle into what the creator, Benediktas Gylys, wants it to be: “As humans we are creating the Portals experience together. I invite local communities not only to enjoy but to care about their Portals and how other community members are approaching the sculptures”.
