22 Established 1961 Wednesday, April 11, 2018 Technology Ubisoft aims to rack up five billion players with Tencent deal Ubisoft aims for a tenfold surge in its global playing audience MONTREUIL: Fresh from winning a long corporate media and gaming, claiming one billion clients. battle, French video game powerhouse Ubisoft is aim- Guillemot said China had an “incredibly vibrant” PC ing for a tenfold surge in its global playing audience gaming market, and huge potential for smartphone after securing a partnership with Chinese internet gaming. Ubisoft had already signed a deal with giant Tencent. “Within ten years, Ubisoft wants to Tencent last year to develop “Might and Magic: Era of reach five billion players” who have taken up the chal- Chaos”, which has generated Chinese sales of more lenge of at least one of its games, compared with the than $100 million. 500 million it has now, chief executive Yves Guillemot “We also signed an agreement to develop our said in an interview. Ketchapp mobile games on WeChat. We think it will Speaking at the company’s offices in Montreuil, just add 100 million players for Ketchapp games,” he said. east of Paris, Guillemot made no secret of savoring his Ubisoft is also betting on the growing popularity of e- victory against Vincent Bollore, the French chairman sports, hoping to organize more live gaming competi- of Vivendi who has a long history of corporate raiding. tions. “The goal is to be in the top five of the most- In 2015 Vivendi began acquiring shares in the publish- watched games,” with titles such as “Rainbow 6”, “For er of hit titles like “Assassin’s Creed” and “Far Cry”, Honor” and “Just Dance”, Guillemot said. threatening the Guillemot family’s control of Ubisoft And the five-year deal with Tencent, which got no since they no longer owned seats on the Ubisoft board a majority stake. and said it would not raise But last month Vivendi its stake, offers some pro- bowed out, selling its 27.3 tection from further share- percent stake in a two-bil- holder battles, after Vivendi lion-euro deal that saw The goal and before that Electronic Tencent, a digital giant Arts in 2004. For its part, whose market values rivals is to be in the Guillemot family has no that of Facebook, come in. plans to gain a blocking “As soon as they expressed the top five minority by increasing its their desire to leave, we own 18.5 percent stake, brought them a solution, with voting rights of 23 per- with partners who wanted cent. “We want most of all a MONTREUIL: CEO of French video game publisher Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, poses during a photo session in a stake,” explained good balance between our his office at the Ubisoft headquarters in Montreuil, outside Paris. —AFP Guillemot, who nonetheless said the battle with different shareholders, one that stays stable over the Vivendi had an upside. long term,” he said. “With our strategy for creating value, we proved playing via cloud computing, Ubisoft will be able to series, this month becoming the fastest-selling title in that we didn’t need anyone, and that they were not Broad horizons deliver its games to TVs, mobile phones or even self- the franchise. going to bring any added value,” he said. When the deal The company’s ambitious target of five billion driving cars. The company said it had pulled in $310 million from was signed “there were some nice parties here”, players is also based on both hardware and software “It’s going to make our games available on the sales in the first week alone, and has now sold more Guillemot said, though he was in the US at the time. innovations that are expected to sweep through the majority of screens,” Guillemot said. “The trick will be than 40 million copies of “Far Cry” overall since the industry. “In ten years, handsets will be much more to create games that are adapted to these new tech- first installment was launched in 2004. But Guillemot Good balance powerful,” with smartphones capable of exceeding nologies, with themes that speak to everyone.” Ubisoft said his first order of business will be to get out of the Tencent, which operates China’s ubiquitous WeChat current standalone gaming consoles like is also basking in the strength of its lineup, with “Far office, giving himself a few days of vacation after messaging platform, is the country’s leader in social PlayStations, Guillemot said. And with more people Cry 5”, the latest in the immersive blockbuster shooter some fast-paced months.—AFP good cybersecurity habits and how to spot and report Psych! Colleges real attempts at stealing passwords or other sensitive information. “A phishing simulation helps people understand the role teach phishing that they play in managing security - that it’s not up to their Alphabet unit to IT support or the help desk or whoever that they can sort of blindly walk along,” said Helen Patton, Ohio State’s chief lesson by targeting information security officer. “A lot of what makes an organi- start Toronto zation secure is what happens between an individual and their own their keyboard or their phone.” Patton talks about it like a smart-city tech digital vaccination, helping protect individuals and the COLUMBUS: Thousands of university students and broader campus community against cyberattacks that could employees targeted by email phishing schemes this year cost far more than the phishing simulations. pilot in summer have taken the bait. Fortunately, they were duped not by Just last month, US prosecutors accused a group of real scammers, but by their own schools - in simulations Iranians of hacking the computer systems of about 320 TORONTO: Alphabet Inc’s urban innovation company meant to make them more adept at spotting real threats. universities in the US and abroad to steal billions of dollars’ Sidewalk Labs hopes to break ground on its first ever When Ohio State University did its first student-focused worth of science and engineering research that was then smart-city project in Toronto in 2020, and begin testing phishing in January - a strategy also used in the corporate used by the government or sold for profit. Prosecutors said COLUMBUS: A security analyst points to a button that Ohio some of the proposed technologies this summer, its world - over 18 percent of the recipients clicked through. spear-phishing emails were used to target over 100,000 State University email users can click to report suspected chief executive told Reuters. This is the first time a The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s employee- professors, but they didn’t publicly identify those individu- phishing messages in Columbus. —AP timeline has been publicly disclosed for the project focused phishing awareness campaign snagged over 7,000 als or their schools. designed to increase land efficiency, cut costs and con- people in March, or about a quarter of the recipients. Ohio Ohio State has used phishing simulations for employees serve energy in one of the world’s priciest housing mar- State sophomore Ezequiel Herrera, who prides himself on since 2016. Officials won’t disclose exact results for security important that the training be educational, not punitive, kets as development struggles to catch up with a rapid- quickly responding to messages, was caught off guard twice reasons but say responses have improved since the early Grama said. ly growing population. by the fake phishing emails. The first time, he said, he felt rounds when, for example, a message about a second-floor At Alabama-Birmingham, one faculty member decried Government-backed agency Waterfront Toronto in proud his school was taking that kind of educational action. printer was clicked by people in facilities that didn’t even the phishing simulation as a waste of time, but most March 2017 requested proposals to develop a 12-acre The second time left him frustrated. “I was sort of like, have a second floor. In a hurried, tech-reliant culture in responses were positive, said Curt Carver, the university’s (4.86 hectares) environmentally friendly mixed-use ‘Wow, I’m really, really bad,’” Herrera, 19, said with a smile. which so many people exchange so much information at vice president for information technology, who recalls first area that would add jobs and be affordable for all ages Since then, he said, he has become more cautious while their fingertips on smartphones and other devices, Patton hearing about the concept of self-phishing over a decade and income brackets. That was the first part of the scrolling through emails from unfamiliar senders. said, the battle is getting people to slow down. ago. Some people report the messages as suspicious, and planned revitalization of about 800 acres of industrial The faux phishing messages mimic emails about finan- The practical, experiential training of fake phishing has others send replies like “Ha, you got me!” or “Didn’t get me wasteland to the east of the city’s downtown on Lake cial aid, holidays, resetting passwords or other topics but proved more effective compared than slideshows, webinars this time!” A few, he said, expressed interest in making it Ontario. contain signs of potential fraud, such as generic greetings, or other common types of training that can get stale, said more of a game, wanting to gauge how well they detect Sidewalk Labs was chosen in October based on a requests for urgent action or information, spelling errors, Joanna Grama, who directs the cybersecurity program at phishing attacks compared with others. “They’ve realized ... proposal that included autonomous vehicles, a thermal and senders from unfamiliar domain names.