Only an hour ago, users in Europe, the U.S., Canada, India and beyond all reported suddenly being unable to access their GMail (or Google Mail) accounts in what appeared to be a widespread outage. Google’s App Status Dashboard was originally unaware of the issue, but at around 7:20pm GMT the service updated to show downtime for GMail and Google+, though further details of the downtime are still unknown.

The error being seen by most users at the moment is a 500 Internal Server Error. These errors, as the name suggests, always tend to be a minor issue on the server (in this case, Google’s) – although it says nothing about what the problem actually is – and are usually temporary. Judging by the response on Twitter, however, the problem is currently affecting a huge number of users both on GMail and Google+. The latter also affects Youtube Comment boxes under the new system now in force there, which means those aren’t loading at all on videos, as well as Hangouts across the web and mobile. GMail users report their issue affects not just web access, but also other clients trying to download GMail via both POP and IMAP.

As of an update released just before this article published here on S.FM, many users state their services have returned; though others still state they are unable to get in; and those who HAVE gotten access to their email back are continuing to report intermittent problems. Nevertheless, it looks likely all issues will be resolved shortly; and we await Google’s response on what happened if any is delivered.

(Due to the size of the screenshots, thumbnails have been used below. To see an image in full size, just click it)

It’s been a couple of months now since the crowd-funded game by Megaman creator Keiji Inafune smashed all records – and more then secured the release of spiritual successor, Mighty No. 9, on all current gen consoles and PC – and newly leaked screenshots have let us take a glance at the current status of the game’s development.

Keiji Inafune’s Comcept dev studio gave a peek at the Mighty No. 9 alpha build in images that only backers of its crowdfunding campaign can see – but you can never keep secrets from fans for very long; and those same images soon got out to the wider public. While clearly a lot of the screenshot contents are placeholder elements, they DO give a good look at the current character model design for No.9, and reveal a graphical style to the game that’s not unlike the Classic Stages of Sonic Generations.

Some have commented that the placeholder walls and other elements in the screenshots look similar to Unreal’s default elements, perhaps suggesting the game will be running a version of the Unreal Engine. Nothing’s been stated in this regard, but it WOULD be cool if so. We’ll have more news when it arrives!

The wait for Marvel’s “Ant-Man” just got two weeks shorter!

Marvel’s “mite”-iest hero will now hit theatres July 17, 2015 courtesy of director Edgar Wright, two weeks earlier than the previously announced date of July 31.

Ant-Man fans have had quite a few reasons to rejoice lately, with the casting of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym as we get ready to start production on the highly-anticipated film later this year!

In addition to “Ant-Man,” Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” on April 4, 2014; “Guardians of the Galaxy” on August 1, 2014; and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” on May 1, 2015.

It has to be said, for a service supposedly designed around private communications, SnapChat is looking decidedly bad at protecting people’s privacy. Designed as a tool to keep text and picture communication private by deleting messages from a user’s phone up to ten seconds after it’s viewed, users of SnapChat who value the service for its discreet, secret nature have often found themselves bitten in the ass with privacy-compromising bugs: First was the hack that SnapChat first denied, then later had to admit WAS a problem, whereby all but the last two digits of the phone number of all SnapChat users could be determined. This directly lead to a second problem whereby it was possible for people to determine you had SnapChat installed even if you didn’t know the other party, forcing SnapChat to add a user-enabled “delist” option. That’s without mentioning the controversial “second look” feature, recently added, that will allow one message per day to be viewed a second time at the recipent’s request.

Apparently to try to encourage use of the system by legitimate users – and to curb the use of the service by automated services (“robots”) to send spam to its users – Snapchat recently implemented a new verification system giving a simple test for its users to complete to verify they are human. The system takes the form of a visual identification test – users will be shown a grid of icons, each containing a white shape, some of which will be the iconic “ghost” shape that SnapChat uses in its logo; and just have to select the ones with the “ghost” in.

Now, visual tests to prevent bots are nothing new – Microsoft’s own KittenAuth system is another such example. KittenAuth combines pictures of cats with those of dogs and other furry animals; and asks users to simply pick out all the cats from a randomly-generated selection. The reason KittenAuth works, but SnapChat’s “Human Test” doesn’t, is cats have hundreds of breeds and thousands of colour variations, leading to a whole variety of different looks. We humans are very good at recognising cats as cats no matter how different they look, but computers are not as intelligent at grouping together similar things when they look very different.

SnapChat’s “Ghost” logo, however, is always a certain shape, size and colour, making it instantly very recognisable and the perfect thing for a “robot” to look for. To prove it, Georgia Institute of Technology student Steven Hickson spent less than 30 minutes and 100 lines of code to create a bot to do just that. Steven’s proof of concept script compares the colour, pattern and distance between points of the white object in each icon on SnapChat’s randomised authentication screen and works out from these which match a “ghost” and which do not, with extremely high accuracy. For the more technically minded, an detailed explanation of the bot and its source code can be found on Steven’s Blogspot.

For those of you who prefer a simpler explanation of why this Account Verification is just another example of SnapChat not even trying: Pattern Recognition is a function of computing that has been possible now for many years, even decades; and is used for such things as working out the sounds to be made when a piece of music is played on a CD or MP3 file, to creating 3D models that can be used in architectural designs or sent to a 3D printer to make toys, tools and even food out of. As for colours, even popular artwork creation programs like Photoshop and GIMP have a “Select by Colour” option that can pick out parts of an image with the same or similar colour as what it’s told to look for. So when a system designed to fool computers and let in humans can fail by the most simplest of computing abilities today… one has to wonder whether SnapChat give a damn about keeping their service secure and keeping spam out at all; and every user should question their faith in such a company who are quickly building up a sizeable list of negligent practices.

So a new type of gaming headgear has just come out.

The headset from foc.us is the first wearable transcranial Direct Current Stimulation or tDCS. This device sends a low electrical current to your brain, improving brain power. This is achieved by 4 electrodes located at the front of the headset while the headset rest on the back of your head.

This headset claims to overclock your brain, improving your cognitive performance. The headset can be controlled manually by using either a touch sensor or your iPhone. Later models will include control via Android phones. Currently, you can only change whether it’s on or off, the mode or the current level with the app. There is no way to change the duration of the current.

This cool device will be sold $249 for US customers and £179 for UK customers and the rest of the world. They will ship to Canada, US, UK, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and continental Europe. It comes in two colours black and red.

If you want to check this cool headset for yourself head over to http://www.foc.us/.