Although most of Eugene remains frozen, it is unclear how the weather will affect finals week at the University of Oregon, or the ability to travel from the area.

According to the UO Human Resources website, “Because it is a residential campus with 24/7 operations, the University of Oregon historically has not closed during inclement weather. In rare circumstances, however, extremely dangerous weather conditions may force cancellation of classes or activities for part or all of a day.”

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are supposed to raise throughout the week and rain is likely on Thursday, Dec. 12, with a high of 42.

The Oregon Department of Transportation has lifted chain restrictions on some areas of Interstate 5, although they are still in effect in parts of of Lane County, according to The Oregonian.

LTD has snow and ice detours in effect for routes 32, 33, 36, 41, 76 and 93.

At PDX today, Dec. 8, there have been 10 cancellations and one delay.

Sony and Microsoft have released new video game consoles to record numbers just in time for Black Friday and the holiday season. On Nov. 15, Sony’s PlayStation 4 broke all previous console records before it, selling over 1 million systems in the United States and Canada within the first 24 hours of its release. Microsoft’s Xbox One, released Friday, Nov. 22, set a record for Microsoft, also selling over 1 million consoles in 13 countries. In comparison Nintendo’s Wii U, released Nov. 18, 2012, sold 400,000 systems in the first week according to an article on Arstecnica.

The buzz leading up to the release of all the new consoles has caused people to take sides.

“The PS4 focuses on the gaming experience rather than the entertainment aspect. Xbox One mostly tries to put together the whole package of entertainment with movies, music, and not so much on gaming like the PS4,” said UO senior Mackenzie Allen about his decision to purchase the PS4. “I grew up with a PlayStation and a lot of the games I played with as a kid are only exclusively on PlayStation and not Xbox,” Allen added.

“I bought it because I love the Xbox and wanted a new one. I like it because it has better graphics and there is voice control,” said UO junior Evan McCausland.

In the midst of this debate between brands, some students lack interest in the dispute. “Maybe I’m the only weirdo on campus who doesn’t care about games,” said Hortensia Gutierrez, a UO graduate student. “I don’t know the difference between the two.”

According to the PS4 FAQ, the system costs $399.99 and includes a 500 GB hard drive, a dual shock wireless headset and both a power and HDMI cable. The PS4 boasts ten times the processing power of its previous incarnation, the PS3.

The Xbox One is priced at $499.99 and features a personalized home screen as well as multitasking features that allow the user to perform actions like Skype and watch television simultaneously.

The Xbox One released with 22 accompanying launch titles, while the PS4 released 24 according to an article on Den of Geek.

Many stores including Best Buy, Fred Meyer and GameStop celebrated both consoles’ releases with midnight launches. Additionally, GameStop held prelaunch events for the Xbox One and PS4. The prelaunch event for the Xbox One allowed customers who had pre-ordered the new system to trade in their old hardware for a 90 percent bonus credit according to a piece on Gamespot.

Yuliana Barrales contributed to this story. 

Follow Jennifer Fleck on twitter @JenniferFleck and Yuliana Barrales @YulianaBarrales.  

A brief discussion with an eager Xbox One customer in line outside of GameStop for the midnight release November 22.

The line outside GameStop counts down to the midnight release of the new Xbox One.

The University of Oregon is investigating a hacking after it was part of a national incident that printed out anti-Semitic flyers to different universities, including Oregon State University, on March 25.

Five total printouts were reported, UO spokesman Tobin Klinger said. Klinger said the information security departments have worked with affected printers to to block those unauthorized print jobs since then. 

UO Chief Information Security Officer Will Laney said the notifications about the incident started to pour in Thursday, March 24 at noon from the College of Arts and Sciences, and then from athletics departments. By March 28, Laney said his department received 22 notifications on the incident.

“Racist printouts in printers,” one of the messages from an affected department read.

The flyers were received through network printer ports that were open to the Internet. It is reported that the same IP address has sent the racist fliers across the nation, Laney said. There are several solutions to prevent the hack, Laney said. One is to block the IP address that is responsible for the hack. Another is to change the default passwords in the printers.  

The message on these flyers was addressed to “white men” with a link to a neo-Nazi website. A pair of swastikas were also displayed on the page.

UOPD was notified to open an investigation to see if any university-affiliated individuals were being targeted.

A 30-year-old hacker, Andrew Auern­heimer (also known as Weev), claimed credit for the national hack the same day, the Washington Times reported. Auernheimer, who has been vocal about his racist beliefs on the Internet, was report­edly charged with fed­eral crimes for obtain­ing the per­sonal data of more than 100,000 iPad own­ers from AT&T’s pub­licly acces­si­ble web­site in 2014, according to the Ars Technica.

Back in July, UO was victimized with another printing hack by a hacker called “Le Pink.” The hacker put the targeted printers out of commission and wasted some paper and toner by printing ink-heavy images featuring the Muslim declaration of faith, the Shahada. Those printers were fixed quickly, and given “new, secure passwords.”  

Laney said the university is looking into changes with the way printers operate. A project is underway to install multifunction devices for printers, scanners and copiers to increase security.

“While we are relieved that the flier does not appear to have been generated inside the university, it is an important reminder that we can not and will not tolerate an act designed to make any member of our campus community feel unwelcome or threatened,” Klinger said in a statement.

The anti-Semitic fliers also appeared at a number of institutions including Princeton, Brown, University of Southern California and University of Rhode Island as they prepared for Holocaust Remembrance Week.

Dahlia Bazzaz also contributed reporting to this post.