http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers Presse Gamers Internet fr webmaster@www.interobs.com 2011-08-27 22:27:13 - Ars Technica : GameStop isn't making any friends by opening games and removing coupon codes meant for gamers, and the company suffered a week of bad press after the story broke It was also a very Deus Ex flavored week, with a review of the game and a look at the controversial boss battles There may be some nits to pick, but overall this is a game you need to play We also looked at the reasons mainstream game developers decide to leave their job and go independent, and played Space Pirates and Zombies This was a pretty exciting week, so dig in Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346984.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346984.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 21:04:35 - Ars Technica - The following editorial deals with topics that we believe are relevant to technology journalism While this subject matter is uncommon at Ars, it is not unprecedented Do journalists have a duty to out so called closeted gay people They do if those people are powerful, says Felix Salmon of Reuters Media attention on powerful gays and lesbians, even those in the closet, is a social good because it promotes and celebrates diversity, he argues If it is inspirational to millions to see a gay person at the helm of an illustrious company, Salmon believes we have an ethical duty to out such a person To fail to do so, Salmon suggests, can be unethical It is impossible to discuss this debate without discussing its genesis, and that means visiting upon the private life of the man who is at the center of the debate Tim Cook The former COO of Apple is now filling Steve Jobs' running shoes as CEO, which makes him massively powerful in tech and, for many, a hero Cook has chosen not to discuss his private life very little has even been gossiped about Tim Cook's personal details, and facts are few and far between Still, there is a broad consensus that Cook is gay but, without Cook being open about it, it's something journalists can only speculate or gossip aboutFor the most part, there has been journalistic silence on Cook's sexuality, save for a few speculative pieces that massively stirred the pot At the top of the list is Ryan Tate's Meet Apples New Boss, The Most Powerful Gay Man in Silicon Valley, which appeared at Gawker in January Predictably, many were outraged by the outting, with some charging that this was Gawker payback for iPhonegate anyone who reads the profile can clearly see that it was not vindictive, however it was a very thorough profile Salmon, for his part, celebrates the coverage and laments the dearth of similar workHe argues that the default, namely journalistic silence on the topic of Cook's sexuality, is unethical because it amounts to pretending that Cook is a straight manYet one cannot move so easily from a lack of action to an active motive ipso facto not writing copy about Cook's sexuality is absolutely not a sign of an active plot to misrepresent the sexuality of Cook I don't think it can be called a passive, subconscious plot, eitherThe reality is, for millions of people, Tim Cook's sexuality doesn't occur to them one way or another until others raised it There are scores of social issues challenging our society today, of which gay rights is only one It cannot be the media's ethical imperative to cherry pick which identity politics matterand thenfoist them upon would be heroeswho aren't obligingour viewpoints And it certainly can't be the case that mediato do so means siding against diversity or social justiceThere is a practical problem here what more can be writtenabout someone's sexuality when he or she is not open about it Salmon readily admits that Cook's sexuality is irrelevant to his job as CEO Whether or not you agree with what Gawker published in January, what more is there to possibly write on Cook's sexuality identity that can be called journalism I am certain that there is no shortage of editors in tech who would agree with Salmon's ultimate aims and hopes in the social justice category, and I count myself amount them Yet I must disagree with the view that covering Cook's sexuality is an ethical imperative free of any other ethical concernsAlsoto me is this ifjournalistic silence on Tim Cook's sexual identity is unethical, doesn't that also make Tim Cook's own silence unethical Salmon implies that Cook is unfazed with the gossiping about his sexuality because hes yet to complain about it This is an argument from silence, and oversimplifies the political position Cook could be in This also creates a kind of logical short circuit Journalistic silence on Tim Cook's personal life is condemned for pretending Cook is straight, but Tim Cook's own silence on the record is to be reckoned approvalof the coverage of his sexual identityIn the end, I can't help but notice that this now makes two Apple CEOs in a row where the press has struggled to define limits covering theirprivate lives Jobs health issues are still the subject of speculation and a recent tasteless photograph that I will not link , and there, too, many journalists argued that his health was practically public domain because of shareholder interest With Steve stepping down, the debate moves from a CEO's health to a CEO's sexuality Voyeurism isn't the right word, but whatever it is, it is still there We've just moved the justification of our journalistic ingress into private lives from shareholder interest to social justice Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346962.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346962.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 19:44:22 - Ars Technica - Haven't you heard Steve Jobs has decided to take time off from Apple in order to pursue his dream of playing keyboard in a band named Wizard Just kiddingunless you've bee hiding under a rock, you probably already know what Steve Jobs is up to this week But that's not all we covered we also touched on Tim Cook's words to employees after becoming the new CEO, how to swap out your MacBook's hard drive for an SSD, new rumors about the iPhone 5, and more Let's get rockin' How to speed up an aging MacBook with a solid state drive If you've ever used a MacBook Air, you might be spoiled by OS X's snappiness due in no small part to Apple's love for solid state flash storage You can add a similar spring to the step of an aging MacBook or MacBook Pro by replacing its spinning platter with a fast SSD Ars shows you how Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO effective immediately The Board of Directors at Apple, Inc has released a statement indicating that Steven P Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple Tim Cook will be his successor, effective immediately Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346944.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346944.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 18:22:13 - Ars Technica - A sort of PC how Windows 8 will invade tablets and why it might work The PC is under attack, with cheap, convenient post PC tablets threatening to drive it out of the home and officeand take Windows with it But for Microsoft, the tablet is just another kind of PCone it plans to conquer with Windows 8 It just might work, too March of the Penguin Ars looks back at 20 years of Linux The Linux kernel was first revealed to the world on August 25, 1991 Twenty years later, the hobbyist project became one of the most widely used operating systems, running on everything from mobile phones to supercomputers In this retrospective, Ars takes a look back at two decades of Linux development Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346927.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346927.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 16:52:52 - Ars Technica - Why was the East Coast earthquake felt so far from the epicenter This week's earthquake in Virginia was felt from South Carolina to Canada We explain why earthquakes get around in the east More inverse femtobarns, fewer places for the Higgs to hide A bit more data from the LHC has further narrowed the mass ranges where the Higgs might be hiding Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346908.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346908.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 02:09:04 - Ars Technica - The most troubling aspect of this GameStop story is the fact that some people are going to GameStop to buy PC games That being said, the act of opening new copies of the game to remove the OnLive codes was rather scummy, and led to a massive online backlash The company then removed the game from store shelves entirely To prove it's not completely evil, GameStop is offering an apology to customers, as well as 50 gift cards and a deal on used games An e mail was sent to customers as well as store managers, and after apologizing for the issue, the offers begin For your inconvenience, we would like to offer you a free 50 GameStop gift card and a Buy 2 Get 1 Free pre owned purchase We want to earn back your trust and confidence in the GameStop experience Please bring in this email and your store receipt or order confirmation from GameStopcom and present it to a Game Advisor This is certainly something, although it doesn't take away from the fact it only happened because someone, at some point in the chain, leaked the original letter to the press The company has been taken to task for its actions, but it's likely the only thing learned here is to keep this sort of practice on verbal terms and not in print So I ask you do you feel better Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346697.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346697.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 02:09:04 - Ars Technica - Ever since security giant RSA was hacked last March, anti virus researchers have been trying to get a copy of the malware used for the attack to study its method of infection But RSA wasnt cooperating, nor were the third party forensic experts the company hired to investigate the breach This week Finnish security company F Secure discovered that the file had been under their noses all along Someonethe company assumes it was an employee of RSA or its parent firm, EMChad uploaded the malware to an online virus scanning site back on March 19, a little over two weeks after RSA is believed to have been breached on March 3 The online scanner, VirusTotal, shares malware samples it receives with security vendors and malware researchers Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346696.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346696.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-27 02:09:04 - Ars Technica - It has only been a year since Apple first introduced TV rentals from iTunes, but the company has already decided to kill that part of the service The change wasn't formally announcedinstead, Apple TV users began noticing that the ability to rent 99 TV shows was no longer available, eventually leading Apple to confirm that rentals were no longer an optioniTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told All Things D iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose When Apple first announced the 99 rentals, many TV networks held back content Although users could rent some popular shows like Glee, the majority of iTunes' TV content remained purchase only As I noted in my second generation Apple TV review released at the same time as the rentals , this restricted users from even browsing and discovering much of the content on iTunes from their Apple TVs since the new devices only supported rentals for nearly a yearuntil Apple recently added the ability to stream your past iTunes purchases and even make new TV purchases again Now that Apple TV users have that old purchasing functionality back, Apple has apparently decided to kill the struggling rental feature And considering that Apple is reportedly working on a possible subscription service, the company may feel that there's no point in selling what lies in between purchases and subscriptionsespecially if it's not catching on with users Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346695.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346695.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - Most Nobel Intent readers are familiar with the current effort to make research articles open access, but there is also a parallel effort to develop publicarchives for theresearch data behind them Weve addressed how funding questions make this a difficult issue, and the difficulty in preserving raw experimental material also limited by money , but the primary obstacle to widespread adoption of existing public research data repositories appears to be simply time and effort According to commentary that recently appeared in Nature Geoscience, the time gap between the creation of data such as experimental measurements and the preservation usually at publication creates serious problems It means that researchers need to deal with the formatting and deposition of data, an annoying step when they would rather be focusing on their next project Given the time lag, it's also difficult to associate the correct metadata with the material that's being archived The authors of the commentary propose developing a new workflow focused on data preservation from the very beginning, and suggest that research institutions should support scientists with data managers and local repositories Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346527.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346527.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - Apple's iCloud may not have brought us music subscriptions, but the company is reportedly still considering a subscription service tied to TV content delivery In an article discussing some of the challenges faced by Apple's new CEO Tim Cook, the Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources who said that Apple is currently working on new technology to deliver video to televisions, which could give momentum to the cord cutting movement that terrifies the TV industry Though this is the first time we're hearing this rumor in 2011, sources began leaking information about an alleged iTunes subscription service in late 2009 At that time, multiple industry insiders claimed that Apple was looking to launch the service in 2010 for 30 per month Soon after the rumor broke, Disney and CBS were said to be participating in talks with Apple in order to bring programs from ABC, Disney Channel, ABC Family Networks, CBS, and CW, though none had committed to any kind of contract Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346526.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346526.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - Razer took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal refuting the idea that PC gaming is dead, and reaffirming the company's love for PC games The company also promised an announcement today, something that would show just how much Razer loved PC gaming Many people expected a new mouse or peripheral, but the reality is much more impressive Razer is launching its own gaming laptop, complete with what the company is calling the Switchblade User Interface This includes 10 dynamic keys and an LCD screen to the right of the keyboard that doubles as a multitouch panel Today,there hasn't been a single PC laptop that anyone has been passionate about for the longest time It's not because there's no innovation, but because the big PC guys just don't want to innovate anymore, Min Liang Tan, the CEO and Creative Director of Razer, told Ars So the company gave the finger to market research, focus groups, and arguably common sense to create a gaming laptop that's amazingly thin and light, with some very idiosyncratic design decisions Some people are going to love it, other people will turn their noses up at it, but we're all going to be talking about it When's the last time anyone has been able to claim that about a gaming laptop Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346525.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346525.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - When I sat down to check out Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary with Kevin Grace, Franchise Manager at 343 Industries, most of what he had to show was stuff we already covered back at E3 Things like the nifty on the fly switching between classic Halo visuals and the enhanced modern graphics, the completely remastered soundtrack, and the enhanced terminal that adds a graphical flare to the backstory Then he reached down and lifted up a tiny Master Chief helmet sitting in the middle of a coffee table The helmet was hiding a few pairs of glasses Yes, the remake of Halo will be in 3D This is just one more thing we wanted to add, one more thing that we couldn't have done in the original Xbox version, Grace told Ars, gushing about the new mode Being a science fiction shooter with all of the plasma blasts coming your way, you can see them in ways you wouldn't see bullets coming at you And he's right Something about the sci fi setting makes the 3D really pop, much more so than what you're used to seeing in games like Call of Duty This is especially evident when you use the needler weapon, which shoots out giant spikes that look rather imposing in 3D As you'd imagine, the 3D mode will only work with the new, updated visuals But Grace said that if you do switch back to the classic graphics while playing in 3D, the effect won't be jarring I wasn't able to see the switch in action Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary is coming to the Xbox 360 on November 15 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346524.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346524.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - After building the semi famous website that allowed iPhone users to jailbreak their devices by simply clicking a link, 19 year old hacker Nicholas Allegra, aka comex, now has a job at Apple A longtime member of the jailbreak community, Allegra announced late Thursday via Twitter that he accepted an internship with the iPhone maker Allegra made use of a flaw in iOS's handling of PDF files in order to create jailbreakmecom The website made the process of jailbreaking an iPhonenecessary to install unofficial apps and hacksas easy as visiting a webpage Apple quickly patched the flaw about a week later, but Allegra used other flaws in later iterations of the site The third version of the site used a similar PDF handling flaw that could jailbreak the latest devices, including the iPad 2 Ironically, the jailbreak community also offered a patch for the flaw before Apple released its own nine days later Allegra, uncovered as a Brown University student by Forbes earlier this month, has been involved in the iPhone hacking scene for some time Last year he helped George geohot Hotz build a jailbreak tool called limera1n He also co developed a workaround for jailbroken iPhones that refused to load DRM protected iBooks Forbes suggested that Allegra's iOS hacking skills were so good that Apple should offer the student an internship, and now the company has done just that It's been really, really fun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored, Allegra wrote on Twitter So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple This isn't the first time Apple has dipped into the jailbreak scene to hire an intern MacRumors noted that Peter Hajas, developer of the jailbreak app MobileNotifier, was hired by Apple this past summer as an intern While Apple likely considers jailbreak hackers somewhat of a nuisance, the steady stream of exploits they discover certainly keeps Apple's security team on its toes iOS hacking looks as though it may be a straight path to a job with the company Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346523.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346523.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - IP addresses have real uses when it comes to identifying Internet activity, but they work best when paired with targeted investigation rather than as shotgun style federal litigation Case in point The Hurt Locker lawsuit, in which film producers Voltage Pictures have partnered with Virginia lawyers Dunlap, Grubb, and Weaver to pursue thousands of file sharers who allegedly exchanged copies of the movie The case has ground on for more than a year already, and the DC District Courts docket is absolutely stuffed with letters from across the country, many claiming total innocence The letters have all fallen on the deaf ears of Beryl Howell, the RIAA lobbyist turned federal judge who took over the case several months back Howell has consistently denied these objections, saying that the only proper time to make them is later in the case after defendants have been individually named Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346522.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346522.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 22:52:44 - Ars Technica - Teachers can still engage in private conversations with their students on Facebook and other social networking services, thanks to a MIssouri judge The judge issued a ruling today that noted that a law prohibiting such practices could have drastic implications for free speech, so he has put it on hold until February The law states that teachers would not be allowed to use non work related sites to contact current or former students under the age of 18 via private means, such as messages on Facebook or direct messages on Twitter Under the legislation, public discussion, like wall posts, would be acceptable Teachers groups initially supported the provision, but the Missouri State Teachers Association has since challenged it, noting it would violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution The organization said that social networks have become a popular medium for student teacher interaction The law was strictly worded enough that it would technically be illegal for a mother or father who was a teacher to direct message their own child However, if the law were to go into effect, the provision means that teachers could still carry out private conversations, so long as it was through a channel approved by the school The Missouri General Assembly does not reconvene until January When it does, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem said that a hearing would be held to determine whether the private messaging law should be permanently blocked Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346521.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346521.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 16:51:17 - Ars Technica - Rayman drew the short straw While quality Mario games continue to be released and Sonic stars in far more titles than he should, Ubisoft's limbless platforming hero has been largely forgotten Rayman Origins is hoping to change that by bringing the series back to its roots, but at the same time making it feel more modern with ridiculously charming 2D visuals and four player drop in co op It's a game that's as fun as it is hard And from what I played, it's really hard Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346336.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346336.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 04:21:15 - Ars Technica - A recent proposal to remove the version number from the Firefox Web browser's About dialog attracted a surprising amount of attention As critics and supporters moved to take sides on the issue, it gradually devolved into a divisive controversy It turns out it was all just a misunderstanding The issue started when Mozilla's Asa Dotzler filed a bug report calling for the removal of the version number He was under the impression that the move had been directed by Mozilla's user experience team, but the move was premature Speaking to ReadWriteWeb, Mozilla user experience engineer Alex Faaborg explained that a final decision had not yet been made on the issue of version number presentation It was a miscommunication, and Dotzler was caught in the middle The subsequent controversy that arose from the simple misunderstanding reflects the general atmosphere of unease that has emerged during Firefox's transition to a more incremental development model Although there are still challenges to address relating to add on handling, update methodology, deployment issues, and enterprise support, the overhaul of Firefox's release management strategy has largely been smooth The significant performance and memory footprint improvements in Firefox 7 that will soon land in a stable release show that the new model has tangible advantages for end users The fixation on the actual version number and how it is presented in the user interface is little more than a sideshow that distracts from the more substantive technical issues that would benefit from constructive discussion and community engagement Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346055.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/346055.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 01:14:30 - Ars Technica - When Steven P Jobs returned to Apple 1997, he returned to a slew of ill conceived product lines Some were excessive, and some were downright silly, but many were ultimately killed off for their poor alignment with consumer needs and wants Still, even with Jobs discerning eye, he wasnt immune to having to deal with a few bad product decisions Here are four products Jobs rightfully discontinued, and one misstep of his own Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345965.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345965.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 01:14:30 - Ars Technica - Political conflicts are extremely complex, and we almost never understand all the factors that are involved in their timing, the course they take, and their eventual outcome In this weeks Nature, a paper suggests a new variable to consider the climate According to researchers from Columbia and Princeton, there is good evidence that global climate variations can play a role in the onset of civil conflicts The El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle, known as ENSO, is a climatic pattern that repeats about every 5 years Variations in water temperatures and air pressure in the Pacific Ocean cause El Niño years to be warm and dry, while La Niña years are cooler and wetter These oscillations are felt most strongly in tropical countries, while mid latitude areas are much less affected Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345964.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345964.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-26 01:14:30 - Ars Technica - According to a USA Today op ed from Eagles drummer and singer Don Henley, blocking foreign rogue websites, banning them from search engines, and cutting off their advertising and credit cards is common sense His arguments are neither new nor interesting, but what caught my eye was Henley's truly aggressive language toward those who lack his common sense Henley supports the controversial PROTECT IP Act currently suffering a legislative hold in the Senate thanks to Sen Ron Wyden D OR Those who have issues with the bill include the Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF and Googleand Henley suggests that both are borderline complicit in criminal activity because of their resistance Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345963.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345963.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 23:37:04 - Ars Technica - The Samsung Galaxy S II will not be offered on Verizon Wireless, the company confirmed today At an event next Monday, Samsung will officially announce the highly anticipated launch of the device on the other three major wireless carriers ATT, T Mobile, and Sprint Samsung has high hopes for the Galaxy S II, but neither it nor Verizon is sharing the reasoning behind the sudden lack of desire to work together, even after Samsung's Droid Charge launched on Verizon in May Samsung experienced the highest rate of growth in the smartphone market of any manufacturer over the last year, constituting 13 percent of all smartphone sales But losing the favor of a major carrier in conjunction with a bevy of lawsuits from Apple, including a preliminary injunction against sales of the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Ace smartphones in the European Union, could hinder the company's growth plans The Galaxy S II sold five million units in 85 days after launching in Asia, Europe, and Australia The Sprint version of the phone will retail for 199 with a two year contract Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345895.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345895.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 23:37:04 - Ars Technica - There is something inherently fun that happens when water physics are done well Take, for instance, Wave Race 64 The actual racing is only so so, but when you add the rolling waves and sometimes choppy weather, you have a classic Sprinkle is one of those great 1 apps for iOS and Android devices that may not last long, but the core mechanics are sound, and the splashing, streaming water effects are addictive Splashing the water around the level and watching how well it's modeled is a large part of the fun here, and the act of putting out fires is weirdly calming Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345894.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345894.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 21:58:45 - Ars Technica - The Linux kernel was originally created by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer science student, and first announced to the world on August 25, 1991exactly 20 years ago today At the time, Torvalds described his work as a hobby and contended that it would not be big and professional like the GNU project But the Linux kernel turned out to be one of the most significant pieces of open source software ever developed Over the past two decades, it has grown from a humble hobby project into a global phenomenon that runs on everything from low cost e book readers to a majority of the world's supercomputers Here's how it grew Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345843.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345843.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 21:58:45 - Ars Technica - Ezio has seen better days At the beginning of my demo of Assassin's Creed Revelations, the game that will complete the Italian assassin's story arc, Ezio is beaten and left for dead He struggles to walk and sports a grizzled, graying beard He's far removed from the carefree young man introduced in Assassin's Creed 2 But even in his haggard state, he's still able to get things done it just might not be as smooth as he'd like It doesn't hurt that he's armed with plenty of bombs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345842.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345842.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 21:58:45 - Ars Technica - Neutron stars form from the core of a collapsing star and, as the supernova dissipates, often rotate rapidly, creating a pulsar In less than a million years, however, their strong magnetic fields act as a brake, slowing them down considerably In some cases, however, the neutron star will have a nearby companion, and its gravity is sufficient to start stripping mass off it As the process continues, the neutron star will spin back up, creating what's called a millisecond pulsar In most cases, these companions are still around, visible as a bright star locked in an orbital embrace with a pulsar Now, researchers have spotted one where the star is still there, but not visiblethe neutron star has stripped it down to a crystaline core the size of Jupiter The system in question, which has the catchy name PSR J1719 1438, was identified in a recent survey for pulsars Careful timing observations revealed the influence of a nearby companionvery nearby, given that it orbited the neutron star with a period of only a bit over two hours Given the orbital information and the typical mass of a neutron star, the authors were able to estimate that the orbiting body has a mass somewhere around that of Jupiter But that mass must be highly compact otherwise, given the limited distance between the two, the neutron star would end up gravitationally disrupting its companion The same goes for a helium rich white dwarf star The only thing that the authors calculate could fit into this uncomfortably close orbital configuration is a carbon white dwarf So, they conclude that the planet orbiting the neutron star is simply the core of its previous stellar companion, stripped of most of its mass through the process that spun up the pulsar And, in the last sentence of the paper, they drop a bit of a bombshell The chemical composition, pressure and dimensions of the companion make it certain to be crystallized ie, diamond About 30 percent of the millisencond pulsars we know about don't have a stellar companion, which raises the possibility that there are other Jupiter mass diamonds out there awaiting our discovery However, other fates are possible a bit closer, and the companion star would have been devoured completely, leaving no remnant at all And, in at least one case, a companion star seems to have been torn apart in a way converting it into a disk that has formed three planets that now orbit the neutron star With further observations, we should get a better sense of how common these odd companions areand possibly find something else that's even stranger Science, 2011 DOI 101126 science1208890 About DOIs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345841.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345841.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 20:25:27 - Ars Technica - The Internet is crawling with Jobs reports today Nearly every news aggregator puts Apple's new leadership situation ahead of hurricane Irene evacuations Though always classy AOL promotes the 10 year anniversary of Aaliyah's death and some scandalous Blake Lively pictures instead Finger on the pulse So the CEO torch has been passed to Chief Operating Officer and occasional substitute CEO Tim Cook Visionary founder and leader Steve Jobs takes a strictly strategic role as Chairman of the Board, and may dump his trademark turtlenecks for a Sinatra style tuxedo Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345780.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345780.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 20:25:27 - Ars Technica - RIM has now publicly announced the closed beta of its new BBM Music service Targeted at BlackBerry users who want to share music with their friends, the service costs 5 per month and will allow users to build a music profile with 50 songs at a time Users can swap out up to 25 songs each month for different ones, though the real way to expand the library of music you have access to is to share among other BBM Music users As we reported last week, BBM Music is designed to work with the already existing BlackBerry Messenger system Once users create their 50 song music profiles, they can then begin sharing those songs with other BlackBerry Messenger users and vice versaif users like a song that their friends shared, they can then add it to their own collections Users will also be able to combine songs from their own and friends' profiles in order to create playlists, which are also shareable with friends If they decide to purchase the song as an actual download, the BBM Music app provides direct links to Amazon's MP3 store Although the songs from BBM Music are treated like a subscription that is, they disappear when you cancel the service , they can still be cached to an SD card for offline listening This is not unlike Spotify's own offline mode for Premium subscribers, though a Spotify Premium account costs twice as much per month at 999 than BBM Music currently costs Then again, Spotify at any tier lets you listen to more music at a time than BBM Music, so there is certainly a feature trade off But RIM isn't trying to spin this as a Spotify competitor that lets you listen to every song you've ever wanted to hearrather, the company is trying hard to play up the social music discovery angle, which usually focuses less on old favorites and more on new music The quotes from music labels support that point, with Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music, and EMI all chiming in with the same general sentiment A major component of online music continues to be about community, and the ability to discover new artists and music through word of mouth, Universal Music Group President of Global Digital Business Rob Wells said in a statement BBM Music dynamically and elegantly integrates the excitement of this social music discovery process with a high quality music service, enabling tens of millions of BlackBerry users to experience new music and to share those experiences with their friends virtually anywhere and at anytime Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345779.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345779.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 20:25:27 - Ars Technica - The ancestry of modern humans has gotten much more interesting in recent years Completion of the Neanderthal genome came with a bit of a surprise they may be extinct, but many modern humans carry pieces of their genome, a sign that our ancestors had some rather significant interactions with them About the same time, we learned that there was another group of archaic humans called the Denisovans present in Asia at the same time nine months later, we learned that our ancestors had slept with them, too The evidence came in the form of DNA that was unevenly distributed within modern human populations Modern humans had gotten their start in Africa, but Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA is rare or absent in African populations Instead, it's more common in Asian and European populations, which suggests that interbreeding only took place after modern humans had migrated out of Africa What the study didn't touch on was why DNA sequences from archaic humans is still around Was interbreeding frequent, and the DNA that remains simply present by random chance Or did specific regions end up providing our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage A study that will appear in today's issue of Science indicates that, for at least some sequences, the answer is the latter they're still here because they're useful Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345778.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345778.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 18:44:58 - Ars Technica - Prior to the advent of the Microcomputer of which the Personal Computer is a subset , computing meant getting a slice of time at a communal computer Wait in line, sign up, book your time at the console adjust your pocket protector while waiting Multiuser was the rule because these machines were so costly to make computing was primarily an institutional phenomenon, complete with its own institutional gatekeepers A limited analogy in the early days of computing, practically all you could buy were the equivalent of buses, built and designed for carrying people Only the rich and the crazy would have bought such buses for personal use In this analogy, when the PC came along, it was like suddenly finding cars for sale on the bus lot And they were a fraction of the cost and comparatively user friendly Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345705.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345705.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 18:44:58 - Ars Technica - The CLOUD Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets project at CERN is using the proton synchrotron at the LHC to investigate the controversial link between cosmic rays and cloud formation This weekcontains a paper on the first round of findings Cosmic rays are charged subatomic particles mostly protons that originate outside our solar system The strength of our suns solar wind, which is tied to solar activity, controls how many of those particles penetrate Earths atmosphere When solar activity is high, fewer cosmic rays make it in because they are deflected by the solar wind Several researchers have claimed that changes in cosmic ray flux have a great effect on cloud formation, and thus have a large effect on global temperature, but little is understood about the details of the process The initial findings of the CLOUD experiment dont contain anything earth shattering, and dont really address the possible effects on climate Nevertheless, the experiment is showing some very interesting results Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345704.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345704.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 16:52:02 - Ars Technica - GameStop can be a little defensive about competing efforts to sell games online, much in the same way record shops have few nice things to say about the iTunes Store Yesterday, the company was caught opening copies of Deus Ex Human Revolution on the PC in order to remove a coupon code that would have given customers a free copy of the game via the OnLive streaming service, and then selling the opened copies as new This resulted in a wave of negative press, and GameStop responded in the most reasonable way possible it simply removed all copies of the game from store shelves Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345615.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345615.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 16:52:02 - Ars Technica - Tim Cook has already stepped up to reassure Apple employees that the company isn't going to change, according to an internal e mail seen by Ars Sent early Thursday to all employees in the companythe morning after Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEOCook said working with Jobs and Apple has been the privilege of a lifetime, and that he's looking forward to the years ahead Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345614.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345614.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 15:00:13 - Ars Technica - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is in deep, deep trouble Shareholders are watching co CEOs Balisillie and Lazaridis squander a once bulletproof lead in the smartphone wars, and they want some changes The company is currently looking at a new management structure, but that might be too little, too late More drastic measures seem to be in order Would anybody want to buy the company And if so, what would the buyer get Let's find out Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345543.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345543.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 15:00:13 - Ars Technica - Out, damned spot out, I say declares Lady MacBeth in Act V, Scene I of the famous play Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him If the lady was a Federal Communications Commissioner today, she might be making that rueful comment about the Fairness Doctrine, which the agency says it is going to slay one more time The elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction, declared FCC Chair Julius Genachoswki this week As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago I am pleased we are removing these and other obsolete rules from our books Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345542.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345542.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 03:35:25 - Ars Technica - One of the tenets of Einstein's theory of general relativity is that an observer, carrying out local measurements, cannot determine if they are being accelerated in the absence of gravitational fields or stationary but in the vicinity of a large gravitational field That is to say, if you are in a locked laboratory with no way to examine the outside, you could not tell if you were falling towards Earth, or in the back end of a spaceship speeding up at a rate of 322 feet per second per second Some new thought experiments, however, suggest that the simple act of measuring temperature may throw this truism into turmoilThere are a few caveats First, the gravitational field cannot be so strong, or the reference frame so large, that tidal forces are present a fancy way of saying that the gravitational field does not change over the range of the observable space Second, you can only make a local measurement Einstein proposed the equivalence principle in 1907, a full nine years before his publication of general relativity The idea, however, guided the development of general relativity When combined with Einstein's theory of special relativity, it gave rise to the prediction that clocks will run at different speeds in gravitational fields withdiffering strengths, and that light would be bent bygravitational fields Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345332.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345332.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 03:35:25 - Ars Technica - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised that Windows Phone Mango would include hundreds of new features It looks like another one of those features has emerged, and it's one that Microsoft hasn't talked about before Mango includes support for creating WiFi hotspots that will allow up to five users at a time to share a 3G data connection A screenshot of the feature in action was published by WPCentral this led to speculation that either Mango itself had the capability built in, or that some carriers had devised a custom application to provide a similar facility Then, investigation by Rafael Rivera showed that connection sharing is indeed built in to Mango itself WPCentral reports that the feature works, but perhaps unsurprisingly, burns battery life Not known at this time is how it's enabled, or who will have access The most likely outcome is that it will be one of the many settings that carriers can control The ability to tether to a phone and use it as a hotspot is for many networks an option that must be paid forand enabledon a per user basis Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345331.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345331.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 01:58:11 - Ars Technica - A couple of interesting posts have gone up on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog in the past few days The first talks about USB3 Windows 8 will include native USB3 supportno great surprise therebut the post goes into some of the issues faced ensuring compatibility with the enormous range of USB 1, 2, and 3 devices that are on the market The second takes a look at Explorer's file copying functionality Windows 8 streamlines the dialog boxes to make them easier to manage, more informative, and less intrusive So far, the videos aren't giving much away The second shows a new ribbon based Explorer and gives something of a feel for what Windows 8's traditional desktop will look like, but it looks like, for the moment at least, the Windows 8 immersive touch interface is being kept under wraps Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345274.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345274.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 01:58:11 - Ars Technica - In a surprise announcement Wednesday evening, Apple's Board of Directors announced that Steve Jobs is resigning as CEO of the company Apple's Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, has been named Jobs' successor and plans to begin taking over as CEO effective immediately Steves extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the worlds most innovative and valuable technology company, Apple Board member and Genetech chairman Art Levinson said in a statement Steve has made countless contributions to Apples success, and he has attracted and inspired Apples immensely creative employees and world class executive team In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345273.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345273.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 00:10:35 - Ars Technica - The first Windows Phone Mango handset hits the market tomorrow The Fujitsu Toshiba IS12T has launched in Japan, available under KDDI's au brand The water resistant, dust resistant phone sports a 132 MP camera and 32 GB of storage, and comes in three colors the eye searing citrus and magenta, and a rather more staid black Both GSM and CDMA communications are supported As with most Windows Phones, the devices will include a handful of custom applications These include DLNA media streaming, navigation, a social networking client, and a custom e mail app The timing of the launch is a little surprising The Windows Phone Marketplace only started accepting Mango submissions yesterday there are scant few Mango aware applications currently available, and that situation is unlikely to change substantially before the phone's release tomorrow No other carrier has announced any Mango devices yet, nor have any announcements been made as to when existing users will be able to upgrade Even the imminent launch of the IS12T hasn't prompted Microsoft to be any more forthcoming with upgrade information Mango is all but essential for phones selling to the Japanese market, as it's the first version of Windows Phone to include support for non Latin character sets Mango includes support for, among others, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean input This dependence is no doubt what prompted Fujitsu Toshiba to launch with Mango rather than the current released build The release underscores that it's ultimately the carriers who are in charge of Windows Phone's availability KDDI is happy that it's good enough, so is launching the phone Everyone else just has to wait The software was finished weeks agobut when it gets into users' hands is anyone's guess One data point worth considering build 7392, a security update for the NoDo copy and paste release, still isn't available universally ATT and Verizon are both holding back according to Microsoft And build 7392 was released on May 3rd Windows Phone's users could have a long wait ahead of them Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345201.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345201.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-25 00:10:35 - Ars Technica - I've just about managed to stuff all those gloopy spare bits of brain back into my skull, but it took a while I blame Harold Ford Jr and John Sununu, the ex politicians now shilling for the ISP backed Broadband for America, for blowing my mind Their most recent op ed, which takes shaky aim at Netflix, must be one of the dumbest such pieces I have ever readand I have read a lot of them I would not absolutely swear that their Mercury News piece makes any coherent points, though vestigial traces of argument run through the post, going nowhere The overriding idea is that Netflix must hand over wads of cash to Internet providers 83 million a year being a nice round number Netflix didn't get where it is today by handing out 83 million checks to anyone who asks, but the argumentsuch as it issays that we need a new payment scheme that's socially responsible and fair Translation Netflix is a dirty freeloader that quite possibly reeks of marijuana smoke Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345200.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345200.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 22:15:50 - Ars Technica - Mozilla has launched an ambitious new project aimed at breaking down the proprietary app systems on today's mobile devices The project, dubbed WebAPI, is Mozilla's effort to provide a consistent, cross platform, web based API for mobile app developers Using WebAPI, developers would write HTML5 applications rather than native apps for iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms Mozilla isn't just talking about WebAPI, it's already hard at work and plans to develop the APIs necessary to provide a basic HTML5 phone experience within six months After that, the APIs will be submitted to the W3C for standardization Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345105.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345105.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 22:15:50 - Ars Technica - Space Pirates and Zombies is certainly one of the most ambitious PC indie releases to emerge this year Developed by Minmax Games, which is composed of two gentlemen and the contents of their pockets, SPAZ is the definition of a labor of love It combines multiple genres and ideas, creating an amalgamation of twin stick shooters, RPGs, and space exploration It's a wonderful title, but it's marred by some technical issues Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345104.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345104.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 20:11:55 - Ars Technica - Google has agreed to forfeit 500 million generated from Canadian pharmacies targeting US customers through its AdWords program, the US Department of Justice announced today The money represents revenue received by Google from the pharmacies as well as from unlawful sales made by the pharmacies to customers in the US Generally, it is illegal for pharmacies to ship controlled and non controlled prescription drugs into the United States from Canada, the DOJ states Google acknowledged this as early as 2003, and yet allowed Canadian pharmacies to entice US customers to buy prescription drugs from their sites via AdWords advertising Transactions like these, with rare exception, violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because the shipped drugs are not FDA approved The problem is compounded by the fact that Canadian pharmacies shipping drugs to the US aren't even subject to Canadian regulations, so the pharmacies can sell drugs from countries other than Canada that meet neither Canada's regulations, nor the FDA's Google even provided customer support to the Canadian pharmacies, advising them on how to effectively place their AdWords ads The company is now taking responsibility for the prescription drug rabbit hole it dug, and will forfeit a total of 500 million to cover both its own and the pharmacies' offenses Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345033.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345033.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 20:11:55 - Ars Technica - Apple has been awarded a preliminary injunction barring Samsung from importing, distributing, or selling its Galaxy S, Galaxy SII, and Ace smartphones in the European Union Samsung must halt sales of the devices by October 13 in the EU, though its Galaxy Tab devices aren't affected for the time being Apple launched an all out attack on Samsung earlier this year, accusing the company of slavishly copying the design of the iPhone and iPad for its own smartphones and tablets in a US lawsuit The dispute has since spilled over into 19 separate legal actions in nine different countries around the world, including Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, UK, Japan, South Korea, and Australia Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345032.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345032.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 20:11:55 - Ars Technica - If you purchase your copy of Deus Ex Human Revolution at a retail store, you're supposed to receive a code that allows you to play the game for free using the online gaming service OnLive It's a neat giveaway, and it certainly gives gamers an incentive to try the service, but a leaked memo seems to show GameStop's fear of digital delivery employees are allegedly being asked to open every game and remove the coupon The e mail came from Josh Ivanoff, a Field Operations Manager with GameStop Please immediately remove and discard the On Live sic coupon from all regular PC versions of Deus Ex Human Revolution, the memo states Our desire is to not have this coupon go to any customers after this announcement Here's a copy of the letter, with Mr Ivanoff's contact information removed OnLive Spot We contacted Ivanoff on his business line and e mail, and he refused to comment on the memo, instead asking us to take the issue up with public relations GameStop spokesperson Beth Sharum confirmed the practice, telling Ars that Square Enix packed the competitors coupon with our DXHR product without our prior knowledge and we did pull these coupons Some customers are reporting that they've bought the game at GameStop and received the coupon, while others are saying the coupon was missing A comment on Joystiq alleged that the reasoning behind this move was to avoid sending customers to OnLive, as GameStop is making a strong push into the digital market itself If true, this is bad news for customers GameStop employees would have to open every new copy of this game and throw away a free copy of the game that was meant for customers to be in compliance For now, if you absolutely must buy the game from a GameStop location, either make sure the game is sealed, or check for the coupon before leaving the location Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345031.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345031.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 20:11:55 - Ars Technica - Malaria might be the most widely recognized mosquito borne disease, but it's hardly the only one Dengue fever, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, strikes 50 million people annually, and is endemic to over 100 countries It's not often fatal but it does require medical intervention and, with that many infected individuals, even a low rate of mortality can add up As with malaria, Dengue control generally focuses on its mosquito vectors, which can be challenging Now, researchers have developed a way to keep the Dengue virus out of the mosquitoes infect them with a bacterial parasite that protects its host from competing infections The bacteria were even shown to be effective in a field test near Cairns, Australia Most approaches directed toward controlling the mosquitoes that carry viruses tend to run into problems because they simply kill the mosquitoes Unless spraying is done continuously, however, mosquitoes will return from nearby areas, and the process creates a strong selective pressure that has driven the evolution of resistance to insecticides There have been a few ideas about how mosquito control might be done through biological agents, but most of these would kill the mosquitoes too, and are likely to run into the same problems Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345030.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345030.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 20:11:55 - Ars Technica - Time Warner Cable will start offering subsidized Slingboxes to subscribers of its Wideband Internet service, the New York Times reports today The move relieves some the tension Slingbox has created with cable providers, but may exacerbate the company's conflicts with programmers like Viacom that have already flared up from Time Warner's iPad app The company will cover the full 300 cost of a Slingbox HD via a rebate, allowing customers to watch cable on their computers as well as the TV The move may become a point of contention with cable programmers that objected to Time Warner's recent release of an iPad app that allows customers to watch cable channels on the tablet Time Warner counters programmer's arguments by saying it has the right to broadcast on all the screens in a subscriber's home The TWC iPad app can only be watched when connected to the subscriber's Time Warner provided home network, fitting Time Warner's restriction however, Slingboxes typically allow users to watch TV on their devices regardless of what network they are connected to If the Slingboxes are able to broadcast outside the home, the screens in the home definition stands to be stretched out of shape Time Warner did not respond to requests for comment on whether the Slingboxes' slinging capabilities will be restricted With the Slingbox promotion, Time Warner is really trying to emphasize Wideband as a mainstream product, Jeffrey A Hirsch, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Time Warner Cable, told the Times The company's Wideband Internet connection provides 50Mbps downloads, 5Mbps uploads, and costs 9995 per month as a standalone service Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345029.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/345029.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 18:12:46 - Ars Technica - I will admit that the headline is a little bit of a trollWarhammer fans are notoriously punchy about making sure people understand their game influenced StarCraft and Gears, not the other way aroundbut we also live in a world where Gears of War is seen as the master of the bulky space marines killing things genre It's one thing to know that Warhammer has been profoundly influential in the world of gaming and miniatures, but the game still has to stand out among games that took its core concepts and made them popular Luckily, Space Marine does this with little problem While the screenshots may look like Gears of War in some ways, the gameplay itself is pure Warhammer Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344946.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344946.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 18:12:46 - Ars Technica - The iPad and AirPlay are being credited for reversing a decline in iTunes' online movie share by getting more people experimenting with media Market analysis firm IHS says that iTunes' share of consumer spending on online movies went up during the first half of 2011, reflecting the first increase for iTunes since 2009 The data comes via the IHS Screen Digest Media Research report hat tip to iSuppli , which puts Apple and iTunes in the number one spot658 percent of the market in the first half of 2011when it comes to movie electronic sell through EST and Internet video on demand iVOD The Zune Video Marketplace ranks second at 162 percent, while Wal Mart's Vudu offering comes in third at 53 percent Year over year, iTunes gained almost one full percentage point in market share the Zune Video Marketplace declined by almost two percentage points and Wal Mart VUDU increased by more than four Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344945.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344945.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 16:16:23 - Ars Technica - Windows Phone developersincluding webOS refugeescan now submit applications with Mango specific enhancements and features for inclusion on Marketplace, the Windows Phone app store Apps which make use of Mango's limited multitasking, richer device integration, networking and sensor capabilities should start populating the store in the next few weeks The Windows Phone SDK has also been updated, and the new version71 Release Candidateis required for application submissions The final SDK is due at the end of September Those new Mango apps will join the 29,000 odd already published TechCrunch reported that Marketplace had reached 30,000 apps, claiming to have received a statement from Microsoft that read all 30,000 Windows Phone apps and game titles will run on Mango The Microsoft blog post announcing that Marketplace was open for submissions claimed merely nearly 30,000 Either way, it's a creditable performance for an underdog operating system The final version of Zune 48betas of which were used to install the Mango prereleaseshas been rolled out, in advance of the release of Mango It includes faster phone backups, quicker updates, 48 hour movie rentals, and it extends the parental controls to include M rated mature content Microsoft has also produced a chart showing which Zune services are available where Mango will make Windows Phone and its Marketplace much more widely available, but there are still plenty of gaps when it comes to the ability to purchase music and videos through Zune The exact release date of Mango still isn't known September 1 is a popular rumor, with HTC planning an event for that date to launch some new handsets, but Microsoft remains tight lipped In spite of Mango still not being on the market, talk of a update to Mango, named Tango, is growing a little louder According to We Love WPhk, Microsoft described Tango at an MSDN seminar The release is a minor one, aimed predominantly at emerging markets Exactly what this entails for Mango is unclear one possibility is that Tango will expand the operating system's hardware support, perhaps to include different screen resolutions or processors The next major update had its name confirmed as Apollo Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344877.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344877.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 14:25:15 - Ars Technica - Idols used to be hulking things, creatures of wood and metal that lived in temples dark with a terrible holiness Now they're sold by Apple and fit in our pockets So says Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University history professor, in the latest issue of the Catholic magazine Commonweal His piece, subtitled Of Idolatry iPhones, makes his conclusion quite clear Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344823.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344823.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 05:26:16 - Ars Technica - Andrew Hume was a game developer working on Sega Soccer Slam for smallish developer Black Box Studio, and he loved itfor a while Life in a small independent studio was pretty much perfect, he told me I was working with happy and talented industry veterans Hume knew he was green, but he enjoyed the work and how much he was learning He whistled on the way to the office That ended, though, he said Black Box was enjoying success and at that point had over 100 employees The studio seemed on the cusp of great things and the major publishers took notice EA purchased the company The culture was not destroyed overnight, but the place went from a frat house to an obvious place of cold business, Hume said Many people left the company and new employees were brought over from EA Hume felt like a cog in the machine and grew so disillusioned by the job he quit suddenly one day, without anything to fall back on Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344644.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344644.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 02:25:53 - Ars Technica - Shoot Many Robots is a promising side scrolling shooter, and a title we have been keeping an eye on The game is scheduled to be released on the 360, PS3, and PC as a digital download, and it was just announced that it will be published by Ubisoft This is not good news for those of us hoping to play the game on the PC In fact, I tweeted something along those lines yesterday, which rankled Demiurge Studio's Albert Reed Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344579.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344579.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 00:46:18 - Ars Technica - Sprint will be the next carrier to offer the iPhone to customers in the US, according to sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal The carrier will begin offering the iPhone 5 in October alongside ATT and Verizon, both of which are also expected to begin selling the device mid month, though it is believed that Sprint will also carry the iPhone 4, bolstering earlier rumors that Apple would keep around the iPhone 4 as the new low cost replacement for the iPhone 3GS Rumors about a Sprint iPhone aren't newwe first began hearing about it in May of this year, followed by news that Apple and Sprint were allegedly already testing an iPhone on Sprint's CDMA network And although the WSJ's sources made no specific mention of T Mobilethe fourth major carrier in the USit's possible that it doesn't matter The latest buzz about the next generation iPhone claims that it will be a dual mode world phone, meaning that it will be compatible with both GSM ATT and T Mobile and CDMA Verizon and Sprint networks The Journal also notes that the October timeframe is about a month later than the majority of the iPhone 5 rumors being bandied about This much is truemany folks have been claiming that the device will launch in September, though sources speaking to All Things D have repeatedly said that the launch would take place in October The latest report only adds fuel to that dispute, though we're inclined to believe that Apple might announce the device in September for an October rollout Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344489.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344489.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 00:46:18 - Ars Technica - From a certain perspective, the Universe looks as smooth and uninteresting as a billiard ballthe smoothest billiard ball ever made What do I mean by this The radiation from the Big Bang, now so deeply red shifted that it is microwave radiation, looks pretty much the same no matter where we look This cosmic microwave background CMB is so smooth that the WMAP satellite, designed to look for lumps in this background, had to have unbelievable sensitivity to successfully see any One consequence of this smooth background is that the observable Universe had to have undergone a period of very rapid expansion, referred to as inflation In current mainstream models, where dark energy and inflation are strapped on like a sort of prosthetic, there is just one Universe, and being alone, it can't collide with anything But in models derived from string theory, dark energy and inflation turn up naturally, which is nice The catch is that, in these models, our Universe might not be alone Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344488.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344488.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 00:46:18 - Ars Technica - During today's magnitude 58 earthquake in Virginia, perceptible shaking was reported as far away as South Carolina and Maine So why doesn't the same thing happen during California's much more frequent earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault It comes down to a difference in crust Density and temperature are primary controls on how far seismic waves can propagate through rock before dissipating On the East Coast, the continental crust is older, colder, and denser The coastline hasn't been tectonically active since Pangaea split apart, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth Contrast that with the West Coast, which is still tectonically active today, from the San Andreas Fault in Southern California to the subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest West of the Rockies, the continent has been undergoing extension for the past 17 million years or so That has stretched the crust, making it thinner and bringing hot mantle rock closer to the surface, which has warmed things up Because of these differences, shaking can be transmitted much further about three times the distance through the colder, denser eastern crust Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344487.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344487.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-24 00:46:18 - Ars Technica - If Hewlett Packard sells off some or all of its non printing consumer hardware business, the most likely buyer is probably Samsung And the Korean hardware giant has reportedly reached out to Taiwanese notebook vendors to explore just that Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344486.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344486.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 23:03:53 - Ars Technica - In recent years, the courts have struggled to decide whether the government needs a warrant to access historical records about a cell phone user's location Some courts have found that when users turn on their cell phones, they voluntarily transmit their location to their cell phone providers and thereby waive any expectation of privacy On Monday, Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District of New York soundly rejected this line of reasoning The federal government had asked the courts to order Verizon Wireless to turn over 113 days of location data about a suspect's cell phone It did so under a provision of the Stored Communications Act that only requires law enforcement to show that the records are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344412.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344412.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 23:03:53 - Ars Technica - Facebook has made a number of changes to its privacy settings to make it easier to limit shared items to certain groups, bringing it more in line with the privacy focused Google In a Facebook Blog post, the company outlined how to use the slightly modified features to limit who can see various parts of your profile and wall posts, and even put permanent limits on who can tag you in photos The changes are slowly rolling out to Facebook users in the coming days Facebook was once known for its extensive privacy controls compared to MySpace, but over the years, the company's reputation in this area has diminished thanks to an increased focus on pushing users to connect to more people and share more information Most of Facebook's granular controls have remained stuck deep within the bowels of its privacy settings, however, where only the most curious of users have managed to discover them Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344411.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344411.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 23:03:53 - Ars Technica - At the Google I O conference earlier this year, Google revealed that the Android Market would come to the Google TV set top platform Some evidence of the Honeycomb based Google TV refresh surfaced in June when screenshots from developer hardware were leaked Google TV development is now being opened to a broader audience In a post on the official Google TV blog, the search giant has announced the availability of a Google TV add on for the Android SDK The add on is an early preview that will give third party developers an opportunity to start porting their applications to Google TV The SDK add on will currently only work on Linux desktop systems because it relies on Linux's native KVM virtualization system to provide a Google TV emulator Google says that other environments will be supported in the future Unlike the conventional phone and tablet versions of Android, which are largely designed to run on ARM devices, the Google TV reference hardware uses x86 hardware The architecture difference might account for the lack of support in Android's traditional emulator We are planning to put the SDK add on to the test later this week so we can report some hands on findings We suspect that the KVM based emulator will offer better performance than the conventional Honeycomb emulator that Google's SDK currently provides for tablet development In addition to the SDK add on, Google has also published a detailed user interface design guideline document that offers insight into best practices for building a 10 foot interface that will work will on Google TV hardware The document addresses a wide range of issues, including D pad navigation and television color variance The first iteration of Google TV flopped in the market and didn't see much consumer adoption Introducing support for third party applications could make Google TV significantly more compelling to consumers The ability to trivially run applications like Plex could make Google TV a lot more useful It's also worth noting that Android's recently added support for game controllers and other similar input devices could make Google TV hardware serve as a casual gaming console Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344410.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344410.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 21:15:32 - Ars Technica - Information gleaned from an iOS developer's activity logs show a suspected next generation iPhone model connected to both Verizon's and ATT's networks This is the first evidence that Apple's next gen iPhone will indeed be dual mode On top of that, sources within Apple's Asian supply chain expect the updated phone to be released in September along with an 8GB iPhone 4 model to replace the budget iPhone 3GS Developers often collect anonymous usage logs about their apps which help them learn how the apps are used and with what devices or OS versions One developer told TechCrunch that a device believed to be a next generation iPhone running iOS 5 showed up in recent usage logs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344328.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344328.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 21:15:32 - Ars Technica - Google has done right by the staff of Ars in many ways In particular, we like the private discussions afforded by circles and not having to pretend to be friends with a bunch of people we just don't know But there are other parts of the service that seem half baked or are problematic, and there's almost nothing that the little red notification box does that isn't annoying We know it's a free service, but given that the staff has already sunk a hefty amount of time sorting everyone we know into circles, we have some interest in seeing the service improve Google here are our suggestions on how to improve Google Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344327.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344327.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 19:22:16 - Ars Technica - A month ago, a physics meeting that took place in France provided some of the first results in the LHC's hunt for the Higgs boson, a particle that is theorized to provide mass Based on theory, we don't know what mass the Higgs might be, but we do know what it might decay into, so researchers have been looking for signs of these decays across a broad range of massesNow, India is hosting the Lepton Photon meeting, and the talk is again about this boson And, for the moment, we're not much closer to knowing whether it exists The search for the Higgs involves modeling what sort of particles known processes generate at specific energies because e mc2, these energies correspond to masses We can then compare that to what is actually seen in the detectors If the detectors see the predicted number of the particles at a given mass energy, we can exclude that from further consideration If we see an excess, then this might indicate that the Higgs resides at this mass Both detectors at the LHC, ATLAS and CMS, have increased the amount of data they have run through this analysis pipeline more data from this year are now included Each has identified ranges of mass that they can say don't hold the Higgs with a 95 percent certainty For example, CMS hasn't been able to eliminate the possibility that the Higgs is between 216 and 226GeV, but the ATLAS team hasThe combined results indicate that the Higgs can only reside between 115 and 145Gev and 288 and 296GeV That still leavesthe area around 140GeV open, where a signal a few standard deviations above background was apparent in last month's data Now, however, that signal in ATLAS' data has dropped to just two standard deviations above background it remains larger in the data from CMS So, things are looking a bit less promising there CMS indicates its analysis used anywhere between one and 17 inverse femtobarns, a measure that corresponds to the total number of collisions analyzed Some of that data was obtained last year, and it's only a slight boost from last month's figures There's much more data on the way, as the detectors have recorded 25 inverse femtobarns this year alone We're definitely at the point where there will be very little room for the Higgs to hide by the time all the data from this year's run is analyzed Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344224.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344224.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 19:22:16 - Ars Technica - Deus Ex Human Revolution may be one of the best reviewed games of the year, enjoying almost universal acclaim The game does a wonderful job of reminding us why we loved Deus Ex, while updating both the graphics and the mechanics of the original There is one sticking point that seems to be annoying some critics, however the forced battles that take place when you encounter a boss character Here all illusion of choice is gone All playing styles are abandoned Playing as someone killing no one, learning that the first fight at least, early on in the game, forces me to kill a man almost put me off the game entirely, John Walker wrote in the wonderful Rock Paper Shotgun review Despite only using stuns, EMPs and tranqs on him, I was still treated to a cutscene of a man covered in bullet wounds and blood, gasping his last words as he died Not having a choice in this matter is annoying, but it may also be the point of these boss fights Allow me to explain Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344223.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344223.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 17:28:03 - Ars Technica - When I think of Sprint, I don't think of performance phones I think of BlackBerries and ruggedized flip phones meant for use on construction sites, despite the launch of the HTC Evo 4G on the network over a year ago With the Motorola Photon 4G launch just a few days ago, Sprint continues to diversify slowlythe Photon is a performance handset with a big battery to withstand even the demands of a 4G network But the Photon is at best a good option for a dedicated Sprint customer, and we don't see it drawing much new blood to the network The Photon 4G has a 43 inch qHD 540x960 screen backed by a 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM The rubberized back and beveled edges make the phone comfortable to hold, despite the sizable screen The Photon's body is light for its size and the design is similar to the Motorola Atrix 4G, though it's thicker and has cut corners, making its front an octagon Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344148.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344148.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 17:28:03 - Ars Technica - The search for the earliest evidence of life on Earth has become pretty contentious in recent years In 1993, a paper announced the discovery of fossil microbes in 35 billion year old rocks from Australia A few years later, a paper claimed to show isotopic evidence for the presence of life in 38 billion year old rocks from a considerably colder placecoastal Greenland While these dates have widely been used to mark the first life on Earth, considerable debate about the strength of the evidence for organisms persists Other researchers proposed possible alternatives to living things that would explain the isotopic data involving chemical alteration during metamorphism and microfossils mineral structures So neither finding was a slam dunk on its ownRecently, however, new evidence has appeared to increase our confidence in the existence of life at these early times Last year, a paper showed strong evidence for 32 billion year old fossil microbes This week in Nature Geoscience, a paper, written in part by one of the critics of the work from the 1990s, purports to push that date back to 34 billion years Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344147.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344147.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 17:28:03 - Ars Technica - Ever since PlayStation Home launched Sony, has been toying with different ways to incorporate games into its virtual world, with various levels of success Now the company has announced that the entire service will be completely redesigned to put the focus almost entirely on games According to Home director Jack Buser, the redesign will represent the service's change from a social network to a social game platform Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344146.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/344146.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-23 01:39:56 - Ars Technica - A federal judge today found the online music locker service MP3tunes and its founder Michael Robertson liable for copyright infringement On paper, that's a victory for lead plaintiff EMI and its fellow record labels But the judge's decision leaves them with little else to cheer about Robertson is a serial entrepreneur and perpetual thorn in the side of the recording industry His first company, MP3com, was shut down by the labels a decade ago MP3tunes has a number of innovative features, including a search engine called sideloadcom that allows users to find music on the Web and transfer it directly to their lockers The recording industry argues that music locker sites are illegal without licenses from copyright holders, and they sued MP3tunes in 2007 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343761.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343761.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 23:50:52 - Ars Technica - Street Fighter 3 Third Strike is one of most respected fighting games ever released the name is spoken in hallowed tones in the world of competitive play I do not live in the world of competitive play, and I suspect you do not either What the Online Edition release gives us is the ability to play a once rare game for 15 and to see what everyone finds so impressive The game is packed with features and options Just like in the arcade release, there is a series of dip switches available to adjust the gameplay, allowing you to change the moves and options available to the characters You can upload your videos to YouTube to share with others, or search for impressive matches to watch and work on your own technique You can apply a few different filters to update the graphics, but this is going to look like an older game While there is either a blocky look or an artificial seeming smoothness to the experience depending on how you set up the graphics, the animations and character of each fighter remains impressive and fun to watch You can even simulate the curve of an arcade screen if that's your thing The tutorial system will also give you a good tool for getting up to speed and working on your fighting chops This game isn't impenetrable as much as its challenging, especially if you're coming to it as a brand new player Expect to practice, in a way that feels almost like study, if you're hoping to be competitive online The mechanics are satisfying and deep, including the parry system that allows you to block without taking damage It's hard to properly review a release like this, but it's clear that Capcom spent a good amount of time putting together a complete package to celebrate a game that's so loved, and all the care makes it an attractive way to play the game on a modern system or try it for the first time This may not appeal to everyone, but there is much to love here, and now it's available to everyone who has a PS3 or 360, for only 15 That's worth celebrating Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition will be available on the PS3 on August 22, and the 360 on August 23 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343699.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343699.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 23:50:52 - Ars Technica - The Recording Industry Association of America has appealed a judge's decision to slash the damages award levied against Jammie Thomas Rasset for copyright infringement from 15 million to 54,000 one month ago The reduction in the amount of the award spurred the RIAA to question whether certain terms in the Copyright Act were misinterpreted and need further examinationspecifically, the word distribution Thomas Rasset and the RIAA have been fighting the same copyright battle since 2007 over 24 songs she shared over the KaZaA P2P network At first Thomas Rasset was ordered by a jury to pay 192 million, or 222,000 per song A second trial ended up with a 15 million verdict, which federal judge Michael Davis then slashed to 54,000 total one month ago, saying the higher amount was unconstitutional Now the RIAA is appealing the case in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St Louis, saying that the court's failure to classify Thomas Rasset's actions as a distribution under 106 3 of the Copyright Act wouldn't deter her and others, presumably from repeating her actions and violating the Copyright Act again The RIAA is hoping to vacate the jury's verdict based on the interpretation of distribution, which would result in a third trial Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343698.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343698.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 23:50:52 - Ars Technica - Most of us will never see the vibrant Gomortega keulean endangered flowering tree that produces sweet, lemon colored fruits The narrow slice of Chilean forest where G keule abides is being cleared for farms and industrial pine plantations, and even if the remaining trees survive, G keule faces many obstacles on the road to recovery Seed germination has a low success rate, vegetative propagation is difficult, and planted trees grow slowly You would think that protecting native forest from timber plantations would be a top priority, as would habitat restoration near remaining G keule stands But these arent the options discussed in a recent paper by Oxford University plant biologist David Boshier and his colleague Tonya Lander, of the National Institute of Agronomic Research in France In a paper published by Current Biology, the researchers make a counter intuitive case for pine plantations If it werent for these non native industrial forests, G keule populations might not be as fragmented and reliant upon long distance pollination Yet when comparing clear cuts, small farms, and pine plantations, the latter may offer an unexpected ecological functionaccording to the findings, pine plantations increase the likelihood of G keule pollination simply because pollinators pass through them quickly Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343697.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343697.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 22:11:39 - Ars Technica - When it comes to most stages of the educational pipeline, African Americans in the US are behind their Caucasian peers fewer complete high school or college and much less go on to complete a PhD program But, according to a past study, once they get a faculty position at a research institution, things go color blind, and blacks are just as likely to be granted tenure This would suggest that any efforts made towards increasing minority participation in the sciences really would need to focus on the earlier steps of education But the same group that examined tenure decisions has now looked at the probability of obtaining grants, and found that blacks are significantly less likely to obtain funding from the National Institutes of Health The study looked at the primary NIH grant for biomedical research, the R01, examining all funding decisions between 2000 and 2006, a period that included over 80,000 grant applications from over 40,000 individual investigators Although the committee that evaluates the grants receives no demographic information, the authors were able to figure out this information from other sources in most cases, and check whether racial identity correlated with success in obtaining funding To their surprise, it did African Americans were 13 percent less likely to get an R01, and Asians four percent less likely, compared to whites Hispanics trailed whites slightly, but not by a significant margin There are many potential confounding factors when it comes to grant success, and the authors looked at a variety of them For Asians, most of the effect seemed to be the result of a bias against those who were born and educated outside the US This could be explained in part by basic writing skillsnot having grown up with English as a primary language could limit someone's ability to convey complex ideas An lack of familiarity with foreign schools on the part of grant reviewers could also end up hurting grant applicants A variety of other factors, like previous NIH grant experience, publication record, and the institution where the applicant works, were also included in the analysis Many of these played a small but significant role in influencing funding decisions But, when all of them are accounted for, African Americans still trailed whites by roughly 10 percent The authors suggest a few areas, like previous training, are probably worth looking into in more detail, notably previous training and access to resources, but are at a loss to explain the full effect Even though racial information isn't included with the grant evaluation, the authors were able to assign over 90 percent of the applicants to a specific racial group, so it's possible that the grant reviewers would come across the same information in the process of examining an application Nevertheless, that seems unlikely to occur at a high enough rate to account for the 10 percent gap, either As a result, it seems likely that differences earlier in the education pipeline are causing a lingering effect that we can't currently identify Science, 2011 DOI 101126 science1196783 About DOIs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343619.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343619.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 20:14:35 - Ars Technica - Alleged replacement parts for the iPhone 5 have already popped up on a part supplier's website, despite the fact that the device hasn't yet been announced However, if the parts are realand by appearances, they seem to bethe next generation iPhone will likely be more evolutionary than revolutionary TVC Mall, a Shenzhen based electronic parts wholesaler, is already listing replacement camera module, battery, and audio jack cable parts for what is labeled as iPhone 5 The parts have some superficial physical differences when compared against the iPhone 4, however In particular, the battery has an ever so slightly higher 53Whr capacity The camera module appears to have some slight cosmetic differences, though none that would reveal whether Apple is bumping the resolution to a rumored 8MP or sticking with the current 5MP The audio jack cable seems the most physically different from existing parts for the iPhone 4, but those changes don't really tell us much iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens confirmed to MacRumors that the part numbers for the purported replacement parts were at least plausible, even if he couldn't verify their authenticity If these are indeed parts for an iPhone 5, it does suggest that the design won't be radically different from the existing iPhone 4 Some rumors have pointed to a completely different form factor for the next gen iPhone, while others suggest a more conservative update with largely internal changes, similar to the iPhone 3GS The less radical approach is the one we believe Apple is most likely to take for this revision We expect Apple will include an updated A5 processor in a form factor largely identical to the current iPhone 4 Other possible enhancements include the aforementioned camera resolution bump, dual mode Qualcomm baseband, and NFC hardware, possibly for an iTunes based mobile payment service Since Apple's most recent hardware updates include support for the latest low energy Bluetooth 40 standard, we also believe support will show up in the iPhone as well The next generation iPhone will likely be announced in September, perhaps as early as September 7 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343533.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343533.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 20:14:35 - Ars Technica - Apple's testing of LTE isn't just limited to an internal iOS build as was theorized last weekreferences to LTE have now been found buried within certain developer builds of iOS 5 Highlighted by MacRumors over the weekend, a property list plist file found on the GSM iPhone 4 and CDMA iPad 2 shows that Apple has incorporated LTE testing into its Fieldtest application, which is used by engineers performing various radio frequency tests out in the field Two LTE related tidbits came down the Apple rumor pipeline last week The first was evidence found within what was then referred to as an internal iOS build, indicating that Apple was indeed testing such 4G compatibility in a future version of the iPhone This was bolstered by a leaked photo of LTE equipment belonging to ATT that was supposedly being installed in at least one major Apple Store Neither rumor stated unequivocally that LTE support would necessarily come in the next version of the iPhone, but the appearance of the ATT equipment was, at the very least, a curious development, indicating that Apple and ATT may be further along in their plans than the rest of us thought The most recent discovery of LTE references within some versions of the Fieldtest application raises doubts about whether the internal iOS build from last week was indeed internal, or rather just the public developer version of iOS 5 Still, there's no denying the fact that it's in there, and when combined with a recent Apple job listing looking for LTE engineers, it's clear that the high speed LTE connection is on Apple's priority list for its iDevices Like MacRumors, however, we share the skepticism that an LTE iPhone will be available to the public anytime before 2012 In addition to comments from Apple about difficulty working with LTE chips, the rumors themselves have remained quiet on this front until very recently And, like we said last week, most of the latest iPhone 5 4S rumors have not mentioned LTE support, leading us to believe that Apple's LTE plans are being tested for products that we'll see next year, maybe beginning with the iPad 3 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343532.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343532.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 20:14:35 - Ars Technica - In the wake of HP's decision to end development of its own webOS powered hardware, and considerable doubts over the operating system's future, Microsoft has been offering webOS developers what they need to be successful on its own Windows Phone platform Microsoft's Brandon Watson tweeted on Friday that phones, development tools, and training were all on offer to webOS developers looking for a new platform to work on Watson has been overwhelmed by the response So far, close to 1,000 webOS developers have got in contact with him The only stipulation is that the developers must have had their applications published in webOS's App Catalog This is the latest in a series of promotions by Watson to win over both users and developers alike Similar offers have been extended to high profile developers on other platforms, including iPhone jailbreaker George geohot Hotz Watson has also offered Windows Phone hardware to celebrities that have publicly berated their iPhones or Android handsets Most recently, Dilbert author Scott Adams was given a Windows Phone, with Watson promising to make a 1,000 donation to a charity of Adams' choice if he didn't like it The good news for Microsoftthough not for whichever charity Adams would have supportedwas that Adams concluded, If you want a smartphone that is easy to use, performs well, has a good battery life, and doesn't frustrate you, the Windows phone is the best choice of the three options iPhone 3GS, HTC EVO 3D, Samsung Focus I tested All you give up is some hipster credibility and access to lesser used apps Under HP's stewardship, webOS lacked two main things corporate backing, and users There's no doubt that Microsoft is heavily backing Windows Phonesomething HP failed to doand its developer outreach continues to be second to none Users remain an issue, but the company is clearly in this for the long haul an HP style cut and run isn't on the cards Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343531.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343531.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 20:14:35 - Ars Technica - In 2007, a teacher in California was sued over disparaging comments he made about among other things the lack of scientific reasoning behind creationism, a religiously motivated attempt to interpret biological data in light of the biblical narrative Today, the Ninth Circuit's Court of Appeals has ended the suit, leaving the teacher with nothing but his legal bills But the decision isn't exactly the victory for science education it's being reported as The comments took place in a history class, weren't the subject of the appeal, and the teacher was cleared primarily because there isn't any precedent availablea situation that this decision will leave in place The background of the case is pretty straightforward Dr James Corbett was the only Advanced Placement European history teacher in California's Capistrano Valley High School The course requirements dictated that he had to discuss how religion influenced European society, including its declining role in the public square and its somewhat awkward interactions with the scientific revolution But Corbett had also sent a letter home to his students, indicating that Discussion will be quite provocative and My goal is to have you go home with something that will provoke discussion with your parents Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343530.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343530.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 18:18:33 - Ars Technica - Google has begun verifying the accounts of high profile users and publicly flagging them as such next to the users' names, the company announced today Now when users visit the page of a celebrity or public figure, there will be checkmark next to the name once it has been verified, and Google hopes to extend the program to many more users Google has made waves recently with its policy regarding fake accounts The company insists that every Google profile must bear the real name of the same person operating the account, an approach that Facebook expressed public support for recently The verifications will only appear on the profiles of public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of circles, said Wen Ai Yu, a member of the Google team, said in an introduction video But that's just for now, Yu says we're working on expanding this to more people in the future For those of you trying to figure out whether that's really Lindsay Lohan's Google page, the checkmark that appears next to a verified account will roll out the text verified name when moused over Google did not respond immediately to requests for comment on how it verifies profiles, or what the current minimum number of circles is for a profile to require verification Still, Google's wording in the introduction suggests a future where users can request account verification for personal reasons, unlike Twitter The future of the program could also be more sinister a Google where all users must be prepared to back up their identities with some kind of proof, or else cede the service as a social networking ground Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343458.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343458.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 18:18:33 - Ars Technica - In the mid 1970s I worked in one of the first Sam Goody record stores Back then Sam actually owned the places and we carried a lot of obscure, off label classical content One day someone phoned in to ask if we had a particularly rare item We talked about what she wanted for a moment, and I complemented her on her taste Thanks, but please, could you hurry she anxiously interrupted This is a long distance call I put her on hold, rushed through the shop to find the item, then jotted her name down and put the 33 rpm record at the front desk She hung up without saying thanks or goodbye I took no offense In 1974 a residential long distance call through ATT's monopoly network was an act of economic courage for most middle class people The first three minutes could run as high as 12, 4 more per each additional 60 seconds If you wished your mother happy birthday too many times, you could end up in the hole for 20the price of a night in a decent disco era hotel Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343457.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343457.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 18:18:33 - Ars Technica - The original Deus Ex remains a beloved PC game, so the fact that sequel Invisible War was hobbled by console based development became one of the real tragedies of gaming The third entry, Deus Ex Human Revolution, has been developed by an all new team, which saw its publisher merged into Square Enix and then had its game delayed Fans had little reason for hope But something amazing happened Square Enix sent the press a ten hour preview version of the game, and early reviews were glowing The content leaked, and that caused even more gamers to take a second look at the game Developers emphasized the PC version of the game and brought in an outside company to ensure that the game supported DirectX11 features and that mouse and keyboard controls worked perfectly The press received the PC version as the official review versiona rarity in this business All the effort paid off Not only is the game an amazing return to form for Deus Ex but the PC version does nearly everything right Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343456.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343456.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 16:23:53 - Ars Technica - Bastion is a game that features a number of neat ideas, and they're all executed very well in the final product We enjoyed the game when it was released on the Xbox Live Arcade, and it's now clear that the team has spent a good amount of time and love making sure it both looks and plays great on the PC as well This is what you hope for when a game you love gets ported to your preferred platform, and Supergiant Games has even included some new content for fans of a certain puzzler from Valve Let's take a look at what went right with this port Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343392.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343392.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 14:40:39 - Ars Technica - The Missouri State Teachers Association has sued to block provisions of a new state law that would require schools to ban private electronic communications between teachers and students The group says that these provisions violate teachers' First Amendment rights The legislation was signed by Governor Jay Nixon in July The bill is designed to protect school children from sexual misconduct and other harms It mandates reporting of sexual abuse, prohibits sex offenders from serving on school boards, and regulates weapons in schools According to the Associated Press, the legislation was drafted after a study found 87 cases of teachers losing their license as a result of sexual misconduct allegations between 2001 and 2005 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343327.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343327.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 14:40:39 - Ars Technica - Wisconsin, state of my birth, I salute you for turning out federal judges like JP Stadtmueller Stadtmueller is the man who waded into the swampland of fair use, South Park, and What What In the Butt to deliver a July 6 order that may break new judicial territory by citing South Park episode Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants in its footnotes And Stadtmueller has the proper feel for the absurd needed in any judge about to rule on a case involving the phrase, You want to do it in my butt, in my butt His order opens Federal lawsuits seldom touch on such riveting subjects and regard so many colorful parties as the present matter The plaintiff, Brownmark Films, LLC, is the purported co owner of a copyright in a music video entitled What What In the Butt WWITB , a nearly four minute ditty regarding the derrière of the singer of the underlying work The music video begins with an array of bizarre imageryfrom a burning cross to a floating pink zeppelinand only gets stranger from there The heart of the video features an adult African American male ensconced in a bright red, half buttoned, silk shirt, dancing, grinning creepily at the camera, and repeatedly singing the same cryptic phrases I said, what what, in the butt and you want to do it in my butt, in my butt Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343326.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343326.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 03:19:47 - Ars Technica - When we recently detailed how to boost the storage space in a MacBook Airwith a replacement solid state drive module, some readers asked what it would be like to swap the hard drive in an older MacBook with a similarly speedy SSD We decided to investigate, and as it turns out, thanks to a common 25 drive size and widely available external enclosures, the swap is quicker, easier, and cheaper than the one for a MacBook Air Depending on the age of your machine and in some cases BTO drive options, the amount of the speedup will vary Still, even our old original Intel MacBookwhich, as we'll explain later, actually represents a worst case scenariowent from just barely usable to actually productive in just a few hours Here, we'll tell you how to perform the same upgrade Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343148.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343148.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-22 01:58:23 - Ars Technica - The last thing I expected to be reminded of while playing the new survival mode for Modern Warfare 3 was a tower defense game The co op mode, which I'm told is endless, pits you against increasingly more challenging enemies that come at you in waves As you kill enemies you earn money, which can be put toward buying new guns, refreshing your ammo, or, in true Call of Duty fashion, calling in an air strike It's sort of like the horde mode from Gears of War meets Desktop Tower Defense Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343121.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343121.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-21 23:19:11 - Ars Technica - Here at Ars, we often discuss the problems with science education,many of whichhigher education However, the earliest science education begins long before students reach college, or even high school A review in the most recent issue of Science tackles some of the issues involved in teaching our littlest scientists about how the world works What influences how children learn about science Right off the bat, its clear that there just isnt enough time spent on science during early education In a study of Midwestern preschools, less than five percent of classroom time was devoted to any type of scientific activities Preschool age may sound too early to start learning about science, but research has shown that preschoolers are intellectually and developmentally ready to understand basic scientific concepts They are very good at interpreting patterns, and can even distinguish conclusive from inconclusive evidence Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343072.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343072.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-21 22:09:55 - Ars Technica - A state of living stupidly We here in the US tend to use the phrase honor culture to describe recent arrivals from a number of foreign countries But if the authors of a recent paper have it right, then it's the rural white population in the US that has the most to worry about from upholding their honor That's where the researchers found elevated levels of accidental deaths in states that have traditionally held to a concept of honor, specifically those in the West and South In their study, people who endorsed an honor focused belief system were also more likely to engage in high risk activities Before you start focusing on the sort of guys who brought you Jackass, it's worth pointing out that the authors found the same trends applied to rural white females although they were less pronounced Fighting the nag factor Children five and under don't do most of the shopping, so how is it that many pantries end up filled with their favorite sugary, low nutrition products Researchers think it's because children use a weapon that most of their mothers will later end up turning on them nagging According to the researchers' classification system, kids had several forms of nagging in their arsenal juvenile, boundary testing, and manipulative As they get older, the overall rate of nagging goes up, and the kids tend to get more manipulative Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343043.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/343043.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-21 00:28:14 - Ars Technica - This week, our top Apple news discussed Apple's first update to Lion, why Nintendo won't dive into iOS devices just yet, fake Apple stores in China, and Apple's actions against Samsung in Europe There's also some renewed buzz about Apple's still unannounced fall Apple event, as well as new rumors about LTE iPhones Read on for the roundup 22 more fake Apple Stores found in China how many more are there First, the Internet went crazy over a blogger's account of an Apple Store in China that happened to be entirely unauthorized Then two were shut down Now, 22 more have been ordered to quit using Apple's trademarks in China But this is just the beginning We may want Mario on the iPhone, but Nintendo won't slit own throat Nintendo has so far refused to release games for Apple's popular mobile devices With slagging sales of the Wii and the lackluster launch of the 3DS causing the company a loss for the second quarter, investors are asking the company to reconsider But it won't happen as long as president Satoru Iwata is in charge Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342819.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342819.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-20 21:54:22 - Ars Technica - What a week Gaming was a little short on stories this week, as I was caught between an illness that knocked me out of the office for a day and finishing work on a longer feature about game development Don't worry, we'll have some great stuff for you next week, and I think you'll be happy with the results of the focus on some in depth content For this week, check out our thoughts on the PC version of Deus Ex, Age of Empires Online, and El Shaddai The price of the PS3 has also been lowered so that's pretty cool Microsoft, c'mon and join the party Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342763.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342763.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-20 19:11:19 - Ars Technica - Firefox 6 ships, but we shouldn't really pay attention Mozilla has released Firefox 6, with a few visual and performance tweaks, but not much else that anybody will notice The organization has announced that it plans to remove any obvious visible indication of the version number from the browser a decision that's left many more than a little displeased Mad about metered billing They were in 1886, too Think you're the first generation of consumers to gripe about iffy phone connections, pricey subscription rates, and metered billing Think again Let's go back to the 1880s and meet the founding generation of telephone troublemakers Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342710.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342710.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-20 17:46:27 - Ars Technica - Fanbois treat criticism of favorite brands as threat to self image Fanbois exist for every brand, but some seem to be more emotionally committed than others A study appearing in the Journal of Consumer Psychology says that when people view their favorite brands as extensions of themselves, their self esteem suffers when there's bad news Bottlenecks in the brain limit our ability to multitask New research shows that certain areas in our brain serve as bottlenecks that can limit very different cognitive processes Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342689.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342689.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-20 03:01:12 - Ars Technica - For the first time in fifteen or more years, Redmond faces a genuine challenge to its Windows desktop monopoly The threat isn't coming from Linux or from Mac OS X or from any other operating system It's coming from a whole new computing concept the post PC The worry is that upstart tablets threaten to drive the computer out of the home, taking the Windows operating system with it It's not just Microsoft that's facing a tumultuous revolution, of coursethe PC as a platform, as a concept, is equally under attack But the biggest loser from this new world order will surely be Microsoft Hardware makers can just switch to making new hardware, but Microsoft needs that hardware to run Microsoft software, and the company has been consistently unable to crack the tablet market Microsoft is no newcomer to the tablet market in fact, the company has been in the tablet market longer than almost anyone else But success in this market has been hard to come by Microsoft's hope, the PC's great hope, is Windows 8 With Windows 8, Microsoft needs to build not just a Windows that PC users want to use it needs to build a Windows that can succeed in the post PC world Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342464.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342464.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-20 01:31:25 - Ars Technica - A new version of Dropbox was released on Thursday without much fanfare, but Lion users will be happy to know that the update finally restores Finder integration for Apple's latest OS There are plenty of cloud storage options out there, but Dropbox's slick native filesystem integration is perhaps one of is most prized features Installing the app on Mac OS X adds a Dropbox folder in the Finder Dragging files here uploads them to your Dropbox in the cloud, and files added to your Dropbox are then automatically downloaded and mirrored locally With support for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and even your iOS, Android or BlackBerry mobile device, it makes it easy to transfer files from one device to the other, and all devices are automatically kept in sync Unfortunately for early Lion adopters, Dropbox's Finder integration was broken in Mac OS X 107 The only way to get it working was via beta development builds only available on its user forums Though Dropbox usually updates itself automatically in the background, TUAW notes that those updates can take as much as a week to filter out to all users You can manually upgrade today, however, if you want to restore functionality posthaste Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342432.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342432.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 22:24:19 - Ars Technica - HP has missed out on a fantastic opportunity with webOS The company was in a position, by hook or by crook, to give webOS the kind of wide distribution that even Apple would be impressed by It just had to spend some cash to do it As an operating system, webOS has what it takes to be a success The operating system's user interface was well received, and it has strong concepts, such as unified messaging and card based multitasking, that rival platforms are only starting to compete with It also had a development model familiar to millions of Web developers What it needed was a bit of momentum A reason for those Web developers to start developing for it, a reason for mobile operators to start caring about it and promoting it Palm's advertising, with the creepy girl, was lackluster HP took that to the next level I was excited about, and interested in, the Pre3 when it was announced earlier in the year But I didn't even realize it had launched a few days ago, such was HP's total unwillingness to promote the thing Bring back the creepy girlat least it's something Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342305.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342305.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 20:38:23 - Ars Technica - A day after challenging Bethesda Softworks to settle a legal dispute with a videogame battle, Minecraft creator Markus Persson joked that he might have made a strategic miscalculation, even as he vowed to continue fighting The reassessment came after Perssons geeky public challenge to a Quake faceoff, which the Swedish game designer sees as the ideal way to end a lawsuit threat from Bethesda over the title of his upcoming game Scrolls Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342251.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342251.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 20:38:23 - Ars Technica - Following allegations that Apple may havepurposely doctored a photo of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 101 to elicit an injunction from a German court, there are now new allegations that Apple is up to the same photo resizing tricks in The Netherlands According to Webwereld, which originally noted the photo irregularities in Apple's German court filings, Apple has nowsubmitted a flawed comparison of the iPhone 3G and Galaxy S smartphones in its Dutch court filings During the hearing for Apple's huge injunction request in The Netherlands, Samsung's lawyer accused Apple of manipulating visual evidence, making Samsung's devices appear more similar to Apple's Webwereld combed through a copy of the complaint submitted to the Dutch court and found that photos comparing the iPhone 3G to a Galaxy S phone are either wrong or manipulated Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342250.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342250.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 18:59:14 - Ars Technica - The Wall Street Journal's usual people familiar with the matter are weighing in on the iPad 3, which is expected to arrive sometime in early 2012 The sources focus largely on Apple's interactions with suppliersthe company is said to have lined up its key components for the next iPad and has begun to place orders for 15 million iPad 3s to be produced during the fourth quarter of 2011 The other details in the WSJ report are largely rehashed from previous rumors when it comes to iPad 3 speculation The main point is the display resolution, which is said to be going up from 1024x768 to 2048x1536basically double the number of pixels in both directions But this in itself isn't a new revelation evidence found within the iOS 5 SDK back in June showed embedded images that were twice the size of the iPad 2's screen, sitting at 2048x1536, indicating that Apple was indeed planning to increase the iPad's resolution to match those images It's also worth noting that DigiTimes' own sources claim the next iPad will have the same 2048x1536 resolution Rumors about a higher resolution iPad date priorto the release of the iPad 2 earlier this year Many expected the iPad 2 to come with a similar retina class display as the current iPhone 4, but such an expectation was unrealisticArs explained why such a thing wouldn't make sense until at least 2012 Now that 2012 is drawing nearer, it's no surprise that these rumors are popping up again, and they will likely continue to pop up in increasing numbers through about March or April of 2012 Let's be realistic thoughApple usually but not always, as we have learned from the iPhone this year sticks to a general yearly release schedule for its iDevices Who isn't expecting an early 2012 iPad update Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342181.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342181.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 18:59:14 - Ars Technica - Ubisoft has a horrible reputation among PC gamers, due to the fact that it is an absolutely terrible company when it comes to the platform The transgressions are many, including horrific DRM in big name titles, but the latest issues concern the PC version of From Dust, an Xbox Live Arcade title that was launched three weeks ago on the Xbox 360 The game was scheduled to be released alongside its console counterpart, but it was delayed at the last moment, with Ubisoft promising that it would not require an Internet connection to play after an initial activation The game was finally released and guess what Ubisoft lied The original forum post has been edited with the new information, the company is stone walling fans and the press who ask for comment, and no one is happy Oh, and the port is absolutely terrible Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342180.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342180.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 17:10:17 - Ars Technica - A strange case of online harassment, complete with the usual police who would do nothing, may finally be coming to a close A Montreal citizen who went by the online handle of Dave Mabus has been targeting the atheist and skeptic communities with threats and harassment for years But Mabus' ability to target his threat was pretty limited he often went after scientific journalists, including me , and that proved to be his downfall Some clever Twitter users managed to redirect his rage filled missives, first to a journalist in his home town of Montreal, and ultimately to the Montreal police department The person who goes by the name of Dave Mabus has apparently been at this for a while, as noted atheist PZ Meyers claims to have been getting material from him for nearly two decades Apparently inspired by fervent beliefs in both religion and the prophecies of Nostradamus, Mabus was incensed by the mere existence of atheists and skeptics who raised questions about them, such as Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Michael Shermer Starting with e mail and newsgroups, Mabus sent off angry and vulgar rants to an ever widening circle of targets He also moved with the times, adding additional media for his anger Web discussion boards, various blogs he opened and, eventually, Twitter Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342104.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342104.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 17:10:17 - Ars Technica - Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility changes the Android market in a profound way Google is now in a position to be the next Apple or RIM a vertically integrated smartphone company that produces both hardware and software In turn, Microsoft and Nokia are trying to use fears over this possibility to bolster support for Windows Phone 7 Android OEMs may be wise to listen, but the message is a strange one to hear from those two companies, given their uniquely close relationship For the time being, at least, Google claims that Motorola will be operated as a separate business unit it will be owned by Google, but operationally will function like any other Android licensee However, a claim made in a Wall Street Journal profile of Andy Rubin, the founder of Android Inc and Google's senior vice president of Mobile, suggests that Google may not be telling the whole story Specifically, the article says that People close to the deal said one of Google's motivations was its desire to design devices, not just the software that powers them, thus giving it the sort of influence that rival Apple enjoys with its iPhone and iPad Such a move would change the nature of the Google Motorola relationship radically, and it's difficult to see how this wouldn't give Motorola a substantial advantage over other Android OEMs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342103.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342103.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 15:26:44 - Ars Technica - On September 19, 2008, hackers from the Anonymous collective attacked the website of Fox news host Bill O'Reilly The hackers found and immediately posted e mail addresses, passwords, and physical addresses of 205 O'Reilly site members paying 5 a month to hear Bill's wisdom The next day, a distributed denial of service DDoS attack hit the site with 5,000 packets per second That night, another attack flooded two O'Reilly servers with 15GBps of data The site member data was put to use by hackers immediately One woman suffered 400 in fraudulent charges as an interview with the FBI would later make clear, these were purchases for things like penile enlargement Like many Internet users, the woman had used the same e mail address and password for many online accounts, including PayPal AOL, and Facebook, which gave the attackers access to many aspects of her online lifeThe woman's AOL account was used to send e mail of three men performing oral, according to FBI interview notes, with the offending message purporting to come from John McCain Her Facebook account was also hijacked and lewd photos of naked men were posted, along with the Anonymous tagline We do not forgive, we do not forget The woman had to cancel credit cards and close bank accounts, though she did manage to get the fraudulent charges reversed Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342046.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/342046.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 03:34:15 - Ars Technica - Ever wonder why a drop of coffee leaves a ring behind when it dries Physicists did In 1997, they came up with a theory of how it works It turned out to be such a universal theory that it shows up in a number of problems related to deposition of material Since then physicists have been trying to find a way to get around it and stop making rings Now a group of physicists in Chicago have done it So what is the coffee ring effect When a drop of coffee dries, its outer edges are pinned, so the radius does not change even as the amount of liquid shrinks As the volume of the drop decreases from evaporation, the contact angle of the edge of the drop also decreases This causes a radial capillary flow that carries coffee particles from the center of the drop to the edge, where they are deposited, forming a ring What researchers have shown is that the coffee drop effect can be negated if the particles are not spherical When ellipsoidal particles are transported to the drop edge, they form loosely packed structures that can resist the capillary flow When the drop has completely evaporated, these particles are more or less evenly distributed The more elongated the particles, the more uniform the deposition, providing a way to control the distribution of material The coffee ring effect crops up when dealing with many methods of depositing materials Having the ability to control the uniformity of deposition will be useful in fields such as coating and printing Nature, 2011 101038 nature10344 About DOIs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341795.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341795.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 03:34:15 - Ars Technica - The National Music Publishers' Association has decided to drop out of a broad coalition of copyright owners that has been doing battle with YouTube since 2007 YouTube won the first round of the lawsuit last year, and the case is now being appealed it will apparently continue without the NMPA's participation Recorded music is subject to two distinct copyrights The sound recording right is typically held by a record label like those represented by the RIAA But the composer of the song has a distinct copyright interest, and the NMPA represents 2500 publishers that publish the work of songwriters In 2007, the NMPA decided to join a coalition of anti YouTube plaintiffs that also included several sports leagues and other copyright holders Their lawsuit was eventually consolidated with Viacom's case, leading to a single massive suit against the Internet's leading video site Google won at the trial court level last year The judge ruled that the company's record of promptly removing videos upon request from copyright holders gave Google immunity under the DMCA's safe harbor Viacom and the other plaintiffs have vowed to appeal the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit But the NMPA waved the white flag in a Wednesday press release Music publishers will have the opportunity to enter into a License Agreement with YouTube and receive royalties from YouTube for musical works in videos posted on the site, the group says James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School, called the development a win for Google Notably missing is any mention of Google paying the NMPA or its members for past infringement Indeed, Grimmelmann noted that the description sounds similar to the revenue sharing program Google already offers to other categories of copyright holders Hence, he said, it really appears that Google gave up nothing as part of the 'settlement' We asked NMPA for their thoughts, and they responded with a terse statement from president David Israelite The licensing arrangement being offered to independent music publishers has never been available before now, he said Conveniently, the terms of the agreement are confidential Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341794.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341794.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 03:34:15 - Ars Technica - Do smartphone users need another music service in their lives If they use BlackBerry devices, RIM thinks the answer is yes The company is reportedly developing its own music service called BBM Music, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke with the Wall Street Journal The service may launch as soon as next week, and is said to work with RIM's BlackBerry Messenger system The sources claim that BBM Music isn't meant to compete with dominating services like iTunes or Spotify, while simultaneously pointing out that it will cost significantly less than Spotify which currently offers free, 499, and 999 monthly tiers Instead, BBM Music will supposedly allow users to access 50 songs at a time and share those songs over BlackBerry Messenger with friends The sources say that this is largely targeted at young users who want to customize their phonesyes, the goal is to woo all those swaths of young, hip teenagers and early adults who are not falling over themselves to buy a BlackBerry at the moment The WSJ doesn't specifically say what kind of customizations would be possible, but the mere mention of it implies that users might be able to set the songs as ringtones, ringback tones, or find some other young person type use for the music What the sources did say was that RIM has already signed deals with the Big Four music labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group The company had apparently planned to announce BBM Music late this week, in fact, but decided to put it off for unstated reasons Perhaps RIM didn't want to compete with the news of Google's purchase of Motorola or HP twisting the knife into webOS But because the majority of RIM's following comes from the enterprise, we have to wonder how much a music serviceeven one that works with BlackBerry Messengerwill cure its market share woes Even if it only costs a few dollars per month, how many business users will fork it over for only 50 songs at a time For that matter, how many young people would do the same Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341793.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341793.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 01:58:09 - Ars Technica - Apple's full court press on Samsung in the European Union isn't over by a long shot New details about Apple's lawsuit against Samsung in the Netherlands reveal that the company wants an EU wide ban against importation or sales of practically every Galaxy device The lawsuit is an important one, as an injunction from The Hague district court could stop Samsung's smartphones and tablets at their point of European entry Though Samsung is one of Apple's largest component suppliers, it has increasingly become one of its largest competitors in the mobile device market by effectively building its own versions of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Apple felt Samsung's designs crossed the line from imitation to blatant copying, and launched a massive US lawsuit citing patent, trademark, and trade dress infringement Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341711.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341711.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 01:58:09 - Ars Technica - The Congressional Budget Office has released a new estimate of the cost of the PROTECT IP Act, the controversial legislation to force private ISPs, search engines, and other parties to censor websites accused of facilitating copyright infringement Based on personnel estimates supplied by the Obama administration, the CBO estimates that the enforcement activities of PROTECT IP will cost taxpayers about 10 million per year The bulk of the money would be spent on hiring staff The Justice Department would need additional agents to commence legal actions against individuals who operate or register an Internet site dedicated to activities infringing on copyrights of others, the CBO says DOJ anticipates that it would need to hire 22 special agents and 26 support staff to execute its new investigative responsibilities under the bill The price tag for bringing on those new workers 47 million over five years, or just under 10 million per year Of course, this is just a rough estimate The actual costs will be controlled by future Congressional appropriations and the enforcement priorities of the administration An extra 10 million in spending is a drop in the bucket in a federal budget that now exceeds 3 trillion But the estimate comes with two important caveats First, the personnel requirements were estimated by the Obama administration, which may have an incentive to downplay the bill's costs in order to speed its passage So it's possible that the government would devote significantly more resources to enforcement once the legislation was enacted The bigger concern is that the estimate doesn't include potential costs to the private sector The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act requires the CBO to estimate whether proposed legislation will cost the private sector more than 142 million The CBO says it can't do that in this case because of uncertainty about how often and against whom the Department of Justice or copyright holders would use the authority provided by the legislation We've never had the kind of large scale Internet censorship infrastructure mandated by the PROTECT IP Act, so it's hard to predict how much it would cost private ISPs, search engines, and credit card networks to comply But maintaining, updating, and enforcing blacklists could be expensive, and these costs would be multiplied across hundreds, if not thousands, of private firms Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341710.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341710.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-19 00:05:06 - Ars Technica - One of our favorite acronyms is ditching another one Hewlett Packard wants to spin off its personal computers division in a dramatic move Whatever the meansspin off, direct sale, or other transaction HP is done with this low profit market Yes, that announcement comes from the current leader in worldwide PC sales Speaking of the commodity PC business during today's earnings call, HP CEO Leo Apotheker said continuing to execute in this market is no longer in the interest of HP and its shareholders And that's not all The company is also buying British data analysis company Autonomy in a 102 billion blockbuster deal and effectively shutting down what's left of Palm You'd think that the third quarter report that's due after the closing bell would be enough excitement for one day, but HP didn't think so There's a common thread running through all of these changes, and it all starts at the top Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341652.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341652.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 22:31:47 - Ars Technica - Illinois based Software Restore Solutions has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the company's Disk Utility application violates a patent on automatic computer configuration repair The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the Northern District of Illinois The patent in question, US Patent 5,832,511, is for a Workgroup network manager for controlling the operation of workstations within the computer network Certainly, Disk Utility does not automatically manage the configuration of client systems on a network However, Software Restore Solutions alleges that the application, which can repair the permissions of certain system or user files, does violate claim 32 of the patent A method of computer management automatically resetting a computer to a preferred configuration by executing system configuration instructions in dependence upon a comparison of prior computer status to the current condition of the computer Since Disk Utility is an included part of every install of Mac OS X, the lawsuit targets every version of the OS as well as products that are sold with it, including every Mac for the last decade Lest you think Apple was Software Restore Solutions' only target, however, the company unsuccessfully sued 26 software vendors last year over the '511 patent, including Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, Capcom, Citrix, Corel, Intuit, Sega, Skype, and THQ, among others The case was closed after all the defendants were dismissed, some with prejudice Software Restore Solutions acquired the '511 patent from Acacia, another apparent patent troll, which acquired the patent from original inventor Beck Systems Litigating the '511 patent appears to be Software Restore Solutions' only business activity Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341582.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341582.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 22:31:47 - Ars Technica - Hewlett Packard confirmed today that it will discontinue all current operations related to webOS devices via a press release The announcement comes less than two months after HP launched its first webOS tablet, the HP TouchPad, and less than three years after developers first started making apps for the platform HP, which is holding its third quarter earnings call today at which it is expected to confirm its exit from the PC manufacturing business as well, specifically called out the TouchPad and webOS phones as devices that would be taken out of commission This includes the HP Pre 3, a webOS phone that was due for launch any day now in the US and had just been released in Europe The company says that it will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward This could be interpreted in a range of ways, from putting webOS on less competitive platforms the company has indicated in the past its desire to put the OS in items like refrigerators , to even selling it to a competitor The sudden move puts developers for the platform in flux Ed Finkler, developer of the webOS microblogging client Spaz, told Ars he likes developing for webOS, and doesn't suspect the OS will be fully killed off Whether or not it is a viable platform commercially in the consumer electronics field is another question, Finkler said Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341581.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341581.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 22:31:47 - Ars Technica - With smaller budgets and teams, indie games have the ability to be more personal than titles from large publishers When Kan Gao's grandfather was hospitalized with a heart condition and Gao began to think about the inevitability of death, he took those themes and translated them into a game To The Moon, a PC adventure masquerading as a 16 bit RPG Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341580.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341580.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 20:59:08 - Ars Technica - On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected a patent on a method of detecting credit card fraud The result was unsurprising, but the court broke new ground with its reasoning Citing the Supreme Court's famous rulings against software patents from the 1970s, the court ruled that you can't patent mental processeseven if they are carried out by a computer program Of course, all computer programs implement mathematical algorithms that could, in principle, be implemented with a pencil and paper So is this the end of software patents Unfortunately not The court ruled that the no patenting math rule doesn't apply if the math in question complicated enough that as a practical matter, the use of a computer is required to perform the calculations Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341508.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341508.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 20:59:08 - Ars Technica - Hewlett Packard is scheduled to hold its third quarter earnings call later this afternoon, but if a report from Bloomberg is to be believed, dollars will be the least interesting topic of the call Bloomberg reports that multiple sources are indicating that HP will spin off its PC business to focus on enterprise services As part of that change in focus, it will be acquiring the Cambridge, UK based data analysis company Autonomy for about 10 billion, a healthy premium over the company's current market cap Right now, HP has more than enough cash and short term assets for the deal to go ahead And Autonomy is a good fit for its increased focus on enterprise services Among other products and services, the company sells software that analyzes documents and media files to extract information and make it available via a search function This allows companies to identify which documents contain relevant material, even if that document happens to be a voice memo Although HP's shift toward a service and consulting focus has been going on for years we joked that it already looked a bit like IBM West a year ago , the decision to spin off its PC business is a bit of a surprise After a rocky merger with Compaq, HP had grown to dominate global PC sales, and its purchase of Palm and WebOS had indicated it was at least trying to pursue options that could help keep it relevant as sales of compact touchscreen devices soared Nevertheless, the margins of the PC business have remained very narrow, and most of HP's competition is either suffering or attempting to go upmarket Dell being the primary example of the latter For HP, the Personal Systems group responsible for PC sales, among other things brought in the most revenue in its last quarter roughly 10 billion , but that only resulted in 500 million in earnings Enterprise Services, Servers and Storage, and Imaging and Printing all brought in substantially more, even though none of them had as much starting revenue PCs clearly aren't a drag on HPthey still make it moneybut they're not where its growth is going to come from If its PC business is spun off, it will still be a major player, much as IBM's former hardware division has remained significant under Lenovo's guidance But the spinoff would be a further indication that the PC business as most of us understood itthe driver of technology innovations and profitsis a thing of the past And now that PCs are mostly commodities, there is little about them that is appealing to many of the current technology giants Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341507.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341507.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 20:59:08 - Ars Technica - Over the past few decades, the Earth's rising temperatures have slowly shifted the climate in many areas That would be expected to cause species to shift in response, and a variety of studies have suggested they are You can see this clearly at the US Arbor Day Foundation, which has an animated map showing changes in plant habitats But most of these studies have looked at a limited number of species or a narrow geographic region, making it hard to put together a clear picture of global trends Now, a study has combined a lot of the individual ones into a meta analysis, and finds that species are shifting habitat faster than we had assumed, but aren't all moving towards cooler climes The authors looked at two classes of studies, ones that focused on changes in altitude plants and animals moving uphill and others that focused on changes in latitude, as species respond to a warming world by moving towards the poles Although the result is a bit more global, it's still heavily biased towards Europe and North America with Chile and Malaysia also making appearances Still, the studies are enough to include over 1,300 species, which the authors consider in 23 distinct groups, divided by taxonomy and geography in the authors' example, plants in Switzerland The mean travel poleward of all the species included in these studies was 17km a decade vertically, the mean had a species moving 11m uphill That's not especially speedy, but it's still two to three times faster than previous estimates had placed on these values And over several decades, those kilometers can add up Perhaps more significantly, two different tests indicated that species were moving the fastest in areas that are experiencing greater temperature changes The type of species involved doesn't seem to matter at all Much greater variation is associated with differences among species within a taxonomic group than between taxonomic groups, according to the authors, who note that bird species, which are relatively mobile horizontally, haven't tended to shift their habitats as much vertically And over 20 percent of the species actually moved in a direction opposite from the one that would be predicted to be due to a warming climate So, things are changing on average, but the details may vary considerably The authors point out that there are a lot of reasons some species may respond in a manner different from the averageeverything from physiological differences to habitat fragmentation may play a role Still, the study provides another indication that we don't have to look to any temperature gauges to see signs of a warming world Science, 2011 DOI 101126 science1206432 About DOIs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341506.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341506.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 20:59:08 - Ars Technica - Ars Technica is back on the market, looking for another IT guru to add to our team We're specifically looking for an experienced IT Editor who loves innovative technology but hates Valley hype and who knows the difference between the two We're looking for an editor with a passion for creating new insights, new angles, and new stories, all in the service of fostering understanding At Ars, subject matter expertise is important, so we're looking for an IT Editor with similar values The position is full time and pays according to experience Professional experience is a must we will not consider applicants without it sorry The IT Editor will vet stories, make assignments, and work with the editorial board on projects big and small Writing and reporting are also central Whether the position ends up being more editing or more writing will depend on what works best for Ars and for the ideal candidate So be sure to tell us your preferences right up front What will the position cover We're particularly keen on topics such as virtualization, the cloud, computer architecture, and system design to name just a few , but we're first and foremost interested in finding technical expertise fortified with passion for the realm of IT The rest will work itself out I'll also note here that we have a fantastic IT writer joining our staff in just two weeks, and we anticipate more growth this year and next in the department Compensation will be commensurate with experience Living in or near San Francisco, New York, Chicago, or Boston is a definite plus living in the United States is required Candidates must be willing to travel when the story requires it, and must be comfortable working from home or in your Batcave, Fortress of Solitude, etc the rest of the time To be considered for a spot, or to ask us any questions, connect with us at write arstechnicacom Potential candidates currently working at competing organizations should know that we will keep your interest and any inquiries private What should you send us Consider it your first assignment, and we're your readersSend us whatever you think we need to know, tell us what's at stake in hiring you, and make an impression A recap of your professional experience is a must, and should go at the top, where we can clearly see itTo recap Professional experience is a mustThis is a full time position, to start ASAP The pay is competitive and our team cannot be beatBoston, San Francisco, New York, or Chicago desired but not required Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341505.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341505.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 19:14:07 - Ars Technica - A leaked document from ATT shows that the company is planning to offer only unlimited and per message texting plans starting August 21, according to Engadget The only available plans will be 20 for an individual unlimited messaging plan or 30 for a family unlimited messaging plan customers without one of those plans will pay 20 per text and 30 per multimedia message ATT quietly axed two of its texting tiers in January of this year already, doing away with the 15 1,500 and 5 200 messages plans In their place, the company offered one 10 1,000 messages tier, as well as the unlimited plan ATT and other carriers have previously faced backlash over increasing texting prices and recently took measures to control data use on their network While we've pointed out before that text messages do ride carrier networks in a different, higher priority way from standard data, ATT still likely makes quite a bit more money from them From regular data plans, such as ATT's 25 for 2GB data plan, the company pulls in about a millionth of a cent per byte At that rate, a single 140 byte message would cost about 00002 , meaning customers would have to send 11 million text messages to make ATT's 20 texting plan a money losing proposition for the telecom giant The average American teenagerthe most avid texting demographicsends an average of 3,339 texts per month, or 58 worth of regular data charges The other 1942, you're paying for the messages to send and arrive reliably and immediately What were seeing is that the vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans, an ATT spokesperson tells Ars, confirming the plans and noting that text messaging growth is stronger than ever Only new customers and those resigning contracts will be subject to the new unlimited texting charges Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341440.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341440.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 19:14:07 - Ars Technica - Six months after the introduction of the Verizon iPhone, Verizon's customer base appears to be shifting away from Android devices towards the iPhone The data comes via online advertising network Chitika, which monitors the OS and device breakdown across its ad network to spot trends in device usage According to the firm, Verizon's share of the Android market in the US has dropped nearly 10 full percentage points between March and August, while ATT's share of the Android market has gone up, indicating that more users are using iPhones through Verizon now that the option is available When Chitika looked at its numbers in March, it noted that Verizon's share of the Android market sat at roughly 514 percent, with Sprint grabbing 253 percent, T Mobile grabbing 168 percent, and ATT a mere 36 percent Since then, however, the numbers have changed dramatically When analyzing the numbers again for this month, the only two networks to see significant changes were Verizon and ATcoincidentally, the only two networks in the US to offer the iPhone 4 Verizon's share of the Android market dropped to just 41 percent while ATT's increased to 87 percent in August Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341439.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341439.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 19:14:07 - Ars Technica - It appears we will get a steady stream of legal rulings about teens being teens while playing around with Facebook accounts The last time we blogged on this topic, In re Rolando S, the court whiffed by holding that joyriding someone else's Facebook account was felonious identity theft In this case, involving school discipline for racy Facebook photos, the court reaches a more sensible result The court summarizes the background Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341438.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341438.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 19:14:07 - Ars Technica - Active Wikimedia editors in good standing are voting on a referendummeasure that might put at least some of the media collective's famous disagreements over images to rest The referendum asks Wikimedians to decide whether to implement a system for readers to conceal pictures that they would prefer not to view, via preference settings The object of this measure is to further what Wikimedia participants call the principle of least astonishment, or least surprise for users But under the referendum proposal, these potentially upsetting pictures would not be deleted They would simply require further clicking to view, an option that a Wikimedia report calls shuttering Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341437.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341437.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 17:23:15 - Ars Technica - The first demo of Deus Ex Human Revolution sent to the press ran on the Xbox 360, but we were assured time and again by the developers that the PC version would be no cheap port Our concern is valid Deus Ex Invisible War suffered from development that clearly put consoles ahead of the PC Nixxes Software was even brought in to focus on creating a great PC version of Human Revolution, with many features unique to the platform It's easy to be skeptical, but when we contacted Square Enix to ask about the chances of reviewing the game on the PC, they made no fuss about sending us an early copy of the game via Steam Furthermore, the company had no issues with my request to discuss how well the PC version of the game performed before the embargo drops on the game next week After playing the game for hours upon hours, I can safely say you'll want to be playing the game on a PC Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341363.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341363.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 17:23:15 - Ars Technica - This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the open source Linux kernel, a milestone that is being celebrated this week at LinuxCon in Vancouver During the opening keynote presentations at the event, Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin and Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst took a look back at the success of Linux and its prospects for the future Zemlin began his keynote by asking the audience to imagine a world without Linux The kernel powers stock exchanges, nuclear submarines, consumer electronics devices, and many other systems Although alternative software could be used in its place, Linux's unique blend of pragmatic leadership, copyleft licensing, and community driven development have made it a defining force in the software industry Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341362.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341362.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 17:23:15 - Ars Technica - The Call of Duty series has struggled with the PC audience in the last few years Modern Warfare 2 had no support for dedicated servers at all, making it tricky for PC gamers to build their own communities Black Ops supported dedicated servers, but you had to rent them from a single source it was impossible to set up your own server without paying a third party In a move that will be sure to make PC gamers happy, Modern Warfare 3 is bringing free dedicated servers Free dedicated servers for MW3 PC confirmed Glen Schofield, the CEO of Sledgehammer Games, said on Twitter We are excited to be bringing this back to Modern Warfare This is great news It's now possible for anyone to host their own server, provided they have the necessary hardware and a fast connection There are a few downsides here, as this opens the door for players having full access to the servers they run, which will increase the chances we'll see cheats and exploits on some servers run by unscrupulous players Still, this is an issue that PC gamers have dealt with since the beginning of the hobby, and it's a small price to pay for the ability to build and run our own communities of players Also, in case you're frustrated by other big name FPS titles not being available on Steam, you can preorder your copy of Modern Warfare 3 on Steam right now Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341361.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341361.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 17:23:15 - Ars Technica - iFixit, the site famous for its gadget teardowns and repair manuals, is launching a new business to provide manufacturers, how to sites, or even individuals to build their own library of online service manuals Called Dozuki, the new effort extends iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens' goal to make do it yourself repairs a common practice Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341360.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341360.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 03:56:31 - Ars Technica - After months of near silence, Microsoft is starting to talk publicly about Windows 8 Earlier this week the company started a new Building Windows 8 blog, and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky provided the first concrete information about the operating system inWednesday The post gives a high level overview of how Windows 8's development is organized and the different feature areas the teams are working on Most of these, such as Kernel Platform, Networking Core, and Performance, held no surprises, but a few of the teams are more interesting One is called App Store, which confirms the rumor that Windows 8 will include an application store featurethere were slides leaked last year that made mention of a Windows Store As with any as yet unreleased product, nothing is set in stone, but this information makes it all but certain that such a store will be a part of Windows 8 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341007.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/341007.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 02:27:47 - Ars Technica - Security researchers have spotted a new strain of malware that targets Bitcoin, the peer to peer virtual currency that exploded onto the tech scene earlier this year In a report issued last week, Symantec researchers described a Trojan that uses the user's computer to mine Bitcoins on behalf of the intruder They estimate that, at current exchange rates, a fast computer could generate as much as 150 worth of Bitcoins per month This is not the first Bitcoin related malware spotted in the wild In June, security researchers discovered malware that acts as a virtual pickpocket, scanning an infected computer for Bitcoin wallets and sending their contents to the attacker There have also been previous reports of Bitcoin mining malware, but estimates had suggested that most botnet owners would make more money renting their machines out for other uses Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340966.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340966.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-18 00:59:34 - Ars Technica - When Canada's Conservatives took the most votes in the May 2011 federal election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that an omnibus security crime bill would be introduced within 100 days The bill would wrap up a whole host of ideas that were previously introduced as separate billsand make individual ideas much more difficult to debate A key part of the omnibus bill will apparently be lawful access rules giving police greater access to ISP and geolocation dataoften without a warrantand privacy advocates and liberals are up in arms Writing yesterday in The Globe Mail, columnist Lawrence Martin said that the bill will compel Internet service providers to disclose customer information to authorities without a court order In other wordsblunter wordslaw enforcement agencies will have a freer hand in spying on the private lives of Canadians He quotes former Conservative public safety minister Stockwell Day, now retired, as swearing off warrantless access We are not in any way, shape or form wanting extra powers for police to pursue information online without warrants, Day saidbut there's a new Conservative sheriff in town, and he wants his lawful access Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340879.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340879.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 23:12:41 - Ars Technica - Of the five mass extinctions in the Earth's past, one stands above the rest in magnitude the Permian Trassic extinction, known as the Great Dying It saw the disappearance of almost 60 percent of all families, and over 80 percent of all generain the ocean, that added up to about 96 percent of all species The cause of this event, 250 million years in the past, is still a matter of debate The most likely culprit is the prolific volcanism of the Siberian Trapsthe erupted basalt still covers about 2 million square kilometersbut other events may have also played a role Evidence for a massive destabilization of methane hydrates on the seafloor a phenomenon described as The Big Burp , ocean anoxia, and even contemporary asteroid impacts have all been found A couple recent papers in the journal Geology have brought some new information to the discussion, and may help make the picture just a little bit clearer Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340782.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340782.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 21:29:15 - Ars Technica - Following a recent victory against Apple over claims that iPhone location data collection violated user privacy, a South Korean law firm has nowlaunched a class action lawsuit over the same location data issues The firm is asking for 1 million won for each of the roughly 27,000 plaintiffs, which could put Apple on the hook for about US 25 million In April of this year, security researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed via an easy to use Mac app that iPhones kept an unusually large cache of what appeared to be GPS coordinates of the iPhone over a period of almost one year Though there was no direct way to access the data from an iPhone itself without hacking the device, unencrypted backups saved by iTunes could be easily accessed by a small program the pair wrote to map the cached location data Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340684.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340684.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 21:29:15 - Ars Technica - Apple is keen on eliminating antenna woes in its products, even ones you may not even realize had antennas in the first place A new patent win for the Cupertino giant illustrates a method for integrating a cellular antenna into MacBook and iMac keyboards, specifically by placing antennas under some keyboard keys According to Patently Apple, this is Apples fourth cellular based MacBook related patent over the past year and the second to deal with disguising the cellular antenna itself Could we be seeing a 3G or 4G capable MacBook in the future The design and positioning of an antenna in a device is an important issue Apple is fully aware of Last summer, it was discovered that the iPhone 4s reception significantly dropped when a user would touch one of its antenna bands And in the past, MacBook Pro owners have had difficulties getting Bluetooth accessories, like the Magic Mouse, to play nice due to the Bluetooth antenna positioning in the notebook Recently, a 2007 MacBook Pro prototype with a Mag safe style rabbit ear 3G antenna was racking up big bucks on eBay before the auction was pulled In the patent, the antenna is hidden underneath a few keyboard keys in order to improve its reception and transmission efficiencies When the key isnt pressed by a user, the antennas resonating element would be about as far from the conductive metal housing as possible Thus, ideally, the antenna would be positioned under a key thats not used very often, like a print screen key which the patent singles out despite the fact that Apple keyboards typically dont even have a print screen key According to the diagrams, individual antennas would be placed under multiple keys and the device would use real time information to decide which antenna is the best one to use, for instance if one has a stronger signal than the others The patent doesnt specify exactly what kind of antenna would be placed on the keyboard It could be WiFi or Bluetooth, or it could even be used for cellular communication or for data services 3G or 4G reception What type of wireless signal the antenna would receive or transmit would just depend on the configuration of the antenna So it could be that in iMac keyboards, the antennas would improve reception with Bluetooth peripherals, while maybe in the MacBook keyboard, it would be used for WiFi or cellular services Then you wouldnt even need to use your iPhone as a hotspot when youre on the road Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340683.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340683.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 21:29:15 - Ars Technica - An animation that Microsoft made to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Linux kernel was shown this morning during Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin's opening keynote at LinuxCon The video comically depicts the rivalry between Linux and Windows, but concludes with the suggestion that peaceful coexistence is possible In the animation, a cartoon penguin throws rocks at the Windows logo after being frightened by Bill Gates wearing a pumpkin on his head, a reference to the now infamous Halloween Documents in which Microsoft laid out an aggressive plan for destroying Linux Later in the animation, a cartoon representation of Bill Gates brings a birthday cake to the penguin's igloo Microsoft's relationship with Linux was one of several topics that Zemlin discussed during his keynote He showed a classic quote from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who infamously described Linux as a cancer in 2001 Joking that Ballmer's hostile characterization of Linux was only partly accurate, Zemlin pointed out that Microsoft is one of the largest contributors to version 30 of the Linux kernel by code volume Microsoft's code contributions largely revolve round enabling improved support for running Linux instances in the company's Hyper V virtualization software This reflects the growing importance of mixed platform deployments among Microsoft's own customers It's increasingly clear that Microsoft needs to support Linux and open source software in order to remain competitive in the server space Over the past few years, Microsoft has built ties with the Apache Software Foundation and other key communities that play a role in the open source server stack It's not surprising that the company is looking to improve its relationship with Linux Will the old caustic rivalry turn into friendly competition As Zemlin discussed during his keynote, Microsoft's aggressive posture towards Linux vendors on patent issues still poses an impediment to closer collaboration Stay tuned for our full coverage of the LinuxCon opening keynotes We'll have additional analysis of Zemlin's take on the influence that Linux has had on the technology industry and Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst's views on Linux's future Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340682.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340682.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 19:36:26 - Ars Technica - Some scientific progress is made by developing new concepts, and some is made by throwing monkey wrenches into existing ideas A letter published today in Nature looks like an instance of the latter It's pretty well accepted that the Moon formed from material ejected after a Mars sized body collided with the Earth, but the timeline of how the Moon came together after that impact is an area of active research Our general understanding of the formation of planetary bodies involves chemical differentiation during the solidification of molten material As vast oceans of magma slowly cool, certain minerals crystallize earlier than others, removing their constituents from the mix On the Moon, a group of rocks called ferroan anorthosites or FANs are thought to have been one of the last things to crystallize out of the magma oceans, forming the first lunar crust FANs have proven very difficult to date because of the poorly constrained isotopic geochemistry of the oldest Moon rocks As a result, their calculated ages have had rather large error bars attached to them The ages that have emerged so far indicate that the FANs formed soon after the lunar material was ejected from Earth In other words, the magma oceans cooled fairly quickly The authors of this letter developed improved methods for dating FANs that allowed them to calculate ages with unprecedented precision They used three isotopic systems commonly applied to these rocks207Pb 206Pb, 147Sm 143Nd, and 146Sm 142Nd For the first time, the researchers were able to calculate a concordant agethat is, an age on which these different series agree exactly Previous attempts to date FANs had encountered too much error for the series to agree so precisely The work resulted in an age of 436 billion years give or take 3 million Thats several tens of millions of years more recent than we had thought the Moon's crust formed This leads to one of two possibilities either the Moon took much longer to accrete and solidify than we thought, or the assumptions about FANs forming in the last stages of magma oceans are incorrectA different process known as serial magmatism could explain the measured FAN ages, but the magma ocean theory was partly based on the characteristics of FANs If FANs are in fact a product of a different process, our understanding of how planetary bodies solidify and differentiate could take a step backward Nature, 2011 DOI 101038 nature10328 About DOIs Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340587.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340587.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 19:36:26 - Ars Technica - Lately, mobile device users seem to be more aware than ever of privacy issues tied to sharing their location But what do consumers love more than keeping a handle on their own privacy Discounts According to a report from mobile engagement firm JiWire, more than half of all consumers are willing to exchange their mobile location data for content that is relevant to them at the moment, such as coupons, promotions, directions, and product information JiWire's latest report is based on mobile ad data collected from 450,000 public WiFi hotspots combined with surveys from 2,800 randomly selected JiWire WiFi Media Channel customers between April and June of 2011 According to the data, 90 percent of those users own a laptop, 58 percent own smartphones, and 32 percent own tablets, with smaller numbers of users owning dedicated MP3 players, gaming devices, e readers, and netbooks For those curious, the company says iOS devices made up 819 percent of the second quarter's user data, with Android coming in second at 105 percent and Windows Phone third at 404 percent Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340586.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340586.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 17:54:38 - Ars Technica - Sometimes the intersection of physics, engineering, and we want the shiny can be a bit weird In the drive to smaller and more efficient electronic devices, some are trying to shrink existing approaches, while others are heading straight to the ultimate end point using molecules to do everything The basic idea is that electronic conduction through a molecule can be controlled by using electrons to modify the electronic or physical configuration of the molecule Since it may only take a few femtoseconds 10 15s to change this state, chemists paint pictures of high speed electronic nirvana The automatic response is Let's build it NOOOOW As any good scientist would do, when these ideas were suggested, they didn't think too hard about whether it would work instead, they just tried it It wasn't easy, but examples of molecular conductors are littered throughout the scientific record In real life, these molecules worked, but nowhere near well enough to make devices With some time to think about things, scientists were faced with a pressing question why the hell do these things work at all Handwaving explanations have abounded, but now, a good robust explanation has been put forward Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340493.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340493.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 17:54:38 - Ars Technica - Best Buy has managed to sell only 25,000 HP TouchPads across its retail stores and apparently wants to return unsold units to HP, according to a source who spoke to AllThingsD on Tuesday The tablet which initially used the same pricing structure as the iPad starting at 499 for a 16GB model has failed to interest consumers even when prices were reduced by 100 for each model We faulted the HP TouchPad in our review for falling short in several metrics compared to the iPad, but at the same price In recent weeks, many retailers carrying the TouchPad applied discounts of 50, then 100, in temporary flash sales that eventually became permanent as the tablets refused to budge The biggest sale yet from flash sale site Woot, which sold the tablet for 120 off, got HP a meager 612 customers According to the same source, Best Buy took 270,000 TouchPads into inventory, and so far has managed to move less than ten percent of themand that figure may not even take returned units into account Best Buy reportedly no longer wants unsold TouchPads taking up space in its stores and warehouses, and is requesting that HP take the stock back Best Buy and Woot are not alone in their inability to move TouchPads, analyst Rich Doherty of the Envisioneering Group told AllThingsD WalMart, Microcenter, and Fry's have all struck out Though these stores will often give refunds on device price drops for a few weeks after purchase, Doherty says that the fluctuations so soon after release make customers hesitate to buy today, when the TouchPad could easily be another 50 or 100 off tomorrow Whatever unsold TouchPad stock Best Buy can't give back to HP will likely find itself bundled along with HP computers in back to school sales, according to Doherty Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340492.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340492.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 17:54:38 - Ars Technica - Have you ever found yourself frothing at the fingertips while explaining why someone doesn't deserve to use an iPhone because of their deeply flawed sense of aesthetics Have you been the type to declare that those who don't use Android are cylons who are under mind control from Cupertino Or are you Peter Bright, turning up your nose at all of us while you wax on about the unappreciated genius of the Windows 7 Phone You may think you're defending your favorite platform because it's just that good But, according to a recently published study out of the University of Illinois, you may instead be defending yourself because you view criticisms of your favorite brand as a threat to your self image The study, which will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, examines the strength of consumer brand relationships, concluding that those who have more knowledge of and experience with a brand are more personally impacted by incidents of brand failure Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340491.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340491.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 16:00:18 - Ars Technica - Say you need to reach wwwrabelaisian wit is pretty dirty stuffcom, and the relevant Web server sits in a Vladivostok data center But Hyperlocal Internet, your Internet provider, has no direct connection to the Vladivostok hosting company's Internet provider So how to send your request for a Web page across the Bering Sea Internet transit provides the answer one ISP pays another well connected network to deliver Internet traffic to networks with which the first ISP has no direct peering connection Read our primer on peering and transit Typically, such transit deals have been priced at a blended rate under which the transit provider charges a flat price per Mbps of connectivity in other words, the transit providers charges for the size of the pipe it provides, regardless of how far the traffic is going or how high transit demand is at the momentTo reach the Vladivostok ISP, Hyperlocal's transit provider might need to haul those bits across the US and perhaps over the Pacific before handing them off to another network in, say, Singapore, that can get them further along the way this is called off net traffic Such traffic imposes higher costs than if Hyperlocal's data is destined for one of the transit provider's own customers in Omaha called on net traffic , for instanceyet the costs to Hyperlocal are the same either way with a blended rate Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340388.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340388.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 16:00:18 - Ars Technica - The annual LinuxCon event is taking place this week in Vancouver The Linux Foundation is taking the opportunity to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Linux kernel The week will include festivities, serious keynotes from open source industry leaders, and some technical panels with prominent Linux developers Some of the highlights include an introductory keynote by Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, a talk by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst about the next 20 years of Linux, and an open chat between well known kernel maintainer Greg Kroah Hartman and Linux creator Linus Torvalds I'm also going to be speaking at the event this year I'm beaming down from the Strategic Penguin Command Center of the Ars Orbiting HQ and will be in Vancouver all week The Linux Foundation has invited me back to participate again in the Media Roundtable panel, where I'll be talking about the past, present, and future of Linux reporting with five other journalists We held the Media Roundtable panel for the first time at LinuxCon last year, and it was so well attended that we've decided to do it again with an expanded group of panelists The excellent roster this year includes Ryan Paul me , Joe Brockmeier, Sean Michael Kerner, Steven Vaughan Nichols, Scott Merrill, and Dee Ann LeBlanc The panel will be moderated by Jennifer Cloer, the Linux Foundation's communications manager If you are at LinuxCon, you can catch the Media Roundtable panel on Thursday, August 18 at 3 00PM in Plaza B If you aren't at the event, you are going to miss out on my panel, but you can still see the keynotes via the Linux Foundation's live video stream Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340387.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340387.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 03:27:39 - Ars Technica - The Mozilla organization has shipped Firefox 6, eight weeks after the release of Firefox 5 Just as with Firefox 5, not a lot has visibly changed The domain name in the address bar is now highlighted, to make phishing more apparentmimicing a similar feature already found in Internet Explorersites with extended verification certificates appear slightly differently in the address bar, and Mozilla is claiming that there's some speed improvement And that's about the extent of it More substantial improvements are in the pipeline for Firefox 7most notably a JavaScript engine that uses much less memorybut nothing so substantial is evident in version 6 This smaller releasebug fixes, behind the scenes improvements, but little user visible differenceis likely to be the norm for future Firefox versions Bigger features will still arrive from time to time, but for the most part, users will just experience a continuous improvement Firefox updates should be automatic and essentially invisible Even articles such as this one, which attach some significance to the new release, are probably not what Mozilla wantspress coverage should focus on features, not version numbers Mozillaas with Googlewants developers to cease targeting specific browser versions, and instead target standards the regular releases are one step towards achieving that goal Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340027.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/340027.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 01:50:48 - Ars Technica - A number of animal species are capable of astonishing navigational feats This ability appears to be widespread, with groups as diverse as birds, turtles, insects, and fish all showing navigational skills Now, we can apparently add bats to the list of species that can manage to find their way, even after researchers have played a variety of tricks on their homing systems Those tricks weren't just cruel, however, as the researchers' work showed that the bats probably use at least two systems to orient themselves and navigate using a three dimensional representation of their usual surroundings The species in question is the Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus , which is native to Israel's Negev Desert and, conveniently, large enough to wear a GPS tracking device When released near their cave, tagged bats went straight to a small collection of fruit trees about 15km away, typically at speeds of over 35km an hour And when we say straight, we mean it the bats passed by other fruit trees on the way, and deviated by less than 3 percent of the total distance traveled Most bats returned straight to the same trees on consecutive nights So, from both the consistency and directness perspectives, these bats are superb navigators Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339949.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339949.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 00:18:26 - Ars Technica - Rev up your Software Updaters, because Apple has released its first update to Mac OS X Lion The 1071 update is recommended for all Lion users and contains fixes for a number of sanity eroding issues, and there's even a special 1071 version for the 2011 MacBook Air and Mac mini The main update for those of us who don't own the latest and greatest Apple releases addresses issues that caused the system to hang when watching a video in Safari and audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out There were also some complaints about flaky WiFi, and some users ran into problems when trying to migrate their data to a new Mac running Lionboth of which have been resolved, according to Apple Most annoyingly, some Lion users said that their main admin accounts were missing after upgrading to Lion, which has apparently been fixed For the 2011 MacBook Air, Apple has applied all the same updates, plus a fix for a problem that caused the Air to boot up when the MagSafe connector was attached and another related to flickering displays The Mac mini also got a fix for a problem that caused the SD card slot to operate at reduced speeds It's a bit early to tell whether Apple sneaked other bug fixes into this update, but some users are still holding out hope that it will help speed up their systems after upgrading If you have already applied the update, do you see improvements Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339870.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339870.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-17 00:18:26 - Ars Technica - Google has released a new service entitled Google Related, a browser assistant Chrome extension intended to direct users to webpages on the same topic as the one they're currently viewing While some applications of the service, like getting extra info during a restaurant search, are useful, some others produce unhelpful suggestions in a framework that should be more trainable than it is Once you have the Google Related extension installed, a bar will begin appearing along the bottom of certain types of pages, such as news, shopping, or restaurant websites Various tabs allow you access to content related to that pagevisiting a restaurant's website may produce a tab with a Google map of the restaurant's address, a second tab with reviews, and a third tab of related locations as identified by Google Maps The restaurant website suggestions are the most coherent, as the previous list nails exactly what I'm looking for when I look up a restaurant But some of the tabs are too selective and Google centric unsurprisingly , as when the Reviews tab produces Google Places reviews and links to the Urban Spoon page, but not to Yelp A Google Related tab produced from a news story concerning an HTC vs Apple patent spat Visiting a page with a news story will produce a dropdown or more accurately, a shoot up of culled news stories on the same topic from other sources The displayed stories seem limited to the most recent updates you might find at the top of a Google News search, a format better for the rarer breaking stories than authoritative ones getting picked up over and over in brief by multiple news outlets The pullquote in the HTC vs Apple produced tab above is a nice feature, but the content is only barely related to the story What the extension lacks the most is the ability to train it Links offered from the Related bar are 1 able, but if you click the View More Articles link from the story above, you get a get a long list of stories from various outlets that can't be 1'd This strikes us as a prime opportunity to teach Google Related which sources you trust or would like to see in your related news tab when you visit a news story Still, true to Google form, Google is collecting statistics on the project, so we may be training it more than we know Given Google's recent more wood behind fewer arrows declaration, the only partially useful Related is a mystifying addition to the company's product slate in its current state The extension is available today for all Chrome users Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339869.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339869.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 22:34:54 - Ars Technica - HTC has decided to up the ante in its smartphone patent tussle with Apple The company hasfiled a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in Delaware, accusing Apple of infringing three of its patents with nearly every product Apple makes HTC may be hoping this suit will give it some leverage with Apple, which currently has four patent infringement lawsuits and two International Trade Commission complaints pending against the Tawainese smartphone maker Apple warned smartphone makers in 2009 and again in 2010 that it will not stand for having its IP ripped off The company made good on those threats when it first sued HTC in March 2010, launching two federal patent infringement suits and one parallel ITC complaint that involved 20 separate patents Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339758.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339758.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 22:34:54 - Ars Technica - Just how bad were things at Fukushima So far, painting a clear picture is difficult, as all we know for sure is how much radioactivity has been spotted at specific sites of contamination Now, researchers have put together a largely independent estimate of the neutron flux that occurred during the meltdown, pieced together from an unlikely source a long term monitoring experiment being run in San Diego Nearly two weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, some equipment on the Scripps Pier picked up a surge in radioactive sulfur that has enabled a rough estimate of the radioactivity released at Fukushima Normally, a radioactive form of sulfur 35S is produced in the atmosphere when cosmic rays react with argon in the upper atmosphere In San Diego, this produces fairly steady levels of 35SO2 and 35SO4 2, except during seasonal periods when winds shift more material down from the stratosphere, where cosmic ray exposures are highest But, on March 23rd of this year, levels of radioactive sulfur suddenly spiked, reaching over seven times normal background by the end of the month With no indications of an atmospheric disturbance, the researchers focused across the Pacific, on Fukushima Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339757.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339757.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 22:34:54 - Ars Technica - Sony has officially cut the price on the PlayStation 3 in all major markets, the company announced in Germany on Tuesday The 160GB system will now be 250 in the United States, 250 euros in the European territories, and 24,980 yen in Japan The price drop is effective immediately in all territories except Japan, where the price drop will begin on August 18 The PlayStation 3 model with more storage is also seeing its price cut, with the 320GB system now being sold for 300 in the US, 300 euros in European territories, and 29,980 yen In addition, a limited edition inFAMOUS 2 bundle is now available at participating retailers across North America The bundle retails for 299 and includes a 320 GB PlayStation 3, a copy of inFAMOUS 2 and a 30 day membership to PlayStation Plus, SCEA's CEO Jack Tretton wrote on the official blog Sony also used this opportunity to show off the success of the system Since its release in 2006, PS3 has gained tremendous support from fans around the world and its cumulative worldwide sales reached a milestone of 50 million units as of March 29, 2011, Sony said in the statement Equipped with future proof cutting edge technologies including the sophisticated processors, Cell Broadband Engine and RSX, as well as the Blu ray disc BD player and HDMI terminal, PS3 has continuously enhanced its value to consumers through system software updates to support new features and services including stereoscopic 3D content playback and support for the PlayStation Move motion controller Your move, Microsoft Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339756.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339756.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 22:34:54 - Ars Technica - It's time to start dredging up the LTE iPhone rumors again, because the latest is a doozie ATT has reportedly installed LTE equipment in at least one major Apple Store, according to a source who leaked a photo to Engadget The photo has since been removed, but combined with other recent rumors, signs seem to indicate that an LTE iPhone may be closer than we thought The equipment in question is said to support the 700MHz and AWS bands ATT plans to use both of these for its LTE network if and when its controversial acquisition of T Mobile goes through But why would they be placed inside an Apple Store if the company wasn't soon planning an LTE phone rollout There were similar rumors of Verizon towers being installed on Apple's campus prior to the Verizon iPhone rollout, so it seems unlikely that ATT is just making use of Apple's generosity for no reason The news follows yesterday's confirmation by Boy Genius Report that a version of the iPhone was already in LTE testing by carriers, bolstered by evidence found within a supposedly internal iOS build It's important to keep in mind, however, that this 4G enabled iPhone may not be the next iPhone that gets introduced to the public, but rather a phone that may potentially come out at a later date Rumors of an LTE iPhone are nothing newthey have been trickling here and there throughout the summer, with some predicting a fall release The grapevine on that front has been suspiciously quiet in recent months, however, and most of the latest iPhone 5 or 4S, depending on what you believe rumors have specifically not mentioned LTE support It's possible that Apple has managed to keep this one so close to the vest that we're only now hearing leaks about it Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339755.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339755.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 20:51:06 - Ars Technica - El Shaddai is a striking game, with its constantly shifting art style and biblically inspired story Its action oriented gameplay blends 2D and 3D perspectives, and the combat feels surprisingly solid It's a rare new IP that actually takes some creative risks, and it's one that has some solid pedigree behind itSawaki Takeyasu, who worked on games such as Okami, is the game's lead designer Already available in Japan, El Shaddai is descending upon North America today, so Ars spoke with Takeyasu to learn a little more about what we can expect from the adventures of Enoch Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339666.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339666.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 19:14:31 - Ars Technica - The EU wide ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 101 has been partially lifted, but not because of rumblings that Apple might have used bad evidence in its complaint On Tuesday, the Düsseldorf regional court decided to allow the Galaxy Tab 101 to be sold across Europe again except for within Germany, which is where Apple brought its original complaint against Samsung in Europe The decision was apparently made because of jurisdiction concerns, which bodes well for Samsung as it continues to push its appeal of the case It was only a week ago when the German court granted a preliminary injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 101 following Apple's complaints that the tablet copied the iPad design The decision was based on alleged violation of a European Community design registration for the iPad, and since the registration was filed with the EU and not just in Germany, the court decided that the ban would be enforceable throughout Europe minus the Netherlands On Monday of this week, however, a Dutch publication called webwereld published the results of its own investigation showing that Apple may have used inaccurate evidence in its complaint against Samsungthe Galaxy Tab 101 photo used in the complaint was of slightly different dimensions than the real Galaxy Tab 101, leading some to believe it was manipulated to look more like the iPad Even if it was a mistake, however, those keeping an eye on the Apple Samsung drama speculated that the discovery could affect the injunction in the EU once word got back to the courts Well, the Internet apparently shouldn't give itself so much creditat least not yet A court spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that it was simply unclear as to whether a German court could ban a South Korean company from selling products outside of Germany, and Florian Müller from FOSS Patents says the court made no mention of the substance of Apple's complaint when he called to ask about the case Therefore, the question of whether Apple's evidence was suitable or not has, at least in a formal sense, not played a role in this decision on a suspension, Müller wrote So where do things stand now The injunction is still in place within Germanymeaning the Galaxy Tab 101 can't be sold thereand Samsung's German arm is still barred from selling the device anywhere in Europe This means that German customers still can't buy a Galaxy Tab 101, but those outside of Germany could potentially buy one from directly from Samsung so long as it's not Samsung Germany for the time being When the injunction was first imposed in Europe, Samsung appealed immediately That appeal is still in place despite parts of the injunction no longer being enforced, and a hearing is currently set for August 25 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339550.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339550.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 19:14:31 - Ars Technica - Age of Empires Online is a serious departure from past Age of Empire games it's cartoony, and features many MMORPG aspects to round out the game's strategic gameplay The game is still complex and meaty, especially for a free to play title Many games of this type reach into your pocket as soon as they can In contrast, AoE Online could be giving away too much to properly sustain itself There's much to enjoy before spending a single Microsoft point You build a city with workshops, stores, storage buildings, and even shrubberies if that's your thing The art style looks like it was lifted from Disney's Hercules and The Emperor's New Groove From this city and neighboring ones, you can accept campaign style quests from citizens to accomplish certain objectives on a given maperadicate all the buildings of an enemy who has already built a maddening, massive network of defensive towers that relentlessly shoot arrows, for instance, or meeker ones, such as build four farms in under eight minutes Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339549.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339549.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 19:14:31 - Ars Technica - You could call it a modest victory for civil liberties A police unit for Bay Area Rapid Transit BART briefly shut the Civic Center subway station in San Francisco on Monday evening in response to a demonstration But, unlike last week, it appears that BART declined to cut off mobile phone access, even as activists briefly held up the departure of an outgoing train I happened to be at the station and I could check my Facebook and Google pages on my Droid, and could even call home while around me BART police chased protesters up and down the platform Protect Free Speech and I believe in Free Speech declared the protestors' signs as they dodged riot cops They were objecting to BART's move last Thursday to cut off mobile phone access in some stations in anticipation of a protest over several fatal police shootings on the transit system Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339548.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339548.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 19:14:31 - Ars Technica - If you pretend to use your cell phone to avoid talking to others, congratulationsyou are part of the rudest 13 percent of the American public According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, while 83 percent of American adults have a cell phone of some kind, only 13 percent have pretended to use them so they didn't have to interact with someone Americans are still using phones by and large for useful things 73 percent text, and 44 percent use their phone to access the Internet, even though only 35 percent have smartphones Most cell phone owners have recently used their phones to obtain information they needed immediately 51 percent , but less than 6 percent on average have used their phone for a video call A sizable portion of people have become so dependent on their phones, they struggle to accomplish tasks when it's not accessible 27 percent reported having trouble doing something within the last month because their phones were not at hand But even more cell phone owners willfully do without their devices on occasion, with 29 percent reporting they turned off their phones for a period of time just to get a break You'd find yourself in better company if you use your phone to stave off boredom, which 42 percent of users do In fact, we'd go so far as to say that if you need to pretend to use your cell phone, like that disingenuous 13 percent, you're just being lazyCut the Rope, or even Centipede, is just as good for evading conversation with strangers as a fake phone call Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339547.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339547.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 17:30:03 - Ars Technica - Google just plunked down 125 billion for Motorola Mobility Would the deal have been cheaper if Big G had just purchased a handset maker back in January 2010 rather than launching the ill fated Nexus One instead To figure that out, we need to look back at the state of Motorola some 19 months ago and apply some mathematical magic Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339451.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339451.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 05:03:37 - Ars Technica - The wheels appear to be coming off the Righthaven trainwreck in progress The litigation outfit, which generally sues small time bloggers, forum operators, and the occasional Ars Technica writer, has just been slapped with a 34,000 bill for legal fees Righthaven v Hoehn, filed in Nevada federal court, has been an utterly shambolic piece of litigation Righthaven sued one Wayne Hoehn, a longtime forum poster on the site Madjack Sports Buried in HomeOther StuffPolitics and Religion, Hoehn made a post under the username Dogs That Bark in which he pasted in two op ed pieces One came from the Las Vegas Review Journal, which helped set up the Righthaven operation Righthaven sued Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339109.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/339109.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 01:10:38 - Ars Technica - Reports of a new poll released by the Stifel Nicolaus research group have got to be worrying ATT about the prospects of its proposed 39 billion merger with T Mobile Less than half 495 percent of the polled telecom expertsdescribed as wise men and women now expect the relevant federal agencies to bless the marriage This is almost a five point drop in optimism from July, when a similar survey found 547 percent of analysts sanguine about the merger's future The departments considering ATT's request are the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice Among the possible reasons why the merger's chances seem dimmer Senator Herb Kohl D WI 's letter to the FCC asking the agency to turn down the request Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338971.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338971.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 01:10:38 - Ars Technica - Although the human brain is a very complex structure, it's still not big or efficient enough to process every single thing we see, hear, and do Sometimes this limitation is a good thing, since it forces our brains to filter out minor details that we dont need to dwell on Other times it's more of a hassle, since it interferes with how we process information Researchers previously thought that different processes in the brain were subject to separate bottlenecks For example, the process of reading a map might be limited by a very different mechanism than the act of evaluating ideas and forming opinions However, new research in PNAS suggests that a unified bottleneck may restrict our ability to perform very different cognitive processes simultaneously Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338970.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338970.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-16 01:10:38 - Ars Technica - Dark matter has been a polarizing subject It hasn't been detected, the name implied it was a mystery, and it started out as an explanation for the apparent extra but invisible mass in galaxies But the evidence that something unknown is out there has become rather encompassing, appearing in the cosmic microwave background, galaxy clusters, and even apparently empty space Even if dark matter doesn't exist, something will have to fill a whole bunch of gaps at many different scales of the Universe Nevertheless, it is a placeholder concept, a hole in our knowledge that we can feel the shape of but haven't yet managed to capture in the spotlight So, what is dark matter One possible answer is a modified theory of gravity, but the favorite proposal at the moment is a class of particles called weakly interacting massive particles WIMPs The distinguishing feature of WIMPs is that they are not dark at allinstead, they interact so rarely with normal matter that our current instrumentation is blind to their effects The fact that these particles interact at all is probably one of the main reasons that physicists prefer the WIMP explanation if WIMPs exist, we could build an instrument to see themAnd build them we have Two teams have now claimed to have detected dark matter particles But last month the XENON100 team publishedits own data, claiming that the earlier results are bunk and dark matter cannot possibly have been detected Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338969.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338969.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 23:31:12 - Ars Technica - Bose Einstein condensation BEC was one of the highlights of late 20th century physics Scientists showed that if you cooled atoms enough, they would all get together in the same quantum state At this point, it becomes meaningless to speak of this atom or that atom, since they are all absolutely identical and indistinguishable and can be manipulated collectively Because they all start in the same placequantum mechanically speakingthey all end up in the same place This robustness seems like it would be really useful, but there's a catch creating a BEC requires an optical table, an enormous vacuum system, and a generally large and complicated setup The vacuum system is unavoidable, but researchers have been working hard on miniaturizing the rest of the setup Traps basically wires on chips can now hold atoms in large areas, a consequence of the low frequency currents that run through the wires and create a trapping magnetic field To create traps that confine atoms within a few nanometers, researchers have nowcreated traps using plasmonic fields Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338900.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338900.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 21:37:06 - Ars Technica - Nintendo fired the first shot in the latest war over portable handhelds with its 3DS, but things are not going well for the company that used to comfortably own the portable market Sales of the hardware is slower than expected, games are being held back until more gamers exist to buy them, and Nintendo was forced to radically slash the price in an attempt to drum up consumer interest Nintendo is facing many challenges these days, but it's not just competing with its own past systems and the upcoming Sony Vitaits largest competitor may be your smartphone Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338835.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338835.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 21:37:06 - Ars Technica - Is Internet anonymity a problem Germany's Interior Minister Hans Peter Friedrich thinks so In comments to the German magazine Speigel, he argued that the recent attacks in Norway illustrate the need to force political commentators to identify themselves online The shooter, Anders Breivik, cited a pseudonymous anti Muslim blogger in his manifesto Meanwhile, Google has decided to adopt a policy for Google modeled on Facebook's real names rule This has sparked a fierce debate, with some arguing that the shift to using real names improves the quality of public discussion, while others insist that forcing people to use their real names represents an abuse of power Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338834.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338834.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 21:37:06 - Ars Technica - The parent company ofBroken Thumbs Appsa prominent iOS app maker responsible for games like Zombie Duck Hunt, Truth or Dare, and Emily's Dress Uphas today settled with the Federal Trade Commission over its apparent collection of children's personal data in its iPhone and iPod touch apps Though the FTC has gone after other companies for similar violations, this case is the first focused on mobile apps Parent company W3 Innovations was targeted with an FTC lawsuit on Friday the settlement was announced Monday morning In its complaint, the FTC alleges that W3 collected, maintained, and or disclosed personal information entered into its various kid targeted appsfor example, the complaint claims that the company collected and maintained a list of more than 30,000 e mails as well as personal information from more than 300 Emily's Girl World App users and 290 Emily's Dress Up users Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338833.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338833.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 19:58:54 - Ars Technica - Google announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility this morning for 125 billion in cash One of Google's biggest motivations for the purchase is to bolster its patent profile, which has been under relentless attack by companies including Microsoft and Apple With the purchase, Google will gain control of more than 17,000 mobile related patents worldwide, with 7,000 more Motorola patent applications in the pipeline Google first announced the acquisition on its blog early this morning On a call for investors, Larry Page, CEO of Google, stated that Motorola has a strong patent portfolio, which will help protect Android Earlier this month, the company accused Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle of bullying Google over patents in what David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer, called a hostile, organized campaign against Android Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338756.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338756.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 19:58:54 - Ars Technica - EA is trying very hard to sell gamers on a service they don't seem to want, at least judging by comments online The publisher has been offering sales on past games, early access to the Battlefield 3 beta for those who pre order, and now we know that you'll be using EA's Origin serviceeven if you buy the game at a physical retail location The latest weapon is a simple one if you pre order Battlefield 3, you get a free game from a list of three A friend who had already pre ordered the game was pleasantly surprised to receive the following e mail, which he forwarded As a special thank you for pre ordering Battlefield 3 early at Origin, we're offering you a bonus PC digital download game Please apply the code below at the shopping cart to redeem one PC Digital version of one of our recommended shooter titles Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2 or Medal of Honor The price will be reduced to 0 after applying the code at your shopping cart Hurrythis offer is only good for the month of August, and is exclusive to Origin customers only See below for more details That's not a bad deal, and it's my professional recommendation that you pick up Mass Effect 2 if you haven't already played it although Medal of Honor is severely underrated if you're into military shooters On the other hand, EA is beginning to sound like a pitch man on late night television, screaming but wait, there's more in an effort get you to take out your credit card and buy their game through their service Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338755.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338755.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 19:58:54 - Ars Technica - Sources within Apple's supply chain claim that the company revised its total expected iPhone sales for the second half of 2011 up from 50 million to 56 million units That projection might not be unreasonable given the record number of iPhone sales Apple has logged so far this year DigiTimes reports that the information comes from Taiwan based supply chain makers, who expect Apple to order parts to build 56 million iPhones for the rest of 2011 That's for all iPhone models currently being sold plus an expected iPhone 5, though Apple has reportedly lowered iPhone 5 orders for the third quarter and raised them for the fourth quarter If the iPhone 5 is introduced in the fall, as we believe it will be, Apple may be expecting the international roll out to happen a little slower than it originally anticipated The same sources say that Apple has ordered more than 20 million iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS models for the third quarter of the year, with orders dropping to 8 million in the fourth quarter This tapering off suggests that Apple expects to keep offering the iPhone 4 in some areas, likely replacing the iPhone 3GS as a lower priced iPhone option Apple has already sold 39 million iPhones so far this year, despite not releasing a new model in June as it has each year since 2007 If Apple can maintain the triple digital growth in iPhone sales it has enjoyed for the past few quarters, though, that 56 million unit target shouldn't be hard to hit Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338754.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338754.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 14:02:48 - Ars Technica - Amazon has begun to crack down on authors who upload copy cat private label rights e books via the Kindle Direct Publishing service According to an e mail sent to authors who had titles removed, Amazon will filter and delete undifferentiated or barely differentiated e books submitted for publishing on the Kindle store, as they diminish the experience for customers As pointed out by The New York Times, the Kindle store has been inundated with what are essentially duplicate e books that were written and sold under private label rights The text of the book is sold by the original author or copyright owner for a flat fee, which authors or publishers can then ostensibly customize and sell under their own names Unfortunately, few of the authors uploading these books do little more than format the text, create cover art, hit upload, and hope for the money to start rolling in Furthermore, many of these so called private label rights books are little more than an elaborate form of spam mixed with a sort of pyramid scheme This is the way it works you buy a 10 eBook that promises to tell you how to make a bunch of money publishing e books via the Kindle store Then the e book explains how to obtain a copy of the text of the book to customize and republish as your own on the Kindle store Then you sell the text of your book to the next person to customize, on down the line Amazon has decided to become pro active about limiting this sort of activity on the Kindle store to keep buyers from being overloaded with duplicate or near duplicate versions of the same book In addition to scanning for duplicate content among existing and new titles submitted for publishing, Amazon will also terminate accounts that repeatedly upload duplicate content Ironically, a user on the Internet marketing site Warrior Forum complained that a Warrior Special Offer to republish 22 private label books backfired when he received a notice from Kindle Direct Publishing that his titles were being removed I had 22 books up, which only took a long weekend to 'write' more like format and publish, Warrior Forum user brobdingnagian wrote Of course anyone with more than half a brain I stand disqualified, for obvious reasons knows that you can't just take raw PLR and slap it into an ebook template and publish it Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338624.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338624.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 05:42:36 - Ars Technica - Hopping mad about metered billing Spluttering about tethering restrictions and early termination fees Raging over data caps You're not alone Perhaps you can take some comfort from this editorial in The New York Times Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338536.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338536.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-15 03:46:11 - Ars Technica - Google has issued a beta release of Chrome 14 that includes its Native Client NaCl framework The feature was previously only available through a special browser flag, but will finally be enabled by default in the next major version of the Web browser Google first introduced NaCl as an experiment in 2008 It allows developers to compile C or C code into a platform neutral binary that is executed by a browser integrated runtime, which uses sophisticated sandboxing techniques to avoid the historical security pitfalls of Microsoft's much reviled ActiveX NaCl also provides a messaging mechanism so that functions in compiled NaCl binaries can be called from JavaScript NaCl makes it possible for Web applications to use high performance native code instead of JavaScript for computationally intensive operations This will open the door for more sophisticated games and software to operate within the Web browser NaCl is particularly significant for Google's Chrome OS platform, which relies solely on browser based software The original implementation of NaCl suffered from some major technical problems that seemed difficult to overcome In particular, the sandboxing mechanism relied on certain characteristics of the x86 architecture That issue has since been addressed it now has 64 bit support and experimental ARM compatibility AlthoughNaCl has matured considerably, it hasn't seen much developer adoption due to the fact that it was only available through a special about flags option in Chrome Now that Google is flipping the switch and planning to roll it out to users in Chrome 14, we could start to see some adoption It's unlikely that NaCl will ever truly become mainstream, however Google has opened the source code and is encouraging other browser vendors to support the technology, but none have expressed much interest Mozilla doesn't intend to implement NaCl in Firefox for a variety of technical and philosophical reasons Google could potentially ship it as a plugin for other browsers if they decide that they want it to reach a broader audience, but such a move would likely be viewed negatively by the Web standards community In addition to NaCl enablement, Chrome 14 will also bring support for the Web Audio API, which enables Web applications to process and synthesize audio For more details about the release, you can refer to the entry in Google's official Chrome blog The beta is available for download from Google's website Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338503.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338503.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-14 23:37:41 - Ars Technica - Last week, Wired's Tim Carmody commented that when it comes to the debate over software patents, the intellectual ammo is all on one side the side of the critics It's nice to think that software patent critics are dominating the debate But people learn more if there's a healthy back and forth So I was happy to see several posts this week making the case in favor of software patents Former Engadget editor Nilay Patel argued that there's no distinction between software and hardware, and that patents benefit the public by causing inventors to disclose their inventions Michael Mace of Cera Technology argued that patents protect small companies from being ripped off by their larger competitors And Carmody himself has a post calling software patents a key part of the scaffolding of the tech industry Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338470.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338470.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-14 22:28:28 - Ars Technica - In which we inform you that the term sneaker sperm does not mean what you probably thought it does And we suspect that you'll be happy to hear it In this case, sneaker refers to the mating style of a male squid Female squid find large males appealing enough that they allow them to transfer sperm directly to the place where the females store it Small squid, in contrast, tend to just glop a packet of sperm onto a female's exterior in the right general area which, unfortunately for the female squid, is right near the mouth All of this seems to have exerted some evolutionary pressure on the size of sperm The weird thing well, one of the weird things is that the authors can't figure out why They suggest that it has something to do with the difference between the internal and external environments where the sperm ends up, but they haven't yet managed to test this As if scientists aren't anal enough already You'd think the title of this one about says it all Successful Implantation of Bioengineered, Intrinsically Innervated, Human Internal Anal Sphincter And yet we here at Weird Science find that there are still things to say For starters, these sphincters weren't entirely human instead, they were a hybrid of human muscle cells isolated from actual sphincter tissueouch and nerve cells from a mouse Not just any mouse, mind you, but a specific, genetically engineered strain that's marketed under the trade name Immortomouse The replacement sphincters were grown in culture for a bit, and then implanted under the skin of mice for a few weeks Even though they had nothing to retain in this position, they established a blood supply and exhibited normal responses to various stimuli The researchers hope this is the first step toward engineering useful replacement tissue for those who are no longer retentive Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338464.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338464.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-14 00:15:25 - Ars Technica - We knew Byuu's story about his work on accurate SNES emulation was interesting, but it seemed to strike a major chord with our audience, and it's sure to be one of the most popular stories of the month The news that Battlefield 3 won't be coming to Steam sparked some lively discussion, and we also looked back at the Metroid series on its 25th anniversary This was a week of varied, interesting stories, so come on in and catch up on anything you might have missed Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338299.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338299.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-14 00:15:25 - Ars Technica - Apple has been riding high this week, what with achieving the largest market capitalization in the world, winning an EU wide injunction against the Galaxy Tab 101, and revamping its electronics recycling program But that's not all that happened in Apple news we also reviewed the 2011 Mac mini, discussed Apple's position against Lodsys, and more Need to catch up You've come to the right place Ars reviews the 2011 Mac mini as an HTPC With a faster processor, great energy efficiency, HDMI output, and a remote control, the new Mac mini looks like a terrific home theater PC But it's not without drawbacks, including a total inability to play Blu ray discs Which company is biggest A primer on corporate valuation What's the world's largest technology company The answer depends on which measure you use Ars explains how different metrics are used to judge the size of a company and its overall financial health Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338298.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/338298.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 21:53:12 - Ars Technica - Those who travel to China know that fakesfake iPhones, fake watches, fake Louis Vuitton bagsare everywhere But while it's easy for the average American to find counterfeit products, most of the Western world has been blissfully unaware of entire counterfeituntil recently, that is Chinese authorities recently ordered the shutdown of two fake Apple Stores in Kunming, and now a whopping 22 more have been identified And there's probably plenty more where that came from The fake Apple Store story exploded online in late July when the blog BirdAbroad posted photos of what looked and seemed like a legit Apple retail store that the blogger had encountered while traveling in China, but that she later discovered to be an entirely fake store The store wasn't selling fake Apple productscustomers could buy real iPads, real iPhones, and real Macs And the employees, earnest as they were, apparently had no idea that they weren't actually working for Apple retail Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337874.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337874.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 21:53:12 - Ars Technica - Mid latitude storm tracks are major weather patterns that account for the majority of precipitation in the globe's middle latitudes, which includes most of the heavily populated areas of North America, Eurasia, and Australia Due to atmospheric circulation and the dynamics of weather systems, these bands of low pressure form repeatedly in the same locations Apart from being meteorologically important, theyre also major players on the climate sceneclouds in these regions are responsible for reflecting much of the incoming solar radiation that is bounced back to space before penetrating Earths atmosphere Many climate models have predicted that the positions of these storm tracks would slowly migrate toward the poles, but so far this trend had not been detected However, analysis of 25 years worth of data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project now indicates that this shift is probably already taking place Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337873.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337873.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 21:53:12 - Ars Technica - The first 7 inch Honeycomb tablet, Acer's Iconia Tab A100, is finally landing in stores this weekend Running Android Honeycomb 32, the tablet was announced all the way back in January and due out in the first half of the year, but its release was delayed several times The A100 is powered by a Tegra 2 dual core processor and 1GB of RAM The 7 inch screen has a resolution of 1024x600 at a 16 9 aspect ratio, and the tablet is Flash equipped and can play 1080p video via an external monitor Physically, the tablet weighs 092 pounds and is just under half an inch thick, and its shape makes it comfortable to grasp and thumb type, according to This is my next The A100 has a 1530 mAh battery that gets a meager 45 hours of 720p video playback, a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and a 2 megapixel one on the front In the press release, Acer targets moms and families specifically, promoting the A100's facility with tasks like calendaring and e mail But the appealing price of the A100 suits its modest bracket the 8GB WiFi model will be priced at 32999 and the 16GB model at 34999 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337872.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337872.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 19:54:54 - Ars Technica - Japanese website Kodawarisan has officiallymade the first beton Apple's usual fall media event, saying it will take place on Wednesday, September 7 Given that the annual event typically falls in the beginning of September, and is usually held on a Tuesday or Wednesday, it's a pretty safe bet In addition to new iPod updates, however, the event is expected to see the introduction of the next generation iPhone as well as the launch of Apple's iCloud Kodawarisan doesn't cite a source for the information that Apple's event will be held on September 7 technically, September 8 in Japan , but the guess is as good as any In fact, within Ars, we have been informally planning our own schedules around that date already because of the timing We looked back through our archives for the last four September media events three occurred on a Wednesday, while 2008's event happened on a Tuesday So, even without an inside source or a crystal ball, it would be quite easy to pinpoint September 7 Year Date Day of Week 2011 Sept 7 Wed 2010 Sept 1 Wed 2009 Sept 9 Wed 2008 Sept 9 Tue 2007 Sept 5 Wed While these fall events are generally music themed and tend to focus on new iPods for the holiday shopping season, this year's event is also expected to bring the launch of the iPhone 5 New iPhone hardware was, in the past, announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in the summer, but this summer came and went without a new iPhone launch Rumors as far back as February predicted a later than usual September launch, and a recent report by Bloomberg corroborated that timing Other reports have said that a next gen iPhone won't launch until October However, Ars has heard through the grapevine that iCloud will likely launch in September given iOS 5's widespread use of the service, it certainly seems more likely that September will see the launch of the next iPhone Given iCloud's ability to sync iTunes Store purchases and its paid iTunes Match library syncing feature, it would also make a nice tie in to the usual music theme Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337814.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337814.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 19:54:54 - Ars Technica - The question of how people will be able to buy Battlefield 3 has been contentious for weeks, with many gamers hoping to sidestep the entire conversation about online accounts and digital storefronts by purchasing a retail copy of the game You know, the version of the game with a box and a disc and everything That won't be possible, though, as Global Battlefield Community Manager Daniel Matros has confirmed that retail copies of the game will also require EA's Origin It's becoming increasingly clear that if you want to play Battlefield 3, you're going to need an Origin account Get used to it Go ahead and download the client and learn your way around the service If you're a Battlefield fan, you'll be spending a good amount of time there You'll also be using the Battlelog system to launch the game from your browser, search for servers, and organize games That's right, you'll be using multiple services to play this game, and it looks as if they'll all be required I'm sure this will lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in our comments, but I'm equally sure it will do little to hurt sales Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337813.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337813.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 18:16:49 - Ars Technica - I walked through a series of Egyptian buildings in one of the levels included in my preview build of Serious Sam 3, and everywhere I looked sat pieces of armor and rounds of ammunition In this game, that's a very bad sign Soon enemies began warping in and the gunfire began My assault rifle ran out of bullets first I switched to the shotgun, but that meant I had to get close to my targets Waves upon waves of enemies crashed into the walls of fire I threw at them, but I was soon overwhelmed by their numbers and died before restarting at the last save point I played the game on normal, and it completely owned me With each attempt I got slightly further, learning how the environment can best help me fight back against the overwhelming number of enemies For instance, Sam can draw these enemies into tight corridors away from the wide open spaces, allowing his rocket launcher to thin the herd The game provides a constant state of chaos with a few fleeting moments of calmand I loved everything minute of it Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337750.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337750.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 18:16:49 - Ars Technica - I walked into the room It was dark and frenetic House and electro dance tunes roared as I watched the densely packed crowd listen to the music I squeezed in among the participants, and worked up my courage to ask a question I would like to speak to DJ Wooooo, please, I said My query was ignored I waited a little longer and asked again More silence, then Anyone know any songs with a poem or someone talking at beginning someone next to me asked the group C'mon, only 100 more of you need to bop to get me to 1k another exclaimed These remarks threw me off for a minute, then I tried once more DJ Wooooo How can I meet this person I reiterated Three times turned out to be the charm Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337749.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337749.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 16:37:05 - Ars Technica - Nintendo's investors are urging the company to bring its iconic game characters, like Mario, Luigi, Zelda, and Donkey Kong, to Apple's iPhone and iPad The call to make games for Apple's hit mobile devices, which have fueled success for companies like PopCap and Rovio, comes after lackluster sales of Nintendo's latest 3DS handheld have driven prices of the company's stock to a 6 year low But despite the allure of selling millions of copies of a touchscreen enabled Super Mario title to some 200 million iOS users, who on average play 147 hours of games per month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will have none of it Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337689.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337689.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 14:58:15 - Ars Technica - Particle physics may be all about finding the unknown, but to do that we need a really strong grip on the known If the Higgs boson is out there, it's just one of a large collection of particles that can spray the photons and leptons that are picked up by detectors Figuring out whether there's a hint of the Higgs or something even more exotic in these collisions requires us to account for everything else that just looks like the Higgs Subtract all that background noise and hopefully that leaves real signal for everyone to get excited about This simple description glosses over what's actually a hideous computational problem Given two protons colliding at a specific energy, the Standard Model predicts that all sorts of things might pop into existence briefly, with the energy of the collision distributed among them Because their hardware is different, each of the detectors at the LHC would register the results in different ways Figuring out what this background of known events looks like requires the averaging of as many typical Standard Model events as we can model Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337626.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337626.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 05:15:28 - Ars Technica - Modern methods of measuring the body's activty, such as electroencephalography EEG , electrocardiography ECG , and electromyography EMG , use electrical signals to measure changes in brain, heart, and muscle activity, respectively Unfortunately, they rely on bulky and uncomfortable electrodes that are mounted using adhesive tape and conductive gelor even needles Because of this, these types of measurements are limited to research and hospital settings and typically used over short periods of time because the contacts can irritate skin These limitations may be at an end, however New research published in Science describes technology that allows electrical measurements and other measurements, such as temperature and strain usingpolymers with embedded circuit elements These devices connect to skin without adhesives, are practically unnoticeable, and can even be attached via temporary tattoo Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337438.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337438.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 00:55:30 - Ars Technica - Researchers have combined photovoltaics with LCD screens in a way that could help bolster the battery life of cell phones, UCLA announced Tuesday By equipping the phones' LCD displays with photovoltaic polarizers, researchers found they could harvest not only the LCD's extra backlight energy, but also ambient light and sunlight Normal LCDs have two polarized sheets with liquid crystal molecules between them that let variable amounts of light pass through, depending on what's being displayed on the screen Light that is blocked or filtered out is effectively wasted energy that can be harvested With the new energy harvesters, called polarizing organic photovoltaics, installed in the LCDs, screens could start giving back to the energy stores they greedily deplete all day A device's backlight consumes 80 to 90 percent of the device's power, the researchers said, and as much as 75 percent of that is lost to the polarizers if the polarizers were photovoltaic, much of that energy could be recovered And not only could the LCDs recoup some of their own waste, they could also harvest ambient light and direct sunlight The authors don't specify whether the energy harvesting LCDs use CCFLs or LEDs for backlighting, but since LEDs consume less power in general, results with them would likely be less dramatic The paper is due for publication in Advanced Materials next month Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337292.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337292.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-12 00:55:30 - Ars Technica - During a keynote at the Google I O developer conference in May, Google revealed that the next major version of its Android mobile operating system would offer a unified interface across tablets and smartphones The update, which is codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich ICS , is reportedly going to launch on an impressive new Nexus device Although no official launch date has been set for ICS, a Q4 release has been anticipated Some early details leaked out this week via RootzWiki and the Android Police blog Both sources have published heavily redacted photos that show certain elements of the ICS user interface running on the Nexus S One of the photos on RootzWiki shows a new application drawer that looks unmistakably like a phone sized version of the tabbed launcher in in Honeycomb Both sites report that blue is the new green, appearing prominently in the user interface and in various icons Other alleged changes include a visual overhaul for the Gmail application and new panorama mode for the camera software Interestingly, the screenshot that Android Police has published with the system info screen lists the string IceCreamSandwich as the Android version rather than an actual version number I'd ordinarily consider that suggestive of a fake, but they claim that their source is reliable and that Google simply hasn't decided on the actual version number yet Apple's next generation iPhone and a major iOS update are expected to land in the next two months If Google can get ICS into the hands of consumers on new hardware within the next few months especially if the new Nexus device has breakthrough specs, as rumored , it would do a lot to help Android's position in the market going into the holiday shopping season Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337291.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337291.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 23:14:04 - Ars Technica - The majority of plant matter we have available to produce biofuels comes in the form of cellulose, a long polymer of sugars It's easiest to convert this material to ethanol, but that creates its own problems ethanol is less energy dense than petroleum based fuels, and most vehicles on the road can't burn more than a 15 percent mix of ethanol and standard gasoline These disadvantages have led a number of labs to look into ways of using a cellulose feedstock to produce something more like standard fuels In yesterday's Nature, researchers proposed a clever way of doing this take the biochemical pathway that normally burns fat and run it in reverse Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337199.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337199.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 23:14:04 - Ars Technica - In the next game from Twisted Pixelthe developer behind Xbox Live Arcade games like Comic Jumper and Ms Splosion Manyou control a cowboy skeleton as if it were a marionette The skeletal hero runs automatically, but you can guide him with one hand and control where and when he fires the big irons on his bony hips with the other The game is due to hit the Xbox 360 next month and will not only be the studio's first title to make use of Kinect, but will also be Twisted Pixel's first full on retail release Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337198.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337198.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 23:14:04 - Ars Technica - Fruit Ninja has found success on portable devices by offering simple gameplay that works well with touch devices and is easy to understand simply slide your finger along the screen to slice fruit and work up combos to get a high score Different game modes add a wrinkle here and there, but what you see is basically what you get Now the game has been ported to the Xbox Live Arcade with Kinect controls, and although it works well with Microsoft's peripheral, it's hard to endorse at the 10 price Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337197.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337197.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 23:14:04 - Ars Technica - Games are coming to Google , bringing the new social network more in line than ever with Facebook Google announced today the addition of games via e mail to journalists and through a post on its blog, noting that it has already signed deals with a select group of partners to bring games like Angry Birds, Zombie Lane, Sudoku, Bejeweled Blitz, and more to the platform But if you're the type who hates seeing Farmville updates in your friends' Facebook feeds or you cannot stand to get another invitation to Mafia Wars, you're in luck Google says the games will be kept to a special area and won't clutter the streams of those who aren't as enthusiastic The games will be accessible via a games option at the top of your Google stream When you go there, y ou can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you've received and check out games that people you know have played recently, as well as see your own accomplishments If you want to share your high scores on your Google stream, only friends who have expressed interest in playing games as well will see the updates Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337196.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337196.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 21:34:42 - Ars Technica - I've got a weak spot for pulp fiction, especially when it involves a mysterious twist I like unironic thrillers and mediocre Agatha Christie imitations Basically, I like any kind of fiction that lets me forget for vast stretches of time that I'm sitting in an airport terminal I read these books in an unusual way I begin with the last five pages, seeking out the final twist first The twist won't make sense at this point, but that doesn't matter I enjoy reading the story with the grand finale in mind Hell, I even cheated with Harry Potter Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337137.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337137.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 19:57:17 - Ars Technica - This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Metroid series of games, and Nintendo is celebrating in muted style Nintendo of America's official Twitter account reminded us to log into the 3DS e shop to download the free version of Metroid Fusion we were promised as ambassadors, but that was it Fans took to the cause with gusto, however, and a wave of fan made art and musical projects have spread across the Internet Nintendo's lack of enthusiasm for one of its core franchises isn't surprising Metroid has always been an odd duck among the company's games Besides, Nintendo is busy worrying over the success, or lack thereof, for the 3DS and paving the way for the upcoming Wii UNo new Metroid games have been announced, but the upside is thatremains one of the few series that Nintendo has not beaten into the ground That's just fine the game's hero, Samus Aran, has always been a loner Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337075.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337075.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 19:57:17 - Ars Technica - Intel intends to invest 300 million in a push for the development of thin and light laptops that can go for days on standby and still sell for under 1,000 The company refers to this class of computers as ultrabooks, laptops that would be positioned to compete with devices like the MacBook Air or the iPad Ideally, this research money would go toward developing computers that are under an inch thick, with robust batteries and very short startup times, Intel says But the sub 1,000 price point appears equally as important as the other factors, and it's one that will be difficult to achieve in a device that must necessarily include a solid state drive if it wants to achieve a quick startup time Intel isn't the first to get behind the concept of an ultrabook Asus showed its 24 pound ultrabook with a 13 inch screen, U100 SSD, and Core i7 CPU at Computex in May, and pegged the price as sub 1,000 By the end of 2012, Intel is aiming to convert 40 percent of available laptop models to an ultrabook format, making mobile computers into the next 'must have' device, Intel Executive Vice President Arvind Sodhani told Bloomberg Businessweek, in evident hopes that the company will be able to pull consumers back from the burgeoning tablet market The 300 million fund will be spent over the next three or four years for its part, Intel will keep creating processors that draw less battery power But the ultrabook is not far from market Intel says the first generation will hit shelves by this holiday shopping season Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337074.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337074.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 18:17:30 - Ars Technica - Boxee released a slew of new media management software this week, including the long awaited Boxee iPad application, a streaming media server for Windows and Mac OS X, and a firmware update for the Boxee Box The software rollout fills some of the gaps in the Boxee product stack The Boxee iPad application has been a long time coming An early prototype was unveiled at CES in January, with a late Q1 release estimate At the tail of end of March, Boxee said it was aiming for a May release, but that slipped again The app was finally released this week as a free download from Apple's App Store We decided to do some hands on testing to see if Boxee's new iPad application was worth the wait Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337013.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337013.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 18:17:30 - Ars Technica - Update When the markets closed on August 10, 2011, Apple ended up as the company with the largest market capitalization in the world 33717 billion , surpassing Exxon Mobil 33088 billion This generated a new flurry of discussion about what market cap really means, so we felt it appropriate to re publish our primer from earlier this year on the different ways to judge corporate valuation Please note that we have not updated the data in this feature originally published in February 2011 , but we think the principles discussed in the piece are worth highlighting So the order came down from the Orbiting HQ, and I'm here to make it happen Make people a little more smarter than DURR HUGE MARKET CAP DURRR The data that follows was culled from Capital IQ, a division of Standard Poors, is current as of February 4, 2011, and reflects results over the last 12 months unless otherwise noted Let's start with the simplest metrics Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337012.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/337012.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 16:37:31 - Ars Technica - Cosplay is serious business, so when super fan Jennifer Sorrell decided she would attempt a Portal 2 Chell costume, she planned to add an impressive prop a working, articulated, talking Wheatley puppet The portal gun itself has been done as a prop a number of times already, but the idea of an interactive Wheatley was incredibly novel Even more impressive This was Sorrell's first time creating anything this complex Before Wheatley, the most complicated moving parts I'd done for a cosplay project were two moving gears in a steampunk jetpack, she told Ars I've watched panels on puppet building before and I've always been really fascinated with it, but this is my first time giving it a try I'm really happy I did Her creation has become the toast of the Internet after a video of it in action went viral, and Sorrell was kind enough to share some stories with us about the creation of the puppet Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336953.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336953.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 05:07:30 - Ars Technica - Sifteo cubes stand out among gaming offerings, mainly because they don't involve a touch screen Rather, they are blocks that players can move around and touch to one another to solve puzzles or create patterns, and they offer a physical element in a play world that has become increasingly abstract While not every available game is ideally suited to the platform and the set is still overly expensive, the cubes use near field communications NFC in an interesting way and are a promising step away from putting toys and games behind a capacitive screen Sifteo cubes, initially shown at a TED talk in 2009, are small and white with 128x128 resolution LCD screens embedded on one side The screens are not capacitive, but can work as buttons when pushed down, producing a clicking sound Unfortunately, the viewing angles aren't great you need to move them so that, one way or another, they stay directly in front of you Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336713.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336713.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 01:06:19 - Ars Technica - There's a quote attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which generally goes Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts Yet that's exactly what seems to have developed in the world of climate science Within the mainstream scientific community, the basic physics that drives greenhouse warming hasn't been in dispute since it was discovered over a century ago, and the ability of greenhouse gasses to force climate change is apparent on other planets and within the Earth's past But there's an entire parallel community, one with a handful of its own scientists There, any prediction of a measurable impact of climate change is considered unjustifiable alarmism mainstream science is seen as colluding to stifle all countervailing evidence, as demonstrated by the e mails stolen from the CRU The multiple inquiries that have cleared the scientists who sent the e mails Under this view, they're little more than a whitewash How have two communities ended up with what are essentially different facts It's easy to understand some of the psychology behind it, as behavior that lets us selectively accept information based on things like our group identity has been studied extensively But many of the differences go well beyond selective filtering They seem to arise from an entirely separate collection of raw information Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336587.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336587.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-11 01:06:19 - Ars Technica - I watched in disbelief, horror, and dismay as news broke of Londoners laying waste to theirand mycity My part of South London, Tulse Hill, escaped the riots, probably for want of anything to steal, but businesses were attacked a mile away in Streatham, and widespread looting hit nearby Brixton For the past four nights, the wail of police and fire sirens has been a continuous feature of the city's soundtrack These events are a godsend for 24 hour rolling news, but they also show its limitations Like many others, I watched both BBC News and Sky News to find out what was going on And like many others, I found the TV news incapable of keeping up with the changing situation Live text coverage from the BBC, the Guardian, and Sky News fared much better, but it was Twitterof coursethat was the most responsive, most timely source of information about the rioting and looting up and down the country Raw, uncensored, and unverified though it may be, it was also the best way to learn what was actually going on Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336586.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336586.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 23:27:35 - Ars Technica - ZeniMax Media publishes a series of role playing games called The Elder Scrolls, developed by Bethesda Software the fifth such game, Skyrim, will be released this November Mojang, the indie studio behind Minecraft, is currently developing a collectible card style game called Scrolls Confused by the similarity between The Elder Scrolls and Scrolls No Well, ZeniMax believes that you and other consumers might just be It has filed a lawsuit against Mojang, claiming that the developer has infringed upon The Elder Scrolls trademark Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336530.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336530.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 20:15:48 - Ars Technica - The next USB 30 specification will provide up to 100 watts of power to devices, allowing users to power some of the more demanding gadgets on their desks without additional power supplies The USB 30 Promoter Group announced that the standard would allow USB 30 ports to power and charge devices like notebook PCs and would remain backwards compatible with USB 20 devices USB 30 ports introduced high data transfer speeds of up to 5Gb s to compatible components, and have also been able to maintain currents and voltages up to 900mA at 5V for a maximum power output of 45W This was about twice the maximum power output of USB 20 ports, but a current USB 30 port would still struggle to power most external hard drives Since the new spec raises USB 30 power input and output by two orders of magnitude, the slate of products the ports could power is much larger and includes monitors, desk lamps, and even notebook PCs The beefier ports could clear up some of the crowding at wall outlets, and if adopted as the main power connector for items like laptops, could help eradicate proprietary ports The USB 30 Promoter Group says the new standard will be ready for industry evaluation at the end of 2011 and is set for release to manufacturers in early 2012 Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336423.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336423.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 20:15:48 - Ars Technica - Misdemeanor charges have been filed against the two individuals responsible for shopping around a lost iPhone 4 prototype to various websites before the iPhone 4 was officially unveiled, though no one from Gizmodothe site that eventually bought the prototypewill be charged The San Mateo County, California District Attorney's Office announced its decision on who to charge today, noting in its brief press release that 22 year old Brian Hoganthe one who allegedly found the device in a Silicon Valley barand his 28 year old friend Sage Wallower had both been charged with misappropriation of lost property Wallower was also charged with possession of stolen property After consideration of the evidence, it was determined that no charges would be filed against employees of Gizmodo, the DA wrote in its statement Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336422.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336422.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 18:25:05 - Ars Technica - Amazon has finally launched a Web based version of its Kindle reader, allowing users to read their Kindle purchases on any device with a Web browser, without having to download special software The Web based reader, called Kindle Cloud Reader, sports both an online and offline mode and can even sync your last page read among other things across Kindle devices But while Kindle Cloud Reader could be used by almost anyone, it's clear that the design was largely made for the iPad, allowing Amazon to sidestep Apple's in app content constraints and even offer the iPad friendly Kindle Store it couldn't implement in its native iOS app Since I'm an avid Kindle book reader on my iPad, I gave the new HTML5 based reader a spin on that platform to see how it differs from the native Kindle app Upon logging in via readamazoncom which can be accessed from a browser, iPad or not , Amazon warns you that you'll have to authorize the Web app to expand its local database size up to 50MB so that you can download and store books for offline reading If you're worried about the space, you don't have to store books offlineyou can read them directly from the cloud, so long as you have an Internet connection However, as most Kindle users can attest, there are plenty of times in which you are likely to find yourself in the mood to read but without a connectionthe train, the beach, during a power outageso the offline feature is a definite plus Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336334.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336334.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 18:25:05 - Ars Technica - In an attempt to breath some new life into the Fukushima regionhome to the nuclear plant affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japana group of game developers are holding a game jam The event will begin August 27 and last for 30 hours Over that time teams of game developers, ranging from students to well known pros, will attempt to create an entire game from scratch Teams will be given a theme before they start but no further direction The hope is that the game jam and the developers it attracts will be able to infuse some positive energy into an area that is in dire need of it Fun overcomes difficulty, the organizers explained in a statement The disaster zone faces difficulty, but we can make it through Were going to channel game developers passions into games developed together with the people living in the worst hit areas Were going to show the world that we are going to make it through, by showing our enthusiasm and energy We are here We are strong We still like to have fun With the support of the Japanese branch of the International Game Developers Association, along with 9leap, a game development contest for students, the Fukushima Game Jam has already managed to attract some notable developers, including Tetsuya Mizuguchi from Child of Eden developer Q EntertainmentThe jam will take place in the city of Minamisoma, which is located about 16 miles from the nuclear plant Applications are still being accepted, and organizers are looking for developers from both Tokyo and the Tohoku area the province in which the disasters occurred , though developers from outside Japan will also be considered You can learn more about how to sign up here For those who can't make it, the jam will be streamed live on Ustream and the organizers are planning to make all completed games available for download afterwards Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336333.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336333.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 18:25:05 - Ars Technica - Court documents from Apple's recent preliminary injunction win against Samsung in Europe reveal that the company has also filed a claim against the Motorola Xoom Like the Galaxy Tab 101, Apple claims the Xoom tablet infringes on its registered EU Community Design for the iPad, though it's not clear if Apple has yet requested a similar preliminary injunction against Motorola According to the complaint filed against Samsung with the Landgericht Düsseldorf, Apple has also filed complaints in the same court against both Motorola and a German company called JAY techover the iPad design The complaint against Motorola targets the company's Xoom Android tablet, which launched in late February Though the filing doesn't say exactly what relief Apple is seeking from the court, FOSS Patents notes that timing is a key element in requesting a preliminary injunction according to German law, so Apple may have simply requested an EU wide injunction that would only apply after a full trial Apple did note in the filing, however, that it has already obtained a preliminary injunction against JAY tech's tablets Apple is currently involved in a major legal tug of war with Motorola in the US concerning 40 smartphone related patents four federal lawsuits and two ITC investigations are pending between the two mobile device makers Motorola is also seeking to have the patents that Apple is asserting against another Android vendor, HTC,ruled invalid Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336332.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336332.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 16:25:49 - Ars Technica - Terrified by Amazon's Kindle e reader and discounted e book pricing, five major publishers allegedly acted together to increase e book prices and compel Amazon to abandon its discount sales strategy That's the gist of a new class action antitrust lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by the Hagens Berman litigation group The five book sellers named in the suit are HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin Group Inc, and Simon Schuster Inc, plus one more defendant Apple Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336250.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336250.shtml www.interobs.com : 2011-08-10 04:50:32 - Ars Technica - The Mac mini lowercase, please has served as the entry level option in Apple's Mac lineup since its introduction in 2005 The system's modest energy footprint and impressively compact form factor have always been compelling, but mediocre hardware specs and lack of expandability have detracted from its value The new Mac mini, which was launched alongside the release of Mac OS X Lion in July, improves the formula and buries some of the unfortunate trade offs that had to be made in previous models In particular, the inclusion of a Sandy Bridge CPU instead of the antiquated Core 2 Duo significantly increases the mini's competitiveness In this review, we will measure the performance and energy footprint of a mid range Mac mini configuration, then take a close look at its strengths and weaknesses as a Home Theater PC HTPC Read the comments on this post http://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336007.shtmlhttp://www.interobs.com/revue/Gamers/news/336007.shtml