[US] Congress To Make Streaming a Felony

DarkAstraea — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:13:13 GMT

THIS WEEK Senators will be voting on a "Ten Strikes" bill to make it a felony to stream copyrighted content -- like music in the background of a Youtube video -- more than ten times.

I'm not really going to go into this much since it is the American government, but seriously....wtf...

[vvat]

Katamari Hack

DarkAstraea — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:07:25 GMT

If any of you know what Katamari is, it's a Japanese game that takes a ball and rolls over things and gets bigger the more it picks up. So someone made a javascript hack for browsers just go to the link below and copy the javascript code into the url bar and enjoy.

[Clickeh]

IBM Creates Watson

Troop — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:35:50 GMT

He's smarter than Sherlock Holmes himself. I humbly accept our robot overlords just as long as they name their leader Wen Wen Master of the Universe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html

Microsoft takes initiative and works with Jailbreakers

DarkAstraea — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:56:42 GMT

Slashdot:
"Microsoft had a sit down with the first people to jailbreak their Windows Phone 7. Seems like good progress was made. This seems like a good approach to me. It would be great if Sony, Apple, Microsoft, and several Android phone makers would implement a simple development switch in their phones — these would obviously void the warranty, but it would give hackers the opportunity to actually own their devices without fear of having to jailbreak all over again whenever an update arrives."

Microsoft FTW, working with community developers instead of pounding them with DCMAs and lawsuits.

[Clickeh]

China Hijacks Internet Traffic

Troop — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 23:21:46 GMT

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec10/chinainternet_11-26.html

This is pretty scary. Thoughts?

USAF Unveils New PS3 SuperComputer

DarkAstraea — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 22:16:35 GMT

"The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has connected 1,760 PlayStation 3 systems together to create what the organization is calling the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department. The Condor Cluster, as the group of systems is known, also includes 168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers in a parallel array capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (500 TFLOPS), according to AFRL Director of High Power Computing Mark Barnell."

(Clickeh)

Wow this is amazing, I didn't know that they could do something like connecting gaming consoles together to create a SuperComputer environment. Costs $2 million, 5 to 10 percent of an equivalent system. Very innovative and promising. Thumbs up!

Dungeon Defenders

DarkAstraea — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:34:35 GMT

http://dungeondefenders.com/

This game looks so awesome! Action-RPG and Tower Defense combination!

BUT JOE!!!!!!

COICA Internet Censorship

Troop — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:48:00 GMT

http://www.eff.org/coica

eff:

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) is an Internet censorship bill which is rapidly making its way through the Senate. Although it is ostensibly focused on copyright infringement, an enormous amount of noninfringing content, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes.

This seems pretty ridiculous. Thoughts?

The Internet Will Never Work Out

Troop — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:55:19 GMT

People will never be able to buy things online. Classrooms will be kept physical. Books have to be on paper. "Friend" will never be a verb.

http://www.newsweek.com/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html

Facebook adds Friend Stalker Tool

DarkAstraea — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:06:01 GMT

"Facebook has added a new tool that brings together conversations and photos between friends onto a single page, but — as usual — has crossed the creepy line. Not only does clicking the See Friendship tool let users view photos, comments and events shared between themselves and their friend, it also offers a search tool to do the same between any two mutual friends, making it easy to see everything any two people have ever said to each other Facebook. As usual, the site should have tested the function out on their users first, with one saying: 'I've always wanted this! And yes, I'm a creepy stalker.' Also, as usual for Facebook, all users are automatically opted in, and there's currently no obvious way to turn it off."

[Stalkers r Kool]

Ok....this has got to be one of the worst ideas ever. So much for secrecy, what happens when that "mutual" friend turns out to be someone you're going to hate? They will see every stupid thing that you may or may not have done. And you are automatically opted in to this crap and can't turn it off? Zuckerberg must really want there to be no privacy in Facebook what-so-ever.......

Diablo 3 Hands-On Review at Blizzcon

DarkAstraea — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:53:29 GMT

At this year's Blizzcon, we got to try out a section of Diablo 3 that was pulled directly from the single-player storyline and playable with all classes. A large number of skills and abilities were playable, and the skill rune system has been implemented, a feature that was lacking for last year's demo build. We also got to spend some time trying out the newly announced PvP system — Battle Arenas. Read on for a walk-through of Diablo 3 as we've seen it so far. In short: it's shaping up to be an excellent game, and a worthy successor to Diablo 2. Read on for more.

[Clickeh]

EPIC! Can't wait!

Facebook Apps Sending Unnecessary Data

DarkAstraea — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:00:35 GMT

"No stranger to privacy concerns, Facebook is one again in in the privacy spotlight following a Wall Street Journal report that some popular Facebook applications leak personal information to advertisers. "Many of the popular applications, or 'apps,' on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information — in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names — to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies," according to The Wall Street Journal, which wrote about Facebook Sunday in the latest installment of its recent "What They Know" series about advertising and the Internet."

[Clickeh][I need's a dispenser!]

Although a Facebook developer states that the information transmitted back is due to browser flaws, I think that is only an excuse to blind the public. Some of Facebook's big applications were down until today for unknown reasons after the Journal stated the issue. So if you were playing Farmville or using whatever other apps, your information may have been transmitted to unwanted people.

Government Admits Spying Over Facebook

DarkAstraea — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:02:07 GMT

"Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg famously said that the age of privacy is over. And the government wants to ensure that, it seems. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's FOIA request has revealed government memos encouraging agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. Thanks to this request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS), and one revealing how the DHS monitored social media during the Obama inauguration."

["Age of Privacy Over"][That Medic's A Spy!]

Though the privacy statement was made at the beginning of the year, thought it would be nice for those who didn't see it yet. But to summarize, the feds are spying on you! Good thing i don't have a Facebook account.

3D Displays Have Hazardous Side Effects

DarkAstraea — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 07:43:34 GMT

"Turns out 3D television can be inherently dangerous to developing children, and perhaps to adults as well. There's a malaise in children that can prevent full stereopsis (depth perception) from developing, called strabismus or lazy-eye. It is an abnormal alignment of the eyes in which the eyes do not focus on the same object — kind of like when you watch a 3D movie. As a result, depth perception is compromised. Acting on a hunch, the guys over at Audioholics contacted Mark Pesce, who worked with Sega on its VR Headset over 15 years ago — you know, the headset that never made it to market. As it turns out, back then Sega uncovered serious health risks involved with children consuming 3D and quickly buried the reports, and the project. Unfortunately, the same dangers exist in today's 3D, and the electronics, movie, and gaming industries seem to be ignoring the issue. If fully realized, 3D just might affect the vision of millions of children and, according to the latest research, many adults, across the country."

(OMGZ CLICK) (strabismus?)

One Step Closer to Star Wars Holograms

DarkAstraea — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:17:02 GMT

An anonymous reader noted a USC research project that is coming ever closer to bringing the classic Star Wars communication holograms from Tatooine to Earth. There's nifty video and some high resolution pictures of Tie Fighters projected into 3-D. Still no clear way to project it from an astro mech droid, but I'm sure that's coming.

(CLICK MEH!!)

We're so close!!

PC Game Modders are EVOLVING

DarkAstraea — Wed, 19 May 2010 11:32:50 GMT

"Wired has a lengthy investigation into the state of PC game mods, and the amateurs keeping the scene exciting in the wake of draconian DRM placed on many PC titles by major studios. It highlights a number of creative modders, such as Scott Reismanis, founder and editor of Mod DB, and his community-driven alternative to Valve's Steam — Desura — which is 'a distribution system, and, like Steam, will sell games and champion indie titles. But the way it handles mods makes it even more exciting.'"

(Clickeh) (Clekz)

This is a very good read for those who are programmers and modders. Desura would level the playing field for independent modders/developers/programmers against professional developers. A whole new era of mod distribution in my opinion.

Mobiles Attacked with Apps

DarkAstraea — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:12:24 GMT

"The pace of innovation on mobile phones and other smart wireless devices has accelerated greatly in the last few years. ... But now the attackers are beginning to outstrip the good guys on mobile platforms, developing innovative new attacks and methods for stealing data that rival anything seen on the desktop, experts say. This particular attack vector — introducing malicious or Trojaned applications into mobile app stores — has the potential to become a very serious problem, researchers say. Tyler Shields, a security researcher at Veracode who developed a proof-of-concept spyware application for the BlackBerry earlier this year, said that the way app stores are set up and their relative lack of safeguards makes them soft targets for attackers. ... 'There are extremely technical approaches like the OS attacks, but that stuff is much harder to do,' Shields said. 'From the attacker's standpoint, it's too much effort when you can just drop something into the app store. It comes down to effort versus reward. The spyware Trojan approach will be the future of crime. Why spend time popping boxes when you can get the users to own the boxes themselves? If you couple that with custom Trojans and the research I've done, it's super scary.'"

Really, now.....who couldn't see this coming. Imagine the amount of information that can be stolen from apps, such as mobile banking. Good thing I'm not a phone addict.

(Click Meh)

Justice John Paul Stevens Retiring

DarkAstraea — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:05:54 GMT

"Corporate Counsel recounts the profound legacy of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the majority opinion in what some consider the most important copyright ruling of all time — the 1984 Betamax decision (Sony v. Universal City Studios) that established that consumers have a personal 'fair use' right to make copies of copyrighted material for non-commercial use. Justice Stevens's contribution to the ultimate decision in Betamax extended well beyond writing the opinion. The justices' initial debates in the case make it clear that Stevens was the only one of the nine (PDF) who believed that the 'fair use' doctrine gave consumers a right to make personal copies of copyrighted content for home use. It was his negotiating skill that pulled together the five-vote majority allowing home video recorders to be sold and used without interference from copyright holders. An IP litigator is quoted: 'The ruling that making a single copy for yourself of a broadcast movie was fair use ... that was truly huge, and was a point on which the court was deeply divided.' So the next time you're TiVo-ing an episode of your favorite show, remember to give a quick thanks to Justice Stevens; and let's hope that whoever President Obama appoints to replace him will follow in Stevens's footsteps and defend Fair Use, not corporate copyright interests."

Just a big history news flash for those of you who don't know him.

Activision countersues 'MW' execs

DarkAstraea — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:00:23 GMT

"AP is reporting that Activision has countersued former Infinity Ward executives Jason West and Vince Zampella. Activision claims West and Zampella 'morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain and whose actions threatened both the future of the Call of Duty franchise and the future of Activision's (Infinity Ward) studio.'"

This follows Activision's firing of the execs earlier this year. Legal documents indicate that this legal dispute has caused delays in the production of Modern Warfare 3. Lawyers for the two fired execs say Activision's claims are ridiculous, citing Modern Warfare 2's overwhelming financial success. Meanwhile, it's rumored that EA is seeing the whole fiasco as an opportunity.

(Clickeh)

Later School Starts Drops Absenteeism

DarkAstraea — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:39:48 GMT

"Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside, UK, began an experiment in October that saw its 800 pupils ranging in age from 13-19 attend school an hour later than normal, at 10am. Early results indicate that 'general absence has dropped by 8% and persistent absenteeism by 27%.' Head teacher Paul Kelley supported the idea because he believed that 'it was now medically established that it was better for teenagers to start their school day later in terms of their mental and physical health and how they learn better in the afternoon', and he now claims that the children are becoming 'happier better educated teenagers' as a result of the experiment. The experiment is being overseen by Oxford neuroscience professor Russell Foster. 'He performed memory tests on pupils at the school which suggested the more difficult lessons should take place in the afternoon. He said young people's body clocks may shift as they reach their teenage years — meaning they want to get up later not because they are lazy but because they are biologically programmed to do.'"

(Yay!)

Wow i completely, support this method. I wish i had it during my high school years. Hopefully within the next decade this will be implemented to all North American high schools.

Game Devs On the Future of PC Gaming at PAX

DarkAstraea — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:30:58 GMT

Shacknews wraps up a developer panel at PAX East discussing the future of gaming on the PC. They cover topics including DRM, digital download platforms and cloud-based gaming services. "Joe Kreiner of Terminal Reality: 'If you look at it from a giant publisher perspective, then the numbers on the PC just really don't make financial sense for you to bother with it. But if you start out with the mindset — you know, you're targeting that group, you make a niched product that's going [to] do well, if you look at a lot of the titles on Steam, Torchlight's a really good example — as long as you know that's your audience to begin with, and you make something inside of a budget that you know you're going to be selling those kinds of numbers, you can be very successful. I think it just takes a targeted developer. ... There is no [PC] platform, really. It's just a mish-mosh of hardware, an operating system that kind of supports games. The problem with that platform is, there's no standards and piracy is rampant, so why would we want to make a video game for that platform unless you had some sort of draconian DRM thing to keep it from being stolen?"

(Clickeh)

Lots of good points were made in this posting, it's a good read. READ EET NAO

Malware sent out by Yahoo, Fox, and Google Ads

DarkAstraea — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:19:16 GMT

"CNET is reporting that Avast has tracked over 2.6 million instances of malware that have been served up to unsuspecting web surfers since last December by ad services such as Yahoo's Yield Manager, Fox Audience Network's Fimserve.com and even some from Google's DoubleClick. Some high-profile sites include The New York Times, Drudge Report.com, TechCrunch and WhitePages.com. The practice has been dubbed 'malvertising.' I usually suspect the users of 'careless web activity' when I delouse a PC, but now I'm going to have to give some the benefit of the doubt."

(Oh noze!)

Curse them! Stupid ads, everything....

Bill Gates and Toshiba for Nuclear Power

DarkAstraea — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:14:12 GMT

"TerraPower, an energy start-up backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is in discussions with Toshiba Corp. to develop a small-scale nuclear reactor that would represent a long-term bet to make nuclear power safer and cheaper. Toshiba confirmed it is in preliminary discussions with TerraPower, a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent-holding concern partially funded by Gates and Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori says the two sides are talking about how they could collaborate on nuclear technology although discussions are still in early stages and that nothing has been decided on investment or development. TerraPower has publicly said its Traveling Wave Reactor could run for decades on depleted uranium without refueling (PDF) or removing spent fuel from the device. The reactor, the company has said, could be safer, cheaper and more socially acceptable than today's reactors. Gates's recent focus on nuclear power has been fueled by an interest in developing new power systems for developing countries where he says that new energy solutions are needed to combat climate change. Terrapower faces a lengthy, multi-year process to get its "traveling wave" reactor concept reviewed by regulators but if TerraPower succeeds in advancing its plans, it could provide an alternative blueprint for the nuclear industry at a time when new reactors may be coming online."

(Clicky One)(Clikeh Two)(Clekmeh Tree)

This could revolutionize the world, go Bill Gates and Toshiba

Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam

DarkAstraea — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:34:23 GMT

"Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... 'We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'"

Oh the horror >.<

(Clicky) (Poo)

He makes sweet songs.

Shank — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:19:32 GMT

Hey, not sure if you heard of Bryan Simon but he makes awesome Halo songs.

He is in a contest right now and he can use all the help he can get.

Please take the time a watch this video and vote afterwards.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1rL48wZ550

Thanks.

Links

[US] Congress To Make Streaming a Felony

Katamari Hack

IBM Creates Watson

Microsoft takes initiative and works with Jailbreakers

China Hijacks Internet Traffic

USAF Unveils New PS3 SuperComputer

Dungeon Defenders

COICA Internet Censorship

The Internet Will Never Work Out

Facebook adds Friend Stalker Tool

Diablo 3 Hands-On Review at Blizzcon

Facebook Apps Sending Unnecessary Data

Government Admits Spying Over Facebook

3D Displays Have Hazardous Side Effects

One Step Closer to Star Wars Holograms

PC Game Modders are EVOLVING

Mobiles Attacked with Apps

Justice John Paul Stevens Retiring

Activision countersues 'MW' execs

Later School Starts Drops Absenteeism

Game Devs On the Future of PC Gaming at PAX

Malware sent out by Yahoo, Fox, and Google Ads

Bill Gates and Toshiba for Nuclear Power

Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam

He makes sweet songs.