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Submission + - Pre-orders in Progress for Cities in Motion 2 (gamasutra.com)

Submitted by Joe_Dragon
Joe_Dragon writes: NEW YORK — March 19, 2013 — Paradox Interactive, a publisher of games and owner of bus passes, announced today that pre-orders are now available for Cities in Motion 2, their forthcoming transit simulation and design game for PC and Mac. Players can pre-purchase the dynamic strategy title now from the game’s new website, located at www.citiesinmotion2.com. Cities in Motion 2 is scheduled to launch on April 2, 2013 for $19.99.

As a bonus for all pre-purchases of Cities in Motion 2, early adopters will receive the “Modern Collection” DLC which includes additional trolley buses, trams, and a boat for water lines. The Modern Collection also introduces a new stop type, which allows trams, buses, and trolleys to share the same stop and allow passengers to switch vehicles with ease, and therefore minimize congestion.

To purchase Cities in Motion 2, check out www.citiesinmotion2.com/buy

This has a lot of stuff that the new simcity was missing and at the much lower price.

Submission + - Falsely accused of stealing University computers

Submitted by DonkeyKomg
DonkeyKomg writes: A sysadmin colleague of mine was falsely accused of stealing two workstations from his University computer lab over the weekend--a place he has worked for the past 8 years without incident. In any case, he was suspended for a week and then fired without any charges ever being filed. The University Police arrested him in his office on a Monday and then he voluntarily allowed them to search his apartment where they did not find the two stolen computers. After a week of paid suspension, he was called in for a meeting about his termination, the reason for which is listed as "computer theft." My colleague believes that a boss and a conspirator saw this as a reason to get rid of him for taking excess medical leave time after some health issues he had earlier in the year. Surely this has to be wrongful termination. He isn't sure where to start about figuring out what his rights are and trying to get his job back. Since he's an IT professional accused of stealing workstations I thought I would ask slashdot. The main issue here is that he was fired based on an accusation of theft which was never proven. What rights does he have? While it might not matter, as a character reference I would attest that he did not steal any computers.
Television

Submission + - The Nielsen Family Is Dead (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An article at Wired walks us through how the so-called Nielsen Family, responsible for deciding which shows were good and which were flops since the '70s, isn't the be-all, end-all of TV popularity anymore. Quoting: 'Over the years, the Nielsen rating has been tweaked, but it still serves one fundamental purpose: to gauge how many people are watching a given show on a conventional television set. But that’s not how we watch any more. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, smartphone, tablet—none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the Nielsen rating. (In February Nielsen announced that this fall it would finally begin including Internet streaming to TV sets in its ratings.) And the TV experience doesn’t stop when the episode ends. We watch with tablets on our laps so we can look up an actor’s IMDb page. We tweet about the latest plot twist (discreetly, to avoid spoilers). We fill up the comments section of our favorite online recappers. We kibitz with Facebook friends about Hannah Horvath’s latest paramour. We start Tumblrs devoted to Downton decor. We’re engaging with a show even if we aren’t watching it, but none of this behavior factors into Nielsen’s calculation of its impact.'
Sci-Fi

Journal + - Journal: Farmers

Journal by mcgrew

Previously...

They had been farmers for longer than anyone knew. They had long ago outlawed all but the most primitive of technologies. They had a holy text that was thought to have never changed, although it must have, since language itself changes. The books were produced by an ancient method called "woodcutting" that was an allowed form of tech.

Submission + - Video Games And Literature (newyorker.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Have the storytelling capabilities of the two already met? A New Yorker interview with Gears of War 4 writer Tom Bissell explores the question.
Security

Submission + - French CA ready to issue Adobe-approved certificate to Belzebuth

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When being queried on a Mozilla security list why they issued a certificate to *.google.com, a French CA replied it was simply because 'someone pretended to be named *.google.com' (That was easy). And that pretending to be Belzebuth, 666 Hells drive would lead to similar results... but that it was ok because they were non-SSL certificates. What do you think? Is it ok to issue a certificate to Belzebuth, (or Google) because you are in the Adobe trust store but not the Mozilla one?
The Military

Submission + - Possible Chemical Weapons Use in Syria

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Mike Hoffman reports that Syria’s Assad regime has accused the rebels of launching a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo that killed 25 people — an accusation the rebel fighters have strongly rebuked. A Reuters photographer said victims he had visited in Aleppo hospitals were suffering breathing problems and that people had said they could smell chlorine after the attack. The Russian foreign ministry says it has enough information to confirm the rebels launched a chemical attack while US government leaders say they have not found any evidence of a chemical attack and White House spokesman Jay Carney says the accusations made by Assad could be an attempt to cover up his own potential attacks. “We’ve seen reports from the Assad regime alleging that the opposition has been responsible for use. Let me just say that we have no reason to believe these allegations represent anything more than the regime’s continued attempts to discredit the legitimate opposition and distract from its own atrocities committed against the Syrian people,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. “We don’t have any evidence to substantiate the regime’s charge that the opposition even has CW (chemical weapons) capability.” President Obama has said the “red line” to which the US would send forces to Syria would be the use of chemical weapons. However, it was assumed the Assad regime would be the ones using their chemical weapons stockpile, not the rebels."
Iphone

Submission + - Apple Releases Patch For Evasi0n Jailbreak (After It's Used 18 Million Times) (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Apple has released a new update for iOS that prevents the jailbreak evasi0n released last month. But that hacking tool has already become the most popular jailbreak ever: It's been used to remove the software restrictions on 18.2 million devices in the 43 days between its release and the patch, according to data from Cydia, the app store for jailbroken devices. In its announcement of the update, Apple says it has fixed six bugs and was polite enough to credit the hackers behind evasi0n with finding four of them. At least one of the bugs used by evasi0n remains unpatched, according to David Wang, one of evasi0n's creators. And Wang says that he and his fellow hackers still have bugs in reserve for a new jailbreak, although they plan to keep them secret until the next major release.
Security

Submission + - Bruce Schneier Slams Security Training For Users (darkreading.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Security guru Bruce Schneier contends that money spent on user awareness training could be better spent and that the real failings lie in security design. "The whole concept of security awareness training demonstrates how the computer industry has failed. We should be designing systems that won't let users choose lousy passwords and don't care what links a user clicks on," Schneier writes in a blog post on Dark Reading. He says organizations should invest in security training for developers.

Submission + - News from Nvidia's GTC: updated Tesla/Tegra roadmaps (libgeodecomp.org)

Submitted by gentryx
gentryx writes: Today Nvidia's founder Jen-Hsun Huang has revealed two new future architectures which are currently being worked on: Volta in the Tesla line and Parker in the Tegra line. Volta will feature 3D chip stacks with through-silicone vias and 1 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Such an off-chip bandwidth would not be possible with the current technology which runs all connections through the rim of the chip. However, these stacks also increase thermal density, which may create other problems. Parker is to use FinFET transistors, which indicates that Nvidia will stick with TSMC as its fabrication partner.

Huang also announced the Nvidia GRID VCA (visual computing appliance), a machine stuffed with 8 dual-chip GPUs, which might be regarded as a GPU mainframe by some, or, since it runs virtual machines, a GPU cloud by marketing.

More details and some key slides are available here.
Graphics

Submission + - NVIDIA CEO Unveils Volta Graphics, Tegra Roadmap, GRID VCA Virtualized Rendering (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang kicked off this year’s GPU Technology Conference with his customary opening keynote. The focus of Jen-Hsun’s presentation was on unveiling a new GPU core code named "Volta" that will employ stacked DRAM for over 1TB/s of memory bandwidth, as well as updates to NVIDIA's Tegra roadmap and a new remote rendering appliance called "GRID VCA." On the mobile side, Tegra's next generation "Logan" architecture will feature a Kepler-based GPU and support CUDA 5 and OpenGL 4.3. Logan will offer up to 3X the compute performance of current solutions and be demoed later this year, with full production starting early next year. For big iron, NVIDIA's GRID VCA (Visual Computing Appliance) is a new 4U system based on NVIDIA GRID remote rendering technologies. The GRID hypervisor supports 16 virtual machines (1 per GPU) and each system will feature 8-Core Xeon CPUs, 192GB or 384GB of RAM, and 4 or 8 GRID boards, each with two Kepler-class GPUs, for up to 16 GPUs per system. Jen-Hsun demo’d a MacBook Pro remotely running a number of applications on GRID, like 3D StudioMax and Solidworks, which aren't even available for Mac OS X natively."
Piracy

Submission + - European Commission's study debunks claimed digital piracy damages (europa.eu)

Submitted by r5r5
r5r5 writes: European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies has published the study where it concludes that the impact of piracy on the legal sale of music is virtually nonexistent or even slightly positive.
Study's results suggest that Internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute for legal digital music and that a 10% increase in clicks on illegal downloading websites leads to a 0.2% increase in clicks on legal purchase websites.
Online music streaming services are found to have a somewhat larger (but still small) effect on the purchases of digital sound recordings, suggesting complementarities between these two modes of music consumption. According to the results, a 10% increase in clicks on legal streaming websites leads to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchase websites.
Education

Submission + - go to uni, earn a degree in drones (time.com)

Submitted by KernelMuncher
KernelMuncher writes: Curricula and research projects related to drones are cropping up at both large universities and community colleges across the country. In a list of 81 publicly funded entities that have applied for a certificate of authorization to fly drones from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), more than a third are colleges. Schools — and their students — are jockeying for a position on the ground floor of a nascent industry that looks poised to generate jobs and research funding in the coming years. “We get a lot of inquiries from students saying, ‘I want to be a drone pilot,’” says Ken Polovitz, the assistant dean in the University of North Dakota’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences.

Submission + - Are Lenovo's ThinkPads Getting Worse? (readwrite.com) 2

Submitted by writertype
writertype writes: Over the weekend, Lenovo launched the ThinkPad T431s, a ~$950 notebook with chiclet keys, no trackpad buttons, an integrated battery, and Windows 8 but no touchscreen. The T431s is also thinner and lighter than the bulletproof bento boxes we all know and love. The argument ReadWrite makes is that ThinkPads are becoming slowly, but significantly, worse. Do you agree?
Your Rights Online

Submission + - West Virginia Refuses to Release Broadband Report Because it is "Embarrassing" (wvgazette.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Charleston Gazette is reporting that the state of West Virginia hired a consulting firm for over $100,000 to investigate the state's use of Federal stimulus money to purchase $22,000 routers for tiny buildings, but is refusing a FOIA request to release the firm's report. The reason: the findings "might be embarrassing to some people", according to Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette.
Software

Submission + - EA CEO's Departure Might Be Good for the Company (dice.com)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello might have resigned in the wake of the company’s disastrous SimCity launch, but his departure might not be a bad thing for EA as the company. On Glassdoor, his 59 percent rating was 9 points below the average. One outside recruiter says Riccitiello’s taken the fun out of the game maker’s culture. “They’ve never had a problem getting good talent and that’s not likely to change,” says the recruiter, who requested anonymity because of his business dealings with the company. “But, they’ve had problems getting great talent and that’s not likely to change.” Let this be a lesson to gaming executives everywhere: if you’re going to launch a popular title that needs to be constantly connected to online servers, make sure you have enough backend infrastructure in place to actually handle the load."
Japan

Submission + - Radiation poising suit against Fukushima operator grows (cnn.com)

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) faces mounting damages from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster as more U.S. servicemembers joined a lawsuit accusing the Japanese national utility of lying about the risks involved in an aid effort to the stricken area in 2011.

Attorneys said the number of plaintiffs had grown to 26 from an initial eight, who filed their original lawsuit in December, and that 100 more were ready to join the lawsuit which is now seeking more than $2 billion, the Stars and Stripes newspaper reported late last week....

The amended lawsuit increases the amount of damages lawyers are seeking for crew aboard the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and other service vessels in the area who say they are suffering continuing health problems from the rescue effort that followed the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck eastern Japan on March 11, 2011, crippling reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant....

The plaintiffs say they are suffering a range of disorders related to radiation exposure, from headaches and difficulty concentrating to rectal bleeding, thyroid problems, cancer and gynecological bleeding."

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