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Submission + - The polics of the root (politico.com)

Submitted by
dstates
dstates writes: "The good news is that the Internet has become a central enough part of global life that politicians are starting to pay attention to the details of Internet management. The bad news is that the politicians are paying attention to the Internet. Politico.com has an interesting note on the politics surrounding the annual meeting of the The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which is opening its annual meeting in San Francisco today. While some people finding it frightening that a US corporation controls names usage on the Internet, the prospect of a UN body assuming control raises its own concerns."
Hardware

Submission + - Exclusive : ARM Cortex-A15 "40%" Faster Than A9 (itproportal.com)

Submitted by siliconbits
siliconbits writes: We've received an email from ARM that confirms that the Cortex-A15 will be at least 40 per cent faster than the A9 when it comes to raw performance (Dhrystone MIPS), all things equal; same number of core, same speed. According to our contact at ARM, the A15 has a "published but not formal number" of 3.5 DMIPS/MHz but told us that the performance difference across generation is "dependent on many factors" before adding that "Other benchmarks can show less improvement on specific devices, others a greater improvement". ARM has yet to officially publish the Cortex-A15 figures on its website. The Cortex-A8 reached 2.0 DMIPS/MHz while the Cortex-A9 reached 2.5 DMIPS/MHz, a 25 per cent improvement. Given that startups like Caldexa are already developing quad-core iteration of the Cortex-A9, one can easily envision that a 4-core Cortex-A15 will shatter the 40K DMIPS barrier, putting it within touching distance of the AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition which reached almost 43K DMIPS running at 3GHz.
Image

Lies, Damned Lies and Cat Statistics 175

Posted by samzenpus from the nine-lies dept.
spopepro writes "While un-captioned cats might be of limited interest to the /. community, I found this column on how a fabricated statistic takes on a life of its own interesting. Starting with the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) claim that the unsterilized offspring of a cat will '...result in 420,000 cats in 5 years,' the author looks at other erroneous numbers, where they came from and why they won't go away."
Apple

Submission + - Turn your iPod Touch into a Phone (cnbeta.com)

Submitted by Humunculus
Humunculus writes: Turn your iPod Touch into a phone! Interesting application and hardware about to be released in China that "wraps" around your iPod touch to provide phone functionality for about $60. Now of course I am not saying it will change it to an iPhone, as it's not Apple based, but interesting nonetheless. I am just wondering how the actual app to drive it will get past Apple via iTunes or perhaps the iPod needs to be jailbroken first? There is a lot of informaiton on this link about the product, but unfortunately most is in Chinese. Wow there's life left for my iPod Touch, way cheaper than an iPhone and not locked to any carrier!
Piracy

Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games 461

Posted by Soulskill from the saddle-up dept.
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
Role Playing (Games)

Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Coming In March 80

Posted by Soulskill from the well-met-warden dept.
ishanjain tipped news that BioWare has announced an expansion for Dragon Age: Origins, called Awakening, that is due out on March 16th. Awakening "is supposed to run about 15 hours and will allow for players to import and edit characters they've broken in from the core game," and it will take place "in the in the role of a Grey Warden Commander who's been tasked with rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and finding out how the darkspawn survived following the death of the Archdemon dragon." A trailer is available at the official site, as well as some information on a new bit of DLC that will be out shortly, entitled Return to Ostagar. (It was originally due for release on January 5th, but was delayed.)
Games

Heavy Rain Previews Show Promise 84

Posted by Soulskill from the blue-skies dept.
As the February release date for Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain nears, several publications have gotten a chance for some hands-on time with the game and seem to be intrigued by what they saw. Quoting the Opposable Thumbs blog: "The game grabs you during the quiet moments where nothing 'happens.' When you look at a picture your child drew. When you're questioning someone about a crime. When you're trying to figure out how to react to a violent situation. The preview we were sent put me in different situations as I played a small handful of characters, and each one provided a few tiny moments that were surprising in terms of storytelling or subtlety." Eurogamer's previewer had a similar reaction: "To my great delight as well — Heavy Rain isn't a mature game because it has unhappy families and moody lighting, it's a mature game because it anticipates an adult response from the player and is prepared to receive it."

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