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BioWare On Building a Community For Dragon Age 34

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 02, 2009 @06:13AM from the let-me-tell-you-a-story dept.

Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, sat down with Gamasutra to discuss upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins, as well as some of the features they're working on for release alongside the game. In particular, they are interested in building a framework for players to show off their characters and share stories about the gameplay they encounter. "We're creating a community site that's going to enable the fans to get revved up about what each other is doing. They're showing their choices and consequences to friends. Even though it's single-player, you can still reveal those choices to each other and have fun doing it. It enables some of that stuff that occurs anecdotally amongst friends at the water cooler: 'Hey, did you play this yet? Did you go this way?' 'No, I didn't run into that. I did it this way.' 'Really? I didn't run into that at all!' You can meet people who are across the world and enable them to see those kinds of things, too, which I think will lead to a lot of fun discussion and collaboration in the community."

Nano Origami for DNA, Complete With Software 32

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday August 07, 2009 @05:19PM from the next-gen-legos dept.

wisebabo writes "Some researchers at Technische Universitaet Muenchen and Harvard have developed a way to make DNA 'Origami' fold up into all sorts of desired nanoscale shapes. While this has been done before, there now seems to be a much greater assortment of shapes they can create. What's particularly interesting is that they've developed some software that can be used (presumably with a DNA assembler) that will create what you want; think of CAD/CAM on a molecular scale! 'The toolbox they have developed includes a graphical software program that helps to translate specific design concepts into the DNA programming required to realize them. Three-dimensional shapes are produced by "tuning" the number, arrangement, and lengths of helices.'"

Submission + - Four reasons to and not to upgrade to Windows 7 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @11:02AM

Lucas123 writes: "Upgrading to Windows 7 is a no-brainer for Vista users; the new OS handily fixes the worst of Vista's mistakes. But for XP users, it's not so clear. Windows 7 makes finding files easier because it clusters different file types into shortcuts called Libraries. The OS just looks better than Vista, and it is a lot less invasive with its security warnings by default. It also lets you cycle through different background images and screen savers. Little features like the ability to burn CDs from single ISO image files are also great, and Windows 7 definitely boots up faster than XP or Vista on identically configured machines. On the other hand, Windows 7 is a radical interface departure from XP, and users will have to relearn most everything. There are also many various and confusing pre-release versions of Windows 7, and some cool features, such as Windows Movie Maker, aren't included with Windows 7."

Feed New York Times: Iraq Censorship Laws Move Ahead (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @10:52AM

The government is moving to ban Web sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to be registered and to press publishers to censor books.

Submission + - SPAM: Google Voice aims free program at military

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @10:43AM

coondoggie writes: "Google today said it was launching a program that lets any active U.S. service member with a .mil email address sign up for a Google Voice account and start using the free service within a day. Google said it will prioritize military requests so personnel receive invites within 24 hours. Google says its Google Voice service will let service members can set up an account before they deploy. Or if they're already deployed, families can set up an account for their service member. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - US cyber-security tsar steps down (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by b1nary atr0phy on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @10:40AM

b1nary atr0phy writes: Melissa Hathaway told the [Wall Street Journal] she was leaving for "personal reasons" and would return to the private sector. The former strategist was appointed as acting national cyber-adviser in February and was expected to be offered the post of full time. Ms Hathaway was widely regarded as the person to fill the post after taking on the role as acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils in February. In April she completed a review of cyber-security for the Obama administration. At the time, Ms Hathaway said the job ahead was "a marathon, not a sprint." Her successor has not yet been named by the White House.

Submission + - Wipeout HD loading ads scrapped after uproar (eurogamer.net)

Submitted by

RobotsDinner

on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @10:38AM

RobotsDinner writes: "After yesterday's story about intrusive, loading-screen ads being retroactively added to the PSN racing title Wipeout HD, the popular uproar has indeed succeeded in getting Sony to pull them. You can put your pitchforks down; your voice has been heard!

Sony tells Eurogamer:
"The ad has been removed from WipEout HD and we are investigating the situation to ensure that any in-game advertising does not affect gameplay," said a spokesperson for the platform holder.
"

Submission + - SPAM: UTM for your Small Business

Submitted by

BAC1

on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @10:12AM

BAC1 writes: "Unified Threat Management can protect your small business network at the perimeter BEFORE bad things happen on your network. Just look what you get: ..Anti-Virus ..Anti-Spam ..Active Directory Sync ..Intrusion Prevention ..Intrusion Detection ..Content filtering ..Web filter ..Firewall ..IPSec VPN ..Remote VPN ..IM Blocking ..Real time reports ..Executive reports ..Administrator reports You take your business serious so take your business security serious — get Calyptix AccessEnforcer for Unified Threat Management."
Link to Original Source

Feed Techdirt: Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Monday August 03, 2009 @02:32PM

Scott Richter was a bigtime spammer, who was so proud of being a spammer, at one point he planned to release his own line of "Spamking" clothing (seriously). In 2005, though, he filed for bankruptcy (even though it appeared his spamming operations were still rolling in cash. That same year, there were reports that Richter had actually gone legit and he was actually removed from the infamous ROKSO list of known spammers (not an easy list to get removed from). Except... sometimes it's just difficult to stay away. MySpace sued Richter in 2007 and won a $6 million award against him (though, Richter claimed victory since MySpace wanted much more).

Now, Michael Scott alerts us to the news that Richter tried to have his insurance company pay the fines, but a court has now said that these fines were excluded from the policies, and thus Richter is on the hook for the fines instead. That seems like a good thing. It would be pretty troubling if spammers were able to buy insurance against getting fined.

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Submission + - Brits to get in-home CCTV cameras

Submitted by BuisyBizz on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:58PM

BuisyBizz writes: The British Government plans to spend £400 million ($668 million) to install and monitor CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes. The government's "children's secretary" Ed Balls is behind the plan, which is aimed at problem, antisocial families. The government is also maintaining a private army, incredibly not called "Thought Police", which will "be sent round to carry out home checks." And in a scheme which firmly cements the nation's reputation as a "nanny state", the kids and their families will be forced to sign "behavior contracts" which will "set out parents' duties to ensure children behave and do their homework."

Submission + - KDE to be default on openSUSE? (vizzzion.org)

Submitted by

ingwa

on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:58PM

ingwa writes: "For some time there has been a discussion on the OpenSUSE feature tracking website about whether to make KDE the default desktop environment for that distribution. In a survey last year, around 68% of the OpenSUSE users preferred KDE and around 29% GNOME. Sebastian Kügler of KDE summarizes the debate well, and makes a strong case this is what the community wants. It would make a nice counterpoint to the way that Fedora has GNOME as the default desktop environment."

Feed Macworld: Amazon begins offering Snow Leopard pre-orders (macworld.com)

From feed by macworldfeed on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:52PM

Online retail giant Amazon began offering pre-orders of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X Snow Leopard this weekend.

Feed New York Times: Does Microsoft + Yahoo = A Privacy Arms Race Among Web Giants? (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:52PM

The cooperation between Microsoft and Yahoo may lead to better search-privacy practices across the Internet.

Journal Journal: 60 Light-Year Debris Field From 1000 AD super nova

Journal by Dr_Ken on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:51PM

The story complete with a color pic found here.

"Because the distance to the supernova remnant is about 7,000 light-years, that explosion actually happened 7,000 years before the light reached Earth in 1006. Shockwaves in the remnant accelerate particles to extreme energies and are thought to be a source of the mysterious cosmic rays."

Better to blow up than to fade away...

Submission + - Korean 'Journalists' Booted From Defcon (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday August 03, 2009 @01:51PM

CWmike writes: "Four South Korean journalists were booted from Defcon this week after show organizers decided their story didn't quite add up. They believe that one member of the group was a legitimate journalist, but that the other three were on some sort of intelligence-gathering expedition. Hackers who the group interviewed at the show said that their questions seemed inappropriate, organizers said. The journalists attended one day of Defcon's Black Hat sister conference before being ejected on Friday. How do you spot them? One of the show's senior organizers, who goes by the name "Priest," said "There's a certain body type you find with people who are in that type of work [such as military]," he said. "Broad shoulders, narrow waist, not very tall. I'm looking at these guys, going, 'You're in far, far too good shape to be press.'" And he said government employees posing as press often move very quickly to technical questions, rarely showing any interest in the motivation behind the research. They get "very technical very quickly," Priest said. "They're much more interested in what the latest is and what the greatest is and how they can use it.""

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