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Graphics

Company Seeks To Boost Linux Game Development With 3D Engine Giveaway 140

Posted by Soulskill from the for-services-rendered dept.
binstream writes "To support Linux game development, Unigine Corp. announced a competition: it will give a free license for its Unigine engine to a seasoned team willing to work on a native Linux game. The company has been Linux-friendly from the very start; it released advanced GPU benchmarks (Heaven, Tropics, Sanctuary) for Linux before and is working on the OilRush strategy game that supports Linux as well."
Games

Blizzard Announces Final Diablo 3 Class, PvP Arena Battles 187

Posted by Soulskill from the stay-a-while-and-listen dept.
Blizzard kicked off Blizzcon 2010 today with the announcement of Diablo 3’s fifth and final class – the Demon Hunter. The class uses crossbows, bolas, traps, and other gadgets to rid the land of Diablo’s evil minions. Blizzard also unveiled a major new feature for Diablo 3 – PvP Arena Battles. Players can join solo or in groups to take on other players through the Battle.net matchmaking service. Read on for more about Diablo 3

Comment Re:Very impressive! (Score 1) 287

by wirehead_rick (#33538962) Attached to: HDR Video a Reality

There is already _tons_ of video cameras with 3 sensors in them. Except the beam splitter splits the three sensors by _color_. It should be easy for mfrs to replace the 3 color beam splitter with a monochrome one and change the monochrome sensors with color sensors. Then just adjust the each sensor gain or shutter speed to vary the exposure. Then save three files for each sensor for later processing.

So it's just a simple beam splitter swap out, sensor swap out and SW change. Nothing else in the video cam has to change. Sounds like a minimum invstment to me.
Hardware

Oscilloscopes For Modern Engineers? 337

Posted by kdawson from the squiggly-lines dept.
Every few years someone asks this community for advice on oscilloscopes. Reader dawning writes "I've just graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering (and did a Comp Sci one while I was at it) and I'm finding myself woefully under-equipped to do some great hardware projects. I'm in major need of a good oscilloscope. I'm willing to put down $2,000 for a decent one, but there are several options and they all seem so archaic and limited. I'm happy to use something that must be controlled through a PC if that gives me more measuring features. What would you, my esteemed Slashdot colleagues, get for yourself?"
Movies

Filmmakers Resisting Hollywood's 3-D Push 521

Posted by kdawson from the flatland-is-a-nice-place-to-visit dept.
gollum123 passes along a piece from the NY Times on the building resistance to Hollywood's 3-D plans — from filmmakers. "A joke making the rounds online involves a pair of red and green glasses and some blurry letters that say, 'If you can’t make it good, make it 3-D.' While Hollywood rushes dozens of 3-D movies to the screen — nearly 60 are planned in the next two years, including 'Saw VII' and 'Mars Needs Moms!' — a rebellion among some filmmakers and viewers has been complicating the industry’s jump into the third dimension. Several influential directors took surprisingly public potshots at the 3-D boom during the recent Comic-Con... Behind the scenes..., filmmakers have begun to resist production executives eager for 3-D sales. For reasons both aesthetic and practical, some directors often do not want to convert a film to 3-D or go to the trouble and expense of shooting with 3-D cameras, which are still relatively untested on big movies with complex stunts and locations. Tickets for 3-D films carry a $3 to $5 premium, and industry executives roughly estimate that 3-D pictures average an extra 20 percent at the box office. Filmmakers like Mr. Whedon and Mr. Abrams argue that 3-D technology does little to enhance a cinematic story, while adding a lot of bother."

Comment Revenue Generation in a down economy (Score 2, Interesting) 567

by wirehead_rick (#33062306) Attached to: Tennessee Town Releases Red Light Camera Stats

This is just a simple way for localities to make up lost revenue for a decreasing tax base in an economic downturn. Speeding tickets are on the rise too.

It's just another case of there are so many damn laws you can't help but break some everyday. It's just govt. doesn't choose to fine you until the coffers get low. They let you break the law (speeding and the such) so you get into the habit and then bam - crackdown! Instant revenue stream.

My favorite way to get back is to absolutely refuse to turn right on red at any light with the cameras. I don't care how many people I piss off. I'll sit there all freakin' day long. If it's in your local municipality and you support the camera then you get to wait behind my paranoid ass. Serves ya right.
Government

California To Drop State Rock Over Asbestos Concerns 256

Posted by Soulskill from the your-tax-dollars-at-work dept.
Diamonddavej writes "The LA Times reports that Californian legislators are close to dropping the translucent green rock Serpentine as the state rock of California because of its tenuous association with chrysotile asbestos. Sen. Gloria Romero declares in her bill (SB 624) that Serpentine should be dropped as California's state rock because it 'contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos, a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma.' The bill has backing from mesothelioma support groups. Critics point out that Serpentine is a group of 20 different minerals, and Californian Serpentine rarely contains much chrysotile, never mind its dangerous fibrous asbestos form. Its is suspected that lawyers involved in asbestos compensation claims and cleanup companies will profit from the bill. Vast tracts of California where bedrock is made of Serpentine could be declared hazardous to health... even if it contains no crysotile at all! It looks like SB 624 will be passed; it won unanimous bi-partisan support from an Assembly committee last week."

Comment Re:The reason you can't connect your monitor (Score 2, Interesting) 336

by wirehead_rick (#32768590) Attached to: HDBaseT Supporters Hope To Kiss HDMI Goodbye

Agreed.

But with control on both sides of the digital cable and with Mafiaa controlling HDCP certificates over time they can slowly reduce what can and can't be seen. They simply will have the control.

Just because that control doesn't exist today (or they are playing nice today) doesn't mean the bait and switch isn't lying in waiting. They could easily let you see word documents and prevent SW from playing non HDCP video (similar to iTunes DRM) in the future.

It's also why blu-ray players have to be internet capable. So they can do the bait and switch there too. It's all in the plans.

Will it happen? Maybe not.

But I believe it is why Mafiaa makes such a big deal about HDCP and why it exists in the first place. They saw the proliferation of high quality audio technology and wanted to get HDCP in with the intent of doing a bait and switch . . . someday.

HDCP doesn't make much sense otherwise.

Comment Re:The reason you can't connect your monitor (Score 1) 336

by wirehead_rick (#32767964) Attached to: HDBaseT Supporters Hope To Kiss HDMI Goodbye

HDCP is not all about copy protection.

It's a long term bait and switch. Eventually monitors (not just playback sources as it is now) will refuse to display non-HDCP encoded content.

Why?

Because content creation equipment that rivals the the quality most expensive HD television and film movie production equipment today can be had for less than $20k (Look at the Canon 5DMKII DSLR + Final Cut Pro).

In short any ol' regular guy with enough talent to create a movie is not prevented from doing so by cost of production alone. He can make his work and it has the potential be better in production values than Mafiaa content without having to go through them to make it.

If they can't control distribution of content then they lose.

HDCP gives them back distribution control by preventing independent content from being seen.

Mafiaa has smart people. Copy protection is the cover story to sell to law abiding people and politicians. The real [purpose is to continue to set up barriers to entry in content creation.

It's just business the old fashion way.

Comment Re:Too late (Score 0) 362

by wirehead_rick (#31539216) Attached to: UMG To Price New CDs Under $10

This would have been a great strategy for the late 1990's, when the CD was still a relevant media (and, for that matter, when consumers were demanding that prices be lowered, both through their words and through their actions -- which the industry by and large ignored completely).

I'm not sure I'd call CDs relevant still. We've moved on to solid state media, writeable storage decoupled from the content. You could discount 8-track tapes and they wouldn't sell today. CD's don't have the same analog appeal that vinyl records to, either. I expect that eventually they'll just stop making CDs, and all music will be distributed via the network.

This price reduction merely indicates that we're a little bit closer to that day. I doubt it'll do much to boost sales at this point.

Mod parent up.

This is _the_ post of the day.

Comment This is a monopolistic move (Score 1) 141

by wirehead_rick (#28229423) Attached to: Intel Buys Embedded Software Vendor Wind River

Intel will limit the market for VXWorks which is all Wind River has that anyone would want (Yes. Wind River has a real nice integration tool for Wind River Linux and that could be a wild card factor in the future but today it's all about VXWorks). How? Give VXWorks away for free or very low prices when buying an Atom Processor, for example.

Intel: "You want VXWorks support for your Arm (Mips, etc.)? Ok yeah we'll do that but since you aren't buying our silicon we're gonna have to charge you the 'regular' price, OK?" Geez? Should I pay $200k for annual support/royalties for VXWorks or just switch to an Atom and get it for free? Tough choice.

Don't know if the deal is big enough to pop up on the radar for federal regulators but if you are using VXWorks today, it's time to look at alternatives or look at Intel processors like the Atom (and I wouldn't look to M$ either). VXWorks support for third party processors is doomed. Maybe this is good news for obscure embedded OS's like UCOS/II or ThreadX.

The good news is the embedded market has _never_ bowed to monopolistic moves because most embedded systems are highly specialized (and 95% of them don't need graphics, hard drives, web servers, etc) and can easily be created as "roll your own" systems.

On a long time scale this will simply be the end of VXWorks as Intel struggles to force companies to use it on their silicon.

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