Phekko - Slashdot User

DX11 Tested Against DX9 With Dirt 2 Demo 201

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 03, 2009 @02:20AM from the shadows-with-shadows dept.

MojoKid writes "The PC demo for Codemasters' upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2, has just hit the web and is available for download. Dirt 2 is a highly-anticipated racing sim that also happens to feature leading-edge graphic effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware-tessellated dynamic water, an animated crowd and dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high-definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating-point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full-screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise, DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle." Bit-tech also took a look at the graphical differences, arriving at this conclusion: "You'd need a seriously keen eye and brown paper envelope full of cash from one of the creators of Dirt 2 to notice any real difference between textures in the two versions of DirectX."

South Africa Rolls Out Biometric Passports 60

Posted by timothy on Sunday April 19, 2009 @02:40AM from the rfids-please dept.

volume4 writes "The South African Department of Home Affairs has begun rolling out security enhanced passports to new applicants from this week. A facility in Pretoria which prints the new passports was officially opened last week by the minister of home affairs, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. The new passports have an embedded RFID chip which stores the owner's biometric information, including personal details, a high-resolution colour photograph and fingerprint information."

Submission + - Microsoft Forces you to use UAC

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:51AM

An anonymous reader writes: It's not enough for Microsoft to make UAC the most user-protection implementation on the planet, now they're also forcing Administrators to use it. Windows Vista makes it impossible for Administrators to add network printers to a local machine if UAC is disabled. Instead: "The only workaround available to date is to re-enable UAC, restart the PC, add the printer, go through the UAC prompts, disable UAC, and then restart once more."

Submission + - VirtualBox goes opensource

Submitted by

lonesometrainer

on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:45AM

lonesometrainer writes: "Innotek's virtualization solution VirtualBox is available in a free/opensource and a commercial variant. Unlike XEN or KVM (Paravirtualiziers) and more like VMWare it emulates the hardware available in the VMs (by making use of Qemu). Innotek is no newbie in the virtualization market as they developed the VirtualPC solution together with Connectix. German magazine Heise seems to be pretty satisfied with the product overall (original article in german, google translation). Host systems may be Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server or 32-bit Linux systems (Innotek is currently working on support for Mac OSX and 64-bit Linux). A wide range of guest systems is supported."

Submission + - Microsoft Zune now available in U.S. stores

Submitted by

leo.techopedia

on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:26AM

leo.techopedia writes: "Microsoft Zune ready for Sale in us markets. Check the link for more details. http://www.zune.net/en-US/meetzune/device.htm"

Submission + - EU study: open source increases competitiveness

Submitted by Rob on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:19AM

Rob writes: Increased use of free and open source software in Europe could increase the region's competitiveness with the US, according to a European Commission study. "Given Europe's historically lower ability to create new software businesses compared to the US, due to restricted venture capital and risk tolerance, the high share of European FLOSS developers provides a unique opportunity to create new software businesses and reach towards the Lisbon goals of making Europe the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010," states the report.

Submission + - Apple hiring more iPhone engineers

Submitted by Geo Kentraci on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:16AM

Geo Kentraci writes: Apple is putting out a call for engineers to join its ranks in an effort to beef up its iPhone as it seeks to push its iPhone out the door by June. Beyond its hunt for computer geeks and hipster iPod project managers, Apple is listing jobs for a number of software and hardware engineers, as well as quality control testers, for its recently debuted iPhone. The company is looking to add 33 positions to its iPhone ranks, ranging from electronic engineers to an engineering project manager for its camera feature to a telephony embedded software engineer to develop more middleware features to add to its library.

Feed I, Columbine Killer (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:12AM

The infamous Super Columbine Massacre role-playing game is in the news again after being slammed from Slamdance. But is the game sick or is it a serious examination of the massacre? Unlike most knee-jerk critics, Clive Thompson actually plays the game to find out.

Submission + - Pirate Bay and Sealand negotiating

Submitted by

Kawahee

on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:09AM

Kawahee writes: "Coming off previous /. coverage of The Pirate Bay's intentions to purchase Sealand following it being put up for sale, The Pirate Bay has revealed on it's website www.buysealand.com that it has entered into negotiations with Sealand. From the post:

The Government of Sealand has initiated negotiation. Tomorrow, the ACFI and Government of Sealand will sit down in the SMTP chambers of the Internets to discuss the future of the micronation.
— We welcome the request and hopefully we can settle on a price. But knowing how hard non-kopimistic people can be to negotiate with, we will go with Plan B if they're not willing to meet our demands, press officer of ACFI says.
BuySealand.com is also now sporting a donation meter, and as of the 15th of January it stands at USD $13,714."

Submission + - Building Chips Like Lego

Submitted by

MattSparkes

on Monday January 15, 2007 @07:00AM

MattSparkes writes: "It seems that 3D silicon chips, allowing designers to fit more components into a smaller space, could soon be made far easier to create with a little inspiration from a classic children's toy. "Silicon wafers covered with matching patterns of Lego-like teeth and holes could aid the development of 3D electronics, say UK researchers." Crucially, this technique can make use of existing machinery."

Submission + - CES 2007: Gaming roundup

Submitted by

jasoncart

on Monday January 15, 2007 @06:37AM

jasoncart writes: "Traditionally, gaming's calendar year of expos, conventions, and trade shows doesn't generally kick off in earnest until March's fanfare arrival of the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, which thus opens the floodgates for a host of industry platform events. However, before July's new-fangled E3 Media and Business Summit (the now scaled back, renamed, and invitation-only E3 of legend) shifts into view alongside August's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), September's Tokyo Game Show (TGS), and the newly announced and ESA-endorsed Entertainment for All Expo in October (previously known as the Gamepro Expo), it falls to January's annual Consumer Electronics Show to whet our collective appetites-at least where related hardware is concerned."

Submission + - The Need for a Tagging Standard

Submitted by John Carmichael on Monday January 15, 2007 @06:20AM

John Carmichael writes: Tags are everywhere now. Not just blogs, but famous news sites, corporate press bulletins, forums, and even Slashdot. That's why it's such a shame that they're rendered almost entirely useless by the lack of a tagging standard with which tags from various sites and tag aggregators like Technorati and Del.icio.us can compare and relate tags to one another.
Depending on where you go and who you ask, tags are implemented differently, and even defined in their own unique way. Even more importantly, tags were meant to be universal and compatible: a medium of sharing and conveying info across the blogosphere — the very embodiment of a semantic web. Unfortunately, they're not. Far from it, tags create more discord and confusion than they do minimize it.
I have to say, it would be nice to just learn one way of tagging content and using it everywhere.

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