Mondoz - Slashdot User

Vital Parts of Games As DLC? 446

Posted by Soulskill on Monday November 10, 2008 @10:49PM from the drm-by-any-other-name dept.

Epic Games president Michael Capps did an interview recently with GamesIndustry, and he had some interesting things to say about the future of downloadable content, and how it will affect the retail games market. He also discussed the trend toward social gaming, and Epic's plans in that regard. Quoting: "I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by ... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code. I've talked to some developers who are saying 'If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.' We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used — way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

Comment My experiences... (Score 1) 895

by Mondoz on Thursday August 07, 2008 @05:49PM (#24517269) Attached to: New Study Finds Low Interest In Blu-ray

I recently finished upgrading my setup from a five-year-old 32" CRT HDTV to a 70" SXRD.
I upgraded the TV first. I was very disappointed with the performance when I put the first disk in the player. It looked very grainy and splotchy. You could see all the compression artifacts. It was very sad.

I upgraded the DVD player to a very good Oppo DVD player that was advertised as having an extremely good up-converter. I found that this gave much better results, but it didn't really knock my socks off. Impressive, yes. But not anything that made me wet my pants.

After HD-DVD threw in the towel, I finally upgraded my PS2 to a PS3. When I put in the first Blu-Ray movie into the PS3, I finally had my first bout of incontinence. It looked better than I thought possible on a TV screen.

I set up the system so I could flip between my old DVD player and the PS3 Blu-Ray version of the movie 2001. It really amazed me. The Blu-Ray version was so full of detail and so devoid of artifacts. Almost a year later, the TV finally had achieved its potential.

Ever since, I've stopped buying regular DVDs and started looking for sales to replace some of the action/Sci-Fi DVDs with Blu-Rays.

Now, for some background.
When the HD-DVD / Blu-Ray war began, I hated it. I didn't have a very big HDTV, but it looked great with my ancient DVD player. I chalked the battle up to the studios pushing a new technology into a market that just didn't need it. I didn't want to buy a new player and I really didn't want to replace all my movies with yet another standard.
All that changed once I saw how things look on a really big TV screen. Once you get a screen that lets you really see how bad compression can get, you understand why an uncompressed movie makes such a difference.

I still think Blu-ray is too expensive, which causes quite a barrier, but it will eventually come down. I don't think Blu-rays will go the way of Laser Discs, but it's going to take a while for them to take down DVDs...

DHS Allowed To Take Laptops Indefinitely 1123

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 01, 2008 @08:08AM from the reasonable-expectation dept.

andy1307 writes with a Washington Post story giving details of Department of Homeland Security policies for border searches of laptops and other electronic devices (as well as papers). (We have been discussing border searches for a while now.) DHS says such procedures have long been in place but were "disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter," according to the article. Here is a link to the policy (PDF, 5 pages). "Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption, or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement... DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including US citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism... The policies cover 'any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,' including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover 'all papers and other written documentation,' including books, pamphlets and 'written materials commonly referred to as "pocket trash..."'"

Dell Colludes With RIAA, Disables Stereo Mix 377

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 10, 2008 @09:50PM from the please-test-for-crazy-conspiracy dept.

RCTrucker7 writes with a link to a Maximum PC story, which begins: "Details of Dell's surreptitious collusion with RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) have emerged. Apparently, the computer manufacturer disabled the Stereo Mix/Mono Mix/Wave Out sound recording function on certain notebooks to assuage RIAA. The hardware functionality is being disabled without any prior notice and one blogger has even alleged that he was asked by Dell's customer support staff to [shell] out $99 if he desired the stereo mix option. Gateway and Pac Bell are the other two manufacturers to have bowed to RIAA at the expense of their customers' satisfaction and disabled stereo mix without warning." (There are some workarounds posted in the comments of the linked article.)

Referee Recommends Disbarment For Jack Thompson 280

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @06:12PM from the disbar-is-such-a-harsh-word dept.

spielermacher writes "GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson — the lawyer every gamer loves to hate — has apparently lost his court case and is facing disbarment. The Referee in the case has gone beyond the Florida Bar's request for a 10-year disbarment and is recommending a lifetime ban. From the Final Report issued by the court: '... the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior ...' All I can say is that it's about time."

New FISA Bill Would Grant Telcoms Immunity; Vote Is Tomorrow 496

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 19, 2008 @03:40PM from the difference-between-legal-and-right dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This just in: a new 'compromise' FISA Bill (PDF) was just made public, which, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports, 'contains blanket immunity for telecoms that helped the NSA break the law and spy on millions of ordinary Americans.' The House vote is tomorrow, June 20. After all the secret rooms and everything ... if they get immunity and the public never finds out what happened, the only other logical next step is to convince everyone I know not to get an iPhone." CNN covers this get-out-of-lawsuit play as well.

Administration Claimed Immunity To 4th Amendment 703

Posted by kdawson on Thursday April 03, 2008 @08:32AM from the unreasonable-searches-and-seizures dept.

mrogers writes "The EFF has uncovered a troubling footnote in a newly declassified Bush Administration memo, which asserts that 'our Office recently [in 2001] concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.' This could mean that the Administration believes the NSA's warrantless wiretapping and data mining programs are not governed by the Constitution, which would cast Administration claims that the programs did not violate the Fourth Amendment in a whole new light — after all, you can't violate a law that doesn't apply. The claimed immunity would also cover other DoD agencies, such as CIFA, which carry out offline surveillance of political groups within the United States."

Steve Ballmer on MS Server, Linux, Yahoo & More 261

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 29, 2008 @05:36PM from the embrace-extend-extiguish dept.

yorugua writes "Furniture trembled as Steve Ballmer was to be interviewed by InformationWeek. He then went on to talk about Linux: 'How does Microsoft beat Linux? The same way "you beat any other competitor: You offer good value, which in this case means good total cost of ownership," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says.', Embrace-Extend-Extinguish: 'We say when we embrace standards, we'll be transparent about how we're embracing standards. [...] If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations.'"

Three Parents Contribute to Experimental Human Embryo 136

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday February 05, 2008 @11:43AM from the welcome-to-transhuman-space dept.

gihan_ripper writes "It sounds like the storyline from a cheesy film, but a human embryo has been created using the genetic material from one man and two women. A team from Newcastle University, England, developed the technique in the hope that it could be used to prevent diseases caused by faulty mitochondria. Their experiment started with two ingredients: first, a left over (and 'severely abnormal') embryo from an IVF treatment; second, a donor egg from another woman. The donor egg has all but the mitochondrial DNA removed, then a nucleus from the embryo is inserted into the egg. Effectively, this results in a mitochondria transplant. 'While any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg. However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.'"

12 Florida Schools Pass Anti-Evolution Resolutions 871

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 11, 2008 @04:53PM from the and-the-kids-still-lose dept.

Several sources are reporting that twelve school districts in Florida have passed resolutions against the teaching of evolution. Out of all the arguments, however, one administrator seems to have gotten it right: "Then, the final speaker, Lisa Dizengoff, director of science curriculum at Pembroke Pines Charter School's east campus, angrily reminded the crowd that after all the carping over evolution, no one had gotten around to addressing the state's lackadaisical, last-century approach to science education. 'All I heard was this argument about evolution,' she said, disgusted that so many other problems had been preempted by a single controversy. 'The kids lost out again.''"

National ID Cards Mandated in the US, If You're Under 50 869

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 11, 2008 @02:15PM from the 1984-is-about-the-good-old-days dept.

charleste writes "CNN is reporting that the US Homeland Security Department has mandated Real ID for drivers licenses. According to the article, this will not include a 'chip', but a list of options by state. Despite legislation passed in various states and objections by groups such as ACLU, this appears to be a done deal. Without one of the new IDs you will be unable to board a plane after 2014 if you are under 50."

Scientist Suggests We Explore 'Universe is a VR Simulation' Theory 1144

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 04, 2008 @01:44PM from the what-would-we-do-if-he's-right dept.

holy_calamity writes "A New Zealand physicist has written a paper saying that physicists should seriously explore the possibility the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation. He says that the existence of quantum phenomena could be due to the underlying digital nature of the simulation and also claims his VR hypothesis can explain relativity, the big bang and more. It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual."

Copyright Cutback Proposed As RIAA Solution 709

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 02, 2008 @11:59AM from the things-that-would-help-but-are-impossible dept.

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe proposes a novel solution to the ongoing spate of RIAA lawsuits over alleged music copying. He suggests legislation which cuts back corporate copyrights from 120 years to 5 years. 'We should do what we do to children who misbehave,' he writes. 'Take away their privileges.' Wolfe says this is regardless of the misunderstanding surrounding the latest case, which apparently isn't about ripping CDs to one's own computer. As to those who say copyrights are a right: "That's simply a misunderstanding of their purpose. Copyrights, like patents, weren't implemented to protect their owners in perpetuity. They are part of a dance which attempts to balance off societal benefits against incentives for writers and inventors. You want to incentivize people to push the state of the creative and technical arts, but you don't want give those folks such overbearing protections that future advances by other innovators are stifled." What do you think; is it time to cut off the record industry?"

Penetration Testing TV Series Coming 209

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @12:50AM from the tiger-team dept.

ChazeFroy writes "CourtTV (TruTV) has a new series starting Dec. 25 at 11 pm called 'Tiger Team.' It follows a group of elite penetration testers hired to test organizations' security using social engineering, wired/wireless penetration testing, and physically defeating security mechanisms (lock picking, dumpster diving, going through air vents/windows). They do all of this while avoiding the organizations' various security defenses as well as law enforcement. The stars of the show also did a radio spot this morning in Denver." Wonder how they socially engineer away the presence of a camera team in the air vents.

Boeing 12,000lb Chemical Laser Set to Fry Targets 625

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 13, 2007 @04:00AM from the houseful-of-popcorn dept.

coondoggie writes "Boeing this week completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations."

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