Branko - Slashdot User

Zynga and Blizzard Sued Over Game Patent 179

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday January 06 2011, @06:06AM
from the swinging-for-the-fences dept.

eldavojohn writes "Thinking about developing a game involving a 'database driven online distributed tournament system?' Well, you had better talk to Walker Digital or risk a lawsuit, because Walker Digital claims to have patented that 'invention' back in 2002. The patent in question has resulted in some legal matters for the makers of 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War, Blur, Wolfenstein, DJ Hero 2, Golden Eye 007, World of Warcraft and its expansions, Mafia Wars, and many others.' Walker Digital (parent company of Priceline.com) said it's not sure how much damages are going to be, and requested that through discovery in the court. If you think Walker Digital is not a patent troll, check out their lawsuit from two months ago against Facebook for using privacy controls Walker Digital claims to have patented. It would seem that any online competitive game that uses a database to select and reward contestants in a tournament could potentially fall under this patent — of course, those with the deepest coffers will be cherrypicked first."

First Halophile Potatoes Harvested 117

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 17 2010, @02:36PM
from the integrated-dill-is-the-next-step dept.

Razgorov Prikazka writes "A Dutch-based company from Groningen is trying to create a potato race that is able to survive in a saline environment. The first test-batch was just harvested (English translation of Dutch original) on the island Texel and seem to be in good shape. The company states that rising sea-levels will create a demand for halophile crops. I do wonder if one still has to put salt on ones potatoes when they are grown in salt water."

Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games 461

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 19 2010, @06:11AM
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."

Code Review of Doom For the iPhone 161

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 04 2010, @06:42AM
from the old-dogs-new-tricks dept.

Developer Fabien Sanglard has written a code review for id Software's iPhone port of Doom. It's an interesting look into how the original 1993 game (which he also reviewed to understand its rendering process) was adapted to a modern platform. "Just like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom was rendering a screenframe pixel per pixel. The only way to do this on iPhone with an acceptable framerate would be to use CoreSurface/CoreSurface.h framework. But it is unfortunately restricted and using it would prevent distribution on the AppStore. The only solution is to use OpenGL, but this comes with a few challenges: Doom was faking 3D with a 2D map. OpenGL needs real 3D vertices. More than 3D vertices, OpenGL needs data to be sent as triangles (among other things because they are easy to rasterize). But Doom sectors were made of arbitrary forms. Doom 1993's perspective was also faked, it was actually closer to an orthogonal projection than a perspective projection. Doom was using VGA palette indexing to perform special effect (red for damage, silver for invulnerable...)."

Laser Fusion Passes Major Hurdle 354

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 29 2010, @09:46AM
from the twenty-years-out-and-always-will-be dept.

chill writes "The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has performed their first controlled fusion experiments using all 192 lasers. While still not ramped up to full power, the first experiments proved very fruitful. The lasers create a lot of plasma in the target container and researchers worried that the plasma would interfere with the ability of the target to absorb enough energy to ignite. These experiments show that not only does enough energy make it through, the plasma can be manipulated to increase the uniformity of compression. Ramping up of power is due to start in May." The project lead, Dr. Sigfried Glenzer, is "confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon. He added, quite simply, 'It's going to happen this year.'"

Comment: Re:Kilimanjaro (Score 1) 384

by Branko on Monday October 12 2009, @09:29AM (#29718623) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

Getting above the atmosphere is more important than getting farther away from the center of the Earth.

If that were true, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne could easily go to orbit. The higher you are, the lesser atmospheric drag there is, but Earth's gravity well is still very much present (diminishing gradually in accordance to Newton/Einstein long after air drag has fallen essentially to zero).

Comment: Re:How new... (Score 1) 384

by Branko on Monday October 12 2009, @09:04AM (#29718315) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

Wow, I'm utterly amazed at how many so called NEW inventions or ideas come today... this one brought to you straight from the 60's!

Could you provide me with a reference? I'd like to look it up.

Some French guy named Jules called from the 19th century, he wants his idea back.

I'm fully aware of Jules Verne's "Moon gun", but this concept could never work for humans due excessive acceleration. Maglev approach is the only one that I am aware of (other than rockets) that can provide a kind of "long-distance" acceleration to orbital speed tolerable by humans. Are there any other approaches I am not aware of?

Comment: Re:A proposal for human access to orbit (Score 1) 384

by Branko on Monday October 12 2009, @08:59AM (#29718241) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

Making the launch system more efficient is best done by leaving as much of it as possible on Earth, and only carry to space what's going to be used in space.

I fully agree with that. The proposed concept will require some heat shielding (hopefully, reusable on reentry), but essentially all the mass that you eject is usable in orbit (propulsion system is left back on Earth), unlike current systems that have 90-something % of their mass spent on fuel, leaving very little "usable" mass.

Comment: Re:A proposal for human access to orbit (Score 1) 384

by Branko on Monday October 12 2009, @08:52AM (#29718135) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

If you're in the business of hugely expensive, why not scrap the whole super-fast airlock and put the exit of the launch tube far enough from Earths surface that the density of the atmosphere isn't a problem anymore?

You cannot structurally put the exit of the tunnel high enough to completely avoid the atmosphere. If you could - why not just build a space elevator or even space "tower" or "needle"? For the same reason, you cannot put the tunnel in vertical position because it would be too short for comfortable acceleration, not to mention hugely more difficult to build (compared to what is already an incredibly difficult project).

Of course, the higher you are the lesser problem you have (less friction, lesser "airlock" tolerances). Running the end of the tunnel up the (very high) mountain slope comes to mind.

The reason I made this post is to see if there is anything obvious that could stop this concept from being implemented in principle. So, if anyone has more criticisms - keep them coming!

Comment: A proposal for human access to orbit (Score 1) 384

by Branko on Monday October 12 2009, @07:54AM (#29717483) Attached to: Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into Orbit

Ideal human delivery-to-orbit system:

A tunnel, probably around 2000 km long, without any air in it, lined with magnetic levitation tracks.
The human "cargo" is placed in what is essentially a maglev "train" and accelerates at relatively comfortable G to orbital speed (+ whatever extra is necessary to punch through the atmosphere).
Near its end, the tunnel curves upwards and has a kind of super-fast airlock mechanism to let the "train" transition between vacuum and the atmosphere.

This would be hugely expensive to build, of course, but I have a strong feeling its capital cost would still be less then, say, annual US wasteful spending related to healthcare. Operational costs, one the other hand, would probably be just a tiny fraction of today's chemical rocket based approach.

"Get to low-Earth orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar system" - Robert Heinlein