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Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - StarCraft II cost $100 million to develop (gamepron.com)

Submitted by UgLyPuNk
UgLyPuNk writes: Video game production is in a slump, the world’s struggling with the tail-end of the Global Financial Crisis, and Activision Blizzard has spent more than US$100 million developing StarCraft II.

The sequel’s been 12 years coming, and expectations are understandably high, with analysts predicting several million units will be sold this year alone – comfortably padding Activision‘s wallet.
The Military

Submission + - US deploys "heat-ray" in Afghanistan (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Koreantoast
Koreantoast writes: The United States military has deployed Raytheon's newly developed Active Denial System (ADS), a millimeter-wave, "non-lethal" heat-ray to Afghanistan. The weapon generates a "burning sensation" that is supposedly harmless, with the military claiming that the chance of injury is at less than 0.1%; numerous volunteers including reporters over the last several years have experienced its effects during various trials and demonstrations. While US military spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian states that the weapon has not yet been operationally used, the tense situation in theater will ensure its usage soon enough. Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot.
Music

Submission + - RIAA in the red on piracy lawsuits (betanews.com)

Submitted by NicknamesAreStupid
NicknamesAreStupid writes: Betanews reports that the Recording Industry Association of America, notorious for their aggressive lawsuits, is getting a two percent return on their nearly $60 million in legal expenses. That is more than the RIAA pays itself. Recording artists must be happy to know that they are losing 50 times more to lawyers than to pirates.
Space

Submission + - Second SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Being Assembled (spaceflightnow.com)

Submitted by FleaPlus
FleaPlus writes: Six weeks after the first launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage of the second rocket has finishing production/testing, and has arrived at Cape Canaveral for a launch as early as September, depending on the pace of a methodical review of the Dragon capsule systems and minor rocket modifications/fixes being made based on data from the inaugural launch. The rocket will launch the first operational unmanned Dragon cargo/crew spacecraft into orbit, where it will perform tests and then reenter off the California coast. CEO/CTO Elon Musk made the intriguing remark that Dragon's heat shield is strong enough to enable a return not only from Earth orbit, but also lunar orbit or Mars velocities as well.
Games

Submission + - PhysX API mired by poor optimization, x87 code (realworldtech.com)

Submitted by EconolineCrush
EconolineCrush writes: Nvidia has long pushed its PhysX game physics middleware as a prime candidate for GPU acceleration. However, it seems that the company may have also taken steps to ensure that PhysX performs poorly when run on a modern CPU. Despite the fact that physics calculations lend themselves to parallel processing, games tend to implement PhysX with a single thread. PhysX also relies largely on x87 code rather than SSE instructions. The latter should run faster and make life easier for developers, and Nvidia has taken advantage of similar instructions with its console-specific PhysX implementations. But not on the PC, which smells like a willful attempt to hinder PhysX performance on anything but an Nvidia GPU.

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