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Comment Re:How come? (Score 1) 235

by Aelyew (#37112788) Attached to: IE 9 Beats Other Browsers at Blocking Malicious Content

I thought about trying to replicate the experiment but ran into a couple of snafu's.

1. The comparison was between IE9 and Firefox 4 (other browsers as well, but Firefox is the one I typically use).
2. The current version of Firefox is 6.0 -- 6.0 might not have been available at the original time of the study but 5 was. I'd prefer to test the latest and greatest, so it should be a comparison between IE9 and Firefox 6.
3. Microsoft won't let me install IE9. Apparently I would have to upgrade to Windows 7 in order to run their latest version of their web browser.

Guess I can't conduct the test.
Graphics

Nvidia Unveils New Mid-Range GeForce Graphics Card 158

Posted by timothy from the waiting-for-shills-to-plug-their-versions dept.
crookedvulture writes "Nvidia has uncorked another mid-range graphics card, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Every tech site on the web seems to have coverage of this new $250 offering, and The Tech Report's review will tell you all you need to know about the various flavors available, including how their performance compares to cards from 2-3 years ago. Interestingly, the review concludes that pretty much any modern mid-range graphics card offers smooth frame rates while playing the latest games at the common desktop resolution of 1920x1080. You may want to pay closer attention to power consumption and noise levels when selecting a new card."
Lord of the Rings

LotR Online's Free-To-Play Switch Tripled Revenue 91

Posted by Soulskill from the one-does-not-simply-log-into-mordor dept.
Last June, Turbine made the decision to switch Lord of the Rings Online from a subscription-based business model to a free-to-play model supported by microtransactions. In a podcast interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Turbine executives revealed that the switch has gone well for the company, with game revenues roughly tripling. The active player base has also grown significantly in that time. Executive Producer Kate Paiz said, "This really echoes a lot of what we've seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It's really about letting players make their choices about how they play."

Comment Implementation seems to not quite work yet (Score 1) 191

by Aelyew (#34284766) Attached to: eJuror Will Lead To New List of Jury Duty Excuses

The jury summons I received last week had the option of responding via ejuror.co.clark.nv.us. I attempted to login and was denied access. The error message indicated that neither my social security nor birthdate matched what was in the system. However when I called in and eventually got access to a live person, both of those details were correct in the system. Color me not impressed.
The Almighty Buck

EA Says Game Development Budgets Have Peaked 157

Posted by Soulskill from the nowhere-to-go-but-down dept.
Gamasutra reports on comments from Electronic Arts VP David Demartini indicating that the company thinks AAA game development budgets are not going to continue their skyward trend. "If [a developer] happens to make a lot of money based on that budget, great for them. If they come up short and have to cover some of it — y'know, they'll be smarter the next time they do it. That's kind of the approach that we take to it." Certainly this has something to do with a few major economic flops in the games industry lately, such as the cancellation of This Is Vegas after an estimated $50 million had been dumped into the project. Another example is the anemic response to APB, an MMO with a budget rumored to be as high as $100 million. Poor sales and reviews caused developer Realtime Worlds to enter insolvency and lay off a large portion of the development team.
Classic Games (Games)

Video Game Legends To Be Inducted Into Hall of Fame 94

Posted by Soulskill from the fierce-competition-between-tetrominoes dept.
killdashnine writes "Last year we discussed the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa, and a first event in 2009 which brought 3,500 people to witness it. Since then, there's been much progress toward creation of the museum, including the upcoming 'Big Bang 2010' exhibition. Their first event kicks off with formal induction ceremonies, tournaments, record-setting attempts, and an array of concerts from 8-bit music to modern rock. This serves as the first official fundraiser for this new non-profit. Iowa is positioning itself as the Video Game Capital of the World. While some sneer and scoff at this, pointing to LA or Seattle as gaming giants and rightful heirs to the title, the real goal is not to glorify software developers but rather to memorialize the 'heroes of video games,' from the iconic Pac Man to pioneers such as Ralph Baer." Here's a list of this year's inductees. Who gets your vote for next year?
PC Games (Games)

Cloud Gaming Service OnLive Set For Launch 115

Posted by Soulskill from the money-mouth-etc dept.
Steve Perlman's long-anticipated cloud gaming service, OnLive, officially launches today, finally ready to be put to the test by skeptical and hopeful gamers around the US. After granting some early sign-ups a free year to try out the service, OnLive also announced the list of 23 games that will available from the start, including Mass Effect 2, UT 3, Assassin's Creed 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and F.E.A.R. 2. Perlman spoke at length with Gamasutra about the beta, latency, and potential partnerships with other broadband providers. Future OnLive competitor Gaikai recently announced it's targeting 2011 for its own launch.
Image

TSA Worker Jailed In Body Scan Rage Incident 352

Posted by samzenpus from the checking-out-your-package dept.
A TSA worker in Miami was arrested for aggravated battery after he attacked a co-worker for making fun of the size of his genitals. Rolando Negrin walked through one of the new body scanners during a recent training session and a supervisor started making fun of his manhood. From the article: "According to the police report, Negrin confronted one of his co-workers in an employee parking lot, where he hit him with a police baton on the arm and back."
Image

Surgeon Makes Tutorial DVD For Conscious Open-Heart Surgery 170

Posted by samzenpus from the looks-easy-enough dept.
Lanxon writes "Swaroup Anand, 23, from Bangalore, was fully conscious as he underwent open-heart surgery. An epidural to the neck, administered at the city’s Wockhardt Hospital, numbed his body during the procedure. Dr Vivek Jawali pioneered the technique ten years ago and has recently released a tutorial on DVD, which gives a step-by-step guide to the procedure for other surgeons to watch and learn from."
Games

Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming 49

Posted by Soulskill from the break-out-your-rocket-launcher dept.
rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - SCI-FI? China admits death row organ use (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by h.ross.perot
h.ross.perot writes: Like a page from Larry Niven's Known Space series, here is a real report of Criminals organs being harvested for "profit" From the article: China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners as the major source of organs for transplants. According to the China Daily newspaper, executed prisoners currently provide two-thirds of all transplant organs. The government is now launching a voluntary donation scheme, which it hopes will also curb the illegal trafficking in organs. But analysts say cultural bias against removing organs after death will make a voluntary scheme hard to implement.
Windows

Submission + - FSF Attacks Windows 7's 'Sins' In New Campaign (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it "treacherous computing" that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven "sins" that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. "Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files," said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have "malicious and really complete control over your computer.""

Comment World of Warcraft Client/Server relationship (Score 1) 520

by Aelyew (#29148489) Attached to: Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net

Good, bad or indifferent I have accumulated over 2 years of continuous playing time on my assorted toons. I am normally a PvE-er and spend most of my time raiding or grinding to prep for raids. I also try to set aside some time to attempt to experience as much of Azeroth as I can from as many perspectives as I can, so that I am in a good position to offer suggestions and determine solid strategies to defeat new content. The elements which bother me time and time again seem to be technical in nature rather than content related. When things get bogged down and you have to wait 10 seconds for loot to actually get picked up, or spend 10 seconds trying to harvest a node, pick up an herb or grab an item for a daily quest and then discover that someone already beat you to it, but your client didn't even show them until you thought you had successfully looted it are infuriating. Presumably this is because of queueing up responses between the client and the server and getting confirmation of ownership of items.

Most of these items are far from game-changing and it would remove a huge chunk of annoyance factor if the model were altered even if that permitted some duplication of these items. If multiple people all reach for a half empty glass of wine in Dalaran at close to the same time, let them all get it. Same goes for an herb or a mine. It should simplify the transaction required between client and server and I realize that it would be a substantial change from a code perspective, but I think it would be a pleasant and welcome change to your player base. Is this something that you would consider? I'm sure I speak for many players that would happily transfer more load from the game to the client if that would mean a more responsive environment.

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