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The Almighty Buck

Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million 157

Posted by Soulskill from the large-potatoes dept.
An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Comment The Forever War (Score 1) 1021

by Daze-wan (#29656909) Attached to: What Belongs In a High School Sci-Fi/Fantasy Lit Class?
I rarely post on slashdot, but i was surprised to see that The Forever War had not been mentioned yet. it fits well with the topical notion of examining war, and presents some interesting ideas like time dilation (thanks relativity!) this could be a valuable text for examining the vietnam war, as well as examining current conflicts. philip k dick is another, however holllywood seems to have raided his texts to the point where no-one can tell if they're hollywood stories or his storys (hmmm...that's almost apropos...) anyhow, just my $0.02 but these amazing authors (dick and haldeman) always seem to get overlooked when people make lists of sci-fi books.
Image

Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of Day 154

Posted by samzenpus from the ask-me-that-in-a-few-hours dept.
Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.
Television

Scientists Claim Breakthrough On Holographic Display 123

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rampant-optimism dept.
SpuriousLogic writes to tell us that University of Arizona researchers claim to have broken a barrier in holographic technology by creating an updatable, three-dimensional display with memory. While the existing model is only able to update once every couple of minutes, and isn't particularly suited for 3d images, it is certainly a step in the right direction. "Peyghambarian is also optimistic that the technology could reach the market within five to ten years. He said progress towards a final product should be made much more quickly now that a rewriting method had been found. However, it is fair to say not everyone is as positive about this prospect as Peyghambarian. Lecturer in Electronic Engineering at Bangor University in Wales, Dr Justin Lawrence, told CNN small steps were always being made on technology like 3D holograms, but, he couldn't see it being ready for the market in the next ten years."
The Military

DARPA Developing Super Scope 44

Posted by Soulskill from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at the Strategic Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are developing new high-resolution scopes that extend the range of viable image recognition and reduce atmospheric interference. Still in the early prototyping stage, DARPA hopes the new optical system (PPT presentation) will eventually result in a decrease of friendly fire incidents and collateral damage from military operations. 'Called the Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS), this new system exploits atmospheric turbulence effects that magnify pieces of images behind heat haze. The formal name for this phenomenon is atmospheric turbulence-generated micro-lensing and it creates a brief, high resolution image behind the haze. The SRVS takes many such images and collates them to create a cohesive image of the entire larger area under observation using new advances in signal processing made possible by advances in computer processing power and increased storage capabilities.'"
Music

Wal-Mart Ends DRM Support 231

Posted by Soulskill from the enjoy-your-rights dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So, you thought you did well to support the fledgling music industry by purchasing your tracks legally from the Wal-Mart store? Well, forget about moving these tracks to a new PC! Since they started selling DRM-free tracks last year, there's no money to be made in maintaining the DRM support systems, and in fact, support is being shut down. Make sure you circumvent the restrictions by burning the tracks to an old-fashioned CD before Wal-mart 'will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com.' Support ends October 9th."

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