Comment fascinating (Score 1) 1
those who watch space engines and games for decade know this was long time in the work, the smoothness transitions are really well done
Comment VBS2 (Score 2) 102
MOD UK is cutting budgets and everything so they will for sure throw away theirs VBS2 1.5 and 2.0 licenses and hardware (irony)
just to buy 10 times more expensive less packed fancy visuals console 'sim' where hardware cost only 3 times more :)
latest major installment of VBS2 is 1.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1gCGaunLA
the upcoming (already being evaluated by customers) is VBS2 2.0 http://armory.bisimulations.com/products/vbs2/overview?qt-vbs2_sidebar=8#qt-vbs2_sidebar
which has graphical level of ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead /Take On Helicopters
and BI Simulations already shown ARMA 3 renderer in action for the VBS2 usage ...
journalism w/o facts ftw. :)
NASA Tries To Save Hubble's Successor 134
Last month we discussed news that the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to the HST, is on the budgetary chopping block. Now, an anonymous reader points out hopeful news from TPM's Idea Lab blog, which says NASA is trying to "spread the cost across the agency rather than just pulling from the $1 billion astrophysics division, with at least half of the funds coming from other areas of NASA's total $18 billion budget." According to Nature News, the decision resides with the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and support for the project depends in particular on Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).
Browser-Based Deep Space Nine MMO Coming In 2011 153
A publisher based in Germany has announced Star Trek: Infinite Space, a browser MMO based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The game will be free-to-play, and it's planned for sometime in 2011. "Gameforge also contracted Michael Okuda, who served as scenic art supervisor for every live-action Star Trek series except for the original program, as a consultant. His wife Denise Okuda, who was a video supervisor and scenic artist for several of the sci-fi series' films and shows, will serve as a consultant, too."
DX11 Coming To Linux (But Not XP) 370
gr8_phk writes "As reported over at Phoronix, the Direct X 11 API now has an open source implementation on top of Gallium3d which should ease porting of games to Linux with or without Wine. While still in its infancy, you can see where this is heading. All this while Microsoft hasn't offered DX11 for their own aging WindowsXP. Could it be that Linux may soon support this Microsoft API better than Microsoft itself?"
Codec2 — an Open Source, Low-Bandwidth Voice Codec 179
Bruce Perens writes "Codec2 is an Open Source digital voice codec for low-bandwidth applications, in its first Alpha release. Currently it can encode 3.75 seconds of clear speech in 1050 bytes, and there are opportunities to code in additional compression that will further reduce its bandwidth. The main developer is David Rowe, who also worked on Speex. Originally designed for Amateur Radio, both via sound-card software modems on HF radio and as an alternative to the proprietary voice codec presently used in D-STAR, the codec is probably also useful for telephony at a fraction of current bandwidths. The algorithm is based on papers from the 1980s, and is intended to be unencumbered by valid unexpired patent claims. The license is LGPL2. The project is seeking developers for testing in applications, algorithmic improvement, conversion to fixed-point, and coding to be more suitable
for embedded systems."
Return To Castle Wolfenstein Source Code Released 92
geefau writes with news that id Software has released the source code to Return To Castle Wolfenstein (single player and multiplayer), along with Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory, under the GPL. The linked article notes that "these only include the game source code, not the graphics. You need the full games for those."
Self-Assembling Photovoltaic Cells 103
dhj writes "MIT scientists have developed a self-assembling photovoltaic cell in a petri dish. Phospholipids (think cell membranes) form disks which act as the structural support for light responsive molecules. Carbon nanotubes help to align the disks and conduct electricity generated by the system with 40% efficiency. The assembly process is reversible using surfactants to break up the phospholipids. When filters are used to remove the surfactants the system reassembles with no loss of efficiency even over multiple assembly/disassembly cycles. The results were published September 5th in Nature Chemistry."
Comment i agree (Score 1) 362
Focusing on just multiplayer isn't answer, we can clearly see it with our ARMA 2 and ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead titles, there is huge single player group of customers who really enjoy the ability to play alone against/with AI. Ofcourse in our case we have COOP and PVP too but that's another story ....
Spitzer Telescope Witnesses Star Being Born 34
Arvisp tips news of a discovery by astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii of the youngest known star in a nearby star-forming region. From the Yale press release:
"Astronomers think L1448-IRS2E is in between the prestellar phase, when a particularly dense region of a molecular cloud first begins to clump together, and the protostar phase, when gravity has pulled enough material together to form a dense, hot core out of the surrounding envelope. ... Most protostars are between one to 10 times as luminous as the Sun, with large dust envelopes that glow at infrared wavelengths. Because L1448-IRS2E is less than one tenth as luminous as the Sun, the team believes the object is too dim to be considered a true protostar. Yet they also discovered that the object is ejecting streams of high-velocity gas from its center, confirming that some sort of preliminary mass has already formed and the object has developed beyond the prestellar phase. This kind of outflow is seen in protostars (as a result of the magnetic field surrounding the forming star), but has not been seen at such an early stage until now."
German Publishers Want Monopoly On Sentences 158
Glyn Moody writes "You think copyright can't get any more draconian? Think again. In Germany, newspaper publishers are lobbying for 'a new exclusive right conferring the power to monopolize speech e.g. by assigning a right to re-use a particular wording in the headline of a news article anywhere else without the permission of the rights holder. According to the drafts circulating on the Internet, permission shall be obtainable exclusively by closing an agreement with a new collecting society which will be founded after the drafts have matured into law. Depending on the particulars, new levies might come up for each and every user of a PC, at least if the computer is used in a company for commercial purposes.' Think that will never work because someone will always break the news cartel? Don't worry, they've got that covered too. They want to 'amend cartel law in order to enable a global "pooling" of all exclusive rights of all newspaper publishers in Germany in order to block any attempt to defect from the paywall cartel by a single competitor.' And rest assured, if anything like this passes in Germany, publishers everywhere will be using the copyright ratchet to obtain 'parity.'"
ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisis 470
deglr6328 writes "The long beleaguered experimental magnetic confinement fusion reactor ITER is currently in what some are calling the worst crisis of its 25 year history. Still existing only on the paper of thousands of proposed design documents, the latest cost estimates for the superconducting behemoth are soaring to nearly 20 billion USD — roughly twice the estimates from as recently as a few years ago. Anti-nuclear environmentalist organizations have seized upon the moment as an opportunity to use the current global economic crisis as a means to push for permanently killing the project. If ITER is not built, the prospect of magnetic confinement fusion as a technique to reach thermonuclear breakeven and ignition in the laboratory would be in serious question. Meanwhile, the largest laser-driven inertial confinement fusion project, the National Ignition Facility, has demonstrated the ability to use self-generated plasma optical gratings to control capsule implosion symmetry with high finesse, and is on schedule to achieve ignition and potentially high gain before the end of the year."
How To Destroy a Black Hole 364
KentuckyFC writes "The critical concept that makes a black hole black is the event horizon: a theoretical boundary in space through which light and other objects can pass in one direction but not the other. Since light cannot escape the event horizon, it must be black. The event horizon is a nuisance to astrophysicists because it hides the interesting new physics that must go on inside a black hole. What they would like is a way to get rid of the event horizon so that they can see what goes on behind it. It turns out that just such a thing may be possible, say physicists. According to the mathematics of general relativity, the event horizon should disappear if a black hole were fed enough charge and angular momentum relative to its mass. However the calculations are so fiendish (PDF) that nobody knows whether the black hole would shed this extra angular momentum and charge before it could settle into a stable 'naked' state. However, the possibility that the event horizon could be destroyed raises the question of what astrophysicists would see behind this veil. According to some, black holes are regions of spacetime with infinite curvature called singularities. Many believe that 'naked' singularities cannot exist in nature. And yet there are enough question marks to suggest that this mystery is far from settled."
Submission + - Giant planet 9x the size of Jupiter found (sciencemag.org)
cremeglace writes: In the late 1990s, astronomers noticed a distinct warp in the disk of dust and gas orbiting a young star some 60 light-years from Earth. Now, using new analytical tools, researchers have discovered a giant planet lurking within the dusty haze. About nine times as massive as Jupiter and composed mainly of gas, the planet is only a few million years old, proving that such enormous planetary bodies can form rapidly.
Submission + - Japan Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail Space (inhabitat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: This morning Japanese space agency, JAXA, successfully unfurled a solar sail in space for the first time. Solar sails offer the best hope for deep space exploration because they eliminate the need to carry fuel. The Japanese spacecraft IKAROS created centrifugal force by spinning, allowing it to launch the .0003-inch-thick sail. While deployment is a challenge in a zero gravity environment, spacecraft — unlike airplanes — don’t have to contend with drag, so with each photon of light that hits the sail, the spacecraft could gather speed.
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