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Submission + - NVIDIA Announces Real-Time Ray Tracing For Games Now A Reality With RTX Tech (hothardware.com)

HotHardware writes: NVIDIA has been dabbling in real-time ray tracing for over a decade. However, the company just introduced NVIDIA RTX, which is its latest effort to deliver real-time ray tracing to game developers and content creators for implementation in actual game engines. Historically, the computational horsepower to perform real-time ray tracing has been too great to be practical in actual games, but NVIDIA hopes to change that with its new Volta GPU architecture and the help of Microsoft's new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API enhancements. Ray tracing is a method by which images are enhanced by tracing rays or paths of light as they bounce in and around an object (or objects) in a scene. Under optimum conditions, ray tracing delivers photorealistic imagery with shadows that are correctly cast; water effects that show proper reflections and coloring; and scenes that are cast with realistic lighting effects. NVIDIA RTX is a combination of software (the company's Gameworks SDK, now with ray tracing support), and next generation GPU hardware. NVIDIA notes its Volta architecture has specific hardware support for real-time ray tracing, including offload via its Tensor core engines. To show what's possible with the technology, developers including Epic, 4A Games and Remedy Entertainment will be showcasing their own game engine demonstrations this week at the Game Developers Conference. NVIDIA expects the ramp to be slow at first, but believes eventually most game developers will adopt real-time ray tracing in the future.

Submission + - Alleged proprietors of "DDOS for hire" service vDOS arrested

pdclarry writes: Brian Krebs reports that the two youthful (18 YO) alleged proprietors of vDOS, the DDOS service that was reported in Slashdot September 9, have been arrested in Israel on a complaint from the FBI. They have been released on $10,000 bond each, their passports lifted, and they have been placed under house arrest, and banned from using the Internet for 30 days. They were probably identified through a massive hack of the vDOS database recently.

Krebs also reports that vDOS's DNS addresses were hijacked by the firm BankConnect Security to get out from under a sustained DDOS attack, and that his site, krebsonsecurity.com has been under a sustained DDOS attack since his last article was published, with the packets containing the string "godiefaggot". Those attacks continue, but, as he has been the target of many DDOS attacks in the past, he covered by a DDOS protection firm.

Submission + - Researchers Claim A Few Cat Videos Per Day Helps Keep The Doctor Away

bigwophh writes: A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior suggests that watching videos of cats may be good for your health. The study pinged nearly 7,000 people and asked them how viewing cat videos affected their moods. Of those surveyed, over a third (36 percent) described themselves as a "cat person" and nearly two-thirds (60 percent) said they have an affinity for both dogs and cats. Survey subjects noted less tendencies towards feeling anxious, sad, or annoyed after watching cat videos, including times when they viewed the videos while at work or trying to study. They also reported feeling more energetic and more positive afterwards. There may have been some guilt from putting off work or studying to watch Internet videos, but the amusement they got from seeing the antics of cats more than made up for it.

Submission + - The Quietest Place on Earth Will Cause You to Hallucinate in 45 Minutes

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Industry Tap reports that there is a place so quiet you can hear your heart beat, your lungs breathe and your stomach digest. It's the anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs in Minnesota where 3ft of sound-proofing fiberglass wedges and insulated steel and concrete absorbs 99.99% of sound, making it the quietest place in the world. "When it’s quiet, ears will adapt," says the company’s founder and president, Steven Orfield. "The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You'll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound." The chamber is used by a multitude of manufacturers, to test how loud their products are and the space normally rents for $300 to $400 an hour. "It's used for formal product testing, for research into the sound of different things — heart valves, the sound of the display of a cellphone, the sound of a switch on a car dashboard." But the strangest thing about the chamber is that sensory deprivation makes the room extremely disorienting, and people can rarely stay in the dark space for long. As the minutes tick by in absolute quiet, the human mind begins to lose its grip, causing test subjects to experience visual and aural hallucinations. "We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark — one reporter stayed in there for 45 minutes," says Orfield who says even he can't stand the quiet for more than about 30 minutes. Nasa uses a similar chamber to test its astronauts putting them in a water-filled tank inside the room to see "how long it takes before hallucinations take place and whether they could work through it".

Submission + - Internet Explorer Still Dominant in South Korea. (washingtonpost.com)

bmurray7 writes: You might think that the country that has the fastest average home internet speeds would be a first adapter of modern browsers. Instead, as the Washington Post reports, a payment processing security standard forces most South Korean's to rely upon Internet Explorer for online shopping. Since the standard uses a unique encryption algorithm, an ActiveX control is required to complete online purchase. As a result, many internet users are in the habit of approving all AtivceX control prompts, potentially exposing them to malware.

Submission + - Chinese professor builds Li-Fi system with retail parts (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: The equipment is big and expensive, with the research costs at almost $500,000. But by just using retail components, Chinese professor Chi Nan has built her own Li-Fi wireless system that can use LED lights to send and receive Internet data. "I bought the lights from Taobao," she said, referring to the Chinese e-commerce site. The professor from Fudan University showed off the technology on Tuesday at the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai. Unlike traditional Wi-Fi routers that use radio signals, Chi's system relies on light to send and receive data wirelessly. Others scientists, especially in the U.K., have also been researching the technology, and dubbed it "Li-Fi". But rather than develop specialized hardware, Chi bought off-the-shelf retail parts to create her system.

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