Submission + - Ultima Online Devs Building Player-Run MMORPG (polygon.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Three former developers for Ultima Online have created a game company called Citadel Studios, and they're working on a new MMORPG called Shards Online. 'Brinkmann described the game as a player-run MMO, which means at the highest level they can run their own servers and change the settings of that world, altering how long nighttime lasts or how quickly players can gain skills. On the next level down, server administrators can take the form of god characters, who can spawn monsters in the world, create items and launch live events. And in the level below that, players can modify the gameplay code. ... The game is set in a multiverse, where players can travel through different worlds. While all the worlds are unified by the same rule-set, Cotten told Polygon that they are each themed differently, and these themes will offer players a different experience. There's a world inspired by high fantasy. There's a world that is coming out of a steampunk industrial revolution. There's a world that consists of a colosseum in which players can fight each other in player-versus-player battles.'
Submission + - Apple, Google Go On Trial for Doing HR Evil on May 27th
theodp writes: PandoDaily's Mark Ames reports that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has denied the final attempt by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the class action lawsuit over hiring collusion practices tossed. The wage fixing trial is slated to begin on May 27. "It's clearly in the defendants' interests to have this case shut down [Pixar, Intuit and LucasFilm have already settled] before more damaging revelations come out," writes Ames. The wage fixing cartel, which allegedly involved dozens of companies and affected one million employees, also reportedly stifled innovation. "One the most interesting misconceptions I've heard about the 'Techtopus' conspiracy," writes Ames of Google's agreement to cancel plans for an engineering center in Paris after Jobs expressed disapproval, "is that, while these secret deals to fix recruiting were bad (and illegal), they were also needed to protect innovation by keeping teams together while avoiding spiraling costs." Ames adds, "In a field as critical and competitive as smartphones, Google's R&D strategy was being dictated, not by the company's board, or by its shareholders, but by a desire not to anger the CEO of a rival company." Jobs, who Ames notes e-mailed only an evil 'smiley' to Apple’s head of HR in response to an e-mail from Google CEO Eric Schmidt informing Jobs that a Google recruiter had been fired to please him, was apparently viewed as one not to be trifled with. Asked by lawyers last year to describe Jobs' view on hiring in Silicon Valley, Google co-founder Sergey Brin responded, "I think Mr. Jobs' view was that people shouldn't piss him off. And I think that things that pissed him off were — would be hiring, you know — whatever."
Submission + - musl libc hits 1.0 milestone 3
dalias writes: The musl libc project has released version 1.0, the result of three years of development and testing. Musl is a lightweight, fast, simple, MIT-licensed, correctness-oriented alternative to the GNU C library (glibc), uClibc, or Android's Bionic. At this point musl provides all mandatory C99 and POSIX interfaces (plus a lot of widely-used extensions), and well over 5000 packages are known to build successfully against musl.
Several options are available for trying musl. Compiler toolchains are available from the musl-cross project, and several new musl-based Linux distributions are already available (Sabotage and Snowflake, among others). Some well-established distributions including OpenWRT and Gentoo are in the process of adding musl-based variants, and others (Aboriginal, Alpine, Bedrock, Dragora) are adopting musl as their default libc.
Several options are available for trying musl. Compiler toolchains are available from the musl-cross project, and several new musl-based Linux distributions are already available (Sabotage and Snowflake, among others). Some well-established distributions including OpenWRT and Gentoo are in the process of adding musl-based variants, and others (Aboriginal, Alpine, Bedrock, Dragora) are adopting musl as their default libc.
Submission + - Microsoft Rumored to Integrate Android Apps
phmadore writes: Windows Phone has been struggling for market share, largely due to a serious lack of developers willing to invest their time in what one might consider a niche market. Statistically speaking, Android has more than 1.1M apps to Windows Phone's pitiful 200,000+. Well, according to unnamed sources informing the Verge , Microsoft may soon integrate/allow Android applications into both Windows and Windows Phone. The irony is so thick here you can cut it with a million dollar bill.
Comment Re:No Good (Score 1) 553
I completely agree! THQ may be on it's way out, but this makes for a decent swan song!
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