valedaemon - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google: Stadia Exclusives To Have Features 'Not Possible' On Home Hardware (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24, 2019 @04:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: When Google launches its Stadia streaming service on November 19 (for some pre-orderers, at least), it will only include titles that are also available on standard PCs and consoles. Going forward, though, the company says it's going to focus on first-party exclusives "that wouldn't be possible on any other platform." That's how Google head of Stadia Games and Entertainment Jade Raymond (well-known as one of the creators of Assassin's Creed) summarized the company's plans in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz. Google announced today that its first first-party game development studio would be located in Montreal, and Raymond told GI that studio will be focused on trying things that other dedicated game platforms can't do.

Part of that promise, Raymond says, is the ability to use Google's distributed data center hardware to perform real-time calculations that can't be done on even the most powerful home hardware. "A fully physics-simulated game is one of the Holy Grails of game creation since Trespasser was being imagined 20-something years ago, and now we finally have a platform where we'll be able to deliver some of those experiences," Raymond said, making reference to the overly ambitious failure of 1998's Jurassic Park: Trespasser. That distributed server technology could also aid in the performance and scale of MMOs, Raymond said, because "everyone [on Stadia] is essentially playing in one big LAN party as far as the tech is concerned. There is no difference or constraints from an architecture perspective of how far the users are, or worrying about replication and all the other things that typically limit the number of people you can have in a game."

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft, Intel Draft 500,000+ JROTC Kids to Fight National CS Talent Shortage

Submitted by theodp on Thursday October 24, 2019 @12:11AM

theodp writes: It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft employees wary of empowering the military react to Wednesday's news of an Intel and Microsoft-led alliance that aims to enlist an army of JROTC high school students to fight the war for CS talent, with support from U.S. lawmakers. From the press release: "Today, at the 2019 CSforALL Summit, leaders representing CSforALL and Air Force Junior ROTC announced JROTC-CS, an innovative new initiative that could dramatically increase the number of U.S. high school students taking an Advanced Placement computer science course, particularly among underrepresented populations like minority and female students. This public-private partnership is supported by an Advisory Consortium of industry and education organizations including founding members Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Capital One, Lockheed Martin, Snap Inc., the Air Force Association’s Cyberpatriot, and the College Board. More than 500,000 cadets at 3,400 high schools across the U.S. and abroad participate in JROTC programs administered by each of the military services. Only 32% of these cadets have access to Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles in their school, according to 2018–19 College Board data. The JROTC-CS initiative seeks to access this untapped human resource to address the national talent shortage in computing and cybersecurity and increase career opportunities for JROTC cadets, who are a highly diverse population — more than half are minority students and 40% are female. Additionally, JROTC is strongly represented in schools serving economically disadvantaged communities. [...] The JROTC-CS initiative is designed to complement the innovative, bi-partisan JROTC Cyber Training Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the 2020 House National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on July 12."

Submission + - EU Data Watchdog Raises Concerns Over Microsoft Contracts (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @05:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft’s contracts with European Union institutions do not fully protect data in line with EU law, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said in initial findings published on Monday. The EDPS, the EU’s data watchdog, opened an investigation in April to assess whether contracts between Microsoft and EU institutions such as the European Commission fully complied with the bloc’s data protection rules. “Though the investigation is still ongoing, preliminary results reveal serious concerns over compliance of the relevant contractual terms with data protection rules and the role of Microsoft as a processor for EU institutions using its products and services,” the EDPS says in a statement.

Submission + - Calculation Errors & Inadequate Peer Review Led to Miami Bridge Collapse (ntsb.gov) 1

Submitted by McGruber on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @12:27PM

McGruber writes: The National Transportation Safety Board determined, during a public board meeting held Tuesday, that load and capacity calculation errors made by FIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc., are the probable cause of the fatal, March 15, 2018, Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse in Miami.

Contributing to the collapse was Louis Berger’s inadequate peer review, which failed to detect FIGG’s calculation errors in its design of the main span truss member 11/12 nodal region and connection to the bridge deck. The FIGG engineer of record’s failure to identify the significance of structural cracking observed in this node before the collapse, and failure to obtain an independent peer review of the remedial plan to address the cracking, further contributed to the collapse.

Six people died and 10 others were injured when the partially constructed FIU pedestrian bridge catastrophically failed, sending the 174-foot-long, 950-ton, bridge span onto SW 8th Street 18.5 feet below, crushing eight vehicles that were under the bridge. Six of the eight lanes of the roadway traveling under the bridge were open at the time of the collapse.

The failure of FIGG, MCM, Bolton Perez and Associates Consulting Engineers, FIU and the Florida Department of Transportation to cease bridge work and close SW 8th Street to protect public safety contributed to the severity of the collapse outcome, said the NTSB during the meeting.

“Errors in bridge design, inadequate peer review and poor engineering judgment led to the collapse of this bridge,” said NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt. “The failure of all concerned parties, to recognize and take action on the threat to public safety presented by the significant observed bridge structure distress prior to the collapse, led to the tragic loss of life in this preventable accident.”

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Submission + - Symantec Endpoint Protection causes Google Chrome 78 to crash (windowsreport.com)

Submitted by SmartAboutThings on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @08:29AM

SmartAboutThings writes: Many Chrome users who installed the latest browser update (Google Chrome version 78) reported getting the Aw Snap error when trying to open a new tab.
This problem is prevalent for Symantec Endpoint Protection users. Symantec already acknowledged the issue and is working on a permanent fix.

Submission + - Berkeley City Council Unanimously Votes to Ban Face Recognition (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @09:07PM

An anonymous reader writes: Berkeley has become the third city in California and the fourth city in the United States to ban the use of face recognition technology by the government. After an outpouring of support from the community, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance introduced by Councilmember Kate Harrison earlier this year. Berkeley joins other Bay Area cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, which also banned government use of face recognition. In July 2019, Somerville, Massachusetts became the first city on the East Coast to ban the government’s use of face recognition.

The passage of the ordinance also follows the signing of A.B. 1215, a California state law that places a three-year moratorium on police use of face recognition on body-worn cameras, beginning on January 1, 2020. As EFF’s Associate Director of Community Organizing Nathan Sheard told the California Assembly, using face recognition technology “in connection with police body cameras would force Californians to decide between actively avoiding interaction and cooperation with law enforcement, or having their images collected, analyzed, and stored as perpetual candidates for suspicion.”

Comment Re:Most important of all? (Score 1) 305

by valedaemon on Saturday May 07, 2011 @12:16PM (#36056734) Attached to: JavaScript Creator Talks About the Future

I actually find myself rather hard-pressed to argue against the point at least in terms of JS's universality and necessity. Javascript has evolved far past its "hey, it'd be neat to add a pointless action/feature to this website" to becoming foundational to the page. The principle for modern web development is HTML is the structure, CSS the style, and JS the behaviour. And there's good reason for that. JS when used correctly greatly improves the user experience. AJAX became important for a reason: now one doesn't have to depend upon a page refresh to await new information. Moreover, Javascript is everywhere, so it's easy to gain access to its features. And to suit its new position, JS has gotten a major facelift thanks to frameworks such as jQuery which make it a pleasure rather than a pain to develop. With that being said, Javascript is not the end-all, be-all. It has its place, but it takes knowledge of how and when to implement it. One should not attempt to grant it server-side actions. It can never hope to compete (and nor should it) with a compiled or server-side scripting language. JS should never be the intelligence of a website. But when defining behaviour and the way elements should act, it's importance is crystal clear.

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