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Submission + - OpenShot Video Editor Achieves $35k on Kickstarter, Final Goal in Reach! (kickstarter.com) 5

Submitted by JonOomph
JonOomph writes: The popular open source video editor, OpenShot, has less than 39 hours remaining on popular crowd-funding site, Kickstarter.com. The lead developer, Jonathan Thomas, has proposed a revolutionary new feature, which would allow users to offload CPU, memory, and disk cache to a local server (or multiple local servers), dramatically increasing the speed of previewing and rendering. The more servers added to the pool, the faster the video editing engine becomes (with the primary limitation being network bandwidth). If the final goal of $40k is reached in the remaining hours, this feature will be added to the next version of OpenShot.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft comes under fire for five-figure Xbox 360 "patch fee" (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: Developer Phil Fish knows there's a problem preventing some people from enjoying his Xbox 360 puzzle platformer Fez as intended. But he's not going to fix it, thanks to what he says is an exorbitant fee of "tens of thousands of dollars" that Microsoft would charge to recertify the game after a needed patch.

The issue started on June 22, when Fish released a patch intended to fix some outstanding gameplay and performance issues with Fez. That patch gave rise to new problems for some players, though, by causing their save files to appear as corrupted, in effect erasing their progress through the game.

Microsoft pulled the initial patch for the game mere hours after it first went up, to prevent the bug it contained from spreading too far. But even though Fish initially described the issue as "fairly widespread," he now says he estimates the progress-destroying problem only affects the less than one percent of players that have already completed the game (or come very close) before installing the patch.
Japan

Submission + - Robot Hand Beats You at Rock, Paper, Scissors 100% Of The Time (ieee.org)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: This robot hand will play a game of rock, paper, scissors with you. Sounds like fun, right? Not so much, because this particular robot wins every. Single. Time.

It only takes a single millisecond for the robot to recognize what shape your hand is in, and just a few more for it to make the shape that beats you, but it all happens so fast that it's more or less impossible to tell that the robot is waiting until you commit yourself before it makes its move, allowing it to win 100% of the time.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Why Anonymous 'might well be the most powerful organization on Earth (nationalpost.com)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.

Doyon, who readily admits taking part in some of the highest-profile hacktivist attacks on websites last year — from Tunisia to Orlando, Sony to PayPal — was arrested in September for a comparatively minor assault on the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif., where he was living, in retaliation for the town forcibly removing a homeless encampment on the courthouse steps.

The “virtual sit-in” lasted half an hour. For that, Doyon is facing 15 years in jail.
Facebook

Submission + - Is Facebook a Central Bank, Too? (forbes.com)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: Facebook’s 27-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, isn’t usually mentioned in the same breath as Ben Bernanke, the 58-year-old head of the Federal Reserve. But Facebook’s early adventures in the money-creating business are going well enough that the central-bank comparison gets tempting.

Everything started quietly, in 2009, with the experimental launch of Facebook Credits, billed as “the safe and easy way to buy things on Facebook.” Anyone who chipped in $5 from a Paypal account, Visa card or the like, could do the equivalent of changing money on an overseas trip. Voila! — $5 turned into 50 Facebook Credits.
Piracy

Submission + - Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Killing Silverlight (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by SharkLaser
SharkLaser writes: Silverlight 5 might be last version released by Microsoft. Several industry insiders and partners for the last few weeks have heard from their own Microsoft sources that there won't be new versions released after Silverlight 5. Status on service packs and support for Silverlight is unclear, as Microsoft haven't yet released lifecycle support end date even for the previous Silverlight 4. By their support page they will give full year head-up before ending support. With Adobe ending development of Flash for mobile browsers and Microsoft ending development of Silverlight, HTML5 video looks a lot more promising. But will content providers be able to give out their material without DRM and how does HTML5 perform with non-video side of Flash and Silverlight?
The Internet

Submission + - Comcast's $9.99 Internet for low-income families g (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by wasimkadak
wasimkadak writes: Comcast rolled out its Internet Essentials program nationwide today, offering low-income families in its service territory $10/month Internet connections and access to $150 computers.

Any family with at least one child who qualifies for the free lunch program at public schools can subscribe to a low-speed (1.5Mbps) Comcast Internet connection for $9.95 a month. Comcast guarantees that it won't raise the price and offers the plan without equipment rental or activation fees. Subscribers also cannot have "an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment," and they can't have had Comcast Internet in the last 90 days.

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