Unreal Playground

Microsoft confirms 'pre-owned fee' for Xbox One

radio667 — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:48:50 GMT

from computerandvideogames.com .................. Mandatory game installation required for all games; second install on separate Live account sits behind paywall

Microsoft has confirmed that all Xbox One games will require mandatory installation onto the system's hard drive and, to install the same disc onto another user's drive, a fee must be paid.

Individual games will be tied to Xbox Live accounts, Microsoft said, meaning that the software giant can detect whether a game has been sold to a retailer and repurchased, or handed from one friend to another. In such instances, the second user must pay a fee.

"On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play," a Microsoft representative told Wired .

The company added that, once discs are installed on the hard drive, games can be played without a disc being in the tray.

The Wired article then elaborates: "What follows naturally from this is that each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner."

It added: "Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc."

Microsoft did not disclose what the second-user fee would amount too, and did not clarify further on the matter.

The article claims that there is no sweeping 'always-online' requirement for future Xbox One games.

They WANT to EAT YOUR COMPUTER - welcome your ANT overlords

radio667 — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:45:57 GMT

from theregister.co.uk .................... Whole corner of America faces life without computers

A massive horde of computer-killing "crazy ants" are invading the southeastern US, killing other species as they go.

New research released today in the journal Biological Invasions warns the aliens have wiped out at least one other ant invader, the exotic fire ant, but are also targeting local ants with deadly precision. More worryingly, if you're a human, the tiny terrors also pose a threat to humanity due to their predilection for swarming into electrical machinery in huge numbers and destroying the circuitry.

The beasties earned the nickname crazy because they dart around erratically and quickly, rather than taking the calm, sedate paths favoured by other ants. They are also referred to as tawny crazy ants due to their natty colour scheme.

For fans of El Reg, the ants' unexplainable taste for all things tech is likely to be their most terrifying characteristic. Once they move into a house, they swarm everywhere, occupying every space they can in frightening numbers. Then, for reasons no one fully understands, they swarm into machines and chew away at the wires. Once an ant is electrocuted, it releases a signal calling other ants to help it, which can quickly result in a ball of dead ants inside a circuit, with thousands of ants cramming in and ruining the device.

They are known to have brought down sewage pumps, messed up computers and were even considered a threat to NASA's facilities at the Johnson Space Centre , in Houston.

The fire ant species - also an alien invader - isn't exactly popular itself, because it delivers a horrifically painful bite which is reputed to be as painful as a burn. But homeowners may find themselves yearning for the good old days of nasty, bitey fire ants if they find themselves invaded by their crazy cousins.

Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research programme at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences, was the lead author of the study.

�When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,� said LeBrun. �Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound.�

The crazy ants were first identified in 2002 by a pest controller in Houston, and have since spread out to 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida and have been seen in both southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana.

In 2012, the ants were formally identified as the species Nylanderia fulva, which is native to Argentina and north Brazil. In their native countries, natural predators keep them in check, but in the US there are no checks on their population growth, meaning they can achieve population densities 100 times greater than fire ants.

�They don�t sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,� LeBrun added. �There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It�s very expensive.

�Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant, which is the 300-pound gorilla in Texas ecosystems these days. The whole system has changed around fire ants. Things that can�t tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished.

"New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that.�

On top of their general madness, crazy ants are also very difficult to kill. They don't appear to be affected by traditional insecticides and even if one colony is killed, another one from the area can quickly fill the space.

The crazy ants are the latest in a series of ant invasions from the south, stretching back to the arrival of the Argentine ant in the late 19th century. The ants are mostly carried through human activity, so experts suggest that travellers try to avoid carrying them inadvertently. Left to their own devices, the ants can only move at about 200 metres a year, but human activity means they move significantly more quickly.

Currently, the crazy ants prefer wet climes with mild winters. There's no word on whether they prefer Macs or PCs.

Rasberry Crazy Ants (Texas Country Reporter)

You Tube

Boutique PC seller laughs all the way to the bank on the back of Windows 7

radio667 — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:15:07 GMT

from computerworld.com ........... Bucks sales slump with high-end PCs running 2009's OS

Computerworld - A boutique system builder has bucked the industry trend of slumping PC sales by continuing to focus on selling Windows 7 machines.

Auburn, Wash.-based Puget Systems grew sales 20% in 2012, said Jon Bach, president of the independent PC seller, by specializing in high-performance, buit-to-order PCs -- primarily deskstops.

Puget's performance is in stark contrast to the global PC market, which contracted 6% in the fourth quarter of last year, and plummeted 14% in the first quarter of 2013, according to research firm IDC.

Puget also went against the grain by selling significantly more Windows 7 PCs than ones equipped with the new Windows 8. That was not a strategy of its own choosing, however, as customers select the operating system for their custom-built machines.

Major OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) like Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell took a different tack, going almost exclusively with Windows 8 on new consumer PCs starting last October. The current retail channel remains predominantly Windows 8 territory. (The same OEMs continue to sell Windows 7 systems to business customers, however.)

"For the first few months, demand [for Windows 8] slowly picked up, from virtually zero to about 30% of sales," said Bach of the post-October 2012 launch. "But then it settled at about 20% of sales and has stayed around there since March." Virtually all of the remainder -- around 80% and holding steady -- that Puget sells are powered by Windows 7.

The continued lure of Windows 7 didn't surprise Bach, who, like most critics, said that the problems with Windows 8 made its 2009 predecessor seem all the more attractive.

"After having spent extended time with [Windows 8], I can understand many of our customer frustrations," said Bach. "There isn't anything that is a show-stopper in the UI [user interface], but it gets in its own way a lot of the time. I find myself thinking about the UI and how to use it to make it do what I want, which I think is the sign of a bad UI."

Not surprisingly, given the sales share of Windows 8, few Puget customers have equipped their new PCs with touch-enabled displays, even those asking for Windows 8. Microsoft built Windows 8 with touch in mind -- its tile-style "Modern" UI is tough to use without touch capabilities -- and it and independent analysts have put some of the blame for slow sales on a lack of affordable touch PCs.

"We are not seeing a pickup in touch display interest," said Bach. "I would expect touch to be of more interest with laptops and tablets. [But] our laptops are not touch enabled, and yet our laptop sales were up 50% last month. Go figure."

Bach realized his company's performance was not representative of the computer industry as a whole. "It really should be no surprise that we aren't following the volume PC industry," Bach said. "We are a niche builder, with ASPs [average selling prices] probably 5-10x the industry average. High performance computers are just a completely different animal."

It's still not clear how long system builders like Puget will be able to sell Windows 7 PCs. Although Microsoft has a policy that allows OEMs to pre-install the previous Windows edition on PCs for up to two years after a new version launches, Microsoft's website , last updated in January 2012, doesn't yet specify an "end-of-sale" date for Windows 7.

It's possible -- although Microsoft has not signaled such a move -- that the Redmond, Wash. developer will extend that two-year sales period if Windows 8 continued to languish.

Bach plans to sell Windows 7 as long as possible.

"I haven't heard a peep about an end-of-sales schedule for Windows 7," Bach said when asked whether he'd received word about a cutoff from either Microsoft or his distributors. "But I also think that Windows 7 is going to be the next Windows XP. We're going to find ourselves finding some odd way to install it on special request eight years from now.

"After all, we still get requests for Windows XP." he said.

Massive EXPLOSION visible to naked eye SEEN ON MOON

radio667 — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:06:11 GMT

from theregister.co.uk ......... 'Equivalent to 5 TONNES of TNT going off', says NASA

Vid Sensational news today from the Moon, as skywatchers say a huge explosion - as bright as a star, and visible from Earth with the naked eye - has been seen on the lunar surface.

ScienceCasts: Bright Explosion on the Moon -...

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," splutters Bill Cooke, a top NASA boffin. According to NASA, the mighty blast briefly "glowed like a 4th magnitude star ... the explosion packed as much punch as 5 tons of TNT". For comparison that's twice as much explosive as one would find in a US Air Force nuclear-bunker-busting MOP superbomb.

Rather than a crashing alien spaceship, or perhaps the launch flare of one taking off, Cooke and his colleagues believe that the massive moon bomb blast has a relatively prosaic explanation: an unusually violent meteor strike. NASA calculations indicate that a meteoroid probably around 0.4 metres across and massing 40kg-odd barrelled into the lunar regolith going at around 56 thousand mph.

Despite the violence and brightness of the resulting cataclysm, nobody noticed it at the time, or if they did they didn't tell NASA. Though the space boulder struck the moon on March 17, the agency's boffins have only just realised it happened, while going through digital imagery recorded by automatic monitoring cameras attached to telescopes trained on the Moon.

Ron Suggs, analyst at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first to notice the impact.

"It jumped right out at me, it was so bright," he says.

NASA now plans to fly its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe craft, in orbit above the moon, over the impact site to see just what size of crater the meteoroid left. Assuming that Cooke and Suggs are right and no aliens, Tibetans, escaped WWII Nazis etc were involved, anyway.

There's more on the lunar space boulder bomb blast cataclysm coolness from NASA here .

SkaarjMaster

Manticore — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:08:09 GMT

:w00t: :rockon: :w00t:

Go see Star Trek: Into Darkness

Ignignot420 — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:51:20 GMT

Saw Star Trek yesterday and WOW! It was WAAAAAY better than I thought it was going to be! And holy $&%*, the Klingons are kick-ass! Their Birds of Prey have been re-designed as well! Too much to mention while trying not to ruin the movie though so, that's it. Amazing movie! :w00t: Two thumbs up! :w00t:

Music for Mappers+

Ignignot420 — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:25:41 GMT

Anyone that knows me personally knows that I can't create maps at all. In fact, I am HORRIBLE at it. Tried it and well....yeah...I can't do it. But, I have been known to make some pretty interesting/cool music, for fun, over the years and I would like to make music for you awesome mappers/people here on UP.

My reason for wanting to do this: I realized today that even though I have been a member of UP since sometime in 2005, I have contributed damn-near NOTHING to this site/community!:cry: I have donated a couple of times but, I still feel bad that I haven't done more. All of you guys & gals have been blanking AWESOME to me and this site DESERVES more from me than it has gotten. After I get my Reason purchased next month I'll also be donating $100 to UP. Thank you all so much for all the help/good times over the years!!:rockon:

RIDDICK - Official Trailer (2013) [HD]

radio667 — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:55:15 GMT

YouTube

CBMTrailers

Release Date: September 6, 2013 (2D theaters and IMAX)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: David Twohy
Screenwriter: David Twohy
Starring: Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Dave Bautista, Conrad Pla, Raoul Trujillo, Nolan Funk, Keri Hilson
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating: R (for strong violence, language and some sexual content/nudity)

Official Websites: http://www.riddickmovie.com/ ... https://www.facebook.com/Riddick ... https://twitter.com/RiddickTheMovie

Plot Summary:
The latest chapter of the groundbreaking saga that began with 2000's hit sci-fi film "Pitch Black" and 2004's "The Chronicles of Riddick" reunites writer/director David Twohy ("A Perfect Getaway," "The Fugitive") and star Vin Diesel (the "Fast and Furious" franchise, "XXX"). Diesel reprises his role as the antihero Riddick, a dangerous, escaped convict wanted by every bounty hunter in the known galaxy.

The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he's encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.

The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won't leave the planet without Riddick's head as their trophy.

I found glittering prizes on Steam

Ignignot420 — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:03:02 GMT

I'm pretty sure most of y'all know about this but, I want to share.:joy:

(From Steam Store)
Unreal Deal Pack

Buy Unreal Deal Pack
$39.99 ADD TO CART
Items included in this bundle

Unreal 2: The Awakening
Released Mar 17, 2008
$14.99

Unreal Gold
Released Mar 17, 2008
$9.99

Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition
Released Mar 17, 2004
$14.99

Unreal Tournament 3 Black
Released Mar 5, 2009
$19.99
:joy:

Windows 8 = New Coke?

radio667 — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:28:27 GMT

from winsupersite.com ....................... Calling out critics only makes sense when those critics are wrong

Microsoft�s communications chief has a tough job these days, and with Windows 8 is under attack from all sides he�s bravely called for a return to the center and a less partisan conversation about the new OS. There�s just one problem: The periodicals he�s called out for engaging in �sensationalism and hyperbole� are in fact right about Microsoft�s strategy. And ignoring that is the real problem.

Full disclosure: I like Frank Shaw quite a bit. He�s got a tough job and to be fair he�s doing the right thing in defending his company.

But in a recent post to the Official Microsoft Blog , Mr. Shaw called out The Financial Times and The Economist, two staid publications that made the mistake of correctly identifying the core problem with Windows these days. I can only imagine what he thinks of me right now.

In the wake of a mini-publicity tour in which Microsoft executives tried to paint its about-face with Windows 8.1 �Blue� as an example of it �listening to customer feedback,� these publications have correctly suggested that this never would have happened had the Windows team simply listened to customer feedback during the six year buildup to Windows 8 instead.

The Financial Times critique is admittedly bruising. The publication describes �Blue� as �one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola�s New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago.�

The Economist , meanwhile, wrote that customer reaction to Windows 8 is so bad that Microsoft is �attempting a U-turn� with the coming �Blue� update.

Tough? Yes. But they�re also fair.

The first time Mary Jo Foley and I mentioned Blue on the Windows Weekly podcast, months ago, Leo Laporte asked us what it was. �It�s an apology,� I blurted out. It was an attempt at humor, but if you�re familiar with my style, you also know that there�s always some honesty in there too. And if you compare this view with what the Financial Times and Economist wrote, you�ll see that all three are in fact basically saying the same thing.

�There was even a time when acknowledging that you were listening to feedback and acting on it was considered a good thing,� Mr. Shaw wrote. Fair enough. But again, the Windows team just spent over 6 years ignoring feedback. It�s inconceivable it would have shipped something as disjointed as Windows 8 if it had even been listening just a bit to feedback. This feedback was loud and clear. It�s never changed.

�Windows 8 is a good product, and it�s getting better every day,� Shaw claimed. Well. Not every day. Not even every week. It�s not improving quickly enough, in my opinion, in sharp contrast to what other teams are accomplishing at Microsoft these days. But � It is a good product, one that is not unusable or broken as others suggest. Certainly, it is improving.

Mr. Shaw says we should �pause for a moment and consider the center.� But it�s impossible for the man who communicates officially for Microsoft to do that. He is by definition biased for Microsoft, just like any MVP is. That doesn�t mean you can�t trust these people. It just means that you need to know where their bread is buttered.

My own view of Windows 8 in fact represents the center, I think: It is a good product, an improvement over Windows 7, albeit a messy one with an extraneous mobile OS bolted onto the side. It needs to be improved, and quickly. Blue is a start, but it�s not enough.

�So perhaps this week�s lesson is look less to the edges and more to the center. There�s more light there.�

I couldn�t agree more.

New Prenda letter threatens to tell neighbors about porn accusations

radio667 — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:06:02 GMT

from arstechnica.com ............... Sprawling case may be porn troll's "last stand," but it looks massive.

Despite the fact that four of the lawyers linked to porn-trolling enterprise Prenda Law have been forwarded to criminal investigators, the organization is charging full-steam ahead with one of its last cases: LW Systems v. Hubbard . The case is an Illinois state lawsuit making vague allegations over computer hacking against a defendant with a lawyer who some have said is actually in cahoots with Prenda.

The case landed Prenda an incredibly broad order that allows it to subpoena subscriber information from practically any ISP in the country. So Prenda lawyer Paul Duffy has used that power to launch a barrage of threat letters telling people to pay up or get sued. In mid-April�just a week after Duffy pled the Fifth to avoid testifying about his actions in Prenda litigation�his law firm was sending out demand letters asking for $2,400.

Now, the anti-Prenda blog Fight Copyright Trolls has published a newer version of the letter, which also appears to be signed by Duffy. The new letter has gone out under the name of Anti-Piracy Law Group , and it suggests that letter recipients might have their neighbors or family members contacted about the allegations in the lawsuit. Since those accusations concern adult content, that action seems like a threat that could increase the embarrassment factor for recipients.

Duffy writes:

Quote:

The purpose of this step is to gather evidence about who used your Internet account to steal from our client. The list of possible suspects includes you, members of your household, your neighbors (if you maintain an open Wi-Fi connection), and anyone who might have visited your house. In the coming days we will contact these individuals to investigate whether they have any knowledge of the acts described in my client�s prior letter.

The new letter also makes more specific allegations about digging into the electronic history of targets. It warns against destruction of evidence, including "files on your computer, your credit card purchase history, and your Google search history."

The letters don't specifically mention that the firm will be talking to the neighbor about pornography accusations. However, LW Systems identifies itself as being in the adult content business within the complaint, and the letter says that LW Systems' content has been widely stolen

One lawyer who has been named as a "senior manager" of Prenda and its affiliates, John Steele, spoke to Ars last week and denied any involvement with Prenda. Steele did acknowledge he's paid a "modest flat fee" as an employee of Livewire Holdings, which owns LW Systems.

Ars contacted Duffy to ask about the new letters but hasn't heard back.

Vulnerability Found In Skyrim, Fallout, Other Bethesda Games

radio667 — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:58:16 GMT

from slashdot.org .................. "The author of this article goes over a format string vulnerability he found in The Elder Scrolls series starting with Morrowind and going all the way up to Skyrim. It's not something that will likely be exploited, but it's interesting that the vulnerability has lasted through a decade of games. 'Functions like printf() and its variants allow us to view and manipulate the program�s running stack frame by specifying certain format string characters. By passing %08x.%08x.%08x.%08x.%08x, we get 5 parameters from the stack and display them in an 8-digit padded hex format. The format string specifier �%s� displays memory from an address that is supplied on the stack. Then there�s the %n format string specifier � the one that crashes applications because it writes addresses to the stack. Powerful stuff.'"

Where In Hell Come All Those Sands From?

Kaal979 — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:28 GMT

Given all ocean floors are mostly covered with sands
like lets say in the sahara desert which by geological
formation once had been under ocean water how and
why could it happen that the oceans covered that
unbelievable large areas fully with sands at all?

Star Wars: Battlefront III - In-Game Alpha Footage (Gameplay)

radio667 — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:36:25 GMT

Star Wars: Battlefront III - In-Game Alpha...

GamerSpawn

Published on May 7, 2013

This video shows leaked alpha footage of Star Wars: Battlefront III, which was to have been the third video game in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. Although LucasArts never announced the game, Free Radical Design developed the game from 2006 until 2008. The video gives you an example of how vast the battles would have been: all the Republic's Cruisers you see on the video are piloted by full crews of real players.

wolfenstein:new order

Hawkwind — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:13:34 GMT

http://www.thehdroom.com/news/Wolfen...Consoles/12434

no virginia, this is NOT your mother's wolfenstein. the trailer is long on self promotion, short on possible gameplay. giant killer robots running amok in manhattan :scratch: they wasted a good hendrix/dylan dedux tune for this?
hopefully they will clarify things before release