Comment LulzSec says this isn't true (Score 1) 1
Curiously, Lulzsec is denying its involvement in this - http://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/statuses/83167715799470080 and http://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/statuses/83168314527981568
Submission + - LulzSec suspected arrested by UK police (sophos.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The UK's Police Computer e-Crime Unit (PCeU) has arrested a 19-year-old man in Wickford, Essex, in connection with the series of LulzSec attacks against organizations including the CIA, PBS and Sony.
The man, who has been arrested under the Computer Misuse and Fraud Act, has had his house searched and a significant amount of material taken away by police for forensic examination.
The PCeU worked with local Essex police and the FBI on the investigation.
The man, who has been arrested under the Computer Misuse and Fraud Act, has had his house searched and a significant amount of material taken away by police for forensic examination.
The PCeU worked with local Essex police and the FBI on the investigation.
Submission + - OnLive to launch in UK this Autumn (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: Cloud-based gaming platform OnLive has announced plans to launch in the UK this Autumn, with Onlive.co.uk opening for OnLive player tag registration on 7 June.
OnLive runs games on remote servers and streams them back to subscribers, but until now it's only been available in some areas of the US.
OnLive runs games on remote servers and streams them back to subscribers, but until now it's only been available in some areas of the US.
Submission + - AMD: We're Betting Everything on OpenCL (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: Fusion is either going to carry AMD through to the victory parade, or drag it through the streets for a pelting in the village stocks. In fact, the whole future of AMD's CPU division rests on GPGPU computing being catapulted into the mainstream. In an interview, AMD's manager of Fusion software marketing Terry Makedon revealed that 'AMD as a company made a very, very big bet when it purchased ATI: that things like OpenCL will succeed. I mean, we're betting everything on it.' He also added: 'I'll give you the fact that we don't have any major applications at this point that are going to revolutionise the industry and make people think 'oh, I must have this,' granted, but we're working very hard on it. Like I said, it's a big bet for us, and it's a bet that we're certain about.'
Submission + - Windows 1.0: The power of DOS, plus tiled windows (networkworld.com)
jbrodkin writes: "I'd always wanted my own working copy of the elusive Windows 1.0, and after a few failed attempts I got one working in a virtual machine (I had to downgrade from the latest version of Windows Virtual PC to an earlier version to get it started, but that's another story). With 416K free memory, we were able to cruise through Reversi, take a look at the first version of Notepad, as well as the now-defunct Microsoft Write, and create a "masterpiece" in Microsoft Paint. Eventually, applications started crashing, but a simple reboot got it working again. All in all, a nice tour through computing history. Anyone have a copy of the first Macintosh OS they want to send me?"
Submission + - Researchers Grow a Brain in a Dish
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney writes that a team of biomedical engineers at the University of Pittsburgh led by Henry Zeringue have managed to grow an active brain in a dish, complete with memories by culturing brain cells capable of forming networks, complete with biological signals. To produce the models, the Pitt team stamped adhesive proteins onto silicon discs. Once the proteins were cultured and dried, cultured hippocampus cells from embryonic rats were fused to the proteins and then given time to grow and connect to form a natural network. The researchers disabled the cells' inhibitory response and excited the neurons with an electrical pulse which were then able to sustain the resulting burst of network activity for up to what in neuronal time is 12 long seconds compared to the natural duration of .25 seconds. The ability of the brain to hold information ‘online' long after an initiating stimulus is a hallmark of brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex. The team will next work to understand the underlying factors that govern network communication and stimulation, such as the various electrical pathways between cells and the genetic makeup of individual cells. "This is amazing," writes Toney. "I wonder what the "memory" could be — could be a good subject for a science fiction story.""
Submission + - Good Old Games: DRM drives gamers to piracy (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: Independent retro games retailer Good Old Games has spoken out about digital rights management, saying that it can actually drive gamers to piracy, rather than acting as a deterrent. In an interview, a spokesperson for Good Old Games said that the effectiveness of DRM as a piracy-deterrent was "None, or close to none."
"What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry," says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?"
"What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry," says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?"
Submission + - Getting L33t Into The Oxford English Dictionary (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: A few net-speak acronyms such as LOL and OMG to the Oxford English Dictionary last month, but could we ever see l33t-speak (complete with numbers) or ROFLcopters in the OED? Actually, yes we could. In this interview with OED principal editor Graeme Diamond, he reveals the selection criteria for new words and discusses the potential for words such as 'l33t' to get into the dictionary."'L33t is obviously a respelling and a contraction [of elite]," says Diamond, "so it would be a separate entry, and yes it is familiar to me, so I think it's something we would consider for inclusion."
Submission + - Saving The UK Games Industry (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: Following the cancellation of games tax relief in the 2010 UK budget, the UK games industry is now feeling increasingly threatened by Canada, France and some US states that offer tax relief to their games businesses. What's more, it looks as though the R&D tax credits scheme offered up by UK Chancellor George Osborne in last week's budget speech is nowhere near enough to enable UK-based games studios to compete internationally. "In terms of magnitude, games tax relief would be much more generous," says Dr Richard Wilson, CEO of the UK games industry's trade association TIGA, in this in-depth interview about the need for games tax relief in the UK. "The proposals we've been campaigning for would allow games companies to basically put in a claim for a reduction in corporation tax of between 20-30 per cent on given projects. The R&D tax credits are much smaller in magnitude – we're talking somewhere around 4-5 per cent." Is this enough to enable UK game studios to compete with the likes of Canada? "Good grief, no," says Wilson, "absolutely not."
Submission + - Doom creator: Direct3D is now better than OpenGL (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: First person shooter godfather and OpenGL stickler John Carmack has revealed that he now prefers DirectX to OpenGL, saying that 'inertia' is the main reason why id Software has stuck by the cross-platform 3D graphics API for years. In a recent interview, the co-founder of id Software said "I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today." He also added that "Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better."
Comment Correction (Score 1) 1
Headline should be 'reads at 538MB/sec' rather than 'writes' - apologies.
Submission + - How do seeders profit from BitTorrent? (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: As you may remember, a recent study claimed that just 100 users were responsible for downloading 75% of BitTorrent content, and were doing it for money, raising a lot of questions about the study. How do you profit from seeding, and how can the same 100 users be responsible for 75% of downloading and 66% of uploading. The details of the study are clarified in interview with one of the key researchers, showing that the study's actual statistic is that 66% of the original seeds indexed on the Pirate Bay come from just 100 users, and these seeds then go on to account for 75% of downloads. The interview also details how it's possible for this small number of seeders to make a profit from seeding, via embedding links to their own indexing sites in the filenames and bundled TXT files, which then get money from advertising if downloaders decide to visit the site, assured of quality downloads. Meanwhile, other ways of profiting include 'premium' registered accounts.
Submission + - Intel resumes shipping of faulty Sandy Bridge chip (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: After causing chaos among motherboard makers by revealing a flaw in its 6-series motherboard chipsets, Intel has announced plans to recommence shipments of the faulty silicon, before the fixed chips have even started shipping. Intel claims it decided to start reshipping the chipsets after lengthy discussions with computer manufacturers. "As a result of these discussions and specific requests from computer makers,' says the company, 'Intel is resuming shipments of the Intel 6-series chipset for use only in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue." The announcement follows Intel's recent exposure of a well publicised design fault that affects the 3Gbps SATA ports (typically ports 2 to 5) in Intel's P67 and H67 chipsets. As such, we assume that the new systems based on the faulty chipsets will either come with a separate SATA controller card, or that they will only use the two (unaffected) 6Gbps SATA ports provided by the chipset.
Submission + - IBM: Graphene won't replace silicon in CPUs (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: IBM has revealed that graphene can't fully replace silicon inside CPUs, as a graphene transistor can't actually be completely switched off. In an interview, Yu-Ming Lin from IBM Research — Nanometer Scale Science and Technology explained that that "graphene as it is will not replace the role of silicon in the digital computing regime." Last year, IBM demonstrated a graphene transistor running at 100GHz, while researchers at the UCLU produced a graphene transistor with a cut-off frequency of 300GHz, prompting predictions of silicon marching towards its demise, making way for a graphene-based future with 1THz CPUs. However, Lin says that 'there is an important distinction between the graphene transistors that we demonstrated, and the transistors used in a CPU. Unlike silicon, graphene does not have an energy gap, and therefore, graphene cannot be "switched off," resulting in a small on/off ratio.' That said, Lin also pointed out that graphene 'may complement silicon in the form of a hybrid circuit to enrich the functionality of computer chips.' He gives the example of RF circuits, which aren't dependent on a large on/off ratio.
Submission + - An Interview with PC Gaming Alliance's President (bit-tech.net)
arcticstoat writes: It's been nearly three years since the PC Gaming Alliance announced its formation at GDC 2008, promising to 'advance the PC as a worldwide gaming platform.' Since then, Activision-Blizzard has publicly left the alliance, Sony DADC – developer of the controversial SecuROM DRM software – has signed up and some people are wondering if the PCGA is really acting in the best interests of PC gamers. However, in December 2010 the alliance appointed a new president — Intel's Matt Ployhar — who's promising to make some changes. In this in-depth interview, Ployhar reveals that he wants to tempt Activision Blizzard back to the alliance, saying that 'Activision’s Kotick and Blizzard’s Morhaime may be more aligned with our future objectives than they may realise.' He also discusses Sony DADC's role in the alliance, and the group's stance on DRM, explaining that its research can 'really help to influence Sony DADC's and other members’ awareness of key trends taking place in the PC gaming ecosystem. Given the trend of retail's diminishing presence, free-to-play, games moving towards authentication, game streaming and so on, it’s really hard to divine where DRM solutions fit into this equation in the future."
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