1188785
submission
brunascle writes:
Activision has begun suing individual pirates of console games. Edge Online is reporting that they are going after a New York resident for allegedly copying Call of Duty 3 for the Xbox 360 and other games, seeking $30,000 to $150,000 in damages for each infringement. GamePolitics has also uncovered 6 other lawsuits with settlements between $1,000 and $100,000, in 5 of which the defendant was unrepresented.
128981
submission
brunascle writes:
Researchers have devised a new way to patch hardware. By treating a computer chip more like software than hardware, Josep Torrellas, a computer science professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, believes we will be able to fix defective hardware by a applying a patch, similar to the way defective software is handled. His system, dubbed Phoenix, consists of a standard semiconductor device called a field programmable gate array (FPGA). Although generally slower than their application-specific integrated circuit counterparts, FPGAs have the advantage of being able to be modified post-production. Defects found on a Phoenix-enabled chip could be resolved by downloading a patch and applying it to the hardware. Torrellas believes this would give chips a shorter time to market, saying "If they know that they could fix the problems later on, they could beat the competition to market."
83104
submission
brunascle writes:
Technology Review has an article about recent advances in animated fluid dynamics made by Mathieu Desbrun, a computer science professor at Caltech. "He and his team are developing an entirely new approach to fluid motion, based on new mathematics called discrete differential geometry, that use equations designed specifically to be solved by computers rather than people." Desbrun explains that the currently in-use equations for anitmating fluid dynamics were not developed with computers in mind, and were simply reworkings of older equations. He claims that his new equations use about the same amout of computer resources, but with much better results. The article includes a 5 minute (flash) video demonstrating various results using his equations, ending with 2 fascinating and vivid displays: the first of a snowglobe, and the second of a cloud of smoke filling a volume in the shape of a bunny.
