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Comment Re:The only question that counts: (Score 1) 238

by daranz (#31907556) Attached to: An Early Look At Next-Gen Shooter <em>Bodycount</em>

Off the top of my head, ArmA with TrackIR already implements a control scheme like this.

Operation Flashpoint already featured a control scheme that allowed the player to detach look control from gun-pointing and walking-direction control, and that carried over to ArmA. Of course, without an additional input device, it's somewhat useless, as you have to give up control of your gun to gain control of your character's head. So that's where a bunch of markers attached to the player's head come in. Even without that, it's still useful to be able to quickly glance around while in full sprint - something possible in real life, but impossible in most FPSes, where your camera/character's head is fixed rigidly to his body at all times.

Comment The only solution (Score 4, Funny) 224

by daranz (#31777592) Attached to: Firefox Search In Ubuntu 10.04 Changed To Google

I recommend that at install time, the user is presented with a window containing randomly ordered buttons for 6 of the top web search engines on the market today. By selecting one of the buttons, the user makes that search engine the default. This should keep everything fair and everyone happy.

(now we just need to find 6 search engines that people actually use)
Privacy

UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTV 693

Posted by timothy from the words-fail-but-pictures-deliver dept.
metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"
Security

Submission + - ATMs Armed with Pepper Spray (wired.com)

Submitted by fysdt
fysdt writes: A South African bank has outfitted its ATMs with pepper spray to prevent criminals from bombing or tampering with the machines. But the system still has some bugs: One of the machines released its stinging payload on three maintenance workers last week.
Media

The Perils of DRM — When Content Providers Die 275

Posted by Soulskill from the involuntary-renting dept.
An anonymous reader writes "If you purchase music or movies online, what happens if the vendor goes out of business? Will you have trouble accessing your content? The question came up recently after HDGiants — provider of high-quality audio and video downloads — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. A consumer says his content became locked inside his PC. Walmart customers suffered a similar fate last year when the retailer shut down its DRM servers (a decision they reversed after many complaints). And if Vudu dies? Your content may be locked in a proprietary box forever. Time to start buying discs again?"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Sotomayor's position on copyright damages (wired.com) 1

Submitted by Too Lazy to Login
Too Lazy to Login writes: Wired reports that Sonia Sotomayor will likely affirm high (read: RIAA excessive) damages in cases where copyright claims are in issue. Good thing I'm not a betting man, because I'd have guessed the exact opposite.
Software

Submission + - What data recovery tools do the pros use? 2

Submitted by
Life2Death
Life2Death writes: "I've been working with computers for a long time, and every once and a while someone close to me has a drive go belly up on them. I know there are big, expensive recovery houses that specialize in mission-critical data recovery, like if your house blew up and you have millions of files you need or something, but for the local IT group, what do you guys use? Given that most people are on NTFS (Windows XP) by the numbers, what would you use? I found a ton of tools when I googled, and everyone and their brother suggests something else, so I want to know what software "just works" on most recoveries of bad, but partially working hard drives. Free software always has a warm spot in my heart."
Media

Submission + - Open Video Standard gets push w/Firefox 3.5 beta

Submitted by
bmullan
bmullan writes: "Today Dailymotion, one of the world's largest video sites, announced support for Open Video.
They've put out a press release, a blog post on the new Open Video site as well as an HTML 5 demo site where you can see some of the things that you can do with open video and Firefox 3.5 (you can get the Firefox 3.5 beta here.
They are automatically transcoding all of the content that their Motion MakersOfficial Users create and expect to have around 300,000 videos transcoded into the open Ogg Theora and Vorbis formats. You can view the site they have up at openvideo.dailymotion.com."

Feed Techdirt: AT&T Says Its Network Can't Keep Up With All The Cool Stuff You Can Do With (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
ATT caught a lot of flak at the beginning of April, when it updated the terms of service for its mobile data network, banning all sorts of activities on it. ATT later said the changes had been made in "error" and removed the new language, though it later reinserted language banning "redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers" -- a ban apparently aimed directly at the forthcoming SlingPlayer application for the iPhone, which lets users watch TV from their Slingbox at home on their mobile device. The app has now been released, but it only works over WiFi, not the 3G mobile connection, because ATT says, in a nutshell, that its mobile network doesn't have enough capacity to support streaming-video services if they take off. So all those cool data applications Apple and ATT tout for the iPhone or other smartphones sold by the operator? Just remember they exist only at the behest of the carrier; if they threaten to expose its network's shortcomings, they'll get blocked.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.



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Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 7 RCs to shut off to force upgrades (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "The release candidate for Microsoft Windows 7 will expire June 2010, and the software giant will let users know they need to pay to upgrade by shutting down the system every two hours for three months. According to Microsoft: "The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you'll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You'll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use.""
Cellphones

Ten Features To Love About Android 1.5 384

Posted by kdawson from the catchup-and-leapfrog dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, Google officially announced the Android 1.5 update, dubbed 'cupcake.' The new software is apparently ready to roll out to Android-powered devices beginning tomorrow. Make no mistake, Android 1.5 is a major upgrade — they could have called it 2.0. The software brings a host of new capabilities, some of which can't be found on rival mobile platforms, including video recording and sharing."
Google

Submission + - Top 10 features you'll love about Android 1.5 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last month, Google has officially announced Android 1.5 update, dubbed "cupcake." The new software is apparently ready to roll on Android-powered devices. Make no mistake, Android 1.5 is a major upgrade. The software brings a host of new capabilities, some of which can't be found on rival mobile platforms.
Medicine

WHO Raises Swine Flu Threat Level 557

Posted by samzenpus from the everybody-panic dept.
Solarch writes "Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, the WHO raised the pandemic threat level for H1N1 "swine flu" to 5. Global media outlets(such as CNN, Fox News, and the BBC) preempted normal broadcast coverage and immediately published stories on their websites. To clarify, the WHO's elevation is mainly a sign to governments that the virus is spreading quickly and that steps should be taken on a governmental level to stage supplies and medicines to combat a possible pandemic. Unfortunately, broadcast coverage focused on phrases like 'pandemic imminent' (CNN marquee). In other news, patient zero, the medical term for the initial human vector of a disease, has been tentatively identified in Mexico."

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