IT News HeadLines (HardOCP) 26/07/2010

No, YOU scoot over!
A man was stabbed at Comic-Con yesterday, with a pen, over an argument based on sitting too close to each other. "The room was very crowded and the males argued over one male sitting too close to the other," Stafford said. The attacker was later seen being led away in handcuffs. He had on a blue "Harry Potter" t-shirt. Comments
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THQ: No More Mediocre Games
Ian Curran, THQ's executive of global publishing, claims mediocre video games are not cost-effective anymore. Publishers either need to aim high and create the next big thing, or play it safe with low-cost development instead. I wonder what THQ has planned. "There's no room for them. You're either a standout, best in class, or you die. We won't bring bad games to market anymore. You can't spend $30, $40, $50 million on a bad game and expect to make a return." Comments
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Vibration Packs Aim to Replace Batteries for Gadgets
A Japanese firm is testing out batteries that recharge on just a shake of the wrist. It is in the early stages of development and no plans to take it to market yet, but the idea is sound and green The mechanism works similarly to that of a bicycle light dynamo, only in this instance movement from a few shakes provides the energy to power. "Our Vibration Energy Cells generate electricity using a coil, a magnet, and condenser that charges electricity. These are all embedded in the battery," a Brother spokesman told BBC News. Comments
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Firefox Is Working on Perfecting Tab Candy
If you are one of those people who always have a gazillion tabs open at the same time and find it difficult to keep them all straight, you might want to check out what the crew at Mozilla is putting the finishing touches on. Be sure to watch the video below for a full overview - from the looks of it, it seems as if Tab Candy is sort of like Apple's Expose feature mixed with their Spaces feature, both of which are baked into OS X. For those who don't use a Mac, basically these features allow you to zoom out and get a bird's-eye-view of all your windows (or tabs, in this case) that are open - and you can also arrange open windows (or again, tabs, in this case) in certain spaces so they're clumped together. This allows you to more easily find what you're looking for with so many tabs open. Comments
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The Gamer's Guide to Comic-Con 2010
Where can you find a mixture of nerds, geeks, die hard gamers, costumed freaks and a dash of Comic Book Superheroes this week? Here's a clueÂ…. If you live in San Diego, you need not look too far. Despite its origins as a gathering for comic book fans, Comic-Con International has grown over the past four decades into a lengthy celebration of pop culture in general. More than 100,000 fans converge on San Diego each year to catch glimpses of upcoming blockbuster movies and TV shows, meet stars and glean information from packed panels. Videogame companies show up to promote their latest wares, and occasionally drop big news and game announcements to the Comic-Con crowd. Comments
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Shortened URLs Drive Need for New Security
Symantec has released their July Intelligence Report, naming the use of shortened URL's as a rising threat to security. The options for shortening long URL's to a more manageable length are quickly proliferating with both Google and Facebook getting into the link shortening game. The shortened URL's are easier to send via e-mail, and they are a requirement for Twitter's 140-character limitation, but they also introduce security risks. Social networking sites--especially Twitter with its 140-character message limitation--have driven the use of URL shortening services. Services like Bit.ly and TinyURL take the long URL and replace it with a much shorter alias URL. The net result is a URL that is much less cumbersome to communicate, but that hides the real URL behind it. Attackers can take advantage of the shortened alias to link to malicious sites. Comments
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Google Chrome Team Accelerates Stable Build Cycle
Team Chrome will be stepping up its stable build cycle releases from every 3 months to a 6 week cycle. By scheduling the releases closer together, it is hoped that developers will have a more predictable platform from which to work. We basically wanted to operate more like trains leaving Grand Central Station (regularly scheduled and always on time), and less like taxis leaving the Bronx (ad hoc and unpredictable)."Finally, he wants to take the pressure off software engineers to finish features in a single release cycle. Apparently, when facing a deadline with an incomplete feature in the old release model, the Chrome team would rush or work overtime, delay the release or simply disable the utility until the next build. The new schedule will simply enable the incomplete feature to wait for the next release, or six weeks away. Comments
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"TRON: Legacy" Movie Brings Video Game World to Life
28 years ago, Disney Studios was on the cutting edge of technology in producing the virtual world of TRON on the big screen. The world of TRON is coming back in December, bigger, better and badder. "The irony here is that 28 years ago we were trying to figure out how we were going to get Jeff Bridge's character into cyber space, and I made up this crazy idea that he gets scanned by a laser and ends up on the game grid," said Lisberger, who directed "TRON" in 1982."Now, we're making 'TRON: Legacy' and they scan Jeff with a laser in real-time and boom, he pops up ."Even the 3D technology powering the film, that was developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace for "Avatar," has received an upgrade through new cameras that hit the market right before filming began. Kasinski said the end result will be a 3D experience that immerses audiences even deeper in the on-screen action Comments
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