Why Intel bought McAfee
There's been quite a bit of head-scratching over Intel's decision to purchase McAfee, but, despite all the breathless talk about mobile security and ARM and virus-fighting processors, the chipmaker's motivations for the purchase are actually fairly straightforward. First, Intel's management has decided, in the wake of Operation Aurora, to move security up to the top of Intel's priority list. Second, secure systems require a lot more than just hardware support—security is about the whole stack, plus the network, plus policies and practices. Third, Intel has waited for ages for its ecosystem partners to come up with ways to give consumers access to vPro's security benefits, and little has really panned out so now they're just going to take vPro (and any newer security technologies) directly to consumers via McAfee.
Let's take a look at each of these reasons in turn.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Reviewed: six great games for Android
The growing user base of Google's Android mobile operating system has attracted some truly talented game developers. Great games are available from the Android Market, but it's not always easy to find the best. This guide will familiarize you with some of our favorites.We embedded a QR code next to each review so that you can easily install the games. In order to interpret the QR codes, you will need to first install a code reader application such as Zxing's Barcode Scanner. If you are reading this article on an Android device, you can simply tap the barcode image and you will be taken to the relevant entry in the Android Market.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Did weak copyright laws help Germany outpace the British Empire?
There's a new thesis making the rounds that has already stimulated plenty of discussion about the benefits and costs of copyright laws. It comes from the German economic historian Eckhard Höffner, his work summarized in a Der Spiegel review titled "No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion."Höffner contends (according to the review) that the near absence of copyright law in eighteenth and nineteenth century Germany laid the groundwork for the "Gründerzeit"—the enormous wave of economic growth that Deutschland experienced in the middle and later nineteenth century.
An "incomparable mass of reading material was being produced in Germany" by the 1830s, Höffner notes. 14,000 publications appeared in the region in 1836, widely distributed thanks to the presence of "plagiarizers"—competing publishing houses unafraid of infringement suits. The result was a cheap mass book market catering to a huge reading public.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Burnout meets Need For Speed: hands-on with Hot Pursuit
Let's get this out of the way: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit feels like a Burnout game. That's not surprising—it's being developed by Criterion Games—but it's important to note just to make it clear. Somehow, it also feels like a Need For Speed game, which is surprising given the series' recent history in jumping back and forth between realism and street racing. Criterion has taken NFS back to what made it great, and that's a good thing.Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
A gruesome return to form: hands-on with Mortal Kombat
Like Street Fighter before it, Mortal Kombat is returning to its roots. The upcoming entry in the long-running series—appropriately titled simply Mortal Kombat—is 2D and violent: don't expect the Teen rating that accompanied the DC crossover from two years ago. We recently had a chance to go hands-on with it and found the game to be a solid return to form for the beleaguered series.The game is a team-based fighter, so you'll be able to choose two different fighters and swap between them at any point during the battle. Only a small part of the roster was available at the demo, but it included plenty of returning favorites like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Cyrax, and Reptile. The controls feel very familiar, and in fact many of the moves—like Cyrax's net and Scorpion's infamous spear—require the same button combinations as in previous games. In a lot of ways it feels like MK2, only with modern visuals.
And those visuals make a huge difference. The game utilizes the same 2.5D style found on games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Street Fighter IV. So while the actual game is rendered in 3D, the fighting takes place across a two-dimensional plane. The background I got to fight in appeared to be a haunted forest, with animated trees, a rolling fog, and several unlucky bodies hanging from the trees. There was quite a bit of depth to the background and the small details were almost enough to distract me from the fight.
Fatalities also make a return. The only one I was able to see involved Cyrax slicing up his foe before kicking him to bits, but I was assured that all the rest will be equally violent. It's also great to see just how beaten up the characters get. As the fight unfolds, each attack leaves a mark, so by the end each character is a bruised and bloody mess. It makes each punch just that much more satisfying.
From the quick glimpse I had, it seems like the new MK will be just what series fans are looking for: a gloriously violent return to form. It doesn't feature anything particularly new or innovative, but it packs a gruesome, visceral punch. The game will be coming to both the PS3 and the 360 early next year.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Migratory species get wanderlust mostly from social cues
Birds and other migrating species may be as dependent on social networks as we are, according to a study released by PNAS on Monday. By studying migration simulations of everything from bison to bacteria, a team of researchers found that very few individuals in a group migrate because of environmental cues. Most are just following the leader, which may be the reason many species eventually stop migrating as their habitable areas become more distant and fragmented.Modeling the migration process of a few different species suggested to the authors that an impulse to migrate can be motivated by two things. One is termed a "gradient," and consists of whatever factors we normally think spurs a flock or herd of animals to migrate: a drop or rise in temperature, diminishing of food sources, and so on.
The second motivation was much larger, and unexpected by the authors. It seemed many organisms had little or no sense of the first type of motivator, the gradients. Instead, they relied on social interaction to tell them when wanderlust was the prevailing sentiment in the herd or flock. They deferred to the few members of the group that were sensitive to gradients, and followed the ad-hoc leaders to their new habitat.
While humans are intimately familiar with the follower-leader relationship, the phenomenon may be relatively new in migratory animal behavior. The authors think the mix of social and gradient factors may explain the issue of habitat fragmentation, where animals that have to travel increasing distances eventually stop migrating altogether.
The problem may be that the group leaders, who are a small minority in migratory groups, are eventually unable to rise to the occasion. They no longer detect gradients and are loath to risk leading their peers to increasingly distant areas. With no leaders to latch on to, the group becomes locked down to one area.
Loss of migratory ability is often long-lived or permanent, and can change the evolutionary path of many organisms. Considering both this social reliance on leaders with increased habitat destruction and habitat fragmentation, the authors expect declines in migratory species.
PNAS, 2010. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1006874107 (About DOIs).
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
It pays to be popular: one developer's tale of iPad success
It wasn't long after our review of Uzu for iPad that developer Jason Smith got an e-mail from Apple. It wasn't an app rejection, a shipment delay, or a question about his developer stats. Instead, Apple wanted promotional assets for Uzu, as the company was interested in featuring it on the App Store. This scenario plays itself out weekly, and receiving an e-mail like the one Jason got can mean a number of different things. It might mean nothing: Apple is interested, but the company eventually changes its mind. It also can mean you are going to get a small feature spot. Occasionally, it means you might get a large feature spot at the top of the iTunes Store. If you are lucky, it may mean the app will get an "App of the Week" slot in some far-away country. If you hit paydirt, you get the coveted "App of the Week" moniker in the US App store. That's what happened to Smith.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Weird Science unleashes its fossil zombie ants
Release the fossilized zombie ant army: Okay, there are no actual ants involved, just evidence that ants have been turned into zombies for nearly 50 million years. The evidence comes in the form of fossilized leaves that bear distinctive bitemarks. These marks are the sign of ants infected with a fungus that, as it's killing them, causes them to undergo an unusual behavioral change: the ants climb to the underside of a leaf, and clamp down with enough force that they remain there after their deaths. This gives the fungus' spores a much better possibility of finding a new victim. The authors suggest they've probably found, "the first example of behavioural manipulation in the fossil record." Be honest about how tough you are, or you will be punished: Provided you're a paper wasp, that is. Animals will tend to fight for dominance, but the risk of injury in these fights often puts a premium on avoiding it if it's at all possible. One of the best ways of avoiding a fight is having something that signals your potency—a large set of antlers or a bright splash of color, for example. But these signals would seem to create a selective pressure in favor of cheating, where a weak animal intimidates its peers through potent-looking signals. Why have all our studies indicated that most species provide honest signals?
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Google WiFi lawsuits head to Silicon Valley
Whether Google is liable for damages for secretly intercepting data on open WiFi routers across the United States is to be aired out in a Silicon Valley federal court.Eight proposed class-actions from across the country that seek unspecified monetary damages from Google were consolidated this week and transferred to US District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California. Another five cases are likely to join.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Week in gaming: PS3 hacked, WoW private servers, Diablo 3
It has been quite the week in gaming, with some fascinating discussion on a number of issues. Here's what gamers were talking about this week. Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Week in Apple: kickbacks, SQL attacks, and Facebook
It was a quiet week in Apple news, but the company still got snagged in some SQL injection attacks, a former manager was charged with taking kickbacks, and Facebook added check-ins to its iPhone app. Read on for the bite-sized roundup:Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Week in tech: FM radio, broadband speeds, and bandwidth hogs
Radio, RIAA: mandatory FM radio in cell phones is the future: Radio stations are willing to fork over $100 million a year to music labels, but in return they want Congress to make FM receivers mandatory in portable devices. The labels think having an FM radio in every Droid and iPhone is a great idea, and both sides hope to go to Congress soon.Your fears confirmed: "up to" broadband speeds are bogus: The FCC crunches the numbers and reveals a dirty secret: real broadband speeds and "up to" broadband speeds aren't even close. Most Americans get half the "up to" speed they purchased.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment