Star Wars vs. Azeroth: Blizzard and Bioware talk competition
As Bioware works on its upcoming massively multiplayer role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic, the company faces questions about just how well it can compete with Blizzard's entrenched World of WarCraft, and whether it can build a sustainable audience for the title.On a DICE panel in Las Vegas moderated by Seth Schiesel of the New York Times, Bioware co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuck faced the big question: why do they think they can beat World of WarCraft, or at least provide something new to gamers?
The question was met with nervous laughter from the crowd, and an interested look from Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime, who was also on the panel.
"Obviously Star Wars is a big license," Dr. Zeschuk answered. He mentioned that Bioware has done Star Wars right in the past with the Knights of the Old Republic games.
"Anyone who plays the Old Republic sees that it's a Bioware game, the way we tell the story, the way we present it, the fact that you as the player do feel like you're on this heroic journey, and that's very powerful."
Left to Right: Seth Schiesel of the New York Times, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime, Bruce Shelly of Zynga, Merk Cerny of Cerny Games, Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of Bioware
Zeschuk also had warm words for Blizzard's ability to run an online service. "I have learned so much about how you run a service without yet running one, and how unbelievably complicated it is, and how scary that is," he said. "We have the Bioware quality in the game side of things, but we want to make sure the service has the same level of quality." He described World of Warcraft as a "machine," an international business of its own.
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime offered some pragmatic advice for his competitors. "Bioware is a great developer, and obviously Star Wars is a very strong license. We think it's good for the MMO genre for additional MMOs to come out that are actually fun to play. I don't know that it serves the genre very well when MMOs come out and have all sorts of problems and players leave in frustration," he said.
His hope is that new players will come in, play Old Republic, and the smooth experience will help them become fans of online gaming. This might seem like an easy task, but it's one that many, many developers have failed at to date.
"So, you know, do a good job," Morhaime said, again drawing laughs from the crowd. It didn't sound like a threat, not really, but it didn't seem far off, either.
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The real Internet censors: unaccountable ISPs?
According to a new report, the Internet police are coming... and they're not wearing badges. Instead, governments are devolving enforcement powers on the 'Net to ISPs.Here at Ars Technica, we regularly report on the uneasy relationship between Internet Service Providers and the national legal systems under which they operate. This tension surfaces most obviously when it comes to suing individual consumers for illegal file sharing.
Plaintiff lawyers want maximum cooperation from ISPs in tracking down subscribers to be subpoenaed, while providers like Time Warner Cable insist they can only process so many requests at a time. Denounced as permissive on piracy, ISPs and content industry lawyers collide in the courts.
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Blizzard CEO talks new, unannounced title
In Las Vegas yesterday, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime was asked about a certain unannounced project that the company has been working on for a number of years. He answered by talking about the game in broad terms, but there is enough new information to get the wheels of speculation turning."Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of WarCraft team, working on this project," Morhaime said. "We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years. Some of which we were able to address in World of WarCraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh. We're not trying to make a WoW sequel." In fact, he explained that the two titles will co-exist in the future.
He talked about playing with friends, the ability to make new friends in the game, and the experience of playing in guilds. "That's probably all I can say," he said. Morhaime had previously said that the game he was playing the most outside of Blizzard's properties was Words with Friends on his iPhone, and he noted how much more fun you have when you play against people you know, not strangers. This is a theme we're hearing from a number of people: social gaming is going to be important in the future.
"To break the mold, sometimes you have to start over," Morhaime told the audience.
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Game on: iOS 4.3 beta hints at Apple TV with gaming support
Say "Pippin" three times in the mirror and it will show up behind you covered in matte black plastic and re-named "Apple TV."It's what graybearded Apple gaming fanboys have been wishing for since the '90s, but the dream could end up becoming a reality at last. Hints buried within the iOS 4.3 beta 3 firmware indicate that Apple's Game Center on iOS devices may soon make its way to the latest-gen Apple TV.
Submitted to TUAW by an unnamed developer with access to the beta, there are a number of strings that reference "ATVGames," such as "ATVGamesScheduleController," "ATVGamesStandingsController," and "ATVGamesByDateController." There's also "ATVThunder" and strings that read "com.apple.appletv.play.live.thunder" and ".play.archive.thunder."
It sure seems as if Apple is moving ahead with some way to allow users to play basic games on the Apple TV. Since the device runs a version of iOS, Apple could be exploring ways to bring Game Center to the big screen—the games could be archived on the Apple TV's 8GB of flash storage, though others speculate that the games might even be streamed like OnLive's cloud-based PC gaming service. When Ars tested OnLive last year, we agreed that it was playable (though with some lag for certain games), so it's at least possible that Apple is aiming for something similar with the Apple TV.
These hints don't necessarily mean that gaming will come to the Apple TV in the next major software release, though. Apple may just start the ball rolling in advance of a future software release, or even an Apple TV hardware refresh. (After all, Apple added numerous multitouch features to the iPad in a recent beta release, but later added a note saying they were just being tested and not slated for official release just yet.)
Still, the prospect is exciting to those who have been waiting for Apple to take its promotion of games from the iPhone to the TV, so you can be sure that developers who have access to the betas will keep an eye on how the code changes.
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PlayStation Move creator wants to open the device to PC users
At the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas this week, we sat down with Sony's Dr. Richard Marks, the man behind the PlayStation Move, to talk motion controls.While Microsoft's Kinect has been opened a bit, allowing hobbyist programmers to play with the hardware and write some of their own software, the Move is steadfastly locked to the PlayStation 3. But according to Dr. Marks, that may not be the case forever. In fact, he wants to give tinkerers access to all the data the Move creates, not just the little bit Kinect hackers have squeezed out of Microsoft's hardware.
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Not so useless after all: even "gene deserts" have oases
As researchers sequenced the genomes of mammals, they came across large regions that didn't seem to contain any protein-coding genes. These "gene deserts" often stretched for thousands of DNA base pairs (called kilobases), and their discovery left researchers arguing about whether they served any function.One hint that these deserts might be important was the finding that a gene desert on the short arm of chromosome 9 contains some DNA base differences (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) associated with coronary artery disease; others were associated with type 2 diabetes.
The desert runs for almost 200 kilobases. Since there were no real genes nearby, it was unclear exactly how these desert SNPs could manifest themselves as disease. A recent study by Kelly Frazer and colleagues at UCSD, published in Nature, may provide a clue: there are 33 genetic control elements in the desert region.
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Feature: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price
Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code.In a private e-mail to a colleague at his security firm HBGary Federal, which sells digital tools to the US government, the CEO bragged about his research project.
"They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases!" he wrote. "As 1337 as these guys are suppsed to be they don't get it. I have pwned them! :)"
But had he?
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Time Warner Cable can't call its network "fiber optic"
The back-and-forth between AT&T and Verizon over the quality of their wireless services ended up making its way into some high-profile primetime commercials. But it's not the only fight that Verizon has been waging with competitors.The company also took issue with advertising run by Time Warner Cable, which bragged about offering an "advanced fiber optic network." Not so, said Verizon, which has the distinction of being the only major fiber to the home provider. In a ruling issued today, the National Advertising Review Board agreed with Verizon's claims.
In the US, claims made in advertisements are policed voluntarily; most major advertisers belong to the National Advertising Review Council. Any issues with the factual nature of an ad can result in a formal complaint to that group's National Advertising Division. Complaints about any decisions made there are handled by the National Advertising Review Board.
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Can cable block the Google TV revolution?
Behind the scenes at the Federal Communications Commission, a quiet war is being waged over the future of television. It isn't getting as many headlines as net neutrality or the Comcast/NBCU merger, but the debate is nearly as important. It's about how far Google, Sony, and their allies can take their Google TV system. In their bid to get the FCC to help Google TV and similar devices, "Sony/Google are asking the Commission to ignore copyright, patent, trademark, contract privity, licensing, and other legal rights and limitations that have been thoroughly documented," the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) warned on Wednesday.
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FTC asked to investigate kids and in-app purchases
Do in-app purchases take advantage of children and inadvertently cost parents way more money than they intended to spend? US Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) is worried that they do, and he has asked the Federal Trade Commission to look at the in-app purchase process offered by Apple and Google to see whether games that offer in-app purchases are unfairly marketed towards kids.
Stories about children inadvertently spending thousands of dollars inside of their parents' iPhone apps have circulated around the Web over the last year or so. Parents need to enter a password the first time in order to authorize a purchase (or an app download), but iOS devices don't ask for the password again until some period of time has passed, leaving eager kids to their own devices if parents aren't careful. When kids get authorization, they sometimes go crazy buying new items inside of their favorite games, surprising their parents with an eventual bill.
This phenomenon is hardly new, though it has gained more attention recently thanks to coverage from the mainstream press. That coverage is what led Markey to pen his letter (PDF) to the FTC, asking it to review the issue and possibly educate consumers about the dangers of in-app purchases. He also asked the Commission to determine whether Apple, Google, and app developers are engaging in deceptive marketing practices when they advertise games to kids.
"I am disturbed by news that in-app purchases may be taking advantage of children’s lack of understanding when it comes to money and what it means to ‘buy’ an imaginary game piece on the Web. Companies shouldn’t be able to use Smurfs and snowflakes and zoos as online ATMs pulling money from the pockets of unsuspecting parents," Markey said in a statement accompanying his letter.
"The use of mobile apps will continue to escalate, which is why it is critical that more is done now to examine these practices. I will continue to closely monitor this issue and look forward to the FTC's response."
Google only recently introduced its own in-app purchasing system for Android, so the current problem group is mostly made up of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. Apple doesn't currently offer a setting that reduces the amount of time between password requests, but it does offer parental controls that let parents turn off in-app purchases altogether. Of course, choosing this option will mean that no app will be able to make in-app purchases (whether an adult is using them or not), but until a better solution becomes available, those settings can be found under Settings > General > Restrictions.
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Service Pack 1 completed for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
Microsoft announced today that Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 was released to manufacturing. In contrast with many previous service packs, this newest operating system update is a relatively minor affair, offering the usual consolidated set of security and stability updates but little in the way of new functionality. The few new features that are available are oriented at server-based virtualization workloads.Those new features are Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX. Dynamic Memory brings memory overcommitment, of a kind, to Hyper-V; that is, it allows creation of virtual machines such that in aggregate the virtual machines think they have more physical memory than a server actually has installed.
RemoteFX allows thin clients to use server-side GPU resources to provide hardware acceleration to Direct3D and OpenGL applications. This virtualization is offered both for Remote Desktop scenarios, where clients connect to and run applications on a server directly, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) scenarios, where clients connect to a virtual machine hosted on a server.
Microsoft also used the service pack announcement to describe Windows Thin PC, a benefit for Software Assurance customers that will become available next year. Windows Thin PC is a special, locked-down version of Windows 7 designed to be used as a thin client. Unlike other thin clients, systems running Windows Thin PC will not need a virtual desktop access (VDA) license to access services provisioned using VDI desktops. In conjunction with RemoteFX, this should allow older PCs to obtain the full richness of the Windows 7 desktop experience.
Though reaching RTM status today, the service pack will not be available until next week. Volume license customers and Technet and MSDN Subscribers will be able to download it from February 16, and Windows Update and pre-install availability should start on February 22.
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Activision disbands Guitar Hero business, cancels True Crime
Remember when Guitar Hero was sitting atop the rhythm gaming world? The dream is now officially dead, with Activision disbanding its Guitar Hero franchise, canceling the 2011 release, and moving its focus to franchises with a more reliable earning potential."...Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," the company announced in its lasted earnings report. "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."
This is a big move, but it's not particularly shocking. Sales of music games have been decreasing steadily, and last year's Guitar Hero 5: Warriors of Rock was a purely mediocre product. The company had not innovated the series in some time, nor has the franchise displayed the earning potential that Activision prizes.
The cancellation of the True Crime reboot is much more surprising, as the game looked impressive the last time we saw it, and the name seemed to retain some of its interest with consumers.
There is also some evidence that layoffs hit Vicarious Visions, which developed Wii versions of Guitar Hero games, along with Freestyle Games, the developer of the DJ Hero series.
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What we expect to see inside the iPhone 5
We're just a handful of months away from Apple's usual summer launch for updated iPhone hardware. With Apple busy keeping up with demand for both the GSM and newly launched CDMA versions of the iPhone 4, we thought it would be worthwhile to look at what we might see inside the next-gen iPhone unveiled at WWDC this summer.As far as the form factor is concerned, we don't expect to see radical (if any) changes in the fifth-generation iPhone's exterior. Apple hardly changed the design of the iPhone from the original to the 3G, and not at all for the 3GS. The iPhone 4—despite gripes with the antenna design and front and rear glass covers—has generally been a solid and well-received design. And the company is just now getting around to figuring out how to reliably make a white one.
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HP: webOS also coming to notebooks and desktop computers
Although the new Touchpad tablet was the highlight of HP's press event this morning, the company also dropped some tantalizing hints about its future plans for the webOS platform. HP says that it plans to bring the operating system to a wide range of form factors and expects to eventually ship it on desktop and notebook computers.One of the most intriguing innovations that HP demonstrated was the seamless communication between its webOS devices. For example, users can share a webpage URL between a Touchpad tablet and the Pre 3 by simply tapping them together. The prospect of being able to take advantage of cross-device syncing and communication across the full spectrum of mobile devices and desktop computers seems extremely compelling.
Although HP hasn't provided any specific details yet, it's not hard to imagine various ways that the company could start working webOS into its hardware products. It seems like an ideal platform for HP's all-in-one TouchSmart PCs, which have touch-enabled displays. HP could also potentially use webOS in future iterations of its tablet-toting printer products like the Android-based eStation. On conventional desktop computers, webOS might be useful as an instant-on companion operating system alongside Windows—a function that HP has historically served by shipping the Linux-based Splashtop environment.
It's not clear yet if HP is serious about making webOS a full-blown Windows alternative for the desktop. But as the largest PC hardware manufacturer, HP might actually have a chance of succeeding where previous efforts to advance Linux on the desktop have fallen short.
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Building "bottom-up" circuits using nanowires
The circuitry we rely on today comes from what could be considered a top-down approach, with the wiring completely laid out before it's etched into silicon. With the advent of nanotechnology, however, researchers have been able to control the assembly of material that is as small as some of the circuitry in current chips. That raises the prospect of assembling circuitry from the bottom up, starting with small functional units and assembling them into more complex hardware. A paper released by Nature today provides a demonstration of a functional nanowire device built from these simple starting units. In many ways, the starting units are interesting in their own right. Their functionality relies on wires made of germanium coated in silicon, each about 10 nanometers in diameter. These nanowires have a useful property: when exposed to an external charge, the amount of charge that they can carry changes. When close to a positively charged material, the density of charge carriers in the wire goes down, and the total current it can carry drops accordingly.
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European publishers call out Apple over in-app subscriptions
The European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) has called out Apple for what it perceives as restrictive conditions that come with Apple's new in-app subscription system. The organization argues that Apple's changes could eviscerate user choice and that publishers' business models could be turned upside down, though the situation could end up being less dire than ENPA imagines once Apple's in-app subscriptions roll out to users.Apple supplied a new in-app subscription system in its iOS 4.3 beta to coincide with the launch of The Daily iPad newspaper. Subscriptions will allow users to be automatically billed for the regular delivery of content to an iOS device—this differs from the previous system that forced users to consciously make a decision to purchase every time a new issue shows up.
This doesn't bother the ENPA, but it does object that Apple is tightening its control over newspaper publishers so that Apple can skim off the profits.
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webOS marches on: HP shows Touchpad tablet, two new phones
HP revealed new products this morning at a press event in San Francisco, including a highly anticipated tablet. The company has developed two new phones—the Veer and Pre 3—while the company's TouchPad tablet brings webOS to a 9.7-inch screen and delivers an impressive user experience with full support for multitasking.The diminutive Veer, which is smaller than a credit card, looks like a miniature Pre. It has a slide-out portrait keyboard and uses Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 7230 processor, clocked at 800MHz.
HP's next-generation flagship smartphone, called the Pre 3, has the much faster 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor. There are GSM and CDMA versions, which suggests that it's going to be available with several different mobile carriers. The Pre 3 is expected to launch this summer.
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Twitter user tricks Sony into posting "secret" PS3 code
Sony is having a rough time trying to keep the PlayStation 3 secure, and the company seems intent on policing the entirety of the Internet to stop the spread of the tools and information needed to hack the device. This can be hard to do when your own faux spokesperson decides to retweet one of the offending series of letters and numbers in their entirety online.Twitter user @exiva, aka Travis La Marr, sent the code to "Kevin Butler," Sony's humorous take on a corporate spokesman. Whoever is running the Twitter account didn't recognize the relevance of the numbers and simply retweeted them with a joke about Battleship. The results are brilliant.
The tweet has since been removed by Sony
"Anyone want to start a pool on how long it takes Sony to contact me for embarrassing them & doing what I did?" La Marr wrote via Twitter. "Calling it 'My Defense Fund.'"
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AT&T offers unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling to any number
AT&T continues the trend of throwing everything it's got at customers in hopes of keeping them from wandering off to Verizon. The company announced today that it will roll out a new calling feature to allow certain AT&T subscribers to make unlimited calls to any other mobile number, whether or not the other number is on AT&T.The offer will be available on February 10 to existing AT&T customers who subscribe to unlimited messaging ($20 for individual plans and $30 for FamilyTalk plans) and have a "qualifying voice plan." AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom confirmed with Ars that the qualifying voice plans include Nation 450 and 900, or FamilyTalk 700 or higher.
The offer only applies to direct calls to and from US mobile numbers, and customers must activate the feature at att.com/anymobile before it goes into effect on their accounts.
The deal seems like a good one if you already meet the requirements to qualify. When you combine the unlimited mobile-to-mobile calls with rollover minutes, it becomes nearly impossible to run into a "minute ceiling" again. Then again, that's why AT&T is able to roll out something like this—minutes are now a less valuable commodity than data, which the company started locking down last year.
The announcement follows last week's free microcell offer extended to certain AT&T customers. The carrier did not formally announce that promotion, but instead sent e-mails to certain subscribers saying they could pick up a free microcell at any AT&T store "as our way of saying 'thank you' for your continued loyalty." Customers who accept a microcell must commit to another 12 months with AT&T, but their existing contracts won't be otherwise affected.
AT&T's latest campaigns are likely due to the rollout of the Verizon iPhone, which officially begins on February 10 (though some customers who preordered the device have already received them). However, AT&T isn't the only carrier making aggressive offers to entice customers these days. T-Mobile announced this week that it was having a two-day handset giveaway on February 11 and 12 in which every phone—including smartphones—are free with a two-year contract. Although T-Mobile has a history of offering steep discounts on phones, it's clear that all the carriers are beginning to feel the heat from the "Best Network in America."
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Interview: how Duke Nukem Forever is the game 3D Realms wanted
At an event held in Las Vegas before DICE, we were able to get our hands on the latest build of Duke Nukem Forever and speak to some of the people behind the game. This is one of the most anticipated and talked about titles since... well, since the beginning of gaming, and we had a number of questions and concerns.What we found out was that Gearbox is dedicated to finishing the game 3D Realms began, almost to a fault. Also, controversy can be a good thing, and the team welcomes it. Oh yeah, and a few multiplayer features are revealed.
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