BlizzCon 2011 ticket prices go up, are still underpriced
Blizzard has announced details on BlizzCon 2011, taking place October 21 and 22 in Anaheim, CA, and the prices have been raised once again. This year you'll be able to grab tickets for the show on May 21 and 25 for $175, tickets to the benefit dinner go on sale on May 28 for $500, and the virtual tickets for streaming video from the event will be $40. Information on the availability of those has yet to be announced.
Ticket prices for the first three years of the event were $100, with the price going up to $125 in 2009 and $150 in 2010. Here's the thing, though: tickets still sell out in the matter of minutes no matter the price, so even at $175 the company is leaving money on the table. The tickets come with prized beta keys, in-game items, and in the past two years attendees have enjoyed live shows from Ozzy Osbourne and Tenacious D, respectively. If you're a fan of Blizzard games, there is no better place to play upcoming games, get content that will make you the envy of your guild, and be able to brag about all the cool people you met.
When the tickets go on sale expect a mad, virtual dash while the servers strain under the load. No one likes increasing prices, but when people are obviously willing to pay much more than the asking price for entry and demand far outstrips supply, it's the only rational response. Expect huge attendance, big news announced, and some drool-worthy items given out in the swag bag.
So... are you going to try to grab a ticket?
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HTC Sensation 4G unveiled with new version of Sense
HTC has officially outed the Sensation, an upcoming Android handset with impressive hardware specifications and Sense 3.0, the new version of HTC's custom software environment. The device will launch on Vodafone's network in the UK and will be available via T-Mobile in the United States.
The large form factor handset has a 4.3-inch qHD (960x540) Super LCD display fronted with Corning's gorilla glass. It is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2GHz and has 768MB of RAM. Its 8MP rear camera touts LED flash, autofocus, and support for capturing video at 1080p. It also has a front-facing VGA camera for video chat. The spec sheet claims that the phone can is capable of delivering 14.4Mbps download speeds on HSPA+ networks.
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Badly drawn piechart makes an excellent laser-like light source
Part of my professional job is to develop new light sources. So a recent Physical Review Letter on the development of a very special optical parametric oscillator caught my interest. Of course, many of you are now saying "a what?" Relax. As usual, I will bore you with the details.
Almost everyone is familiar with lasers. A laser is just a gain source—a way to get a medium glowing with a particular wavelength of light—surrounded by mirrors to provide feedback. We give the gain medium energy—a lot of energy, in fact—which puts most of the medium into an excited state. Nothing likes being excited for very long, so the atoms or ions or molecules that make up the gain medium relax back to their ground state. As these molecules relax, they emit light, some of which is captured by the mirrors and reflected back and forth through the gain medium. As the light field builds up, this causes the excited gain to emit in sympathy with the existing light field. This process of stimulated emission is one of the things that makes a laser special.
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Clubbing, San Fran style: ID scans, video cameras, metal detectors
Greetings, dance clubbers and event goers—welcome to San Francisco. Feel free to patronize the club or festive event of your choice; just remember that the following regulations apply for all events and entertainment establishments with capacity for over 100 people.
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No hope: Intel's new Oak Trail chip headed for tablet limbo
In the beginning, there was the x86 mobile Internet device (MID)—a compact, handheld, touchscreen-enabled, Windows- and Linux-based device that, in the end, nobody really wanted. As of today's Atom Z670 series launch, there's the x86 tablet—a compact, handheld, touchscreen-enabled, Windows- and Linux-based device that... well, check back with us in a year.
Oak Trail, which is the codename for the aforementioned, tablet-oriented Atom part, is certainly a vast improvement over the hardware that powered Intel's ill-fated MID attempts. At 45nm, with a CPU and GPU integrated onto the same die, the tiny chip will sip power, but it still won't get down into ARM territory. Even if it did, that wouldn't make much of a difference for its commercial prospects, because right now the tablet market consists almost entirely of two products: the iPad and the iPad 2.
Of course, Oak Trail will run more than just Windows and Linux; there's always the x86 Android port. But our experiences with the Android-based competition show that it has a long, long, long way to go before catching up to Apple's ARM-powered offering. Everything about the Android tablet experience, from the hardware and software to the price point, is inferior to the iPad. So what hope is there for Intel's Oak Trail to swoop in and change the game?
There is no hope, but that's not really the point of Oak Trail. Intel's latest stab at an MID/tablet-oriented hardware platform is just one more step on its long march to the smartphone, a destination it's unlikely to reach until it gets a future Oak Trail successor down to 22nm. Until then, Intel will keep producing these "tablet" chips, which will find their way into designs from a number of OEMs, some of which are neat in a gimmicky sort of way, and none of which are likely to sell well.
If netbooks were still selling like hotcakes, this could significantly improve Oak Trail's prospects, because it will be a solid netbook part. But they aren't, so we're left to watch Intel mark time in this fashion for another year or so until it finally catches up to the ARM ecosystem.
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True-color holograms may light up small displays
The Nintendo 3DS notwithstanding, 3D technology still comes under the classification of cumbersome. The viewing angle is usually poor, or you need to wear special glasses. Neither of these options are particularly attractive. An alternative is to use holograms, but this comes with its own set of problems. For instance, the holograms on credit cards are visible from a wide range of angles... but, well, they aren't called rainbow holograms for nothing. Holograms with better color reproduction have a limited viewing angle. All in all, it is rather fraught.
Riding to the rescue are engineers bearing surface plasmon polaritons. By combing some fairly standard holography techniques along with some surface plasmon polariton tricks, the researchers have created holograms that have both a wide viewing angle and good color reproduction.
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DRM run amok: how Bioware and EA are screwing users right now
Thanks to a combination of DRM idiocy and technical and communications failures on the part of EA and Bioware, I (along with thousands of fellow EA/Bioware customers) spent my free time this past weekend needlessly trapped in troubleshooting hell, in a vain attempt to get my single-player game to load. The problem, it turns out, was the Bioware's DRM authorization servers, and as of Tuesday afternoon, the situation still is not resolved. For four days now, those of us who made the mistake of shelling out for Dragon Age:Origins (especially the Ultimate Edition) have been unable to play the single-player game that we paid for. And the unlucky souls who bought the game on Friday haven't yet seen it work properly.
Note: we've contacted Bioware and EA PR for comments, and as of press time have received no reply.
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P2P lawyer: more settlements since former-lobbyist judge's ruling
Last month, RIAA-lobbyist-turned-federal-judge Beryl Howell ruled that three mass P2P file-sharing lawsuits before her in Washington, DC could proceed. The Hollywood Reporter called it, rather hyperbolically, "the most important decision to date in the ongoing mass-litigation campaign" (several other federal judges had already come to opposite conclusions). But Howell's work has had an impact—as far away as Illinois, more anonymous P2P defendants are coming forward to settle.
So says Illinois' lone attorney bringing these mass P2P suits. John Steele, divorce-lawyer-turned-porn-copyright-specialist, has had a rough couple of months before judges for the Northern District of Illinois, based in Chicago. He tried moving a recent case downstate, to the Southern District, and he also tried to turn it into a "reverse class action" lawsuit against file-sharers. This hasn't gone well; a judge is currently staying Steele's discovery, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation is opposing his tactics.
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Hotz lawyer: PS3 hacking case over, DMCA and IP abuse live on
The legal action between Sony and George Hotz has come to a close, with both sides seemingly happy with the results. Sony has Hotz agreeing not to do bad things to its hardware, and Hotz gets to be left alone and continue with his life. Neither side has admitted any liability in the matter, and things seemed to have worked out... for the best?
Ars Technica spoke with Yasha Heidari, one of Hotz's lawyers, who said the most important thing to take from this case is a knowledge of how large companies strong-arm their opponents when it comes to copyright issues and the DMCA, and to be aware of your rights. The best way to fight back? Don't give companies who do these things your money. The conversation was enlightening on a number of levels.
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Consumer groups skeptical about new Kerry-McCain privacy bill
Companies may soon be required to be up front with users on what personal information they are collecting and how it will be used, lest they face action from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Those are some of the provisions of the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, formally introduced on Tuesday by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ). The bill also requires companies to offer easy-to-use opt-outs and provide a complaint mechanism to their customer base.
"If there was no law to stop [a] person from collecting or selling that personal information collected, you'd feel beyond violated," Kerry said during a press conference on Tuesday. "It goes on unregulated every day in the digital world... Right now, there is no law protecting the information that we share."
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First preview of Internet Explorer 10 arrives with new features
Hot on the heels of last month's launch of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft today launched Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 1, taking the first step along the path towards the next version of the browser. The announcement came at MIX11, Microsoft's annual Web and phone developer conference.
IE Corporate Vice President Dean Hachamovitch said that the company was about three weeks into the development of Internet Explorer 10. Even at this early stage, the browser has a lot of compelling new features: rich new layout options with columns, flexible boxes and grids, and CSS gradients. Following on from the pattern of the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Previews, this new release also comes with a set of new showcases on Microsoft's IE Test Drive site, and new unit tests that cover many of the new capabilities.
The new preview program is not identical to the Internet Explorer 9 program. Microsoft is lengthening the release cycle from "every eight weeks" for version 9 to "every eight to twelve weeks" for version 10. The new preview is also restricted to Windows 7; Internet Explorer 9's previews, in contrast, ran on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Hachamovitch hammered home the benefits of Internet Explorer 9 and 10's extensive hardware acceleration. The on-stage demos all compared Internet Explorer to Chrome—a browser that currently has only very limited hardware acceleration. While this certainly demonstrated the value such acceleration has, the omission of Firefox 4—which does include extensive hardware acceleration—was notable. Hachamovitch claimed that only browsers that directly targeted operating system functionality would be able to get the most from the hardware, implying that Firefox 4, which uses an additional software layer to allow it to offer hardware acceleration on both Windows and Linux, would never achieve performance as good as that of Internet Explorer.
In addition to the new preview, the company has also announced new previews from its HTML5 Labs. The HTML5 Labs are used to give developers early access to those Web specifications that are undergoing regular, incompatible revisions—specifications currently too unstable to be safely incorporated into the browser proper. Prototypes for WebSockets and IndexedDB have been available since December. To these, Microsoft is adding a prototype for W3C's File API, which allows trusted Web applications limited access to the local filesystem, and will shortly be adding a prototype for W3C's Media Capture API, which allows Web applications to directly access webcams and microphones—a task that currently requires the use of plugins such as Flash or Silverlight.
As was the case with Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft refused to talk about the future too much. Specifically, the company gave few hints either as to which other features would be added in future previews (though CSS transitions and more complete CSS gradient support were promised), or when it planned to ship a final release of the browser. A release in a year's time would match up pretty well with Internet Explorer 9's development cycle, but still leaves Redmond's browser lagging far behind Firefox and Chrome.
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Opera 11.10 gets WebP support, faster "Turbo" mode
Opera software has pushed out the final version of Opera 11.10, an upgrade to the company’s flagship desktop Web browser. Opera 11.10 brings a significant speed bump to Opera’s Turbo browsing mode, new Speed Dial features, and some more HTML5 support.
You can download Opera 11.10 for Mac, Windows, and Linux from the Opera website.
Opera’s Turbo mode has been around for several years now and allows you to download sites faster over slow connections. Turbo works by proxying your connection through Opera’s servers and compressing websites before you download them. The latest version compresses sites even more, making it up to four times faster than previous Turbo releases, and 15 percent faster than Opera without Turbo, according to the company.
Turbo’s new compression tricks now take advantage of Google’s WebP image format to shrink photos and graphics before you download. WebP is Google’s effort to improve on JPG, making images smaller without degrading the image quality. Thus far only Opera and Chrome support the WebP image format.
WebP does an impressive job of making images smaller in Turbo, though in my testing there were still some compression artifacts visible, particularly with larger images. Still, for those times you find yourself with a slow Internet connection, Turbo makes Opera significantly faster than the competition, and that alone makes Opera worth having around, even if it’s not your primary Web browser.
The other big news in this release are the changes to Speed Dial, which shows frequently visited site thumbnails in the new window or new tab view. Several other browsers have since copied Opera’s Speed Dial, but Opera keeps tweaking it with new features. Speed Dial in Opera 11.10 is more customizable and allows you to set how many thumbnails you’d like to see.
Opera has long been a leader in Web standards support and the latest release continues that transition adding partial support for the HTML5 File API. Unfortunately, the “partial” File API support does not extend to the drag and drop file uploading used by some websites (notably Gmail).
Other new features in Opera 11.10 include automatic updates for plugins like Adobe Flash, and some IMAP improvements for Opera’s built-in mail client. For a complete list of everything that’s new in Opera 11.10, check out the full change log.
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Video hardware makers announce Thunderbolt support at NAB
AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox have made good on promises to support Thunderbolt high-speed I/O technology featured on Apple's new MacBook Pro laptops. The companies announced new video I/O and processing boxes that offer Thunderbolt connectivity to a host machine at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show taking place this week. Promise Technology also announced a new Thunderbolt-to-Fibre Channel SAN adapter, which enables Apple's portable computers to connect to Fibre Channel-based storage area networks common in video production workflows.
AJA is demonstrating a prototype portable device this week, codenamed "Phaser," which connects to a host via Thunderbolt. Phaser supports HDMI input and output, 10-bit hardware-based up/down/cross-conversions, RS422 deck control, and linear time code support. AJA noted that "Phaser" is merely a technology preview, but said in a statement that products incorporating the technology will be announced soon.
Blackmagic, on the other hand, is using NAB to launch a new portable Thunderbolt breakout box called the UltraStudio 3D. It features SDI and HDMI 1.4 input and output connections capable of handling SD, 1080p60 HD, and 2K video compressed and uncompressed video streams. It also has analog component, S-video, and composite input and output, as well as balanced and unbalanced analog audio input and output. Blackmagic noted that the device is particularly suited to 3D production workflows, as the UltraStudio 3D can capture and playback side by side, line by line, top and bottom, and frame packing 3D video streams via SDI or HDMI. The device is set to ship in July for $995.
Matrox announced that it is adding support for Thunderbolt to its MXO2 line of video I/O boxes, including the MXO2 Mini, MXO2 LE, and MXO2 portable devices and the MXO2 Rack rack-mount device. These devices already use a PCIe connection to either a desktop PCIe card or an ExpressCard/34 adapter, so Matrox was able to easily build a Thunderbolt adapter for the devices. Matrox said it will begin shipping MXO2 devices with a Thunderbolt adapter in July, and current users will be able to order the Thunderbolt adapter separately for $299.
Finally, Promise Technologies is adding a new storage-related Thunderbolt product to its already announced Pegasus R4 and R6 RAIDs. The SANLink adapter connects to a Thunderbolt port and offers two full-duplex Fibre Channel ports to connect to high-end storage area networks. The dual ports offer redundant connection paths to a SAN for increased reliability, and make it easier for portable computers to access media stored on a SAN for post production work. The adapter also includes two Thunderbolt ports, allowing additional Thunderbolt or DisplayPort devices to use a single connection. Pricing and availability for the SANLink have not been announced, but a Promise spokesperson told Ars that it is targeted for a summer release.
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Fukushima gets Chernobyl-level rating without Chernobyl-level badness
Yesterday, the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency revised its preliminary rating of the Fukushima crisis, upgrading it to the highest level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. That places it on par with Chernobyl, the only other event to reach the maximum rating of 7 on the INES scale. The two events, however, have some very distinctive properties that raise questions about whether a single numerical rating can really convey the relevant information to the public.
The INES rating system is maintained by the International Atomic Energy Agency; it's designed to help authorities (either national or industrial) to provide an easy way to inform the public of the severity of an incident. At its low end, it involves things like minor exposures to radioactivity or the theft of short-lived isotopes. Level 7 events, at the other end of the spectrum, involve large releases of radioactive material into the environment and extended cleanup. (Details on the rating system are available in the INES User's Manual.)
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China calls out US human rights abuses: laptop searches, 'Net porn
Upset over the US State Department's annual human rights report, China publishes a report of its own on various US ills. This year, it calls attention to America's border laptop searches, its attitude toward WikiLeaks, and the prevalence of online pornography.
In case the report's purpose wasn't clear, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said this weekend, "We advise the US side to reflect on its own human rights issue, stop acting as a preacher of human rights as well as interfering in other countries' internal affairs by various means including issuing human rights reports."
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How publishers punish us for buying new games
There used to be nothing better than going to the store, buying a brand new game, and putting it in your system of choice to sit down for a nice day of gaming. This should be a grand moment: you just bought a game you're excited about playing, and the publisher has your money. These days, however, it has become a wonderful opportunity to punish you instead.
Here's how that goes down, and what I don't want to do when I buy a new game.
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Do "e-petitions" change government? Germany's experiment
In 2005, Germany's Bundestag launched what many saw as a daring innovation in that country's political process. The Parliament approved an e-petition system in which citizens could submit, sign, and discuss petitions on the Internet. Not only that, but petitioners who gathered 50,000 signatures or more now had the right to public meetings with the Bundestag's petitions committee about the laws they sought to change.
Germans had been able to submit petitions prior to 2005, of course. But the online feature and public meeting requirement were new. Did this radically change German politics? Not a whole lot, say two German scholars in a research paper commissioned by the Bundestag.
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UK's Daily Mail: Google is a "parasitic monster"
It appears that somebody at the United Kingdom's Daily Mail had a really bad night's sleep last night. And the first thing he saw when he woke up was the word "Google."
"Why is No.10 in thrall to this parasitic monster?" asks a Mail Online screed.
"No. 10," of course, refers to the Downing Street HQ of that country's Prime Minister, David Cameron. The "parasitic monster" in question comes from Mountain View, California, and is apparently in charge of the wholesale ransacking of British music, landmarks, and literature.
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