Syndicate is coming back, as a first-person shooter. Hurray?
EA has finally announced the existence of a new Syndicate title, although the game's existence has been a poorly guarded secret in the industry for years. While the game's development isn't shocking, EA has also confirmed the title will now be a first-person shooter, which borders on heresy to fans of the original strategy game. This the same fate as the upcoming X-Com title, which was also turned into an FPS, with the publisher claiming strategy games aren't contemporary.
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Microsoft BUILD: what we expect to see this week
After months of rumors, speculation, sneaky peeks, and anticipation, Windows 8 will have its first truly public outing this week at Microsoft's BUILD conference in Anaheim, California.
BUILD replaces Microsoft's previous PDC developer event. Though PDC was most often held in Los Angeles, the move to Anaheim is a historical reference to 1993's PDC event: 18 years ago, Anaheim was where Microsoft first showed Windows 95 to the world. Windows 95, with its radical new UI, revolutionized Windows and became the product that enabled Microsoft to attain a nigh unassailable monopoly on desktop computing. Microsoft hopes that Windows 8, described by the company as its "riskiest" product yet, will be just as important a milestone. Windows 8 will be the platform used for desktops, tablets, TVs, and beyond.
So what can we expect to see out of BUILD?
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Taking your living room to the stadium: a review of the FanVision G3
For several years now, FanVision has been bringing your living room to sporting events, allowing fans access to the same sort of multiple feeds and replays that we take for granted on the couch at home. Back in 2007, when we still had an F1 race at Indianapolis, I tried out their Kangaroo TV, and found it a pretty good way to enhance a live sporting event. Last year, the company released an updated device, the FanVison G3, for use with a number of NFL teams as well as a couple of other events. This year, the G3 made its F1 debut, and a trip to the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps gave me the opportunity to see the difference four years makes.
The FanVision G3 in action at Spa. Wasps not pictured.
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Poll Technica: would you sign up for Amazon e-book subscriptions?
Kindle users: how many of you would whip out your credit cards right now for a subscription-based service that allowed you to access an entire library of Amazon books for a flat fee? If you're anything like us at the Ars Orbiting HQ, you're likely already reaching for your wallets. But don't get excited yet, as such a service is reportedly in the "talks" stage and may never materialize, thanks to the fears of publishers.
The rumor about Amazon's potential new service, which doesn't seem to have a name but could come packaged with the $79 Amazon Prime shipping service, comes from sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal. According to those sources, subscribers would be able to pay an annual fee in order to access the library, which would include "older titles" and might impose a limit on the number of "free" books a user could access every month. The sources didn't offer any extra details as to whether Amazon was working on bringing its entire library of newer books to the service in the future, or if it would allow publishers to choose whether they want to participate.
That's a major hurdle for Amazon. According to "several publishing executives" who spoke to the Journal, they have reservations about participating in a subscription-based service for fear that it might lower the value of books in the eyes of customers. This is the same reason publishers battled with Amazon throughout 2010 over the pricing of their e-books—Amazon used to near-universally price Kindle books at $9.99, but publishers worried that the flat price devalued their products. This led to an eventual showdown that resulted in publishers getting their way and switching to "agency model" pricing, which ultimately led to slightly higher prices for many e-books sold through the Kindle store.
It's clear that publishers don't like giving up control of the pricing of their books, and they're positive their books are worth more than what Amazon thinks they're worth. Because of this, it will undoubtedly be an uphill battle for Amazon to convince them to take part in a radical new e-book rental service, though Amazon is supposedly offering them a "substantial fee" for signing on. Whether that fee will be enough to quell their fears about the value of their books is anyone's guess, but for those of us who are addicted to our Kindles (or Kindle apps, as the case may be), we can only hope the companies can hammer out a deal.
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DigiNotar fallout: Adobe to patch Reader and Acrobat tomorrow
Adobe is removing a DigiNotar certificate from its trusted list and pushing out critical security patches to Reader and Acrobat tomorrow.
The Dutch certificate authority was hacked recently, generating “hundreds of fake security certificates for numerous websites, including Google, Yahoo, and others.” Adobe announced last Thursday that it was in the process of removing the DigiNotar Qualified CA from its Approved Trust List, and offered Reader and Acrobat users manual instructions on removing the certificate themselves. Adobe provided a further update on Friday, saying that a security update for Reader and Acrobat will be published September 13.
“We have delayed the removal of this certificate until next Tuesday at the explicit request of the Dutch government, while they explore the implications of this action and prepare their systems for the change,” Adobe said on a corporate blog.
The rogue certificates known to exist today are related to a different certificate, the DigiNotar Public CA, but Adobe said a Dutch security consultancy has found evidence of the Qualified CA being compromised as well.
The security updates to be pushed out tomorrow are rated critical and affect Adobe Reader X (10.1) and Adobe Acrobat X (10.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Mac. Adobe said it is also holding discussions with the Dutch government regarding other certificates related to DigiNotar and is planning changes to Reader and Acrobat and its Approved Trust List to react more quickly to such problems in the future.
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HTC may be looking to buy its own mobile operating system
HTC expressed interest in purchasing a mobile operating system today, according to Focus Taiwan. Cher Wang, chairwoman at HTC, told reporters "we [HTC] can use any OS we want," and said the company has held internal discussions about obtaining an OS of its own.
HTC makes both Windows Phone 7 and Android handsets and has robotically voiced it support of Google's acquisition of one of its hardware competitors, Motorola Mobility. Google has likewise been supportive of HTC, selling the company nine patents to help bolster its lawsuits with Apple.
Still, HTC appears unable to ignore the potential for Motorola to gain certain Android advantages under Google ownership, and is considering other options. Wang has said that her company has the ability "to make things different on the second or third layer of a platform," referring to the sometimes-derided HTC Sense UI overlay. "Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean we have to produce an OS," Wang said, indicating that the company might prefer to purchase or license a platform rather than make its own.
And what luck: HP recently knocked its own webOS unconscious and displayed it on a silver platter for potential buyers or licensees, and that may be HTC's best prospect. Wang cautions that HTC will not pursue their own OS "on impulse," but the company has given it thought.
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How a brain-manipulating virus turns caterpillars into zombies
Behavior-modifying parasites are getting more press as of late, with reports of zombie ants and Toxoplamsa-infected rats that become sexually attracted to cats. But it's not just organisms that manipulate their hosts; there's at least one behavior-modifying virus. Just as the parasitic organisms do, baculoviruses change their host's behavior for their own benefit, ensuring their propagation. When infected with a baculovirus, European gypsy moth caterpillars behave in a way that healthy gypsy moth caterpillar never would.
A healthy gypsy moth spends its days hiding in bark crevices or climbing down the tree to the soil during daylight, to avoid predation from birds. They only venture back out onto the leaves under the safety of night. A gypsy moth infected with a baculovirus, however, behaves quite differently. The aptly named "tree top disease" makes the infected gypsy moth caterpillar climb to the top of a tree to die, liquefy, and release millions of infective virus particles.
Once the host is liquified, virus dispersal is then facilitated by rainfall. Scientists have been watching infected moth larvae behave this way for a century, but have only recently identified the mechanism behind the behavior. A team of researchers, led by Dr. Kelli Hoover of Pennsylvania State University, and included other researchers from Pennsylvania State University, Harvard Medical School, and the US Forest Service, have now identified the viral gene behind tree top disease.
The team hypothesized that tree top disease in induced by the expression of a baculovirus gene known as egt. To test this theory, researchers tested six modified viruses for their impact on insect climbing behavior. They placed individual moth larvae in tall plastic bottles that contained food at the bottom and a fiberglass screen for the larvae to climb on. Viruses with the egt gene caused larvae to climb to the top of the container and stay there to die. Deleting the egt gene eliminated this behavior, while reinsertion of the gene restored the climbing behavior once more.
The egt gene encodes a protein that inactivates a hormone used by the caterpillars, so it's easy to see how it could have global effects on behavior. The results offer a genetic explanation for what's known as an extended phenotype, which encompasses the direct effects of a gene as well as its influences on the survival chance of that gene.
Science, 2011, DOI: 10.1126/science.1209199
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Hard Reset review: the game ends before it begins, despite fun play
The $29.99 PC exclusive Hard Reset is easy to enjoy while you're playing it, but once you start to think about how the game is put together the flaws begin to stand out. Not the least of which is the fact that during my playthrough of the game for this review, it was hinted that something very cool was about to happen, and I became excited for what I thought was going to happen next. It was at this point that the credits rolled, and the game was over. There were no hints that I was near the end of the game other than the boss battle I had just finished, and all sorts of nothing was resolved in the story.
In fact, there wasn't much in the story that was properly explained or revealed. It felt like I was reading a book with the first and last chapters removed. Things are hinted at, but nothing made much sense, and everyone seemed to be at peace with that.
That being said, boy howdy is Hard Reset fun to play.
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Jobs' 1984 Mac vision lured English filmmaker to American advertising
Somebody was going to be fired for this. No way would Apple get away with marketing its new computer so boldly, in some TV ad depicting society as a cast of drones paralyzed by the preachings of a sinister, Big Brother figure.
For 28-year-old Steve Jobs, who resigned last month from the company he cofounded in 1976, the ambitious Orwellian commercial represented his first splash as Apple’s Macintosh division leader.
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Tiny Heroes on iOS has unique take on tower defense
RPG heroes have a sense of entitlement. Whenever they see some gold—whether it's carefully hidden in a vase or safely tucked away in an unguarded treasure chest—they simply take it. But obviously that's somebody's money, and in Tiny Heroes it's your job to keep that treasure safe.
Though Tiny Heroes looks like a fairly standard tower defense game, it cleverly borrows a few ideas from Plants vs Zombies to make it feel more robust and interesting. Throughout the campaign you'll be defending a number of different castles, each with their own layout. Heroes come in from the left, and you'll have to lay down traps to keep them from getting in and out with the treasure. As with PvZ, different heroes have different abilities and your defenses offer up plenty of room for trying different strategies. You'll have everything from spiked floor tiles and saw blades to animated treasure chests and angry orcs at your disposal.
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Feature: Owning the stack: The legal war to control the smartphone platform
In the last few weeks, the smartphone industry appeared to produce more lawsuits than phones. Apple briefly managed to stop the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of Europe, and is now going after the whole Galaxy line. Back Stateside, Google first complained that Microsoft and Apple were using "bogus patents" to target Android, then spent $12 billion for Motorola and its patent arsenal. These are big, high-stakes fights—and the last company left standing may walk away with control over nothing less than the smartphone market itself.
In the flood of stories about tactical filings and counter-filings, it's easy to get lost in the details. But step back and it's clear that the Smartphone Wars aren't just a war of all against all; there's an underlying logic to these disputes. Most companies are fighting to control one part of the hardware-software stack, then use that control to pry money free from the layers above them.
But the really big players—the Apples and Googles of the world—are fighting over the stack itself. Their combat arena: the global legal system.
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"Operation In Our Sites" targets NinjaVideo with criminal copyright charges
A website called NinjaVideo is the latest target of "Operation in our Sites," the federal government's aggressive campaign against movie-sharing websites. In an indictment handed down late last week in Virginia, the government charged five individuals with criminal copyright infringement.
The defendants are four Americans and a resident of Greece, all in their 20s and 30s. Three of the defendants are alleged to be site administrators. The fourth contributor, Joshua Evans, allegedly "supervised most of the North American-based uploaders, including directing uploaders to locate specific infringing copyrighted content." The final defendant, Greek resident Zoi Mertzanis, played a similar role for European uploaders.
The indictment charges that the defendants earned more than half a million dollars over three years by distributing infringing copies of copyrighted movies and television programs. The site was supported by advertising. Users could also pay $25 for "premium" membership, which came with a wider range of "movies, comic books, and computer software." At its 2010 peak, the site was serving millions of visitors per month.
The ninjavideo.net domain was one of many targets of the federal government's controversial program of seizing domain names accused of infringing copyrights. In July we covered the case of Richard O'Dwyer, operator of the linking site TVShack.net, who is now fighting extradition from the UK to the US. The press release accompanying the indictment did not mention whether the government would seek the extradition of Mertzanis from Greece as they have O'Dwyer.
In an earnest but rambling manifesto posted as a podcast before the NinjaVideo domain was seized last year, site operator "Phara" blamed Hollywood, with its "inflated budgets" and "ridiculous salaries," for the popularity of piracy.
"We're labeled pirates. We're called thieves," she said. "We're raided and arrested and we're forced to hide behind aliases while we weave and we bob through these grey areas of laws not yet written."
"Can I afford lawyers? No. Not at all," she said. "But will there be a hundred people to take my place if I step down? Yes, believe me there will be."
The NinjaVideo community still maintains an active discussion forum. In July, Phara solicited donations from forum members to the NinjaVideo legal defense fund.
The federal government has indicted New Jersey resident Hana Amal Beshara as Phara. She and her codefendants will be arraigned in an Eastern Virginia courtroom on September 16.
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Can a marriage of AOL and Yahoo save the fading Web titans?
According to Bloomberg and its ubiquitous "people familiar with the matter," AOL might be jonesing for a merger with boss-less 'net titan Yahoo.
The two companies already share an advisor firm in Allen & Co, making for some very direct communications—and easy access to nearly-insider views of both companies. And some of the intangibles sure match up:
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Weird Science can't find its invisible mouse
Canadian girls gone wild on spring break... leads to a notable baby boom nine months later. That's one interpretation of the data obtained by tracking all the pregnancies that were handled at an Ontario hospital. For adults, conception rates seemed to peak around the winter holidays, a peak that was absent in adolescents. These girls had a peak conception in March. "There are several plausible explanations for the modest but real differences identified in this study," the authors write, before suggesting that one of them is "social/school events that lead to increased sexual activity."
Fermilab scientists figure out how to avoid turning an aircraft aisle into a large people collider: There are a limited number of experiences that are capable of inducing your correspondent to go on a murderous rampage, but boarding a commercial aircraft is one of them. Fortunately, a physicist has at least attempted to come to the rescue by devising a plane boarding strategy that's phenomenally efficient, although it would be impossible to implement in an actual airport. Fermi's Jason Steffen had devised a system where passengers were boarded in an exttraordinarily organized manner: In a single set, ordered back of the aircraft to front, with everyone in a set occupying the same seat in alternate rows. Now, as each stopped to get settled, they had a bit of space in the aisle to themselves to organize and store items before grabbing a seat and before the next set trudged in.
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