Solid State Quantum Processors Successfully Uses Shor's Algorithm
Though quantum computers are still in development at the moment, algorithms for them have already been developed. These advanced programs take advantage of computer mechanics to solve problems exceedingly fast, compared to classic electronic computers. One of these algorithms was made by Peter Shor and it allows a quantum computer to factor numbers as much as 15 orders of magnitude faster than a modern computer (1015 seconds is over 31 million years). Now researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have created a solid state quantum processor that has successfully used this algorithm to factor 15.
Okay, 15 is not really an impressive number to factor, but it is the first one Shor's algorithm will work on and the same principles for factoring 15 are used to factor numbers with 600 digits. Also, this is the first time a solid state quantum processor has successfully run the algorithm, and in theory it can just be scaled up to become more powerful. The current design only has four superconducting phase qubits and five microwave resonators, which is still complex enough that a special control system had to be developed.
The processor also proved to be quite accurate in its work as it was correct for just less than half of the 150,000 tests. Shor's algorithm itself can only be correct half the time, so this is quite an accomplishment.
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Floating Golf Course Planned for the Maldives
In the next few years, adventurous golfers with deep pockets may start playing in a Maldives golf course floating in the Indian Ocean. The planned $520 million Maldives golf course is a joint project with the local government, Troon Golf and Dutch architectural firm Waterstudio. The reasoning behind building such a trivial golf course lies in the Maldives' current predicament: the country's 1,200 islands rise an average of just five feet above sea level, and the folks there apparently think things will worsen sometime in the future - that the country will eventually disappear off the map. While building a floating golf course isn't exactly a practical means to saving a country, maybe the planners know something we don't.
The project is being developed as a group of islands with multiple holes, the former of which will be built at a different location (perhaps in India or the Middle East), then towed to the Maldives and secured to the seabed with cables. Getting between holes won't be difficult, as you'll get to travel through underwater tunnels. The ambitious venture is said to start construction in the latter part of 2012, with a planned opening by 2015.
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Finding the Flu with Tweets and AI
Getting sick is never much fun but avoiding it can be difficult. You cannot exactly ask every person you come in contact with if they have been sick recently. Although, many people are now volunteering that information with posts on Twitter and researchers at the University of Rochester have created a machine learning program to identify these Tweets and let you know when you are at risk.
That amount of information people volunteer to sites like Twitter can be truly amazing. Not only is potentially personal information listed but GPS data could be included as well, which together the AI uses to let you know if you have been exposed to the flu. If you have been exposed, it may be days before symptoms appear, so if you act fast you may be able to head it off.
When the researchers tested the AI they found it had a 90% accuracy rate of predicting which individuals would get sick as many as eight days before symptoms appeared. Unfortunately it would be hard to increase this value as people do not always accurately describe their symptoms within 140 characters and there are many factors that contributed to getting sick. However, this still shows an ability for AI that could be very beneficial as it is developed further.
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NVIDIA's PhysX Makes Borderlands 2 on the PC the Definitive Version
Back in March, we told you about Claptrap's love letter to PC gamers, making a ton of promises that alluded to the PC version of Borderlands 2 being the version to buy. If that wasn't reason enough, NVIDIA users have a new one – PhysX support. NVIDIA has released a "Borderlands 2 GeForce GTX PhysX Trailer" to show us just what PhysX adds to the experience, and man does it make a world of difference. As the video description says, "PhysX technology enables the dynamic, realistic movement of flags, banners, and tarps that react and tear realistically when taking weapons fire, and weapons generate particle fluids, sparks and debris that add extra explosive action to your visceral gaming experience." Check out the trailer and be prepared to be blown away, no pun intended.
Borderlands 2 launches on September 18 for the PC, PS3, and 360.
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Black Ops 2 to Make an Appearance on Wii U?
A LinkedIn profile is fueling rumors that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be available on the Wii U, in addition to the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. The profile belongs to someone named Randall who works at Treyarch and it indicates that he did “QA testing on PS3 and Wii U, multiplayer testing while collaborating with team, ad hoc testing, and regression. Bug writing, research, and documentation are performed with each issue that is found.” Previous rumors indicated that the game was expected to come to the Wii U in time for the Christmas 2012 shopping season, but the game has only been officially confirmed for the other three systems and will release on November 13.
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Castle Crashers Finally Coming to PC via Steam
Can a four-year old game find success on a new platform? Developer The Behemoth must think so, as the company is finally bringing its critically acclaimed and highly popular Castle Crashers to the PC, exclusively through Steam. Despite its age, since it features stylized, 2D hand-drawn visuals, Castle Crashers certainly won't look like an old game, so it all comes down to gameplay. Castle Crashers is a side-scrolling beat 'em up with some RPG elements mixed in, where up to four players can play at one time. Like its console brethren, the PC version will not only feature online multiplayer, but local multiplayer as well. In addition, there will be Steam Cloud support, integrated voice chat, and of course, Steam Achievements.
There is no mention whether all the DLC available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will be included for free with the PC release, but the site does state "unlock more than 25 characters", so it seems like that may indeed be the case. As it's a four-year old game with 2D graphics, the very modest system requirements shouldn't be that surprising: Windows XP or later, a dual-core processor of 2GHz or more, at least 1GB of RAM, 300MB of hard drive space, a DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with 256MB of VRAM or more, and a DirectX 9.0 compatible sound card.
While there is no release date given just yet, The Behemoth was "invited by Valve to show Castle Crashers running on Steam at Gamescom", so it seems a release may be near. Pricing was not provided either, but the console versions sell for $14.99. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a 4-Pack is available for purchase as well.
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THQ Apologizes for Darksiders II PC Port - Working on Adding Promised Features
It's not often a company owns up to its mistakes, but that's what we have here. THQ's community manager Mathew Everett would like to apologize for the shoddy Darksiders II PC port. During development, it was reported that the PC version of Darksiders II would contain full .config files, additional graphics options, and full keyboard/mouse and controller hookups. Sadly, none of that happened. According to Everett, sometimes things change at the last minute, especially at the end of the development cycle, and unfortunately those happened to be on the cutting room floor, unbeknownst to him and coworker Jay Fitzloff at the time of the Community Summit, where they confirmed these features.
Though he cannot promise everything can be added, Everett does promise he's "working with the proper teams and have expressed the importance of including them in a patch." When the patch will be released and what will be included is as yet unknown. This isn't the first time a PC version has been treated like a red-headed stepchild and it certainly won't be the last, but at least it seems THQ is taking steps in the right direction to correct this cruel injustice.
If you've purchased Darksiders II for the PC, let us know what you think. Will you continue playing it or wait for the patch?
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New Look to Torchlight II Skill Panes Unveiled
Over the past month, Travis Baldree, President of Runic Games, has been posting a weekly thread entitled "Not A Blog Redux", detailing what he has been working on in getting Torchlight II prepared for release. Well back in June, we posted how the skill panes were being reworked with active and passive skills separated, along with the introduction of tier bonuses for every five points spent in a skill. Today, we finally got our first glimpse at what the new skill panes look like and it's quite the departure from the one seen during the beta.
The one Travis posted was from the Berserker class, seen in the first image below. As the image illustrates, each class has three panes, with each pane containing seven active skills and three passive skills, for a total of 30 skills per class. Unlike the original Torchlight, each skill is unique to that class, with no shared abilities (taking out shared abilities, Torchlight classes only had 15 unique abilities each!). Skills unlock from top to bottom as you level up, with no requirement of having to spend points in previous skills to unlock new ones. The passives unlock at a different, faster rate than the active skills. The other big change you probably noticed were the "I", "II", and "III" underneath each active skill. Those represent the three bonus tiers for each skill – every fifth point invested will grant you an additional "Tier Bonus", with every skill maxing out at 15 points.
To show us how the tiers work, Travis posted a screenshot of the Bramble Wall skill from the Outlander class. A vanilla Bramble Wall spell (1-4 points invested) simply "creates an arc of impassable thorns in front of you, which monsters cannot pass, but you can shoot over." With 5-9 points invested, you gain the Tier I Bonus, which causes the vines to damage foes when they're raised. As you can see in the image, that change is directly applied to the skill description (in this case, +2564-3030 Poison Damage). With 10-14 points invested, you gain the Tier II Bonus in addition to the Tier I Bonus, increasing the length of the vines. At 15, not only do you still get the Tier I and Tier II Bonuses, but you now also get a Tier III Bonus, which causes the vines to exude a poison gas, continuously damaging any enemies that draw near to the wall while they try to walk around it. In the third image below, the top shows your vanilla Bramble Wall, the middle shows Tier I, and the bottom shows Tier III. Where ever possible, Travis said the team tried to visually alter the skills to reflect the bonuses. The last image below shows the difference between a vanilla Eviscerate and a max level Eviscerate – despite the bonuses merely increasing range, the visuals are still very different.
The new skill panes definitely appear to be an improvement and the Tier Bonuses should provide a multitude of different build strategies, which is always a good thing for an Action-RPG. If this has got you yearning to play, well unfortunately the release date is still a mystery. We know that Runic Games will be showing the game off at PAX, which is taking place from August 31 to September 2, so hopefully we'll get a release date then. The original estimation was that it would be released by the end of Summer, which falls on September 21, so it seems like PAX is perfectly situated for a release date announcement.
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OnLive Hits a Major Rough Spot
Engadget has spoken to a recently laid off employee of gaming service OnLive and has found some details that don't bode well for OnLive. A 10AM meeting was held today in which the CEO laid off at least half of the people working at the company with no severance and only a few hours warning about the lay off, as key cards will be deactivated today. OnLive is reportedly being purchased by another company to help cover the $5 million monthly operating costs as the company hasn't been as popular or profitable as it hoped.
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Three Different Weapon Manufacturers Showcased in New Borderlands 2 Videos
We have just about 30 days to go before the arrival of Borderlands 2 and the removal of any free time we may have. The sequel is set five years after the first game and to make sure we are up to speed on all the new weapons, Gearbox Software has released three new videos looking at some weapon manufacturers. The three released so far discuss Tediore, Maliwan, and Vladof, with some fairly hilarious footage included. We have "The Everyman's Weapon" in Tediore and its disposable nature, the elemental firepower of Maliwan "where form meets function," and the high firing weapons from Vladof. All three manufacturers should have something for everyone, but my money will be going towards Maliwan and that oh so sweet elemental damage. Hopefully Gearbox makes more manufacturer videos for Borderlands 2, as I cannot wait to see what Torque, S&S Munitions, or Dahl have in store.
Borderlands 2 launches on September 18 for the PC, PS3, and 360.
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Magnetricity a Possibility
Electricity and magnetism are strongly related phenomena that also have many similar properties, but one property is electricity's alone. Quanta within electricity, like electrons, can have a single charge, which makes them a monopole. In magnetism however, no monopole particle has ever been discovered and there are even reasons to believe they cannot exist. Monopole quasiparticles have been found however, and researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) have learned a bit more about them, which could lead to magnetricity; a current of magnetic monopoles.
The fractional quantum Hall effect causes electrons to interact with each other in such a way as to create isolated, fractional electric charges. The JQI researchers decided to craft an experiment that replicates the fractional quantum Hall effect with magnetism instead, to see if it could also create the isolated charges. They did this be creating "spin ice" that has atoms around into a pair of tetrahedrons with two atoms pointing into the tetrahedrons, and two pointing out. As the temperature drops to around 5 K, the atoms become frustrated because they want to change their orientation around and align with each other, but that is impossible in this geometry. The fluctuations this creates allows for magnetic monopoles to form.
Though this is not a true monopole, which may not exist, the ability to create fractional magnetic monopoles could allow for magnetricity. This new phenomena could potentially be utilized for new kinds of data storage and more, depending on the creativity of those working with it.
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Series of Mods Restore Cut Content to Fallout: New Vegas
Modders truly are one of the greatest benefits to gaming on the computer. Prospective individuals can enhance a game by adding in new items or locations, extend the life of a game with a total conversion, or even restore a game to what it could have been. Such is the case with this pieces of news, as a collection of mods adds cut content back to Fallout: New Vegas. There are ten total New Vegas Uncut packs to download (click the Mods icon to see them all), which restore everything from missing dialog to companions and even turning Freeside back into an open map. That last one has some caveats though, as a few other mods restore content that is already included, plus the Brahmin companion cannot be used with it.
Make sure you read the parts of the descriptions marked "IMPORTANT" for every mod to ensure compatibility with everything, just so your game does not have any issues. Some mods may be best enjoyed on a brand new character, but I think that will be well worth it to see the Mojave Wasteland in a new light. You can head here to read about planned future updates to turn New Vegas back into how Obsidian originally envisioned it.
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Nanodisc Magnetic Vortices Not as Simple as Thought
While solid state drives are the new data storage solution many are looking to for various reasons including speed, recent research may make magnetic storage systems the choice for many as non-volatile RAM. This research focuses on shifting from classical magnetism to quantum mechanical spin, which is actually the origin of magnetism. By making the storage system spintronic, greater storage densities can be achieved, while also requiring less energy. However researchers at Berkeley Lab have discovered that this spintronic solution may not be as simple as many believed.
The focus of this study was magnetic vortices in which the spins of electrons align in only certain directions. The spin at the center of the vortex either points up or down, while the spins of the electrons in the disk must be in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, making four different possibilities. Previously researchers believed these four states were symmetrical, which means their energy states were the same. The Berkeley researchers discovered this is not case, which means that a lengthy verification process would have to be required for writing and reading data from the vortices.
This is not all bad news however as this asymmetric behavior could be used to make a sensor or logic device. While using these magnetic vortices for data storage will be more complicated than anticipated, they have a greater potential than expected.
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Traveller's Tales Will Include 85 Playable Characters in LEGO: The Lord of the Rings
Something as massive as The Lord of the Rings has many different characters in the story. When the books were adapted to the big screen, some of those characters had to be left on the cutting floor, because while diehard fans would have loved each movie to be nine hours, it just was not possible. The world of video games has no such restriction, and as such Traveller's Tales' LEGO: The Lord of the Rings video game will include 85 playable characters. That is an impressive number in itself, but it also means there will be far more characters playable in the game than there were present in the movies. Hopefully we will see Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin encounter Tom Bombadil since many people wished he could have been in the movies, or maybe we will see Glorfindel or even the sons of Elrond.
This LEGO version of The Lord of the Rings will be the definitive LotR experience, according to the developer. All the characters will use the dialog from the movies (if they were in the movie, that is), plus Traveller's Tales is using the Middle-Earth maps from J.R.R. Tolkien to accurately portray the world. Everything will be located exactly how Tolkien intended it to be, and fully explorable on horse or foot once it is unlocked. The studio decided to forego a hub world in favor of something far grander.
Traveller's Tales has a rather wide selection of characters to choose from, and I imagine some of the playable ones will be generic figures, like a Mordor orc or Gondor soldier. We will just have to see who makes the final cut when LEGO: The Lord of the Rings video game arrives later this year for the PC, PS3, PS Vita, 360, Wii, 3DS, and DS. You can check out the trailer from Gamescom below to whet your appetite until it arrives.
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