IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 28/08/2012

Hisense to unveil sub-$100 Google TV-based box at IFA
If you've been waiting to jump on the Google TV bandwagon, well, those prices are about to get a whole lot better. Hisense, a Chinese OEM has partnered with Google to provide a new budget-minded Google TV set-top box. Mickey Kim, a Google TV partner manager talked about the collaboration:

Hisense adds even more innovation to the growing list of Google TV-powered devices available around the world. We're working closely with partners like Hisense to bring services from Google and multiple other providers to your TV with an experience tailored for the living room.

The box is set to be unveiled in Berlin next week, at the IFA show. We should hopefully hear more about it next week.

Stanford biologist and computer scientist discover ants use TCP-like communication
The work of a Stanford ant biologist, and a computer scientist have found that harvester ants on the hunt for food, use a similar method to that of the protocols used to control traffic on the Internet.

Deborah Gordon, a biology professor at Stanford, have been studying ants for more than 20 years. When Gordon discovered how the harvester ant colonies were sending out more ants to get food, she called in Balaji Prabhakar, who is a professor of computer science at Stanford, who is an expert on how files are transferred on a computer network.

At first, he didn't know why Gordon had called him, as ants had nothing to do with his field, but the next day, he realised:

The next day it occurred to me, 'Oh wait, this is almost the same as how [Internet] protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for transferring a file! The algorithm the ants were using to discover how much food there is available is essentially the same as that used in the Transmission Control Protocol.

At the moment, it looks like harvester ants use the same TCP-like transmission in order to communicate. Gordon found that the rate of which harvester ants leave the nest for the search of food, corresponds to food availability.

You can read the entire story over at the source.

The discovery is quite amazing, and I really hope millions of ants band together for an Anterweb startup. Maybe we can have some huge companies fund them?

Dropbox have enabled two-step verification process
I'm a big fan of Google's two-step verification process, and it seems that cloud-based storage giant, Dropbox, have followed through with some added security of your precious data by enabling two-step verification.

In order to turn on the feature, you'll require the most up-to-date beta desktop version of Dropbox's client. Once you've acquired that, you can jump over to the Dropbox website, and enter the beta, where you can turn on the two-step verification.

It works pretty much identical to Google's two-step verification, where you'll be prompted to enter a limited-time, one-use password that you can receive by text, or an app similar to Google Authenticator. If you were to lose your phone, you would get a one-time use backup code, but there's only one, so you'd have to be very careful where you put it.

Nexus 7 cranked up to an incredible 2GHz
We reported on the Nexus 7 getting all frisky after a few drinks, where it got rooted and overclocked to 1.64GHz, but now that news just seems so old, so yesterday, as Hillary Duff would put it.

Now there's a new kernel floating around, offering 1.8GHz, with another 200Mhz up on offer. The modified kernel can be downloaded from the ever-so-generous XDA forums. But it looks like the peeps over at Android Community have cranked it all the way up to 2GHz, and have some delicious benchmarks and screenshots to prove it.

At 2GHz, the $199 Nexus 7 beats Qualcomm's unreleased quad-core chip. Android Community reports that according to Simms, friends of the site on XDA Developers, that at 2GHz, the Nexus 7 isn't what they'd call "stable". If you want to check it out, take a look for yourself!

Raspberry Pi gets MPEG-2, VC-1 decoding, as well as H.264 encoding and CEC
In order to get the Raspberry Pi's pricing down to a low point, there had to be some cuts made to its abilities. First of which, was the cull of MPEG-2 decoding. MPEG-2 licensing fees would've increased the Raspberry Pi's pricing by at least 10%.

But, it looks like the foundation has found a way around this, and for just $3.16, users can purchase an individual MPEG-2 license for each of their boards through the organizations' online store. The same goes for Microsoft's VC-1 standard, which can be purchased for $1.58.

H.264 encoding isn't left out, with OpenMax components needed to develop applications with H.264 functionality, and are now enabled from the latest firmware. With CEC tagging along for the ride, we're also looking at XBian and OpenELEC operating systems that can use a single IR remote to control a Raspberry Pi, a TV and other connected goods.

Azza Genesis 9000 Reversible Full Tower Chassis Review

Introduction

It seems like it has been quite some time since I have looked at an Azza product, but in reality it has only been since February when I took a look at the Fusion 3000. Well, they are back and this time with an over the top design and layout that really strides to deliver everything found in case design today.

While this new release is categorized as a full tower, let me warn you early, this is a massive entry for a full tower and more along the lines of what I would consider a super tower chassis. That being said, in the white variation that I was shipped, this new chassis has bold styling, but there is just something about all white cases that make things so right aesthetically.

I know you have heard before that cases I have reviewed have pretty well appointed feature sets to them, but with Azza, as I said, they really tried to cover everything, from every angle. The chassis we will soon be looking at goes beyond the grommets, management holes and tool-less features. Here we get easy swap HDD bays, room for two power supplies, lots of fans, lights, eSATA, VGA support system and room for internal water cooling. I am sure I am leaving things out too; Azza really has stepped up their game since I had a look at the Fusion 3000 earlier this year.

The full tower chassis we are going to be looking at from Azza today is the Genesis 9000. Azza has looked beyond silence, beyond the basic square design, beyond the "usual" features and is offering a case that really went through a no holds barred design process. Hopefully at the conclusion of this review, you not only understand just how versatile a chassis designed like this can be, but I also hope you can fathom the amount of things you get in this chassis, at what I consider a very reasonable asking price. While the exterior aesthetics are a touch on the bold side, it is subtle enough to win me over overall.

Have a look for yourself and see just how well you like the new Azza Genesis 9000.
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Sleeping Dogs Xbox 360 Review

For quite some time this game was in trouble. Originally announced as a brand new entry in the True Crime series that was to be set in Hong Kong, Activision canned the project a few years back and it seemed that it was never going to see the light of day. Square Enix picked up the rights and the rest, as they say, is history. However, the game must have come a long way since the time it was dumped, as it is one of the most surprisingly polished games of 2012. It's hard to believe when a game goes through a development cycle such as the one this did, that it can turn out to be such a good game. But Sleeping Dogs proves us wrong and it just might be the first game to show Rockstar a thing or two about open world gaming.

Sleeping Dogs is set in Hong Kong. You play as a cop fresh to Hong Kong having lived in America for most of your teenage life, wanting to gain revenge on the triads who in many ways were responsible for the death of your sister. Wei, who you play as is assigned the most dangerous undercover task ever undertaken by a Hong Kong detective with the task being to work his way up in the triad gangs and ultimately bring the gangs down from within. However, the line between good and bad is often blurred in Sleeping Dogs, and many times you will wonder if Wei has forgotten his police roots.

Sleeping Dogs as expected is based on its True Crime heritage with an open world set in a sprawling metropolis. To gain missions you visit characters, get the mission and go off to complete it. It's a formula that we have seen many times before, but it is this freedom that enables Sleeping Dogs to be such a good game. The reason being those side things the game offers are actually quite interesting to play. For the first time in an open world game we found ourselves wanting to revisit Hong Kong after the end credits roll because United Front Games has done a fantastic job with the side missions.

It is possible to mainline the story quite easily (although the game does force some diversions every so often), but doing that would rob you of some of the better sides of the game and also some key story areas. For example, some of the missions where Wei is actually performing police duties are optional, but they also form some of the best missions in the game so exploring is key to enjoyment in Sleeping Dogs.

When it comes down to the missions themselves, they can feel a bit run of the mill at times. For the most part the story based missions are varied and exciting to play, but every so often a boring derivative mission such as a "˜chase down and destroy this car' mission comes along. Thankfully there is enough variety all over the game to keep Sleeping Dogs from getting stale and if the main story isn't interesting to you, you can very much take a break and return to it later.

Reason being is that Sleeping Dogs has so many things to do. Be it take on car races, and buy new cars, gamble on roosters in fights, take girlfriends out on the town or just perform some police work, there is always something to do. It is fair to say we have not seen a game with this level of scale since the likes of GTA IV.

One area where the game becomes a love/hate relationship is the combat. There has no doubt been a high level of focus on this system in development (with Georges St Pierre from UFC assisting the developers) and whilst the combat does feel more realistic and brutal, it can also be incredibly frustrating. In many ways the game reminds us of Ezio where the key to success is block, block and block some more before you get a chance to make a counterattack. Patience is key to combat in Sleeping Dogs with one false move leaving you open to a beating that just might end that mission there and then. Especially with some of the boss characters present in the game.

To assist with this you can upgrade Wei's abilities. As you perform police missions you can gain points to upgrade police based perks such as being able to shoot without recoil or jump over items better. There are also triad upgrades and a more neutral combat upgrade system. Each mission will give you points in the triad/police category depending on how you complete that mission. Finish a mission without killing someone and you will get very high police points, whilst tear up the town and smash everything up (basically the opposite of police work) leads to triad points. How you want to develop Wei is completely up to you and driven by how you play the game.

There has been some decisions made with Sleeping Dogs that just make sense. First of all each mission has a checkpoint system which lowers the frustration factor of some of the tougher missions, however sometimes the checkpoints do feel further apart than they need to be and there is no consistency in this area. One mission might have a checkpoint every 100 metres, whilst another may seem like it is a mile between checkpoints. As well as this you can replay missions you have completed allowing you to play the best of the missions over and over again.

Along with the combat system the environments and environmental damage are also impressive. When taking on enemy vehicles, for example, you are going to find it a lot easier to take them out by shooting the tyres rather than just randomly shooting. This kind of detail is what makes Sleeping Dogs the game it is and is present throughout. Another surprise is that the map of Hong Kong is pretty much entirely unlocked right from the outset. This again encourages exploration and no stupid reasons have been concocted by the developers to stop you exploring from the get go. This is a major positive.

Visually the game is impressive on the Xbox 360, but those with a PC that can handle it should go down that path. The HD pack which is available for no extra cost enables Direct X 11 feature sets and the game at its highest level of graphics; it looks like what an early next generation console game may look like. Even on the Xbox 360 the game runs quite well with nary a frame rate drop and the city is beautifully rendered. Wei and the other characters animate well. There are a number of famous people present for the voice acting such as Emma Stone and Lucy Liu, but unfortunately they are more in a cameo role rather than directly impacting the game with most of them having 5-10 lines of dialogue.

Sleeping Dogs could possibly be the first real surprise of 2012 and begins the lead up to the blockbuster season in earnest. United Front Games known primarily for kart racing games has put together an absolute masterpiece that fans of open world games will adore and play for hours and hours.

It is brutal, it is mature and it is simply a must play game.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 28/08/2012

Introduction

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