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Some Superconductors Defy Theory One of the most wonderful and scary parts of physics is finding a counterexample to accepted theory. This is wonderful because it means there is something new to discover, but it is also scary because it could mean that what you think is true could be very wrong. Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign have recently been faced with the dilemma of a counterexample concerning cuprate superconductors, which are odd enough as they are. There is a theorem in physics which states that the total number of charge carriers in a conductor is the total number of electrons in all of the atoms that make up the conductor. Superconductors are not like normal conductors though as they allow currents to flow without resistance, but usually they obey the theorem. What the researchers found though is that at certain energy levels, the total charge of cuprate superconductors is less than the needed number of charge carriers, thus making them a counterexample to the theorem. Exactly what these extra charge carrying particles may be is unknown for now. On possibility the researchers are exploring is something called 'unparticles,' but no matter the name, they will likely be unusual. Source: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Read More ...
LucasArts Shut Down by Disney - Star Wars Games Up in the Air Some very sad news in the world of video games, as Disney has shut down LucasArts and leaves the status of its current projets firmly up in the air. That means Star Wars 1313 could be canceled, however it sounds like Disney may try to find an external developer for it in order to complete it. Other projects could see the same fate, including a reported downloadable shooter called Star Wars: First Assault in the same vein as Battlefront or Republic Commando. As for why LucasArts was shut down, here's Disney's official stance:
After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.Reports are coming in that 150 employees in total are now without jobs, so hopefully it isn't long before they find a new home. LucasArts hasn't been in the most stable hands over the past decade or so, with restructuring in 2004 and a revolving door of company president's since 2008. New members would join to try and bring new life to the studio, but even those didn't last long, like Clint Hocking. Some of the big projects, like the aforementioned Battlefront series and Republic Commando, plus The Force Unleashed, Rogue Squadron, and Jedi Knight series, seemed to drop out of the company's focus over the years, which didn't make much sense to the fans. The Old Republic tried to follow in the footsteps of Knights of the Old Republic albeit in MMORPG form, and it lasted barely a year before switching to a free-to-play model. Many fond memories of LucasArts exist beyond just the Star Wars games. Some of the best adventure games were produced by the company, like The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Day of the Tentacle, which are still high on the list of many gamers. The Indiana Jones series never really took off in video game form, but it did inspire the likes of Tomb Raider and Uncharted. The licensed LEGO games based on Star Wars and Indiana Jones helped give a whole new take on the classic films, even if Traveller's Tales handled everything. No matter what had happened to LucasArts of late or what finally became of it, it's hard to say goodbye to a company who had a hand in the gaming memories of so many people. Our deepest sympathies to all those laid off from LucasArts today. Source: Game Informer 1 and Game Informer 2 Read More ...
Finding Graphene's Weaknesses As just about any video game, movie, book, etc. will teach you, no matter how strong something is, it has a weakness that can lead to its failure. Graphene, that amazing atom-thick sheet of carbon is no exception to this, as researchers at Rice University and Tsinghua University have found. If you were to zoom in far enough, graphene would look like a collection of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern, like chicken wire. At least if you were looking at a perfect piece of graphene, which is very hard to create. The easier form of graphene to make is polycrystalline, so it has many domains of hexagonal patterns, and where they meet, the patterns may not line up, causing other shapes to form. What the researchers found is that the seven-atom rings at these domain borders are greater weaknesses to the material than previously thought. As stress is applied to graphene, the force will collect at these defects and will be amplified by the length of the domain border. With enough stress, the ring will fail and potentially cause the entire graphene sheet to break apart. This has not been found before because previous studies analyzed the defect less accurately than in this study, because it was easier both on the computer and the researchers to do so. Fortunately this weakness can be dealt with by using defect-free monocrystalline graphene, or polycrystalline graphene with smaller domains, so the stress is not amplified as much. Source: Rice University Read More ...
Blizzard Announces StarCraft II World Championship Series 2013 Last night Blizzard announced a partnership with several major eSports organizations that will bring the StarCraft II World Championship Series 2013 to light. The WCS will be split up into three regions, Korea, America, and Europe. Each region will have three seasons throughout the year with the top 16 point earners making their way to the Grand Finals at BlizzCon. Each season will end with a final event hosted in one of the regions with six players competing from that region and five from each of the other two. All WCS games will be streamed for free in 720p HD on Twitch TV, and competition begins tomorrow and runs through November 8. Source: Blizzard Entertainment Read More ...
Hardware Roundup: Wednesday Edition There are some serious NAS storage units out there and most, like the EonNAS 850X, are geared more towards the small business market. However, if you have need of vast amounts of reliable storage then this eight-bay model may be what you are looking for. Also in storage, we picked up a review covering SanDisk's Ultra Plus 256GB solid state drive. Next up is another review of the Cooler Master Storm Trigger mechanical keyboard with MX Cherry Green switches. Be sure to read the rest of the articles in today's roundup using the links below. Enjoy! Input Devices Cooler Master Storm Trigger w/Green Keyswitches @ LanOC Reviews Storage/Hard Drives SanDisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD @ [H]ardOCP EonNAS 850X NAS Network Storage Server @ Benchmark Reviews Video Frame Rating: GeForce GTX 660 Ti and Radeon HD 7950 @ PC Perspective History of the GPU, Part 2: 3Dfx Voodoo, the game-changer @ TechSpot Miscellany Everything You Need to know about Google Keep @ ThinkComputers Read More ...
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