Steve Ballmer says he couldn't change Microsoft fast enough

November 16th, 2013, 23:46 Posted By: wraggster

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Myst creators reach $1.2 million funding goal for Obduction

November 16th, 2013, 20:24 Posted By: wraggster

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Endless Space adds free 'Search for Auriga' DLC

November 16th, 2013, 20:20 Posted By: wraggster

Endless Space isn't quite endless, but it is still a very large strategy game that just grew a bit bigger thanks to the addition of the free Search for Auriga DLC pack.

As we reported when the DLC was announced, Search for Auriga adds new heroes, a new planet type, a special wonder and a number of AI and balance improvements to Endless Space. Full details on the DLC's additions and changes can be found on developer Amplitude Studios' website.

Before you rush over to Steam to download the DLC - the addition will be automatically downloaded and installed the next time you start Endless Space - keep in mind that it requires you own both Endless Space and the game's Disharmony expansion. Both items can be found on Steam.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/11/15/ps...or-auriga-dlc/

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Mutant Mudds Deluxe jumps into Steam's foreground on December 5

November 16th, 2013, 20:15 Posted By: wraggster

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Google Makes Latest Chrome Build Open PDFs By Default

November 16th, 2013, 10:40 Posted By: wraggster

Google is changing the way its browser handles PDF files, starting with the Chrome Canary channel. Citing security concerns, the company wants Chrome to open PDF files by default, bypassing any third-party programs such as Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/11...dfs-by-default

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Linux 3.13 Kernel To Bring Major Feature Improvements

November 16th, 2013, 10:38 Posted By: wraggster

There's many improvements due in the Linux 3.13 kernel that just entered development. On the matter of new hardware support, there's open-source driver support for Intel Broadwell and AMD Radeon R9 290 'Hawaii' graphics. NFTables will eventually replace IPTables; the multi-queue block layer is supposed to make disk access much faster on Linux; HDMI audio has improved; Stereo/3D HDMI support is found for Intel hardware; file-system improvements are on the way, along with support for limiting the power consumption of individual PC components.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/1...e-improvements

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Candy Crush Saga amasses half a billion downloads

November 16th, 2013, 00:51 Posted By: wraggster

Game has garnered 14.5 million Twitter mentions during lifespan, claims King
Candy Crush Saga today celebrates its first anniversary with an impressive milestone.
The sickly sweet title debuted last February on Facebook and launched on mobile devices shortly after. Despite its short life span, the title has already been downloaded to over 500m devices.
Developer King didn’t reveal how many active players Candy Crush Saga maintains but did release a mixture of other eye-opening stats surrounding the title.
King estimates over 150 billion games of Candy Crush Saga have been played to date.
Social networking sites are clogged with mutterings of the game as 1 in 23 Facebook users are a fan of Candy Crush Saga, while the title has amassed 14.5m tweets during its lifespan ­– enough to fill 4,500 novels.
The game is most popular amongst UK commuters as 61 per cent of players admitted to playing Candy Crush Saga while on their way to work.
To celebrate the milestone, King has also promised a string of updates and content for players throughout the coming months.
“The past year has been one of the most exciting times for King since Candy Crush Saga launched on mobile,” said Tommy Palm, Games Guru at King.
“The incredible milestone of more than half a billion downloads of the game, as well as the continued enthusiasm from our community, really delights the entire King team. Fans can look forward to even more exciting new Candy Crush Saga content over the coming months, including an exciting new twist to the game.”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/c...nloads/0186048

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Asus to launch new Chromebooks in 2014

November 16th, 2013, 00:37 Posted By: wraggster

The CEO of Asus has said that new Chromebooks will arrive in 2014, as the PC maker looks to expand beyond Windows devices.
Speaking to investors, Jerry Shen said that Google’s ChromeOS was to be a greater focus for the company, in order to extend its reach outside of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
Shen went on to state that two new Asus Chromebook models would launch in 2014 – an 11.6-inch model and a 13.3-inch iteration, costing $199 and $249 respectively.
Few details were given about the Chromebooks beyond the initial announcement, but Shen also revealed Asus’ plans to enter the wearable tech market, with a reveal set for the Computex event in June 2014.
The executive added that new Asus smartphones would be revealed at CES in January, but, as with the Chromebooks, stayed coy about any further details.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...in-2014/032460

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Warner Bros. Humble Bundle adds Mortal Kombat, FEAR, more

November 14th, 2013, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster

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AMD Continues To Pressure NVIDIA With Lower Cost Radeon R9 270 and BF4 Bundle

November 14th, 2013, 01:22 Posted By: wraggster

The seemingly never-ending onslaught of new graphics cards as of late continues today with the official release of the AMD Radeon R9 270. This mainstream graphics card actually leverages the same GPU that powered last-year's Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition. AMD, however, has tweaked the clocks and through software and board level revisions updated the card to allow for more flexible use of its display outputs (using Eyefinity no longer requires the use of a DisplayPort). Versus the 1GHz (GPU) and 4.8Gbps (memory) of the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, the Radeon R9 270 offers slightly lower compute performance (2.37 TFLOPS vs. 2.56 TFLOPS), but much more memory bandwidth--179.2GB/s vs. 153.6GB/s to be exact. AMD and its add in board partners are launching the Radeon R9 270 today, with prices starting at $179. The Radeon R9 270's starting price is somewhat aggressive and once again puts pressure on NVIDIA. GeForce GTX 660 cards, which typically performed lower than the Radeon R9 270 are priced right around the $190 mark. Along with this card, AMD is also announcing an update to its game bundle, and beginning November 13 Radeon R9 270 – R9 290X cards will include a free copy of Battlefield 4. NVIDIA, on the other hand, is offering Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassins Creed – Black Flag, plus $50 off a SHIELD portable gaming device with GTX 660 and 760 cards.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...and-bf4-bundle

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SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow expansion released

November 14th, 2013, 00:53 Posted By: wraggster

The first expansion to SimCity – Cities of Tomorrow – has been released, allowing players to build futuristic cityscapes by choosing between “Green and Greed”.
The add-on focuses on future tech, such as sky-scraping ‘MegaTowers’, which can become self-sustaining habitats for Sim habitants, and new transportation methods, which will be powered by either harnessing sustainable eco-friendly green energy or by exploiting natural resources for profit.
“MegaTowers, futurization, and the battle between Green and Greed – these are the main foundations that drive an all-new experience in Cities of Tomorrow,” said Patrick Buechner, general manager of developer Maxis Emeryville.
“This expansion pack completely transforms how you play as you tackle the problems of tomorrow using plausible future technologies. But that technology comes as a price – the clean utopian world of The Academy requires a wealthy workforce that demands a higher style of living. OmegaCo, while extremely profitable, will take its toll on your Sims as the factories devour your natural resources and spit them back out in the form of harmful pollution. There is a new level of challenge waiting for you as the world pushes you back harder than ever before. The city of the future awaits; how it takes shape is up to you.”
Cities of Tomorrow, which is available for PC and Mac, can be downloaded now through EA’s digital distribution service Origin, and has also landed on retail shelves in North America.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...eleased/032428

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LGC: 10.1m people illegally downloaded Football Manager 2013

November 14th, 2013, 00:38 Posted By: wraggster

Football Manager boss Miles Jacobson has revealed the true extent of video game piracy on PC.
10.1m people have illegally downloaded Football Manager 2013, he said on stage at London Games Conference 2013.
The game was cracked on May 12th this year, but the crack featured a flaw called Home, which allowed Jacobson and his team to track the IP address of everybody who illegally downloaded the game.
Out of those 10.1m people, most came from China, which accounted for 3.2m of the illegal downloads. Turkey was in second place with 1.05m followed by Portugal with 781,785 games.
Italy was also a hotbed for PC piracy, with 547,000 in the country (plus one in the Vatican).
Jacobson said that he does not believe that one pirated game equals one lost sale "That would be ridiculous to think," he said. But based on the drop in activations, he estimated piracy cost them 176,000 lost sales. He added that 1.74 per cent of illegal downloaders would potentially purchase the game had no crack been available, which would have meant $3.7m in revenue. Revenue he would have spent hiring new members to the team.
He told the audience that sales dropped off heavily once the game was cracked.
He said 18 per cent of people who downloaded illegally played the games five times or more, so that's around 1.8m gamers regularly playing a game they did not pay for.
He admitted that there was little that can be done about this piracy "crackers are going to crack and people will download". But hopes this data will help publishers and developers understand the true state of illegal downloading in the world.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/lgc-1...r-2013/0124256

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Point-and-click cult classic The Shivah gets remastered Kosher Edition

November 14th, 2013, 00:26 Posted By: wraggster

Independent adventure game developer Wadjet Eyes Games (Blackwell series developer and Gemini Rue publisher) is releasing an enhanced version of the 2006 cult-classic that put it on the map, The Shivah, for PC on 21st November.A serious man.

Shivah: Kosher Edition - which curiously drops the "The" from the title - follows the story of Russell Stone, a down-on-his-luck rabbi struggling to keep his poor synagogue open during trying times. After receiving a mysterious sum of money from a dead congregation member, Stone is compelled to investigate where this money came from and whether it's morally just to spend it.This remastered version features enhanced graphics and music, fully-voiced dialogue, three different endings, and "Talmudic combat" as you engage in some fierce rabbi rumbles.Pre-orders for Shivah: Kosher Edition are currently available at 20 per cent off, bringing the price to $3.99 rather than the $4.99 it'll go for upon release.Additionally, there's a demo available. Or you can simply get a feel for the higher production values by watching the trailer below.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...kosher-edition

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Bubsy 3D tribute is this week's best weird 15 minutes

November 14th, 2013, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster

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Linux Kernel Running In JavaScript Emulator With Graphics and Network Support

November 13th, 2013, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster

It seems that there have been a rash of JavaScript virtual machines running Linux lately (or maybe I just travel in really weird circles). However until now none of them had network support, so they weren't too terribly useful. Sebastian Macke'sjor1k project uses asm.js to produce a very fast emulation of the OpenCores OpenRISC processor (or1k) along with a HTML5 canvas framebuffer for graphics support. Recently Ben Burns contributed an emulated OpenCores ethmac ethernet adapter to the project. This sends ethernet frames to a gateway server via websocket where they are switched and/or piped into TAP virtual ethernet adapter. With this you can build whatever kind of network appliance you'd like for the myriad of fast, sandboxed VMs running in your users' browsers. For the live demo all VMs connect to a single private LAN (subnet 10.5.0.0/16). The websocket gateway also NATs traffic from that LAN out to the open Internet."

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/1...etwork-support

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AMD Confirms Kaveri APU Is a 512-GPU Core Integrated Processor

November 13th, 2013, 00:08 Posted By: wraggster

At APU13 today, AMD announced a full suite of new products and development tools as part of its push to improve HSA development. One of the most significant announcements to come out the sessions today-- albeit in a tacit, indirect fashion, is that Kaveri is going to pack a full 512 GPU cores. There's not much new to see on the CPU side of things — like Richland/Trinity, Steamroller is a pair of CPU modules with two cores per module. AMD also isn't talking about clock speeds yet, but the estimated 862 GFLOPS that the company is claiming for Kaveri points to GPU clock speeds between 700 — 800MHz. With 512 cores, Kaveri picks up a 33% boost over its predecessors, but memory bandwidth will be essential for the GPU to reach peak performance. For performance, AMD showed Kaveri up against the Intel 4770K running a low-end GeForce GT 630. In the intro scene to BF4's single-player campaign (1920x1080, Medium Details), the AMD Kaveri system (with no discrete GPU) consistently pushed frame rates in the 28-40 FPS range. The Intel system, in contrast, couldn't manage 15 FPS. Performance on that system was solidly in the 12-14 FPS range — meaning AMD is pulling 2x the frame rate, if not more."

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11...ated-processor

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Valve says no to third-party Steam Controllers

November 13th, 2013, 00:06 Posted By: wraggster

Dual-touchpad input device won't be trusted to third-parties, says Valve's Greg Coomer

Valve won't let third parties design and sell their own Steam controllers like it's encouraging them to do with Steam machines, the company has revealed.

In an interview with IGN, Valve's Greg Coomer said his company will supply Steam Controllers to third-parties that want to make their own Steam Machines.

“The controller is going to be a Valve product,” said Coomer.

“We’re going to manufacture it. We’re going to supply all the people who are making third party Steam Machines with controllers.”

While Valve will probably have to allow third-party controllers to work on SteamOS if it doesn't want to spend millions of dollars and even more man-hours trying to defy one of the fundamental laws of Linux, the point here is branding.

A company with a reputation like Valve's can't afford to hand control of what is arguably the most delicate aspect of its push for the living-room PC.

“It’s really because we want the controllers to exist. We want them to have the attributes that we think are important, that allow people to play all the games on Steam, and we didn’t think that it was really going to be possible to outsource the design for manufacturing and the finishing of the controller in a way that would allow third parties to take from us an idea or a reference design and bring it to market soon enough,” explained Coomer.

“We just think that, for now, at least, we have to do that ourselves. So we’re going to be doing high volume production of the controller for ourselves.”

This doesn't mean that Valve wants to go into the manufacturing business – an area they've been warned is a very different enterprise than software development.

“It’s not really because we’re super anxious to get in the hardware business and we think it’s the best way to turn 90 degrees and start racing toward success in hardware and making money in that way,” said Coomer, who admits that the company is going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to cost.

“We think we are disadvantaged when it comes to cost,” he said.

“We’re making a lot of decisions that are not actually optimized for cost. We’re not going to lose money when we go make the controller. We have enough confidence around that, that we’ve thought through the manufacturing. But we’re also not looking at it the same way that typical hardware manufacturers would look at it.”

Coomer says that a few design decisions - like going with touchpads rather than trackballs - have actually lowered the cost, and he's confident that Valve has what it takes to make the complex business of supply chain management work.

“We’ve got a pretty clear picture of what it’s going to take to bring this to market,” he said.

“We’re very confident that we’re within the ballpark we need to be in so that this isn’t going to turn out to be a non-starter in terms of cost. It’s just not our primary focus.”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/v...ollers/0185835

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Blizzard denies possible gamepad support for Diablo 3 PC

November 12th, 2013, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster

Those hoping the surprisingly intuitive controls of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 incarnations of Diablo 3 might make their way to the PC are out of luck. According to Blizzard, the games are just too different to make that work properly.

"The rhythm on PC is tactactactactactac - you're clicking the mouse, you're telling your character where to go," said senior level designer Matthew Berger. "On console, the rhythm is very different. It flows more, because you're constantly repositioning your character with the thumbstick; you're really never stationary on console, whereas on PC you're a lot more stationary ... When you're playing on the PC, you're not really looking at your character as much, you're kind of focusing on the cursor. Whereas on console it's the exact opposite, you're drawn in."

That constant motion is the crux of the problem here. The camera in console versions of Diablo 3 is a bit more zoomed-in than its PC counterparts, and when combined with the thumbstick evade, players are presented with a game that is similar, but plays out much more frenetically than its computer counterparts. Bringing that same freedom of movement to the PC game would break its balance.

"[I]f I let you use the controller on the PC, then I have to let you use the user interface that goes with it," Berger told Eurogamer, "and if I give you the roll and I haven't throttled the number of enemies attacking you because the mouse-and-keyboard players can handle all those enemies, but with a controller you have too many guys ... The games have really been structured to take advantage of their environment and their ecosystem, so in the same way it would not be a good fit to put a mouse and keyboard on the console."

"It wouldn't work," Berger added.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/11/12/bl...r-diablo-3-pc/

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Google Chrome now lets you see which tab that unwanted music is coming from

November 12th, 2013, 01:53 Posted By: wraggster

Sometimes you just want to look up a restaurant menu at work without your coworkers knowing you're slacking off. ('Sup,Marc?) Thanks to a new Google Chrome feature, if you click on a site that auto-plays music or maybe a video ad, you can at least silence it quickly. If you download the Chrome 32 beta release, you'll see indicators on tabs that are playing audio. Likewise, it also lets you know which tabs are using your webcam, or streaming to your TV overChromecast. Additionally, the Safe Browsing features now automatically blocks malware files, instead of advising you to merely proceed with caution. Finally, the Windows 8 Chrome app has gotten a makeover so that the Metro Modern version looks more similar to the experience you'd get on a Chromebook. Curious? The download page is the third site we link to in our sources list below.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/11/g...fy-noisy-tabs/

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IE Zero-Day Exploit Disappears On Reboot

November 12th, 2013, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

Criminals are taking advantage of unpatched holes in Internet Explorer to launch 'diskless' attacks on PCs visiting malicious sites. Security company FireEye uncovered the zero-day flaw on at least one breached U.S. site, describing the exploit as a 'classic drive-by download attack'. But FireEye also noted the malware doesn't write to disk and disappears on reboot — provided it hasn't already taken over your PC — making it trickier to detect, though easier to purge. '[This is] a technique not typically used by advanced persistent threat (APT) actors,' the company said. 'This technique will further complicate network defenders' ability to triage compromised systems, using traditional forensics methods.'"
http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/11/1...ears-on-reboot

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