Author: kenmay

This 1996 Sega training video is the most ‘90s thing you’ll see this week

This internal Sega video for testers is a wonderful snapshot of the ’90s. If you’ve ever wondered what Sega was like at the height of its game-making powers, wonder no more. A staff video from the Sega vaults—made in 1996, the same year that the Sony PlayStation would begin to take over the world—has been released by the production company behind it, Green Mill Filmworks . Not only is the video a fascinating behind-the scenes look at game development and game testing, it is also, without doubt, the most ’90s thing I’ve ever seen. Even excluding the baggy clothes, questionable hair cuts, and horrifying denim, the desks of game testers interviewed—many of whom said they worked up to 90 hours a week squashing bugs—are littered with ’90s paraphernalia. My personal favourite, aside from the multiple appearances of the obligatory (for the ’90s at least) Jurassic Park merchandise, is the spinning holographic disk that appears 13 minutes in. I had one of those as a kid, and while I still don’t quite understand what the appeal was, they were all the rage at school, even over here in the UK. Of course, there’s lots of Sega tech on show too, with testers having access to the Mega Drive (Genesis to our US friends), 32X, Sega CD, Game Gear, Saturn, and even the short-lived Sega Pico, a laptop-like educational system for kids that was powered by Genesis hardware. Each tester was also issued with development cartridges—which you can see being loaded up with memory chips by hand around 18 minutes in—before having to sit and play the game relentlessly, using a VHS recorder (yes really) to record gameplay and identify when and how bugs appeared. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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This 1996 Sega training video is the most ‘90s thing you’ll see this week

China’s comment army posted 488m things last year

The Chinese government’s comment army generates nearly half a billion comments a year on apps and social networks, doing all it can to sway opinion in favor of the party. The vast message-managing operation spans the globe, reports Paul Mozur. The common belief that they are paid 50 cents per post leads people in China to call them the Fifty Cent Party. A new study says those people are closer to the government than previously thought. The study, from researchers at Harvard University, says the legions of online commenters are not all freelancers paid by the post. In fact, it says that most are government employees, preaching the principles of the Chinese Communist Party on social media while carrying out their jobs in the local tax bureau or at a county government office. The key technique is distraction — don’t rebut, change the subject — all driven by a growing belief among authorities that direct censorship is too crude and obvious.

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China’s comment army posted 488m things last year

Halo 5’s Windows 10 debut to include 4K support, free online multiplayer

This Halo 5 combatant looks like he’s praying. If he’s praying for some actual Halo 5 on PC, then he’s in for some good news. Microsoft’s play to bridge the gap between Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 PCs got a lot more interesting on Thursday thanks to a pretty major Halo 5 announcement. Microsoft and its Halo development house, 343 Industries, have taken the wraps off  the awkwardly named  Forge–Halo 5: Guardians Edition , which they say will launch for free across Windows 10 “later this year.” This limited free version of Halo 5 won’t include the game’s single-player campaign, nor will it include multiplayer matchmaking with random opponents. However, Microsoft representatives have confirmed to Ars that the free Windows 10 game  will support unfettered online play with anyone on a player’s friends list. That means players can create or download a Forge map and invite anyone else playing the Windows 10 version to join in and play to whatever “kill count,” time limit, or other win condition they’ve set. Even better, Microsoft says that this friends-only multiplayer mode in Windows 10 will fully support mouse-and-keyboard game controls. As series fans know, Halo ‘s Forge mode allows players to build content-filled maps and lay down a litany of custom rules and modifiers for the game. This Windows 10 version, as its lengthy title suggests, will allow people to do the same thing on their PCs, complete with mouse and keyboard support that 343 Industries says will be “easier/faster” to use than an Xbox controller (though we have yet to see how keyboard shortcuts and other features will work on a PC version). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Halo 5’s Windows 10 debut to include 4K support, free online multiplayer

Superjet Technology Nears Reality After Successful Australia Test

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: A two-hour flight from Sydney to London is a step closer to reality after the latest successful test Wednesday of hypersonic technology in the Australian desert. A joint US-Australian military research team is running a series of 10 trials at the world’s largest land testing range, Woomera in South Australia, and at Norway’s Andoya Rocket Range. Hypersonic flight involves traveling at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5). Scientists involved in the program — called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) — are developing an engine that can fly at Mach 7, Michael Smart of the University of Queensland told AFP. He added that the scramjet was a supersonic combustion engine that uses oxygen from the atmosphere for fuel, making it lighter and faster than fuel-carrying rockets. The experimental rocket in the trial on Wednesday reached an altitude of 278 kilometers and a target speed of Mach 7.5, Australia’s defense department said. The first test of the rocket was conducted in 2009. The next test is scheduled for 2017 with the project expected to be completed in 2018. It’s only a matter of time before such high-speed transportation technology is implemented into our infrastructure. Last week, Hyperloop One conducted a successful test of its high speed transportation technology in the desert outside Las Vegas. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Superjet Technology Nears Reality After Successful Australia Test

Uber to begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh

(credit: Uber) One day, the Uber that comes to fetch you might not have anyone in the driver’s seat. On Thursday, Uber announced that it will begin testing an autonomous Ford Fusion hybrid on the streets of Pittsburgh, home to Uber’s Advanced Technology Center. Drivers in Pittsburgh should have no problem spotting the research vehicle—it’s carrying an array of sensors on its roof that includes a radar, lidar, and cameras. The Uber test car will actually be mapping its surroundings in addition to testing out autonomous driving—although there will be a human operator in the driver’s seat at all times to take over at a moment’s notice. We’ve known for some time that Uber has had an interest in autonomous vehicles. In the past, the company had been working with Google, but that relationship apparently deteriorated last year . It’s not the only ride-sharing service looking to ditch the human aspect, either. In January, we reported that General Motors invested $500 million in Lyft with the goal of developing a network of self-driving taxis. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Uber to begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh

YouTube is Google’s not-so-secret weapon in the VR wars

If virtual reality is going to take off the way Google, Facebook, Samsung, Sony and a host of other smaller players think it will, it’s going to need great content. Video games, Oculus’s first focus, are a logical place to start, but it’s clear now that VR will also need mainstream video content if it’s going to be a hit. That puts YouTube — and by extension, Google — in a pretty strong position of power. When the company’s just-announced Daydream VR experience starts arriving in the hands of consumers later this year, a brand-new YouTube VR app will be front and center. It took a year for Google to make YouTube more VR friendly. Updates included 360-degree video (both pre-recorded and live ), spatial audio and the ability to view any video on YouTube when using Cardboard — all things that Google is drawing on in its new YouTube VR app. “What you’re seeing now is our next step, which is taking all these early bets we made on the technology and bringing them to life in an experience built from the ground up for VR, ” says YouTube VR product manager Kurt Wilms. That “ground-up” experience is built on three things. The first is surfacing VR-ready content, with the home screen featuring personalized recommendations for VR videos as well as content with spatial audio. The second pillar is that all of YouTube will be available — all of the videos as well as the features that are familiar to users. “Watching any video, browsing the home screen, the ability to sign in, your subscriptions and recommendations are all available, ” Wilms says. The last major component of YouTube VR is that the app was designed to make viewing sessions as comfortable as possible. “Unlike Cardboard, which we think of as ‘snackable video, ‘ this is built for longer sessions, ” says Wilms. This means there’s a lot of customization to make the video “screen” fit your field of view properly. The app is also fully integrated with the Daydream remote, which means you won’t have to use your head’s movement to navigate through the interface (which is how Cardboard currently works). Nothing here seems wildly transformative, but Wilms stressed that Google went through a ground-up rethinking of how YouTube should be experienced when viewing it in VR. “The analogy I use is it’s building an experience like we did for the living room, ” he explains. “YouTube on smart TV is obviously different than using it on your phone.” The content may be the same, then, but each experience necessitates a different approach to how you use the app. That principle of building an experience specifically designed for VR applies to videos as well as the app itself. As I said earlier, content is king, and YouTube has a lot of it. You can watch anything on YouTube using a Daydream headset, and you can also watch any VR video from a phone or browser. The experience obviously won’t be as immersive, but if users find content that excites them on their phone, they might be more inclined to upgrade to a VR headset down the line. “Instead of having an admittedly narrow [virtual reality] audience that we have today, you actually have the opportunity to reach a much broader audience, ” says Jamie Byrne, a director in YouTube’s creators program. “What that’s going to do is encourage people to continue investing in the space.” Byrne believes that YouTube has “probably the deepest content library available to anyone who buys a headset, ” and that content continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Case in point: The number of VR uploads to YouTube is doubling every three months right now. Byrne also thinks we’re in the early days of virtual reality experimentation, much like we were with user-uploaded video on YouTube a decade ago. It remains to be seen what types of content end up being the most compelling to VR users YouTube is trying to solve that puzzle. “We want to work with creators, from the biggest partners to the smallest to help them learn and experiment, ” Byrne says. “We want to help discover what’s the ‘beauty tutorial’ or the ‘let’s play’ [gaming] videos of VR that no one could predict today, ” he continues, referencing two of YouTube’s most popular categories. To that end, Google says it’s working with creators to help them get their hands on VR-capable rigs like the GoPro Odyssey, not to mention Google’s own Jump Assembler software for stitching together VR footage. Additionally, YouTube’s LA and NYC studio spaces are now equipped with Jump gear, and creators can apply to book time there. Byrne says there are plenty of enthusiasts building their own VR rigs, but YouTube wants to make shooting and processing complicated VR footage much easier. After all, the more people out there are making VR video, the better off YouTube will ultimately be. For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2016, follow along here .

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YouTube is Google’s not-so-secret weapon in the VR wars

Verizon’s corrupt data to blame for weeks-long outages, Frontier says

It’s been seven weeks since Frontier completed a purchase  of Verizon’s fiber and copper networks in California, Florida, and Texas, and the company is finally explaining why so many former Verizon customers have been hit by service outages. Bad data from Verizon is the culprit, Frontier West Region President Melinda White told lawmakers in California yesterday during a nearly-two-hour hearing held by the State Assembly’s Utilities & Commerce Committee. Corrupted data prevented Frontier’s network from communicating properly with equipment at customers’ homes, making it impossible to provision service to everyone, she said. Frontier is providing bill credits to customers who lost service. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon’s corrupt data to blame for weeks-long outages, Frontier says

Makers of uncrackable ransomware hand over the key

The creators of a virus that forces users to pay to recover their own files seem to have turned over a new leaf. Security researchers at ESET are reporting that TeslaCrypt’s developers posted the master encryption key, enabling ESET to develop a free fix. According to the firm, the creators of the virus were “wrapping up” their activities, and when a researcher asked for the master key, it was simply handed over. ESET has subsequently been able to produce a decryption tool (available here ) that’ll enable anyone affected to get their files back. ESET has gone to great pains to point out that ransomware is still one of the largest threats to people’s data online. It advises that everyone should keep their operating system updated and use a good anti-virus, as well as making regular backups of anything they wouldn’t want to lose. There’s also the question as to why TeslaCrypt’s developers were so willing to hand over the keys, but let’s hope that they decided to do the right thing. The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate. Via: Bleeping Computer Source: ESET

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Makers of uncrackable ransomware hand over the key

Chromebooks Outsell Macs For the First Time In the US

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: Google’s low-cost Chromebooks outsold Apple’s range of Macs for the first time in the U.S. recently. IDC analyst Linn Huang confirmed the milestone to The Verge. “Chrome OS overtook Mac OS in the US in terms of shipments for the first time in 1Q16, ” says Huang. “Chromebooks are still largely a US K-12 story.” IDC estimates Apple’s U.S. Mac shipments to be around 1.76 million in the latest quarter, meaning Dell, HP, and Lenovo sold nearly 2 million Chromebooks in Q1 combined. Chromebooks have been extremely popular in US schools, and it’s clear from IDC’s comments the demand is driving US shipments. Outside of the US, it’s still unclear exactly how well Google’s low-cost laptops are doing. Most data from market research firms like IDC and Gartner focuses solely on Google’s wins in the US. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chromebooks Outsell Macs For the First Time In the US