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Ubisoft Points Finger At AMD For Assassin’s Creed Unity Poor Performance

MojoKid (1002251) writes “Life is hard when you’re a AAA publisher. Last month, Ubisoft blamed weak console hardware for the troubles it had bringing Assassin’s Creed Unity up to speed, claiming that it could’ve hit 100 FPS but for weak console CPUs. Now, in the wake of the game’s disastrous launch, the company has changed tactics — suddenly, all of this is AMD’s fault. An official company forum post currently reads: “We are aware that the graphics performance of Assassin’s Creed Unity on PC may be adversely affected by certain AMD CPU and GPU configurations. This should not affect the vast majority of PC players, but rest assured that AMD and Ubisoft are continuing to work together closely to resolve the issue, and will provide more information as soon as it is available.” There are multiple problems with this assessment. First, there’s no equivalent Nvidia-centric post on the main forum, and no mention of the fact that if you own an Nvidia card of any vintage but a GTX 970 or 980, you’re going to see less-than ideal performance. According to sources, the problem with Assassin’s Creed Unity is that the game is issuing tens of thousands of draw calls — up to 50, 000 and beyond, in some cases. This is precisely the kind of operation that Mantle and DirectX 12 are designed to handle, but DirectX 11, even 11.2, isn’t capable of efficiently processing that many calls at once. It’s a fundamental limit of the API and it kicks in harshly in ways that adding more CPU cores simply can’t help with. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers Forecast the Spread of Diseases Using Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory have used Wikipedia logs as a data source for forecasting disease spread. The team was able to successfully monitor influenza in the United States, Poland, Japan, and Thailand, dengue fever in Brazil and Thailand, and tuberculosis in China and Thailand. The team was also able to forecast all but one of these, tuberculosis in China, at least 28 days in advance. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Forecast the Spread of Diseases Using Wikipedia

Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever

Nerval’s Lobster writes With the debut of Android 5.0 (also known as Lollipop, in keeping with Google’s habit of naming each major OS upgrade after a dessert), it’s worth taking a moment to break down how the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system matches up against Apple’s iOS 8. After years of battle, the two are remarkably similar. So while nobody would ever confuse Android and iOS, both Google and Apple seem determined to go “flatter” (and more brightly colored) than ever. Whether or not you agree with their choices, they’re the cutting edge of mobile UX design. The perpetual tit-for-tat over features has reached a climax of sorts with Lollipop and iOS 8: both offer their own version of an NFC-powered e-wallet (Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet), a health app (Apple’s Health app vs. Google Fit), car-dashboard control (Android Auto vs. CarPlay), and home automation. That’s not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they’ll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple’s “walled garden.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Android 5.0 ‘Lollipop’ vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever

What the characters from South Park look like in real life

If you ever wondered what the characters of South Park looked like in real life in the minds of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, wonder no more. Last night’s crazy episode revealed what Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny would look like if they weren’t just cartoons made of shapes and circles but actual humans instead. Read more…

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What the characters from South Park look like in real life

With Movie Creator, Microsoft wants to help produce better highlight reel videos

HTC’s done it. So has Sony. It’s available on iOS. Even BlackBerry’s got one. Apps that let you take your favorite clips and images and merge them together into a fun highlight reel aren’t uncommon these days, but that’s not stopping Microsoft from coming out with one of its own — and one that it feels is even better than the competition. Called Movie Creator, the premise is exactly the same as what everyone else has, but Microsoft promises its version will come with more customization, an easier user experience, less time required to create a video and no price tag. It’ll be available as a free beta starting today for both Windows Phone and Windows tablets, and it appears that Microsoft will offer the feature on lower-end devices like the Lumia 530. We won’t spend a lot of time going over what Movie Creator is, because it is essentially the same as the rest of the pack: You can pick out a bunch of your favorite clips and images, choose a song you like and presto — the app automagically produces a short video that you can share on Twitter, Facebook and other services (or keep to yourself, you selfish person). Each company does it a little differently, so it’s no surprise that Microsoft is adding its own flavor to the app genre. Movie Creator doesn’t impose any limitations on the length of the clip, and you can choose up to 25 videos and stills (and Cinemagraphs, on compatible devices) to include in the reel. Once you’ve picked out the ones you want, you’re presented with a linear timeline, each clip or image represented by a square. You can rearrange which order the pics are shown in, the music playing in the background (you can use either Microsoft’s music selections or your own library), the duration of each, add captions either on or in between images, rotate them, use filters to change how they look and you can even dictate if and how each clip pans across the screen (it lets you determine where each one starts and ends its animation). There are also plenty of preset themes, but there’s quite a few more available for download if you don’t see one that fits your needs. Themes have been done many times before, but Microsoft made a deal with Dreamworks that adds a unique element to them: You’ll be able to grab themes featuring characters from movies like Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda. In my preview build, these options weren’t available, so hopefully they’ll show up in the final software. Finally, you’ll be able to change the quality of the finished product. Depending on your desired size and network speeds (in case you want to upload and share it), you can choose between low, medium and high quality, and you can even select how many frames per second you’d like the reel to finish up in — you can go up to a maximum of 30fps, so keep that in mind. It appears that the video resolution tops out at 1080p quality as well. Once you’re done, the file gets saved on the phone regardless of your sharing preferences, so it’s going to take up space on your phone or tablet by default. Since Movie Creator is starting out in beta, it’ll likely see some new features sprinkled in between now and its final release. Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Mobile , Microsoft Comments

Google makes the ‘Nobel Prize of computing’ worth $1 million

The Association for Computing Machinery’s A.M. Turing Award is often called the “Nobel Prize of computing.” Every year since 1966 it’s been awarded to an accomplished computer scientist or engineer like Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse. But chances are you’ve never heard of the award at all, despite it being named after legendary Allied Forces code-breaker Alan Turing. That’s because it’s never really been that big — no huge sponsors meant it didn’t get a lot of promotion, and the annual prize was limited to a relatively modest $250, 000. That’s about to change with the 2014 award thanks to the largess of Google. The company’s been a co-sponsor of the award since 2007 alongside Intel, but now they’re taking full control of the prize money, upping the package fourfold to a rather hefty $1 million. We won’t know who the first lucky recipient of $1 million will be until next year, but they’ll join a list of luminaries that includes Silvio Micali . He won the award in 2012 for his work in cryptography, which made it easier to verify mathematical proofs in the study of complex systems. At an ACM event this morning he told an audience of fellow computer scientists that we need to “encourage our young scientists” by rolling out “a bright red carpet on what used to be a dangerous path.” Hopefully Google’s $1 million dollar prize will do just that. Filed under: Google Comments

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Google makes the ‘Nobel Prize of computing’ worth $1 million

Expired antimalware software is nearly as unsafe as having no protection at all

Analyzing data to find the root cause of infections has been a long-standing focus of the MMPC. One area we’ve been investigating is the correlation between endpoint protection and infection rates. Back in version 14 of the Security Intelligence Report (SIRv14), we first published data on infection rates for PCs protected with fully up-to-date antimalware software in comparison to those that either had no antimalware software or software that was not on or fully current. We discovered that PCs are 5.5 times more likely to be infected if they aren’t protected with a fully up-to-date antimalware product. This data drove the MMPC to a new tenet – get everyone protected – and led to some changes in Windows 8 to help ensure that as many people as possible are running real-time, up-to-date, antimalware software. Alas, we know that customers, even on Windows 8, are in an unprotected state, leaving their computers prone to infection. So, over the past six months we’ve been digging deeper in the data to learn more about unprotected PCs. We published our findings in version 17 of the Security Intelligence Report released today (SIRv17). Here’s what we found. On Windows 8, it appears that the number one reason why people are unprotected is because their antimalware has gone into an expired state. Stated another way, more than one half of all unprotected Windows 8 PCs are in an unprotected state because they are running expired security software. An expired state happens when a trial version of an antimalware product has reached the end of the trial. The product may continue to inform you that you need to pay for the software to continue receiving updates, but it stops downloading updates that protect your PC. This often happens when you buy a PC from an online or local store and that PC is preloaded with lots of software. People may believe that an antimalware product is still protecting them even if it hasn’t downloaded updates in a while. The data says otherwise. When we compared the infection rates on PCs with expired antimalware, we found that infection rates were nearly the same as PCs with no protection. The following chart shows the infection rate of PCs with expired antimalware products and other unprotected states, in comparison to a protected PC. A PC with expired antimalware protection was nearly four times more likely to be infected with malware in comparison to a fully protected PC. So we have more work ahead of us. First, we’ve been working with security software vendors in our MVI program to help them understand their impact on people that are left in an expired state. Since March, we have been providing monthly reports that show their percentage of unprotected customers, their infection rates and other information to help them keep their customers safer. We also made some updates in Windows 8.1 to help close the time gap on how long a person will be left in an expired state. Lastly, we hope that the data in SIRv17 will demonstrate that people running expired software should not be lulled into thinking that an outdated security product will provide adequate protection. We urge people to upgrade to the paid version of their antimalware product, or download a free antimalware product, such as Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender (which comes pre-installed on Windows 8.1 and Windows 8). Holly Stewart MMPC

Android 5.0 Lollipop, thoroughly reviewed

Android updates don’t matter anymore—or at least that’s what many people think. Back-to-back-to-back Jelly Bean releases and a KitKat release seemed to only polish what already existed. When Google took the wraps off of “Android L” at Google I/O, though, it was clear that this release was different. Android 5.0, Lollipop is at least the biggest update since Android 4.0, and it’s probably the biggest Android release ever. The update brings a complete visual overhaul of every app, with a beautiful new design language called “Material Design.” Animations are everywhere, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a single pixel from 4.4 that was carried over into 5.0—Google even revamped the fonts. 5.0 also brings a ton of new features. Notifications are finally on the lockscreen, the functionality of Recent Apps has been revamped to make multitasking a lot easier, and the voice recognition works everywhere—even when the screen is off. The under-the-hood renovations are just as extensive, including a completely new camera API with support for RAW images, a system-wide focus on battery life, and a new runtime—ART—that replaces the aging Dalvik virtual machine. Read 171 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android 5.0 Lollipop, thoroughly reviewed

Samsung Project Beyond: A 360° Camera For Streaming Virtual Reality

Samsung’s serious about virtual reality , and not just with a fancy headset accessory for the Note 4. The company’s also built its own lightweight 360-degree camera, dubbed Project Beyond. Read more…

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Samsung Project Beyond: A 360° Camera For Streaming Virtual Reality

Hope You Enjoyed Today’s Ad-Free Internet, Thanks to a Google Glitch

A bug in the service that delivers Google ads to thousands of websites went down this morning, producing acres of blank pixels where banner ads once resided . It was a little ad-vacation. Read more…

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Hope You Enjoyed Today’s Ad-Free Internet, Thanks to a Google Glitch

Ken May

Author: kenmay