Tag: digest-golf

Price of WoW gold plummets in first day of “official” trading

Just over a day after Blizzard introduced the first official method for converting dollars into World of Warcraft gold, the real-world price for the in-game currency has already plummeted 27 percent from the initial position set by Blizzard. For most of World of Warcraft ‘s history, the only way to buy in-game gold with real currency was to go through one of many gray market third-party services (which technically goes against Blizzard’s terms of service for the game). That was true until yesterday, when Blizzard introduced a $20 game time token that can be sold for gold at the in-game auction house on North American servers (European servers will get the feature at a later date). While the real world price of those tokens is fixed at $20, the gold price is “determined dynamically based on supply and demand,” as Blizzard puts it. To start the market off, Blizzard set the price of a $20 token at 30,000 gold. That gold price increased incrementally for a few hours before plummeting precipitously starting yesterday evening in the US. As of this writing, just over 24 hours after the markets opened, that initial price has fallen over 27 percent to 21,739 gold, according to an API-based tracking site . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Price of WoW gold plummets in first day of “official” trading

Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint

Microsoft is adding even more features to Windows Server to diversify and strengthen its support for virtualization and containerization on its platform. The next Windows Server will include an even more stripped down, lightweight install mode called Nano Server. Windows Server already has a shrunk install option, Server Core, that omits various features to reduce the memory and disk footprint, and to shrink its exposure to security flaws. Nano Server strips back the operating system further still, dropping things like the GUI stack, 32-bit Win32 support, local logins, and remote desktop support. Nano Server is designed for two kinds of workload; cloud apps built on runtimes such as .NET, Java, Node.js, or Python, and cloud infrastructure, such as hosting Hyper-V virtual machines. Compared to the full Server install, Microsoft claims that Nano Server shrinks the disk footprint by 93 percent, the number of critical security bulletins by 92 percent, and the number of reboots by 80 percent. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint

Server shutdown disables single-player saves in NBA2K14

Anyone that plays online games has to accept the fact that the servers for those games will probably eventually be shut down by the centralized publisher that operates them (games with player-controlled server support notwithstanding). What most players probably don’t expect is for their single-player game saves to become permanently unusable because an online server somewhere goes down. That’s what has been happening to players of NBA2K14 this past week, though. As Polygon reports , since a planned online server shutdown for the game on March 31, previously created save files in the MyCareer and MyGM modes can no longer pass a built-in server check on the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. That means those files are simply unusable, and all that single player progress has effectively been lost. “This means that if you had created a MyCareer or a MyGM online save file that was once connected to our servers it too sadly has retired and is no longer available for use and it would be necessary to re-create these files as offline saves,” 2K Support writes in a message to affected users, obtained by Polygon. “Sadly this may come as an inconvenience to some of you and if so we truly do understand and can feel for how upsetting this may seem as there always is a special bond that occurs between a player and their MyCareer save but all good things must come to an end and rest assured your MyCareer or MyGM went out while on top!” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Server shutdown disables single-player saves in NBA2K14

New York woman can send divorce papers via Facebook

A New York County Supreme Court judge ruled that 26-year-old nurse Ellanora Baidoo can serve divorce papers  (PDF) to her soon-to-be ex-husband, Victor Sena Blood-Dzraku, via Facebook. The ruling is one of the first of its kind, and it comes at a time when even standard e-mail is still not “statutorily authorized” as a primary means of service, the judge wrote. A number of courts have allowed plaintiffs to use Facebook as supplemental means of service since at least 2013, but Baidoo has requested that the social media service be the primary and only means of telling Blood-Dzraku that she wants a divorce. The circumstances for the decision are unique, however. As the New York Daily News reported , Baidoo and Blood-Dzraku, both Ghanaian, were married in a civil service in 2009, but when Blood-Dzraku refused to marry in a traditional Ghanaian wedding ceremony, the relationship ended. The two never lived together, and Blood-Dzraku only kept in touch with Baidoo via phone and Facebook. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New York woman can send divorce papers via Facebook

TrueCrypt security audit is good news, so why all the glum faces?

The ongoing audit of the TrueCrypt whole-disk encryption tool used by millions of privacy and security enthusiasts has reached an important milestone—a detailed review of its cryptographic underpinnings that found no backdoors or fatal flaws. The 21-page Open Cryptographic review published Thursday uncovered four vulnerabilities, the most serious of which involved the use of a Windows programming interface to generate random numbers used by cryptographic keys. While that’s a flaw that cryptographers say should be fixed, there’s no immediate indication that the bug undermines the core security promise of TrueCrypt. To exploit it and the other bugs, attackers would most likely have to compromise the computer running the crypto program. None of the vulnerabilities appear to allow the leaking of plaintext or secret key material or allow attackers to use malformed inputs to subvert TrueCrypt. The report was produced by researchers from information security consultancy NCC Group . “The TL;DR is that based on this audit, TrueCrypt appears to be a relatively well-designed piece of crypto software,” Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins University professor specializing in cryptography and an audit organizer, wrote in a blog post accompanying Thursday’s report . “The NCC audit found no evidence of deliberate backdoors, or any severe design flaws that will make the software insecure in most instances.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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TrueCrypt security audit is good news, so why all the glum faces?

Google Chrome will banish Chinese certificate authority for breach of trust

Google’s Chrome browser will stop trusting all digital certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center following a major trust breach last week that led to the issuance of unauthorized credentials for Gmail and several other Google domains . The move could have major consequences for huge numbers of Internet users as Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser, stops recognizing all website certificates issued by CNNIC. To give affected website operators time to obtain new credentials from a different certificate authority, Google will wait an unspecified period of time before implementing the change. Once that grace period ends, Google engineers will blacklist both CNNIC’s root and extended-validation certificates in Chrome and all other Google software. The unauthorized certificates were issued by Egypt-based MCS Holdings , an intermediate certificate authority that operated under the authority of CNNIC. MCS used the certificates in a man-in-the-middle proxy, a device that intercepts secure connections by masquerading as the intended destination. Such devices are sometimes used by companies to monitor employees’ encrypted traffic for legal or human resources reasons. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google Chrome will banish Chinese certificate authority for breach of trust

Uber driver arrested for trying to burglarize passenger’s house

An Uber driver was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of attempting to break in to the residence of a woman he had just brought to the Denver International Airport. Gerald Montgomery The 51-year-old driver, Gerald Montgomery, allegedly used what the police described as “burglary tools” to try to open the back door of the Colorado woman’s house. The victim’s roommate was home and confronted Montgomery, the Denver Police Department said. Uber said it has “deactivated” Montgomery’s “access to the platform, pending a full investigation.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Uber driver arrested for trying to burglarize passenger’s house

10% of Americans have a smartphone but no other Internet at home

One out of 10 Americans owns a smartphone but has no other Internet service at home, with the poor far more likely to find themselves in this situation than those who are well off, according to a  Pew Research Center report released today . “10 percent of Americans own a smartphone but do not have broadband at home, and 15 percent own a smartphone but say that they have a limited number of options for going online other than their cell phone,” Pew Senior Researcher Aaron Smith wrote. “Those with relatively low income and educational attainment levels, younger adults, and non-whites are especially likely to be ‘smartphone-dependent.’” Pew said that 7 percent of Americans are in both categories—a smartphone is their only option for using the Internet at home, and they have few easily available options for going online when away from home. Pew refers to these Americans as “smartphone-dependent.” Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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10% of Americans have a smartphone but no other Internet at home

New ARM-powered chip aims for battery life measured in decades

The number of things getting plugged into the “Internet of Things” has already reached the point of satire . But there’s a new, extremely low power technology that’s being prepared for market that could put computing power and network access into a whole new class of sensors, wearables, and practically disposable devices. That’s because it can run off a battery charge for over over 10 years. Atmel, the San Jose-based microcontroller maker, today released samples of a new type of ultra-low power, ARM based microcontroller that could radically extend the battery life of small low-power intelligent devices. The new SAM L21 32-bit ARM family of microcontroller (MCUs) consume less than 35 milliamps of power per megahertz of processing speed while active, and less than 200 nanoamps of power overall when in deep sleep mode—with varying states in between. The chip is so low power that it can be powered off energy capture from the body, as Andreas Eieland, Atmel’s Director of Product Marketing for low-power products, demonstrated at CES earlier this year. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New ARM-powered chip aims for battery life measured in decades

German pro basketball team relegated to lower division due to Windows update

A second-tier German professional basketball team has been relegated to an even lower-tier as a result of being penalized for starting a recent game late—because the Windows laptop that powered the scoreboard required 17 minutes to perform system updates. The March 13 match between the Chemnitz Niners and the Paderborn Baskets was set to begin normally, when Paderborn (the host) connected its laptop to the scoreboard in the 90 minutes leading up to the game. In an interview with the German newspaper, Die Zeit (Google Translate), Patrick Seidel, the general manager of Paderborn Baskets said that at 6:00pm, an hour and a half before the scheduled start time, the laptop was connected “as usual.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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German pro basketball team relegated to lower division due to Windows update