digest – Page 19 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

PSA: 3D Realms classics debut on Steam in 32-game bundle

The modern trend of out-of-print PC games coming back to life on digital-download shops got another big jolt on Tuesday with The 3D Realms Anthology , a 32-game bundle available only on Steam. All of the games have been recoded to work on both Windows and OS X, and while many of the titles had already launched on Good Old Games (GOG.com), one particular Ars favorite made its Steam debut today: the original 1994 version of Rise of the Triad . That first-person shooter began life as the original sequel to Wolfenstein 3D , but when id Software went on to focus on Doom instead, a different team—some of whose members went on to work on Duke Nukem 3D —put together a surprisingly robust shooter stuck in the relatively dated Wolfenstein 3D engine. For now, the only way to get that game on Steam, along with many other 3D Realms classics, is through today’s new 32-game bundle, which means you’ll have to shell out $30—but that price does come with other notable titles like 3D arcade-space shooter Terminal Velocity , pinball classic Balls of Steel , and mid-’90s FPS classic Shadow Warrior . (Oh, and pretty much every Duke Nukem game, to boot.) GOG.com, meanwhile, was already selling most of the bundle’s best games in a la carte form , in case the Steam bundle’s glut of edutainment nonsense does nothing for you. 3D Realms confirmed in a statement that before the Steam bundle launch, all of the games were either available as paid downloads directly from 3D Realms’ site or as freeware downloads. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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PSA: 3D Realms classics debut on Steam in 32-game bundle

Grooveshark, bowing to RIAA, shuts down and apologizes for “serious mistakes”

Grooveshark, the free online music streaming service that allowed users to upload their own songs, announced on Thursday that it was shutting down. Josh Greenberg and Sam Tarantino founded the streaming service in 2006, and the site attracted tens of millions of users. Grooveshark called itself “the world’s largest on-demand and music discovery service.” But the service not only allowed users to upload any song; the founders also apparently demanded that employees upload popular songs in an effort to expand the site’s music library. The service came under fire in recent years for allowing copyrighted material on the site. Several record companies, including Warner Bros., Sony, and Universal Music Group, sued Grooveshark in 2011 . Now the record companies have come to an agreement with Grooveshark under which it shut down the site and remove all copyrighted songs. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Grooveshark, bowing to RIAA, shuts down and apologizes for “serious mistakes”

Raspberry Pi gets a remote Windows desktop client from Parallels

Parallels today is unveiling an RDP (remote desktop protocol) client for the Raspberry Pi, allowing the tiny computer to remotely access Windows desktops and applications. Although the Pi has appealed to hobbyists and developers, this product is for businesses, turning the Pi into a thin client for virtual desktop deployments. The pricing isn’t aimed at individuals. The Pi client works with the Parallels 2X Remote Application Server , which costs $75 per concurrent user, requiring a minimum of 15 users, making the minimum price $1,125. But there does seem to be an exception that allows free use for small groups and individuals. There’s a 30-day free trial that supports 50 concurrent users, and “After 30 days, you can continue using 2X Remote Application Server for three concurrent users with the FREE license key that you will receive via email after registration,” the 2X download page says . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Raspberry Pi gets a remote Windows desktop client from Parallels

Rogue Silk Road DEA agent arrested with “go bag,” 9mm pistol

SAN FRANCISCO—Federal prosecutors successfully argued Wednesday that Carl Mark Force, the former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who allegedly went rogue during the investigation of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, should not be granted bail. “I am not prepared to release him today,” United States Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte said during the Wednesday hearing. She heard 90 minutes of argument from government lawyers and from one of Force’s defense attorneys. After the hearing, Force was transferred from Santa Rita Jail in nearby Alameda County to San Francisco County Jail. Read 36 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Rogue Silk Road DEA agent arrested with “go bag,” 9mm pistol

Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft announced a four-pronged effort to bring developers and their apps to Windows at its build conference today. One of these prongs—a way for Web developers to present their sites as apps—was already announced at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year. The second prong is logical but not altogether surprising. In Windows 10, developers will be able to specially prepare existing Windows apps, whether Win32, .NET WinForms, .NET WPF, or any other Windows development technology, and sell them through the Windows Store. Unlike the “traditional” Windows application installation experience, these apps will be guaranteed to install, update, and uninstall cleanly—one of the important things that Store apps do to ensure that users feel confident trying apps out and removing them if they don’t like them. Behind the scenes, virtualization technology will be used to provide this isolation and robustness. Islandwood and Astoria The next two prongs are the more surprising: Microsoft is going after Android and iOS developers. With Project Islandwood, iOS developers will be able to take their iOS apps and build them for Windows. Microsoft has developed an Objective C toolchain and middleware layer that provide the operating system APIs that iOS apps expect. A select group of third parties have been using the Islandwood tools already, with King’s Candy Crush Saga for Windows Phone being one of the first apps built this way. King’s developers had to change only a “few percent” of the code in order to fully port it to Windows Phone. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

AT&T/DirecTV merger likely to be approved

Despite Comcast abandoning its Time Warner Cable (TWC) purchase in the face of government opposition, mergers of Internet and TV providers are still on the table. AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV is likely to win approval from the Federal Communications Commission, The Wall Street Journal reported . And TWC could still be acquired, but by Charter Communications instead of Comcast. The FCC hasn’t publicly revealed its position on AT&T’s attempt to buy the satellite TV provider. But despite opposing Comcast/TWC, the commission “sees the AT&T deal as helping competition and aiding the spread of broadband into rural areas that lack service, people familiar with the matter said,” according to the Journal report. FCC officials haven’t yet finalized concessions that AT&T would make in exchange for approval, “but the commission’s staff is inclined to recommend the approval of the deal.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T/DirecTV merger likely to be approved

Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

The dreaded pay-TV bundles that result in US homes watching only about 10 percent of the channels they pay for aren’t going away any time soon, but Verizon’s FiOS TV service is taking a small step in the right direction. Starting Sunday, new and existing FiOS customers will be able to choose from new “Custom TV” bundles that offer more flexibility and could (depending on one’s interests) save subscribers a bit of money. Verizon’s new Custom TV pricing, available beginning Sunday. 6 more images in gallery “It’s a simple way for customers to choose the types of channels they want without paying for those they don’t,” Verizon said in a description of the new pricing system that was e-mailed to reporters. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

J.J. Abrams reveals new Force Awakens teaser, details

On Thursday, J.J. Abrams kicked off a weekend-long Star Wars convention by revealing the second teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, and it included the first reveal of Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo. “Chewie, we’re home!” Ford says with Chewbacca standing behind him to close the teaser, which also included footage of a Millennium Falcon chase, a melted Darth Vader mask, a lightsaber hand-off, and Mark Hamill narrating a speech to an heir apparent (though unseen). Stormtroopers, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, new droids, and the sequel’s three new leads also feature prominently. As a lead-up to that teaser reveal, Entertainment Weekly columnist Anthony Breznican hosted a panel with Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, where he asked questions about filming scenes in Abu Dhabi, designing new droids (including new droid “BB8,” whose impressive rolling ball design includes a head that swivels on its top), and casting the series’ three new lead actors. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

How the heck did so much Game of Thrones leak in 2015?

As the fifth season premiere of Game of Thrones inched towards its Sunday debut, we wondered whether HBO could withstand so many fans rushing its Internet doors. Major GoT airings have made the HBO Go service falter in the past, and this time, the company’s spanking-new HBO Now offering would have to withstand a whole slew of “Thronies.” As it turns out, HBO’s servers held up just fine, but something else sprung a leak. Before the fifth season’s first episode officially aired in the United States, it had already leaked online—along with a few more episodes. The season’s first four episodes appeared on torrent sites late Saturday night, and they all appeared to have been sourced from DVD “screener” copies that had been sent to critics ahead of the season premiere. We’re used to TV episodes popping up on torrent sites as soon as they air; it doesn’t take much more than a capture card, a modern PC, and a decent broadband connection to nab some sweet Internet notoriety. But we were dumbstruck by the mess HBO found itself in. It’s 2015. What the heck were they doing? Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare type of cancer cell that are found in the blood stream of patients with localized tumors. Successful separation of CTCs from blood could serve as a liquid biopsy to help diagnose cancer and monitor treatment progress. A deeper understanding of CTCs could also lead to a better understanding of the most deadly cancer process: metastasis, where cancer cells leave established tumors and migrate to other locations in the body. Currently, CTC separation methods rely on features that distinguish CTCs from other cells—antibodies that stick to them, cell size, deformability, or even electrical properties. Scientists have also explored using sound waves to separate CTCs. Acoustic-based separation provides excellent biocompatibility and safety; it preserves the viability, function, phenotype, and genotype of cells. It also allow cells to be separated without modification. As a result, sound-based separation methods enable CTCs to be maintained in their native state throughout the separation process while avoiding invasive biopsies. Unfortunately, previous sound-based separations technologies haven’t managed to separate CTCs from clinical samples due to insufficient throughput and long-term operational instability. Recently, a team of scientists has developed an acoustic-based microfluidic device that separates CTCs from peripheral blood samples of cancer patients in a high-throughput manner. This method relies on something called tilted-angle standing surface sound waves. These standing waves contain points that “stand still,” called nodes, around which the wave oscillates. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood