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Xbox Play Anywhere: buy the game once, play on Xbox One and PC (multiplayer too)

(credit: Microsoft) When announcing  Gears of War 4 at its E3 event today, Microsoft unveiled a new gaming feature called Xbox Play Anywhere. Essentially, this initiative allows a gamer to purchase a title once but still have the option to play on console  and  PC. As perhaps the headlining feature of Xbox Play Anywhere, multiplayer across platform will become a reality. With  Gears of War 4 , for instance, the co-op modes will support this crossplay between Windows 10 and Xbox One users. Progress and achievements will be shared on Xbox Live across these platforms at no additional cost. In addition to Gears of War 4,  Microsoft announced that  Forza Horizons 3  will be another upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere title. Additionally, the game will allow for four player campaign co-op for the first time. And this version of the game will feature “the largest car roster ever seen in Horizon ,” according to Ralph Fulton from Playground Games. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Xbox Play Anywhere: buy the game once, play on Xbox One and PC (multiplayer too)

US coal production drops to levels not seen since a 1980s miners’ strike

(credit: US EIA ) The first three months of 2016 saw a plunge in the US’ coal production that may be without precedent. The US Energy Information Administration, which has figures going back to the 1970s, shows only a single quarterly drop of similar magnitude—and that one came during a workers’ strike back in the early 1980s. Excepting periods of labor problems, US coal production has not been this low since the EIA started tracking it. Part of the problem is temporary. The winter was unusually mild, which lowers energy use in general. As a result, many of the coal-burning electrical plants had large stockpiles of coal on hand; they burned through these reserves rather than ordering new coal. But most of the issues are systemic. Coal is now being undercut by renewables and natural gas, which are displacing some of the demand. Utilities are responding to those low prices by adding new renewable and gas capacity. That additional capacity comes at a time when the US’ electricity demand has been growing at an unexpectedly slow pace. Combined, these factors have resulted in less use of existing coal plants. New environmental regulations are also forcing the oldest and least efficient plants to shut down early. Most of these are also coal. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US coal production drops to levels not seen since a 1980s miners’ strike

Risky stem cell treatment reverses MS in 70% of patients in small study

MS brain lesion as seen on an MRI. (credit: James Heilman, MD ) By obliterating the broken immune systems of patients with severe forms of multiple sclerosis, then sowing fresh, defect-free systems with transplanted stem cells, researchers can thwart the degenerative autoimmune disease—but it comes at a price. In a small phase II trial of 24 MS patients, the treatment halted or reversed the disease in 70 percent of patients for three years after the transplant. Eight patients saw that improvement last for seven and a half years, researchers report in the Lancet . This means that some of those patients went from being wheelchair-bound to walking and being active again. But to reach that success, many suffered through severe side effects, such as life threatening infections and organ damage from toxicity brought on by the aggressive chemotherapy required to annihilate the body’s immune system. One patient died from complications of the treatment, which represents a four percent fatality rate. Moreover, while the risks may be worthwhile to some patients with rapidly progressing forms of MS—a small percentage of MS patients—the researchers also caution that the trial was small and did not include a control group. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Risky stem cell treatment reverses MS in 70% of patients in small study

University pays almost $16,000 to recover crucial data held hostage

Canada’s University of Calgary paid almost $16,000 ($20,000 Canadian) to recover crucial data that has been held hostage for more than a week by crypto ransomware attackers. The ransom was disclosed on Wednesday morning in a statement issued by University of Calgary officials. It said university IT personnel had made progress in isolating the unnamed ransomware infection and restoring affected parts of the university network. It went on to warn that there’s no guarantee paying the controversial ransom will lead to the lost data being recovered. “Ransomware attacks and the payment of ransoms are becoming increasingly common around the world,” Wednesday’s statement read. “The university is now in the process of assessing and evaluating the decryption keys. The actual process of decryption is time-consuming and must be performed with care. It is important to note that decryption keys do not automatically restore all systems or guarantee the recovery of all data. A great deal of work is still required by IT to ensure all affected systems are operational again, and this process will take time.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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University pays almost $16,000 to recover crucial data held hostage

Firefox 48 finally enables Electrolysis for multi-process goodness

Firefox, at long last, is going multi-process. Electrolysis (e10s), barring an eleventh-hour mishap, is coming to the masses with Firefox 48. In the words of long-time Mozillan Asa Dotzler, this is the most significant Firefox change the foundation has ever shipped. Back in July 2015, Firefox’s director of engineering Dave Camp said that some major changes were on their way, with the hope of winning back users and developers . Firefox’s market share has been flat or declining since 2010, ever since Chrome first started making major inroads. Finally getting e10s out the door (it was first announced in 2009!) was listed as one of Camp’s priorities, along with accelerating the retirement of XUL and XBL. Mozilla has been trialling Electrolysis to small groups of beta users since December 2015. In Firefox 48, which should be entering beta later today, e10s will be available to all users. Then, assuming no game-breaking issues are found, in six weeks (around August 2) the stable build of Firefox 48 will be released to the public with e10s enabled. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Firefox 48 finally enables Electrolysis for multi-process goodness

Verizon could rule the ’90s cyberscape as owner of both AOL and Yahoo

Yahoo’s once-iconic San Francisco billboard, pictured here in 2011. (credit: Scott Schiller ) Verizon is submitting a $3 billion (£2 billion) bid to purchase Yahoo’s core Internet business, according to   The Wall Street Journal , which cites an anonymous source. Though at least one more round of bidding is expected, Verizon is reportedly the leading contender. A Verizon spokesperson declined comment when contacted by Ars this morning. Yahoo has been shopping itself around for months  in an attempt to sell off just about everything except its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. Yahoo is also looking to sell other assets including real estate and patents, but Verizon reportedly isn’t interested in buying those. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon could rule the ’90s cyberscape as owner of both AOL and Yahoo

Serial hacker strikes again, finds vulnerability in Better Business Bureau

A provocative white hat hacker who has previously disclosed vulnerabilities in both California’s ObamaCare portal and FireEye’s core security product has now revealed a serious flaw in the Council of Better Business Bureau’s (CBBB) Web-based complaints application, which is used by nearly a million people annually to file complaints against businesses. The CBBB criticized the “unauthorized application vulnerability test” but said in a statement that they believe “the motivation was not malicious,” and are “not pursuing the matter further.” The CBBB is the umbrella organization for the independent local BBBs, the not-for-profit consumer advocacy groups that operate in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The BBBs attempt to mediate disputes between consumers and businesses, and also accredit businesses based on how well the business meets the BBB’s “Standards of Trust.” Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Serial hacker strikes again, finds vulnerability in Better Business Bureau

For the first time a country has invested heavily in space mining

Concept image of a harvester for Deep Space Industries. (credit: Deep Space Industries) Luxembourg, a small European country about the size of Rhode Island, wants to be the Silicon Valley of the space mining industry. The landlocked Grand Duchy announced Friday it was opening a €200 million ($225 million) line of credit for entrepreneurial space companies to set up their European headquarters within its borders. Luxembourg has already reached agreements with two US-based companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, to open offices in Luxembourg and conduct major research and development activities. “We intend to become the European center for asteroid mining,” said Étienne Schneider, deputy prime minister and minister of the economy, during a news conference Friday. The mining of space resources is a long bet. Although some deep-pocketed investors from Google and other companies have gotten behind Planetary Resources, and people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos have speculated that within a couple of decades most manufacturing and resource gathering will be done off Earth, there is precious little activity today. Humans have never visited an asteroid, and NASA is only just planning to launch its first robotic mission to visit and gather samples from an asteroid,  OSIRIS-REx , this summer. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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For the first time a country has invested heavily in space mining

Paris bans pre-1997 cars from its streets during the week

Don’t expect to see cars like this on Parisian streets after this summer (unless it’s a weekend). (credit: Don O’Brien @ Flickr ) Parisians with cars built before 1997 are going to need to head to the nearest car dealership if they want to keep driving in the city after July 1. The French capital has experienced quite horrific air pollution in the last few years, and there was  a massive spike in March 2015 that saw the city’s air quality drop lower than that of Beijing, China. After trying out temporary restrictions to vehicle traffic, Les Echos reports that the city has decided to implement new rules that will ban older and more polluting vehicles from its streets on weekdays. Those restrictions will also tighten over time; in 2020, only cars built since 2011 will be allowed. The vehicle classification scheme means you get one of these window stickers based on which Euro emissions standard your vehicle complies with. This announcement follows a decision by the French government to finalize a nation-wide scheme of ranking vehicle emissions (the system is based on the European emissions standards ). Any vehicle made on or before December 31, 1996 was built to conform with Euro 1, the weakest of these standards, and it’s these cars that are no longer allowed in the capital. Pre-2000 motorbikes and other two-wheeled vehicles are also on the hit list. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Paris bans pre-1997 cars from its streets during the week

Inkjets + lasers = new precision 3D printing system

Printing butterflies is just one possibility for the new inkjet/laser system. (credit: Lewis Lab / Wyss Institute at Harvard University ) Customizable, wearable electronics open the door to things like heart-monitoring t-shirts and health-tracking bracelets. But placing the needed wiring in a complex 3D architecture has been hard to do cheaply. Existing approaches are limited by material requirements and, in the case of 3D writing, slow printing speeds. Recently, a research team at Harvard University developed a new method to rapidly 3D print free-standing, highly conductive, ductile metallic wires. The new method combines 3D printing with focused infrared lasers that quickly anneal the printed nanoparticles into the desired architecture. The result is a wire with an electrical conductivity that approaches that of bulk silver. 3D printed conductive wires The new 3D printing approach starts like a standard inkjet: concentrated silver nanoparticle inks are printed through a glass nozzle. The ink is then rapidly annealed by a focused infrared beam trailing the print stream by 100µm. This laser annealing process increases the density of the nanoparticles, transforming them into a shiny silver wire. The researchers demonstrated that its ability to print an array of silver wires with diameters ranging from the sub-micron up to 20µm through variation of a few key printing parameters. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Inkjets + lasers = new precision 3D printing system