I work as an IT infrastructure adviser for schools here in the UK alongisde a support role. Whilst one or two schools may have removed WiFi for this reason it's certainly not widespread, I support 171 schools and have yet to hear of a single one of them even breifly mentioning this. The only reason any schools I've come across have decided to drop WiFi is because 30 laptops working over even 54mbps wireless is painfully slow.
I see 3 schools listed in the TFA (out of thousands upon thousands of schools in the UK) so how that translates to a statement that infers all schools are dropping WiFi I have no idea. The teacher complaining of illness when in the classroom to me sound like a typical UK goverment/schools worker trying to find any old excuse to take months off work on full pay without any kind of come back, we had one guy who took 6months off claiming stress, when they found out he was lying they suspended him on full pay pending an investigation, how long did the investigation take? a year - 18months holiday on £30k a year, not a bad deal if you ask me and plenty of time to line up another job even with the sickness record!
This truly is the first article I've agreed on Slashdot that really does deserve the FUD tag and is a typical example of the frustration I have every day with seeing tax payers money go down the drain to lazy, incompetent staff who want any reason they can to take fully paid time off work.
On the news here (one channel at least, I can't remember which - was around 6pm so the BBC iirc) in the UK they claimed that the statement read out on the news was dictated by Litvinenko as he was dying last night, however at the end of the statement the guy reading it quoted it as being dated 21st November 2006, last night was the 23rd. I'm not sure why the discrepancy and realistically I don't think it's related to any kind of conspiracy, I think the news editorial probably misunderstood and that the statement probably was put together on the 21st however all the same I just thought I'd point this out in case anyone could offer perhaps an alternative explanation;) ?
Those objects were in fact media misinformation, one of the doctors examining him came forward after those articles to explain that what appeared as objects in the xrays were in fact just marks caused by some substance they get people to ingest to show up parts of people's innards on the x-ray or something like that;) British media in particular however doesn't in general like to admit when it's reported wrongly which is why the noise about these "objects" was far louder than the correction that these weren't in fact objects as such. The correction was noted in a later BBC article but you'll have to dig for it as it was burried a little deeper iirc;)
They did try a Geiger counter but it wouldn't detect alpha radiation. As alpha radiation poisoning is so uncommon and unheard of it wasn't an obvious option, also as alpha radiation wouldn't even escape out of his body through his organs and skin the only way to detect it was if traces of it left his body through other methods - i.e. his urine which is where they eventually found it.
I guess this is perhaps why New Line didn't want to hang around for Jackson any longer and why they sounded in such a rush to get it started in their statements?
How does film licensing work, if New Line doesn't finish the film by the time Tolkien enterprises gets the license back are they allowed to publish it still or do they lose all rights to it?
Many consoles employ ways of ensuring you can't disassemble them without causing breaking warranties. Even without that being someone who's spent time repairing various laptops I know first hand that it can be tricky figuring out how to take electronic devices apart without damaging them by snapping a piece of plastic or some such.
The news isn't just that it can be taken apart, that'd be silly, pretty much everything can be taken apart some way or another. The news is that someone has provided an article to do it properly and some people like to see what's inside without taking their own system apart also. It's a guide for people who like modding their systems which is a hobby many people enjoy, particularly amongst those of us who like to see what makes things tick.
How can companies with so many resources consistently be so incompetent? This isn't the first time we've heard about loss of many customer's details needlessly and inexcusably.
Is it just that no matter how much money you throw at the problem, basic security procedures, such as not taking home your entire customer base's details on a laptop are going to be ignored by certain members of staff? If this is the case how can we begin to make these people listen? Would jail time for anyone releasing this kind of information through negligence make everyone a bit more careful about what they do or would even that not stop people this utterly stupid and ignorant? Perhaps targetting the companies would be more fruitful such as a decent amount of conpensation paid to everyone involved in this kind of data leak, would that then make companies a bit more careful about avoiding employing people who are likely to make this kind of idiotic mistake? 11 million customers being compensated even £100 each would be a massive financial blow to a company to surely make them avoid such a catastrophic mistake? of course this does also lead to the question, should a company be brought to near bankruptcy for the mistake of a single employee?
"Scientists say the molecule is simple and synthesis is expected to be simple."
If it weren't for that students of the world could rejoice with a much less embarrassing way to pay for their university fees than sperm donation, they could've spat their way through uni!
I wonder if a BluRay disc fits into the DVD category? Wouldn't be too bad if they gave you a free BluRay film with your new system I guess, afaik they're usually under $20 or am I off the mark their on pricing of BluRay discs in the US?
It seems to be US only judging by Major Nelson's comments. This seems rather silly when iTunes already has the US covered for downloadable content, it's as if companies don't want our money in Europe and the rest of the world. I'd gladly pay to download movies or TV shows such as Lost however they simply don't seem to be available in a legitimate form here.
I've heard some European countries are able to get some content, however not the same as is being made available to the US. We'll have to see how this plays out but whilst Europe is left behind by the media and entertainment companies with the later releases of the Wii and PS3 and so forth it's really no surprise that Europe has a noticeably smaller console market than Asia/US.
I really do think Europe is just crying out for goodies like this and the first company to offer something in full, and not at greedy profiteering higher price than the rest of the world that company is going to be onto an absolute winner. If Microsoft really isn't to give Europe the same movies and TV shows as the US here then they're really only letting themselves down however of course, that's not to say it's necessarily Microsoft's fault, I'm sure the movie industry has a lot to do with this having historically left Europe 6months or so behind in terms of film releases alongside charging it more even without taxes taken into account.
Now if only I was in a position to setup a company which could offer films and TV shows to Europeans at the same time and for the same price as the US, if no one else wants to rack up fortunes from the extremely strong Euro and British pound then I'll gladly take the money!;)
The theory is that the press should have the right to hide sources (be they human or otherwise) no matter what so that people needn't be afraid to expose major scandals which the press can then inform the world about. Potentially there are situations where they could be exposing say, a scandal that involves the courts, the goverments and so forth so it's arguable in this case that they should be able to expose the truth without fear of those they are exposing coming down on them using the very system the reporter is exposing flaws in.
I do mostly agree with you though, frankly I think there are more reporters that would abuse that protection than there are scandals serious enough to warrant it's existence. Certainly here in the UK a large amount of the press seem like bottom feeding low life scum anyway and that alone is enough to give me the feeling these kind of people don't deserve any special treatment to boost their already over-inflated egos, I'd guess it's the same elsewhere.
It is of course not suprising though that a press organisation would disagree with you and I and suggest that they deserve more freedoms however as that's the nature of humans, hell I work in IT and feel us IT workers should have the right to shoot dead users guilty of idiocy and incompetence but unfortunately that's another right we'll never be granted. That said it is somewhat ironic and amusing that an organisation that stands for freedom and objective reporting be guilty of writing a bias article though;)
...Scientists discover that the amount of Dixons stores in the UK is inverseley proportional to the amount of games they ban.
Keep on digging Dixons, those high street stores are dropping like flies, this kind of stunt isn't going to save you!
On a more serious note it's a shame that our stores seem to so freely endorse censorship but then I've never understoond this country, sometimes we seem to be fairly free in what we can do and say and Americans envy this and other times we seem to be so pro censorship on certain issues yet no one seems to bat an eyelid. Things certainly seem to be done differently here, in the US there's lawsuits to ban bully but shops sound like they're willing to stock it, here individual stores randomly decide to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage by banning it off their own back, I'll never understand that one, I guess they just feel that it strengthens their family friendly brand which I guess is understandable, it is only your run of the mill know nothing about IT families that do shop at Dixons/PC World.
Exactly, whilst I agree my post probably came across as a little too trollish, my point was that comments like that are as ignorant and short-sighted pro-India marketing propaganda as the original article is anti-India marketing propaganda. When many outsourcing companies have been making claims like that (although of course in this case it was a response) is it suprising that western organisations hit back with an equivalent amount of propaganda?
In an ideal world they'd all just grow up and avoid spreading any propaganda in the first place;)
Indeed, as mentioned on The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_expo sed/
It's just as bad elsewhere, however as with my original post in response to this story, the suggestion that data security in India is the best in the world is equally as ignorant a comment so I think we're all just as bad as each other;)
"Security measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the world."
and I guess staff competence and ability to converse in the native language of the caller is the best in the world too huh?
Nintendo US and Nintendo Japan had their events, completely forgetting about Europe with Europe being something console manufacturers apparently don't care that much about with the increased prices and the fact they're always last for console and game releases. Nintendo US and Japan rejoice in the fact that the Wii is in fact probably region free between those countries and mention this publicly.
Then someone remembers Europe, Europe no doubt being the centre of shaftdom, a place where companies can screw consumers to the Nth degree without fear of reprisals and brings up the fact that Europe can't in fact use games from Japan or the US because they intend to charge more in Europe to rip customers off and hence they have to correct their mistake that whilst Japan and the US can enjoy game swapping, Europe can't.
Okay, now back to reality somewhat I realise that's a totally cynical view and I'm probably off mark but on the same note it is getting kind of tiresome in Europe that we're treated so much worse in terms of releases of games and gaming equipment. The US version of the Wii is going to cost £133, whereas the European version will cost £179. I certainly realise we suffer taxes much more here and I realise with our strong currencies it costs a little more to distribute it here, however I fail to beleive that those two factors add up to a 25% price increase for Europe - some of it HAS to be greed on the manufacturers part, plain and simple. Also, the fact we get it later also adds insult to injury. So whilst my original point had a strong hint of over the top cynicism, I can't help but feel that it might have some slight truth to it that the reason the Wii is region locked - whether for Europe only or all 3 regions that it's again because of sheer greed by Nintendo.
I really want a Wii, but when someone's trying to screw me I do feel very tempted to just not bother, not give them my money and buy something else instead. One final note, I do realise Nintendo aren't the only ones guilty of this, I guess I just hoped that Nintendo weren't going to screw Europe like Microsoft did and Sony will... I hoped they were better than that, oh well:/
That's basically it, and not just MMOs, many games send data about players that aren't yet in view so that when they do come into view there is a smooth transition on even laggy connections instead of the case where you'd have players just randomly appear.
A lot of FPS send data for characters that aren't quite in view, one metric is for example, say one wall away from you so that they don't suddenly appear in an opening in that wall i.e. a doorway but there is a smooth transition into the doorway from behind the wall.
One MMO I was thinking of specifically was Dark Age of Camelot, where players compete in a wide open area, players also move at great speed and so to ensure that players enter visible range smoothly the data regarding the players is sent for players upto 2x visible range, there were radar programs that would display these players on your radar and hence give those players an advantage in flanking their opponents or making sure they avoid fights against players they know they couldn't win which was frustrating for the better players in that they miss out on a lot of fights for example. Even if it didn't send data for people outside visible range, it'd still let you see people in visible range yet behind a tree, or a wall that you might otherwise miss for example and it's unrealistic to expect an MMOG server to be able to cater for not sending data for each and every case where people may not be visible to other people due to small obstacles.
Other cheats would include DLL injection where you'd modify a processes import address table at run time to make the game point to a proxy DLL, if you were to make it do this for say, opengl.dll for example you could take the function call from the game, change it as you please in your proxy DLL and then pass it onto the authentic DLL so that enemies were drawn in bright colours, or so that walls were rendered transparently by intercepting some function calls.
To cut a long story short, it's inevitable that the client receive some data that it doesn't necessarily need at that point in time for the purpose of optimization. Still, again as frustrating as radar was and as game ruining as it was I still think I'd rather keep the right to keep my PC mine as much as I'd like to see these threats to fair gaming fixed! WoW's Warden program is an option but that too has it's flaws in that many people see it as an invasion of privacy, it's a tough nut to crack without going the route of locking down the hardware/OS and at the same time as mentioned already - locking down people's legitimately purchased media.
To some extent I hope they would fix this hole as the same technique is used to produce cheats for games such as radar for certain MMOGs. On the other hand however I hope this hole isn't closed because of this very reason - DRM circumvention.
I'm not terribly sure whether Vista does or can properly fix this, whether hardware changes go anyway towards fixing it or not so I'd be interested to know more about this. I think overall I'd rather it was left open as freedom to use media and my (Not Microsoft's) computer as I see fit is more important than dealing with in game cheats etc. It's quite a dilemma though as to whether we let companies fix it or not.
A very logical post, however what's equally as logical is that if this person really was under investigation the security services wouldn't exactly let the bank give up the game before they'd managed to gather more information or gather evidence to make make an arrest.
Logic also states that the bank wouldn't just get rid of a customer because of their name, because losing a customer equates to losing money as the article states this person had been upgraded to a business account it also suggests it was likely a pretty good customer to keep.
I think realistically this was just either a) human error or b) the guy really was guilty of something, perhaps not terrorism - perhaps dodgy business practice, maybe having a second income without declaring it to the tax man or such but either way, there's absolutely no evidence there to suggest this event has anything to do with the terrorism investigation, logic dictates quite the opposite although I'll accept logic seems to be a rare thing amongst many people nowadays.
It sounds more like the reporter who wrote the article was just fishing for something to spice up his article, found some guy who either really was doing something dodgy but protests otherwise or was victim of a mistake by the bank over something completely non-terrorism investigation related and has then tried to tie some link between the two to make his article more interesting when in fact it's sheer speculation that the incident had anything to do with the investigations.
I work in tech. support for schools and certainly our catchment area (171 schools) now successfully has an interactive smart board in every single class room. Also thanks to a goverment initiative, the laptops for teachers scheme means all teachers have a laptop which they can create lesson plans and produce teaching content on and then move around class rooms with to hook up to the smart boards. We also have an average ratio of 1 computer for every 4 students across all our schools too.
Whilst not many schools here have digital lockers (lockers aren't popular here full stop like in the US) we do have things like card systems for pupils to register entry into the toilets with (kinda big brotherish I know, I'm against it but the technology is cool) so there is a paper trail if someone vandalises or smokes in the toilets. The cards double up as well as being able to provide dinner ladies with information on what kids don't need to pay for school meals and such due to their family being poor and on benefits, some schools the few that do have digital lockers - the swipe cards also work for these.
Certainly schools here in the UK have come a long way in the 8 years since I left, they were only just replacing blackboards with those nice whipeable whiteboards when I left!
As for a learning process modelled on Microsoft's management techniques, I've also seen evidence of this in the schools for kids with behavioural problems who are there because they've been expelled multiple times from elsewhere, the main evidence being that they've often threatened to "fucking kill me" and thrown chairs about the room:p
If the rumoured release of Duke Nukem Forever this year is true then TF2 which is being released with Episode 2 is going to be on it's way to taking longer than Duke Nukem Forever.
TF2 was originally due out in 1998 as a mod for Quake 2, since then it's seen numerous engine moves, it's no suprise that it's being delayed again along with Episode 2 as Valve I'm sure have yet to ship a product without putting it back a few times;)
Still, Prey made it out the door which almost brought me to tears, I've been waiting for that since around 1995, so having been about 10 years late it's still got the crown for longest PC game development time I'm sure;) I loved Prey to bits so I'm glad it finally saw the light of day, let's just hope TF2 makes it to the same standards as well!
I was under the impression the Civilisation games are turn based strategy rather than real time strategy games?
If the article is about RTS' in general then I can't see the problem, it's usually click to select a unit or click and drag to select multiple. Click on screen to either move, attack or perform an action on whatever is under the cursor then just click maybe a builder unit then menus to choose what to build then click to build it.
Most RTS games automate resource gathering even so you don't need to make units do that usually, short of making units launch attacks and decide what to build for you hence automating the game so there's no point playing I can't see how the number of clicks can be reduced.
This article seems more like a complaint about Civilisation's UI than RTS games in general.
Not found any details on what this kit actually includes yet. Surely to some extent the kit already exists via the free Visual Studio 2005 Express and the DirectX SDK? Apart from perhaps extra documentation and maybe some base framework for building for the 360. Is it going to be much more than just that?
Slashdot Mirror
I work as an IT infrastructure adviser for schools here in the UK alongisde a support role. Whilst one or two schools may have removed WiFi for this reason it's certainly not widespread, I support 171 schools and have yet to hear of a single one of them even breifly mentioning this. The only reason any schools I've come across have decided to drop WiFi is because 30 laptops working over even 54mbps wireless is painfully slow.
I see 3 schools listed in the TFA (out of thousands upon thousands of schools in the UK) so how that translates to a statement that infers all schools are dropping WiFi I have no idea. The teacher complaining of illness when in the classroom to me sound like a typical UK goverment/schools worker trying to find any old excuse to take months off work on full pay without any kind of come back, we had one guy who took 6months off claiming stress, when they found out he was lying they suspended him on full pay pending an investigation, how long did the investigation take? a year - 18months holiday on £30k a year, not a bad deal if you ask me and plenty of time to line up another job even with the sickness record!
This truly is the first article I've agreed on Slashdot that really does deserve the FUD tag and is a typical example of the frustration I have every day with seeing tax payers money go down the drain to lazy, incompetent staff who want any reason they can to take fully paid time off work.
On the news here (one channel at least, I can't remember which - was around 6pm so the BBC iirc) in the UK they claimed that the statement read out on the news was dictated by Litvinenko as he was dying last night, however at the end of the statement the guy reading it quoted it as being dated 21st November 2006, last night was the 23rd. I'm not sure why the discrepancy and realistically I don't think it's related to any kind of conspiracy, I think the news editorial probably misunderstood and that the statement probably was put together on the 21st however all the same I just thought I'd point this out in case anyone could offer perhaps an alternative explanation ;) ?
Those objects were in fact media misinformation, one of the doctors examining him came forward after those articles to explain that what appeared as objects in the xrays were in fact just marks caused by some substance they get people to ingest to show up parts of people's innards on the x-ray or something like that ;) British media in particular however doesn't in general like to admit when it's reported wrongly which is why the noise about these "objects" was far louder than the correction that these weren't in fact objects as such. The correction was noted in a later BBC article but you'll have to dig for it as it was burried a little deeper iirc ;)
They did try a Geiger counter but it wouldn't detect alpha radiation. As alpha radiation poisoning is so uncommon and unheard of it wasn't an obvious option, also as alpha radiation wouldn't even escape out of his body through his organs and skin the only way to detect it was if traces of it left his body through other methods - i.e. his urine which is where they eventually found it.
I guess this is perhaps why New Line didn't want to hang around for Jackson any longer and why they sounded in such a rush to get it started in their statements?
How does film licensing work, if New Line doesn't finish the film by the time Tolkien enterprises gets the license back are they allowed to publish it still or do they lose all rights to it?
Many consoles employ ways of ensuring you can't disassemble them without causing breaking warranties. Even without that being someone who's spent time repairing various laptops I know first hand that it can be tricky figuring out how to take electronic devices apart without damaging them by snapping a piece of plastic or some such.
The news isn't just that it can be taken apart, that'd be silly, pretty much everything can be taken apart some way or another. The news is that someone has provided an article to do it properly and some people like to see what's inside without taking their own system apart also. It's a guide for people who like modding their systems which is a hobby many people enjoy, particularly amongst those of us who like to see what makes things tick.
How can companies with so many resources consistently be so incompetent? This isn't the first time we've heard about loss of many customer's details needlessly and inexcusably.
Is it just that no matter how much money you throw at the problem, basic security procedures, such as not taking home your entire customer base's details on a laptop are going to be ignored by certain members of staff? If this is the case how can we begin to make these people listen? Would jail time for anyone releasing this kind of information through negligence make everyone a bit more careful about what they do or would even that not stop people this utterly stupid and ignorant? Perhaps targetting the companies would be more fruitful such as a decent amount of conpensation paid to everyone involved in this kind of data leak, would that then make companies a bit more careful about avoiding employing people who are likely to make this kind of idiotic mistake? 11 million customers being compensated even £100 each would be a massive financial blow to a company to surely make them avoid such a catastrophic mistake? of course this does also lead to the question, should a company be brought to near bankruptcy for the mistake of a single employee?
You can get it on XBox live arcade for the 360 for local or XBox live multiplayer play.
Now if only I had friends to play through it with!
"Scientists say the molecule is simple and synthesis is expected to be simple."
If it weren't for that students of the world could rejoice with a much less embarrassing way to pay for their university fees than sperm donation, they could've spat their way through uni!
I wonder if a BluRay disc fits into the DVD category? Wouldn't be too bad if they gave you a free BluRay film with your new system I guess, afaik they're usually under $20 or am I off the mark their on pricing of BluRay discs in the US?
It seems to be US only judging by Major Nelson's comments. This seems rather silly when iTunes already has the US covered for downloadable content, it's as if companies don't want our money in Europe and the rest of the world. I'd gladly pay to download movies or TV shows such as Lost however they simply don't seem to be available in a legitimate form here.
;)
I've heard some European countries are able to get some content, however not the same as is being made available to the US. We'll have to see how this plays out but whilst Europe is left behind by the media and entertainment companies with the later releases of the Wii and PS3 and so forth it's really no surprise that Europe has a noticeably smaller console market than Asia/US.
I really do think Europe is just crying out for goodies like this and the first company to offer something in full, and not at greedy profiteering higher price than the rest of the world that company is going to be onto an absolute winner. If Microsoft really isn't to give Europe the same movies and TV shows as the US here then they're really only letting themselves down however of course, that's not to say it's necessarily Microsoft's fault, I'm sure the movie industry has a lot to do with this having historically left Europe 6months or so behind in terms of film releases alongside charging it more even without taxes taken into account.
Now if only I was in a position to setup a company which could offer films and TV shows to Europeans at the same time and for the same price as the US, if no one else wants to rack up fortunes from the extremely strong Euro and British pound then I'll gladly take the money!
The theory is that the press should have the right to hide sources (be they human or otherwise) no matter what so that people needn't be afraid to expose major scandals which the press can then inform the world about. Potentially there are situations where they could be exposing say, a scandal that involves the courts, the goverments and so forth so it's arguable in this case that they should be able to expose the truth without fear of those they are exposing coming down on them using the very system the reporter is exposing flaws in.
;)
I do mostly agree with you though, frankly I think there are more reporters that would abuse that protection than there are scandals serious enough to warrant it's existence. Certainly here in the UK a large amount of the press seem like bottom feeding low life scum anyway and that alone is enough to give me the feeling these kind of people don't deserve any special treatment to boost their already over-inflated egos, I'd guess it's the same elsewhere.
It is of course not suprising though that a press organisation would disagree with you and I and suggest that they deserve more freedoms however as that's the nature of humans, hell I work in IT and feel us IT workers should have the right to shoot dead users guilty of idiocy and incompetence but unfortunately that's another right we'll never be granted. That said it is somewhat ironic and amusing that an organisation that stands for freedom and objective reporting be guilty of writing a bias article though
...Scientists discover that the amount of Dixons stores in the UK is inverseley proportional to the amount of games they ban.
Keep on digging Dixons, those high street stores are dropping like flies, this kind of stunt isn't going to save you!
On a more serious note it's a shame that our stores seem to so freely endorse censorship but then I've never understoond this country, sometimes we seem to be fairly free in what we can do and say and Americans envy this and other times we seem to be so pro censorship on certain issues yet no one seems to bat an eyelid. Things certainly seem to be done differently here, in the US there's lawsuits to ban bully but shops sound like they're willing to stock it, here individual stores randomly decide to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage by banning it off their own back, I'll never understand that one, I guess they just feel that it strengthens their family friendly brand which I guess is understandable, it is only your run of the mill know nothing about IT families that do shop at Dixons/PC World.
Exactly, whilst I agree my post probably came across as a little too trollish, my point was that comments like that are as ignorant and short-sighted pro-India marketing propaganda as the original article is anti-India marketing propaganda. When many outsourcing companies have been making claims like that (although of course in this case it was a response) is it suprising that western organisations hit back with an equivalent amount of propaganda? In an ideal world they'd all just grow up and avoid spreading any propaganda in the first place ;)
Indeed, as mentioned on The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/05/india_expo sed/
It's just as bad elsewhere, however as with my original post in response to this story, the suggestion that data security in India is the best in the world is equally as ignorant a comment so I think we're all just as bad as each other ;)
"Security measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the world." and I guess staff competence and ability to converse in the native language of the caller is the best in the world too huh?
Nintendo US and Nintendo Japan had their events, completely forgetting about Europe with Europe being something console manufacturers apparently don't care that much about with the increased prices and the fact they're always last for console and game releases. Nintendo US and Japan rejoice in the fact that the Wii is in fact probably region free between those countries and mention this publicly. Then someone remembers Europe, Europe no doubt being the centre of shaftdom, a place where companies can screw consumers to the Nth degree without fear of reprisals and brings up the fact that Europe can't in fact use games from Japan or the US because they intend to charge more in Europe to rip customers off and hence they have to correct their mistake that whilst Japan and the US can enjoy game swapping, Europe can't. Okay, now back to reality somewhat I realise that's a totally cynical view and I'm probably off mark but on the same note it is getting kind of tiresome in Europe that we're treated so much worse in terms of releases of games and gaming equipment. The US version of the Wii is going to cost £133, whereas the European version will cost £179. I certainly realise we suffer taxes much more here and I realise with our strong currencies it costs a little more to distribute it here, however I fail to beleive that those two factors add up to a 25% price increase for Europe - some of it HAS to be greed on the manufacturers part, plain and simple. Also, the fact we get it later also adds insult to injury. So whilst my original point had a strong hint of over the top cynicism, I can't help but feel that it might have some slight truth to it that the reason the Wii is region locked - whether for Europe only or all 3 regions that it's again because of sheer greed by Nintendo. I really want a Wii, but when someone's trying to screw me I do feel very tempted to just not bother, not give them my money and buy something else instead. One final note, I do realise Nintendo aren't the only ones guilty of this, I guess I just hoped that Nintendo weren't going to screw Europe like Microsoft did and Sony will... I hoped they were better than that, oh well :/
That's basically it, and not just MMOs, many games send data about players that aren't yet in view so that when they do come into view there is a smooth transition on even laggy connections instead of the case where you'd have players just randomly appear.
A lot of FPS send data for characters that aren't quite in view, one metric is for example, say one wall away from you so that they don't suddenly appear in an opening in that wall i.e. a doorway but there is a smooth transition into the doorway from behind the wall.
One MMO I was thinking of specifically was Dark Age of Camelot, where players compete in a wide open area, players also move at great speed and so to ensure that players enter visible range smoothly the data regarding the players is sent for players upto 2x visible range, there were radar programs that would display these players on your radar and hence give those players an advantage in flanking their opponents or making sure they avoid fights against players they know they couldn't win which was frustrating for the better players in that they miss out on a lot of fights for example. Even if it didn't send data for people outside visible range, it'd still let you see people in visible range yet behind a tree, or a wall that you might otherwise miss for example and it's unrealistic to expect an MMOG server to be able to cater for not sending data for each and every case where people may not be visible to other people due to small obstacles.
Other cheats would include DLL injection where you'd modify a processes import address table at run time to make the game point to a proxy DLL, if you were to make it do this for say, opengl.dll for example you could take the function call from the game, change it as you please in your proxy DLL and then pass it onto the authentic DLL so that enemies were drawn in bright colours, or so that walls were rendered transparently by intercepting some function calls.
To cut a long story short, it's inevitable that the client receive some data that it doesn't necessarily need at that point in time for the purpose of optimization. Still, again as frustrating as radar was and as game ruining as it was I still think I'd rather keep the right to keep my PC mine as much as I'd like to see these threats to fair gaming fixed! WoW's Warden program is an option but that too has it's flaws in that many people see it as an invasion of privacy, it's a tough nut to crack without going the route of locking down the hardware/OS and at the same time as mentioned already - locking down people's legitimately purchased media.
To some extent I hope they would fix this hole as the same technique is used to produce cheats for games such as radar for certain MMOGs. On the other hand however I hope this hole isn't closed because of this very reason - DRM circumvention.
I'm not terribly sure whether Vista does or can properly fix this, whether hardware changes go anyway towards fixing it or not so I'd be interested to know more about this. I think overall I'd rather it was left open as freedom to use media and my (Not Microsoft's) computer as I see fit is more important than dealing with in game cheats etc. It's quite a dilemma though as to whether we let companies fix it or not.
A very logical post, however what's equally as logical is that if this person really was under investigation the security services wouldn't exactly let the bank give up the game before they'd managed to gather more information or gather evidence to make make an arrest.
Logic also states that the bank wouldn't just get rid of a customer because of their name, because losing a customer equates to losing money as the article states this person had been upgraded to a business account it also suggests it was likely a pretty good customer to keep.
I think realistically this was just either a) human error or b) the guy really was guilty of something, perhaps not terrorism - perhaps dodgy business practice, maybe having a second income without declaring it to the tax man or such but either way, there's absolutely no evidence there to suggest this event has anything to do with the terrorism investigation, logic dictates quite the opposite although I'll accept logic seems to be a rare thing amongst many people nowadays.
It sounds more like the reporter who wrote the article was just fishing for something to spice up his article, found some guy who either really was doing something dodgy but protests otherwise or was victim of a mistake by the bank over something completely non-terrorism investigation related and has then tried to tie some link between the two to make his article more interesting when in fact it's sheer speculation that the incident had anything to do with the investigations.
I work in tech. support for schools and certainly our catchment area (171 schools) now successfully has an interactive smart board in every single class room. Also thanks to a goverment initiative, the laptops for teachers scheme means all teachers have a laptop which they can create lesson plans and produce teaching content on and then move around class rooms with to hook up to the smart boards. We also have an average ratio of 1 computer for every 4 students across all our schools too.
:p
Whilst not many schools here have digital lockers (lockers aren't popular here full stop like in the US) we do have things like card systems for pupils to register entry into the toilets with (kinda big brotherish I know, I'm against it but the technology is cool) so there is a paper trail if someone vandalises or smokes in the toilets. The cards double up as well as being able to provide dinner ladies with information on what kids don't need to pay for school meals and such due to their family being poor and on benefits, some schools the few that do have digital lockers - the swipe cards also work for these.
Certainly schools here in the UK have come a long way in the 8 years since I left, they were only just replacing blackboards with those nice whipeable whiteboards when I left!
As for a learning process modelled on Microsoft's management techniques, I've also seen evidence of this in the schools for kids with behavioural problems who are there because they've been expelled multiple times from elsewhere, the main evidence being that they've often threatened to "fucking kill me" and thrown chairs about the room
EA aquires Green Monster Games, spreads their staff far and wide and sets them making Madden 08.
;)?
Okay, well not just yet, give them a week maybe
If the rumoured release of Duke Nukem Forever this year is true then TF2 which is being released with Episode 2 is going to be on it's way to taking longer than Duke Nukem Forever.
;)
;) I loved Prey to bits so I'm glad it finally saw the light of day, let's just hope TF2 makes it to the same standards as well!
TF2 was originally due out in 1998 as a mod for Quake 2, since then it's seen numerous engine moves, it's no suprise that it's being delayed again along with Episode 2 as Valve I'm sure have yet to ship a product without putting it back a few times
Still, Prey made it out the door which almost brought me to tears, I've been waiting for that since around 1995, so having been about 10 years late it's still got the crown for longest PC game development time I'm sure
I was under the impression the Civilisation games are turn based strategy rather than real time strategy games? If the article is about RTS' in general then I can't see the problem, it's usually click to select a unit or click and drag to select multiple. Click on screen to either move, attack or perform an action on whatever is under the cursor then just click maybe a builder unit then menus to choose what to build then click to build it. Most RTS games automate resource gathering even so you don't need to make units do that usually, short of making units launch attacks and decide what to build for you hence automating the game so there's no point playing I can't see how the number of clicks can be reduced. This article seems more like a complaint about Civilisation's UI than RTS games in general.
Not found any details on what this kit actually includes yet. Surely to some extent the kit already exists via the free Visual Studio 2005 Express and the DirectX SDK? Apart from perhaps extra documentation and maybe some base framework for building for the 360. Is it going to be much more than just that?