Archive for the ‘Microsoft’ Category

The Pirate Cinema is a cinematic collage or sorts. Its creators took torrent database The Pirate Bay’s Top 100 video files and monitored each, creating small, fragmented clips based on traffic (torrents are transfered block-by-block in a somewhat random order). The resulting installation, which runs through to May 29th in Montreal’s Eastern Bloc gallery , is a mash of sights and sounds, revealing the extent of global file sharing.

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‘The Pirate Cinema’ monitors popular torrents to create a video wall of piracy

After a relative lull in activity, it looks as though the Chinese hacking group uncovered in a February security report has resumed its attacks on US targets. According to new information that security firm Mandiant submitted to The New York Times , attacks against identical, but unspecified, targets have been gradually increasing over the past two months, now sitting at 60 to 70 percent of their previous strength. Obama administration officials say that the issue will continue to be revisited until it can convince the Chinese leadership that “there is a real cost to this kind of activity.” In recent months, President Obama’s national security advisor Tom Donilon has talked tough about Chinese cyberattacks on US businesses and… Continue reading…

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Chinese hackers renew cyberattacks on US targets after brief lull

Samsung appears to be making good on its promise to port Galaxy S4 features to the Galaxy S III . A test Android 4.2.2 update, discovered by SamMobile , includes the lockscreen effects and widgets, enhanced screen modes, updated settings, and new S Voice control features found in Samsung’s new flagship. Samsung previously said it would include updates that were “not dependent on hardware,” ruling out gestures like Air View and the smart TV remote app. Continue reading…

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Galaxy S III software leak reveals potential S4-class upgrades

Since the 1960s and PanAm’s ill-fated Moon Flights Club, commercial passenger flights to space have been a tantalizing dream, one that’s expected to finally come to fruition within the next year. For its cover story this week, New York Magazine takes an in-depth look at the industry, including interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, and several others. In it, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides discusses Branson’s plans to bring his entire family, including his 88-year-old mother to space with him, which will likely happen “by the end of the year,” says Branson. Aldrin also discusses his criticism of fellow Apollo generation astronauts eager for the US to return to the moon while staunchly supporting plans to establish a… Continue reading…

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Inside the private push for consumer space travel

Barnes & Noble’s E Ink e-readers are getting an update next month that will add a web browser and email client, reports TechCrunch . Citing an unnamed source, it writes that the Nook Simple Touch and Simple Touch with GlowLight will start receiving the updates on June 1st. The Nook Simple Touch shipped with a limited, hidden web browser when it was first released in 2011, but Barnes & Noble removed the function in a software update a few months later. The ability to check news headlines and do some light email work should give the $79 Nook platform some extra value, although slow-refreshing E Ink doesn’t really provide the best browsing experience. The low-priced Nooks aren’t the only ones to be getting extra attention from home…

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Nook Simple Touch e-readers reportedly adding web browser and email client next week

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology. The announcement of the Acer Aspire R7 was the best example of the company’s assertion that it was moving from computers designed with touch to computers designed for touch. But if having a fancy, even unprecedented, hinge is what defines a touch-optimized notebook, Acer is a bit late to the party.

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Switched On: Hinging on success

Laurene Powell Jobs’ first interview after the death of her husband Steve Jobs was an interview on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams , where she pledged her support for the DREAM act and immigration reform. Now, an in-depth profile in the Wall Street Journal explains why this particular issue caused Powell Jobs to break her silence and step out into the public eye. It seems that it all began in 1995, when she started tutoring low-income students, only to find that those who were in the US illegally were unable to secure financial aid to go to college.

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Why Laurene Powell Jobs broke her silence to support immigration reform

Sometimes the simplest games are the most difficult. That’s certainly the case in Rebound , a game in which the only goal is to get a pole as far to the right as possible, but where actually getting very far is incredibly challenging. The trick is that the pole’s only means of propulsion is bouncing off of the ground, and your only way to control it is by rotating it left or right. Grappling with the physics is hard enough, but then the game throws barriers in your way and slowly the ground will literally disappear beneath you. It only takes a few seconds to play, but actually making progress in Rebound will take a whole lot longer — check out the Windows, Mac, and web versions at the source link below.

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‘Rebound’ is a maddeningly simple physics game

Last September, Google expanded its Street View service to include locations under the ocean , and if you’re curious about just how the company managed, TechCrunch has a great rundown of what goes into capturing all of those cute little sea turtles. As you’d imagine, it all starts with camera-equipped divers, and an average dive covers around two kilometers and captures up to 4,000 images — so far Google has captured more than 150,000 underwater snapshots. That’s all done using a specialized camera that includes a wider-angle lens compared to the typical Street View camera, and it’s outfitted with a tablet to control all of the underwater photo capturing. Currently the service only covers six locations, but expect that to change over… Continue reading…

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Google Street View’s underwater journey

If you’re both a gamer and a self-professed football fan, odds are you’ll be buying Madden this year — just like any other. For those who’ve already committed to purchasing the $99.99 Anniversary Edition of Madden 25 , Amazon is undoubtedly the best spot to place a pre-order. Because in addition to providing bonus in-game content, the online retailer has also partnered up with DirecTV for some exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket offers. Amazon’s edition of Madden will grant new DirecTV customers $10 off their monthly bill for a year, tossing in the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package at no additional cost. Alongside the RedZone channel, Max also gives you full access to live season games on your computer, tablet, or smartphone

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Amazon-exclusive ‘Madden 25 Anniversary Edition’ includes free NFL Sunday Ticket offer

Info about the Iconia W3 Windows 8 tablet has already slipped out a few times, and now this 8.1-incher is live on Acer’s Finnish website. While there’s no mention of price or availability, the specifications list matches what’s already been leaked. You’re looking at Windows 8 Pro running atop an Intel Atom Z2760 CPU, aided by 2GB of RAM. Other features include a 1,280 x 768 touchscreen, an eight-hour battery, up to 64GB of storage, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. Port lovers will be pleased to find micro-HDMI and micro-USB hookups onboard, as well as a microSD slot

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Iconia W3 tablet live on Acer’s Finnish website, confirms 8.1 inches of Windows 8 Pro

Sometimes it pays to wait before spending your hard-earned cash on the year’s best games. If you haven’t yet played through BioShock Infinite , for example, Amazon just eliminated “price” as a valid reason for your willful ignorance. The heralded first-person shooter from Irrational Games is Amazon’s Deal of the Day across all platforms — though the cost isn’t uniform. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can grab the title for $39.99. The asking price for either a physical or digital Windows version is $34.99.

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Good Deal: ‘BioShock Infinite’ on sale at Amazon for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

Today is YouTube’s eighth birthday, and to mark the occasion Google is revealing new statistics that underline what a cultural sensation its video site has become. Most staggeringly, over 100 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube each and every minute. One year ago on this day, that figure stood at 72 hours per minute (it was 48 hours in 2011). So aside from record-breaking viewership — over one billion people now visit YouTube monthly — more and more users are continuing to upload their own clips to the site in hopes of creating the next viral phenomenon

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YouTube users now upload 100 hours of video every minute

We all know the feeling. You’re sleepless in the sad hours of the night or stumbling around early on a hazy weekend morning in need of something to read, and that pile of unread books just isn’t cutting it. Why not take a break from the fire hose of Twitter and RSS and check out our weekly roundup of essential writing from around the web about technology, culture, media, and the future?

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The best writing of the week, May 19

Twice a month in California’s Mojave desert, anyone can spend half a day in a war zone. The Fort Irwin National Training Center is meant to give soldiers a crash course in realistic combat before they deploy. The thousand-square-mile base contains everything from fake towns to caves for “insurgents” drawn from a regiment whose role is to provide an opposing force, no matter who the US is fighting.

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Inside Fort Irwin, fake cities provide a training ground for real warfare

Earlier this year, Verizon announced some new 3G prepaid plans for $60 and $70 dollars that offered 500MB and 2GB of data, respectively. Now, it looks like the company has silently bumped those allotments up to 2GB and 4GB without touching the price. Android Central reports that the changes go into effect immediately for those with existing plans, but new customers won’t get hold of the new rates until June 6th. It’s a nice bump, but you can probably find lower prices and higher caps elsewhere , although your best option will depend on the coverage in your area

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Verizon extends $60 and $70 prepaid plans to 2GB and 4GB of data

Google and other tech companies have come under fire for exploiting a common tax loophole to book revenues through their Irish subsidiaries, but today The Sunday Times is reporting that a former Google UK executive has evidence of further tax avoidance by his one-time employer. Barney Jones worked for Google between 2002 and 2006 and says that during his time at the company, Google relied almost exclusively on its UK sales staff to secure advertising deals in London, effectively closing deals there rather than in Dublin, where it booked the revenues. Google VP Matt Brittin had previously testified to the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that “nobody” at Google’s UK office was selling Google advertising, last week revising his… Continue reading…

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Former Google UK exec alleges company misrepresented sales to avoid paying taxes

Valve is pushing out another update to Team Fortress 2, its 356th since it first shipped the game as part of The Orange Box in 2007. But there’s something special this time around — the new content, titled Robotic Boogaloo, is the first to be created entirely by fans. Polygon reports that the update will have 57 virtual items, mostly hats (naturally), and include a comic that connects it with the game’s expansive backstory. In a blog post announcing the release, Valve said that just because it’s pushing out community-developed updates doesn’t mean that it will stop producing its own content for the game. “As far as we’re concerned, there’s plenty of room for both to happily co-exist,” says the company.

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Valve announces ‘Robotic Boogaloo,’ the first ‘Team Fortress 2′ update built by the community

With the PlayStation 4, Sony is trying to lower the friction in buying games from PSN by letting you start playing games while they’re still downloading . Now it looks like the new feature will actually make it to the PlayStation 3 in time for the PSN release of Naughty Dog’s anticipated The Last of Us on June 14th. Speaking with Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley, Game Informer reports that the game will be playable once 50 percent of the content has been downloaded, cutting wait time in half. Onstage at its big PlayStation 4 announcement in February, PS4 lead system architect Mark Cerny said that players would only have to download “just a fraction” of a game’s content before starting to… Continue reading…

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PS4′s ‘play while downloading’ feature arrives on PS3 first with ‘The Last of Us’

An update to the Google Music app broke compatibility with the ill-fated Nexus Q — but it appears Google may have a new media streamer waiting in the wings to replace it. A recent FCC filing provides some sparse details on a mysterious product referenced as the “H840 Device.” Google is mentioned as the product’s manufacturer, and it’s described as a “fixed base station” with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. What’s most intriguing, however, is the product’s purpose: one of the documents states plainly that “The device functions as a media player.” Douglas Adams fans are also likely to get a kick out of the device’s model number, as well. It’s listed as the H2G2-42, no doubt a sly wink towards The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . The Nexus Q had..

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Google’s potential Nexus Q successor revealed in FCC filing

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What would you like to see Google do next after I/O? – Verge Forums

Chinese telecommunications giants ZTE and Huawei are set to face an EU investigation for anti-competitive behavior. Although the pair have both seen moderate success marketing their consumer devices in the region, the investigation is regarding the companies’ infrastructure equipment, which provides the backbone for the industry. In recent years Chinese companies have taken around a quarter of of the EU market, with sales of around €1 billion (roughly $1.3 billion). But according to European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, the success has been due to anti-competitive predatory pricing.

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ZTE and Huawei face EU investigation over predatory pricing

When Cards Against Humanity saw its $4,000 Kickstarter campaign successfully raise almost four times its original goal, its makers were ecstatic. Two years later, the cards-based party game, which is available as a free PDF download or for $25 as a ready-made package, has generated an estimated $12 million in revenue, and in the past year alone was downloaded 1.5 million times from its website. It’s also spawned a reseller culture, with frequent stock shortages leading opportunists to sell the game for as much as $100 on sites like eBay. Despite that, its makers have stayed true to their cause, and have refused several investment and merchandising offers, preferring to go it alone.

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How the $4,000 ‘Cards Against Humanity’ Kickstarter became a multi-million dollar business

Welcome to The Verge: Weekender edition. Each week, we’ll bring you important articles from the previous weeks’ original reports, features, and reviews on The Verge. Think of it as a collection of a few of our favorite pieces from the week gone by, which you may have missed, or which you might want to read again. Continue reading…

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The Weekender: a new ‘Star Trek’, Google’s big event, and government and science as games

To call something “propaganda” is to connote a laughably unsubtle attempt at mind control, from the kind of nasty stereotypes mocked in BioShock Infinite to a hilariously redubbed North Korean propaganda video that many thought was real — precisely because we expect such attempts to be ham-fisted and idiotic. At The Guardian , Eliane Glaser argues that we should be looking instead at how behavioral science, advertising, and even memes can nudge us in certain directions. “The notion that propaganda is always a state-run, top-down affair provides a cloak for our complicity,” she writes. “Social media’s veneer of openness and people-power exemplifies western propaganda’s habit of masquerading as its opposite.” Continue reading…

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What’s the difference between consumer marketing and propaganda?