Apple iPad 2 jailbroken, video inside

Weekend tech reading: EA sneaks SecuROM in Dragon Age II

EA fails to disclose SecuROM in Dragon Age II Those of you who know me, know that I love Dragon Age: Origins and the Dragon Age universe. You also know that I loathe DRM, especially SecuRom. You can imagine how dismayed I was when I read a Reclaim Your Game report today revealing that despite not disclosing the fact anywhere on the game packing or even in the 28-page EULA, disc-based copies of Dragon Age II contain the destructive, intrusive DRM known as SecuRom. Vivid Gamer

Japan scrambles to avert meltdowns as nuclear crisis builds Japanese officials were struggling Sunday with a growing nuclear crisis and the threat of multiple meltdowns, as more than 170,000 people were evacuated from the quake- and tsunami-savaged northeastern coast where police fear more than 10,000 people may have already died. A partial meltdown was already likely under way at one nuclear reactor... The Globe and Mail

Windows 8 taskbar update leaks out in another image It's not every day that a new Windows 8 image surfaces. While the image presented above does not reveal anything new, it is a second look at the upcoming improvements that Windows 8 will provide. Ever since Windows 8 hit milestone 3, more users on various forums have been reporting that they have finally been issued a version of the platform for testing purposes. Neowin

DICE: Our competitors are getting lazy. We're coming for them. Battlefield 3 developer DICE has thrown down the gauntlet in the raging battle for first-person shooter supremacy, warning its rivals: We're coming for you. Speaking in the latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine - which is arriving with subscribers now - DICE GM, Karl-Magnus Troedsson was more than confident in his stunning FPS, cautioning the competition: "they had better watch out". CVG

Pwn2Own day 2: iPhone, BlackBerry beaten After successful attacks on Safari and Internet Explorer 8 on Wednesday, the second day of Pwn2Own saw the iPhone 4 and then the BlackBerry Torch 9800 successfully exploited. The annual security competition allows researchers to win any systems that they successfully compromise, and also awards them cash rewards if those security flaws are still present in the latest version of the software. Ars Technica

TSA to retest airport body scanners for radiation The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation 247 machines at 38 airports after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected. USA Today

iPad 2 Wi-Fi teardown The iPad has come back to iFixit! And this time, it has a 2 at the end of its name, hence the iPad 2! After a much awaited debut, the iPad 2 is expected to fill in the gaps left by the first generation iPad. iFixit

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42791-weekend-tech-reading-ea-sneaks-securom-in-dragon-age-ii.html

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A New Approach to Treating Rheumatoid Arthritis

Alan Turing collection saved

Back in issue 89 of Custom PC, you may remember that our own ex-news hound Gareth Halfacree wrote about his efforts to raise funds in order to purchase a rare collection of Alan Turing's papers. Through the power of Twitter and a generous donation from Google of $100,000, Gareth raised just under £90,000 for the Bletchley Park Trust so that it might purchase the documents for public display.

The collection, originally property of Professor Max Newman, a friend and colleague of Turing's at Bletchley Park, includes offprints of 15 of Turing's 18 published works, along with Newman's annotations. The collections is so significant because very little remains of Turing's work or personal belongings, with much of Bletchley Park's documents and records destroyed after World War II.

However, with a guide price of between £300,000 and £500,000, the collection looked set to end up in the hands of a private collector. Happily, though, this price was not met when the collection went up for auction last November, and the collection sat un-purchased, awaiting later sale.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which aims to save the most outstanding parts of our national heritage at risk of loss to the nation, stepped in with additional funding of £213,437. Once this was added to Bletchley Park's own funds, the group was able to meet the list price and purchase the collection privately.

Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust said 'The acquisition of this hugely important collection has been made possible only by the astonishing support demonstrated by the public, the media, Google, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Christies the auctioneers whose help in brokering the purchase is gratefully acknowledged. We're delighted to have the collection here at Bletchley Park, which is surely its most fitting home, and it will be an incredible addition to the visitor experience.'

The collection with go on display later this year in the Bletchley Park Museum. All of which just goes to show that it's possible for us to make a difference. We'd very much like to congratulate Gareth on this achievement, and also thank the National Heritage Memorial Fund for getting involved with the extra cash.

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Blog - SXSW: How Games Will Shape the Future

In the opening keynote at South By Southwest Interactive today, location-based game company SCVNGR's energetic "chief ninja" Seth Priebatsch outlined his broader vision of what games can do for the world.

Priebatsch has long talked about putting a "game layer" over the real world, but this has so far been mostly literal. People who have loaded SCVNGR's apps on their smart phones can engage in challenges at locations they visit, many of which are brief games.

But Priebatsch sees something bigger on the way. The last 10 years have been building technology that adds a social layer to the world, he said. This was all about building a framework to express the connections that people form in the course of a day. Games, Priebatsch declared, will drive "the next decade of human technological interaction."

Though the game layer is brand new and has not yet been built, he believes it will provide a technological framework for "influence," since games influence people to take actions through both social interaction and game mechanics. The power that games have to shape people's actions, he said, is "fascinating, very cool, and just a little bit frightening."

Priebatsch outlined five problems that he expects game dynamics could address. They ranged from making location-based services more mainstream--admittedly a niche, self-interested concern--to making people feel more able to address global problems such as climate change.

Perhaps the 22-year-old Princeton dropout's smartest discussion was of how a game layer could improve school. "School is one of the most perfect game ecosystems out there," he said, noting that it includes many motivated players, a system of allies and enemies, has a captive audience, and a well-developed system of reward and punishment. The problem, he said, is that the game of school "is poorly designed."

In particular, he criticized grading systems. While they give students different levels to aspire to and a sense of status--both important for game dynamics--they're also set up so that people can lose. "School is a game where you don't want anyone to lose," Priebatsch said.

He argued that grading systems could borrow from schemes that have been shown to engage players more effectively, such as the progression used in games such as World of Warcraft. In those games, players gain experience over time and can progress to playing very powerful characters. However, they don't get penalized or "leveled down" (as happens when someone gets a failing grade). Adjusting grades to measure progress in a positive way, Priebatsch argued, could focus students on gaining the next level, however long it takes.

Speaking about topics more immediate to his business, Priebatsch also analyzed the game dynamics that aren't working well for location-based services.

One of the key problems he sees is that the game is too hard right now for most people--it requires special equipment (smart phones), and you can only play if you're in the right place at the right time. Priebatsch suggested that location-based services could come up with looser requirements, such as allowing people to participate by saying that they plan to go to a location, or giving them ways to engage with a location from afar.

Priebatsch also argued that location-based services have their reward schedules out of whack. "We're training early adopters to hit a button and get a reward, which is a level of reward that we can't actually deliver," he said. For example, he pointed to a Facebook Places campaign that gave a free pair of jeans to each of the first 10,000 people to check in at a Gap store. Such promotions gain attention, he said, but people lose interest when they're no longer getting rewarded.

Priebatsch has previously told me that he reads hundreds of pages a month of research into games and their mechanics and effects on people. His intensity and rapid-fire conversation style can make for an overwhelming outpouring of ideas. But he's one of the most interesting people thinking about game mechanics today. His business grounds him in practicalities more than some of the (still fascinating) academic thinkers out there, but his optimism and energy save him from giving the impression of calculating profiteering that can come out of companies like the frighteningly profitable Zynga.

Expect to hear much more from Priebatsch as the game layer develops.

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Political Memo: Democrats See Wisconsin Loss as Galvanizing

In a push to raise money for their candidates, Democrats hope Wisconsin will be for them what the health care overhaul was for Republicans in last year?s midterm elections: a galvanizing force for their base, and an example of overreaching that will win them crucial independent voters, not just in Wisconsin but also in Congressional races and the presidential election next year.

They point to polls showing that the same level of intensity that helped Republicans campaigning against health care is now behind Democrats on the issue of collective bargaining. Gov. Scott Walker?s refusal to compromise with Democrats has given them a vivid way to demonstrate the point they tried unsuccessfully to make during the midterms: that Republicans are motivated by ideology, not just budget balancing.

?This is one of the uglier examples of the tyranny of a temporary majority, and I think it?s going to backfire badly,? said Gov. Martin O?Malley of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

?Democratic governors are facing some of the same budget challenges, and we?re asking for some of the same concessions, but we?re staying at the table and working with our work force and their union representatives,? he said. ?The Republicans are taking advantage of the economic downturn to sharpen their ideological axes and settle old scores.?

Polls and the impassioned crowds who have jeered Mr. Walker and the Republican-led Legislature outside the Capitol in Madison, Wis., offer some evidence to lift Democrats? hopes.

But for all the trumpeting of how Mr. Walker?s bill has awakened a sleeping giant of once-dispirited Democrats and union members, it will undeniably weaken labor, historically a key voting bloc for the party. And even some Democrats say that whatever the energy now, that will hurt the party long term.

Still, reactions among Republicans suggest that they, too, recognize that their party might suffer, given national polls showing that most Americans support collective bargaining rights. While fights over the cost of public workers and collective bargaining have emerged in a number of states, some Republican governors appear to be drawing careful distinctions between their own plans and Mr. Walker?s.

?This is not Wisconsin,? Rick Snyder, the newly elected Republican governor of Michigan, was quoted as telling a union group recently, even as protests were emerging in Lansing over a bill there that could allow emergency financial managers to overlook union contracts in the most financially distressed cities.

A Pew poll last week showed the number of people holding a very favorable view of unions had risen ? with a particularly sharp rise among liberal Democrats ? while the percentage of those holding negative views remained the same.

Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said other surveys had showed a gap of about two to one favoring the Democrats. ?That was the issue with health care reform,? she said. ?It wasn?t that we were losing 52-48, it was that twice as many people strongly disapproved as approved. It?s the exact opposite now.?

Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, two Democratic groups, said they had jointly raised $200,000 in the 12 hours after the Wisconsin Senate approved Governor Walker?s bill, and a total of $750,000 to run ads against Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature who are facing recall campaigns over the collective bargaining bill.

?On every front of the battle to take back the House ? fund-raising, volunteers, candidates ? what is happening in Madison is helping,? said Representative Steve Israel of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. ?People who we have talked about running now seem more energized by what?s happening. They understand that this is part of an ongoing Republican attack on working families, and they want to fight back.?

Republicans counter that the energy will not last.

Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader in Wisconsin?s Senate, said that by 2012, the fallout from this bill seemed more likely to him to harm Democrats? hopes for the state (which Mr. Obama easily won in 2008). ?I think once some of the union members wake up and say, ?I?ve got to wake up and write a check to the union every month?? union membership may quickly drop, and some of their power falls apart,? Mr. Fitzgerald said.

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For Wisconsin Lawmakers, a Hero?s Homecoming

But this group of once-obscure lawmakers ? a dairy farmer, a lawyer and a woman who is seven months pregnant, among others ? that fled this capital nearly a month ago, returned Saturday to the cheers of tens of thousands who once again packed the streets in protest.

Many in the crowd wore buttons or held signs bearing admiring nicknames for the group: the ?Fighting 14,? the ?Fab 14? or, simply, ?the Wisconsin 14.? They chanted, ?Thank you? and ?Welcome home.?

This is, of course, not the standard reception for state legislators, typically as anonymous as they are unglamorous.

?Before all of this occurred, I wouldn?t have known a lot of their names,? said Paul Fieber, a retired state employee carrying a sign declaring, ?Our heroes.? ?But that has changed for me and a lot of the population.?

The reason for the reception was that the 14 Democratic state senators had returned weeks after fleeing to another state in a dramatic ? if ultimately failed ? effort to prevent a vote on a bill that would significantly weaken public-sector unions.

Their disappearance ? ?a really, really weird trip,? in the words of one senator ? was one of the most memorable and divisive aspects of the legislative standoff, and it helped escalate a policy dispute into a protracted battle over union rights that seized the attention of the nation.

On Saturday, the senators spoke, sometimes boastfully, about their pride in the outpouring of support, their dismay at the law that passed in their absence and their eagerness to meet the protesters who have backed their actions.

?I?m one of the Fabulous 14, and I?m so proud,? said Spencer Coggs, who was first elected to the State Legislature nearly three decades ago. ?We are back to unite and fight with our supporters. We gave them hope. They gave us inspiration.?

Though officially in hiding, the Democrats had been more visible than ever, giving countless interviews from ?undisclosed locations? around Illinois, where they stayed out of reach of the Wisconsin state troopers dispatched to bring them back to the Senate.

Fred Risser, a Senate Democrat whose nearly six decades of service make him the longest-tenured state legislator in the country, said he had never been so widely recognized. ?I?m quite amazed at the number of strangers who have come up and thanked me,? he said.

Republican lawmakers, who called the Democrats cowards and accused them of abandoning their posts, made numerous efforts to get them back, including holding their paychecks, stripping their parking spots, issuing fines, threatening arrest and pursuing other legislation before ultimately maneuvering to vote without them.

The bill, which limits collective bargaining rights and requires annual votes for unions to stay in existence, among other provisions, was signed into law on Friday by Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, after passing in both Republican-controlled chambers earlier in the week.

The Democrats are still officially in contempt of the Senate, though both sides said it was unlikely that they would be detained. In addition, eight Democrats ? as well as eight Republicans ? face recall efforts stemming from the dispute.

Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader, released a statement saying that the Democrats should be embarrassed about their conduct. ?Today, the most shameful 14 people in the state of Wisconsin are going to pat themselves on the back and smile for the cameras,? he said. ?They?re going to pretend they?re heroes for taking a three-week vacation.

?It is an absolute insult to the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who are struggling to find a job, much less one they can run away from and go down to Illinois ? with pay.?

As the senators walked around the Capitol square, where one of the largest protests in what has been a daily outpouring of union employees and supporters was under way, the crowd pressed in to shake hands and shout words of encouragement. Many called the senators by name, a fact that caught some off guard.

Senator Timothy Cullen was visibly moved and called it his greatest experience as a public official. ?We heard about how strongly they felt,? he said. ?But you have to be here to feel it.?

The size of the crowd, which the Madison police estimated at around 100,000, and the amount of positive energy was striking, coming a day after the long battle over the bill was lost, though legal efforts were under way to keep it from taking effect.

For weeks the rhythmic chanting of protesters has filled this city like a heartbeat, proof that despite the lack of legislative power, the political left in this state is still a visible, and audible, presence. At the very moment that the noise was expected to fade in disappointment, that thumping proof of life ? the staccato refrain of ?This is what democracy looks like,? was the most popular of the chants ? continued with renewed vigor.

But it is unclear how long the protests will continue.

?We wanted to come together one more time to let people know this is not over,? said Ann Soderman, a high school science teacher who carried a sign listing the Democratic senators. She said she had attended several rallies but was now focused on recall efforts against eligible Republican senators, including her own. ?All this energy is going to go into a different avenue,? she said.

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Internet Explorer 9 hits RTM

Microsoft this week reportedly signed off the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build of Internet Explorer 9. The RTM build is 9.00.8112.16421.110308-0330, meaning it was compiled on March 8, 2011 at 3:30 AM, according to Windows 8 Beta.

A user by the name of sp3ciali5t has managed to post an image of the IE9 about screen for this build on Twitter. It's in Turkish, but you can still see the build number:

Earlier this week, Microsoft confirmed that IE9 would be launching on March 14, 2011 at 9:00 AM PST. The company will hold a launch party in Austin, Texas during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi), but not before a press briefing where IE senior director Ryan Gavin said there will still be "a few surprises."

Microsoft unveiled the first IE9 public preview in March 2010. This was followed by multiple further public previews as well as a public beta in September 2010. Last month, Microsoft released a public IE9 Release Candidate build.

IE9 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Users of Windows XP will thus not be able to upgrade past IE8.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42789-internet-explorer-9-hits-rtm.html

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Alan Turing collection saved

Back in issue 89 of Custom PC, you may remember that our own ex-news hound Gareth Halfacree wrote about his efforts to raise funds in order to purchase a rare collection of Alan Turing's papers. Through the power of Twitter and a generous donation from Google of $100,000, Gareth raised just under £90,000 for the Bletchley Park Trust so that it might purchase the documents for public display.

The collection, originally property of Professor Max Newman, a friend and colleague of Turing's at Bletchley Park, includes offprints of 15 of Turing's 18 published works, along with Newman's annotations. The collections is so significant because very little remains of Turing's work or personal belongings, with much of Bletchley Park's documents and records destroyed after World War II.

However, with a guide price of between £300,000 and £500,000, the collection looked set to end up in the hands of a private collector. Happily, though, this price was not met when the collection went up for auction last November, and the collection sat un-purchased, awaiting later sale.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which aims to save the most outstanding parts of our national heritage at risk of loss to the nation, stepped in with additional funding of £213,437. Once this was added to Bletchley Park's own funds, the group was able to meet the list price and purchase the collection privately.

Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust said 'The acquisition of this hugely important collection has been made possible only by the astonishing support demonstrated by the public, the media, Google, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Christies the auctioneers whose help in brokering the purchase is gratefully acknowledged. We're delighted to have the collection here at Bletchley Park, which is surely its most fitting home, and it will be an incredible addition to the visitor experience.'

The collection with go on display later this year in the Bletchley Park Museum. All of which just goes to show that it's possible for us to make a difference. We'd very much like to congratulate Gareth on this achievement, and also thank the National Heritage Memorial Fund for getting involved with the extra cash.

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Alan Turing collection saved

Back in issue 89 of Custom PC, you may remember that our own ex-news hound Gareth Halfacree wrote about his efforts to raise funds in order to purchase a rare collection of Alan Turing's papers. Through the power of Twitter and a generous donation from Google of $100,000, Gareth raised just under £90,000 for the Bletchley Park Trust so that it might purchase the documents for public display.

The collection, originally property of Professor Max Newman, a friend and colleague of Turing's at Bletchley Park, includes offprints of 15 of Turing's 18 published works, along with Newman's annotations. The collections is so significant because very little remains of Turing's work or personal belongings, with much of Bletchley Park's documents and records destroyed after World War II.

However, with a guide price of between £300,000 and £500,000, the collection looked set to end up in the hands of a private collector. Happily, though, this price was not met when the collection went up for auction last November, and the collection sat un-purchased, awaiting later sale.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which aims to save the most outstanding parts of our national heritage at risk of loss to the nation, stepped in with additional funding of £213,437. Once this was added to Bletchley Park's own funds, the group was able to meet the list price and purchase the collection privately.

Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust said 'The acquisition of this hugely important collection has been made possible only by the astonishing support demonstrated by the public, the media, Google, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Christies the auctioneers whose help in brokering the purchase is gratefully acknowledged. We're delighted to have the collection here at Bletchley Park, which is surely its most fitting home, and it will be an incredible addition to the visitor experience.'

The collection with go on display later this year in the Bletchley Park Museum. All of which just goes to show that it's possible for us to make a difference. We'd very much like to congratulate Gareth on this achievement, and also thank the National Heritage Memorial Fund for getting involved with the extra cash.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/b-U-4yncqrY/

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