Weekend game deals: 65% off Magicka Collection

GamersGate continues its summer sale this week with major discounts on Paradox Interactive titles, including 65% off the Magicka Collection (includes the base game and eight DLC packs), while Direct2Drive is taking its summer promo out with a bang, knocking 75% off Just Cause 2, two S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles, Alpha Protocol and The Witcher. You'll also find 50% to 75% off Bulletstorm, Dragon Age: Origins, Battlefield 2: Complete, Mirror's Edge, and Command & Conquer 3. Meanwhile, folks with no cash to spare can slaughter some Nazi dinosaurs courtesy of Steam's free-to-play weekend of Dino D-Day.

Steam
Dino D-Day $4.99 (50% off -- free to play through Sunday)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines $4.99 (75% off)
Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark $26.66 (33% off)
The Kings' Crusade: New Allies $2.49 (50% off)
Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising $14.99 (50% off)
Capsized $3.39 (66% off)
DCS A-10C Warthog $40.00 (33% off)

Impulse
Bulletstorm $14.99 (50% off)
Blood Bowl: Dark Elves Edition $4.99 (75% off)
Pe-2: Diver Bomb $11.97 (40% off)
Greed - Black Border $6.24 (75% off)
Trapped Dead $9.99 (50% off)
66% off Dawn of Magic 2 and Time of Shadows
More...

GamersGate
Magicka Collection $8.73 (65% off)
Victoria II $14.98 (50% off)
Mount & Blade $9.98 (50% off)
Hearts of Iron III $9.98 (50% off)
Europa Universalis III $4.98 (50% off)
More...

Direct2Drive
Alpha Protocol $4.95 (75% off)
Just Cause $3.75 (75% off)
Just Cause 2 $4.95 (75% off)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky $4.95 (75% off)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl $4.95 (75% off)
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition $4.95 (75% off)

Games for Windows
Dragon Age: Origins $14.99 (50% off)

Origin
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames $4.99 (50% off)
Need for Speed: Undercover $4.99 (50% off)
Burnout: Paradise Ultimate $4.99 (75% off)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 $4.99 (50% off)
Mirror's Edge $4.99 (75% off)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam $4.99 (66% off)
Battlefield 2: Complete Collection $4.99 (75% off)
Medal of Honor: Airborne $4.99 (50% off)
Battlefield 2142 Deluxe $4.99 (66% off)
Spore $4.99 (75% off)

Good Old Games
50% off TopWare Interactive titles

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44877-weekend-game-deals-65-off-magicka-collection.html

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Would an iPhone 'Assistant' Really Help?

Are we on the cusp of an era of ubiquitous "virtual personal assistants"? If Steve Jobs has his way, we just might be.

Back in the spring of 2010, Apple acquired Siri, a company that produced an app that described itself in just those terms. Now, clues dug up recently by 9to5Mac, a site dedicated to scrutinizing all things Apple, suggest that Apple may be ready to introduce Siri-like features in the next version of iOS, its operating system for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

If Apple is indeed about to launch a personal assistant, it could help set the iPhone apart from other smart phones in the market. Android's voice-command system is considered one of its chief advantages over the iPhone, but a Siri-derived personal assistant would add more voice functionality, eliminating Android's advantage. But it will be a gamble, as other efforts to foist a personal assistant upon computer users have backfired badly. Remember Clippy, the animated paper clip that would pop up every time you tried to write a letter in Microsoft Word?

In a screenshot that 9to5Mac turned up, apparently from the menu on an iPhone "test unit," one button reads "Assistant"; another reads "Speaker," suggesting that the assistant can talk back, if you want it to; and a tab reading "MyInfo" suggests that the assistant will be able to use data on your phone such as address book contacts and location to help find the information you want. 9to5Mac further claims to have plumbed the depths of an iOS software development kit and found lines of code that correspond to the features in the screenshot.

Siri's original app, which licensed voice recognition technology from Nuance, a company based in Burlington, Massachusetts, enabled users to perform searches and make appointments or reservations using voice commands. It worked remarkably well for these simple tasks. (You can see a video of it in action here.)

Work on Siri began about eight years ago, when DARPA funded a massive AI initiative called CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes). The idea, says Norman Winarsky, vice president of ventures at SRI, based in Menlo Park, California, the prime contractor for CALO, was to develop a virtual personal assistant as good as the character of Radar O'Reilly on the TV show M*A*S*H. "Radar always knew what the captain wanted before the captain knew what the captain wanted," says Winarsky.

As the CALO program wound down, SRI recognized a massive market opportunity in the research it had been doing. Over a period of a few years, SRI built the company Siri and launched an app.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=7744f118165887c18a543b88999edc0b

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Weekend game deals: 65% off Magicka Collection

GamersGate continues its summer sale this week with major discounts on Paradox Interactive titles, including 65% off the Magicka Collection (includes the base game and eight DLC packs), while Direct2Drive is taking its summer promo out with a bang, knocking 75% off Just Cause 2, two S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles, Alpha Protocol and The Witcher. You'll also find 50% to 75% off Bulletstorm, Dragon Age: Origins, Battlefield 2: Complete, Mirror's Edge, and Command & Conquer 3. Meanwhile, folks with no cash to spare can slaughter some Nazi dinosaurs courtesy of Steam's free-to-play weekend of Dino D-Day.

Steam
Dino D-Day $4.99 (50% off -- free to play through Sunday)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines $4.99 (75% off)
Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark $26.66 (33% off)
The Kings' Crusade: New Allies $2.49 (50% off)
Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising $14.99 (50% off)
Capsized $3.39 (66% off)
DCS A-10C Warthog $40.00 (33% off)

Impulse
Bulletstorm $14.99 (50% off)
Blood Bowl: Dark Elves Edition $4.99 (75% off)
Pe-2: Diver Bomb $11.97 (40% off)
Greed - Black Border $6.24 (75% off)
Trapped Dead $9.99 (50% off)
66% off Dawn of Magic 2 and Time of Shadows
More...

GamersGate
Magicka Collection $8.73 (65% off)
Victoria II $14.98 (50% off)
Mount & Blade $9.98 (50% off)
Hearts of Iron III $9.98 (50% off)
Europa Universalis III $4.98 (50% off)
More...

Direct2Drive
Alpha Protocol $4.95 (75% off)
Just Cause $3.75 (75% off)
Just Cause 2 $4.95 (75% off)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky $4.95 (75% off)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl $4.95 (75% off)
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition $4.95 (75% off)

Games for Windows
Dragon Age: Origins $14.99 (50% off)

Origin
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames $4.99 (50% off)
Need for Speed: Undercover $4.99 (50% off)
Burnout: Paradise Ultimate $4.99 (75% off)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 $4.99 (50% off)
Mirror's Edge $4.99 (75% off)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam $4.99 (66% off)
Battlefield 2: Complete Collection $4.99 (75% off)
Medal of Honor: Airborne $4.99 (50% off)
Battlefield 2142 Deluxe $4.99 (66% off)
Spore $4.99 (75% off)

Good Old Games
50% off TopWare Interactive titles

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44877-weekend-game-deals-65-off-magicka-collection.html

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Twitter allows users to filter NSFW tweets

Social networking site Twitter has added the ability to filter NSFW tweets to its API, according to a new post on Twitter?s developer website.

As it stands, users will be able to tag their own tweets as ?possibly sensitive? as well as filter out any incoming tweets with the same tag. Additionally, anyone else will be able to tag your material as sensitive which will send a notification to Twitter for further review.

Sensitive tweets won?t be removed from the site, but simply tagged with a warning to those who wish not to view such content.

The message to developers points out that only tweets containing a link will initiate the new field and as such, only the link itself may or may not be considered NSFW, not the actual content of the tweet. The feature is in the initial testing phase where the API cannot be relied upon for accuracy.

What is classified as ?sensitive material? will likely vary from one user to the next. Twitter?s Media Policy suggests labeling any content containing nudity, violence, or medical procedures as sensitive. The company points out that they do not mediate content, however the service may not be used for any unlawful purpose. Furthermore, any uploaded images that are determined to be illegal will be removed and your account will be suspended.

Hopefully this will lead to a similar API that can be used to tag spam posts. Twitter already has a spam profile reporting system in place but it seemingly does little to combat the ongoing problem.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44876-twitter-allows-users-to-filter-nsfw-tweets.html

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Facebook starting to pay hackers to discover vulnerabilities

Facebook is today beginning a program that will allow them to compensate hackers that discover vulnerabilities in the site?s code, reports Computerworld. In order to be compensated, the hackers must sign up for the new whitehat hacking portal and report the issues directly to Facebook?s security team.

Facebook will begin by offering a base bounty of $500 and will be willing to pay more if the flaws discovered are major ones.

?In the past we?ve focused on name recognition by putting their name up on our page, sending schwag out and using this an avenue for interviews and the recruiting process,? Alex Rice, Facebook?s product security lead, told Computerworld, ?we?re extending that now to start paying out monetary rewards.?

In order to qualify for a bounty, Facebook says that hackers must:

  • Give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service during your research
  • Be the first person to responsibly disclose the bug
  • Report a bug that could compromise the integrity or privacy of Facebook user data
  • Reside in a country not under any current U.S. Sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.)

Facebook currently has a basic submission process that gives public recognition to hackers in the form of a thank you from the security team. Now, the portal will be upgraded to be a place where security researchers can sign up, log in and report bugs.

With a service that has as many users as Facebook, any potential vulnerabilities stand to affect hundreds of millions of people. This makes it paramount that Facebook get to the issues first and fix them before they can become a major security or privacy problem. Efforts like a cash bounty that encourages hackers to give the news to in-house security first are one of the ways that companies with user bases as big as Google and Facebook try to ensure that this happens.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2011/07/29/facebook-starting-to-pay-hackers-to-discover-vulnerabilities/

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Facebook starting to pay hackers to discover vulnerabilities

Facebook is today beginning a program that will allow them to compensate hackers that discover vulnerabilities in the site?s code, reports Computerworld. In order to be compensated, the hackers must sign up for the new whitehat hacking portal and report the issues directly to Facebook?s security team.

Facebook will begin by offering a base bounty of $500 and will be willing to pay more if the flaws discovered are major ones.

?In the past we?ve focused on name recognition by putting their name up on our page, sending schwag out and using this an avenue for interviews and the recruiting process,? Alex Rice, Facebook?s product security lead, told Computerworld, ?we?re extending that now to start paying out monetary rewards.?

In order to qualify for a bounty, Facebook says that hackers must:

  • Give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service during your research
  • Be the first person to responsibly disclose the bug
  • Report a bug that could compromise the integrity or privacy of Facebook user data
  • Reside in a country not under any current U.S. Sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.)

Facebook currently has a basic submission process that gives public recognition to hackers in the form of a thank you from the security team. Now, the portal will be upgraded to be a place where security researchers can sign up, log in and report bugs.

With a service that has as many users as Facebook, any potential vulnerabilities stand to affect hundreds of millions of people. This makes it paramount that Facebook get to the issues first and fix them before they can become a major security or privacy problem. Efforts like a cash bounty that encourages hackers to give the news to in-house security first are one of the ways that companies with user bases as big as Google and Facebook try to ensure that this happens.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2011/07/29/facebook-starting-to-pay-hackers-to-discover-vulnerabilities/

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Microsoft adds RAW file support to Windows 7 and Vista

Microsoft released a new camera codec package on Wednesday that supports over 100 RAW photo file formats. Once installed, RAW image files can be previewed from within Windows Explorer and Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011.

RAW image files are similar to a negative from a film-based camera. Like a film negative, these digital negatives must first be processed before they are ready to be used. As the name suggests, RAW files contain all of the information from a single photo where as a JPEG or similar compressed file loses a lot of valuable information in order to minimize file size.

Most professional photographers prefer to shoot in RAW as it offers many advantages over standard compressed formats. Some of these benefits include bypassing a camera?s automatic noise reduction and sharpening features, which can often create unwanted effects. Other benefits include the ability to fine-tune white balance, hue and saturation as you see fit, rather than relying on the camera to decide what it thinks is best for your picture.

"This new update unlocks the power of every photo on your computer so that your PC is capable of organizing, viewing and editing your digital memories, whether they were shot with a camera phone, point-and-shoot camera, or a higher end DSLR," said Brad Weed, Group Program Manager, Windows Live.

Prior to this update, viewing and editing RAW files meant you had to use a third-party application like Adobe Photoshop or FastPictureViewer. Needless to say this was a pretty painful and time-consuming process, especially if you have thousands of RAW photos on file like I do.
 
The codecs are available in both 32 and 64-bit versions and can be downloaded directly from Microsoft?s website. Windows 7 and Vista Service Pack 2 are supported under this release.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44871-microsoft-adds-raw-file-support-to-windows-7-and-vista.html

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Google wants to speed up websites with page optimizing CDN

Odds are that today most of the sites you visit have at least some of its content delivered through a content delivery network. In a nutshell, CDNs are used to cache data in various geographic locations around the world, so you can access that data faster by reducing access latency.

This is what the folks at Akamai have been doing for ages, but because of the diminishing costs of bandwidth and more accessible costs of running a datacenter, in recent years dozens of smaller companies have started to offer competing CDN services for all kinds of sites, small and large. TechSpot, for example, uses a CDN to speed up delivery of images and other forms of static content to you.

Google?s obsession for speed is taking the concept a step further. They have started to beta test a CDN on steroids called Page Speed Server that will also optimize content on the fly. Google says they will rewrite your site pages ?by applying web performance best practices.? In other words that means they will look into optimizing images, minifying JavaScript and other static files, gzipping content on their end thus saving you server CPU cycles, among others.

The search giant claims they are seeing speed improvements in the order of 25% to 60%, which sounds impressive. They will even let you sample your own site. Unfortunately for us however, our own obsession with speed means we?ve already taken all the obvious steps to optimize TechSpot?s page loads and after a brief test we discovered that Google?s Page Speed Service wouldn't speed up the site any further.

Google is offering Page Speed Service to a small group of users for free for a limited time. They eventually plan to charge a ?competitive? rate for the service. Offering a CDN is just one of many Google initiatives to drive a faster Web in recent years, others include the Page Speed browser extension, the SPDY web protocol, Apache?s mod_pagespeed module, and the Chrome browser itself.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44872-google-wants-to-speed-up-websites-with-page-optimizing-cdn.html

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High Court orders major ISP to block usenet site due to piracy

On Thusrday, the British High Court ruled that British Telecommunications, one of the largest ISPs in the world, must block public access to Newzbin2, a popular source for downloading illegitimate copies of television shows and other media. The ruling is unprecendented in the United Kingdom and serves as a landmark victory for the Motion Picture Association, the MPAA's international counterpart, comprised of Hollywood heavyweights such as Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal and Walt Disney.

This is not the first time Newzbin has been the subject of legal matters. Just over a year ago, Newzbin was found guilty by a British judge for knowingly providing unauthorized access to copyrighted content. The usenet site was ordered to be shut down but Newzbin2, a clone of Newzbin, cropped up shortly after its closure. Unlike the original, Newzbin2 is hosted on the island nation of Seychelles and thus cannot be shut down by British courts. As a result however, it seems the High Court chose to simply block access to the usenet site all together.

BT, the world's oldest telecommunications company, has said it will not appeal the decision and calls the judgement "helpful". Simon Milner, Group Policy Director at BT, also commented on another precedent set by the judgement, requiring copyright holders to prove in court that a website infringes upon their copyrights before forcing websites to be blocked or shut down. This is the first clear ruling in the UK which requires copyright owners to do so prior to legal action.

"This is a helpful judgement, which provides clarity on this complex issue. It clearly shows that rights holders need to prove their claims and convince a judge to make a court order. BT has consistently said that rights holders need to take this route. We will return to court after the summer to explain what kind of order we believe is appropriate."

-- Simon Milner, Group Policy Director at BT

Not surprisingly, advocates for digital freedoms have shown mostly lament for the ruling, calling it a "dangerous" precedent with "serious risks" and have lambasted it as another method by which "our digital rights are to be determined by Hollywood, not parliament." 

"Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won't work to stop infringement or boost creative industries. And there are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators' ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand."

-- Peter Bradwell, representative from the Open Rights Group

On the other side of the aisle, parties which have a vested interest in the protection of copyrighted works applaud the judgement, iterating the importance of protecting creative arts, upholding laws and encouraging proactive responsibility among ISPs.

"This ruling from Justice Arnold is a victory for millions of people working in the UK creative industries and demonstrates that the law of the land must apply online. This court action was never an attack on ISPs but we do need their cooperation to deal with the Newzbin site which continually tries to evade the law and judicial sanction. Newzbin is a notorious pirate website which makes hundreds of thousands of copyrighted products available without permission and with no regard for the law."

-- Chris Marcich, President of the MPA

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44868-high-court-orders-major-isp-to-block-usenet-site-due-to-piracy.html

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Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

Posted on 8th Jul 2011 at 14:20 by Podcast with 11 comments

It's been a while since our last podcast so James, Paul, Antony and Harry had plenty to talk about when they took their seats in the studio this week.

First on the agenda was James and Paul's trip to Computex in Taiwan, where they got to see what the industry had planned for the next six months. Certain things were of particular interest to us though such as the LGA2011 boards being shown at the exhibition.

The other big slice of news that's hit since our last podcast is the launch of AMD's new desktop Lynx processors. The APUs (as AMD calls them) are potentially interesting for those looking for a low cost rig that's also capable of gaming.

Finally, we sneak in a little discussion about Intel's new 50-core maths co-processor card and attempt to answer a reader question about thermal compound.

As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, the lucky winner of which will walk away with a brand new Corsair VX550W PSU.

Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/EUee9PuDJKs/

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