Author: Serkadis

When Capcom asked its community members if they wanted DLC or a separate game for Resident Evil 5 Alternative Edition, they really wanted answers. As…

Yes. It is finished. We can shut down NASA, DARPA, all the arts and sciences, and stop trying now. The pinnacle of human achievement has been reached. Robot vacuums have been hacked to play the parts in a real-life game of Pac-Man.

The ghosts are actually moving autonomously along computer-defined lines (they can’t “see” the actual maze) and the Man of Pac himself is guided by an RC controller. I was a little disappointed to see that he doesn’t eat the dots, though.

I won’t waste your time by summarizing all the hacks and modifications that went into this project; they’re well-documented here, and good reading too if you’re into that sort of thing.

[via Giz and En]

We just wrote about how the Danish anti-piracy group was dropping its lawsuits against individual file sharers after realizing that Danish law made it almost impossible for the industry to win those cases. However, as pointed out by brokep, the international wing of the recording industry, the IFPI, wasted little time in trying to spin the news in its favor (Google translation of the original). The IFPI insists that the lawsuits won’t stop, but just that the anti-piracy organization was realizing it needed more detailed evidence — and this means that it will now start seizing computers to get evidence. Now, the Google translation trips up over the word “beslagslaeggelse,” but multiple Danish speakers have confirmed that the word means “seize” or “confiscate.” Of course, that raises some questions about why a private organization representing record labels has any right to seize computers of individuals. I think they were better off when they just admitted they were going to give up on the counterproductive legal strategy.

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By Tim Conneally, Betanews

South Korean consumer electronics giant and number two mobile phone seller worldwide, Samsung has re-negotiated its cross-licensing agreements with Qualcomm to the tune of $1.3 billion plus continuing royalties.

Though most of the terms and conditions of the deal are confidential, Samsung has said that the deal will give Qualcomm access to 57 of its mobile technology patents, and in turn receive access to Qualcomm’s 3G CDMA/WCDMA and 4G OFDM patents for the next fifteen years.

Samsung said this deal is “more favorable than the previous one.”

With such a substantial amount of money, it’s hard to imagine how costly Qualcomm patent licensing used to be.

In July, the South Korea Fair Trade Commission hit Qualcomm with the largest fine it’s ever levied on a single company for abusing its dominant market position to obtain higher licensing fees.

That fine was the result of a three-year investigation into Qualcomm’s collection of royalties, which the Commission alleged were unfairly stacked against companies that didn’t use Qualcomm chips. The Commission said Qualcomm would impose higher royalties on handset makers that used modem chips from Qualcomm’s competitors.

Qualcomm told the South Korean media that this deal with Samsung has nothing to do with the company’s fair trade violation there.

“We anticipate accelerated CDMA device growth in calendar year 2010 as the global migration to 3G continues,” Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm said.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Just a quick post to report on a meeting today with a group of lobbyists and others who currently chair Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs). The group had objected to the Administration’s new policies barring the appointment (and reappointment) of federally registered lobbyists to agency boards and commissions. Although we have previously addressed their views here and here, we feel it important to meet with those with whom we disagree to discuss their concerns face to face. Much of the discussion focused on the arguments offered in the letter the group sent us (pdf) and our response letter (pdf). Click here (pdf) for the list of attendees.

We explained to the ITAC chairs that this issue is not about the few corrupt lobbyists or specific abuses by the profession, but rather concerns the system as a whole. For too long, lobbyists and those who can afford their services have held disproportionate influence over national policy making. The purpose of the President’s agenda to change the way business is done in Washington is to level the playing field to make sure that all Americans and not just those with access to money or power are able to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed by Washington.

We explained that in deciding to limit the ability of lobbyists to serve in government positions, including as members of agency advisory boards and commissions, we considered various arguments and counterarguments. We weighed the options, and considered the alternatives. In the end, we decided that while lobbyists have a right to petition the government, it would best serve the interests of a fairer and more representative democracy if we limited their ability to do so from special positions of privileged access within the government.

The result will be a Washington that is more reflective of all of America. We have already begun the process of recruiting new voices to advise the government through these agency boards. We believe small- and medium-sized business owners will be excited by the opportunity to help serve their country and advocate for their interests.

To make it even easier for those with valuable insight and expertise to offer to join this process from outside the Beltway, the Administration is working to develop tools to utilize internet technologies to make federal advisory committee proceedings accessible online. For example, the most recent meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was watched online by 5000 people. This Administration is committed to seeking out those voices and bringing the change they represent into the decision making process in Washington.

We explained this to the ITAC chairs and asked for their help in reaching out to broaden and diversify these boards and commissions. We informed them that while we will always seek ways to improve good policies, we do not intend to rescind this decision. The ITAC chairs, although expressing their disagreement, are willing to assist in finding qualified replacements and we thank them for their commitment to working together to make the system work better for everyone.

Finally, we also replied to a letter from the American League of Lobbyists on this subject today-ALL’s letter is here (pdf) and our reply is here (pdf).

Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform

It could be said that the Google Books case is becoming the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, having created all sorts of controversy and dragged on and on.  And on some more, as it turns out, since the involved parties are pushing a target date back again.

A revised proposal concerning how Google and its critics could settle their differences was originally supposed to be submitted to Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan federal court a little more than a month ago.  Obviously, that didn’t happen, and Chin picked today (Monday, November 9th) as an alternate goal.

Now, Motoko Rich has reported, "The parties to the Google book settlement, which would legalize the creation of a vast library of digital books, have asked the judge overseeing a revision of the agreement for an extension to this Friday, Nov. 13."

It sounds like the lines of communication are still very much open, though, as Rich also wrote, "[T]he group indicated that it had met with the Justice Department before and after the October status hearing and had met as recently as Friday, Nov. 6."  And (hopefully) Friday the 13th isn’t far enough away for this delay to signal serious trouble.

So as before, stay tuned, and maybe this whole thing will be resolved before the "early 2010" deadline Microsoft and Yahoo have set for their partnership.

Related Articles:

> November 9th Target Set In Google Books Case

> Google Books Gets A Little More Organized

> Google Books Opens Door To On-Demand Printing

On Thursday at the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C., Vice President Biden moderated an in-depth discussion focusing on the long-term, structural challenges facing middle class families in today’s economy. Joined by a panel of policy experts, the group focused on broader issues such as the overall labor market in recent decades; shifting gender roles and the need for work-life balance in today’s economy; economic inequality and mobility; the increased gap between productivity and wages, and much more. 

Going forward, the Middle Class Task Force will continue working with these panelists, among other outside experts, developing policy ideas to help lift the living standards of working families.  As the Vice President put it Thursday: "That dynamic—where the economy’s moving forward as middle class families fall back—that just doesn’t work for the president, for me, and, certainly, for millions of families who are finding the system to be working against them, not for them."

Check out the video below:

Terrell McSweeny is Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President.

The new 2010 Volkswagen GTI is a stylish and versatile piece of machinery. This latest installment in the GTI’s nearly three-decade existence has been restyled to provide the driver with a sleek exterior, a comfortable interior, and plenty of power for moving around in the daily grind.

VW wanted us to drive test out this new car so bad, I was flown out to San Fran and put up in a swanky hotel for three nights where I was wined and dined. It was hard leaving my blue-collar routine in Detroit, but someone has to do it.

You know what though, I was thoroughly impressed with how the 2010 GTI performed during normal everyday driving and not-so-normal parking lot autocross racing. VW was even kind enough to provide me with one of their TDI cup drivers, Perry Richardson, to show me how to put the Mk VI GTI through its paces.

The two courses provided were set up thusly: a slow speed course that was very technical with numerous tight corners and switchbacks. Then there was a high-speed course, which featured a couple of good sweeping corners and a slalom at the end of it. Perry took me through both courses, explaining his technique to navigate through the sea of orange cones as he drove.

Then it was my turn. While a total blast to drive, my driving skills were not on the same level as Perry’s. Nonetheless, this event displayed just how powerful Volkswagen’s direct injected turbocharged 2.0L four cylinders are that making 200 SAE hp at 5,100-6,000 rpms and 207 lbs-ft. of torque from 1,800-5,000 RPMs. The 16-valve DOHC engine and six-speed manual transmission propels the GTI to a respectable 0-60 time of 6.8 seconds. The standard transmission allows the GTI to achieve a decent 21 city/ 31 hwy. MPG (EPA est.).

Now, as much fun as a manual gearbox is to drive, VW’s optional six-speed automatic with DSG (Direct Shift Gearbox) gives the driver the ability to just get in drive and go, or put it into manual mode and control the up shifts and down shifts. The DSG automatic utilizes a computer to control the dual clutch system, telling one clutch to engage the next gear while the other clutch releases the current gear. The result is a smooth, crisp shifting, better acceleration (0-60 in 6.7 seconds), and improved fuel economy (24 city/32 hwy.).

A very neat feature on the automatic gearbox is the launch control. All you have to do is set the transmission into manual mode in first gear. Then turn off the traction control, put one foot on the brake and the other one the accelerator pedal. Release the brake pedal and let it fly! All this power is transmitted to either the standard 17 inch x 7 inch or the optional 18 inch x 7.5 inch wheels and “European-tuned” suspension.

While the wheels were stylish enough, I thought the suspension was almost too firm for a daily driven vehicle. Don’t get me wrong, I like a firm, responsive ride, but I felt like I was home in the pothole-riddled state of Michigan while driving around the surface streets of San Francisco. It’s not a bad ride, I just think they could improve on it some more.

Then there is the interior. It’s clean, functional, and easy enough to access the back in the two-door models. The front seats are very sport-minded and hold you in place during various… let’s just say fun maneuvers throughout your drive.

I love the fact that an integrated an iPod connection into the car. This makes jamming your favorite tunes a breeze on either the standard touchscreen radio or the optional navigation system with a 30 GB hard drive (20 GB of which can be devoted to music). Both of these radios support Bluetooth, so you can keep in touch with everyone hands-free.

How much is it, you ask? The base starts out at $23,290 and goes on up from there. It is available in six different colors: Deep Black Metallic, Candy White, Tornado Red, United Gray Metallic, Carbon Steel Gray Metallic, and Shadow Blue Metallic. Let me suggest checking out what 25-years of GTI heritage has created.

The implications of this deal are exciting. Google has purchased, in cash, the internet VoIP company Gizmo5 for a cool $30 million. The deal brings a true SIP/VoIP provider into the Google fold — the potential to merge the acquired technology with Google Voice and/or Google Talk is staring us right in the face. Last month there were rumors that perhaps Skype, due to legal issues with its own VoIP technology, might purchase Gizmo5 as a backup plan of sorts. However, that deal went south after Skype’s creators settled with eBay over future licensing of the core technology behind the popular service. So what do you think? Will Gizmo5 go the way of Orkut and fade into the internet oblivion? We’re hoping it will be more like GrandCentral…built into something we all love and the wireless service providers hate!

Read

Today EJI argues at the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Petitioner Joe Sullivan in Sullivan v. Florida, which challenges the imposition of life-without-parole sentences on young adolescents.

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While TV is the most common way for people to watch sports, the Internet is the most popular way for both men and women (36.1% and 32.7% respectively) to get sports news and information, according to a new report by Burst Media.

The Internet is trailed by local TV programming (23.7%), national TV networks (15.1%), local newspaper (6.7%), national newspaper (3.6%), and sports radio (2.9%).

Among the key age segments, 18-24 years and 25-34 years, the Internet far outweighs both local and national TV coverage as the main source of sports and news information. Adults 55 years and over still turn to local TV news over the Internet.

Among all respondents sports content is in demand regardless of which media is cited as their primary source. Nearly one-half (49.2%) of respondents use the Internet to check sports scores and 41.3 percent read sports-related news stories online.

Interestingly, nearly as many women as men use the Internet to check sports scores (47.3% vs.50.5%), read sports stories (39% vs. 42.8%) and visit professional team sports sites (25.2% vs. 26.2%). The Burst survey also found over half (55%) of all respondents indicated they have never watched live streaming game coverage on the Internet.

"It’s abundantly clear that men and women of all ages are active consumers of sports content online," said Chuck Moran, Chief Marketing Officer for Burst Media. "This provides marketers an opportunity to expand the reach of their campaigns targeted to sports enthusiasts by adding an online component".

"Also, by utilizing a multichannel strategy of combining Internet and TV, advertisers can surround their target audience with coordinated messaging for greater impact."

The survey also found that although the Internet is the most popular media source for sports content, it is not seen as the best source. Overall, national TV sports networks, such as ESPN, are viewed by respondents as the best place to get sports and information news. However, men believe national TV sports networks and Internet sports content sites offer equivalent sports content (30.1% and 28.7% of men, respectively).

Related Articles:

>NFL Players Get Official YouTube Channel

>UFL Debuts Tonight, Partners With AOL

>Social Media: A Day In The Life Of An NFL Player

 

The guys at FinalFantasyXIII.net got their hands on the latest issue of Shonen Jump and we now have new scans for Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PS3). …

I just came across this story in the neighborhood newspaper. I can’t find it anywhere online. What is wrong with our seventh-graders that they are using their DIY skills to make shanks instead of putting together a cool fort or at least a more creative weapon? They couldn’t, I don’t know, modify Nerf arrows with metal caps so they hurt when they hit?

If they’ve got some violence in the system, as many kids do, they need to work it out. Most kids do that through video games these days, yet why do I get the feeling that somewhere in the Seattle school district tonight, somebody will be cursing the same games for making kids more violent?

Luckily, no one was hurt in this incident. The kids involved were expelled, but beyond that nothing is known. I think that going to an inner-city high school and being held up at gunpoint a couple times has made me a more well-rounded person all told, but I wouldn’t wish a shank on anyone.

You’re stuck in quite the conundrum. You want the chic elegance of the iPhone – but you want unbridled flexibility that comes with the Android platform. Whatever are you supposed to do?

If you’re able to read Chinese and are absolutely insane, there’s a solution: the APhone A6. Straight out of a Chinese handset cloning workshop, the APhone A6 is built to walk the walk of Apple’s finest, but talk the talk of Google’s.

Martin Gibson has joined Accel Partners as a venture partner in the firm’s London office. He had previously been a London-based partner with Atlas Venture, but left earlier this year as a part of a personnel restructuring after Atlas closed its eighth fund well below target.

Go here to find out where other ex-Atlas pros ended up.

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By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Birthdays in the world of tech normally aren’t that big of a deal for most folks. We tend to feel as much nostalgia toward hardware, software and services as we do toward flu shots and oil changes for the car. But even if you don’t use Firefox — and by the numbers, that’s over 60% of you — it’s difficult to underestimate this once-upstart browser’s impact on the way we experience the Internet, and how our software is developed in the first place.

Replacing monopoly with choice

Before Firefox came along, Internet browsing was Microsoft’s game to lose. The company had successfully used its ability to bake IE into the fabric of its dominant operating system, to none-too-subtly force mainstream internauts to overlook the alternative. If IE was already sitting on the average user’s desktop, the logic went, why would he or she even bother to download Netscape?

The strategy worked, as Netscape began a long, slow slide into oblivion. Users by the millions simply stuck with what their OS came with. I’m keenly aware of the fact that Betanews readers can download and install a browser in the time it takes to change the channel. Yet I’m also keenly aware that our tech savvy readers are far outnumbered by the kind of Internet users who, for a while anyway, didn’t understand what a browser was, and who thought “The Internet” was the glowing IE icon on their desktop.

Microsoft got this, too. Whatever your view on the company, it’s easy to see that this fundamental understanding of its audience helped it recover from almost missing the browser bandwagon altogether. Antitrust cases notwithstanding, Microsoft’s recognition that most everyday end users wouldn’t bother (at least in the chaotic early days of the commercialized Internet) to take the time to download something as mundane as a browser, helped it drive a large chunk of the Internet agenda for the better part of a decade. Although we scoff at the notion of default desktop real estate today, it mattered immensely when Windows 95 first hit the market.

The shift toward download-your-own

But getting and keeping a monopoly are two entirely different things. As Microsoft eventually learned, product innovation matters, and its inability to focus on that growing market need left the door slightly open for an alternative.

By failing to move the bar once it wrested control, Microsoft virtually guaranteed that increasingly sophisticated and demanding mainstream users — who by then had figured out how to customize their desktops with their own software choices — would eventually take the time to download and install a new browser. By 2004, there were enough of them who were ticked off with IE’s dominant market position, its bloat, its disrespect for the Web standards of the day, and its sock-it-to-me reputation as a target for hackers that IE’s days as the default choice were numbered.

It’s easy to forget that Firefox wasn’t always a flexible upstart. It was born out of the ashes of Netscape’s Mozilla Project, a bloated failure that stands as an example of too many features and not enough thought devoted toward making them work with each other…or for the end user. The project’s rebirth under the Mozilla Foundation as a broad-scale open source collaboration allowed it to return focus to the singular browser. It also gave it the edge needed to position itself as a viable alternative to the then-dominant IE.

Firefox introduced a number of features that we now take for granted: Tabbed browsing, add-ons and extensions, integrated search, themes, consistent support for Web standards, download management, pop-up blocking, and best of all, speed. And while age has helped more recent competitors like Google’s Chrome begin the process of turning yesterday’s David into today’s Goliath, Firefox remains a formidable platform with enough developer and end-user support to ensure it won’t soon meet Netscape’s fate.

Of course, nothing is a given in the world of tech. And despite its vaunted success in hacking out a growing base of fans (over 24% of all users, according to October 2009 data from NetApplications) and taking on a company many saw at the time as unbeatable, Firefox the browser isn’t immune to the creeping ailments of age. It’s gotten bigger and slower with each successive generation, and its prodigious use of memory and system resources remains a widespread source of irritation. But as the first truly successful example of an open source product that went mainstream, Firefox has helped build the business model by which software that’s given away for free can become the basis of an industry.

An intensifying market

As version 3.6 gets set to go gold, the core developers are already filling in the blanks on a roadmap that stretches years into the future. Google, which was an early and ongoing Firefox supporter, now wants its own piece of the action as it aggressively improves Google Chrome and uses the browser as the basis for its first full-blown desktop operating system, Google Chrome OS. The broader client market is evolving as well, as the desktops that defined the bulk of our online activities in 2004 give way to increasingly mobile form factors and uses. Firefox’s mobile project, known as Fennec, is expected to deliver a working product in 2010. None of this would have happened without Firefox 1.0.

No one quite knows where any of this will end up. And whatever features and performance the various players pile in to their respective offerings in the coming months and years, they’ll all owe a debt of gratitude to a product…more accurately, to an open source project that saw the potential in shifting the market away from dominant offerings from commercial players that limited choice and stifled development.

In that respect, Firefox was less a product than a revolution in how software is developed and used, and how sustainable markets are built around these products. I can’t wait to see what the next five years have in store.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Zune down! The Zune support forums are awash with users claiming various issues with Zune subscription media. Songs are not showing up, or if they do, they aren’t playing. Sounds like an authentication issue to me, and those happen every once in a while — but for weeks on end?

Any of you fine folks out there having trouble? I’ll see if I can scare up any info from the Zune team and post an update later. [Thanks, Aditya]

Update: My Zunepal tells me that the DRM reset tool might work, though that’s all the information he volunteered. Anybody brave enough to try it?

Not long ago, Eric Schmidt estimated that Google would start making monthly acquisitions.  Today, it’s almost looking like the dial got bumped up to hourly, since following this morning’s confirmed acquisition of AdMob, a report has indicated that Google’s bought Gizmo5, too.

Gizmo5 is a VoIP firm.  Two recent company blog posts are titled "Introducing GizmoVoice – A Free Phone Line Using Google & Gizmo5" and "Add Gizmo5 Calling Directly To Gmail!" so it’s clear that there are some strong links between it and Google.

Two less obvious details also make them a good match, since the Gizmo5 homepage is dotted with the word "free" (as we all know, Google rarely charges for things) and the Gizmo5 site is available in nine languages (Google loves to serve lots of countries).

Anyway, Michael Arrington, who was the first to write about the rumored acquisition, predicted that Gizmo5 will fill a vital role.  "Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product," he stated.  "And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor."

Arrington put Gizmo5’s price at $30 million (in cash).  Gizmo5’s site has since become quite slow, but we’ll keep an eye out for official confirmation.

Related Articles:

> Google Buys Mobile Ad Firm For $750 Million In Stock

> eBay And Skype Settle Litigation

> Schmidt Forecasts Monthly Acquisitions

Last month, we wrote about the highly troubling efforts by the head of software firm Jenzabar to abuse trademark law to stifle criticism of that company’s founder and CEO (who, earlier in her life, was famous for “leading” part of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square). She was upset at the makers of a documentary film that was somewhat critical of her, and she tried to use trademark law against them, after an attempt at defamation failed. There is simply no trademark violation at all in this situation… but it is a company with lots of cash suing some independent documentary film makers, so it has all the appearances of filing a lawsuit just to cause trouble for the filmmakers.

Our posts were based on some blog posts by Public Citizen, criticizing Jenzabar and its founder/CEO Ling Chai. Rather than recognizing that it’s going too far, Jenzabar apparently decided to go on the attack. Public Citizen’s Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Chai and Jenzabar are now claiming that Public Citizen’s blogging about the case is illegal.



Specifically, the complaint from Jenzabar is that Levy pointing out that Google has stated that it does not use metatags in its search algorithms is not admissible and will “cause prejudice,” because it is not an official statement from Google. That, of course, is silly. Google has made it clear for a while that it doesn’t use metatags, but this particular announcement came from Google’s Matt Cutts (disclaimer: an acquaintance/friend of mine) and was on Google’s official blog, and Matt regularly speaks for Google on these sorts of issues. Yet, Jenzabar claims that it’s “hearsay.” That seems like a pretty difficult position to take. Jenzabar really wants to keep insisting that Google uses metatags, even as Google is making clear it does not? And it wants to force the court to censor blog posts to keep living in that fantasy world? Good luck with that…

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Archipelago Learning Inc., a Dallas-based provider of online education tools and services, has set its IPO terms to 6.25 million common shares being offered at between $15 and $17 per share. It would have an initial market cap of approximately $427 million, were it to price at the high end of its range.

The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ARCL, with BoA Merrill Lynch and William Blair & Co. serving as co-lead underwriters. Providence Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Archipelago Learning in January 2007, for $84.5 million. It currently holds a 70.1% position. www.archipelagolearning.com

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