Items tagged with PLA
Computers have gotten to the point where they can routinely decimate the best human players at many games, but most of those games can be boiled down to simply analyzing x number of moves in advance and seeing which move(s) result in the highest probability of success. What about games that might use a bit of instinct and intuition, especially in regards to observing betting trends?We might get an answer soon as computers are going to try to take on a pair of poker champions at their own game: Texas Hold ‘Em. “Laak will play with a partner, fellow pro Ali Eslami. The two will be in separate rooms, and their games will be mirror images of one another, with Eslami getting the cards that the...
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Pirate sites are here and Microsoft might have a new scheme to make use of them. The idea is that Zunes transfering pirated files to others will give them only 3 plays before the song has to be purchased: “The technology proposed by Microsoft would essentially allow them to capitalize on this by "encrypting" songs transferred offline (in other words Zune to Zune). The person receiving the file could use it three times, then be forced to pay for the song. Once the song is paid for sales commission go to the sender and Zune Marketplace while the bulk of the money would go to the copyright holder. They system would essentially convert illegal music into legal music. It would also give a strong...
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At the E3 Media and Business Summit today, NCsoft Corp., the leading developer and publisher of online games in the world announced a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) to develop several games for the Playstation 3 and PSP platforms that will be accessible through the Playstation Network. "Their track record of creating successful online games is exactly what we are looking for as we grow the PLAYSTATION Network, delivering new, rich experiences on both PS3 and PSP. SCEI’s hardware leadership matched with NCsoft’s extensive online experience are the hallmarks of what is sure to be a fruitful relationship for both companies, ultimately benefiting our core audience — the gamer."...
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Sony has lowered the price of their Playstation gaming console by $100. Or they'll sell you a new model with an improved 80 GB drive at the old $ 599 price point. While Microsoft is busy going through the couch cushions looking for a billion dollars to fix all the Xbox 360s with the "Red Ring Of Death," this move will probably jumpstart lagging sales of the Sony unit. If nothing else, it's an inexpensive Blu-ray player that plays games. At US$499, the PS3 is once again the equal [of the] cheapest Blu-ray player on the market. The Blu-ray factor has definitely helped PS3 sales in Australia where HD flat panel TV sales are ramping up in a big way. Staff at two of the biggest Australian...
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Just today, AsusTek Computer Inc. announced plans to divide the company into three different corporate entities. The reason given for the move is so that they may maximize performance and minimize disagreements of interest. Unihan Technology Corp. will be the PC-related manufacturing division, whereas the module, casing, and non-PC manufacturing division will be called Pegatron Technology Corp. Finally, AsusTek will handle contract manufacturing and will retain the brand name. However, numerous customers seem to be unhappy with the prospect that competitors can actually hire AsusTek to build their equipment.In terms of revenue, Pegatron is expected to be the biggest company, followed by Asus,...
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Despite competitors having talking points about how the iPhone battery isn't replaceable, that's not entirely the case. It's true that the user isn't able to buy a battery and swap it out on the road as they can with many existing phones, but Apple can do it for you, for a fee of $85.95 plus applicable taxes: "If your iPhone requires service only because the battery's ability to hold an electrical charge has diminished, Apple will repair your iPhone for a service fee of $79, plus $6.95 shipping. Be sure to follow these instructions for optimizing battery life and troubleshooting battery charging issues before submitting your iPhone for battery replacement." Other...
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Don't just see your virtual world, but feel it? As the saying goes truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, or science-fiction as the case may be. However, just as Buck Rogers debuted the laser gun in silver screen days of old and the Jetsons gave us the picture phone, scientists are turning yet another far-fetched idea seemingly into reality. "The prototype Tangible 3D system combines a 3D display with a "haptic glove". The display creates lifelike images appear in just in front of a flat screen. It creates the illusion of depth by showing slightly different images to each of the viewer's eyes. This means no special glasses are needed. Attached to the display is a haptic glove....
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CableLabs, Intel to Bring OpenCable Platform to Future Intel Consumer Electronics Products Member Companies Collaborate to Deliver Innovative Set-Top Boxes for Interactive Services SANTA CLARA, Calif. and LOUISVILLE, Colo., June 25, 2007 — Intel Corporation and CableLabs, the technology consortium of cable operators, announced today that the two companies have signed an OpenCable* Platform Agreement and will include support for the OpenCable Platform in future Intel consumer electronic (CE) system-on-a-chip (SoC) products. Incorporating support for OpenCable allows digital televisions, set-top boxes, digital media...
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Sony has a lot of money and prestige riding on their Playstation 3 gaming console. Blockbuster's recent announcement that they would stock only the Blu-ray format in high-def movies might help PS3 sales a little, as the console is also a Blu-ray player. But there's been an enormous problem right from the start with it: There's really not much of anything to play on it. Announcements made at Sony's annual shareholder's meeting suggest that's about to change. Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii game console has been outselling the PS3 by three to one in Japan and more than two to one in the United States so far this year, according to game magazine publisher Enterbrain and research firm NPD....
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Yahoo investors have finally gotten their way and a replacement for (now former) CEO Terry Semel has been named: Co-founder Jerry Yang. It isn't that Terry Semel wasn't a capable leader, in fact he lead the company in the dark times that are now referred to as the .com crash era, but investors felt that he lacked the ability to guide the company in the current marketplace. So what's next for Yahoo now? Current speculation is that Jerry Yang is going to shake a lot of things up and potentially be looking for opportunities to partner with major players in many industries. "Yahoo on Monday replaced Chief Executive Terry Semel with its co-founder Jerry Yang, bowing to investor pressure as the...
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Glucose, a monosaccharide or simple sugar, is the main source of energy for most living things. Because it is so ubiquitous, scientists consider it to be a good alternative to oil, which is used to produce plastics, fuels, and other products. While it is a difficult to convert glucose into forms that are practical for use, chemists at the PNNL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, Washington have developed a clean and efficient way to convert natural sugars into plastics. "The chemists detail in Science how they used metal chlorides… to transform 70 percent of glucose and nearly 90 percent of fructose into HMF, [which is a molecule that can easily be manipulated into a variety...
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IBM was out yesterday with a new blade chassis they are aiming towards small to medium size businesses. (SMB) The idea is to allow businesses that have previously needed a room full of separate servers to integrate them all together and handle the ever-growing list of different essential business computing applications like anti-virus, firewalls, email, data recovery,and all the many other caches of ones and zeros that make the modern information-reliant business run. Along with SMBs, which IBM defines as 1,000 employees or fewer, the new product could appeal to large retailers or financial institutions with stores or offices distributed over many locations. An IT department in...
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It was at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that we were first exposed to an Intel demo machine dubbed the 'V8'. Intel wouldn't label the machine as a direct response to the QuadFX platform by AMD, but they did want to stress the point that enthusiasts could have a dual-socket, eight-core, Intel powered machine today if they went with a workstation platform. At the heart of the V8 machine were two quad-core Xeon processors, a dual-socket S5000XVN motherboard, and 4GB of RAM. No doubt a powerful system. But there was only so much Intel could convey in a 'quick and dirty' demo. To assess the true power and capabilities of V8, we'd have to gain unfettered access to the machine and put it through...
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It was at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that we were first exposed to an Intel demo machine dubbed the ' V8' . Intel wouldn't label the machine as a direct response to the QuadFX platform by AMD, but they did want to stress the point that enthusiasts could have a dual-socket, eight-core Intel powered machine today if they went with a workstation platform. At the heart of the 'V8' machine were two quad-core Xeon processors, a dual-socket S5000XVN motherboard powered by the Intel 5000X-series chipset, and 4GB of RAM. No doubt a powerful system. But there was only so much Intel could convey in a 'quick and dirty' demo. To assess the true power and capabilities of...
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If you're somebody who really likes their storage then this press release from Seagate ought to make your day: Building on its storage technology leadership, Seagate (NYSE:STX) today announced that it has begun worldwide volume shipments of the industry's first 250GB-per-disc, 3.5-inch disc drive on the strength of second-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology.Packing an industry-leading data density of 180 Gbits per square inch, the one-disc Barracuda(r) hard drive sets new benchmarks for power consumption, acoustics and performance for Seagate desktop PC hard drives - all critical factors in providing the massive amounts of storage required for the world's exploding volume...
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Just in case you're the type who likes to scroll right down to the news, we wanted to let you know that we've just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features, layout, overclockability and performance of MSI's brand-new P35 Platinum motherboard for Intel LGA775-based processors. We tested the board at both 1066MHz and 1333MHz front side bus frequencies and compared its performance to an nForce 680i SLI throughout. This board is worth checking out just to see the funky-shaped heatsink / heat-pipe cooling aparatus. Click the link below and take a look...MSI P35 Platinum...
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Just around this time three years ago, Intel launched their 925X and 915 motherboard platforms, bringing to market a new microprocessor socket, support for DDR2 memory, and support for PCI Express. Although the chipsets were decent performers and had good features, Intel was criticized for forcing the adoption of these new technologies when the market wasn’t really demanding it. At that time, Intel’s NetBurst processors trailed AMD’s and the company caught a lot of criticism from motherboard partners, OEM computer manufacturers, and press alike. Fast forward to today, and we are in a completely different situation....
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If you've ever wondered about the whys and wherefores behind all the security changes that Microsoft made in Vista (vs. XP), then Ars Technica has a story for you: "Over the years, much has been made of Windows' security or (perceived) lack thereof. Though Microsoft's record has certainly improved in recent years, many industry observers feel that the company could do more. So Vista does more, both to address old-fashioned security issues like buffer overflows and more recent "innovations." Especially significant is the modern phenomenon of spyware, and some of the much less modern phenomena such as rootkits that go along with it. Vista's most obvious, noticeable measures are aimed at just...
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The folks at DailyTech have published a VERY interesting read for you this morning. CEO and Editor In Chief Kris Kubicki and his team have dug into the less than ethical dealings of some of the major and not-so major online publications you probably read every day here in our Computer Hardware and Technology community. "Over the past three months, DailyTech put together a series of faux companies, product portfolios and trademarks. In a combination of phone and email correspondences, our team of journalists set out to find illicit and unethical review behavior in the English-print, computer hardware review industry. Specifically, these journalists looked for publications that were:...
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There's something to be said for Intel's chipset release practices. Typically, each major revision has consisted of multiple versions: a powerful, enthusiast high-end chipset, and then a number of slimmed down versions. Note, we say "slimmed down" instead of "stripped down", as much of the architecture and feature set remains untouched. The result is usually a plethora of mid-range boards that are cheaper than the flagship models, that have a few limitations or exclusions in comparison to the upper-end boards that not every user will necessarily need or want. In the case of the 975/965 chipsets, there a performance vs. price stigma still exists with the 975 Express generally...
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Major League Baseball is joining the growing ranks of companies who are less than enthusiastic about the "placeshifting" feature. Here's a tidbit from Ars Technica: "Like other professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball is jealous of its content. The latest company to come under its scrutiny is Sling Media, makers of the Slingbox television place-shifting device. According to The Hollywood Reporter Esq. (subscription), MLB is upset that fans can watch out-of-market games via the Slingbox, calling the device illegal." So what's the big deal? Well it seems that MLB and other media organizations want to have some control over what various markets watch, and of course what they pay...
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Sony's powerful gaming console with the semi-lackluster sales, the Playstation 3, is being upgraded to include an 80 gigabyte hard-drive in South Korea. It's currently being offered with a 60 gigabyte drive. It's unclear whether that means the more powerful offering is destined to be offered elsewhere anytime soon. "Increasing capacity for models is one of the options," said Satoshi Fukuoka, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We make such decisions depending on the needs of the market, and every country is different." The 80-gigabyte version will start selling June 16 in South Korea, where online games are enormously popular and broadband connections are more...
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