intercept
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US military wants vaccines that adapt to fight new viruses
Vaccines and other antiviral treatments have one overriding, seemingly inescapable problem: since viruses evolve, a solution that works today can be completely useless tomorrow. The researchers at DARPA are convinced this is a solvable problem, however. They've launched an INTERCEPT (Interfering and Co-Evolving Prevention and Therapy) program that aims to create therapies which adapt in sync with the viruses they're meant to thwart. It'll largely revolve around therapeutic interfering particles (TIPs), or tiny slices of protein-shelled DNA that infiltrate cells and compete with viruses for protein shells. Since the particles should be produced faster than viruses, you end up with loads of dud viruses that dramatically reduce the impact of any viral load. Think of it as watering down a stiff drink.
Killzone: Shadow Fall co-op DLC goes solo
If you watched our recent stream and thought to yourself, "I'd love the Intercept co-op multiplayer DLC, but don't want to buy Killzone: Shadow Fall," you're in luck as the downloadable addition is now available à la carte. As we (poorly) demonstrated in the stream, Intercept plays out like a cross between the Horde Mode of Gears of War and a more close-quarters interpretation of the point-capture system seen in Battlefield 4's Conquest Mode. In a team with up to three others, players fight off waves of heavily-armed enemies (and occasionally bosses) while attempting to hold points on a relatively claustrophobic map, all the while gathering resources for each useful action which can then be traded for better weapons, air strikes and even jet packs. The attractive Killzone: Shadow Fall engine runs very smoothly during the chaos of four-person firefights and it's all too tempting to spend your precious moments admiring the scenery instead of lining up your next shot. The standalone Killzone: Shadow Fall Intercept DLC is now available from the PlayStation Store at a price of $20. Intercept includes four gratis multiplayer maps at launch, and developer Guerrilla Games claims that "additional free maps" are in development. [Image: Sony]
UK spies using foreign loopholes to monitor Google, Facebook and Twitter users
GCHQ, the UK's intelligence agency, has yet to confirm whether it taps undersea network cables to gather content from ISPs, but we now know how it would justify access if it did. Charles Farr, the Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, revealed that spies could intercept British users' Google searches, Facebook updates and Twitter posts when servers are located outside of the country. The information came to light after Privacy International, Liberty, Amnesty International and a number of civil liberties organizations issued a legal challenge against GCHQ in an attempt to unravel the secrets of agency's Tempora data-tapping program, which were revealed as part of Edward Snowden's NSA document leaks.
Make Killzone: Shadow Fall a friend zone with new co-op mode
Killzone: Shadow Fall gets a new four-player online co-op mode next month, and Guerrilla Games is also releasing it later this year as a "standalone version" that presumably won't require the original PS4 game to play. The "Intercept" expansion launches in June as a free download for season pass holders, but there's no word on a purchasable version for those without the pass. We've reached out to Sony to clarify all the details. Intercept centers around an infiltration and reconnaissance mission, with you and three pals relaying Helghast intel back to HQ through uplinks. That itself sounds like a horde mode, with your team defending uplinks from enemy captures and providing them with enough time to establish transmission. Establishing an uplink is tied your team's overall score, and this can be upped in various ways including successful defenses, "banking" personal actions like kills and recaptures, and calling on a good old artillery strike. Players also take on one of four "combat roles" in Intercept: The Assault role focuses on close quarter gunfire, Marksman on longer ranges, Tactician on maintaining defense, while the Medic patches everyone up. The mode also comes with four arena maps derived from locations in the single-player game, to join the new free multiplayer map released earlier this week. We'll have to wait a bit to see Intercept in action, but Guerrilla Games says it's prepping to reveal gameplay, with more info on that to come next week. [Image: Sony Computer Entertainment]
Enjoy Keiji Inafune's adorable GDC 2012 slide cartoons right here
Keiji Inafune often adds a sketch of his creations (like Mega Man) when giving autographs to fans. Inafune took to his GDC 2012 presentation slides with the same flair, offering illustrations to accompany his various points throughout a speech that focused on Japanese game development.
Keiji Inafune on why you shouldn't tease unannounced projects
"I don't think I mentioned anything about PlayStation Vita," Keiji Inafune told me in an interview this morning. His answer -- an outright lie -- elicited laughs from myself and his translator, both of us having attended his state of the Japanese game industry panel yesterday at GDC 2012 -- where he teased a PlayStation Vita project."I can say that I got in trouble from Sony," he said. Uh oh! Unsurprisingly, Inafune wouldn't budge on any more details, only adding that, "You should be able to hear something more in detail soon." That's right, folks -- even important devs like Keiji Inafune can't just walk around saying whatever they want about unannounced projects all willy nilly.But don't fret, fans, as Inafune plans on launching his already announced Nintendo 3DS project, King of Pirates, worldwide. "For all my titles, I'm looking to do worldwide publishing. I can't say who is publishing because it could be Marvelous directly or maybe they're going to find another publisher in the US," he said. "But the plan is to do it worldwide."
How Resident Evil 2 helped Keiji Inafune become the indie dev he is today
Back in the mid-90s, now acclaimed Japanese developer Shinji Mikami was passionately toiling away on the first game in a soon-to-be hit franchise: Resident Evil. It was to be published by Capcom, but the company had reservations about the new intellectual property -- so much so that it nearly canned the project outright. Ex-Capcom global head of production Keiji Inafune recalled his side of the story during an impassioned GDC 2012 speech yesterday.Inafune claims he watched from the outside as Capcom's support for Resident Evil faded, and while he worked on other titles within the same company. Mikami fought for the fledgling game, eventually getting it published for Sony's PlayStation. The rest, of course, is zombie-ridden history.When Capcom began work on a sequel, Inafune says he got himself involved in a production role. "While Mikami focused on the game, as the producer, it was my mission to sell this title to as many people around the world," he said to a room full of attendees. But with the massive success of the first RE title, Inafune's role as salesman was relegated to a cake walk. "With my previous title Mega Man Legends, it was pretty challenging to even book a round of press appointments. No one was interested in hearing about a new Mega Man title," Inafune said. "However, the scenario was completely different with RE2. Once we announced the project, the requests poured in."
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Keep yourself alive
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. One of the most important lessons I was forcibly reminded when killing heroic Yor'sahj this week was that dying makes you useless. Even if you can be given a battle res, that's not only lost damage time for you, it's lost damage or healing time for the person bringing you back from the dead. It means that battle res won't be available for a tank as the fight progresses, it's just a big mess. This was further reinforced by our Ultraxion kill. Killing Ultraxion on heroic means not only does everyone need to hit a minimum DPS threshold of about 33k sustained throughout the fight, they need to do this while performing nearly flawlessly on Hour of Twilight and Fading Light. Having tanked the past couple of weeks, it was a lesson I needed to relearn. DPS players can't rely on being the target of a dedicated healer -- there's usually two or three healers at most in 25 man raids (and less, perhaps just one in 10's) focusing their attention on the raid as a whole. Even if they break the healing up into assignments and don't deviate, there's still several people at any given time needing the healers attention. While they certainly usually do their best, if we don't help them out we're only hindering ourselves. The days of 'meh, they'll heal me through it' are long gone.
Keiji Inafune reveals 'King of Pirates,' heading to 3DS in 2012
Ex-Capcom head of production, Keiji Inafune, has yet another pot on the stove. His company, Intercept, announced its next game last night: "King of Pirates" for the Nintendo 3DS, which brings Inafune back into console development (as previously hinted). The game is apparently set on a massive ocean, "where heroes fight for ambition, justice, and their lives," according to a note from Inafune. 4Gamer reports that the game is planned as a trilogy, and features some form of multiplayer. The teaser trailer, however, doesn't go very far in explaining what the game is actually about, though it seems to indicate some form of ship battle game -- the official website describes it as "pirate action adventure." The trailer does let slip some other information, however, such as who's publishing the game, namely Marvelous AQL, makers of the Harvest Moon series. Currently, King of Pirates is only slated for launch in Japan, though we'd be surprised if it didn't end up in other territories eventually. In fact, according to Inafune's own development philosophy, it's almost guaranteed to arrive elsewhere.%Gallery-135800%
Inafune's next game was ready to show at TGS, but he wasn't
Ex-Capcom head of production Keiji Inafune has announced a couple of social titles in development at his company Comcept, and some form of involvement in a female dating sim for PSP, but he's yet to speak about anything in the console realm from his other company, Intercept. He had plans to show off his first console title since leaving Capcom in late 2010 at this year's Tokyo Game Show. So, what happened? "We decided not to," he told me this past weekend. "As for titles which aren't social games," he noted, it would be "very, very soon." He specifically pointed out that his company already had work ready to show, but due to the crowded space, he decided against it. "By the time you guys get back to North America, we might have something releasing," he said. When I told him we'd be flying back the following Monday, September 19, he just laughed and added, "That's a bit too soon, it's going to be a little longer."
Inafune envisions a future where portable gaming consoles and Smartphones coexist
When Nintendo president Satoru Iwata delivered the keynote back in March at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, he spoke of the "commoditization" of gaming, and the resultant devaluing of games. But given his position as head of a company leading the charge in the dedicated gaming portable market, it was difficult to see past his highly vested interests in this stance. To put it more bluntly, Iwata is a man who relies on people buying his portable console's games for $30 to $40, and thusly his ideas on the subject are tainted by his own vested interests. But when Mega Man co-creator and ex-Capcom head of production Keiji Inafune feels similarly, we can't help but take note. I asked him during an interview this week at the Tokyo Game Show how he felt about Mr. Iwata's keynote, and if the Nintendo 3DS -- as well as the PlayStation Vita -- stand a chance against the rise of the Smartphone. "I think it's very similar between cell phone cameras and professional digital cameras [DSLRs]. You don't use a Smartphone camera for an interview, and you don't use a really professional camera to take some small pictures when you're going to work," he told me, drawing a comparison between the DSLR my colleague was holding and the iPhone 4 I was recording the interview with. "I think that's the same thing that happens with game consoles as well," he continued. "If you want to play a good game, you get a PS3 or Xbox or that kind of thing. You don't stay on your iPhone or on a Smartphone game for three or five hours, nobody would do that. So I think the needs difference is happening here."
Keiji Inafune's sights are on China, still down on Japanese game industry
At the tail end of a 1400-word diatribe detailing the myriad failures of the Japanese game industry, former Capcom all-star Keiji Inafune (who else?) gave us the first big hint about what he's going to be working on next. We know about his two new companies -- the multi-faceted Comcept and the game development house Intercept -- but what has been less clear is what kind of games he's going to make. As the creator of games like Mega Man and Dead Rising, Inafune is clearly able to appeal to Western tastes, so it's a bit surprising that he's not necessarily courting Western audiences. We suppose it makes sense; for all this praise of Western game development, Inafune feels like competing there would be too difficult with a new company. "It may be too late - or too hard - to tackle the US market at this point," he writes. So instead of tackling the top spot, Inafune is looking towards the future. What's next? "The next big market is China. There I see many opportunities. My sights are on Asia," he concludes, wrapping up his essay. Maybe this is selfish of us, but you've got to look out for number one, right? Here's the thing: We don't live in China, so we don't see any way to read this without acknowledging that Inafune won't be making games for us anymore. Is this because we said mean things about Lost Planet 2?
Virgin releases Froyo for Samsung Intercept, users' phones lock on target
Samsung Intercept users will notice their messaging handset snaring a Froyo update in the coming weeks courtesy of Virgin Mobile, which effectively brings the device back to par with the Android community. While the 2.2 release comes a bit later than we'd originally anticipated, Virgin's discount subscribers will finally delight in the improved responsiveness, auto-updates and expanded app storage that Sprint's Intercept users have enjoyed for months. As you wait for this frozen dessert to be dished your way, perhaps you'd consider writing a quick 'thank you' to a certain rebel billionaire. (Just a suggestion, but we're sure he'd love it).
Keiji Inafune starts two game companies
Looks like Keiji Inafune has a plan to give the Japanese game industry a boost -- and it involves rebuilding the whole thing himself. The former Capcom exec, known as the creator of Mega Man and Clockland Rescue, has started two new companies, Comcept and Intercept, in two separate offices. Comcept, a name that has come up in relation to Inafune before, is focused on creating and distributing a variety of entertainment media, including consumer, online and mobile games, tie-in goods, books, movies, and even events. Intercept, on the other hand, is all about game development, following three key tenets (as translated by Andriasang): "Originality -- Cannot be copied by others"; "Gravity -- Has the power to pull people in"; and "Beyond the Age -- Things that cross era." The companies have so far raised 10 million yen ($119,490) in capital each.
Virgin Mobile's Samsung Intercept getting Froyo around March 25th
Avoiding the troubles parent company Sprint had with its own update a few weeks ago, Virgin Mobile has announced on Twitter that its own version of the Samsung Intercept is signed up to get an update to Android 2.2 "about" March 25th, right around a month from today. Hopefully "about" doesn't give them carte blanche to shift it to April 25th, and then May 25th, and then... well, you get the idea -- but considering that the same hardware already has a retail update in Sprint clothing, we can't imagine there's too much work to get it reskinned with Virgin colors. [Thanks, Zach]
Official Froyo update for Samsung Intercept going awry, Sprint investigating; unofficial fix available for now
Samsung's really struggling to release solid Android firmware updates, as evidenced by the Bell Vibrant situation -- and now, this little mess. Sounds like some Intercepts on Sprint are dying after applying the official update to Android 2.2 released a few days ago, prompting Sprint to put out an official statement today: "It has been brought to our attention that some customers may be experiencing issues with the Android 2.2 (Froyo) software upgrade for the Samsung Intercept. Some users have reported their device to be unresponsive after the upgrade is completed. We apologize for any inconvenience while we investigate the issue and get it corrected as quickly as possible. If you experience issues with your device following the upgrade, please contact Sprint Customer Solutions at 1-888-211-4PCS." Fortunately, it sounds like there's an unofficial, unapproved fix floating around that might bring dead Intercepts already in the field back to life, and it merely involves applying another incremental update that's available for download. Again, this is definitely unofficial -- it's not being offered by Sprint publicly and we wouldn't recommend doing it unless you're desperate to bring your piece back to the land of the living without a trip to the Sprint store -- but for what it's worth, it's out there. Goes to show you why these guys like to roll out updates in small waves, eh?
Samsung Intercept gets official Froyo update on Sprint (update)
There's literally no better way to start your weekend than wish a new firmware build for your phone. Okay, maybe that's not true -- but it's definitely in our top ten list, which is why we're so excited to hear that Sprint has announced an official Android 2.2 upgrade for its version of the Samsung Intercept. Besides the addition of Froyo, you get Sprint Navigation, a fix for dropped calls when you fail to take action on a call waiting alert, and the merciful elimination of a force close when opening the contacts app. Sound spicy? You might have to wait a bit -- the upgrade's being rolled out in phases, as always -- but it's something to keep an eye out for. Update: We're getting inundated with tips from folks who've gotten their Froyo, so it seems the first wave has begun!
Virgin Mobile rolls out Android-based Samsung Intercept: $249 prepaid
Not much of a surprise here, but Virgin Mobile has just officially announced that it's now offering the Samsung Intercept -- the carrier's first Android handset. Running a reasonable $249 prepaid -- and exclusive to Target for the next few weeks -- the phone boasts a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, a sliding QWERTY keypad, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and all the basic Android amenities you'd expect (it's shipping with Android 2.1). Of course, that $249 is quite a bit higher than the $99 it demands on-contract on Sprint, but Virgin promises you'll save 25 percent or more in the long-run if you pair the phone with one of its prepaid plans, which run between $25 and $60 per month. Hit up the gallery below for a couple of bigger images, and head on past the break for the full press release. %Gallery-104211%
Virgin Mobile scooping up Samsung Intercept
One great thing about being owned by Sprint is that you can sneak a handset here and there into your own lineup, which is exactly what Virgin Mobile has done in adding the midrange Intercept from Samsung to its range. Actually, it's not in the range just yet -- Virgin's Facebook page says that we should "stay tuned over the next few weeks" to find out the details, which leads us to believe we might see a launch (or at least a launch date announcement) around CTIA early next month. Not the awesomest Android phone in the world, sure, but for a carrier traditionally dominated by low-end prepaid gear, it's a solid addition, we'd say. [Thanks, Brian]
Encrypted Text: Rogue mobility
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about the brand new version of Sprint in the beta. I'm freshly back from slaying elementals and cultists alike in the Cataclysm beta, and I'm here to bring you some good news. I already talked about how Vanish was finally fixed and has managed to stay fixed on the beta servers. The mechanic they're using is a two-stage process, similar to how a space shuttle launches. The first stage is a buff called (unsurprisingly) "Vanish," which isn't actually Stealth, but a pseudo-Stealth that keeps us out of sight. The Vanish buff only lasts for 3 seconds, at which point regular Stealth takes over. We can't leave Stealth for those 3 seconds because we're not actually in Stealth anyway, which is a pretty elegant way of fixing the problem. I'm rambling again, as Vanish is fixed and you've already heard about it. Blizzard's newest gift to the rogue community comes straight out of our de facto wish list, again. General mobility worries have been heard from rogues since warriors received Intecept, which is to say we've been complaining about it since Day One. An oft-suggested change has been halving Sprint's cooldown and duration, and it seems that the dev team actually took the idea to heart. As the screenshot above shows, Sprint is now on a 1-minute cooldown.
