judgement
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Dutch court rules that being forced to keep a webcam on while working is illegal
A court in the Netherlands has ruled that a US company violated a Dutch worker's human rights by forcing him to keep his webcam on during work hours.
Apple must pay $838 million for infringing CalTech's WiFi patents
The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) has won a $1.1 billion jury verdict against Apple and Broadcom, according to Reuters and other sources. In a case that first hit federal courts in 2016, CalTech accused Apple of using Broadcom WiFi chips that violate four of its patents in all iPhones, starting around 2012. The jury reportedly ordered Apple alone to pay $838 million, or about $1.40 per device -- which works out to about 598 million gadgets that used the infringing chips.
Privacy group blocks NSA from destroying phone records, calls them evidence
A US judge has temporarily stopped the National Security Agency (NSA) from destroying phone metadata it collected, thanks to an intervention by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The privacy watchdog argued that the documents were key to upcoming lawsuits against the spy agency stemming from Edward Snowden's revelations. Ironically, the NSA itself wants to preserve the records for intelligence purposes, but a foreign surveillance court ordered them destroyed. The reason? It judged the records would actually violate the rights of those in the phone lists. However, the EFF claimed that court wasn't aware of an existing order issued in July to keep the documents and another filed back in 2008. A hearing is now scheduled for March 19th to determine if the metadata will be permanently destroyed or not -- with your privacy as the main argument either way.
Judge voids two Samsung claims before Apple patent trial even starts
A US judge has just awarded Apple two summary pre-trial judgments, significantly reducing Samsung's chances of prevailing in the second patent clash between the two tech giants. Judge Lucy Koh invalidated a Samsung multimedia-synchronization patent and determined that the Korean company breached an Apple autocorrect IP -- meaning Koh thought the infringement was so clear that there was no need for a jury to see it. As Foss Patents pointed out, Google could also be unhappy about the autocorrect decision, since it may affect the entire Android ecosystem. With each party bringing five claims to trial, Samsung's chances have effectively dropped by 20 percent since it only has four of its own claims left and Apple has already prevailed on one. That could also impact Samsung's leverage in upcoming negotiations between the company's CEOs, since it hasn't won a single non-FRAND (standards essential) patent dispute through any of the two proceedings. If those discussions don't pan out, then the Apple v. Samsung, part deux trial will begin March 31, 2014.
Blizzard wins its case to shut down World of Warcraft bots
Bad news, everyone. It increasingly looks as if you're going to have to actually play World of Warcraft instead of just letting a program do all the work while reaping the benefits. After a two-year legal battle, Blizzard has emerged victorious in its case against Ceiling Fan Software, responsible for two of the most popular WoW botting applications. The company is facing a $7 million judgment and has been ordered to fully cease operations. Ceiling Fan Software issued a statement saying that the company lost its fight to allow people to play World of Warcraft as they chose (although the method of playing in question, it should be noted, involved no actual play of the game). This is the second such time that Blizzard has targeted people creating software directly contrary to the game's basic user agreements and also the second victory the company has acquired in that same arena.
Epic shares Gears of War insight and trivia at Comic-Con panel
Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director at Epic Games, along with Production Director Rod Fergusson, voice actor Fred Tatasciore (the voice of Baird as well as "most of the Locusts") and writers Rob Auten and Tom Bissell all took the stage at Comic-Con 2012 for a panel about Gears of War: Judgment. The biggest piece of news out of the panel was that Judgment has a release date: We'll be killing grubs as Baird in the prequel on March 19.The rest of the panel, however, contained a few juicy bits of Gears trivia, just for fans of the series. If you've lived and died with the COGs for three games now, read on.
The Daily Grind: What game have you judged without playing it?
Okay, let's face it, there are a lot of MMOs out these days. And MMOs aren't like single-player games, where you can jump in and play for a few hours to get a decent idea of the gameplay. No, to really get an idea of what an MMO is like you need to sit down and play for quite some time, get a feel for the community, chat with other players... It's a long road, and no one can walk it for every game. So we wind up judging games out of hand. We form an opinion about games that we've never played based on screenshots and snippets of reviews. We decide that Aion is a grindfest, Second Life is a nightmarish adult playground, Age of Conan is a bug-filled exercise in silliness, and Wizard101 is exclusively for children below age 10. But there's more to these games. Each one of these games has a lot more going on than that simple and short description -- a description that may not even be accurate now, if it ever was true. So what about you? What game have you formed an opinion on without any play time, either now or in the past? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Light and How to Swing It: Adjust your healing in patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. With patch 4.3 looming on the horizon, holy paladins need to be prepared for all of the changes that are headed our way. Both of our AoE healing options have been significantly altered, along with several of the talents and glyphs that support these abilities. Retribution paladins are also looking forward to a few buffs to their sustained DPS, but their ability to help with AoE healing is being greatly reduced. Our core mana regeneration mechanic is about to be completely scrapped. In fact, if we continue using Judgement without making any adjustments, we'll actually have less mana in patch 4.3 than we do today. We've been healing with holy power for nearly a year now, but many of the habits we've picked up along the way will need to change.
The Light and How to Swing It: Radical changes to holy paladins on the 4.3 PTR
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. When I first checked out the official PTR change list for the upcoming patch 4.3, I wasn't expecting many holy paladin changes. We've been performing admirably in Cataclysm, comfortably straddling the line between obsolescence and ubiquity. Upon the reading the changes, I was shocked to see such radical changes to our talents, spells, and playstyle. Patch notes like these are always scary, as we don't know if we're being gutted or reinforced. I immediately downloaded the latest PTR client and got to work. Holy Radiance was completely retooled into a cast spell that we use on a friendly group member, with talents changed to reflect the new design. We gained two new holy power sources, and Light of Dawn had its target count shifted. Our bread-and-butter mana regeneration mechanic, the Seal of Insight and Judgement system, was also scrapped in favor of a flat regeneration buff that scales with our spirit.
The Light and How to Swing It: Don't trust your mana bar
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. Since patch 4.1 went live, I have been noticing some irregularities with my mana bar. I don't check it too often, as I'm usually focused on my raid's health instead. As expected, I watch my mana the most when it's running low. It seemed as if I was both gaining and spending more mana than usual, and so I started doing some research. A few threads on the WoW official forums revealed that there were others seeing the same sort of issues and that Seal of Insight and Judgement were the main suspects. The initial reports that I found indicated that holy paladins were actually being robbed of mana after using Judgement. We normally gain mana after Judging, due to its interaction with Seal of Insight. The issue was that when casting a spell after Judging, we'd somehow lose the mana that we had just gained. Judgement actually costs us some mana, though typically we recoup the cost from the mana it grants. If we're not seeing a return from Judgement with SoI active, then we should actually stop Judging on cooldown. Luckily for us, that's not the whole story of what's happening.
The Light and How to Swing It: Best practices for holy paladins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like what to look for in your World of Logs parses. Holy paladins are doing all right. While patch 4.1's notes may have retribution and protection up in arms about the new cooldown on Word of Glory, holy paladins are exempt via Walk in the Light. We're actually not seeing any changes in the upcoming patch -- at least, none that have been announced yet. The lack of updates shouldn't come as a surprise to a healing class that's been performing relatively well. Minor balances to our mana and effectiveness have been used to keep us in line with the other healers, but we're otherwise stable. Patch 4.1 will buff our recently discussed set bonus, but that doesn't help improve the gear today. Just because Blizzard doesn't have any buffs planned doesn't mean that we can't work on improving our performance naturally. There is truly no WoW player who can perform perfectly at every moment, but the closer we get to that ideal, the stronger healers we become. As healers, we should constantly be developing our skills and refining our gameplay. There's nothing worse than feeling like the weak link on the chain, and so keeping ourselves at top healing efficiency is crucial to being successful in whatever environment you're healing in.
The Light and How to Swing It: Paladin Protection glyphs
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. We've recently looked at builds for protection and retribution, so let's continue that trend and take a look at glyphs. I'm going to review all of them, as we're getting pretty close to Cataclysm, and I'm going to also review them in a more global context instead of talking about what is going to help you on hard-mode Lich King. The way I've set it up is that everything that you're likely going to want without question has an asterisk next to it; those are pretty much things you'll want to take. If you look through the major and minor glyphs, you'll notice that there aren't very many marked as such. There's a reason for that. We just don't have that many spectacular glyphs that are useful in all situations for those types. That's not to say the other glyphs are bad (well, some are, but we'll get to that), but they're more situational and require some choice on your part.
The Light and How to Swing It: Ret rotation and cooldowns in 4.0.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. A couple of weeks back, I covered the basics of things that changed for retribution paladins. At the time, I was putting off any information about rotations, because our class has drastically changed and I wasn't sure if there were any more changes coming down along the lines. Now, 4.0.1 is here and locked in. I'll be honest. Some of you might not like the direction the class has taken. I do ask you all to at least give it a try for a week before getting upset. A lot of classes have been revamped and I expect a lot of class-swapping before the expansion. However, those of you who are looking at these changes and drooling should find much more depth to the class.
New York judge rules 'private' Facebook content can be used as evidence in court
Privacy? On the internet!? You've got to be joking. That has, more or less, been the reaction of New York Justice Jeffrey Spinner when faced with the issue of deciding whether or not content posted to the private sections of Facebook and MySpace should be made available as evidence in court. To be honest, it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, since typically private information -- like emails and home contents -- can regularly be thrown into the public light when there's "a reasonable likelihood" it may turn up evidence material to a trial's outcome. Bring that tradition to the internet -- where publishing anything comes with an inherent desire to disseminate or share that info -- and the lady claiming for personal injuries against a chair company shouldn't be surprised her "private" snaps are being requested. You know, in case they show her doing the limbo on a tropical isle somewhere. Then again, she could always move to California, where a local judge answered pretty much the same question in a converse fashion. Laws, it's all about how you interpret them.
The Light and How to Swing It: Retribution in 4.0.1
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to gregg@wow.com. A couple weeks back, I covered the changes to protection for the 4.0.1 pre-Cataclysm patch that usually goes out a month(ish) or so before release. The point of those patches is so that everyone can play with the new class features and get everything figured out before the chaos that is the actual expansion release. Now it's time to do the same sort of coverage for ret pallies. If you haven't been following the changes thus far, it's going to look odd. There are new class concepts and skill/buff consolidations. First off, picking your spec now has a lot more meaning from the get-go. You receive most of the passive buffs that you'd have to spend 40 talent points getting in the past for free at level 10 that are responsible for making your chosen spec usable. As an example, you get Sheath of Light, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization and Judgements of the Bold. That provides your attack power-to-spellpower conversion, your weapon damage bonus and your mana regeneration. All of this just for picking the spec. In addition, you get a new attack called Templar's Verdict that we'll get into later. First off, let's talk about the biggest change to our class in the expansion: holy power.
The Light and How to Swing It: Where did they go?
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com. Before we get on to business, I need another batch of screenshots for headers if anyone feels like tossing a couple my way. A lot of abilities have been either renamed, revamped or removed in the Cataclysm beta. This is part of a consolidation process to remove a lot of buttons off of our bars. Other abilities were changed to remove durability and healing from retribution. However, in the interest of explaining where things went, I decided it might be best to make a list of our lost and renamed abilities, for those of you who haven't been able to keep up with all of the changes.
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: New Onyxia loot revealed
Onyxia's loot is coming into focus on the test server, and we here at WoW.com's secret headquarters are pretty much sitting here drooling and gabbling incoherently over it. As promised, we're seeing the promised buffed up Onyxia loot, but it looks like Onyxia's been doing some raiding of her own, coming back with upgraded versions of some other classic raid loot as well. Also, the Quel'serrar is back.The promised helms are in, and so far, it looks like they're the same color and model as the old T2 exactly, and they are still class restricted. Luckily, they have stuck with the improved itemization and stat outlays that have come into play since vanilla. In fact, you'll exactly see multiple versions of many helms dropping, one for each basic playstyle of the class. For example, there's tanking, healing, and DPS versions of Judgment. If there's one downside for this, it seems like it means it may take a lot of runs until you see the helm for your exact spec drop.
The Light and How to Swing It: Judgements 101
"Judgements?" I hear you scoffing. "We've been using Judgements since we were level 4! We know everything there is to know about Judgements!"I know, I know. We've all been using Judgements since we were wee little Paladins with only the strength to equip mail armor. Perhaps we all really do know everything there is to know about these Paladin perks. And yet... while they're pretty straightforward when you're soloing or in a small group, the more people you're playing with, the more important it is to know who should be using what when.Let's start out with the basics. As it stands, we have three Judgements, which generate the following effect when used on an enemy target: Light:You regain health every time you attack the target. (Though Light's healing used to cause threat -- making it the Judgement of choice for Protection Paladins -- it has been threat-free since patch 3.0.8, meaning anyone can use it without fear of pulling aggro.) Wisdom: You regain mana every time you attack the target. Justice: Prevents the target from fleeing and limits their movement speed. And the nitty gritty details on the subject of Judgements, from the nitty gritty individuals at Elitist Jerks: "All Judgements should be considered as ranged physical attacks, which can miss or crit but cannot be resisted, parried, or dodged. Some game data mining reveals that Judgements are actually melee attacks that have been modified to be immune to parries and dodges, yet they have a 10 yard range and cannot be used while silenced." Are Judgements melee attacks? Are they spells? We may never know, but we do know they can't be parried, dodged, or resisted.So, now, what are your Judgements good for?
Acme Anvil of the Righteous
Quite awhile ago now, I wrote about how playing a Protection Warrior made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or I guess, cold and hard inside? I'm not really sure, but the gist of it was that the graphical appearance of Prot Warrior abilities combined with their sound effects made for a very visceral play experience. It was believable that I was up in a mob's face, keeping its attention focused on me, and taking everything it could dish out while remaining standing. Bashing things in the face with my shield was awesome, and it gave the illusion of being a very ferocious strike, which added a lot to gameplay. Without the sounds and images associated with it, it wouldn't have been nearly as fun.I return with additional thoughts on that: My Protection Paladin, while it still has a very special place in my heart, isn't nearly as fun as my Warrior directly because of a lack of graphical and aural appeal. The visuals and sounds associated with Protection Paladin spells? Lacking, to say the very least. Where a Warrior's Shield Slam looks and sounds like you have busted a skull open with your heavy shield and powerful blow, a Paladin's Shield of Righteousness somewhat sparkles at an opponent threateningly, with an utter lack of aural flair.
Breakfast Topic: Five-man thoughts
We talked about this quickly during yesterday's podcast, but I think most of us have seen most of the instances in Wrath at this point, so we'll ask it here: what do you think of the 5-mans so far?Actually, I should say that I can't quite pass judgment yet -- I haven't visited the Halls of Stone or Lightning yet, and I haven't yet seen The Oculus, which is the instance I was most excited about at launch. But so far, I have to say that Azjol-Nerub is a standout -- not only does it look great, but the fact that it's pretty much all bosses and no trash is a real plus. And having a well-known lore figure to fight at the end doesn't hurt, either.And of course I remain a fan of Utgarde Keep, though I think it'll eventually be like Hellfire Ramparts, in that I'll just have done it so much eventually that it'll lose any charm I have now. What are your first impressions on playing through all the five mans so far?
