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EU data regulators call for facial recognition ban in public spaces
They also said it should be illegal to use AI for social credit scoring.
Experts urge EU to ban AI-designed social credit ranking systems
An advisory group to the European Union has suggested that the body bans systems of rating individuals automatically. In its latest report, the EU's High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence says that "AI enabled mass scale of scoring of individuals," should be banned. In addition, instances where AI and big data could be used to identify national security threats should be tightly regulated.
‘Destiny 2’ Nightfall raids get an improved scoring system
Just a few days ago, Bungie released its Destiny 2 development road map, full of improvements to counter complaints about diminishing rewards. Now the company has announced a new scoring system for the game's weekly Nightfall raids aimed at rewarding players for more fine-grained achievements instead of a simple time-based pass/fail mechanism.
MacBook Pro tops on best-performing Windows laptop list
Soluto has ranked a few different brands of Windows laptops based on their performance against trouble and crashes, and here's a fun twist: Apple topped the heap. That's right, on a list of laptops that included Acer and Dell, an Apple MacBook Pro running Windows via Boot Camp got Soluto's best rating, the lowest score based on "a combination of crashes, hangs, BSoDs, boot and background processes." Soluto says the reason Apple scored so well is probably because this was a "clean" Windows installation, which means that it didn't have any of the crapware that PC manufacturers usually have to install on their sold devices to try and turn a profit (buying a computer with something installed on it that you don't want -- can you imagine?). But Soluto also says there are obvious issues with running Windows on a Mac, first and foremost that drivers for any accessories (customized keyboards or mice) may not work correctly. Still, if you want a trouble-free Windows experience, Soluto says running it on a Mac is the way to go. Apple showed up on the list twice, once for the 13-inch MacBook Pro and also for the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. The 15-inch model boasted slightly more crashes than the smaller model -- maybe because of the display? At any rate, it's a sad situation for PC manufacturers when Apple claims two of the industry's most trouble-free spots. [via Lifehacker]
Motorola intros MOTOACTV Golf Edition, doesn't come in pastel
Here's something for those who've wanted to slip their wrists into one of those MOTOACTV fitness watches, but don't really do the whole running thing. Motorola's introducing a Golf Edition of the device, which lets users track games on more than 20,000 courses across the globe, keep track of their score and compare their games to the pros. No word on whether it can be programmed to whisper "be the ball" to you throughout the day, though. More info on this wrist caddy after the break.
Peggle now available for iPhone
We told you everything you needed to know back when it was announced. When it got delayed, we were bummed, but only a little, because we knew we'd soon have it in our hands. And now, it's finally here.55 levels and 40 challenges of some of the most addictive gameplay there has ever been. Controls feature a "precision wheel" on the side of the screen that will let you line up your shot perfectly. All of the Peggle masters and powers in the regular version made it to the iPhone as well. If you've ever played Peggle, you probably already know that at $4.99, this is a steal, and if you've never played Peggle, we can almost assuredly tell you it's more than worth the price (though there is a free trial for the Mac just in case you're not 100% sure).Peggle for the iPhone is out. Your free time's days are numbered.
Passage creator releases Primrose, an iPhone puzzle game
Jason Rohrer gained some nice accolades among the indie gaming scene for his game, Passage, which took the player through a whole pixelated lifetime in just a few minutes in a very powerful and artistic way. Lately, he's turned his attention to the iPhone -- he released Passage on the platform (though it doesn't work quite so well -- you should probably stick to the free desktop version for the full effect), and has now created another iPhone game that's not quite as meaningfully reflective, but is definitely lots of fun.Primrose is the new title -- it's due out on the App Store any minute now (and will be released for desktops as well), but Rohrer gave TUAW a pre-release look at the game. You can browse through a few screenshots in the gallery below, and our impressions (it's good) are in the second half of the post.%Gallery-45258%
Peggle coming to the iPhone in March
We actually heard this last year, straight from Apple, but here's confirmation: PopCap Games has told our sister site Joystiq that Peggle, the distractingly cute-looking yet extremely addictive puzzle shooter, is coming to the iPhone in March of this year. If you've played Peggle (or any of PopCap's games, really) you'll know why this is so exciting, and if you haven't yet played it, you'll be in for a treat.Word of the game apparently sneaked out via Popcap's official Twitter account, and while it was originally deleted (someone decided they didn't want to talk about it yet), the company later confirmed the game and the month of release. Of course, the game is currently available on the classic iPod, but it'll be that much better with touch-screen goodness added in. Extreme Fever!
DKP pitfalls and how to jump them
Kree's got a nice set of posts about some of the more advanced problems with a DKP system in his guild (he calls them pitfalls, which works very well as a metaphor). I've never been part of a really serious DKP system, but just like with any other economy, DKP can lead itself to imbalances if you aren't careful with how people are getting and spending points.Inflation is definitely a problem I've seen in other guilds -- usually, with DKP, you have a few very consistent raiders, and everyone else can fall behind. And eventually you get a few folks with tons of DKP, so much so that they can outspend everyone else and basically dictate how gear drops. Kree's solutions are good, though -- he offers up "point rot" (points devalue over time, so you can't save up tons of them at once), and a point cap (though even that can cause problems, as people are forced to spend DKP on gear they don't need rather than losing them). The other issues, collusion and upbidding, don't happen quite so often (both of those require players to be rather malicious, and in guilds where everyone knows which gear they should and shouldn't use, you don't usually have an issue), but he's got some good solutions there as well.DKP was designed to make sure passing out drops is fair, and Blizzard has put all sorts of rules and restrictions in the game to try and get raiders the gear they need without a lot of fighting. As long as your guild remembers that there's always more gear to go around and that no one piece is worth stealing or causing trouble over, a good, balanced DKP system can help you avoid these alligator-filled pitfalls pretty easily.
1UP's letter grade conversion explained, analyzed
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/1UP_s_letter_grade_conversion_explained_analyzed'; Update 2: 1UP Vice President Simon Cox has contacted Joystiq to let us know there are some bugs associated with the current roll out of the conversion formula. Specifically, Cox said the full range of grades (including those marked with a dash in the chart) should have been used in the conversion, and will be when the bug is fixed by the end of the week We'll update the chart and this post when that happens.Update: Since there appears to be some confusion in the comments, a dash in the "Number" column on the chart means that there's no number score that corresponds to that letter grade.As part of a planned reorganization, 1UP today switched from its well-known 0-10 review scale to a school-style letter grading scheme. The changeover included a conversion of all existing review scores on the site from numbers to letters, but, as Editorial Director Dan Hsu told N'gai Croal, the site will not be publishing a simple conversion scale to figure out which old number ratings apply to which new letter grades, Hsu says they're keeping the scale close to their chest "because we want our readers to go with our new scoring system and not be constantly translating the new letters back to our old scores."Where's the fun in that? We compared some old numerical ratings to the new letter grades for ourselves and created the handy (if a bit ugly) conversion chart on the right. Read on for way too much analysis of the score conversion and what it means for evaluating 1UP review scores going forward.
Thottbot introduces interface upgrades, new scoring system
I sure thought Thott had given up putting new features on his site (since things haven't changed in so long), but apparently not-- just the other day, he introduced Thottbot 3.10, including a new "scoring system," which is customizable so that you can determine for yourself just which weapons you want.Basically, every item now has a score associated with it, and that score is based on a number of different qualities, including base stats, armor, gem slots, resistances, spells, combat ratings-- anything that you'd ever associate with an ingame item. And then (and here's where it gets really cool), you can even change those score ratings yourself-- if having mp5 on a certain item is hugely important to you as a Shaman, for instance, you can add value to the mp5 stat, which will give those items a higher score. And custom score settings can even be turned into a permalink, which means players can easily trade their own custom scoring sets with each other. Incredibly powerful little feature.And Thott's added some awesome Javascript features to the listings as well-- you can now customize listed displays of items much more than ever before, and since it's done with AJAX, browsing loads faster as well. Really amazing job.Now ever since Thottbot and Wowhead moved under the same banner, players have said they wanted them to stay separate. But if this is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing coming out of these sites, bring it on-- I'd love to see the score feature brought into Wowhead's interface, and I'm sure a lot of people would love to use their same scoring profile on both sites to see what kind of information they can dig up.
