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Guild Wars 2 launches authorized shoutcaster program
According to ArenaNet, the introduction of Custom Arenas and Spectator Mode to Guild Wars 2 has resulted in a surge of new tournaments, which naturally has been accompanied by a surge in people shouting about those tournaments. ArenaNet hopes to keep the shouts coming with the introduction of its Authorized Shoutcaster Program. Under the new program, Authorized Shoutcasters will receive notifications when highly rated teams square off against one another. Those shoutcasters can then jump into the match and stream the content live to what we can assume is a cheering throng of e-sports/Guild Wars fanatics. Streams will be delayed to prevent them from influencing the outcome of matches. ArenaNet has already selected its first set of shoutcasters based on their community contributions and shoutcasting bona-fides. If you'd like to be considered for the role, you can post a link to your stream on the official Guild Wars 2 forums. In other, somewhat related news, character slot expansions will be half-off 20% off (math!) from June 7th to June 9th. You can find the offer by checking in with the Black Lion Trading Company in-game. Oh! And don't forget: Massively is in the market for a new Guild Wars 2 columnist.
ASUS Computex keynote now on YouTube: relive the excitement, the yelling
You think it's easy up there on stage? Then just try shouting "ubiquitous cloud computing era" at the top of your lungs without sounding silly. It's virtually impossible, as ASUS chairman Jonney Shih discovered 45 seconds into the video after the break. Fortunately, he quickly moved onto his company's rather stellar array of Computex reveals, including the dual-booting Transformer AiO (which doubles up as the "world's biggest tablet"), a couple of Windows 8 hybrids and the Taichi swiveller -- not to mention some live performance art ten minutes before the end. If you're the "Home C.I.O." in your family, then it could be professionally negligent to miss this.
Final Fantasy XIV beta applications now open
There's something to shout about if you're looking forward to Final Fantasy XIV -- the game is now accepting applicants for its beta testing. We've heard that the game is slated for release some time next year, but this is one of the obvious indicators that it's closer than we might have thought. So if you're as excited about the prospect of getting to play the game as some of us, you probably clicked that link before you read any further. Anyone still reading, of course, should be apprised of some minor conditionals first. The test is only open to those 18 years of age or older capable of submitting reports in fluent Japanese, English, French, or German. (Luckily it's not in all four at once.) You'll also need to be connected to the Internet and capable of downloading large amounts of data, but that's de riguer for MMOs, so it merits less of a mention. There will be multiple rounds of testing, with each one adding further testers, and the official page states that testers will be evaluated based on their application rather than order in which they applied. That doesn't mean that Final Fantasy XIV fans shouldn't hurry on over -- but you've probably already done that back in the first paragraph.
Video: Shouting at disk drive causes high latency, low morale
Here's a tip for everyone who hasn't made the jump to solid state: try to be nice to your disk drive. Brendan Gregg from Sun's Fishworks team wanted to see the effects of vibrations on his disk array, so he proceeded to shout at it. On video. Yeah, we bet that's pretty embarrassing for the drive in question, and what results is a sharp spike the number of I/O operations that take over 5ms to complete. Moral of the story? Yelling at your computer isn't going to make it run any faster. How about next time we see how it reacts to Ozzy, Mozart and warm, gentle nuzzles? We've placed video of Gregg's sadistic hardware taunts after the break.[Via Slashdot]
