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Daily Update for September 9, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Parallels responds to Slashdot user concerns over Desktop 9 installing Access without permission
Over the past few weeks, Parallels announced both Parallels Desktop 9 and Parallels Access. While the former is a new version of the venerable virtualization application, Access is a totally new product for Parallels, allowing the "appification" of desktop apps on an iPad. Several Slashdot users expressed concerns late last week about Parallels Desktop 9 installing the Parallels Access Mac desktop agent without the permission of the user. Today a Parallels spokesperson responded to TUAW with an acknowledgement of the concerns as well as word of an upcoming hot fix. According to John Uppendahl of Parallels, "Parallels appreciates and listens to customer feedback. Parallels plans to release a hot fix update for Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac next week which will improve the registration process to give the customer a choice to install Parallels Access upon initial installation of Parallels Desktop 9. In the event that the customer doesn't want to install at that time, they can easily do so from within Parallels Desktop 9 from the Preferences menu where it will be displayed as an option."
Canonical founder hopes Ubuntu on mobile devices will lure more desktop users
Canonical's already announced its intention of putting Ubuntu on mobile devices, but founder Mark Shuttleworth's given us a bit more insight into the firm's strategy in a Slashdot Q&A. In addition to reiterating its focus on Ubuntu for smartphones, tablets and everything from the "embedded world to the cloud," Shuttleworth revealed that Canonical hopes to play the Trojan horse card when it comes to the OS on mobile devices. "If we can get PC buyers familiar with Ubuntu as a phone and tablet experience, then they may be more willing [to] buy it on the PC too," says the company's founder. However, Canonical won't be luring users to the Linux-based OS through mobile devices till at least April 2014, when the 14.04 LTS release officially launches. For more inside baseball on the open source OS, hit the bordering source link to peruse the full Q&A.
Dice Holdings buys Slashdot, Freecode and SourceForge for $20 million
Dice Holdings, the unimaginatively named owner of technology jobs site Dice.com has purchased Geeknet's media business for a cool $20 million. The deal hands over control of the world-famous Slashdot, Freecode and SourceForge to the careers company, commencing the careers site's push into tech content. It leaves Geeknet with one remaining property, ThinkGeek, which will now be getting all of that company's attention -- hopefully to produce products that are even more lust inducing than Cave Johnson's portrait.
University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive houses over 3,000 different games, roughly 35 unique consoles (video)
Systems such as the ColecoVision, TurboGrafx-16 and 3DO may have been ousted from most home entertainment centers long ago, but they still have shelf space at the University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive. Slashdot caught up with Engineering Librarian and Video Game Archivist Dave Carter and took a look inside the repository, which has curated around 35 classic and current-gen platforms and more than 3,000 different games. Having "one of everything" is the project's ultimate goal, but the logistics of acquiring every new game make achieving that feat a stretch. "Our realistic goal is to be sort of representative of the history of video games, what was important -- what was interesting," Carter said. "And then, not only to preserve the games, but also to preserve the game playing experience." As a "useable archive," patrons of UM's library can dig in and play at different stations with era-appropriate monitors and displays. While many visit for leisure, students have used the resource to research topics ranging from music composition to the effects of texting while driving (using an Xbox 360 racing title and steering wheel peripheral, of course). You can catch a glimpse of the collection in the video below or visit the archive's blog at the more coverage link.
How to get your blog crashed by WoW.com
Every day, our tip line gets a number of requests for link exchanges, publicity, and feedback on whether a post would be good for inclusion in the Daily Quest. We're really happy to be able to direct traffic to bloggers with good information, but sometimes we get requests that leave us baffled, uncomfortable, or both. While it's pretty easy to deal with some of these (gold-selling sites wishing to advertise here are a quick, "No thanks"), some of them come from otherwise well-meaning bloggers who want a link, but who may not get the desired results from one. Naturally this leaves us with a bit of a dilemma, and these are the things I think about while nosing around incoming links and my own list of favorite blogs:Please don't ask us to link your blog. Ask us to link a post.Even if we love your site and we read it all the time, we still need a reason to link you that's relevant to a subject we're writing about. Readers dislike getting recommendations like "It's a great blog!" or "You're going to love it!" Uh, why is it a great blog? Why should they love it? Nothing speaks so loudly or effectively as a great post on a good topic. Moreover, if we're linking a post of yours, your blog's main page should be linked as well. Even if we got dumb and forgot, it should be a simple matter for readers to find your central page (and you've got a design problem on your hands if they can't).
Lugaru shows why game devs should support OS X and Linux
Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games has an intriguing post up about why developers of videogames like himself should go out of their way to support the OS X and Linux markets. Their game, Lugaru, is available on Windows, OS X and Linux, and the upcoming sequel, Overgrowth, is also being developed for OS X. Rosen says right out that the prevailing opinion, that the smaller markets aren't worth developing for because the audience isn't there, is just plain wrong -- Mac sales accounted for a full half of Lugaru's sales. The people who are buying software, his data seems to say, are using Macs.And he has five main points why it's worth the time and effort to release builds on these smaller platforms: you have sites like ours (and the great Inside Mac Games) to talk about your game for you. We Mac gamers respect companies that take the time to make sure we have just as great a gaming experience as our PC counterparts, and we talk about it when they do. He says that a Linux version gained them a mention on Slashdot, one place they'd likely never have been mentioned if they were "just another Windows game." And power users are often Mac users as well -- you want someone who will spend an entire night coming up with new content for your game just because they love it so much? Mac users are nothing if not disturbingly obsessive about the software they love.Good points all around. Many game developers, both large and small, continue to scoff at the Mac markets as too small while at the same time wondering why they can't get a foothold of a community on the Internet. Of course, releasing a Mac version doesn't guarantee you higher sales and a rabid group of fans -- you have to make a good game first and foremost. But some of the most influential and insightful game players online are Mac users, and by shrugging them off as "not a big enough audience," you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Blu-ray's market share has almost doubled since HD DVD's demise
Packaged media sales go up and down every week depending on the titles -- as documented by our weekly VideoScan post -- but for some reason, the 13 percent drop in Blu-ray sales last week got a lot of attention. What we can't figure out is why the 30 percent increases during the two weeks before (combined) went unnoticed. It boggles the mind why so many so-called tech evangelists only pick up on the bad weeks, but either way, let's go back and take a look at the facts since HD DVD called it quits about seven months ago.
Pirates of the Burning Sea server names revealed
Keen and Graev have the list of servers for the Pirates of the Burning Sea launch, coming less than a month away now. The game will open with 12 North American servers, six European servers, and an unannounced number of Oceanic servers. Some of the servers are named after pirates (Blackbeard, Morgan, Kidd), while others are named after actual places (Guadeloupe, Barbados), and there's no indication from FLS if the separate naming conventions mean anything (WoW, for example, names PvP and RP servers in certain ways from standard PvE servers). If you're planning to set sail in Pirates at launch, now's the time to pick your server. And don't forget that if you preorder the game, you get to jump in ahead of time.Finally, on an almost-completely-unrelated- but-still-so-strange- we're-reporting-it-anyway note, West Karana points out that one of the servers' namesakes, Antigua, recently became a real place for pirates-- copyright pirates, that is. Antigua (the country, not the server), according to Slashdot, can ignore US copyrights for up to a year. So if you want to be a real pirate, there's only one server to play on.
Wearable MoCap suits to put animators out of a job
Well, not really. One always goes for the sensational headline. This New Scientist Tech article describes a new method of capturing motion that doesn't require a huge room, a team of software engineers, and a marked ability to refrain from feeling silly about wearing the little balls all over oneself. Instead, this system is vastly more portable, captures a wider range of motion, and doesn't make the wearer feel like too much of a feeb (presumably). There's even a video to see.Okay, that's great and all, but why is this story on Massively? Because someday I envision this suit, or a modified version of it, being worn by a Second Life resident to more accurately portray her avatar's movement in-world. Or maybe a shirt-only version that allows an elaborate system of hand and arm gestures to simulate the casting of spells in Fury. The possibilities are astounding, and probably inevitable. And honestly, from the look of many of us, I'd say that anything requiring us to exercise our bodies while playing is a welcome invention.[Via Slashdot]
Blizzard's new Warden, and our privacy
Tech community Slashdot is going mad over a little present Blizzard apparently included with patch 2.3 this week: a brand new version of Warden (the program Blizzard uses to check for hacks, bots, and keyloggers) that they say effectively gives Blizzard total control over our computers. The technical stuff is a little hard to understand, but apparently Warden is what's called a "polymorphic program"-- that means that it actually hides from anyone looking at it exactly what it's doing and which files it's changing with a random code. Obviously, Blizzard wants to keep the program's activities secret from attackers-- if a hacker knows what Warden does, then he can more easily avoid it.In previous versions of Warden, this randomization was "easy to predict," but Slashdot is saying that the new version effectively hides from even the user exactly what Blizzard is doing on your computer. Now, there is no clear reason why Blizzard would want to do anything bad with your computer-- odds are that this new software is the most effective version they've yet developed at making sure you can play the game without fear of hacks or keyloggers, and that's all they want to do with it.But you should know that, according to "Captain Kirk," who wrote this article, Blizzard effectively has access to anything and everything on your computer, and can now edit or retrieve information at will without even you knowing what has happened. There's no reason not to trust Blizzard-- they're a high profile company with a long reputation of developing great software. But if a wayward employee at Blizzard wanted to steal your private information from your computer, or install a virus or malware on your PC, we're being told that this program will let them do it without your knowledge. You agreed to this-- it's in Section 14 of the Terms of Use-- and so it's up to you whether you trust Blizzard with your computer or not.WoW Insider has contacted Blizzard and asked them to clarify the situation if necessary-- we'll let you know if we hear anything from them.
BBC reports on upcoming WoW competition
Slashdot is linking this morning to an article that BBC has posted today which gathers views from several game developers as they talk about what comes next when you have a behemoth such as the World of Warcraft dominating the MMO-verse. While somewhat light on new perspectives, it's just further showing that developers really do have to account for WoW when considering their existing and future software offerings. Though the article talks with people behind Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online, and the upcoming Age of Conan, I find that Slashdot commenter JanusFury sums it up best with, "Instead of complaining about the lack of a strong competitor to WoW, how about making one?" What's on your MMO horizon as a WoW-killer? Does anything coming up, or existing on the market now, have a powerful enough hook to pull you away from the World of Warcraft? Obviously, if you look at the included image, you know what I'm waiting for. [via Slashdot]
WoW ruined your life? Stop playing! [Update]
Slashdot is pointing to this blog post, written by a guy who just quit WoW, about how it completely ruined his life. According to him, WoW and the time "required" for even casual raiding were responsible for him gaining weight, losing his girlfriend and friends, wrecking his health, and generally causing him untold anguish and pain. On top of that, after he's quit, he even complains that his guild-- gasp-- moved on without him.Listen to me, right now: if this game is ruining your life, stop playing. If your girlfriend is telling you to choose between her and WoW, choose her, you idiot. If you're about to lose your job because you play this game too much, stop playing this game. It's a game. It's not responsible for any of the stuff that happened to this blogger-- he is.We've heard the arguments he makes before-- blah blah blah, the game is addictive, it becomes an obsession, Blizzard is rewarding farming and time investment instead of skill. And all those things are true, to a degree. But coffee is addictive, too, and so is smoking, and so is alcohol. Is it beer's fault that college students do stupid things on the weekend? Of course not-- it's the students' fault for drinking too much beer. And if this guy is overweight, girlfriendless, and a loser, it's his fault, not the game. WoW is just that-- a game. Shame on him for forgetting that when most of the seven million other players don't seem to have a problem with it.And the worst part... is after the jump.
Guitar Hero hack - a sequencer is born
Here's a class project that you probably wish you'd managed to get credit for. By interfacing the Guitar Hero peripheral with a sequencing program, these students at the University of California have managed to turn the five-button guitar into something approaching a real musical instrument. From novelty sound effects to an almost orchestral piece, it's an impressive start which could spark off a whole series of musical Guitar Hero hacks.[Via /.]
Virtual prostitutes make real cash
Sex sells in Second Life, as it does in real life, and this article by Computer Gaming World delves into the story of prostitution within Linden Labs' virtual world. While Second Life prides itself on being driven by user-created content, including user-driven entertainments at nightclubs and gaming plazas, it's no secret that cybersex is amongst the entertainments on offer for the discerning punter.According to the article, escorts can earn up to L$10,000 a week from a few hours' work -- approximately $30, although the exchange rate fluctuates. It's not something that a brand-new character would be able to pull off, though; an expensive wardrobe of realistic avatar clothing, skins and animations is an asset, as are gender verification and a location in which to practice. The industry supporting the sale of these items, and arrranging escort encounters, seems more profitable than actual on-the-street work.Does this render sex-based MMOs redundant? No; there's room in the market for more than the offerings from Second Life residents. But as the recent suspension of Spend the Night shows, creating an erotic MMOs isn't plain sailing; Second Life's exploration of the genre, with or without endorsement from its creators, is a useful first for any developers that wish to follow.[via /.]
Inside the game: La Fuga
"I just fought my way up a wind tunnel, scrambled through a ventilation duct, clambered across 40 yards of rope netting, rolled under a fence, and burrowed through a mass of grapefruit-sized plastic spheres. Now I'm facing two doors. One leads to freedom. The other to a room with something nasty in it, possibly involving torture."The author of this piece isn't playing a console or PC game--he's playing Negoné's La Fuga ('The Escape') for real. Based in Madrid, the game combines an obstacle course, puzzles and interactive storytelling to break the fourth wall, creating a real-world game that realises many video game concepts.It sounds exciting and inventive; if Spain is too far away, then the game will be coming to Manhattan next year. However, immersive gaming may prove too specialised--sometimes we like to be in the comfort of our own living rooms, knowing that ingame bruises are only temporary, with the ability to pause it all and have a cup of tea when we feel like it.[Via /.]
Single player games get competitive again
Many gamers' favourite moments include racking up high scores at the local arcade and boasting about them to friends--that's about as competitive as single-player games could get. Multiplayer games, with their inherent replayability, are dominating the sales charts; has the humble high score died a death?No, says this article from competitive gaming site MLG Pro. Instead, single player games have moved into a new era of competitiveness via the likes of Xbox Live. With achievements and gamerscores that are influenced by your single-player prowess as much as your multiplayer muscle, we have incentives to do well at single player games again; we have our friends' scores to beat, and the world records to challenge.It's an interesting observation. Given the number of fiercely competitive FPS gamers who have been spending more time in the Live Arcade, racking up score after score, it seems to be spot-on, too. The next step? More obscure achievements, perhaps -- games that award points just for finishing the game don't really carry the feeling of competitive triumph that gamers seem to be lusting after these days.[via /.]
Student project yields some fun games
Getting into game development as a student, for a class project or private competition, seems an increasingly common hobby. Not only do you get course credit for writing a game, but you have an instant start to your portfolio when applying for game development jobs on graduation. What could be better?Well, this Stanford student project not only offers a hands-on introduction to 3D graphics via the medium of games, but had some hefty prizes to boot (including a trip to the SIGGRAPH conference, and vouchers for Xbox 360 consoles). Labyrin3D, the "wackiest" entry, is particularly innovative--using the Powerbook's tilt sensor, players have to manipulate a marble around a maze. While not quite as crazy as some of the "game a week" prototypes we saw last year from a different academic project, it's great to see game development incorporated as class work for more courses--educational and fun.[via /.]
Funny post about Apple and Slashdot
Ian Betteridge has a funny (and insightful) post up on his blog, Technovia, called Why I rarely read Slashdot anymore. He points to this old Slashdot thread about the announcement of the first iPod and asks us to gaze at the typically pessimistic Slashdot comments on the post. One comment that he singles out and that was rated 4 for being Insightful notes "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod." Betteridge follows up the comment by noting: "As of March, Apple had sold over 15 million iPods." So much for /. insight. ;-)
