time-warp
Latest
The Queue: Time warp
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. In my personal canon, every time a mage uses Time Warp, it creates a new timeline. We aren't even on our Azeroth anymore. Who knows where we are? Mages ruin everything. CRtheMighty asked: Who all from our Azeroth is going to this alt-Draenor? I know Garrosh, because it's his fault, and somewhere Thrall pops over. Anyone else?
Lichborne: Guide to PvE unholy death knights in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With Mists of Pandaria less than a month, it's a good time to get caught up on your chosen class' mechanics and playstyle in order to get a good start in the new expansion. With that in mind, we've spent the past few weeks discussing the various specs and how they'll play. This week, we add to the collection with a guide to unholy death knights in PvE. As a reminder, the following guide is for the basics of the class and spec. Unholy basics Unholy, much like its sister trees, remains more or less unchanged in basic look and feel. Of course, there's enough tweaks that there's stuff to learn, but if you liked the way unholy played back in patch 4.3, you'll like the way it plays in patch 5.0.4 and Mists of Pandaria. The biggest change you'll notice is that the new version of Ebon Plaguebringer no longer has the magic damage debuff or the third disease. They have upped the damage on our strikes to compensate, but it's one more little piece of unholy look and feel that's gone. Unholy is, of course, played with a two-handed weapon enchanted with Rune of the Fallen Crusader, as you will need its power to get the most damage from your strikes, and in Unholy Presence. You will also want to make sure you have your ghoul out as much as possible, as it makes up a not insignificant amount of your damage. If you don't want to deal with a pet or want to dual wield, you're better off switching to frost DPS.
TiVo, AT&T patent settlement will send at least $215 million TiVo's way through 2018
After leveraging its DVR patent portfolio into a $500 million settlement with Dish Network and Echostar TiVo has made it rain again, cutting a mutual patent licensing deal with AT&T that settles their litigation and will result in at least $215 million heading its way through 2018. Additional license fees are possible based on AT&T's U-verse DVR subscriber base, so besides the $51 million up front and recurring payments after that, there could be even more money at stake. Despite intervention on its behalf by Microsoft, AT&T apparently decided caving was the best option. Next we'll see what happens next in a similar battle with Verizon and whether TiVo decides to continue developing its products or just sit back and let the licensing money roll in. CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement (included after the break) that it provides TiVo rights to "innovate TiVo products and services under license from AT&T", although if it were us we'd make the call after taking a Scrooge McDuck-style dive into a pool filled with Dish and AT&T's money.
Dish Network, EchoStar will pay TiVo $500 million to settle DVR lawsuit
Dish Network, EchoStar and TiVo have come to a settlement on their long running patent dispute (since 2006) that will see the satellite company pay $500 million to settle all ongoing litigation. We stopped covering the various court judgements in this case last year as each side continued to file one stay and injunction after another, but this time it's finally over. The most recent court judgement came April 20th in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and found EchoStar in contempt of an earlier injunction despite modifications to its DVR software. The companies have licensed certain patents to each other, including the infamous Time Warp patent that was at the heart of the dispute. Details are in the press release after the break, but TiVo's scored an upfront $300 million cash payment (Dish Network is also reporting today it added 58,000 subscribers and had a net income of $549 million last quarter, we guess there was some loose change rolling around after its Blockbuster and DBSD purchases), with the remaining $200 million to be paid out between 2012 and 2017. Now that the lawyers are out of the picture we wonder if we'll see any TiVo technology on Dish boxes or if a few hundred million in cash is enough to speed up the pace of updates for the Premiere. Interestingly, the press release noted Dish "work with TiVo to help develop our Blockbuster video service" so perhaps the ties between the rental company and TiVo played a part in seeing this dispute come to an end. TiVo's conference call mentioned the marketing agreement to promote Blockbuster's digital service and also how this settlement demonstrates the strength of its patent to other companies it's in litigation with -- that means you Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon.
Arcane Brilliance: Cataclysm 101 for mages level 81 to 85
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, Arcane Brilliance tears itself away from flying circles around Azeroth going "ooh," "ah," and "holy crap is that the sarlac pit?" to deliver you a brief leveling guide. If you happen to be a mage and you happen to be between the levels of 80 and 85 (or someday hope to be in that level range), and you hate warlocks with a passion that borders on religious fervor, you've stopped at the right place. Seriously, you should know that it's physically painful for me to not be playing Cataclysm right now. I hope you people appreciate my sacrifice. There are flagged warlocks right this very moment on my server questing in Vashj'ir that are not being killed, and it hurts my heart to think of it. To make up for lost time, I demand that each of you slaughter at least one warlock when next you log in. It's the least I could ask. So, I assume that those of you who have a mage as your main are well on your way to level 85, if you haven't gotten there already. Those of you who have a mage alt or are still leveling a lowbie mage may not have even started on this portion of the mage leveling game yet. Whatever the number next to your mage's name, at some point or another, you may find yourself in the market for a mage 81-85 leveling guide. Good news, everyone! This is that leveling guide. Also, I just managed to use "mage" in a sentence 72 times. Let's begin, shall we?
Lichborne: Haste and spell hit issues in patch 4.0.1 and beyond
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Patch 4.0.3 and the Cataclysm expansion are approaching quickly, and frankly, we're in pretty good shape right now. Yes, there are issues you can point at in almost every tree that could be just a little better, but honestly, most of them are pretty minor. We're really solidly set up for leveling (if you don't mind leveling in a tank spec), dungeon running, and even the first tier of raiding, and for now we can feel pretty secure about ourselves (or at least about our class). That said, there are almost always improvements to be made, and I do want to take a little bit of time to talk about the issue of the unholy tree's complicated love-hate relationship with haste. Now, you're still going to be stacking and gemming strength as much as possible when you gear up. Strength is still king, don't get me wrong, and you'll always want to get your melee hit capped out. But after that, haste pretty much rules for the roost for unholy. It vaults past critical strike rating and leaves mastery somewhere two or three miles down the road, it's so good. This isn't too much of a problem at first glance. It's arguably a little boring stacking one secondary stat over others, but that's more or less a reality of gearing up a DPS. It's very rare that two secondary stats share equal billing. We did have a problem with reaching the GCD cap early on in the beta, but the addition of a GCD reduction element to Unholy Presence fixed that pretty handily. That said, there's still two big problems, one of which primarily affects unholy, the other of which affects all three trees.
USPTO rules against TiVo's "Time Warp" patent, but the fight vs. DISH rages on, again
The never ending TiVo / DISH Network patent saga continues, with the latest twist presented as U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled TiVo's "Time Warp" patent is invalid. Both sides have issued press release in response, with TiVo pointing out this is "just one of several steps" in the review process" while DISH's Facebook status was predictably "pleased." For now, the only thing to report is that, as usual, nothing has really changed, the Appeals court is still undertaking a review of its previous ruling, and it will probably finish that before this Patent Office decision is resolved , given the opportunity for appeals to its board, and even through the federal courts. Still, depending on how this goes, it could have the most affect on TiVo's lawsuits against Verizon and AT&T, but right now we're just going to go grab (another) Snickers, this one will be going on for a long while yet.
TiVo's $200m damages award against DISH is headed back to the appeals court, future
Remember that $200 million contempt of court judgment TiVo won in September, and had affirmed in March against DISH Network & Echostar? We wouldn't blame you if you didn't, as the various steps in this never ending legal saga have become increasingly difficult to separate, but as we predicted, it's been appealed and now the appeals court will rehear the case with all active judges participating. Given the sharp drop in TiVo shares after the decision was announced, this is obviously a big deal for investors but those of us holding the remotes won't notice any difference at all. TiVo's response (Update: and Dish / Echostar's) is after the break.
Ready Check: Cataclysm class changes and their effects on raiding, Part 2
The hot news for last couple of weeks has been all of the April previews for Cataclysm class changes. I do want to take a moment before we dive into more analysis to caveat that these are previews. They're not full and complete changes as much as a sneak peak into the brains of the developers. They're saying things like "intent" and "vision" and "what we have planned." The code's not all written, and it's not all been through beta testing. Heck, any of it could change between now and tomorrow, let alone between now and the time Cataclysm hits the shelves. So the important part is: don't panic. That being said, these previews do give us a handful of insights into some new raid dynamics. I talked about new abilities like Leap of Faith and Vengeance in last week's Ready Check, but now that we have all of the previews out and published, there's even more to talk about. Let's start with that time-honored tank healers, the holy paladin.
Cataclysm Class Changes: Mage Analysis
Man, you go out of town for a few days and look what happens: Mages get Bloodlust and a warlock adulterates the mage column. Remind me never to do that again. We'll look at the Cataclysm class preview in more detail in the coming weeks in warlock-free (I promise) verisons of Arcane Brilliance, but for now, let me unload some of my initial reactions on you. New spells Three spells were announced, and only one is a mechanic we're really familiar with. Time Warp, which enters our arsenal at level 83, appears to be akin to what is arguably the single best raid buff in the game: Bloodlust/Heroism. One key difference exists, though, and that is that Time Warp will also turn mages, briefly, into rogues. Rogues in silly dresses. I really, really hope that this speed increase: is significant enough to make mages into truly mobile casters, both in PvP and PvE. I don't want a rehash of Blazing Speed, which was a fun mechanic that simply wasn't powerful enough, doesn't share a cooldown with Icy Veins (or whatever that talent's Cataclysm equivalent ends up being), or better yet, stacks with it, so as not to render that beloved spell redundant, and lasts long enough that it's worth blowing the cooldown either during the burndown phase of a fight (if somebody else isn't already using Heroism/Bloodlust) or during a high-mobility phase of a fight, simply for the haste bonus. I'm incredibly excited about this spell, because of the three new ones, it's the only one we can safely say (with what we know now) will actually be awesome. We already know this spell's core mechanic works, and if the movement speed increase is worthwhile, this could truly be the defining spell of the expansion for mages.
TiVo's $200m damages award in EchoStar case affirmed, EchoStar to appeal (again)
Yes, there's a certain other patent brouhaha in the news right now, but we're not lying when we say these lawsuits take years to fully resolve. Take TiVo's endless time warp patent lawsuit against EchoStar, which started in 2006 and involves just a single patent: the court of appeals just today affirmed the $200 million contempt judgment against EchoStar from September. Of course, EchoStar is going to appeal to the full appeals court -- it always appeals -- and if that doesn't work we'd wager that this case will eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court for a second time. Don't worry, everyone keep can keep recording Idol -- this shouldn't affect TiVo or DISH Network customers at all. Statements from both TiVo and EchoStar after the break.
Upcoming Adjustments announced for Old Kingdom, Nexus, Culling of Stratholme
Zarhym popped into one of the many official forum topics complaining about the seemingly inordinate amount of times Old Kingdom pops on the Dungeon Finder to offer some welcome news for exhausted dungeon runners: Old Kingdom and Nexus alike will be receiving some adjustments meant to bring the dungeons in line with other Wrath heroics.
TiVo awarded $200m in damages in EchoStar case, consumers not awarded end to the Echostar case
Okay, so it's not the cool billion dollars in damages we'd heard TiVo was asking for, but $200 million ain't chump change if you're broke, you know? That's the amount in contempt damages TiVo will get if EchoStar loses its upcoming appeal in the endless time warp patent case, bringing the total amount of money on the table to nearly $400 million. As usual, that means virtually nothing for the average Dish or TiVo customer, but at least the lawyers involved can all buy new Audis for the winter now.
TiVo projects larger than expected losses, still taking the patent fight to AT&T and Verizon
We'll let the analysts make sense of TiVo's new projection that it will lose $8 to $10 million in the third quarter, larger than Wall Street expectations while projected revenues are lower -- we're too busy adding Verizon and AT&T to the patent battlemap. Today it filed complaints against both for violating three of its DVR-related patents -- Nos. 6,233,389 B1 ("Multimedia Time Warping System"), 7,529,465 B2 ("System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams"), and 7,493,015 B1 ("Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System") if you must know -- seeking damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction. We'd assumed it would wait until settling things with DISH to push forward against other companies, but it looks like we're not the only ones getting impatient. Beyond the legal slapfight there's a few nuggets for the bleep bloop faithful, with the Comcast TiVo on-line scheduler beginning to roll out in Boston plus further expansions on the way and the due-in-2010 DirecTV HD TiVo still on track -- we'll need a few seasons of Law & Order queued up before this mess ever gets resolved.Read - TiVo Swings to Loss, Files Infringement SuitsRead - TiVo Reports Results for the Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2010 Ended July 31, 2009Read - TiVo Files Complaints for Patent Infringement Against AT&T and Verizon Communications in United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas; Seeking Damages and Injunction
Patent Office rejects some of TiVo's patent claims, battle vs. DISH to rage on
You knew it couldn't be over, right? The long running TiVo vs. DISH / Echostar patent case took a not-so-new twist yesterday when the Patent and Trademark Office issued a preliminary finding rejecting some of the claims of its Time Warp patent. While DISH was pleased, considering the PTO's conclusions as "highly relevant" to its ongoing appeal, TiVo issued a statement calling this step "not unusual" pointing out that the exact same thing happened when its patent was reexamined in 2005 (and subsequently upheld in 2007,) and that the next step in the process is where it will be able to present its explanation for the first time. All you need to know is that it will still be a while before anyone involved (except the two company's lawyers) are cashing any large checks, or gets their DVR taken away.[Via Multichannel News]Read - TiVo Statement on Developments in Lawsuit Against EchoStarRead - DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding Tivo
Let's do the Time Warp again! Offsite Time Machine backups
Apple did the world a great service when they introduced Time Machine backups to OS X. Suddenly, anyone could attach an external disk drive to their Mac and have a constant set of backups at their fingertips with little or no intervention required. However, there was one very big, hairy fly floating in the soup of backup contentment -- if your backup drive was destroyed or stolen, your backup was gone. Many of us who are paranoid about backups started doing a second level of backups to offsite services such as Mozy, Carbonite, or my personal favorite, BackBlaze. There's a new kid on the block with a different approach to offsite backup -- Time Warp. This US$25 Mac application (free during the beta period) takes your Time Machine backups, compresses and encrypts them with 256-bit AES encryption, and then uploads them to your personal Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) account. How does the cost of storage on Amazon S3 compare with the other services? The current costs are $0.15 per GB per month for storage, $0.10 per GB to backup data into S3, and $0.17 per GB to restore data from S3. The Jumping Bean Software team says that backup up 20 GB of personal data would cost about $1.50 per month, which is in line with costs for the other services. Time Warp does intelligent filtering to keep "dumb files" like cache, trash, and temporary files from being uploaded and costing you money.If you take a glance at the sample screenshot at the top of this post, you'll notice that Time Warp does its best to give you a handle on your storage costs, so there's no guesswork involved. Leopard users who have been on the fence about whether or not to invest in an offsite backup solution might want to take advantage of the Time Warp beta.
Ruling lets DISH customers keep their DVRs for now, TiVo says it's just a matter of time
News of another delay should be absolutely no surprise to anyone that's followed the details of this case, as DISH was granted a stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pending its appeal of a $190 million ruling in favor of TiVo which will allow its customers to continue using their DVRs, at least for now. For its part, TiVo repeated its praise of the "thorough and well-reasoned decision finding EchoStar in contempt of court for violating the injunction and awarding further damages" and is confident the ruling will be upheld, again. Did anyone really think this one would just end so easily?Read - DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding TivoRead - TiVo Statement on Decision by U.S. Court of Appeals to Stay Permanent Injunction Issued by District Court in Lawsuit Against EchoStar
DISH still trying to navigate a way around TiVo's DVR patent
It's a longshot, but DISH mentioned in a court filing Monday that it is still looking for a workaround that would keep its DVR from infringing on TiVo patents, but admitting it "does not know whether a further design-around is even possible." Multichannel News pulled out the one sentence filing, although whether DISH seriously believes it can do dual tuner recording without violating the "Time Warp" patent or is just stalling for time while it looks for an antidote is still unclear.[Picture courtesy one of many GPS accidents]
Good news for TiVo: court upholds patent claims against Echostar
The TiVo vs. EchoStar case got another little push towards finally ending today, as the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that EchoStar had indeed infringed part of TiVo's "time warp" patent. You might recall that the case had recently been on hold while the USPTO re-affirmed that the patent was valid -- armed with that decision, the appeals court ruled that EchoStar had crossed the line on the software component of the patent, but that more information was needed regarding whether or not EchoStar's hardware also infringed. That means we're in for another round of wrangling down in Marshall -- we'll keep you updated, if we can manage to stay awake.[Via Zatz Not Funny! Warning: PDF read link]
Patent Office upholds TiVo's "time warp" patent, EchoStar not so happy
The long-running dispute between TiVo and EchoStar inched a little closer to resolution today, with the United States Patent Office issuing a non-appealable ruling saying that TiVo's DVR-enabling "time warp" patent is valid. You might remember that TiVo sued EchoStar for violating that patent in Dish Network DVRs at the beginning of 2006, and won a $90M judgment and an injunction requiring EchoStar to turn off existing DVR functionality and stop selling DVRs in the future. That injunction was then stayed pending EchoStar's appeals before the Patent Office and the Federal Court of Appeals, so sadly, this ruling doesn't mean the case is over yet -- now it's the Court of Appeals' turn to try and sort this out.[Thanks, Dennis]Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not to constitute legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.
