How Xbox Live's Cloud Computing Could Make Games That Last ...

At Microsoft's huge Xbox reveal last spring, the company made a big hubub about the 300,000 cloud servers it would be adding to help speed up GPU and CPU heavy tasks. But in an interview with Gizmodo, Xbox Live Lead Programmer John Bruno detailed how it could change the way we think about gaming in the future.

Powerful cloud computing lets developers offload tasks like graphics processing and AI computation from Xbox One's local resources. "There is s thrust to turn more things server-side," Says Bruno. "Looking for ways to expand the power of the box." As we've noted before, this lets game developers build games bigger than what the hardware can support on its own. But it could be so much more.

Dedicated servers for all

In large measure, Xbox Live is about multiplayer gaming, and in effort to make its offering competitive, Microsoft is offering the benefits of its scalable dedicated server resources to all developers for free. This sounds like a lot of techno-babble, but it's a big deal. "We want Xbox Live to be the best place to play multiplayer games," says Bruno.

How does the Xbox Live cloud help? As the developer of Tinfall explained back in June, scalable, dedicated server resources vastly improve gaming experiences. They make multiplayer more reliable by preventing disconnects, and they also make sessions fair by eliminating any advantages a player hosting a game might have.

Big game studios can pay for their own server resources that are allocated regionally depending on who is logging on to play games where. Microsoft's offer of free cloud computing allows all developers to take advantage of big-ticket resources, even if they're not that big.

Games that evolve

The lofty potential of Xbox Live's Cloud Computing is that it allows developers to evolve games and experiences over time. In a commonly cited example, Forza studies your driving style over time to evolve its AI.

But according to Bruno, this is just the tip of the iceberg. "It could change the way developers think about their franchises and their intellectual property." What if a game purchase was a constantly evolving experience that grew over time—more like what we're used to from software these days. We're talking about more than just patches and stability improvements. Bruno declined to comment on the future of business models, but he did note that it would be interesting to see developers grow their games over time. Imagine a world without expansion packs.

Where does that leave us?

Bruno is obviously touting all of the benefits of Xbox Live's cloud in an effort to lure in both developers and customers. It remains to be seen how many people will actually take advantage of the possibilities on Xbox One. What' pretty certain, is that there's an opportunity, and that's always a good thing.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-xbox-lives-cloud-computing-could-change-gaming-for-1445530846
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Trapped In A Fossil: Remnants Of A 46-Million-Year-Old Meal

A very old squished mosquito found in fossilized rock from Montana. Analysis of the insect's gut revealed telltale chemicals found in blood.

PNAS

A very old squished mosquito found in fossilized rock from Montana. Analysis of the insect's gut revealed telltale chemicals found in blood.

PNAS

Scientists who study why species vanish are increasingly looking for ancient DNA. They find it easily enough in the movies; remember the mosquito blood in Jurassic Park that contained dinosaur DNA from the bug's last bite? But in real life, scientists haven't turned up multi-million-year-old DNA in any useable form.

Fortunately, a team at the Smithsonian Institution has now found something unique in a 46-million-year-old, fossilized mosquito — not DNA, but the chemical remains of the insect's last bloody meal.

They started with a fossilized mosquito. If you think it's incredibly rare for a dinosaur to die and get fossilized for millions of years, imagine what it's like for a bug. Dale Greenwalt has. "Everything has to go exactly right to become fossilized," the retired biochemist explains.

Everything did go right in a little corner of Montana millions years ago. There's a rock formation there — mostly shale — that's a veritable bug cemetery. Greenwalt collects fossils there, as a Smithsonian volunteer. He spends weeks along a stream examining pieces of shale with a handheld lens, then hauls the loot back to the Smithsonian for more microscopic study.

How the bugs ended up in the shale, he says, is a process that only happened rarely. Millions of years ago, a mosquito, say, might land on a gooey mat of algae and microbes, floating on a pond. The mosquito gets stuck in the muck and dies. And then, Greenwalt says, "The algae and the microbes actually grow up and around and encase and envelope the insect."

That entombment protects the bug's corpse. The mat eventually sinks to the bottom of the pond. As sediment slowly covers it and becomes rock, the bug's impression is preserved in stone.

What Greenwalt and a team from the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History have discovered in one of those impressions is iron — a lot of it — as well as chemical compounds called porphyrins. They're found in what had been the mosquito's abdomen, and nowhere else in the impression. Nor are these compounds in the surrounding rock.

The tiny cache of iron and porphyrins was preserved inside the mosquito fossil for 46 million years. "It was exciting," Greenwalt says, "and everyone was jumping up and down because we knew this was exceedingly rare and important."

Fossil mosquitoes collected by Dale Greenwalt, a volunteer research collaborator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.The fossils were collected as part of a 5-year project to produce a research collection of fossil insects from the Kishenehn Formation.

Courtesy of James Di Loreto

Fossil mosquitoes collected by Dale Greenwalt, a volunteer research collaborator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.The fossils were collected as part of a 5-year project to produce a research collection of fossil insects from the Kishenehn Formation.

Courtesy of James Di Loreto

They were jumping up and down because iron and porphyrins are the brick and mortar of hemoglobin, the substance that carries oxygen in blood. What they had were the remains of the mosquito's last blood meal. Given the species of mosquito (something Greenwalt could tell from its shape), Greenwalt guesses that its last meal came from a bird; it's a species that preys on birds nowadays. He says the research is important because it demonstrates a technique that could turn up other chemical clues to ancient life.

The team describes the discovery in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Greenwalt says it was the Smithsonian's high-tech spectroscopy equipment — which can detect tiny amounts of any element — that made this possible. It's the kind of hardware you don't find in most paleontology labs.

The team plans to try their equipment out on more bugs. "We have fossil insects that are bright yellow, bright red [and] bright orange ... probably a whole array of different types of pigments," Greenwalt says. "I've got the next ten years of my life all planned out working at the museum."

Considering that Greenwalt is a volunteer at the Museum of Natural History — he's been retired from a career as a biochemist for years — that looks like a pretty good deal for the Smithsonian ... and for bug history.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/14/232048774/trapped-in-a-fossil-remnants-of-a-46-million-year-old-meal?ft=1&f=1007
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After Shutdown Dust Clears, Where Does Boehner Stand?

Weeks after vowing that House Republicans would not capitulate to President Obama's demands for "clean" bills reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling, Speaker John Boehner led his caucus in doing exactly that. Only about a third of Republicans voted "yes" on the bill with Boehner, but Boehner's standing among Tea Party conservatives in his caucus may have actually improved.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/18/236697001/after-shutdown-dust-clears-where-does-boehner-stand?ft=1&f=1014
Tags: randall cobb   eric decker   mila kunis   Karen Black   greg oden  

Justin Timberlake & Jay Z Teaming Up With Nas!

Holy Grail! Our cup has runneth over with this great news!

It looks like Justin Timberlake and Jay Z will keep on their Suit & Tie, and have added Nas to their Rat Pack!

The trio will be featured on Nas' new album on a track entitled Sinatra In The Sands, and in a recent interview Nas explained how thrilling it was to record with the two Js:

Excitement…Excitement to work and be in the place that we’re all are at, musically. Those are the guys who lasted the test of time, and those guys are at the top of their game. They’re just company to be in. So that’s the whole vibe of that. And of course the title says it all.

Ugh, if the title says it all as promised, this song is going to be king of the hill, top of the heap, a number one!

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: collaboration, gifs, jay z, justin timberlake, music minute, nas, sinatra in the sands, single, song, team, track, up

Source: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-19-justin-timberlake-jay-z-team-up-nas-sinatra-in-the-sands
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The Curse of Nestrin

This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "The Curse of Nestrin"

You may edit this first post as you see fit.

Forever in my dreams, where dreamer flown,
To the world above and greatly renown.
For its constant bubble, scaling of height.
Into the dawning sea and eventful light,
To dream the dream of dreamer's love,
Yet we stall our mind to fiction above.
Belong to life and green-blue flow,
To reddish hearts that we greatly show.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/PVnc9B7otq0/viewtopic.php
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Yes, Microsoft is working on a Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone

When Microsoft said that it would release its Remote Desktop app for Android and iOS, it left many scratching their heads -- what, no Windows Phone version? There's no need to worry, though, as the company has just promised The Next Web that it's writing a client for its own mobile platform. Redmond ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ocy7E6IM_Lo/
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Selena Gomez Slips Off Stage: Watch Here!

Strobe lights, heels, and dizzying dance moves can be a dangerous combination, and Selena Gomez found that out during her concert in Fairfax, Virginia on Thursday (October 10).

While belting out her new single, "Slow Down," the 20-year-old songstress took a tumble, but quickly popped back up.

Taking the opportunity to shake a few fans' hands, Selena hardly missed a beat as the show continued without a hitch.

Though she famously dated Justin Bieber, Ms. Gomez seems to be resigning to a single life to focus on her career, tweeting, "Spending time with my cousin and her man... #3rdwheel #singleladyproblems #futurecatlady #werk."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/selena-gomez/selena-gomez-slips-stage-watch-here-942539
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