Games

This Week in Games: March 3, 2012
Valve readying 'Steam Box' console - Report
Island of Guersney moots becoming a "libel haven" where rich & powerful can sue & silence critics
German Finance Chief Plays Sudoku During Greece Talks
jAlbum 10.4 - Organize your digital images and make website albums.. (Demo)
XBMC 11.0.rc2 - Powerful media center tool for Mac or Apple TV.. (Free)
iFFmpeg 2.9.3 - Convert multimedia files between formats.. (Shareware)
Safari Cookies 1.9.1 - Cookie manager integrates directly into Safari.. (Free)
Powerball Winning Numbers for 02/29/2012
Powerball Estimated Jackpot for 03/03/2012
Mega Millions Winning Numbers for 03/02/2012
Mega Millions Estimated Jackpot for 03/06/2012
Lotto Texas Winning Numbers for 02/29/2012
Lotto Texas Estimated Jackpot for 03/03/2012
Texas Two Step Winning Numbers for 03/01/2012
Texas Two Step Advertised Jackpot for 03/05/2012
Pick 3 Day Winning Numbers for 03/02/2012
Pick 3 Night Winning Numbers for 03/02/2012
Daily 4 Day Winning Numbers for 03/02/2012
Daily 4 Night Winning Numbers for 03/02/2012

This Week in Games: March 3, 2012

Posted: 03 Mar 2012 01:02 AM PST

A Steam-powered console, Mass Effect 3, misogyny, layoffs at Blizzard, and assassins in Colonial garb.

"This Week in Games: March 3, 2012" was posted by John Davison on Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:02:11 -0800

Valve readying 'Steam Box' console - Report

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 10:15 PM PST

Half-Life developer supposedly said to be working on a Steam-driven platform with hardware potentially made by multiple partners, Android- or 3DO-style.

The "Big Three" console makers may soon be joined by a fourth. A Verge report citing unspecified sources and rumors states that Valve Software wants to break into the TV set-top console market with a "Steam Box" system of its own.

A drawing from a Valve patent for controller technology.

In keeping with Valve cofounder Gabe Newell's statement last month that the company doesn't want to get into the hardware market (but will if it has to), the Steam Box is said to operate more like a platform along the lines of Google's Android operating system or the 3DO. In theory, Valve would set hardware specifications and create the system software, but multiple partners (Alienware is one rumored name mentioned in the report) would be able to create their own Steam Box devices.

The baseline specs reportedly tout a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GPU. And in addition to running PC games through Valve's Steam storefront, the boxes would be able to run services of rival digital distributors, like EA's Origin service.

The Verge also pointed to a Valve patent from last year as being related to the Steam Box. Specifically, the report says the Steam Box is slated to come with a USB controller that allows users to swap out different components to suit their tastes or different game types. Another possible feature of the controller is biometric readings that would allow games to change in real-time based on users' heart rate.

As for when the Steam Box could be unveiled, next week's GDC and the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June are given as two potential public debuts for the system. A Valve representative had not returned GameSpot's request for comment as of press time.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

"Valve readying 'Steam Box' console - Report" was posted by Brendan Sinclair on Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:15:03 -0800

Island of Guersney moots becoming a "libel haven" where rich & powerful can sue & silence critics

Posted: 03 Mar 2012 02:10 AM PST

Former MI5 agent and Guernsey native Annie Machon sez, "In the teeth of all the anti-SOPA and -ACTA demos, the Channel Island of Guernsey is proposing it become an offshore libel tourism haven for image control. The lawyers see this as a potentially huge revenue stream, much as the tax haven laws have been or the island over the last 3 decades."

The idea is that rich people could register their perpetual "image rights" in Guernsey, and sue people who hurt their feelings. I'm not clear on how they enforce their judgments -- does anyone know what sort of reciprocal arrangements Guernsey has with other territories for collecting on civil judgments from its courts?

Jason Romer is the managing partner and intellectual property specialist at the large "wealth management" legal firm Collas Crill. According to his firm's website, he also, coincidentally, sits on the island's Commercial IP Steering Group and the Drafting Sub-Committee, and is thus conveniently on hand to ease the new legislation through the States.
Also coincidentally, he appears to be an enthusiastic advocate of Eady's infamous "super-injunction" regime which has had such a chillingly expensive effect on the British media in the last decade.
So, if this law is passed, anyone, anywhere around the world will be able (if they can afford it) to register their "image rights" in Guernsey. These rights can even last indefinitely after the original owner's death.
This means that anyone, anywhere, who feels that their "image" has been inappropriately reproduced/copied/traduced/pirated - the correct legal terminology is hazy - can then sue through the Guernsey courts for redress. This could potentially be a powerful new global tool for the suppression of free speech. As public outcry swells internationally against the US IP laws, SOPA and PIPA, and across Europe against the utterly undemocratic ACTA, this new law is a giant leap precisely in the wrong direction.

A new threat to media freedoms (Thanks, Annie!)

German Finance Chief Plays Sudoku During Greece Talks

Posted: 03 Mar 2012 12:16 AM PST

In a recent parliamentary debate on whether to keep Greece on life support, Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schuble, was spotted in video footage with intense focus, but not on the meeting at hand.

jAlbum 10.4 - Organize your digital images and make website albums.. (Demo)

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 08:59 PM PST

JAlbum helps you make website albums of your digital photographs. With JAlbum, no extra software is needed to view the albums, just your web browser. Unlike "server side" album scripts, JAlbum albums can be served from a plain web server without scripting support. You can also share your albums on CD-ROM. It is written after numerous disappointments with existing album software. With JAlbum you have full control of the look of the generated album, not just color theme and basic layout, still making an album is just a matter of drag and drop + a button click if you prefer to use one of the many existing looks. It will process your images, make index pages and slide show pages and even upload the final album to the Internet for your friends to see.

Pro version ($54.00) also available, featuring:

White labeled albums
No ads in your albums
Priority e-mail support

For a more detailed comparison, see this page.

Version 10.4:

News and Updates:

Support for making whole web sites and not just albums. Currently supported by "Turtle", "Galleria", "Minimal" and "Base" skins (now bundled). More skins to follow.
About 40% faster page processing due to better use of multi-core CPUs
Bundled updated Turtle 3.0 and Base 2.0 skins. See skin pages for a full list of enhancements.
Support for transparent images and PNG writing. GIF and PNG files are now written as PNG files
Images can now be individually scaled to different sizes (by overriding the max* image size variables for specific images.
Album projects missing a "directory" entry will now pick the image directory path from the project file location. This will soon help to making album projects truly portable
Alt-clicking preview will bring up final published album (only valid for albums uploaded using jAlbum 10.4 and up)
Removed "Generate Search engine friendly file names" feature for now. It wasn't ready for prime time (caused too many side effects)
Images can now be oriented in any direction
Added a "no IPTC" title source
Supports dragging and dropping .ico files too
Camera copyright messages are now filtered from the EXIF "Image desc." field
jAlbum now keeps track of dates and locations for made and uploaded albums (will be put to use in future versions)
Added "Activate license" button to about window
Introducing "licenceManager", "currentObject" and "currentFolder" and "rootFolder" variables to compiled code
Added a pageType variable (values are "index", "slide" or "page")
Puts a unique ID in the widget loader for anonymous / not signed in albums. This will make it considerably easier to later get rid of ads for such albums. (Will remove the need for rebuilding and reuploading albums after purchasing a license)
Made the objects "rootFolder", "currentFolder" and "selectedObjects" available via the system console as a convenience to developers

Bug fixes:

jAlbum wasn't actually using the recently added "FTPES", "FTPS" and "FTP (ftp4j)" transfer protocols.
Xmp captions would be deleted from images that were linked into jAlbum when such images were deleted from jAlbum
jAlbum's notification system failed to work on OS X Lion (spitting out loads of error reports on the system console)
Fixed minor rounding error for scaling images (could get one pixel too small)
Images could show up incorrectly oriented if "Include photographic data in images" was checked
Rewrote progress dialog window. Now improved performance and fixed bug causing the progress dialog to spontaneously reopen after having been automatically closed after a successful album build
Unrelated files could be accidentally deleted from a server folder the second time an album was uploaded to a server folder where other files are already present
Moving images didn't also move the corresponding generated files
Some albums were made without thumbnails if a previously used skin switched off thumbnail generation
Replaced files (when adding files to jAlbum) are first removed, then added again. This removes stale cached thumbnails and stale generated slide images
jAlbum's settings window could become larger than the screen with certain skins and settings
AlbumObject.getLastModified() is now correct for folders too (senses structural changes to children)
The "onload.bsh" script file now has access to "rootFolder" and "rootImageDirectory" variables
Images taken upside down weren't oriented right

Mac OS X 10.4 or later

Download Now

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

XBMC 11.0.rc2 - Powerful media center tool for Mac or Apple TV.. (Free)

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 08:59 PM PST

XBMC is an award winning media center for Mac OS X. The ultimate High Definition hub for all your media, XBMC is easy to use, looks slick, and has a large helpful community.

Version 11.0.rc2: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later
Or Apple TV

Download Now

iFFmpeg 2.9.3 - Convert multimedia files between formats.. (Shareware)

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 08:59 PM PST

iFFmpeg is a graphical front-end for FFmpeg, a command-line tool used to convert multimedia files between formats. The command line instructions can be very hard to master/understand, so iFFmpeg does all the hard work for you. This allows you to use FFmpeg without detailed command-line knowledge.

Version 2.9.3:

Changed preference "Multi CPU Core support". You can now select how many Cores you want to use.
Fixed issue encoding to Prores and ALAC audio.
Improved DNxHD support.
Encoding to V410 4:4:4 10bit now works correctly (command line was not correct)
Reset demo.

Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Working FFmpeg OS X binary (available here).

Download Now

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Safari Cookies 1.9.1 - Cookie manager integrates directly into Safari.. (Free)

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 11:39 PM PST

Safari Cookies automatically manage your Cookies, Flash Cookies, Local Storage/Databases from the Safari preferences pane. Localized for English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish.

Version 1.9.1:

Fixed a Flash related crash intoroduced in v1.9
UI improvements
added ability to remove Cache on Quit
memory improvements
applied patch to SIMBL to hopefully fix Lion startup issues (http://code.google.com/p/simbl/issues/detail?id=13#c5)
added a Cookie upgrade link