What Console Gaming Could Learn From The PC | The Cool Ship

Two years ago, if you had asked me what I thought about PC gaming, I would have told you it?s?irrelevant. I would have said something like?Why the hell does anyone want to play on a PC when the console is there, with a compatible controller, and I can just stick it in and have fun. Past me had that kind of mentality.

If you?re 20 right now, this probably came out when you were 12. How?s college going?

And, a few short years later, it?s a personal testament to how wrong I can be. Between then and now I built a gaming PC, and it is fabulous. Never before have I known what it?s like to be able to play ANY game. Absolutely any game I want to play. If I wanted to, I could attach four monitors to a computer and play the most insane racing game ever. Or have a 3D monitor. Or a sound system that makes the basement rumble. It?s a completely different world from the console experience. Like watching The Dark Knight in high definition after years of Uwe Boll and Tommy Wiseau films.

Some of the things you can do are truly?ridiculous.

And it?s no secret that the console generation is holding back PC gamers as well. It?s not like console games are ugly, but game companies often produce with the minimum abilities of consoles in mind and then try to tack on some extras for the PC crowd.

If you?re into better graphics and way more gaming options, the PC is the way to go, but it?s not for everyone. You do have to build it yourself, unless you buy a pricey pre-build. And even when you build it yourself the the cost of a true gaming system is still substantial. And there?s the matter of how involved you are. A lot of perks you get outside of graphics and loading speeds include game modifications and?ancillary?products. In short, if you just want to pop the disk in the machine and play the game as is, then the PC probably isn?t for you.

Which is why console developers should start taking their cues from PC gamers.

Wii U aside, the big consoles have been in operation a legendary amount of time. The Xbox 360 has been out since November of 2005. PlayStation 3 almost exactly a year later. That?s 7 years on one platform with several more months before we see something new. The 360 has been out so long that Microsoft redesigned the shell and most of the component parts to?accommodate trends like?WiFi?capability and touch pad controls.

I choose to look at that lifespan the same way I do computers, because that?s what a gaming console really is. Check out these prospective statistics Kotaku has for the upcoming Playstation 4:

• System Memory: 8GB
• Video Memory: 2.2 GB
• CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 ?Bulldozer? (so, 8x cores)
• GPU: AMD R10xx
• Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet
• Drive: Blu-Ray
• HDD: 160GB
• Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels

Read More

Hard drive, RAM, GPU?these are the exact same parts you find in a gaming PC, but at lower quality and capability. It should be noted that these are specs for the test kits given to developers so the consumer Playstation 4 could have better, and it?s not terrible. The video card is?competitive a 8-core processors are the new standard for high-end computers. The hard drive is garbage but, again, it?s a developer kit. The rest of it is pretty standard, so it?s not altogether terrible.

But it won?t last. The new system could have a shelf life that goes as long as 2021 if it?s anything like its predecessor. Who can seriously expect to have the same computer for 4 years and be able to keep up with the demands of new innovations? So why should we have to deal with it in a gaming console when the solution is SOOOOOOO easy and potentially profitable.

I, not wanting to bemoan the creative failures of others without suggesting a solution, have an idea. Why not create modular gaming consoles?

Because you deserve photo-realistic lighting and reasonable Netflix loading.

I envision a platform not so different from what we have today, but instead of single package wrapped in a plastic shell, put different ports on the thing that allow consumers to buy their own components like one does with a PC. People could buy their own RAM and their own Hard Disks and their own video cards and just attach them to the damn thing. Basically there would be a standard mother board (upon which all of the parts listed by Kotaku would be mounted), and people would choose how hard they want to game.

The platform companies already do this to a degree. Memory cards and hard drives are detachable from the current generation of consoles. And, there are all kinds of accessories for controllers and such.

So Microsoft and Sony could sell games in packaging that details minimum system requirements (like PC games do), and when the standards increase, instead of launching a whole new platform they could just let consumers the necessary upgrades. Obviously, there are some things consumers couldn?t do on their own, like mount a processor. That?s tedious and easy to mess up. So at some point down the road folks are going to need to replace their system to get a new processor and motherboard, but then they?ll have all the associated parts already, lowering the cost.

This is normally the place where someone would explain that it?s all too complicated and it kill consumer?accessibility. And that is correct, to a point. Anyone that doesn?t know the difference between RAM and a hard drive is going to have to catch up. Luckily, most of these things are sold in the home entertainment departments of your various chain retail stores. That means there are already people, trained to sell computers, in the same space as the gaming console ready to answer questions. It?s barely employee training at this point.

This isn?t an attack on the gaming console so much as a critique of the annual launches we have to do every decade. Instead of a big thing where everyone ?read the reports about how the Playstation 3 is unprofitable or that no one wants to buy the Wii U, there would be a constant flow of money and a more regular interaction with the consumer.

This is a new era. Game consoles sit at the heart of home entertainment systems. Maybe we?re due for a new paradigm.

Source: http://thecoolship.com/2013/02/04/what-console-gaming-could-learn-from-the-pc/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-console-gaming-could-learn-from-the-pc

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Light shone on star mystery: Why sun's corona is much hotter than its surface

Feb. 4, 2013 ? Scientists at Northumbria University have begun to unlock the mystery of why the outer edge of the Sun is much hotter than its surface for the first time.

A team led by Northumbria's Dr Richard Morton, and including researchers from the University of Sheffield and Queen's University Belfast, has used cutting-edge solar-imaging technology to observe the Sun's chromosphere -- a region of the Sun's atmosphere sandwiched between its surface (photosphere) and outer layer (corona) -- to an unprecedented level of detail.

For years astronomers have looked for the elusive mechanism that causes some stars to have a corona that is almost 200 times hotter than their photosphere, despite being further away from the heat source at the star's core. It is believed that the cause of the increased temperature is due to magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves that distribute the energy generated below the star's surface to the outer layers of the Sun's atmosphere

Now, for the first time, the team has examined the MHD waves using a UK-designed dedicated solar-imaging telescope known as Rapid Oscillations in the Solar Atmosphere, or ROSA, to observe the chromosphere with a high degree of clarity. The powerful tool enabled some of the highest resolution images of the chromosphere to be obtained, allowing the scientists to study the speed and power of the waves and then estimate the amount of energy that they transport.

Their calculations confirm that the MHD waves could be responsible for transporting energy from below the solar surface, out through the chromosphere, into the corona and leading to heating of the outer layers in excess of a million degrees.

Dr Morton said: "The Sun is our closest star and provides a unique opportunity to study the properties of stars in detail. Stars generate heat through thermonuclear reactions in their core and the temperature decreases towards the star's surface. However, a significant number of stars have higher temperatures at the outer edges of their atmospheres than they do on their surface.

"Our observations have permitted us to estimate the amount of energy transported by the magnetic waves, and these estimates reveal that the waves' energy meets the energy requirement for the unexplained temperature increase in the corona."

Northumbria University has launched a new Physics with Astrophysics degree, which will begin in September 2013. The course will teach aspects of modern astrophysics, including modules on the Sun and its properties.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Northumbria University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Richard J. Morton, Gary Verth, David B. Jess, David Kuridze, Michael S. Ruderman, Mihalis Mathioudakis, Robertus Erd?lyi. Observations of ubiquitous compressive waves in the Sun?s chromosphere. Nature Communications, 2012; 3: 1315 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2324

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/wcFvCFkfBnE/130204094608.htm

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Iran threat is paramount for new government: Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday took on the job of forming a new government and said its most important task would be to ensure that Iran does not gain nuclear arms.

President Shimon Peres formally called on Netanyahu to assemble a new coalition following the January 22 general election in which Netanyahu's rightist Likud-Beitenu emerged as the biggest party. It controls 31 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

"The paramount task of the government that I will form will be to stop Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said as he accepted the mandate from Peres.

Netanyahu also hinted at the security dangers posed by advanced Syrian weapons being transferred from Syria to Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and its apparent chemical weapons arsenal, but he did not specifically name the country.

"We will also have to deal with other deadly weaponry that is being amassed around us and threatens our cities and our citizens," he added.

Israel has remained silent, but diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria also accused Israel of bombing a research site near Damascus.

In his short acceptance speech, Netanyahu repeated his commitment to peace with the Palestinians and called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks with him.

"The next government that I will form will be committed to peace. I call on Abu Mazen (Abbas) to return to the negotiating table. Every day that passes without us talking to jointly find a way to create peace for our peoples is a day wasted," Netanyahu said.

But drawing the Palestinians back to the table may be hard. Talks broke down in 2010 over Israel's continued settlement building. With Netanyahu set to ask a powerful pro-settler party to join him, and many in his own party also partial to settlers, he is sure to face strong internal opposition.

Last week Peres consulted with representatives from the 12 parties elected to parliament, the Knesset, and factions that control 82 seats recommended that Netanyahu should be asked to form a government.

Coalition-building talks will begin on Sunday in Tel Aviv, although initially, at least, Netanyahu will not be involved directly. He has appointed his party ally and former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to lead the Likud-Beitenu team.

CONCESSIONS

Likud-Beitenu took a battering at the ballot box and won 11 fewer seats than it had going into the election, meaning Netanyahu may have to be more considerate of his partners.

His administration is expected to be cobbled together from a new centrist party headed by former TV personality Yair Lapid, which with 19 seats is the second-largest party, the 12-seat far-right pro-settler Bayit Yehudi ("Jewish Home") faction and other centrist and religious parties.

Lapid, a political novice, leads the "Yesh Atid" (There is a Future) party and none of its members has prior parliamentary experience -- one of the selling points that attracted voters.

He campaigned on a ticket of an "equal sharing of the burden" and helping the middle class, especially with housing and education.

"Equal sharing" is political code for meeting the complaints of secular tax-payers about the concessions given to the ultra-Orthodox, whose men study in Jewish seminaries, often on state stipends, and who are not drafted into the army.

Netanyahu committed to follow Lapid's lead, although he did not say how he would square the circle. Ultra-Orthodox parties have for decades successfully resisted mass conscription of 18-year-old men and have vowed to continue to do so.

"We are committed to increase significantly an equal share of the burden and I am convinced that we can do this in a responsible manner that can bring a basic change without tearing the nation apart," he said.

The two Ultra-Orthodox parties in Parliament who have 18 seats between them supported Netanyahu for prime minister. They are seen as favoring joining the coalition if they can find a compromise with Lapid's demands.

Israeli coalition-building can be a laborious process and Netanyahu may require the full 28 days before announcing success but he can ask Peres for 14 more days to complete the task, if needed.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-nominated-form-israeli-government-182314387.html

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Missing NYC mom found dead in Turkey

Sarai Sierra, an amateur photographer, took her first trip abroad to Turkey ? alone. She was found dead in Istanbul's historic district. NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.

By Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News

A New York City mom who went missing while visiting Turkey was killed by a blunt trauma wound to the head, Turkish officials said early Sunday.

The body of Sarai Sierra, 33, who had been missing for almost two weeks, was found Saturday evening dumped against ramparts of an ancient city wall, police said.

Police are reportedly questioning 15 people over her killing.

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Mother-of-two Sierra, from Staten Island, had not been in contact with her family since Jan. 21, the day before she was supposed to fly home after a two-week vacation - her first overseas trip.

What happened in the days in which she was missing is not clear, police said.

Her husband, Steven, identified her body late on Saturday at an Istanbul morgue, state broadcaster TRT reported.

Sierra left for Turkey on Jan. 7 ? alone, because a friend had dropped out of the trip. She wanted to pursue her photography hobby. An Instagram account she set up over the summer, with images of scenes around New York City, had developed a strong following. ?

During her two-week trip abroad, Sierra also visited the Netherlands and Munich, Germany, according to the AP.

Police briefly detained a man last week who exchanged messages with Sierra online. The man had contacted her and made plans to meet with her on a bridge she wanted to photograph, according to Hurriyet. The bridge was a short distance from where Sierra's body was found.

The man was released after being questioned. It was unclear whether he was among the those arrested after the body was found.

Speaking earlier, Steven Sierra said Sarai stayed in close touch with him and their children, ages 9 and 11, by phone and by Skype. After she didn?t arrive at the airport as planned, he and his brother-in-law David Jimenez traveled to Turkey to look for her.?

Isolde Raftery, Staff Writer, NBC News, contributed to this report.

Related:

Phone of NYC mom missing in Turkey used twice in recent days

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/03/16820467-new-york-city-mom-murdered-on-vacation-in-turkey?lite

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'Shafted' no more: new college an opportunity | The Triangle

It seems to come naturally to Drexel students to complain about our University?s disgustingly high tuition, nonstop construction, registration time tickets and other things we find undesirable. The term ?Shafted? has become a household sarcastic quip in every residence hall and classroom on campus. I have noticed that it has almost become instinct to accuse Drexel of cheating its students from the education that they are paying tens of thousands of dollars to receive. However, Drexel has recently proved these complainers wrong with a new addition to our ever-growing school.

A month into the new year, Drexel is already revving up its innovation to full throttle with the establishment of the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship. The new school was made possible by $12.5 million in donations from the Charles and Barbara Close Foundation.

According to DrexelNow, the school will be one of a kind in Philadelphia and one of the few entrepreneurship schools in the country. The beauty of the Close School is that it takes entrepreneurship off the back burner and allows students of all majors to focus on their entrepreneurial skills as a major. The school will give students the opportunity to build joint degrees through a co-admission with other schools and colleges, giving them a wide range of studies to which they can apply their entrepreneurial skills.

The addition of this new school reflects just how much President John A. Fry cares about the education of his students. I commend our president for picking up Drexel from the ashes after the death of President Constantine N. Papadakis. Students should not expect Drexel to be perfect with the snap of Fry?s fingers. It takes time to reinvent a school, and Fry has chosen to do so from the outside in. Now that construction has been settled (for now), the announcement of the Close School is a breath of fresh air.

Additionally, if you were to play the word association game for ?Drexel,? you would most likely think ?engineering.? I feel that this is a common misconception to outsiders, who think that most Drexel students are more analytical than creative and lack the artistic flair that schools centered on the arts are known for. In fact, a large percentage of majors here at Drexel, from design and merchandising to music industry, are art driven, and the new entrepreneurship school sparks students? business creativity. I am pleased that Drexel is tapping into the creative minds of its students through the Close School.

The school?s entrepreneurship co-ops will also give students more freedom with their co-ops. Many students feel that the co-ops available in Drexel?s system do not fit their needs and interests. Allowing students to create their own co-op with their own business ideas will sculpt these entrepreneurs into businesspeople fit to run a well-respected and successful business. This new co-op program gives students the opportunity to create their own business from the get-go, a privilege that most college students do not have.

Drexel has proven itself ready and willing to incubate innovative entrepreneurship ideas and skills, being one of the first schools to reach these heights. I am eager to witness Drexel?s ascent into the entrepreneur world with the help of the new school of entrepreneurship. I am of the belief that Drexel does, in fact, care about the well-being of its students, and all it takes is patience and trust in our innovative president.

Anne Most is the Arts & Entertainment editor at The Triangle. She can be contacted at anne.most@thetriangle.org.

Source: http://thetriangle.org/2013/02/01/shafted-no-more-new-college-an-opportunity/

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At least 32 dead in Mexico skyscraper blast

A powerful explosion shook the building housing the headquarters of Mexican oil giant Pemex. NBC's Kristen Dahlgren reports.

By Kari Huus, Staff Writer, NBC News

The death toll from a powerful explosion in the Mexico City skyscraper complex housing the offices of state oil monopoly Pemex rose to at least 32, company and government officials said Friday.

20 men and 12 women were killed, the company said - while 121 were injured, 52 of whom remain in hospital.?

Mexican President Enrique Pe?a Nieto arrived at the Pemex administration complex by helicopter Thursday night to supervise rescue operations, Pemex and the news agency La Prensa reported. Hundreds of Mexican military forces were sent to the complex to "preserve security," officials told newspaper El Universal.

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Emilio Lozoya Austin, director general of Pemex, which is short for Petr?leos Mexicanos, told Reuters Friday the the company was "working with the best teams in Mexico and from overseas" to find the cause of the explosion.

He was flying home from a business trip to Asia when the blast occured. He said he extended his condolences "to all the families of Pemex workers who have lost their loved ones."

The explosion took place in the basement garage of the auxiliary building, next to the company's 52-floor tower in a busy commercial and residential area, said Eduardo S?nchez, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Stringer/Mexico/Reuters

An injured woman is transferred to a stretcher outside the headquarters of state oil giant Pemex in Mexico City on Thursday.

"They're conducting a tour of the building and the area adjacent to the blast site to verify if there are any still trapped so they can be rescued immediately," Sanchez said Thursday.

A government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said preliminary findings suggested the blast was caused by aged boiler exploding in a building next to the tower, Reuters reported.

The plaster ceiling of the basement collapsed, a spokesman for the local emergency agency said. He described conditions in the tower as "delicate."

The main floor and the mezzanine of the auxiliary building were heavily damaged, along with windows as far as three floors up.?

A man who was on the ground floor when the explosion occurred told Forum TV that the first casualties were taken to a clinic in the adjacent office tower, where several thousand people work.

"It shook the building, and then we were evacuated," he said.

Company touted safety record
News of the blast came toward the end of the business day ? just a few hours after the company had sent two messages on Twitter celebrating how much it had "reduced our accident rate in recent years," announcing that its "safety indicators" exceeded international standards:

"An explosion took place in the B2 building of the administrative center," Pemex tweeted just after 4 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET). "There are injuries and damage on the ground floor and mezzanine," it said, promising further information as it became available.

Pemex initially said the building had been evacuated because of a problem with its electricity supply. It then said there had been an explosion, but it didn't give the cause.

Milenio TV via NBC News

The scene at Pemex headquarters in Mexico City on Thursday after an explosion. There was no official explanation for the blast.

Television images showed people being evacuated ? some on office chairs and gurneys. Emergency crews loaded people on stretchers into helicopters and airlifted them out of the area.

"The place shook, we lost power and suddenly there was debris everywhere," Cristian Obele told Milenio news network. "Colleagues were helping us out of the building."

Jose Cuellar, a mechanic who works near the complex, said he was repairing a car when an explosion rocked his entire workshop.

"We went to see and saw people coming out injured," Cuella, 45, ?told El Universal. "Other people were carrying them."

Edgar Zuniga Jr. and?M. Alex Johnson of NBC News, Telemundo and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/01/16795620-at-least-32-dead-in-mexico-city-skyscraper-explosion?lite

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Mali jihadists in custody say tortured by military

TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) ? Three suspected jihadists arrested in the days since the liberation of Timbuktu said Friday that Malian soldiers were torturing them with a method similar to waterboarding.

The three are being held in an earthen cell in what remains of the military camp in the town, which was freed this week by French and Malian soldiers after nearly 10 months under radical Islamist rule.

Their allegations came as French President Francois Hollande prepared to fly to Mali on Saturday, nearly four weeks after the French-led operation began in the vast West African country.

The three suspects, who were tied together with a turban and one handcuff, all acknowledged to The Associated Press having been members of the al-Qaida-linked group known as Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith.

"To force me to talk they poured 40 liters (85 pints) of water in my mouth and over my nostrils which made it so that I could not breathe anymore. For a moment I thought I was even going to die," said one of the men, who gave his name as Ali Guindo and said he was from a village near the central Malian town of Niono.

"I sleep in the cold and every night they come pour freezing water over me. "

All three prisoners described similar treatment. Their account could not be independently verified. Soldiers holding the three asked reporters to leave after initially allowing journalists to speak with them.

Army Col. Mamary Camara told reporters that the three were arrested by Malian forces in the town of Lere. He said one of the men was from Libya and was caught wearing a foreign military uniform.

The Libyan jihadist was visibly frightened, crouching in a corner of his cell. He gave the AP contradictory information about his background, first saying he was born in a Malian village but of Libyan descent.

Later, he said he was from Tripoli but has lived for years in Mali. He initially denied being part of Ansar Dine but later confirmed that he belonged to the movement though he denied having an important role.

The Malian military said that when he was arrested he was wearing a watch with a memory card inside that they said was used to communicate with other foreign jihadists.

The allegations of torture came as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released reports outlining other allegations of misconduct by the Malian military and Islamists over the last month.

Both groups said they had documented cases of Malian soldiers killing suspected Islamist supporters in Sevare on the eve of the French-led intervention. Human Rights Watch cited at least 13 killings, while Amnesty said the number could be two dozen.

Human Rights Watch said the witnesses described seeing soldiers at a bus station in Sevare interrogate passengers suspected of links to extremist groups. Those without proper identification were taken away, the witnesses said.

"Before the soldiers marched them off, many of the detained men frantically tried to find someone in the crowd at the bus station who could vouch for them and verify their identity," the HRW report said. "They were driven or marched to a nearby field, where they were shot and their bodies dumped into one of four wells."

The Associated Press had earlier reported killings of civilians by the Malian army in Sevare, with bodies dumped into a well.

The Malian government has promised to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by its soldiers.

Friday's reports also alleged abuses by the Islamists. Human Rights Watch said Islamist rebels had killed at least seven Malian soldiers.

"One begged for his life saying, 'Please, in the name of God.' But they held him down and slit his throat," a witness told HRW. "Two days later, as we picked up the dead soldiers to bury them, the Islamists saw that five of them were still living. Most were gravely wounded, but they were still breathing and should have been given a chance to live. Instead the Islamists killed them ? one after the other."

Meanwhile, back in France, Hollande told reporters the purpose of his trip is to boost troop morale, encourage Africans to join an international force for the area, and push Malian leaders to enter a political dialogue. France has said that it eventually wants to hand over responsibility for the mission to the Malian army and other African counterparts.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mali-jihadists-custody-tortured-military-122145724.html

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