Software

MIT Software Identifies Hidden Frustration Much More Accurately Than Humans

Brad Chacos — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:06:26 +0000

The human race's march towards becoming disposable batteries for power-hungry robot overlords continues. A mere day after Intel announced a new project that hopes to bring senses, smarts and adaptable machine learning to computers, word's come in that M.I.T. has developed a program that can detect frustration in human smiles much, much more accurately than people can. That's right, your future robo-master will be able to outsmart you and tell when you're lying.

Via webcam, the test subjects were asked to smile and act frustrated, but canned responses are obviously of limited use, so they also performed tasks designed to evoke true happiness or irritation. The researchers evoked feelings of delight by showing the subjects a happy-go-lucky video, but the way they coaxed out frustration was much more devious; the subjects filled out a long, tedious web form which was rigged to clear when they tried submitting it. Hilarious!

The tests found one other interesting tidbit: a whopping 90 percent of people smiled in frustration when the form cleared, even though only 10 percent of test subjects smiled when asked to mime frustration. Which of the two smiles above do you think is real, and which is frustrated?

The team of researchers developed software that uses small physical clues, such as muscle patterns and smile timing, to determine whether or not smiles are real or hiding frustration. The computer was able to correctly identify frustrated smiles a whopping 92 percent of the time; human observers performed even worse than chance.

The team published a report of their findings in IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing; Phys.org has a nice summary of the highlights, while the MIT Media Lab offers more insight into the psychology and science of reading smiles.

(By the way, the smile on the right is the irritated one.)

Skyrim 1.6 Update for PC Introduces Mounted Combat

Paul Lilly — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:16:47 +0000

With Diablo III going through growing pains, perhaps you've found yourself going back to Skyrim to pick more pockets and to slay a few more dragons. The problem with Skyrim is that even though there's so much to do, it has a tendency to get repetitive, though continued updates and mods are helping to keep things fresh. The newest update, straight from Bethesda, adds a brand new element to Skyrim in the form of mounted combat.

"Skyrim now allows you to do melee and ranged combat while riding a horse," Bethesda explains in a blog post.

This is where PC elitists can thumb their nose and stick out their tongue at their console brethren, because the update is only available on the PC platform. It's currently a beta patch, but it's available today if you opt into the latest Steam Beta Update (Steam > Settings > Account tab > Beta Participation > Change).

"As far as release on other platforms, we'll let you know when have more information," Bethesda says.

In addition to mounted combat, Bethesda whipped out its mallet and squashed a boatload of bugs, a handful of which apply to the Xbox 360 even though it's not available for that platform just yet. And of course there are the usual general stability and memory optimizations.

Does the thought of mounted combat get you interested in Skyrim again? Sound off in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Bethesda Softworks LLC

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HTC Publishes Blissfully Frustrating Android 4.0 Update List

Paul Lilly — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:52:07 +0000

Good news if you own an Amaze 4G smartphone from HTC. For those of you who do, HTC just released an update to Android 4.0, the latest and greatest open source mobile operating system from Google more deliciously known as Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Owners of HTC's Thunderbolt and Desire HD smartphones aren't as lucky, having to wait perhaps until August, or longer, receive an ICS upgrade, according to HTC's newly published Android 4.0 roadmap.

There are a total 17 smartphones on HTC's list.

"The majority of devices will receive upgrades in June and July 2012 and we expect to finish upgrades in August 2012 for all announced devices," HTC explains.

Why do some take longer than others, especially now that ICS has been out for awhile? As HTC tells it, "Because of partner and network testing, and approval processes for device updates, it can take up to 45 days for all carriers and countries to get the update after a rollout has begun."

The real unlucky bunch are those rocking devices with 512MB ROM or less, because generally speaking, those will not be upgraded to Android 4.0, HTC says. These include the HTC ChaCha, Salsa, Wildfire S, Explorer, and other smartphones, and HTC tablets such as the Flyer, EVO View 4G, and Jetstream.

As Digital Trends points out, some of HTC's devices will be in a holding pattern for ICS when Android 5.0 has been announced. Factoring in a rollout period that could be as long as 45 days, it could be September before phones such as the HTC Thunderbolt are upgraded, almost a full year after Google announced ICS.

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Nvidia's WHQL-Certified 301.42 Drivers Bring Gameplay Enhancements And GeForce 600 Series Support

Brad Chacos — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:04:49 +0000

Good news for early GeForce/Verde 600 series adopters: Nvidia's just released a set of WHQL-certified drivers for desktop and notebook gamers alike, one welcomes all the new entries to the Nvidia graphics family with open arms and gives them a big ol' group hug. GeForce 400 and 500 series owners will feel the love, too, thanks to a performance boost of up to 20 percent in a host of top-tier games.

The actual frame rate improvements depend on both the game being played and your particular setup, of course; the benchmarks examining systems with a single GTX 560 Ti and the new drivers showed a roughly 3 to 10 percent frame rate increase, for example. Skyrim nabbed a big boost from the 301.42 update, as you can see above.

The new drivers also place the mini-controversy surrounding the GTX 670 and its 3-way SLI support to rest by boosting the card up to full 4-way capabilities. The 301.42 drivers also bring updates for Nvidia Surround, PhysX and OpenCL, along with a ton of new 3D Vision and SLI profiles. Finally, 301.42 adds Adaptive Vsync and FXAA antialiasing to all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.

Check out Nvidia's blog post for a full list of updates, including the various SLI and 3D Vision profile updates, or download the 301.42 drivers here.

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Rapid Release Fraps Updates Fixes a Flurry of Issues

Paul Lilly — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:42:58 +0000

For the third time in less than a month, Beepa has released an update to its Fraps utility for real-time video capture and benchmarking. Beepa's been unusually active in updating its popular program, whereas prior to version 3.5.0, which was released on April 26, 2012, updates would typically roll out only every 6 months or so. Since then, Beepa has released builds 3.5.1 on May 18 and 3.5.2 earlier this week.

Fraps 3.5.2, the newest and most up to date version, is all about bug fixes, including:

Fixed missing audio at end of long recordings
Fixed error preventing movie playback in Windows Media Player
Fixed screen freezing when starting video capture in Minecraft and other OpenGL games
Fixed crash during video mode switch in DOSBox

The above fixes were preceded by a handful of others in the previous two versions, along with support for large AVI movie files (more than 4GB) on NTFS drives and support for exFAT drives writing larger than 4GB.

Starting with version 3.5.0, Beepa switched up the minimum system requirements to include a CPU with SSE2 (Pentium 4 or above) and dropped Windows 2000 support. A limited version of Fraps is available to download and use for free, or you can fork over $37 for a completely unrestricted version that removes watermarks and recording time limits, and allows you to capture screenshots to BMP, JPG, PNG, and TGA file formats instead of just BMP.

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Linux 3.4 Released With Increased Graphics Support And Big Btrfs Improvements

Brad Chacos — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:07:29 +0000

Some head-in-the-clouds philosophical types say time is like a rubber band, stretching out slowly then snapping forward in a burst; the proof to that hypothesis may just lie in the humble Linux kernel. It took Linus and co. a whopping 20 years to finally release Linux 3.0 last July, and less than a year later, Linux 3.4 is already here. The new build brings several new things to the table, with a multitude of Brtfs updates and support for the latest graphics options being the most noticeable changes.

Linux 3.4 sports initial support for Nvidia's GeForce GTX 600 series, although it's limited to basic unaccelerated modesetting. Experimental support for the graphics portion of Intel's new smartphone-focused Medfield chips is also included, as is full support for AMD's Radeon 7000 series and the brand spankin' new Trinity APU. (Now we just need Steam for Linux to finally rear its head…)

Btrfs got a whole heap of improvements, including enhanced performance and error handling, larger metadata blocks and new repair data recovery tools.

As with any Linux kernel update, that's just the tip of the iceberg, though most of the other changes are either minor or behind the scenes (including the interesting "X32 ABI," which lets some 64-bit programs run with 32-bit pointers). Read all the dirty details in Linus' LKML announcement or on the Kernel Newbies website.

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Sources Say New Windows 7 PC Buyers Will Be Able To Upgrade To Windows 8 Pro For $15

Brad Chacos — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:39:18 +0000

Whenever a new Windows OS rears its head, Microsoft alleviates the concerns of wary would-be PC buyers who may be tempted to put off purchasing a new computer for couple of months by offering them a free upgrade to the soon-to-be-released Windows flavor. That may grind to a halt with Windows 8; several sources say Microsoft will still give recent Windows 7 PC buyers a chance to upgrade, but only if buyers shell out another $14.99.

However, that $14.99 bucks will net users full access to Windows 8 Pro rather than the everyday Windows 8 OS, CNET's Mary Jo Folley and Microsoft-focused reporter Paul Thurrott report. Windows 8 Pro includes geek-friendly features like file encryption and virtualization support. It may seem a bit like double dipping, but according to Foley and Thurrott's sources, the offer will be available to anybody who buys a PC running at least Windows 7 Home Basic after June 2nd -- giving Home Basic buyers very low-cost access to Pro-level features.

So, would you rather Microsoft continue the practice of giving away a base version upgrade for free, or do you prefer this route?

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Diablo III Launches to Long Lines at Midnight

Paul Lilly — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:48:05 +0000

The much anticipated third installment of the popular hack-and-slash Diablo series launched earlier today at one minute past the stroke of midnight, which means some of you reading this (or not reading this, at it were) have been giving your mouse a workout for around eight hours straight. Those who didn't download a pre-ordered digital copy ahead of time faced potentially long lines at retail stores, such as the one seen here at a Fry's Home Electronics store in Las Vegas.

"Twenty years have passed since the Prime Evils were defeated and banished from the world of Sanctuary," Blizzard explains on its Battle.net site. "Now you must return to Tristram and investigate rumors of a fallen star, an omen that the End Times have begun."

Diablo III, a PC exclusive, carries a console price tag at $60, and you can tack on another $22 or $37 if you plan to purchase the Diablo III Signature Series Strategy Guide or thet Limited Edition hardcover version. There's also a Collector's Edition of Diablo III that sells for $100 and comes with a handful of extras, like a Diablo skull base and 4GB USB soulstone with full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, as well as an art book, soundtrack, and behind-the-scenes DVD/Blu-ray set.

It's been more than a decade since Diablo was released, and about 15 and a half years since the original Diablo game came out. That prompted CNet to pose the question of whether or not Diablo is still relevant, which you can read here. Alternately, you can wait for the inevitable landslide of reviews to roll through the Web. That is, if you're not already playing Diablo III and answering that question yourself, which leads us to our own question:

Did you pick up (or plan to purchase) Diablo III? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Image Credit: Simon Chan

Dropbox’s Dropquest Scavenger Hunt Offers 1GB of Extra Storage

Justin Kerr — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:42:34 +0000

Dropbox may have taken a temporary dip in the popularity polls with both Skydrive and Google Drive offering a better value proposition, so how do you keep your customers? Easy, change the subject. Yesterday the company took the lid off Dropquest 2012, its annual virtual scavenger hunt which awards those who manage to make it all the way to the end with an extra 1GB bump in their storage quota.

Dropquest is a series of puzzles that the company claims were inspired by MIT’s mystery hunt, and it turns out to be more than a little challenging. It’s by no means impossible, but it certainly will eat up more than a few hours. Asking for help on the company support forums will lead to instant disqualification, however if you find yourself stumped I don’t think they can do much about the tons of great Google Doc answer sheets popping up.

If you find yourself in desperate need of an extra gigabyte of online storage may we suggest you check out Skydrive or Google Drive? If on the otherhand you just get a kick out of puzzles, as least this one comes with a reward.

Windows RT's Browser Handling is a "Return to the Digital Dark Ages," Mozilla Says

Paul Lilly — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:06:59 +0000

Mozilla isn't mincing words when it comes to Microsoft's decision to limit or restrict the behavior of non-Internet Explorer browsers in Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 intended for systems with ARM hardware inside. In a semi-angry blog post, Mozilla raged against reports that Internet Explorer will be the only browser allowed to run in the privileged 'Windows Classic' environment, calling the move "an unwelcome return to the digital dark ages where users and developers didn't have browser choices." Ouch.

"It’s reported that Windows RT (the name Microsoft has given to Windows running on the ARM processor) will have two environments, a Windows Classic environment and a Metro environment for apps. However, Windows on ARM prohibits any browser except for Internet Explorer from running in the privileged 'Windows Classic' environment," Mozilla explains. "In practice, this means that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can’t do the same."

The way Mozilla sees it, Microsoft's strong-arm behavior effectively excludes competing browsers from the platform, giving users just a single viable browser choice when running Windows in an ARM environment. If the reports are true and Microsoft doesn't reverse course, it could find itself defending its decision in court.

"Because Windows on ARM relies upon so many traditional Windows assets, including brand, code, footprint, and experience, the decision to exclude other browsers may also have antitrust implications," Mozilla said. "If Windows on ARM is simply another version of Windows on new hardware, it also runs afoul of the EC browser choice commitments and seems to represent the very behavior the DOJ-Microsoft settlement sought to prohibit."

Mozilla didn't come out and say it would be the one filing suit, or urging for an investigation, but if nothing changes between now and the time Windows 8 is released, it's a pretty safe bet Microsoft will have some explaining to do.

Irrational Games Delays BioShock Infinite to 2013; Will Skip E3

Paul Lilly — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:54:30 +0000

Sorry BioShock fans, you'll have to sit back and wait for February 26, 2013 to roll around before getting your hands on BioShock Infinite. Take-Two Interactive on Wednesday announced that the upcoming first-person shooter from Irrational Games is being delayed until next year, with creative director Ken Levine adding, "We're doing things that no one has ever done in a first person shooter."

"I won’t kid you: BioShock Infinite is a very big game, and we’re doing things that no one has ever done in a first-person shooter," Levine stated in an open letter to the public. "We had a similar experience with the original BioShock, which was delayed several months as our original ship date drew near. Why? Because the Big Daddies weren’t the Big Daddies you’ve since come to know and love. Because Andrew Ryan’s golf club didn’t have exactly the right swing. Because Rapture needed one more coat of grimy Art Deco."

Levine said the same attention of detail also applies to BioShock Infinite, which ultimately means a "bit more waiting, but more importantly, it means an even better" game.

BioShock Infinite was originally scheduled to ship in October, so barring any more push backs, this amounts to about a four-month delay. You won't get to see a whole lot until then. Take-Two Interactive and Irrational Games have decided not to show BioShock Infinite at any of the big events this summer, including E3 and Gamescom.

"That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put into the box," Levine explained.

Image Credit: Take-Two Interactive / Irrational Games

Adobe Now Shipping Creative Suite 6; Cloud Service Later This Week

Paul Lilly — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:11:16 +0000

Adobe today announced that its Creative Suite 6 (CS6) software set announced in April is now available to purchase. Included in the CS6 product line are new releases of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premier Pro, After Effects, Flash Professional and more, as well as four new suite versions -- Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Creative Suite 6 Master Collection.

"We announced Creative Cloud and CS6 two weeks ago and these releases have caught the imagination of creatives everywhere," said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. "Today we're shipping CS6 and look forward to the beginning of an exciting new era as we introduce Creative Cloud later this week."

Adobe Creative Cloud will be available this Friday, May 11, and is a subscription-based hub for making, sharing, and delivering content centered around CS6, Adobe says. Subscribers will be able to download and install all CS6 applications and new HTML5 desktop productions, as well as store and share content across various platforms. Is it worth it? Here are some numbers to digest:

CS6 Master Collection: $2,599
CS6 Production Premium: $1,899
CS6 Design & Web Premium: $1,899
CS6 Design Standard: $1,299

Alternately, Creative Cloud memberships run $50/month for an annual subscription or $75 for month-to-month billing. CS3, CS4, CS5, and CS5.5 customers are eligible for a special introductory offer of $30 per month, Adobe says.

Image Credit: Adobe

VLC Offers a Free DVD Player, Why Can’t Microsoft?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:22:06 +0000

We’ve recommended VLC on more than one occasion, and for good reasons. It’s the swiss army knife of the video playback world. It supports more formats and codecs then we can count, installs quickly, and is updated frequently. With the upcoming release of Windows 8 however, it will start offering a new killer feature most people probably didn’t care about before - DVD playback. Microsoft’s decision to not support DVD playback in Windows 8 unless you shell out the extra cash for media center has created a ton of vitriol in comment feeds around the web, but also a pretty obvious question. If a free and open source app can offer the feature, why can’t Microsoft? ZDNet blogger Ed Bott set out to answer the question, and his findings may surprise you.

Before we get to the answer it is important to understand that DVD playback is made possible by way of two core software components. First you need an MPEG-2 decoder, and second you need Dolby Digital audio support. The cost of adding these to Windows 7 is estimated to be somewhere in the range of $2-$3, so how does VLC do this for free? It helps to be French.

VideoLAN, the company behind VLC explains the French connection on its “Legal concerns” page, and skipping down to the bottom of the page you find the following.

“Patents and codec licenses

Neither French law nor European conventions recognize software as patentable (see French section below).

Therefore, software patents licenses do not apply on VideoLAN software.”

Of course they also have size on their side. VLC is a nonprofit organization based outside the reach of the US legal system, and represents a small enough niche that it’s currently not worth pursuing. We can’t help but wonder if that will change over time if it becomes more popular, though it’s hard to image a world where the big OEM’s ever ditch CyberLink PowerDVD in favor of something open source.

Microsoft Explains Windows Media Center Upgrade in Windows 8; Mums the Word on Price

Paul Lilly — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:25:21 +0000

Microsoft didn't make many friends by casually mentioning how Windows Media Center wouldn't be included with Windows 8, Redmond's next generation operating system set to debut in a few months. In fact, many were downright outraged at the news, and seeing the sharpened pitchforks and brightly lit torches being waved around cyberspace, Steven Sinofsky set out to clarify things on the Building Windows 8 blog.

"In this post we wanted to update you on Media Center and Windows 8, specifically how we will make sure Windows 8 fully supports the capabilities of Media Center as it is in Windows 7," Sinofsky begins. "We took the feedback about maintaining the functionality very seriously, and we clearly understood what we’ve heard many of you saying around the value of Media Center for movies, Internet TV, broadcast TV, optical media, music, photos, and all the other scenarios it covers today. Many said in comments and email to us, that so long as the feature is available somehow it is fine."

So, how will it be available? Through the 'Add Features to Windows 8' option in the Control Panel, previously known as Windows Anytime Upgrade. Windows 8 users will have the option to purchase the Windows 8 Pro Pack and end up with Windows 8 Pro with Media Center, while Windows 8 Pro users will be able to purchase the Windows 8 Media Center Pack and also end up with Windows 8 Pro with Media Center. Sound confusing? Here's a visual that will help:

Windows 8 Pro + Windows 8 Media Center Pack = Windows Pro with Media Center
Windows 8 + Windows 8 Pro Pack = Windows 8 Pro with Media Center

Basically, this is Microsoft's way of sugarcoating the fact that Windows Media Center isn't going to be included with any version of Windows 8 like it currently is with Windows 7 Premium and Pro, and that it will cost extra to obtain it, though there's still no word on much the add-on will cost.

You can read the full blog post here.

Microsoft Officially Kills The Windows Live Brand

Brad Chacos — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:05:24 +0000

Do you remember way back when Hotmail was just called, you know, Hotmail? Those were the days. Then Microsoft went on its whole "Windows Live" branding kick and swapped it over to "Windows Live Hotmail" to match the similarly renamed Windows Live Mail, Windows Live ID and Windows Live Photo Gallery, amongst others. Now, apparently, the folks in Redmond have realized how silly and superfluous the Windows Live sticker was; the company recently announced that the brand is being killed off in favor of more basic app names. Yes, Hotmail will be just Hotmail once again.

The move away from the Windows Live brand started long ago in Windows Phones, continued with the app names in Windows 8 Consumer Preview and was most recently visible when Windows Live Mesh was absorbed by the new and improved SkyDrive. Even Windows Live IDs are being wiped out and replaced by "Microsoft Accounts," as Windows 8 Consumer Preview users already know.

Here's a full list of the changes, as outlined on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 Blog.