The Death of Used Video Games
January 27th, 2012Via: Kotaku:
Microsoft will upgrade its disc technology for its next Xbox from DVDs to Blu-Ray discs, catching up to rival Sony, games industry sources tell Kotaku.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 currently supports Blu-Ray, which can contain 25 or 50GB of data compared to DVD’s 9GB.
But that disc detail could be far less impactful to the next generation of game consoles than the assertion I’ve heard from one reliable industry source that Microsoft intends to incorporate some sort of anti-used game system as part of their so-called Xbox 720.
It’s not clear if that means that the system wouldn’t play used games or how such a set-up would work. Obvious approaches—I’m theorizing here—like linking a copy of a game to a specific Xbox Live account could seemingly be foiled by used-game owners who would keep their system offline. My source wasn’t sure how Microsoft intended to implement any anti-used game system in the new machine.
A push in any way by Microsoft against used games would likely be cheered from publishers sick of seeing retailers like GameStop crow about their revenues from the sale of used games. But it could potentially anger consumers who rely on buying cheaply-sold used games or even pass games to relatives or friends.
MIT Student Develops $3 Cutting-Edge Healing Device, Field Tested in Haiti
January 26th, 2012This is a couple of years old, but it was news to me.
Via: Fast Company:
No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach–simply because the systems are expensive–rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours.
No more. Danielle Zurovcik, a doctoral student at MIT, has created a hand-powered suction-healing system that costs about $3. The device is composed of an airtight wound dressing, connected by a plastic tube to a cylinder with accordion-like folds. Squeezing it creates the suction, which lasts as long as there’s no air leak. What’s more, where regular dressings need to be replaced up to three times a day–a painful ordeal–the new cuff can be left on for several days.
The Invisible War
January 26th, 2012Via: The Invisible War:
Britain: National Patient DNA Database?
January 26th, 2012The document to which he’s referring is here: Building on Our Inheritance: Genomic Technology in Healthcare.
Via: Kevin Townsend:
You have to look long and hard, but eventually you find it. There, on page 51 of ‘Building on our inheritance – Genomic technology in healthcare’ is the one and only mention of the national whole genome sequence database. From the beginning you know it must exist. The report talks throughout about the benefits that will accrue to mankind from the widespread use whole genome sequence research; but it only makes sense if the data is complete and freely available. But not until page 51, and only on page 51, is the national genome database mentioned.
This would not necessarily require data stored locally: patient sequence data could be stored securely in a national database, making it accessible to the centres but also to the patient’s physician or GP.
Let’s be clear: this is a national DNA database. But it’s OK, because this is for health rather than law enforcement. And it will, yeah right, only be available to health officials, and health researchers, and pharmaceutical companies and academics and probably anyone who pays for it – internationally. The report makes very clear that if national research is good, international research is very much better.
It is, in effect, a national DNA database writ large. It has all the worst elements of the police DNA database combined with the NHS central records database and will undoubtedly cost a great deal more than both and be more dangerous and insecure than either.
Research Credit: RJF
Another Round of Fed Bond Buying Is ‘An Option That’s Certainly On the Table’
January 26th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the Federal Reserve is considering additional asset purchases to boost growth after extending its pledge to keep interest rates low through at least late 2014.
Policy makers are “prepared to provide further monetary accommodation if employment is not making sufficient progress towards our assessment of its maximum level, or if inflation shows signs of moving further below its mandate-consistent rate,” Bernanke said at a news conference today after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington. Bond buying is “an option that’s certainly on the table.”
Caption Contest
January 26th, 2012It's low tide over here! Dewar's, neat, and make it a double.
LAPD Chief William Bratton: LAPD Works with CIA
January 26th, 2012Via: current.com:
“In dealing with information intelligence as it relates to terrorism, the CIA has a lot of information that is appropriate for use by American police forces,” Bratton says. At the LAPD, “We had interactions with the CIA in the sense of meeting from them from time to time, certainly, just in order to make them aware of our capabilities and our needs. There is nothing that precludes that.”
‘If you notice a heavy military presence around downtown Los Angeles this week, don’t be alarmed’
January 25th, 2012Via: CBS:
If you notice a heavy military presence around downtown Los Angeles this week, don’t be alarmed — it’s only a drill.
Joint military training exercises will be held evenings through Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LAPD will be providing support for the exercises, which will also be held in other portions of the greater Los Angeles area, police said.
Training sites “have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routine,” a department official said.
The training, which a department official said would involve helicopters, has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the
training sites, police said.
Police said safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and military personnel involved.
The exercises are closed to the public, police said.
The exercises are designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements, police said.
Six Million People Are Under Correctional Supervision in the U.S.—More Than Were in Stalin’s Gulags
January 25th, 2012Via: New Yorker:
For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions and Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost in January
January 25th, 2012Thank you.
Pookie $75
Eileen $100
The Banana Farmers $120
JF $100
BW $100
SP $22
HT $150
Hosting with BlueHost:
