Rock Band and Guitar Hero are great rhythm-based games, no doubt about that, but how about upping the ante when it comes to realism? Seven45 Studios has released its guitar gaming controller that boasts half a dozen strings, functioning not only as a regular gaming controller for their Power Gig: Rise of the SixString title, but it also doubles up as an actual electric guitar which can be plugged into an amp. Both the game and guitar will be sold together, where experienced guitarists can go for the option of chording, which in turn is a whole lot more challenging and requires specific finger placement on the strings. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms will be able to enjoy the game. No idea on pricing yet, but expect a launch later this fall.

Source: Electronista
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[ Seven45 Studios unveil SixString guitar controller copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Sony at its GDC keynote this evening finally unveiled the PlayStation Move, the finished version of its long-in-progress PS3 motion controller. The end product has the design shown from before but lets players pick one of four colors for the "orb" the PlayStation Eye camera uses to track movement. It now also has a companion Move Sub-controller with a directional pad that, much like Nintendo's Wii nunchuk, provides regular control for menus or games that need a d-pad and motion at the same time....

Panasonic started to sell its new line of 3D TVs through a partnership with Best Buy today, offering a bundle of a of 50-inch plasma TV, a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and a pair of glasses for around $2900. Consumers will also soon be able to buy similar set-ups from Samsung and Sony (sw SNE).

However, at least some of these devices won’t be available at Amazon and other online retailers. Panasonic announced that it’s going all bricks-and-mortar with 3D TV to educate consumers about the technology, according to an article from Marketwatch.com.

Question is, will consumers bite? Not only are 3D set-ups significantly more expensive that your regular LCD or LED screen, with pairs of extra glasses alone costing $150 a pop, but there’s also limited content available to show off the technology. Panasonic will give buyers of its 3D TVs a free Blu-ray disc of Monsters vs. Aliens, which is Dreamworks’s first 3D release. However, 3D box office blockbuster Avatar won’t even be available in 3D when it’s released on Blu-ray and DVD some time before June.

The reason for that decision, according to News Corp. COO Chase Carey, is that “the market is not there” for a 3D release of Avatar, Dow Jones reports. This revelation puts a damper on hopes that Avatar will help to kick-start the home 3D market after becoming the commercially most successful movie ever at the box office. Carey said that a 3D version of the movie could be released later down the road, hinting at the possibility that studios could use 3D as another way to enforce release windows in a world where viewers have gotten used to instant satisfaction.

Hollywood is on schedule to release more than three dozen 3D movies this year, but a slow adoption curve of home 3D set-ups, as well as the need to squeeze as much money as possible out of slumping DVD and Blu-ray sales, could entice other studios to adopt the idea of a 3D window as well – which in turn could hurt sales of 3D equipment. It’s like a snake swallowing its own tail, in all of its stereoscopic beauty.

Relief for consumer electronics makers like Panasonic and Samsung could come from sports programming. ESPN has announced that it will start a 3D sports network by June — just in time for the World Cup — and in the coming months DirecTV also plans to launch three 3D channels with movies and sports programming. Question is: Is that enough to entice consumers to plunk down 3000 dollars or more for a 3D setup?

GigaOm Pro analyst Alfred Poor predicted last October that the 3D market was just about ready for takeoff, but that it will take until 2012 for a critical mass of content to be available. I asked him how he feels about this now, given the fact that consumers may have to be extra patient to get their hands on 3D releases. Here’s his take:

“15 or 20 feature films a year do not make enough content to fill one week of major network prime time programming. There are going to be some early experiments with 3D, such as ESPN’s plans for 3D coverage of sporting events, but that won’t be enough to justify buying a new TV for anyone but the early adopters.”

Poor added that it will take until 2013 before 3D uptake will be significant. Maybe Hollywood will have come around and actually put out some 3D titles on Blu-ray by that time.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user bark.

Related content on GigaOm Pro (subscription required):

Report: 3DTV Market is Ready for Takeoff

Are We Putting the 3-D Cart Before the Horse?

Regular readers will know my love for all things location. In particular, these check-in location-based services fascinate me, mainly because I see them as a bridge between social networks as we’ve known it, and actual social interaction in the real world. Foursquare has been my app of choice over the past year (it launched almost exactly a year ago at SXSW). But the latest version of Gowalla has me thinking about switching sides. At the very least, I’ll be using both at all times now.

Gowalla version 2.0 for the iPhone just hit the App Store today. With it, you’ll notice a few different things. First and foremost, the overall look has been updated from a sort of Army green, to a more subtle light green that is much easier on the eyes. More significantly, the toolbar has been reworked so that now social activity is front and center when you load the app, while your own activity is the last tab. Both of these changes are things I’ve complained about since day one with Gowalla, so they’re certainly welcome. But that’s not why I’m excited for the app. I’m excited because it takes the idea of the check-in and extends it.

Specifically, you can now add pictures and comments to check-ins in Gowalla. This makes for a much richer social experience both using the app and the website (the data goes over there as well). As founder and CEO Josh Williams describes in the video below, there were a lot of people who wanted to talk about the social activity on Gowalla, but previously they had to text message or email their friends to say something like “hey I saw you check-in at the restaurant, want some company?” Now, that type of dialogue can take place all within the app.

Now, others have tried to add additional layers to check-ins in the past. Why I think it works with Gowalla 2.0 is because they keep it simple. The application is extremely handsome (since the beginning, everyone is quick to note how good the designers are working for the team) and intuitive. There are only a few basic things you can do, and all are obvious from the main screen. You can either check-in at a venue, comment on your friends’ check-ins (with the new chat bubble in the stream), look at the spots around you, see trips (pre-planned venue excursions), or look at your own activity.

Previously, with Gowalla, I thought the focus was too much on their virtual items. Those are now tucked away in your Passport (your profile). They’re still important, and will be increasingly so for Gowalla’s revenue model (trading virtual goods for real-world items), but they’re not in your face, confusing users.

All that said, there are two downsides still to the service. First, the social activity stream includes everybody that your friends with. With Foursquare, the people currently in the same city as you are highlighted; Gowalla doesn’t do that. I suspect that will be very annoying to my friends not going to Austin this week for SXSW. Their stream will be a constant reminder that they’re not there — and they likely could care less about my check-ins, since they can’t possibly come and meet me.

The second downside is that Gowalla’s API remains read-only. That means while other services can pull out Gowalla’s data, they can’t put anything back in. That means there will be no Gowalla apps besides the ones they make (at least for now). Williams explained the rationale behind this as Gowalla wants to stay in control of the user experience (a rather Apple-like argument). That makes some sense, since there are all these virtual goods that will be flying around, and it will be hard to make sure every third-party app is implementing them correctly. Also, Gowalla is much more strict about its location-based check-ins then say, Foursquare. They’re so strict, in fact, that it’s been an issue in the past (and in some cases, still is), with people not being able to check-in places they’re actually at because the GPS is wonky. At the same time, this helps a lot with gaming the system, and that will be increasingly important as Gowalla strikes deals with partners based around check-ins.

Listen to Williams talk more about the new app, as well as his thoughts on AT&T’s network, some SXSW specials, rivals, and yes, even the news that Facebook is apparently looking at federating some of Gowalla’s (and Foursquare’s) data for its own location offering. He also notes that with the new release, Gowalla is expanding the idea of checking-in to be more of a bucket of elements now, including images and comments. Interesting. (Sorry in advance that I shot the video vertically on my iPhone — gotta stop doing that.)

You can find Gowalla 2.0 in the App Store here. It’s a free download.

CrunchBase InformationGowallaFoursquareInformation provided by CrunchBase

A system of regular inspections and monitoring of hospitals, carried out by the royal medical colleges, should be reinstated to prevent scandals of poor NHS care, leading doctors say today.

Debug packages and PPAs

Follwing up on my previous post about how Kubuntu 10.04’s Dr. Konqi will be able to install debug packages if the users asks it to.

I was asked by a friend whether this is also going to work with the Kubuntu PPAs. Since he usually uses the KDE pre-releases and updates from the Kubuntu PPAs that is a very good question indeed. And the simple answer is yes.

All core KDE packages ship have an associated debug package, that includes those that are available via PPAs. For non-core packages it looks a bit different. It mostly depends on whether the package is regularly worked on by Kubuntu Ninjas or not. Those that are mostly also have these debug packages, but those that are not might indeed not have debug packages in a PPA. The reason for this is a bit of a technical one so we better don’t dive into that ^^ (in case you care, I’ll explain it in a bit more detail at the end of this post).

PPAs figured out

On this note I would like to announce that we have a sensible PPA setup now and clearly documented what kind of software needs to go where. We have 4 PPAs that are somewhat suited for use. This somewhat means that they are naturally not guaranteed to be issue free, unfortunately it is an almost impossible task to guarantee this all the time, simply because there are too many possible upgrade/update scenarios we would have to run QA tests against. Anyhow, there are some PPAs for adventurous users and some for a more general audience that rather risk some issues than wait weeks until we can land updates in an official Ubuntu repsitories.
Clay Webber published a blog post on which PPA you would want to use as a user in order to get a specific type of update. For all those that care of a more detailed guideline document there is also a page in the Kubuntu wiki (thanks to Clay for that too).

In consequence this means that, unless you have some very specific needs, you should need no more than 4 (in fact you really would only want 3 anyway) PPAs to get an up-to-date KDE system.

Why there is no -dbg

Before reading this I recommend to read my post about Dr. Konqi’s debug package installer since I assume basic knowledge about the debug symbol stuff procedure here .

Above I mentioned that there are no debug package for some non-core packages. Now that was not entirely true. There are no debug packages for some non-core packages in regular repositories (that includes PPAs). The thing is that all those debug symbols that were stripped from the regular package do not get thrown away, they simply get put into seperate packages and those can be found in the so called ddebs archive. This archive contains packages with a -dbgsym suffix (short for debug symbols ) and those contain the debug symbols to their associated packages in the official Ubuntu archives (including the updates, security and backports repositories).

This has 2 major implications on how things work:
For one it takes probably >10,000 packages off the cache lists for the regular archives, and for another it means that packages outside the official repositories do not have those -dbgsym packages. So, in general this is a good thing, since not having the -dbgsym packages in the regular archives reduces the download time for the package lists and of course speeds up queries to the local copies of those lists (such as done by apt-cache). At the same time it also means that PPA packages would end up without debug packages, which of course is a bad thing.

And yet I told you that all core KDE packages have debug symbols. How is that possible, you might wonder (or not ). Again I only told you a part of the truth, if the package maintainer decides to have a -dbg package in the regular archives they can work around the stripping and move all debug symbols to another package (say kdelibs5-dbg) and those packages will then end up in any archive the source package gets built for. This is the case for most of the more important packages (those that are on the Kubuntu CD and worked on by Kubuntu Ninjas). Now since it’s mostly important packages that get published to our PPAs this means that you just need to request the appropriate debug packages and we can easily add them either temporary (only for the PPA) or globally (for all further package publications).

I hope this shed enough light on both the PPA and the debug package business

Sporadic Play, Bryan Cash & Jeremy Gibson

Sporadic play describes a game where mechanics intentionally limit how often a player interacts with a persistent game world. We’ll talk about history with it, why it is a good thing, design concepts, and a bit about the future.

HISTORY… IN REVERSE

Most obvious place to start — Facebook. Look at the top 20 games here. Farmville is #1 and uses sporadic play. Mafia Wars, Petville, YoVille, 16 of the top 20 are sporadic play games. If you add up the MAU, you get 332m people, which is kinda BS, but just in the top 20.

It has also been around in console and traditional PC games. Animal Crossing, a game where as time went on in real life, events like Christmas happened in the game too. Seasons, real time, limiting what you can do based on the real time of the real. Another one was Kingdom of Loathing in 2002, a web game, limited number of things you can do based on action points.

Another recent example is play by email or play by forums. You may be familiar with Gaia Online — a game in the form of a forum. There are also RPG forums and PBEM RPGs.

And Tradewars 2002 — which came out in 1984, when 2002 was THE FUTURE. You flew around to different planets, traded, had fights. And at the end of your actions for the day, you had to leave your spaceship online while you had your day, vulnerable. So you would park your ship in the deepest darkest corner of space.

29.9m players of fantasy sports in 2007… pick rosters, teams, and then you get delayed results and watch what happens. Has been around since 1960. You are playing a game as a metagame around another game.

Going further back… play by mail. Peaked in the 1980s, but started as mail rules for Diplomacy by John Boardman in the 1960s. There were three magazines devoted to playing games by mail.

And then there is chess, by correspondence. Since you had so muh time you could do research, look up moves in books, and pick the optimal period. On this sheet people would mail back and forth there were choices for “I can’t read your handwriting” — a 2 month delay in a move! This goes back to the middle ages, kings sending moves back and forth.

The conference game this year is BackChannel, which is betting on keywords that will be tweeted during the show… a high tech sporadic version of Buzzword Bingo.

The stock market is also premised on sporadic play. Limited interaction, persistent world… been going on since 1602 in Amsterdam and 1309 in Antwerp.

And evolution: from a species point of view it is a sporadic play game. You get limited interaction, then 9 months later, a result… slow feedback… but hey after billions of years, we think we won.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN

It does not mean casual. People lump them together, and there is overlap, but consider Bejeweled Blitz. You can keep playing it as much as you want.

Key differences…

* depth of gameplay — stock market is a deep game.

* Variability of learning curve. Casual games have smooth ones… sporadic games vary a lot.

* Potential time commitment. Bejeweled Blitz can eat 4 hours… but a sporadic play game intentionally CAP you, so the potential for time commitment is lower.

* Persistence… the world persists in some way, and does not reset.

* Sporadic does not necessarily mean asynch multiplayer. It focuses on the relationship between the player and the game. It frequently USES asynch multiplayer of course.

WHY CARE?

Millions of people play sporadic games on social networks. People tend to talk about these in terms of viral tricks and we wanted to talk about it differently.

Also, reaching broad audiences. We were traditional gamers who didn’t have time anymore but still want to play.

Then there is the multitasking gamer. It is more common now to find gamers who are playing multiple games at once.

Then there are non-traditional gamers. They are looking for “something to do” with low time commitment and barrier to entry.

All of these audiences can be served by the same sporadic game.

This is also a new lens for designers — lens in the sense of Jesse Schell’s lenses in ART OF GAME DESIGN. Many games now are sporadic but we don’t think of them that way.

We believe sporadic play can be added to existing games and allow them to reach broader audiences.

SKYRATES

We made this back in 2006 at ETC at CMU. In 2008 it won an award at the IGF, and also some awards from JayIsGames.

You play a character, build up skills, you have a plane. Buy weapons, etc. You fly places, you click on the combat icon, and fight some pirates in real time action. But mostly, you just fly. A screen with the plane bobbing up and down. Flight in the game is in real time. You trasport goods like fish from one town to another. But the entire time for this trade route is 11 hours and 32 minutes… you can see a timeline of a traderoute with multiple stops stretching into the future.

The game used to SMS players when an attack happened, interrupt you while you were doing your taxes or whatever. Fights with pirates accumulate, so you can catch up whenever you come back.

So it is a game where you spend the majority of your time not playing it. But there’s a persistent world, with brief interaction. My avatar in the game keeps doing my action queue while I go on with my life.

Now, Skyrates is not perfect. But it taught us a lot about these sort of games.

WHAT IS SPORADIC PLAY GOOD FOR?

Respecting player’s time. (WoW screenshot… two guys who have played for 3 weeks… one an hour a day, and one 20 hours a day… “I HATE this latter guy”). But in sporadic play, even if you have 20 minutes a day you feel competitive. Also, it isn’t about player position, but about velocity — how well are you using your time every day, how efficiently you are using your time.

We did some analytics, showing players the other players using the same plane they had, comparing yourself that way, on efficiency.

Managing obsession. Everyone loves cake, but it can be too awesome. Players often play to the point of oversaturation… they get exhausted, who burn out beause the game allows them to play as much as they want. They play until they are sick of it. Remember the old showbiz rule: always leave them wanting more.

Developer benefits: it extends the life of your content. With 20 minutes of time, they run through content at a metered rate. It gives you more time to develop. And you an develop more based on consumption trends — watch where they go and what they consume and develop in response to that. You can “prune” your procedural content towards what players want.

Some examples… in Kingdom of Loathing or FB games they use metrics to decide on content. And in WoW they added daily quests, adding ways to block the rate of consumption. Indirectly turning it into more of a sporadic game. These are elements allowing you to play it sporadically of you need to.

It lets you internalize a game… a constant drip feed of interaction reminding you to re-engage. Email, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, “I should check in.”

EVE Online demonstrates that sporadic play does not need to be casual. Skill learning in EVE is sporadic — from a few minutes to a month to learn something. There are players who just research, and don’t play the game in any other way.

When a game is internalized, it becomes a regular activity… like checking your email, but it takes less time. Check in between classes, or at work. Keeps it in the back of your mind all day. It makes your life a little more exciting.

Sporadic play gives us new revenue models. Time is the most valuable resource, and we let people pay for the fourth dimension! Time is worth way more than their money. Having a more lucrative use of the time you have is really powerful. I might pay for a 50% luck bonus or 10% boost to Xp for a day.

Also paying to avoid the parts of a game you don’t like. Buy a mining robot to avoid the dull mining. So people pay you to play your game less, which also frees up server load.

DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR SPORADIC PLAY

* Time currency. Some sort of point that is gained over time. Action points, moves, health. You can play with the rate it accumulates. Mafia Wars gives you a point every five minutes. Others like Legends of Zork gives you 30 once a day.

Can you go past a maximum? Save them up? Can you adjust the rate with variation (more on weekends?)

Basically, this is about managing the obsession, you decide how often you want them playing with this mechanic, and how long an experience is.

* Scheduling things. Groups of actions that occur as time passes. You can sequential — queued movement. Parallel actions — like cultivation in farming games.

A question is who is doing the scheduling. You can make it directed and tell the player, or give them the option to pick different schedules.

And when is the player notified of rewards? As soon as you finish the action, and then you have to wait for action points to accumulate? Then there’s no suspense. On the other hand, if you hold off the feedback on success, whether the action worked, that means two hours of wondering what the outcome will be.

Then there is the question of how many items can be scheduled. How many fields do you have, how long a queue?

* Uncertainty.

Weighing the chances on whether an action may happen. Predicting the state of the game in the future… since this is a persistent world, the state can change over time. So if I send things in a direction which will take 5 hours, there’s the possibility that stuff changes in the 5 hour interim.

A question to ask is how much do you want players to look ahead. You have to ask yourself how much complexity you want. And how powerful do you want to make prediction? In Skyrates everyone was moving goods… so you tried to move goods to somewhere that was a good place to sell, but other players could see it too…

There is also real life uncertainty, whether real life obligations can interfere.

* Punctuality.

Player attention to the schedule. It ties into how players make choices. You plant crops, if you set up the game so that they get double crops if they show up on time, or spoil if they take too long. If it takes a ouple of days to spoil, that is a lot easier for players.

These elements add risk and analysis to the game for players.

The design question is do I want to reward punctuality, punish for being late? Determines how hardcore the game feels, how risky decisions are.

And is there insurance? You could make a really bad deal in Skyrates where your guy did stuff poorly because you set it up in advance and things changed… so they added an insurance mechanic to prevent a bad decision by the bot.

* Multiplayer.

How do player affect one another? Competition via leaderboard is one way. Trading in Skyrates was indirect comptition, or Mafia wars attacks when you are not looking.

Cooperation is possible too — ways to help people via asynchronous play. The funny thing about the current games is that some of them do this via asynchronous synchronous play, as in Mouse Hunt. Tournaments happen on a schedule, people who are on at the same time do make a difference. It forms some player relationships.

Roleplaying is another form… an event that triggers synchronous activity as a periodic or optional thing.

THE FUTURE

Engagement customization… a game that understands when I have time to dig in, or when I don’t. Most games just split this up. Games that adapt to how much YOU want to play. This goes beyond single player and into multiplayer. You see some games where there is a core that is there for every fifteen minute timer, and others who play at longer intervals. Is there a way to trade time, loan things, or otherwise play together within limits and be important to one another?

Elegantly handling the desire to quit. Netflix lets you put an account on hold, but lets you set a reminder to come back in the future. A way to maintain a bit of a connection to them. Let’s say you are going to drop out for three mnonths, can the game play itself for you in that time so you come back thinking that it has still been there for you?

Shared time currencies is the notion that action points could be shared between games or gamers. Ways to use the points you earn across multiple titles from one developer.

Or you can’t play again until your whole group finishes?

Or real life metrics — you play the weight loss game, lose one real life pound, that gives extra action points?

Community consensus. You can join a faction in wow, but so? Identity as part of a larger gorup isn’t that important. But think of voting… it is sporadic in real life, and based on that our community arrives at consensus. Can there be a sense of working together in this sporadic sense to shape the notion of what a group is?

Multi-engagement gaming. The idea that the same player can play differently on different devices is not new. “Keyhole interaction” — complex game, like stock market, but simple interactions, buy and sell.  But multi-engagement means adding a companion to existing IPs. Casual players supporting hardcore players, for example. Think about a Call of Duty World Conquest strategic game on Facebook that ties into the CoD FPS? Add a Yellow Ribbon mobile app — add my gamertag to your yellow ribbon on your phone. If you launchy the app daily, it means you are thinking about me, it boosts my character.

IN CONCLUSION

Sporadic play has been around for hundreds of years. It can be integrated into many types of games. It can be used to create companion experiences for existing games. It can help small developers extend their content, and it respects the players’ time.

Some links:

http://www.skyrates.net
http://postmortem.skyrates.net

From the questions segment… adding chat helped with frustration when you wanted to play but were out of points because it gave something to do.

Lucid NextG 1.0
(GTK 2.x Theme/Style)
LUCID NEXTG is a new version of my Ubuntu-NextG-theme using the new color-scheme of Ubuntu Lucid.

Theme is now using the murrine-engine for maximum compatibility with Open Office, Firefox and regular gnome-applications.

Metacity-theme is completely rewritten using the New-Wave-theme as a basis.

This theme uses minimal amount of pixmaps, so it should be faster then previous versions.



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job recommendations:
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KDE e.V.  Germany, Berlin  more about this offer
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Eltima has posted a new download manager for the Mac, Folx 1.0. The program differs from some by handling both direct downloads and BitTorrent files. Downloads can by default be split into two threads, and can assigned tags for easier tracking. Priority is assigned by dragging important files towards the top of the queue. The app can also resume downloads, and limit bandwidth consumption by throttling speed. Growl notifications and Spotlight searches are supported....

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com. Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Three years ago, after one of Microsoft's regular bursts of FUD claiming that Linux violated all sorts of Microsoft patents, then CEO of Sun, Jonathan Schwartz, wrote up a brilliant post knocking Microsoft down a peg by repeating a line we've said many times here ourselves: real innovative companies innovate, not litigate. Now, following Apple's patent offensive against HTC, and unencumbered of corporate responsibilities, Schwartz is sharing a bit more detail on his views over patents (found via Mathew Ingram).

Schwartz tells the story of Steve Jobs calling him and threatening Sun with a patent infringement lawsuit, to which Schwartz quickly warned Jobs that going down that path would lead to a patent nuclear war, as he pointed out how recent Apple products likely infringed on Sun patents. He then tells another story about a visit from Bill Gates, with a similar threat over patents -- and a similar response, pointing out that Microsoft clearly copied certain Sun technology. In both cases, the counterweight made the threats go away. This is the whole "nuclear stockpiling" scenario -- and, as such, it creates a ton of waste. You have to keep building up those stockpiles just to make sure the other side is too scared to sue you.

But the key point is made after this, where Schwartz again makes a statement quite similar to ones we've made when a big tech company suddenly goes on the patent offensive. It's a canary-in-the-coalmine sign that something is wrong: For a technology company, going on offense with software patents seems like an act of desperation, relying on the courts instead of the marketplace. He also highlights how these lawsuits can backfire in a big, big way: Having watched this movie play out many times, suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less. Developers I know aren't getting less interested in Google's Android platform, they're getting more interested -- Apple's actions are enhancing that interest. Indeed. It's a point that still seems missed by so many when discussing these patent lawsuits.

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Sony just announced that it is expanding its selection of newspapers and magazines in its e-book store. Starting today, users of Sony's e-readers will be able to subscribe to 20 new newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, PC Magazine and Foreign Affairs. With the newspaper business in turmoil, it only makes sense for these papers to try to get a better foothold on more devices.

Sponsor

eInk vs. LCDs

For users who don't own an e-reader yet but are looking into getting one, the question right now is to either wait for the iPad and go with a regular LCD screen for reading books, or to choose a more traditional (and cheaper) e-reader like the Kindle or Sony Reader that feature electronic ink. While some users don't mind the blacklit LCD screens of their phones to read, others can't fathom reading any long-form content on these screens.

Fighting Off the iPad

For Sony, Amazon, B&N and others who are currently betting on electronic ink for their devices, one of the best ways to distinguish themselves from Apple is to offer more content over their free wireless connections and to play up the advantages of eInk. In this context, adding a newspaper like the New York Times (which is also a favorite of Steve Jobs and features heavily in Apple's iPad ads and other promotional material) makes a lot of sense. For the newspapers, getting on more devices and selling more subscriptions is simply good business. Sony charges up to $14.99 per month for these subscriptions.

Given that all of these papers could sell their own apps and subscriptions on the iPad as well - and that some of them will be available for free - the availability of newspapers may not be a deciding factor for a lot of potential iPad and e-reader buyers. Hopefully, however, we will also see a lot of innovative newspaper and magazine apps on the iPad. Chances are that these new apps will make today's traditional e-readers seem rather quaint in comparison. The availability of these apps could easily sway a lot of potential e-reader buyers to get an iPad instead.

What is your experience? Do you think e-books and newspapers just look better on eInk? Or are you waiting for the innovative newspaper apps on the iPad that will include video and other interactive content?

Discuss

Check out this Dell Mini 10v that has been hacked to include a touchscreen display instead of the regular one, giving you access to its icons with but a single tap instead of double clicking. Using an $85 kit from Hoda, it is unfortunate that none of the cables packaged with the display would work with the Mini 10v's innards, so it required some tinkering on Weathejx's part to get it working thanks to reassembled parts from a USB hub. It took a few attempts of reassembling the Mini 10v before it could get going. Definitely not for the faint hearted!

Permalink: Dell Mini 10v hacked with touchscreen display from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

Skype Portable 4.2.0.155 has been released. Skype lets you connect to others via instant message, audio conferencing and video phone. It can also call regular phone lines from anywhere in the world. This release updates Skype to the latest version and has an improved launcher. It's packaged as a portable app so you communicate on the go and it's in PortableApps.com Format so it can easily integrate with the PortableApps.com Suite. It's released as freeware for personal and business use.

Read on for more details...

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Just because you've got a relatively inexpensive point-and-shoot camera and not a $1500+ DSLR rig doesn't mean you can't take awesome photos. Here's a look at how you can elevate your regular old point-and-shoot shots to greatness. More »

Just because you've got a relatively inexpensive point-and-shoot camera and not a $1500+ DSLR rig doesn't mean you can't take awesome photos. Here's a look at how you can elevate your regular old point-and-shoot shots to greatness. More »

The New York City health department has released graphic ads encouraging viewers not to “drink yourself fat”. If the price of regular soda and other sweetened beverages increased by 18%, people would consume an average of 56 fewer calories a day and lose about 5 pounds a year, according to projections in a study out Monday [...]

Andy Johnson writes in:

I'm a guy that sews. No, I'm not afraid to say it, I think it is one of the best skills my Mother taught me, besides cooking. I sewed this magazine protector to keep my latest copy of MAKE looking newsstand fresh. I carry MAKE in my backpack, and I carry my backpack everywhere. With all the junk I carry banging around in there, it can get my stuff pretty hammered. I took my favorite T-Shirt, that unfortunately has worn out, and cut out a rectangle 1/2 inch larger than my copy of MAKE on both sides, and doubling the length so it can be folded over. I created a flap on the top and sewed velcro to both the flap and the reverse of the protector. Surging the seams would be the best, but I only have access to a regular sewing machine. If you have extra t-shirt, you can use it to make ipod sleeves, calculator protectors, whatever you like.

It's upcycling month at CRAFT, so head on over for some more great recycling projects with our UpCraft! series.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

YouTube has started to serve ads on mobile phones, but you may not even notice them. The online video platform is now serving display ads on m.youtube.com in the U.S. and Japan, according to a blog post, and will sell banner ads on a full-day basis. Today’s advertiser is Mazda, which bought the mobile ad in conjunction with its banner on the regular YouTube home page. The blog post reveals that YouTube has already run campaigns for Kia and Sony as well.

These ads do not, however, extend to custom YouTube interfaces like the one used by Google’s Android phones or Apple’s iPhone, which is how I suspect most of us are accessing YouTube on the go. YouTube also told us that it hasn’t started to directly monetize the videos on mobile platforms. The lack of Flash on handsets may be one reason you won’t see any overlays on your handset yet, or the fact that YouTube isn’t showing any kind of pre-roll advertising to mobile users.

Still, YouTube’s new ad spot on its mobile site shows its commitment to monetization. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney recently estimated that YouTube is going to make about $945 million this year through advertising. The site will top $1.1 billion in gross revenue in 2011, according to Mahaney’s predictions.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: The Attraction and Threat of Offer-Based Ads in Mobile (subscription required)

Have you ever seen that screen before? If so, you'll share my frustration. In the instance above, it was the Speed Racer Blu-ray disc I got as part of a promotion when I purchased the piece-of-junk Samsung BDP-1500. It took me a couple of months to watch Speed Racer, but when I did I saw the Digital Copy coupon and went to download it - and was presented the above error. OK, sure, it was my own fault for not getting the download right away - but it was my first purchase of Blu-ray discs and I'd never used digital copy at that point. Last week I bought a regular DVD at Costco, and upon opening the package I saw a digital copy coupon. Cool! I used it the same day I purchased the DVD and guess what? It was already expired. What the heck?

I think digital copy is a great advancement - well, it will be once they get Zune support - but it's frustrating to see the movie companies dangle it out as a carrot then snatch it away after only a few months. Are the bandwidth expenses really so high that they can't offer it for, say, a year after the DVD or Blu-ray comes out?

Hey. Remember these?

Lo, many years ago, in the forgotten year of 2007 A.D., this blog had a daily column called "365 Reasons to Love Comics," in which I expounded on the wonder of many creators, characters, concepts, and other bits and bobs that made comics great. Unfortunately, I came up short. By the end of the year, due to various life-y things getting in the way, that 365 was more like 349 or so. At last, the day has come to finish off the list. (Don't expect a regular schedule. To look back on previous episodes of this column, check out the archive!)

First up: the sensational character find of 2010! He'll chop your head off.

3/10/10

241. Axe Cop

Axe Cop might just be the most perfect comic ever made, and I'll tell you why: it's written by a six-year-old boy. Last year, Malachai Nicolle was your average imaginiative, exuberant five-year-old kid, but when his 29-year-old cartoonist brother, Ethan (creator of Chumble Spuzz), found Malachai playing a game of "Axe Cop," a legend was born. Transforming his kid brother's ideas into a comic book narrative, Ethan took Axe Cop to the wilds of the internet, where it quickly exploded in popularity. Having debuted in January, it's already become a darling of the webcomics world, and it's easy to see why. I'm calling it right now-- move aside, Atomic Robo! Axe Cop is the raddest comic of 2010!

So what's Axe Cop about? It's about the titular character (birth name: Axey Smartist) and his never-ending mission to kill all the bad guys. Along the way, he encounters a host of bizarre allies and enemies, including: his long-lost brother, Flute Cop (birth name: Flute Cop), who later transforms into Dinosaur Soldier, and even later an anthropomorphic avocado named Avocado Soldier with a magical wish-granting unicorn horn; his pet T-Rex, Wexter; Sockarang, a superhero with socks for arms; Uni-Man, an old fella with a unicorn horn, and Uni-Baby; a pair of vampire ninja wizard brothers from the moon (one of whom is also a werewolf); evil snowmen; Telescope Gun Cop; Bad Santa (not Billy Bob Thornton); Baby Man, a man in a baby suit; The Best Fairy Ever, who can go in your nose and punch your brain out; a half vampire man, half vampire baby, half vampire kid in the middle; and a whole bunch more, including Pretzel Head, the man who can turn his head into a pretzel!

The writing process generally involves Ethan quizzing Malachai as to the various characters and events that occur within Axe Cop's world, and smoothing everything down into a narrative. You can watch an example of an Axe Cop creative conference here. Also, separate from the regular ongoing episodes is the Ask Axe Cop feature, in which readers send in questions to the character, answered by Malachai, and drawn up by Ethan. My favorite one's at the top of this post, but this one's pretty good, too:

From the various episodes and answered questions, the Nicolles' audience has learned a lot about Axe Cop. For instance: at night he dresses like a cat and punches bad guys to death in their sleep; his favorite food is birthday cake with a candle of himself on it; he became a cop at a free sign-up; he can determine if someone is good or evil by watching their front kick technique; he has defeated Chuck Norris in combat; and, if something bites you, you turn into that thing, no matter what it is-- it's science.

The reason Axe Cop might be a perfect comic is because of the unbridled imagination on display. There's no pretension, no subtext, no irony, grim, or grit, just pure ideas and excitement. The plot follows dreamlike child logic, dependent on what one boy thinks is totally awesome. Who knows "awesome" better than a kid? The story is absurd and often hilarious, but the strip plays it completely straight. Ethan's brilliant cartooning gives the comic all the energy of the six-year-old spinning the tale, and that's what makes it truly great. This is comics, my friends, at their purest and most magical. Axe Cop is some kind of Platonic ideal, somehow made real. From a child's brain to your screen.

One doesn't just read Axe Cop-- one experiences it, and maybe, just maybe, transports back to those bygone days when one was a child and comics were magical. With each comic I read, I hope to recapture the sense of wonder I had as a boy. With Axe Cop, I've managed to do just that.

I brought back 365 Reasons specifically to sing the glories of Axe Cop, and I think it's totally worth it. Go, hit up the website, read the comic, buy a shirt, donate to Malachai's college fund, and mourn for the day this kid discovers girls. Meanwhile, though, let's all enjoy the ride.

Connect-your-own-storage DVR too

Sharp will release the first of two Freeview HD set-top boxes at the end of April. It's also preparing a regular Freeview DVR that uses USB-connected storage to make it a doddle to transfer taped programmes to a PC....

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]

While we're way into a super hectic GDC week, and in fact, the GameSetLinks haven't got busted out for a long time, we still have a few in our back pocket for moments like this - and here's some fun results.

Among them: 1UP on fanfiction, a neat good interview with Wadjet Eye Games' Dave Gilbert, a Sonic retrospective of some classiness, a retrospective on David Cage's early piece of semi-insanity that is Omikron, and rather more besides.

Eff bee eye:

Fan's View: Inside the World of Fanfiction from 1UP.com
'Our first part in a series on game fan culture looks into the controversial art of weaving non-canonical tales.'

Retrospective: Omikron: The Nomad Soul Article | Retro | Eurogamer
'I will argue with you that Fahrenheit is one of the most exciting games I've ever played, even though it's broken in about 657 ways.'

1UP's Retro Gaming Blog : Report: "The Game Maker" Vol. 2: Sunsoft
Nice, the Game Center CX guys doing new retrospectives...

WoSblog: Weird or Standard? » Blog Archive » Games mags in a coma
Presumably to be sung to Morrissey/Smiths? But sad :(

Bestower of Blackwell, Repossesser of Emerald City – INTERVIEW with Dave Gilbert » A Hardy Developer's Journal
Great interview on the adventure game dev, who has transitioned from casual portal-supported to self-supported status in terms of distribution, interestingly...

1UP's Retro Gaming Blog : Lost Levels: Sonic and the Secret Games
Great retrospective from Frank.

Google just launched a new Google Apps feature called Google Apps Marketplace where users can discover and deploy third-party cloud applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

Give the video above a watch for a full overview of how Google Apps Marketplace apps work, or, summed up from the Google Apps Marketplace homepage:

The Google Apps Marketplace offers products and services designed for Google users, including installable apps that integrate directly with Google Apps. Installable apps are easy to use because they include single sign-on, Google's universal navigation, and some even include features that integrate with your domain's data.

We've detailed how to trick out Google Apps in the past, but the Apps Marketplace brings an entirely new set of potentially useful tools to your Google Apps account—everything from accounting and finance apps to project and customer management. It might be overkill for the regular user, but if you're a business running on Google Apps, the integration that these tools provide with Google tools like Mail, Calendar, Docs, and Contacts might be well worth it for the right app. (Note: Most of the apps look like they come with a recurring subscription fee.)

We've been paging through the offerings since the site went up, but if you stumble onto a particularly snazzy looking Marketplace app, share a link in the comments.

Google Apps MarketPlace [via Official Google Blog]

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

At a press conference in New York City on Tuesday, Samsung unveiled new 3D products that include six HDTV series, a Shrek 3D movie, and a DVD player designed to handle 3D along with regular Blu-ray and standard DVD disks.

Samsung's initial 3D TV line-up -- which requires 3D glasses for viewing - ranges from the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series to the LCD 750 Series and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series.

Samsung also debuted the 3D-capable BD-C6900 Blu-ray player, a 3D-enabled release of Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens along with the entire Shrek series, and a large set of Internet-downloadable applications for the 3D Blu-ray player and some of Samsung's 3D TVs.

Kicked off by an ad campaign broadcast during Sunday's Academy Awards show, the first two 3D TV models from Samsung -- the 46" and 55" editions of the LED C7000 -- are already available in stores, said Dave R. Das, director, Visual Display Marketing, in an interview with Betanews at the event.

So, too, are the first 12 apps for Samsung's 3D gear, with others slated for completion by the end of March, said Jason Han, senior manager, content partnership, CE Division.

The remaining 3D TVs -- and the 3D Blu-ray drive, priced at $399 -- are expected to roll out over the next few months.

The widget-enabled 3D apps will run not just with the new Blu-ray drive, but also the LED TVs, all of which are IP-capable. The first dozen apps include Rovi TV Listings, Yahoo, and streaming video movie apps from Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu, along with several games. One of the applications due out later this month is a Skype video conferencing app that will use a custom camera. The camera is slated to sit on top of a Samsung TV and to be sold by Skype.

Although all of the apps released in March will be offered free of charge, Samsung plans to start selling "premium" apps over this summer, Betanews was told.

Samsung dubbed the press conference "3D Wonder," and the name turned out to be apt for more reasons than one. Many of the journalists did marvel at the quality of the Samsung-supplied 3D experience, particularly during an airing at the event of a 3D Dreamworks' Shrek movie displayed on a huge "cube" of LCD panels.

Yet some also wondered aloud whether, during the current deep recession, all that many consumers will be willing to invest in the 3D ware, which Samsung is pricing at the rate of $150 for a pair of 3D glasses and about $1,599.99 to $6,999.99 for a 3D TV.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Folks who need to have their regular cup of joe each day can definitely identify with this vehicle known as the Carpuccino. What used to be a regular ‘88 Volkswagen Scirocco has been highly modified (you don’t say) for it to run off of coffee grounds. Of course, mileage is worse than a ummer since you will need up to 56 espressos in order to move the vehicle a mere mile. Economics-wise, this translates to it being 50 times more expensive than using regular gas, but it will definitely keep coffee growers happy, eh? A classic case of doing it because they can, and practicality is thrown out of the window.

Source: OhGizmo!
Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Car runs on coffee copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Samsung wants to rock and roll with their own eBook reader as well which they have dubbed the E6 eReader (how convenient). It will still take some time to see just whether this market is big enough to support so many players, as eBook readers don’t seem to be making that much of an impact in the world against regular paperbacks compared to how the MP3 format literally brought the CD industry to its knees, with the iPod gaining a humongous market share that Apple doesn’t seem likely to be giving up its throne in that department anytime soon. But I digress – the Samsung E6 eReader now only allows you to access your content easily, it also doubles up as a form of digital notepad, taking down notes as well as thoughts on the page directly, the ability to highlight content and sharing notes with friends and peers. Samsung has merged more than a million electronic titles, advanced handwriting capabilities and Wi-Fi connectivity into a single, easy-to-use device which we’ll look at in greater detail right after the jump.

What makes the E6 most outstanding would be its electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus pen that allows users the writing capabilities which are normally found only on traditional paper books. Should you wish to make annotations in the margins and record your thoughts and interpretations while reading, the E6 is more than happy to cater to that. Heck, even images can be modified easily via direct handwriting and memos, while those who prefer to get things down in a jiffy will look forward to its voice recording functionality that lets one make audio memos and annotations.

Featuring a slider form factor, the E6 comes with a 6” E-ink display at 600 x 800 resolution with 8-Gray scale for easy readability both indoors and out. It will suppor thte following formats – e-pub, PDF/a, TXT, BMP and JPG. Thanks to the built-in front speakers and head-phone jack, you can enjoy Samsung’s text-to-speech (TTS) technology in private or in public, while tuning in to your favorite MP3s when traveling. Wi-Fi connectivity is thrown into the mix as well, accompanied by Bluetooth 2.0 for wireless transmission. The 2GB of internal memory can store up to 1,500 books or 24,000 pages of memos, where it is augmented by a microSD memory card slot.

Press Release
Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Samsung E6 eReader ready to hit the US market copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Regular readers of this blog I'm sure will be familiar with Lydia Panas' work (if not, find my conversation with Lydia here). The Mark of Abel work is now on view at Foley Gallery (until April 20, 2010; click on the image above for a larger view).

It is always exciting for me to see work I'm quite familiar with hanging on a gallery wall. Rarely, if ever, does it look just the same as on the computer screen. It does happen that it looks worse, and of course, that's always disappointing. Usually, it looks better - as in Lydia's case, and part of the fun is to experience just that.

It is tempting to think that differences in size and/or between an image that reflects light and one that is backlit are responsible for whatever it is that creates that experience. But it seems to me that trying to pin down the reason(s) ultimately is a futile endeavour, and certainly one that is taking away a lot of the essence of the experience. Or maybe I'm just not that kind of critic.

Maybe talking about photography and its qualities is a bit like talking about wine and trying to describe it, adding some sort of rating to it. Does anyone really know what the following means? "It has a dark garnet color and a complex nose of boysenberry, truffles, wild game, soy and black pepper. On the palate, the wine has a silky mouthfeel and an elegant, long finish with a slight tannic grip." (source - picked at random) Fruit mixed with wild animals (which might or might not have antlers) and some sort of insanely expensive mushroom, plus soy - hmmmmmm, sounds delicious. And what does the difference between a wine rated 91 and 93 mean? But phrases like "silky mouthfeel" (I had no idea "mouthfeel" was a word!) - is that so far from what we see in a lot of art reviews?

When I go to an art gallery what I typically watch out for is the combination of what you could call my gut reaction and my intellectual response. This, I need to add, puts a handicap on work I know: while my gut reaction will respond directly to the work, my intellectual response works against the background of all the various thoughts I've had in my head before I went through the gallery's door. My gut typically is as opinionated as my brain (no surprise there, I suppose), and I've had many exciting experiences when they clashed (they always end up on good terms, so there's never any need to worry), and plenty of not-so exciting ones when they just agreed with each other.

But so much of art viewing is based on what we expect, isn't it? Maybe I'm not following debates carefully enough, but people never seem to admit the following: they expected something, and they got it confirmed. Maybe that's because writing "I went to the show by XY thinking it must surely suck, and boy, it did!" makes you sound like a total jerk - even though in reality, it could be really insightful! Just think about it! A critic thinks about a show and has some reasons to think a show must be bad, and then it is (that) bad. Doesn't this mean that the critic is very perceptive? And, in contrast, to read that a critic was really looking forward to a show, to then find that, yes, it was a good show - is that necessarily such a good thing? I can think of lots of cases where it's a good thing, but there are other cases where it might just point to intellectual laziness (at best!).

I personally usually don't go to a show thinking/expecting that it will suck or be great (even though it happens occasionally). In Lydia's case, my predominant feeling was one of curiosity. How would something I had seen online, something I had come to appreciate in not necessarily the most straightforward way, look like on the walls? I had come to like Lydia's portraits mostly through a couple of them, which - for me - had really stood out, and I had then spent time with the rest, to discover a rich vista.

Seeing the show added flourishes to the vista, with unexpected discoveries here and there, some of which, alas, might really only make sense for me I'm afraid (what kind of useless review is this you might wonder now, and I won't blame you). But I think that a critic ultimately will fail when she or he is trying to explain everything, because there has got to be some wiggle space left. Writing a review of a show should not be confused with smothering someone with a pillow (again, that's just me again; I'm sure lots of people will disagree).

I was slightly surprised by the sizes of the prints; somehow I had thought they would be a little bit smaller. I don't know why I would even think I'd know about the print size. That said, while at first I thought they were slightly overwhelming, they ended up working very well for me.

What I really would like to stress is the visual richness of the work and the connections these group portraits force upon the viewer. They will pull you in, whether you want it or not, and that certainly is something that any photographer can only wish for. The work is also intensely beautiful.

The Mark of Abel - highly recommended.

Mac only: Multiple monitors do great things for your desktop space, but your menu bar sticks to one screen. If you're looking for more menu access, free utility SecondBar puts one at the top of each monitor.

As veteran Mac users know, each application's menus fill in the menu bar at the top of the desktop, not the window of the app itself, as in a Windows desktop. When you have a lot of apps open in different spots, it becomes inconvenient to access an app's preferences or deeper features with a mouse. SecondBar adds a customizable menu bar to your second, third, or tenth monitor, letting you keep your focus on one screen at a time.

SecondBar has all the features of OS X's built-in menu bar, along with being drag-able and having the half-and-half resizing features of Windows 7's Aero Snap. The app is still in its super-early development stage, but it seems stable enough for regular use at the moment, and more features appear in the works.

SecondBar is a free download, Mac OS X only. Thanks, Douglas!

SecondBar

By David Lambert - 1987's G.I. Joe: The Movie, which came out a year after the end of the classic regular animated series, wasn't actually 'a movie'...not in the traditional sense of the word. Although... (more)

RMT elements drain our resources with incessant account hacking. This is an Industry-wide problem and most MMOs are beset by non-stop issues with players' assets and hard work being stolen and sold off for real money by organized criminal networks, who will stop at nothing in order to profit.

Until last summer we experienced regular issues with mass hacking a couple of times a year, usually around Christmas and then again in the middle of summer. Nowadays, this is pretty much constant with hundreds of accounts being targeted every day. Many of those are old trial accounts or accounts that have been disabled for years and don't hold anything of value to the RMT types. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of accounts that do have assets and ISK that end up being cleaned out - even the characters themselves being sold off. The damages are sadly not repairable in some cases, regardless of valiant efforts by GameMasters to help the unfortunate victims. The cost in resources is high for Customer Support, with highly trained and experienced GMs working almost exclusively on hacking cases - good people whose time and talent would be much better spent on enhancing the gaming experience and increasing the quality of service we are able to give to our customers.

The methods the hackers use differ and constantly change but the result is always the same - your account is ruined. However, users can take steps to limit the chances of getting attacked and following is a list of things that can help make your accounts more secure.

 

Do not use the same usernames and passwords for different games

Every day, we see countless attempts to log in with pairs of usernames and passwords, amongst them many usernames that don't exist in our systems. Obviously, those non-existing usernames have been harvested from somewhere else. They have been gathered via keyloggers, phishing sites, trojans, hacked forums and whatnot and long lists of such username/password pairs are traded between RMT types for use against gamer accounts all over the place. A good way to avoid problems with this is to simply use different login details for each game.

The same should also go for third-party sites and forums as those are quite often targeted by the hackers to harvest login details. Login details for such third-party sites may or may not be encrypted so keeping separate usernames and passwords for your gaming accounts is the way to go.

Change your passwords regularly

If your login details have been harvested, a regular change of passwords may prevent attacks from being successful.

Use strong passwords

Passwords should be complex and difficult to guess. Using a mix of numbers and small/capital letters can reduce the dangers from brute-forcing and lucky guesswork on part of the hackers. Avoid using common dictionary words and keep in mind that longer passwords are less vulnerable than short ones. A minimum length of 16 characters with a mix of lower case, capitals and numbers is strongly recommended for heightened security.

Do not share your login details with anyone

If you give someone your login details, your security is only as good as his. If he is hacked, you are hacked - given that he won't simply use or sell your details himself.

Don't accept files from sources you don't know

A lot of the mal-ware on the Internet specifically targets gamer accounts. RMT in online gaming is a huge racket - your login details are a valuable commodity and the pitfalls are many. Keyloggers and trojans - all geared towards the destruction of your accounts lay in wait, poised to strike when you open that file or go to that website. Phising schemes abound and social engineering is rife, on an Internet that often seems without law or consequence. One cannot be too careful - it's not paranoia when they're really out to get you.

Regularly scan your systems for security threats with up-to-date anti-virus software

Protect yourself by running updated anti-virus software to find and fix security threats that may have found their way onto your systems.  There are many such programs available, some free and some not free, but definitely worth spending time to set up and the money to purchase. It's imperative to maintain a virus scanner and Operating System by actively checking for new updates and applying them, especially for the virus scanner. Using a firewall is also recommended as an optional measure.

Also see this forum discussion for more suggestions on better security.

By following the simple steps above you can make your accounts more secure and limit the dangers of being attacked by hackers who are after your stuff. Please be sure that we are not sitting idly by either - we are currently working hard on account security upgrades to get this problem under control. There are several items on the menu and the we hope to implement the first countermeasures in the next few weeks.  However, we urge all of you to step up your own security at home by following the suggestions listed above.

Together we will vanquish this evil monster!

 

-  CCP Grimmi