| CD Projekt Red Calls off Legal Threats Posted: 15 Jan 2012 04:59 PM PST  CD Projekt Red has called off its witch hunt for…. pirates, and in an open letter to the community is asking for forgiveness. Just in-case you missed the back story, CD Projekt Red is the development studio behind The Witcher 2, and about one month ago, set off on a campaign to hunt down everyone they suspected of pirating the game. Making pirates cough up cash for stolen software sounds reasonable enough; the real controversy was in the tactics they used to collect. Threatening letters asking for money in exchange for legal immunity might have sounded like a great idea to a bunch of cash strapped PC exclusive developers, however in the real world we often give this strategy a different name, extortion.
Here is the full press release: In early December, an article was published about a law firm acting on behalf of CD Projekt RED, contacting individuals who had downloaded The Witcher 2 illegally and seeking financial compensation for copyright infringement. The news about our decision to combat piracy directly, instead of with DRM, spread quickly and with it came a number of concerns from the community. Repeatedly, gamers just like you have said that our methods might wrongly accuse people who have never violated our copyright and expressed serious concern about our actions. Being part of a community is a give-and-take process. We only succeed because you have faith in us, and we have worked hard over the years to build up that trust. We were sorry to see that many gamers felt that our actions didn't respect the faith that they have put into CD Projekt RED. Our fans always have been and remain our greatest concern, and we pride ourselves on the fact that you all know that we listen to you and take your opinions to heart. While we are confident that no one who legally owns one of our games has been required to compensate us for copyright infringement, we value our fans, our supporters, and our community too highly to take the chance that we might ever falsely accuse even one individual. So we've decided that we will immediately cease identifying and contacting pirates. Let's make this clear: we don't support piracy. It hurts us, the developers. It hurts the industry as a whole. Though we are staunch opponents of DRM because we don't believe it has any effect on reducing piracy, we still do not condone copying games illegally. We're doing our part to keep our relationship with you, our gaming audience, a positive one. We've heard your concerns, listened to your voices, and we're responding to them. But you need to help us and do your part: don't be indifferent to piracy. If you see a friend playing an illegal copy of a game–any game–tell your friend that they're undermining the possible success of the developer who created the very game that they are enjoying. Unless you support the developers who make the games you play, unless you pay for those games, we won't be able to produce new excellent titles for you. The Witcher 2 represents the very best PC Gaming has to offer, and not only do we commend CD Projekt Red for realizing they've made a mistake, we hope anyone who does pirate the game recognizes a development studio worth supporting. |
| SOPA Bill Gets Shelved Due to a Lack of "Consensus" Posted: 15 Jan 2012 04:07 PM PST  Big media isn't used to losing a fight, but then again this is the Internet we are talking about here. The much despised SOPA censorship bill introduced by Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith seems to have completely stalled, which according to The Hill is due to a lack of consensus. If you are one of the countless thousands who called your local officials to lodge complaints, sent old fashioned mail, or even just complained in online forums give yourself a pat on the back, somebody heard you.
Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa was promised by Majority Leader Eric Cantor that the house won't hold a vote unless a consensus on the bill is reached, which at this point is looking all but impossible. According to Issa, "While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House. Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote". Today is a great day for the open Internet, but don't let your guard down just yet. The PROTECT IP and ACTA looks every bit as horrible as SOPA, and is still being pushed hard by lobbyists. |
| Google Shares its Seven Core Principles of Chrome Security Posted: 15 Jan 2012 02:56 PM PST  Google Chrome is rapidly winning the hearts and minds of tech enthusiasts everywhere not just for its blistering speed, but for its unrelenting commitment to security. Saying a browser is secure is easy, but making it so is something completely different. To help keep their developers on track the team has come up with a set of seven core security principles, and the complete list makes for a rather interesting read, and we'll highlight a few of our favorites after the jump.
First up on the list is "don't get in the way". This might sound simple enough, however as Vista's UAC taught us all too well, enhanced security more often than not comes with strings attached, strings that constantly take over your screen and suck your will to live every time you launch an application. Simply put, Chrome does a great job of this. Another great principle is "speed matters". In this case we aren't referring to Chrome's legendary rendering speed, rather it pertains solely to response times in dealing with security concerns. Silent automatic background updating is the leading example of this principle in action, and it's something that is literally changing the industry. The final principle worth pointing out is "make the web safer for everyone". In this example the Chrome team points out that it recognizes the power of web standards to help push security issues forward. They quote open source technologies such as sandboxing as examples of this, but a part of me wonders if flash wouldn't be a better horse to beat on. To this day flash continues to be a huge vulnerability on millions of machines around the world, and HTML5 just might be the cure. Design for defense in depth, security is a team responsibility, be transparent, and engage the community round out the list, and feel free to cruse on over to the Chromium blog to check out Google's take on each. |
| CES 2012 Sets New Records For Floor Space, Attendance, and Exhibitors Posted: 15 Jan 2012 01:02 PM PST  Many have signaled Microsoft's departure from future CES events as a death knell for the massive industry convention, however if that's true, the numbers certainly don't back that assumption up. According to CES officials, 2012 set an all-time record for attendance, exhibitors and claimed floor space. As a result of the overwhelming success, CES 2013 has been scheduled for January 8-11 next year, and will feature a new lead keynote speaker to replace Microsoft.
If you're curious about how the numbers played out, here is a brief rundown. Floor space was up only slightly from last year, increasing to 1.86 million square feet over 2011's 1.857 million. Attendees on the other hand hit a record 153,000 this year, edging out 2006's total of 152,000, and blasting away 2011's paltry 149,500. You could still make the argument that CES is walking wounded now that Microsoft has thrown in the towel, so it will be interesting to see how these numbers shake out next year. Anyone care to make any predictions |
| Google Updates Gmail Offline Chrome App Posted: 15 Jan 2012 05:46 AM PST  Last August, offline Gmail returned to Google Chrome after a brief absence, during which it went from being a Gears-based feature to an HTML5-powered Chrome Web Store app. Now Google has updated that app. Hit the jump for more.
The updated Google offline Chrome app now lets you exercise a fair amount of control over the amount of mail that can be accessed offline. You can now choose "whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail." Previously, only 7 days' worth of email was available offline. But that's not all. The updated app includes a few other improvements: - Improved attachments: All attachments are now downloaded and available for offline use
- Keyboard shortcuts support: If you have keyboard shortcuts enabled in Gmail, your setting will transfer over to the Gmail offline app. If you're not sure what you can do with keyboard shortcuts, try pressing '?' next time you're using Gmail or Gmail offline.
- Numerous performance enhancements: Messages and attachments now download at a faster rate and some bugs have been fixed.
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| Ultrabooks to Fuel Explosive Growth in Cache SSD Shipments Posted: 15 Jan 2012 05:19 AM PST There was no dearth of ultrabook announcements at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But it still remains to be seen whether or not all these ultrabooks can go onto capture a large chunk of the notebook market as Intel wants them to. Market research firm IHS iSuppli is among those who expect ultrabook shipments to soar rapidly over the next few years. Having previously predicted "major repercussions for the global electronics supply chain" owing to a boom in ultrabook shipments, the firm has now specifically identified cache solid state drives (SSDs) as a likely beneficiary of such a boom. In a price-sensitive segment like the ultrabook market, it makes sense for vendors to combine a cache SSD with a hard drive instead of going for pure solid-state storage. It's not only affordable, but also a good way of ensuring faster boot-up times. This is one of the main reasons why IHS iSuppli expects cache SSD shipments to rise dramatically to reach 25.7 million units in 2012, up from just 881,000 units in 2011. But it's not that ultrabooks alone are expected to account for all the growth in cache SSD shipments, with the research firm predicting the shipment of over 3 million units ship inside standard notebooks and desktop PCs. Its outlook for cache SSDs over the next four years is similarly rosy. "Intel is continuing to put its eggs into the ultrabook basket, as indicated by its activities at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week," said Ryan Chien, research associate for memory & storage at IHS. "From the company's introduction of the Nikiski reference design, to its announcement that more than 60 additional ultrabook designs will enter the market in time for the 2012 holiday season, Intel at CES showed that Ultrabooks have become the centerpiece of its mobile computing strategy. Cache SSDs represent a key part of Intel's Ultrabook specification, providing performance, convenience and power-savings capabilities that play a key role in defining the platform." 
Image Credit: IHS iSuppli Research |
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