| Wikipedia Back Online After Repairing Cut Cables, Summer School Students Rejoice Posted: 06 Aug 2012 12:50 PM PDT  Online encyclopedia site Wikipedia was generally unavailable around the globe this morning after two cables stretching between Tampa, Florida and Virginia were cut this morning. Depending on location, Wikipedia was either completely dark or extremely slow loading, It took a little over an hour to repair the severed cables, and then another hour to restore service.
According to a BBC News report, Wikipedia doesn't suspect foul play, though it's not yet known what exactly caused the incident. The outage caused a spike in activity on Twitter, as users flocked to the microblogging service to share their frustrations 140 characters at a time, many of them comical and/or snarky. One user wrote, "Breaking: Wikipedia is down. Millions on Twitter are prevented from being instant experts during online arguments." After service was restored, another user tweeted, "Wikipedia is back! Phew! For a while there I felt like Batman without his utility belt." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Torrent Tracker Demonoid Goes Down for the Count Posted: 06 Aug 2012 12:19 PM PDT  Demonoid, one of the Web's largest torrent tracking sites and one of the most popular online destinations overall, has been snuffed out by Ukrainian officials. Demonoid's destruction doesn't come as a complete surprise following a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that knocked the site to the mat last month. Fans of the site hoped it was just a temporary blip and that it would be back up and running before long, but it doesn't appear that's going to happen.
According to a translated page on Kommersant, Ukraine investigators made their way to ColoCall, the country's largest data center and home to Demonoid, and shut it down. The general consensus is that Demonoid went to some length to stay within Ukraine law, but fell into trouble when the U.S. got involved. Those responsible for running the site are still at large and believed to be in Mexico. What's more, Kommersant said it wouldn't be too much trouble for the site's admins to restore operations using a different set of servers, but they're reluctant to do so "because of the heightened world's fight against piracy." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Shared Data Plans Touching Down at AT&T on August 23rd Posted: 06 Aug 2012 11:34 AM PDT  Following in the footsteps of Verizon Wireless, rival AT&T will be rolling out new Mobile Share plans starting Thursday, August 23, the company confirmed in a blog post today. The new plans offer unlimited talk time and texting plus anywhere from 1GB to 20GB of pooled data to share between multiple wireless devices, negating the need for little Johnny to carry his own data plan for his smartphone.
Like Big Red's plans, AT&T's Mobile Share plans can get expensive in a hurry, depending on how many devices you add. Here's how it breaks down: - 1GB/month: $40 + $45 per smartphone
- 4GB/month: $70 + $40 per smartphone
- 6GB/month: $90 + $35 per smartphone
- 10GB/month: $120 + $30 per smartphone
- 15GB/month: $160 + $30 per smartphone
- 20GB/month: $200 + $30/smartphone
That's step 1. The next step is to add any other devices to your shared plan, like feature phones ($30/each per month); laptops, LaptopConnect, mobile hotspot devices, and netbooks ($20/each per month); and tablets and game devices ($10/each per month). AT&T provides an example of two smartphones ($35/month for each one), a tablet ($10/month), and 6GB of shared data ($90/month), which works out to $170/month. That's not terrible, but throw a second tablet into the mix and a feature phone for junior, and you're now at $210 per month before taxes. Bump up the data cap and it gets more expensive. "As families prepare to send students back to school, many are looking for a convenient way to connect tablets and laptops or add new smartphones. AT&T Mobile Share plans are a great option," AT&T said. One thing that works in AT&T's favor versus VZW is that the wireless carrier isn't forcing its customers to choose a shared data plan; existing individual and family plans are still available. Unsure which is the best deal? AT&T has an online Mobile Share Planner tool to help estimate data usage across different devices. What are your thoughts on AT&T's new shared data plans? Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| John Carmack: Kudos to Valve, but Not Many Linux Users are Willing to Pay for Games Posted: 06 Aug 2012 08:55 AM PDT  Valve is forging ahead with plans to port its Steam distribution platform over to Linux and has even managed to tweak Left 4 Dead 2 to run faster on a 32-bit Ubuntu system than on a Windows 7 machine, but as far as John Carmack is concerned, the real challenge will be getting Linux users to open their wallets. Carmack, as you know, is the founder and technical director of id Software, and also an open source advocate. He's also a realist.
"Valve announcing Steam Linux support changes things a bit but we have made two forays into the Linux commercial market, most recently with Quake Live client, and that platform just hasn't carried its weight compared to the Mac on there," Carmack said during his keynote at QuakeCon. "It's great that people are enthusiastic about it, but there's just not nearly as many people that are interested in paying for a game on the [Linux] platform and that just seems to be the reality." Carmack wasn't trying to cast a wet blanket over Valve's plans by any means, and he pointed out that one thing working in favor of Linux is that integrated graphics drivers are getting better, albeit they still have their issues. He praised Intel for being "completely supportive of open source graphics drivers efforts, that they have chipset docs out there," and said if he had the time, he'd work on optimizing them himself. You can watch the entire keynote on YouTube (skip ahead to the 45min 26sec mark to hear Carmack's comments on Linux). Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AOC Rolls Out Ultra-Thin 27-inch e2752Vh Monitor at $50 Discount for Limited Time Posted: 06 Aug 2012 07:28 AM PDT  AOC is taking aim at gamers who want a large screen monitor with a low response time and budget friendly price tag by launching its 27-inch e2752Vh LED display. We're always wary of reading too much into rated specs when it comes to monitors, but for what it's worth, the e2752Vh is a thin and light display with a 2ms rated response time (GTG), 20,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and 300 cd/m2 typical brightness.
Resolution tops out at Full HD 1080p (1920x1080), which isn't surprising considering the monitor's $250 price tag. AOC says that's a savings of $50 off the MSRP and will be valid from August 11 through 17 at places like CompUSA, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com, Newegg.com, and Amazon.com, though some are already selling it at the discounted price. Rounding out the feature-set are 5W built-in speakers and input options that include DVI-D and HDMI with HDCP support. It's also VESA 100mm wall mount compliant. More details can be found on the monitor's product page. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Lenovo to Launch Lighter ThinkPad Ultrabook Later This Month Posted: 06 Aug 2012 07:04 AM PDT  Today marks the 20th anniversary of the ThinkPad brand, which was developed by IBM and then sold to Lenovo in 2005. To celebrate the occasion, Lenovo today announced the release of its ThinkPad X1 Carbon notebook model at a company-sponsored event in Beijing. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a 14-inch Ultrabook that weighs less than 3 pounds and boasts an 8-hour battery life.
As the name implies, it's constructed with carbon fiber materials Lenovo claims adds to its structural strength and durability while maintaining the system's purported status as "the lightest 14-inch Ultrabook in the world." It's also fast and responsive, featuring a sub 20-second startup time, Lenovo says. Regarding the Ultrabook category's longterm viability given its inability to thrust the PC segment past a seventh consecutive quarter of flat-to-single-digit growth , Lenovo still feels confident in its decision to dive in. "Overall, the Ultrabook is the right direction. It's the start of the journey, so it's not the destination," said Dilip Bhatia, GM of Lenovo's ThinkPad business, according to PCWorld. "In general you will see notebooks get thinner, get lighter, have the instant on connected capability. So I'm not worried about it." Bhatia also said aggressive pricing will help drive Ultrabook adoption. Be that as it may, Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon is slated to ship later this month starting at $1,299, making it one of the more expensive Ultrabooks out there. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Samsung Accuses Apple of Sour Grapes for Swaying Expert Witnesses Posted: 06 Aug 2012 06:37 AM PDT  It's too late to claim things are getting ugly between Samsung and Apple. The question before us now is, how ugly can things get? That depends on which court system you're talking about. Here in the U.S., Apple is peeved at Samsung for leaking rejected evidence to the public, and over in Australia, Samsung is accusing Apple of inappropriately meeting with expert witnesses to change their opinions on things that could affect the outcome of the patent trial.
Samsung's legal team labeled Apple's actions as "most inappropriate" and is none too happy with the resulting report written by three experts who, after speaking with Apple, changed their minds and determined the Cupertino company's iPhone 4 and 4S models don't run afoul of any of Samsung's 3G patents, MacWorld reports. Samsung asked Justice Annabelle Claire Bennett for permission to cross-examine the witnesses prior to their "hot tub" testimony, which is a term Australian courts use to describe when multiple expert witnesses offer their testimony at the same time. Bennett, however, wasn't as concerned as Samsung and said it's not unusual for experts to change their mind. "The expert report is a piece of evidence but can be challenged in cross examination," Bennett said. The Australian trial has a long way to go yet and is scheduled to run intermittently for another nine months. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
![[30 Jul - 05 Aug]Weekly Korea Game Rankings](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s7nopmuHVEO62GKRCuEBTwAAukT42TBCmOh90tnQrZ7EcLAcwtBcCXRa6ZemIki961XU68a84cPB1BemoXGdWRRaxe1Mw0D_KGhTnFWOSnhqP8mM_v0C7R53JwH3zes8P9=s0-d)
