Total War dev: PCs in danger as new consoles approach is ...

"People always bang on about PC dying", Dom Starr, the campaign designer of Total War: Rome 2, told Eurogamer.

People started banging on about PC dying after publishers turned their backs on desktops when this generation - PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 - began. Console-led development - even multi-platform development - was all the rage.

Today of course it's a different matter: the PC gaming scene is bursting with life (and money) and the PC versions are the ones publishers brag about.

"Ridiculous."

But there's a new console generation kicking off proper this Christmas. Creative Assembly's Total War series weathered the last storm - does Dom Starr see rough seas ahead now?

"I don't think PC is in any danger of dying," Starr answered. "I think that's ridiculous.

"If anything, the fact that the new console, PS4, seems to pretty much be an adapted PC just goes to show that the platform is strong and [we're] likely to not see the death of it any time soon."

Total War is one example of a "very different" gaming experience available on PC, Starr highlighted. But could Total War be on console? Series overseer Mike Simpson told me it wasn't an issue of controller input holding Total War back from console: it was an issue of raw machine power.

Cue PlayStation 4 which, among other impressive components, features a whopping 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. How about Total War on console now?

"I believe the canned-response to that tends to be it's always something that's being considered and it's a possibility, but beyond that no comment," responded Dom Starr.

"Personally I think it would be nice to have Total War on console, get the experience to people who aren't necessarily PC gamers."

He added: "You'd have to adapt a fair bit if for a joypad controller. Something like the Wii U might be easier to do some - drawing battle lines, moving the units around in a bit more of an organic way."

"If anything, the fact that the new console, PS4, seems to pretty much be an adapted PC just goes to show that the platform is strong and [we're] likely to not see the death of it any time soon."

Dom Starr

Rams: the PS4 has them.

Could the PS4 DualShock 4 touchpad be used in the same way?

"Possibly," considered Starr, "or you could conceivably use it more like a mouse or a trackpad on a laptop. And in that case I suppose maybe you're just looking at a PC hooked up to a television and it would work in much the same way."

Creative Assembly does have an in-house console team working on an Alien game, presumably for next-gen machines. We haven't heard too much about it yet. The point is, Creative Assembly would already be familiar with - and geared up to develop for - the machines if the Total War fancy took it.

It's more likely, however, that a Total War-like experience would be designed specifically for consoles rather than there be a port of a core game like Rome 2. Creative Assembly has been exploring the mobile and tablet space with Total War: Battles, a spin-off turn-based strategy game. And it worked really, really well.

When I asked Mike Simpson last summer about the future - the five years ahead - he said this: "We'll have a whole bunch of new games out there; we will have explored lots of areas we've not been in before, especially from a gameplay point of view and content point of view; we might have expanded out in some interesting directions."

One of those directions could be Warhammer. Creative Assembly announced a multi-game Warhammer deal in December 2012. CA may even get the Warhammer 40K licence; Sega bought Relic Entertainment from THQ earlier this year but the whereabouts of the W40K licence is unknown.

CA didn't say what it would do with Warhammer, but to me the obvious suggestion is Total War: Warhammer. When put to him, Dom Starr fidgeted nervously.

"I am not programmed to respond in that area!" he said. But is it a good fit (it obviously is)? "Well they're both about war..." he squirmed. "They both involve lots of things killing each other, so..."

Total War: Rome 2 is due out towards the end of the year. There's still plenty we don't know about it, not least what multiplayer ambitions it has. Dom Starr wouldn't budge an inch on the subject. Could Creative Assembly be opting for something persistent?

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-05-total-war-dev-pcs-in-danger-as-new-consoles-approach-is-ridiculous-notion

matt ryan matt ryan att wireless Mother Jones

Celebrity 'fractivists' conflicted over their cause

NEW YORK (AP) ? The scene: a Manhattan art-house theater. The cause: a campaign against the gas drilling process known as fracking that's being led by more than 100 celebrities, including Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Robert Redford, Mark Ruffalo and Mario Batali.

Outside, demonstrators in hazmat suits circle the theater. Inside, actress Scarlett Johansson attends a benefit screening of "Gasland," the documentary film that has become the movement's manifesto. Johansson tells The Associated Press that her "Avengers" co-star Ruffalo introduced her to the cause, and that she found the film "incredibly shocking."

The campaign has galvanized hundreds of thousands of followers, but as with many activist causes, the facts can get drowned out by the glitz. Now, some experts are asking whether the celebrities are enlightened advocates or NIMBYs ? crying "Not in my backyard!" ? even as their privileged lives remain entwined, however ruefully, with fossil fuels.

Much of the anti-fracking activism is centered in New York City, where concerts, movies and plays use huge amounts of energy, gourmet chefs including Batali cook with gas, and most people ? the glitterati included ? heat with gas.

There's no doubt that critics of hydraulic fracturing ? a practice colloquially known as fracking that involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into underground rock to free vast reserves of gas ? have some legitimate concerns. There have been documented cases of leaking gas ruining nearby well water, of air pollution and of problems from the waste the drilling generates. Experts say those are important parts of the story ? but far from the whole story.

"With proper regulation and enforcement, gas provides a very substantial health benefit in reducing air pollution," compared with coal-fired power plants, said Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard University's Center for the Environment.

That is a theme not adequately covered in the debate over fracking, agreed Michael Greenstone, an environmental economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former top adviser to the Obama administration. Greenstone is studying the local health effects of fracking, but he said it's not scientifically accurate to ignore "the tremendous health gains" from the coal-to-gas shift.

"Honestly," he said, "the environmentalists need to hear it."

The main celebrity anti-fracking campaign took off last summer when Ono and Lennon, her son, founded Artists Against Fracking. Their family farm sits near gas reserves in New York, and they fear fracking might be allowed in the area. Some celebrities also speak out independently, or through other groups. Among the claims:

? Ono, at a news conference: "Fracking kills. And it doesn't just kill us, it kills the land, nature and eventually the whole world."

? Robert Redford, in a radio ad: "Fracking is a bad deal for local communities. It's been linked to drinking water contamination all across the country. It threatens the clean air we breathe."

? Alec Baldwin, in an editorial in the Huffington Post, described a scenario in which companies promise people "some economic benefit, deliver a pittance in actual compensation, desecrate their environment and then split and leave them the bill."

? Josh Fox, the director of "Gasland," to the AP: "We have the capability of running everything in this country ? including our fleet of 240 million cars ? off of electricity from wind and from solar and from hydropower." Fox said that society should be changing over "to renewable energy and doing it vigorously and quickly. And we could be doing that in New York."

While such claims may contain a kernel of truth, they are at best subjective and at worst misleading or even hypocritical, some environmentalists say.

"In truth, celebrities are rich, and they use far more energy and resources than anyone else. There's this grass-roots NIMBY revolt against fracking," said Michael Shellenberger, who heads the Breakthrough Institute, a nonpartisan Oakland-based environmental think tank that is releasing a report this month on the environmental benefits of natural gas.

Many self-labeled "fractivists" say drilling ruins drinking water and farms ? think the fictional disaster spun in the Matt Damon vehicle "Promised Land" ? and makes no sense, since it's possible to quickly transform our society to one that's powered by clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar.

Yet the boom has created jobs, reduced imports of oil and gas, and lowered energy bills. In contrast with Baldwin's claim, local landowners have received billions of dollars in royalties, and the typical royalty of 18.75 percent is higher than what many novelists, actors or musicians are paid.

Pennsylvania dairy farmer Shawn Georgetti said he was struggling before signing a gas lease. Now, he's been able to buy better and more fuel-efficient equipment and says the drilling hasn't caused any problems. "It's a lot more fun to farm," he said.

As for Fox's claim about the ease of shifting to wind, solar and hydropower, "if that was true, we'd be doing it," said Stephen Ansolabehere, a Harvard University professor who has studied public attitudes toward renewable energy. "People think wind and solar are cheap; it's just not right. They see what the prices are, and the support drops."

Wind energy currently provides about 2 percent of total U.S. energy, and solar less than 1 percent. Hydropower is about 3 percent, and building more dams would also have environmental effects. In practical terms, it will take decades of nonstop solar, wind and other renewable investment to phase out fossil fuels.

Many celebrities are just beginning to embrace renewables. Sean Lennon told the AP in January that the family farm in upstate New York is still conventionally powered.

"I'm actually looking into it. It's a long process," Lennon said. "I've met with a lot of solar companies. I'm looking for the best possible solution, and there are a lot of options out there."

Redford spokeswoman Joyce Deep wrote in an email that he installed passive solar in his home in the mid-'70s, but she didn't know details about more recent installations. "Passive solar" means using windows or other materials in an energy-conscious way, not solar panels. Deep noted that Sundance, the Utah resort Redford helped found, uses some renewable energy.

Baldwin declined to comment about how much renewable energy he had installed, and Ono's spokesperson said Lennon spoke for her, too.

Ruffalo, an Academy Award-nominated actor, made the switch to solar last year on his property in New York's Catskill Mountains, also near gas reserves. "In fact, I have a 14 KW system on my single property," Ruffalo wrote in an email. "It is a beautiful system." And Fox said he uses electricity from wind power on a Pennsylvania property.

But experts note that even renewables need conventional backup, since the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.

"It demonstrates the ignorance of renewable power advocates to suggest that renewables can run without gas. We don't get to say, 'I only want solar and wind,'" Shellenberger said.

Even the success that turns people into celebrities often involves tremendous amounts of energy. Restaurateur and Food Network star Batali started with one restaurant. He now has 16 ? in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Singapore ? all using natural gas to cook.

Some of his restaurants "use a percentage of green power to help offset some of our non-renewable energy consumption, and we are looking to do more in the future," Batali spokeswoman Elizabeth Meltz wrote in an email.

Some celebrities acknowledge the complexities.

"Obviously the entire society is addicted to fossil fuels, and the reason that we're fractivists is to try to move toward a renewable economy," Lennon said. "That doesn't mean that any of us have extracted ourselves completely from the society itself, because the entire city's running off of oil and gasoline."

___

Begos reported from Pittsburgh. Associated Press correspondent Michael Rubinkam contributed from northeastern Pennsylvania.

___

Online:

http://artistsagainstfracking.com/

http://chefsformarcellus.org/about/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/celebrity-fractivists-true-advocates-nimbys-180201969.html

derek jeter Red Bull Stratos Redbull Stratos steve mcnair

Taye Diggs: Why Walker Is Roaring in Our Got Milk Campaign

"Being able to shoot the Got Milk? ad with my son was one of the better times in life just because, obviously, the ad is going to last forever," Diggs explains.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/7zsnZ7M0m_0/

newt gingrich wives at last al green gina carano

Meet the Startup Powering Sony?s PlayStation 4 Video Broadcasts

By Matthew Lynley

Ustream, a San Francisco startup whose video streaming service now reaches more than 81 million viewers every month through its partner network, also powers one of the PlayStation 4?s hallmark features: the ability to share footage of a player?s game with their friends with the tap of a button.

But in addition to enabling everyday users to broadcast their activities online, Ustream also works with larger companies to enable streaming of events like corporate town halls and meetings.

In fact, Ustream?s fastest-growing business is its software-as-a-service side, said CEO Brad Hunstable. That includes partnerships like the one with Sony .?Last week Sony used Ustream to stream video of its PlayStation 4 launch event. More than 8 million people tuned in.

Ustream is also hoping to tap into the growing interest in telecommunication by incorporating richer social features and better streaming. Telecommuting became a hot topic last week when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made headlines for banning a long-standing work-from-home policy. The idea is that employees benefit more from being in the same physical space as their coworkers, allowing ideas to develop more frequently.

Mr. Hunstable naturally disagrees with that notion. ?The ability to connect with people in deep ways no matter where they are in the world, technology can facilitate that like it never has in the history of mankind,? he said. ?My personal opinion is, you?re gonna see more of this, not less.?

Here?s a recap of our conversation with Mr. Hunstable:

WSJ: Can you give us an update to UStream?

Brad Hunstable: We?re coming off our best year ever in terms of traffic and revenue. At our core we?re a technology company around live broadcasting. The Sony PlayStation announcement hit 8 million people and 1 million concurrents essentially for a 2-hour-long Sony commercial. The best business has been our SaaS (software as a service) business. It?s grown 160% year-over-year. That?s about delivering technology capabilities to broadcasters all the way up to the enterprise market, for Sony and Dell and Salesforce and Macy's and all our other customers, and our pro broadcasting.

WSJ: Is the consumer component still important?

BH: We now reach 81 million people worldwide every month either through our website or partner sites, or Twitter, or other avenues. The consumer part of what we do is a key strategy, but we view a lot of that activity as a medium market. The goal is to get broadcasters to use our tools, whether that?s through the tools, or through a more enterprise relationship. They?re tied together very closely.

On the one hand, they support one another. But the growth has really happened on the SaaS side, signing broadcasters up for monthly recurring plans. We brought in a lot of talent to support that. We hired the former CMO of WebEx, the VP of finance from Yammer and we just hired two executives from Ooyala, one on the sales side and product marketing side. The consumer piece is a key part of what we do. If a church wants to jump on and start using that, we?re happy with that too.

WSJ: How big is gaming?

BH: Our focus has been on the technology platform. We?re really focused on the live experience from day one, not just for gaming but for entertainment and sports too. We have UFC pay-per-view and European soccer and LPGA golf and all these different verticals. We?re much broader than the gaming sector.

WSJ: How important is the new partnership with Sony?

BH: We have a long relationship with them whether it?s on the picture or music side, or being pre-loaded on a lot of their devices. Gaming has always been in our DNA. We?ve done League of Legends tournaments. The Sony partnership gives us scale to rapidly accelerate where we were at. The way I think about this partnership: A gamer can, with a click of a button, become a director or producer in a video game production with the capability to reach millions. The PS4 is the modern-day cable box and Ustream is the modern-day cable provider.

WSJ: What are some other interesting verticals?

BH: The bigger opportunity is the larger technology play. We do corporate town halls and corporate PR events and live broadcasting for internal purposes. That?s a much bigger market than just focusing on one vertical. The PlayStation is one point where there?s massive consumption around entertainment, and UStream?s goal is ubiquity. If users are on Facebook , that?s where we want to be. If it?s mobile, that?s where we want to be. For PlayStation, 30 million connected devices is a very interesting point of gravity where there?s a lot of people consuming content.

WSJ: What?s your take on Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer?s policy of requiring all employees to work in the office, versus telecommuting?

BH: I don?t know the dynamics or decision-making criteria she used. From our standpoint, we allow our employees to work from home. We treat people like adults.

From a technology perspective, you can connect to people and have really engaging experiences wherever you are in the world ? whether it?s platforms like us or others. The trend, I?d argue, is you can have these people engaged more-so than you could five to 10 years ago.

The reason we started UStream, based on my experiences from the military, was because there were situations where people were missing some of the most important events of their lives, like their daughters? Duke University graduation or a Bon Jovi concert. I wanted to be able to watch my brother?s band live. The ability to connect with people in deep ways no matter where they are in the world, technology can facilitate that like it never has in the history of mankind. My personal opinion is, you?re going to see more of this, not less.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/05/meet-the-startup-powering-sonys-playstation-4-video-broadcasts/?mod=WSJBlog

hoekstra best superbowl commercials 2012 best super bowl ads chrysler super bowl commercial

The Daily Roundup for 03.04.2013

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/04/the-daily-roundup-for-03-04-2013/

shea mcclellin nfl draft 2012 whitney mercilus 2012 nfl draft picks

Lights Illuminate Bay Bridge

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video/abc-lights-illuminate-bay-bridge-080000171.html

bruins boston bruins carl crawford mad cow disease

2013 NFL Mock Draft: San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers had a remarkable season that ended with a frustrating loss in the Super Bowl so they obviously have a good team, but they do have some holes to fill.? Wide Receiver is a glaring one on the offensive side of the ball, but I really don?t see them going with one in the first round.? I think they?ll go with a defensive player to help sure-up one of the best defenses in the NFL.?

Although Donte Whitner made the pro-bowl, he did get beat more than any safety in the league.? I think San Francisco goes with a safety to allow those dynamic pass rushers even more time to get after the quarterback.

Team Needs:? Defensive Line, Safety, Wide Receiver

My Prediction: Matt Elam, Safety Florida

Elam is a star safety off of one of the best defenses in the country in 2012.? Florida continuously churns out great defensive players and I think the Niners would jump at the chance to have him don the red and gold.? There is some debate as to where Elam falls in the grand scheme of prospects and I think he falls just outside of the top 25.? If he does get drafted before #31, look for the pick to go to Eric Reid from LSU or Jonathan Cyprien out of Florida International.

Check back tomorrow for the breakdown of the 30th pick.? It belongs to Atlanta.

Source: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/sports/nfl/49ers/2013-nfl-mock-draft-san-francisco-49ers

war of the worlds rock and roll hall of fame severe weather wichita