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Blizzard: Potential WarCraft 4 Devs Tied up for “Next Few Years”

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:53:14 -0600

Aside from one obscure little game whose name escapes our memory at the moment, WarCraft has been out of action since WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne’s release back in 2003. Don’t take this world without WarCraft to mean that Blizzard’s completely iced the idea of a fourth entry in the popular fantasy RTS series, though. Just be prepared to wait a tick before scratching your orc-commanding, night elf-outsmarting itch.

"Warcraft 4 is certainly something that gets talked about on a pretty regular basis," Blizzard’s J. Allen Brack said in an interview with AusGamers. "While I think we're all excited about a Warcraft 4, in concept, [the WarCraft 3 team is] going to finish up StarCraft 2, and then they're going to work on the two StarCraft expansions that we've announced, so they're booked for the next few years."

And though he stopped just short of nailing the team to the project, Brack did say that "it does sort of make sense."

Another Blizzard game, another tremendous wait. But at least we can while away the, well, years until Diablo III’s launch with Torchlight. As for WarCraft 4, though... hey Runic, ever think about making an RTS?

Android and Chrome OS Will Likely Converge Over Time

Ryan Whitwam — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:00:17 -0600

In the wake of Google’s Chrome OS announcement last week, some have questioned the search giant’s software vision. Cofounder Sergey Brin popped in for a brief appearance at the event and made some interesting statements about the future of Chrome OS and Android. Brin said that Android and Chrome "will likely converge over time," but gave no indication of the form that might take. Indeed, the Chrome OS will reportedly have support for ARM based CPUs. Brin also talked up the similarity in the products’ code bases. Both are based on Linux and the Webkit browser rendering engine.

CEO Eric Schmidt also had something to say about Android and Chrome. The sheer murkiness of his statements is a little intriguing. Schmidt said that Chrome is for users on a real computer, a device with a keyboard and larger screen. However, he also said that Android’s real strength is its ability to run powerful PC-quality apps.

Cnet interviewer Molly Wood prodded Schmidt slightly about the possible overlap in the emerging Smartbook category. Schmidt was quick, yet broad in his dismissal saying, “let’s not prejudge what these things are best used for… our end users will ultimately judge.” Google seems to be waiting for queues from users to tell them how (if at all) these products will be integrated. So, post any thoughts you have in the comments.

How-To: Rip Archival-Quality MP3s from Audio CDs

Alex Castle — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:30:20 -0600

There was a time when ripping a CD was a time-intensive, error-prone process. But these days, with programs like iTunes turning the task into a one-click affair, CD ripping has become fast, easy, and reliable enough that backing up your music library is more simple than programming a VCR. However, using a program called Exact Audio Copy, you can achieve even better-quality rips than you can with generic music library managers.

EAC is an “audio grabber,” or ripping program, that’s beloved by the digital music world. It has earned this adoration by providing the tools needed to make the most accurate rips possible, with the fewest errors, and giving you complete control over how your MP3s are tagged and organized. And although getting EAC set up is a little more complicated than, say, iTunes, we’ll walk you through the process, and show you that it’s not that hard to make top-quality audio rips.

Step 1: Install LAME

Before we install EAC, we have to install LAME. LAME, short for Lame Ain’t an MP3 Encoder, is in fact an MP3 encoder. It allows EAC to take the raw .wav files ripped from the CD and compress them into more useful high-bitrate MP3s.

The LAME homepage provides information about the encoder and offers its source code, but you can download pre-compiled executables of the LAME code at RareWares. If you download the zipped binaries from RareWares, there’s no installation to speak of—you just unzip the files, including LAME.exe, into a folder and you’re good to go. We recommend putting them in a subdirectory of Program Files.

Step 2: Install and Configure EAC

Next, you’ll need to visit the EAC website and download the latest version of the software. Run the executable, and install it wherever you like. Pay attention during the installation, as EAC will try and slip an eBay button onto your system, unless you uncheck the box when it asks which features you want installed.

Once the installer is finished with its work, EAC will launch and the configuration wizard will start. Here, it will attempt to locate the drive you’ll be using to rip CDs; confirm that it has found the correct drive, or select the one you wish to use. When the wizard asks if you want to focus on speed or ripping accuracy, select ripping accuracy.

Now, EAC will run diagnostics on your CD drive. You’ll be asked to insert a clean music CD, so pick an unscratched disc from your collection, pop it in, and press Next.

Assuming there were no problems with your CD drive, you’ll be able to click through a few more install screens, until it asks you what sort of compression you want to use. Select the MP3 option. It will then inform you that you need an MP3 encoder, which you’ve already downloaded, so browse to the folder holding the LAME.exe file when EAC starts searching for it.
Now, you’ll be asked to enter an email address, which is required for you to access the freeDB online ID3 tags database. Finish off the configuration wizard by selecting a file naming scheme for your rips from the huge selection in the dropdown. When prompted, choose to run EAC in expert mode.

Now that the configuration wizard is done, there are still a few more options to change to get the most out of EAC. First, go to EAC > Drive Options, and dismiss the warning box that pops up. Now, insert a scratched CD into your drive, and click the Examine C2 Feature button. If EAC tells you that your drive is capable of finding C2 error information, check the box next to “Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error information.” This will noticeably increase the speed of your rips.

Next, we’ll configure the MP3 bitrate, so click to EAC > Compression Options. LAME can encode MP3s in all sorts of different bitrates, but we’re not living in 2003 here—storage is dirt-cheap and everyone’s an audiophile, so we’re going to set EAC to use LAME’s V0 profile, the highest variable bitrate setting. To do this, change the field labeled “Additional command-line options” to %l-V 5%l%h-V 0%h --vbr-new %s %d. (Note that the number in the middle has changed from a 2 to a 0.) With these command-line options, as long as the “High quality” radial button is selected, LAME will use the V0 profile, regardless of what is selected in the bitrate dropdown menu.

To automate your rips, change these options: In the General tab, check the box marked “On unknown CDs” and click the radial button next to “Automatically access online freedb database.” Also, check “Eject CD after extraction finished” for faster ripping of multiple discs.

In the Directories tab, click the “Use this directory” radial button, and select a folder to store your newly encoded MP3s.

Step 3: Rip a Disc

Finally, it’s time to rip a disc to your hard drive. Insert a music CD into your drive and EAC will display a list of tracks. If you selected the “Automatically access online freedb database” option, as instructed, EAC should automatically download track names and other ID3 tags for the CD. Give the tags a quick once-over, to make sure they’re correct.

Click Action > Test & Copy Selected Tracks > Compressed to kick off the burning process. From here on out, it’s hands-off—just give EAC time to do its thing. It will take considerably longer to rip the MP3s with EAC than it would with iTunes, but the MP3s created will be as close to error-free as you can get.

Drop in Twitter Users Statistically Significant

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:13:14 -0600

Maybe Miley Cyrus was on to something, or perhaps she started a trend. But whatever the reason, Twitter's rapid rise appears to have to turned into a downward tumble, according to data provided to eMarketer by Nielsen.

We're not talking about just a few Twitter users leaving the service. According to Nielsen, traffic to Twitter slid 27.8 percent between September and October, dropping from 26.2 million unique visitors to 18.9 million. Nielsen's numbers were perhaps the most dramatic, but other research firms also noted a decline. According to comScore, unique visitors were down 8.1 percent in October, while Compete noted a more modest 2.1 percent drop.

No matter whose numbers you trust, the drop in traffic is concerning for one of the hottest services on the web. But are they telling the whole story?

"While it's valuable to look at Twitter's web traffic, the true picture won't emerge until all the third-party traffic from mobile phones and API clients is accounted for," wrote senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson on the eMarketer blog.

Edit: Nothing new here. These Twitter traffic numbers were released two weeks ago, as we reported here.

Mozilla Admits that Firefox has CPU Usage Problems

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:30:52 -0600

Is your ultraportable overheating while surfing the web? As odd as it sounds, the culprit could be Firefox rather than a hardware issue. No, really, check out what one of Mozilla's support pages has to say on the matter.

"At times, Firefox may require significant CPU resources in order to download, process, and display web content," Mozilla states in a document titled "Firefox consumes a lot of CPU resources."

As CNet notes, this is a real problem that users are reporting, such as this Dell Mini9 owner. So what's the solution? Short of switching to a different browser, Mozilla recommends downloading and installing the latest version of the Flash plugin, which might help with Flash heavy sites like YouTube, and installing Flashblock, which allows end-users to selectively enable and disable Flash content.

Depending on when and where the high CPU usage kicks in, Mozilla also recommends updating the Adobe Reader plugin, configuring Firefox to open PDF documents outside of Firefox, and installing NoScript.

Have you noticed any unusual CPU activitiy or overheating woes while running Firefox? Tell us in the comments section below..

Image Credit: cypherhackz.net

Man Arrested for Failing to Tweet

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:30:18 -0600

We know exactly how popular Twitter has grown, but never did we consider that anyone could be arrested for not using the microblogging service. Apparently that's a real possibility, as teenager singer Justin Bieber and his entourage found out.

Bieber was supposed to appear at the Roosevelt Field mall on Friday, but decided to keep his distance because the crowd was getting a bit too rowdy. When the police showed up, they asked James A. Roppo, a record label exec, to help clear out the crowd by sending a Twitter message, and then arrested him after claiming he didn't cooperate, Newsday reports.

"We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message," said Kevin Smith, Nassau County Police Det. Lt. "By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."

In a radio interview, Bieber said the scene was "so crazy" that he couldn't make his way into the building, adding that the authorities had threatened to put in him handcuffs and haul him off to jail.

Roppo could face charges that include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration, Smith said.

Image Credit: thenextweb.com

ProFORMA Software Scans in 3D with Your Webcam

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:45:02 -0600

Engineering eggheads from the University of Cambridge have developed a system called ProFORMA (Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition), which is capable of turning any standard webcam into a pretty powerful 3D scanning tool. A video demonstration shows how it's done, which you can view here.

What's pretty amazing is that the 3D models are constructed in real-time as end-users slowly rotate objects with their hand in front of the webcam. The engineering team says the system works by "calculating the Delaunay tetrahedralisation of a point cloud obtained from online structure from motion estimation, which is then carved using a recursive and probabilistic algorithm to rapidly obtain the surface mesh."

Put more simply, the system generates and displays partial models of an object on the fly, which then allows the user to plan how to manipulate the object to generate additional views. The finished product is a 3D representation of the object that can then be tracked with rapid movements.

ProFORMA Homepage

First Malicious Worm Hits the iPhone

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:20:07 -0600

It didn't take long for hackers to take advantage of a potentially dangerous exploit affecting jailbroken iPhones. The vulnerability first gained notoriety earlier this month when a hacker from the Netherlands took control of modified iPhones and sent the owners an SMS requesting a fee for instructions on how to protect thier device. He later backed down and posted the fix for free, but by then, the cat was out of the bag.

Fast forward a few weeks and we now have the first malicious worm making the rounds on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touch devices. According to reports, the worm uses command--and-control like a traditional PC botnet. it configures two startup scripts, one of which is used to execute the malicious worm during boot, and the other to make a connection to a Lithuanian server in order to upload stolen data and hand over control to the bot master.

The worm works by changing the root password from the default of "alpnie" that Apple put in place in the factory firmware. It attacks IP ranges from a wider range of ISPs, including UPC, Optus, and T-Mobile.

The recommended fix is to restore jailbroken iPhones to the current Apple-supplied firmware.