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Corvus Crow
The Fireraven
Tuesday, 09. March 2010, 21:05
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Monday, 08 March 2010
According to numerous reports from prospective players of the game, Ubisoft's DRM authentification servers have crashed, forcing some players to suffer lengthy login periods when booting up Assassin's Creed 2, and locking some folks out of the game entirely.The representative added "I'll do what I can to get more information on what the issue is here first thing tomorrow and push for a resolution and assurance this won't happen in the future." Let me get this straight: before AC2 was available, Ubisoft hailed the new DRM as the final solution to piracy and assured that the servers are stable. Now not only this Uber-DRM has been cracked within hours after the release, but also on the first weekend the servers went down. To sum up the results: people who legally paid for the game and accepted a draconian DRM were left with a totally useless piece of software while those who grabbed the pirated version had fun playing the game. Talk about destroying your customer base. Also, Ubisoft hasn't told anybody for how many months or years AC2 will be kept alive before being ditched. All this introduces a whole new level of failing.
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Sunday, 07 March 2010
Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. And today we're excited to announce you can browse the full archive right here on PopSci.com.Aside from bringing back memories for longtime readers, as a whole the archive beautifully encapsulates over a century of PopSci's fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. Especially the really old issues will be interesting to read. Nice move.
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Saturday, 06 March 2010
In a continuation of Apple's controversial method of managing its App Store for the iPhone, the company decided to remove a variety of applications designed to find WiFi hotspots the device can connect to.The reports come on the heels of Apple's decision to remove a slew of applications featuring potentially offensive or suggestive adult content. Even more reason to avoid Apple. Products from them are useless as long as they decide what you are allowed to do with it. If I buy a product, I want to use it the way I want to; even as a doorstop. I want to be able to install whatever I want and, yes, perhaps brick it. As soon as I handed over the money, the control of the manufacturer ends. Easy as that. Not that I would buy anything from Apple anyway.
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Friday, 05 March 2010
Their new DRM requires gamers to be online all the time when playing the game. Without an Internet connection the game simply won't work.Silent Hunter 5 was released on Tuesday and just a few hours later a cracked version of the game was published on many file-sharing sites. The end result will be that the pirated version of the game will be more appealing and less restrictive than the actual retail product. Thus, the DRM is encouraging and increasing piracy instead of putting a halt to it. It was so clear from the beginning that this would happen. Ubisoft needs to realize that they not only angered a lot of potential buyers, but also made piracy way more attractive to them.
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Thursday, 04 March 2010
First, there was the Macintosh. Then it was the iPod, the iPhone, and now the iPad. Next up in Apple's arsenal: The lawyers.And even though this particular suit may start with HTC, Apple could end up battling much larger companies Google and Microsoft if it aggressively advances its patent war. Apple has named the patents in question, but it hasn't yet defined how its sees HTC violating these patents. Current patent laws really need to be fixed; I'm pretty sure amongst those in question are patents for something like "touching a touchscreen with two fingers" or "turning a mobile phone upside down".
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Random quote from Lightning Bolt, Magic the Gathering: Those scared of the dark have never seen what the light can do.
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