News

Remember when we said that Microsoft was trying to make up for recent mistakes on company direction? Well we have another example of that. Originally Microsoft had made statements to the effect that they would not be releasing new versions of older Xbox games and that there would be no compatibility with the next generation console. Part of this was simply due to the fact that the Xbox One was moving to x86 hardware and the costs (in terms of performance) to create an emulation layer for older games was not worth the effort.

Hey, remember the game Mirror’s Edge? Well if you do not it was about a young woman who works as a runner. Runners are hired by underground groups that want to communicate without the use of heavily monitored phone or network systems (sound familiar?). The get around the city runners use a variety of techniques including leaping from rooftop to rooftop. This means there are plenty of combination moves to ensure that you maintain momentum and can make that next jump. Mirror’s Edge was also noteworthy for its open environment and different first person viewpoint (it was much closer to a real first person view).

The “debate” over net neutrality has gotten a little heated between two players in the struggle. These two players are Netflix and Verizon and has reached the lawsuit threatening stage. The story goes like this: Netflix decided to change the message they present to customers when there movie streaming needs to adjust. Instead of the usual “we are adjusting the quality” message that was previously used the video streaming company decided to drop in messages that specifically call out the ISPs that they are running over. In the case of Verizon the message stated “The Verizon Network is crowded right now”.

After taking a pretty big hit from the HeartBleed bug OpenSSL I back in the new for an additional six bugs that put user data at risk. Security researchers have discovered a number of additional bugs in OpenSSl that can be used to allow malicious persons to spy on communication. Fortunately for the masses (about two thirds of internet sites use OpenSSL) these new bugs are not as easy to exploit as Heartbleed was.