Month: March 2016

(credit: VESA)

Today, most new computers with DisplayPort or USB Type-C connectors support the DisplayPort 1.2 standard, which provides enough bandwidth to drive a 4K display at 60Hz over a single cable. In late 2014, VESA published the DisplayPort 1.3 standard, which increased the available bandwidth enough to drive 60Hz 5K displays or 30Hz 8K displays over a single cable. And today, VESA has finalized and released the DisplayPort 1.4 spec, which can drive 60Hz 8K displays and supports HDR color modes at 5K and 8K.

The physical interface used to carry DisplayPort data—High Bit Rate 3 (HBR3), which provides 8.1Gbps of bandwidth per lane—is still the same as it was in DisplayPort 1.3. The new standard drives higher-resolution displays with better color support using Display Stream Compression (DSC), a "visually lossless" form of compression that VESA says "enables up to [a] 3:1 compression ratio." This data compression, among other things, allows DisplayPort 1.4 to drive 60Hz 8K displays and 120Hz 4K displays with HDR "deep color" over both DisplayPort and USB Type-C cables. USB Type-C cables can provide a USB 3.0 data connection, too.

The standard includes a few other features, most of which are targeted at home theater buffs:

(credit: AT&T)

AT&T said on Tuesday that it plans to make DirecTV available over the Internet in the fourth quarter of this year, saying the new offerings "will not require annual contracts, satellite dishes, or set-top boxes."

The service won't be a full replacement for traditional cable or satellite TV, though, because AT&T has to negotiate new programming contracts for the online-only service. AT&T has "signed some deals" but still has "work to do," a company spokesperson said, according to The Wall Street Journal. The service will work on smartphones, tablets, Internet-connected TVs, "streaming media hardware," and PCs, AT&T said.

AT&T has owned DirecTV since buying the satellite TV company in July.

Marshall Allman appears in the full-motion episodes but not in the actual game.

The idea of requiring an Internet connection for single-player gaming has been controversial for Microsoft in the past. So it's a bit surprising that Microsoft will require players to have a high-speed Internet connection to enjoy the cut scenes in the story-heavy Quantum Break when it launches on Windows 10 next month (the Xbox One version will also be available as a full download ahead of time for those who don't want to stream).

At least there's a technical excuse for the requirement this time beyond some sort of privacy-limiting security check. As narrative designer Greg Louden told Game Informer at a recent event, the variety of branching, live-action "episodes" played after each act of the game are too large to fit on a disc or work as a hard drive download:

We have 40 different variations of the show in total where basically your choices get to make it evolve and change whether it’s from a junction choice or we have these things called "Quantum Ripples" which essentially unlocked sort of deleted scenes from the show. Then combined with that, the show length can change based on your decisions because some episodes are longer as a result and some episodes are shorter. It basically evolves and that’s why we needed to stream it... When we figured out how big the data was, we had to backpedal and think of some good solutions, and this made sense.

While Louden wouldn't go into detail on the exact size of the video files in question, the PC version of the game was shot and will stream in 4K, which can eat up hard drive space incredibly quickly as a download (the Xbox One version will be limited to 1080p video files). Most PC gamers in the West are connected to the Internet 24/7 these days anyway, so this won't be a material issue for most of the game's target audience.

(credit: Facebook)

Facebook's vast data stockpile has caught the eye of competition officials in Germany, who have opened an investigation into claims that the company may have abused its dominant position in the social network market.

On Wednesday, the Bundeskartellamt (literally the "Federal Cartel Office") said that it was mulling whether Facebook had taken advantage of its market power by violating data protection rules. It's unusual for an antitrust watchdog to conduct proceedings that cite concerns about data-hoarding, Germany's cartel office noted. Facebook appears to be an exception, however.

"Dominant companies are subject to special obligations. These include the use of adequate terms of service as far as these are relevant to the market," said the Bundeskartellamt's president, Andreas Mundt. "For advertising-financed Internet services such as Facebook, user data are hugely important. For this reason, it is essential to also examine under the aspect of abuse of market power whether the consumers are sufficiently informed about the type, and extent of data collected."