Category: Uncategorised

BRAAAAIIINNNNS! (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Since Amazon launched its free Lumberyard game engine yesterday, the world has been united in a single question: are we legally allowed to use the engine to operate life-saving infrastructure during the zombie apocalypse? After digging through Amazon's updated terms of service for the new engine, we can now confirm that the answer is a definitive "yes."

Don't believe us? Go to the Amazon Web Services TOS and scroll down to rule 57.10. There you'll see the following (emphasis added):

57.10 Acceptable Use; Safety-Critical Systems. Your use of the Lumberyard Materials must comply with the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. The Lumberyard Materials are not intended for use with life-critical or safety-critical systems, such as use in operation of medical equipment, automated transportation systems, autonomous vehicles, aircraft or air traffic control, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft, or military use in connection with live combat. However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

As obvious jokes hidden in legal boilerplate go, Amazon's efforts fall a little short of the Divinity: Original Sin EULA, which gave out rewards to the first 100 people who bothered reading through the boring language. And the humorous clause diverts attention away from other, potentially more worrying clauses therein, like the engine's collection of "information about system and server resources, features used in the integrated development environment, frequency and duration of use, geographic and network locations, and error and information messages."

(credit: Diana/Flickr)

Winter gloom and springtime glee are common seasonal swings. But beyond swaying how you feel, yearly cycles may also shift the way you think, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Comparing the cognitive function of 28 volunteers tested at different points in the year, researchers noted pronounced seasonal patterns in brain region activity. Namely, areas involved in working memory hit peak performance around the autumn equinox, and areas dealing with sustained attention crested around the summer solstice. Though it’s still early in the research to understand the significance of possible annual mental oscillations, the study hints at a previously unappreciated seasonal rhythm of the human brain that could affect learning and behavior.

For the study, researchers led by Pierre Maquet and Gilles Vandewalle at the University of Liège in Belgium recruited 28 healthy volunteers, split evenly by gender and all around 21 years old. To rule out the influence of daily rhythms and environmental factors, the researchers prepared the volunteers for the study by having them stay in the lab for 4.5 days. During this time, participants endured a 42-hour sleep deprivation routine in a dimly lit sound-proof room with no time cues.

Enlarge / Blasting bots in the mines, just like old times. (credit: Revival Productions)

Descent-style "six degrees of freedom" tunnel shooters are undergoing a mini-renaissance. First, some of the Austin-based Star Citizen team jumped ship and started working on Descent: Underground, a multiplayer-focused prequel to the original game using the "Descent" name on license from Interplay. Next, UK indie studio Sigtrap Games announced Sublevel Zero, another Descent-like tunnel shooter—this one with blocky, retro-styled graphics and a focus on single-player.

We’ve played both, but as good as Descent: Underground and Sublevel Zero are shaping up to be, they’re missing something: the original development crew from Parallax Studios that worked on the original Descent and its sequels. We’ve been wondering since last year if Mike Kulas, Matt Toschlog, and the rest of the folks behind Descent were going to throw their virtual hats into the ring—and, as of this morning, they have. They’ve started a new company called Revival Productions LLC and launched a $300,000 crowdfunding campaign for a game called Overload.

Defending materials

The Overload Kickstarter, along with the game’s website, paints a pretty detailed picture of the kind of game Revival is developing. The game is not a sequel or prequel to Descent—Eric Peterson and Descendent Studios have the right to use the Descent name and are doing that with Descent: Underground—but is instead a new game in a new universe (Revival told Ars that its own attempts to license the Descent name from Interplay were unsuccessful). However, Overload will feature gameplay mechanisms that are undeniably Descent-y: zipping through underground mines in a small spacecraft, finding keys, opening secret doors, fragging robots, rescuing hostages, and finally blowing up a reactor and escaping the level before it collapses around your ears.

Inside the main control room at the gravitational wave detector facility in Livingston, Louisiana. (credit: Eric Berger)

On Thursday morning (10:30 EST, 15:30 GMT) scientists will make what they are calling a major gravitational wave announcement.

The scientists are being pretty coy about it, and after a century of looking for gravitational waves, you can understand their caution about not wanting the cat to slip out of the bag.

However, credible rumors have been swirling about the discovery of gravitational waves emanating from a binary black hole, and physicists associated with the National Science Foundation-funded project are expected to discuss this new research during their presentation.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. (credit: CSPAN)

James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, told lawmakers Tuesday that governments across the globe are likely to employ the Internet of Things as a spy tool, which will add to global instability already being caused by infectious disease, hunger, climate change, and artificial intelligence.

Clapper addressed two different committees on Tuesday—the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee—and for the first time suggested that the Internet of Things could be weaponized by governments. He did not name any countries or agencies in regard to the IoT, but a recent Harvard study suggested US authorities could harvest the IoT for spying purposes.

"Smart devices incorporated into the electric grid, vehicles—including autonomous vehicles—and household appliances are improving efficiency, energy conservation, and convenience. However, security industry analysts have demonstrated that many of these new systems can threaten data privacy, data integrity, or continuity of services. In the future, intelligence services might use the loT for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials," Clapper said (PDF), according to his prepared testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.