Sony reveals PlayStation 4, fires first shot in the next console war

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Winda Benedetti , NBC News ? ? ? 8 hrs.

After months of rumor and speculation, Sony has revealed its new game machine ? the PlayStation 4 ? as well as a new controller with a touchpad, a "share" button and light bar.

"Today marks a moment of truth and a bold step forward for PlayStation as a company," said Andrew House, president and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, as he took the stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on Wednesday. "Today we will give you a glimpse into the future of play."

House told a room packed full of journalists that the new machine ? the successor to the PlayStation 3 ? would take the moniker PlayStation 4. Sony then revealed the new touch-sensing DualShock controller as well as a new "stereo camera" that works in conjunction with the controller (see video below.)

Sony said the PlayStation 4 will launch "holiday 2013" but did not reveal a specific date or a price. Sony also did not show off what its new gaming hardware will look like, revealing only the controller and pictures of the new camera.

Mark Cerny, the PS4's lead system architect, did outline some of the innards that will be powering the machine explaining, ?The architecture we chose is like a PC in many ways.?

The PlayStation 4 will feature an X86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU with 8 cores, an AMD Radeon GPU and a whopping 8 gigabytes of unified system memory. Like the PS3, it will also feature a Blu-ray drive. (For more on the specs, check out our story here.) .

David Perry ? CEO and founder of Gaikai ? also took the stage Wednesday. Sony bought his game streaming company last year. He explained that integration of the streaming service with the PlayStation Store will allow gamers to instantly try games before they buy them.

Meanwhile, Perry said that with the "share" button on the new PS4 controller players will be able to live broadcast their gameplay to their PlayStation Network friends.

He said friends will not only be able to watch your game in action, but can post comments to your screen as you play (if you let them). You'll also be able to allow friends to take over your game so they can, say, assist you in a difficult area or interact with your game in other helpful ways.

"What we?re creating is the fastest, most powerful network for gaming in the world," Perry said. "Our vision is to create the first social gaming network with meaning."

Perry also revealed Remote Play ? a feature that will allow gamers to take their PS4 action to Sony's smaller game screen. That is, if you're in the middle of playing a game on your PS4, you can use Remote Play to instantly transfer your game to Sony's handheld PS Vita.

Perry said the ultimate goal is to make it so all PS4 games will be playable on the Vita.

So what games will be coming to the PlayStation 4? Bungie ? the creator of the Xbox-exclusive Halo game franchise ? revealed it will be bringing its newly revealed project "Destiny" to the PlayStation 4 (with an edition also for the PlayStation 3).

Hermen Hulst, co-founder of Guerrilla Games, introduced "Killzone: Shadowfall" a stunning looking futuristic shooter. And Matt Southern from Evolution Studios showed off the ultra-realistic "Drive Club" racing game.

"We?ve gone borderline insane with the real-world details," Southern said, pointing out the ultra-fine detail that can be seen on the cars in the game.

Meanwhile, Sucker Punch's Nate Fox revealed the new game from the studio that brought us the "InFamous" series. He said "InFamous: Second Son" ? a game about what happens when super powers and the power of surveillance collide ? will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

Respected indie developer Jonathan Blow ? the creator of the critically acclaimed game "Braid" ? showed off his next game "The Witness." He said the puzzle-filled title will be a PlayStation 4 "launch window" game.

Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot revealed what everyone expected ? that the developer's highly anticipated game of surveillance and hacking called "Watch Dogs" is planned for the next-gen PlayStation 4.

In something of a surprise, PC gaming stalwart Blizzard revealed that it'll be bringing "Diablo 3" to both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 3.

And it appears that Sony won?t be saying goodbye to its oft-ignored PlayStation Move motion controller. Media Molecule ? the developers behind the ?LittleBigPlanet? games ? showed off a tool that enables players to use the Move controller and the PS4 to craft digital sculptures and bring them to life.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been duking it out for years, vying to be the prime purveyor of home video games and, in recent years, other home entertainment as well. But Sony's news today is the opening shot in an all new console war.

It's been six years since Sony launched the PlayStation 3 and seven years since Microsoft launched its competing Xbox 360. Late last year, Nintendo revealed the Wii U ? its new home game machine and the successor to the Wii. But so far, the Wii U's lackluster sales and technical specs that make it seem more on par with the current generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, suggest this machine is more of an interim step in the three-way gaming battle.

With Microsoft rumored to be working on its own new home game console (which it will reportedly unveil in the coming weeks), it is Sony and Microsoft that are widely expected to go head-to-head in the coming years, vying for the same demographic and to become the all-important entertainment hub in your household.

For a further look at Sony's event Wednesday, check out the videos belowand InGame editor Todd Kenreck's first lookat the PlayStation 4:

Winda Benedetti writes about video games for NBC News. You can follow her tweets about games and other things on Twitter here @WindaBenedetti and you can follow her on Google+. Meanwhile, be sure to check out the IN-GAME FACEBOOK PAGE to discuss the day's gaming news and reviews.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/sony-reveals-playstation-4-fires-first-shot-next-console-war-1C8452386

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VW Golf plug-in hybrid launched

This is the Volkswagen Golf Mk7?plug-in hybrid, which will go on sale in 2014. It uses the same drivetrain as the Audi A3 e-tron, also announced today.

This means a combination of a 148bhp 1.4-litre TFSI petrol engine and a 100bhp electric motor for a combined 256lb ft of torque, a 138mph top speed and a 0-62mph sprint time of 7.6sec. According to the official EU test cycle, the Golf achieves 188mpg or a CO2 rating of just 35g/km.

The MQB platform has been engineered to have a modular rear structure into which a number of different drive systems can be fitted into the same space, including all-wheel drive, natural gas tanks and the battery packs for the hybrid version.

The hybrid transmission combines a petrol engine and electric motor with a six-speed e-S Tronic transmission. This Golf will run on petrol only, electric only and with the two motors combined.

The latter mode is called ?boosting? , while the drivetrain can also go into fuel-saving ?coasting? mode when both motors shut down. In pure electric mode, the Golf can travel up to 31 miles and has a maximum speed of 81mph.

Source: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/geneva-motor-show-2013/vw-golf-plug-hybrid-launched

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NASA Loses Contact With Space Station Over Software Update

I spent over 20 years of my career (now retired) working for a company that did independent verification and validation (IV&V) of software used by the military to operate its unmanned space satellites. Not once was a satellite lost from an error in the software if we were involved.

There were some 10 or more other, unrelated companies developing software for various space satellites. We did more than merely test the resulting products. We started by reviewing the developers' design documents; our reviews required responses or revisions before any coding could occur. Next we reviewed the developers' programming documents; our reviews required responses or revisions before programming could be completed. Then we reviewed the developers' test documents; our reviews required responses or revisions before the developers could conduct their own internal unit tests. We attended the conduct of those internal tests and audited the results to ensure that the purposes and criteria of the tests were satisfied.

Finally, the developers would deliver their software to us. We would test the products at the package and system level. We looked at how products from different developers interfaced with each other, whether human interfaces were reasonable, and whether the government's requirements had been met. Our test documents were reviewed by the military organizations that would be using the software, and we did not start testing until we responded or revised our test documents.

This IV&V process approximately doubled the cost of providing software. However, no such software caused a satellite to land on the White House or (worse) on the Kremlin. In the early 1990s, the Pentagon decided to save money by eliminating IV&V. I continued testing software for military satellites, but then it was within the companies that developed the software. When schedules or costs were at risk, testing was cut short.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/4xz7-v8H8Go/story01.htm

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New study on Hepatitis C drug treatment in vivo and in vitro

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects about 4 million in the United States and is the primary cause of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Current therapy against HCV is suboptimal. Daclatasvir, a direct acting antiviral (DAA) agent in development for the treatment of HCV, targets one of the HCV proteins (i.e., NS5A) and causes the fastest viral decline (within 12 hours of treatment) ever seen with anti-HCV drugs. An interdisciplinary effort by mathematical modelers, clinicians and molecular virologists has revealed that daclatasvir has two main modes of action against HCV and also yields a new, more accurate estimate of the HCV half-life.

Results of the NS5A study are published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)on February 18th, 2013.

?Ultimately, our study will help design better DAA drug cocktails to treat HCV,? said Loyola University Health System (LUHS) and Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM) mathematical modeler Harel Dahari, Ph.D, who co-led the study. Dahari is one of five members of the Division of Hepatology at Loyola headed by Scott Cotler, MD who authored the study along with Thomas Layden, MD, HCV virologist Susan L. Uprichard, Ph.D and Dr. Uprichard?s Ph.D graduate student Natasha Sansone. The study was co-led with Jeremie Guedj (Institut National de la Sant? et de la Recherche M?dicale) and conducted with Drs. Alan Perelson (Senior Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory), Libin Rong (Oakland University) and Richard Nettles (Bristol-Myers Squibb).

The new study documents HCV kinetic modeling during treatment both in patients and in cell culture that provides insight into the modes of action of daclatasvir. In addition, the study suggests a more accurate estimate of HCV clearance from circulation previously estimated in 1998 by Drs. Dahari, Layden, Perelson and colleagues in Science.

?Our modeling of viral kinetics in treated patients predicts that daclatasvir not only blocks the synthesis of the viral RNA within infected cells but also blocks the secretion of infectious virus from the cells,? explained Dahari. This prediction was confirmed in Dr. Uprichard?s laboratory using cultured liver cells that support the entire life cycle of HCV infection. Drs. Dahari and Uprichard are directors of a new program for experimental and translational modeling recently established at Loyola to promote the type of interdisciplinary research exemplified in this publication.

Additional 2013 Dahari Research Papers

Additional research conducted by Dahari and colleagues related to the new Loyola program for experimental and translational modeling in other professional journals includes:

• A study on the effect of ribavirin on HCV kinetics and liver gene expression, led by researchers from the National Institute of Health and published in Gut.

• A letter on understanding triphasic HCV decline during treatment in the era of IL28B polymorphisms and direct acting antiviral agents via mathematical modeling, published in the Journal of Hepatology.

• A study showcasing a mathematical model of the acute and chronic phases of Theiler murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) infection - a highly relevant experimental animal model for multiple sclerosis - that can serve as an important tool in understanding TMEV infectious mechanisms and may prove useful in evaluating antivirals and/or therapeutic modalities to prevent or inhibit demyelination published in the Journal of Virology.

Dr Dahari is a recognized international leader in the field of viral kinetics. ?Loyola is honored to have Dr. Dahari as a member of the Hepatology faculty; his ground-breaking research will help reinforce Loyola?s leadership in the treatment of hepatitis C,? said David W. Hecht, MD, MS, MBA, chair, internal medicine in the SSOM and interim senior vice president, Clinical Affairs at LUHS.

###

Loyola University Health System: http://www.luhs.org

Thanks to Loyola University Health System for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126871/New_study_on_Hepatitis_C_drug_treatment_in_vivo_and_in_vitro

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Cyberattacks traced to Chinese military - report

A soldier in the People's Liberation Army stands watch.

HONG KONG (CNNMoney)

The security firm, Mandiant, detailed the allegations in a 60-page report published Tuesday that describes the group's tactics over a six-year period.

The Virginia-based Mandiant, which helps companies detect and respond to cyber threats, said it has observed the group of hackers -- called the "comment crew" -- systematically steal hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across 20 industries worldwide since 2006.

Mandiant claims the activity can be traced to four networks near Shanghai -- with some operations taking place in a location that is also the headquarters of Unit 61398, a secret division of China's military.

"The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind [the group]," Mandiant said. "We believe the totality of the evidence we provide in this document bolsters the claim that [the group] is Unit 61398."

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed the hacking charges on Tuesday, insisting that China is the victim of many cyberattacks -- most originating in the United States.

"Making baseless accusations based on premature analysis is irresponsible and unprofessional," he said. "China resolutely oppose any form of hacking activities."

Last month, the Chinese defense ministry said the country's military "has never supported any hacker activities."

The latest accusation against Beijing comes amid concerns about the breadth and depth of cyberattacks originating in China. Recently, several leading U.S. news organizations reported their computer systems had been attacked by China-based hackers.

Mandiant estimates that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people work within Unit 61398, which is housed in a 12-story, 130,663 square-foot facility.

Organizations in English-speaking countries are the primary victims of the comment crew -- making up 87% of the 141 attacks observed by Mandiant. One hundred and fifteen attacks targeted organizations in the United States.

The hackers have a "well-defined attack methodology," and Mandiant said the group has stolen large volumes of intellectual property, including technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes and business plans.

Related: Burger King Twitter gets McHacked

The report did not list companies or agencies that have been attacked.

Mandiant was able to pinpoint the identities of three individuals working with the group. The report identifies the hackers ?who use the monikers "Ugly Gorilla," "dota" and "SuperHard." It tracks their activities in an unusually detailed manner, including information on their e-mail accounts, cell phones and hacking techniques.

Related: Watching porn is bad for your smartphone

Government and intelligence officials in the United States are increasingly concerned about the threats posed by cybercrime, especially from government actors.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last year that a cyberattack could be crippling, citing risks to the power grid, Wall Street and the financial system.

"We are literally getting hundreds of thousands of attacks everyday that try to exploit information in various agencies and departments and frankly throughout this country," Panetta said.

Earlier this month, President Obama signed an executive order designed to address the country's most basic cybersecurity needs -- and highlighted the effort in his State of the Union address.

The order will make it easier for private companies in control of the nation's critical infrastructure to share information about cyberattacks with the government. The order also directs the government to work with the private sector on standards that will help protect companies from cybercrime.

Related: Your antivirus software probably won't prevent a cyberattack

In recent weeks, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have disclosed that their computer networks had been targeted by hackers in China.

The New York Times, which hired Mandiant to help mitigate the threat, reported Tuesday that the comment crew was not the source of the attack on its network.

Of course, China is not the only country thought to be involved in cyberattacks. The existence of several other state-sponsored cyberweapons have been reported in recent years, with names like Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame. The U.S. government is widely believed to have played a role in developing some of those viruses, with an eye toward containing Iran.

First Published: February 19, 2013: 1:16 AM ET

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_news_international/~3/_wJUZb4_ASA/index.html

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Five workers shot at Amplats mine in South Africa: TV

Five workers shot at Amplats mine in South Africa: TV
US-SAFRICA-MINE:Five workers shot at Amplats mine in South Africa: TV

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - At least five workers were shot on Monday after security guards at an Anglo American Platinum mine in South Africa opened fire following clashes between rival union factions, ENCA television said.

The station said it believed one worker at the Siphumelele shaft had been killed.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by David Dolan)

Page: 1

Source:Reuters. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digitalmediaonlineinc/tPHj/~3/eveW3DNbs0o/viewarticle.jsp

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Engineering control theory helps create dynamic brain models

Feb. 19, 2013 ? Models of the human brain, patterned on engineering control theory, may some day help researchers control such neurological diseases as epilepsy, Parkinson's and migraines, according to a Penn State researcher who is using mathematical models of neuron networks from which more complex brain models emerge.

"The dual concepts of observability and controlability have been considered one of the most important developments in mathematics of the 20th century," said Steven J. Schiff, the Brush Chair Professor of Engineering and director of the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering. "Observability and controlability theorems essentially state that if you can observe and reconstruct a system's variables, you may be able to optimally control it. Incredibly, these theoretical concepts have been largely absent in the observation and control of complex biological systems."

Those engineering concepts were originally designed for simple linear phenomena, but were later revised to apply to non-linear systems. Such things as robotic navigation, automated aircraft landings, climate models and the human brain all require non-linear models and methods.

"If you want to observe anything that is at all complicated -- having more than one part -- in nature, you typically only observe one of the parts or a small subset of the many parts," said Schiff, who is also professor of neurosurgery, engineering science and mechanics, and physics, and a faculty member of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. "The best way of doing that is make a model. Not a replica, but a mathematical representation that uses strategies to reconstruct from measurements of one part to the many that we cannot observe."

This type of model-based observability makes it possible today to create weather predictions of unprecedented accuracy and to automatically land an airliner without pilot intervention.

"Brains are much harder than the weather," said Schiff. "In comparison, the weather is a breeze."

There are seven equations that govern weather, but the number of equations for the brain is uncountable, according to Schiff. One of the problems with modeling the brain is that neural networks in the brain are not connected from neighbor to neighbor. Too many pathways exist.

"We make and we have been making models of the brain's networks for 60 years," Schiff said at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. "We do that for small pieces of the brain. How retina takes in an image and how the brain decodes that image, or how we generate simple movements are examples of how we try now to embody the equations of motion of those limited pieces. But we never used the control engineer's trick of fusing those models with our measurements from the brain. This is the key -- a good model will synchronize with the system it is coupled to."

Schiff is looking for the models that represent the parts of the brain he is studying. He looks at the model to see if it can simulate what he observed and if he can fuse the model with the real system. He and his colleagues, with support from the National Institutes of Health, are exploring a wide range of control strategies for epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and migraines.

To do this with brain networks, researchers often have to measure from only one or a few nodes of the system and seek to reconstruct the rest.

"We need to simplify, and then ask, how far into that network can we reconstruct?" asks Schiff. "How far can we control?"

Using group theory, Schiff is trying to answer these questions. Group theory tests whether the inputs onto these nodes can be swapped. If a regular swap of the nodes ends up with the same network, then this is a symmetry of the network. Such symmetries underlie powerful ways to simplify models that represent the underlying structure within brain networks. The brain is full of such symmetries as neurons hook themselves up in rings and star patterns.

"But 10 billion neurons produce a number of possible networks that no one wants to think about," said Schiff. "Luckily, in the brain, internet or power grid we can begin to take symmetries into account. We don't need to go and specify all the particulars about how things are connected, but take advantage of the underlying symmetries in those networks and produce representative networks."

In essence, complicated networks can be boiled down to the simpler networks that represent what the complicated ones do. Brain symmetry permits synchrony to arise, and this is critical since synchronies are so important to both the normal and abnormal function of brain networks.

Recording from just one electrode from the brain is very limiting. Researchers and clinicians now use arrays of 100 or more electrodes to study epilepsy, but technology will soon provide the capability of deploying a 1,000 or more electrodes that, when fused with models, will enable us to reconstruct activity more deeply into the nervous system. "The pathologies of epilepsy or Parkinson's disease, we think are very 'simple,' compared with many more complex activities we perform in our brains, " said Schiff. "If they have more synchrony than normal they might produce really good reconstructions when fused with models."

These simplified models are important not just for these specific diseases, but because a fidelity model of the brain, one that models everything in detail, would be impossible to create. In addition, such large-scale models would be very inaccurate if used in such a control-engineering framework. If Parkinson's disease, epilepsy or migraines can be modeled more simply and still be accurate, then other brain pathologies or functions might also be modeled and controlled with simplified models.

The mechanism underneath migraine headaches is a very slow wave that propagates through the brain cortex. Schiff is using these engineering principles to model this wave. He and his colleagues are using these principles to do real time control of this wave phenomenon in brain.

"It is a very exciting time as we see the results of fusing these engineering and mathematical principles with observing and treating the brain," said Schiff who is the author of Neural Control Engineering: The Emerging Intersection between Control Theory and Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2012).

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/qP_8tiNmoZI/130219161257.htm

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