Xbox 360 to $ 100 may be sold outside the United States

 

"Microsoft says study lead model for other markets.
Game plan is sold with two-year subscription."

The Microsoft study carry the sales model that allows selling Xbox 360 game console for $ 100 through a subscription plan to other markets.
According to Chris Lewis, vice president of business entertainment company in Europe, the sales model, still unique in the United States, can be expanded globally.
"We see [the model] with great interest and decide whether it makes sense to expand sales in the U.S. or even globally," he said in an interview with "VG247". "The goal is to give option of choice for consumers."
The Xbox 360 sold for $ 100 has 4 GB of memory, which can be expanded using USB drives, and motion sensor Kinect. The game is sold with a subscription plan two years of Xbox Live with the user paying $ 15 per month for two years. The apparatus for this price began to be sold in stores in May at Microsoft, Best Buy and GameStop.
In Brazil, the cheapest model of the Xbox 360 without Kinect, is sold for $ 800.

Read More

'League of Legends' Brazilians have server in the U.S. and fans complain

 

"Promise to reduce response time was not met, say gamers.
Company explains that server in the United States is unique to Brazil."

 "League of Legends" is one of the most played games in the news worldwide and, with the official arrival of the title in Brazil - scheduled for August - the action game fans online participating in clashes in north-servers Americans want to bring their accounts to the country, using a server located in our territory.

For them, the promise of the game in Brazil means that the "ping" - response time of the game - would be lower than when played on servers in the United States. The practice, in the opinion of the fans, not quite.
With the test closed "League of Legends" in Brazil, Riot Games, the game company, distributed access keys, allowing players here could participate in battles with the game in Portuguese. But what they really wanted was to play with a "ping" the lowest.
In online gaming, "ping" is the term for network latency - the time it takes for a packet of information to flow to the destination and return, according to columnist G1 digital security, Altieres Rohr. If latency is high, the player has a game that does not respond to commands in real time. For example, in a shooting game, a player who has died can not continue shooting, but high latency can prevent it "knows" who died, because this information is not yet.

Rohr said that this time round the information depends on the location of the two systems and how they are connected to the Internet: dial-up, radio, satellite, ADSL - connection speed has no direct influence on the latency. There is a physical limit on the speed with which information travels in the network cabling and fiber optics and it is added to two other factors: the physical path of the information - the path taken by the cables - and the equipment intermediaries that manage Internet traffic , called routers. The farther a computer is on the other, the tendency is that there are more routers, and each delay a little more "journey" of information.
"[The Riot Games] said that everyone would have 10 ping, but, on average, the ping is high, nearing 130," said the student Ricardo Ribeiro, 22. "At [address] IP, was located where the server, which was not in Brazil and, yes, in Miami, United States."
The analyst Marchisete Ricardo Alves, 21, says he saw an advantage in being able to play "League of Legends" in Brazil would be the reduction of the "ping". "How the test is done on a U.S. server, the ping did not change anything." For him, the difference was only in translation of texts of the game and dubbed the voices of the characters.

In G1, Riot Games claims that there is a server located within the Brazilian territory for "League of Legends." "There is no local server. There is only one server in Miami. This decision was made in order to accomplish tests and disponibilizarmos the game for Brazil as soon as possible" says Felipe Gomes, marketing manager of Riot Games in Brazil. The executive says that the server "is unique to Brazil and players in the country" and that "it just is not located in Brazil just as several other game companies structure their servers."
"It is noteworthy that the choice of Miami was the alternative to having a more agile and better permanent solution, we are working on, and that will ensure the green ping for players in Brazil," he said.
The CEO of Riot Games believes that the first tests indicated "ping green" throughout Brazil with the current solution the company's server, but the result was not expected. "As the end result was not and could not satisfactorily fulfill the promise of providing 'green ping' for all players, we are testing and analyzing the possibilities we have to ensure the green ping for all Brazilians," he says.
While waiting for the game, which is scheduled for official release in August, fans are protests in the forums of the company. A petition ( click here to view ) asks that gamers do not enter the Brazilian server "League of Legends" if the machines are not located in the country and "ping" is higher than 100.
According to the players, there is a possibility, even after the official launch of "League of Legends" in Brazil, the fans continue playing the game or sign up to play on North American servers, since the quality of the connection should be the same .

"We never pronounce on the number of ping," Gomes explained in a statement to G1, by e-mail, late on Friday. "What was stated was the fact that we offer a ping green (which can occur with a ping of up to 130). Our commitment is currently working to offer the player the best experience possible and we are taking all steps to do so" he concluded.
 

 

Read More

Google admits that deleted data is not collected by Street View

The Google said on Friday (27/07) has not fulfilled its promise to erase all personal data that its Street View service cars collected in England and other countries in 2010.

The U.S. company admitted at the time that their vehicles, which photographed the city for the service, had collected accident data wireless networks considered more than 30 countries.

The non-fulfillment of the promise to delete all information has been notified to the regulator of the sector in England (ICO), which states that the fulfillment of the promise breaks the agreement signed by Google in 2010.

"The ICO was clear that this information should never have been collected in the first place, and that if the company does not delete them as promised, is cause for concern," the organization said.

According to the legal counsel of Google's global privacy, Peter Fleischer, the company apologizes for the error. The search giant also said it was in the process of notification to the competent authorities in other countries.

The ICO told Google that should provide the data immediately so they can be subjected to forensic analysis, before the ICO ruling on the need for the course of action.

Read More

Ninth digit in SP: Understand how this change will work

 

From this Sunday (29/07), with mobile devices will have a 11 digit code 9 at the beginning of their numbers. The only mobile phones in the 11 remaining unchanged - with eight digits - are Nextel radio.

As for now, is valid for any link regional, national or international made to the metropolitan area of ​​Sao Paulo, which comprises 64 municipalities. But the idea is that the ninth digit password to operate throughout Brazil.

During the press conference of Anatel, held in Sao Paulo this setxa Monday (27/07), Adeilson Birth, manager of interconnections of the agency, said there is no deadline for the change of numbers in the rest of the country. "It may take several years. We can not say how long it will take to standardization. However, the next areas to receive the ninth digit should be 21 (RJ), 31 (MJ), 51 (RS) and 81 (EP)" he said.

According to Nascimento, the change is justified by the need for greater availability of numbers. Currently, the region with code 11, the operators have requested assignment to 42 million lines. With eight digits, the maximum combination of different numbers is 44 million. Already with nine digits, the maximum combination of lines shall be 90 million different numbers.

Adaptation

The change is not abrupt. The FCC and the telephone operators in Brazil drew up a plan of gradual adaptation. In the first ten days after the start of installation, whether to add the digit 9 in the calls, the calls will be completed automatically. But, you may receive warning alerts the operator to change. The switching time of reporting the change is not charged to the user.

After this period of ten days, the calls made without dialing the new number will be intercepted and the user is informed of the need to update your schedule. After day 23 January 2013, there will be no more warnings of this kind, and if someone calls to area 11, entering only eight numbers will receive the message that number no longer exists.

Instabilities

The manager of the FCC noted that on Sunday there may be some instability in the system, resulting from changes in the structures. "There will be small and should not last more than one or two minutes," he said Nascimento.

The spokesman also reiterated that all operational responsibility of the operators is that, even bore the cost of $ 300 million in upgrading the infrastructure needed to adapt.

Read More

Google tries to finish things off against the project to digitize books

Again, the Google went to court to try to end an action in facing the Authors Guild, the largest organization lobbying on behalf of writers in the United States, which accuses the company has scanned millions of books for your project Google Books without ask permission, nor compensate their authors. The news agency is Reuters .

The Google claims that its project, which hopes to build the largest digital library in the world, represents a 'fair use' ('fair use') works, and therefore should not pay royalties. Since the organization of writers seeks $ 125 million to yield an agreement, which was denied by a federal judge.

The agreement was rejected by Judge Denny Chin, who considered that the approval of the partnership could mean a green light to the monopoly of the Silicon Valley company in the area of ​​digitizing books.

The company claims that more than 20 million scanned books in English and posted excerpts of about 4 million, and it was only possible thanks to an agreement with the country's large public libraries. Many of the books are still protected by copyright but are out of print for many years, so the Google claims that it is fair to scan them at no charge to authors.

In the lawsuit filed in a court in Manhattan, Google said that the provision of works - which can be searched internally - without prejudice to the authors, but helps in the dissemination of books, many of which are completely forgotten by society.

"The Google Books creates enormous and positive transformations and by no means reduces the value of the work of the authors, "the lawsuit says.

And you, what do you think?

Read More

Eduardo Saverin, the eighth richest Singaporeans

Half Brazilian and half the U.S. until the middle of last year, Eduardo Saverin is now a citizen of Singapore and, according to a list released by Forbes magazine , his eighth richest man.

The naturalization occurred largely because of high taxes that the co-creator of Facebook would be required to pay to the United States and was heavily criticized by the press and politicians.

Born in Sao Paulo, Saverin was educated in the United States and there amassed his fortune of $ 2.2 billion, but in May 2011 the entrepreneur decided to give up their citizenship to avoid taxes that would be charged because of the IPO Facebook. The amount would be around U.S. $ 67 million.

Saverin living in Singapore since 2009, which also does business.

Read More

Facebook's market value fell $ 10 billion

 

Investors have reduced the value of Facebook at $ 10 billion on Friday (27/04), leading the newly listed shares to a new low.

According to Reuters , a drop of 17% of the shares led the market capitalization of Facebook for U.S. $ 48 billion, less than half the value of launching the Initial Public Offering (IPO, in English) of U.S. $ 100 billion, in May.

The latest crash cost the chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, about U.S. $ 2.3 billion, based on their participation in the company.

Social networking revenue beat expectations on Thursday (26/07) in the first announcement of quarterly results as a public company, but the company failed to reassure investors about its future prospects.

Investors worried about the social network will make money with mobile advertising expected the company would give a signal that revenue growth was improving. The stock has fallen nearly 40% of market value since its debut on the stock exchange.

They fell to a record low of U.S. $ 22.28 on the morning of Friday, before recovering to U.S. $ 23.03.

At least four brokerages, including Barclays Capital cut its price target for shares of Facebook, although the majority suggested that the company is worth more than the current trading levels.

Read More

Skype denies in talks clips

 

Those responsible for Skype denied on Friday that made ​​changes in the terms of service for voice over IP to allow clips of calls between its users. According to reports published this week, the change would be a requirement for governments of different countries and serve to assist the police in investigations confidential.

The charges arose after the company was bought by the giant Microsoft, which recently filed a patent for the surveillance of conversations in voice over IP programs. In addition, Skype would have secretly changed its terms of use, and migrated to a system supernodos, which would facilitate access to conversations.

However, Skype's chief development officer, Mark Gillett, said the allegations are "false." "The move to the super was not made ​​to facilitate access to communications of our users and not to cooperate with the authorities," said a post on his blog .

According to Gillett, the super help the stability of the Skype network, allowing people to be located on the servers of the tool and a connection with another contact is established.

To better understand the case, read the charges against Skype and Microsoft this week.

Read More