Earlier today our friends at Crunch Gear ran with a story that, while based on a rumor, has sparked an interesting debate about the future of technology as it pertains to the intensifying crackdowns on hacking, jailbreaking, and the larger underlying issue of piracy. According to the report in question, Sony is said to be actively entertaining plans to introduce a so-called "hack-proof" PS3.

Could it be done? Probably. Will it? No clue. But it certainly would appear that hack-proof technology is poised to become a paramount aim of major mobile and gaming tech firms - like Apple. At a time when Sony is spending good money to bring down the man we know as Geohot through the legal system, it's safe to say that companies mean business - more so now than ever - when it comes to curbing piracy and software hacking/modding.


Quote:
Exactly how Sony would make this new PS3 “hack-proof” is anyone’s guess. The fact is there’s no such thing on this planet as “hack-proof,” but that’s not to say Sony couldn’t implement new security measures that would take a long time to circumvent. Let’s not forget that it took nearly four years for the PS3 to be cracked. At the same time, any new “hack-proof” PS3 would naturally attract plenty of attention, so who knows how long it would remain “hack-proof”?
Between the growing anti-piracy lobby attempting to sway the support of lawmakers around the world, to newer and harder to crack software and corresponding technologies, it's evident that life will not be made easy for hackers in the future, even those who don't engage in rampant piracy. While the extent to which companies may ultimately go this year to curb hacking is anyone's guess, the efforts by Sony - no matter the outcome - are clearly poised to set the stage for much bigger anti-hacking battles down the road.

http://modmyi.com/forums/mac-news/75...cy-debate.html ...

A runaway rumor being taken as reality by some today is that the iPad 2 will sport a carbon fiber body shell instead of an aluminum encasing in an effort by Apple to make the tablet lighter and sleeker. But as John Gruber of Daring Fireball cautions, there is no concrete evidence to chalk this feature up as a given in the same way we can assuredly expect a front-facing camera for FaceTime chats on the 2nd-gen iPad.

John Gruber only mentioned in a footnote - yes, in a footnote - that he is “half-sure” about the iPad 2 getting a carbon fiber shell, a persistent suspicion that has lingered practically since the iPad was released one year ago. The actual blog post that started the carbon fiber discussion wasn't even about the removal of the iPad's aluminum shell. Rather, Gruber was aiming to address Engadget's report about there being no retina display on the iPad 2.

In speaking one set of iPad 2 rumors, it appears that another sprouted new legs. But.

http://modmyi.com/forums/ipad-news/7...confirmed.html ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

D2X-XL is an OpenGL-port of Descent II. Supported platforms are Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.


Quote:
v1.15.133
Fixed: The renderer was extremely slow when rendering transparency on low-end graphics hardware (like Intel IGPs) even when using pureD2 mode or turning off shader usage
Improved: Depth buffer reads will now be profiled and automatically disabled if they take too long
Improved: D2X-XL will fall back to alsa if pulse audio cannot be initialized ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

Free Heroes2 Engine is a free implementation of Heroes of the Might and Magic II engine using SDL.


Quote:
SVN - up to r2268

Feb, 16, 2011

+ Added: game: transcribe scroll option
+ Fixed: game: load old format game
+ Fixed: game: hotseat select players

Feb, 10, 2011

+ Added: game: BattleOnly (experimental)

Jan, 22, 2011

+ Fixed: artifact: crystal ball level
+ Added: game: localized maps support, add iconv support
+ Update: Spell::RandAdventure
+ Fixed: game: update shipmaster cursor, upgrade monster button, dialog thievesguild reset cursor, hidden campaign button
+ Update: world: passable objects ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

D2X-XL is an OpenGL-port of Descent II. Supported platforms are Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.


Quote:
v1.15.132
Fixed: The mission download didn´t work reliably and could even hang
v1.15.131
Fixed: Server address information got mixed up when the program queried several servers from a tracker
Improved: Mission download is now done via TCP which is much more reliable than UDP
v1.15.130
Fixed: The game host was flooding the other players with ping requests while waiting for them to join during level transition
Fixed: In multiplayer games, players often took a long time to connect or to enter the next level during level transition
v1.15.129
Fixed: Mines weren´t lit in nostalgia/pureD2 mode
Fixed: The textured automap was available in pureD2 mode
Fixed: Level songs from mods weren´t played when a global playlist was present
Fixed: No secret level songs from mods were played (these should have the name ´slevel##.ogg´, where ´##´ is a two digit, zero padded level number)
v1.15.128
Fixed: A few menu help messages were off, and others were too long w/o line breaks
Fixed: The HUD equipment icons were miscolored in levels that were using another than the default palette
Fixed: When changing the player profile, you could gain access to all the levels the previous player had reached even if you hadn´t reached them yourself
Fixed: Demo recordings taken in levels containing effect objects were broken (effects will intentionally not be displayed during demo playback though)
Fixed: Directed exits didn´t work in a mission´s last level
Fixed: Players were sent to the next level in the level sequence when dieing after destroying the reactor or last boss regardless of any directed exits in the level
Fixed: When a level couldn´t be entered while trying to enter a multiplayer game, the program could crash
Changed: Moved the mission download controls to the miscellaneous options menu
v1.15.127
Fixed: Due to a typo, the ´-enable_freecam´ switch didn´t work
Fixed: The advanced collision detection didn´t work reliably
Improved: You cannot drive parts of the player ship into objects by rotating it around an axis
v1.15.126
Fixed: Errors in robot info data (submodel joint and angle info) could cause program crashes (e.g. in ´Descent: The Enemy Within´)
v1.14.125
Fixed: The update function used an outdated URL to access and download program updates
Fixed: The built-in multiplayer tracker URL was outdated ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

Commander Genius formally known as CloneKeen Plus is an interpreter for the Commander Keen 1-3 Series for Windows and Linux.
It has been released in a new test version.
Download it here.


Quote:
no changelog/notes ...

News via http://www.aep-emu.de/

AGD Interactive have released a remake of the classic game King´s Quest III. You can download the game for Windows and Mac OS. Unfortunately they have not (yet?) ported the game to Linux.


Quote:
King´s Quest III Redux Released
Following in the tradition of enhanced Sierra remakes, we´re proud to present King´s Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human. The game resumes where our previous remake, King´s Quest II: Romancing the Stones, ended. Featuring beautiful storybook artwork, an enchanting musical score, full voice acting, new scenes, quests, characters, and locations to explore, plus a royal serving of adventure, this is AGD Interactive´s most polished remake ever -- a must play! ...

News via AEP
A new SVN build of the Nintendo GBA and GB/GBC emulator VisualBoyAdvance-M has been released.

Quote:
r946
-
r947
Removes NO_OAL from the project file to restore compiling to its full form. Specifying such an option should be done per user and should not be set by default.
r948
patch from billiard to attempt a fix for the broken DI8 enumeration.
r949
Directinput fixed.
r950
-
r951
-
r952
-
r953
-
r953
and this ends a bunch of updates including msvc10 project files, billiards directinput patches, and changing of the project name to visualboyadvance-m in the project files.
nasm seems to bitch when there are spaces in the folder path, and i haven´t yet worked out how to fix this in nasm.target so if anyone has an idea yeah
thanks for the patchs billiard
r954
-

r955
enable SSE optimisations in VCProj, intrinsics update nasm and revert shuffles changes to gb_apu_state.cpp.
i prefer warnings during compilation rather then a lack of function in the emulator, we can look at correcting the warnings in a less broken manner later.
r956
by popular demand, the layers menu is back.
r957
filters was named wrong for some reason O.o
r958
-
r959
killed off 22 warnings by removing a command line override for zc:forscope.
r960
applied patches by jlaukkanen Import Pro Action Replay Snapshots Compilation error when no_xaudio2 Focus Lost in cheat dialogue MFC
r961
more patches, save type detection now only available when a rom is loaded.
r962
another patch, this time for GSV snapshots.
r963
gdbconnection patch - fixes remote debugging
r964
gdbconnect patch, fixes remote debug
r965
stupid log told me it wasn´t patched but it was
r966
streamlined vcc directories some.
r967
applied gtk_rtc.patch by unmacaque
r968
LZMA2 support for file_extractor by Kode54
r969
r970
linux build fix, pushed to svn.
r971
debian build fix
r972
lets try this one more time
r973
applied kode54´s sdl/gtk joypad patch
r974
missing ; after break on line 263
r975
SVN: Applied proper properties to all files, mainly to get native end of lines.
r976
GTK: Fix the joypad config dialog using 100% CPU
r977
GTK: Convert the remaining parts of the UI from Glade to GtkBuilder. Thanks to Rafał Mużyło for the patch.
r978
GTK: Rename the main GtkBuilder file for consistency
r979
GTK: Change the OpenGL texture size when changing scaler size. Thanks to fernandotcl for the patch.
r980
SDL: Allow vbam to run on systems without an audio device. Thanks to jcranmer for the patch.
r981
GTK: Don´t disable rendering when using the menus. Thanks to fernandotcl for the patch.
r982
GTK: Don´t reset the renderer when entering the display config dialog
r983
CMAKE: Allow building without SFML
r984
CMAKE: Use built in support for ASM compilers. Bump required version to 2.6.0
r985
DEBIAN: Build one package for SDL, and one package for GTK+. Thanks to fernandotcl for the patch.
r986
GTK: Added GBA cheats support. Thanks to unmacaque for the patch.
r987
GTK: Cleanup includes. Don´t instanciate global objects.
r988
GTK: Turned the last menu based settings into a dialog
r989
SVN: Set more properties
r990
GTK: Remove the StringTokenizer class and move the functionality to tools.cpp
r991
GTK: Mark more strings as translatable
r992
FEX: Make fex crap properly convert filenames from 7z archives to utf8 under Linux
r993
GTK: Add support for 7z archives
r994
CMAKE: Clarify CMakeLists.txt a bit
r995
GTK: NLS support WIP
r996
GTK: More NLS WIP
r997
GTK: More NLS WIP
r998
GTK: Cleanup
r999
GTK: Add vba-over.ini support
r1000
GTK: Fix NLS for the directories config dialog
r1001
GTK: Update translations
widgets
:: Homepage ...

News via AEP
byuu has released a new version of his SNES emulator bsnes.

Quote:
bsnes v076 released2011-02-25
Most notable in this release is that sound support has been added to my own Super Game Boy emulation. The GUI toolkit, phoenix, has also received a complete rewrite; with the most visible change there being that windows are now resizable.
Changelog:
* added sound emulation to Game Boy core
* fixed Super Game Boy save state support
* added HexEdit widget to Windows and Qt targets; debugger can now be compiled on all platforms
* entering fullscreen now auto-hides mouse; and mouse capture is toggled otherwise by F12 key
* fullscreen command and geometry caching works much better on GTK+ and Qt targets
* phoenix rewritten from scratch; now supports resizable layout containers
* phoenix/Windows no longer relies on buggy SetParent API to reparent widgets
:: Homepage ...