MPGH News (6/21/13)

**[MPGH]Psychotic** · 06-22-2013

34th Edition
6/21/13

Sorry, come back next week! Nothing "headline" worthy has happened this week.

Postbans

Congratulations to @AtlantaFalcons on 2,000 posts!
Congratulations to @Julma Henri on 3,000 posts!
Congratulations to @R3HAB`on 6,000 posts!
Congratulations to @-Lame on 5,000 posts!
Congratulations to @Approved. on 7,000 posts!
Congratulations to @Music. on 3,000 posts!
Congratulations to @Joshcarr2006 on 10,000 posts!
Congratulations to @Clastic on 1,337!

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to @Mike Shinoda!

Promotions/Special

@x.navi.x is no longer a cocksucker.
@Jorndel is no longer a cocksucker.

Interview - [MPGH]Splinterrr

No 2nd interview this week, but next week I will be interviewing MPGH's one and only... [MPGH]KING!
**I was payed to put this. KING likes good entrances.

Brazilian Protests Yet Again
On Thursday, many gathered around a iconic church shouting "down with corruption" and "I can live without the World Cup". The massive crowd was said to grow to about 300,000 people in the streets of Rio De Janiero. Police used violent force against the people including tear gas. This isn't the first protest - protests have been going on for weeks and weeks of 10,000 Brazilians going throughout the streets night after night protesting to the government.

Heavy Weaponry In the Wrong Hands
Syrian rebels have received heavy weapons - including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles - from "brotherly nations that support the Syrian revolution," a rebel spokesman said Friday.
Free Syrian Army political and media coordinator Louay Almokdad told CNN during a phone call from Istanbul that Free Syrian Army leaders believe the weapons "will be a turning point" in the war against government forces "and will definitely change the rules of the war on the ground."

Rust

When Garry Newman pops up, right away you think of Garry's Mod. Not this time. His newest survival game, Rust, looks like a mixture between Autismcraft and GayZ. Still in the early stages of its development I think it's fair to say that we shouldn't judge it just yet.
[img]https://files.gamebanan*****m/bitpit/jx4sehp.jpg[/img]
[img]https://files.gamebanan*****m/bitpit/uxtbkz4.jpg[/img]
Although, you can judge it yourself now by trying it out for free here. To sign up for the open alpha, when prompt for a pass/code, just input random numbers until you are able to click to the next page.
EDIT: @Antipathy broke it and now the random # thing doesn't work anymore. Thanks m8.

Battlefield 4 Features

Battlefield 4 is already looking pretty damn good from what has been seen from trailers and gameplay from E3, such as the collapsing skyscraper. However, there's a lot that wasn't shown that may be of interest to both casual gamers and die hard fans of the franchise.
Here are some features that you may not have known about:

Zeroing

I'm not sure if all of the sniper rifles/scopes will have this feature, but there is a zeroing ability. If you don't know what this means, it's an adjustment to the scope that means you don't have to aim far above enemies' heads to hit them from long distances. To cycle between the ranges, the default key is 'V'. From what has been seen, this can only go up to 1000m on the 10x scope, which means that there's a possibility that the 20x scope will have further zeroing. However, zeroing has been confirmed. This should allow for a more accurate sniper mechanic.

Counter-Knifing

This feature is definitely in the game and has caused some controversy. When you getting knifed, from the front, there is a 1 second window in which you may counter knife. Some people have said that 1 second is too much and others suggest that different times should be applied depending on the direction of attack, with knifing from behind only allowing 0.25 seconds to react. It is not possible to counter a counter-knife.
Despite gameplay that has been seen from E3, Demize, the core gameplay designer at DICE has stated that:

You cannot counter knife attacks: From the side, behind or if you are prone. You can ONLY counter Front Attacks when you are Crouched or Standing.

This means that any counter-knifing seen from behind, the sides or whilst proning is a bug.

Underwater Combat

Whilst swimming, players can now use a pistol, though aiming down sights isn't possible. There is the ability to knife whilst in water currently in the pre-alpha, though there is no confirmation that this will stay in the game due to bugs.

C4 and Flashbangs

A huge problem in Battlefield 3 (for me, at least) was that C4 had to be places, rather than thrown. This meant that to place C4 on a tank, you had to pretty much touch it, which isn't the best idea ever. For people who were equally as frustrated, the C4 is now throw-able and it slides! This seems to (so far) look rather unrealistic, but creates an interesting gameplay element - drivers will have to be much more aware now. C4 has also been moved to Recon to better balance the classes.
In addition to the C4, flashbangs have been introduced. These are pretty basic, with the same mechanic of any other game - you are blinded and deafened unless you turn away. Also, it is worth noting that suppression has been seen less, with sniper rifles and light machine guns providing the most.

Steam Game Sharing Coming Soon?

As many of you probably opt into every Steam beta that comes out I bet that most of you don't take a look at what's changed on the back-end.
A user of NeoGAF.com discovered that in a file of the new beta there are references that Steam is working on allowing users to create a shared game library, once someone is playing your game and you want to play the player will get a message telling them to quit the game.

Code:

"SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicense_Title" "Shared game library"

"SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerText" "Just so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that it’s time to quit."

"SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_BorrowerText" "This shared game is currently unavailable. Please try again later or buy this game for your own library."

If you want to take a look at the code yourself you have to first go to the Steam settings and opt into the beta, once you did that you have to head to your Steam folder and go to "Public" then open the file named "steamui_english.txt". (Line 215, or do a ctrl+f)

Rumor: Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3 in development?

question that has been asked over and over again - "Will we see Half-Life 3?". Many people gave up asking for it, it looks like we never going to see a red crowbar ever again. Don't give up your hopes just yet!
[img]https://files.gamebanan*****m/bitpit/valvetime-rumor.jpg[/img]
Some folks at ValveTime received some screenshots that have been taken from Valve's internal project-tracking software Jira. On there we can see a list of games including the email addresses of 42 employees that are on the project "Half-Life 3", but also for "Left 4 Dead 3" and others.
Note that the source of these screenshots are anonymous and cannot be verified. Also these projects could be canceled, Jira is just a catalog with everything where Valve is or was working on.
They also saw several Source 2 groups, we already know Valve is working on that new engine but the amount of groups suggests that the engine is very deep into development.
ValveTime keeps updating their post and made a list of 791 "projects" that were found in this database.
More information about this rumor can be found at ValveTime.

Microsoft does a 180

Microsoft has done the unthinkable and completely re envisioned their plans for the Xbox One.
Don Mattrick, the president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business has announced that Microsoft basically "had enough" of the criticism surrounding their new console and that Microsoft would scrap the requirement that the internet had to be always on to play games on the Xbox One as well as lifting the restriction on used games.
Technically Microsoft have done a 180, changing most people's opinions about the Xbox One and revoking some of their original plans for the console which included cloud based game sharing and 'family packages' as the loss of DRM now means that Microsoft is forced to stick with disc based technology due to the fact that it would be incredibly easy for people to copy and share games if they were installed to the hard drive or downloaded from the cloud without DRM.
This new direction that Microsoft is taking now means that an internet connection will not be required to play Xbox One offline games - The only time the Xbox will be required to connect to the internet is during first system set-up. After that you are allowed to play any disc based game without ever having to connect to the internet again. "Trade in, lend, resell, gift and rent disc based games just like you do today - There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does on the Xbox 360" were the words of Don Mattrick.
Personally i think this as all a huge media set up by Microsoft, for a minute i want you to reflect back on all the bad press they got when they announced DRM and all those restrictions - some times bad press is good press and Microsoft has attracted worldwide attention with all that bad press. Now they are revoking what they previously said and are acting totally different to the heartless people they were trying to be - in turn getting double the amount of press. All the people that knew about the restrictions will soon find out that they have been lifted, realize the Xbox One isn't terrible anymore and then probably go out and pre order it - Brilliant move if it was all calculated!
All of those in favor of changing the Xbox One's name to Xbox 180... Say I.

However at least one Microsoft employee (or someone posing as a Microsoft employee) is not to impressed with the company's complete turn on the Xbox One.
In an anonymous pastebin post yesterday, a self-dubbed "Heartbroken Microsoft employee" vented about Microsoft's decision to remove the controversial features of the Xbox One - given the time and effort put into developing the new features of the Xbox One, this so called 'employee' is disappointed that Microsoft didn't try to 'create the future' with cloud based gaming and as a DRM. The poster pointed to Family Sharing as one feature that could have had a lot of promise. Family Sharing would have allowed an Xbox One user to share their online Xbox One titles with another person anywhere in the world - although instead of the full game the shared version would be a demo of the full game designed to expire after a certain amount of play time. The poster stated that this allowed the person to play the game and get familiar to it and then make a purchase if they liked it. "When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the marketplace so they could order the game"
The anonymous poster also criticized Microsoft's move to cancel restrictions on used game sales, which the person said will deeply hurt the video game industry.
"Video game development is a loss leader by definition and unlike other forms of media video games only have one revenue stream and that is selling to you the gamer, so when you buy a game used you're hurting developers much more than say a movie studio. Many gamers fail to realize this when they purchase these preowned games."

There will be no shortage of Microsoft employees disappointed that their hard work and time into developing some features of the Xbox One will go to waste, but this is what the majority of consumers wanted all along and will ultimately make this console war interesting again.

China builds the world's fastest supercomputer

China has built the world's fastest supercomputer, dubbed the Tianhe-2.
It is said to be almost twice as fast as the previous US record holder and underlines the country's rise as a technology powerhouse.
The Tianhe-2 is capable of a sustained computing output of 33.86 petaflops per second - the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second!
It knocks the US Department of Energy's 'Milky Way 2" off the number one spot - that machine was only capable of 17.59 petaflops per second.
It will be used for complex work such as modelling weather systems, simulating nuclear explosions (damn China) as as well as designing jet planes.

New iPhone 5s photos 'leaked'

Claims coming in from Macrumors shows alleged photos of the new iPhone 5s displaying a tweaked rear shell and the phone's internals.
The only noteworthy change from the iPhone 5's design is a larger LED flash - note that these images are alleged and may have appeared as far back as December 2012.
It's not known weather Apple will release an iPhone 5s this year or instead release an iPhone 6 as Apple's stock has plunged due to poor sales compared with other years.
The new iPhone this year is expected to have a higher resolution camera, LED flash, a larger battery and more powerful quad core processor.

New technology is able to show a beating heart

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can now accurately measure how fast someone's heart is beating.
Ever notice that your head is slightly rocking when you are sitting still? That's the effect of blood rushing to your brain.
The scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory can measure this phenomenon on video and use it to detect cardiac disease. The scientists also say that this new technology could be used for video monitoring of patients with sensitive skin such as newborn babies or elderly people - it even works when wearing a mask or if the video feed is blurred!
According to the study by Guha Balakrishnan and his collaborators the video heart rate method was evaluated by a group of 18 men and women with different skin tones and the results were "nearly identical" to a electrocardiogram (that machine with pads that you put on your heart to detect irregularities and heart rate)
If the small motions on someone's head are exaggerated then he or she will start looking like a wobbling bobblehead, however that motion is extremely hard to see with the naked eye. It's caused by blood flowing from the heart to the arteries that supply oxygenated blood to the head and neck.
Using common face recognition and computer vision technologies the method involves looking at a collection of 500 to 1,000 moving points on a subject's face and selecting a signal with the clearest dominant frequency. The results provided not only accurate information about the subject's heart but also the time intervals between heart beats which could be used to detect a risk of cardiac events.

If you're interested in the study you can check this video out:

Scientists create supersized insects

If you thought everything in Australia could kill you already then you are probably right, from crocodiles to spiders, to poisonous frogs and koala bears. Yeah, every animal or insect in Australia is pretty dangerous.
But the scientists in Australia surely do not care! Melbourne scientists are using state-of-the-art technology to create super sized insects.
This is not for some world domination experiment, and it's not going to have anything to do with the villain in the next superhero movie. It is in fact world leading CSIRO research that will enable the world's best scientists to handle and examine bugs that can be barely seen with the naked eye in large scale detail for the very first time.

Scientists believe that this new technology will soon enable them to determine characteristics, such as gender as well as examine surface characteristics which are extremely difficult to normally do due to the minute size of an insect.
However the scientists have not made the insects themselves big (for fear of self awareness and a hostile takeover) - Instead they have achieved this by taking bugs and using 3D technology to create a computer-aided design file of their exact dimensions and the scientists from CSIRO hope to replicate the creatures' anatomy down to the most minute feature.

MPGH News Team