Entertainment Ghost's Friday News Bits! 28-03-2014

It's Friday! And here are the Friday News Bits of this week!

The Deadly Ebola Virus Outbreaks in Africa

Photo courtesy of: Adrian Pingstone

The deadly Ebola virus has spread out in Guinea, Africa, causing 62 reported deaths.

Bats are believed to be the hosts of this virus, and it has spread out due to eating their meat. World Health Organization has banned the sale and consumption of bats in attempt to prevent the spreading of the Ebola virus. Bats are a local delicacy in the area and have appeared to be "main agents" for the outbreak in the south. From the 62 reported deaths caused by the outbreak, some of the cases have been reported in the neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone as well.

According to the World Health Organization, the virus is spread by close contact and has no known cure or vaccine. It kills between 25% and 90% of the victims, which depends on the strain of the virus. The symptoms of infection include internal and external bleeding, diarrhoea and vomiting.

The charity organization has set-up two quarantine sites in the southern Guinea to try to contain the outbreak. Health authorities are receiving help from the World Health Organization(WHO) and messages are being broadcast on the national television to help the people.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Launch The WebScaleSQL

The engineering teams at Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter are working together and have launched the WebScaleSQL. WebScaleSQL has been described as "a collaboration among engineers from several companies that face several challenges in running MySQL at scale and seek greater performance from a database technology tailored for their needs", according to the official WebScaleSQL website.

The goal in launching the WebScaleSQL is to "enable scale-oriented members of the MySQL community" to work "more closely together" for prioritizing the aspects that are "most important" to them. 

The aim is to create a more integrated system of knowledge-sharing to help companies "leverage the great features already found in MySQL 5.6" while the engineering teams will contribute and keep building/adding more features that are specific to deployments in large scale environments. The engineers from all the four companies have contributed code and provided feedback to the engineers working on WebScaleSQL in order to develop a "new, more unified, and more collaborative" version of MySQL.

WebScaleSQL has been kept open source, so more contributors can who "have the scale and resources to customize MySQL" to join the development and they have stated that they will "welcome input from anyone who wants to contribute, regardless of what they are currently working on".

Microsoft Launches Office for iPad and Office Mobile Apps on iOS and Android

Microsoft has launched Microsoft Office for the Apple iPad and Office Mobile apps for iPhone and Android phones, as well as the Enterprise Mobility Suite, which is a "comprehensive set of cloud services to help businesses manage corporate data and services on the devices people use at work and home".

In addition to that, the company has also announced the upcoming availability of 'Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium' and enhancements to 'Windows Intune'. 

About this move, Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella has stated:

Microsoft is focused on delivering the cloud for everyone, on every device. It’s a unique approach that centers on people enabling the devices you love, work with the services you love, and in a way that works for IT and developers.

The Office 365 subscribers can now add an iPad as one of their chosen devices included in their subscription benefits and can then create and edit documents with Word for iPad, Powerpoint for iPad and Excel for iPad. The apps are available for free downloads from the App Store.

Microsoft Office for iPad is available in 29 languages and requires an iPad running iOS 7.0 or later to work.

The apps are launched as free applications, but in order to edit them an Office 365 subscription is still required. The price for the Office for iPad is £80 a year, however, small businesses are offered a discounted annual rate of £39.60 per user for up to 25 workers.

Facebook Is Buying Oculus VR for 2 Billion Dollars

Facebook has revealed that they are buying Oculus VR, which is the maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Oculus VR is being purchased for $2 Billion dollars, which is $400 Million dollars in cash and 23.1 million shares of the Facebook stock. Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the purpose of purchasing Oculus VR in a blog post, stating:

Oculus' mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences. Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate.

The deal has caused great outrage from the supporters of the project. Oculus Rift was previously being funded as a Kickstarter project, and the supporters are unhappy with the move. Not only the Kickstarter supporters, but gamers and fans alike have shown disapproval over the deal, fearing that Facebook will ruin the Oculus Rift now. However, both Facebook and Oculus VR have stated that the project will not be affected, but will only become better with Facebook's support.

Oculus' inventor, Palmer Luckey has stated in a Reddit post that:

In the end I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what's best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.

John Carmack, who left Id Software and joined Oculus VR as it's CTO, stated that:

For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR.

On a negative note, the founder of the Mojang studio and the creator of the ground-breaking hit Minecraft, Markus Persson, who had received the development kit, has cancelled his plans for making a version of Minecraft for the Oculus Rift, after the Facebook deal, stating that Facebook creeps him out. He tweeted shortly afterwards the news of the deal broke out that:

We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is expected to launch to the public either around late 2014 or early 2015, with Sony's Project Morpheus being seen as possible competition.

The First Gay Man To Sue The Government

A Chinese gay rights activist from the Hunan Province, the 19 year old Xiang Xiaohan, has sued the Chinese government for not registering his gay rights organization. His campaign is to challenge the decision made by the civil affairs department of the Hunan government has marked a rare open protest by China's gay and lesbian community and he instantly came into the media's spotlight.

Xiang Xiaohan filed the lawsuit in the provincial capital Changsha after the Hunan government turned down his application to register his organization, sending him a reply which stated that "homosexuality has no place in traditional Chinese culture".

Xiang Xiaohan has said, in an interview with BBC News that:

I believe what the government said [in the reply] defames the reputation of the gay and lesbian community in China, and I want them to issue a written apology. The apology is not only for me, but for hundreds of thousands of gay men and women in China.

He also wants his group to be registered as an NGO, which would enable it to legally receive donations and enjoy tax exemptions. If successful, this would be the first NGO-registered organization of it's kind in China.

The lawsuit was filed on 19th, February. Xiang Xiaohan received a written reply from the court on 14th, March and the case was thrown out by the court because it did not believe that the government defamed homosexuals, and that the court believed the government only offered what it called "administrative guidance on the issue of homosexuality". Xiang Xiaohan will appeal against the ruling.

Xiang Xiaohan stated that:

If we can't force the civil affairs department of the Hunan government to withdraw what it said on homosexuality, then other government bodies would likely follow its example, and this would cause irreparable psychological damage to gay and lesbian people. If gay and lesbian people have no place in China's traditional culture, how can you encourage them to pursue the China Dream(referred to President Xi Jinping's publicly stated vision for the country's future).

He also stated that:

This is a fight for the long term. We will continue to try to encourage the government to safeguard gay and lesbian rights through laws and agree to register our organisation. I'm confident that gays and lesbians will be fully accepted in China even though it may take 20, 30 or even 50 years for it to happen."

Homosexuality was illegal until 1997 and was labelled as a mental disorder until 2001 in China. Although Xiang Xiaohan has received support, he has also been criticized and bashed by some.

Chris Evans Is Quitting Acting

Hollywood star, best known for his role as Captain America in Marvel's movies Captain America and The Avengers, Chris Evans, has announced that he will be quitting acting.

He says he has a six-movie contract with Marvel, which was originally a nine-movie contract but was reduced to six movies because of his decision. Three movies have already been made, Captain America, The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Now, three more remain, of which one is The Avengers 2. The cameo in Thor: The Dark World does not count.

Chris Evans has stated that he wants to focus on directing movies instead of acting in them. He has already directed one drama movie called "1:30 Train" which he filmed this year.

Chris Evans has not completely abandon acting, however. He says that "For all I know in five years, I might say 'Shit, I miss acting'. Right now, I just want to get behind the camera and make movies". He also said that he might be done with the Marvel movies by 2017.

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Entertainment Ghost's Friday News Bits! 21-03-2014

It's Friday! And here are the Friday News Bits of this week!

Woman Jailed For Raping An Eight Year Old Child Over 50 Times

A British woman, Loren Morris, 21, has been sentenced to jail for 12 months(a year) for raping an eight year old boy over 50 times in 2 years. 

The paedophile has been forcing the child into sexual intercourse since she was 16 and has raped him more than 50 times in two years. The child was only since she started raping him. 

Judge Robert Juckes QC has stated that he would be "lenient" in her sentence because she had stopped raping the child after realizing it was "wrong" and that she had suffered "embarrassment". He stated:

I have come to the conclusion that due to the embarrassment caused you will not be offending again

Loren Morris is also banned from having contact with a child without the permission of the child's parents.

Intel Reveals The 8-core Extreme Edition Haswell CPU

Intel has revealed their next Haswell chips at the Game Developers Conference.

The 4th generation Core-i7 CPU will feature 8 unlocked cores and 16 threads. They will also support the latest DDR4 memory, which will allow higher transfer speeds and lower power drain in comparison to the DDR3 memory. 

The unlocked 4th generation 8-core chips are code-named "Devil's Canyon" and will be arriving in mid-2014.

Sony Introduces Project Morpheus: A Virtual Reality Headset For The PlayStation 4

Sony has introduced a prototype for a new virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 at the Game Developers Conference.

The under development virtual reality headset, titled "Project Morpheus"(pictured above) is "the next innovation from SCE that we believe will shape the future of games", as stated by the president of the division, Shuhei Yoshida on the official PlayStation Blog.

In the announcement on the PlayStation Blog, Shuhei Yoshida stated:

This is the culmination of our work for three-plus years and realises our vision of VR for games.

The virtual reality headset will be integrated with PlayStation 4's camera, controller and PlayStation Move's motion sensors. While PlayStation Move is an optional choice depending on the games, the camera is required for the headset's use.

The current prototype features a head-mounted display with 1080p resolution and a 90 degree field of view. There are accelerometer and gyroscope sensors built-into the headset and the PlayStation Camera tracks the head orientation and movement, which means as your head rotates, the image of the virtual/game world will rotate intuitively in real-time. 

The Project Morpheus also features Sony's new 3D audio technology that "re-creates stereoscopic sounds in all directions and changes in real-time" depending on your head orientation.

The headset works with PlayStation Camera(required) and also works with the DualShock 4 Wireless Controller and the PlayStation Move.

Shuhei Yoshida has stated that the prototype of the headset will "serve as the first development kit for PS4 developers that are as enthusiastic about this new medium as we are". He also stated that the attendees at the Game Developers Conference 2014 this week will be able to "check out Project Morpheus in action at the SCEA booth through a handful of technology demos".

Although a release date is not yet known for the headset, it will be available to game developers sometime soon.

Meet Santiago Mendoza: An 8 Month Old Baby Weighing The Same As An Average 6 Year Old Child

The eight month old Colombian Santiago Mendoza, is over three times heavier than he should be, weighing the same as an average six year old child.

The baby boy has been described as a "compulsive eater" by his family, and has been 'rescued' by a charity foundation called "The Chubby Hearts", who will put the boy on a life-saving treatment which will put him on a strict diet of vegetables and fruit juice, and when of the right age, physical activity.

The charity organization stepped in after being asked for help by the boy's mother, Eunice Fandiño. She confessed that the boy's unhealthy weight gain is due to her ignorance and that whenever he would cry, she'd give him food or milk to calm him down.

According to the Caracol Radio, Santiago Mendoza(the baby) has suffered medical complications due to his weight ever since he was born and has been hospitalised on several occasions. 

Salvador Palacio González, the director of the charity foundation helping the child, Chubby Hearts, has stated that the baby would be treated by specialist doctors at the Colina Clinic. He also stated that the baby has been given too much food and constant milk bottles repeatedly and spoke of his condition:

"He has a metabolic syndrome, in other words progressive weight gain, and he is also suffering from lung problems and anxiety, he is a compulsive eater.

He also stated that:

We obviously depend on the mother's care, we have all the specialists and our commitment is complete. We have to subject him to some physical activity therapy programmes, we logically also have to place him on a diet. The most important thing is to improve his social surroundings because we're talking about a low-income family.

The Fifth Major Assassin's Creed Game, Assassin's Creed: Unity Announced

Image Source: GameNGuide

The next Assassin's Creed game has been officially announced by Ubisoft(and was leaked this month some days ago by Kotaku). The game is titled Assassin's Creed: Unity and is set in 18th-century Paris, instead of feudal Japan which fans were hoping for.

This will be the first Assassin's Creed game which will only be released for the current-generation game consoles, which are the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, along with PC.

The announcement was triggered due to the recent leak, about which Ubisoft made a funny statement:

We have been working on the new Assassin's Creed for more than three years and although we weren't quite ready to show you our full vision for a next-gen only AC, it seems Abstergo are trying to force our hand! So here's a true first look at in-game footage from Assassin's Creed Unity. Stay tuned - we'll have many more exciting details for you in the months ahead! 

The announcement was accompanied by a new trailer for the game which you can see below:

Far Cry 4 Will Take Place in The Himalayas

The next instalment in the Far Cry franchise, Far Cry 4 has been confirmed by Eurogamer.

The game will take place in Himalayas and is reported to have ride-able elephants. The environment will include both of the snowy regions and the sunnier alpine climes. 

An official announcement is expected at E3 this year, but the game has been reported to be released before the end of 2015.

The Linux MintBox 2 Is Now Available in Europe

The Linux Mint-powered MintBox 2 mini-PC is now launched in Europe. It can be directly ordered from Amazon and costs £499 UK pounds. 

The specifications of the Linux MintBox 2:

• Intel Core i5 dual-core CPU @ 1.8ghz
• 4GB RAM
• 500GB HDD
• Dual Ethernet ports, built-in WiFi 802.11n
• HDMI, DisplayPort, Digital Audio out
• Aluminium case

The MintBox 2 is currently sold out for Europe and on the official developer team blog for The Linux MintBox blog, it has been posted that the next shipment, which is the third one as the previous two sold out, is scheduled for Sunday 23rd, March and will be available to customers on 31st March and will be available to be ordered from amazon.de and amazon.co.uk(both sharing the same warehouse in Germany).

Court Rules That Teachers Who Had Sex In A Classroom Can't Be Fired

Image Source : NewYork Post

Foreign language teachers, Alini Brito(left), 34 and Cindy Mauro(right), 38, were caught topless, having sex in a classroom after school hours, inside Brooklyn's James Madison HS in 2009.

They were dismissed from the school for the activity, getting fired. However, in 2012, a lower court judge ruled that the women were due a second administrative hearing.

Now, the court has ruled that it is fine to have sex in the classroom after the school hours and because no kid saw them and the judges said that the women were 'too harshly treated'.

According to The NY Post, the ruling has disappointed fellow teachers who fear that the judges have given the right to do all sorts of classroom sleaze. One of the teachers from the James Madison HS stated:

It sets a poor example for other teachers. They may think they can do it too.

 The students are also shocked at the ruling, having the incident already cause the school to be popularly known as "Horndog High" after the news spread out. A 10th grader from the school stated that:

A student could have walked in on them. Things like that shouldn't be done in the classroom. Couldn't they have waited until they got home?

The Department of Education is "disappointed with the decision" and Senior city attorney Suzanne Colt said she is reviewing the ruling and "considering out options".

Twitter is Blocked in Turkey By The Government

The major social network, Twitter, is blocked in Turkey by the government.

The Turkish Twitter users are being redirected to a message by Turkey's telecommunications regulator, which cites a court order to apply "protection measures" on the site.

This has happened after Turkey's PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to "wipe out Twitter". PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier made the statement:

I don't care what the international community says at all. Everyone will see the power of the Turkish Republic.

This is due to the fact that some Twitter users had posted documents that showed evidence of corruption relating to PM Edrogan, which he declines.

According to BBC News, PM Edrogan's office said that Twitter had not responded to Turkey's court rulings to remove some links, which forced them to act. Twitter, on the other hand, has made no public comment on the ban so far.

Turkey has about 10 million Twitter users.

Twitter is Shutting Down It's #Music App

Twitter has announced that it is shutting down it's #Music app which was for the iOS platforms.

The app has been taken down from the App Store and will be deactivated for the existing users on 18th April this year, completely shutting down.

The app is very unpopular, having the majority of Twitter users not even knowing of it's existence. It also greatly fell off the App Store charts.

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Entertainment Ghost's Friday News Bits! 14-03-2014

It's Friday! And here are the Friday News Bits of this week!

The Angry Birds RPG: Angry Birds EPIC

Rovio has revealed a new Angry Birds game. But this is not just another one of those tower breaking Angry Birds games. The new game is called Angry Birds EPIC. The Angry Birds EPIC is a medieval-themed RPG game.

The game has shown to have weapons and magic, working in a turn-based battle system against the Bad Piggies gang. There is a little talk of the weapons "Epic Weapons!", "Epic Upgrades!" and "Epic Battles!". This is the info:

• EPIC Battles! - Craft amazing battle-winning weapons like a wooden sword, frying pan or stick thingy with a sponge on top!
• EPIC Upgrades! - Level up your characters, armor, weapons and potions to become a legendary hero ready to take on the mightiest pig warrior!
• EPIC Battles! - Turn-based battles between our heroic flock of warriors and those green snout-nosed scoundrels! It's easy to play, but difficult to master!

Angry Bird EPIC's game world, the Piggy Island.

There have also been two classes of the player characters revealed, Knight and Mage:

The game is reported to be free(probably with in-game purchases) and will have a soft-launch in Australia and Canada, and will go world-wide sometime later.

Images Source: AngryBirdsNest 

Google Buys Most of Green Throttle Games

Google has purchased most of the Green Throttle Games for an unknown sum of money. Google confirmed to BBC News that Google, while not having purchased the whole company, has bought "elements" of Green Throttle Games.

As per part of the deal, two of Green Throttle Games' co-founders, Matt Crowley and Karl Townsend, will be joining Google, while Charles Huang, also a co-founder, wont be moving to Google and will keep the rights to the Green Throttle Games brand.

Figures in the industry have theorized that this move could be for Google to create it's own TV box that could be used to play games of Google's Android operating system on a large screen.

Green Throttle Games is perhaps best known for making a game controller for mobile devices which connected to the devices wirelessly through Bluetooth.

FDA Approves The Cefaly, A Battery Powered Head-Band That Prevents Migraine

The FDA(Food and Drug Administration) has recently approved the Cefaly for prescription in the United States. The Cefaly is a head-band which uses a low dose of nerve-stimulating electricity that prevents migraine.

The Cefaly is to be worn for 20 or less minutes per day. It sends a low electrical current which stimulates the 'cranial nerves' which are associated with migraine pain. The users who have tested this device have stated that they feel a "tingling or messaging sensation".

The Cefaly is only available for patients of age 18 and above, and is only available per prescription. It is also available in Europe, Canada and Australia.

According to a study, 53% of the participants were satisfied and planned to purchase the product for future use, while the others complained that they do not like the feeling while wearing it, experienced headache after using it or felt sleepy. However, no serious effects have been reported.

The Amazon Controller Is Revealed

Image Source: ZatsNotFunny

ZatsNotFunny has revealed pictures of the new Amazon controller(picture above). The controller is rather similar to the Xbox 360 controller, having two analog-sticks styled just like the Xbox 360 controller, a D-Pad, and the A,B,X,Y buttons. It also appears to have buttons for 'Home, 'Menu' and 'Back' as well as Rewind, Pause/Play and Forward buttons.

The controller will not be shipped with Amazon's upcoming set-top Box but it is an optional extra and also works with the Kindle Fire tablets. 

Complete details are yet to be revealed by Amazon.

Bill Gates Says He Wouldn't Characterize Edward Snowden As a Hero

In an interview with The Rolling Stone, Bill Gates was asked if he considers Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor. Bill Gates replied:

I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of "OK, I'm really trying to improve things." You won't find much admiration from me.

He was then asked if he thinks "it's better now that we know what we know about government surveillance", to which Bill Gates replied:

The government has such ability to do these things. There has to be a debate. But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they're discussed in detail. So the debate needs to be about the general notion of under what circumstances should they be allowed to do things.

This clears up that Bill Gates definitely does not like what Edward Snowden did, and considers him a law breaker. But personally, I see Edward Snowden as a hero.

Ubuntu Smartphones Estimated Price Revealed

Canonical's Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth has revealed at the CeBIT that the smartphones running on the Ubuntu operating system will be costing between $200 and $400 Dollars. Mark Shuttleworth has stated:

Ours will come out in the mid-higher edge, so $200 to $400. We’re going with the higher end because we want people who are looking for a very sharp, beautiful experience and because our ambition is to be selling the future PC, the future personal computing engine.

Canonical aims to create hardware that would work as a smartphone and also work as a PC when plugged into a monitor. They have teamed up with phone makers Meizu and BQ earlier this year to produce the devices but their attempts to raise $32 Million Dollars to create the 'Ubuntu Edge' smartphone were unsuccessful. However, while calling it a "spectacular failure", Mark Shuttleworth also called it a "spectacular success" because of the attention it received.

The Ubuntu smartphones will be launched sometime this year, while more will follow in 2015.

Facebook To Add Premium Auto-Play Video Ads

Facebook Inc. will allow marketers to add video advertisements on the social network. The video ads are "premium" and currently only available to 'select' advertisers in the next months.

The ads will auto-play when they are displaying on your feed, scrolling away from them will automatically stop them. The video ads will be of 15-second per ad.

The price for running a video ad will be determined by the size of the audience as measured by the measurement firm Nielsen. The marketers will have the choice to choose specific times of a day for their spots and the ads will be able to be targeted to specific ages and genders.

Sony and Panasonic Develop The Next Generation of Optical Discs: The Archival Disc

Sony and Panasonic have developed the next-generation optical disc, having the capacity of 300GB to 1TB. The new disc is called the "Archival Disc", and will be readable for at least 50 years. 

The disc will have three layers per side and have the same dimensions as the Blu-ray discs.

The Archival Disc is expected to be launched in 2015, starting from 300GB of storage and expanding to 1TB.

A Panasonic spokesperson has stated:

As a type of archival media, optical discs have numerous advantages over current mainstream HDD and tape media, such as their ability to be stored for a long time while still maintaining readability. We hope to develop demand for archives that use optical discs.”

The spokesperson also added that:

The development is specifically for professional archiving. We are not currently considering optical discs for household consumer use.

Houston Father Fatally Shoots Daughter's Boyfriend After Finding Him In Her Bedroom

A 55 year old father in Houston, fatally shot his 16 year old daughter's boyfriend after finding him in her bedroom.

According to Fox News, the father was awaken by one of his other children and was told that there was someone in his daughter's bedroom at about 2:20AM. He took his gun and confronted the 17 year old teen in his daughter's bedroom. The daughter declined that she knew the teen and the father told the boyfriend not to move. The teen reached for something and the father then fatally shot the teen, killing him. The teen did not have a gun.

Later, the daughter confessed that she knew the teen, who was her boyfriend, and she snuck him in her bedroom herself.

There is an on-going investigation on the incident and the father will be unlikely to get any charges because he reacted to what he knew at the time, what he knew after was not what his state of mind was at the time of the shooting, he was only trying to protect his daughter. A grand jury will decide whether the father should be charged with anything or not.

Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Government Is A Threat To The Internet And Called President Obama To Express His Frustration

The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the US government is a threat to the internet. He says he called the United States' President Obama to "express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future". 

Mark Zuckerberg added that when "our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our government". "The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat.", Mark Zuckerberg continued.

He then, ended his statement saying that it's up to "all of us" to build the internet "we want" and that we can "count on Facebook" to do their part.

This is the original statement posted by Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile:

As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere struggle, trust in the internet is more important today than ever.

The internet is our shared space. It helps us connect. It spreads opportunity. It enables us to learn. It gives us a voice. It makes us stronger and safer together.

To keep the internet strong, we need to keep it secure. That's why at Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in other people's services.

The internet works because most people and companies do the same. We work together to create this secure environment and make our shared space even better for the world.

This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government.

The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.

So it's up to us -- all of us -- to build the internet we want. Together, we can build a space that is greater and a more important part of the world than anything we have today, but is also safe and secure. I'm committed to seeing this happen, and you can count on Facebook to do our part.

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Onimusha Soul Coming To Playstation 3 in Japan

According to this week's Famitsu, the free-to-play(F2P) browser RPG from Capcom, Onimusha Soul, is going to be available on Playstation 3 through Playstation Network in Japan this spring.

Onimusha Soul is a browser game, that was released June 28, 2012 in Japan and runs on the Unity 3D engine. It is currently available on both online browsers and mobile phones.

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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance PC Release Date and Details Announced!

Just as Metal Gear Rising was announced, there was a PC version being mentioned around the internet. It was officially confirmed in a statement too, but it has been many months and people were starting to think it's cancelled. But they were wrong!

Konami has confirmed that the PC version of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will be out for PC on January 9, 2014. The game will cost $29.99, but if you get it now as part of the Steam Holiday Sale for the next 48 hours, you can get it for just $19.99!

The PC version will include the new VR missions, and the Jetstream and Bladewolf DLC content.

The PC version also has to resolution changing and anti-aliasing options, along with a new 'Zandeki' option by which you can set how many 'cuts' Raiden will make. Konami has stated that this option will either make the game easier or harder, depending on your setting of the cuts. You will also be able to see all the cutscenes, codec conversations and replay all boss battles from the menu.

You'll be able to pre-load the game on January 3.

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8 Best Arcade Emulators of All Time!

We've all played games on an arcade machine at some point, whether it was a fighter, a shooter, a racer, a puzzler, or a fighter jet simulator, it was always a fun experience(though adding your money wasn't). Many games from the arcades end up getting a console port, or even a PC one. But that doesn't always happen. Some don't make it into any type of home media and disappear from arcades as new games come along(though arcades themselves are disappearing these days). So, if you wanted to play that awesome arcade game, but cannot because it's gone or you just don't feel like leaving home or adding a quarter every time you die? Then you're in luck because of these absolutely awesome emulators! Here is the list of the 8 Best Arcade Emulators of All Time!

SEGA NAOMI

NullDC NAOMI

Since NAOMI is basically a hardware-upgraded version of the SEGA Dreamcast, which was used commercially for arcade games. NullDC NAOMI is an alternate version of the NullDC Dreamcast emulator we mentioned earlier here, which ran games of the Dreamcast, while NullDC NAOMI runs the games of the arcade NAOMI system. It supports the ROMs through .LTS files, so you'll need a .LTS file placed with every ROM for the emulator to recognize the game and run it. It's specialty is that, while other emulators demand high performance PCs, this one does not demand much and can run at full speed on a low performance PC for most games. 

 Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf AchseRunning On NullDC NAOMI

SEGA NAOMI / NAOMI 2 / Atomiwave

DEmul

DEmul is popular as a SEGA Dreamcast emulator, but it runs SEGA NAOMI, NAOMI 2 and Atomiwave games as well. It's compatibility is not complete, but it still has a rich compatibility list. It demands a high performance PC. Although older versions ran on Direct X 9, as of now the developers have officially ended the support for Direct X 9 and now demands Direct X 10 and 11 to run. 

 DEmul's Interface

SEGA Model 2

Model 2 Emulator

This emulator is built by the team who creates the Nebula emulator. It is an emulator for SEGA Model 2 and has a good compatibility list. It requires a Pixel Shader to run, and if it is not present the games will run in Black & White colors. However, there is a version of it that does not require Pixel Shader and works without it too(yes!). It even has lightgun support for the shooters! Such as Virtua Cop 2 and The House of The Dead.

Dynamate Cop Runing On Model 2 Emulator

MAME

MAME is the most popular emulator of arcade games. Whenever the words "arcade" and "games" are mentioned together, the first thing that comes to mind is always MAME. MAME runs hundreds of different kinds of arcade systems' games. It has been in development since 1997 and has been getting new releases ever since, and is still updated to this date. It is capable of running thousands of games of different arcade systems and counting. It supports ROMs of it's type, and for games of less-older arcade systems it require BIOs files too. Some ROMs of arcade systems that although MAME supports but it requires 'parent' ROMs of the games, so you'll have to add these to run specific games. It also supports Compressed Hard Drive(CHD) images, such as Street Fighter III, Killer Instinct 1 & 2 and so on. It does not run too many of full-3D games, but it still runs some popular ones such as the Tekken series up until Tekken Tag Tournament, Killer Instinct 1 & 2, Soul Calibur(glitchy), e.t.c. It also has other features than just running the games, most notabally cheats which are very powerful(exposing secrets hidden within games powerful), supports upto 4 controllers and now even supports the 7zip format so that you can keep your games compressed and save HDD space.

On about just 2.0ghz of a Pentium 4 CPU, it can run nearly all of the 2D games at full speed. While the 3D games vary completely on how much performance demanding the game is, but a Dual Core CPU with a low GPU would work(although you can never be sure). Sometimes, no matter how good your GPU is, a game might end up running slow because there are thousands of games out there, and you cannot emulate all of them perfectly. So some of the games might not be emulated that well and might run slow, or require a bit better specs than what it's worth.

 MAME Running Tekken Tag Tournament

CAPCOM Play System 3

CPS3 Emulator

CPS3 is also from the team that built the Nebula and the above mentioned SEGA Model 2 emulators. The CPS3 system only has 6 games released for it, and luckily, this emulator runs all 6. And all six of the games are popular as well, including the well-acclaimed Street Fighter III: New Generation, 2nd Impact and 3rd Strike. 

 Nebula CPS 3 Emulator's Interface

Namco System 22

Viva Nonno

Viva Nonno is the only emulator for the Namco System 22, and only runs 2 games. The reason this emulator is mentioned is because it is the only emulator that exists for this system, so even those 2 games is an up-point for the Viva Nonno. The games it runs are Rave Racer 1 & 2, which are quite popular games and are still played by fans. 

Rave Racer Running On Viva Nonno

NEOGEO

NeoRAGEx

NeoRAGEx is the most popular and commonly used emulator for NEOGEO games. The original emulator was released in 1999, and it's latest release is built by another team from Brazil called SNK-Fighters, which supports all games released for the system. This emulator does not support high resolution, and runs on only one resolution, but it supports many video options for your best experience. It supports recording the sound in WAV format and also takes pictures. Additionally, you can save and load games(including multiple states), and has every option that a good emulator should have. You can even change it between "Arcade" and "Console" modes of the games and you can also change the countries to get the country-differences in the games. It also supports Uni-BIOs. It also supports Game Patches that allow you to play as unplayable characters and also supports some hack-ROMs of games such as the most commonly known "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" hack of The King of Fighters 2001, and "The King of Fighters 10th Anniversary" hack of The King of Fighters 2002, and so on.

 The King Of Fighters 2000 Running On NeoRAGEx

NEOGEO / CPS1 / CPS2

Winkawaks

Winkawaks is a well-known emulator for NEOGEO, CPS1, and CPS2 arcade systems. It has it's own Romsets, and it does not support Romsets of other emulators such as MAME, NeoRAGEx, e.t.c. It has an almost-complete compatibility list, and runs all games very smoothly. It also supports cheats, Net-Play, save/load states and every other option you can find in a good emulator.

Winkawaks Running Samurai Shodown II

If you've missed our previous articles about the best emulators of consoles, check them out now:

• Top 10 Best Gaming Emulators of All Time
• Top Handheld Gaming Emulators of All Time

Which emulators do you like the best? Have we missed out a good emulator? Share your experience and suggestions with us!

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