Professional video game playing is becoming a global spectator sport, according to a study which says 2.4bn hours were spent watching gamers last year.
A report from research firm IHS Technology suggests that e-sports, or watching other people play games, is far from a niche interest. The company says the number of e-sport viewing hours nearly doubled, from 1.3bn in 2012 to 2.4bn in 2013.
Games fans watch people play online through services such as Twitch – which is a $1bn takeover target for Google – and on traditional TV channels or at live events.
Dan Cryan, author of the IHS report, said that e-sports videos had "rapidly transformed from a niche activity into a widely watched, global, cross-platform entertainment category".
The report picks out Dota 2, League of Legends and StarCraft II as the most popular games being watched, with factors such as the emergence of online video sites leading to the rapid growth in e-sports viewing globally.
"Key game titles have reached maturity and game publishers are taking a major role in promoting e-sports competitions. Furthermore, e-sports viewing has been boosted by the emergence of online video platforms that are capable of handling large-scale live audiences," he said.
Twitch has more than doubled its monthly audience from 20 million at the end of 2012 to 45 million at the end of 2013. On average people have been watching 106 minutes a day.
Its biggest audience occurred in October, with 32 million people watching the League of Legends Season 3 world championship event in a single day.
Google services are being disrupted in China ahead of this week's 25th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a censorship watchdog said on Monday.
GreatFire.org said in a blog post that the government appeared to have begun targeting Google Inc's main search engine and Gmail, among many other services, since at least last week, making them inaccessible to many users in China.
It added that the last time it monitored such a block was in 2012, when it only lasted 12 hours.
"It is not clear that the block is a temporary measure around the anniversary or a permanent block. But because the block has lasted for four days, it's more likely that Google will be severely disrupted and barely usable from now on," the advocacy group said.
Asked about the disruptions, a Google spokesman said: "We've checked extensively and there's nothing wrong on our end."
Google's own transparency report, which shows details about its global traffic, showed lower levels of activity from China starting from about Friday, which could indicate a significant amount of disruption.
Reuters was unable to reach any government officials for comment as Monday is a national holiday in China. Beijing typically responds to such reports by saying that all internet companies operating in China have to obey the law.
Google in 2010 moved its Chinese search engine service out of China, the world's second-largest economy, citing rampant censorship, and now operates it from Hong Kong.
The Chinese government already blocks the popular foreign websites Facebook, Twitter and Google's own YouTube.
For the ruling Communist Party, the 1989 demonstrations that clogged Tiananmen Square in Beijing and spread to other cities remain taboo, particularly on their 25th anniversary.
The government has detained several activists last month after attending a meeting about the protests, including prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, prompting concern in the United States and Europe.
The anniversary of the date on which troops shot their way into central Beijing in 1989 has never been publicly marked in mainland China, though every year there are commemorations in Hong Kong.
The government has never released a death toll for the crackdown, but estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.
China already has strict controls on what can be said online, and the government has been further tightening those restrictions.
Users of China's popular Twitter-like service Weibo sounded off about the Google blockage.
"Those officials are driving me crazy with this!" wrote one user.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Even in a world of digital devices, braille continues to be a vital part of life for blind people. For nearly 200 years, this versatile writing system has allowed them to learn, work and live in a more independent way.
Technology undoubtedly has a role to play in enabling blind people to live independent lives. The news that the world’s first braille mobile phone has gone on sale is a step in the right direction but it is also clear that more people need to learn braille in the first place.
A 1998 study of 74 blind adults found that among those who had not learnt braille, 77% were unemployed while the figure dropped to only 44% among braille readers.
Despite this, a report by the National Federation of the Blind in 2009 revealed that fewer than 10% of legally blind people in the US are braille readers.
We are looking at how learners can make use of the touchscreen and keyboard devices that have become part of most people’s daily lives to learn braille, which, in turn, could help them gain better access to work and education.
Getting to grips with braille
The classic method of mastering braille involves a braille typewriter called a Perkins Brailler. But this can be an expensive piece of equipment to pick up so isn’t an option for many.
In an attempt to make braille more accessible, the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed an app called BrailleTouch. This transposes the six-figure braille keyboard to the smartphone.
The user holds the phone with the screen facing away from them, then using the same fingers as they would on the Perkins Brailler (index, middle and ring fingers) they can perform braille chords on the touchscreen. Different combinations of fingers produce different characters. Placing the left index and middle fingers on the screen will enter the character “b”, for example.
However, there is lack of feedback to the fingers because touchscreen devices have flat, featureless surfaces. It isn’t clear which fingers have been recognised by the device because the user will only receive feedback once the chord has been entered. So if they attempt to enter the character “b” but the touchscreen fails to recognise the presence of the middle finger on the keyboard, the device will recognise the character “a” instead. This can lead to errors.
In partnership with INESC-ID at the Technical University of Lisbon and LaSIGE at the University of Lisbon’s Department of Informatics, we are developing a system called HoliBraille that combines chord input with a series of vibrations that notify the user of what the system is registering. The HoliBraille case can be attached to a Samsung Android phone, and feeds information to the user in the form of vibrations felt through the fingers before the chord is committed and an error has been made.
The HoliBraille in action.
We use an Arduino, an open source micro-controller, to talk to the phone case via Bluetooth. The case then passes on the information by activating individual vibro-tactile motors next to the fingers that make up the chords.
Preliminary results indicated that the system is 100% accurate for single finger vibrations, and 82% accurate on chord input. Because it works using Bluetooth, it’s conceivable that you could pass on messages between a range of devices, such as cash machines or desktop computers.
The learning curve
Motivation is undoubtedly an issue for people when it comes to learning braille and technology can play a part here too. Working with a user centre in Portugal called the Raquel and Martin Sain Foundation, we are developing three applications which make this learning more entertaining through gaming.
One of these is a game called BazingaBraille, which is designed to teach someone braille from scratch by speaking a word and sending a vibration to their fingers at the same time. We have also developed games such as BrailleHero, a variation on the popular GuitarHero series that encourages a user to input braille chords to keep the music going. Chord-based text entry is a fast and effective way of inputting text, even compared to QWERTY keyboards.
Our aim is now to continue reducing errors. We’re also developing an “autocorrect” system for multi-touch braille on touchscreens called B#, which uses an algorithm to correct chord errors, in much the same way as a standard smartphone corrects spelling errors. When the wrong chord is tapped in, B# draws on a list of chords that are similar to the chord in question, and substitutes the one that fits best with the sentence around it.
At the moment, this system provides correct suggestions for 72% of words, compared to the 38% achieved by the Android spellchecker. And we’re making all of this work open-source so that it can be adapted and improved even further.
The touchscreen has become ubiquitous remarkably quickly, but being able to use it effectively is something that sighted people often take for granted. The aim now is to refine the technologies that are available to us so that they can be used to empower blind and partially-sighted people worldwide.
Kyle Montague receives funding from RCUK Digital Economy Research Hub EP/G066019/1 – SIDE: Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy.
We thank all participants from Raquel and Martin Sain Foundation and Dr. Carlos Bastardo for his support.
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CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, on Thursday unveiled an upgraded passenger version of the Dragon cargo ship NASA buys for resupply runs to the International Space Station.
Rather than parachuting down into the ocean, the new capsule is outfitted with beefed up motors and landing legs to make precision touchdowns on land, said SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk, a billionaire technology entrepreneur who also runs the Tesla Motors Inc electric car company.
"You'll be able to land anywhere on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter ... That is how a 21st century spaceship should land," Musk said before a jam-packed audience at SpaceX's Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters.
More than 32,500 people also watched the Dragon unveiling on a live SpaceX webcast.
Lifting the vehicle's hatch, Musk settled into a reclined gold-and-black pilot's seat and pulled down a sleek, rounded glass control panel. The cabin, designed to fly a crew of seven, looked more like a Star Trek movie set than the flight deck of NASA's now-retired space shuttle.
Dragon, which launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is one of three privately owned space taxis vying for NASA development funds and launch contracts.
The U.S. space agency turned over space station cargo runs and crew ferry flights after retiring its fleet of shuttles in 2011. SpaceX already has a $1.6 billion contract for 12 station resupply missions. Orbital Sciences Corp has a separate, $1.9 billion contract for eight cargo flights.
NASA also has been working with SpaceX, Boeing Co and privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp on a related commercial program to develop spaceships to fly astronauts, with the goal of breaking Russia's monopoly on station crew transports before the end of 2017.
The United States currently pays Russia more than $60 million per person for round-trip flights on the Russian Soyuz capsule. The price climbs to more than $70 million in 2016 and to $76 million in 2017.
Musk hopes to bring down the cost of flying in space by reusing both the Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spaceships.
"So long as we continue to throw away rockets and spacecraft we will never have true access to space. It'll always be incredibly expensive. If aircraft were thrown away with each flight, nobody would be able to fly ... or very few," Musk said.
NASA is expected to select one or two space taxi designs this summer for final development and test flights.
(Reuters) - Google has taken the first steps to meet a European ruling that citizens can have objectionable links removed from Internet search results, a ruling that pleased privacy campaigners but raised fears that the right can be abused to hide negative information.
The balance between privacy and the freedom of information has been a hot topic in Europe, whose citizens enjoy some of the world's strictest data protection laws, especially after last year's revelations about the extensive global surveillance programs run by the United States.
Google, which processes more than 90 percent of all Web searches in Europe, said on Thursday that it had made available a webform through which people can submit their requests, but did not say how soon it would remove links that meet the criteria for being taken down.
The move by the world's most popular search engine comes just before a two-day meeting of heads of the 28 EU data protection agencies from Tuesday, during which they are due to discuss the implications of the EU ruling on May 13.
"It was about time, since European data protection laws have existed since 1995," said Viviane Reding, the EU's justice commissioner. "We will now need to look into how the announced tool will work in practice."
Google GOOGL.O said it has convened a committee of senior Google executives and independent experts to try and craft a long-term approach to dealing with what's expected to be a barrage of requests from the EU's 500 million citizens.
"The court's ruling requires Google to make difficult judgements about an individual's right to be forgotten and the public's right to know," a Google spokesman said.
THOUSANDS OF REMOVAL REQUESTS
The decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) places Google in a tricky position as it strives to interpret the EU's broad criteria for "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" information.
Advocates of freedom of speech have said that the ruling paved the way for rich or powerful individuals and criminals to remove information about them, a claim that is dismissed by privacy activists since the ECJ allowed Google to apply a public interest test in deciding whether to remove the links.
"What today's Google application form does is demonstrate the fallacy behind the frequent complaint that compliance with EU laws is too cumbersome," said a spokesman for Europe's consumer digital rights lobby group BEUC.
"There is a major difference between applying and being granted a right to deletion of personal data."
When evaluating requests, Google says it will consider whether the results include outdated information about a person, as well as whether there is a public interest in the information, such as in cases of professional malpractice, criminal convictions and the public conduct of officials.
Since the ECJ's ruling, Google has received thousands of removal requests, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Failure to remove links that meet the EU's criteria can result in fines.
Google has said it is disappointed with the EU ruling, and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said the balance the court struck between privacy and "the right to know" was wrong.
On Thursday, Google said it would work with data protection authorities and others as it implements the ruling.
It is not clear when Google will begin to actually remove any links, and the ruling does not mean that information itself must be taken down, just the link in search results.
Yahoo Inc YHOO.O which also operates a search engine in Europe, has previously said it is "carefully reviewing" the decision to assess the impact for its business and its users. Microsoft, which operates the Bing search engine, has previously declined to comment on the ruling.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan in SAN FRANCISCO and Shailaja Sharma in BANGALORE; Editing by Will Waterman)
["Pretty Woman With Confused Expression Working On Laptop" on Shutterstock]
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) revealed earlier this week that there are over 1,600 nanotechnology-based products on the market today -- and that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks the authority to regulate them.
As Mother Jonesreported, some of these nanotechnological innovations -- which refer to particles less than 100 nanometers wide, or approximately 1/800th the diameter of a strand of human hair -- are likely harmless, such as embedded silver particles in athletic socks and underwear. According to SmartSilver Anti-Odor Nanotechnology Underwear, the microscopic silver particles are "strongly antibacterial to a wide range of pathogens, absorb sweat, and by killing bacteria help eliminate unpleasant foot odor."
However, the PEN database also includes 96 nanotechnology-infused items currently stocked on grocery store shelves, and none of these items listed their nanotechnology among their ingredients. Included on the list are Dannon Greek Plain Yogurt, Hershey's Bliss Dark Chocolate, Kraft's American Cheese Singles, and Rice Dream Rice Drink, all of which contain nanoparticles of titanium dioxide.
Titanium dioxide -- often referred to as "the perfect white" or "the whitest white" -- is used as a pigment because its refractive index is extremely high. It has long been present in paints, plastics, paper, toothpaste, and pearlescent cosmetics, but researchers recently discovered the benefits of adding it to skim milk. According to David Barbano, a professor at Cornell University's Department of Food Science, "[s]uspension of titanium dioxide in skim milk made the milk whiter, which resulted in improved sensory scores for appearance, creamy aroma, and texture...There is clearly a need to develop a whitener for fat-free milk other than titanium dioxide to provide processors with an ingredient option that would improve sensory properties and provide a nutritional benefit."
At issue, though, is not whether nano-additives like titanium dioxide provide "nutritional benefit," but whether they pose a potential threat to consumers. The FDA acknowledges that nanoparticles behave differently than their non-microscopic counterparts: "so-called nano-engineered food substances can have significantly altered bioavailability and may, therefore, raise new safety issues that have not been seen in their traditionally manufactured counterparts."
The FDA is not currently empowered to regulate the entry of nanotechnology into the food supply -- it cannot even require companies list nanoparticulate matter on the ingredient list because it qualifies as an "incidental amount" of a finished food product.
The concern is that just as the small size of nanotechnology makes it a potentially powerful delivery system for chemotherapeutic drugs, nanoparticles might also enter and interact with healthy cells in unexpected ways.
["Little Asian Girl With A Glass Of Milk" on Shutterstock]
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