America's Army 3 Coming To Steam

America's Army 3, the upcoming iteration of the real Army's free first-person shooter recruiting tool, will be available on Steam when it launches.

One of the things the first two iterations of the game taught the developers is that they need to make the game as easy to find, download and install as possible, said Marsha Berry, America Army senior executive producer.

The new game, due out sometime this year, will also consolidate the account system to a single sign on and allow players to create multiple soldiers on that one account.

Other tweaks to the game include the ability to quickly jump back and forth between gameplay and training, breaking training down into much smaller easier to digest units, and a lot more unit customization.

"One of the big things we heard was that players like customization," Berry said. "We have a lot of customization on how you can load down your character."

If you're interested in reading up on how the game plays and some of it's amazing features, like tactical sound, realistic ricochet and how gravity effects the bullets your fire, make sure to check out our hands on with the game.

Gdc09: America's Army 3 Coming To Steam

Old Moon Images Get Modern Makeover

WOODLANDS, Texas — Think of it as a space age twist to that adage: Something old, something new...something borrowed, something blue.

Back in 1966 and 1967, NASA hurled a series of Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to the moon. Each of the five orbiters were dispatched to

map the landscape in high-resolution and assist in charting where best to set down Apollo moonwalkers and open up the lunar surface to expanded human operations.

Imagery gleaned from the Lunar Orbiters over 40 years ago is now getting a 21st century makeover thanks to the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP).

By gathering the vintage hardware to playback the imagery, and then upgrading it to digital standards, researchers have yielded a strikingly fresh look at the old moon. Furthermore, LOIRP's efforts may also lead to retrieving and beefing up video from the first human landing on the moon by Apollo 11 astronauts in July 1969.

Digital domain

Dennis Wingo, LOIRP's team leader, detailed the group's work in progress during last week's 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Teamed with SpaceRef.com, LOIRP's saga is one of acquiring the last surviving Ampex FR-900 machinery that can play analog image data from the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. Wingo noted that the work is backed by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, the space agency's Innovative Partnership Program, along with private organizations, making it possible to overhaul old equipment, digitally upgrade and clean-up the imagery via software.

LOIRP is located at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. There, project members are taking the analog data, converting it into digital form and reconstructing the images.

By moving them into the digital domain, Wingo said, the photos now offer a higher dynamic range and resolution than the original pictures, he added.

"We're going to be releasing these to the whole world," Wingo said.

Use of the refreshed images, contrasted to what NASA's upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission is slated to produce, has an immediate scientific benefit. That is, what is the frequency of impacts on the Moon's already substantially crater-pocked surface?

"We'll be able to get crater counts," Wingo told SPACE.com. "LRO imagery of the same terrain imaged decades ago will provide a crater count over the last 40 years."

Frozen in time

There's also a more down to Earth output thanks to LOIRP scientists.

They have used a Lunar Orbiter 1 image of the Earth for climate studies, basically a snapshot frozen in time that shows the edge of the Antarctic ice pack on August 23, 1966.

The team is working with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado to correlate their images of the Earth with old NASA Nimbus 1 and Nimbus 2 spacecraft imagery that flew at about the same time — in the mid-1960s — as the Lunar Orbiter 1. Nimbus satellites were meteorological research and development spacecraft.

Wingo said that the original Nimbus images may have been recorded on an Ampex FR-900 – so by processing the original Nimbus tapes there is a very good chance that they can provide NASA with polar ice pack data from ten years earlier.

Lessons learned

One treasure hunt outing by LOIRP may lead to finding what some term as "lost" Apollo 11 slow scan tapes, Wingo said.

"We don't think they are lost. People have been looking for the wrong tapes," he said, explaining that they were recorded on Ampex FR-900 equipment — not on another type of recorder as previously thought.

Wingo said those Apollo tapes are stored at the Federal Records Center, labeled and ready for a look see.

"We think for the 40th anniversary of Apollo we may be able to get the original slow scan tapes," Wingo said. If so, the hope is to recover them and give the public a higher-quality, never-before-seen view of human exploration of the Moon.

There is a lesson learned output from LOIRP.

In the beginning, very few people thought this could be done...but now they have seen the results," Wingo said.

It is not enough to have 100 year recording medium, Wingo explains. Without the retention of the specific era equipment that images are archived on, it will be impossible for future generations to recover older NASA or other satellite data, he advised.

This is a general issue, not specific to the Lunar Orbiter program. The retention of critical hardware should be a requirement for flight efforts. The original historic Apollo 11 slow scan images have been lost due to inattention to this critical detail, Wingo concluded.

SPACE.com -- Old Moon Images Get Modern Makeover

Netflix ups Blu-ray surcharge to $9 for heaviest users

Less than six months after Netflix imposed a $1 surcharge for Blu-ray lovers, the company has decided to jack up its rates once again. In an e-mail sent to subscribers today, Netflix said that it would be raising its Blu-ray access charge to as much as $9 per month on top of a normal subscription rate. The changes will go into effect on customers' billing statements on or after April 27, 2009 unless they remove the option from their accounts.

"The number of Blu-ray titles has increased significantly and will continue to do so. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles," reads the e-mail from Netflix. "And as you've probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs."

As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is going up for "most" subscription plans. The e-mail doesn't go into detail on those differences, but a post on the Netflix blog says that Blu-ray access will remain $1 per month for the lowest plan (1 DVD at a time, limited to 2 per month) while it will go up one dollar per plan tier after that. For example, the 3 DVD at a time unlimited plan will require a $4 Blu-ray access surcharge if customers want to continue renting high-definition movies. If you're one of those heavy movie watchers who pays for the 8 DVD at a time plan, the additional charge will be a hefty $9 for Blu-ray discs.

Netflix has made a significant investment in Blu-ray since the death of HD DVD, and its library of HD titles has grown as a result. The company's hope was that a ready supply of Blu-ray flicks would lure HD fans to the service from brick-and-mortar competitors like Blockbuster and from the growing HD download market.

The imposition of the original surcharge—and now the increased rates—is indication that this strategy isn't working out as well as the company had hoped. The availability of Blu-ray movies was a nice perk for subscribers who already have Blu-ray players, but it is apparently not enough to draw in new customers. In fact, Netflix CEO Barry McCarthy said recently that only a fraction of his company's subscribers currently rent Blu-ray discs and that the format's impact on the business is minimal. Now, not only is Netflix passing the additional costs onto subscribers, it has to do so even more than it originally expected.

Needless to say, customers are not thrilled at the news. Ars Creative Director Aurich Lawson described the move as "weak sauce," adding that he was happy to swallow the $1/month bump, but $4 (for his plan) gives him pause. "If I find I'm not using the service enough, the price jump is enough to make me think of dropping it all together," he said. Another reader wrote in saying that he paid for his Netflix subscription in order to get streaming access—the only physical discs he rented anymore were Blu-ray, so the additional costs were becoming a burden. "Way to annoy their customers twice," he said.

Netflix ups Blu-ray surcharge to $9 for heaviest users - Ars Technica

After Shuttle's Success, NASA Aims to Save Hubble

With the successful landing Saturday of the space shuttle Discovery, NASA is gearing up for its next mission: Saving the Hubble Space Telescope.

As

Discovery touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to end a successful mission to the International Space Station, engineers were priming its sister ship Atlantis for a planned May 12 launch to overhaul Hubble in an 11-day mission fraught with risk.

"I think the only thing that beats a beautiful orbiter landing like this is the next launch," said NASA's deputy shuttle program manager Leroy Cain after Discovery landed at the spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Fla. "So we're looking forward to that as well."

Atlantis is poised to roll out to its seaside Pad 39A launch site on Tuesday. A separate space shuttle, the Endeavour orbiter, is being prepared to serve as a rescue ship should Atlantis suffer critical damage that would prevent the spacecraft from safely returning its seven-astronaut crew back to Earth.

Risky mission

In order to reach Hubble, Atlantis will fly in an orbit that has a higher than normal risk of orbital debris strikes for NASA shuttles, about a 1-in-185 chance. NASA's safety guidelines call for a maximum risk of a 1-in-200 chance, but officials said that they are weighing that risk against ways to offset it for the Hubble flight. They are also studying the risk of new debris caused by the Feb. 10 crash of two satellites in an orbit above Hubble's.

"We have some more discussions to have in terms of mitigations that we already plan to put in place and some other things that we might consider," Cain said.

Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Scott Altman, Atlantis' STS-125 mission to Hubble is expected to extend the iconic orbital observatory's lifespan through at least 2013 or later. Astronauts plan to perform five back-to-back spacewalks to add a new camera, replace gyroscopes and batteries, add a docking ring, as well as perform tricky repairs on equipment that was never designed to be fixed in space.

The mission has been delayed since October 2008, when a part on Hubble unexpectedly failed, prompting engineers to begin assembly a spare and add the new repair to the upcoming mission. It is the fifth and last service call on Hubble by shuttle astronauts.

Two shuttles, two launch pads

NASA space operations chief William Gerstenmaier told reporters that the agency has officially decided to use two separate shuttle launch pads, Pad 39A and Pad 39B, for Atlantis and its rescue ship.

The extra launch pad and shuttle are required because Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts would not be able to seek refuge aboard the International Space Station if their spacecraft suffered critical damage and could not return to Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope flies in a higher and different orbit than the station, so Atlantis would not be able to reach the outpost, NASA has said. 

The station can serve as a safe haven for shuttle missions like Discovery's STS-119 flight, which boosted the outpost to full power by delivering its final solar arrays, since the orbiters can return to the outpost after undocking if required.

NASA was initially considering using a single launch pad, Pad 39A, to launch Atlantis, as well as its rescue ship - if needed - in order to allow extra time for modifications to Pad 39B. That pad is being converted to launch NASA's new Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft, with the first test flight Ares I-X slated for July.

Gerstenmaier said work crews were able to make substantial headway modifying Pad 39B, including erecting new lightning masts and an access level on the pad's fixed support structure. With that work complete, NASA officials felt it best use the launch pad to support the Hubble rescue plan.

"We think it's more of a normal plan to have the orbiter out at the pad," Gerstenmaier said. "It gives us a little bit more robustness from a crew standpoint."

Using both launch pads will likely mean a few weeks of delay for the Ares I-X launch test, which was slated for July 11, Gerstenmaier said.

Endeavour is currently expected to move from its processing hangar to NASA's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building on April 10 to meet its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, NASA officials said. That shuttle would then roll out to the second launch pad on April 17, they added.

NASA plans to launch up to nine more shuttle missions before retiring its three-orbiter fleet in 2010.

One mission is reserved to upgrade Hubble in May, while the others are aimed at completing the International Space Station and, if funding is available, delivering the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) physics experiment to the orbiting lab, Gerstenmaier said.

SPACE.com -- After Shuttle's Success, NASA Aims to Save Hubble

OnLive's 'Cloud Gaming' Could Be a Game-Changer

Imagine being able to fire up your vintage low-end Mac laptop and play Crysis, a gorgeously high-resolution PC game that's famous for overwhelming the GPUs of $4,000 Alienware rigs. Imagine being able to play the same game on a tiny device streaming directly to your TV. That's the kind of service OnLive announced Tuesday.

If the OnLive Game Service actually works, it will change the videogame industry profoundly.

Here's how it works: When you subscribe to the company's service, OnLive is basically running whatever game you choose to play on its computer, and streaming the video feed to you. Simultaneously, the inputs you make on OnLive's proprietary controller -- which looks similar to an Xbox 360 controller -- are being streamed to OnLive's computer.

All you need is a tiny piece of decompressing software on your computer, or a tiny device to hook up to your TV, and you can play any game in OnLive's library. (The company has partnerships with several of the biggest publishers.)

I got to see a demo of the service, and the visual quality was excellent. It remains to be seen whether OnLive has solved the incredibly complex problem of streaming that image without excessive lag or dropped frames.

OnLive, which spent several years developing improved video-compression technology, promises that its streaming alternative to consoles and expensive new graphics cards will work for anyone with a 1.5-Mb internet connection and a standard-definition TV or monitor, or a 5-Mb connection and a high-def TV or monitor. If OnLive's technology actually works, it's sure to shake up the games industry.

Here is OnLive's press release, issued Tuesday:

OnLive Revolutionizes Video Games

State-of-the-Art Games Play Over the Internet Without High-End Hardware

OnLive Game Service Delivers the Hottest Titles From Top-Tier Publishers

San Francisco, March 24, 2009 -- OnLive Inc., the pioneer of the on-demand era of videogames, today emerged from seven years of stealth development within the Rearden incubator to unveil The OnLive Game Service and OnLive MicroConsole at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. OnLive is a revolutionary, on-demand videogame platform delivering the latest and most advanced games instantly, on any TV via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole, or on almost any PC or Mac. OnLive is supported by many of the top names in the videogames industry including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive Software, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ Inc., Epic Games, Eidos, Atari Interactive and Codemasters.

Instant, High-performance Gameplay

"OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world. No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence,” said Steve Perlman, founder and CEO of OnLive. "With OnLive, your videogame experience is always state-of-the-art."

Designed for gamers of all skills and ages, the OnLive Game Service is easy to use.  The elegantly designed OnLive MicroConsole — about as small as a deck of cards — easily connects any TV and home broadband connection to the OnLive Game Service and is operated by an OnLive wireless controller. Gamers can enjoy the same experience on almost any internet-connected PC or Mac via a small browser plug-in from OnLive.com — even entry-level computers will play the highest-performance games. Whether on TV, PC or Mac, OnLive provides instant access to the most advanced games in the world, solo and multiplayer.

"OnLive combines the successful components of videogames, online distribution and social networking into one affordable, flexible platform that offers a new way for game fans to access and enjoy content," said Mike McGarvey, COO of OnLive. "By substantially lowering the barriers between content and consumers, OnLive has created an environment that is highly beneficial for every facet of the videogame ecosystem. With OnLive, gamers can play what they want, when they want, how they want. That level of freedom has never been possible until now."

Vibrant Community on a Massive Scale

The OnLive Game Service supports a live community of unprecedented scale. A revolutionary user interface allows videogame fans to watch thousands of live games in action, join in at any point, share their exploits with friends through social networking tools, or make Brag Clips that showcase their skills. With OnLive, gamers have immediate access to demos and can instantly try, buy and play top-tier games, whether playing solo or with friends.

Benefiting the Game Ecosystem

"With OnLive we've cleared the last remaining hurdle for the videogames industry: effective online distribution," said Steve Perlman, founder and CEO of OnLive. "By putting the value back into the games themselves and removing the reliance on expensive, short-lived hardware, we are dramatically shifting the economics of the industry. Delivering games instantly to the digital living room is the promise game fans have been waiting for and OnLive makes that promise a reality that's affordable, flexible and focused on their individual needs."

OnLive offers significant benefits to publishers and developers. It costs far less to develop a game for OnLive, and the economics are far more efficient than retail or download distribution models. It typically only takes a few weeks to extend an existing version of a game to work on the OnLive service, so there is little cost incurred by developers and publishers to support the OnLive platform.

Through a partnership with Epic Games, an industry-leading developer of triple-A games and cross-platform game engine technology, the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 is compatible with the OnLive platform. Games leveraging the cutting-edge technology and versatility of the Unreal Engine will easily run on the OnLive service.

Play Top Games From Top Names

OnLive will be showing 16 great titles playable during the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco at the OnLive Booth, North Hall #5128.

Coming Soon ...

The OnLive Game Service will be offered through a monthly subscription in winter 2009. OnLive will be available in a variety of different pricing packages and tiers, competitively priced to retail.

About OnLive

OnLive is the pioneer of on-demand game services, delivering real-time interactive experiences and rich media through the internet. Today, OnLive is developing solutions and services specifically for the videogames industry, with the world's first videogame-on-demand platform, the OnLive Game Service, launching later this year. With groundbreaking, patent-pending video-compression technology, OnLive harnesses cloud computing to provide the power and intelligence needed to instantly deliver the latest high-end games titles directly to TVs via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole, or on PCs and Macs.

Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime), and spun out of Rearden, the media and technology incubator behind MOVA, Ice Blink Studios and Moxi, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially launching in March 2009. OnLive technology is backed by over 100 patents and patents pending. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. OnLive investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk and Maverick Capital. MOVA is a wholly owned subsidiary of OnLive. More information is available at www.OnLive.com.

OnLive, Brag Clips, MicroConsole, MOVA and Contour are trademarks or registered trademarks of OnLive Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used by permission.

OnLive's 'Cloud Gaming' Could Be a Game-Changer | Game | Life from Wired.com

Valve: New Steamworks Feature "Makes DRM Obsolete"

Shortly after Microsoft revealed new features for their Games for Windows Live service, Valve counters with new Steamworks features, including in-game downloadable content, robust matchmaking, and new technology they claim "makes DRM obsolete."

We've already heard about the new downloadable content support for Steam, and the matchmaking is the same we've seen in the PC version of Left 4 Dead, now available to publishers and developers worldwide. The most interesting new feature is Steamworks new anti-piracy technology, Customer Executable Generation, or CEG. CEG basically creates a unique copy of a game for each customer, which can then be played on any compatible PC without install limits or root kits. You buy a copy, and that is your copy, completely unique to you. A simple and elegant solution to PC game piracy that manages to benefit both publishers and the consumer at the same time.

With new publishers flocking to the service every day and innovative new features like these regularly added, it's hard to imagine anyone toppling Steam from the top of the digital delivery heap anytime soon.

Valve: New Steamworks Feature "Makes DRM Obsolete"

Lawsuit: Best Buy has "anti-price matching policy"

Best Buy's alleged "price match guarantee" is less of a guarantee and more of a scam, according to a class action lawsuit in New York. The lawsuit even showcases an internal memo from Best Buy outlining employee tactics to "build a case against the price match," showing that the company isn't so interested in offering a good deal after all.

Best Buy may be forced to change its price matching policy, or at least be more transparent about its practices. A lawsuit against the company alleging false advertising and deceptive practices has been approved as a class action by a US District Court in New York, giving the plaintiffs more steam in their fight against the big box retailer. Even more interesting, however, is that the process of approving the suit has exposed some of Best Buy's dirty laundry.

The original lawsuit was brought by New York resident Thomas Jermyn in January of 2008 and was granted class action status as of last week. In his suit, Jermyn targets Best Buy's "price match guarantee" as a ploy to lure unsuspecting customers into the stores while actively practicing an "Anti-Price Matching Policy" among managers and employees.

Savvy deal hunters in the audience are already aware that trying to get a real price match on something at Best Buy can be an exercise in futility. It's not uncommon to hear anecdotal grumblings that Best Buy will find every excuse to not adhere to its publicly-advertised policy—the store is out of (or low on) stock, Best Buy doesn't match Internet prices, model numbers don't match up, etc. However, according to court documents, these instances apparently aren't just a result of clueless retail drones—it appears Best Buy actively encourages employees to use these very excuses to avoid offering the customer a good deal.

"What is the first thing we do when a customer comes in to our humble box brandishing a competitor’s ad asking for a price match? We attempt to build a case against the price match," reads an internal company memo from October of 2006, which is quoted in the court documents. "Let's walk through the 'Refused Price Match Greatest Hits:' Not same model? Not in stock at the competitor? Do we have free widget with purchase? Is it from a warehouse club (they have membership fees, you know)? Limited Quantities? That competitor is across town? We’ve got financing! Is it an internet price? It’s below cost! What about my NOP?"

Best Buy's defense for the existence of this document is that its author is a "long-standing employee with a sense of humor." Further evidence provided in the complaint belies that claim. Numerous Best Buy customers are cited as saying the retailer refused their requests on multiple occasions, or in cases where they already purchased the item, Best Buy told them to return it and pay a hefty restocking fee if they wanted to buy from a competitor with a lower price. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of trying to get a price match in the first place.

Additionally, none of these technicalities are mentioned in the public-facing version of Best Buy's policy. "If you are about to make a purchase and discover a lower advertised price offered by a local retail competitor on the same available brand and model, let us know and we'll match that price on the spot," reads Best Buy's website. "Already bought? We'll refund you the price difference from our own sale price, or 110% of the difference from our competitor's sale price, during the return and exchange period on your product." Questions on that page, such as "What is considered a local retail competitor?" come with ambiguous answers that seem to contradict the internal memo encouraging employees to deny matches on the basis that the competitor is "across town."

At best, the retailer is extremely confused about the meaning of its own price match guarantee and has no idea how to treat customers. At worst? We leave that as an exercise to the reader. Either way, the end result is a group of buyers who are done feeling jerked around and want to make Best Buy pay for it. HD Guru, which has been following the story closely, spoke with the attorney representing Jermyn, Michael Braunstein, who said that readers who have been refused a price match should contact him by e-mail or phone (mbraunstein@kgglaw.com or 845-356-2570). Though this particular lawsuit is limited to New York residents, those outside of New York are encouraged to voice their concerns as well.

Lawsuit: Best Buy has "anti-price matching policy" - Ars Technica