Who thought this up anyway? University of Central Arkansas

Update: Following complaints, the ALS Association dropped its trademark applications on Friday Aug. 29.

Unless you've been living in a sensory-deprivation chamber for the past few weeks, you've heard of the "ice bucket challenge" being shown off on all types of social media. People get buckets of ice water dumped on them in order to encourage donations to the ALS Association, the foundation that supports research and care for those living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a muscle disease that's also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

It's impossible to know exactly what makes something like the ice bucket challenge go viral. Whatever the case may be, the sensation been an incredible benefit for the ALS Association. Yesterday, the group said it has raised $94.3 million since July 29, compared to just $2.7 million during the same time period last year. That's nearly 35 times as much money.

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Packets on packets... Flickr user: timcaynes

In a paper presented at the prestigious ACM SIGCOMM conference last week, researchers from the University of Michigan, the International Computer Science Institute, Arbor Networks, and Verisign Labs presented the paper "Measuring IPv6 Adoption." In it, the team does just that—in 12 different ways, no less. The results from these different measurements don't exactly agree, with the lowest and the highest being two orders of magnitude (close to a factor 100) apart. But the overall picture that emerges is one of a protocol that's quickly capturing its own place under the sun next to its big brother IPv4.

As a long-time Ars reader, you of course already know everything you need to know about IPv6. There's no Plan B, but you have survived World IPv6 Day and World IPv6 Launch. All of this drama occurs because existing IP(v4) addresses are too short and are thus running out, so we need to start using the new version of IP (IPv6) that has a much larger supply of much longer addresses.

The good news is that the engineers in charge knew we'd be running out of IPv4 addresses at some point two decades ago, so we've had a long time to standardize IPv6 and put the new protocol in routers, firewalls, operating systems, and applications. The not-so-good news is that IP is everywhere. The new protocol can only be used when the two computers (or other devices) communicating over the 'Net—as well as every router, firewall, and load balancer in between—have IPv6 enabled and configured. As such, getting IPv6 deployed has been an uphill struggle. But last week's paper shows us how far we've managed to struggle so far.

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Swansea University scientists are conducting the largest field trial in Europe to find new ways of killing Japanese knotweed.

Nigeria has recorded its first Ebola death outside Lagos after a doctor died of the virus in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

I originally bought Bioshock for PC a number of years ago during one of Steam's summer sales. It was $2, and I had heard good things about it so I decided to buy it. Unfortunately like many of the inexpensive purchases I made, the game sat in my library unplayed for a long period of time. A couple of years after purchasing it, a friend of mine mentioned that I had quite a number of unplayed games in my Steam library and insisted that I play some of them. At that time I finally sat down and played Bioshock, and it became one of my favorite first person shooter games of all time. While some of the visuals seemed dated as a result of me playing it so long after its release, the atmosphere, setting, environments, and the story were some of the best I had experienced in a video game.

When I recently heard that Bioshock would be coming to iOS, I felt both excitement and worry. The excitement was obviously due to my love of the game and the appealing prospect of being able to play it on a smartphone. The worry came from my fear that the game would be severely crippled to run on mobile devices. Deus Ex: The Fall was a recent disappointment for smartphone gaming based on a successful PC and console franchise, and I worried Bioshock would meet a similar fate. But I was hopeful that it would be a faithful experience so long as they maintained the original experience which wasn't designed for the limitations of mobile hardware. Thankfully from my experience with the game so far, my hope wasn't misplaced.

Getting Set Up

Bioshock was originally released in 2007, and includes support for DirectX 9 on Windows XP and DirectX 10 on Windows Vista. Windows 7 has never really been an officially supported operating system, and I find that Bioshock gives me more trouble than other games do. Just do a Google search for "Bioshock crash windows 7" and you'll see what I mean. The issues seem to relate to audio, as on a new Windows install I will either have issues with crashes to desktop or a lack of audio in an otherwise functioning game. Disabling all sound output devices except for the one in use seemed to fix the issue this time.

Once the game was booted I jumped into the graphics settings menu to make sure everything was at its highest setting. For the purposes of these comparisons the PC versions of the game was run at 1920x1080 for a 16:9 aspect ratio matching that of the iPhone 5s version.

There's one option here that needs to be discussed and that's the option for "Horizontal FOV Lock." Essentially this setting keeps the horizontal FOV at the same value it would be on a 4:3 display regardless of the aspect ratio of the monitor being used. For 16:9 displays this means a more zoomed in appearance. Below I've put screenshots of the game with this option on and off, as well as the iPhone version for reference.

Top: FOV lock off. Middle: FOV lock on. Bottom: iPhone version

The iOS version of the game doesn't have any sort of graphical settings menu. As you can see above, it definitely uses the horizontal FOV lock setting and the field of view is essentially the same as on a PC or console with the setting enabled. At the very least, this ensures a consistent experience going from iPhone to iPad, but I'm still not a fan of how zoomed in it feels at times.

Bioshock on iOS doesn't really require any setup like the PC version. There are settings for difficulty, subtitles, object highlight, the quest arrow, and vita chambers, but like other mobile games there's nothing involving graphical settings. The menus themselves are the same as the PC version which really helps to make it feel like you're playing the full Bioshock and not a cut down mobile experience.

Graphics

The first thing to talk about here is what devices Bioshock runs on. This is definitely the most demanding game on the App Store, and despite the visual concessions in bringing a PC game to mobile it still requires significant processing power. Because of that, only devices sporting Apple's A6 or A7 chips can run the game properly. It will open on an older device but the frame rate is very low and the game becomes essentially unplayable. This means that every Apple A5 (and A5X in the third generation iPad) device is unsupported which is quite a long list of devices. First generation iPad Mini owners may be especially disappointed since their device is still sold and isn't even two years old, but given that it launched with the same hardware platform as the iPad 2 from 2011 it was to be expected that it wouldn't have a record setting length of time for software support. 

Top: PC. Bottom: Mobile

The game looks very impressive for a mobile shooter. Scenes like the introduction with the plane crash and the burning wreckage on the water have impressive fire and smoke effects that compare well to the PC version. However, there were definitely sacrifices made with the lighting and the shadows. The images for the HUD and the menus are also surprising low resolution, and I think the quality reduction there had more to do with fitting inside Apple's 2GB limit for applications than any issue with hardware capabilities.

Below are some more comparisons of Bioshock on iOS compared to on PC. In all cases the mobile version is on the left and the PC version on the right. I've tried to take screenshots of several different areas and objects to give an idea of where the graphics were toned down to work on mobile, and where they really hold up well compared to the PC version. You can click the images to view in a larger size.

I feel like 2K did a good job in maintaining the quality of the models in the game when bringing it over to mobile. The effect for the electro bolt plasmid is really close to the PC version. Something that needs to be kept in mind is that some of the areas that look low quality in the iPhone screenshots are harder to notice when the game is in motion on a 4" display.

I chose the last two comparisons for a reason, as they do well to demonstrate the affect that the reduced lighting and shadows have on the game's atmosphere. Graphical fidelity aside, the game just isn't as dark and creepy on mobile. The shadow of the splicer playing with the baby carriage being missing was especially disappointing as that's a very disturbing scene and it doesn't have the same impact without it.

The aliasing is also a significant issue as well. I don't know what resolution the game has to render at to run at an acceptable frame rate but I think I would have taken some more graphical reductions for either anti-aliasing or a higher rendering resolution. My big concern is that the aliasing is really noticeable even on a 4" iPhone 5s which has the best CPU and GPU speed relative to its resolution of all the devices the game runs on. While the iPad Mini Retina and iPad Air are less thermally constrained and can sustain higher clock speeds for a greater period of time, they're likely to have even more issues with aliasing with the game being scaled up to larger displays. I also began to wonder about the overhead impact of OpenGL ES and if the game could look even better if it had been made to run using Apple's Metal API that will be launching with iOS 8. I emailed 2K and they were unable to comment on any plans for using Metal on Bioshock or any future releases so we'll have to wait and see how future iOS games can look with Metal.

Below I have an album of all the screenshots I took while playing. At the time of writing I was at the medical pavilion level and I do intend on completing the game on mobile. One final thing to note is that there's no significant compression to the game's audio to reduce the size. The audio contributes greatly to the atmosphere of Bioshock and I'm very happy it was preserved.

Gallery: Bioshock iOS Screenshots

Gameplay

In my opinion the gameplay is really what matters. I would rather have a game that visually mediocre but enjoyable to play than one that looks amazing but feels like a glorified tech demo when played. I don't have access to a Bluetooth controller so I'll be evaluating the touch control experience for Bioshock on iOS. I believe that's how most users will play the game anyway.

Before I talk about how the HUD functions, I really do need to reiterate that the blurriness of all the controls is distracting and annoying. I don't know why they're so low resolution and I really hope 2K updates the game to fix them.

Bioshock has a more complex control scheme than other first person shooters. This is partly due to the inclusion of plasmids which necessitates a way to switch between them and your weapons. Before the game released I had wondered if the game would be altered to allow plasmids and weapons to be used simultaneously like in Bioshock 2, but the original system has been preserved.

Movement is controlled by a virtual control pad on the left side which only appears when in use. Crouching and standing is controlled by the button on the left of the screen. On the right side of the screen there is a button with three bullets on it which is used for reloading weapons. When using plasmids the icon of this button changes to an eve hypo syringe. The section below the reload icon controls switching between weapons and firing. Tapping on the icon for the selected weapon or plasmid fires it. Tapping the other icon is how you switch between weapons and plasmids. When using a weapon or plasmid, the arrow icon cycles through them. This can be troublesome when trying to switch from the wrench to a weapon like the chemical thrower which requires several presses. Update: I've just been informed that holding the button brings up a quick menu with all weapons which is a very fast way to switch between them. The last menu section is the ammo selection menu at the top which allows you to cycle through the various ammo types for your weapon.

In practice these controls work fairly well as far as touch controls go, although I really want to try the game out using a Bluetooth game controller. The one control you may notice is missing is for jumping. Bioshock for iOS actually doesn't have a way to jump, and some levels have had changes made as a result. For example, the very first level in the PC version has a fallen pillar on the ground and when approaching it the game tells you to hit the space bar to jump over it. Since the iOS version has no jumping, this tutorial and the fallen pillar was removed. While this does feel like a concession to make the game work on mobile, jumping was never a big part of Bioshock to begin with and when playing I never wanted to jump but was unable to.

One thing I would like to see is an update to allow the placement of the controls to be changed. The current position of the controls for firing and weapon switching end up covering the viewmodel for your weapon and I would like to move it further to the right side of the display.

The rest of the gameplay is very faithfully brought over to mobile. Plasmids, hacking, upgrades, and everything else is still in the game. The hacking in particular translates very well to mobile, it may actually be better on mobile than it was on PC.

Conclusion and Thoughts on Handheld Gaming

As I'm writing this I'm actually anxious to get back to playing because it's very exciting to have a full fledged first person shooter game that can be put right in your pocket. When I was younger I remember that Call of Duty 4 for the Nintendo DS was the best you had for a handheld first person shooter and as you can see in the image on the right it's not too impressive. We've come a long long way with what phones and handheld gaming devices can do. Although you often hear the term "console quality" thrown around regarding mobile GPU capabilities, I don't think we're quite there yet. But the gap between current generation smartphones and the previous generation of game consoles is certainly closing, and there's nowhere for the quality of mobile games to go but up. I'm very excited to see what the future holds for mobile gaming.

Bioshock for iOS is available on the App Store now for $14.99. The download is 1.65GB in size (and takes up 2.6GB installed on my iPhone 5s) and it only runs on devices with Apple's A6, A6X, or A7 chips which includes the iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, iPad 4, iPad Mini Retina, and iPad Air. I really think it's worth checking out if you can spare the money and are a fan of the original game.

Last year, we saw the introduction of HomePlug AV2 (HPAV2) silicon from both Broadcom and Qualcomm Atheros. In conformance with the usual product development cycle, we saw the announcement of various HPAV2 products at CES in January. TP-LINK and TRENDnet were the players that seemed to be taking the lead in getting them to the market. Even though their products were supposed to ship in Q2 / Q3, we are yet to see them outside tradeshows.

ZyXEL is springing a surprise by launching two powerline adapters based on the HPAV2 standard with confirmed ship dates

• PLA5206
  • Broadcom BCM60333 HPAV2 SISO Chipset
  • PLA5206KIT contains a pair of adapters, MSRP of $160
  • Available Sept. 1
  • Delivers speeds of up to 1Gbps
  • Utilizes HomePlug AV2 standard to transmit multiple HD video streams simultaneously
  • 128-bit encryption
  • Green power saving options
• PLA5405
  • Qualcomm Atheros QCA7500 HPAV2 MIMO Chipset
  • Pricing TBD
  • Available Oct. 1
  • Delivers speeds of up to 1.2Gbps
  • Line-Natural / Line-Ground MIMO smart-antenna technology allows data to be sent simultaneously over different wires, delivering faster throughput / extended coverage
  • Utilizes HomePlug AV2 standard to transmit multiple HD video streams simultaneously
  • 128-bit encryption
  • Green power saving options

Things have been relatively quiet on the powerline networking front from a home consumer perspective (with Wi-Fi advancements being the primary networking market driver right now). That said, these solutions will be a welcome addition in buildings where Wi-Fi remains ineffective due to reach issues. Powerline technology remains attractive for service providers and consumers in the EMEA / APAC markets.

Gah, so frustrating! Ten years ago I wrote a rather popular book called Wicked Cool Shell Scripts, and I'm working on a new edition—a Tenth Anniversary release. There are lots of new scripts, entirely new chapters and updates to the older stuff. more>>

6 more images in gallery

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CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});Do you want your smartwatch to look like a regular watch? While some companies are designing wearables that look more like smartphones that you wear on your wrist, the most compelling designs are the smartwatches that look more normal. With its round display and stainless steel body, the Moto 360 has been the standard-bearer for this school of thought. Today, LG has announced the LG G Watch R, which looks even more like a normal watch than Motorola's offering.

After teasing the device over the weekend, LG has come clean about its newest gizmo. The awkwardly named LG G Watch R is modeled after a normal diving watch, and if the press pictures are accurate, you'll have a hard time telling it's a smartwatch at all.

The device has mostly the same specs as the two-month old LG G Watch: a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. It's also water resistant and runs Android Wear. What's new is the stainless steel body, leather strap, a slightly bigger 410mAh battery (up from 400mAh), heart rate monitor, and, most importantly, a round 1.3-inch P-OLED display.

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Within four days of the first public reports of a major flaw in OpenSSL's software for securing communications on the Internet, mass attacks searched for and targeted vulnerable servers.

In a report released this week, IBM found that while the attacks have died down, approximately half of the original 500,000 potentially vulnerable servers remain unpatched, leaving businesses at continuing risk of the Heartbleed flaw. On average, the company currently sees 7,000 daily attacks against its customers, down from a high of 300,000 attacks in a single 24-hour period in April, according to the report based on data from the company's Managed Security Services division.

"Despite the initial rush to patch systems, approximately 50 percent of potentially vulnerable servers have been left unpatched—making Heartbleed an ongoing, critical threat," the report stated.

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Apple

The rumors were true: Apple has just sent out invitations for an event on September 9 at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in the company's hometown of Cupertino, California. Apple's invitations often include subtle hints or wink-and-a-nod references to whatever it is the company plans to announce—analyzing (and over-analyzing) these "clues" has become something of a joke among Apple writers—but this invitation is almost entirely unadorned. "Wish we could say more," it reads, as if to tease those who would hope to unlock its secrets.

Of course we already have plenty of indications about what Apple is going to announce—we'll likely be treated to one or more brand-new iPhones, a release date for iOS 8, and possibly even a first look at Apple's long-rumored wearable device.

The event will begin at 10:00am Pacific. We'll be on the ground to liveblog the proceedings, cover the announcements, and go hands-on with any new products.

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The new Leap Motion VR Developer Mount lets you attach a Leap Motion Controller to the front of an Oculus Rift DK1 or DK2 and turn your hands into gloveless VR gloves. Leap Motion

It’s been about a year since we first put our hands on the Leap Motion Controller, the infrared input device that sits on your desk and tracks the movements and gestures your hands make. At the time, we were simultaneously impressed and frustrated—the device seemed to have so much potential, but everything about its software and early app integration felt designed to annoy rather than enable. It came so close to being amazing without actually crossing that threshold.

Over the past year, though, I’ve come to rely on the Leap pretty heavily—not as a game controller but as a way to execute scripts with gestures, using BetterTouchTool. Wave my hand one way, and all the Hue lights in the house turn off. Wave my hand another, and my computer display locks and turns off. I even have a gesture that just sends a "spacebar" command to the active application, enabling me to scroll webpages and pause or unpause video by flicking a couple of fingers at the screen in a crowd-pleasing gesture that never fails to draw a "Whoa!" from observers. It’s cool, and it works reliably well.

And Leap has not spent the last year idle. Work continues on API and software updates for the existing Leap Motion Controller (as well as on the company's follow-up device, codenamed "Dragonfly"). In a blog post this morning, Leap cofounder David Holz talked through the latest improvement that the company has bolted onto its existing product: a small mounting device that, coupled with a software update, enables the Leap to function as a full-fledged virtual reality controller.

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This story was written and published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, DC, and is exclusively republished here.

Janice Bowling, a 67-year-old grandmother and Republican state senator from rural Tennessee, thought it only made sense that the city of Tullahoma be able to offer its local high-speed Internet service to areas beyond the city limits.

After all, many of her rural constituents had slow service or did not have access to commercial providers, like AT&T Inc. and Charter Communications Inc.

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CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});As part of its investigation of municipal broadband, the Center for Public Integrity put together some audio and visual imagery to show just how the fight plays out at the local level.

Large telecommunications companies have bankrolled campaigns to try to defeat referendums that would allow cities to build or expand their own high-speed broadband networks.

First up, two examples of anti-muni broadband robocalls and push polls—one from Longmont, Colorado, and the second from Lafayette, Louisiana.

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Australia's Deputy Prime Minister says a deep-sea search for the Malaysian airliner that disappeared in March will begin in September.

JPMorgan Chase was one of at least five US banks hit by a sophisticated attack against its networks that netted the attacker large volumes of bank account data—for an unknown purpose. Joe Mabel

The FBI is reportedly investigating whether a sophisticated attack on JPMorgan Chase and at least four other banks was the work of state-sponsored hackers from Russia. The attacks, which were detected earlier this month, netted gigabytes of checking and savings account data, according to a report by The New York Times.

Update: According to one source Ars contacted who claims to be familiar with the investigation at JPMorgan Chase, the attack on the bank stemmed from malware that infected an employee's desktop computer. It was not clear whether the malware was delivered by a web attack or by an email "phishing" attack. That is contradicted by information shared with Bloomberg, which indicates the attack started with a zero-day exploit of one of JPMorgan's web servers.

In a statement sent to Ars, John Prisco, CEO of the security firm Triumfant said, "The nature of the JPMorgan breach was a persistent threat with a backdoor that enabled the attacker to enter whenever they wanted." He expressed surprise that the breach went undetected for so long, claiming that it was "fairly easy breach to detect."

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CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});Making a good product is hard, and if you don't have a solid vision, there's nothing like iteration to help get you there. Samsung has taken this strategy to heart in the smartwatch category, where, in less than a year, it has released the Galaxy Gear, Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit, and Gear Live. Late last night, the company took the wraps off of smartwatch #6: The Samsung Gear S.

So what's new this time around? Well, as was rumored, the Gear S has a 3G modem and Wi-Fi—it's a standalone smartwatch. Until now, just about any mainstream smartwatch has been tethered to a smartphone to get internet access. The other big addition to the Gear S is a curved AMOLED display. The 2-inch 360×480 display is one of the biggest ever on a smartwatch; just look at the last two pictures in the gallery below for an idea of the size. It's almost a bracelet instead of a watch.

Other specs include a 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, heart rate monitor, Bluetooth 4.1, 802.11a/b/n, GPS, and IP67 water resistance.

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Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have married in France, a spokesman confirms.

T-Mobile

Grooveshark, Rdio, Google Play Music, and four other music services will no longer count against data caps on certain T-Mobile US plans. In all, 14 streaming services will be exempt from LTE data caps by the end of the year as part of T-Mobile's "Music Freedom" program.

AccuRadio, Black Planet, Grooveshark, Radio Paradise, Rdio, and Songza should immediately become exempt. Google will be added "later this year," T-Mobile announced today.

"The new services join iHeartRadio, iTunesRadio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Samsung Milk, Slacker and Spotify already included in Music Freedom," the announcement said. "T-Mobile has a vision to add every possible music streaming service to Music Freedom, and any music streaming provider can be part of Music Freedom by applying through T-Mobile’s open submission process."

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The Internt of Things (IoT) revolution is in the process of taking off in a big way with the rising popularity of wearables and home automation platforms. Different vendors have placed their bets on different radios / protocols for IoT. For example, Sigma Designs is heavily promoting Z-Wave, while Freescale and some other vendors are pushing 802.15.4 (ZigBee). Broadcom's play in the IoT market is the WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices) platform. The strategy involves a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, with Bluetooth being the primary focus.

The WICED platform has been around for some time now. A couple of days back, Broadcom announced an update in this category by launching a new development kit, the WICED Sense. In addition to the BCM20737 Bluetooth SiP, the kit also integrates five different MEMS sensors (gyroscope, accelerometer, e-compass, barometer and humidity/temperature measurement).

The kit is already FCC certified. It has a micro-USB connector for simplified application development. Apps exist for both iOS and Android. iBeacon support is also touted. Best of all, this kit is available for around $20, enabling enthusiasts and developers to economically develop and prototype their IoT product concepts.

Along with the product announcement, Broadcom also let us in on a select list of IoT products with communication enabled by their silicon.

• Galaxy Gear2 by Samsung
  • BCM4334 Single-Chip Dual-Band Combo Device Supporting 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0+HS & FM Receiver
• Smoke + CO Alarm by Nest
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Controller
• Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat by Honeywell
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Controller
• MyQ Garage Door Controller by Chamberlain
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Controller, BCM20702 Bluetooth Processor and BCM20732 Bluetooth SMART SoC
• LED Smart Bulb by Lifx (X2)
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Controller
• LeapPad Ultra by Leapfrog
  • BCM4319 single-chip device, with radio, MAC, baseband & integrated power amplifier (PA)
• Halo Hearing Aid by Starkey
  • BCM20732S WICED 2.4GHz Bluetooth SMART SIP Module
• Toy Car by UPRTek
  • BCM20732S WICED 2.4GHz Bluetooth SMART SIP Module 
• iGrill by iDevices
  • BCM20737 WICED 2.4GHz Bluetooth SMART SoC
• Nimbus by Quirky
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Controller
• ViSi Mobile System by Sotera Wireless
  • BCM43341 Quad Combo Dual-Band (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) 802.11 g/n MAC/Baseband/Radio with Integrated Bluetooth 4.0, NFC & FM Receiver
• Wi-Fi Weight Scale by Blip
  • BCM43362 WICED 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Controller

The above list includes some of the hottest IoT products in the market right now. Z-Wave and ZigBee have been around for a long time. But, it is Wi-Fi which is helping IoT products reach out to a larger market. Bluetooth support enables a different kind of IoT use-case where the device is better off communicating with a smartphone or similar mobile device directly. Broadcom seems well set to target this market with a comprehensive solution set for all kinds of IoT developers (from the enthusiast in his garage to companies delivering high-volume products).

Turkish President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan is officially sworn in later after winning the country's first ever popular vote for head of state.