QuickJump QuickPeek Issue 08: Of lives saved BY a console, lives saved FOR a console, and human life simulations

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(Editor’s Note: QuickJump QuickPeek’s 8th issue marks the second month since this feature came into being. Again, thanks to everyone, the support has been very overwhelming. I won’t be saying much this time, I’ll just be leaving you with the same quote we put up last week: My loyalty for [insert console/company] ends, where my loyalty to videogaming begins. Happy reading!)

Two months, eight weeks, 62 days, 1,488 hours, (you get the drift) – that’s how old QuickJump QuickPeek is. We know it’s not much, but judging from the sweet moments it had with you guys, we get the feeling we’re all taking part in something special. Anyway, enough of the dramatics, we’re here to bring you news right? And that’s exactly what we have in this collection. Top stories from our gaming systems of choice. Dig in.

The full issue awaits after the jump!

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PSP
The updates we had the past seven days were a bit tamer compared to the week before it, but surpassing that was a very tall order to begin with. We did have some major newsbreakers though, particularly in the homebrew scene. Here they are:

We now lead you to an official statement by Team Wildcard – more officially branded as Team Wildc*rd – who in their own respects have done much for the PSP homebrew community. PSP homebrew developers and followers already know the story behind the custom firmware source code leak, but the release of such code had obvious ramifications: developers now had the opportunity to release rip-off CFWs as they saw fit.

“Out of respect to the devs that worked so hard on this source and also out of respect for Dark_AleX, Team Wildc*rd politely requested that this source be used for educational purposes only and not for public releases,” said the representative from Team Wildcard.

Now everyone must recognize how sensitive this issue is, and thus being mere heralds of PSP updates we wish not to taint the report with any kind of subjectivity. We leave you to contemplate matters on your own.

Link: [WildC*rd makes a stand: use of leaked source code]

Now we bring you word coming from StrmnNrmn‘s blog, and it’s all about Daedalus R13 being “significantly faster” and probably more efficient than R12. The juiciest bit of this update deals with what the Daedalus creator calls as an “interesting Dynarec hack”. StrmnNrmn explains it best in this post:

What I realised on Monday is that I can make an assumption that lets me remove the error handling code for certain types of load/stores. The assumption is that when the N64 accesses any memory through the stack pointer ($sp) register, the address is always going to be valid, physical memory.

The assumption relies on the fact that most roms don’t do anything particularly clever with their stack pointers – it gets set up for each thread to point at a valid region of memory then the game just runs along, pushing and popping values from it as the code executes. Of course, if the assumption is wrong then the emulator will just crash and grind to a halt in a unpredictable manner 🙂

Sounds good ‘ey? We can’t wait for R13’s release too. Major props to StrmnNrmn for bringing his project to this level despite all criticisms and doubts.

Link: [Daedalus R13 update: StrrmnNrmn finds a Dynarec hack]

From the shores of Japan, SofiyaCat has released an updated version of PSPTube, the handy dandy homebrew application that lets you watch YouTube videos on your PlayStation Portable without the need to download and convert .flv files. While we had a lot of homebrew releases the past week, we chose to feature this one instead just to bring the global PSP audience closer. PSP for World Peace FTW!!!

Link: [PSPTube 20070812 – now with favorites folder!]

Speaking of PSP’s contribution to human society, here’s a report we posted a few days ago regarding how a PSP helped saved a man’s life. Ortega Garcia is a businessman from Louisville who was kidnapped, beaten, and tortured by two alleged members of the Mexican Mafia. They would have killed him too, had the man not escaped his captors. Who (or in this case, “what”) aided him in overpowering two men trained to hurt and kill? A PlayStation Portable. This space is meant for something else, so we leave you to find out for yourself what really happened that day by clicking on the link below.

Link: [Be proud: PSP saves man’s life]

That’s it from us this week. Expect bigger updates from our developers (commercial and independent) the coming days, and you can count us too that we’ll be there watching it unfold with you guys. Till next issue!

– QJ.Net’s PSP team

PlayStation 3
Hullo fellow followers of the black console. We had another great week behind us. Sony’s been gaining momentum the past months and the future’s looking brighter for the PS3. Let the week’s top stories roll out!

Let’s go on mellow mode and begin this batch with a heartwarming story. In Portland, Oregon, a nine year old finds himself in the most unusual role of playing the hero – and this time, it’s no game. Little tyke Matty Lovo Jr. was able to take control of a runaway truck when his father, Matt Lovo, conked out cold on the wheel. We’re talking a 100,000 pound truck carrying lumber down the road here – definitely not your everyday thing that a nine year old would find himself driving, if at all.

Wait. What does a boy saving his dad, no matter how extraordinary it sounds, has to do with PS3? Well great deeds don’t go unnoticed, history stands as the best proof to that. It turns out the child believe his deed can only be matched by the best reward possible (next to his and his father’s life of course) – a PlayStation 3.

Well even the best of heroes have human desires (Mary Jane/Gwen Stacy anyone?), we guess we have to give this hero-in-the-making his due.

Link: [A heart warming tale: heroic 9 year old saves dad, might get a PS3 as reward]

From saving lives, we move on to testing one – a PS3 life that is. PS3 Vault did a series of experiments to its PlayStation 3 designed to test the console’s durability and stability. What they exactly did was leave the PS3 on for 108 hours alternating between playing video games and watching Blu-ray movies. The interesting part here is that the test was done three times under these environmental circumstances: a typical family room, the back of a freezer van, and a heat sauna. Here’s their findings:

Family Room: Console ran continuous for the 108 hours with only one incident happening at 12 hours in – a slight vibration coming from the tray area which lasted approximately 20 seconds. For the remaining time allocated no incidents were reported.
Back of Freezer Van: Temperature started at 50F and was progressively scaled down over the next four days to reach zero degrees.

We noticed a slight sluggishness in playback once the temperature reached 0 degrees, this was maintained for the last 24 hours, with 12 hours to go we thought we were going to crash with a sudden, blackout to the screen, this was tracked down to condensation on the cord for the screen. 108 hours in and still working fine.

Heat Sauna: Starting temperature was 100 F and Gradually increased to 120F over the last 24 hours.

The only incident we noticed was a slight burning smell that came in around 64 hours at 110 F, the console was extremely hot when we finished the overall test but had come thru all environments with flying colors.

Impressive huh? Everybody sing with us: I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings…

Link: [You can’t kill a PS3]

Of course, you have to give credit where credit is due. It’s no accident the PS3 is this durable, Sony’s quality measures are definitely behind it. Now we have two Sony execs reiterating the PS3’s apparent reliability, in light of the mounting concern regarding the Xbox 360’s three red lights of death.

The first comment came in from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) founder Chris Deering, who pegged the PS3’s failure rate to be “around 0.2%” during the recently concluded Edinburgh Interactive Festival. SCEA Dave Karakker followed suit by commending the unofficial stress test done by PS3 Vault. Full details on the link below.

Link: [Sony execs comment on PS3’s failure rate]

Gaming site SPOnG recently caught up with Free Radical Creative Director Derek Littlewood to talk briefly about the upcoming game Haze (Xbox 360, PS3, PC). In the said interview, emphasis was given on the main differences between the multiplayer aspect for Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network (PSN).

Derek Littlewood also admitted that Free Radical prefers working with Sony than Microsoft. He claimed that they understand the advantages of having specific instructions to follow and the downside of having too much freedom, but it’s just that Sony’s style works for them better:

You see some games with the Live interface, [where] they might have been able to innovate and alter things round and make things work better than Live, but they can’t because they have to conform with Microsoft’s standards on that, whereas on the PlayStation Network you have the freedom to do things in the way you want to.

[Insert cricket sounds here]

Link: [Haze developer Free Radical prefers working with Sony than Microsoft]

Believe us when we say we had more positive PS3 updates to put in here, unfortunately the gods of Mt. QJ-lympus (Translation: editors) are strictly limiting us to four stories per issue. The best solution to this is to make checking ps3.qj.net a habit, we’ve got all stories covered.

– QJ.Net’s PS3 team

Xbox 360
There weren’t that many head-turning Xbox 360 updates this week. Well, you know what they say, lack of bad news is good news. To this week’s movers and shakers.

Good news for the green army, Microsoft seems to be loosening up with their strict and stringent rules with Xbox Live. It appears they are now willing to bend it a bit to allow transfer of user generated content from the PC to the Xbox 360 for some games. There’s a catch though: the transfer will run through the publisher’s servers instead of Microsoft’s Xbox Live, thereby making the publishers the accountable party.

It should be noted that both Epic and Microsoft have earlier indicated support for user mods on Unreal Tournament III, will this be part of that plan?

Link: [Microsoft to allow transfer of selected PC content to Xbox 360 through Live]

We’ve had a number of great news dealing with the very promising BioShock this week. What really caught our attention though, is the one that includes Jack Thompson. Apparently the latest item in his agenda is to appear in an upcoming episode of Dr. Phil as a “game violence expert” – with the host of the show himself, Dr. Phil, inviting the attorney over. This bit of news comes from a comment posted on a recent Game Politics article, with the poster bearing the name of none other than Jack Thompson himself. Here’s the statement, verbatim:

You all can relax. Dr. PhilÂ’s people called me last week, and at that point they were going to take the show in the direction of video game violence. They indicated they wanted me on the show. I got a call yesterday, and they decided to take the show in a different direction, with the focus on role-playing game addiction. They have a girl who has that problem.

Look, IÂ’m giving you the straight scoop here, so knock off the flaming at least in response to this. Dr. PhilÂ’s people were very nice, very professional, and quite enthusiastic. Of course, Dr. Phil was spot-on after V-Tech, given the link to video game play by Cho substantiated by the New York Times and the Washington Post (you wonÂ’t read about that here).

Is BioShock going to be the next game in Mr. Jack Thompson’s sights? While the game certainly has violence – lots of it – it also supports a gameplay where you can use the environment (and your Plasmid abilities) to approach the game in a less violent and more stealthy, security-alarm-evading manner. There’s also the decision of either killing or saving Little Girls – probably the only ones left “sane” in Rapture – after defeating the Big Daddies that travel with them. What do you guys think?

Link: [“Jack Thompson”: I’m a game violence expert and BioShock is in trouble]

Here’s something that should catch your attention: Unreal Tournament III may mark the start of tough times for the Xbox 360 as Mark Rein of Epic Games explains that the size of the DVD format for the Xbox 360 are forcing developers to cut down the game. Rein says during the Edinburgh Festival that Epic Games will “compress some things. But you know, we may have fewer maps on the 360 version… Blu-Ray has definitely given us a lot of legroom.”

Hmm… However, data storage is quite easily bypassed with a second disc. This might not bode well for those who own the Core system though, as data may prove too large for a memory card. A Hard Drive would definitely be preferable when transferring between two discs. Might this be the reason behind the “Hard Disk Drive Required” sticker appearing on future 360 games?

Link: [Unreal Tournament III being limited by DVD format for the Xbox 360]

Of course, this week wouldn’t be complete without a barrage of news from the Spartan hero, Master Chief. Highly anticipated Halo 3 gives us another proof of just how “anticipated” it is. Some folks failed to resist the urge and have leaked scans of the instruction manual containing loads of juicy info.

The scans mostly talk about the summary of what’s happened so far in the Halo series, the descriptive blurbs about the main cast (especially Master Chief), as well as a refresher course on the Covenant bestiary and the weapons you’ll be able to play with. You wanna get your hands on ’em too? Follow the link below then.

Link: [Six Halo 3 instruction manual pages scanned]

That’s the top four stories for our green and mean machine this week. See you guys around!

– QJ.Net’s Xbox 360 team

Wii
Everybody’s favorite console (and by everybody we mean the 10 million-strong Wii owners) got some pretty cool updates this week. Aside from great news about some of the popular Wii games, we also had our own share of controversies to deal with. What kind of controversy you ask? You have to read on to find out.

Wondering what’s the latest on RockStar’s Manhunt 2? Nothing much, just RockStar asking the gaming community to rally behind them on their quest to regain freedom of expression! Rockstar Leeds Co-founder and Studio Head Gordan Hall was recently interviewed by Develop Mag and according to the industry veteran, what BBFC did to Manhunt 2 is ultimately an attack to the video gaming industry. He said:

If you look at a film like Man Bites Dog, it makes Manhunt look tame in comparison, but that film can be bought by anyone aged 18. I don’t think Rockstar specifically has been picked on, but I do think that the wider issue attacks our entire industry. We need to teach people that games are an art form – they are more artistic than film.

We are an adult entertainment industry – we may have started out with child-like technology making games solely for a younger audience, but it’s just not like that anymore. It might take legislature a little while to catch up, but if the industry sticks together hopefully we can change people’s attitudes quicker.

Strong words from RockStar ‘ey? Any answer for it?

Link: [Rockstar to the gaming industry: Rally behind us and Manhunt 2]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is definitely the Wii’s ticket to supremacy. The hype is just off the charts, and with these two huge updates they’re bound to rise some more.

First, let us introduce a new SSBB character: In the red corner… Wearing a red cap and shirt, weighing in at three pokeballs, here’s the Pokemon Trainer! Yup. The nameless Pokemon Trainer (though he has an eerie resemblance to Ash Ketchum, doesn’t he?) is included in the game’s roster of fighters. In his arsenal are three types of pokemon of three degrees of evolution: Squirtle, Ivysaur (first evolution of Bulbasaur), and Charizard (second evolution of Charmander). These cuddly wonders of nature will then o the battling for him. Interesting huh?

Now we move on to a sighting, a Sonic sighting that is. An ad from Best Buy Canada has surfaced bearing the designs of the brawl-themed game. Of course, aside from the game’s logo, we have some of the characters that’ll take part in the SSBB universe. Samus is there, Link, Wario, Kirby, and Sonic… Yeap, you read that right. Sonic was freaking there! Does this mean our coin-gorging bundle of blur is indeed making its way towards brawldom?

Link: [Super Smash Bros. Brawl character update: meet the Pokemon Trainer]
Link: [Another Sonic-in-Brawl sighting]

Now it’s time for some WiiWare update. Here’s some info that should clear up the veil of mystery that the Big N’s thrown over this piece of indie gaming heaven. Most obvious and important questions include what sort of titles we’ll be expecting during the first few months, and how much Wii Points will it set us back to get our fix. So, the details:

The first titles will be focusing on puzzle and educational genres
Nintendo will help to publish titles for small developers
Pricing is expected to be under $10, but nothing official has been announced
Future WiiWare titles will cross various genres, as well as game projects

Great list right? We can’t wait for WiiWare’s arrival too.

Link: [More WiiWare info revealed]

See you guys next ish!

– QJ.Net’s Wii team

Honorable Mention:
QJ.Net’s deans of geekology are back with another dose of realism we residents of the virtual world so desperately need. Our Gadget and Science blogs have been really active the past weeks, and we’d like to believe our moments of fame here have something to do with that. So to you guys, we give our thanks. On to this week’s biting realities.

Loved the Matrix? Or the Sims series perhaps? We often shrug at the possibility of life being more than mere simulations controlled by a greater power, but now we have word that this idea isn’t actually that far-fetched. It’s the ultimate philosophical nightmare: we’re not real, we’re just a series of electric impulses darting about who think we’re real. The old we’re-just-brains-in-a-jar argument.

What are the chances of such a philosophical blackhole? Dr. Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, is quite specific on the number: “My gut feeling, and itÂ’s nothing more than that, is that thereÂ’s a 20 percent chance weÂ’re living in a computer simulation.” According to him, an advanced race of “posthumans” have built a supercomputer that simulates their ancestors, ie, us:

I think itÂ’s highly likely that civilization could endure to produce those supercomputers. And if owners of the computers were anything like the millions of people immersed in virtual worlds like Second Life, SimCity and World of Warcraft, theyÂ’d be running simulations just to get a chance to control history Â— or maybe give themselves virtual roles as Cleopatra or Napoleon.

Eeek! Anyone feeling the pulsating pulse of electronics in their lifestream?

Link: [There’s a 20% chance that we’re computer simulations]

Here’s another one that should cause goosebumps. A principle element of Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is that the speed of light cannot be broken. Until today that is. Two German physicists have allegedly been able force light to break its own speed threshold (186,000 mi/sec) in one of their experiments. This part of our report best explains the findings:

The experiments centered on the movement of highly charged packets of light called microwave photons. These photons were moved through two prisms which were eventually separated. While most of the photons bounced off the first prism they hit, a few were able to get through because of quantum tunneling, an event where particles are charged to the point that it can penetrate an obstacle or barrier.

These rogue packets of light had to travel farther than those that were bounced of the prism to get to the machine collecting the data. Theoretically, one should arrive before the other; however, all the packets arrived at the same time. This indicates a discrepancy in speed between both the reflected and tunneling packets, thus leading the scientists to believe that the latter was actually moving faster than the speed of light.

If this experiment can be reproduced and confirmed, then it could change the laws of Physics as we know it considering a lot of the theories have been based on the assumption that the light speed “barrier” cannot be surpassed.

Millennium Falcon here we come!

Link: [Scientists allegedly break speed of light]

Thanks and see you guys next week!

Comment of the Week:

Before giving you this week’s chosen comment, we’d like to extend our thanks to the many QJ regulars parading our pages. And you’re right, this section was created with the goal of giving our old-timers the recognition they deserve. Without you guys, we wouldn’t be here – cliche, but true.

Anyway, this week we’re featuring one of our random visitors. Like we said, QuickJump exists for the community so we give everyone the service they deserve. And though the “QJ veterans” we hold closer to our hearts, everyone’s considered family (yeah, even the newborn “first posters”). Here it is:

– Mature Gamer on the Manhunt 2 controversy.

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