June 11th, 2008 DJB
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Sat on the start grid, foot poised over the accelerator, you wait for the row of red lights to extinguish. Alongside you are top names like Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. The cars’ engines are screaming and everyone is poised to go. For any Formula One fan the chance to race against their heroes would be a dream come true.
Sadly, the closest most of us have ever got is watching the Grand Prix on television. But that could soon change if a company from the Netherlands has its way.
“It’s clear that the next trend in gaming is going to be bringing real objects into the virtual world; playing not against other gamers but people doing the real thing,” said Andy Lurling, founder of iOpener Media.
The patented system his company is developing sucks in real-time GPS data from racing events and pumps it out to compatible games consoles and PCs.
The idea is that you could pit yourself against the top drivers in the world, as it happens, from the comfort of your living room.
“You can compete against the best of the best,” he told BBC News.
‘Hardcore appeal’
And if all of this sounds far fetched, think again.
The European Space Agency (Esa) was so impressed with his proposal, it gave Mr Lurling’s company a grant to develop a proof of concept. A German venture capitalist has stumped up cash to develop it further.
He has already tested it with an F1 car and plans to have the first games on the market as early as September this year.
“At this point we have lots of interest and we are looking for the right partner to launch,” he said.
The firm is currently in talks with six developers about using the technology.
Gareth Wilson, design manager at Bizarre Creations, makers of the Project Gotham Racing series, says he thinks games with the real-time feature would “excite a hardcore minority of gamers”.
“Formula 1 and similar complex simulation games are getting less mass market nowadays, compared to their more arcade-style heyday in the late 90s,” he told BBC News.
“This sort of feature would probably appeal to the hardcore gamer or F1 fan more than a mass market gamer.
“Having said that, the hardcore would totally love it.”
Bizarre Creations is not currently one of the firms evaluating the system.
Precision position
At the core of iOpener’s technology is an enhanced GPS system known as differential GPS (DGPS).
This uses a network of fixed base stations to correct the GPS signal, which on its own may only be accurate to within 10m. DGPS is commonly used for air navigation or shipping where precision is key.
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1. Car position located with Global Navigation Satellite Systems
2. Location data and car telemetry is beamed to a track side server
3. Data is tagged with unique ID of the car and sent over the internet
4. Information stored on servers and “mediacast” to gamers.
Whole process from car to gamer takes less than five seconds
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“With that we know the location and the velocity of the car,” explained Mr Lurling.
As further precision is needed, iOpener can use information from the European EGNOS network, which augments GPS satellite signals to provide positional data accurate to within 2m.
Other tweaks include fitting cars with an inertial measurement unit (IMU), commonly used in guided missile systems, which measure acceleration, angle and yaw of the object.
“IMUs give accuracy on a short range,” Mr Lurling told BBC News.
“Combined with DGPS, we know the location of the car to within less than 30 centimetres.”
In addition, the system collects telemetry data from the car, which is fitted with a small computer, transmitter and the GPS receiver.
“That is already good enough data for a game,” he said.
Telemetry is commonly collected by track-side engineers to monitor the vehicles’ performance and can include information such as acceleration and what gear the car is in.
It has already used by games developers to build more realistic simulations.
Designers at Bizarre Creations used the telemetry to generate accurate track models for early F1 games, before detailed circuit maps existed, for example.
From the track side, the data is sent over the net to a server farm, where it is saved before being pumped out - or “mediacast” - to eager gamers.
The delay between collecting the data and the gamer being immersed in it is up to five seconds, similar to the lag on a TV broadcast.
“We also store the data, so not only can you play the game in real time, but you can replay races at a later date,” said Mr Lurling.
Intelligent gaming
The company does not intend to develop its own games; rather it will provide the backbone for games developers to build on to.
But it will provide some software; specifically an artificial intelligence (AI) program to make sure that the virtual and real worlds blend seamlessly.
Artificial intelligence handles collisions between real and virtual drivers
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“If Hamilton is driving behind you he can’t see you [in the game], so he would drive right through you,” explained Mr Lurling.
“So the AI takes over at that point and you see a very realistic overtaking.”
The system also handles the results of in-game collisions between real and virtual drivers.
In this case, the real car always drives away. The gamer’s fate is less certain.
“We go for optimal realism but the game experience has to be right,” he said.
Mr Wilson agrees with this approach.
“There is a huge difference between what happens in the real world and what happens in video games - even the most ‘realistic’ simulator has to bend real world physics to make the game more fun,” he said.
However, even with the AI, he thinks gamers may encounter a more fundamental frustration with the system.
“I know I wouldn’t even get close to the lap times that Lewis Hamilton could run, unless my car in the virtual world had a load of extra grip and power - which might defeat the point,” he said.
At the moment, iOpener is concentrating firmly on racing games, but believes that there is a huge market for the system in other sports.
“You can think of biking, rowing, skiing and snowboarding,” said Mr Lurling.
“In the next three to five years, we believe that games will not be ‘triple A’ games unless they have our feature in,” he said.
Mr Lurling was the 2006 Dutch regional winner of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (Galileo Masters) which aims to find novel uses for location data. The 2008 competition is now open to entries, until 31 July.
Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
May 3rd, 2008 DJB
The broadband crunch
An ‘exabyte’ is a lot of data. It is 1.074 billion gigabytes of data, to be exact. It would take 14 million laptops like mine to store an exabyte. Two exabytes equals the total volume of information generated back in 1999. Today, the internet is handling one exabyte of data every single hour.
The sheer size of the internet, not to mention seemingly universal access to it, makes it easy to forget how young the net really is.
Many of us are now so familiar with – and reliant on – this technology that it’s hard to believe it is such a recent development, but it has been with us for a mere blink of an eye in historical terms: speedy commercial access to the world wide web barely made it to us by the end of the 20th century.
Something like YouTube would have seemed like a crazy dream just 10 years ago. Six million videos on a single website, each available to watch in an instant? Impossible.
Bandwidth-hungry online video
But now online video streaming is a reality - and enormously popular. However, downloading a 30 minute television programme consumes more bandwidth than receiving 200 e-mails every day for a year. Small wonder then that the internet is already working hard to keep up with our demands.
This growing demand for online video and streaming television (like the BBC’s iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4oD) is draining the internet’s capacity to deliver data. “Changes in internet usage have quickly turned the internet into an entertainment medium,” says Asam Ahmad of broadband provider Virgin Media. “And there does need to be an open discussion about how bandwidth is managed.”
Broadband providers
ISPs currently use moderate measures to ensure the most extreme bandwidth hogs do not ruin it for the rest of us. Virgin Media, for instance, uses a ‘non-discriminatory’ policy of peak time traffic management, based on a user’s total bandwidth consumption, which might temporarily lessen the speed of a video junkie’s connection if his or her usage has been particularly high.
These measures have been effective so far, and the burden of increasing demands might not have been felt yet - but it will soon. Experts are predicting a ‘broadband crunch’ come 2010, wherein increasing use of bandwidth-hungry services will bring the internet to a virtual standstill.
A report by Nemertes Research, a group that analyses the business value of emerging technology, says that current investment in internet infrastructure is insufficient to meet growing bandwidth demands.
“The network is coping”
Speaking to MSN, a BT spokesman acknowledged the issue but downplayed its severity. “It’s a commercial issue for certain internet service providers. If usage patterns progressively increase because customers are doing things which are increasing their use of bandwidth, and if those customers are charged a fixed price for a fixed amount of bandwidth, then there is a question about whether certain business models are sustainable.
“On a technical level: can the network physically cope? As things stand, the network is coping. Though if you were to ask whether the network in shape for the streaming of multiple broadcast-quality TV-type signals all over the internet to every home in the land… then that will probably require considerable investment in the network.” Because although the internet advances very quickly, the large-scale infrastructure that supports it, delivering it to homes and offices around the country, has not quite kept up.
The hardware problem
The internet video boom is being handled in the UK by networks which, in many places, were originally intended to carry voice calls only. It is testament to some very clever engineering that old hardware has been enabled to cope with as much as it has – but this cannot go on forever.
The problem lies not with the modern fibre optics and underground cabling of the internet’s main motorways, whose high technology and vast capacities mean data can zip from one part of the world to another in next to no time. The limiting factor comes at the last stage of the journey: in the routers, switches and copper wires that run finally from an exchange into a home.
When it comes to broadband speeds, the UK already lags behind many other countries. About 90 per cent of South Korea is hooked up with an average advertised broadband speed of 43 Mbps. In France the average is about 44 Mbps, whereas Japan has an astounding 90 Mbps. These figures all put the ‘up to 8 Mbps’ connections typically offered by UK providers in the shade.
A return to dial-up speeds?
What would a ‘broadband crunch’ mean for UK internet users? The Nemertes report predicts that if the problem is not addressed, users could be looking at a gradual return to the speeds of the dial-up networking of yesteryear. For those of us who know the joys of 28.8 kilobits per second modems, this is a worrying prospect.
The study says the slow-down will change our experience of the web. “[In the future] it may take more than one attempt to confirm an online purchase or it may take longer to download the latest video from YouTube,” says the report. More significant still is the crunch’s potential braking effect on internet progress. Online innovations – the next YouTube, iPlayer, eBay, or something entirely new and different – might simply not get off the ground if networks cannot support them.
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It’s not difficult to see why large-scale internet infrastructure has been neglected: upgrading such a system is a mammoth task. Although installing speedy fibre optic connections to homes nationwide is the most obvious of solutions, it represents an enormous expense and a huge amount of work. With the internet working adequately for the time being, many would hardly see the need for an upgrade, not to mention resent the digging up of roads across the country. Finally, there is the issue of who would foot the multi-billion pound bill.
An expensive project
When internet service providers have to compete with each other’s prices to win customers, an expensive, long-term project like fibre-to-the-home does not appeal. This, however understandably, leads to an approach that may not be viable in the long run.
Other providers believe they already have the problem in hand. “We will be rolling out a 50 Mbps service on our entire network at the end of the year,” Virgin Media told MSN. “”The technology we are putting into the network can theoretically cope with 300 Mbps upstream and downstream simultaneously. 50 Mbps is a good upgrade for now.”
This year, BT will trial 100Mbps fibre-to-the-home connections at an estate of new homes in Ebbsfleet, with a view to using the project as a feasibility study for further high-speed connections.
Who should cover the costs?
Alternatively, we might ask those who generate the demand for bandwidth to cough up. There have already been whispers that the likes of YouTube and iPlayer should contribute to the networks that support their services. But then could these services realistically remain free?
The solution might well require a government-funded initiative. It would be a worthy endeavour, one that would drive the nation’s technology forward and prepare us for the exponential growth of the internet. But it would also ultimately be a project funded by taxpayer money - and thus not necessarily popular.
The government recently launched a review on next-generation broadband access. “Its purpose is to look at the government can pave the way for faster broadband and minimise the cost for private sector investment – and what barriers there are to that investment,” a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform told MSN. “Still, the roll-out of next-generation access should be private sector led, with minor public sector intervention.”
Looking ahead
The way forward – and the extent of the ‘broadband crunch’ threat – is not yet altogether clear. The solution may be something other than to fibre-to-the-home; it may not involve any kind of cabling at all. To bridge the sluggish so-called ‘last mile’ between exchange and home, wireless broadband services are another option for enabling the next generation of internet access.
“New wireless WiMAX technology shows it possible to achieve download speed of up to 65 Mbps at close range to users,” says David Hill of Spirent Communications, a telecommunications testing firm. “This would be sufficient to plug many of the gaps in the internet infrastructure quickly and at much lower cost and inconvenience than digging up roads to lay new cable.”
Finally, Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards recently proposed an altogether different approach: using our existing sewer network to house internet infrastructure. It was a tentative suggestion, with Richards recommending further study. “We need to establish what the position is here and whether or not duct access has a role to play in the development of competitive next-generation access. So, in cooperation with operators we intend to undertake a survey of the existing duct network.”
Posted in Webmaster Info | No Comments »
May 1st, 2008 DJB
Internet Innovators
These are the Internet Innovators that have had a direct and profound impact on our daily lives.
The internet has come a long way since it spun its first Web.
We highlight an internet innovator that has perhaps received less recognition than they deserve: the unsung hero of the Domain Name System.
Dr Paul V. Mockapetris
Dr Paul V. Mockapetris is the man who wrote the internet address book. The Domain Name system was invented in 1983 at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute.
The innovation was borne out of a shortcoming of a very early Internet (ARPAnet) and the Domain Name System was seen as a way around this limitation.
What is a DNS?
The DNS can be considered the nuts and bolts of the internet.
DNS stands for Domain Name System, in simple terms it translates a hostname e.g. www.stonerocket.net into an IP address.
Each IP (Internet Protocol) address serves as a unique identifier and acts as a locator for one device to communicate with another. An IP address is made up of a string of numbers which all follow a similar format; four numbers, each ranging from 0 to 255 and separated by decimal points.
Today, we commonly refer to the Domain Name as a URL. A Domain Name is easier to remember than a string of numbers. Can you imagine trying to tell someone the name of a really cool website but instead having to recite an IP address? The URL eliminates this hassle, being memorable and a lot simpler to remember.
In order for a website to succeed the necessity for a good Domain Name is crucial. The Domain Name you use can have a huge impact in the way that both people and search engine spiders view your site.
Throughout his career Mockapetris has made many contributions to the research community, before the days of Ethernet he conducted some work with early LAN (Local Area Network) technology. He is also credited as assisting in the creation of the first SMTP e-mail server alongside Jonathan Postel in 1982.
Did you know that the first DNS implementation was nicknamed ‘Jeeves’.
Paul Mockapetris would later become the Director of ISI’s High Performance Computing and Communications Division. and is currently Chief Scientist and Chairman of the Board at Nominum, Inc.
Posted in Webmaster Info | No Comments »
April 14th, 2008 DJB
Web designers making very old mistakes are letting malicious hackers hijack visitors to their sites, say experts.
Many of the loopholes left in the code created for websites have been known about for almost a decade say the security researchers.
The poor practices are proving very attractive to hi-tech criminals looking for a ready source of victims.
According to Symantec the number of sites vulnerable in this way almost doubled during the last half of 2007.
Wholly vulnerable
Kevin Hogan, director of security operations at Symantec, said the bug-ridden web code was putting visitors to many entirely innocent sites at risk.
“It overturns the whole notion that if you stay away from gambling and porn sites you are okay,” he said.
The attack that a malicious hacker can carry out via these web code vulnerabilities is known as cross-site scripting (abbreviated as XSS).
Typically these involve lax control of the data being swapped between a web server and the browser program someone is using to interact with it.
An XSS vulnerability could, for instance, allow attackers to steal the login credentials of a visitor to a site.
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 It’s such a target rich environment I do not think the attackers need to have a very sophisticated way to harvest sites for vulnerabilities 
Chris Wysopal, Veracode |
Mr Hogan said more and more attackers were looking for websites that were vulnerable to these scripting attacks because they required little work to mount.
By contrast, said Mr Hogan, a phishing attack required the creation of tempting e-mails, fake servers and dead-drops to gather data.
In its most recent Internet Security Threat Report Symantec identified 11,253 specific XSS vulnerabilities in the last six months of 2007. Six months earlier the count stood at 6,961.
Symantec said there were likely many more that had not reported vulnerabilities.
Drawing its data from XSSED which gathers data on these vulnerabilities, Symantec said only 473 of these loopholes had so far been fixed.
Website administrators had a poor record of closing loopholes, it said.
“Attackers…, can expect that [a] site maintainer will not address the vulnerability in a reasonable amount of time, if at all,” said the report.
“There are a lot more websites out there that are prone to this,” said Mr Hogan. “It’s a much bigger proposition to make a safe website than it is to patch a browser.”
Chris Wysopal, co-founder and chief technology officer at Veracode which produces online tools that scan code for security flaws, said the problem was getting worse.
“I do not see trends slowing this down,” he said.
XSS attacks were becoming more popular because more and more websites were writing their own snippets of code so visitors could get more out of a site, he said.
Unfortunately, he added, the same mistakes were being made in this custom code years after they were first discovered.
“The problem was identified eight years ago or so,” he said. “Over time attackers have figured out better and more interesting things to do with cross-site scripting.”
He added: “It’s such a target rich environment I do not think the attackers need to have a very sophisticated way to harvest sites for vulnerabilities.”
Automated web tools were available that can scan custom web code and highlight vulnerabilities but few web designers used them, said Mr Wysopal.
“The awareness is not there that if you write code you need to test it before you put it out there,” he said.
Source: BBC News
Posted in Webmaster Info | 1 Comment »
March 26th, 2008 DJB
Internet forums are either a brilliant community where you can meet and chat with new, interesting people, or full of scornful idiots who deserve to be banned from The Net in its entirety. This film explains some of the common mistakes people make in forums, which makes then the sort of loathsome fool no one wants to know.Step 1:
Flame Wars
By-and-large, the trouble with The Internet, and forums in particular, is that everyone gets to be anonymous. That essentially gives them free reign to be as snooty and argumentative as they like.
A ‘troll’ posts deliberately controversial or annoying messages for the specific purpose of getting a rise out of people and initiating a hate-filled and overly-argumentative thread. The appropriate course of action is simply not to respond. Don’t feed the troll.
Step 2:
Godwin’s Law
Godwin’s Law states that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
What that means in real terms is that sooner or later someone involved in a forum argument will be likened to a Nazi, or displaying Hitler-like tendencies. Please note that if you’re the one invoking Godwin’s Law and likening someone to a Nazi, you’ve immediately lost the argument because it’s such a lame-a** low blow.
Step 3:
Fanboys
Approximately 99.9% of all online forums are based around videogames. Sadly, there are several members of the videogame community who have such an overly-fanatical devotion to their particular console that they’re somehow incapable of admitting any other system might have good features too. They’re best ignored, because ‘Fanboys’ are basically a special subset of ‘Troll’, and as such are all Nazis and/ or Hitler.
Step 4:
Teenagers
Sadly, teenagers are allowed on The Internet too. They have funny ways of spelling and don’t understand that proper grownups don’t want to put up with their pubescent attempts at ‘humour’. There’s nothing you can do about Teenagers on The Internet, you’ll just have to learn to circumnavigate them. Not all teenagers are evil, mind. Just most of them.
Step 5:
Post Count
Every time you post, your post count goes up by one. Some people seem to think that the higher the post count, the more worthy and valuable they are to society at large. Frankly, the exact opposite seems to be the case; posting just to up your count is insanely annoying, so make sure all your messages add to a discussion in some way. If you’re replying in a thread, make sure what you’re writing is funny, interesting or funny and interesting. “yeh i agree lol” is not, in any way, shape or form, a valid reply, ever.
Step 6:
Respect the Admins
It’s their website, and they can do whatever the hell they like with it. You’re a guest, and hassling them about how they run things is akin to going round your Auntie’s house and curling one out in her tea-pot.
Step 7:
DON’T USE ALL CAPS IN YOUR POST EVER.
‘Shouting’ through the written word is pointless and annoying, clearly.
Step 8:
Lurk Before Posting
Don’t just jump in to the forums spouting off reams and reams your amazing knowledge of the intricacies of World of Warcraft. In Binary. Lurk around a bit first and read some threads to see whether or not that’s even remotely the sort of thing people there would be interested in.
Step 9:
Keep On Topic
If a thread’s all about how amazing a new 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game would be, don’t derail it and start talking about something else entirely, like Chun Li’s thighs. Make a new thread if you absolutely must.
Step 10:
Picture Etiquette
Don’t post massive pictures that are wider than most peoples’ screens. What’s more, don’t post massive pictures of filthy grotty porn or anything in case people are at work. Not even the most ardent heterosexual likes looking at boobies when sat near their boss. It’s enough to put them off for life.
Step 11:
NSFW
What’s more, make sure you mark any risqué links as Not Safe For Work, just in case, and make sure doing so is in keeping with the forum’s tone. By and large, just remember to be excellent to each other. Be all civil and pleasant. Keep your tongue firmly in your cheek and get a nice thick skin.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
It turns out there’s even more annoying stuff people do that we simply couldn’t squeeze into the film…
Step 12:
Signatures
…should be small and tasteful. Massive graphics plugging something you’re selling are a right royal no-no. Text is very much preferable.
Step 13:
Avatars
Your profile pic is how people picture you, so choose something good-looking, funny or interesting. Pretty much anything goes, just make sure it isn’t ugly or annoying and fits with the tone of the forum.
Step 14:
Gravedigging
Old threads are old for a reason, and that reason is that noone’s interested in discussing that anymore. Unless you’ve got an outrageously good reason to do so, leave dead threads to Rest in Peace.
Step 15:
Drama
Used properly, The Internet can be a tool for good. If used for overblown, melodramatic weepy Emo nonsense, it’s ruined and needs to be scrubbed clean. Learn to relax and take everything in your stride. Noone’s on The Internet to get all stressed and angsty, we’re all just here for a good time. So leave all your haughty drivel at the door.
Step 16:
Smilies
If used sparingly a smiley can emphasise a point: sarcasm comes across extremely poorly in forums – almost dangerously so. A quick winky will sort that. Reams and reams of extravagant animated smileys performing all manner of wacky acts are annoying, and are the sort of thing your mum would do, were she able to use a computer.
Step 17:
Read the FAQ and Forum Rules
Because they’ll tell you how the community there likes people to act. They’re there for a reason.
Posted in SR Weekly | 1 Comment »
