PlayStation 4 DRM policies get a bit more complex: third-party publishers can dictate terms

Not so fast, vaquero. While Sony was cheered in heroic fashion for proclaiming that used games would be free and clear to operate on the PlayStation 4, it appears that the reality is actually a bit more complicated. Sony America CEO Jack Tretton has made clear today that while first-party titles will fit in with yesterday's "hands-off" approach, third-party publishers will be allowed to throw some curveballs.

"There's gonna be free-to-play, there's gonna be every potential business model on there, and again, that's up to their relationship with the consumer, what do they think is going to put them in the best fit. We're not going to dictate that, we're gonna give them a platform to publish on. The DRM decision is going to have to be answered by the third parties, it's not something we're going to control, or dictate, or mandate, or implement."

That's the new word out of Tretton's mouth, which seems to indicate that players like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Treyarch and pretty much any PS4 game maker outside of Sony's own umbrella can cobble together any combination of policies they want. You could say that it's not too different from how the PS3 operates today, but there's still plenty of room for clarifications across the industry. Hit up the source link for the full spiel.

Filed under: Gaming, Sony

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Source: Polygon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/11/playstation-4-drm-policies-third-party/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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2 Obama cabinet nominees clear Senate committee

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Senate committee has voted unanimously to approve President Barack Obama's nominees to head the Commerce and Transportation departments.

The Commerce, Science and Technology Committee didn't bother to meet to vote on the nominations of Chicago billionaire business executive and philanthropist Penny Pritzker for Commerce and Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx for Transportation. Senators instead dropped by a room off the Senate floor, where a committee clerk recorded their "ayes."

Pritzker is a longtime Obama friend who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential campaigns.

Foxx won national recognition when Charlotte hosted the Democratic National Convention last year. He was a key surrogate in North Carolina for Obama during his re-election.

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said he expected Pritzker and Foxx to be confirmed easily.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-obama-cabinet-nominees-clear-senate-committee-231012609.html

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Apple unveils music streaming service

Eddy Cue the Apple senior vice president of Internet Software and Services gestures to applause after demonstrating the new iTunes Radio during the keynote address of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, June 10, 2013 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Eddy Cue the Apple senior vice president of Internet Software and Services gestures to applause after demonstrating the new iTunes Radio during the keynote address of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, June 10, 2013 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Apple CEO Tim Cook walks on stage to deliver the keynote address of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Monday, June 10, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Apple unveiled an Internet radio service called iTunes Radio on Monday and said the service will personalize listeners' music based on what they've listened to and what they've purchased on iTunes.

Apple said iTunes Radio will be available this fall in the U.S. It will be free with advertisements included, although subscribers of Apple's iTunes Match music-storage service will get a commercial-free version of iTunes Radio. That service costs $25 a year.

In unveiling the long-expected service Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple enters a crowded field. Google Inc. started an on-demand subscription music service called All Access last month. Other leading services include Spotify, Rhapsody and Pandora.

Apple was a pioneer of online music sales and is still a leader there, but streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify have emerged as popular alternatives to buying. Pandora relies on its users being connected to the Internet at all times and plays songs at random within certain genres for free.

As with Pandora, iTunes Radio will let people create stations based on specific songs, artists or genres. So users can put in a particular song, and the station will play songs like it. Apple did not provide details on how the other songs will be determined. Pandora uses a formula to analyze songs based on musical and other characteristics.

Users won't be able to type in the name of a specific song and have it play right away. Pandora doesn't allow that, either. That's something available through other services that charge monthly fees, including Spotify and Google's All Access.

Analysts were lukewarm.

"This is a nice free feature that lots of people will probably try out, but existing Pandora users won't have much reason to switch," Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at Ovum, said in an emailed comment.

Dawson said a service that lets people call up specific songs on demand would have made a bigger splash, "but that would likely have disrupted Apple's existing iTunes business, and the music industry as a whole, too much."

Pandora charges $36 a year for ad-free listening, more than Apple at $25. Pandora also has a free, ad-supported version like iTunes Radio. In February, Pandora capped free listening on mobile devices to 40 hours per month. Apple said Monday that its service would have no limits.

ITunes Radio will also offer featured stations, which play songs that are the most-talked about on Twitter, for example.

The service integrates Apple's Siri virtual assistant so that users can get information by speaking questions such as "Who plays that song?" Users can also tell Siri to skip songs, stop or pause playing. And they can ask to play more songs like the one currently playing, or buy them on iTunes with a click, Apple said. Pandora also lets listeners purchase songs, through either iTunes or Amazon.

Apple said iTunes Radio will be built into iOS 7, the new software for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. That's coming this fall. It will also work with Apple's iTunes software on Mac and Windows computers.

Pandora investors did not seem concerned about the potential Apple competition. The company's stock rose 37 cents, or 2.5 percent, to close at $15.49 following the afternoon announcement. It added another 12 cents in extended trading.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-06-10-Apple-Music/id-547ab237ac034fdfb5e6ee60f76f2ac8

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The 'Mad Men' of fossil fuels

There is nothing particularly 'mad' about the role of advertising in society, Cobb writes, and it should really be looked upon as the logical conclusion of the long process of rationalizing modern economic life ? a type of economic life which arose simultaneously with the widespread use of fossil fuels.

By Kurt Cobb,?Guest blogger / June 9, 2013

The sun sets over a oil refinery in Tarragona, Spain. The 'Mad Men' of advertising contribute in a highly visible way to a system that is neither ecologically sustainable in the long run nor delivers the human happiness it promises in the short run, Cobb writes.

Manu Fernandez/AP/File

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The name of the popular American television series?"Mad Men"?comes from the nickname given to those who worked in New York City's advertising agencies in the 1950s. The nickname came from the advertising profession itself whose members felt that one had to be a little mad to work on Madison Avenue, the center of the advertising business.

Skip to next paragraph Resource Insights

Kurt Cobb?is the author of the peak-oil-themed thriller, 'Prelude,' and a columnist for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen.?He is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas?USA, and he serves on the board of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. For more of his Resource Insights posts, click?here.

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But, there is nothing particularly mad about the role of advertising in society, and it should really be looked upon as the logical conclusion of the long process of rationalizing modern economic life--a type of economic life which arose simultaneously with the widespread use of fossil fuels.

Through burning fossil fuels we are unlocking extremely dense forms of accumulated ancient sunlight. It may not seem like we have an almost completely "solar-powered" society today; but, we do if you count the ancient solar power stored in oil, natural gas and coal. These fuels come from microscopic sea life and plants which were pressurized, heated, and then transformed underground or under the seabed over tens of millions of years very long ago during what is now referred to as the?Carboniferous Period. We are quickly drawing down the Earth's stored solar energy in the form of fossil fuels at a rate that is thought to be anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million times their rate of natural formation. For this reason fossil fuels are on any human time scale finite.

Returning to the mad men of advertising, we find that they are only the culmination of a process which evolved to deal with something rarely seen in human history--persistent and rapidly growing surpluses of basic resources such as food, fiber and minerals and the manufactured goods they make possible. These surpluses were in turn made possible by persistent and growing surpluses of energy, energy derived primarily from fossil fuels. After all, nothing gets done without energy, and growing energy supplies allow more and more to get done.?

Historically, the process of handling these surpluses began with the rationalization of production, the organization of working men and women into large coordinated work groups in vast industrial complexes. A steel mill is a good example. This form of organization was a radical change from the decentralized craft shops which had dominated handicraft production for centuries.

The new form of production came from the necessity of matching human intelligence with new energy-hungry machines that performed repetitive tasks without the need for rest. The resulting production was prolific and allowed mass production of identical items for households and businesses--items that were increasingly affordable to an ever larger number of people. This was the rationalization of production.

Next followed the rationalization of distribution. Mass production in central locations necessitated an elaborate new system of distribution which the railroad made available. Only by the middle of the 20th century did the newly-built interstate highway system in America and other similar systems elsewhere enable truck freight to eclipse rail freight for long-distance transport. Such systems would not have been possible without cheap supplies of fossil fuels.

The rationalization of distribution also took the form of department store chains that standardized offerings from city to city. In addition, there were catalog sales, most aptly illustrated by the introduction of the?Sears catalog, an innovation that allowed rural residents to purchase and have delivered to their homes many of the same kinds of merchandise which America's city dwellers could buy at department stores. The Internet has simply put the catalog online.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/it2tgC497S8/The-Mad-Men-of-fossil-fuels

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No happily ever after on 'Game of Thrones' finale

TV

Drusilla Moorhouse TODAY contributor

7 hours ago

Helen Sloan / HBO

Arya -- with some help from The Hound, sort of -- got a teensy bit of revenge on the season finale.

Does "Game of Thrones" really have a heart after all? After last week's shocking massacre, most fans braced for more tragic deaths in season three's finale. Instead, the blow was softened with poignant reunions and surprising saves, setting the stage for an explosive fourth season.

Body count: No one important died! Unless you count Robb Stark's many bannermen slaughtered at the Twins, that is. But Jon Snow, Theon Greyjoy, Ser Davos, Gendry ... practically all our heroes (and villains) were spared in the aftermath of the Red Wedding.

Headless horseman: One thing viewers were not spared was the sight of Grey Wind, Robb's direwolf, mounted on his body and paraded around the Twins. But the fool who boasted about this unspeakable desecration was silenced by Arya herself, using the knife she stole from the Hound and a little help from Jaqen's silver coin. Valar morghulis!

Helen Sloan / HBO

Awww. Did little Joffrey need to be comforted by mommy after his uncle and grandpa put him in his place?

The North remembers: "Killed a few puppies today?" Tyrion quipped when a jubilant Joffrey first summoned him to a special meeting of the king's council -- to gloat, in fact, about the Red Wedding massacre. After Joffrey threatened to serve up Robb's head to Sansa at his wedding feast (coming in season four!), his appalled uncle offered a thinly disguised threat to kill the little monster. His grandfather also delivered a virtual spanking -- or, as Tyrion put it so well, "You just sent the most powerful man in Westeros to bed without his supper." In fact, only Tywin's youngest son recognized that the Lannister patriarch engineered the slaughter -- and warned that they would all suffer the consequences.

Family first! But as usual, Tywin had the last word: When he questioned his loyalty, daddy dearest revealed that he wanted to drown his youngest as an infant -- and should be grateful that he not only spared him but actually acknowledged him as his son. Ouch. Also: Tywin wanted Tyrion to hurry up and impregnate his wife because Roose Bolton will be Warden of the North until he's supplanted by Tyrion and Sansa's son.

Family reunion: Cersei also encouraged Tyrion to have a baby because they bring such happiness. Like Joffrey, for example, whom she said used to be "such a jolly little fellow." Aw. Jolly times are here again, because she was finally reunited with her baby daddy/brother Jaime -- most of him, anyway.

Hickory Farms: Speaking of missing appendages, Theon's castrator was finally revealed as Roose Bolton's bastard son Ramsay. While he taunted the new eunuch -- renamed Reek -- by munching on a pork sausage, the Greyjoys got a look at the genuine article, sent to the Pike in a fancy gift box. Balon disowned his son, but Theon's suddenly loyal sister, Yara, declared that she would rescue him.

You give love a bad name: Ygritte, as it happens, is a card-carrying member of the Fool Me Once Club. She chased the Night's Watch spy, found him alone and aimed her crossbow at him. Jon professed his love and said, "I know you won't hurt me," but he clearly hasn't been paying attention. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she snapped one last time before drilling him with three arrows.

Dance Party Castle Black: Fortunately for Ned Stark's bastard, his horse had a great sense of direction, delivering his gravely wounded master to the Night's Watch. Fortunately Jon was conscious enough to recognize his welcoming party, including Samwell Tarly! Sam briefly came across Bran too, before reluctantly giving him, the Reeds and Hodor (Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!) directions to cross The Wall.

Reading rainbow: Thank the gods for Ser Davos' literacy program because he managed to read the warning sent by Samwell's ravens about the northern invasion. Instead of killing the Onion Knight for secretly freeing Gendry, Melisandre persuaded Stannis to spare him -- because Davos "has a part to play in war to come." (So winter really is coming?!)

Keith Bernstein / HBO

Dany is Mother of Dragons, and now, also mother to the Yunkai.

"Mhysa": Let's see, is that everyone? "Game of Thrones" wouldn't say goodbye for the year without one final, victorious send-off from Daenerys Targaryen. When the freed slaves of Yunkai emerged from the city's gates, she refused to command them. "If you want (your freedom) back, you must take it for yourselves," she said before they erupted in shouts of "Mhysa" -- their name for "mother" -- and carried her on their shoulders as her three full-grown dragons soared overhead.

It's not exactly a fairy-tale ending, but after the Red Wedding, we'll take it!

After the penultimate episode, did anything in the finale surprise you? Tell us on our Facebook page!

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/no-happily-ever-after-game-thrones-finale-6C10261378

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Mad Men, Season 6

Maybe this episode was about how we are all prostitutes, a little bit (akin to Kottke?s recent post about how we all commit three felonies a day). We have all complained before about how heavy-handed this season?s prostitution metaphors have been, not to mention the actual hookers. This episode, though, hit similar themes in a more subtle way. Several characters were willing to trade sex for favors in ways that were eminently credible: Don, Sylvia, Peggy, Bob, even Manolo, who trades the illusion of sex for good behavior from Pete?s mother. As you point out, Paul, there are no innocents, not even Sally, who has a gift for choosing best friends who are every mother?s worst nightmare. ???

Seth, I think you omitted one other important reason why Don does the favor for young Mitchell Rosen: his man-crush on Arnold. Given the way Don fixates on Arnold, I often wonder whether he?s sleeping with Sylvia just to become enmeshed with the good surgeon. Similarly, at their drunken confessional dinner, Peggy accuses Pete of being in love with Ted. Of course, that?s where the episode stopped being subtle. I can?t tell you how irritated I was at the Benson knee press. It?s always such a letdown when a mystery is solved and the answer is ? He?s gay, even if Internet rumors have long abounded. How much more satisfying if the answer had been ? nothing, as you wished for last week, Paul, and Benson had remained his thoroughly inscrutable shiny self for the whole of the season. Although I suppose we should have guessed it, since the vibe between Bob and Joan was more Elton John and Marilyn Monroe than Don and Sylvia.

Lately I?ve begun to think of the show as operating on two very different planes. One is full of fairytale conflict and Jungian archetypes and Biblical-level dramas. This is the plane on which Don and most of the characters from earlier seasons are trapped. The plot twist that led Sally into her worst Freudian nightmare was straight out of a 17th century play: a purloined letter. (In classic French farce characters are always eavesdropping behind doors and screens.) Meanwhile the original spirit of the show?rooted in a particular moment in American history and moving along with the decade?resides with the newer characters. While Don is sinking deeper into himself, Ted is building a bridge to the modern era. Ted is petty, neurotic, conflicted, effective, and processes his own emotions out loud constantly. (?I don?t want his juice. I want my juice.?) His life is one long employee review session. He can riff as well as Roger, only he doesn?t do it to deflect: ?Imagine if every time Ginger Rogers jumped in the air Fred Astaire punched her in the face.?

As a couple, Betty and Henry Francis are frozen in aspic, but Ted and his wife are almost transportable to any modern TV drama, or as the second example in a trend story about the dangers of the opt-out revolution. Ted?s wife does not traffic in Betty-style self-delusion or even Megan-style strained optimism; she just tells it to him straight: ?Even when you?re home you?re not here? and ?I can feel how disappointing this all is compared to your battles at work.? Tack on a happy ending and those lines could come from Modern Family.

Seth, you asked about the Moshe Dayan poster in Stan?s room. In the late '60s Dayan would have been the Jews? equivalent of Che, a freedom fighter for a cause which at that point in history many were still rooting for. And yes, the notorious eye patch gives the image extra significance, because this episode is so much about not seeing what you ought to. (Dayan?s ex-wife Ruth did not turn a blind eye. A chapter in her book is called ?Moshe?s bad taste in women.?)?

As for what Don said, it was surely bad parenting?Sally knows what she saw?but there is something profound about asking a child to collude with you in an obvious lie. (Marjorie Williams addressed this question in her beautiful essay about Santa Claus and dying of cancer.) Contrast Don?s decision to lie with Pete?s to bully his way into what he sees as the truth about his mother and Manolo. Pete refuses to see that ?it?s complicated,? as Don tells Sally, so he winds up in a cruel place where he robs his mother of her only comfort, fires Manolo, and sneers at Bob Benson. Sometimes we need our lies?something an ad man understands better than anyone.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/tv_club/features/2013/mad_men_season_6/week_10/mad_men_episode_guide_week_10_favors.html

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Judge orders inquiry in Paris Jackson wellbeing

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011 file photo Paris Jackson smiles on stage at the Michael Forever the Tribute Concert, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Jackson is physically fine after being taken to a hospital early Wednesday, June 5, 2013, an attorney for Jackson's mother said. Perry Sanders Jr. writes in a statement that Paris Jackson is getting appropriate medical attention and the family is seeking privacy. Fire and sheriff's officials confirmed they transported someone from a home in Paris' suburban Calabasas neighborhood for a possible overdose but did not release any identifying information or additional details. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011 file photo Paris Jackson smiles on stage at the Michael Forever the Tribute Concert, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Jackson is physically fine after being taken to a hospital early Wednesday, June 5, 2013, an attorney for Jackson's mother said. Perry Sanders Jr. writes in a statement that Paris Jackson is getting appropriate medical attention and the family is seeking privacy. Fire and sheriff's officials confirmed they transported someone from a home in Paris' suburban Calabasas neighborhood for a possible overdose but did not release any identifying information or additional details. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, File)

FILE - This Jan. 26, 2012 file photo shows Paris Jackson, daughter of the late pop icon Michael Jackson, during the hand and footprint ceremony honoring her father at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Jackson is physically fine after being taken to a hospital early Wednesday, June 5, 2013, an attorney for Jackson's mother said. Perry Sanders Jr. writes in a statement that Paris Jackson is getting appropriate medical attention and the family is seeking privacy. Fire and sheriff's officials confirmed they transported someone from a home in Paris' suburban Calabasas neighborhood for a possible overdose but did not release any identifying information or additional details. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An investigation into Paris Jackson's well-being has been ordered by a judge overseeing the guardianship of Michael Jackson's three children, court records show.

Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ordered an investigator to look into Paris Jackson's health, education and welfare and recommend whether any changes are necessary on Thursday, one day after she was taken by ambulance from her family's home and hospitalized.

Authorities have said they were dispatched to the home on a report of a possible overdose, but have not released any additional details.

"There have been communications between the court and counsel and we're completely supportive of the court's actions," Katherine Jackson's attorney, Perry Sanders Jr., said Friday.

He has said the 15-year-old is physically fine and receiving appropriate medical treatment. He declined further comment on her health status Friday.

Beckloff issued a similar inquiry into the well-being of Michael Jackson's three children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, last year after an incident in which Katherine Jackson was out of communication with them for several days. The Jackson family matriarch had been taken by some of her children to a resort in Arizona, prompting an agreement that led to another guardian being temporarily instated.

Tito Jackson's son, TJ, was appointed co-guardian over the children.

"This is standard protocol in a high profile case," his attorney Charles Shultz wrote in an email. "The court is doing what we fully expected the court to do."

An attorney for Jackson's estate said it would assist Katherine and TJ Jackson however necessary to help Paris Jackson.

"The estate will work with Paris's guardians to provide whatever is required for her best interests," estate attorney Howard Weitzman wrote in a statement. "We are totally and completely supportive of Paris as her well-being is our foremost concern."

The earlier report to Beckloff was not made public, although he has stated that he believed Katherine Jackson was doing a good job of raising her son's children.

Beckloff's order requires an investigator to prepare a report that only he will be allowed to review. He did not include instructions on how the review should occur or when the report was due. Last year, Beckloff required an investigator to interview each of the children separately.

The filing was first reported Friday by celebrity website TMZ.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-06-07-People-Paris%20Jackson/id-13ae00bbce9b441fac4a0c19a80fbabf

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