People behind the curtain

Every morning we wake up, wash ourselves, eat and drink coffee and if the weather allows us, we enjoy the sunshine. People go to work, by cars, buses or on foot. On weekends they explore new places, visit museums and go to cinema. Usually people live a happy life. But behind the big mass are groups of individuals who, by a fate of choice, are not so lucky. People who have some sort of disability. Modern technology has come to help and given them some new devices to work with and at least try to enjoy the life.

                One of the possible devices is Brainport.  It was initially developed as an aid to people’s sense of balance, particularly of stroke victims. Later on the technology was  developed for use as a visual aid. Brainport has demonstrated its ability to allow a blind person to see his surroundings in polygonal and pixel form. In this scenario, a camera picks up the image of the surrounding, the information is processed by a chip which converts it into impulses which are sent through an electrode array, via the tongue, to person’s brain. The human brain is able to interpret these impulses as visual signals and they are then redirected to visual cortex, allowing the person to „see“. This is similar in part to how a cochlear implant works, in that it transmits electrical stimuli to a receiving device in the body.

                It is not a perfect device, but a backbone has been placed. I believe that in the nearest 20 – 30 years we will be able to send direct signals to brain and visualize our surroundings.

Hacking the World War II

Hackers have been known to mankind since the birth of computers. They have been the people who want to go against the system. As a matter of fact they have also been the people who have introduced new models of thinking and solving problems. Nowadays after hearing word hacker people tend to imagine a hunched young man with no ability to communicate with the society and some odd interest in machines. But if you let the thought sink into you. People called hackers are extremely intelligent in their field of endeavour and i think that people with similar habits have existed among us from the beginning of the ages. As one bright example I would like to point out a scientist, Alan Turing, the breaker of Enigma machine. I must confess I haven’t read any biography literature nor have I had any keen interest in his life, all my reference is thanks to the movie.

                During his work at Bletchley Park he expressed innovative approach to great mystery in the face of Enigma machine. He handpicked his teammembers. Working hours where not fixed, as contrary they were working non stop since lives where at stake. And at the end he simply noticed a loophole in the code of Enigma. Although he is not a prime example of modern hacker I believe that at his time he would be called so. And he suits perfectly under Eric Raymonds based criteria.

Digital enclosure

At first you create necessety.

Let us remember the time, thousands of years ago when most of us were separated by thousands of miles. We didn’t knew each other and we were afraid of everything new. As time moved on we started to expand, soon our lands became small and we had to move on. As we met others similar to us, we had to mark the lands/places where we were. So that we could know people that live there, their habbits and their products. In order to flourish we had to keep databases. Another few hundred years passed and the information grew, the more we knew the more we could. Very soon data became traceable and people became aware of the power of knowledge(I and II WW).

If we throw away the fear of knowledge, ability to get information frees you and imprisons at the same time.  Current pace of life doesn’t allow us to slow down, to shut down. I may sincerely confess that I am addicted to cloud. Google simplifies my life, my everyday actions so much that i do not want  give up that freedom. See, in another 25-50 years it will not matter where we are. Life is so mobile that it would be dangerous for human to cling to one place. Right now I can’t see another future besides cloud. Human should leave behind a habbit that is daily simplifing his/her life.

And then you shackle them down…

Online privacy and security

Now for more than 4 years of active enterntainment twtich.tv has been the home for gamers, entepreneurs, trolls and even criminals. While at the same time opening new fields of endevour simultaneously putting online streamers at risk for their privacy.

            One of the people to catch the hype train to "free money" is James Varga aka PhantomL0rd. He was a professional League of Legends player who after 2 years of gaming carreer desided that streaming is more profitable than competetive play. Everything went like a clockwork until the 30 of december, 2013. On that decisive day a certain organisation called Derp desided to Troll upon him and a number of other popular gaming websites. Derptrolling (sometimes referred to as Derp) is the name of a hacker group that has been active since 2011. They have largely used Twitter to coordinate distributed denial of service attacks on various high traffic websites.

Initially, Derp sent a few tweets using their Twitter account to indicate that they were going to bring down the popular gaming website League of Legends. Their first attack however, was on a game called Quake Live. Hours afterwards, many of the League of Legends game server regions in North America, Europe, and Oceania, as well as the website and Internet forums were taken down. To bring down the game servers, they used an indirect attack on Riot Games' internet service provider Internap. They were revealed to have been targeting a popular livestreamer who goes by the name of PhantomL0rd on the streaming website Twitch. PhantomL0rd, whose real name is James Varga, is a 25-year-old professional gamer who regularly streams gameplays on his Twitch account and gets paid to play video games. Reddit summarized the report by saying that they had planned to use distributed denial of service attacks to flood traffic on various high profile gaming websites associated with PhantomL0rd, including League of Legends and Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net. According to The Escapist, the group also issued a threat to take down Dota 2 if PhantomL0rd were to lose his game, which they carried out. However, they only crashed Phantoml0rd's game, while other games in DoTA 2 were running normally.

When PhantomL0rd asked members of the hacker group why they were attacking these sites, they responded by saying it was "for the lulz" and that it was also partially out of dislike for "money-hungry companies." They also persuaded PhantomL0rd into playing Club Penguin while simultaneously managing to take down Electronic Arts website EA.com. PhantomL0rd's personal information was leaked during the attack and released onto multiple gaming websites, in a process often referred to as doxing. This led to many fake orders of pizza arriving at his house, as well as a police raid on his house when they received reports about a hostage situation. According to PhantomL0rd, at least six policemen searched through his house, but they only realized later that the call was fake. The hacker group claimed to have additionally attacked several other Internet games and websites including World of Tanks, the North Korean news network KCNA, RuneScape, Eve Online, a Westboro Baptist Church website, and many others. A day after the attacks, Riot Games issued a statement confirming that their League of Legends services had indeed been attacked by the hacker group, though they have brought their services back online.

It is hard to summarise what exactly happened. One moment you are casually spending your time behind your personal computer and the other you are hacked by a group of total strangers who have seized you connection with the world and have threatened directly you. Is this normal? How one should defend oneself in a world where you are not allowed to go grocery shopping without someone keeping an eye on you?

For any additional information you may search google: Phantomlord hacked; online video game streamer hached.

Merry security and a happy privacy.

IT Professional, who's that?

Is that a superhuman...batman? Might be...

            Some 20-30 years ago to be an IT professional it would require one to have a scholar degree, some good practice in the field and simple ability to express yourself. CEO's would except you to know technical specifications, be good/perfect at calculus and other technical information. Within last 20-30 years many things have changed: programming has gone from lab/factory workspace to home userfriendly environment, there are many new programming platforms and also there are tons of new devices to programm. Also there was a large increase in the number of users and not to mention the diversity of age of these users.  So if you try to imagine the features of an it profesional today you need to think about the tasks he/she(IT) will have to perform. Firstly he/she will have to know what IT is doing, so IT will either have to have a diploma or tons of practice in the field, in most cases both are required. Secondly: since most of occupations require us to communicate with clients IT has to be an excelent speaker. Thirdly: in reference to the previous point IT has to be understanding. And lastly(might as well be the most important ability) IT has to be able to adapt to new situations and challenges. It is not sufficient enough to be best in one particular part, you have to adapt to the situation and develop necessary qualities based on the current factors.

            In conclusion I would say, yes, you have to be Bruce Wayne to be an IT professional.

Left and right of software ergonomics

Software development has had its ups and downs. There are good examples of great innovation as well as total failure. But as it says "we learn from our mistakes".

                As one of the best examples in improvement of software ergonomics I would bring out the creation of keyboard shortcuts. It absolutely does not depend on the program you are currently using. If you have to work daily with keyboard you will tend to look for shortcuts to certain commands, since they lower the time you have to spend on the task. Probably the most known shortcut for regular(windows, sorry do not own a Mac) user is alt+tab combination, since it allows its user to swap between windows without great effort.

                 Keyboard shortcuts are typically a means for invoking one or more commands using the keyboard that would otherwise be accessible only through a menu, a pointing device, different levels of a user interface, or via a command-line interface. Keyboard shortcuts are generally used to expedite common operations by reducing input sequences to a few keystrokes, hence the term "shortcut"

I am sure everyone of you is using one or more(probably more) daily, even if you do not notice it.

                As a not so positive example i would bring out Windows 8. Now i am not saying that it was absolutely bad. No, it was just received with great criticism. The big leap with Windows 8 was the ability to use it on touchscreen . The developers added some of the new ideas but the public was not ready for the innovation.  Soon after the release the model  8.1 was announced.

                The upgrade addressed a number of criticisms faced by Windows 8 upon its release, with additional customization options for the Start screen, the restoration of a visible Start button on the desktop, the ability to snap up to four apps on a single display, and the ability to boot to the desktop instead of the Start screen.

                With a number of other add-ons. After the upgrade the operating system was quite well received and is still being used. Now we have to wait for the number 10. Thumbs crossed...

Open-source vs traditional proprietary software.

           The open source movement is a broad-reaching movement of individuals who support the use of open source licences for some or all software. Open source software is made available for anybody to use or modify, as its source code is made available. Open source software promotes learning and understanding through the dissemination of understanding. The main difference between open-source and traditional proprietary software is in user and property rights, the conditions of use imposed on the user by the software license, as opposed to differences in the programming code.

            Today I would like to point out some of the most popular open source software products with a comparison of proprietary software. As by this time i consider Google Chrome to be the most popular web browser. Another great example is Mozilla Firefox and as a final example I would like to point out Internet Explorer.

            Chrome - features a minimalistic user interface, with its user-interface principles later being implemented into other browsers and allows users to synchronize their bookmarks, history, and settings across all devices with the browser installed by sending and receiving data through a chosen Google Account, which in turn updates all signed-in instances of Chrome. Google releases the majority of Chrome's source code as an open-source project Chromium. Chrome was assembled from 25 different code libraries from Google and third parties such as Mozilla's Netscape Portable Runtime, Network Security Services, NPAPI, Skia Graphics Engine, SQLite, and a number of other open-source projects. Google Chrome is a prime example of software development from people to people. As before chrome came out leading developer was Microsoft with IE. As we all know Microsoft is not cheap. I believe that open source sofware can change our environment. Programmers who support the open source movement philosophy contribute to the open source community by voluntarily writing and exchanging programming code for software development.

            Mozilla Firefox can be counted as a predecessor of Chrome. Mozilla Firefox (known simply as Firefox) is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. It was originally titled Phoenix, which carried the implication of the mythical firebird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor, in this case from the "ashes" of Netscape Navigator after it had been killed off by Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the "First browser war". In general Firefox have tried to resemble Chrome after the exploding success of latter. In general if something would happen to Chrome I would switch over to Firefox.

            Internet Explorer Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It is one of the most widely used web browsers, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003. Its usage share has since declined with the launch of Firefox (2004) and Google Chrome (2008), and with the growing popularity of operating systems such as OS X, Linux, iOS and Android that do not run Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer has been subjected to many security vulnerabilities and concerns. Much of the spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet are made possible by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer, sometimes requiring nothing more than viewing of a malicious web page in order to install themselves. Overall IE was one of the first browsers that let its user to connect with the world. In my opinion due to arrogance of Microsoft and because of the fact that they were the explorers in the field they managed to let through some faults which were later used by "bad" people. Because of that and some other speculations that cover Microsoft people have withdrawn from using it. Both Chrome and Firefox offer userfriendly, secure and easy to use environment.

            

Online piracy

Piracy has been a problem since many decades before computers were invented. But nowadays "Napster" can be considered as the beginning of modern online piracy. Napster was a pioneer in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, operating from 1999 to 2001, it became popular despite the established presence of other file sharing methods due to its user-friendly interface and its overall ease of use. While downloading and sharing music was free it was also illegal and shortly after Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed. Due to it Napster was closed and Law was victorious for some time. But it was only the beginning. Many were displeased but as one door closes another one opens and there were opened many platforms of P2P file sharing. One of the most popular is PirateBay.

            The start of a new millennium was full of opportunities and lawsuits. But to consider average income of a european or american person. Does he/she really need to steal private digital property? Although there are many reasons for each individual to act, people are starting to see the real reasons for piracy. C.Engström and R.Falkvinge bring out some solutions to this mess.

            They respect the authors and do not wish to harm their intellectual property. But they also think that collecting copyright fee over a period of ones life + 70 years is absurd. It really ties up hands of people who might want to create something new with the existing material. Also i agree with the authors that copyright material should be taxed only when used for commercial purposes. Peer-to-peer file sharing should be free for personal use.

            Engström and Falkvinge brought out some interesting points, that are hard to understand for ordinary people. Anyone who wishes to read the full case can follow the link.

Reddit

One of the most notorious open forums live is Reddit. The name "Reddit" comes from "read it". It is an entertainment, social network service and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts and direct links. Content entries are organized by areas of interest called "subreddits". 

            The website is known for its open nature and diverse user community that generate its content. The unique possibilities that subreddits provide create new opportunities for raising attention and fostering discussion across many areas. In gaining popularity in terms of unique users per day, Reddit has been a platform for many to raise publicity for a number of causes. And with that increased ability to garner attention and large scale audiences, users can use one of the largest communities on the internet for new, revolutionary and influential purposes.

            It's popularity has enabled users to take unprecedented advantage of such a large community. Its innovative socially ranked rating and sorting system drives a method that is useful for fulfilling certain goals of viewership or simply finding answers to interesting questions. User sentiments about the websites function and structure include feelings about the breadth and depth of the discussions on Reddit and how the site makes it easy to discover new and interesting items. One of the projects which I myself have used is University of Reddit, a subreddit that exists to communally teach, emerged from the ability to enter and leave the online forum, the "classroom," at will, and classes ranging from computer science to music, to fine art theory exist. The "teachers" are plain ordinary people who tend to have time for teaching others. There are such subjects as "Introduction to C++: A video guided tutorial" or "Wetshaving 101 - Learning the Art of Shaving Properly".

            As you can see Reddit has gone far away from being just an open forum to a platform where people learn, work and entertain eachother.

For more information, please be my guest: Reddit, Wiki, University of Reddit.

ˇThe rise and fall of MOBAs

For those of you who are rarely involved in gaming whatsoever and for those luckers who really have a life. MOBA(Multiplayer online battle arena) is currently one of the most popular(if not the most popular) gaming genre of video games. That involve mostly 2 teams with 5 players on each team. 

            Although the roots of the genre can be traced back to the 1989, I myself consider the rise of the genre with the release of the Warcraft III engine, which allowed a certain modder known as Aeon64 make a custom map named  Aeon of Strife (AoS). The aforementioned map was then used to create DotA(Defence of the Ancients). Since its original release, DotA has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments. Despite low graphic settings the game is still played. 

            With the rise of a new gamemode, ideas arose and in the year of 2006 an American video game publisher Riot Games was established, it has produced only one game. On the 27 of October, 2009 LoL(League of Legends) was released. It's a free-to-play game that is supported by micro-transactions and inspired by the DotA mod. According to SuperData, LoL generated $946 million via in-game spending between january and september of 2014 and it is more money than World of Tanks, Counter-Strike:GO, Dota 2 and Heartstone make combined. 

At this moment i'd like to point out that game is FREE-TO-PLAY and in game purchases do not affect gaming experience. Each year is held a World Championship which is broadcasted via Twitch.tv, Esl.tv, Youtube.com and many other e-sports broadcasting websites. According to RiotGames.com the 2014 world championship, which was held in Taipei, Singapore and final in Seoul(at Sangam Stadium), the peak for concurrent viewers(the highest number of fans watching at once) was 11.2 million and overall total unique viewer count for the finals came at 27 million. The prize pool for 2014 CS was $2,130,000.

Now don't get it wrong. LoL is not the only MOBA currently live. There are many others, some are even good but not so popular.

The biggest rival of LoL is indisputably DotA 2. Development of DotA 2 began in 2009, when the developer of the DotA mod, IceFrog, was hired by Valve corporation as lead designer. DotA 2 was the long-awaited sequel to DotA and was praised by critics for its gameplay, production quality and faithfulness to its predecessor. However, the game was criticized for its steep learning curve and inhospitable community. Finally in the summer of 2013 DotA 2 was officially released. Valve did not want to waste any time so althought the game was still in the beta testing the first International tournament was held allready in 2011. Later on the tournament became annual world championship with prizepool getting bigger each year and peaking at $10.9 million during the 2014 championship, which is the largest prizepool in the history of electronic sports. 

            Many players prefer Dota 2 over Lol and vice-versa. Both games are free-to-play. Dota 2 has slightly better graphical settings and requires more time to get used to it. League of legends imho is slightly easier and therefore requires less time for learning.

Another possibly promising game would be Smite,  it's a third person action multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Hi-Rez Studios. It's a quite a fresh game since it's released on the 25, March 2014. I personally haven't played it but what makes it interesting is that although it's a MOBA, the player controls the god in a third person perspective, which is a unique characteristic of this multiplayer online battle arena game, as other games of this genre are typically played from a top-down perspective.  According to Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris 

 "At the game's release in late March, we were at three million players, and we are now well over four million."

 compared to 27 million active daily players of LoL, Smite has a long way to go before it can become more of a threat to Riot Games.

Although these examples are quite promising not allways developers come out with ideas that are led till the victory.  A good example would be Dawngate, it's a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by Waystone Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was meant to be a free-to-play game, likely to be supported by micro-transactions. Unfortunately due to slow progress that the game had during its beta testing it was shut down and taken off the development.

            Dawngate aimed to separate itself from LoL and Dota 2 by implementing new game style. Although there are different variations to playing a match, in MOBA genre the meta rarely changes and Dawngate wanted to introduce a new way.  At the start of the game you would chooce a role and your playstyle was defined by your personal choice, not the champion you picked. While in Dota 2 and LoL your role is mostly defined by the champion you pick. Other than that Dawngate brought some interesting ideas about improvement of ingame player behaviour. By the end of each match all players would have to vote for the so called "MVP"(most valuable player) which, in turn led to postgame bonuses(ingame currency, bonus exp, unlocked champions).

           

            I believe that despite the failure of the game leading MOBAs have something to learn from Dawngate and from each other.