Ubuntu 15.04 Released, This Is What’s New (OMG Ubuntu)

Main features:

• Change to systemd
• Unity 7.3
• Compiz 0.9.12
• Linux kernel 3.19 (4.0 didn't make the cut)

Application updates:

• LibreOffice 4.3.2.2
• Firefox 37
• Thunderbird 31.6
• Shotwell 0.20.2
• Nautilus 3.14.2
• Evince 3.14.2
• Rhythmbox 3.1
• Totem 3.14.1
• GNOME Terminal 3.14

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/04/ubuntu-15-04-download-new-features

If you do fancy shoving kernel 4.0 into it: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Install-Linux-Kernel-4-0-on-Ubuntu-15-04-478288.shtml

OS, Internet Exploder and Flash all need your attention... Microsoft patch Tuesday

From The reg -  It's 2014 and Microsoft Windows PCs can still be owned by a JPEG

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/11/microsoft_adobe_patch_tuesday/

Mavericks is free!

Yep, Apple have released it for free and its in a App store waiting for download.

ISP's await iOS launch on Sep 18th.

One of those lovely occasions when ISPs get a good test of their networks capacity when hundreds / thousands / millions of customers test their network with a rather large update being released causing large volumes of traffic.

With CDN the traffic tends to be more distributed and localised but it still is rather interesting to watch.

http://www.neowin.net/news/apple-to-launch-ios-7-on-sept-18

EE's UK 4G usage stats reveal social media data volumes to grow 10-fold

With upload speed vastly better than ADSL2+ and lower latency than 3G is it really that surprising?

"Two in three say they are using the mobile internet over 4G for at least an hour a day, while 23 percent say they are online via their 4G mobile devices more than three hours a day.

“4G users are intuitively taking advantage of increased upload speeds. We predict data volumes over social media sites will increase tenfold by 2015,” added Karonis.

Over one in three say they download apps, use GPS services and access social media more with 4G than 3G, possibly because 4G users are, on average, five years younger than 3G users."
http://www.eurocomms.com/industry-news/49-online-press/9229-ees-uk-4g-usage-stats-reveal-social-media-data-volumes-to-grow-10-fold

Sky Android apps are back on the market after being hacked.

After a short break. They are back, but not like this any more: 

  

SimCity Update 2.0 Release

What’s New 
• Mayors Mansion: Mayors will now drive their fancy cars to work. Mayors will take their helicopter, limo, or sports car if the modules are present.

• HUD: Now color-corrects when in a colorblind mode.

• Data map: Data maps show the filtered color when a color filter is enabled (unless in a colorblind mode)

Fixes and Updates
• Cities not Processing: Mitigates some of the issues that were causing cities not to process. We are continuing to work on and improve this issue.

• Region Filters: Now sorts regions with available cities to the top

• Invitations: Invitations to join a region should be sent and received more quickly.

• Tourism: Fixes for unexplained fluctuation of tourists. Tourists more smartly counted on transit.
- Cruise ships are now more effective at bringing medium and high wealth tourists in coastal cities.
- New tourists will now decide to come into a city once leaving tourists reach train stations, bus depots, or cruise ship docs instead of waiting for those tourists to go out to the region first.
- This change will reduce the downtime of tourist buildings.

• Casinos: Casinos tuned so that Gambling will be a more profitable specialty. Players can bulldoze and replace existing casinos to see effects of tuning.
- The larger casinos now invite more tourists into the city which helps keep them full.
- Note that existing casinos will need to be replaced to take advantage of this change.

• More Casinos: Raised module limit on Sci-Fi and Sleek Casinos to 6 modules.

• Region Play: Cash gifts can now be received in a bankrupt city.

• Education: Fixed school buses getting stuck at the high school. Existing Schools will fix themselves.

• Education: Fixed school buses picking up students at neighboring cities that didn’t have school bus stops.

• Education: Fix to more accurately track regional student population.

• Education: Fix where kids leaving the school bus stop would teleport to the nearest pedestrian path instead of walking directly into the school.

• Education: University wings now give the proper bonus.

• Recycling: Fix for the Recycling Center where it would sometimes stop working, recycling services will visit other cities.

• Air pollution: Fixed issue where air pollution would appear to come from nowhere. Fix issues where your regional air pollution would be reflected back into your box for a double penalty.

• Fire Service: Fire Trucks don’t clump, dispatch to fires more efficiently.

• Water: Water pumps are now capable of pumping water from rivers at a larger radius so they can take better advantage of the water table in a city.

• Disasters: Cooldown for random disasters: Some players were getting hit too frequently with random disasters, this introduces a cooldown where no random disasters will occur.

• Trade: Fix for trade ports that suddenly stop shipping.

• Transit: Street Cars and Buses go to high volume stops first.

• Transit: A city with residents and public transit will now provide the accurate amount of workers and shoppers to its neighbors.

• Transit: A transit vehicle stuck in a pick-up or drop off loop will now go back to a garage instead of trying to pick up more people.
- Transit vehicles should recover automatically after the update. If players want to force the recovery, turn off the stops that are having looping issues, wait a few game hours, then turn them back on.

• Transit: Neighbors buses will now come in lower numbers into the city and do a better job at picking up local passengers first.

• Residential Tuning: Residential-only cities have failure state.
- Buildings are prevented from going up in density when they don’t have power or water.
- The amount of happiness gained from low taxes, police, fire, and health outreach has been lowered.
- Fixed some cases where buildings would not go abandoned when they should have.
- Higher density residential buildings are no longer blocked from going abandoned due to not having enough money.
- Happiness from low taxes does not double up every time it is given.
- Losing happiness due to not having a job is more impactful.

• Budgets: Fixed bug that prevented systems like fire, abandonment, garbage, and sewage from turning on when they were supposed to.

• Audio: Fixes issue where audio will stop working after creating a large city or where phantom audio sounds play in a city.

• Demolish: Fixes issue that occurred when players demolished buildings that had service vehicles, delivery vehicles, or agents out in the city or region. Previously, the agents would be in a state of limbo and would not recover when new buildings of that type were placed. This will no longer happen.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9453148.page

NowTV

I got a free 24 pass to try NowTv.com so I gave it a spin.

I didn't realise you can have two simultaneous streams which is nice. It doesn't allow for a third as you'll see below:



Needs a bit more app support but I tend to connect my PC / laptop into a TV via HDMI so its not really an issue for me.

If I didn't already have Sky I could see myself using it for the odd F1 race or football match when having friends over.

EA's Origin, Oh how I hate you.

So I got Sim City in the mail today, brilliant, it's a day early! Good old long in the tooth Game, thanks!

Then I put the disc in...

Up flashed Origin with:

So even though the content is sitting there on my disc I have to wait until midnight...  Boo EA, what's a day in distribution terms. If anything is spreads the load of activations for the game on the actual release day....  

ARMA2 - Free 'cut down edition'

The full game is worth the money but if you have an under performing PC and won't miss the campaign then this is definitely worth getting.
I loved the original Operation Flashpoint and have recently started playing ARMA2 in advance of ARMA3. The only problem is my Nvidia GTX 275 is struggling on my ageing desktop and my MacBook Pro has barely any space on the bootcamp partition.

http://www.arma2.com/free

Sky go comes to more devices.

Compatibility is expanding to more devices. Note that if you root your device you will no longer be able to use it.

• HTC: Desire X, One X, One XL, One S and One V
• Google: Nexus 4 and Nexus 7
• Samsung: Galaxy S3 LTE, Galaxy S3 Mini, Galaxy Ace 2 and Galaxy Note 2
• Sony: Sony Xperia S, Sony Xperia T
• LG: LG 4X HD

This is in addition to the phones already supported:

• HTC: HTC Desire, HTC Desire S, HTC Desire HD, HTC Incredible S, HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XE
• Samsung: Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S3, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy Note

Valve brings steam to Ubuntu Linux

Well the rumours have been going around for months so now we have an official confirmation and blog:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/

There were also rumours about them going into hardware development so a linux derivative in a custom made console maybe coming our way in years to come. They sure as hell have the right platform for it in steam.

Microsoft lines up three critical patches for Patch Tuesday - The Inquirer

Microsoft lines up three critical patches for Patch Tuesday - The Inquirer

Onkyo Firmware Update TX-NR616 (18-05-2012)

TX-NR616
(Version 1070-5105-0200)

• Corrects problem of video output not working after unit has had the Network standby enabled, then the unit has been placed in standby for an extended time period;
• Improves update functionality.

http://www.uk.onkyo.com/en/articles/firmware-update-tx-nr616-18-05-2012-81061.html