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In a video interview with Swedish game site Press2play.tv, lead producer Chris Sigaty and lead designer Dustin Browder discussed in depth the decisions and thinking that went in to the development of StarCraft 2. One of the key bits of information revealed was that Blizzard is aiming for a 2009 release as long as the game is “ready”. Sigaty stated, “Blizzard is going to try to get the game out this year. However, we’re not going to ship the game if it’s not ready. Blizzard is working hard to get the game out the door, but won’t put out an unfinished title.” The interview itself revolved extensively around Blizzard’s decision to release the game as a trilogy and what this decision meant for gamers.

When quizzed why it took six years since the release of the Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne for StarCraft 2 to be ready, Sigaty explained one of the reasons was they had decided to develop a completely new graphics engine and to not use any Warcraft 3 technology. Another factor that extended development time was the need to development a graphics engine that could accommodate the real-time strategy multi-player part of the game and also support the extensive single player story telling aspect of the game.

The discussion about the single player aspect of the game lead to a question about why StarCraft 2 is going to be split into three separate releases with each release focusing on the story of one race. Browder reiterated the company line this was a “creative” decision that was needed due to the fact the single player focused story telling aspect had grown so large it could not possibly fit in to a single game.

The two Blizzard employees were then asked why StarCraft 2 was so focused on creating a very well developed single player component when the original StarCraft’s extended popularity and immense replay value came from the multi-player component. Sigaty explained that their goal was not to use the single player experience as a training ground for the multi-player experience. He pointed out for many Blizzard real-time strategy games players who had finished the single player component and went on to play on Battle.Net for the very first time were painfully unprepared for what awaited them when playing against experienced players. He explained the single player component existed to develop the story of the StarCraft universe.

They were also asked if they were concerned some players would not bother to purchase and play the second and third installment of the StarCraft 2 trilogy because the first installment would include a fully featured multi-player component. Browder repeated the mantra he believes players would still be interested in the single player parts of the second and third installment because it would provide so many unique experiences that cannot be enjoyed in multi-player due to issues such as game balance.

The interviewers then came straight to the point asking if the second and third installments of StarCraft 2 would include new units and other new content which would provide a powerful incentive for players to purchase the rest of the trilogy. Browder completely dodged this question claiming he could not answer because the game was not finished and not all the decision had been made.

In terms of music for the game Sigaty confirmed that a full scale orchestra would be used and stated that their music director was busy recording at that very moment. He also confirmed the release of the StarCraft 2 beta was imminent although he did not announce a specific date. One interesting point Browder made with regards to the beta was that StarCraft 2’s release date would be influenced by fan reaction to the beta and he encouraged fans to provide as much input as they can once they have tried it.

The premier fighter jet in the U.S. Air force arsenal is the F-22 Raptor. The radar evading fighter jet has been seen at air shows before, but has yet to see combat. Reuters reports that the Air Force has pulled the F-22 from the Paris Air Show and stated that the plane would not fly at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Britain next month.

Officials from Lockheed Martin Corp, the builders of the F-22 claim that the Raptor was pulled from the air show because of other demands on its time. The F-22 has previously flown at other air shows in Europe.

Reuters reports that industry executives feel there may be more to pulling the F-22 from the air shows than time demands alone. According to the insiders, there may be concerns over whether the F-22 would be exposed to radar in attempts to unlock its secrets.

The concerns may stem from the 1991 Paris Air Show where the F-117 stealth fighter first appeared. Two years after the show, President Clinton boycotted the Paris Air Show. An industry executive claims that the reason the show was boycotted was because the French government had followed the F-117 with its ultra-low frequency, long-range radar to try to glean secrets from the aircraft during its approach.

Another possible reason for pulling out of the air shows is that U.S. officials have been telling interested allies that the F-22 isn’t for sale. The reason the plane is reportedly not for sale to allies is that the cost to protect or remove classified equipment from the aircraft would cause delays and increase the cost of the aircraft.

The Obama administration has ordered four more F-22 fighters and placed a cap on orders at 187 planes, ending the program early.

Microsoft’s Bing created waves when it launched a couple weeks ago.  The new search engine from Microsoft reportedly even had Google a bit nervous.  Many users took it for a test drive.  One thing that some noticed was that upon turning SafeSearch off, pornographic results, including video clips began showing up — like in Yahoo and Google.  Unlike those competitors, though, putting the mouse over the clips (as well as non-adult clips) would start them playing, complete with sound, a featured dubbed Smart Motion Preview.  The touted feature fast became a public relations nightmare for Microsoft.    

Faster than you can say “NSFW”, Microsoft dreamed up a solution, creating a new domain for porn searches, differentiating them from other results.  The new domain explicit.bing.net will route the pornographic results into Bing — pictures and clips from adult websites — when SafeSearch is disabled.

Bing general manager Mike Nichols describes, “Potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate, single domain.  This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain name which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be.”

In other words, IT departments can now specifically block all pornographic results by blocking a single Bing domain.  This means that Bing’s innovative Smart Motion Preview featured can be reinstated in places it has been blocked — such as various businesses, China, and several Muslim nations.

The latest data from Comscore indicates that Bing currently holds 8 percent of the international search market, Yahoo holds 21 percent, and Google holds 64 percent.

Often research into one thing leads to a discovery of another substance or process that benefits other areas the original project never considered or intended to investigate. This is the case with a group of researchers from MIT who were doing research on stickers.

The researchers were studying delamination, which is what happens when bubbles form in the stickers on car windows. Delamination occurs in two ways according to the researchers. First, heat from the sun can cause the sticker and the surface to which it attaches to expand at different rates, creating bubbles of delamination.

Another way delamination can occur in stickers is when a surface is compressed and the film bends until it reaches a certain energy threshold and then releases from the surface underneath forming delamination blisters.

As the researchers were studying delamination in stickers, they found that during their very controlled experiments the size of the resulting delamination blisters depended on the elasticity of the film and the substrate along with the adhesion between the two surfaces. The model created by the researchers allowed the team to predict the size of the blisters that would form under specific conditions.

As the research progressed, the team realized that by intentionally creating delamination surfaces they could produce designs for flexible electronics that allow wires attached to a surface to move with the material without breaking.

The major problem with flexible electronics currently is that as the material the wires are attached to stretches and twists the wires break. By intentionally allowing the wires to delaminate from the flexible surface breakage can be prevented allowing the formation of much more robust flexible electronics.

Researcher Pedro Reis said, “It’s something that’s around you all the time [delamination] — but if you look at it a different way you can see something new.”

Delamination has been used by other researchers studying flexible electronics but the process uses was difficult. The new method used by the researchers looking into stickers is much easier to reproduce.

Researcher Dominic Vella said, “Delamination blisters have a characteristic size that they try to choose for themselves. We’ve characterized this size so that in principle it can be determined just from the parameters of a given system.”

Flexible electronics will one day find a place in products like surgical gloves, cellular phones, and flexible displays. The researchers say that graphene is an ideal material for stretchable electronics to be constructed with.

California is a state that is deep into the world of energy savings.  From its alternative energy initiatives that have helped the state gain numerous solar installations, from private rooftops to large farms, to hybrid car efforts, to programs to stomp out “power guzzling” television sets, California has taken the effort to lower our power footprint to new heights.

The latest Californian legislation proposes a fuel efficient tire rating system based on rolling resistance.  Proposed by the California Energy Commission’s (CEC), the measure is currently incorporating in feedback from the tire manufacturer representatives and tire industry association personnel.  The new system would rank all tires of the same size and load index against each other.  The proposal would require manufacturers to test all consumer tires using the ISO 28580 test protocol.

States the CEC, “The foundation of a government administered product rating system is a comprehensive database providing reliable test results and objective information accessible to everyone. A solid analytical basis combined with full disclosure and transparency inspires the confidence required for a rating system to be successful.  A ranking system driven by the ‘best in class tire’ can ignite a competitive spirit.”

It recommends, “All tires with an RRF (Rolling Resistance Force) within 15% of the lowest RRF reported tire for that combined tire size designation and load rating will be rated ‘fuel efficient tire.’”

The tire manufacturers aren’t huge fans of the proposed system, arguing it will bring them $20M USD in new costs.  They instead advocate five-star rating system based on a static scale for measuring rolling coefficients (not a competitive system).  They argue this will make the data easier for the customer to assimilate, as opposed to a ranking system by tire model.  The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA), an industry group wants “self certification” as well.  

They also want to test fewer tires.  Finally, the industry is complaining that a California-only standard may be bad idea.  They point out that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently drafting a national RRF standard.

Typically manufacturers use pricier fuel efficient tires to raise their fuel economy, but replacement tires have been less fuel efficient.  Tire companies like Goodyear have begun to slowly offer the more fuel-efficient tires to the masses, and the new standard looks to recognize and evaluate these efforts.  

Fuel efficient tires cost approximately $8 more for a set of four tires, an investment that is typically returned within 3 months, according to a study (PDF) by the National Academies of Science.  At $2.50/gallon gas, typically you’ll save $100 over the 3 and 1/2 year life of the tires. 

Universal Music chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said, “We see this as completely ground breaking. We’ve listened to our customers, our fans and our artists and we think that this is an opportunity to bring music to a wider audience.”

Reuters reports that Virgin Media and Universal Music have announced a new music service that will offer Virgin Media Broadband customers the ability to stream and download to keep as many digital tracks as they won’t each month for a set monthly fee.

People familiar with the service said it would cost in the $16 to $24 per month range. The music industry and the ISP both describe the service as a world’s first. The tracks will be in MP3 format and use no DRM allowing them to be played on most music devices available including the iPhone and iPod.

Virgin Media will also be introducing new methods to its network to help reduce piracy. The plan by the ISP to reduce piracy will include educating users and as a last resort suspending access to those who pirate music and other media. Virgin Media does say that no user would be permanently disconnected from service.

Analyst Mark Mulligan said, “This really is high stakes, if this can’t work then what will.”

Music trade body IFPI welcomed the deal and said, “This is the kind of partnership between a music company and an Internet service provider that is going to shape the future for the music business internationally. It also marks new ground in ISPs’ willingness to take steps to protect copyrighted content on their networks, and that sets a very encouraging example to the whole industry.”

Some analysts say that for the offering to be successful Virgin will need to sign up other major record labels. Virgin says that by the time the service launches it will be able to offer a complete catalog.

If you haven’t been following the saga of the RIAA versus single mother Jammie, here’s a quick recap.  The RIAA alleges that on February 21, 2005 its agent MediaSentry detected 1,702 songs being shared by a Kazaa user with the IP address 24.179.199.117 and the screen name “tereastarr@KaZaA”.  Logging a complaint with internet service provider Charter Communications, the RIAA discovered the apparent identity of the user — Jammie Thomas.

The RIAA approached Ms. Thomas and demanded a settlement as they have with many alleged P2P infringers.  However, unlike most, Ms. Thomas refused and the RIAA made good on its promised to take her to court.  The trial was the first P2P trial to go before a jury.  Over the course of the trial, the RIAA provided evidence that “tereastarr” was indeed Thomas — showing that she used the same screen name on EA Sports, Match.com, and Yahoo accounts, complete with evidentiary screenshots.  The trial concluded with a ruling that Ms. Thomas was guilty of sharing 24 songs — tracks by Aerosmith, Green Day, Guns ‘n Roses, among others — and an order for her to pay $9,250 per song in damages, for a total of $222,000.

The landmark damages would have been the largest fine handed to a single P2P file sharer in U.S. history.  Ms. Thomas, however, appealed.  Thanks to recent cases that have cast doubt on the legal argument that “making available” is tantamount to infringement — something the jury was told to be true — the guilty verdict was thrown out and a retrial was ordered.  An attempt by the RIAA to appeal the retrial failed.

That retrial is set to begin Monday.  Ms. Thomas’s old lawyer, Brian Toder, stepped down in May 2009.  She is now represented by Kiwi Camara, an attorney who was the youngest person to matriculate at Harvard Law School.

Also in Ms. Thomas’s camp is Computer Science professor Yongdae Kim.  Professor Kim will testify on 14 ways her IP or modem MAC address might have been spoofed or framed — though all of the ways are extremely unlikely (requiring hardware Ms. Thomas did not have or other unlikely factors).

Mr. Camara tried to get the MediaSentry evidence thrown out during pre-trial, to question the record labels’ ownership of the disputed tracks, and to make an argument that Ms. Thomas’s tracks were covered under “fair use”.  All of these attempts were thrown out by the judge.  Thus the case is likely to play out much like the first.  However, Mr. Camara reportedly has a strategy if the defense that she didn’t do it fails — to argue that the damages are unconstitutionally excessive.

The trial — which will be longer this time, covering 5 days instead of the previous span of 3 days — will also serve as a prelude to a broader assault by Mr. Camara on the RIAA.  Mr. Camara plans to bring a class action suit against the record label enforcement agency, with the help of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson.

An unexpected hydrogen leak aboard NASA shuttle Endeavour forced the agency to delay the shuttle’s scheduled Saturday launch until Wednesday at the earliest.

“Our crew is taking things in stride and will be ready to go when called,” Canadian astronaut Julie Payette said in a message posted on the Canadian Space Agency web site.  

This particular crew has reportedly worked around 18 months to prepare for this mission, so a four-day delay to get the shuttle fixed isn’t a catastrophe, another mission astronaut said yesterday during a press conference.

The shuttle has until June 20 to launch towards the ISS, or Endeavour’s launch will have to be pushed back until early July.

Flight engineers found the leak near a vent line that connects the external fuel tank to the shuttle itself.  Onboard sensors detected the liquid hydrogen leak as NASA began fueling the external tank, and the shuttle launch was scrubbed several hours before scheduled liftoff.

There is an interesting scheduling conflict NASA faces now, with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also scheduled to head into space from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.  Endeavour flight managers will discuss launching both the shuttle and orbiter in the next week, but it’s unsure if the managers of the orbiter mission are willing to alter flight schedules.

“Obviously, the 17th is a range problem, there’s a conflict out there with LRO/LCROSS,” according to Kennedy Space Center manager Mike Moses.  “We haven’t even begun to work that yet… We’ll start those negotiations tomorrow and see where we get, both with the Range and with the NASA payload.”

NASA plans to launch Endeavour to finish construction on the International Space Station (ISS), as there is still so much work to be done and very few launch opportunities available.

The Endeavour’s leak is similar to a fuel leak suffered by shuttle Discovery in March, which cost NASA to delay its launch for four days.  NASA officials believed they had the problem fixed after Discovery’s problems several months ago, and will continue to try and prevent the mistake from happening again.

This most recent delay causes headaches as NASA faces a high level of pressure to finish construction on the ISS before the current shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.  Until the next-generation Constellation U.S. rocket technology is finished, however, NASA will pay Russia to ferry supplies and astronauts into space.

Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin has left his post as the official lead man for the U.S. space agency, but remains skeptical of his replacement appointed by President Barack Obama, Charles Bolden.

Even though Griffin believes Bolden is qualified for the job, he’s concerned regarding Bolden’s decision to study and review the NASA manned spaceflight program.

“This review is not, in my judgment, necessary from a technical point of view,” Griffin recently said during an interview.  “But it does seem to be necessary if we are going to quiet some of the criticism of what NASA is doing, and if we are going to get the new administration on board.”

There was previous concern over a growing rift between NASA and President Obama when he was still out on the campaign trail.  Both Griffin and President Obama said the report posted in the Orlando Sentinel was “wrong” and overblown, with Griffin understanding he’d be replaced when Obama won the election.

Bolden already is facing a turbulent time as NASA administrator, and that likely won’t get any easier in the near future.  The U.S. space agency faces budget issues, an aging shuttle fleet, an unfinished ISS, and a several year reliance on Russia to get supplies and astronauts to space.

Space experts are extremely curious to see how Bolden handles these issues, as Americans and politicians are watching his actions closely.

A 10-member group led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augstine will meet next week in the first of several public meetings to discuss NASA’s future.  One such topic is the manned space program, which could eventually see the “scope, budget and timetable” of the mission altered.

Final results must be turned over to the White House in August.

Griffin will spend his time in retirement by serving as professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and will make speaking appearances across the country.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that in Europe it would not be shipping Internet Explorer 8, its market-leading browser offering, with Windows 7, its new operating system which launches October 22.  Despite the fact that its primary competitor, Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard will ship with a proprietary browser (Safari), Microsoft felt it necessary to unbundle the browser in hopes of avoiding another costly antitrust bout with the European Union.

Unfortunately, for Microsoft its best was not good enough.  The European Commission announced late Thursday that it would still be pursuing charges against Microsoft.  The EC sticks with its previous assertion that by tying Internet Explorer to Windows, since 1996, Microsoft is “stealing” a unique and unfair advantage.

The EC says it took note of Microsoft decision to not bundle IE 8 with Windows 7, but it felt that the decision did not give users enough “genuine consumer choice”.  States an EC release, “At the level of both computer manufacturers and retail sales, the Commission’s statement of objections (SO) suggested that consumers should be provided with a genuine choice of browsers. Given that over 95 percent of consumers acquire Windows pre-installed on a PC, it is particularly important to ensure consumer choice through the computer manufacturer channel.”

The statement summarizes, “Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.”

The EC wants to force Microsoft to bundle rival browsers — Opera, Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s Chrome or Apple’s Safari — with Windows as install options.  Microsoft has been unwilling to do this.  Its main OS competitor, Apple does not bundle competitive browser offerings.

Opera’s lawyer, Thomas Vinje, cheered the decision, stating, “Microsoft must now give users real choice, and not only buyers of new computers, but also existing users. Microsoft should provide a ballot screen through which both existing users and buyers of new PCs can easily select and get a browser of their choice.”

Opera Chief Technology Officer Håkon Wium Lie added in a statement, “We note with intereste that Microsoft now seems capable of separating IE from Windows. However, we do not believe that Microsoft’s move will restore competition for desktop browsers. Most users get their operating systems from the OEM channel and Microsoft will recommend that OEMs pre-install IE8. As such, users are unlikely to be given a genuine choice of browsers.”

He continues, “We believe that the idea of a ‘ballot screen’ is better: when going online, users will be asked which browser(s) they prefer to use. The browser(s) of choice will the painlessly be installed and ready for use.”

The lawyer, Mr. Vinje, has also suggested that Microsoft should be retroactively fined for using its Windows platform to inflate its IE lead over competitive browsers like Netscape in 1990s.  This proposal seems unlikely as the EC has not commented on potential fines (other than those for non-compliance).  However, it is not outside the realm of possibility — the EC has fined Microsoft over $2B USD for past antitrust abuses.