By Gilbert Falso :: 7:38 AM
TweetDeck users who are still relying on the older versions of the software will need to find a new Twitter client soon, as Twitter has announced support and functionality for some TweetDeck applications will cease on May 7.
Specifically, the TweetDeck AIR application for both PCs and Macs, TweetDeck for Android, and TweetDeck for iPhone will stop functioning on that date. Integration between TweetDeck and Facebook will also end then.
Twitter acquired TweetDeck nearly two years ago, and has been developing TweetDeck web applications, as well as a TweetDeck for Chrome application, but has put very little development work into the AIR app, or the iPhone and Android apps. It has been clear for many TweetDeck power users that their platform was going to go away soon.
While Twitter has been warning TweetDeck users to find another client for some time, the end date for the service was always vague, until last week. The May 7 end date was given as an update on a blog post on TweetDeck’s blog.
By Paul Thomson :: 10:39 PM
Game maker Electronic Arts (EA) will release the first significant update for its beleaguered SimCity series tomorrow.
The new update to a decades-old franchise has been fraught with trouble since it launched earlier this year. The game requires a constant Internet connection to EA’s servers to run properly, and many game players have had difficulty getting and staying connected while playing the game. While previous minor updates addressed server issues and network congestion, this is the first major upgrade to address game features and game play.
EA’s planned patch, called “Update 2.0” will be available around 4:00 PM Eastern time tomorrow afternoon. Due to major changes being made to SimCity, the company will take the game’s servers offline for several hours to make the upgrade – thus, many player will be unable to access or play their game during that period.
The full list of items changed in this upgrade is below:
New Features
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.
By Paul Thomson :: 11:12 AM
The photos below show the police procession for MIT Police Officer Sean Collier who was killed while on duty on the MIT campus on Thursday night.
Collier was slain by the two suspects wanted for the twin bombings carried out on Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. He had worked for MIT since 2012, and was well liked and respected by his fellow officers and students at the Institute.
MIT released the following statement regarding Collier’s death: “While the circumstances around the officer’s death remain the subject of an active investigation, what is certain is that the officer gave his life to defend the peace of our campus. His sacrifice will never be forgotten by the Institute. We are thinking now of his family, and our hearts are heavy.”
The pictures show the sheer number of Boston law enforcement officials who turned out to escort Collier’s body from the hospital to the funeral home. Video is below photographs.
By Gilbert Falso :: 10:56 PM
The Twitter account of the CBS news show 60 Minutes has been hacked for a second time today.
We reported earlier on the breach of three accounts associated with CBS news organizations. The latest hacking attempt occurred within the last 45 minutes, and is still ongoing.
The hackers are posting anti-Obama messaging to the account, and messages dealing with the U.S. involvement with the conflict in Syria.
After the first hacking attempt, earlier today, Twitter and CBS worked to regain control of the account. CBS was able to access the account again for several hours before losing access again.
Twitter has temporarily suspended the account while it investigates the issue.
CBS social media producer Matthew Polevoy commented on Twitter, “obviously, those messages posted did NOT come from 60 Minutes staff. This is [a] serious matter and we’re treating it as such.”
Some of the Tweets that were posted to the account are shown below.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:27 PM
Today, the Massachusetts State Police Department released photos shot with an infrared camera that were taken during the apprehension of Boston Marathon terror suspect #2, Dzhokar Tsarnaev.
Dzhokar was the younger of the two-brother pair that terrorized the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday with two home-made explosive devices that resulted in three deaths and hundreds of injuries.
On Thursday night and Friday morning, the brothers continued their crime spree across the Boston area, and on Friday night, Dzhokar fled from police and sought refuge in a boat stored in the yard of a Watertown family.
Once police had located Dzhokar in the boat, thanks to a tip by a resident who had noticed the boat’s winter cover was askew, Massachusetts State Police officers scanned the boat from the air with an infrared camera on board their helicopter.
He was captured after a brief firefight with law enforcement officials.
Pictures from the infrared camera are below.
