Here’s some exciting news from the eSports front: The U.S. Government will now be issuing visas for professional League of Legends players to compete in tournaments in the United States. While this may seem like a minor advancement, this secures League of Legends as an official “sport” that people compete in professionally. Sure, it’s only in an official capacity, but that puts the Legends Championship Series in the same legal bracket as more traditional sports organizations like the NBA or the NFL. This is a huge step forward for not only League of Legends, but all of eSports, so congratulations to Riot and LCS on making this happen, and here’s hoping we can look forward to more news like this soon.

To see the guys at Riot and LCS talking about this head to http://www.gamespot.com/league-of-legends/videos/riots-magus-and-nick-allen-talk-tournament-format-and-more-6411345/ and skip to 8:22.

Turns out the internet is not quite as united on the issue of DRM as we were led to believe. A fan by the name of David Fontenot has started a petition on Change.org claiming that “consumers were uninformed” during the initial outcry against the DRM policies that were announced with the new Xbox One.

To review, when the Xbox One was initially announced at E3 in June, it was also announced that the Xbox One would have to log in via internet connection every 24 hours to verify ownership. If a log in was missed, gamers would not be able to use their consoles to play games until a connection was re-established. Microsoft also talked about their game sharing and trading policies, stating that games used games could be resold, given as gifts, and even resold to retailers, but this could only be done once per game license.

And as they are wont to do, gamers got a bit upset.

After about two weeks of listening to their fans’ rage, Xbox announced that they would be repealing their DRM policies on the Xbox One, and the system would operate largely the same as the 360 does currently, with no online requirement and infinitely resell-able games. Unfortunately, along with the removal of DRM, came the loss of several features that were announced with the Xbox One, namely the ability to trade and resell digital licenses for games, and play your games on any Xbox One.

What really needs to happen here is that both parties need to step back, take a deep breath, and really look at what each side is asking for. Xbox made a serious misstep in their initial release statement by claiming that “every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection”, and not highlighting that it is the DRM policies that allowed several of their notable new features to operate. This situation exacerbated by Phil Spencer’s sarcastic claim that “We have a product for people who can’t access the internet, it’s called Xbox 360”.

The fan response could have been a little more controlled as well. Any appearance of the letters DRM these days seems to cause an immediate, visceral reaction in gamers, leading to copious quantities of “nerd rage” and not a lot of well thought out research and reasoned discussion. Perhaps a calm complaint would have elicited a more informative response from the executives at Microsoft, than the wave of outrage that was put forward.

So where do you stand on the Xbox One DRM policies? Do you want the many-featured, but DRM restricted Xbox? Or are you in the DRM free, but less innovative camp? Let us know in the comments below, or over in the forums. To check out the petition, head over to http://www.change.org/petitions/microsoft-give-us-back-the-xbox-one-we-were-promised-at-e3-2

~kemosaabi

Corning, makers of one of the most popular types of glass used to make screens on modern smartphones, is apparently planning to make it even better. Already famous for the Gorilla Glass that offers tough, highly impact-proof screens which can be curved to provide an ergonomical form factor for phones against the ear, Corning are now reportedly working on a new iteration of Gorilla Glass with an anti-microbial layer.

By “anti-microbial”, what Corning mean is the glass will contain a chemical that acts as a constant disinfectant on the screen. Supposedly able to kill 99.9% of common germs found on a phone, the chemical is always reacting with the screen’s surface and, so Corning claim, can completely disinfect a typical smartphone screen in two hours, meaning a phone could be left on a table for a while and then could be picked up and be clean and safe to use without ever needing to touch a disinfectant wipe or cleaning cloth. Given the wide variety of places a smartphone is used nowadays – many people never allow it to leave their hands for long and constant exposure to one’s hands – plus the added bacteria that could be picked up if a person regularly uses it near food or takes them to less hygenic places such as toilets – phones can easily get dirty surprisingly quickly, so a technology that can help to clean a phone screen by itself is incredibly clever.

Corning aren’t stopping there, however. Also on the agenda for the next iteration of their glass screen technology, the company apparently want to improve the clarity of the glass so as to make the screens as transparent as possible, which would help to improve colour and visibility of what’s on the screen. Reports from the company suggest that they already expect the new screens “to be as transparent as purified water” – which, if true, would be some amazingly clear glass indeed.

While Corning are giving no words as yet as to how close the screens are to being shown off or when they’ll go into mass production, people are already highly excited and eager to see it on the next wave of smartphones. The real question though, is how much of a premium will have to be added to the cost of each phone to subsidise what is unlikely to be a cheap new technology, for which only time will tell. More news as we get it!

[via Technically Motivated]

After a legal battle lasting several months, on Febuary last year Apple lost a landmark case filed by parents across the United States, which claimed iOS Apps targeted to younger children were often including downloadable content or extra features that required in-app purchases to unlock; for which the apps were actively encouraging the children to purchase the extra content without adequately explaining that they cost actual money. Many of the children were of too young age to understand the concept of in-app purchasing; and the claim by parents that Apple did not offer enough protections to prevent unauthorised purchases by the children of parents who owned iOS devices or explain that they were about to actually purchase items with real money was upheld in court.

As per the terms of the settlement, Apple were instructed to offer parents worldwide the ability to make claims as individuals for compensation as a result of the negligent practices. Today, Apple sent an email to the press announcing that they will now accept compensation claims made directly to the company from individual parents who have been affected by this case.

Parents can claim for the total cost of any string of in-app purchases made within 45 days of each other, up to the date where Apple implemented repeat password requests or disclaimers to counteract such activity. Of course, there IS a catch: Claims for under $30 will qualify only for a $5 iTunes Voucher as compensation; however, larger transactions may have the total of all valid disputed transactions refunded as cash. What's more, there's a deadline of January 13th, 2014 for at least some types of claim.

When the XBox One was revealed at E3 earlier this month, many details were revealed about the console that caused widespread criticism of the console by both players, press and gaming journalists alike. I’m sure by now you’ve read the myriads of articles about it; but if not, here’s a quick recap: The console would require an internet connection every 24 hours to check validity of licences to play any games stored on the console (possibly being unusable for gaming if a connection could not be established); used games could only be transferred to a new owner once; reactivating a third-hand game would cost a fee and games could not be resold for less than 90% of their original value (meaning buying used games could end up MORE expensive than buying them new); and so on.

After soon being followed by Sony’s announcement of the PS4 allowing full sharing of disk-based games just by giving the game away like you would do today, lack of online requirement and £100 lower price tag, Microsoft were looking like real losers in this year’s “console wars” (an endearing term given by the media to explain the concept of gaming consoles battling for control of the market by selling the most consoles). Even Nintendo got a pot shot in, with Satoru Iwata revealing in an interview his view on controlling the trade of used games:

“The best possible countermeasure against people buying used product is making the kind of product that people never want to sell. Taking as an example Mario Kart or Smash Bros., even though you might think, ‘I’ve done enough with this,’ you’ll still have second thoughts. ‘Wait a minute. If one of my friends comes over, I might need this again.’ You’re never going to want to sell these games. That’s something that always occupies our minds. We need to make software that players don’t want to sell.“

It seems Microsoft have finally thrown in the towel and admitted their plans to control usage of their console AND trade of used games just isn’t going to work. On Wednesday, in an official posting on XBox Wire, Microsoft announced a complete reversal of their strategy, ditching the online requirement and removing control over used games.

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