Volume 16, Issue 44 Atari Online News, Etc. October 31, 2014 Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2014 All Rights Reserved Atari Online News, Etc. A-ONE Online Magazine Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor Atari Online News, Etc. Staff Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking" Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile" Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips" Rob Mahlert -- Web site Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame" With Contributions by: Fred Horvat To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe, log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org and click on "Subscriptions". OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org and your address will be added to the distribution list. To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to subscribe from. To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the following sites: http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm Now available: http://www.atarinews.org Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi! http://forums.delphiforums.com/Atari/ =~=~=~= A-ONE #1644 10/31/14 ~ Cyberattacks To Increase ~ People Are Talking! ~ Noriega Suit Tossed! ~ Atari Preorders on Steam ~ Microsoft Cuts 3,000! ~ New HP 3D System! ~ Twitch: No Naked Gaming! ~ Pirate Bay Head Guilty! ~ New Mac Office Soon! ~ Unlimited Cloud Storage! ~ Facebook Aids Tor Users ~ The VIGAMUS & Atari! -* E.T. Documentary To Premiere *- -* White House: Suspicious Cyber Threat? *- -* U of Penn Offers "Wasting Time on Internet" *- =~=~=~= ->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""""""" BOO!!! Happy Halloween, everybody!! I've always enjoyed this "holiday". Perhaps it's one that everyone - especially the kids - can enjoy with little fanfare (or a lot if that's your thing!). It's just a fun time of the year! And, there are a lot of truly scary things going on in the world today; some made-up scary activity sure takes the edge off of reality for a day! Hope you get more treats than tricks! Until next time... =~=~=~= ->In This Week's Gaming Section - Atari E.T. Xbox Documentary To Premiere! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" Judge Tosses Noriega's Suit Out! Twitch: No Naked Gaming, OK? And more! =~=~=~= ->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Judge Tosses Ex-dictator's Suit Against Activision Disgraced Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's lawsuit over his inclusion in a 2012 "Call of Duty" video game has been dismissed by a judge who determined the game's use of his likeness is protected by the First Amendment. Superior Court Judge William Fahey's ruling determined that Activision Blizzard, Inc. created a complex and multi-faceted game, "Call of Duty: Black Ops II," and it relied very little on the inclusion of Noriega in a pair of missions. Noriega had sought unspecified damages in the lawsuit, which Fahey ruled cannot be amended or re-filed. Noriega's attorney William T. Gibbs said his office was still reviewing the ruling and would confer with Noriega on any next steps, which could include an appeal. Noriega sued Activision in July, claiming the company depicted him as a killer and enemy of the state. The game features a story line in which players capture Noriega, who then helps the game's villain. "This was an absurd lawsuit from the very beginning and we're gratified that in the end, a notorious criminal didn't win," said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was part of the legal team that represented Activision in court earlier this month. Giuliani had argued that Noriega's status as a public figure in the 1980s prevented him from suing over his inclusion in the game. Activision, which has featured historical figures such as President John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro in previous "Call of Duty" games, praised the ruling. "Today's ruling is a victory for the 40 million dedicated members of our 'Call of Duty' community and global audiences who enjoy historical fiction across all works of art," Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard's CEO wrote in a statement. Noriega was toppled in 1989 by a U.S. invasion and served a 17-year drug trafficking sentence in the United States. He later was convicted in France of money laundering, and that country repatriated him to Panama in December 2011. Noriega, 80, is serving a 60-year sentence for murder, embezzlement and corruption. He has had health issues in recent months and has been treated for high blood pressure, flu and bronchitis. His family also has said he has a benign brain tumor and heart trouble. In a sworn declaration, Noriega wrote that he learned his likeness had been used in the game after his grandchildren played it and asked why one of the missions focused on captured the ex-dictator. Noriega contended his appearance in the game boosted Activision's profits from "Black Ops II." The game earned more than $1 billion in sales within 15 days of its release. Fahey disagreed, writing that the marketability and economic value of "Black Ops II "comes not from Noriega, but from the creativity, skill and reputation of (Activision.)" Activision has pointed out that Noriega appears in one mission in the game and he wasn't used in any of the marketing for "Black Ops II." Twitch: No Naked Gaming, OK? Still settling into its new digs at Amazon, video game streaming service Twitch has updated its rules of conduct to remind users not to broadcast in the nude. The list is separate from the company's terms of service, and cover behaviors that could lead to suspension of an account or channel. "These behaviors fall under a common sense philosophy," the page said. "If you find yourself asking whether or not you're crossing the line, chances are you shouldn't do it." Things like harming yourself physically, drinking excessively, or endangering yourself while on screen, breaking the law, posting spam content, or harassing other users or Twitch staff. Just as important: Neither you, nor your game characters, should be naked. Sure, if your character stumbles across the screen topless, it's OK. But don't make naughty bits the primary focus of your broadcast. Typical "not safe for work" images, whether on screen or linked in a chat, are also forbidden. "Nerds are sexy, and you're all magnificent, beautiful creatures," the Twitch site said. "But let's try and keep this about the games, shall we?" Setting up shop in your birthday suit, or otherwise sexually suggestive clothing (lingerie, swimsuits, pasties, and undergarments) will almost ensure your suspension. Even fully exposed torsos—man or woman—are not allowed. "You may have a great six-pack, but that's better shared on the beach during a 2-on-2 volleyball game blasting "Playing with the Boys," Twitch said. If it is blisteringly hot wherever you are broadcasting, and you just can't stand to wear a top, Twitch is willing to compromise—crop your webcam to your face. "There is always a workaround," the company said. While you might wonder who would actually want to appear on Twitch in the buff, a PS4 user last year was suspended after he appeared with his wife on Twitch TV. Both had quite a bit to drink, and the wife eventually passed out, at which point, the husband showed viewers her breast. Later, the stream cut out and when it returned, the wife was completely naked. Other rules apply, including no racist, sexist, homophobic, or other hate speech, no streaming games before their release without permission, and no non-gaming content. Disobey the guidelines, and you'll find yourself temporarily kicked off the service. Attempt to evade suspension, and your penalty will only be lengthened. Two months ago, Amazon acquired Twitch for $970 million in cash—a move that Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said "will let us do even more for our community." "We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently," he said in August. "This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world." =~=~=~= ->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr! """"""""""""""""""" Atari E.T. Xbox Documentary To Premiere Atari: Game Over is a documentary that's part of a gaming series that'll be coming to Xbox One and Xbox 360 this fall. We'd heard about it before - we've even seen photos of the digging up of the E.T. site in the desert. But now we get to see it up close and personal. This documentary will show "the untold story of the 80's tech giant and its fateful launch of E.T., the video game." Until now this documentary did not have a launch date - surprise! Now it does. Alamogordo, New Mexico is the place, and the dig is what happened. They're going to make a massive deal about it. It's going to be very, very dramatic. E.T. for Atari. Brutal, unfair, and less than acceptable for the industry, even back in the 80s. Atari was the boss. Atari wanted to create the game for one of the biggest movies in the history of the world. The game was horrible. The game tanked, and Atari took a dive. They took the games they did not sell and dumped them in to the desert into a hole. This is the digging. You'll be able to see it on Xbox One and Xbox 360 on the 20th of November, 2014. Be there - or watch it later. Epic event! Atari's Buried Trash Is Now An Italian Museum's Treasure Unearthed with great fanfare (and its very own documentary) earlier this year, some of the long-buried collection of E.T. and other Atari game cartridges are getting their first public outing this week at the The Video Game Museum of Rome, a member tells Polygon. The VIGAMUS, The Video Game Museum of Rome, is the first museum to feature the exhibit pulled from the, some feared, radioactive dump site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. VIGAMUS is the first Italian museum dedicated to interactive games. It was set up in 2013 under the auspices of the Ministry of Arts and Culture and Tourist to preserve, research and show physical and digital works linked to the digital medium. The exhibit, entitled "E.T. The Fall: Atari Buried Treasures," features items found inside the "Atari Tomb" including E.T., Asteroids, Centipede and Defender cartridges, hardware parts for the Atari VCS console, photos of the dig and a certificate of authenticity provided by the city of Alamogordo. The exhibit also has large panels which walk visitors through the story of the 1983 video game crash and E.T.'s ties to that crisis. The exhibit, which you can see in the gallery below thanks to photos provided to Polygon from VIGAMUS, runs from Oct. 29. In September, the Alamogordo city council voted unanimously to approve distribution plans for about 1,300 cartridges unearthed in the dig. The plan included provisions for lending out some of the material to museums around the world, and also selling some on eBay. Atari Thrills Fans With Pre-Orders for Alone in the Dark: Illumination and Haunted House: Cryptic Graves on Steam Atari, one of the world's most recognized publishers and producers of interactive entertainment, today announced the availability of pre-orders for its latest PC titles, Alone in the Dark: Illumination and Haunted House: Cryptic Graves. Ahead of Halloween, the announcement features exclusive discounts and bonus items, with pre-orders of these survival horror genre games available now on Steam.  To pre-order Alone in the Dark: Illumination visit the Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/275060 To pre-order Haunted House: Cryptic Graves visit the Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/314850 The pre-order bonus pack for Alone in the Dark: Illumination "Eldritch Edition" includes limited-edition character and weapon skins, early access during the game's beta launch starting later this fall and a 10 percent discount for a limited time. The pre-order package for Haunted House: Cryptic Graves includes a 15 percent discount for a limited time. For a first look at the new gameplay trailer of Haunted House: Cryptic Graves, fans can visit www.HauntedHouseGame.com. Full releases of both titles will debut in Holiday 2014. Alone in the Dark: Illumination will be available on Steam for $29.99. As the latest installment of the long-running Alone in the Dark®franchise, Alone in the Dark: Illumination is a third-person action-horror game that brings interesting new twists and gameplay including the power of illumination, 4-player cooperative multiplayer mode, and a unique cast of characters featuring descendants of the original Alone in the Dark heroes. Players can choose between the four playable heroes, each armed with an individual set of special abilities and weapons, including: The Hunter - Equipped with powerful firearms such as an Assault Rifle, SMG and Flamethrower attachment. The Witch - Utilizing a combination of traditional weapons and supernatural powers including a Revolver, Lightning Strike, Creature Control and Lightning Crawler. The Priest - Blessed with divine abilities including the Lord's Embrace, Holy Light, Wrath of God, Cleansing of the Sinners and Sacred Chant. The Engineer - Armed with mechanical items and weapons including a Pistol, Pump Shotgun, Tesla Wall and Comet. Haunted House: Cryptic Graves will be available on Steam for $19.99. Inspired by the classic 1982 Atari hit of the same name, the new PC title is a first-person horror-adventure game. Featuring enigmatic puzzles, supernatural entities and paranormal activity, players are gifted with psychic abilities which allow them to communicate with the land of the dead and purge the spirits and monsters that haunt Abaddon Grange. The pre-order trailer of Haunted House: Cryptic Graves shows new gameplay footage for the first time. Alone in the Dark: Illumination is being developed by PURE FPS and fans can keep up with the latest on the game on Twitter at @AITDGame or Facebook at facebook.com/aloneinthedarkgame. Haunted House: Cryptic Graves is being developed by Dreampainters and can be followed on Twitter at @HauntedHousePC or Facebook at facebook.com/atarihauntedhouse. =~=~=~= A-ONE's Headline News The Latest in Computer Technology News Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Suspicious Cyber Activity at White House Detected, Addressed Suspicious cyber activity has been detected on the computer network used by the White House and measures have been taken to address it, a White House official disclosed on Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say who might have been responsible for the activity on what was described as an unclassified computer network used by employees of the Executive Office of the President. The Washington Post cited sources as saying hackers believed to be working for the Russian government breached the unclassified computer network in recent weeks. "In the course of assessing recent threats we identified activity of concern on the unclassified EOP network. Any such activity is something that we take very seriously. In this case we took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity," the White House official said. The official said the technical measures to address the activity had led to limited access to some EOP network services. Some of the issues have been resolved, but the work continues. "Our actions are ongoing and some of our actions have resulted in temporary outages and loss of connectivity for some EOP users," the official said. A second administration official told Reuters there were no indications that classified networks had been affected. The White House, like many government entities in Washington, frequently faces cyber threats. Cyberattacks Will Increase Over The Next Decade Cyberattacks are likely to increase in the next 10 years, but effective counter measures will minimize damage, a new study found. The Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center surveyed more than 1,600 experts and Internet builders about the state of cybersecurity and found that 61 percent of them believe a major attack causing widespread harm would occur by 2025, according to "Digital Life in 2025," released Oct. 29. The Internet's expansion and growing use of it – especially as critical infrastructure for defense, energy, health and finance – are contributing to the problem, the report states. Many respondents said essential utilities are among the most vulnerable targets, and most agreed that individuals' accounts and identities will be more vulnerable to attacks in the future, while businesses will be under constant attack. In a recent survey on Federal IT Reform, Senior government IT executives laid out their vision for the coming year, detailing challenges and identifying priorities. "I would not say that a major cyber attack will have caused widespread harm to a nation's security and capacity to defend itself and its people, but the risks will be there," said respondent Dave Kissoondoyal, chief executive officer of KMP Global, according to the report. "By 2025, there will be widespread use of cyber terrorism and countries will spend a lot of money on cyber security." Other experts were less sure of an impending attack, citing progress in security fixes and standards. Some also said that the threat of retaliation will be a sufficient deterrent, while others cautioned against buying into cyber hype. "Perhaps I am optimistic, but this concern seems exaggerated by the political and commercial interests that benefit from us directing massive resources to those who offer themselves as our protectors," said Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher at Microsoft Research. "It is also exaggerated by the media because it is a dramatic story." But the Internet's popularity and use lead some experts to believe vulnerabilities of all kinds will grow. "The Internet of Things is just emerging," said respondent Tim Kambitsch, an activist Internet user. "In the future, control of physical assets, not just information, will be open to cyber attack." The last time Pew and the Imagining the Internet Center asked about the future of cyberattacks was 2004. In that time, cyberattacks and defenses have evolved greatly already. The report cites the Stuxnet worm, which aimed to disarm Iranian nuclear facilities that could make enriched uranium, as well as the Defense Department's establishment of the Cyber Command. It also references the July breach at JPMorgan Chase and Co. that put information from 76 million households and 7 million small businesses at risk and last week's attack on the Apple iCloud data storage system by a China-based actor. Pirate Bay Co-Founder Found Guilty of Hacking Crimes in “Historic” Case Swedish hacker Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, who co-founded torrent site the Pirate Bay in 2003, was found guilty by a Copenhagen court of stealing data from the systems of CSC, a major American IT firm that holds Danish public records, along with a 21-year-old accomplice. Warg and his accomplice were convicted of hacking into the CSC mainframe between April and August 2012, gaining access to various sets of data, including the Population Register, the police criminal record and SIS-register of internationally wanted persons. In total, hundreds of thousands of Danish social security numbers, extradition agreements and criminal records were stolen from the mainframe, as well as the email addresses and passwords of over 10,000 policemen. Warg’s defence acknowledged that his computer had been used in the hacking of the CSC database, however they argued that the device had been compromised by a third party. Jacob Appelbaum, a well-known activist and leading member of the Tor project - a free anonymous browser service, testified that it would have been easy for an outsider to gain access to Warg’s computer. Appelbaum has previously collaborated with Edward Snowden in the leaking of NSA files. A 21-year-old Danish IT professional was found guilty of collaborating with Svaltholm Warg. However Judge Kari Sørensen, who presided over the case, called for news outlets not to publish his name. When the hacking took place, Svartholm Warg was based in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, where he had fled in 2011 to avoid facing charges of violating copyright laws through his involvement with the Pirate Bay. Since its launch in 2003, the site has become the most visited torrent directory on the internet. The site is predominantly used to share copyrighted material such as films, TV shows and music files, free of charge. After Svartholm Warg and his co-founders were found guilty of infringing copyright agreements, several countries forced their internet service providers to block the website. Since then, numerous proxies have sprung up, providing access to the site. Warg was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 and subsequently extradited to Sweden to serve a one year jail sentence for hacking the mainframe of IT consulting firm Logica, which provides tax services to the Swedish government. He has been detained in Denmark since November 2013, when he was extradited partway through his jail sentence in Sweden for questioning over his involvement with CSC.   The Prosecution pushed for a five year sentence, arguing that Svartholm Warg’s sentence should be longer than those normally given to hacking cases in Denmark in view of these convictions. Elisabeth Braw, Newsweek’s Europe correspondent, said that the trial had attracted the attention of the world, partly because of the sensitive nature of the information stolen from CSC - but mostly due to Svartholm Warg’s personal mystique. “The Swede is a legend in the hacking community,” she said. "Svartholm Warg has also served as a consultant to Wikileaks, and Julian Assange has called him a 'political prisoner'." She added that the ease with which Svartholm Warg and his accomplice were able to hack into the CSC database had “highlighted the dangers of our modern digitised society”. If two hackers can gain access to a critical registry, so can plenty of other hackers and, perhaps more frighteningly, hostile countries' intelligence agencies." The nature and length of Svartholm Warg’s sentence has not yet been revealed, but is likely to be more severe, in view of his previous hacking convictions. The final verdict is expected to be announced at 1pm on Friday. Microsoft Cuts 3,000 Jobs, Finishing Layoffs The bad news: Microsoft cut another 3,000 employees today. The good news: this is pretty much the last of the layoffs announced by CEO Satya Nadella this summer. In a statement to PCMag, a Microsoft spokesperson said the reductions are taking place across a variety of teams in many different countries, though there's no word as to which departments will be hit hardest. "We've taken another step that will complete almost all the 18,000 reductions announced in July," the spokesperson said. Today's cuts follow two previous rounds of layoffs. Microsoft kicked things off in July, axing 13,000 in the first wave before cutting another 2,100 workers in September. GeekWire reported that about 638 of today's layoffs were in the Seattle area, for a total of 2,700 layoffs in Microsoft's home region, where the company employed some 42,500 people at the end of September. The report noted that many of the downsized positions were in support roles, including finance, human resources, sales, and marketing. The reductions come as Microsoft works to integrate the Nokia handset business it acquired in April for $7.2 billion. Following the Nokia deal, Microsoft's employee headcount rose from about 99,000 last year to 127,000. About 12,500 of the 18,000 layoffs came from Nokia, including professional and factory workers. In a July memo to employees, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, pictured, said the company would largely nix work on Android-based devices. "We plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows," he wrote. "This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps." Facebook Offers Hidden Service to Tor Users Hidden services running on the Tor network got major support on Friday when Facebook began offering Tor users a way to connect to its services and not run afoul of the social network’s algorithms for detecting fraudulent usage of accounts. On Friday, the company added a hidden service address with a .onion top-level domain, facebookwwwi.onion, which allows Tor users to protect their data and identity all the way to Facebook’s datacenters. Hidden services accessed through the Tor network allow both the Web user and website to remain anonymous. “Facebook’s onion address provides a way to access Facebook through Tor without losing the cryptographic protections provided by the Tor cloud,” Alec Muffett, a software engineer with Facebook’s security infrastructure group, said in a blog post. “It provides end-to-end communication, from your browser directly into a Facebook datacenter.” The addition of a hidden service address allows Facebook to better filter out connections using Tor that may be malicious. Malware has increasingly begun using Tor as a way to make it much harder to identify the compromised systems involved in an attack and stymie clean-up efforts. In June 2013, for example, Facebook cut connections to Tor following a deluge of malicious traffic from the anonymizing network. “Facebook is not blocking Tor deliberately,” the Tor Project said in a statement at the time. “However, a high volume of malicious activity across Tor exit nodes triggered Facebook’s site integrity systems which are designed to protect people who use the service.” Facebook has already implemented a number of other security measures across its entire service, including secure HTTP (HTTPS), Perfect Forward Secrecy, and the HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). Hidden services on Tor have most often been associated with criminal enterprises, such as Silk Road marketplace that sold drugs and other illegal items until it was shut down a year ago. But the anonymizing feature enables a variety of legitimate services, such as forums for dissidents, anonymous source submissions for newspapers and media sites, and private search engines. The privacy benefits of going through an anonymizing network to connect to Facebook are questionable, however. Matthew Green, an assistant research professor in computer science at Johns Hopkins University, summed up the issue in a tweet. “On the one hand, cool! On the other, it seems a little like taking a shower and rolling in mud,” he stated, adding: “Ok, all cynicism aside: companies providing direct Tor links is an unalloyed good. Keep it up Facebook! Now maybe Twitter can get onboard.” HP Reveals New, Ultra-Fast 3D-Printing System HP announced Multi Jet Fusion, a new 3D-printing technology that, according to the company, can print objects in 3D at much faster speeds and lower costs than existing methods. Its speed is due to the fact that it can quickly apply and fuse large areas of material rather than extruding it point by point. HP's 3D-printing system is geared to commercial use in short-run manufacturing, at least for now. According to HP, the new technology is 10 times faster than the existing 3D-printing methods of fused deposition modeling, in which acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), or similar molten plastic is extruded through a nozzle, and selective laser sintering (SLS). It is designed to produce output that is beautiful and mechanically useful, with the ability to manipulate part and material properties, including form, texture, friction, strength, elasticity, electrical and thermal properties. HP Multi Jet Fusion incorporates the company's Thermal Inkjet technology that it uses in commercial-grade printers. The process starts with the laying down a thin layer of material in the working area. Next, a carriage containing an HP Thermal Inkjet array passes from left to right, printing chemical agents across the full working area. The layering and energy processes are combined in a continuous pass of a second carriage from top to bottom. The process continues, layer-by-layer, until a complete part is formed. At each layer, the carriages change direction for optimum productivity. Using HP Thermal Inkjet arrays with their high number of nozzles per inch, HP's proprietary synchronous architecture is capable of printing over 30 million drops per second across each inch of the working area. The technology uses a multi-chemistry process, including a fusing agent that is selectively applied where the particles will fuse together, as well as a detailing agent that is selectively applied where the fusing action needs to be reduced or amplified. As one example, the detailing agent reduces fusing at the boundary to produce parts with sharp and smooth edges. The method is designed to provide uniform part strength in all three-axis directions. Over time, HP plans to incorporate a full range of colors into a part, to bring the color capabilities of traditional printing into the 3D world. Availability of the end-to-end HP 3D-printing system is planned in 2016. HP is enlisting early customers in the development process with its Open Customer Engagement Program, which enables HP to work with them for expedited solution product testing and feedback. Microsoft Announces New Mac Editions of Office and Outlook Microsoft understands that Mac people have just as much work to get done as its Windows PC owners do. So, as it’s done for the past umpteen years, the company has announced that it will again bring its latest Office suite of programs for spreadsheets, word processing, email, and more to Apple’s line of computers. But not until next year. The company wrote in a blog post Friday about its plans to bring the successor to Office 2011 for Mac, which will include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote, sometime in the second half of 2015. Its popular email software program, Outlook, is being released now, ahead of the pack, available for download by Office 365 subscribers. Microsoft’s pay-by-the-month 365 program, starting at $6.99, allows subscribers to download and install the latest versions of Office software to PC and mobile devices, as well as access its tools online from any Web browser. The company also sells stand-alone software packages of Office for desktop the old fashioned way, with the full version starting at $219. Other than promising that “you will like what you see” in the upcoming Outlook for Mac update, no other details were given. Though, if the new Outlook is any indication, the rest of the Office package will essentially mirror the look and feel of the latest Windows version, Office 2013. The list of new features baked into the latest Outlook for Mac include faster overall performance, a cleaner and more Windows-y look, real-time email delivery with Office 365 push support, and enhancements in mail category/color organization sync between Mac, Windows, and Outlook Web Access clients. If you’re planning on installing the new Outlook for Mac today, you’ll need to first uninstall the Office 2011 version. Microsoft explains how to do that in this . So as long as your work computer isn’t hamstrung by some Type A IT department, get on that pretty new email software update. And then get back to work! Microsoft Gives Office 365 Subscribers Unlimited Cloud Storage Microsoft is offering unlimited cloud storage to all of its Office 365 subscribers, doing away with data caps and pricing tiers as it amps up the storage fight with Google, Dropbox and others. That’s not to say it’s free—an individual Office 365 subscription costs $70 a year, and a home subscription, which would give unlimited storage to up to five users, costs $100 a year. Yet even without access to Microsoft’s famous productivity software, that pricing is competitive. Google sells a terabyte of cloud storage for $10 a month but gives away its productivity software free. Microsoft’s move puts even more pressure on providers such as Dropbox and Box, which don’t currently rely on software or advertising revenue streams to supplement server costs. They have already had to drop prices in order to remain a viable option for customers. Even though the storage isn’t limited to Office documents—it can be used to upload monster files and automatically back up every picture taken on smartphones running iOS, Android or Windows—the majority of eligible users probably would have a hard time filling up their previous limit of 1 TB, let alone spilling over. But unlimited storage opens up new possibilities that users may not have previously considered, such as wholesale backup of their computer hard drives, or even of their local backup drives. (“Back up your backup” is sort of a 21st-century version of the Boy Scout motto “Be prepared.”) Microsoft says the deal will roll out to customers “in the coming months,” but you can edge toward the front of the line by going here. Office 365 for Business customers will see this roll out in 2015. Ivy League University To Offer Class on ‘Wasting Time on the Internet’ Next semester, students at the University of Pennsylvania will have the option to enroll in a course that requires them to do what young people do best: waste hours and hours online. Per the description of the Ivy League English course, officially titled “Wasting time on the Internet,” students will be asked to find meaning in the time they spend alone with a computer: “Using our laptops and a wifi connection as our only materials, this class will focus on the alchemical recuperation of aimless surfing into substantial works of literature,” it reads. “Students will be required to stare at the screen for three hours, only interacting through chat rooms, bots, social media and listservs … Distraction, multi-tasking, and aimless drifting is mandatory.” The course is headed by none other than Kenneth Goldsmith, a poet and professor whose previous projects include printing out all of the scholarly database JSTOR and also attempting to print the entire Internet. (He’s no friend of trees.) “I’m very tired of reading articles in The New York Times every week that make us feel bad about spending so much time on the Internet, about dividing our attention so many times,” Goldsmith told Motherboard’s Jason Koebler, who first spotted the course offering. In practice, the course will play out a little like this: Students will spend a lot of time chatting with friends, watching YouTube videos, surfing Facebook, exploring Reddit, and, who are we kidding, skimming UPenn-specific BuzzFeed lists. Eventually, however, they’ll have to take the detritus from that time wasted — tweets, posts, photos, browser history, a painkiller prescription for their carpal tunnel — and turn it into “substantial works of literature.” (Using Net surfing as a medium is actually a burgeoning field for some digital artists. My colleague Rob Walker has written about adaptations of classic dramas into iMessage, for example, as well as several artistic reinterpretations of different Google services.) Parents picking up their kin’s $40,000-a-year tuition tabs shouldn’t worry: There will also be some reading. Specifically, pieces from authors famous for their meditations on “boredom and time-wasting.” Notables include John Cage, Betty Friedan, and Guy Debord. So take note in case you want to audit the class from home. From behind your laptop. With Netflix blaring in the background. It’s all part of the curriculum. =~=~=~= Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for profit publications only under the following terms: articles must remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of Atari Online News, Etc. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.