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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 16 Issue 36
Volume 16, Issue 36 Atari Online News, Etc. September 5, 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
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A-ONE #1636 09/05/14
~ Facebook Privacy Check! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Facebook Goes Down!
~ WinXP, Life After Death ~ Bring The World Online! ~ Getting Hack-proof!
~ ~ Oakland Pinball Ban End ~
-* "Enduro" Robotron 2084 Record *-
-* Apple To Tighten iCloud Security! *-
-* TwitPic Is Shutting Down, Blames Twitter! *-
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->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Typically, a long holiday weekend is followed by a "shortened" work week,
for everybody! Well, we just celebrated Labor Day here in the States;
and, it's also the unofficial end of the summer. Makes some sense, as
students return to school at around this time also.
Well, you'd never know that the summer was "over" with the weather that
we've been having here! 90-degree temperatures have returned, and the
humidity levels have sky-rocketed! Hopefully, things will get back down
to where I enjoy them, by the beginning of next week.
Until then, try to stay cool, and enjoy this week's issue!
Until next time...
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->In This Week's Gaming Section - Vintage Gamer Sets Enduro Robotron 2084 Record!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Celebrating End of Oaklands Bizarre 80-Year Pinball Ban!
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->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Vintage Gamer Sets Enduro Robotron 2084 Record
With a 5-oclock shadow, heavy from neglect, along with a pair of tired
eyes and sore wrists, David Gomez emerged victorious against friend and
foe Robotron 2084.
Gomez, 44, an information technology professional by trade, spent last
weekend at The Game Preserve, an arcade near Oak Ridge North, in a
man-versus-machine marathon which lasted 28 hours, 53 minutes and
51 seconds.
Furthermore, Gomez did it all with one credit.
The initial challenge, known as the Robotron 2084 Gauntlet Race to 100
Million, according to the Robotron 2084 Guidebook online, is an enduro
challenge requiring players to race to 100 million points within a
24-hour window using only one credit.
Gomez is one of only a handful of vintage gaming enthusiasts in the world
to achieve the feat and now sits at the top of Robotron 2084 Guidebooks
online leaderboard. It was his fourth attempt since December 2013.
At the 24-hour mark, he nabbed a total of 106,315,450 points. However,
with a second wind at his back, Gomez decided to hoof it another five
hours, netting a grand total of 125,010,125 points 25 million more than
the next ranked contender, Ken House.
It was never about bragging rights. It was more so I wonder how far I
can go, Gomez said. I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity. I wanted to
see what would give out first, me or the machine.
While, in the end, the machine may have outlasted the man, Gomez was
quite content with his final results. His wife, Nanette, and two
children, Nathan, 13, and Lyssa, 11, who were all present during
Davids vector-blasting marathon, are also very proud.
It is more than just a video game, Nanette said. This is a personal
accomplishment. It shows me that he can do whatever he sets out to do, no
matter what it is, and he is setting the right example for our kids
that there are no boundaries.
Rusty Key, one of the owners of The Game Preserve, called David a
Robotron master.
It is quite an accomplishment. We are very proud of what David did, Key
said. The whole 24 hours, he was just a machine, so focused on what he
was trying to do. But he also had his backup team with his family. It
very much was a family effort, and that is really one of the things we
are all about at The Game Preserve.
Huge Tournament Celebrates End of Oaklands Bizarre 80-Year Pinball Ban
Can you believe there was a time when the game of pinball was illegal in
this town?
Can you believe that time was this year?
Residents of this Bay Area city probably couldnt possibly imagine they
were breaking the law every time they sidled up to a Bally table and
played the silver ball. But it was only last month that the Oakland city
council finally passed a measure lifting an 80-year ban on the public
operation of pinball machines. To celebrate this occasion, a local
RadioShack is holding a month-long pinball tournament. The chain, a key
resource for pinball owners, has purchased and installed an Iron Man
machine in the store in the citys Fruitvale Station, and invited
players to test their skills. Anyone who tops 50 million points will be
invited back to compete for the grand prizethe table itself.
Oaklands absurd ban dates to the 1930's, when the machines were
considered a form of gambling. Before the addition of flippers, which
allowed the player to bounce the ball and more accurately affect the
games outcome, pinball machines simply rolled the ball down the
playfield. The only way of controlling the outcome was to imprecisely
nudge the table. This was not particularly effective, making pinball
largely a game of chance. You might get a payout for achieving a high
score.
There was this stigma for what pinball was, said Josh Sharpe, president
of the International Flipper Pinball Association, which stuck around as
it evolved into an amusement machine, with electricity and the
opportunity to control the ball via flippers.
Roger Sharpe, the Associations co-founder and Joshs father, was a
driving force behind destigmatizing pinball in the 1970s. In 1976, the
elder Sharpe appeared before the New York city council to demonstrate
that pinball as practiced was a game of skill, not chance. His testimony
(and supple wrist) helped reverse New Yorks ban on pinball. But the
bans, like other ridiculous or outdated laws, remained on the books in
other cities across America, including Oakland.
That said, the law went largely unenforced and it wasnt until an
Association tournament was shut down that the organization knew it must
fight to see the statute reversed.
It might have even been about the noise of the business, just based on
the machines and the people there, Sharpe said of the complaint that
led to the enforcement of the anti-pinball law. If you want to shut
someone down, find a way to make what theyre doing illegal. So they
found this old rule that didnt allow people to operate pinball
machines that way.
Instead of backing down, the group fought the law as many other
communities have done over the last 40 years. The result was Oakland
lifting its pinball ban, as a part of a larger measure looking at modern
gambling establishments in the Bay Area city.
Weve had a really big pinball renaissance and resurgence in the past
five years, said Jody Dankberg, director of marketing for Stern, the
only company in America currently manufacturing pinball machines.
Were seeing a huge growth in location pinball, a huge growth in league
play, tournaments, and things like that, Dankberg said. Organizations
like the IFPA, these competitive players, theyve really been the driving
force behind getting some of these bans lifted.
Pinball bans still exist, like in Oaklands neighboring city Alamedathe
location of the Pacific Pinball Museum, which had to remove all the coin
slots off of its machines to comply with the law. But pinball can finally
emerge from out of the shadows in Oakland.
It opens the door for so many more cool things, Dankberg said. Across
the country were seeing a huge trend in the barcade business: bars that
sell craft beer and have classic videogames and pinball machines.
With a law on the books, like it was in Oakland, it prevents that type of
venue. So now this is pretty excitinghopefully well see more pinball in
Oakland.
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A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Apple To Tighten Online Security After Recent Hack
Apple plans to tighten its online security measures to reduce the chances
of its users being victimized by intrusions like the ones that stole nude
photos from actress Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities.
CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal in a story published Friday
that Apple Inc. will use email and push notifications to alert the
hundreds of millions of people using its services when there has been an
attempt to restore their iCloud data on a new device, change an account
password or log on to an account with a new device. Previously there
were no notifications for restoring iCloud data, but users did receive
an email when someone tried to change a password or log in for the first
time from a new device.
Apple expects to start sending the additional notifications in two weeks.
The iPhone maker said the new security will allow users to change
passwords to reclaim control of an account or notify Apple's security
team about a potential problem.
An Apple spokesman confirmed the report Friday but declined to comment
further than what was said in the interview.
Apple is also urging users to ensure they have complex passwords that
are difficult to guess and are enabling a feature known as two-factor
authentication that requires a numeric code sent to a phone to gain
access to an account.
The security clampdown comes just a few days after Apple acknowledged
computer hackers broke into the accounts of Lawrence and several other
stars whose revealing photos were posted online during the Labor Day
weekend. The Cupertino, California, company blamed the security breakdown
on the intruders' ability to figure out passwords and bypass other
safeguards.
The embarrassing episode raised doubts about Apple's online security at a
time when the company is preparing to introduce several services that
will seek to vacuum up even more information about people's lives and
finances. When Apple unveils its next iPhone at a Tuesday event in
Silicon Valley, Cook also is widely expected to provide more details
about previously announced services designed to help people manage their
health and home appliances. Analysts also believe Apple will include a
digital wallet for making payments on the iPhone and, possibly, a
long-awaited smartwatch, too.
As part of its efforts to reassure users, Apple has emphasized that it
found no evidence of a widespread problem in iCloud or its Find my iPhone
service.
Instead, the affected celebrity accounts were targeted by hackers who had
enough information to know the usernames, passwords and answers to
personal security questions designed to thwart unauthorized entries,
according to Apple.
Knowing this crucial information would enable an outsider to break into
Apple accounts, including iCloud, and many other types of online
accounts. The digital burglaries, though, probably would have been
thwarted with two-factor authentication.
Facebook Debuts A Privacy Checkup Tool To Help You Better Control Your Data
On Thursday, Facebook released a new tool to help you understand and
control your privacy settings on the site.
First announced back in April, the Privacy Checkup tool lets you see and
adjust who can view your data, as well as which apps can access it. It
is navigated, curiously, with the help of a nameless blue dinosaur
lets call him Clippyosaurus who pops up now and then and reminds you
to review your privacy settings to make sure theyre set up the way you
want.
Per the companys blog post:
Today, were starting to roll out Privacy Checkup, which helps you
review and control who youre sharing with.
We know you come to Facebook to connect with friends, not with us. But
we also know how important it is to be in control of what you share and
who you share with.
The release is likely a move for Facebook to improve its public image,
which has been marred by several privacy scandals in the past several
years.
The Privacy Checkup tool attempts to both simplify the process of
changing your sharing settings and demystify whom youre sharing with.
The tool isnt a cure-all. While it might help you better understand what
youre sharing and with whom, for example, it doesnt change the fact
that Facebook farms out your detailed personal data to advertisers for
profit by default.
Anyway, below is a quick run-through of how the tool works:
When you access your privacy settings via the lock symbol in the
upper-right corner of Facebooks navigation bar, your (Mac-using?)
dinosaur friend will appear and be like, Hey, privacy, blah blah blah.
After you click Privacy Checkup, a box will pop up on your screen. Via
this tool, you can monitor Your Posts, Your Apps, and Your Profile.
The first page is a basic run-through of who can see the updates you
write on your page.
The second is a survey of which apps are connected to your Facebook. Ill
admit its nice to have quick access to this, as I often try out an app
once or twice and then forget about it. With this tool, I can remove its
access to my data with one click. You can also adjust who sees your
activity on the app.
Finally, youre shown all the basic personal info on your profile and
given the choice to adjust what it says and who sees it.
Thats all it does! At the very least, this simplifies the convoluted
process of adjusting your privacy thats caused so many problems in the
past.
TwitPic Is Shutting Down, Blames Twitter
TwitPic, a photo sharing website closely linked to Twitter, will be
shutting down on September 25, 2014.
The service was launched in 2008 and is most known for the platform used
to tweet out a photo of US Airways Flight 1549 that Capt. Chesley Sully
Sullenberger crash landed in the Hudson River.
TwitPic founder, Noah Everett, stated in a blog post that they will have
a feature to allow users to export all of their photos and videos in the
coming days.
Everett claims that a trademark dispute with Twitter is forcing them to
shut down TwitPic. He states that A few weeks ago Twitter contacted our
legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing
access to their API.
The Twitter application programming interface (API) is what TwitPic uses
to connect its services to Twitter.
Below is a statement from a Twitter spokesperson sent to @CNBC on TwitPic:
Were sad to see Twitpic is shutting down. We encourage developers to
build on top of the Twitter service, as Twitpic has done for years, and we
made it clear that they could operate using the Twitpic name. Of course,
we also have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to
the brand.
Facebook Goes Down for Some U.S. Users
Facebook Inc went down briefly for an unknown number of U.S. users on
Wednesday afternoon in what appeared to be the latest outage to affect
the world's largest social network.
Several users had earlier reported getting an error message, "unable to
connect to the Internet" when attempting to sign in.
Facebook said the log-in problems arose after what it called an
infrastructure-configuration adjustment.
We immediately discovered the issue and fixed it, and everyone should
now be able to connect," a Facebook spokesman said.
Three Essential Steps To Make Yourself More Hack-Proof
Look, theres no hiding from being hacked. Everything is vulnerable, and
if you havent been personally affected by a data breach yet, you will.
But while you cant ever protect yourself 100 percent from malicious
data theft, you can at least put a better lock on your door than the one
your neighbor has. These three simple tips will go a long way toward
helping you avoid having a hacker rifling through your files.
1. Dont Reuse Passwords
If they get you, this is how youll get got. Password reuse is a huge
problem. Thats because when one service has a breach (say, LinkedIn or
Adobe), people rush to try the exposed passwords on other
sitesespecially email, social media, and banking. If you use the same
password multiple places, it makes you only as secure as the most
vulnerable target. The same thing goes for your clever password
schemes, too. If a human being cant figure out the slight variations
youve set up to track your Gmail, Facebook, and Wells Fargo passwords,
a machine will.
2. Set Up Two-Factor Authentication
Look, I know two-factor authentication sounds a little scary. It even
sounds a little scary when you call it two-step authentication. I know.
But basically, it just means that when someone tries to log into an
account from a new location (a different computer, a different phone,
whatever) they also have to enter a code thats sent to a trusted
device. This usually means that youll get some sort of text message
with a six-digit number you have to enter if you want to, say, log into
Facebook from a computer in the library (bad idea!) or reset the
password on your Google account. The thing you should know about
two-factor is that once you have it set up, which is typically an easy
process, youll rarely have to actually use it. Its mostly a set it
and forget it operation.
If your bank, or email provider, or online data storage provider doesnt
offer two factor, find a different one that does.
3. Use a Password Manager
A good password manager will help you create and manage strong passwords
that you can use to log in from the Web or your mobile device. All youll
ever need to know is the master password. The rest of your passwords are
encrypted, and can only be unlocked by that master password. You can use
a password manager to both generate and track new passwords, and to
perform a password audit of your existing ones. Dashlane, 1Password and
LastPass are all great options.
Youve been warned.
Facebook Ready To Spend Billions To Bring Whole World Online
Facebook Inc (FB.O) is prepared to spend billions of dollars to reach
its goal of bringing the Internet to everyone on the planet, Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday.
"What we really care about is connecting everyone in the world,"
Zuckerberg said at an event in Mexico City hosted by Mexican billionaire
Carlos Slim.
"Even if it means that Facebook has to spend billions of dollars over the
next decade making this happen, I believe that over the long term its
gonna be a good thing for us and for the world."
Around 3 billion people will have access to the Internet by the end of
2014, according to International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
statistics. Almost half that, 1.3 billion people, use Facebook.
Facebook, the world's largest social networking company, launched its
Internet.org project last year to connect billions of people without
Internet access in places such as Africa and Asia by working with phone
operators.
"I believe that ... when everyone is on the Internet all of our
businesses and economies will be better," Zuckerberg said.
Windows XP Is Enjoying A Very Strong Life After Death
When Windows 8 launched in 2012, Microsoft struggled to convince users
that they should make the switch. The new UI was unfamiliar and
unresponsive, the critical reaction was skeptical at best and most
importantly, there wasnt really anything wrong with Windows 7. In fact,
two years later, Windows 7 still has an enormous lead over Windows 8,
but with the latest software update, Microsoft has finally started
turning users around on the new OS.
According to the latest data from StatCounter, Windows 8.1 became the
fourth most popular operating system over Windows 8 in August with a
7.46% market share. OS X barely topped out Windows 8.1 with 7.82%, but
perhaps unsurprisingly, both were beat out by an OS which was officially
retired back in April: Windows XP.
Despite a massive decline since last August, Windows XP still retained a
12.92% share of the global market last month. At this rate, its going to
be a race to see if Windows 8.1 can overtake the dead OS before Windows 9
hits the market within the next few months.
According to Russian hacker group WZOR, Microsoft is planning to
introduce a substantial upgrade offer for Windows XP users when Windows 9
comes out in an attempt to lure them away from an operating system which
is now more vulnerable than ever to malicious attacks. If Windows 9 is as
feature-rich as the leaks have suggested, it might finally be enough to
bury Windows XP once and for all.
Now Microsoft just has to figure out how to convince the 50.31% share of
Windows 7 users around the world to upgrade
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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
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each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of
request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org
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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.
