Xbox One vs. PS4: The post-E3 2016 scorecard

Xbox One vs. PS4: The post-E3 2016 scorecard

The annual gaming show has come and gone. And now we know how the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will stack up against each another for the next 12 to 18 months.
29 June 20168:31 am AEST

by Jacob Krol @Jake31Krol

The annual E3 gaming show is the gaming equivalent of the State of the Union address. Each of the companies recap the year that was, and -- more importantly -- offer a look at what's to come. For Nintendo, the show was largely a placeholder -- the company showed off its new Zelda game, but deferred details on its next-gen NX console until later this year (both are coming in 2017). But for Microsoft and Sony, we got a fairly detailed look at how the next year is shaping up for both rival gaming platforms.

Here's a brief overview of where the Xbox-versus-PlayStation landscape stands, and where it's going in the near future.Josh Miller/CNET

Xbox One

Microsoft bookended a long list of new games at E3 with two new hardware announcements: Xbox One S and Project Scorpio. And the company stuck to its Windows roots by announcing Xbox Play Anywhere, which effectively brings Xbox games to Windows PCs.

Exclusive games and Xbox Play Anywhere: The Xbox One has a fairly impressive slate of games coming for rest of 2016 and beyond. And thanks to the console's new Play Anywhere feature, many of these games will also support cross-play onWindows 10 PCs as well. That means you can buy the game once on either console and play on both (assuming, of course, your PC has the gaming horsepower to run the game). Xbox Play Anywhere will support multiplayer between platforms, and the ability to save games on the console and resume on the PC, or vice versa.

Notable Xbox exclusives include:
Inside (on Xbox now, hitting PC later in July)
We Happy Few* (July 26)
Recore* (September 13)
Forza Horizon 3* (September 27)
Gears of War 4* (October 10)
Dead Rising 4* (December 6 on Xbox/PC, hitting PS4 later)
Sea of Thieves* (Q4 2016)
Halo Wars 2* (2017)
Scalebound* (2017)

*supports Xbox Play Anywhere

Xbox One S and Project Scorpio: On the hardware side, Microsoft confirmed many of the preshow rumors, delivering news of two new Xbox products. The Xbox One S, the new slimmer and eventually cheaper variant of the Xbox One, packs in a 4K UHD Blu-Ray player with support for HDR video and gaming. But the "real" next-gen Xbox, currently dubbed Project Scorpio, will arrive in the fourth quarter of 2017 with support for significantly improved 4K gaming and VR support. In other words, casual gamers can opt for the One S, while hard-core gamers will likely want to hold out to see what Project Scorpio has to offer.

But where is Xbox VR? Microsoft pledged that its 2017 Xbox upgrade, Project Scorpio, would be "VR ready." But details are scant. The company's HoloLens system is built for augmented reality, not virtual reality -- and those developer kits cost upward of $3,000. Will Microsoft make a deal with Oculus or HTC Vive? Or will it release an Xbox-exclusive VR helmet alongside Scorpio? Right now, it's anyone's guess.

Bottom line: Xbox One's biggest mistakes are behind it: Everyone agrees that the launch of the Xbox One was rocky from the start. But at this point, Microsoft has corrected nearly all of the platform's biggest problems. 

The disastrous "Xbox One won't play used games" policy -- which drove many preorders straight to PlayStation -- was so ill-conceived that it never even came to fruition. Software updates have provided existing and future Xbox One owners with an improved dashboard and compatibility with a growing list of older Xbox 360 games. 

And the announcement of two new hardware options -- and making the Kinect motion sensor an optional add-on -- finally make the Xbox One attractive for both value gamers, as well as those anxious for cutting-edge gaming options.

PlayStation
PlayStation 4

On the eve of E3, Sony confirmed that its PlayStation "Neo" upgrade was real -- but that it wouldn't be announced at the show. 

Instead, the company focused on PlayStation VR, delivering a firm release date and a bevy of new game previews. And while PS4 fans are anxious to see how Sony will answer Microsoft's Project Scorpio, the PlayStation 4 is currently so far ahead in the console race that Sony can afford to bide its time -- for now, at least.

PlayStation VR arrives in October with dozens of games: We already knew the PlayStation VR was arriving in October, but Sony nailed down the specific date: October 13. More importantly, the company fleshed out some of the four dozen or so of the VR games that will be available before the end of the year. Expect titles like Resident Evil VII: Biohazard in full VR, along with Batman Arkham VR and Final Fantasy XV.

Notable PS4 and PS VR exclusives include:

Final Fantasy XV** (September 30)
Resident Evil VII: Biohazard** (October 2)
Batman Arkham VR** (October 2016)
Star Wars: Battlefront X-Wing Mission** (October 2016)
Farpoint** (2016)
Horizon: Zero Dawn (February 28, 2017)
God of War (TBD)
Days Gone (TBD)
Death Stranding (TBD)


**PlayStation VR game

PlayStation "Neo" is coming -- but when? Like Microsoft's Project Scorpio, Sony has a more muscular version of the PS4 on the way. The so-called "PS4 Neo" is real and it's coming -- but when? And what will it do better? 

The hope is that it will match the 4K video and HDR support of the Xbox One S, and the 4K gaming support promised on Project Scorpio. And many assume it will be able to run the PlayStation VR games at a better frame rate. But all of those are just assumptions until Sony makes an official announcement.

Bottom line: PlayStation is riding high, but Xbox has awoken from its slumber:Globally, the PS4 has sold more than 40 million consoles since launch. That's thought to be about twice the number of Xbox Ones sold in the same period. 

There's little doubt that PS4 is in the driver's seat of the console race, and this year's timely introduction of the PlayStation VR -- and possibly the PS4 Neo -- has the potential to consolidate Sony's lead. 

But -- for the first time since these consoles were introduced back in 2013 -- Microsoft finally seems to have its head in the game. The Xbox One S and 2017's Project Scorpio mean that Sony finally has an able competitor -- and that could finally begin to tip the scales in the console wars.

http://www.cnet.com/au/news/xbox-one-vs-ps4-the-post-e3-2016-scorecard/

Hack DNS for lightning-fast Web browsing

Hack DNS for lightning-fast Web browsing

Here are no-cost ways to fine-tune DNS for faster browsing

No matter how big the broadband pipe you use to surf the Web, it's not big enough. Everyone, whether they use a slowpoke dial-up modem or the fastest FiOS line, wants to surf faster.

There's a simple way you can get to Web sites faster, and it won't cost you a penny. You can hack the way your PC uses the Domain Name System (DNS), the technology underlying all Web browsing. It's far simpler to do than you might imagine, as you'll see in this article.

Understanding DNS

Before you start, it's a good idea to get a basic understanding of how DNS works. When you type in a URL such as www.computerworld.com, that URL needs to be translated into a numeric IP address that Web servers and Internet routers can understand. When you type in a URL, a DNS server does the translation, fromwww.computerworld.com to 65.221.110.98, for example.

DNS servers live on the Internet, and your computer contacts them with the request to do that translation, which is commonly called name resolution. When you use an ISP, your computer will automatically use the default DNS servers specified by your ISP; you typically don't need to set up DNS in any way. If you're on a corporate network, your systems administrator may have set you up to use specific DNS servers.

If there's a delay in contacting the DNS server, or if the DNS server takes too much time resolving the address, you'll face a delay in getting to a Web site. So even if you've got the world's fattest pipe, your Web surfing will be slowed down.

If you could speed up the name resolution in some way, you'd be able to speed up your Web surfing. And that's exactly what I'll show you how to do.

Speed up Web browsing with OpenDNS

Here's the simplest way to hack DNS to speed up your Web browsing: Use free, superfast DNS servers run by the OpenDNS service instead of your ISP's DNS servers. OpenDNS has a monstrously big DNS cache, with DNS servers around the world, so you'll be able to retrieve IP addresses from it more quickly than from your ISP's DNS servers.

As I'll explain a little later in this article, the service includes other benefits as well, such as letting you create browser shortcuts so that you could go towww.computerworld.com, for example, by just typing the letter c in your browser and pressing Enter.

The addresses of the OpenDNS servers are 208.67.222.222 for a primary DNS server and 208.67.220.220 for a secondary server.
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To use the OpenDNS servers, you'll have to tell your computer to use them. If you have Windows XP, first select Control Panel --> Network and Internet Connections --> Network Connections, right-click your network connection from the Network Connections window, and select Properties. A dialog box like that shown below appears.



Highlight the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) listing and select Properties in order to get to a dialog box that will let you use OpenDNS server. (Click image to see larger view.)

Scroll down to the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) listing and select Properties. At the bottom of the screen, select "Use the following DNS server addresses." For the Preferred DNS server, enter this address: 208.67.222.222. For the Alternative DNS server, enter this address: 208.67.220.220. Click OK, and then click Close and Close again. Restart your PC in order for the settings to take effect. The figure below shows the screen filled out properly.

Telling your PC to use the OpenDNS servers. (Click image to see larger view.)

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If you're using Windows Vista, select Control Panel --> Network and Internet --> Network and Sharing Center. Click the View Status link on the right side of the screen. The Local Connection Status screen appears, as shown in the figure below. Click Properties.


Click Properties in order to get to a dialog box that will let you use OpenDNS servers. 

(Click image to see larger view.)


You'll come to the same dialog box as you would for XP that lets you use the OpenDNS servers. Follow the same directions as for using OpenDNS on XP, and you'll be set.

When you configure a PC to use OpenDNS, only that PC will be able to use the OpenDNS servers. If you want all of the PCs on your network to use the servers, you can tell your router to use the OpenDNS servers, and then all of your PCs on the network will follow suit. That way, you won't have to configure each individual PC.

The way you do this will vary from router to router, and it changes according to whether you're using a router for a home office/small office or a larger corporate router. For a small office/home office router, you'll log into your router, look for the DNS settings, and then use the OpenDNS settings of 208.67.222.222 for the primary DNS server and 208.67.220.220 for the alternative DNS server.

Whether you run a small network or larger network, you can get benefits beyond faster DNS. The service also gives you DNS management tools such as domain blocking. It also gives you statistics and charts about your network's DNS use.

On Linksys SRX 400 and many other Linksys routers, log into your router by going to the log-in page at 192.1681.1, using admin as the password and leaving the username blank. Scroll down the page until you come to the Static DNS 1 and Static DNS 2, as shown in the figure below. Click Save Settings. Restart your router and the PCs on your network, and they will begin using the OpenDNS DNS servers.

Change the DNS settings on this screen to use the OpenDNS servers for your entire network. (Click image to see larger view.)



Adjust Windows' DNS cache

To speed up DNS, Windows puts the DNS information into a local DNS cache on your PC when you visit a site. So when you want to go to a site, Windows first looks in its local DNS cache, called the resolve cache, to see whether the DNS information is contained there. That way, if it finds the information locally, it doesn't have to look in your HOSTS file or query a remote DNS server to find IP information. The cache is made up of recently queried names and entries taken from your HOSTS file.

The cache contains both negative and positive entries. Positive entries are those in which the DNS lookup succeeded and you were able to connect to the Web site. When Windows looks in the cache, if it finds a positive entry, it immediately uses that DNS information and sends you to the requested Web site.

Negative entries are those in which no match was found, and you end up getting a "Cannot find server or DNS" error in your browser. Similarly, when Windows looks in the cache and finds a negative entry, it gives you the error message without bothering to go out to the site.

Negative entries can lead to problems. When you try to make a connection to a site that has a negative entry in your cache, you'll get an error message, even if the site's problems have been resolved and it's now reachable.

You can solve this problem, though, using a Registry hack. By default, Windows caches negative entries for five minutes. After five minutes, they're cleared from your cache.

But if you'd like, you can force Windows not to cache these negative entries so that you'll never run into this problem. Run the Registry Editor by typing Regedit at a command prompt or the Windows Vista search box, and press Enter. Then go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM

\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache

\Parameters

Create a new DWORD value with the name NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0. (The value might already exist. If it does, edit its value to 0.)

The DWORD determines how much time, in seconds, to keep negative entries in the DNS cache. If you like, you can have the entries stay alive for one second by giving the DWORD a value of 1.

After you're done editing, exit the Registry. To make the change take effect, restart your computer, or flush your cache by issuing the command ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt. The command will flush your DNS cache -- all the entries, both positive and negative, will be flushed -- and it will be empty until you start visiting Web sites. Negative entries, however, will not be added to the cache if you've given the DWORD a value of 0.

You can also use the Registry to control the amount of time positive entries are kept in the DNS cache. By default, they are kept for 24 hours. To change the default, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters again and create a DWORD value called MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit. (If it's already present, just edit the value.) For the value, enter the amount of time you want the entry to remain, in seconds, making sure to use decimals as the base.

If you run into other DNS problems, see the related story, "Fix your DNS problems."

Note: Some of the content for this article was taken from my upcoming bookThe Big Book of Windows Hacks and from Windows XP Hacks.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld and the author of more than 35 books, including Windows Vista in a Nutshell.

12 sites that will teach you coding for free

12 sites that will teach you coding for free



Programming has helped me to become a much better entrepreneur, and you can learn this skill without spending a dime.
This post is in partnership with Entrepreneur. The article below was originally published at entrepreneur.com.  By John Rampton, Entrepreneur

There was a time when knowing how to program was for the geekiest of geeks. That’s not exactly the case today. As most entrepreneurs, freelancers and marketers will tell you, learning how to program can help you succeed. Over the past year, I’ve been learning to code. It’s helped me to become a much better entrepreneur—I can dive in when my team needs to fix a few bugs on the site.

You don’t even need to shell out a ton of money or put yourself in debt to learn how to code, either. These 12 places offer coding courses for free:

1. CodeAcademy

One of the most popular free places to learn coding isCodeAcademy. In fact, more than 24 million people have already learned how to code through this educational company’s engaging experience. At CodeAcademy, you can dive right in and take courses that teach you everything from HTML & CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Python andRuby.

2. Coursera

Founded in 2012, Coursera has grown into a major for-profit educational-technology company that has offered more than 1,000 courses from 119 institutions. While you can pay for certain programs to receive a certificate, there are a number of free introductory programming courses in various specializations from universities such as the University of Washington, Stanford, the University of Toronto and Vanderbilt.

3. edX

EdX is another leading online-learning platform that is open source instead of for-profit. It was founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, so you know that you’ll learn about cutting-edge technologies and theories. Today, edX includes 60 schools. You probably can’t go wrong with the free Introduction to Computer Science from Harvard University.

4. Udemy

Founded in 2010, Udemy is an online learning platform that can be used as a way to improve or learn job skills. While there are courses you have to pay for, there are plenty of free programming courses, which are taught via video lessons, such as Programming for Entrepreneurs – HTML & CSS or Introduction to Python Programming.

5. aGupieWare

AGupieWare is an independent app developer that surveyed computer-science programs from some of the leading institutions in the U.S. It then created a similar curriculum based on the free courses offered by Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley and Columbia. The program was then broken into 15 courses: three introductory classes, seven core classes and five electives.

While you won’t actually receive credit, it’s a perfect introductory program for prospective computer programmers.

6. GitHub

Sometimes, you need to recall a reference book when you’re stuck on a problem. That’s GitHub. You can find more than 500 free programming books that cover more than 80 different programming languages on the popular web-based Git repository hosting service, which means that it’s frequently updated by collaborators.

7. MIT Open Courseware

If you’ve already learned the basics, and went to get into something a bit heavier—such as exploring the theory behind coding—take advantage of MIT’s free courseware site that includes classes such as Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, Introduction to Programming in Java and Practical Programming in C.

8. Hack.pledge()

This is a community of developers, which include some high-profile developers such as Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent. There, you can perfect your programming skills by learning from some of the leading developers in the world.

9. Code Avengers

Based out of New Zealand, Code Avengers provides fun and interactive programming courses that will teach you how to code games, apps and web sites using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Each course takes just 12 hours to complete and is available in English, Russian, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Turkish and Portuguese.

10. Khan Academy

Created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, Khan Academy is one of the original free online-learning institutions. With step-by-step video tutorials, you can learn how to program drawings, animations and games using JavaScript and ProcessingJS, or learn how to create webpages with HTML and CSS.

11. Free Food Camp

Here you’ll learn HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Databases, DevTools, Node.js, Angular.js and Agile by networking and joining a community of professionals and students. You’ll even work together on your coding skills so that you can build apps for free. Here’s the catch: you’re learning those skills and building helps to help solve real-world problems. Code is available to nonprofits.

12. HTML5 Rocks

This Google project launched in 2010 to counter Apple’s HTML5. The site is full of tutorials, resources and the latest HTML5 updates. It’s open source, so developers can play around with HTML5 code. Because this is more advanced than most introductory courses, you may want to gain some knowledge and experience before jumping in.

Learning code used to require access to expensive books and classes, but no longer. I highly recommend that every entrepreneur learns to code. Still wondering if you need to code? Here is a programmer guide I put together to show you every step I took to become an entrepreneur that codes!