Super fain video cu Jackie Chan.

Well, it was about time that Blizzard took off with the new Starcraft 2

The structure is described in the form of a vast matrix

An international team of mathematicians has detailed a vast complex numerical “structure” which was invented more than a century ago.Mapping the 248-dimensional structure, called E8, took four years of work and produced more data than the Human Genome Project, researchers said.

E8 is a member of the “Lie group” that describe symmetrical objects.

The team said their findings may assist fields of physics which use more than four dimensions, such as string theory.

Lie groups were invented by the 19th Century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie (pronounced “Lee”).

It’s as complicated as symmetry can get David Vogan

Familar structures such as balls and cones have symmetry in three dimensions, and there are Lie groups to describe them. E8 is much bigger.

“What’s attractive about studying E8 is that it’s as complicated as symmetry can get”, observed David Vogan from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

“Mathematics can almost always offer another example that’s harder than the one you’re looking at now, but for Lie groups, E8 is the hardest one.”

Professor Vogan is presenting the results at MIT in a lecture entitled The Character Table for E8, or How We Wrote Down a 453,060 x 453,060 Matrix and Found Happiness.

Fundamental force

Conceptualising, designing and running the calculations took a team of 19 mathematicians four years. The final computation took more than three days’ solid processing time on a Sage supercomputer.

Lie groups were invented by the Norwegian Sophus Lie

What came out was a matrix of linked numbers, which together describe the structure of E8. It contains more than 60 times as much data as the human genome sequence.

Each of the 205,263,363,600 entires on the matrix is far more complex than a strightforward number; some are complex equations.

The team calculated that if all the numbers were written out in small type, they would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

In addition to facilitating further understanding of symmetry and related areas of mathematics, the team hopes their work will contribute to areas of physics, such as string theory, which involve structures posessing more than the conventional four dimensions of space and time.

“While mathematicians have known for a long time about the beauty and the uniqueness of E8, we physicists have come to appreciate its exceptional role only more recently,” commented Hermann Nicolai, director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (the Albert Einstein Institute) in Germany.

“Yet, in our attempts to unify gravity with the other fundamental forces into a consistent theory of quantum gravity, we now encounter it at almost every corner.”

First-ever high-definition episode of animated comedy to be available free over Xbox Live Marketplace for a limited time; uncensored episodes to follow next week.

Starting tomorrow and for a limited time, Xbox Live members will be able to get lowbrow humor in high definition for free. Microsoft and Comedy Central today announced that starting tomorrow, Xbox Live members will be able to download an episode of South Park in HD from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The episode, “Good Times With Weapons,” follows the series’ grade-school protagonists as they purchase “authentic” ninja weapons from the flea market and promptly (though unintentionally) use them to injure a schoolmate. The boys are then faced with a dilemma, as they weigh the benefits of seeking medical help for their friend against the drawbacks of being grounded for buying the weapons in the first place.

“Good Times With Weapons” will be available for free for two weeks. DVD copies of the episode in HD will also be given away with the purchase of an Xbox 360 console or HD DVD drive from Best Buy between March 20 and April 3.

In another first for the series, starting next Tuesday, the latest episodes of the 11th season of South Park will be made available on the Marketplace uncensored. Season 11 premieres on Comedy Central this Wednesday with the debut of “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson,” in which “the ‘N’ bomb hits South Park and Cartman fights a midget.”

Study: US game-console ownership rising rapidly

US gaming households increase almost 20 percent since 2004 to 45.7 million, says Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services.Media research company Nielsen released a study Monday showing that the number of US households supplementing their televisions with video game consoles has risen more than 18 percent since 2004.

The study, detailed in a report called “The State of the Console,” was conducted from the fourth quarter of 2004 through the fourth quarter of 2006 by the company’s Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services division. Nielsen found that the number of US households with televisions that also have video game consoles has risen from 38.6 million to 45.7 million homes over those two years. That’s an 18.5 percent expansion, and Nielsen highlighted the fact that the total number of US households with televisions has risen only 1.6 percent over the same span of time.

This report was the first in a projected series of studies about trends in the video game industry, according to Nielsen. Additionally, the company announced last year the debut of its GamePlay Metrics ratings, which will offer console use statistics intended to identify which games are played most frequently and the demographic groups that play them. With this data, Nielsen is hoping to target the burgeoning in-game advertising industry.

Most of the study’s findings are not particularly surprising. Nielsen found, for example, that two-thirds of all men in television-owning households between the ages of 18 and 34, and 80 percent of those between 12 and 17–prime gamer demographics–have video game consoles in their homes. Additionally, while 93.8 million Americans (a third of the country) report to having played at least one in-home console video game for at least a minute at some point during the study period, it’s still the hardcore gamers who are dominant. Almost three-quarters (74.4 percent) of console use came from the top 20 percent of American gamers.

Perhaps the most interesting of Nielsen’s findings concerned “connected console” habits. About 4.4 million US households reportedly subscribe to services that link their game consoles to the Internet, and Nielsen noted that this statistic was produced before the market penetration of the PlayStation 3 and Wii, both of which have features that require the Internet.

But the “State of the Console” report may not be truly indicative of recreational gaming habits in the US. Nielsen spokeswoman Karen Gyamesi confirmed to CNET News.com that the study accounts only for game consoles that hook up to televisions, like Sony’s PlayStation line and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. PC-based video games and online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft are not included, nor are handheld gaming devices such as the Nintendo DS.

Sony exec was placed in new role due to his refusing to inform CEO Howard Stringer about crucial PS3 decisions, reports the newspaper.Sony Computer Entertainment chairman and chief executive Ken Kutaragi was slammed with more criticism today, this time from Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer himself. This comes just three months after an article in Newsweek berated the executive for his “slowness” in securing PS3 exclusives, which it claims cost Sony PS3-only games including GTA IV, and the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, it states that the “uncommunicative” Kutaragi was moved in a recent Sony reshuffle because Stringer found him difficult to work with.

Kutaragi touts the PS3 in 2005.

The article also states that Kutaragi would frequently make decisions without informing chief exec Stringer, and not tell him about problems in the production process. One example alleged that Kutaragi had allowed the PS3 to go over budget on development costs without clearing it with upper management first.

He also advised for cutting the price of the 20GB console by 20 percent in Japan, a decision which Stringer said he agreed to in a hope it would ensure the console’s success, but now admits, “Financially it wasn’t one of my best moments.”

Stringer told the newspaper that in an attempt to patch up relations between the two, he has tried hard to win Kutaragi’s trust, to no avail: “I’ve had dinner with [Mr. Kutaragi] more times than I’ve had dinner with my wife, and that’s not really healthy,” he said.

In December, Stringer moved Kutaragi’s role away from the day-to-day control of the games division, and instead he is now focused on the next-gen games side of the business, the article concluded. SCE day-to-day operations are overseen by president Kaz Hirai, former head of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Four more for Euro VC

This week sees the release of Streets of Rage for the Nintendo Wii’s download centre.Last week, Europeans got access to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Wii’s Virtual Console. This week four more titles have been released, including Sega’s Streets of Rage, for European Wii owners.

Streets of Rage was originally released in 1991 for the Sega Mega Drive, and was the first game in the trilogy. The street fighting game for one or two players has gamers playing ex-cops who have taken the law into their own hands.

Also released today is role-playing game Sword of Vermilion, originally released on the Sega Mega Drive, where players battle to save the world of Vermilion, and 2D side-scrolling shoot-’em-up Biohazard Battle, also a Sega Mega Drive game.

The final title on the list is Chew Man Fu for TurboGrafx, a one- to two-player game of 550 rounds in which players must battle to fight a curse to rob the world of tasty snacks.

All this week’s titles cost 800 Wii Points, except Chew Man Fu, which weighs in at 600 points.

Worms burrowing into XBL

Team 17’s wriggly critters infesting Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday; strategy/action blend to cost $10.

It wasn’t a question of if, but rather, when. The Xbox Live Arcade version of Worms is finally squirming onto the Xbox 360 next Wednesday. The game was officially announced in late January, along with a slate of nine others.

The Worms franchise has been around for more than a decade and has appeared on several platforms in different genres. The Xbox 360 version will feature turn-based strategy as players attempt to eliminate their opponents’ worms with goofy weapons. The game will include a single-player campaign as well as multiplayer support for up to four players locally or over Xbox Live.

Worms is rated E10+ and will cost 800 Microsoft points ($10). The game will be available at 1 a.m. PST on March 7.

10tacle gets Ready 2 Rumble

Multinational publisher picks up comical boxing license; fighting specialists AKI developing first R2R game for “various videogame platforms.”When the Sega Dreamcast launched in 1999, one of the must-have titles for the console was Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, a humorous look at the sport of boxing. The game later made its way to other consoles and spawned the 2000 sequel Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2, but little has been heard from the franchise since.

Now it appears Ready 2 Rumble is coming out of retirement thanks to a new manager. 10tacle Studios, publishers of the GTR series and Warfront: Turning Point, today announced that they are resurrecting the license.

10tacle did not make any formal game announcement today but did reveal that the new Ready 2 Rumble game, due for “various videogame platforms,” will be developed by AKI Corporation. The developer has plenty of brawling experience under its belt with games such as Def Jam: Fight for NY, Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs. New Generations, and several WCW titles.

Anaconda goes, like, So Blonde

German company announces new adventure written by Broken Sword author Steve Ince.

Dtp Entertaiment will be releasing a new title called So Blonde through its Anaconda label. The PC adventure game is being developed by French team Wizarbox, with the story written by Steve Ince. The focus of So Blonde is a spoiled rich girl called Sunny, who, while travelling on a luxury cruise, finds herself shipwrecked on a desert island–and she’s somehow gone back in time by several centuries to the pirate era.Steve Ince has previously worked on a number of games, including the first two Broken Sword titles, In Cold Blood and Beneath a Steel Sky, as well as writing Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. This new game will feature adventure, puzzles, riddle elements, cartoon-style graphics, and “gameplay surprises.”

Dtp entertainment is a Hamburg, Germany-based publisher, and some of its other titles include The Moment of Silence, Still Life, Black Mirror, and the upcoming Jane Jensen adventure, Gray Matter.

So Blonde is planned for a worldwide release, with the first version going to German-language-speaking territories in November 2007.