News::Blizzard considers running classic 'World of Warcraft' servers

Do you miss the early, headier days of World of Warcraft, before endless changes turned it into a different beast? You're far from alone -- hundreds of thousands of people were playing on Nostalrius, a fan-run server that went back to basics, until Blizzard shut it down early in April over intellectual property jitters. However, the game studio isn't deaf to your cries. It's telling WoW fans that it has been mulling the idea of running its own "pristine" servers, without the boosts and tweaks that have slipped into the online role-playing title over the years.

Via: Polygon

Source: Battle.net

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News::Court: Nintendo's 3DS patents are not guilty of infringement

New York federal court judge Jed Rakoff announced his verdict in the appeal of Nintendo's 3DS patent case against Tomita Technologies on Sunday. The judge found that the technology in question -- specifically, that "relating to displaying stereoscopic images on-screen for viewing with the naked eye, i.e., without utilizing glasses or other devices" -- performed differently in Nintendo's system than in Tomita's and did so in a manner which was not envisioned by the plaintiff's original 2008 patent. As such he ruled in favor of Nintendo, reversing the lower court's initial decision from 2013 and confirming the results of a 2015 retrial. What's more the decision invalidates Tomita's initial award of $30.2 million in damages.

Source: Nintendo (Businesswire)

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News::HTC's Vive X program will invest $100 million in VR startups

HTC is aiming to jump-start VR development with its new Vive X fund, an accelerator that will support and promote startups working in the new medium. Vive X is backed by a $100 million investment fund (mostly from HTC), and it'll kick off in Beijing next month (with San Francisco and Taipei to follow). As with most accelerator programs, it'll offer mentorship, work space and, naturally, some investment capital to a selected group of startups. After a few months, the chosen companies will show off their projects at celebratory demo days (again, something common to this type of program).

Source: HTC

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News::Esports league bans porn site-sponsored team

Today I learned that porn site YouPorn has its own eSports team. Unfortunately for the site, I also learned that the Electronic Sports League (ESL) has decided that Team YP can't compete in its eSport events, which include Street Fighter 5, Counter Strike and Starcraft. ESL told VentureBeat that "advertising pornography is not legal in the markets we operate in, and the vast majority of partners we're working with have strict 'no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography' rules that we've contractually taken on board."

Via: Kotaku

Source: VentureBeat

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