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Google has recently published a schedule of the various different tracks that developers can choose from as they navigate around the Google I/O conference this year, and gaming on Android appears to be a heavy focus. This shouldnt come as surprising as it has been rumored in recent weeks that Google is attempting to take mobile gaming on Android to the next level to better compete with Apples iOS platform as well as Windows Phones Xbox tie-in.

Gaming has been a big rumor for Googles wearable computing platform, Google Glass, with speculations that Google is planning multiplayer games.

A number of tracks are dedicated to gaming for the conference, including New developments in mobile gaming, Practical Android games development, and Level up your Android game, and Making money on Google Play.

Additionally, other tracks that may skew towards game developers without gaming in the title include Android graphics performance, In-app billing version 3, and High performance audio. Given better graphics and processing performance on high-end Android phones and tablets these days, a renewed focus on gaming comes as little surprise.

Users interested in seeing the Google I/O conference schedule can visit the developer portal. I/O is scheduled for May 15-17, and GottaBeMobile will be on location to provide commentary, coverage, and our analysis of whats happening in Android and for mobile.

Beyond gaming on Android, Google also appears to also be taking gaming to the cloud with a number of performance game tracks under the Google Cloud Platform tracks.

There are other non-gaming tracks for Android that may signal a broader push for the platform, including location and messaging.

Google is offering a number of mapping and locations service on Android, which will not only be important for the platform and developers to serve up contextually relevant information, but also for Google to serve up relevant ads. Additionally, with wearable computing coming mainstream, having relevant location information will only serve to add value to the platform, and for users of Google Glass for example.

In terms of messaging, theres been chatter that Google is working on a unified messaging service called Babble or Babel that will aggregate all your notifications from various Google services together to simplify your messaging. As a sort of hub, Babble or Babel may appeal to both consumers and enterprise customers in a similar manner that BlackBerry Hub has been a big selling point for that platform. With Babel, it had been rumored that notifications for services like Google Talk, Google Voice, Google+, Google+ Messenger, and possibly Gmail would be grouped together offering a one-stop destination for quick messaging, email, voice, and video.

Stay tuned to GottaBeMobile for continuing Google I/O 2013 coverage in May. 

Global Gaming Initiatives upcoming title, Sidekick Cycle, is a mobile game that will help international charity World Bicycle Relief to supply African children with bicycles.

Sidekick Cycle will cost $0.99, and every 387 copies of the downhill biking game sold ensures a child will receive a bike to help them get to school. GGIs CEO and founder Elizabeth Sarquis told GamesBeat that selling a few hundred thousand games is achievable, and exceeding 1 million downloads would ensure more than 3,000 bikes will be donated.

Sarquis went on to say that it costs World Bicycle Relief $134 to donate a bike. Founded in 2005, the charity designs, manufactures and delivers rugged bikes to African communities, and has provided 127,892 bicycles to date.

The Global Gaming Initiative was founded to connect people with causes through gaming to help developing nations to achieve mobility and grow. GGIs Sidekick Cycle is expected to launch on iOS devices in early June, with an Android release a few weeks after.

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

TOURISM Minister Obie Wilchcombe yesterday described the casino gaming industry as being “fundamentally important” to the Bahamas tourism product, noting that proposed reforms were vital if it was to compete with rival jurisdictions.

“We have had a number of proposals put to us by our industry partners” said Mr Wilchcombe. “We have taken a look at them. We have been able to look at what’s going on around the world, assess what’s happening in other jurisdictions and appreciate that we brought legislation for the gaming industry.

“The gaming industry is fundamentally important to what we offer as a tourist destination. It’s an amenity. You cannot expect to attract persons who participate when you consider the fact that you have Singapore, Macau, Las Vegas and Florida.

“All of these places are introducing new games. We have to be competitive.”

He added: “Many of the Caribbean countries that didn’t have gaming before are now considering gaming or have introduced gaming. Our legislation is seeking to advance our gaming to ensure that we are offering what is being offered around the world and even better, so that we can attract more people, because tourism is our main industry.”

The Gaming Act 2013, and associated regulations, will allow Bahamas-based casinos – those at Atlantis and Baha Mar, plus those at the Grand Lucayan and Bimini Bay resorts – to offer sports betting, in-play wagering and online gaming via cell phones and computers.

There will also be incentives for ‘junket’ group visits. The Bahamian casinos are also set to enjoy an expansion of their customer base, with the amended law removing the prohibition on non-Bahamian permanent residents and work permit holders gambling in their establishments.

If youve been playing Counter-Strike on the ESEA gaming network, youve been doing a lot more than tossing virtual hand grenades and firing virtual machine guns. Youve been mining Bitcoins for an unnamed staffer inside the company that runs the network.

The mining started on April 13 and may have affected as many as 14,000 gamers.

ESEA distributes anti-cheat software that allows subscribers to play the Counter-Strike first-person shooter game on their network. The software gives players better data on their game play and cuts down on the use of known game cheats, which can give opponents an unfair advantage. The network has close to 14,000 paying customers, according to co-founder Craig Levine. He isnt sure how many customers had their machines used for mining, however.

Last month, ESEA started toying with the idea of adding a Bitcoin mining option to its anti-cheat client, but shelved the idea on April 12, Levine said in an e-mailed statement.

But the next day, an employee went ahead and started distributing the code for his own personal gain, Levine says.

What transpired the past two weeks is a case of an employee acting on his own and without authorization to access our community through our company’s resources. As of this morning, ESEA has made sure that all Bitcoin mining has stopped. ESEA is also in the process of taking all necessary steps internally to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

The surreptitious mining was discovered yesterday by an ESEA user.

The companys story about what happened has changed somewhat since then. Initially, ESEA described the mining as a sort of April Fools prank gone wrong. Yesterday, co-founder Eric Thunberg said that the mining started after a technical glitch occurred with test code that staffers had been toying with. But Levine now says that Thunbergs post was based on incorrect information.

It was posted based on inaccurate information Eric got at the time, Levine says. Upon our further investigation, the situation obviously turned out to be more severe that we were initially led on to believe.

In the Bitcoin world, people with access to large compute resources can earn money by adding processing power to the digital currencys peer-to-peer network. Its a business thats become increasingly lucrative and competitive in the past few months as more powerful Bitcoin mining computers have come online.

But the graphics processors found on gaming systems are pretty good at mining Bitcoins, and the ESEA employee did OK for himself. In just a couple of weeks, he netted close to BTC30, or about $3,700.

Without more details, its hard to say whether ESEA violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to intentionally or recklessly cause damage to someones computer. But theres no question that the secret mining was wrong, says Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This certainly is something they shouldnt have done, he says. And its a word of caution to users

ESEA says its going to donate its employees ill-gotten Bitcoin haul to the American Cancer Society and will match the donation from its own funds.

Image: Valve

Last week we previewed the first four mainstream gaming cases in our 11-way sub-$100 round-up. Now we get to build four systems and test them. What other features will we uncover along the way, and how will they affect thermal and acoustic performance?

A high-quality case can outlast even the fastest build. Ironically, though, value-oriented enthusiasts spend money on components that improve performance and tend to cut back on those that dont. You already know that a $30 enclosure wont give you the durability, airflow, or room to expand that a smart upgrade should be expected to offer. But theres no guarantee that a $300 chassis will give you anything more in those areas than a far cheaper model. Sometimes, splurging on a case is simply wasted expense.

Knowing that there are a few solid enclosures out there available for under $100, we made that our budget for this months round-up. As you read in In Pictures: Four Sub-$100 Cases For Your 2013 Gaming PC, we received 11 total submissions, all battling for supremacy. Todays story is a follow-up to our first picture-based exploration, designed to go beyond our initial visual inspection and lead to more concrete conclusions. 

Updated: May 2, 2013 9:53AM

Illinois is closing in on a bill to expand casino gambling in a well-regulated way that could generate millions of dollars for cash-starved governments. For Chicago, which finally would get a casino of its own, that’s welcome news.

On Wednesday, the state Senate passed a bill that included a number of safeguards and conditions sought by Gov. Pat Quinn, who vetoed two previous measures, most recently last August when he said that bill didn’t have strong enough regulatory oversight. This latest bill will be subject to continued negotiation as it passes through the House, but there’s hope the final result will be something all the players in Springfield can live with.

It’s important the Legislature not take its eye off its most pressing priority — pension reform — to deal with gaming expansion. But that said, the House should do what it takes to get this gambling bill done, too.

The improvements in this bill include:

+ Unworkable deadlines that would have made it too difficult for the Illinois Gaming Board to do its oversight job adequately have been eliminated.

+ Internet gambling, which was not fully vetted, has been dropped from the bill.

+ Ethics measures, including a ban on campaign contributions by casino operators, have been strengthened.

+ A provision that new revenues from a Chicago casino be dedicated to school construction and modernization has been added.

The bill also would create a separate inspector general for the Chicago casino. Our concern in this regard, as the legislation moves forward, is that the new inspector general position not co-op the powers of the existing — and highly vigilant — Gaming Board.

As did the earlier bills, this one would provide for casinos in Chicago, the south suburbs, Lake County, Rockford and Danville; slot machines at racetracks; and a Chicago option of allotting some of its 4,000 machines to O’Hare and Midway airports.

Senate sponsor Terry Link (D-Waukegan) predicts the gambling expansion will eventually generate $268.9 million annually for the state. Much of that money now goes to neighboring states. We need it here.

Introducing the CyberPowerPC FangBook

Its been a little while since weve had any blood in from CyberPowerPC and Im pretty happy to have them back around town. Theyve been doing perfectly fine, but remember that the past two years have seen a lot of divergence by boutiques as they all begin to carve out more distinct niches. The resurgence of popularity in PC gaming only adds fuel to that divergence, as branding becomes ever more important, and thats what brings us to the customized MSI GT70 we have on hand today in the form of what CyberPowerPC calls their FangBook.

If it looks familiar, weve tested a nigh identical chassis before from iBuyPower, in the form of their Valkyrie. But that was last year, August, and CyberPowerPC has put their own spin on this chassis. So if a lot of this review looks familiar, thats going to be a large part of it, and in fact Im going to eschew going over the design again in detail. The key distinctions in terms of the shell are CyberPowerPCs lid and interior coloring, but beyond those there isnt a whole lot of different action to check out there.

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Apple has been loading up on video game-related patents recently, but so far all of its controller copyrights have made the ideas seem like single-player affairs.

This week, however, it was revealed that the Cupertino company was granted a multiplayer gaming patent along with 42 other successful patents filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

While the application doesnt spell out a long-rumored Apple game console, it does lay out different types of networks that could relay gaming media content.

Apples focus zeros in on delivering a very high-end video gaming experience specifically for multiplayer gamers, noted Patently Apple, which rifled through the patent application today.

[Gamers] will be able to use chat, video and other forms of communication while gaming with their buddies, noted Patently Apple, which rifled through the patent.

Game time for FaceTime?

In addition to setting up a process for joining and inviting other players to multiplayer games, the patent details how gamers would be able to initiate in-game audio chat sessions.

This could extend between both desktop computer and mobile devices, demonstrating that this multiplayer gaming patent may cover everything from Macs to iPhones to newer technologies.

Whether or not the in-game chat capabilities outlined in this patent are intended to include video, along the lines of FaceTime, remains to be seen.

Apples gaming prospects

This newly published Apple multiplayer patent gives credence to the theory that the company is turning to gaming when exploring, as Tim Cook said, exciting new product categories.

Besides patenting multiple game controllers, the Apple was reportedly talking to developers about launching a proprietary game controller at GDC 2013.

The impact of an dedicated Apple gaming machine could destroy console gaming, according to a former Microsoft lead engineer and Xbox co-founder Nat Brown.

Agreeing with this former video game industry head, 50 percent of Brits polled said they would put money down on an Apple game console.

With analysts sour on the prospects of the new Xbox and PS4 matching current generation-console sales, Apples gaming competition in the future may actually be Google, which is also patenting multiplayer services in a hurry.

(This story originally appeared on usatoday.com.)

Online poker players are out of the darkness.

At least in the US And at least on the Internet.

On Tuesday, Ultimate Poker (ultimatepoker.com) became the first to provide legal online gaming in the US

Tom Breitling, chairman of Ultimate Gaming said this is a big moment for the 50 million poker players in the US because its been this roller coaster ride over the past decade and we know that people like to play online poker and know they can be in a safe and secure environment.

Station Casinos LLC of Las Vegas, which is controlled by UFC co-owners Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, owns a majority stake in Ultimate Poker. The poker room is the UFCs exclusive online gaming partner.

This is the first step to the path of multiple states possibly legalizing online gaming, which could generate billions of dollars.

Bree Goldman, who played in the first hand today, expects a slow buildup because of legislation issues, but does expect growth eventually.

I think this will be very popular, very quickly in Nevada, she said. It is going to take interstate pacts in order for this to expand. Until that happens it wont be a huge explosion. But this is definitely a huge foot in the door for this market. This had to happen for legislation to pass.

Currently, New Jersey and Delaware have passed legislation but have yet to play their hand. Nevada for now remains the sole state to have put their legislation into action.

The first deal was Tuesday at noon ET. Players must be at least 21 years old and be located in the state of Nevada. Players can register from other states prior to their arrival in Nevada.

Games will be as small as 25-cent bet tournaments and $300 limit table. The company believes the games will be a complement to casino gambling and not a competitor. The goal is to allow players who may be intimidated in a casino or otherwise more comfortable in an online setting.

With millions of Americans who play some form of poker, the company is pledging to create the tools to protect players and regulate the gaming space.

This is, for Nevada, a new day, Reno gaming analyst Ken Adams told the Gazette-Journal. Theres been a huge amount of speculation on what online gaming means. Estimates in New Jersey run from $20 (million) to $30 million to $2 (billion) to $3 billion. The only way to find out is when it starts. Up to now, weve been talking in theories. Now well get a peek at reality.

Breitling said casino poker generates just 1 percent of all gaming revenues in Nevada and that online gambling should only aid casino gambling.

A lot of people want to play online and offline poker, he said. We think it will drive what we call poker tourism. People will come here to play online but might qualify for an offline tournament. Were all about making poker fun again.

Added CEO Tobin Prior: At 4 oclock in the afternoon, when you want a game, it is a lot easier to put those people together on the Internet than it is to do it in a physical environment. It is a logical way to grow the market.

According to the Associated Press, Internet poker has been strictly outlawed since 2011, when the Department of Justice seized domain names of offshore sites catering to US customers. AP says the crackdown was dubbed black Friday and left poker fanatics with two options: visit a card room, or break the law and log into offshore sites.

I think the real excitement will be when we get a very populous state like a California or a New York allowing these companies to expand, ITG casino analyst Matthew Jacob told the AP. But these changes often take longer to occur than people assume. It requires a change in law and then it takes a while from when the law passes until the sites are up and running.

(Pictured: Lorenzo Fertitta)

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Poker devotees can now skip the smoky casino and legally gamble their dollars away on the couch at least in the state of Nevada.

A Las Vegas-based casino subsidiary launched the first fully legal poker website in the United States on Tuesday morning.

The site, run by Ultimate Gaming, is only accepting wagers from players in Nevada for now, but likely represents the next chapter in gambling nationwide.

Internet poker, never fully legal, has been strictly outlawed since 2011, when the Department of Justice seized the domain names of the largest offshore sites catering to US customers and blacked them out.

More recently, the federal government softened its stance on Internet betting, and three states New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada have legalized some form of online wagering within their borders.