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Comments: 29 +-   EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry on Wednesday December 02, @06:50AM

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, @06:50AM
from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.
money
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
Read More... 29 comments story

Comments: 68 +-   Google May Limit Free News Access on Wednesday December 02, @05:21AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 02, @05:21AM
from the bend-like-a-willow dept.
google
You know how, if you want to read a paywalled newspaper article, you can just paste its title into Google News and get a free pass? Those days may be coming to an end. Reader Captian Spazzz writes: "It looks like Google may be bowing to pressure from folks like News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch. What I don't understand is what prevents the websites themselves from enforcing some limit. Why make Google do it?" (Danny Sullivan explains how they could do that.) "Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced. The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages. Publishers will join a First Click Free programme that will prevent web surfers from having unrestricted access. Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages."
Read More... 68 comments story

Comments: 49 +-   AbleGamers Reviews Games From a Disability Standpoint on Wednesday December 02, @03:59AM

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, @03:59AM
from the gaming-for-all dept.
games
eldavojohn writes "Early last month a visually impaired gamer sued Sony under the Americans with Disabilities Act (and if you think that people with disabilities don't play games, think again). The AbleGamers Foundation has decided to step forward and provide a rating system for games that blends together a number of factors to determine a score with regard to accessibility. Visual, hearing, motion, closed captioning, speed settings, difficulty settings and even colorblindness options are all taken into account when compiling these scores and reviewing these games."
Read More... 49 comments story

Comments: 76 +-   AU Mobile Operator Optus Blocking Paid Android Apps on Wednesday December 02, @02:23AM

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 02, @02:23AM
from the life-without-net-neutrality dept.
cellphones
APC Magazine details how Optus, an Australian mobile phone operator, has for months been deliberately blocking access to Android paid apps. "Optus is the exclusive Australian mobile carrier for the HTC Dream and Samsung Galaxy Android phones, and yet people who signed a long-term contract for these phones have to date been blocked from buying paid Android apps and getting the full Android experience. ... APC found many angry and frustrated comments on the Whirlpool community forums by Optus & Virgin Mobile customers." The article speculates, reading between the lines of the opaque comments offered by both Optus and Google, that the carrier is "demanding a cut of the sales revenue from Android apps if it is to remove its restriction on accessing them."
Read More... 76 comments story

Comments: 23 +-   Microsoft Game Software Preps Soldiers For Battle on Wednesday December 02, @01:14AM

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, @01:14AM
from the blue-screen-of-real-death dept.
microsoft
coondoggie writes "Soldiers may go into battle better prepared to handle equipment and with a greater knowledge of their surroundings after an intellectual property licensing deal Monday between Microsoft and Lockheed Martin that will deepen the defense giant's access to visual simulation technology. The intellectual property agreement between the two focuses on Microsoft ESP, a games-based visual simulation software platform for the PC."
Read More... 23 comments story

Comments: 398 +-   Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" on Tuesday December 01, @11:29PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @11:29PM
from the send-in-the-sba dept.
security
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"
Read More... 398 comments story

Comments: 112 +-   Craigslist Blocks Yahoo Pipes on Tuesday December 01, @09:32PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @09:32PM
from the nose-meet-knife dept.
censorship
Romy Maxwell posted a blog piece on Craigslist apparently shutting off access to Yahoo Pipes. Maxwell was working on a project, one of 2,111 using Craigslist as a data source, for a (non-commercial) Pipes-based mashup. He sent Craig Newmark an invitation to the alpha test, after a few rounds of friendly communication — "...as a rule of thumb, okay to use RSS feeds for noncommercial purposes." The apparent response, 4 days later, was for Craigslist to redirect any request with an HTTP referrer of pipes.yahoo.com to the Craigslist home page. Maxwell writes: "It's a sad day for me. I'm not too upset about my own project, as Flippity was already removing Craigslist as a data source. With the likes of eBay and Oodle not only providing open APIs but encouraging and rewarding developers, spending my time wrestling with Craigslist is just plain stupid and exhausting. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have come to that conclusion, and I wish it were different. ... If Craigslist wants to keep its doors shut to the world, so be it."
Read More... 112 comments story

Comments: 173 +-   Typewriters, Computers, and Creating? on Tuesday December 01, @07:35PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @07:35PM
from the no-country-for-old-typewriters dept.
inputdev
saddleupsancho writes "Today's NY Times reports that Cormac McCarthy is auctioning the 45-year-old Olivetti manual typewriter on which all his novels, screenplays, plays, short stories, and much of his correspondence were written, to benefit the Sante Fe Institute where he is a Research Fellow. What would happen decades from now if, say, Richard Powers or Neal Stephenson attempted to auction their desktops or laptops? Setting aside completely any comparison among the three authors, is there something more intrinsically interesting and valuable, less ephemeral and interchangeable, about a typewriter vs. a computer as an instrument of literary creation? Or is the current generation just as sentimental about their computer-based devices as McCarthy's generation is about his Olivetti? Would you offer as much for McCarthy's input device if it were a generic PC, Mac, or Linux box as you would for his Olivetti?"
Read More... 173 comments story

Comments: 157 +-   Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience on Tuesday December 01, @06:49PM

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, @06:49PM
from the type-A-negative-personality dept.
idle
trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."
Read More... 157 comments story

Comments: 316 +-   Windows 7 Share Grows At XP's Expense on Tuesday December 01, @06:05PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @06:05PM
from the you-used-the-s-word dept.
windows
CWmike writes "Microsoft's Windows ran to stay in place last month as Window 7's market share gains made up for the largest-ever declines in Windows XP and Vista, data released today by Web metrics firm Net Applications showed. By these numbers, Windows 7's gains were primarily at the expense of Windows XP. For each copy of Vista replaced by Windows 7 during November, more than six copies of XP were swapped out. Meanwhile, Apple's Mac OS X lost share during November... betcha Ballmer is having an extra giddy time with that news. Linux came up a winner last month, returning to the 1% share mark for the first time since July. Linux's all-time high in Net Applications' rankings was May 2009, when it nearly reached 1.2%."
Read More... 316 comments story

Comments: 184 +-   What Google's Chromium OS Is Reaching For on Tuesday December 01, @05:17PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @05:17PM
from the chrome-detailing dept.
google
MojoKid sends in a piece that takes a step back from Google's much-analyzed OS to look at what it is trying to accomplish. "Last week, Google open-sourced its Chromium OS project, more than a year before the operating system is scheduled for release. In doing so, Google hopes a variety of developers and companies will become involved in the project, and has pledged to release regular updates as well as a comprehensive log of bug reports and fixes. This article takes a look at Google's design vision for Chromium, the unique benefits it offers, and a bit of why Google is throwing its hat into this particular ring in the first place. Chromium, after all, is a Linux-based OS entering the smartbook/netbook market at a time when the product segment is already being well served by a variety of Linux distros, XP, and Windows 7. In the midst of all these options, do we need another operating system? We just might."
Read More... 184 comments story

Comments: 659 +-   Scientology Charged With Slavery, Human Trafficking on Tuesday December 01, @04:29PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @04:29PM
from the to-name-but-a-few dept.
censorship
eldavojohn writes "A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with 'razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll calls each day.' The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include 'Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.' and a complaint under the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which abolished slavery. Members of the group Anonymous praised the summons."
Read More... 659 comments story

Comments: 113 +-   SarBox Lawsuit Could Rewrite IT Compliance Rules on Tuesday December 01, @03:45PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @03:45PM
from the sluice-gate-to-security-spending dept.
security
dasButcher notes that the Supreme Court will hear arguments next week brought by a Nevada accounting firm that asserts the oversight board for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is unconstitutional. If the plaintiffs are successful, it could force Congress to rewrite or abandon the law used by many companies to validate tech investments for security and compliance. "Many auditing firms have used [Sarbanes-Oxley Section] 404 as a lever for imposing stringent security technology requirements on publicly traded companies regulated by SOX and their business partners. SOX security compliance has proven effective for vendors and solution providers, as it forces regulated enterprises to spend billions of dollars on technology that, many times, doesn’t prevent security incidents but does make them compliant with the law."
Read More... 113 comments story

Comments: 280 +-   Sprint Revealed Customer GPS Data 8 Million Times on Tuesday December 01, @03:01PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @03:01PM
from the tap-o-matic dept.
privacy
An anonymous reader sends along Chris Soghoian's blog entry revealing that Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers' GPS location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. The data point comes from a closed industry conference that Soghoian attended, at which Paul Taylor, Electronic Surveillance Manager at Sprint Nextel, said: "[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that's just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don't know how we'll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in." Soghoian's post details the laws around disclosure of wiretap and other interception data — one of which the Department of Justice has been violating since 2004 — and calls for more disclosure of the levels of all forms of surveillance.
Read More... 280 comments story

Comments: 107 +-   Recycling Excess Heat From the Data Center on Tuesday December 01, @02:14PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 01, @02:14PM
from the talkin'-'bout-my-generation dept.
earth
itwbennett writes "A new data center being built in Helsinki, scheduled to go live at the end of January, will generate energy and deliver hot water for the city. The data center is located in an old bomb shelter and is connected to the Helsinki public energy company's district heating system, which works by pumping boiling water through a system of pipes to households in Helsinki. The recycled heat from the data center could add about 1 percent to the total energy generated by the energy company's system in the summer." The article doesn't say what the overall efficiency of the heat recovery is. Researchers at MIT are working on a new energy-conversion technology based on quantum dots that they say has already demonstrated 40% of the Carnot efficiency limit — 4 times what is achieved by current commercial thermoelectric devices. The researchers believe they can reach 90% of the Carnot limit.
Read More... 107 comments story

Comments: 3 +- Screenshot-sm   Sex Offender Shuffle on Tuesday December 01, @02:00PM

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, @02:00PM
from the to-dance-and-serve dept.
idle

Watch
The Bears will be remembered as innovative rappers long after we've forgotten their footballing ways.
Read More... 3 comments story

Comments: 546 +-   Verizon Changes FiOS AUP, -1, Offtopic on Tuesday December 01, @01:26PM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 01, @01:26PM
from the get-ready-for-municipal-broadband dept.
internet
RasputinAXP writes "Verizon has changed their FiOS AUP effective yesterday, and added an interesting new clause to their specific examples that we're all familiar with: 'it is a violation of the Agreement and this AUP to ... post off-topic information on message boards, chat rooms or social networking sites.' At this point, every FiOS-based Slashdot user is breaking the new AUP."
Read More... 546 comments story

Comments: 2 +-   Italian Police Crash Their Lamborghini on Tuesday December 01, @01:11PM

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, @01:11PM
from the million-dollar-ding dept.
idle
Italian police have crashed their 165,000-euro Lamborghini patrol car. Reports say the car swerved to avoid another vehicle that had crossed its path, and smashed into two parked cars. One of the officers suffered a broken rib, the other only had minor injuries. The Lamborghini was damaged beyond repair.
Read More... 2 comments story

Comments: 2 +- Screenshot-sm   Woman Makes Bomb Threat So Boss Won't Miss Flight on Tuesday December 01, @12:54PM

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, @12:54PM
from the employee-of-the-month dept.
idle
The boss of an unnamed 31-year-old South Florida woman needs to give her a raise or at least pay her bail. Police say the woman called the Miami International Airport claiming there was a bomb on one of the planes so her boss would not miss his flight. The woman was being held on $7,500 bail.
Read More... 2 comments story

Comments: 8 +- Screenshot-sm   Camels Gone Wild on Tuesday December 01, @12:38PM

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 01, @12:38PM
from the one-hump-or-two dept.
idle
The small central Australian community of Docker River is experiencing a Camelpocalypse. Over 6,000 feral camels are destroying the town. They've overrun the airport making emergency medical service impossible, ruined the water infrastructure, tainted drinking water, and left many residents afraid to leave home for fear of being trampled.. NT Local Government Minister Rob Knight said, "They're actually coming up to the houses taking water off the overflow from the rooftop air-conditioning. This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action.'' At least the camels aren't encouraging kids to smoke like they do here in the US.
Read More... 8 comments story
 
Poll I know X people with diagnosed H1N1 flu, where X is:
None at all.
1
2-5
6-10
10-15
More than 15
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:287 | Votes:21032

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