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Amiga

Submission + - Amiga in an FPGA released under GPL (hetnet.nl) 2

Submitted by exolon42
exolon42 writes: This is a mandatory read for every (former or current) Amiga hacker. You have to give it to the Dutch: tulips, cheese, and now a guy named Dennis has recreated the original Amiga chipset in a Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA, and recently released all sources under the GPL to boot! This includes the design of a PCB containing the FPGA, the required MC68000 and normal PC-style hardware connectors so you can build your own. A thought-provoking fact is that the Verilog-sources for the recreated chips (Denise, Paula, Agnus etc.) are only around 500-1000 lines each... chips in the eighties didn't contain 1 billion transistors!
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Halo 3 Achievements Revealed

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The achievements for the most highly anticipated game for the Xbox 360 have been revealed by the largest Xbox 360 Achievement site out there, Achieve360Points.com. The full list can be viewed here. There are a total of 49 achievements worth the standard 1000 points for a retail game. Whether or not you are a fan of Microsoft's Achievement system, this information at least confirms that there will be 9 missions in the single player game and the famous skulls will be making a comeback:

1. Landfall (20pts) — 2. Finish the first mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
2. Holdout (20pts) — Finish the second mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
3. The Road (20pts) — Finish the third mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
4. Assault (30pts) — Finish the fourth mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
5. Cleansing (30pts) — Finish the fifth mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
6. Refuge (30pts) — Finish the sixth mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
7. Last Stand (40pts) — Finish the seventh mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
8. The Key (40pts) — Finish the eighth mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.
9. Return (50pts) — Finish the final mission of the Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary.

Halo 3 will be hitting store shelves on the 25th of September.
Networking

Submission + - Server naming conventions: Cold logic vs Star Trek (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "There's an interesting debate about server and terminal naming conventions that brings up some of the pros and cons of using mundane vs. exotic names. People have submitted funny and/or obscure examples (Star Trek and LOTR characters, Nixon cabinet members, etc.). However, these can get old, or are inconvenient. Everyone has seen environments that are based on Greco-Roman mythology (Perseus, Zeus, Dionysus, etc.) — spelling them out can be a problem, not to mention finding specific applications and helping out new hires (or your replacement) deal with unfamiliar systems. The alternative is "logically (and yawningly)" naming servers after departments, building locations, applications, etc. That approach has its problems, too — including users who have their own ideas about what names should be used. What do the experts say? Pierre Dumoulin, writing for Tech Republic, warns against using Star Trek or the Smurfs — he recommends a 'proper' and logical naming convention that can make it easier to troubleshoot, conduct inventory, and scale the network. As an example for a large company, he suggests "DDCCSSUPOXXXX", which lists Division (D) — Country (C) — Site (S) — Usage Type (U) — Portability (P) — Operating Environment (O) — Numbering Scheme (XXXX):

I personally like this convention because it provides me with a lot of information I want to know about a computer on a routine basis. Also, once the meaning of the different acronyms has been assimilated by support staff, they can translate the computer name very easily into a meaningful sentence. One example, using this convention, would be: "Manufacturing desktop computer located in Boston, U.S.A. used for production office work" while the actual name of the computer might be something like "MAUSBOODP0001" or "Research laptop computer located in London, England used for testing in a lab environment" for a node name like "RDENLDLLT0001".
"
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone Safari launch capabilites revealed (iphone-geek.com)

Submitted by dr00g911
dr00g911 writes: Some notes from the WWDC iPhone development session have leaked today (and abruptly taken down), but have yielded extremely useful bits of development info about browser capabilities, (lack of) Flash support and more. Assuming that several of these keypoints are true (notably the 5 second Javascript, Flash and 480px), many developers who have gotten a headstart into writing apps may have to rethink things a bit.
Enlightenment

Submission + - City populations rising, to beat fifty percent

Submitted by
srizah
srizah writes: "City dwellers are poised to be tipping the scale in about 25 years. UN Reports say that urban populations have more than quadrupled in the last 50 years. Some 200 years ago London became the first city since Rome to have a population of 1 million. Since then more than 200 cities have reached that figure. Tokyo a metacity has a population of 20 million. 95% of the increase is in developing countries due to new births and migrations. Washington's World Watch Institute and UN Population Fund are coming out with reports on how to grapple with the situation http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2 114489.ece"
Sony

Submission + - PS3s Hit Best Buy Shelves, Stay There

Submitted by Doomstalk
Doomstalk writes: For the past few weeks, the standing orders at Best Buy were to hold all of their PlayStation 3 stock in preparation for their New Year's Eve sale. Yesterday, these stockpiles were released onto store shelves en masse. How did they sell? Surprisingly poorly. Reports have been steadily trickling in to Kotaku of piles of PlayStation 3s found sitting around in Best Buys untouched, or barely touched. Is this an isolated incident, or has demand for Sony's console already reached a near standstill?

From Hot Coffee To Warm Tea 129

Posted by Zonk from the weak-sauce dept.
I've been avoiding posting about it, but Joystiq has a completely and utterly sane discussion of the non-story that is the Bully boy on boy kissing 'scandal'. Despite the ravings of Jack Thompson, the homosexual behavior in Bully was seen by the ESRB and is not the first game to feature such content. From the article: "The ESRB would be insane if they were bullied into giving an 'M' (Mature 17+) rating to Bully, as this story continues to gain traction in the mainstream press ... It would also force the ginormous Electronic Arts into the mix to defend the 'T' rated Sims. We're willing to wager that Electronic Arts, which has a Human Rights Campaign corporate equality index score of 88 and had transsexual game designer Danielle Bunten Berry on staff, will put up a good fight if challenged. Rockstar played this brilliantly, they slid in a topic that is controversial, but perfectly defensible, and those that would attack 'Warm Tea,' won't have an easy time of it compared to 'Hot Coffee.'" SFGate put up a thoughtful opinion piece / review of Bully this past weekend. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a great way to fully understand how there's really nothing to worry about here.

Duran Duran to Perform Virtual Gigs 67

Posted by Zonk from the for-varying-degrees-of-'live' dept.
Sir Haxalot writes "The British band Duran Duran is to create a virtual island within the online world of Second Life, on which they will perform actual live concerts." From the article: "Three-dimensional versions of the band members - called Avatars - have been commissioned and will be revealed in September. The band hopes to perform their first virtual concert in the coming months. Rhodes added: 'We are hoping to give the crowd that come to the virtual concert a real immersive experience, so they can interact with us and react while we are stage.'"

Defcon 14 Full of Amazing Hardware Hacks 95

Posted by CowboyNeal from the best-and-brightest dept.
nTrfAce writes "Defcon 14 is taking place right now in Las Vegas. You know it's serious when you see things like an IPV6 enabled refrigerator with an IP address of 1337:sec:badd:a22:DEF:C012::14. And of course using a rocket for war driving, er WarRocketing. And Joe Grand has created the absolutely coolest Defcon badge ever out of a PCB, PIC, and LEDs."

Apple Announces More Options Troubles 159

Posted by CowboyNeal from the setting-the-record-straight dept.
fremen writes "Apple today announced that they will be withdrawing their financial reports back to September 29, 2002 and delaying the filing of future reports after finding more backdated options problems. Companies backdate their stock options by looking back over a period of time and choosing a historical low as the option strike price. While not illegal, this must be fully disclosed to investors and properly accounted. Expect more uncertainty in the coming weeks as regulators must now uncover how much of Apple's record profits were incorrect as well as whether or not Steve Jobs will be able to continue leading the company."

LugRadio Live 2006 This Weekend 25

Posted by timothy from the got-your-ears-on? dept.
mrBen writes "This weekend (22nd & 23rd July) sees the 2nd LugRadio Live event, bringing together a huge number of top quality speakers (including Mark Shuttleworth (Canonical), Simon Phipps (Sun), Stephen Lamb (Microsoft), Ted Haegar (Novell)), exhibitors (including Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, MythTV, Joomla, Bytemark) and a slew of lightning talks and BOF (Birds of a Feather) sessions. Last year's event gathered 250 geeks from all over the world to Wolverhampton — this year's event is twice as long and twice as big, and promises to be the community event of the year."

The Multi-Pointer X server 115

Posted by timothy from the pointy-pointy dept.
worufu writes "Some weeks after releasing the MPX (Multi-Pointer X Server), the Linux world slowly seems to draw attention to the project which opens up the limits of simultaneous input devices of the current X server. The future possibities are unlimited and I cannot wait to see some nice applications supporting the advantages of multiple input devices.
From the project description: 'The Multi-Pointer X Server is an enhanced X server to support multiple mice. It provides users with one cursor per device. Each cursor can operate independently. A multicursor windowing system allows two-handed interaction with legacy applications, but also the creation of innovative applications and user interfaces.'"

Romero's New Gig 113

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-jazz-tap dept.
Eurogamer is reporting on John Romero's newest endeavor, a studio designing a Massive game. Slipgate Ironworks is currently hiring, to work on ... a game. From the article: "The site doesn't offer many clues to the game's nature (although it does reveal that it will include weapons. And animation. And light!), but we do know from Romero's public comments that it will be ready 'when it's done' and isn't down for a 2007 release as some reports have speculated." I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

End of Win 98 Support May Boost Desktop Linux 581

Posted by timothy from the not-sure-about-the-demographic-overlap dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and ZDNet is reporting that the move will boost demand for Linux on the desktop. Unlike two years ago — when support for Win98 was extended because Linux was seen as a serious competitor — this time it seems there is no turning back."

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