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PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Bioshock Preview With Ken Levine (gamerswithjobs.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There is a hands-on preview of Bioshock on Gamers With Jobs based on a visit Julian Murdoch paid to Irrational Games. He spent hours with the game and Ken Levine, coming out with some insights into more than just the usual preview stuff.

The point of BioShock, the raison d'etre, is really the story, and the messages and intellectual content that Levine tries to deliver as a payload. "Look at Lord of the Rings," he challenges. "Why is Lord of the Rings more interesting than random RPG story number 507? They're exactly the same thing. They have orcs and goblins and demons and trolls. But Lord of the Rings is a meditation on power. And it's really interesting because of that. It's what gives it it's heart." And with undenied hubris, Levine's trying to do the same thing with BioShock, while still delivering a game 16-year-old cheese eating high school students will want to play. "We have these philosophical notions, but you've got to deliver. You gotta bring home the monsters. You gotta bring home the superpowers." In short, he's become a commercial realist.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Drops Tanya Andersen Case

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "After 2 years, the RIAA has finally dropped its longstanding case against disabled single mother Tanya Andersen in Oregon, Atlantic v. Andersen. The dismissal (pdf) relates merely to the RIAA's claims against Ms. Andersen, and does not relate to her (a) claim for attorneys fees or (b) counterclaims against the RIAA, which are presently before the Court on a motion to dismiss. The counterclaims were first interposed in December 2005. This is the same case in which the RIAA insisted on taking a face to face deposition of a 10 year old girl. By the way, neither the mother nor the child had ever even heard of file sharing."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Accused of Extortion & Conspiracy

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The defendant in a Tampa, Florida, case, UMG v. Del Cid, has filed counterclaims accusing the RIAA record labels of conspiracy and extortion. The counterclaims (pdf) are for Trespass, Computer Fraud and Abuse (18 USC 1030), Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices (Fla. Stat. 501.201), Civil Extortion (CA Penal Code 519 & 523), and Civil Conspiracy involving (a) use of private investigators without license in violation of Fla. Stat. Chapter 493; (b) unauthorized access to a protected computer system, in interstate commerce, for the purpose of obtaining information in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030 (a)(2)(C); (c) extortion in violation of Ca. Penal Code 519 and 523; and (d) knowingly collecting an unlawful consumer debt, and using abus[ive] means to do so, in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692a et seq. and Fla. Stat. 559.72 et seq."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 45W CPU Reviewed @ Viper Lai (viperlair.com)

Submitted by
VL
VL writes: "AMD's latest sports a new name and a much lower voltage. We test the BE-2350 with a combination of real-world and synthetic tests. "It's important to put into perspective what we're looking at today. If you're looking to build a high-end gaming PC or some sort of high-level video editing workstation, this processor isn't going to be for you. The intended market will be corporate workstations and the silent PC or HTPC market. We have a forum thread going on debating the benefits of energy efficient processors and energy bills. Unless you're a home user who leaves their PC on 24/7, you probably won't see much in the way of savings, but this won't be the case for cubicle farms." http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/amd/be23 50/"
Media

Submission + - Vulgar language, if Pres. can do it so can you

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a fascinating decision today in a case pitting the television networks against the government over indecency rules involving expletives. Our colleague Stephen Labaton captures it this way in his lead paragraphs: If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can use vulgar language, then the government cannot punish others for doing the same thing on television. That, in essence, was the decision on Monday, when a federal appeals court struck down the government policy of fining stations and networks that broadcast shows containing profanities. Both network executives and top officials at the commission said that if the opinion is not reversed on appeal, it would gut the commission's ability to regulate any speech on television or radio. Kevin J. Martin, the chairman of the commission, said the agency was now considering whether to seek an appeal before all the members of the appeals court or to take the matter directly to the Supreme Court. The decision, by a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, was a sharp rebuke for the Federal Communications Commission and for the Bush administration. For the four television networks that filed the lawsuit, Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC, it was a major victory in a legal and cultural battle being waged between them and the commission and its supporters.
Linux

French Parliament Chooses Ubuntu 174

Posted by kdawson from the all-those-letters-are-silent dept.
atamyrat reminds us that last November it was announced that the French Parliament had decided to switch to Linux. At that time the distro had not been determined. It will be Ubuntu: "[T]wo companies, Linagora and Unilog, have been selected to provide the members of the Parliament as well as their assistants new computers containing free software. This will amount to 1,154 new computers running Ubuntu prior to the start of the next session which occurs in June 2007."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Do we need a new OS?

Submitted by barry_the_bogan
barry_the_bogan writes: Unix was designed so that one machine could service multiple users, who were each running multiple jobs. It allowed the resources (processor) of the machine to be used more efficiently. Over the last 35 years or so, more and more functionality has been required from our computers, they need to securely handle many users, in many groups (known and anonymous), communication within a LAN or over the internet, etc. IMO, the main resource of a computer system has changed from the processor to the storage space. We now have a big pool of data, with multiple users accessing or processing it through various servers and clients. Through all the changes unix has been modified and added to extensively, and is still doing a fine job, but how many more changes can this cobbled OS accept?

So, my points for discussion are:
1. Do we need to start again, or continue patching what we have?
2. Is the paradigm I suggested valid? Is it possible to write a data centric OS?
3. Describe is your ideal operating.
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Father of VR considers open source development

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "The father of "Virtual Reality" asks whether an open source movement could realize the original vision of VR. "A really low-res system that's sort of manageable by a small group of people could be done that would be much more exciting and bring out more of this feeling of transcendence," urges Jason Lanier in a just-published interview. He challenges today's Free Software programmers to show imagination and ambition, and discusses what went wrong with earlier incarnations of VR. ("A decent software standard platform didn't happen.") Ironically, Sun Microsystems ended up owning VPL, though "It's hard to keep it running on the new generations of machines... How do you keep a twenty-year-old piece of software running without re-compiling?" He's ultimately arguing for a new way of thinking, suggesting that "Instead of making bigger and faster things, you make more intense experiences and more interesting forms of human connection.""
United States

Submission + - Defense Contractor Halliburton Moving HQ to Dubai

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Much-maligned defense contractor Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai's friendly tax laws will add to Halliburton's bottom line. Last year, it earned $2.3B in profits. Sen. Patrick Leahy called the company's move 'corporate greed at its worst.' Halliburton, once headed by VP Dick Cheney, has received contracts valued at an estimated $25.7B for its work in Iraq."
Censorship

Submission + - Scientists Threatened For "Climate Denial"

Submitted by Forrest Kyle
Forrest Kyle writes: A former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg has recieved multiple death threats for questioning the extent to which human activities are driving global warming. From the article, "'Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,' said the professor. 'I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.' Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology...recently claimed: 'Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science.'"
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Top Dog Ate His Own Homework

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Top Intel execs — including Chairman Craig Barrett, CEO Paul Otellini, and sales chief Sean Maloney — are believed to have deleted e-mails relevant to an antitrust lawsuit filed by AMD. Otellini reportedly was under the impression that IT was responsible for backing up his e-mails, so he didn't need to retain them. Intel has admitted to a series of mistakes in preserving e-mail, including the failure of some employees to comply with a company directive to perform manual document retention procedures."
Google

Submission + - Making Sense out of Census Data with Google Earth

Submitted by
mikemuch
mikemuch writes: "Irman Haque has developed a mashup of Google Earth with data from the U.S. Census Bureau, called gCensus. The app uses the XML format known as KML (Keyhole Markup Language), which can create shapes and colors on the maps displayed by GE. Haque had to build custom code libraries (which he's made available as open source) that could generate KML for the project. He also had to extract the relevant data from the highly counter-intuitive Census Bureau files and store them in a database that could handle geographic data. gCensus lets you do stuff like create colorful overlays on maps showing population ages, race, and family size distributions."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Wii Tops January Sales

Submitted by haddieman
haddieman writes: Nintendo's Wii topped January sales numbers by a large margin according to Seattle P-I.

From the article:

Sales of the Nintendo console came in at 436,000 units, followed by Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 at 294,000 units, and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 at 244,000 units, according to preliminary NPD Group data cited by Microsoft. Sony's seven-year-old PlayStation 2 remained a formidable competitor, selling slightly less than 300,000 units in the U.S., according to the data.

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