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First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Free software FPS games compared (linux-gamers.net)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Linux-gamers.net has posted a well-encompassing, although harsh, comparison of free software shooters. While lengthy, it compares seven open source shooter games. Although the article can be a bit hard to follow at times, few have gone to compare and carefully examine the genre before. The author ranks the games in the following order (best to worst): Warsow, Tremulous, World of Padman, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, OpenArena, and Sauerbraten. In making these choices, it claims claims to use gameplay, design, innovation and presentation as criteria and includes a short history of free software shooters in the introduction.
Biotech

Submission + - Life in extreme environments

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "U.S. biologists have developed a model mapping the control circuit governing a bacteria named Halobacterium salinarum, which can live in extremely salty environments, and that can survive to radiation which would be deadly to most other organisms. Their model shows how these bacteria adapt themselves in response to their environment. According to the biologists, 'this study marks the first time researchers have accurately predicted a cell's dynamics at the genome scale.' This research effort is 'an important milestone for the new field of systems biology,' but could also lead to new ways of engineering biofuels and pharmaceuticals. But read more for additional references and a photograph showing how Halobacteria can give a reddish color to San Francisco bay salt ponds."
Microsoft

Submission + - Office 2003SP3: Old file formats, now unavailable! 3

Submitted by
time961
time961 writes: "In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft has disabled support for many older file formats, so if you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw documents, watch out! They did this because the old formats are "less secure", which actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from some untrustworthy source.

Naturally, they did this by default, and then documented a mind-bogglingly complex workaround (KB 938810) rather than providing a user interface for adjusting it, or even a set of awkward "Do you really want to do this?" dialog boxes to click through. And, of course, because these are, after all, old file formats, many users will encounter the problem only months or years after the software change, while groping around in dusty and now-inaccessible archives.

One of the better aspects of Office is its extensive compatibility mechanisms for old file formats. At least the support isn't completely gone—it's just really hard to use. Security is important, but there are better ways to fulfill this goal.

This was also covered by the Windows Secrets newsletter, although I can't find a story URL for it."
Media

Submission + - Fox stealing photo content off the blogs.

Submitted by rasjani
rasjani writes: Remember that company that tried to sue youtube for having some of their content online ? Remember that tv network who airs copyright warnings about every 5 minutes on NFL game ? Yep, its called FOX. And to show how they really feel about copyright laws an d "re-using" other peoples content, i'll let Tracey to describe how she felt when she spotted her dog on FOX.

Earlier this afternoon I was in our kitchen doing dishes, minding my own business. Jamie was in the living room, watching some NFL football.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Suddenly, Jamie called to me from the other room, claiming I had to come see something. When I entered the room, he unpaused the broadcast he had been watching (thanks, TiVo!), and immediately I saw the image of an adorable pug, dressed in festive Santa gear, pop up at the bottom of the screen beside FOX's Happy Holiday's ticker. I vaguely remember Jamie saying something to me to the effect of, "Gee, that dog looks a lot like Truman, doesn't it?"

Sci-Fi

Submission + - Trekkie sues Christie's for fradulent props

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: A Trekkie who paid $6,000 for a poker visor that was supposedly worn by the android Data on the television show "Star Trek: The Next Generation" claims in a lawsuit against Christie's auction house that the prop is a fake. Ted Moustakis, of Towaco, N.J., said he began to doubt the authenticity of the visor and other items he purchased at an auction of CBS Paramount props in 2006, after he brought it to a convention in August to have it autographed by the actor who played Data, Brent Spiner. According to the lawsuit, Spiner recognized the visor as the one that had been sold by Christie's and told Moustakis that it wasn't the real deal. The actual visor had been sold by the actor himself some time ago.
Wii

Submission + - Nintendo Wii Fully Hacked at 24C3, runs Homebrew (wiinintendo.net)

Submitted by
cHALiTO
cHALiTO writes: "From the site:
The guys over at 24C3 just demoed a Wii hack that is set to provide native Wii homebrew in the near future (not running in GC mode, and with full access to all the Wii hardware!)
They were able to find encryption and decryption keys by doing full memory dumps at runtime over a custom serial interface. Using these keys, they were able to create a Wii 'game' that ran their own code (their demo happened to show live sensor/Wiimote information, amongst a few other things).
Read here and watch video here."
Linux Business

Submission + - Another low-power linux mini-PC (koolu.com)

Submitted by Hillview
Hillview writes: Seeing the article a few months ago about the Fit-PC http://www.fit-pc.com/new/ , I started looking and found the Koolu Net Appliance, a similar PC with the same AMD Geode processor and 512mb of non-soldered RAM, and an 80-meg HDD. http://shop.koolu.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3 I did purchase one and am happy with it, so I Thought it might interest some of the folks here. Works fine with an iogear KVM, so it makes a nice "secondary" terminal to use for email, browsing, typing, etc.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Jack Thompson:Games Industry Colluding With DOD (wired.com) 1

Submitted by
mytrip
mytrip writes: "In a press release sent out yesterday, controversial attorney Jack Thompson claims he has found a correlation between the gaming industry and the US Department of Defense, who, he adds, are using videogames to teach "an entire generation of kids that war is glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free."

The aim of the release is to notify the media of Thompson's new goal: proving the existence of collusion between the gaming industry and the Department of Defense in an effort to train more efficient killers."
Biotech

Submission + - Snortable Drug Keeps Monkeys Awake

Submitted by sporkme
sporkme writes: A DARPA-funded research project at UCLA has wrapped up a set of animal trials testing the effects of inhalation of the brain chemical orexin A, a deficiency of which is a characteristic of narcolepsy. From the article:

The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired. The study, published in the Dec. 26 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys' cognitive abilities but made their brains look "awake" in PET scans. Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is "specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness" without other impacts on the brain.
Researchers seem cautious to bill the treatment as a replacement for sleep, as it is not clear that adjusting brain chemistry could have the same physical benefits of real sleep in the long run. The drug is aimed at replacing amphetamines used by drowsy long-haul military pilots, but there would no doubt be large demand for such a remedy thanks to its apparent lack of side-effects.
Operating Systems

Submission + - My own private grid

Submitted by giorgist
giorgist writes: I have a lot of computers at work, and they sit idle for most of the time. Is it possible to muster them all together and get them cracking on some problem of our own choosing ? We have a cluster doing computations and time on it is limited. Maybe I can setup another were I can run packets on idle computers. People from work can join in and take "packets" home and run them on their computers at home while they work. G
Linux Business

Submission + - PC Mag slams Everex gPC (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: PC Magazine reviews the $200 Linux desktop wonder sold by Wal-Mart. This desktop sold out quickly and has been cited as proof that consumers are tired of the Windows tax and ready for Linux. Not so according to PC Magazine giving the gPC a 1.5 star rating. "The gPC is not the alternative to Windows or Mac OS X it's cracked up to be; it's very frustrating to use."
Government

Submission + - Stephen Hawking joins attack on UK science cuts

Submitted by
Laxator2
Laxator2 writes: " Here is the story in the Telegraph about the sweeping cuts that the UK government plans to apply to Physics and Astronomy. Scientists will be in the impossibility to continue their involvement in projects in which they have already invested years of work and millions of pounds, like the ILC and the Gemini Observatory. Understandably, the scientists have petitioned the government to revise its decision, and now Prof. Stephen Hawking has added his name to the list of 3500 people that have signed the petition so far. More details in the article."
Portables

Submission + - XO-1 Saves the Day!

Submitted by DrChuck
DrChuck writes: Yesterday I received my XO-1 laptop from the Give One Get One program and delighted in its nicely functional implementation as a portable Linux system. I thought I would see if I could put Ubuntu on an old HP Laptop (an XE3) and when it hung in install I thought "Hmm, what about the Recover disks?" Well those started working, re-partitioning the drive with a "hibernation" partition and then a data partition. But the laptop failed (over heating). No worries I thought pop the hard drive into USB->ide adapter install an image on it and return it to the laptop. But wait, when the disk showed up on my Windoze XP Pro system it had that silly hibernate partition on it. Yuck! So go into Computer Management -> System Tools -> Storage. Well what do you know but every time I try to access or delete that Hibernate partition XP Pro locks up the MMC tighter than a strip club in Utah! What to do? Its late on a Sunday night, no where to pick up a new drive, no time to install a more primitive OS, but wait, there sits my XO-1 beaming at me! So I hook the now USB connectable drive to the XO-1, it sees it as /dev/sda run sfdisk on it and create a new partition and voila! Problem solved. Nice to have an XO-1 around to help Windoze out of those tricky tight spots!

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