morpheus83 writes "After R2D2 letter boxes, the USPS continues the saga, as it unveiled 15 new stamps featuring Star Wars characters at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood where the original Star Wars movie opened 30 years ago. The 41 cent stamps will be released on May 25, and all the 15 stamps will be issued on a single sheet resembling a movie poster."

RageAgainsttheBears writes "The RIAA is beginning to find itself in an awkward position. A few of its many, many lawsuits don't manage to end in success for the organization. Typically, when they decide a case isn't worth pursuing (due to targeting the wrong person or not having sufficient evidence), they simply move to drop the case. Counterclaims are usually dropped in turn, and everyone goes separate ways. But recently, judges have been deciding to allow the RIAA to drop the case, but still allowing the defendant's counterclaim through. According to the Ars Technica article: 'If Judge Miles-LaGrange issues a ruling exonerating Tallie Stubbs of infringement, it would be a worrisome trend for the RIAA. The music industry has become accustomed to having its way with those it accuses of file-sharing, quietly dropping cases it believes it can't win. It looks as though the courts may be ready to stop the record labels from just walking away from litigation when it doesn't like the direction it is taking and give defendants justice by fully exonerating them of any wrongdoing.'"

oldwindways writes "The BBC reports that in developing nations where it is prohibitively expensive to install the infrastructure for wired internet connections, drive by wireless updates are becoming a popular solution to the demand for internet access. This sounds great for checking news updates, sports scores, and visiting your regular websites, but somewhat limited if you are trying to do basic research and don't know exactly where your search will take you. It is certainly an innovative solution to some of the problems encountered in tackling the digital divide, but what longterm effects might this model have on the development of a communications infrastructure?"

Via GamePolitics, an exerpt from an upcoming Wired print magazine article on Rockstar's slide from grace. The article outlines a number of the problems we've discussed here on the site, such as their numerous lawsuits, the 'Hot Coffee' scandal, and stock-option problems. At four pages it's only a teaser for the longer article in the magazine, but it's still very much worth taking a look. "The irony is thick: The company that defined virtual criminality is now associated with the real thing. Rockstar and Take-Two executives declined to answer questions for this article, but their rich and troubled story is revealed by official documents and former employees. It seems the blokes forgot that in life, as in Grand Theft Auto, there are repercussions for the choices you make."

Valve's movement to the console space has been slow, but this year will see the release of Half-Life 2 on both the 360 and PS3. They seem to be having mixed reactions to that move. On the one hand (according to CVG), they're very much hoping that 360/PC crossplay will be possible for their upcoming Team Fortress 2. On the other hand (according to Game Informer and 1up), their reaction to the PS3's online component is one of fear. Valve's Marketing representative Doug Lombardi: "PS3 is brand new and PS3's online is kind of scary so we're hoping that EA is going to be a strong partner for us. (laughs) It's always the scariest thing when it's not all yours. With the PC it's all ours, Steam is all ours, code's ours, game's ours. On 360 we're making it, we've made it before, we know what the Live thing is, although it's Microsoft's so we kind of know it. PS3 we're not building it, we haven't made a PS3 title before, and we don't really know what PS3 online really is. It's always the devil you don't know that you're the most scared of."

Now that the news about Microsoft's Elite has had a chance to set in, there are a few objections being raised by commentators. That 120 gig hard drive (the really expensive one) is going to come pre-loaded with content; all well and good, but the content transfer cable and software is a bit odd. Additionally, there are serious objections being raised over the frustrations of early adopters. Despite the easy dismissal out of hand heard on Major Nelson's Wednesday podcast, it's not as easy for early 360 buyers to roll with the changes. "Current Xbox 360 owners, who can purchase a separate 120-gigabyte hard drive at a cost of $179, appear to be getting a raw deal. Not only are these early adopters stuck with an older model of the console that offers less in the way of high-definition support, but factor in the cost of a current premium Xbox 360 ($399) and the price of the larger hard drive and the figure is close to $600 dollars, far exceeding the Elite's retail price, due to be $479."

IGN has a longish piece up looking at the possible future of Sony's handheld. They examine the upcoming success of Sony's overshadowed creation via several excellent interviews from people with SCEA, first-party developers, third-party studios, and indies. I particularly enjoyed the comments by indie homebrew dev Fanjita, who had a great outsider's view of the little black dynamo. "I suspect there are 2 factors that make them especially resistant to homebrew on the PSP - the first is that point I just made, about not wanting to dent the already shaky platform image. The second is that we already know our way around almost all the PSP internals, and so they probably feel that there's a risk that a publicly endorsed, restricted homebrew platform would soon be cracked wide open, leaving them with an officially endorsed route to piracy. I like to believe that the capable homebrew devs would be respectful of a move from Sony to open up the platform, but it's obviously impossible to have any guarantees."