phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has an excellent writeup on the rise of eMusic and how they're suceeding despite their unwillingness to hop on the DRM bandwagon. From the article: 'The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that's why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic.'"

joe 155 writes "The Register is reporting that ' the PS3 will cost £425 in the UK - over $800'. SCE UK Managing Director Rat Maguire said: 'I don't think it's an expensive machine - I think actually, it's probably a cheap machine. If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425, it's a bargain.' Can a console really be viable at this price?"

skinfaxi writes "Filed in New York, Jeffrey Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links." From the article: "The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial. It also accuses Google of violating federal statutes relating to child pornography and calls for the court to order that Google cease "advertising, promoting, or distributing" child pornography through its site or otherwise providing any links to such content."

theodp writes "While the press is running Amazon's standard we-can't-make-our-CEO-accept-more-than-$81,840 line again this year, the e-tailer's recent SEC filing does disclose an interesting new compensation tidbit. On top of what it spends to provide security for its CEO at business facilities and during business travel, Amazon shells out an estimated $1.1 million a year to cover the cost of security arrangements for billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos. Holy Jack Welch, Batman - that's a lot of door desks!"

Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that States are scrambling to impose tougher restrictions on cell phone use by drivers, addressing what safety experts say can be a deadly distraction. From the article: 'Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have written legislation on the issue, mostly since 2003, [...] This year, other legislatures are tackling the subject, and two states have passed laws on it. [...] While no state has banned talking on a cell phone while driving, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., have the most restrictive laws: Except in emergencies, motorists in those states can use cell phones only with hands-free devices, such as earpieces. Restrictions vary across other states. Some prohibit teenagers, bus drivers and drivers with learning permits from using cell phones -- even with earpieces.'"

Via a Cathode Tan post, a gloriously in-depth look at the technology behind the PS2 title Shadow of the Colossus. From that article: "In games such as DOOM3 on the PC, the model used for generating the shadow volume is almost equivalent to the character itself. But with SOTC, in order to speed this up, we made use of a simpler model with much fewer polygons in. The main character generally consists of 3,000 polygons, but the colossus can be around 18,000 polygons, depending on the type. But the model used for shadow generation will contain a substantially lower amount than this. For example, the simple model seen by the player will probably only use 1/40th of what the original model contained."

Next Generation reports that, in some analysts view, the real victim of the PS3 delay may actually be current gen console publishers and gamers. Houses like EA and Activision have a lot of money tied up in creating games for the next generation, and if the PS3 isn't launching here in the states until after summmer... They end up laying out four increasingly bad scenarios for the industry. From the article: "The third scenario theorizes on a 25 percent price cut on current generation software. We've already seen substantial price-cuts from EA, as the current-gen versions of The Godfather, Black and Fight Night Round 3 all debuted or will debut at $40, a 20 percent cut from the normal $50 price tag. The erosion of sales prices may be caused by publishers trying to unload inventory, or by publishers that target budget shoppers. This scenario could cause major publishers' earnings to drop between 35 and 49 percent."

Famitsu, the premiere Japanese videogame magazine, evidently really likes Final Fantasy XII. From the Insert Credit post: "Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XII has scored a perfect score of 40 -- all four reviewers scoring it 10 out of 10 -- from Japanese gaming bible Famitsu. It joins the club of five perfect-scoring games, one of which is a fighting game with a sequel that's better (Soul Calibur), two of which are Zelda games (Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker), and two of which (Nintendogs and Vagrant Story) didn't even make it onto Famitsu readers' top 100 list."