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PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Shadowbane Data Purge, Restart On The Way (wired.com)

CyBlue writes: The development team behind Shadowbane has come to the decision that "it would be best for the longevity of the game to reset all server and character data and start from scratch." In case you aren't entirely clear on the details of this decision, the developers have decided that everything that has ever occurred in the game to date will be wiped out along with every character ever created, every item ever equipped and every monster ever slain.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Fox's Mass Effect 'Expert' Apologises (nytimes.com) 1

ShedPlant writes: "On Thursday we discussed a Fox News feature that propagated lies about the role playing game Mass Effect. According to the New York Times, Fox's 'expert psychologist', who admitted to never playing the game, has apologised for her comments on the show.

In an interview on Friday, Ms. Lawrence said that since the controversy over her remarks erupted she had watched someone play the game for about two and a half hours. "I recognize that I misspoke," she said. "I really regret saying that, and now that I've seen the game and seen the sex scenes it's kind of a joke.

"Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it's like pornography," she added. "But it's not like pornography. I've seen episodes of 'Lost' that are more sexually explicit."
One Amazon reviewer says of her most recent book:

I know all about this book but have never fully read it. Why? Due to the overwhelming backlash, I have no choice but to agree with the 1 star ratings. The rumors are rampant that this book was poorly written and poorly researched. So without verifying the contents myself — I give it a 1 star. Good thing video games aren't judged in this manner — whew!!!
The real question is, why would Fox want the opinion of an 'expert' who was clearly clueless on the topic?"

Software

Submission + - Is There Any Decent Access Control Software?

An anonymous reader writes: I am a power user in a very, very small niche of the computing world: I'm a power user on XP x64 with a Firewall from 2005. The Story: A few years back, I was turned on to Tiny Firewall Pro. It gave me not only a damn good firewall, but also granted me very anal access control over what programs could run on my system, what priviledges they could use, and what they had access to (Think Vista's User Access Control, only with more options and a better UI). At this point, I was still using the 32bit Windows XP. My problems started when I moved to an x86_64 arch. If I ran the 32bit windows with the firewall, for some reason, any and all network cards in the system would cut out after a few minutes (The issue is beyond the scope of the question). After much frustration, I ended up moving to XP x64, and yes, I can hear you groan. Luckily there was a version of the firewall that ran on x64, so I picked that up. It ran fine, and I was happy. Happy until I tried to apply some Windows updates. As it turns out, I can't apply any Windows updates that affect the kernel or its patching protection, lest I become infatuated with with a BSoD. I blame everything on the fact that the software was released in 2005. "Maybe you should upgrade!" I hear you cry (Kindly ignoring the "Move to Linux" folks with an empty smile). Alas, Tiny Software was accquired by Computer Associates halfway through 2005, and, to my knowledge, their products have long been discontinued. From what little I've read about Computer Associates, and from personally experiencing their Anti-Virus software, I don't particularly trust them, so using their equivalent is out. Is there anything comparable to Tiny's Firewall suite that runs on XP x64 or Vista x64 and is still being maintained?
Data Storage

Current Recommendations For a Home File Server? 170

j.sanchez1 writes "The recent coverage of Shuttle's new KPC has gotten me thinking (again) about a small, low-cost headless file server for home. In the past, I have looked at the iPaq and considered using older computers I have lying around, but for various reasons I have never jumped in to do it. Do you guys have any suggestions on what to use for a home file server (hardware and software)? The server would be feeding files to Windows PCs and connected to the network through a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT firmware." There are a host of good options these days; what has the best bang for the home-user's buck?
The Courts

Submission + - Police subpoena MySpace over Meier suicide

Stony Stevenson writes: A federal grand jury has subpoenaed MySpace in an investigation into the suicide of teenager Megan Meier. The girl killed herself after being harassed by someone on MySpace, whom she believed to be a boy but who was in fact the parent of a schoolmate. Police in California are now investigating to see whether they can prosecute the parent for defrauding the MySpace social networking website after she set up a false identity on the site. Los Angeles police feel that they have jurisdiction since MySpace is headquartered in Beverley Hills.
Announcements

Submission + - SPAM: Terrorist Attack on New York Just Happened 1

An anonymous reader writes: The mainstream media is just starting to break this story, but I witnessed it first hand and have posted a video of the attack here. Two suicide bombers detonated themselves right in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Several are dead and the police have closed of the area. It is utter chaos. Remember to keep those who were lost in today's attacks in mind as this was truly a tragedy. Fear is gripping the city.

Feed Engadget: NVIDIA gets official with 3-way SLI for "extreme gaming" (engadget.com)

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

It's taken a bit longer than expected, but NVIDIA has finally announced that it's extended its SLI technology to allow for three-way setups, in addition to the usual two or four-way ones. That, the company says, should give you a 2.8x performance increase over a single GPU system, letting you crank up all the settings while accepting nothing less than a full 60 frames per second. That will come at a pretty hefty cost, of course, as you'll need three GeForce 8800 GTX or GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics cards, not to mention a PC capable of accommodating them. If that's not an impediment for you, however, you should soon be basking in the glow of 384 stream processors, a 110+ gigatexel per second texture fill rate, and no less than two gigabytes of graphics memory.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed Engadget: eeeXubuntu: Ubuntu distilled for your Eee (engadget.com)

Filed under: Laptops

For all you Eee users out there who've been trying to squeeze Ubuntu into the little white box, some help is on the way. A kind and enterprising Linux enthusiast has used their precious time and energy to put together an Eee-customized build of the much-loved OS, which includes fully-integrated hardware support, native wireless drivers, functioning Ethernet support, tweaks for low-resolution desktop environments, and a bunch of other little enhancements that will make using Canonical's powerhouse a lot more pleasant on your tiny laptop. Word on the street is that development and refinement continues on the build, so expect improvements as time wears on. Now, if only someone could perfect that Amiga OS build for the Eee...

[Via Digg]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed Engadget: Pentagon prepping non-lethal "light and sound" weapon (engadget.com)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Blissfully unaware that it's up against a generation raised in the sensory madhouses known as techno clubs, the Pentagon is reportedly working on a non-lethal weapon that utilizes light and sound to sicken and disorient targets. Like Homeland Security's "pukelight," the so-called Distributed Sound and Light Array Debilitator being developed by Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory is meant to induce a feeling of nauseousness, in this case combining light patterns with "aversive noises." So yeah, like we said, sounds pretty effective unless you happen to run into a group of insurgents hardened by years of all-night raving and the accompanying neurological damage.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed Engadget: Opera files EU antitrust suit against Microsoft for bundling IE (engadget.com)

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Oh man, here we go again. Opera just filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in Redmond's least favorite place to litigate, the EU. The suit claims that Microsoft is stifling competition by distributing Internet Explorer in its Windows OS. The Norwegian company, backed by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), a long-time opponent of Microsoft, is asking the EU Commission to force Microsoft to comply with industry standards for web browsers and either unbundle IE from the OS or include other browsers along side IE. That would be the Opera Browser we presume, eh Opera (wink, wink). Unlike Apple, Nokia/Symbian, and others who also bundle browsers in their OSes, Opera argues that web designers build their sites with IE in mind due to its dominant position in the marketplace and non-compliance with industry standards for web browsing. As such, other browsers won't render some pages correctly -- a disincentive for users to browse with anything other than Microsoft's IE. Sit tight kids, this ride will be bumpy.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Books

Submission + - Computer games and architecture - the first book (spacetimeplay.org)

Jason Roth writes: "This excellent book is on the way — probably publishing in November. The contributors talk about the new connections between computer games and real-world architecture. These game designers are all involved: Ernest Adams, Ian Bogost, Noah Falstein, James Korris, Frank Lantz, American McGee, Keita Takahashi, Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman. Will be worth checking out."
Announcements

Submission + - Watermarking to replace DRM? 3

An anonymous reader writes: News.com has an article on the announcement of Microsoft and Universal to introduce watermarking technology into audio files. The technology could serve several purposes including tracking file sharing statistics and insertion of advertisements into audio tracks. The article goes on to suggest that watermarking could possibly replace DRM in the near future.

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