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The Media

The Rise of Machine-Written Journalism 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hey-that's-my-job dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Peter Kirwan has an interesting article in Wired UK on the emergence of software that automates the collection, evaluation, and even reporting of news events. Thomson Reuters, the world's largest news agency, has started moving down this path, courtesy of an intriguing product with the nondescript name NewsScope, a machine-readable news service designed for financial institutions that make their money from automated, event-driven trading. The latest iteration of NewsScope 'scans and automatically extracts critical pieces of information' from US corporate press releases, eliminating the 'manual processes' that have traditionally kept so many financial journalists in gainful employment. At Northwestern University, a group of computer science and journalism students have developed a program called Stats Monkey that uses statistical data to generate news reports on baseball games. Stats Monkey identifies the players who change the course of games, alongside specific turning points in the action. The rest of the process involves on-the-fly assembly of templated 'narrative arcs' to describe the action in a format recognizable as a news story. 'No doubt Kurt Cagle, editor of XMLToday.org, was engaging in a bit of provocation when he recently suggested that an intelligent agent might win a Pulitzer Prize by 2030,' writes Kirwin. 'Of course, it won't be the software that takes home the prize: it'll be the programmers who wrote the code in the first place, something that Joseph Pultizer could never have anticipated.'"
Games

Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes 362

Posted by Soulskill from the or-druid-as-the-case-may-be dept.
A feature at Gamasutra examines one of the foundations of many MMORPGs — the idea that class roles within such a game fall into three basic categories: tank, healer, and damage dealer. The article evaluates the pros and cons of such an arrangement and takes a look at some alternatives. "Eliminating specialized roles means that we do away with boxing a class into a single role. Without Tanks, each class would have features that would help them participate in and survive many different encounters like heavy armor, strong avoidance, or some class or magical abilities that allow them to disengage from direct combat. Without specialized DPS, all classes should be able to do damage in order to defeat enemies. Some classes might specialize in damage type, like area of effect (AoE) damage; others might be able to exploit enemy weaknesses, and some might just be good at swinging a sharpened bit of metal in the right direction at a rapid rate. This design isn't just about having each class able to fill any trinity role. MMO combat would feel more dynamic in this system. Every player would have to react to combat events and defend against attacks."
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Role Playing (Games)

When Tax Day Comes to Azeroth 141

Posted by Zonk from the i'm-a-level-30-taxman dept.
1up is running a short piece originally from Games For Windows: The Official Magazine. It discusses the inevitability of taxation coming to virtual worlds, and a little bit about what that might mean in the indeterminate future: "Taxable income includes everything from tangibles like cookies to more ephemeral and subjective things like works of art, concert tickets, or advice. Those big, scary books that most sane people pay accountants to understand for them don't really narrow down what counts as taxable income so much as meticulously define it as damn near any piece of matter, energy, or information that should happen to pass into your possession over the course of the year. That goofy World of WarCraft gnome that GFW editor-in-chief Jeff Green's been leveling isn't any more intangible than, say, stocks."
Patents

Submission + - New Patent Reform - A Good Thing?

Submitted by
Patent-Monkey
Patent-Monkey writes: "BetaNews reports that new legislation is being proposed by Congress today that promises to "change the very fabric of patent law" by limiting damages to lost economic profit by a company and define an invention on its novel merits without taking credit for prior art. The article also notes that "Open source advocates may appreciate the amplified language that would prohibit any organization from claiming patentability over a concept that was "in public use or sale" (note the distinction) prior to the claim." Something the Peer to Patent project also hopes to help with.

This bill clearly limits the impact of future NTP v RIM style cases, but could also have the potential to allow large companies (e.g. IBM, Microsoft and Google) to copy a number of smaller company's ideas since the damages would be limited to that small company's lost earnings.

Are patent damage limits a good solution? For all of you to answer..."
Media

Submission + - Enforced ad-watching coming to Flash video players

Submitted by Dominare
Dominare writes: The BBC is reporting that Adobe is releasing new player software which will allow websites that use their Flash video player (such as YouTube) e.g. to force viewers to watch ads before the video they selected will play. From TFA:

But the big seller for Adobe is the ability to include in Flash movies so-called digital rights management (DRM) — allowing copyright holders to require the viewing of adverts, or restrict copying. "Adobe has created the first way for media companies to release video content, secure in the knowledge that advertising goes with it," James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research said.

This seems to have been timed to coincide with Microsoft's release of their own competitor, Silverlight, to Adobe's dominance of online video.
Wii

Submission + - Seniors love the Wii

Submitted by textureglitch
textureglitch writes: Nintendo's mission to expand the $30 billion global video game market far beyond the children and young males who make up its core consumers is well under way. The Wii's focus on intuitive gameplay rather than high-powered graphics has made it outsell the more expensive Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 so far, and now CNN reports that retirees love the Wii.

"I played tennis, if you can call it that, as a high school student. I had such fun doing it," Ebert swung the Wiimote just like a tennis racquet and said playing the game reminded her of the feeling she had all those years ago.

Flora Dierbach, 72, chairs the entertainment committee of Erickson Retirement Communities in Chicago and helped arrange a Wii bowling tournament.

"It's a very social thing and it's good exercise ... and you don't have to throw a 16-pound bowling ball to get results."
Linux Business

Submission + - Desktop Linux Gotchas

Submitted by
stinkymountain
stinkymountain writes: "Desktop Linux isn't exactly a no-brainer for corporate users, as least not yet. An article in Network World http://www.networkworld.com/techinsider/2007/03260 7-guide-linux-migration-tips.html. lists six different issues that need to be addressed before desktop Linux can be successfully deployed. That includes everything from addressing end users fears about their pet macros not working to making sure basic corporate apps are supported to ironing out links between the desktop OS and backend directories."

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