narramissic writes "According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a new policy is currently under discussion by the community of users who regularly write and maintain Wikipedia that would require contributors to the site who claim certain credentials to prove they really have them. The new policy comes after one of Wikipedia's most prolific and respected editors, who went by the pseudonym 'Essjay,' was found not to be the 'tenured professor of theology' he claimed to be but a run-of-the-mill 24 year-old from Kentucky. Said Wales, 'To discover that someone had been deceiving the community for a long time really was a bit of a blow to our trust. Wikipedia is built on the idea of trusting other people and people being honest and we find that in the most part everyone is, so it was a real disappointment.'"

Phill0 submitted a ZD story about Microsoft's week off which says "Microsoft has no new security updates planned for Tuesday, despite at least five zero-day vulnerabilities that are waiting to be fixed. The patch break could be a welcome respite for IT managers still busy testing the dozen fixes Microsoft released last month. Also, many IT pros may be occupied with the switch to daylight saving time, which at the behest of Congress, is happening three weeks earlier this year. "

GameDaily is reporting on comments made to them by EA Los Angeles General Manager Neil Young, stating that Steven Spielberg is working on a Wii title. Spielberg's relationship to the games giant is well known; we discussed it last year during E3. The site promises a more thorough interview next week, but for now just offers the promise of a Wii title with Spielberg's storytelling magic. "The first one, what I can tell you is what you'd expect, sort of, from a Steven Spielberg production. Steven's stories are intimate stories that take place around huge, world-changing events... sort of, big stories shown through the eyes of a small group. Doug Church is producing it... The second project is something Lou Castle is producing, one of the great producers in this industry, and that's one of the products we're building for the Wii. Very exciting and interesting..."

Gamespot reports on a lecture at GDC on Thursday, with commentary from Nintendo's manager of software development Eiji Aonuma. Aonuma went through the very long process involved in bringing Twilight Princess to the American audience. Realistic graphics were chosen for the US playerbase, but many other decisions came about via unorthodox thinking and the intervention of a higher power. "It was around this stage that Aonuma was talking to Nintendo senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto, who told him something along the lines of, 'It's as though the Revolution (later renamed the Wii) was designed just for Zelda! Why don't you try making a Zelda for the Revolution?' In the end, believes Aonuma, the kind of direct control offered by the Wii Remote was exactly what was needed to breathe life into the game."

In a talk Thursday at the Game Developer's Conference, attendees were exposed to a rare treat: technical information behind development at Square/Enix. Programming supervisor Taku Murata, co-director Hiroshi Minagawa, and lead realtime rendering programmer Yoshinori Tsuchida were onhand to shed some light on a game many years in the making. Though the session didn't provide any dirt on those interested in the departure of game designer Yasumi Matsuno, there was plenty to take away from the highly focused discussion. "Final Fantasy games require a lengthy development process, and this presents the very real threat of being obsolete by the time it ships. To combat this the team allocated its resources with a heavy emphasis on art."

Parallax Blue writes "The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) that collects and analyzes personal information on US citizens. Relevant data 'can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.' The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns."