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Music

Submission + - Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream (ocremix.org)

Submitted by
djpretzel
djpretzel writes: "Today OverClocked ReMix released its ninth album, Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream. The album, made by fans for fans, honors the recent 10-year anniversary of the Square Enix PlayStation video game Final Fantasy VII with 45 arrangements of composer Nobuo Uematsu's original score. Available for free download at http://ff7.ocremix.org, Voices of the Lifestream is not affiliated with or endorsed by Square Enix. More than 40 artists from the OverClocked ReMix community contributed more than three hours of music to the album, with interpretations covering a variety of genres and styles from jazz to electronica to rock to symphonic."
Technology

Researchers Building Computers That Run on Light 133

Posted by samzenpus from the heliotropic-machines dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in England are attempting to build a desktop computer that runs on light rather than electronics. A $1.6 million research project starting in June at the University of Bath is focused on developing attosecond technology, which refers to continuously emitting light pulses that last just a billion-billionth of a second."
Software

Is Computer Programming a Good Job for Retirees? 147

Posted by Cliff from the never-too-old dept.
braindrainbahrain asks: "Ask Slashdot has been rife with career advice lately, so maybe I can get some too. I hit a milestone recently, the big five oh, and the realization of retirement is starting to settle in. The trouble is, I don't want to sit around, play golf, or even travel that much. I work in a technical field, but I have always enjoyed programming. Indeed, I do it as a hobby. I wonder what you readers would think about programming as a post retirement job. It seems well suited for a retiree, one could do contract work for a few months of the year, in some cases work from home even. By way of background, I have worked in hardware engineering for a very long time, and have pursued graduate study almost regularly (two Masters degrees so far). Should I begin preparing for a post-retirement career in computer science?"
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Ebay halts sale of virtual goods

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Markeedragon reports that ebay is halting the sale of virtual items from online games such as Ultima Online and World Of Warcraft. I'm not sure why they would do something like that as it has to account for a significant amount of their income.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - War Rock: A Shooter Laying Waste to Big Budgets

Submitted by
BizInside
BizInside writes: "Though developers and players alike lament the rise of game development costs, one firm is actually using the trend to their advantage by releasing an online first-person shooter called War Rock that is completely free to play. Call it Battlefield light, or America's Army minus boot camp. Interesting thing is, the game plans to make money through a voluntary pay subscription plan and microtransactions, both of which give players access to some neat perks. Amped News takes a critical eye towards K2 Network's bizarre business model and chats with War Rock producer Matt Norton about what makes the game so significant."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - All PSP firmwares now hackable!

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: "Just a little while back, Fanjita wrote a small article on the people with non-homebrew-able PSPs should do. Waiting for an exploit was the only sensible thing to do in my opinion. And boy! people didn't have to wait very long; the Noobz team has just come out with a new exploit which works on all firmwares upto v 3.03 , which is all the Sony has been able to come up with."

Sony beaten again. Is it time to stop adding security updates with every firmware?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - South Park World of Warcraft Becomes Reality

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "At least on the Dunemaul World of Warcraft server, the new character, Highlord Kruul, introduced by the patch on Tuesday (January 9, 2007) attacked Ironforge early in the morning on Wednesday (January 10, 2007). No one was prepared for him. No character could defeat him. Several raid groups were formed, but none could bring him down. You can't get in or out. He was there nearly all day long. This is a hilarious video, showing the ground piled with skeletons and it also shows dozens of characters getting killed. Check it out here. If only we had the Sword of a Thousand Truths (guess we'll just have to wait for the expansion)."
Science

Pyramid Stones Were Poured, Not Quarried 445

Posted by Zonk from the that-was-really-far-up-the-tech-tree dept.
brian0918 writes "Times Online is reporting that French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete. From the article: 'Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime.' They found 'traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystallization. The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete.'"

Windows Vista RC1 Impresses Critics 632

Posted by CmdrTaco from the critics-aren't-always-critical dept.
bradley fellows writes "Early feedback from testers already using Windows Vista RC1 (Release Candidate 1) report that the OS is more stable than expected, which bodes well for Microsoft's plan to have Vista out according to its current schedule." Mind you, "expected" is relative given how many users regard their frequent crashes as normal operation for a PC.

Growing Insulin 251

Posted by samzenpus from the hormones-growing dept.
McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

Internet For All in Europe 186

Posted by Zonk from the what-about-here dept.
evileyetmc writes "It seems that the EU has taken the next big step in promoting the concept of Internet for All, by attempting to 'ensure that the most Web-disadvantaged groups can get online.'" From the article: "The EC has now pledged to increase broadband coverage across the continent to 90 percent by 2010. Rural areas are still underserved, according to the Commission, with about 60 percent penetration. Urban areas fare better and are already at the 90 percent mark. The EC has also committed to putting new measures in place to halve exclusion rates in skills and digital literacy by 2010. "

Designer Mice Made to Order 382

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-start-a-mouse-farm dept.
blackbearnh writes "CNN is reporting about the world of designer mice. No, not the kind you click, the kind that scamper around and eat cheese. An effort is underway to produce mice with each of the 20-25,000 individual mouse genes "knocked out", which could lead to novel new treatments for humans. It turns out that after fully sequencing the mouse genome, the little fellas are almost identical to humans. From the article: 'A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.'"

NJ Bill Would Prohibit Anonymous Posts on Forums 487

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the glad-we're-not-in-nj dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The New Jersey legislature is considering a bill that would require operators of public forums to collect users' legal names and addresses, and effectively disallow anonymous speech on online forums. This raises some serious issues, such as to what extent local and state governments can go in enacting and enforcing Internet legislation."

Future Plans for SWG? 99

Posted by Zonk from the hee-rollback dept.
Warcry has a short article with impressions from someone who was asked to participate in a Star Wars Galaxies focus group. The moderator evidently presented several options, and the group responded. From the article: "The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups."

Gold Buying - Time Saver or Cheating? 543

Posted by Zonk from the money-money-money-money dept.
Sunday's online version of The Wichita Eagle has a piece on buying gold in a MMOG. The author of the piece examines what's involved, and ponders whether such an action is cheating, or just a shortcut. From the article: "Getting my gold was a snap. The smallest quantity for sale by IGE was 500 pieces for $60, about twice what I wanted to spend. I decided to go for it, however, as I simply could not abide the prospect of skinning even one more level-10 boar. Within 20 minutes, the gold appeared in my WoW character's mailbox." From a Cathode Tan post. What is your opinion: Cheating or Shortcut?

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