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Submission + - "Impossible" technology (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by ianpm
ianpm writes: CNET UK has a feature about technology that's "Totally Impossible". In reality, it's all perfectly possible, but it's reasonable to say that all of it does at least boggle the mind slightly. Interesting to hear if Slashdotters have any better suggestions of implausible technology that's either possible, or on the verge of being so?
The Internet

Submission + - 30000 UK ISP Users Face Illegal P2P Threat Letters (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: Solicitors at ACS:Law have been granted approval by the Royal Courts of Justice in London to demand the private personal details of some 30,000 customers suspected of involvement with illegal file sharing from UK broadband ISPs. The customers concerned are "suspected" of illegally file sharing (P2P) approximately 291 movie titles, they now face threatening demands for money (settlement) or risk the prospect of court action. It's noted that 25,000 of the IP addresses that have been collected belong to BT users.

Submission + - CNet posts outrageous assault on OS X vs Windows 7 (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It's hard to ignore out-right hate. In a lengthy article which begins "Apple's products are universally acclaimed for their wonderfulness and gorgeousness — except in the real world, where people use computers for actual work and not just for messing around," CNet's Rory Reid pens page after page of arguments as to why Apple's OS X operating system "failed to make significant in-roads against even an ailing Windows Vista."
Windows

Submission + - Shuttleworth praises "excellent" Windows 7 (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: In a rare piece of praise from the Linux world, Canonical boss Mark Shuttleworth has described Windows 7 as an "excellent release". Speaking on a conference call to announce that Ubuntu 9.10 will be released on Thursday, Shuttleworth labelled Windows 7 "a substantial improvement on the past. Even on netbooks, it's a credible release." However, he remains confident Ubuntu retains the upper hand. "I am delighted that Windows 7 is out. Now that Windows 7 is out, we can compete head to head," he added.

Submission + - SPAM: Harvard Medical creates Swine Flu iPhone app

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Harvard Medical School is selling an iPhone application for US$1.99 with a variety of information and services related to the flu. The Swine Flu Center application, developed by a new group at Harvard called HMSMobile, includes an interactive section to help users determine if they have the flu and at what point they should call the doctor.
Link to Original Source
Medicine

Submission + - The Best Medications For Your Genes (forbes.com)

Submitted by blackbearnh
blackbearnh writes: Until recently, physicians prescribed drugs to patients with dosages based only on weight, and with no idea if the drug would be effective for that particular person. But as this article over on Forbes.com highlights, the same advances in genomics that are letting people know about their likelihood of getting certain diseases can also let doctors know what drugs, and what dosages, will be likely to do the most good. TFA: Tamoxifen, the much-heralded cancer-fighting drug, has been shown to have little benefit for 7% to 10% of patients taking it. In the past, we would have just said that it works 90% of the time. But now, with our new genomic knowledge under our belt, we can say that it works nearly 100% of the time for people with the "right" version of the CYP2D6 gene, and 0% of the time for people with the "wrong" version, who make up roughly 7% to 10% of the population.
Businesses

AP Will Sell You a "License" To Words It Doesn't Own 340

Posted by kdawson from the almost-as-ironic-as-disappearing-1984 dept.
James Grimmelmann performed an experiment using the AP's form to request a license to use more than four consecutive words from one of their articles. Except that he didn't paste in words from the (randomly chosen) article, but instead used 26 words written by Thomas Jefferson 196 years ago: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea. The AP cheerfully charged him $12 to use Jefferson's 26 words. Both Boing Boing and TechDirt have picked up the story so far. Grimmelmann adds an update to his blog: the AP has rescinded his license to Jefferson's words and issued a refund for his $12. They did not exhibit the grace to admit that their software is brain-dead.

Comment Re:Corpo-Speak (Score 1) 82

The argument you made with Rock Band you can make with ANY console game. In order to play any Wii game you need several peripherals, in order to play a 360 game you need to buy a controller... The need to buy the equipment up front is something that is given for some console games, hell even Duck Hunt needed the Nintendo Laser Gun (which, if you were like me and broke the one it came with, you needed to buy another one). Also World of Warcraft has only ONE extra cost at this point in the form of Realm Moves, with a second coming along the way in the form of changing you Race/Side. However both of these costs have no actual impact on in game play or cause a ripple effect, where if you are the one WITHOUT that thing then you're SOL. I'm also skeptical that Bill Roper used these two games as examples for micro-transaction games in the US and avoids using the obvious example if Second Life. Second Life is a game that has micro-transactions truly integrated into it's game system and is well known to his target audience. Second Life as a good example of a free to play system where if you really want to get into the bones of the game than you need to shell out some cash.
Security

Submission + - Social Networking Sites Must Improve Security (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sophos has called upon social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook to do more to protect their millions of users, as new research is published examining the first six months of cybercrime in 2009. The report reveals that IT teams are worried that employees share too much personal information via social networking sites, putting their corporate infrastructure — and the sensitive data stored on it — at risk. The findings also indicate that a quarter of organizations have been exposed to spam, phishing or malware attacks via sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
Announcements

Submission + - Sam Raimi to direct World of Warcraft movie (blizzard.com)

Submitted by Decado
Decado writes: Blizzard have just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie.

"Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment."

While it is still early days does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a games IP?
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Round-up of upcoming MMORPG. (i4u.com)

Submitted by
i4u
i4u writes: "The MMO market is booming, thanks in no small part to the titanic success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. WoW has spawned a whole new generation of online gamers. As Blizzard's cash-cow begins to age, many of them are looking for a new MMO experience. Developers are lining up to try their hand in massive online games including the following three: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Jumpgate: Evolution and Global Agenda."
Games

Videogame Places You're Not Supposed To Go 261

Posted by Soulskill from the is-second-life-one-of-them dept.
Ssquared22 writes "The eight far-off realms in this article exist for different reasons. They could be developer test areas, or forgotten pieces of landscape that somehow made their way into the final code. Whatever their reason for being, they all have one thing in common: they weren't meant to be explored by the likes of you and me. But through persistence, hacks or some combination of the two, you can take in these rare delights for yourself. Pack your bags." What odd, interesting, or funny game locations have you wandered into?
Games

City of Heroes Going Rogue With New Expansion 100

Posted by Soulskill from the sinister-goatees-for-everyone dept.
NCSoft has announced a major expansion to City of Heroes, titled Going Rogue, which they say will "blur the line between heroes and villains." It is set in Praetoria, a parallel universe governed by an evil version of Statesman, the game's lead hero. As part of a new alignment system, "hero characters can become villains and vice versa, enabling hero archetypes to cross over to the Rogue Isles and villain archetypes to experience Paragon City." Brian Clayton of Paragon Studios said, "For years, players could choose between playing as a hero or a villain. Now we will present a third, malleable path where players can be affected by the results of their actions."

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