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Comment Re:As a hardcore gamer... (Score 2, Informative) 263

by Siener (#26002047) Attached to: Nintendo's Miyamoto On Innovation, Wii Ambitions

Where are the point-and-click adventures?

Have you tried Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Zack & Wiki and Sam & Max? (OK, Sam & Max is not a Wii original, but the Wii version is great)

In general I agree with your post. IMO the biggest problem was that 3rd party developers were caught napping. No-one expected the Wii's runaway success. Things are slowly changing though. There are more and more innovative, quality games coming out that were written from the ground up with the Wii's control's in mind rather than crappy ports that are basically PS2 versions of the game with motion control gimmicks added.

The days of the Wii being just for casual games and Nintendo staples like Mario and Zelda are coming to an end. One example of an upcoming Wii game that is both innovative, stylish and that is definitely not "just for kids" is MadWorld. Definitely not the kind of thing you would historcally associate with a Nintendo platform.

However, like you I'm still waiting for quality RPG on the Wii. I also think you would be able to make good RTS's (a genre that consoles have really been lacking in) using the Wiimote
Space

Massive Martian Glaciers Found 314

Posted by timothy from the could-be-a-trick dept.
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Scientific American is reporting that 'data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter point to vast glaciers buried beneath thin layers of crustal debris.' Data from the surface-penetrating radar on MRO revealed that two well-known mid-latitude features are composed of solid water ice. One is about three times the size of the City of Los Angeles. This certainly makes the idea of establishing a station on Mars far more plausible."
Censorship

YouTube Bans Gun and Knife Videos In the UK 632

Posted by timothy from the long-chain-of-abuses-and-usurpations dept.
PatPending writes with a depressing excerpt from the UK's Metro: "The Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube has decided to introduce the ban [on weapons-related videos] for the UK only amid widespread unease about the increase in knife crime in the country. 'We recognise that there has been particular concern over videos in the UK that involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation, and this is one of the areas we are addressing,' a YouTube spokesperson said. 'I would like to see other internet service providers follow suit to reinforce our message that violence will not be tolerated either on the internet or in the real world,' she said."
Programming

Best Reference Site For Each Programming Language? 538

Posted by samzenpus from the spread-the-word dept.
Howling writes "I've been a PHP programmer for a few years and after taking a trip through many sites Ive learned that www.php.net is probably the most complete source when looking for information/documentation. I have been trying to find similar sites for every other language (Java, perl or ASP, for instance) without equal success, though. I ask: what is the best documentation/reference site for your preferred programming language?"
Privacy

Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors 521

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the this-sounds-familiar dept.
Several readers have written to tell us that a recent move in the UK has councils relying on info from "Citizen Snoopers" to report the transgressions of their neighbors. Currently only implemented as "environment volunteers" designed to keep watch on things like litter, dog habits, and improper trash sorting, there is a certain amount of trepidation that this could grow into something more sinister. "It will fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office is extending some police powers to council staff and private security guards. Critics said the latest scheme could easily be abused and encourage a culture of bin spies and curtain twitchers. Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Snooping on your neighbors to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook.'"
Privacy

Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting 172

Posted by kdawson from the bangalore-across-the-hudson dept.
theodp writes "Newark Mayor Cory Booker is betting that cutting-edge technology will reduce crime and spark an economic renaissance. From a newly opened Surveillance Operations Center, cops armed with joystick controllers monitor live video feeds from more than 100 donated cameras scattered across the crime-ridden city. The moves are drawing kudos from businesses like Amazon subsidiary Audible.com, which has moved its HQ to downtown Newark, where space is 50% cheaper than in Manhattan. But are citizens giving up too much privacy?"
Data Storage

Rosetta Disk Designed For 2,000 Years Archive 659

Posted by timothy from the that'll-do-for-now dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Kevin Kelly has an interesting post about an archive designed with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years to serve future generations as a modern Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta disk contains analog 'human-readable' scans of scripts, text, and diagrams using nickel deposited on an etched silicon disk and includes 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation in 1,500 different languages, including versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, and pronunciation guides. Produced by the Long Now Foundation, the plan is to replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world in nondescript locations so at least one will survive their 2,000-year lifespan. 'This is one of the most fascinating objects on earth,' says Oliver Wilke. 'If we found one of these things 2,000 years ago, with all the languages of the time, it would be among our most priceless artifacts. I feel a high responsibility for preserving it for future generations.'"
Portables (Apple)

Apple Can Remotely Disable iPhone Apps 550

Posted by Soulskill from the they're-making-a-list dept.
mikesd81 writes "Engadget reports Apple has readied a blacklisting system which allows the company to remotely disable applications on your device. It seems the new 2.x firmware contains a URL which points to a page containing a list of 'unauthorized' apps — a move which suggests that the device makes occasional contact with Apple's servers to see if anything is amiss on your phone. Jonathan Zdziarski, the man who discovered this, explains, 'This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down. I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.'" Update: 08/11 13:07 GMT by T : Reader gadgetopia writes with a small story at IT Wire, citing an interview in the Wall Street Journal, in which this remote kill-switch is "confirmed by Steve Jobs himself."
The Courts

Tufts Tells Judge, We Can't Tie IP To MAC Addresses 419

Posted by kdawson from the we're-cooperatin'-here dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Protesting that Tufts University's DHCP-based systems 'were not designed to facilitate forensic examinations,' but rather to ensure 'smooth operations and to manage capacity issues,' the IT Office at Tufts University has responded to the subpoena in an RIAA case, Zomba v. Does 1-11, by submitting a report to the judge (PDF) explaining why it cannot cross-match IP addresses and MAC addresses, or identify users accurately. The IT office explained that the system identifies machines, not users; that some MAC addresses have multiple users; that only the Address Resolution Protocol system has even the potential to match IP addresses with MAC addresses, but that system could not do so accurately. For reasons which are unclear, the IT department then suggested that the RIAA next time send them 'notices to preserve information,' in response to which they would preserve, rather than overwrite, the DHCP data, for the RIAA's forensic benefit."
Linux Business

IBM Pushing Microsoft-Free Desktops 417

Posted by kdawson from the straight-for-the-jugular dept.
walterbyrd and other readers are sending along the news that IBM is partnering worldwide with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell, and Red Hat to offer Windows-free desktop PCs pre-loaded with Lotus software and ready for customizing by local ISVs for particular markets. The head of IBM's Lotus division is quoted: "The slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux." One example of the cooperation: "Canonical, which sells subscription support for Ubuntu, a Linux operating system that scores high marks on usability and 'the cool factor,' will re-distribute Lotus Symphony via their repositories. Symphony 1.1 will be available through the Ubuntu repositories by the end of August."
Privacy

FISA and Border Searches of Laptops 421

Posted by kdawson from the not-giving-up-my-keys-no-sir dept.
With the recent attention to the DHS's draconian policy on laptop searches at borders, a blog post by Steven Bellovin from last month is worth wider discussion. Bellovin extrapolates from the DHS border policy on physical electronic devices and asks why authorities wouldn't push to extend it to electronic data transfers. "...it would seem to make little difference if the information is 'imported' into the US via a physical laptop or via a VPN, or for that matter by a Web connection. The right to search a laptop for information, then, is equivalent to the right to tap any and all international connections, without a warrant or probable cause. (More precisely, one always has a constitutional protection against 'unreasonable' search and seizure; the issue is what the definition of 'unreasonable' is.)"
Mozilla

Mozilla SSL Policy Considered Bad For the Web 897

Posted by kdawson from the among-these-shall-be-life-liberty-and-acces-to-https dept.
Chandon Seldon writes "The issue of digital certificates for SSL and the policies surrounding them comes up repeatedly. I've written an article criticizing the behavior in Firefox 3, which includes a serious comparison of the current Mozilla policy — restricting encrypted HTTP to paying customers — to a violation of net neutrality."
Google

New Search Engine Cuil Takes Aim At Google 649

Posted by timothy from the shows-promise dept.
theodp writes "CNET reports that Cuil (pronounced 'Cool'), a startup founded by the husband-and-wife team of Xift creator Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson, is launching a new search engine today that claims to index three times as many Web pages as Google." Running a few searches left me underwhelmed with the content of the results (hitting the next-page button on a search with a listed 62,200,000 results — for "seattle" — got me the unexpected error message "We didn't find any results for 'seattle.'"), but pleased with the actual layout of the results when it worked, so I hope the kinks are worked out. Update 7/28 18:30 GMT by SM: corrected Tom Costello's accreditation, he wasn't a professor at Stanford as the linked story suggests, just did some research there as a grad student. Thanks to the Stanford CS department for pointing this out.

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