Nate writes to mention the news that Jack Thompson has issued a cease and desist for the new Mortal Kombat:Armageddon title. Says Mr. Thompson: "It has today come to my attention that the newly recently Mortal Kombat: Armageddon contains an unauthorized commercial exploitation of my name, photograph, image, and likeness within the game." Thompson's likeness has appeared on websites in the game over the last few days as a result of his construction in the 'build-a-fighter' mode. His image is not actually a selectable character in the game, a fact he's chosen to skirt in his demands to Midway. If that's not enough Jack Thompson news for today, Game|Life has the video and commentary on Thompson's dressing down by the judge in the Bully case. Video courtesy of the Destructoid site.

frank_tudor asks: "I am graduate student and work as a web developer. I am also getting a divorce and I have a son caught in the middle. I believe my profession had a part in it. For my graduate thesis I am writing a paper about Dads who work in the computer industry, divorce and custody. I think our industry causes a high rate of divorce but I need some help from the Slashdot community. My questions are: How many of you computer Dads have also gone through divorce and have retained either half or full custody of your children? Do you think your job had something to do with it? What were some of your hardest challenges and are your kids happy?"

HaeMaker writes to tell us that Ray Noorda passed away today at the age of 82. Noorda was best known for his leadership role at the helm of Novell Inc. Known to some as the "father of network computing" Noorda took the then small Novell from around 17 employees to well over 12,000.

BlueCup writes "The question of how a dodder finds a host plant has puzzled researchers. Many thought it simply grew in a random direction, with discovery of a plant to attack being a chance encounter. But the researchers led by Consuelo M. De Moraes found that if they placed tomato plants near a germinating dodder, the parasite headed for the tomato 80 percent of the time. And when they put scent chemicals from a tomato on rubber, 73 percent of the dodder seedlings headed that way. Turns out, it sniffs out it's prey."

anthemaniac writes "LiveScience is reporting out of NextFest on a Japanese-built power suit that amplifies the strength of its wearer. The onboard computer is hooked up to sensors that monitor natural movements, then it inflates cuffs to boost lifting power. The Power Assist Suit could be used by hospital workers to move heavy patients, the researchers say."

CaVi writes "Following a judicial action (link in French) by the 'French-speaking Belgian Association of the press,' Google.be has removed all the French-speaking press sites from its index, as can be seen by doing a search. The court order to Google is posted at Chilling Effects. In summary, the editors want a cut of the profit that Google News makes using their information. No such deal exists for the moment. Google has been ordered to remove all references, or pay one million Euros per day if it doesn't comply. Net effect: they removed all link to the sites, from Google News, but also from Google's search. Will Google become irrelevant in Belgian, and be replaced by MSN? Or will the newspapers, which gain from commercials, and thus net traffic, change their position when they'll see the drop in traffic that it is causing?" There's also a link to a Dutch news article on the subject; one of the key issues was evidently that some of what Google was carrying was no longer available on the newspaper's website itself, so rather then linking to the newspaper, Google was displaying it on their own.

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times and C|Net are reporting on new good will gestures from big cable companies. As service monopolies increasingly became the norm, quality of service began to decline across the board. Now, though, with a number of alternatives cropping up, cable companies are beginning to realize the need to ensure customers say with the often imposing service companies." From the article: "[As] service has improved slowly as satellite providers, upstart phone carriers and cell phone companies have provided attractive alternatives. And now that cable and phone companies are starting to sell similar bundles of phone, broadband Internet and television products--known in the industry as a triple play--they risk losing subscribers forever if they do not keep them happy."

prostoalex writes "Talk to any student about the price of the college textbooks, and you're likely to hear similar complaints about the cost of the textbooks, the rip-off buyout prices at local college bookstores and insidious publishers who keep changing editions every few years just to change the page numbers and kill off the used books market. Freeload Press, says the New York Times, will distribute ad-supported electronic textbooks to students of 38 universities. However, it seems that neither professors neither New York Times are impressed with the quality of titles so far: 'The reading difficulty is created by Freeload's use of PDF images, which retain the printed page's layout without reformatting. Navigating around a single superwide, supertall page requires lots of clicking and zooming and patience. The company will soon use improved software that can automatically adjust the text so it is more legible, said Tom Duran, a founder of Freeload Press and its chief executive.'"

simoniker writes "Frank Lantz, who used to work at game developer Gamelab and helped create Pac Manhattan, the real-life version of Pac-Man set in the streets of New York, has been talking in detail about his new company, area/code, which has been set up to create 'large-scale, real-world games'. Lantz comments: 'I've also always felt that digital games were more properly understood as a subset of games, rather than as a subset of computer media. In other words, for me Counter-Strike has more in common with tennis and golf than people tend to think. Ditto for World of Warcraft and Chess.' Is the next wave of innovation in gaming going to occur nowhere near the video game screen?"

bokelley writes "TechCrunch has an article today about a new product called RMX Direct that holds a real-time auction for every ad on a site. Networks and advertisers bid based on the quality of the user (geography, site, time of day, etc). This could be game-changing for sites and blogs; if networks have to compete, will we see AdSense disclose more about its payouts to publishers? Will other networks like Advertising.com and ValueClick participate, or will they continue to force publishers to make hard choices? In a lot of ways, this has similarities to the challenges that Linux faces in a Windows world. The open source community has been fighting for more than a decade to make the progress it has, and we're not there yet — will online media be different?"

ajdlinux writes "On 8th August 2006, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will be conducting the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. The big difference this year is that you will now be able to fill out your census online. The technology, developed by IBM, cost AU$9 million and is designed to be accessible to screen readers, and, unlike similar efforts in Canada, does not require any special software. However, there is concern that the 2011 eCensus could be integrated with the proposed Human Services Access Card. Will this turn the Census from an anonymous snapshot into one connected with name-identified information?"