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Submission + - DOJ's Lawsuit Against Realtors Moves Ahead

Submitted by narramissic on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @04:07PM

narramissic writes: A judge has rejected a motion by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to dismiss an anti-trust lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice that accuses the NAR of hindering Web-based real estate agents by allowing traditional agents to block Web-based agents from posting listings on their sites. In its motion to dismiss the DOJ lawsuit, NAR said it has since changed its Web-listing policy, but the modified policy still prohibits any broker participating in a multiple listing service (MLS) from sharing the listings online without the permission of the listing broker.

Third Place Is Fine By Nintendo 368

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @04:06PM from the as-long-as-they're-in-the-top-three dept.

anaesthetica writes "The New Yorker writes that Nintendo is fine with third place. Between Sony and Microsoft both trying to build the most comprehensively next-generation console, and barely breaking even in their efforts [Zonk: Though that's changing for Microsoft], Nintendo has decided to go a different route. Wii doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it focuses on simple fun playing games — a strategy which turns out to be much better for Nintendo's bottom line and stock prices. From the article: 'A recent survey of the evidence on market share... found that companies that adopt what they call "competitor-oriented objectives" actually end up hurting their own profitability. In other words, the more a company focuses on beating its competitors, rather than on the bottom line, the worse it is likely to do.'"

Submission + - WoW Disabled-Friendly

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @04:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: There's a nice post in the World of Warcraft forums about how the game is particularly accessible to disabled persons (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?top icId=48757988&sid=1). With all the negative/sensationalistic reporting about video games these days, it's nice to be able to read a story about how games can also have a positive impact on people's lives.

Submission + - Zune Sales not so bad after all

Submitted by pyrbrand on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @04:00PM

pyrbrand writes: Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific, CNN has a story to the contrary. Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales. Not a bad start for the challenger to the iPod throne. As others have pointed out the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/29/technology/persona ltech/zune/index.htm

Submission + - Ancient "Computer" Surprises Scientists

Submitted by haddieman on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @03:57PM

haddieman writes: The New York Times reported that a highly complex mechanical device[nytimes.com], dating from 150-100 B.C., was discovered off the coast of Greece more than a century ago. Historians of science have concluded that this device was used to calculate and illustrate astronomical information such as the phases of the moon etc.

From the article:

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world's first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, 'an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.'

Submission + - Hundreds of MSDN members "Locked Out" of V

Submitted by Microsoft Mushroom on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @03:52PM

Microsoft Mushroom writes: Although Microsoft is touting "Windows Vista is Here!" on its MSDN home page — its site for developers who pay sometimes thousands of dollars a year to have online access to Microsoft software and tools — the subscriber site has been broken for nearly two weeks. Hundreds of MSDN subscribers who attempt to log into the site are told their subscriptions are "expired." Not only does this prevent them from obtaining Windows Vista but they cannot access their activation keys or any of the software downloads associated with their membership. Despite an outcry on Microsoft's "managed newsgroup" for MSDN, no one from the company has made a statement about what is wrong or when it will be fixed. And customer support reps are putting those calling about the issue through a Kafka-esque maze of inconsistent messages and forwards to one different support group after another. http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx? dg=microsoft.public.msdn.general&lang=en&cr=US

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