jayintune points out an interview with Joel DeYoung of HotHead Games, the studio that developed the Penny Arcade video game. He describes some of the new additions coming in the sequel, how old characters and zones will be handled, and plans for the game's release. Additional details are available from DeYoung's comments during PAX, and Joystiq has some screenshots. "Maxing out your stats at the end of Episode One means that your party can be as high as Level 15 if you import your save game and character. Your character's look and all of your items are available to you as well, and if you want to improve upon your looks, you can always browse through the new customization options at the start of the game. About the only thing that won't carry forward is your weapons — we've automatically upgraded Tycho's tommy gun to a shotgun, Gabe's fists now have brass knuckles and your character has traded in your rake for a hoe. We're sticking with the garden tool theme!"

cshamis writes "T-Mobile has recently changed their policies and now tell their customers with appropriate data plans and with Java-Micro-App-capable T-Mobile phones: no third-party network applications. You can, of course, still use their incredibly clunky and crippled built-in WAP browsers, but GoogleMaps and OperaMini are left high and dry. Would anyone care to speculate if this move is likely to retain or repel customers?"

An anonymous reader writes to mention that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Lockheed Martin recently reported success in the test flight of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system. "THAAD is designed to defend U.S. troops, allied forces, population centers and critical infrastructure against short- to intermediate range ballistic missiles. THAAD comprises a fire control and communications system, interceptors, launchers and a radar. The THAAD interceptor uses hit-to-kill technology to destroy targets, and is the only weapon system that engages threat ballistic missiles at both endo- and exo-atmospheric altitudes."

F34nor writes to mention a CBS news article about the depopulation of ocean species. According to a study by a scientist in Halifax, Nova Scotia and assisted by research from all around the world, the world's oceans will be emptied of large lifeforms by 2048. From the article: "Already, 29% of edible fish and seafood species have declined by 90% — a drop that means the collapse of these fisheries. But the issue isn't just having seafood on our plates. Ocean species filter toxins from the water. They protect shorelines. And they reduce the risks of algae blooms such as the red tide. 'A large and increasing proportion of our population lives close to the coast; thus the loss of services such as flood control and waste detoxification can have disastrous consequences,' Worm and colleagues say."

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo Mail recently launched their new webmail service, dubbed Beta (yes just like gmail) no doubt hoping to win back market share in the world of webmail. Their prime competition is gmail, which they've modeled some of the new features on, but Yahoo Mail Beta falls very short of offering a similar experience. The ad infested new Yahoo Mail is patchwork of ideas halfway implemented and glaring usability problems."

gerald626 writes "IBM announced today that they have formed an agreement to purchase ISS for 1.3 billion dollars." From the article: " The all-cash transaction of about $28 per share is meant to bolster IBM's ability to deliver security services to corporations, the company said. ISS builds network protection products and services, including intrusion detection and monitoring tools. IBM said it intends to use ISS's expertise and software to provide more robust security-related services to its corporate customers."

wayne writes "As reported on CircleID, the nation of Cameroon, which controls the .cm top level domain, has typo-squatted all of the .com domain space. They have placed a wildcard DNS record to redirect all traffic to an ad-based search page. Unlike the earlier case of Verisign putting a wildcard in the real .com domain, ICANN has very little direct control over what a nation can do with their own TLD. Will the owners of .co and .om follow?"

greenechidna writes "The Register is reporting that the U.S. is relinquishing control of ICANN. The story states: 'In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet. Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organization ICANN, making the organization a more international body.'"

siddesu writes "BBC has the following breaking story: File-sharing site Kazaa will become a legal music download service following a series of high-profile legal battles. The peer-to-peer network has also agreed to pay $100m (£53m) in damages to the record industry. The announcement follows the release of a music industry report that says more than 20 billion music tracks have been downloaded illegally in the last year. Hungry artists across the globe rejoice."

mikemuch writes "The browser wars have heated up again, with Microsoft putting Beta 3 of Internet Explorer 7 out for all to download (not just developers anymore), Firefox coming out with the first beta of its version 2, and Opera releasing version 9. ExtremeTech has a shoot-out of the three browsers, with feature comparisons and tests of resource usage, startup time, and Acid2 standards compliance. Standout features are Opera's built-in BitTorrent support, Firefox's spellchecker for forms, and IE's Quick Tabs view. Firefox is still ahead in extensions, while Opera has some slick UI conveniences."

Readers left more than 800 comments on yesterday's report (based on the say-so of a Windows tech-support provider) that Microsoft may be turning off copies of Windows without WGA installed, as of this fall. (WGA is Microsoft's "Windows Genuine Advantage," a program using software of the same name installed on Windows users' computers intended to verify that the OS is correctly licensed.) Many suggested reasons that this sounds like no more than a rumor, while others took the opportunity to critique WGA as it currently operates on Windows machines, or to describe what they see as opportunities for the users and makers of operating systems other than Windows if (or perhaps when) Microsoft actually does shut down copies of Windows which it suspects are being used out of license. Read on for the Backslash summary to see some of the comments which defined the conversation. Update: 06/30 21:28 GMT by T : A cut-and-paste mishap gave the word "people" one too many Ps; now corrected.