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Saboteur Launch Plagued By Problems With ATI Cards 230

Posted by Soulskill from the more-or-less-finished dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So far, there are over 35 pages of people posting about why EA released Pandemic Studios' final game, Saboteur, to first the EU on December 4th and then, after knowing full well it did not work properly, to the Americas on December 8th. They have been promising to work on a patch that is apparently now in the QA stage of testing. It is not a small bug; rather, if you have an ATI video card and either Windows 7 or Windows Vista, the majority (90%) of users have the game crash after the title screen. Since the marketshare for ATI is nearly equal to that of Nvidia, and the ATI logo is adorning the front page of the Saboteur website, it seems like quite a large mistake to release the game in its current state."

The Mathletes and the Miley Photoshop 555

Posted by CmdrTaco from the look-what-i-can-do dept.
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton's essay this week is about "A Tennessee man is arrested for possessing a picture of Miley Cyrus's face superimposed on a nude woman's body. In a survey that I posted on the Web, a majority of respondents said the man violated the law -- except for respondents who say they were good at math in school, who as a group answered the survey differently from everyone else." Continue on to see how.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Bikers Lawyer-Up: with a twist (domainnamewire.com)

Submitted by
bbsguru
bbsguru writes: "Art imitates life, but sometimes the opposite is true. Back in the day, Motorcycle gangs were populated with outside-the-law thugs who dealt harshly with interlopers. Well, that was the story, anyway. Then, as shown in a scene from the classic 1991 Hulk Hogan movie (Suburban Commando), the Bikers decided Lawyers might be better than brass knuckles. The technology tie-in? Yesterday in our courts, the Hell's Angels filed suit against an alleged cybersquatter for registering such things as "www.ha-mc.com" and selling them on e-bay. The lawsuit has made international news, and is sure to cement the reputation of these rough-tough road warriors as Not To Be (cyber)Trifled With!"
Microsoft

Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535

Posted by kdawson from the world-class-shopping-experience dept.
chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"

Comment Re:A few things come to mind (Score 1) 252

by bbsguru (#26520371) Attached to: Tech-Related Volunteer Gigs
OK, Bizarre!

Two weeks ago, one of my Tech Support specialists quit a good government position(read "secure and well paid") after only 11 months. The reason? A elderly woman she had taught computers to around 6 years ago died, leaving her a 7 figure beque$t. They had stayed in touch, but not that close. It seems she was VERY grateful for learning how to do email to her great-grandkids in Asia.

Seriously, where can I get some actuarials?
Announcements

Submission + - Solar Power Storage - Without Batteries? 3

Submitted by bbsguru
bbsguru writes: The big advantage of coal or hydroelectric power compared to Wind and Solar (other than typical low cost) has always been the ability to generate power on demand. Now there's news that SolarReserve, a new venture of two US Technology companies, is planning to commercialize a way to stockpile solar energy for release on demand.
From the Article: The "concentrated solar power tower" technology harnesses the sun's energy and stores it using molten salt. The energy is released when a utility requires it. The product is designed to produce up to 500 megawatts of power per year under peak conditions. Lee Bailey, managing director of US Renewables, compared the technology to hydroelectric power plants, but said it has more benefits. "This product is more predictable than water reserves, the supply is free and inexhaustible, and the environmental impact is essentially zero," Bailey said in a statement.
Liquid Sodium solar power? How cool is that!?
The Media

Submission + - Wall Street Journal Going Free

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Rupert Murdoch announced today that he intends to make access to the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue. Murdoch's News Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Company and the deal is expected to close by the end of the year. The WSJ web site, one of the few news sites to successfully introduce a subscription model, currently has around one million subscribers and generates about $50 million annually in user fees. Murdoch made his decision as paid circulation at major newspapers in the United States continued to decline this year with readership at 609 papers that filed on Sunday falling 3.5% to 46,771,486. With their business model under extreme pressure, publishers have been whittling back on circulation considered to be less useful by advertisers and increasing their internet presence because ad revenue has been increasing. Online advertising now accounts for an average 5.5% of newspapers' total ad revenue and online profits margins have been skyrocketing worldwide with revenue projected to hit 10% of newspapers' total ad revenue by 2008-2009."
Wii

Submission + - Wii Guitar Hero III outputs only mono sound

Submitted by butterflysrage
butterflysrage writes: Joystiq is reporting that the Wii version of GH3 does not support Dolby Pro Logic II as claimed, in fact, it does not support stereo at all.

from the article:
"If it weren't bad enough that Activision shipped out Guitar Hero III with no offline co-op quickplay mode, a few careful listeners have noticed another thing they left out — a few channels of sound."

Activision has not released any timeline on a fix
Biotech

Submission + - SPAM: Microbes churn out hydrogen at record rate 1

Submitted by
FiReaNGeL
FiReaNGeL writes: "By adding a few modifications to their successful wastewater fuel cell, researchers have coaxed common bacteria to produce hydrogen in a new, efficient way. Using starter material that could theoretically be sourced from a salad bar, the researchers have coaxed microbes to generate hydrogen. "We achieved the highest hydrogen yields ever obtained with this approach from different sources of organic matter, such as yields of 91 percent using vinegar (acetic acid) and 68 percent using cellulose"."
Link to Original Source
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - SCO found guilty of lying about Unix code in Linux (linux-watch.com)

Submitted by
mlauzon
mlauzon writes: "In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, several court cases have found SCO Group GmbH, SCO's Germany branch, guilty of lying about Linux containing stolen Unix code.

In the first case, reported on by Heise Online, the pro-Linux German companies, Tarent GmbH and Univention found that SCO was once more making claims that Linux contained Unix IP (intellectual property). Specifically, SCO GmbH made the familiar claims that "As we have progressed in our discovery related to this action, SCO has found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP)." This was followed by the usual threat "If a customer refuses to compensate SCO for its UNIX intellectual property found in Linux by purchasing a license, then SCO may consider litigation."

The German Linux companies had already successfully protested against these statements in 2003. Then they were granted an injunction against SCO from making its claims that Linux contains illegally obtained SCO IP, a.k.a. Unix source code. If SCO violated this injunction, SCO would have to pay a fine of 250,000 Euros.

Since Tarent and Univention brought the matter to the attention of the courts, SCO has taken down the offending page with its claims.

Of course, in the U.S. court system, it has already been ruled that SCO has no Unix IP. Novell, not SCO, owns Unix.

Tarent's managing director told Heise Online that he found "It disconcerting, though not surprising, to see SCO trying to do towards the end what it is really being paid for by its supporters: spreading falsities as disparaging as possible about Linux." Unlike 2003, where Linux companies had to nip things in the bud, exercising vigilance is due now where things are coming to an end: "Even though SCO has reached the end of the line in our opinion, one should not let them get away with this."

In a similar case, Andreas Kuckartz, a German Linux advocate, had been publicly stating since 2003 that "SCO IP Licenses for Linux" amounted to little more than "protection money pricelists" and that SCO is "spreading rumors about copyright violations in Linux." Further, Kuckartz claimed that "The SCO Group Inc. is probably is involved in crimes such as stock manipulation and filing a fraudulent complaint against IBM."

SCO took him to court over these claims and SCO has lost (German PDF document). The Higher Regional Court in Munich ruled, Kuckartz said in e-mails to Linux-Watch, "that my statements are allowed because none of the factual statements I made to support those accusations are false. I can now even go to a business partner of The SCO Group GmbH and tell him or her that SCO is probably involved in the named crimes."

Kuckartz claim that he believes is the most important one is that in the four years the case has dragged out, SCO never objected "to my statement that SCO has not presented any proof of copyright violations in the lawsuit SCO vs. IBM."

In the United States, however, SCO, even now, continues to drag out its unsubstantiated claims that IBM has stolen SCO's Unix IP. In the SCO bankruptcy hearing, SCO attorney Arthur Spector once more claims, "Our litigation is a tremendous asset" and "Our litigation with IBM could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars.""
Biotech

Submission + - Mutant Algae to Fuel Cars of Tomorrow?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Algae has long been known as a promising source of biodiesel, however algae also produce a small amount of hydrogen during photosynthesis. The MIT Technology Review reports that now researchers have created a mutant algae that makes better use of sunlight to increase the amount of hydrogen that the algae produce. In a commercial bioreactor, the top layers of algae absorb most of the sunlight but can only use a fraction of it. Anastasios Melis and his team at the University of California have manipulated the genes that control the amount of chlorophyll in the algae's chloroplasts reducing the chlorophyll so that the algae absorb less sunlight. This lets more light penetrate into the deeper algae layers so that more cells use the sunlight to make hydrogen. Although the process is still at least five years from being used for hydrogen generation, Melis estimates that if 50% of capacity of the photosynthesis of the algae could be directed toward hydrogen production, an acre could produce 40 kilograms of hydrogen per day bringing the cost of producing hydrogen to $2.80 a kilogram. At this price, hydrogen could compete with gasoline, since a kilogram of hydrogen is equivalent in energy to a gallon of gasoline."
Security

Submission + - Monster.com admits to previous identity attacks (itbusiness.ca)

Submitted by
Raver32
Raver32 writes: "The theft of personal information from some 1.3 million users of the Monster.com job search service first revealed two weeks ago was not a one-time attack, the company's CEO said Wednesday. "The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster's database has been the target of criminal activity," Sal Iannuzzi, the chairman and CEO of Monster Worldwide Inc., said in a statement. In an interview with Reuters, Iannuzzi also acknowledged that the most recent breach may have been substantially larger than the 1.3 million users the company said earlier had been affected. "It could easily be in the millions," Iannuzzi told Reuters. He did not spell out when other attacks had taken place or even how many might have breached the company's security."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Science Fiction Writers write DMCA Takedowns (boingboing.net)

Submitted by
TheGreatGraySkwid
TheGreatGraySkwid writes: "With an ironic lack of forward thinking, the Science Fiction Writers of America (or, more specifically, their Vice President Andrew Burt) have issued scattershot DMCA takedown notices against numerous items on the document-sharing site Scribd, many of which were not infringing on SFWA copyrights in any way. It appears that a simple keyword search for prominent science fiction names (like "Asimov" and "Silverburg") was used to determine which documents were to be singled out. Included in the documents was Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," which is freely available at any number of places. Doctorow is up in arms over at BoingBoing, with several other Science Fiction notables speaking up in the comments."

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