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Wii

Are Games Getting Easier? 854

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kids-these-days dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I can't help feeling that this generation of games for both consoles and PCs are getting increasingly dumbed down and easier to complete. There's no challenge in today's games, most of which can be completed on the day of purchase. Triple A titles such as Halo, Modern Warfare 2 are the worst of the lot. The whole reason for this article is Medal of Honor, this can be completed within hours of purchase. Where's the fun in that?"

Comment Re:easily defeated, only if you disable the vector (Score 3, Insightful) 116

by Lord_Frederick (#33478408) Attached to: DoD Takes Criticism From Security Experts On Cyberwar Incident

DoD is very big, and there are hundreds of thousands of DoD computers that don't follow the simplest security best practices. Just because the NSA publishes a document on how a Windows box should be configured, doesn't mean it gets configured that way in the field. Military IT is just like social issues; The only area not being neglected and starved of resources is the last area to have a major shitstorm.

Comment Another short-lived gimmick (Score 1) 594

by Lord_Frederick (#33478344) Attached to: The Joke Known As 3D TV

This latest crop of 2D-to-3D technology is best used in 5-minute amusement park rides, where all the other 3D tech belongs. At best, it provides a few cool moments during the action scenes. At worst, you have a headache after too many blurry shapes try to trick your brain into seeing depth that isn't there and have to stop watching.
Censorship

FCC Fights To Maintain Indecency Policy 602

Posted by Soulskill from the sweet-zombie-carlin dept.
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC filed Thursday to appeal a recent court decision that struck down its policy of fining broadcasters for profanity or nudity shown on live television. The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."

Submission + - Patent case ruling against Microsoft overturned (theage.com.au)

Submitted by
some_guy_88
some_guy_88 writes: "The $338 million verdict against Microsoft disucssed here previously for violating a patent held by Uniloc has been overturned. Ric Richardson, who divides his time between NSW, Australia and California, is the founder of Uniloc, which sued Microsoft in 2003 for violating its patent relating to technology designed to deter software piracy."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - The Twilight Zone Turns Fifty

Submitted by
pickens
pickens writes: "On a Friday night on October 2, 1959, Americans began moving "into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone." Like the time-space warps that anchored so many of the show's plots, Rod Serling's veiled commentary remains as soul-baring today as it did a half-century ago, and the show's popularity endures in multiple facets of American pop culture appearing nearly uninterrupted through television, syndication and DVD releases and under license to air in 30 countries. "The whole idea of 'The Twilight Zone' jumped off the television screen and became a catchphrase, a buzzword for something much beyond the TV show itself," says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "When you say Twilight Zone, it's its own genre." The original show ran just five seasons, 1959 to 1964 with 156 episodes filmed for the original series; Serling wrote 92 of them and other contributors included Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury. Anniversary observances are planned at Ithaca College in New York, where Serling taught from 1967 until his death in 1975, and which keeps Serling's archives; and at Antioch College in Ohio, where Serling was a student, met his wife, Carol and later taught. "I don't think he would have thought in a million years that Twilight Zone would be having an important 50th birthday or that it would still be on," says Carol Serling, widow of the show's creator. "Through parable and suggestion, he could make points that he couldn't make on straight television because there were too many sacred cows and sponsors and people who said you couldn't do that.""
Privacy

Submission + - Police Can't Place GPS on Autos without Warrant

Submitted by
pickens
pickens writes: "EFF reports that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has held in Commonwealth v. Connolly that police may not place GPS tracking devices on cars without first getting a warrant reasoning that the installation of the GPS device was a seizure of the suspect's vehicle. Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime. According to the decision "when an electronic surveillance device is installed in a motor vehicle, be it a beeper, radio transmitter, or GPS device, the government's control and use of the defendant's vehicle to track its movements interferes with the defendant's interest in the vehicle notwithstanding that he maintains possession of it." Although the case only protects drivers in Massachusetts, another recent state court case, People v. Weaver in the State of New York, also held that because modern GPS devices are far more powerful than beepers, police must get a warrant to use the trackers, even on cars and people traveling the public roads. "Massachusetts and New York are in the forefront of protecting their citizens' right to location privacy against technological encroachment," writes Jennifer Granick, Civil Liberties Director at the EFF. "Federal courts should do the same under the Fourth Amendment. For the Constitution to have continued relevance in a technological world, it should protect the privacy that individuals reasonably anticipate as we move through the world, and that means no pervasive, remote, suspicionless, wholesale tracking by GPS or other device.""
Movies

Submission + - Mickey Mouse Buys Spider-Man (usatoday.com)

Submitted by Anonymusing
Anonymusing writes: Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Marvel shares jumped at the news, while Disney shares dropped. Said Disney CEO Robert Iger, this will combine Marvel's "strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters" with Disney's "unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties". Iron Man was too busy beating up Goofy to comment.
Media

Submission + - Disney Buys Marvel

Submitted by whisper_jeff
whisper_jeff writes: Disney has announced they will be purchasing Marvel.

"Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company /quotes/comstock/13*!dis/quotes/nls/dis (DIS 26.52, -0.32, -1.19%) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today."
Operating Systems

Submission + - OS deathmatch: Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by BeckySharp
BeckySharp writes: With the nearly simultaneous release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (available right now) and Microsoft's Windows 7 (available Oct. 22), you get the inevitable debate: Which is the better operating system, Windows 7 or Snow Leopard? To help determine that, Computerworld's Preston Gralla put both operating systems through their paces, selected categories for a head-to-head competition, and then chose a winner in each category.
Space

Submission + - India eyeing for Mars by 2013-2015 (indiatimes.com)

Submitted by
freakxx
freakxx writes: "After the (partial?!) success of Chandrayaan-1, and the Chandrayaan-2 mission by 2012, ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair announced today that India is looking forward to take its next space mission to Mars, somewhere between 2013-2015. He said that the mission is now at a conceptual stage and will be taken up after the Chandrayaan-2. If the Mars becomes a success, this will be a giant step for the India to step into the outer space as well as to establish itself as one of the very few space-superpowers. It will further enable the country to attract a bigger chunk of the billions of $$$ of international satellite launch market. Ultimately, this may turn out to be beneficial for the whole country in a long term, both in terms of prestige and technology."
Businesses

Submission + - Convincing your company to go Open Source 1

Submitted by
Cycon
Cycon writes: "No doubt asked previously, but what are today's most compelling arguments (pro or con) for a small company to release its software under an Open Source license, in particular the GPL? Current and future fund raising may be jeopardized or at least complicated. There may be fears competitors will more easily absorb your unique features, or a larger entity will leverage your work and push you aside. On the positive side is ethical merit — which beyond as its own end may offer community benefits such as code contributions, constructive testing and feedback, and perhaps some good press. Lawyers may be required for the finer points, but what should any realistic business consider?"

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