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Games

Survival-Horror Genre Going Extinct? 166

Destructoid is running an opinion piece looking at the state of the survival-horror genre in games, suggesting that the way it has developed over the past several years has been detrimental to its own future. "During the nineties, horror games were all the rage, with Resident Evil and Silent Hill using the negative aspects of other games to an advantage. While fixed camera angles, dodgy controls and clunky combat were seen as problematic in most games, the traditional survival horror took them as a positive boon. A seemingly less demanding public ate up these games with a big spoon, overlooking glaring faults in favor of videogames that could be genuinely terrifying." The Guardian's Games Blog has posted a response downplaying the decline of the genre, looking forward to Ubisoft's upcoming I Am Alive and wondering if independent game developers will pick up where major publishers have left off.
It's funny.  Laugh.

Journal Journal: Great Minds (Not!) Think Alike 1

From today's Best of the Web, in the sounding-like-our-enemies department:

"You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."--John Kerry, Oct. 30

Power

Submission + - The Auto Efficiency Wedge

Prof. Goose writes: "In this piece, I wanted to take up a more precise consideration of how much auto efficiency improvements might contribute to solving what I called the terrible trio of energy dependence on unstable regimes, global warming, and the peaking or plateauing of liquid fuel supply. My examples are all US, but I think the lessons mostly carry over (if a little less urgently) to other developed countries.

I'll be reasoning mainly by looking at what we did in the 1970s, which was the last time we faced severe energy constraints that bled through into requiring a demand side response.

To begin with, let's refresh our memories about the history of oil prices, which tells the story of the oil shocks quite well.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/12/17/1377/01 32"
Privacy

Submission + - UK government cancels central Identity Database

meringuoid writes: After a good deal of controversy, it seems the British government have decided to abandon their plans to centralise all information on citizens in a single central database. Instead, when they do bring in their planned identity card system, they'll use existing databases. This will apparently mean losing out on some of the advantages the Government claimed for the new system, but it will save them a great deal of money...
Businesses

Submission + - Hackers Focus on Small Business

PreacherTom writes: A study, just released by the Small Business Technology Institute of San Jose and software giant Symantec, shows that hackers are increasingly turning their sights onto small business. According to their results, approximately 70% of small businesses consider information security a high priority, and more than 80% have confidence in their existing protective measures. But 56% of small businesses experienced one or more security incidents in the past 12 months before completing the survey, and many still weren't taking the appropriate steps to prevent them in the future. Almost one-fifth of the small businesses surveyed didn't use virus scanning for e-mail, and more than 60% didn't protect their wireless networks with even the simplest encryption.
Businesses

Submission + - India's Outsourcing Problems

PreacherTom writes: One of the most controversial aspects of the global economy has been the newfound freedom of companies from physical location and the subsequent spread of outsourcing jobs. No country had embraced tech outsourcing with the passion of India. Of late, problems there are beginning to rise: engineers start a project, get a few months' experience, and then bolt for greener pastures, bringing a level of attrition that replaces entire staffs within the course of a year. Combine that with salaries in Bangalore that are rising at 12% to 14% per year and it is no surprise that companies are leaving India for a slew of emerging hot spots for IT, such as Chile, China, and Vietnam. Will Ho Chi Minh City be the new Bangalore?

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