Comment Re:a psychological observation (Score 1) 178
In the real world, it's called dying. The game doesn't shut down, you do.
Comment Re:Portal = Hole (Score 1) 235
FTFA: "The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth."
I think that qualifies as "large and imposing".
I think that qualifies as "large and imposing".
Otherland MMO Announced 142
Eurogamer breaks news that German games publisher DTP Entertainment will be making an MMORPG based on Tad Williams' Otherland series of books. As anyone who has read the books will know, this could be an interesting new spin on virtual worlds. Quoting:
"For want of a better soundbite, let's call it the first cyberpunk MMO: a virtual world about virtual worlds, in which your avatar is an avatar, the NPCs play NPCs, and you explore a multiverse in which you might be in realistic historical surroundings one minute, and cartoon fantasy ones the next. Everything changes, even your own appearance, and nothing is even pretending to be real. ... You start the game as one of those consciousnesses in a place called the Land of the Lost, a nightmare scenario which you're trying to escape. You'll run, be killed, and reborn in a 'baby' state as a simple, low-rent sim (though we suspect the game won't be using that term, for obvious reasons) - a blank, featureless avatar that can be male, female or even neither."
Africa Leads In IPv6 Adoption 122
Ian Lamont writes "The recent news that China will run out of IPv4 addresses in a few years points to slow adoption of IPv6 in some developed countries. Now it turns out that the largest number of networks displaying new IPv6 address blocks are registered through AfriNIC, which services networks in Africa and the Indian Ocean. While AfriNIC has a smaller installed base than other regions, many countries in Africa are showing rapid growth in terms of online connectivity."
AIDS Virus Now Estimated To Be 100 Years Old 316
ChazeFroy writes "A new study estimates that the AIDS virus, HIV, started to circulate in the human population between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908. This is much earlier than the previously-held estimate of 1930. 'The new result is "not a monumental shift, but it means the virus was circulating under our radar even longer than we knew," says Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, an author of the new work.' The article also speculates that HIV first began to spread in Kinshasa, Congo."
GIMP 2.6 Released 639
Enselic writes "The GIMP developers are proud to announce the release of GIMP 2.6. The release notes start with: 'GIMP 2.6 is an important release from a development point of view. It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.' The notes go on to say the toolbox menubar has been removed, the toolbox and docks now are utility windows, it's now possible to pan beyond the image border, the freehand select tool has been enhanced to support polygonal selections, and much more."
