40758057
submission
KingSkippus writes:
At midnight Pacific on Saturday, December 1, NCsoft shut down the City of Heroes servers for the final time. Since announcing the closure, a group of players has been working hard to revive the game by getting attention from the gaming press, recognition from celebrities such as Sean Astin, Neil Gaiman, and Felicia Day, and assistance from fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. Meanwhile, NCsoft has been drawing negative publicity, including a scathing article about the shutdown from local news site The Korea Times noting that the game was earning $2.76 million per quarter and that "it is hard to comprehend what NCsoft means when they say they closed it for strategic reasons." NCsoft's stock price has fallen over 43% since the announcement in August, almost 30% below it's previous 52-week low, right when investors were counting on the success of the recently launched Guild Wars 2 to help boost the company.
21787014
submission
KingSkippus writes:
The superhero-themed MMORPG City of Heroes announced this morning that it is rebranding the game as City of Heroes Freedom ("freedom to pay and play as you choose"), and moving to a hybrid payment model including a free-to-play option. "VIP" players who still pay a monthly subscription will have most features of the game unlocked and will be given credit towards purchase towards others. City of Heroes Freedom is due to hit later this year with the next major game update.
21365062
submission
KingSkippus writes:
According to a story at CNN, Apple has begun enforcing third party promotion guidelines (PDF) that, among other things, restricts organizations from giving away iPads, using the word "free" to describe any Apple products in a prominent manner, or promoting giveaways of iPod Touches in lots of less than 250 and with Apple's explicit approval.
17567280
submission
KingSkippus writes:
Hulu is sending beta members an e-mail today announcing the official launch of Hulu Plus. Among the announcements is a price drop in the service, from $9.99 per month to $7.99. Beta members are being retroactively refunded $2 for each moth they were subscribed. Also announced is a referral program, which will split a free month of service between an existing subscriber and a new referred subscriber. The service, however, still does not include the whole catalog of shows, does includes ads, and is only be available on computers and select devices.
7376158
submission
KingSkippus writes:
Players of the City of Heroes superhero-themed MMORPG are collaborating to collect donations for three real world charities this holiday season in the Real World Hero donation drive that is running through the end of the year. The charitable drive caught the attention of the game developers and community reps, who are supporting the efforts through in-game perks, news posts on the official site, and forum posts. So far, the drive has collected over $2,500 for charities Child's Play, Donate Games, and Operation Gratitude.
267733
submission
KingSkippus writes:
The $100 bill is the most widely counterfeited denomination outside the U.S., and high-end equipment available to counterfeiters has made it easier than ever to do so. To buck this trend, the new $100 bill will be getting some high-end copy protection added, including 650,000 microlenses on each bill that cause an image to appear to move counter to the bill's rotation. The new presses will also be capable of printing currency in varying sizes, possibly in response to the ruling that indistinguishable denominations violates federal law, though there are no plans to do so yet.
176487
submission
KingSkippus writes:
Dell is now selling PCs with Ubuntu 7.04 preinstalled. Dell is offering hardware sales and support only, with fee-based software support options available from Canonical. Three systems (two desktops and one laptop) will be initially available, and according to the post, 'Initially we will offer a subset of the component options we support on the three systems. We will continue to work with vendors to improve the stability of the associated Linux drivers moving forward.'
