Suzumushi - Slashdot User

eBay Delisting All Auctions for Virtual Property 324

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 26, 2007 @04:39PM from the definition-of-what-is-real dept.

The growing popularity of Massively Multiplayer games has brought the issue of ownership rights in virtual worlds, and the appropriateness of what is called 'real money transfer' (RMT) into an increasingly public light. The success of the company IGE, as well as the launch of Sony Online Entertainment's 'Station Exchange' service would seem to indicate that RMT is now an acceptable part of Massive gaming. The well-known auction site eBay has recently made a policy decision that may throw these assumptions into a different light. Following up on a rumour that's been going around I spoke today with a media representative for the company, who confirmed that eBay is now delisting all auctions for 'virtual artifacts' from the site. This includes currency, items, and accounts/characters; not even the 'neopoints' used in the popular Neopets service is exempt from this decision. Read on below for the company's rationale for this decision, and a few words on the impact this could have on future RMT sales.

Submission + - New Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End Images

Submitted by on Friday January 26, 2007 @04:27PM

An anonymous reader writes: Brand new images from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), and Captain Sao Feng (Chow-Yun Fat) over at IESB.net. Click here to view!

Submission + - Dinosaur extinction - meteor not to blame?

Submitted by

The Fun Guy

on Friday January 26, 2007 @04:24PM

The Fun Guy writes: "Recent microfossil evidence casts fresh doubt as to whether an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Prof. Gerta Keller of Princeton University: "We now have evidence that the Chicxulub impact occurred about 300,000 years before the end of the Cretaceous and thus didn't cause the mass extinction and, in fact, didn't cause any species to go extinct." These findings were presented during the October 2006 meeting of the Geological Society of America."

Submission + - Daylight Savings time change in 2007

Submitted by goDzi7la on Friday January 26, 2007 @04:04PM

goDzi7la writes: In the United States & Canada the start and end of daylight savings times are being changed in 2007. Daylight savings time will now start on March 11, 2007 (rather than early April) and will end on November 4, 2007 (rather than late October). I've begun going through all my machines to apply the patches, but I want to make sure I don't miss anything. So besides OS patches or fixes, what other sofware needs updating? I've seen that some versions of Java SDK & JRE need to be updated. Whadda bout stuff like PHP? Perl? Oracle? MySQL? Anybody have a good list of what things need to be updated? What about the ramifications of not updating certain things?

Submission + - Is a CS degree any good for an old guy?

Submitted by mbuckingham on Friday January 26, 2007 @04:00PM

mbuckingham writes: I'm 39 and have been programming for 20 years. By "programming", I'm talking about the usual business applications type of stuff. Easy stuff really. I went to college for a while, but never got my degree. It bugs me that I've never completed my degree, but since I've always had decent jobs, it hasn't really mattered too much. I'm really bored with what I do every day though. Anyway, I'm thinking about going back, getting the degree, because I think it will make it possible to move towards doing some more advanced system-level type stuff. Does this make sense? Would a CS degree or a Computer Engineering degree be better? I know I don't want a MIS degree, because that would be rehashing everything I'm already bored with.

Submission + - USC Hacker Speaks Out; Readies for House Arrest

Submitted by

CSO Editor

on Friday January 26, 2007 @03:44PM

CSO Editor writes: "Responding to critics and the media, USC hacker Eric McCarty speaks out as he prepares for house arrest. Says McCarty: "It's by far the worst experience I've ever gone through. From the FBI guy kicking down my door and taking computers, to not being told until a year later they'd be prosecuting me." He insists that if he'd had the resources he would have fought back, but "You're around $50,000 just to get to trial. I didn't have that cash floating around." This is a follow up to the vulnerability disclosure package recently posted on CSOonline. And yes, it's being shamelessly self-promoted by someone who works for CSO."

Submission + - SOE Turns to Virtual Card Games

Submitted by

njkid1

on Friday January 26, 2007 @03:36PM

njkid1 writes: ""The revenue per user is incredible... We can build these games in five months with a team of nine people for a fraction of the cost of a PC game." http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1507 8&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000026"

Submission + - Complete windows XP lockdown? Can it be done?

Submitted by

stretch80

on Friday January 26, 2007 @02:19PM

stretch80 writes: "I am working on a project to make Windows XP systems 100% locked down. What I mean is that I wish to disable all communications methods in XP, dis-allow any external devices (ie: usb nics, wireless, etc.), no networking, no support for USB, serial and parallel devices, no Internet Explorer, MSN, etc... The computers should allow authorized users to install software off CD, but for all other users, they get to use whatever software the admin has made available. That is all. Has anyone been successful in this level of security??? Am I safe to assume that windows XP Pro is more suited for this than XP home? I look forward to your observations!"

Submission + - US housing crash continues

Submitted by

Patrick

on Friday January 26, 2007 @02:14PM

Patrick writes: "http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html has been steadily rising as a cult site for those interested in non-mainstream reporting on the ongoing crash in US housing. The associated blog, http://patrick.net/wp , is very active and often hilarious.

I'm the webmaster and would love to get slashdotted."

Submission + - The Costs of Vista's Content Protection Scheme

Submitted by gregorsamsa11 on Friday January 26, 2007 @12:55PM

gregorsamsa11 writes: Peter Guttmann has written a very nice analysis of the costs of Windows Vista's ultra-restrictive content protection scheme:

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

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