Bret540 writes "A Reuters news story reports that German lawmakers are considering a crackdown on 'violent computer and simulated war games' because a youth decided to attack other students at his school. The young man was apparently already under police consideration for weapons-related violations, and was described as 'someone with no friends.'" From the article: "Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said it was time to consider banning games that simulate wanton killing. 'We need effective guidelines to protect children from exposure to different types of media, but we don't need (simulated) killer games that can lead to brutalisation,' Bosbach was quoted on the Netzeitung news Web site as saying." InfoWorld has more details on the event as well.

Kurtis writes, "If you're planning on getting a digital camera for yourself this holiday season, here's 10 reasons why you should choose a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera instead of a point-'n'-shoot. DSLR cameras are obviously not perfect for everyone. This article also has a couple of small blurbs about who shouldn't buy a DSLR, and a few things that could be deemed negative aspects of DSLR cameras."

Gamasutra reports on the three versions of Halo 3 you can now preorder from Gamestop and EB. Aside from the 'normal' edition ($5), you can also spring for the collector's edition ($10) with videos and such. For a down-payment of $25, you can pre-order the 'Legendary' edition. From the article: "The Legendary Edition will come on four discs and will include all the content of the Collector's Edition plus unspecified extras and a Master Chief helmet replica. The release date for all three versions of the game is listed as November 1st, 2007 - although no official announcement on a date has been made by Microsoft and the date is likely a placeholder by the stores."

Clodas writes, "smcFanControl 1.1 is a simple GUI that lets you control how fast each fan spins on your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or Mac Mini. The temperature of my MBP when idle averaged around 63 degrees celsius. After running smcFanControl 1.1, my temperature dropped to 43 celsius within 10 minutes of use. This now allows me to sit my MBP on my lap, something I was unable to do previously since the machine got so hot. I have my fans set to spin at a minimum of 3000 RPM and I still don't hear the fans spinning. Apple by default has them set to 1000 RPM. I really recommend smcFanControl 1.1 for any that feel their MB, MBP, or Mini are too hot to handle."

Dan writes to mention a post at the Aeropause site. Author Richard was recently given the rare opportunity to interview a cheater, shining a light into the dark recesses of a conflicted mind. The article explores why the cheater cheats, and the great excuses they use to be able to look themselves in the mirror. From the article: "Aeropause: What made you decide to mod your Xbox to gain an unfair advantage in games like Halo 2? Schmuck5000: Modding is not an unfair advantage. There is just as much chance that there will be a modder on the other team. I am there to even things out. Halo 2 is beginning to get old, us modders are just making it more funner."

greig writes "DirecTV is aiming to bring to the states what the South Koreans have been enjoying for years: regular broadcasts of videogaming tournaments. Games at the first tournament were Battlefield 2, Counterstrike 1.6, Halo 2, Project Gothem Racing and Dead or Alive 4. The initial broadcasts of the exhibition invitational are on the free DirecTV channel 101 this weekend. Is this the first step to escalating videogames to the status of the X-Games and poker?" Taken from the about section: "The Championship Gaming Series will launch as a league starting 2007; however, in 2006, we will broadcast 3 television events: Championship Gaming Invitational, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) Winter Finals and an event that will be announced shortly."

1up reports on comments from Bungie, who has come out to say that their next title Halo 3 will 'feel' like the first Halo: Combat Evolved. From the article: "'I have been playing through Campaign mode purely for kicks. Exploring, in fact,' [Frank O'Connor] says. 'There's lots of the feel of the original Halo, where you'll find yourself in a huge (dangerous) and intrinsically fascinating environment and just want to go tool around and check things out.' At the same time, O'Connor is quick to dismiss that Bungie's developing a sandbox, Grand Theft Auto-inspired shooter."

Ant writes "The Sci-Fi channel has announced that it will not be renewing its (very popular) original series Stargate SG-1 for another season.The spinoff series Stargate: Atlantis will get the nod, though, airing for a fourth year. SG-1 aired its 200th episode on August 18th, and the SF series is the longest-running SF show on American television." Gateworld has further details: "New episodes of both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis continue Fridays this summer starting at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, leading up to the mid-season finale on September 22. The second half of the season will begin in March, leading to SG-1's final bow on SCI FI in June."

Krishna Dagli writes to mention that a Firefox 2.0 Beta Candidate has been released to the public. Ars Technica looks at some of the included features such as tab scrolling, anti-phishing measures, and an integrated spellchecker. From the article: "There is an option to search for updates for any extensions that have been broken, but it was not able to update any of the extensions I had installed. Fortunately, Firefox has been integrating many useful extensions (like the ability to drag and drop tabs to new locations) along its development, so this is not as big of a problem as it might seem. The browser seemed quite fast and stable, although I did not perform any benchmarking tests. I found one really obscure bug, where if the user clicks on a help link when a preferences dialog box is open, a new copy of Firefox will load without the user being able to switch back to the original either through Alt-Tab or the Windows task bar."

Mindpicnic writes "The recent switch of two lifelong Mac nerds to Ubuntu hasn't escaped Tim O'Reilly's radar. He cites Jason Kottke: 'If I were Apple, I'd be worried about this. Two lifelong Mac fans are switching away from Macs to PCs running Ubuntu Linux: first it was Mark Pilgrim and now Cory Doctorow. Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.'"

Phillip Ryu writes "As someone in the Macintosh shareware business, as part of my job, I make the daily crawl through MacUpdate to look for the latest and greatest in Mac software. One thing I've been noticing recently is a renaissance of extremely polished and beautiful Mac apps, so I thought I'd share some of these finds with you guys. Without further ado, presenting the top ten most beautiful OS X apps. Hopefully you'll find some new gems in there, even I found a few surprises while compiling this list. Enjoy!"

I've taken the liberty of combining together a number of different submissions we've received. First off, Network Magic recently came out with a new version of their software (tour on link). It's Windows-based primarily, but having tested it out on Mac/Linux/Windows-mixed network, it's worth checking out. Another individual pointed out that SourceForge Enterprise is now a 15 seat free download; you can also grab the ISO in Torrent form. (SourceForge is made by the other arm of the company that owns Slashdot, VA Software). Lastly, a couple of folks seem to have rediscovered the joy of Audioscrobbler and sharing the stuff via last.fm. Fun stuff.

yonnage writes "Some Apple MacBook owners are plagued with what seems to be a defective trackpad button. The button, when pushed, seems "squishy" and sometimes even unresponsive. While these MacBook owners are getting turned away at the Apple Genius Bars, they have come up with a custom and unique solution to the problem. A piece of paper, placed strategically under the battery pack where the trackpad is located, seems to fix this problem for most users."

rwx writes "The Sheriff's Department in Douglas County, Colorado says it's going to start warning computer users that their networks may be vulnerable to hackers. It plans on equipping its patrol cars with devices that detect unprotected computer networks, and distributing brochures to computer users in vulnerable areas, instructing them on how to password protect their networks."