With the advent of new input styles in the PS3 and Wii, many gamers are wondering what it will be like to actually play with the new controllers. Via Aeropause, an article on IGN says that the SIXAXIS controller is flimsy and poorly designed. Meanwhile, via Joystiq, an article on British site Entertainmentwise reports that the Wii isn't physically exhausting at all, as some people feared. After two hours of playtime, in fact, they loved the experience. From the article: "Some gamers have shown concern that the activity level required to play Wii games, especially the sporty titles, may be too high. There are concerns that you have to stand for long periods of time and use body actions such as swinging your arm above your head or at the side of your body. After playing non stop for two hours, did this happen to me? No. I'm not exactly Wonder woman in terms of fitness and I can assure you, as a regular player there was enough action to warrant perhaps making sure one has access to a tap before playing (you're going to want a drink if you play for as long as we did!) and possibly ensuring plenty of moving around space in your living room. The key to the Wii control is that even the most active title on the launch line up, Wii Sports, doesn't require you to make large body motions unless you want to."

doug141 writes to point out a Reuters story on the attention tax authorities are beginning to focus on virtual economies. From the article: "Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day... People who cash out of virtual economies by converting their assets into real-world currencies are required to report their incomes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service or the tax authority where they live in the real world... 'Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise — taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth,' said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress."

1up had a chance to speak with Clover Studios before the word came down of the studio closure and the departure of some key designers. The interview with Clover's president Atsushi Inaba touches on game concepts, the next-gen consoles, and their thoughtful development process. From the article: "When we started development on Okami the Wii didn't exist. We had no idea what the Wii was. If the Wii had existed when we began designing Okami, then we probably would have considered doing something with the controller. It's really hard to say how that would have worked out, as Okami is very finely tuned for the PS2 system. While I agree with you the Wii controller would have been interesting for using the Celestial Brush, for instance, at its heart Okami is an action adventure RPG." Sad to think we'll never see an Okami for the Wii, now.

IAmTheDave writes, "This morning MSNBC's home page is topped by the opening story in a series, Privacy Under Attack, But Does Anybody Care? Privacy rights have been debated to death here on Slashdot, but this article attempts to understand people's ambivalence towards the decline of privacy. The article discusses how over 60 percent of Americans — while somewhat unable to quantify what exactly privacy is and what's being lost — feel a pessimism about privacy rights and their erosion. However, a meager 6-7% polled have actually taken any steps to help preserve their privacy. The article's call to action: '...everyone has secrets they don't want everyone else to know, and it's never too late to begin a discussion about how Americans' right to privacy can be protected.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is opening a news bureau in the simulation game Second Life, and C|Net is following suit. Both companies are joining a race by corporate name brands to take part in the hottest virtual world on the Internet. Starting on Wednesday, Reuters plans to begin publishing text, photo and video news from the outside world for Second Life members and news of Second Life for real world readers who visit a Reuters news site at: http://secondlife.reuters.com/"

There have been so many articles written about the perils, pitfalls, and possible rewards of running a business based on free or open source software that we can't possibly link to them all. Instead, let's ask MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos how to make money with a company based on free software, because he runs a company that is almost always touted as one of the world's greatest free software (business) successes. You may want to read some of these interviews with Mårten before you come up with your own questions in order to avoid duplication, but other than that suggestion and the usual Slashdot interview rules, ask whatever you like, however you like.

stupid_is writes "The BBC are reporting that Judge Ronald Friedman has cleared Bully for publication in Florida. Jack Thompson is, predictably, critical of the decision, stating "You did not see the game, you don't even know what it was you saw." after Take-Two gave him the game, along with someone to play the game for him to watch before he made a decision." This is a follow-up to our story last week about Take-Two handing over copies of Bully per court order.

cogno64 writes "Certain stimuli in the brain, such as the smell of freshly based cookies, lead to higher levels of dopamine that remain after the stimulus is removed, leading to altered behavior through interaction with learning, memory, and executive function. The experiencer is more likely to make a purchase decision based on their heightened dopamine levels, with significant impact for internet marketers. According to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting today, the neurotransmitter dopamine continues to be released for nearly an hour after neurons are stimulated, suggesting the existence of secondary mechanisms that allow for sustained availability of dopamine in different regions of the brain including areas critical for memory consolidation, drug induced plasticity and maintaining active networks during working memory. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with learning and memory, motor control, reward perception and executive functions such as working memory, behavioral flexibility and decision making. When a novel or salient stimulus occurs, the dopamine neurons in the brain increase their firing rate, boosting the release of dopamine. The dopamine is diffused into the extracellular space of the brain until it can be transported or metabolized."

jkwdoc writes "In one of the few mass interviews ever conducted, the crew at HardOCP.com talked to seven different OEM presidents and founders to ask them about the PC industry. The names include Michael Dell, Kelt Reeves (Falcon Northwest), Randy Copeland (Velocity Micro), and Albert Wang (ABS/Newegg), among others. The questions ranged from their business principles, to the effect of the enthusiast and gaming markets, to what dual- and quad-core technology means for the next generation of computing. You'll be surprised at some of the answers." Of course, the article has to span nine pages because they have to show their ads over...and over...and over.

News for nerds writes "Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 is slated for release mid-November with support for the Sony PS3 first, and support for the former Apple PowerPC product line to follow. Any updates required to support the Apple PowerPC systems following the release for PS3 will be made available via a free download."

mysterystevenson writes "After bringing more mass than ever before up to the ISS, one of the gyros has failed. Gyros help maintain attitude position in space; the more mass needed to be controlled, the more force that is exerted on the gyros. Now there is the danger that the Shuttle may be bringing yet more mass and starting construction while turning off another gyro, which could cause a need for thrusters to maintain attitude. The assemblies are not all constructed to be able to withstand such force and in a bad situation there could be a collapse which could affect the Shuttle and the ISS as well. Worse case could be total loss; a wise idea might be to alter the construction schedule and address the Gyro and Gyro design problems, before going forward with the introduction of more mass."

twofish writes "In an interview at Newsweek marking the approaching 5th anniversary of the launch of the iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems unconcerned by Microsoft's wannabe iPod killer Zune. Earphone sharing will prove a more potent force for social networking than the iPod rival's wireless song-sharing feature, he reckons. 'I've seen the demonstrations on the internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever,' he says in the article. 'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'"

Steve Kerrison writes "Despite a woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock, and a range of CPUs that, currently, loses out to Intel's Core 2 processors in both price and performance (and who would I be not to mention the diminishing AMD fanboy numbers?), AMD's still got enough tricks up its sleeve to retaliate against Intel in due course. HEXUS.net has an opinion piece on why AMD isn't up the creek. From the article: AMD has been showing off its 65nm wafers for a few months now, which means the Rev G core is on its way. Even if the DDR2 memory controller which arrived with the Rev F only had a small performance benefit, Rev G has a few more improvements than just the die shrink. The latter will enable higher clock speeds and a lower price, plus allow AMD to compete on an equal playing field to Intel, which has been manufacturing 65nm processors since the Pentium XE 955 at the end of 2005."

theodp writes, "To promote an Internet radio service Sirius is launching this week, Howard Stern's 4+ hour program will be made available live online for free on October 25 and 26. The new Sirius service will offer 75+ channels of CD-quality programming for $12.95/month with no need to buy a Sirius satellite receiver."

Rub3X writes, "The legal battle between antispam organization Spamhaus and e360 Insight is heating up. Spamhaus has a user base of around 650 million, and its lists block some fifty billion spam emails per day, according to the project's CEO Steve Linford. Spamhaus CIO Richard Cox says the immediate issue is that if the domain is suspended, the torrent of bulk mail hitting the world's mail servers would cause many of them to fail. More than 90% of of all email is now spam, Cox says, and he doubts that servers worldwide would be able to handle a ten-fold increase in traffic." Others estimate Spamhaus's blocking efficacy as closer to 75%; by this metric spam would increase four-fold, not ten-fold, if Spamhaus went unavailable. The article paraphrases CIO Cox as saying that the service will continue "even if there is a short-term degradation."