1up has a piece looking at the Wii vs. the PS3, running down the particulars on graphical power, online capabilities, launch titles, and control scheme. For the most part, they're siding with the PS3: "Traditionally, Nintendo's never been much for online gaming (the GameCube had two online games&ever), but Wii appears poised to finally bring Mario and Co. into the multiplayer arena. Wii will use a modified version of the DS' Wi-Fi Connection software to facilitate online matchmaking. (Most likely, you'll only be able to play against players who give you 'friend codes' first, just like with the DS.) Like the PS3, the Wii will offer online gaming free of charge."

lizzyben writes, "Baseline has a major story about a major IT disaster in the UK: 'In 2002, the English government embarked on a $12 billion effort to transform its health-care system with information technology. But the country's oversight agency now puts that figure at $24 billion, and two Members of Parliament say the project is "sleepwalking toward disaster"... In scale, the project... (NPfIT) is overwhelming. Initiated in 2002, the NPfIT is a 10-year project to build new computer systems that would connect more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health-care professionals; allow for the electronic storage and retrieval of patient medical records; permit patients to set up appointments via their computers; and let doctors electronically transmit prescriptions to local pharmacies.'" An Infoworld article from earlier this year sketches some of the all-time greatest IT meltdowns.

Via Joystiq, an article on the Seattle Times points out what many of us have already known: IBM is the real winner of the console war. The company is providing chips for all three consoles, and is busily crafting money hats for everyone involved. From the article: "Using the engineering consulting work it did for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony as a model, IBM has formed a new 'technology-collaboration solutions' unit that's expected to post $4 billion in revenue this year. Internal projections call for that division to hit $10 billion by 2010 and $20 billion by 2015. Those targets may sound high for a $91 billion company that is barely able to grow overall revenue. But hardware-division chief William Zeitler hopes to achieve them by replicating IBM's video-game collaborations in such industries as telecom, defense and medicine."

cameronk writes, "Apple announced partnership agreements with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM, and United that will let you display video from your iPod on the screen of the seat in front of you. Plus, the connectors charge iPods throughout the flight. This will be great for inter-continental flights where even my iPod Nano runs out of juice. I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."

ajs writes "As previously announced, 'Babylon 5: The Lost Tales' is a direct-to-DVD project based on the popular series from the mid-1990s. Lost Tales first DVD, titled 'Voices of the Dark' has now begun production. As usual, J. Michael Straczynski and Doug Netter will be running the show with Straczynski directing. The characters, President John Sheridan (Boxleitner), Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Scoggins) and the technomage Galen (Woodward) are returning. The Lost Tales is an anthology series of sorts with two movies (previously three) per DVD starting in 2007. Straczynski has commented on Usenet that a more CG-intensive installment is coming in the next batch, featuring the character of Michael Garibaldi (Doyle)."

Tyburn Franklie writes "Second Life is entering its 'second phase'. With big-name brands colonizing its virtual earth and the media getting worked up into a frenzy of hype, the alternative world is looking more and more like the old one. There are even worries about virtual office etiquette (sorry guys: no guns in the office). And now Linden Labs has words of warning for would-be corporate warriors seeking a Second Life: 'If you are not authentic and do not offer anything to the community, you are likely to be ignored, at best.' Sage advice — whatever world you're in." A lot of overhype here, I think.

eldavojohn writes "When it comes to space exploration, there are things that are good for humans (water) and things that are bad for humans (radiation). In order for exploration of the moon to occur, its lack of a global magnetic shield to block solar radiation must be addressed. Luckily, scientists have discovered that there are highly magnetized areas of the moon's crust that could shield settlements." From the article: "Current evidence suggests that impact-basin ejecta materials [material blasted out by huge asteroid or comet impacts] are the most likely sources of many or all of the magnetic fields ... These ejecta contain microscopic metallic iron particles that are the carriers of the magnetization."

Wowzer writes "Sony's PlayStation 3 is set to arrive this week on November 17th. With just 400,000 units available at launch in the USA, and an unknown number of game consoles arriving the rest of year. The total is expected to be below 1 million units in 2006, as a result many publishers have decided to delay their games so more time can be spent polishing them. From the article: 'Remember you'll have other ways to entertain yourself with the PS3 aside from it's multimedia capabilities. From day one you'll be able to download small games (plus their demos to give them a try first) and while Sony hasn't announced any specifics like price and release dates yet, count on Sony's PS3 download games like flOw & Blast Factor to be there.' From minor delays like Need for Speed: Carbon being delayed until November 20. To big launch lineup losses like MotorStorm which was delayed to March, 2007. The PS3 launch will now have 13 titles including Resistance: Fall of Man, Call of Duty 3, Genji: Days of the Blade and Ridge Racer 7."

gbjbaanb writes "Raymond Chen (of ancient Microsoft heritage) has a blog where he describes some of the things he's worked on, as well as oddments of obscure code and design decisions in Windows. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Windows, it is informative and often thought-provoking. Recently, Raymond posted an entry about backwards compatibility, and why it is such a big deal for large corporations. Something that I have read about on Slashdot regularly (where Windows is criticized for bothering with it at all), I thought readers would be interested in exactly why Microsoft spends so much effort on backwards compatibility, and by inference, why it is an important topic for getting Linux adopted by big business."

An anonymous reader writes "A new study that pitted the anti-phishing technology in Firefox 2.0 against that of IE7 generated some interesting results. From the Washingtonpost.com story: 'Firefox blocked 243 phishing sites that IE7 overlooked, while IE7 locked 117 sites that Firefox did not.' Microsoft responded by pointing to its own supposed comparison study that put it in front of Mozilla and others in phish fighting, but the story notes: '3Sharp, the company that authored the Microsoft study, clearly state on their site that their goal in creating 3Sharp was "to use the robustness, flexibility, and sheer native capabilities of the Microsoft communication and collaboration technologies to enhance the business of our customers."'"

eldavojohn writes "An announcement came Sunday that the first ten prototypes of the Linux-powered OLPC XO-1 had been completed in China. From the article, 'Quanta, the Chinese computer maker that won the international bidding for the project earlier this year, will assemble 900 OLPC machines that will be used for destructive testing and distribution to our development partners.' Let's hope that these first prototypes do not warrant any design changes and that the testing goes well so that countries that expressed interest (Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Argentina, and Thailand) can start distributing them soon."

An anonymous reader writes, "According to a CNet article, two companies called Mobience and Nuance have created viable and possibly better alternatives to the standard cell phone keypad. 'Mobience, which is based in South Korea, has redesigned the ABC and Qwerty key layout, and come up with MobileQwerty. It's essentially the same three-letters-per-key system as the standard mobile keypad layout, but the letters have been rearranged in a Qwertyesque way to increase efficiency.' The other system developed by Nuance is a mobile speech platform that turns speech into text and replaces the keypad altogether. I was skeptical at first but the video of Nuance's software vs. Ben Cook, the ex world texting champion, is undeniably impressive."

Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article about Intel's official launch of the Kentsfield chipset. Their Quad Core offering, Intel is claiming, is up to 80% faster than the dual-core Conroe released this past July. From the article: "Kentsfield, a 2.66GHz chip with a 1066MHz front-side bus, is more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD, and actuarial and other financial applications. Steve Smith, director of operations for Intel digital enterprise group, claimed rendering is 58% faster for users building digital content creation systems, for video, photo editing or digital audio. In other words, Kentsfield is for high-end desktops or workstations only. For the average office worker who uses their PC for general productivity apps, such as communications and garden-variety computing, Smith recommended the Core 2 Duo from 'a price point and performance perspective.'"

dptalia writes "Scientists have found a new pain killer based on human saliva. Apparently 1 gram of the new drug provides as much pain blocking as 3 grams of morphine. The drug blocks the breakdown of the body's natural pain killing mechanism. Scientists say the molecule is simple and synthesis is expected to be simple."

The results of two scientific studies have shown that dolphins are capable of recognizing rhythms and pitch and are able to reproduce them. In order to best demonstrate this ability the scientists chose the epic, Batman theme song and were able to teach a shortened version to the dolphins who reproduced it in response to certain stimuli.