ajs writes "Reuters is reporting that the state of California is suing automakers over global warming. California is claiming that automakers have 'harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health,' of the state. The targeted automakers are Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Chrysler Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co."

Back in May, Brian Crecente of Kotaku and the Rocky Mountain News had a chat with the maker of the 'Columbine RPG'. Today, he talks again with game-maker Danny LeDonne about possible connections between his game and the Dawson shooting. From the article: "My very first reaction, frankly, was to head to my toilet bowl and throw up. I knew what was in the works and I knew the next week would be spent keeping my head above water while the press tried to bury me with guilt-laden questions and implications of complicity in murder. I also knew that this was no time to fold or get weak-kneed. I made a game. I believed in it. Now it was time to defend it. No one would do that except me."

Ben Rothke writes "In an important new book Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting, Avi Rubin writes 'too often in American life, when it comes to divisive issues, the facts can be less important than the weight of public opinion'. That basically sums up Rubin's story in this fascinating story of his frustrations in dealing with government and corporate officials in his quest to show that e-voting was not as secure as it was originally made out to be." Read the rest of Ben's review.

Today BusinessWeek is running an article asking Will Nintendo's Wii Strategy Score? With the Tokyo Game Show this week, they run down the trials facing Nintendo's little-box-that-could both here in the States, and in Japan. From the article: "Few expect truly dedicated gamers to choose the Wii over the PS3 or Xbox. And ultimately, the advantage may go to Sony. Yuta Sakurai, an analyst at Nomura Securities in Tokyo, expects the PS3 to sell 71 million units by 2011, compared with 40 million units for the Wii. Microsoft, meanwhile, is planning a stripped-down version of the Xbox without a hard-disk drive and other accessories that will cost about $250 in Japan, where the U.S. software maker has endured disappointing results."

An anonymous reader writes "Linux hackers are being given the first crack at beta units and early release versions of a new Linux-powered DVR. The new device, available from Neuros Technology, is able to record MPEG-4 video from many media sources including cable, broadcast TV, and DVDs allowing the user to then transfer that video to portable media players or serve the media over a network. From the article: 'Neuros says "hundreds" of open source community members helped finalize the OSD's design. About two dozen purchased an early hardware prototype earlier this year. Partly to thank the community, and partly as a way of getting the device into the hands of highly critical users early on, Neuros will offer an initial "beta" production run exclusively to hackers.'"

SQLGuru writes to tell us that ATI has announced plans to release a new graphics product that could provide a shake-up for high performance computing. From the article: "ATI has invited reporters to a Sept. 29 event in San Francisco at which it will reveal 'a new class of processing known as Stream Computing.' The company has refused to divulge much more about the event other than the vague 'stream computing' reference. The Register, however, has learned that a product called FireStream will likely be the star of the show. FireStream product marks ATI's most concerted effort to date in the world of GPGPUs or general purpose graphics processor units. Ignore the acronym hell for a moment because this gear is simple to understand. GPGPU backers just want to take graphics chips from the likes of ATI and Nvidia and tweak them to handle software that normally runs on mainstream server and desktop processors."

An anonymous reader writes "18-year-old David Banh of Annandale, VA recently graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Physics and Mathematics, and an education paid for almost entirely by scholarships. What's truly amazing is that he did it in one year, bringing in 72 Advanced Placement credits, then taking 23 credits his fall semester, 37 credits his spring semester and 3 credits in the summer. His brief undergraduate career didn't leave him much time to explore college, so he's now working on his master's degree. He says he may eventually pursue law school as a part-time student in hopes of becoming a patent lawyer."

I_am_Rambi writes "OpenOffice.org is set to get new features including Firefox-like extensions. From the article: 'Second, and I think that although we have no clear road map for this yet (besides, our version naming scheme is going to change once again ), OpenOffice.org and StarOffice shall include the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird and Sunbird (calendaring application) in the future. Besides the inclusion of those two softs inside the office suite, connectors to Sun Calendar Server and Microsoft Exchange will also be developed accordingly.'"

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "'Sure, the Internet has revolutionized the spread of information and all that high-minded stuff, but its combination of reach and anonymity also makes it the greatest enabler of guilty pleasures ever invented,' Jason Fry writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'Indulgence is just a click away, and nobody needs to know, except you and some server somewhere.' For example: Fry, a rock snob, has a double secret life as a pop-music fan (secret no more, of course). From the article: 'If your secret love of "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" has caused it to creep into your iTunes list of 25 most-played songs, a simple right-click will let you reset the play count. If you want to hear Fall Out Boy, but would rather do so in secret, you can command Last.fm to ignore that the song was played — or delete it from your charts if you forget. Viewed from the standpoint of cool logic, this behavior is at least mildly insane. But who needs things that remind us of who we really are, as opposed to how we want others to see us — or how we'd like to see ourselves?'"

davevr writes "Have you ever wanted to ask the people behind the Vista UI exactly what they were thinking when they did things like Flip 3D or the windows that turn black when maximized? Want a last chance to complain directly to the source about your favorite Vista UI glitch before it is foisted on you and the rest of the world? Just wondering what sort of people work on Windows all day? Well, look no further. The Windows Shell team now has a blog site for your reading pleasure. Head over to Shell Revealed and check it out. "

narramissic writes "Yahoo chairman and CEO Terry Semel warned that a slowing U.S. economy is starting to impact ad sales, particularly in 'autos and financial services.' But Yahoo was careful to note that it cannot tell whether the current slowdown is a sign of broader trouble or is limited to ads from the auto and financial sectors."

An anonymous reader writes "In the age of the iPod, an unlikely revival is taking place — kids are turning to 7" vinyl to get their kicks. Sales of 7" singles are apparently through the roof. Bands like the White Stripes are releasing thousands of new singles on the format, and record purchases have risen by over a million units in the last year — back to 1998 levels. NME told CNET: "it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music but the vinyl record will survive,". The article explains how indie kids are drawn to vinyl because "the tactile joy of owning a physical object that represents your attachment to a band is infinitely more enjoyable than entering a credit card number into iTunes.""

Anonymous Pingu writes "The latest edition of New Scientist has a series of features on social networking. These include an analysis of the impact on our social attitudes by Sherry Turkle, a feature on the possible privacy implications of using sites like MySpace and Friendster, and a short science fiction piece by Bruce Sterling. It's certainly interesting that so many people post very revealing stuff about themselves on these sites."

sleepwellmyfriend writes "What is a third place? The first place is your home, the second place is work. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks introduced third places as somewhere besides home or work where people can socialize and feel comfortable. Think Cheers. Massive multiplayer online games are third places as defined by their characteristics: neutral ground, leveler (no not that kind), conversation, accessibility, regulars, low profile, playful mood, and "home away from home". Online games also contain social capital, which like financial capital, can be acquired and spent, but for social gains instead of financial gains. In a social relationship sense, bridging provides breadth (diverse information and resources) while bonding provides depth (comfort and advice). In online games, players come from a diverse background so they are usually bridging social capital but bonding can occur for long time players."

jayintune writes "2old2play has received news from the TGS (Tokyo Game Show) that Microsoft plans on releasing an update that will enable 1080p support on their Xbox 360 console. From the article, "users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs while native 1080p on compatible HD DVD titles." What could this mean for Sony now that MS has 1080p as well?" Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?