kukyfrope writes "What started as a guy simply trying to rescue his whiny girlfriend from an angry ape 26 years ago has since grown into one of the most recognizable faces in video gaming: Mario. GameDaily explores the different types of Mario games over the years, from Jump Man to Mario Kart, to the new Wii title, Super Mario Galaxy." From the article: "Mario Bros. was released in a combination cart with the shooting game Duck Hunt, and gamers ate it up aplenty. (It was so popular, in fact, that the game was released for the Game Boy Color and remains one of its highest sellers to date.) Super Mario Bros. 2 would arrive years later and would take a drastic turn in gameplay, as it was actually based on a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic and not the "true" sequel that was released in Japan only (at the time- it would resurface in the SNES release Super Mario All Stars). It was a hit, and would see a release alongside the launch of the Game Boy Advance years later under the name Super Mario Advance."

op12 writes "CNET has an article describing how AT&T accidentally leaked sensitive information involving the NSA lawsuit. From the article: 'AT&T's attorneys this week filed a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages and render them unreadable. But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11. The deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class action lawsuit in January, alleges that room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.""

cyrus_zuo writes "Game Tunnel has just published its May Independent Video Games Round-Up. This month's article looks at eleven indie titles including the extremely innovative The Odyssey, the overly bloody Gibbage, and the way too-cool Eets, the later of which walked away with the Game of the Month award. As always the article includes four different viewpoints on each game, giving you a variety of different opinions to agree and disagree with."

Asklepius M.D. writes "According to the Washington Post, France is contemplating legislation designed to 'to force compatibility between digital songs and the different machines that play them.' Known colloquially as the 'iPod bill', it is opposed by Apple, the Business Software Alliance, and others who refer to it as 'state-sponsored piracy.' Two versions of the bill have already passed France's Senate and National Assembly. From the article: 'Under the proposed law, Apple Computer Inc., Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and other companies could have to reveal trade secrets of their software so that their songs can play on competitors' devices.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Built on a network that automatically bans gamers that have modified their Xbox, Xbox Live should be nearly cheat-proof. However, it's not, as anyone playing Halo 2 online already knows. How do cheaters on Xbox Live manage to artificially boost their rankings? What is Bridging? What is Standby? This article takes a look at what exactly is done when a cheater cheats, and what exactly Bungie is doing about it. It includes videos and some very funny letters from 13-year-olds that have been baned from matchmaking on Live and are desperately trying to worm their way back onto the system."

smart2000 writes "A decision has been handed down in O'Grady, et al. v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, the case commonly referred to as 'Apple vs Bloggers', in previous Slashdot posts. While like any court case it is complex, the short of it is that O'Grady won this round." From the article: "Apple has failed to demonstrate that it cannot identify the sources of the challenged information by means other than compelling petitioners to disclose unpublished information. This fact weighs heavily against disclosure, and on this record is dispositive."

Grimwell writes "Like MMOG's? Concerned about their future? You should read Darniaq's article questioning the general approach to these games. From the article: 'I expect invention from Blizzard as I much as I would from the local Top 40 radio station. I'd hate to think that the entire breadth of MMOs is measured by the playing of a few of the hot selling titles. It's great what WoW has done for the genre, but man I hope people don't give up on the genre just because they hit 60 and realized they didn't want to spend 3 hours a night in Molten Core.'"

Khammurabi writes "PC World compiled a list of the 25 worst tech products of all time. From the article: 'At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But it's the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, "What have I done to deserve this?"' Number one on the list? AOL."

Eurogamer reports that the possibility of no used games sales for the PS3 has been vociferously refuted by Sony. From the article: "'We have definitely not been communicating that,' UK spokesperson Jennie Kong confirmed. 'It's false speculation. We don't have any further knowledge about this topic - either officially or unofficially, to be frank. ' It would appear that the report is based on the resurrection of a much earlier rumour in this regard, which surfaced most recently last November with claims that PS3 software would 'bind' to the first machine it was played on, and would be unusable on any other system." We discussed this possibility on Wednesday.

Java Pimp writes "It seems scientists and philosophers now agree which came first. The Egg. From the CNN article: 'Put simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life. Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg. Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.' So, does this mean we can now show P=NP?"

An anonymous reader writes to mention a Reuters article about a proposed EU tax on email and phone messages. From the article: "In Italy, the concept of a tax on texting was floated in the past, as a way to help offset the country's huge deficit, although it was flatly rejected by the outgoing government. But Lamassoure argues that with billions of emails and texts sent around the world, it's a novel and simple way to raise funds from new technology. 'Exchanges between countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU,' he said."

Wagner James Au writes "Soon after Second Life crossed the 100K subscriber mark in January, there's been a rush of big companies itching to develop and promote their brand in the world: first it was MTV, then Coke, and now with SL at 225,000+, they keep coming: this week, for example, Twentieth Century Fox had a virtual world premiere of X-Men III in Second Life. Since SL is completely user-created content, this entrance of big money has helped create a whole new profession: freelance metaverse developer. Aimee Weber, who got her start designing and selling avatar fashions for fun, has since become one of the best in this field, recently creating a promotion environment for a Warner Brother's singer in SL. So I asked her to come to my blog and give advice on how to get your scripting and 3D building skills to pay the bills."

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the US House Judiciary Committee approved a bill yesterday that will prevent broadband providers from charging extra fees to websites for delivering their content to users." Ars's response is only guarded optimism, unfortunately. From the article: "The fate of the bill is not clear, as there are now two competing bills vying for the attention of the House floor. HR 5252, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, was overseen by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is expected to be considered by full House. That bill is seen by some proponents of 'Net neutrality as being too weak, particularly after a Committee vote tossed aside an amendment put forth by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) that would have enshrined the principle of network neutrality into US law. There is speculation that today's bill, HR 5417, could be proposed as an amendment to HR 5252."

Stupid Dufus writes "GameDAILY Biz is reporting that Nintendo has changed ranks at its North American division. From the story: 'Nintendo of America has just announced three major executive promotions. Reggie Fils-Aime has become the new president and COO, while current president Tatsumi Kimishima has been elevated to chairman and CEO. Also, Mike Fukuda is being promoted from senior vp of Business Development to executive vp of Business Development.'"

fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"