Joystiq sat down with Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski and talked about the much anticipated Gears of War, the news that Epic is in talks with Nintendo to do games for their new console, and his impressions of Sony's showing at E3. From the article: "We're currently talking with Nintendo. It's not really my department to pontificate on other people's system and comments that the wonderful Mark Rein will make occasionally to upset the fans. Again, I reserve judgment of the Wii until I get hands on with it. I was very judgmental about the DS until I actually got to play hands-on with it and I love Trauma Center and stuff like that. You know what, Nintendo is zigging while everyone else is zagging and they'll be just for it. I give them props for doing something different." For more on Gears, MTV Overdrive has the 'Road to E3' special they aired on MTV2 last week available for viewing. IE is the preferred viewer, of course.

An anonymous reader noted that Phillip Zimmermann and his VoIP encryption software are the subject of a NY Times article today. The article touches on the FCC, privacy, and related issues. Given all the suspicious behavior of the Bush Administration relating to wiretaps and phone records, this sort of thing is all the more important to be very aware of.

A lot of the big sites have given out their awards for various 'best in show' categories. Bioshock got the nod for 'Game of the Show' from Gamespot, Gamespy, and IGN. From Gamespy's coverage: "I was completely captivated with BioShock like no other game at E3 2006. Is it an RPG? Is it an action game? Is it an adventure? BioShock looks like it has a little of everything: a captivating story, beautiful environments to explore, gorgeous graphics, gameplay that crosses multiple genres... it's hard for me to imagine anyone not seeing the haunting images of a protector escorting that little girl through the unique underwater setting of Rapture and not being immediately hooked. Considering Irrational's history with Looking Glass and the System Shock titles, what I saw of the game at E3 this year vaulted it to the top of my wish list. " 1up gave the nod to Spore.

mjeppsen writes "PlagiarismToday offers a thought-provoking article that frankly discusses concerns with plagiarism and rote content theft among bloggers. In the section entitled "Block quotes by the Dozen" the author mentions the so-called "gray area". That is PlagiarismToday's classification of the common blogger practice of re-using large blocks of text/content from the original article or source, even when the source is attributed."

Sony continues to spend the goodwill it has achieved over the last generation of consoles. As widely reported over the weekend, last Friday CEO for SCE Europe David Reeves spoke to the press. "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games." This 'you'll buy it anyway' attitude has further annoyed gamers already rankling from the announced pricetag. Next Gen and IGN talk about the two sides of the coin, with IGN laying into the company for the lack of HDMI output in the cheaper model, and Next Generation saying that Sony is far from defeated.

An anonymous reader writes "Seems like someone else has put up another Python programming guide, although this one seems to be a little easier to get through. From the article: 'My name is Henry the Adequate, and I am a Python programming Guru. I know all of their movies, and their TV shows, and can quote the dead parrot sketch in my sleep. In fact I do quote it in my sleep. That may explain why I am single, although it could also have something to do with the flamethrower. Naturally many old-timers want to know what this new-fangled Python thing is all about. "Henry," they say, "What is this new-fangled Python thing all about?" See what i mean? So, here, at last, is the article you have all been waiting for...'"

GamePolitics has a roundup of some game-related weekend editorials. Some of them are awful cranky and not terribly well thought-out. From the Peoria Journal-Star: "Many of my college students... seem to be less familiar with books than earlier generations. In part, you can blame the influence of video games in pre-teens' lives. If the choice is 'Moby Dick' or Playstation, I think we know which one a kid will pick... In other words, good writing means good salaries. Think about that the next time you choose between taking your kid to the video store or the library..." Another piece rails against the Columbine videogame, while papers in Louisiana are duking it out over the recently passed videogame legislation.

lessthan0 writes "Anyone proficient with Linux had to climb the steep learning curve. Part of getting over the top for me was reading a hundred different Linux and Unix related books. From that list, three books stand out as the most useful and influential. I can't promise easy sledding; it will take some work, but mastering this material will demystify Linux and make you appreciate it more."

iamjoltman writes "I've been looking to replace the McAfee anti-virus on my parent's XP machine. So, I've been looking at the three free anti-virus choices, AVG Free Edition, avast! Home Edition and AntiVir Personal Edition. I know there are other options, but I believe any others are only on-demand scanners, and that's not an option. So, what does the Slashdot crowd think is the best of these choices? Keep in mind, I'm only looking in anti-virus, I'll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection."

Yetihehe writes "Nuclear fusion could become a more viable energy solution with the discovery of way to prevent super-hot gases from causing damage within reactors. The potential solution, tested at an experimental reactor in San Diego, US, could make the next generation of fusion reactors more efficient, saving hundreds of millions of euros a year."

ifitzgerald writes "This morning, Wired News released the full text of the AT&T NSA wiretap documents that are currently under court seal. From the article: 'AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released. Based on what we've seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public's right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T's claims to secrecy. As a result, we are publishing the complete text of a set of documents from the EFF's primary witness in the case, former AT&T employee and whistle-blower Mark Klein -- information obtained by investigative reporter Ryan Singel through an anonymous source close to the litigation. The documents, available on Wired News as of Monday, consist of 30 pages, with an affidavit attributed to Klein, eight pages of AT&T documents marked "proprietary," and several pages of news clippings and other public information related to government-surveillance issues.'"

jglidell writes "The OS X kernel has been in the news alot this past year, whether it's why its slow, Mach/micro-kernel makes it bad, it's going closed source and what not. Amit Singh has put up a new presentation on the innards of OS X. It does a pretty good job of summing up the OS X kernel architecture, and has some pretty detailed diagrams... for instance they show that there are so many process/threads layers in OS X. So if you are in the mood for doing some OS studying then head over."

loqi writes "The NY Times is reporting on a statement from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declaring that journalists may be prosecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information. On the 1st amendment ramifications: "'But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity,' he said. 'And so those two principles have to be accommodated.'" So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?"

An anonymous reader writes "Geekzone is reporting that Microsoft is introducing a new business model for 'pay-as-you-go computing.' From the article: 'The pay-as-you-go computing model enabled by Microsoft's FlexGo technology allows customers to have a fully featured PC at home by paying only for the time as they use it through the purchase of prepaid activation cards or tokens. Microsoft has been running trials of the program in Brazil for more than a year and will soon be expanding to select markets in India, Russia, China and Mexico.'" This makes me giggle, because it's basically the return of time-sharing; in the past it was for for mainframe systems, but I suppose the same concept behind the mainframe idea would be true in developing countries today with PC systems.

Dubpal writes "Apple Macintosh users can now fit their machines with theft protection software that reports back on what a thief is doing with their computer, should it ever be stolen. The software, named "Undercover" allows users to report their Macs as stolen, causing the software to report back with IPs, screenshots and even a picture of the thief and his surroundings. In addition to this, Undercover begins faking hardware faults, displaying messages and even reading them aloud, alerting anyone around that the Mac's been stolen."