The New York Times has an interesting profile of LucasArts, the game development house attached to George Lucas' company. They discuss some challenges with being so closely associated with Star Wars, and detail their role in the Lucasfilm company as a whole. From the article: "[Ward's] most challenging days may be ahead. The videogame industry has been in the doldrums for months; video game sales are lagging as consumers wait to buy the next generation of consoles, including the PlayStation 3. And perhaps most important, Mr. Lucas has no plans to make any more 'Star Wars' movies. That means LucasArts will have to work that much harder to come up with ideas of its own. 'We are not the Star Wars game company,' said Micheline Chau, president of Lucasfilm. 'And Jim knows what he has to do.'"

Gamasutra reports that the Major League Gaming organization has signed a deal with the USA network to televise some of their competitions. From the article: "League programming, available at MLGpro.com all year long, will culminate in seven one-hour episodes that will air on the USA Network during the holiday season. In addition, the company also announced a MLG Pro Invasion Bus Tour, which will kick off in the summer and make 100 stops around the country. The Tour features MLG pros traveling across the U.S. in search of the next generation of professional gamers."

Brian E. writes "An informal Clearware.org poll indicates that 67% of the 66 respondants never or rarely completely read end-user license agreements (EULAs). Clearware.org aims to make sense of software by proposing guidelines for vendors to characterize end-user license agreements. Defined characteristics include terms and conditions found in existing EULAs that impact control over the user's experience, privacy and system security. The guideline extends on the idea of Creative Commons' commons deed and RDF/XML metadata formats. This simplifies EULA terms in a consumer friendly way similar to care labels on clothing, nutrition facts on food and warnings on hazardous materials."

An anonymous reader writes "When Mario Brothers 2 for the NES came out in the U.S. in 1988, many people were surprised at how different than the original Mario Brothers it was. The second Mario Brothers title that U.S. audiences know was never designed to be a Mario title at all. Instead, it's a game called Doki Doki Panic that's been modified with Mario sprites. Here's a review of the original Super Mario Brothers 2 as designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and released only in Japan. Nintendo felt that the poison mushrooms, blowing wind, and warps that took you backwards made it too difficult for North American audiences."

wiredog writes "A Washington Post (frryyy) review of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, a handheld Linux device. The reviewer complains about the lack of keyboard, poor WiFi implementation, outdated software, non-standard memory card, and almost as many crashes as an unpatched Win98 install."

Anonymous Coward writes "Tom's Hardware has an editorial up entitled 'Half-Life vs Half-Life 2: No comparison?' It explores the two games, and how they're holding up over time. He states that while the score of HL1 may have depreciated from 'a spectacular 95% to around about an average 70%' over the past couple of years, the score of HL2 'I'd now rate it in the low to mid 80's, or a full five to ten percent drop in a fraction of the time that the original has been around. Why is this?' The reason, he goes on to elaborate, is a lack of characterization. Half-Life was a blank slate modders could use to fill in their own worlds. HL2, on the other hand, has a definite story that ages less gracefully."

Several readers wrote to note Larry Ellison's comments about launching an Oracle Linux Distro (great! yet another!) and that Oracle has/is also looking at purchasing Novell. The great shake-out continues.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Later this month, Carnegie Mellon University and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will unveil the successor of the Spinner, a 7-ton unmanned robotic vehicle. Dubbed Crusher, this new 6.5-ton robot will be able to carry payloads of up to 2 tons on very complex terrains. Crusher will rely on surrounding sensors to keep its balance and learn about its environment. After intensive testings, it should start to perform its duties in 2008. Read more for additional details and pictures of Spinner and Crusher in action." However, I can see they have not yet performed the test of having Sigourney Weaver fight a hitchhiking alien with it, which is obviously crucial to our national defense.

jeffb writes "I just finished a DIY project and thought you guys would enjoy a look. An improved upon idea: a redux of the wireless guitar hero controller, this time with perfectly functioning whammy bar, rechargeable NiMH pack onboard which can be charged from the PS2's built-in USB ports (for charging, and/or playing while docked), wireless link/activity indicator, and assembled with a nod towards a clean, and professional looking job. Complete how-to with parts list included. Best regards, rock out, and happy soldering! " The original piece on this as well.

Ant writes "CNET News.com reports that there is a new pair of "hearing glasses," hearing-impaired people might both see and hear better--and have better social lives. A novel pair of glasses recently released on the market not only improve bad eyesight, but also work as a hearing aid. Developed by the Delft University of Technology and Dutch company Varibel, the glasses promise to keep hearing-impaired people active and social. While in-ear hearing aids usually work well for conversation in quiet surroundings, many people who wear them face problems in more lively environments. Since all incoming sounds are amplified, background noises easily take over, cause discomfort and make conversations difficult. Varibel says its glasses can detect which direction sounds come from, amplifying words spoken directly to the wearer while dampening background noise."

Vitaly Friedman writes "ICANN, the body responsible for creating top-level domains, is considering a new one. Conceived as a way to easily manage contact information in an age where many people have numerous contact numbers, the proposed .tel TLD would allow individuals and companies to keep all of their contact information in an easily accessible location. Companies would get companyname.tel while individuals would be able to register firstnamelastname.tel." This idea has been kicked around for quite a while; one of the question is the whole name-space collision issue. For instance, there's me and then there's other me. Lemme tell how strange it is getting fan mail for country music stars.

music_lover writes "According to this article, Lenovo is losing current ThinkPad series customers to HP, Toshiba and other notebook vendors because of customer perception. Apparently, customers don't feel comfortable purchasing from a Chinese PC manufacturer now that the ThinkPad brand isn't supported by IBM anymore. Could this really be perception? Quote: "Despite the overall poor performance, Lenovo has still not gained the mindshare or the respect that the ThinkPads command. In fact, it has, to some extent, alienated ThinkPad's fans and taken a sales hit. In my immediate vicinity, those who owned ThinkPads have now traded up to an HP or a Toshiba. None of them went back to their ThinkPads. After asking for a clarification, I was told, "Who wants to buy things from a Chinese company?" That said, our corporate parent has continued to buy/use Thinkpads; the ones that I've seen do just fine, and they've added new machines and a parternership with AMD.

hmart writes "As seen on ZDNet's Open Source Blog MySQL is taking another step to defend from Oracle's recent acquisitions of InnoBase and Sleepycat. From the article: 'MySQL responds by getting Solid Information Technology, a proprietary database vendor, to take its solidDB Storage Engine for MySQL open source, under the GPL, starting in June.'"

An anonymous reader writes "PayPal is bringing the eastern use of the cellphone as a payment method to the United States. The company's mobile service aims to use secure text messages as a payment method for direct-marketing initiatives and other 'on-the-spot' mercantile opportunities." From the article: "To the extent that digital money doesn't feel like real money, it may increase spontaneous purchasing ... " This story offers more details on a discussion we had last month.

theodp writes "Meet the point-and-click police. Newsweek reports that a growing number of ordinary officers are working a new beat, turning to MySpace to collect clues and crack offline cases. Most of the nabbed wrongdoers have been victims of their own hubris, like the two boys who uploaded video of themselves firebombing an abandoned airplane hangar earlier this month."