Argyle writes "50 years ago Ampex unveiled the first video tape recorder. TV Technology has an excellent story about the surprise launch of the video tape recorder, impacting almost every aspect of business, entertainment, and family life as we know it today. The enabler of the entire modern entertainment industry, the video tape recorder was was designed by only six men, Charles Ginsburg, Charles Anderson, Ray Dolby, Shelby Henderson, Alex Maxey, and Fred Pfost."

choongiri writes "The London Guardian is reporting on the creation of replacement eyes and working hands in the race to build a $6bn human. Currently being worked on is everything from bionic eyes to an entire exoskeleton enabling the wearer to carry 200lbs. From the article: 'The 1970s gave us the six-million-dollar man. Thirty years and quite a bit of inflation later we have the six-billion-dollar human: not a physical cyborg as such, instead an umbrella term for the latest developments in the growing field of technology for human enhancement.'"

I very patiently waited all week before linking to 1up's multi-part Land of the Rising Fun feature. It details several very good, very Japanese titles they've had the pleasure of playing lately. A lot of them are for the DS (no surprise), with Chulip, Odama, and Contact particularly appealing. From the piece: "I've loved Japanese games ever since Pac-Man rocked my childhood. Unfortunately, as the medium matures, its seems more and more Americans take issue with Japan's willingness to defy logic in the name of entertainment. Are the frequently goofy aesthetics of Japanese games a dangerous creative rut? Maybe not. Goofiness is making a comeback, thanks in no small part to the Nintendo DS, which is reaching new audiences with experiences that emphasize creativity above anything so mundane as mere realism."

prostoalex writes "So far in 2006 domain name on.com fetched $635,000, Macau.com was sold for $550,000, blue.com was sold for half a million, and Jasmin.com was bought for $310,000. With the exception of the last domain name, which is currently used for erotic video chat, the rest of the domains run some sort of domain parking ads. USA Today talks about revived interest to domain name trade, and companies like Marchex, a 'leader in vertical and local traffic', which happens to own a .com domain for every single zip code in the United States. There's also a report that in the few days that .eu domain names were made available, 1,454,218 European domains were registered."

The BBC reports on the first images returned from Venus by the EU probe. From the article: "They show the hothouse planet's south pole from a distance of 206,452km. Mission scientists are already intrigued by a dark 'vortex' feature which can be clearly seen in one image. Venus Express will orbit the planet for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which is thought to have undergone runaway greenhouse warming." They're offering some high-rez images of the planet at the ESA website.

An anonymous reader writes "The Register has a story reporting that Sun's DRM will find a home in a Korean IPTV system. From the article: "This week Sun released the source code for two components of DReaM, its DReaM-CAS (Conditional Access System) and DReaMMMI (Mother May I) the underlying mechanism for always asking a central resource for permission to access content. In papers that Sun put out this week it has described both of these processes. DReaMCAS or D-CAS currently only manages access to content in the MPEG-2 format."

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

Gamasutra reports that, like here in the states, Japanese games are coming under increased scrutiny by law-enforcement and politicians. From the article: "Japan's National Police Agency is currently investigating the effects playing video games and watching anime have on children. Currently being led by former deputy governor of Tokyo, Yutaka Takehana, the police-sponsored group met on April 10 in Tokyo to discuss topics such as violent video games and sexual content on the internet."

garzpacho writes "In an interview, FCC chief Brian Martin discusses his efforts to make it easier for new entrants--especially telecoms-- to compete with traditional cable and satellite companies in delivering video services. The focus of this effort seems to be in addressing local franchising authorities' current bias towards incumbents. He also talks about current congressional efforts to enact national franchise legislation."

chrisd writes "The Summer of Code is officially on again this year. As of today, we're taking in applications from mentoring organizations, so watch that list of mentoring organizations grow! Then, starting May 1st, we'll start taking student applications. We've prepared two FAQs, one for Mentors and one for Students. We've also have created an IRC channel and Google Group for you. The website for the Summer of Code can be found at http://code.google.com/soc/."

totalbasscase writes "Starforce, the copy protection scheme hated by most who've had reason to use it, has lost a customer. Ubisoft has confirmed that not only will Heroes of Might and Magic V ship without Starforce copy protection, the publisher is discontinuing its use in all its games." From the article: "We'd venture it has something to do with the lawsuit raised against Ubisoft for using Starforce as copy protection software. When we asked why they were dropping the company Ubisoft representatives said, 'Ubisoft takes its customer concerns very seriously and is investigating the complaints about alleged problems with Starforce's software. Ubisoft's goal is to find solutions for its customers if there are problems with Ubisoft products.'"

smokeslikeapoet wrote to mention an article being run in the New York Times detailing the sale of sensitive data in Afghan markets. From the article: "The military acted after The Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press reported that computer memory drives smuggled out of the base were being sold in shops. Some drives bought by the reporters contained material marked secret as well as information about insurgency activities and names and personal details about American service members and Afghan agents working for the United States military." Fox News is reporting the sold storage units are being repurchased by the military as they can find them.

NeoPrime writes "CNN has a story about an Indian IT outsourcing firm HCL Technologies, whose president feels that 'employees come first and customers second.' He further feels that every employee should 'rate their boss, their boss' boss, and any three other company managers they choose, on 18 questions using a 1-5 scale. There is even an electronic ticket system to flag anything they think requires action in the company. The company president explains, 'It can be I have a problem with my bonus, or My seat is not working, or My boss sucks.' This ticket is then routed to a manager for resolution. The article's argument: India has the most modern management system in the world."

chill wrote to mention a C|Net article about an upswell in support for a mandatory data retention policy here in the U.S. From the article: "Top Bush administration officials have endorsed the concept, and some members of the U.S. Congress have said federal legislation is needed to aid law enforcement investigations into child pornography. A bill is already pending in the Colorado State Senate. Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months."

An anonymous reader writes to mention a MacWorld article covering research by the Forrester group. Their report shows that mass dissatisfaction with Microsoft and its products could lead to defections from the company. From the article: "Over all, only Apple and Tivo saw their brand trust rise in the last two years, according to the report. The final tally saw Bose, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic and Sony earn the highest marks, while Microsoft, Gateway and LG ranked lowest. The low scores for Microsoft could mean good news for Apple as consumers showed their distrust of the Redmond-based software-giant."