Next Generation has an article discussing some of the newly announced titles Sid Meier introduced during his Walk of Game Induction Ceremony. From the article: "Following a time of kabobs and schmoozing, the projector flipped on, the movies began to roll, and the assembly of journalists and industry insiders was introduced to a trio of new Firaxis products (one down from the advertised four): the modern-day remake Sid Meier's Railroads; the CivIV expansion Warlords; and the major new curiosity of the evening, CivCity ROME."

Ant wrote to mention a C|Net article with an interesting premise: Windows Vista's tough approach to spyware may put anti-spyware companies out of business. From the article: "While this may be good news for buyers of Vista, it is not for anyone who makes a living from selling anti-spyware software. The worldwide market has boomed recently, reaching $97 million in revenue in 2004, up 240.4 percent from a year earlier, according to IDC. However, companies such as Webroot Software and Sunbelt Software are in for tough times, analysts said."

cloudkj asks: "Being a geek and a music fan, I've played with various applications for creating and mixing music. DJing has always been an interest of mine, but I've never had the time nor the resources to take it up as a hobby. Now that I've left college and started working, I have the time and the funds to allow me to explore DJing. What are the best ways to start learning how to DJ? Are there any spectacular pieces of digital DJ software out there that a aspiring DJ needs to have? How does a DJ transition from digital to the real thing?"

eToyChest has an article on last week's introduction of six new stars to the Walk of Game, at the Metreon in San Francisco. With Adam Sessler MCing, the following individuals and games were inducted into the group: Everquest, Lara Croft, John Carmack, Sid Meier, and StarCraft. From the piece: "The newest additions to the attraction are now open to the public, in time for the Game Developers Conference, an annual gathering of the global game development community, and a Walk of Game partner for the second year. New to Metreon's attraction in 2006, gaming fans can come experience why these games are the voters' choice at the Walk of Game Station - unique stations featuring inducted games."

userexec wrote to mention an FCW.com article about the uninspiring future for the Missile Defense System's software. The developers are apparently very worried about poor information security on the project. From the article: "The report said that neither MDA nor Boeing officials saw the need to install a system to conduct automated log audits on unencrypted communications and monitoring systems. Even though current DOD policies require such automated network monitoring, such a requirement 'was not in the contract.' The network, which was also developed to conform to more than 20-year-old DOD security policies rather than more recent guidelines, lacks a comprehensive user account management process, the report said. Neither MDA nor Boeing conducted required Information Assurance (IA) training for users before they were granted access to the network, the report stated. "

linguizic writes "According to Scientific American, global warming could be creating stronger hurricanes: 'Since the 1970s, ocean surface temperatures around the globe have been on the rise--from one half to one degree Fahrenheit, depending on the region. Last summer, two studies linked this temperature rise to stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Skeptics called other factors into account, such as natural variability, but a new statistical analysis shows that only this sea surface temperature increase explains this trend.'"

Gamasutra reports that the team behind Katamari Damacy, We *heart* Katamari, and My My Katamari has dissolved. The official Katamari site states that there are no plans for sequels to the hit rollin' games. From the article: "The official announcement does mention that 'Professor Katamari' (presumably Keita Takahashi) is currently working on a new game design, though apparently not with the core Katamari Damacy team. 'You don't roll things up, or get bigger, but you might find it interesting anyway,' says the site." Which is good news, considering his earlier comments about making playground equipment.

According to analyst firm Strategy Analytics, the PS3's delay is unlikely to have much of an effect on the next-gen race, reports GameDailyBiz. From the article: "While 2006 sales will clearly fall short of previous expectations, Strategy Analytics maintains its previous forecast of PS3 sales of 121.8 million units through 2012 ... This compares to expected sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 of 58.8 million units over the same period." Gamasutra reports that, from Steve Ballmer's perspective, the opposite is true. From that article: "In every other generation, the first guy to 10 million consoles was the number one seller in the generation ... Did we just get an even better opportunity to be the first guy to 10 million? Yeah, of course we did." This all assumes the console launches this year.

An anonymous reader writes "The firmware of the Xbox 360 DVD drive has been hacked, allowing users to boot backups of games on the new Microsoft console. A group of hackers on the xboxhacker.net forum managed to trick the DVD firmware into reporting a recordable disc as an original Xbox 360 disc. This means that it will not allow booting of unsigned homebrew code (like Linux), as the signature check is not bypassed. This hack will just trick the Xbox 360 into thinking you inserted an original Xbox 360 disc, so it'll only boot unedited executables. A video has been released, the hack has not been released to the public (because it will be mainly used for piracy), but all the research of the last few months is publicly viewable."

prostoalex writes "Yahoo! News front page added local news today. Available for logged-in users right on the front page, local news are also delivered at location-specific URLs." There are a few words on the new feature at Search Engine Journal.

worb writes "One of the two founders of Opera Software, Geir Ivarsoy, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. His funeral yesterday was attended by Opera employees who paid their last respects to their former lead programmer. While Opera hasn't had the same success as Firefox on the desktop, it has had considerable success in the mobile phone market due to its speed and small footprint, combined with excellent standards compliance and innovative features."

Spinnerbait writes "Graphics cards are all the rage in the Enthusiast Computing community, where overclocking standard off-the-shelf components is commonplace. Recently innovative cooling solutions have been brought to Graphics cards in an effort to tame the thermals of their power hungry GPUs. It looks like some of the major vendors have taken it up a notch in this area, with this ATI-based Sapphire Graphics card that employs a self-contained water cooling system. Not only does the card have potential for serious overclocking but it should do so relatively quietly as well."

Neil Watson asks: "In previous organizations I've kept track of IPs, hostnames and DNS entries by using a single hosts file. I used a script (h2n) to convert the hosts file to DNS entries (BIND). Thus, all information was available in a single text file. For Microsoft Active Directory servers, we had that system's DNS server simply forward all of its requests to the BIND server. Now, I find myself at another organization. This network is considerably larger, with more name servers. The control of IPs, hostnames and DNS entries is somewhat loose, and it is starting take its toll. How do you organize all of your DNS information in order to easily assign and track all of the entries?"

expro writes "If the root kit scandal was not enough for Sony, Time Magazine reports that it is a delay in 'the release of copy-protection software required for the PS3's game and high-definition movie discs' giving Microsoft a serious advantage in the market place. Is there something Sony should be learning here about preoccupation copy control? With high definition writable media appearing already, will the price drop soon enough to help me overcome the real obstacle to backing up my exsisting commercial DVDs, cost of single media large enough to hold them that is playable in a player? Will the resulting new digital hole in copying existing DVD schemes to higher-density media replace the analog hole of VCRs in copying movies?"

Ryosen asks: "The current issue of PC Gamer Magazine has a rundown on the MMORPGs due out this year. Reading over the list of hopefuls and checking out some of the websites and comments, I continually ran across complaints from players about the tedium in a lot of the quests from various games. These are typically of the non-imaginative 'take this message to that person' variety, or 'go kill 4 of these creatures' sorts. Obviously there have been some great quests and plots in games of the past and, with so many new RPGs in development, I thought this would be a great time to reminisce over some of our favorites. Who knows? Maybe some of those designers might find some inspiration for their upcoming creations."