CthuluOverlord writes "CNET News.com is reporting that Nicholas Donofrio, Big Blue's executive vice president of innovation and technology, made a declaration on Tuesday in an interview with ZDNet Asia. 'The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It's not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things. If you're looking for the next big thing, stop looking. There's no such thing as the next big thing.'" Donofrio goes on to explain that he sees innovation as being services or social changes nowadays, rather than simply a better moustrap. What's the verdict? Is tech innovation dead?

hpcanswers writes "ICANN, the governing body for Internet domain names, recently gave VeriSign exclusive control of the top-level .com domain until 2012. Now, nineteen registrars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions, have petitioned ICANN to reconsider on the basis that VeriSign will most likely increase registration fees. A few of the registrars have also asked the US Department of Commerce to veto the deal." From the article: "The new deal permits VeriSign to increase the price of domain name registrations by 7 per cent in four of the next six years. In the two remaining years, VeriSign will only be able to raise prices if it can show the rises are necessary for security reasons. It also gives VeriSign a presumptive right to renewal of the .com registry, on the proviso that it complies with certain aspects of the agreement."

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the AlphaGrip AG-5 handheld keyboard and mouse. From the article: 'After lots of research and five revisions, the perfectionists at AlphaGrip finally decided that they had a product worthy of marketing, and they released the long awaited AG-5. Although the AG-5 looks strange and intimidating, it is a unique and highly innovative product that deserves consideration, particularly by mobile computing enthusiasts. The AG-5 interfaces with computers via a single removable USB cable. It uses a simple chord-like keyboarding model and an integrated trackball to provide complete keyboard and mouse functionality in a unique form factor that looks a bit like a console gaming controller.'"

ESA President Doug Lowenstein is pushing the state of Illinois to pay for the ESA's substantial legal bills, the result of their fight to defeat the Illinois game ban. From the Next Generation article: "From the day Governor Blagojevich announced that he would seek anti-video game legislation, it was clear to everyone that the proposal would be found unconstitutional and would waste taxpayers dollars in a protracted legal fight that would leave parents no better off ... That is precisely what happened. As we said from the outset, we would have preferred to spend our resources on cooperative programs to help parents ensure their kids play appropriate games, rather than divert money to respond to politically motivated attacks on video games. But the State has left little choice, and this petition is consistent with the rules of the federal courts regarding award of attorney's fees to prevailing parties."

kaufmanmoore writes "According to an MSNBC report, the head of Google's European arm has said that Google wants to use Google Base for brick and mortar stores to submit lists of goods and prices in order to create an online presence." From the article: "Google would index and package the information into a consumer-friendly search engine, giving its users a virtual supermarket across a number of retail brands. Mr Arora said: 'Google Base is going to have a huge impact on retailers," adding that the move reflected internal research, which found many leading European retailers did not feel they were competitive enough online.'

matr0x_x writes "The U.S. has just moved one step closer to banning all Internet gambling sites when the US House of Representatives cleared an anti-Internet gambling bill yesterday. The bill is against a World Trade Organization ruling last August that stated the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas." From the article: " The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law."

1up has coverage of the Japanese launch for Final Fantasy XII. The much-anticipated and very delayed game began sales yesterday, prompting more pictures of Japanese gamers in line. If you don't mind spoilers, they also have a fairly extensive preview based on the import version of the game. From that article: "FFXII begins with a stunningly gorgeous full-motion video which depicts a royal wedding in Dalmasca, a small kingdom wedged precipitously between the warring nations of Archadia and Rosarria. But the celebrations are cut short as Dalmasca is dragged into the war and the newlywed prince is felled in battle by an arrow, leaving one very bereaved princess to mourn her loss."

QuietLagoon writes 'Reuters is reporting that Bill Gates is making fun of the one laptop per child initiative to revolutionize how the world's children are educated. 'The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,' Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington. 'Hardware is a small part of the cost' of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support. 'If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type,' Gates said.'

joe_bruin writes "Beware the Ides of March... the Gnome people have announced the release of Gnome 2.14, right on time to meet their 6 month release schedule. See what's new in this release, as well as the release notes. New features include many more searching options, fast user switching, and speed increases to all the apps you know and love." From the release notes: "Just as you would tune your car, our skilled engineers have strived to tune many parts of GNOME to be as fast as possible. Several important components of the GNOME desktop are now measurably faster, including text rendering, memory allocation, and numerous individual applications. Faster font rendering and memory allocation benefit all GNOME and GTK+ based applications without the need for recompilation. Some applications have received special attention to make sure they are performing at their peak."

niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.

Gamasutra has details on the gaming network that will underpin the PlayStation 3 online offering. From the article: "Co-developed by Sony Online Entertainment, the company's MMORPG development arm, and GameSpy Networks, the PlayStation Network Platform will allow players to compete online even in its free iteration, unlike Xbox Live. Sony will enforce integrated online capabilities between games, but publishers will be free to run their own servers." The folks on the 1up podcast were just talking about this topic last week. I'm personally not sure 'free' is the way to go. I'm willing to pay if it means I'm getting a quality service. Obviously you'd prefer not to pay but if it means the difference between an unreliable service and one the quality of Xbox Live, are you willing to pay?

andyring writes "According to CNS News Service, the Democrat Party will have an agenda that guarantees every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years as part of their 2006 election year agenda, according to Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader. Absent, of course, are any details as to how they will accomplish it when they are the party out of power in Congress."

Lost Garden has a good look at some of the more tasteless media marketing that has been foisted on gamers, and what the willingness to shock for sales means to the industry as a whole. From the article: "When I look at many games and the sorry advertisements that reflect back their pitiful value, I see people mechanically spewing out 'more for the sake of more.' A game that only offers perfectly modeled bullet paths or the ability to murder beautiful women is a waste of talent and a blight upon our industry. I say this not because I'm morally opposed to such content, but because it doesn't accomplish anything worthy for the customer, the industry or our industry's wonderful developers." The ad that specifically caused him to write this was one for 'Hitman: Blood Money', in April's EGM. It's pretty darn tasteless; Why would a beautifully made up woman with a bullet in her brain make you want to buy a game?

An anonymous reader writes "For the third straight year, the Department of Homeland Security -- which is charged with charting the federal government's cyber security agenda -- earned a grade of "F" for computer security from a key congressional oversight committee, according to a story at Washingtonpost.com. Not only did the overall government-wide computer security grade remain flat (at a barely-passing "D+" but several agencies -- mostly those on the "front lines in the war on terror" -- actually managed to fare worse this year."