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Submission + - THQ CEO: New consoles ‘last thing we need&rs

Submitted by lbalbalba
lbalbalba writes: THQ CEO Brian Farrell thinks that a new Xbox or PlayStation is the last thing the videogame industry needs. He'd rather see developers working to make games richer, rather than chasing more photo-realistic graphics or more impressive explosions.

Link to Original Source

Submission + - Minecraft Account Exploit Released (casey-jones.org)

Submitted by jonescb
jonescb writes: A vulnerability in the way Minecraft saves users' passwords has been discovered in the wild. The encryption key has been discovered by people who intend to use it to steal Minecraft accounts. The key is simple enough that any rainbow table could guess it within 50 attempts. Users should protect themselves by deselecting the "remember password" option within Minecraft.
The Internet

Korea Kicking People Offline With One Strike 176

Posted by CmdrTaco from the strike-onetwothree dept.
An anonymous reader writes "While there's lots of talk of 'three strikes' laws in places like France, it may be worth looking over at South Korea, which put in place a strict new copyright law, required by a 'free trade' agreement with the US (which was the basis for ACTA). It went into effect in the middle of 2009, and now there's some data about how the program is going. What's most troubling is that the Copyright Commission appears to be using its powers to 'recommend' ISPs suspend user accounts based on just one strike, with no notice and no warning. The system lets the Commission make recommendations, but in well over 99% of the cases, the ISPs follow the recommendations, and they've never refused to suspend a user's account."
Patents

Is Zynga Trying To Patent Virtual Currency? 89

Posted by timothy from the start-with-virtual-cowry-shells dept.
sarysa writes "Techcrunch spotted a recent patent application by Zynga, attempting to patent virtual currency purchased with real money for use in a gambling context. It is unlikely that the application will pass due to a plethora of prior art where free MMOs that have gambling minigames would qualify, but Techcrunch also spotted that the application mentions Farmville as an example of embodiment. This indicates that Zynga may be attempting to patent non-refundable virtual currency as a whole. Should be interestering to see how this develops."
Earth

Giant Lab Replicates Category 3 Hurricanes 97

Posted by timothy from the indoor-skydiving dept.
Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that a new $40 million research center built by the Institute for Business & Home Safety in Richburg, SC features a massive test chamber as tall as a six-story building that can hold nine 2,300-square-foot homes on a turntable where they can be subjected to tornado-strength winds generated by 105 giant fans to simulate a Category 3 hurricane. The goal is to improve building codes and maintenance practices in disaster-prone regions even though each large hurricane simulation costs about $100,000. The new IBHS lab will be the first to replicate hurricanes with winds channeling water through homes and ripping off roofs, doors and windows. The new facility will give insurers the ability to carefully videotape what happens as powerful winds blow over structures instead of relying on wind data from universities or computer simulations. The center will also be used to test commercial buildings, agriculture structures, tractor-trailers, wind turbines, and airplanes."
Canada

'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery Screenshot-sm 594

Posted by samzenpus from the Ricky-and-Julian-disapprove dept.
An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."
Networking

Comcast Migrating Customers To DNSSEC Resolvers 196

Posted by Soulskill from the must-be-easier-to-throttle dept.
ctg1701 passes along this quote from a Comcast announcement: "Starting today we will begin migrating customers who have opted out of our Domain Helper service over to our production DNSSEC-validating servers. This will happen first in a selected part of our Virginia network, and will later expand to all markets in the following sixty days, at which point all of our customers who have opted out of Domain Helper will be migrated. After this has been completed, we will migrate the rest of our customers, which we anticipate will stretch into the early part of 2011."
The Military

Five Times the US Almost Nuked Itself 384

Posted by Soulskill from the stopping-there-for-brevity dept.
kdawson writes "io9 has a scary outline of five times the US came close to accidental nuclear disasters. Quoting: 'In August of 1950, ten B-29 Superfortress bombers took off from what was then called Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base in California, headed for Guam. Each was carrying a Mark IV atom bomb, which was about twice as powerful as the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. Shortly after takeoff, one of the B-29s had engine trouble. On board was General Robert Travis. He commanded the plane to turn back to the base when the landing gear refused to retract. Sensing the plane was going down, the pilot tried to avoid some base housing before crashing at the northwest corner of the base. The initial impact killed 12 of the 20 people aboard, including General Travis. The resulting fire eventually detonated the 5,000 pounds of conventional explosives that were part of the Mark IV. That massive explosion killed seven people on the ground. Had the bomb been armed with its fissile capsule, the immediate death toll may have reached six figures.'"

Submission + - Addiction Treatment Locator (transworldnews.com)

Submitted by skenealy87
skenealy87 writes: I think its so important to have access to something like this on the internet. I mean things are so fast paced now days and no one takes the time to address the real issues of addiction. Tami has done a wonderful job by putting a resource like this on the internet
The Military

Submission + - Special forces helped EA design "Medal of Honor" (thehill.com)

Submitted by GovTechGuy
GovTechGuy writes: Two retired special forces soldiers helped Electronic Arts develop the new "Medal of Honor" video game that originally allowed users to play as the Taliban and shoot American troops. The latest version of Medal of Honor, released on Tuesday, has been praised for its extremely detailed and realistic depiction of U.S. combat forces. According to the report, there are details in the game that involve units so sensitive that a former Pentagon official said the public shouldn't know about them. Additionally, the officials objected to the option to play as the Taliban, which was removed from the game by EA in response to public complaints from veterans groups.

Submission + - Engineering feat: The miners rescue began

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you never thought the 33 buried miners were going to come back alive to the surface, then don't read this. So far the count is 17 out, 16 to go. More information (in spanish) here and google translate here.
News

Submission + - Bad news! Porn film-making suspended. (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by AliasMarlowe
AliasMarlowe writes: Two of America's biggest porn movie studios have suspended all movie making. It's because a male star (un-named) has tested positive for HIV, and now they have the unenviable job of notifying his many recent co-stars. There may be some job openings in these studios, since HIV-infected performers are not at all welcome. The studios are Vivid Entertainment and Wicked Pictures. But nobody will be surprised if they try to blame the financial hit on piracy of some sort.

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