bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek looks at YouTube's rapidly growing imitators and questions the site's long-term viability. In addition to the competition, YouTube continues to face problems caused by its reliance on copyrighted material; the site's popularity is service- (rather than emotion-) based, which makes it a ripe target for anyone that might replicate and improve the service. From the article: 'YouTube's own challengers are advancing at a rapid rate. AOL is re-engineering its video site to mirror YouTube's success, and CNN is launching CNN Exchange, which will house user-contributed video features. Then there are sites like Eefoof.com, Panjea.com, Revver and Blip.TV, which share up to 50 percent of ad page revenue with the creator of the videos. Others like Dabble.com (currently in beta) sort through all video hosting sites (like YouTube and its competition) for search content, while specialty video sites like Pornotube concentrate on one point of interest.'"

Noryungi writes "Hot on the heels of Despair dot com, here comes... the Star Trek Inspirational Posters!. Imagine a mind-meld of Mr Spock, Despair's demotivational attitude and the Linux Distro Parodies, and you have one heck of a funny site. If you are a true Trekkie, don't click on the link, as this is certainly going to offend you..."

Heartless Gamer writes "There is quite a few surprises waiting in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The raiding scene in World of Warcraft is going to dramatically change once Burning Crusade is released. Here's the long and short of it: all of the new high-end raid content will be capped at 25 heads. Indeed, all the raid content that was mentioned in today's demo, with the exception of Kharazan (which is designed for 10 players) is being designed around a force of 25. Blizzard has completely done away with 40-man raiding; Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, and Naxxrammas will still exist, of course. There just isn't going to be any new 40-man content. How's that for earth-shattering?"

Ben Galliart writes "Microsoft's Port 25 blog, the voice of MS Linux Labs and a spin-off from the MS Channel 9 blog, has an interview with Miguel de Icaza where they discuss the Gnome and Mono projects. It is a nice change of pace to see Microsoft go from attacking Novell and Linux to interviewing a Novell employee about a Linux desktop system. Port 25 has come under some fire since they can not always be trusted. Port 25 has on occasion put out FUD such as claiming Microsoft is doing more to improve security than any other vendor and a security guide attacking Red Hat for not providing security updates for Red Hat v9 despite that Red Hat ended support back in 2004. They have also released a password synchronization daemon for Red Hat, AIX, HPUX and Solaris that must run as root and makes several calls to strcpy() (which violates Microsoft's guidelines for doing secure coding)."

ZerocarboN writes "With such current Mac publishers as Aspyr and MacSoft typically spending months to bring games to the Mac, Mr. State said: "We imagine that they are re-evaluating their business models. Our technology does revolutionize how games are brought to the Mac, which we believe will result in a paradigm shift in the Mac game publishing landscape." He added that TransGaming has no plans to license Cider to other companies, but "we are always open to discussion.""

An anonymous reader writes "IBM DevWorks has provided us with an introductory article that helps define what it means to be a mashup. In addition to just defining what a mashup really is the author also delves into what they do for the community at large and where they may take us in the near future. From the article: 'Mashups are an exciting genre of interactive Web applications that draw upon content retrieved from external data sources to create entirely new and innovative services. They are a hallmark of the second generation of Web applications informally known as Web 2.0.'"

Budenny writes "The Register has a story in its ongoing coverage of the UK ID Card story. This one suggests, with links to a weekend news story, that the Prime Minister in waiting has bought the idea that all electronic transactions in the UK should be linked to a central government/police database. Every cash withdrawal, every credit card purchase, ever loyalty card use ... And that data should flow back from the police database to (eg) a loyalty card use. So, for example, not only would the government know what books you were buying, but the bookstore would also know if you had an outstanding speeding ticket!"

gtzpower writes "Microsoft is inviting hackers to 'Take Your Best Shot' at Vista. 'You need to touch it, feel it,' Andrew Cushman, Microsoft's director of security outreach, said during a talk at the Black Hat computer-security conference. 'We're here to show our work.'" From the article: "A security team with oversight of every Microsoft product — from its Xbox video game console to its Word program for creating documents — has broad authority to block shipments until they pass security tests. The company also hosts two internal conferences a year so some of the world's top security experts can share the latest research on computer attacks." Essentially a tie-in with an article we discussed yesterday.

Aglassis writes "The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced at a conference that they are planning to build a Moonbase by 2030. Since JAXA doesn't currently have a 100 ton-class heavy lift rocket or a human transportation system perhaps now is a good time for JAXA to join in with NASA on the Project Constellation rocket program."

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"

ganjadude writes to tell us that while the idea of using electricity to heal wounds was first reported 150 years ago by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, modern scientists may have found a way to practically apply this idea. From the article: "The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field."

Ayaka Hahn writes to tell us that they have just released a free game construction kit designed to make Visual Novels easy to construct. The "Blade Engine" was based on a professional Visual Novel engine being used in Japan with the hopes that it would spark greater interest in this medium in the west. From the press release: "In the West, there is a stereotype of: "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai", but that is wrong. Visual Novels CAN be Dating Sim games, Ren'ai games, Bishoujo games but also can be Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure and Horror Fiction games, or anything that the user's creativity comes up with."

Video Blogger writes "The LA Times predicts that the 2008 election will feature the rise of Podcasting Politicians, as strategists from both parties try to ride the latest trends to secure a victory in 2008. 'You'll not only be able to text people with messages, you'll be able to raise money, deliver video, audio, create viral organizing -- where one person sees something really interesting and it gets passed on and on,' says Donnie Fowler, a Democratic strategist."

Udo Schmitz writes "According to an article at Forbes, SCO claims that IBM destroyed evidence by ordering programmers to delete copies of code that could have helped SCO prove its case. SCO's attorney Brent Hatch says that 'one IBM Linux developer has admitted to destroying source code and tests' and that they didn't mention this in public, because it only became relevant now, and that 'the claim was part of a motion SCO filed in March 2006, which has remained sealed'." From the article: "IBM declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing ongoing litigation. In her sharply worded ruling, Wells criticized SCO's conduct in the case and seemed to indicate she was annoyed with the company. 'I don't know if that's true or not, but that's a question I'm asking myself,' Hatch says. Hatch concedes the Wells ruling represented a setback for SCO. But he says SCO still has a strong case. "

prostoalex writes "Jessica Simpson's 'A Public Affair' will be sold on Yahoo! Music in MP3 format with no DRM attached. According to Yahoo! Music blog, this is a big deal for the major online music store: 'As you know, we've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now. Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day -- the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform. We've also been saying that DRM has a cost. It's very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We'd much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway!'"