electrostaticcarrot writes "DragonFly — that fourth major BSD — has had its 2.4 release. The 'most invasive change' is the addition and usage of a DevFS for /dev; building on this, drives are now also recognized by serial number (along with /etc/devtab for aliases) as listed in /dev/serno. This is also the first release with a x86-64 ISO, stable but with limited pkgsrc support. Other larger changes include a ported and feature-extended (with full hotplug and port multiplier support) AHCI driver (and SILI driver based on it) originally taken from OpenBSD, major NFS changes, and HAMMER updates. A pkgsrc GIT mirror has also been set up and put in use to make future pkgsrc updates quicker and smoother. Here are two of the mirrors."

Atlus USA is a company known for their skill at localizing games — that is, adapting the text and speech in a game to a different language or culture. They've written a summary of their timeline for modifying a game, explaining that it's much more complicated than just running everything by a translator. They also have other articles looking at various parts of their work with more detail. When work begins, they take a few weeks to familiarize themselves with the game, giving them the proper context to understand character interactions and names. The actual translation then takes anywhere from a week to a few months, depending on how much material there is and whether they need to bring in new voice actors. Another month or so is allotted to actually implementing the changes and making technical modifications, after which another month or two is dedicated to bug testing. Then the game is submitted back to its original manufacturer for approval, a process that can take two months, and finally the new discs and game boxes are created, which adds another month. Thus, what many gamers see as a "simple" localization process can take six months or more to complete.

Verizon announced today that they are working on a service to deliver games through their broadband service for a monthly fee. The service will begin this summer in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Along similar lines, IndustryGamers reports that AT&T is "investing millions in gaming." In addition to revamping the games section of their website, they are also working on an IPTV service and trying to find a way to unify the gaming experience across mobile platforms, computers, and consoles. "[AT&T's Executive Director of Gaming, Glenn Broderick, said,] 'What we're doing is trying to incentivize [gaming companies] to take some risks by tethering mobile games to console or PC experiences.' ... He continued, 'We're putting a ton of money into back-end systems for both mobile and the broadband site... We're making serious investments in the games space because it's now seen as a huge strategic initiative for AT&T. And before it just wasn't; it wasn't on the executive agenda.' Broderick also is optimistic that cloud-based gaming services like OnLive that provide games on demand will take off in the next 5-10 years, and he sees AT&T and its network as a big player in that."

An anonymous reader tips news that Eidos Montreal has confirmed recent speculation by announcing the development of a new Thief game. They've set up a website, but the project is still in its early stages, and details are scarce. In an interview with IncGamers, Eidos' Stéphane D'Astous said, "We're keeping our ear very close to the ground. As you may have noticed, we now have a forum up and running for Thief 4, and I said to my guys 'I really want to have a forum at the very early stages,' because I want people to have a medium with which they can express their wishes, their expectations, and what they would like and not like to happen with the next Thief. Obviously we've started work, but it's always very important for the developers to be close to the community. We're listening to these people because they are very hardcore fans, and we want to bring the Thief 4 franchise to a new level, so the challenges are huge!"

schwit1 writes "A report from The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research says that Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away. Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m. A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded."

An anonymous reader writes "Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."