An article by game designer Ian Bogost takes a look at what type of value we attach to games, and how it relates to price. Inspiration for the article came from the complaint of a user who bought Bogost's latest game and afterward wanted a refund. The price of the game? 99 cents. Quoting: "Games aren't generally like cups of coffee; they don't get used up. They don't provide immediate gratification, but ongoing challenge and reward. This is part of what Frank Lantz means when he claims that games are not media. Yet, when we buy something for a very low price, we are conditioned to see it as expendable. What costs a dollar these days? Hardly anything. A cup of coffee. A pack of sticky notes. A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. A lottery ticket. Stuff we use up and discard. ... I contend that iPhone players are not so much dissatisfied as they are confused: should one treat a 99-cent game as a piece of ephemera, or as a potentially rich experience?"

Chabil Ha' writes "Heard the rumors that the much-maligned Windows 7 Starter Edition would be able to run more than three concurrent applications? Today, the Windows team made it official: 'Based on the feedback we've received from partners and customers asking us to enable a richer small notebook PC experience with Windows 7 Starter, we've decided to enable Windows 7 Starter customers the ability to run as many applications simultaneously as they would like, instead of being constricted to the 3 application limit that the previous Starter editions included. We believe these changes will make Windows 7 Starter an even more attractive option for customers who want a small notebook PC for very basic tasks, like browsing the web, checking email and personal productivity.' Small consolation, of course, if you want to watch a DVD natively, but I'm sure this won't stop the Slashdot crowd from enabling it."

MJackson writes "The Open Rights Group (ORG) has issued a public letter to the Chief Privacy Officers (or the nearest equivalent) for seven of the world's largest website giants (including Microsoft and Google), asking them to boycott Phorm. The controversial Phorm system works with broadband ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising campaigns. Meanwhile, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has issued a new report slamming the UK government's plans for a Communications Database. This would be designed to intercept and log every UK ISP user's e-mail headers, website accesses and telephone history. The report warns that the public are often, 'neither served nor protected by the increasingly complex and intrusive holdings of personal information invading every aspect of our lives.'"

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has an interesting take on the story of Nicolas Sarkozy being accused of copyright infringement. The irony, of course, is Sarkozy's pushing of a 3-strikes law — disconnecting from the Internet those accused of file sharing — in France and across the EU. The French president had apparently offered to settle the copyright infringement accusation for one Euro, but the band rejected the offer, calling it an insult. The article notes that each year since 2006, a high-profile anti-piracy entity has been on the wrong end of a copyright infringement notice. In 2008, Sony BMG was sued for software piracy. In 2007, anti-piracy outfit BASCAP received a cease and desist order related to pirated software. And in 2006, the MPAA was accused of pirating 'This Film is Not Yet Rated'."