PsxMeUP writes "Love is a persistent online first-person shooter that will let players build structures, permanently manipulate the environment and share resources — all in real-time. Action will be similar to a real-time strategy game as seen through the eyes of a grunt. The game is being completely designed by a man named Eskil Steenberg, and GameObserver had a chance to interview him. Steenberg talks about how all MMOs offer an egocentric experience where character growth is the most important aspect, and how he intends to change that. He also explains how mainstream MMOs have too many players, which basically trivializes accomplishments that have an impact on the entire server. 'If you imagine Civilization where you invent your stuff or build new stuff, imagine playing one of those characters on the ground doing that. And being able to do something minute in your world and see that impact in the major world,' Eskil explains, when asked what his game will be like. 'I want to scare people in a direction that is different from this sort of "me-centric" style of games. It feels that pretty much all games are going into that Diablo direction of collecting and building up my characters, and it's all very egocentric about creating your own powerful character,' he clarifies when asked how his game will be different from other MMOs. Love is well into development, and Steenberg has already posted some incredible gameplay demos. Levels, for instance, are all procedurally generated. The game also offers open-source tools, like UV editing — not a small feat considering the whole thing was designed by one man."

An anonymous reader writes "SCO just forged a deal to sell its UNIX product line to Gulf Capital Partners LLC of London. Under the terms of the deal, SCO would continue to exist as a separate company helmed by Darl McBride, with its primary remaining assets being related to its mobile platform offerings. However, it's noted that this deal must be approved by the court, and should not be considered 'done' yet. It could fall through as others have in the past."

Pizzutz writes "Four Toronto college students have accomplished a technological feat that their teachers are calling a first. The Humber College seniors made contact with the International Space Station Monday with a radio system they designed and built themselves. School officials say that, to their knowledge, that's never been accomplished by students at the college level." Somewhat disappointingly, the students actually did have permission to make contact.

Kotaku has pointed out the first official Max Payne trailer for the movie based on Remedy Entertainment's third-person shooter. The movie stars Mark Wahlberg, and should be hitting the streets this coming October.

Joystiq is reporting that next year's version of Madden, and other subsequent EA games, will offer the ability to download new background music tracks. They have not yet said if this would be a pay-per-song service. "It might seem a bit silly for EA to offer a proprietary music download service when all current-gen consoles allow users to create their own custom soundtracks from their already-existing digital music collections. You have to realize, though, that EA needs to offer its own downloads so it can [...] gently suggest the latest hot track from Kid Rock to their captive audience of millions of players."

Corrupt writes "I've admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don't admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgivable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him misstep for misstep."

H0D_G writes "The US state of Louisiana has passed the 'Science Education Act,' a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: 'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"

Wired has a great pictorial tour of their recent visit to Stanford University's linear accelerator, the longest in the world. The accelerator has been the vehicle upon which three Nobel Prizes were earned and a the next big project will boast an electron laser roughly 10 billion times more powerful than existing x-ray sources.

DrButts writes "An inventor in British Columbia wants to be the first to launch a pop bottle rocket into space. 'This could be impossible, but the CEO of AntiGravity Research already holds the altitude record for boosting an elongated plastic pop bottle — propelled by a bicycle pump, water and a bit of soap — into the air. Firing the ubiquitous, two-litre plastic container usually consigned to the recycle bin into space might create a whole new definition for space junk, but the dream keeps Schellenberg going.'"

foobarx writes "Digital artists have created a humanoid robot which uses brainwave activity recorded during sleep to playback an interpretation of your dreams. The artists, Brendan Burns and Fernando Orellana used machine learning to find patterns in the brainwaves and then matched these patterns to dreams which they remembered having. Others have noted the possible hazards of this new technology."

Engadgets is reporting that researchers at Penn State have built a new kind of solar cell that can harvest hydrogen directly from water. "The folks at Penn State have now developed a process that more closely mimics the photosynthesis process in plants, and while we won't pretend to understand all the nitty gritty of dye usage and other such nonsense, we do know that such a system could eventually attain 15% or so efficiency, providing a nice and clean way to gather power for that fuel cell car of the future."

kan0r writes "The transparency group WikiLeaks.org currently seems to be under heavy fire. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order relating to a series of articles and documents released by WikiLeaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. The WikiLeaks whistle blower, allegedly former vice president of the Cayman Islands branch of swiss bank Julius Baer, states in the WikiLeaks documents that the bank supported tax evasion and money laundering by its clients from around the world. WikiLeaks alternate names remained available until Saturday, when there seems to have been a heavy DDoS attack and a fire at the ISP. The documents in question are still available on other WikiLeaks sites, such as wikileaks.be, and are also mirrored on Cryptome. Details of the court documents have also been made available."