Gamasutra's most recent Question of the Week feature deals with the extremely quotable final speech given by Doug Lowenstein at D.I.C.E.. The article queries individuals within the games industry for their opinions on the 'freedom' that the industry allows itself, and its convictions on fighting for that freedom. The article prompted numerous, polarized comments. Many of them followed the gist of this Anonymous submission: "With regards to censorship the biggest worry for me is developers and publishers self-censoring and avoiding any kind of contentious issue or subject matter in case they offend anyone. Video games for me are a powerful medium capable of equaling the emotive and informative weight of cinema if used correctly, but they rarely are. If we refuse to tackle issues and remain purely a thing of fluff and fizz then interactive entertainment will never have the gravitas of its cousins."

ClausValca writes "Doing some late-night surfing last night and came across a post over at Cybernet News: Limited Time Only: Vista 5728 Available To The Public. Although apparently intended for the TAP and Technical Beta Testers....it is available for download to the public via this Microsoft public download page for Vista 5728. There is a link on that page as well for direct download of the latest 64-bit flavor of that version as well. An Ars Technica post also has some background info on the new release. Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think."

legoburner writes "Contrary to an earlier Slashdot story, Nintendo have now stated that the Wii will not be region free. The original claim came from Nintendo America, but Nintendo UK have gone on record denying the claims. They put it rather bluntly, stating: 'We are region-locked,' and that Nintendo America made a mistake by claiming otherwise."

simoniker writes "Former Infinium Phantom 'console' developer and current Lapboard accessory creator Infinium Labs has revealed multiple new details in financial filings, including the fact that it's changing company name to Phantom Entertainment, as long as shareholders approve. But with the SEC prosecuting former CEO Timothy Roberts, 'accumulated losses since inception of $69,331,794', and _another_ former CEO, Kevin Bachus, now suing the company for back pay, will the company ever release a product?"

An anonymous reader writes "This article discusses the hype that currently surrounds Ajax and it's shortcomings. Reliable Ajax frameworks are still under construction, and you should worry about navigation history, bookmarkability, feedback, persistence, concurrency, and security. This article will help you avoid the major problems inherent in Ajax development."

Despite expectations that this would be the least eventful of the E3 pre-conferences, Microsoft's Peter Moore drops the news that Grand Theft Auto IV will be on Xbox 360. Rockstar and Microsoft have teamed up to do exclusive episodic content in the GTA gameworld for the 360. Slated to release October 16, 2007 in North America, October 19 in Europe. Other details include lots of support for Live Arcade titles (Sonic, Galaga, Street Fighter II), the official unveiling of Shadowrun for the 360 and PC, the airing of the Halo 3 Teaser Trailer (which is already on Xbox Live), and much discussion of 'Live Anywhere'. This last is an expansion of Xbox Live to PC and cell platforms in addition to the Xbox arena.

John Callaham writes "On Wednesday we posted up comments from Havok about rival AGEIA's use of their physics processor in the PC version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Today we have an expanded article with point-to-point comments from AGEIA that address Havok's statements." From the article: "How much interaction do you want in your PC games? It used to be that graphics were the number one factor in picking up a new game but now players are asking more and more about interactions in the environment. One company that has provided such interaction is Havok. They have developed a physics engine that has been used in a ton of games, including most famously in Valve's first person shooter Half-Life 2. Recently, Havok announced plans for a new physics engine, Havok FX, that would use Shader Model 3.0 graphics cards to further enhance game interactions and physics."

kukyfrope writes "Electronic Arts recently released its preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2006. While net revenue was up 16 percent to $641 million for the fourth quarter, the leading video game publisher suffered a net loss of $16 million. During the same period last year EA posted net income of $8 million. 'We are well into the console transition and now have more than 30 next generation games in development,' said Warren Jenson, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer."

Amy's Robot writes "An open-source security audit program funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has flagged a critical vulnerability in the X Window System (X11) which is used in Unix and Linux systems. A missing parentheses in a bit of code is to blame. The error can grant a user root access, and was discovered using an automated code-scanning tool." While serious, the flaw has already been corrected.