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Wii

Sega Not Giving Up On Mature Wii Games 92

Posted by Soulskill from the not-yet-anyway dept.
Sega has recently taken a few attempts at developing games for the Wii that were targeted at adults rather than kids. House of the Dead: Overkill and Madworld haven't been incredibly popular, but they've done well enough to turn a profit. In Sega's eyes, this makes mature-themed games for the Wii a successful experiment, or at least one they're willing to continue. Other companies are looking to get into the act as well. EA will be releasing M-rated Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii, and Bethesda has a project in the works too.
Google

Has Google Redefined Beta? 292

Posted by CmdrTaco from the finished-when-it's-finished dept.
netbuzz writes "Someone finally took the time to do a count of all the Google apps marked 'beta.' And with fully 45% of its products carrying that familiar tag — including 4-year-old Gmail — Google says there's an explanation: Beta doesn't mean to them what it has long meant to the rest of the tech community. 'We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web,' says a company spokesman."
NASA

Submission + - NASA announces "bizarre star" (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
Andrew Stellman
Andrew Stellman writes: "NASA astronomers held a press conference announcing that a new ultraviolet mosaic from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star named Mira that's leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. Mira is traveling faster than a speeding bullet, and has a tail that's 13 light-years long and over 30,000 years old. The website has images and a replay of the teleconference."

Feed No PS3s for British prisoners (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Blog: ITV is reporting that the U.K.'s Home Secretary, John Reid, has made the shocking and momentous decision to ban Sony's PlayStation...
Biotech

Submission + - Single human gene gives mice tri-color vision

Submitted by
maynard
maynard writes: "Scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute working in collaboration have published a study in the peer reviewed journal Science showing that mice transgenetically altered with a single human gene are then able to see in full tri-color vision. Mice without this alteration are normally colorblind. The scientists speculate that even mammalian brains from animals that have never evolved color vision are flexible enough to interpret new color sense information with just a simple addition of new photoreceptors. Such a result is also indicated by a dominant X chromosome mutation that allows for quad-color vision in some women. From the article:

The experiments were designed to determine whether the brains of the genetically altered mice could efficiently process sensory information from the new photoreceptors in their eyes. Among mammals, this more complex type of color vision has only been observed in primates, and therefore the brains of mice did not need to evolve to make these discriminations.


The new abilities of the genetically engineered mice indicate that the mammalian brain possesses a flexibility that permits a nearly instantaneous upgrade in the complexity of color vision, say the study's senior authors, Gerald Jacobs and Jeremy Nathans.
"
PlayStation (Games)

FFXIII Exclusivity Under Discussion 120

Posted by Zonk from the we-have-a-problem dept.
In an interview between a French-language newspaper and Sony Computer Entertainment France president Georges Fornay, he revealed that FFXIII's exclusivity is still under discussion. Gamespot reports, and attempted to check with Square-Enix about the reality of this situation. If the high-profile RPG's exclusivity is not a lock for the PS3, it could be a crushing blow for Sony's future plans. "The development costs of games have exploded, and it has become more difficult to have exclusives, outside of our own games. But we have for launch day [in France] 30 games, including MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Virtua Fighter 5. Moreover, we are expecting 200 games [for the PS3] by the end of 2007...As far as Final Fantasy XIII goes, I can tell you that the exclusivity is in discussion."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - NASA can't pay for killer asteroid hunt

Submitted by
CGISecurity.com
CGISecurity.com writes: "NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done. "We know what to do, we just don't have the money," said Simon "Pete" Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center.""
Music

Submission + - Major Broadcasters hit with $12M Payola Fine

Submitted by Gr8Apes
Gr8Apes writes: Listeners and Indies may rejoice according to a just breaking story. According to the AP story:

Four major broadcast companies would pay the government $12.5 million and provide 8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and local artists, The Associated Press has learned.
Patents

British Government Comes Out Against 'Pure' Software Patents 91

Posted by Zonk from the keeping-software-out-from-under-lock-and-key dept.
uglyduckling writes "The British Government has issued a response to a recent petition calling for 'the Prime Minister to make software patents clearly unenforcible'. The answer is reassuring but perhaps doesn't go far enough, and gives no specific promises to bring into line a patent office that grants software patents (according to the petition) 'against the letter and the spirit of the law'. The Gowers Review that it references gives detailed insight into the current British position on this debate, most interestingly recommending a policy of 'not extending patent rights beyond their present limits within the areas of software, business methods and genes.'"
TurboLinux

Journal Journal: My two cents on "Avoiding the Word 'Evolution'" 6

Journal by Otter
I've been mostly avoiding the front page lately, as it's hit the point where it enrages far more than it informs. But since I slipped up and looked this morning, and since the "Avoiding the Word 'Evolution'" story hit Godwinism within the first posts, a few comments here:
  • The study shows that the use of the word "evolution" is heavier among evolution researchers than in medical fields (duh) and the authors think it would be politically advantageous for medical researchers to use it more,

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