805809
submission
azuredrake writes:
The New York Times reports that the third SpaceX launch has failed following the second-stage ignition of the Falcon 1 rocket. The SpaceX launch had three satellites on board, all of which were presumably destroyed in the incident. This marks the third failed launch for SpaceX — twice they failed to reach orbit, and once the Falcon 1 rocket was lost 5 minutes after launch. While the company vows to carry on, this certainly raises some questions about the likelihood of successful privatization of the Space industry.
793075
submission
azuredrake writes:
According to GameDaily, EA today released a free download of a Spore prototype known as "Biome". The download site describes BIOME as a program that "uses a language based on chemical stoichiometry." It goes on to note that "cells in a BIOME simulation change state the same way that chemicals change when exposed to other chemicals. Systems such as this can be used to simulate phenomena such as forest fires, disease epidemics, animal migration patterns and crystallization"
Note that the link provided in the linked article is, in fact, incorrect. The right URL from which to download BIOME and any upcoming Spore prototypes is here. Apparently, many more prototypes giving insight into the dev process of one of the PC world's most hyped games will be posted in the future, so keep an eye on it.
782353
submission
azuredrake writes:
Facebook, the largest social networking site in the US, has sued German social networking site studiVZ on the grounds that studiVZ has copied the look and feel of Facebook in order to piggyback off their success. According to the article, "The German company sued by Facebook for running a "knockoff" of the social networking Web site said on Sunday it asked a German court to declare that Facebook's claims are without merit." However, a simple glance at the two sites' homepages seems to tell a different story — studiVZ copies many things from Facebook, from their button layout down to the font they're using.
