Mark Rein, of Epic Studios, told the folks over at Team Xbox that sooner or later Gears of War will be heading for the PC. With Microsoft's 'ownership' of both the 360 and PC platforms, it's a no-brainer that Epic's epic will make its way there eventually; the question is one of keeping quality high and satisfying fans of the franchise. They also discuss the hopeful-looking future for the game, as a part of the Marketplace download ecology and in future games. Rein states: "The big challenge is to make a game that was designed solely for the console, to take advantage of every last little corner of that console, to fill every little crack and run as many threads as we could and do as much to exploit the power of that machine, and make it run well on enough PCs to be worth releasing. That's a challenge." For another look back and forward on the game, 1up has a chat with CliffyB up on their site.

fr8_liner writes "In an unusually candid interview with Newsweek Bill Gates lays it all on the line, bragging about the benefits of Vista, ragging on Apple for their 'I'm a Mac' ads, and claiming primacy in a number of features shared by Vista and OSX. Specifically, it is Mr. Gates' opinion that the Apple adverts are misleading if not untruthful. He makes the claim that 'security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.' The interview also touches on the future of Microsoft and Operating systems, and some of the company's plans for internet-based computing."

[TheBORG] writes "A Deep Sea Frill Shark, whose normal habitat is between 600 and 1000m, was found and filmed off the coast of Japan recently. Normally they're caught (found dead) in fishermen's nets. This 'living fossil' was probably so close to the coast because it was sick. In its poor condition, the shark was moved by marine park personnel to a seawater pool where they filmed it swimming and opening its jaws. The shark died a few hours later after being filmed."

Albert Sandberg writes, "KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has created the first logo that is visible from space. The construction was made by 65,000 1x1-foot tiles and covers about 2 acres. The logo was built and assembled over about a month and is located in the Nevada desert near Area 51. The article also has a short video showing the construction in time-lapse. Now the aliens know where to get their slimy food :-)"

An anonymous reader writes "As all of you surely know by now, the PS3 has just been released in Japan. What you might find interesting, however, is that among those 80 000 happy PS3 owners (or self-appointed resellers) was at least one who decided it was his or her sacred mission to crack this puppy open for a peek inside. About the article, it is in Japanese. Someone who knows enough of this fabled language of wonder well enough would do well to offer some translations, although I don't really suspect that the story is the most important thing here..."

An anonymous reader writes, "Novell has published additional details about its agreements with Microsoft concerning Windows and Linux interoperability and patents. It seems the company is receiving an up-front payment of $348 million from Microsoft, for SLES subscription certificates and for patent cross-licensing. Microsoft will make an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES subscription 'certificates' that Microsoft can use, resell, or distribute over the term of the agreement. Regarding the patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft will make an up-front net payment to Novell of $108 million, and Novell will make ongoing payments totaling at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft."

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Internet domain name Hell.com is going up for sale, with bids of over $1 million expected, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Sex.com sold for about $12 million earlier this year and Diamond.com changed hands for $7.5 million. The big-money domain-name sales echo an earlier boom, when Business.com fetched $7.5 million in 1999. Today's live auction of 300 names, by Seevast Corp.'s Moniker unit, includes more than a handful it predicts will generate bids of more than $1 million, including Iran.com, Auction.com and Elections.com. Now someone who buys Hell.com "has the opportunity to redefine what hell means, at least on the Internet," says Monte Cahn, Moniker chief executive.'"

AKAImBatman writes "Thanks to Sony's heavy handed tactics, popular game importer Lik-Sang is closing its doors. All Lik-Sang customers are having their orders cancelled and refunded. Any attempt to place a new order redirects your web browser to the news of Lik-Sang's demise." From the announcement: "'Today is Sony Europe victory about PSP, tomorrow is Sony Europe's ongoing pressure about PlayStation 3. With this precedent set, next week could already be the stage for complaints from Sony America about the same thing, or from other console manufacturers about other consoles to other regions, or even from any publisher about any specific software title to any country they don't see fit. It's the beginning of the end... of the World as we know it', stated Pascal Clarysse, formerly known as the Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com. 'Blame it on Sony. That's the latest dark spot in their shameful track record as gaming industry leader. The Empire finally won, a few dominating retailers from the UK probably will rejoice the news, but everybody else in the gaming world lost something today.'" Many thanks to Sony for ruining it for the rest of us. I hope that your business model makes up for the customer goodwill you're lighting on fire today. Update: 10/24 21:34 GMT by Z : Eurogamer has Sony's response to Lik-Sang's accusations.

Via 1up, a Bloomberg article exploring the possibility that Sony may not hit their shipment targets for the PS3. From the article: "Sony plans to ship two million PlayStation 3 players this year to the U.S. and Japan, and six million worldwide by March. The Tokyo-based company said yesterday annual profit would fall 35 percent to its lowest in five years on price cuts of the console in Japan and a recall of 9.6 million computer batteries. 'The honest answer is it's more of a target' for PlayStation 3 shipments, Jack Tretton, co-chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said yesterday in an interview. 'Clearly we've had production issues.'"