Comment Aw (Score 1) 17
I love you too, man.
Comment White Wolf gone too (Score 1) 352
Since CCP Games is the owner of White Wolf Publishing (makers of RPGs like Vampire), a number of White Wolf's sites have gone down as well.
Main site: http://www.white-wolf.com/
Open development/info site for the 20th anniversary of Vampire: http://www.vampirethemasquerade.com/
Site for the annual World of Darkness fan convention: http://www.thegrandmasquerade.com/
Duke Nukem Forever Release Date Revealed 288
stupid_is writes with news that Duke Nukem Forever has now gotten a firm US release date: May 3rd. It will release worldwide three days later. The game was resurrected last fall by Gearbox Software and 2K Games after 3D Realms' 12-year attempt at development came to an end in 2009 when the company closed its doors.
Microsoft CEO Says Kinect To Support PCs Eventually 47
Ken writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company will support Kinect for PCs sometime in the future. The motion controller is currently only officially supported for the Xbox 360, although it has been hacked and tweaked to work on pretty much any platform that can be plugged into via a USB port. 'We're trying to move beyond gaming to include the world of socialization, movies, TV, music, and we're trying to make the whole experience accessible to everybody in the family not just the traditional gamer.' When Ballmer was asked, 'Will you plug-in the Kinect to the PC, will you go for that in the near future?' he replied, 'We'll support that in a formal way in the right time and when we've got an announcement to make we'll make it.' Note that this is completely separate from the Kinect-like controller from PrimeSense and Asus."
Other readers have tipped related articles about Kinect being used to enable 3D teleconferencing and help drive a small helicopter drone.
Facebook Unveils Details of Downtime 103
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook officially gave out more technical details on the endless loop in a database control mechanism that forced a 2.5-hour shutdown of the social site, and the resulting combination of a productivity burst, increased fertility (check back on June 25, 2011) and mass hysteria all around the world."
The Push For Colbert's "Restoring Truthiness" Rally 703
jamie writes "A grassroots campaign has begun to get Stephen Colbert to hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to counter Glenn Beck's recent 'Restoring Honor' event. The would-be rally has been dubbed 'Restoring Truthiness' and was inspired by a recent post on Reddit, where a young woman wondered if the only way to point out the absurdity of the Tea Party's rally would be if Colbert mirrored it with his own Colbert Nation.'"
BlindType — the Amazing Keyboard of the Future 125
kkleiner writes "BlindType has created a new touchscreen keyboard program of the same name that changes size, orientation, and position to match your wandering fingers as they type. BlindType also features some of the most impressive typing correction software I've ever seen. The result is a practical touchscreen interface that knows what you meant to type, even if you make mistakes. Lots of them. In fact, you can type without looking at the screen at all."
ESRB Exposes Emails of Gamers Who Filed Privacy Complaints 75
simrook writes, "Many people filed privacy complaints with the ESRB over Blizzard's recent (and afterward recanted) move to require the display of users' real life names on Blizzard's official forums. 961 of those complainants had their email addresses exposed in the ESRB's response." The response itself didn't go into the organization's thoughts on Blizzard's plan, but they explained to the Opposable Thumbs blog that anonymity isn't a huge concern to them, as long as users are given the opportunity to opt out.
"The role of the ESRB Privacy Online program is to make sure that member websites—those that display our seal on their pages — are compliant with an increasingly complex series of privacy protection laws and are offering a secure space for users to interact and do business online. ... But online privacy protection doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as anonymity. It's about making sure that websites collecting personal information from users are doing so not only in accordance with federal regulations but also with best practices for protecting individuals' personal information online."
King's Quest Fan Project The Silver Lining Is Back 61
LoTonah writes "After eight years of development and a Cease & Desist from Vivendi, King's Quest fan project The Silver Lining is back in action. From the website: 'We are extremely happy to announce that our project, The Silver Lining, will definitely see the light of day! In a wonderful turn of events, Activision reached out to the Phoenix Online team a few months ago with a desire to revisit their decision regarding The Silver Lining. After negotiations, the C&D has been officially rescinded, and Phoenix Online has been granted a non-commercial license to release The Silver Lining! Our team is ecstatic about this, and as hard as we've worked for eight years, it's the tireless belief and support of you, our fans, that has made this possible.' The first episode of the project is due to be released on July 10."
Comment Re:The Eternal Battle (Score 1) 258
marcan, long-time fan. Been running Homebrew since December-ish 2008, and having installed it on my dad's system, he loves it too. Keep up the excellent work!
Comment Hamilton, 43 15' 0" N / 79 50' 0" W (Score 1) 560
Felt it here. Stuff rattled like a truck was going by, only without the rumble associated with an actual truck. Also, it persisted for far too long.
My first earthquake!
New Wii Menu Update Targets Homebrew Again 258
Nintendo has tried to block homebrew during firmware updates in the past, often unsuccessfully. Now, as it rolls out version 4.3 of the Wii System Menu, stopping homebrew modifications once again seems to be its primary goal. From Nintendo's support site: "Because unauthorized channels or firmware may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.3 will check for and automatically remove such unauthorized files." Since it's hard to bill that as an upgrade, they vaguely add, "In addition, there are some behind the scenes enhancements that do not affect any prominently-used features or menus but will improve system performance."
Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time 563
Stoobalou writes "Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle. His company — which is responsible for one of the biggest video games of all time, the addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release StarCraft 2 on July 27, and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes that have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late. StarCraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection."
Comment Re:I still use ICQ (Score 1) 136
Trillian Astra: http://trillian.im/
-Stays connected
-Supports file transfer
-Communicates with AIM from ICQ
-No ads
-Multiple options for what happens with new chat windows (show on desktop, show minimized, hide and notify via systray, with an additional "always show on top" toggle)
All ICQ-specific features: http://www.trillian.im/learn/tour-features.html#ICQ
Comment Very popular (Score 1) 136
Also widely popular among spammers.
I still have my ICQ account (seven-digit UIN starting with 1, woo) but pretty much the only traffic it gets anymore is spammers trying to add me and trying to send me IMs. Trillian fortunately blocks the latter for me.
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interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify -- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language
