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The Internet

Millions in Middle East Lose Internet 304

Posted by samzenpus from the no-web-for-you dept.
Shipwack writes "Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut millions of connections. The outage, which is being blamed on a fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left huge numbers of people struggling to get online. Observers say that the digital blackout first struck yesterday morning, with Egypt's communications ministry suggesting it was caused by a cut in a major internet pipeline linking it to Europe."
Role Playing (Games)

World of Warcraft Hits 10 Million Subscribers 450

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that's-a-lotta-bored-paladins dept.
technirvana writes "Blizzard Entertainment, owners of World of Warcraft, announced today that the game now has more than 10 million paying subscribers around the world. Online gameplay costs an average of $15 USD per month. Those 10 million paying subscribers include 5.5 million players in Asia, 2.5 million in the US and 2 million in Europe. The Warcraft brand was first introduced in 1994 and World of Warcraft was launched in 2001."
Role Playing (Games)

World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31 479

Posted by CmdrTaco from the and-i-thought-my-life-was-void dept.
Mitch writes "Blizzard apparently used signed integers for their World of Warcraft gold values as some people have recently hit the limit of 2^31. "Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means." I guess Blizzard didn't expect anyone to ever get close to that much gold in game."

Comment Re:Retail theft, and not the kind you're thinking (Score 1) 990

You get my point, but you defend credit cards because you seem to be able to handle them. The fact is most people can't. And I still contend that you are spending more than you would if you paid cash. As far as the pin stealing thing, you get your money back. Same as a credit card. You go through the same process as if someone stole your credit card. Personal finance is 80% behavior.

Feed Engadget: Sharp's BD-HP20S: a (cheap?) no-nonsense Blu-ray Disc player (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Somebody, somewhere has to get their hyperbole under control when calling this Sharp's "first" Blu-ray player. Fact is, we've already seen the Sharp BD-MPC70, BD-HD1000, BD-MPC10, BD-HP1 (hint: BD = Blu-ray Disc) devices. Now if what they mean is that it only plays Blu-ray discs (no recorder, no receiver, etc), well, why even bother? Regardless, their new BD-HP20S is expected to ship in the fall and features HDMI 1.3 output in support of Dolby TrueHD's raw bitstream form. It will also feature a "Quick Start" option which plays newly inserted discs in just seconds. As a stand-alone player, we do expect it to be Sharp's cheapest -- now that's noteworthy.

[Via Blu-ray.com, thanks Dave]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Microsoft

Microsoft States GPL3 Doesn't Apply to Them 509

Posted by Zonk from the they-is-special-you-understand dept.
pilsner.urquell writes "Microsoft yesterday issued a statement proclaiming that it isn't bound by GPLv3. Groklaw has a very humorous rejoinder to the company's claim. From that article: 'They think they can so declare, like an emperor, and it becomes fiat. It's not so easy. I gather Microsoft's lawyers have begun to discern the GPL pickle they are in. In any case it won't be providing any support or updates or anything at all in connection with those toxic (to them) vouchers it distributed as part of the Novell deal ... These two -- I can't decide if it's an elaborate dance like a tango or more like those games where you place a cloth with numbers on the floor and you have to get into a pretzel with your hands and feet to touch all the right numbers. Whichever it is, Novell and Microsoft keep having to strike the oddest poses to try to get around the GPL. If they think this new announcement has succeeded, I believe they will find they are mistaken. In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, GPLv3 worked.'" EWeek has further analysis of this proclamation.
Mandriva

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Released 191

Posted by kdawson from the fresh-bits dept.
AdamWill writes "Mandriva is proud to announce the release of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Download the hybrid live / install One or the purely free / open source software Free. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes the latest software (KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, Firefox and Thunderbird 2.0) and several major new features: Metisse, the most innovative accelerated 3D desktop technology; open source telephony with WengoPhone; Google desktop applications including Picasa and Earth; updates and improvements to many of the Mandriva configuration tools, and the brand new drakvirt for configuring virtualization; significantly improved hardware support, including greatly improved graphics card detection and support for several common laptop memory card readers; and a brand new desktop theme. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is available in the full range of editions, including the freely downloadable One and Free, as well as the commercial Discovery, Powerpack and Powerpack+. For more information see the Spring product page and the Wiki page, where you can find download and installation instructions, the Release Tour, the Release Notes and the Errata."
Businesses

GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? 201

Posted by kdawson from the time-for-a-change dept.
Several readers alerted us to this piece in PC World reporting on concerns that GoDaddy might not be ready for the DST changeover. Some readers, and others, claimed that GoDaddy's servers are not reachable now and are not serving email or web sites; but others see no evidence of this. The article recounts the rather flip response one GoDaddy customer got from their tech support: "As Daylight Savings [sic] does not apply to our servers, since we are on Arizona Time and our time zone does not change, our servers wouldn't update." When IDG News Service contacted GoDaddy they got an altogether more sensible reply.
Handhelds

Camera Phones Read Hidden Messages in Print 126

Posted by CowboyNeal from the go-go-gadget-decoder dept.
pikine writes "As reported by BBC News, Fujitsu has developed a technology that encodes 12-bytes of information in a printed picture by skewing yellow hue, which is difficult to discern by human eye but fairly easy for camera phones to decode using software written in Java." The first target uses are promotional contests and competitions, not entirely unlike those game pieces that need to be viewed through a colored filter.

Feed Congress Tackles Patent Reform (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Experts tell lawmakers the broken patent system chills innovation and feeds lawyers and trolls. Will something finally be done? Luke O'Brien reports from Washington.


The Courts

Groklaw No Front for IBM 206

Posted by CowboyNeal from the killing-the-messenger dept.
A Groklaw Reader writes "After all the wild speculation SCO put forth about Pamela Jones, her alleged subpoena by SCO, and her recent vacation due to illness, we now have Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols writing to say 'Yes, there is a PJ.' In his own words, he says, 'Let me address this directly. Yes, Pamela Jones is a real person. I've met her several times [...] I consider her a friend. She is not a front for anyone.' Hopefully, this statement will be enough to put those SCO-induced conspiracy theories to rest."
Censorship

Submission + - Ethics of proxy servers

Submitted by
Mav
Mav writes: "I was recently asked to host a website for free in return for a lot of advertising. After querying them about how they knew the site would produce traffic they stated the site was going to be running PHPProxy (an open source web proxy). The traffic was a result of him and his contacts (nearly one thousand of them) using the site to bypass his school's firewall in order to view their MySpace pages and get access to their MSN messengers. Given all the attention social networking sites have recently received and the various laws attempting to block or control access to them I feel guilty and unsure making this available. Are there legal implications that I need to worry about? Could I be held liable if one of the students got in trouble? Most importantly, what's the moral thing to do?"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Not So Global Warming

Journal by OverlordQ

A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models. This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human acti

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