Gamasutra has the word that EA has the Lord of the Rings IP locked up through the end of next year. With the additional license for the books under their wing and no competition from Vivendi, they have big plans set for their next game inside the franchise world. "The announcement follows EA's previously announced The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open world RPG for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. However, with EA making plans for a new The Lord Of The Rings title, the fate of this project, once referred to as the cryptic Project Gray Company, remains uncertain. EA confirmed in early February that the game, while not canceled, had been put on hold." Relatedly, Game|Life notes that one million players will soon be traveling through Middle Earth as the open beta for Lord of the Rings Online gets underway. If you signed up to get in, you probably will. Update: 03/30 04:00 GMT by Z : The text referring to the White Council game was edited on the Gamasutra story, and here as well to reflect that.

katalin writes "Arenanet, makers of the Guild Wars Massive game, have announced the first 'true' expansion pack to the game - Eye of the North. Next year will also see the beginning of a Beta test for a true sequel to the original Guild Wars. The new game will be substantially different from the current offering, with many elements similar to a more traditional fantasy Massively Multiplayer game. It still, however, will not require a monthly fee to play."

jcatcw writes "Jaikumar Vijayan reports for Computerworld that TJX is finally offering more details about the extent of the compromise which, at 45.6M cards, is the biggest ever. He has been following the story since it started. The systems that were broken into processed payment card, checks, and returns for customers of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and customers of Winners and HomeSense stores in Canada and T.K. Maxx in the U.K. Customer names and addresses were not included in the stolen data. So far the company has spent about $5 million in connection with the breach. Several lawsuits that have been filed against the company, including a suit by the Arkansas Carpenters Pension Fund, one of its shareholders, for failure to divulge more details about the breach."

narramissic writes "Included in a filing made by Sony to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this month regarding a change to the PlayStation 3's Bluetooth module is notification of a new PS3 game console with a higher-capacity hard-disk drive. From the cover letter: 'The model CECHE01 to be added by the difference of the capacity of hard disk.' It then says the new model will have an 80G-byte drive. Of course, Sony is downplaying these rumours, saying that 'Application to the FCC has been made with various possibilities in mind, however, it does not lead to a new product announcement at this time.'

christian.einfeldt writes "During her successful campaign for California Secretary of State, newly-minted California Elections Czar Debra Bowen spoke repeatedly of the need to use free open source software in voting machines to ensure the integrity of California's elections. Now that Secretary Bowen is acting on that campaign pledge, closed-source voting machine vendor Diebold worries aloud that rejecting its black-box voting machines could snarl California's elections. Diebold's concerns come at the same time that it is suing Massachusetts for declining to purchase those same voting machines." Quoting: "California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could [have the result of banishing] ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state. For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with 'red teams' of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes."