We recently got a look at some hard numbers related to the piracy of Demigod , a new game from Stardock and Gas Powered Games. Now, two weeks later, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has essentially declared the game a success in spite of the piracy, and reaffirmed the company's stance that intrusive DRM is a bad thing. The game's sales figures seem to bear him out. Quoting: "Yep. Demigod is heavily pirated. And make no mistake, piracy pisses me off. If you're playing a pirated copy right now, if you're one of those people on Hamachi or GameRanger playing a pirated copy and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you're a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way. The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games and people who don't buy games. The focus of a business is to increase its sales. My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary — our customers."

philetus writes "New Scientist has up a story on Posey, a hub-and-strut construction kit that senses its configuration and communicates it wirelessly to a computer. From the article: 'If you gave Lego brains, you might get something like Posey, a new hands-on way of interacting with computers developed at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, US. When Posey's plastic pieces are snapped together, an exact copy of the construction appears on a computer screen. Every twist of, say, a stick figure's arm is mirrored in 3D modelling software ... Each piece's plastic shell is stuffed with chips and devices for processing these signals. They are sent wirelessly to a computer using a low-power protocol called ZigBee. This means, bending Posey's pieces can make objects on-screen respond in real time. Right now, each custom-made piece has about US$50 (£25) worth of parts, Weller estimates. But if mass produced, it could be much cheaper.'"

lessthan0 writes "Wi-Fi (802.11x) networks have been around long enough that many businesses and home users run their own. The first widely deployed standard was 802.11b, while most new hardware uses 802.11g. The latest 802.11n hardware is just around the corner. If you run an existing wireless network, is it time to upgrade?"

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