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Submission + - North Korea: Men required to get Kim Jong-un haircuts (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BBC reports, "Men in North Korea are now required to get the same haircut as their leader Kim Jong-un ... The state-sanctioned guidelines were introduced in the capital Pyongyang about two weeks ago ...They are now being rolled out across the country — although some people have expressed reservations ... "Our leader's haircut is very particular, if you will," one source tells Radio Free Asia. ... Meanwhile, a North Korean now living in China says the look is actually unpopular at home because people think it resembles Chinese smugglers. ... It seems that haircuts have been state-approved in North Korea for some time — until now people were only allowed to choose from 18 styles for women and 10 for men. Earlier, North Korea's state TV launched a campaign against long hair, called "Let us trim our hair in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle"."

Submission + - Minecraft Creator Halts Talks on Oculus Version Following Facebook Aquistion

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Not one hour after the announcement of the the acquisition of Oculus Rift by Facebook today, Markus "Notch" Persson has announced that he has ceased all discussions about bringing it to Oculus Rift. "I don’t want to work with social, I want to work with games." says the indie developer. "Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build." Persson has stated that he made this decision despite initially investing $10,000 in Oculus' Kickstarter.
Government

Submission + - National Broadband Map Shows Digital Divide

Submitted by Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: PC Magazine reports that the Commerce Department has unveiled a national broadband inventory map, which will allow the public to see where high-speed Internet is available throughout the country. Users can search by address, view data on a map, or use other interactive tools to compare broadband across various geographies, such as states, counties or congressional districts. Commerce officials say the information can help businesses decide if they want to move to a certain location, based on broadband availability. The map costing about $200 million and financed through the 2009 Recovery Act shows that 5-10 percent of Americans lack broadband access at speeds that support a basic set of applications. Another 36 percent lack access to wireless service. Community anchor institutions like schools and libraries are also "largely underserved," the data finds and two-thirds of surveyed schools subscribe to speeds lower than 25 Mbps and only 4 percent of libraries subsribe to speeds greater than 25 Mbps. "The National Broadband Map shows there are still too many people and community institutions lacking the level of broadband service needed to fully participate in the Internet economy," says Larry Strickling, assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). "We are pleased to see the increase in broadband adoption last year, particularly in light of the difficult economic environment, but a digital divide remains."
Internet Explorer

IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine 283

Posted by kdawson from the fruits-of-competition dept.
KermodeBear writes in to note that according to Smashing Magazine, the newest version of Internet Explorer, codenamed "Eagle Eyes," supports Firefox plugins, the Gecko and Webkit rendering engines, and has scored a 71 / 100 on the Acid3 test. The article is pretty gee-whiz, and I don't entirely believe the claims that IE's JavaScript performance will trounce the others. (And note that the current Firefox, 3.0.8, scores 71 on Acid3, and Safari 3.1.2 hits 75.) No definitive date from Microsoft, but "sources" say that an IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer.
Microsoft

Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535

Posted by kdawson from the world-class-shopping-experience dept.
chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"
Networking

Console Download Speeds Tested 81

Posted by Soulskill from the fun-transfer-protocol dept.
MTV's Multiplayer blog tested and compared the download speeds of games on the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PS3. They tested a variety of scenarios, with the PS3 most often coming out on top. The Xbox 360 took first in one test, but in that situation it was using a wired connection while the other two were not. The Wii consistently came in on the slower side, taking last place in all but one test. The PS3 ranged from .44 to .79 MB/sec, the Xbox 360 from .26 to .86 MB/sec, and the Wii from .30 to .55 MB/sec. What have your experiences been with console download times?
Music

Music Pirates Not So Evil After All?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the black-sheep-of-the-mafiaa dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that a branch of the Australian music industry is reporting that illegal music sharing may not be such a horrible thing after all. "The study, conducted by two researchers at the University of London for the Canadian Government, found people downloaded songs illegally because they wanted to hear them before buying or because they were not available in stores. 'We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P (peer-to-peer) download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year,' the researchers found." While I wouldn't hold my breath to suddenly see the RIAA offering all their music for free, it would be nice to get some people to start thinking through things before reaching for the beatstick.

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